England:
Newcastle:
Thursday: I posthumously gave this day "It's a Jolly Holiday With Mary" from Mary Poppins as the SOD. I was actually by myself the majority of the day. It was the beginning of my "British Isles" journey. I had an early afternoon flight from Amsterdam to Newcastle. The girls stayed for another night in Amsterdam. So while I was off to England, they saw more of Amsterdam through bike rides, frozen winds, food poisoning, etc. In comparison my day wasn't nearly as interesting. Basically I wandered the city, following the street signs. The party of the city I was in was called Grainger Town. It was fairly close to the river, which was really beautiful. I found an art gallery so to waste some time until dinner, I thought it might be a good stop. However, as soon as I went in an alarm went off (not because of me!) which told us to evacuate the building (in a British accent of course). So apparently I was not supposed to see the artwork. After exploring all day, I decided to try one of the pubs I found because I really wanted bar food, you know, burger and fries type thing. But the seats in the pub were all full so I sat in the actual restaurant adjoining it. Um...it was really nice. Like, I felt like I should have worn a dress. Instead I was in a t-shirt and jean capris. And to make the situation more awkward, there was no one else in the restaurant. Just me and two waiters. ... Uncomfortable.
Friday: The SOD, which totally gives away the entire day, was "Hedwig's Theme", also commonly known as the theme from "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". So what I did was catch a bus (which took three hours although by car it would have been just a half hour) which took me to Alnwick (pronounced Ann-ick) Castle, also known as the location used by Warner Brothers for the shooting of the first three Harry Potter films. That's right, I saw the Harry Potter Castle. It was an absolutely beautiful day. First I wandered the grounds, looking at all the museums, and admiring the state rooms and the family that owns the castle, etc etc. But then I happened upon the Harry Potter tour which showed us some of the filming tricks and specific set locations. At the end we ran across some wizards getting ready for broomstick training. They were a fun lot, and the kids were too cute. The gardens weren't in bloom yet, so my day was shortened a bit. So I caught another bus, I think this one took four hours (oh, and by the way, both were double-decker). Because I was feeling a bit lazy, and didn't want a repeat of the night before (being the only one in the restaurant), I settled for McDonald's. Original, I know. I didn't stay out too late because my train across the country was leaving early in the morning.
Bath:
Saturday:
Unfortunately, my night turned into a really long one. Someone came back at about 2:30 am, singing and laughing. I couldn't tell if it was a giant group of slightly drunk people, or just a couple of really drunk Brits. Whatever it was there was one guy who laughed like a flying monkey from the "Wizard of Oz". I don't know if I can ever watch the movie again now. Since it wasn't too much longer until I was getting up anyways, I sort of just lied in bed listening and drifting in and out of sleep for a couple hours. They were still up when I left at 5:00. Crazies. In case you were wondering, train stations are very cold in England at 5:30 in the morning. Being the idiot I am, I got to the station like an hour early. ... And the train ride was approximately six hours. I feel like a lot of sitting on transportation was done. I was really excited for this day because I was going to Bath. I found lunch, first off, in the "Smallest Pub in Bath" and ate a Lovett pie. I just kept singing "Try a Little Preacher" from Sweeney Todd. Then I set off to find Jane Austen. The exhibit was a bit expensive, but I got a map out of it, and a couple pictures with a man in correct dress. After exploring for a while, I meandered to the river. Amazingly the sun came out so I sat by the river for quite a bit. It was almost warm at that point, which was absolutely wonderful. Then I got bored, bought a Cornish Pasty and sat in front of the Abbey to people watching. There was a wedding and tourists and people taking the waters. AND the sun was still out. The train to Bristol, where I was staying that night, was only about a half hour. Finding the hostel was a pain. The directions weren't very clear, but after finding the place, I realized they were as clear as they were going to get. It was still a bit early when I headed for bed, but I didn't have anyone to go out with.
Sunday: After traveling by myself for a few days, and searching out the sights alone, I was starting to get bored. The map of Bristol provided by the hostel wasn't the greatest. So I walked for a bit, realized I needed to do something different because I was on the verge of being lost, safely made it to the train station and bought a ticket for an open top bus tour. The tour wasn't very long, but it did have good information. By the end I was ready to go back to Ireland, so I got a bus to the airport and waited like four hours to check-in. I should have booked the earlier flight, but I had no idea how long I would need in the city. Apparently not very long. Don't get me wrong, I liked Bristol, just not by myself. It was a relief to land in Dublin. There were a couple guys talking behind me as we made our way to customs after the flight, and I wanted to turn and say how glad I was to hear the Irish accent again. But it was late and I thought it might be a bit creepy so I just kept walking and secretly enjoying their conversation. While I was waiting for the bus to get to the city, a scene arose. Some guy had been loitering and causing problems at the airport for a fair bit of the day. He decided to come bother us because he got kicked out of the building. Eventually the Gardaí showed up and threatened him, saying "the bus or a cell". He got on the bus. I had to chuckle and think "Good to be back in Dublin". The hostel was easy enough to find. However the showers were a different story. My bed too. It was late and so the room was dark and everyone was sleeping. Usually the beds have numbers on them, but I could't figure out which one was mine since there weren't numbers on these beds. I chose an empty one and prayed that it was going to be vacant all night. The showers were hiding in the room, not with the sink and toilet. Of course, I found them in the morning, but I didn't have time to shower if I was going to make it to the tour office on time. Only me...
Dublin to Belfast:
Monday: To make my life easier, I decided to just book a tour of Northern Ireland. That way I didn't have to do any hostel searching, my luggage was taken care of, and there were other people. I'm going to say now, the tour was quite good. The schedule was a bit jumbled, but considering they had to put four different tours on a single bus (there were a lot of accidents that week that took out a lot of the bus drivers) it was understandable. And we saw most of the same things but in a different order. So there was a one-day of Belfast, a two-day and three-day of Northern Ireland and a six-day All-Ireland. I was on the three-day since I had been to much of the Republic of Ireland already. So Day One, we drove from Dublin to Belfast. It didn't take very long, like four or five hours is all. We stopped once to see an abandoned monastery. As soon as we got to Belfast we did the "Black Taxi Tour". The taxi drivers don't like the name since it has a lot of political connotations and associations with the IRA. But it was sort of fitting because the tour was political. We saw both sides of the peace wall, the various murals created by each side, and learned the history of the Troubles. Afterwards a group split off and went to the Titanic Museum. Since that seems sort of a random thing to have in Belfast, the Titanic was actually built there. Makes more sense now, doesn't it? Anyway, I wasn't in the mood to see a museum, so instead I got lunch. Priorities, doncha know? So, picked up everyone who went to the museum and headed for the hostel. After the fiasco in Dublin when I couldn't find the shower, I prioritized and immediately sought them out. Boy, those showers were amazing. I mean, it did try to electrocute me once or twice, but if I avoided certain pieces of metal, I was totally fine. Then we all went out to dinner as a group and a pub afterwards. All-in-all it was good time.
Belfast to Derry:
Tuesday: It seems I sort of gave up on the SOD. ... They come easier when no one is around. But I'm not complaining. I would rather have the people. We saw a couple of sights today before getting to Derry. There was the Carrick-a-rede bridge (which is £10 to see/cross) and the Giant's Causeway. That was pretty cool. There's a story to go with it since a similar natural phenomenon exists in Scotland. When we got to Derry we did a walking tour. Technically it's Londonderry, but the two sides of the river call it by two different names depending on loyalty to the crown. Politically we were still in the United Kingdom. Everyone went out again that night. Dinner first then a couple pubs. There were some pretty good drunk stories in the morning, but I won't put the details on the Internet to spare those involved any embarrassment.
Derry to Galway:
Wednesday: This was an incredibly boring day. More hours spent on transportation. The entire day was traveling to Galway. The three-day tour was supposed to see Donegal instead of Galway, but that's ok. Maybe next time I'm here I'll get the chance. We stopped for one sight, a castle that is essentially falling off a cliff, and then for lunch. No wait, the castle was the day before. We saw that between the bridge and the causeway. So the only other stop before getting to Galway was a bathroom break. Probably a good thing it was just driving because so many people were hungover. They were planning to do it again that night on the pub crawl that we did when we were in Galway in January. We had a bit of time in Galway, like an hour maybe, then the three-day-ers were put on a bus and sent back to Dublin. Which was a two to three hour drive. Since I didn't book a hostel for that evening, I had to get back to Cork right away. Unfortunately, the earliest bus I could catch wasn't until 10:30. Which means I had another three hour bus ride (I was the only one on the bus) and didn't get back to the apartment until after 1:30.
And end Easter break.
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