November 11: Edinburgh

Ireland in the morning, and then Scotland? Sounds like a fabbo birthday to me. :D

Flew into Edinburgh and took the bus into the city. I was staying on the Royal Mile (which is like the main touristy street) and it wasn't much of a walk to get to the hostel. Dropped my stuff off and went exploring. First impressions of Scotland weren't very different from what I expected, except I thought that I'd have a harder time understanding what the hell people were saying. Oh well.

Anyway, at the top end of the Royal Mile was Edinburgh Castle, so I thought I'd start there. On the way I saw a guy pretending to be William Wallace per Braveheart (like, he was a street performer guy and you could get photos with him and stuff, but I didn't because it was cheesy), a guy playing the bagpipes in front of a very awesome statue of David Hume! So yeah, that was a pretty good start.

Boo for the lack of student discount at the castle, it cost me 11 pounds to get in. However, it was worth it because the castle was so different from the castle-ish ruins I had seen in Ireland. This castle was intact, and there were gates that led to different parts like ramparts and the cemetery for soldier's dogs and the national war memorial (which was on the castle grounds) and a chapel (the oldest building in the city), a whole ton of cannons all over the place, the dungeons and stuff. It was really cool. What was also cool was that I found Nathan from the Topdeck tour also there, and we caught up and stuff. Small world. Since it was Rememberance Day and all that, the war memorial was all decked out so it was worth having a look at. There was also a pretty cool exhibition thing of the crown jewels from when Scotland was a separate country from England and how they got unified and stuff. I probably spent 2-3 hours in there, but I easily could have stayed longer.

After that it was back down the Royal Mile, stopping by the Scottish Writers' Museum, since I didn't get to go to the Irish Writers' one. Alas, it was Sunday so it was closed, although all the paving stones outside had cool writers' quotes on them, so that was still worth having a look at. After that I crossed back over to Greyfriars, where I found a statue of Greyfriars Bobby, who was a dog (terrier looking thing) who basically spent each day lying on the grave of his master until he himself died. Cute story. I snagged a baked potato for a late lunch and headed back to the hostel to do some packing-type stuff. A lot of stuff got jettisoned at this point.

That night, I felt like exploring a bit more, but there wasn't anyone in my hostel room at that point to check out the city with, so I ended up watching Ratatouille at the movies. It was cute and getting a movie in was a relaxing way to spend the evening. By the time I got back to hostel there were a couple of girls from China staying there, and it turned out one of them was working in Gothenburg so I talked to her for a while about that, since I was there a week ago! Yes. This is the kind of stuff I like about traveling and crossing paths with random people.

November 10: Dublin

Last day of the tour. We started at the Rock of Dunamase which yes, was another castle ruin. It was really cool though; there were really big window-y things and we could climb up and down the ruins and you could see where walls had collapsed on their sides (because the stone bricks were sideways) and stuff.

Next was Glendalough, which was a monastic city with a big round tower where the walls were about three feet thick in the buildings, and there was a teeny door in the tower and because I was the smallest, the others wanted me to squish in and tell them what was inside, but I didn't think that was so cool, because I didn't want to get squished into a historical building and it smelt funny. But it was really cool because it was freaking huge and you can imagine how hard it would have been to build something like that in the 6th century or whatever. So yeah.

On the site was also a building called St. Kevin's kitchen (which wasn't actually a kitchen, but the stone building had a chimney so they called it that) and a big stone cross which, if you could put your arms around it, was supposed to mean that you would marry an Irish guy or girl. Obviously because I have such short arms there was no way in hell I could do it, but I think it was an old-school eugenics program to weed out the small and short-armed for the Irish nation or something. Haha. There was also a lake on the site (there's a national park that the monastic city backs onto) and we walked there as a group and it was really pretty.

After that it was back to Dublin, and too soon. We had to say goodbye to some people, but the rest of us who were staying in Dublin agreed to meet for dinner after we had checked into our respective accomodation. I was staying right in Temple Bar, and I walked into my hotel room to find a French couple fucking. GREAT. And then later they asked me where a good place to go for dinner was!!! I hightailed it out of there and met the others at Dublin's oldest pub (which was from the 1100s). Because some of us had early flights and whatnot it was an early night, although Meg and I walked around a bit more to look for coffee and stuff, and agreed to meet tomorrow morning. I got back to the hostel and met an Italian guy called Fabio (yes!) and we talked for a bit - he was in Ireland to learn English, and he seemed really cool. He helped me stuff my bag under the bunk and I said "grazie" and he said "prego" and we both laughed because my Italian is molto mierda. Haha. Then the French couple got back and they seemed to have had a good dinner, so yeah. I also broke the toilet in the ensuite bathroom but nobody knows that it was me. Haha.

November 9: Kilkenny

So the interesting festivities from last night continued on into the morning. When we left the Grand we (being Sam, Maxx, Drew, Conor and myself) thought we were the last ones to leave, but no! Blakey never even made it home! Hahaha. And then it turned out that Lukey got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom... all over Skye's bag and on the bottom bunk where Bec was sleeping. I'm glad I wasn't in that room. I think the girls handled it well considering that they/their stuff was covered in drunken boy pee. Skye beat Luke with a rolled up newspaper and that seemed to work.

Blakey made it back just in time for the bus, and then we headed to Kilarney national park for some photos at Torc Falls. Pretty stuff, kind of reminded me of the Falls we get in the Dandenongs. We also went to the Mitchelstown Caves which was a big underground cave system that was excavated in the 18-somethings... the rock formations were really cool and the Chicago boys gave us a great rendition of "My Humps" in one of caverns so we could check out the accoustics. No photos though because the flash would damage the limestone or something.

Next stop was Blarney Castle!! First we stopped and checked out the caves/dungeons under the castle, but they didn't seem to go anywhere, although it was fun to just crawl through teeny passages with a LED flashlight and a cellphone for light. But anyway, yes, we got to kiss the Blarney stone and all that stuff; it turns out that the Blarney stone is a stone in the wall on the top floor of the castle and you had to climb all the way to the top and then basically lie on the ground and kiss is upside down, all Spiderman-like. So now I have the gift of the gab, but the gross thing was that given how smooth and shiny the Blarney stone was, so have thousands of other scabby lips. Even Boris got to kiss the stone, when the stone-kissing attendant guy held him up to the stone so I could take a picture, which was pretty cool. He also then threatened to drop Boris, which was slightly less cool, but maybe that's just him gabbin'.

The castle itself was neat, but there was also the castle grounds which included things like a big garden with lots of neat things like a Druid's cave, Witch's kitchen (which was basically a cave with a fireplace), pond thingies and a faerie garden. The faerie garden was seriously something out of a kid's storybook or something. You'd walk through this garden and leaves would rustle and stuff and it seriously sounded like there were faeries and stuff (but I bet they were birds or whatnot). The story was that the faeries weren't like cute little Disney-esque faeries, but they were more the mischevious kind, and they'd play tricks on you and stuff. I thought I escaped the faeries alright until I got out of the faerie garden and realized that everyone from the tour group had left, and that I was late for the bus, so I freaked out and left the grounds and ran down the street and almost into a stop sign... which had recently been painted bright yellow so I had yellow paint all on one side of my clothes. Damn faeries!

After that we stopped by the Rock of Cashel which was an old castle. Yep, another castle. And then it was on to Kilkenny for the night, only the hostel we were staying at was pretty shithouse. Meg and I had to share a room with randoms and the others had shitty rooms, and I got in to find a girl in my room cutting her feet with a stanley knife, and the ceiling leaked and ew. Meg and I basically put our stuff down and got the hell out to look for dinner, and after that a bunch of us hung out because it was our last night together and stuff, and we found a pretty neat pub to do so in.

November 8: Kilarney

Started the day with a ferry crossing on the River Shannon estuary in the Dingle penninsula. We had lunch today in Dingle which is a fishing village which is also home to a dolphin called Fungi - like the fungus. There was a fisho's we went to for lunch but the fish & chips was super expensive (like 12 euros or something). However, they did have deep fried mars bars which I found to be very tasty. Yum.

We basically spent the day driving in a pretty small area around the penninsula but it was full of windy roads - we haven't been on a highway at all. Most of the roads we have taken have been really narrow roads for two-way traffic and our bus is covered in dust from all the driving.

Anyway, today we took a trip down to the beach (read: at the atlantic!) and Kevin said that there was some legend that if you dip your feet in the water part of your soul will stay there and you will come back to Ireland. I didn't do that because 1) I don't believe in souls, 2) even if I did believe in souls, I'm a lawyer and therefore wouldn't have a soul, 3) it was cold and I didn't want to get my feet wet. It was a really pretty spot though, and a lot of people got kind of wet because the waves were pretty big.

We continued driving and passed some beehive huts built by monks in the 6th century and then we stopped at Clougher Head (spelling?) which is the most western point of Europe! It was windy as hell and I had to try ridiculously hard not to fall over when I walked because otherwise I would land in sheep shit.

After that we stopped in Kilarney for the night. I ended up in a room with Steve, the Canadian boys Maxx and Drew, and Sam from Chicago. Kevin warned us that the male to female ratio in Kilarney was like 3:1 because of all the Irish farmers, and we did see a bunch on the road driving their tractors into town! We started the evening with a group dinner (where they gave us bottomless french fries when we complained too much haha) and then to a pub or two, and then to a pub/club/bar thing called the Grand. It was the super shit craic. There was an awesome band called The Wilful who did covers of ACDC, the Fraggle Rock song, the Ghostbusters song, RHCP, Rage against the Machine and yeah. I talked to the frontman from the band after the gig and the conversation went exactly as Kevin predicted it would if an Irish guy tried to pick up a non-Irish girl. Haha. He was going to college in Galway and he seemed pretty nice, but then I left because I didn't want to hold him up from packing band stuff so I went into the other room where the boys were dancing and stuff and there were lots of really swirly lights.

It was an awesome night in great company. Sam, Conor, Maxx, Drew and I left at about 1 or 2 or something and found Nigel wandering around in the street (he left like 40 minutes before us) because he couldn't find his way back to the hostel, and then we stopped at a burger place because people were hungry, and Nigel got two burgers and ate them, then Conor's nose randomly started bleeding, and then Maxx got a pizza but then some drunk guy came and took photos with us and ate a piece, and then Sam ran down the main street in Kilarney with his pants around his ankles. Hahaha. Super fun. That's the kind of craic I'm after.

November 7: Doolin

Today we headed down to Doolin which is apparently the home of traditional Irish music. On the way, we stopped in Kinvara because Kevin promised us some hookers (not that kind, but some sort of traditional Irish fishing boat), but we didn't find any. Oh well.

We stopped at Corcomroe Abbey, which was a 800-something year old abbey. It was pretty, even though we didn't get right up close to it. It's weird, I know I said I was churched out after Europe but they're all so different and stuff, and the really old stuff like what we've got here is super cool. I like old stuff.

After that we headed to the Burrens, which is basically a huge thing of limestone as far as the eye could see. You had to climb up a hill to it, but it was really word it. It was just piles of limestone with little plants growing in between the rocks. Apparently the Burrens is good grazing land (as evidenced by the vast amount of sheep shit everywhere), but I'm not sure how.

Then we stopped quickly at St. Briget's Well (which apparently has healing properties) and then it was onto the Cliffs of Moher! Wow. That is a super touristy spot, but it was really wort going to. They just redid the visitor center so it now looks like it's in the hill, kind of like hobbit holes or the thing the teletubbies live in (we had a little bit of a debate as to which one it looks like more) and the cliffs themselves were spectacular. The water at the bottom of the cliffs is the Atlantic ocean, and you could see across to the Aran islands (but just barely because it was kind of cloudy). There was also a busker there playing some pretty cool pipe music so I gave him money.

After that it was home for the night in Doolin, which literally is a street with three pubs and some houses on it and not much else. Scott, Meg, Leanne and I also visited a spooky church on Gallows Hill (overlooking the city) where apparently 30-something Spanish sailors got executed. There's an old graveyard and all the graves are all over the place and I kept accidentally falling into grave holes. It was pretty cool though. That night we hung out at a pub and listened to some traditional music, and I tried to convert people to eat chips and mayo but they didn't buy it. I also wanted to go back up to the spooky church at night, but I was too tired and everyone was drunk and warm and listening to music so that didn't happen either.

November 6: Galway

Started the morning with a nice long walk up Croagh Patrick hill. Croagh Patrick is basically St. Patrick, but Kevin (our tour guide) says that he didn't drive the snakes out of Ireland. The snake was the symbol of paganism and basically because Pat converted a whole bunch of people to christianity (he wasn't even the first one to do it either) that's where the whole story comes from.

Anyway, so there was a big hill and at the top there was a church, but we didn't go all the way up. Apparently people doing pilgrimage-type stuff do Croagh Patrick with no shoes on too, and some of the boys tried it. I wasn't game enough because the path was muddy, rocky and full of sheep shit. The view was really nice when we got up there, but it was kind of cold. We also went to the Irish Famine Memorial in memory of the people who died and left Ireland during the Potato famine, and then we headed further south.

There is a lake called Doolough (spelling?) along the way which we passed. Apparently during the famine about 300 people went to ask their landlord to help out with their rent and food and stuff but he was too busy to see them at his place because he was having a feast so he sent them away, and then on the way back they all froze to death on the lake. It's a pretty lake though, even though the water is all dark and grim and stuff. However, the name just made me and Sam sing the Duloc song from Shrek, which was probably kind of wrong and offensive.
We also stopped by a place called Recess where nothing happened. Seriously. There is a statue and a plaque there that says nothing happened. Kevin takes us to the most random places. :P We also stopped at Kylemore Abbey along the way for some photos.

That night we were in Galway! It's a really cool city, and we went to a pub on the Claddagh side where they had soccer on TV and then Irish dancing with the locals. I didn't partake but I did find that they had the pear cider from Sweden, so that was pretty awesome.

November 5: Westport

I love Ireland! It makes me grin like an idiot being here. We left on the Shamrocker tour today and there are 16-ish people on it, so it is a pretty small group relative to Topdeck and Clusterfuck Contiki.

Our first stop was the hill of Tara, which was the ancient Gaelic capital when Ireland was four kingdoms and then there was a fifth head kingdom or something at Tara. Not much is left of it but it used to be where the high King of Ireland would rule over the other four kingdoms. There are a couple of little hilly things, a big stone called the stone of destiny, and if it screams when you touch it and all of the country hears you, you get to be the king or queen of Ireland! We didn't get to touch it though because there was a security guard patrolling the area and it's from before the 6th Century anyway. Dammit, I might have gotten to rule Ireland and now I'll never know.

After that we went to Kilbeggan and the whiskey distillery (aptly named "John Locke Distillery", which, being a philosopher, I found highly amusing) where we tasted "first shot" which was 78% alcohol! It was basically moonshine. There was actual whiskey there as well, but that was after the whole distillation process had brought down the alchol content. We had lunch at the distillery and got to know the people on the tour and whatnot and yeah.

Then it was onto Knock where the whole town is super religious on accord of some virgin Mary sightings in the 1970s. Not much was there except a church, a big cross, another churchy room with marble statues (apparently on the site where Mary was seen) and these "holy water" drinking fountain things. Personally, I didn't care but it was nice to get a bathroom break.

Then we went into Westport for the night where we hung out at a pub called Matt Molloy (because it was owned by the guy from the Chieftains) and were entertained by an old Irishman called Mick who would burst into song (and he knew a song for every place that people were from) or tell us some awesome stories. However, there was also a tour of old American people who were at the pub as well and this lady looked slightly inconvenienced because she wanted to hear Bruce Springsteen and Mick said "I don't know who that is." HAHA. I love Ireland.