Sunday, October 15, 2006

~Day 11: London, Stansted Airport~ 

Spent the night at the Cork International Youth Hostel. Had a great dialogue with a guy named John Paul from California, who was studying for his PhD in Educational Psychology. We started off talking photography, but it quickly went to vocation, psychology, philosophy, and ultimately religion. We were really getting into it, and before I knew it 2 hours had passed, it was 1am, and I only had 4 hours left before we had to get up to catch our flight out of Cork. Thank goodness we had a car in Cork, because getting to the airport by 6am would have just sucked otherwise. By this time, I'd finished "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", so I picked up the 3rd book before we flew.

I have ZERO pictures for you today, folks. Today was just a bit of a weird in-between day in our planning. We'd land in Stansted coming from Ireland, and would fly out to Salzburg from here, but the flights were 24 hours apart. But it isn't worth the 30GBP trip in each direction to London central, and we can't really go anywhere else...so we decided to make it a day of rest.

We shelled out a little extra to book a nice bed and breakfast, since we'd have no other expenses. What we overlooked was the B&B wouldn't open until 4pm, and we were ready to leave the airport by 10am.

There is NOTHING around Stansted, literally nothing but a motorway into London central...so what could we do? There we were, with those 80-pound packs hanging off us, stuck at the airport for the next 6 hours. So we found a comfortable set of seats, set up camp, and just chilled.

We eventually did hop a cab over and check into the B&B, but for most of the day there we were, on a Sunday in London, Stansted, bumming around an airport for the entire day. People coming and going. Those annoying baggage carts with their annoying beeping crawling by every few minutes. Watching the sun move across the sky. I kept shaking my head in disbelief...sitting in an airport, reading, watching the day pass by. What a way to spend a day in Europe.

On the otherhand, I finished "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" within 24 hours of picking it up.

SEE YOU, SPACE COWBOY...   ~ 9:34 PM    (2) comments

Saturday, October 14, 2006

~Day 10: The Ring of Kerry, Part 2~ 

We woke up and hoped to catch the boat tour out to the Skellig Michael, which was a basically a giant rock jutting out of the ocean. There, a monastery was built by Irish monks in the 7th century, about 12km off the coast. It was a pretty hazardous journey to sail out there back them, which I guess we understood, since all the boat tours thought it was too choppy to risk a trip out there. Chalk up another reason for me to fly back to Ireland in the future.

Another day of driving through the southwest Ireland country side. Beautiful scenery, the ocean, and some damn fun driving.


LEFT: The town of Portmagee in the morning. This is pretty much it...the entire town!
RIGHT: A nice Irish breakfast to start the day. This "Irish bacon" is interesting; it's half crispy, half pemeal bacon, all in one piece.


LEFT: More views of the Kerry Peninsula.
RIGHT: Sheep.


The ocean...until I got here, it hadn't occured to me that I haven't seen the ocean in...forever, at least 13 years. The smell of the salt, the foamy waves crashing, the sound of the water receding through the rocks to escape back to the sea...I wish Toronto were closer to all that, I'd go and enjoy it every week.


RIGHT: The Staigue Fort, a 2500 year old stone fort that would have housed a chieftain, his family and servants. There was little or no mortar involved, just...stacks of stones, and it's stood for so long.



By our third day driving in Ireland, we really got the hang of the Yaris on the tight, windy roads, and started to just bomb through them. The commercials are true; the Yaris IS surprisingly fun to drive. It was like driving a go-kart through the best track in the world.


RIGHT: The city of Cork at night. It really is a great little city. It's so small you can walk end-to-end in about an hour, but for what it does have, it's right up there.

SEE YOU, SPACE COWBOY...   ~ 11:05 PM    (0) comments

Friday, October 13, 2006

~Day 9: The Ring of Kerry, Part 1~ 

First thing we did today was head to Killarney National Park to check out Ross Castle, after which we embarked on the trip around the Ring of Kerry.


Ross Castle.

The Ring of Kerry is becoming one of the bigger touristy areas of Ireland. When you think of Ireland, what do you think of? If you picture quaint little houses sitting on rolling, emerald-green hills beneath a blue sky leading to the ocean, then you're thinking of the Ring of Kerry in southwest Ireland.

If you were to drive non-stop, it takes about 3 hours to drive around the entire route. It's a track that takes you along the edge of the Kerry Peninsula, and you definitely won't drive 3 hours straight through; there's so much to see, so much to do, you'd want to stop long and often.

It was just beautiful there; there is no way to describe it. The air was so clean and crisp, and the panoramic view was nothing short of majestic. We drove our little Yaris along the winding roads along the Kerry Peninsula, through the hills, and along coastal mountain roads. The road is well set for tourists, and whenever we saw what looked like a great look-out point, there would be an extra-wide part carved out of the road so people could pull over and look around.

Ireland has a reputation for having the world's most reckless drivers, and I can see why. The roads are extremely narrow; at some points, for two cars approaching each other to pass, the cars have to stick so far into their shoulder that the twigs from trees lining the roads whip against the car windows. There is literally just a margin of inches for you to pass people along the road; at some points, you have to just pick a wide shoulder and just pull over and let the other guy through first. Ireland must be the only place I've ever failed to reach or exceed the speed limit; the posted limit is 100 km/h, but I averaged only 70 km/h, because the roads wind so much and the curves can be suddenly very sharp. If Irish drivers regularly take these roads and curves at 100 km/h, they really deserve their rep.

Without further ado, here are pics from the day:




LEFT: A typical gas station in Kerry County. It's just a couple of stalls right on the street, in front of a store. We're used to them being attached to convenience stores, but I've seen them in front of restaurants, craft shops, jewelery shops...you name it. You tank up, go inside, and pay wherever it happens to be.




RIGHT: A road as it curves a long the mountain, at the coast of the bay. Great driving venue


RIGHT: As we drove around Valencia Island (at the western tip of the Ring of Kerry), something caught my eye up ahead....was that a cow wandering onto the road? And then another, and another one...and it became a whole herd...followed by what appeared to be a little man herding them along with a stick! We got caught behing the herd and followed it for a few minutes as the man prodded them into another field further down the road. Alfred couldn't stop laughing and swore it was a leprechaun.






The end of the world. At the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean, this is the point in Europe closest to the Americas, apparently. In the middle-right is a picture of a commemorative stone placed for the first trans-atlantic telegraph, from Newfoundland to this point. "Glory to God in the Highest, on earth peace and good will to all men."

It was insanely windy, but breathtaking. I just can't describe or capture what it's like to be there; the crash of the waves, the smell of the ocean, the fresh air, the grass bending to the wind, the setting sun on the horizon...this is the Ireland I dreamed about.


The town of Portmagee, where we pitched in for the night. It was a nice, quaint town, but it was tiny; one street, 10 buildings...that's it. It'd be a great spot to just disappear in for a week.


The Bridge Bar is where we went to grab dinner. Great food, and more importantly...


...great Guinness!

Here is it folks...the other reason I came to Ireland. Finally, at long last, the perfect pint. It blew away what I had in London, and it absolutely murders the crap we have in Toronto. Head so thick you could stand a fork in it, dark, smooth, rich, creamy, sweet aftertaste to finish...this is what Guinness is.

Look at that...just...look at that beauty...the perfect pour. Pour 3/4 pint in, and let it rest...let that smooth, creamy head build up. Just give it some time; you have to have patience for perfection like this. Once it's had time to rest a bit, go ahead and top it off, and then let it rest again. You gotta wait, because your patience will be rewarded.

And then...it's just...so...oh my goodness...the pint to end all pints...



Go ahead, take a sip. See the glass? See the rings going around? That's the sign of a good pint of Guinness. Each swig of Guinness you take leaves its distinctive mark on the glass, the ring where the head was sitting.

The thing with Guinness is that it has to be in Ireland, and the little towns in the country do a much better job perfecting it than the bigger cities like Dublin or Cork. Here, in the middle-of-nowhere Portmagee, is a bar-man artisan, a perfector of pints. He stores the Guinness at the perfect temperature, controls the gas flow, and knows what it takes for a great pour. The rumour is that Guinness changes quality as you transport it too, so the only place in the world you can have the perfect pint is here, in Ireland.


Finishing the night off with a great Irish Whiskey Cake.

SEE YOU, SPACE COWBOY...   ~ 11:26 PM    (0) comments

Thursday, October 12, 2006

~Day 8: Cork, Kinsale, Killarney~ 

Woke up at the Edinburgh Globetrotter Inn and caught the shuttle to the town center, then the AirLink to Edinburgh Airport, and our flight out of Scotland to Cork, Ireland. It was our first 'free' flight with RyanAir (0.01GBP + 29.00GBP in fees and taxes). We arrived at Cork airport a couple hours later.

For this leg of the trip, we decided to rent a car and explore southwest Ireland ourselves. Car rentals, like everything else, are pretty expensive in Ireland, so we ended up with a Yaris hatchback, the cheapest auto-tranny we could rent. I'd be doing most of the driving, but I knew that in most compacts, as long as you put the seat all the way back, I could still drive it.

What I was really worried about was driving in the UK for the first time. Driving on the left side of the road, right turns being the one you have to wait for, the driver sitting on the right...it definitely took time to get used to. The Yaris auto drives like a manual with an auto clutch installed aftermarket; it grinds a bit going from first to second, then from second to third, etc. Even the way it goes from reverse, to neutral, to engage (no park) is like a stick shift. It's very different from anything I've ever driven before, but it was nice just to have a car to travel with as a homebase, after carrying those bags all around town as we look for our hostel everytime. Having a car definitely makes a big difference, especially traveling between cities.

We went into Cork just to get our bearings, check out the tourist information office, and after seeing a CD player in the car, grab something to listen to at the Virgin Music Megastore (we ended up with Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head). Then off to the port town of Kinsale, and then into Killarney.


LEFT:A market in Cork where we went to pick up some cheap food (mostly bread and fruit)
RIGHT:Student pack: 1 lbs mince, 4 pork chops, 1 pack of rashers...what the heck are rashers??


More streets of Cork.

Most of you may not have heard of Cork, but it's actually one of the fastest growing European cities and was voted "City of Culture" by the European Union a year or two ago. The city was razed to the ground by violence in the 1920s and has been rebuilt, so it's quite modern. It is a very cultural city; we came right in the middle of the Cork Film Festival, and next week is the Cork Jazz Festival. Both are quite well known, and the atmosphere there is great. We drove around the entire central city in about 10 minutes, though; it's like a someone took a corner of New York, cleaned it up 100 times, and placed it in southwest Ireland. It's vibrant, fun, and since it's Ireland, they serve a damn good pint of Guinness, the way it's meant to be.


The port town of Kinsale, south of Cork. Not very big, but it's a pretty little place. Fantastic seafood, very very steep prices.


Why does every place, and I mean every place, in the world have to have a Chinese restaurant called "New World"?

SEE YOU, SPACE COWBOY...   ~ 4:41 PM    (0) comments

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

~Day 7: The Scottish Highlands, Part 2~ 

Maybe I really do have a strange accent. I've been paying attention to the way people talk around me, and I think I'm starting to pick up things here and there. I'm trying to see how Canadians/Americans may sound brutish to the British, and trying to correct some bad habits (enunciating my T's, paying attention to vowels we skip over, etc.). Trying to pronounce Scottish names, you can't help but assume some of their speech mannerisms...I'm pretty sure I'm going to sound funny to some of you when I get back.

Blogger seems to be broken, so I'm having trouble getting these up online after writing them offline.

Between the jetlag from last week and our irregular sleeping schedule (getting up at 4am to catch planes, etc.), I still haven't adjusted to the time over here yet, and I think it showed last night. I just lay in bed forever, unable to sleep. I couldn't really understand why; my room was quiet, I had clean, comfortable linens, and the only thing I could complain about was the fact that I couldn't stretch out (the bed was too short). Still, I lay there and counted the hours. I'm sure I fell asleep for brief stretches, but woke up frequently enough that it felt like I wasn't sleeping at all. 2:00am, 3:00am, 3:20am, 3:29am...the hours just stretched on as I kept drifting in and out of half-sleep. The maddening bit was 6:00am, when I knew I only had a couple hours before getting up...then I finally got some solid rest, for all of 2 hours.

So for the rest of the day, I was constantly falling asleep on the bus, but it might not have been just the lack of sleep. Today was largely uneventful. In comparison to the absolutely beautiful sunny day we had yesterday, we got a wee taste of more typical Scottish weather...except it was twice as warm and half as rainy as it should be, I was told. Still, our bus drove through dreary, grey, rainy weather all day. In contrast to the dramatic landscapes we saw yesterday, we spent today going through the more 'mellow' parts of the Highlands. The rain splashing against the window made it impossible to shoot while moving, and standing outside in the rain didn't exactly motivate me to expose my camera gear to the elements. I did have time to walk down to WH Smith in Inverness and pick up the 2nd Harry Potter book before we left, though.

A few pics:


The town of Inverness in the morning.



The Plodda Falls


LEFT:Another look onto Loch Ness. Notice the castle in the corner; it was very important strategically, well, hundred of years ago) looking out onto the loch. I don't remember the name, and we didn't go in because they charge a fortune and we'd only be there for all of 30 minutes.
RIGHT:Fort Augustus, the swing bridge. Instead of raising, it would swing to the side to allow ships to pass through the canal between lochs.


LEFT:A ship passes through the canal towards Loch Ness
RIGHT:Part of the staggered canal system at Fort Augustus, allowing ships to pass from loch to loch regardless of whether one is higher or lower than the other, just like the lock system back home.




LEFT:My first and only taste of haggis, with a nice pint of bitter ale from the Isle of Skye (in a Fosters glass). I really liked the haggis; it was a little gamey, but very earthy and very flavourful. Combined with the potatoes and neeps, not to mention the pint of beer, I was completely stuffed. I can only have a meal like that a few times a year...how do those crazy Scots eat so much???
RIGHT:The opening from Fort Augustus out to the Loch Ness.

The only thing the weather really inspired me to capture was the classic image of the Highland mountains shrouded by low-hanging clouds. This was the mysterious, mythical Scotland I imagined when I signed up for this trip. It was beautiful, and almost made the crappy weather worth it. Unfortunately we had no photo stops planned near these mountain views, so I wasn't able to grab any photos. I was tempted to ask our guide to pull over so I could get just a couple shots, but I was feeling so tired, so lazy after lunch, and our guide was in a rush to get home (Scotland's soccer team is in the qualifying round for the EuroCup), so I didn't bother. Besides, I figured I'd already lucked out with a fantastically lit sunny day yesterday; I can live without those shots. A sunny day is much more rare than a misty day anyway.

Got dropped off on Princes St. in Edinburgh. Was happy to see the bustling shopping area again, and went to grab some Chinese food for dinner (after the haggis, I really couldn't think of much else I wanted to eat in Scotland). The Chinese restaurant I went to had been there for over 20 years, and the staff was very happy to speak to me in Cantonese. When they heard I was from Toronto, they fully admitted their food was going to be nothing compared to what I was used to, and it turned out to be true. The food wasn't bad by any stretch of imagination (it was better than Waterloo...except Mikey's and Grand China, of course =)), but I still can't get over the price. A plate of minced beef fried rice take-out cost me 7.00GBP...that's like $15CAN! $15CAN for a bowl of fried rice with minced beef and shredded lettuce! Jiffy, the night I get back we're going to a real Chinese food place and I'm going to order everthing on the menu...and it'll still probably cost less =P

Came back to the Globetrotter Inn in Edinburgh, but I have no idea where Alfred is right now. He had all our laundry detergent, but the girl who sold me my laundry machine tokens was kind enough to slip me a small packet to use for this load. It's funny how a small act of kindness from a stranger can warm the heart so much.

SEE YOU, SPACE COWBOY...   ~ 4:35 PM    (0) comments

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

~Day 6: The Scottish Highlands, Part 1~ 

Apparenty, I have a Canadian accent...and not just a Canadian accent, but a Vancouver accent. Imagine that.

I'm sitting in the common room of the Bazpacker Hostel in Iverness, Scotland, right across from the castle (but I'm not sure what it's called). I'm quite enjoying my hosteling experience so far. This hostel was really the only toss-up the entire trip; the tour group booked my accomodations for me, and I didn't even know where I was staying unti I was dropped off here, but I'm glad to say the sheets are clean, the staff is friendy, the internet is deady expensive (1.50GBP for 20 minutes!) and above all, the people are great. The common room is nice and cozy, with a stone wall and fireplace, wood-paneled walls everywhere else, comfortable couches and tables, and warm lighting everywhere.

Like I mentioned, the people here are cool. In particular, I met this one woman from NYC who has a Masters degree in Human Rights Law and is traveling in between contracts with the UN after spending the last few months helping establish food distribution lines. I know she spent 2 years working in Kosovo at one point, and has worked in a list of countries I can't remember.

There's also a group of 4 mainlanders (Chinese) at the table next to me, chattering away in Mandarin; their dinner consisted of a big plate of ready-to-bake chicken wings from the supermarket. Chinese people will always be Chinese people...

My dinner consisted of what had to be the most disgusting Indian food I've ever had. I spent over an hour wandering around Iverness, taking in the sights, exploring a litte, but mostly looking for a pub our guide had recommended, Blackfriars. Here in Iverness, everything closes early as well, so by the time I found it, the kitchen had closed and wouldn't serve me food. I ended up getting take-away at what looked like a nice Indian restaurant when I passed by, but it turned out to be the most perverted butter chicken I've ever seen. Still, when you're paying so much for food (Scotland is no cheaper than London) you really don't want to waste, so I still ate it. *bleh........

Here's how it goes around here: The shops close at 5:30-6pm, the grocers close at 8pm, the kitchens stop serving food at 9pm, but the bars don't close until 3am. Like my guide said, the Scots obviously have their priorities straight.

I know, it's a bit strange that I'm starting with the last leg of a very long day, so let's rewind: today did NOT start well.

I'd set my alarm for 7:30am after finishing downloading my photos and (trying to) post(ing) my blog, but when I went to bed, I only had one chapter left in "Harry Potter", so I shrugged my shoulders and said, "eeehhhhh...what the hell, how long could one chapter take? I'll sleep right after."

Well, I cursed that decision for neary an hour straight this morning.

My phone went off at 7:30am, but I just never woke up enough to get out of bed. Next thing I know, it's my phone says 8:49, and my 8:30 shuttle has already gone into town. I have to be at the Royal Mile by 9:15am, and the next shuttle doesn't leave until 9:30.

I freaked out. I jumped out of bed, ran to the bathroom, splashed cold water on my head, threw everything into my backpack and sprinted out the door. I had paid 63 quid for this tour, and I damn sure wasn't leaving Scotland without seeing the Highlands.

The Lothian bus service is always running late, so I kept running around the bus stop, backup plans blazing through my head: stay and wait for the bus. no, ask the hostel to run a special shuttle just for you. no, wait, run down the hallways shouting "I'll give 15 quid to anyone who drives me to the city center!!" Wait, is that a guy walking towards one of the cars?? Run up and ask him for a ride! He's not going to the city? Damn. Maybe I can ask that couple over there...wait, the bus!! I sprinted back to the bus stop, my right foot going shin-deep in a muddy bog in the process. I jumped on the bus, asked the driver if there wasn't anyway he could speed up the ride. As the bus got moving, I explained my situation to him, but he had his route to follow; all he could do was go as fast as he could between stops.

To make an already long story shorter, I called the tour company explained to explain my situation, jumped out of the bus and hopped into a cab when I got closer to the city, and managed to make it on the tour bus in time. In fact, there were 3 other people on their way, stuck on a broken-down train, but they never made it in time. Given how close I was to that result myself, I have every sympathy for them.

Our tour was in a Mercedes mini-bus, which was a nice, comfortable ride. Our driver/guide was a woman from Feith, had a thick Scottish accent and was showing fatigue nearing the end of a busy tour season. I met a student-couple on the bus; the guy from Iran, the girl from Singapore, both studying in Yorkshire. Two very different people, but very nice, very sweet, and clearly still enamoured with one another. I'd chat with them the rest of the day, and we'd take pictures for each other, so for the first time like, ever, I'm actually going to have pictures of myself somewhere.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story, but in short, fresh air, brilliant sunshine (we really lucked out), and stunning landscapes...the only thing missing was actually climbing to the top of one of those mountains.




Sheep everywhere!








Apparently, the RAF likes to practice up here in Glen Coe. We were standing there and there was this earth shaking rumble as a fighter blew through the valley. It was flying low...couldn't have been any more than 100ft off the ground. See it in the pics above?


LEFT: The Commander Hotel. That is one ugly paint job.






The Loch Ness at sunset. (By the way, "loch" is the Scottish word for lake)




The town of Inverness. It's very nice there, especially with the river running through it. A lot of industries are moving here from Edinburgh, so it's a fast-growing city.

SEE YOU, SPACE COWBOY...   ~ 11:32 AM    (0) comments

Monday, October 09, 2006

~Day 5: Edinburgh~ 

Woke up at 5am to catch a 9:30am flight. It takes so long to get out of London's city center, and the airports are so far away, that it takes 90 minutes by bus to reach the airport.

Unfortunately, Alfred and I had read our tickets wrong, or were just too tired to notice, but we went to Stansted instead of Gatwick (London has three airports, the third and largest being Heathrow). They hit us with a 35.00GBP fee to tranfer us to a flight from Stansted. That one really smart...as if London wasn't expensive enough already.

We arrived in Edinburgh airport, and also quite a ways from the city center. Our hostel, while very highly rated, was also a ways from the city centre, but in a diferent direction than the airport. The lady at the information booth was very nice in providing directions, but when we got on the bus, the driver was a complete jackass who barely wanted to acknowledge we were talking to him. He ended up dropping us off at the wrong stop, and it was an hour's hike with our heavy packs to get to the hostel. And I'd thought our days of lugging those packs around were over...

By the time we checked into the Globetrotter Inn, dropped our stuff off, and caught a bus into the city, it was 4pm, and the sun was well on its way down. This time of year, we only get daylight until about 7pm, and there wasn't much to do in Edinburgh at night except catch a show, go clubbing, or (most likely) go drinking. Most attractions start closing around 5pm, so we really didn't have time to do much.


The National Gallery, right next to the Royal Mile (High Street).


LEFT: Edinburgh Castle, sitting at the top of the Royal Mile. Our visitor guides recommended no fewer than 3 hours to really take it in, but we didn't have nearly so much time, so we decided to pass it up. I wouldn't get a chance to go back because I was leaving for the tour of the Highlands the next day, but Alfred can.
RIGHT: Walking down the Royal Mile.


The new Parliament building. There was an outcry from the public because, if I remember correctly, this new building had cost them 500,000,000GBP. That's right, folks, this is a $1 billion building.

One of the only activities I knew of, aside from the Edinburgh Castle, was to climb Arthur's Seat. Arthur's Seat is a small mountain/large hill right outside Edinburgh. It is very literally right outside Edinburgh; you walk to the end of the Royal Mile, and the foot of the hill is right there.


Tackling Arthur's Seat.

We never made it to the top, but not for lack of will or effort. We took the first path up that we saw, but it only went halfway up the hill; apparently, the path to the very top was around the back, and considerably longer. We would have gone back and done it, but by the time we realized this, the sun was well-set and daylight was nearly gone. It was also bloody cold and our ankles were crazy sore.

Still, the views even halfway up the hill were great.

SEE YOU, SPACE COWBOY...   ~ 9:48 PM    (0) comments