Novembrrrr Travels part 1: Dublin

Helllooooo!
Once again... I have lacked in my blogging but I am here to make amends!

Two weeks ago Alison and I left for Dublin on a Wednesday night! We got super cheap flight with Ryanair but I forgot my boarding pass in my room and got charged a ridiculous amount so that was a big bummer... we are no longer going to fly with Ryainair because as cheap as they are they just find a million other ways to make you pay. The flight was about 45 minutes... the pilot told us we were landing just about as soon as we got up in the sky. The first two nights we got a private room and the last two nights we stayed in a dorm. Alison and I are a little spoiled when it comes to this but the private rooms are usually nicer and obviously quieter. This hostel had beds that were literally like rocks though so it didn't really matter where we were because it was super uncomfortable... anyway.

So Thursday Alison and I were on our own, our friends were coming that night. We did a free tour of Dublin which was really nice because we got to see a lot and learn the history behind some of the things we might not have known otherwise. And, for the rest of the weekend Alison and I took Alex and Zach on the same tour of Dublin we got. Dublin was very pretty and it was sunny which was a plus! We saw Trinity College, Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral and a lot more. It was a very laid back city compared to London and I think I may have liked it better than Edinburgh. There were surprisingly not as many touristy shops as Scotland and the one that they had there was a chain so there were not a thousand on the main road. The tour of Dublin took around four hours... mainly because our guide didn't really know how to walk and seemed to be on drugs or something. After the tour we did our own wandering throughout the city and got some dinner to take back to our hostel.

Christ Church Cathedral

Friday we met up with Alex and Zach to get our Dublin passes. We got free admission to lots of things throughout Dublin and it was well worth it. Unfortunately, it was pouring down rain all day so we got very wet and I didn't have a hat or a hood on my rain slicker, odd. (Hence why I look like a wet dog in all of my photos.) Speaking of photos... I left my camera battery at home this weekend so my pictures are stolen from Alison and Zach. So we headed off to Dublin Castle to go inside of it but unfortunately Dublin was getting a new president so they didn't really want us in the castle so that was a bummer. We then went to both Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral which were both very beautiful. Europe definitely has a lot of churches, we have probably been in at least two if not way more than that in every city. After that we made our way to the Guinness Storehouse. This was actually really cool, I am glad we had the pass though because I am not sure I would have wanted to pay for it. It is very touristy but it took you through the process of making the beer and we got to taste it and then got a free pint on top of the storehouse in the Gravity Bar which was a glass circle that looked out onto all of Dublin. That was pretty neat and at about this time it stopped raining so it was clear!

Alex, Zach, me, and Alison at Guinness

After Guinness we decided to keep with the alcohol and head over to Jameson Distillery. I was excited for this because my dad has a new found love for Jameson. It was a pretty cheesy tour but once again showed the process from start to finish. At the end we all got a free drink, the options were straight Jameson, Jameson and cranberry juice, or Jameson and sprite. I chose the latter and it was actually really delicious. Alex volunteered to be a taste tester and she tasted Jameson, Scotch, and Jack Daniels. She along with a few other people all chose Jameson to be the best. Then we all tried hers and agreed... the other whisk(e)y's were just gross. It was nearing 6 pm and so we headed out to find another one of our friends to go on a pub tour with her but it didn't work out because we were starving and stumbled into this little vegetarian restaurant that just piled food on top of food and was delicious. After dinner the four of us went to a pub that had a thousand beers and sat around and hung out for a while. The pubs were really fun because it was just so casual and low key and people of all ages were there.

Jameson and Sprite

Saturday we met up again with Zach and Alex and a market that had all sorts of goodies. We got pesto hummus, tapenade, and olives with bread for a picnic lunch. Alex and Zach's Dublin pass was good for three days and Alison and mine was just for one so they went off to see some more stuff and Alison and I just explored a bit more. We went into their art gallery but 75% of it was closed for renovation so that didn't take long. We also went back to Trinity to see the long library, the longest library... also I guess in Star Wars, and to see the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is  a really old, beautiful book of the gospels in latin with intricate drawings on the pages. After this we met back up with Alex and Zach for dinner before going on a literary pub crawl. The pub crawl was a lot of fun and our two tour guides knew a lot about the writers and performed skits for us and took us to four different pubs. Alison and I had to catch a 7 am flight so we left shortly after that ended and went back to bed!

I feel like I am selling Dublin short but it really was a lot of fun and a nice city to explore. I definitely want to go back to Ireland though because everyone says that Dublin isn't really Ireland. A future trip.

I will write more later today about Croatia but my fingers are tired and I have to run to campus to turn in a paper!

Ta for now!
Julia

Scouring Scotland (or something cleverer than this title)

Well I am back from Scotland! For a few days now as it were...

Traveling to Scotland was a cinch and really pleasant, no planes, no security, just a lot of riding and looking out at sheep. Fun fact, Scotland has double the amount of sheep than people. Not that surprising and I am sure Wales has a figure similar to that. There are sheep everywhere. Everywhere. Anyway... We got into Glasgow late Wednesday evening and rolled our luggage up a small mountain to our guesthouse. The road that our guesthouse was on was the same road as the Glasgow School of Art which was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh... in case you have not heard of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, as I had not prior to this, he is kind of a big deal in Glasgow. He apparently wandered the world in search of architecture that he enjoyed and ended up making his own because he didn't like anything he saw. Glasgow architecture is very unique and very beautiful but you have to be aware of it. Glasgow is very artsy, lots of galleries which was fun. So back to our guesthouse, it was very cute and we had to navigate through a few doors to get to our room, we had a private with our own bathroom which was extremely convenient. We pretty much crashed until the morning.
Thursday was devoted to exploring Glasgow. We started our day with a hot, freshly cooked Scottish breakfast... delicious. The typical English breakfast includes tea, beans in tomato sauce, tomatoes, eggs, meat (not for me), and toast. The typical Scottish breakfast adds a Scottish scone, which is basically like  a friend potato pancake, but so much better. Alison and I enjoyed this immensely, much better than our Orsa Maggiore lame breakfast.

Scottish breakfast!

After gaining sustenance for the day, also noting that we decided to be super budget friendly this trip and brought many sandwiches and the like, we left and headed down the mountain into town. We were wonderfully located and it didn't take us more than fifteen minutes to get to city centre. It is funny because the city centres are all starting to look super similar and apparently bars in the UK are chains so we saw a lot of the same stuff as we have in Swansea. We wandered to the Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art, but got there a little early so we continued to wander around. It is a really fun city and the biggest city in Scotland. It is fun because Alison and I have gotten so used to navigating cities that it isn't a big deal at all and we are really starting to blend in; we pat ourselves on the shoulder each time someone asks us a question about which bus to take or where something is. GOMA, as it is affectionately called, was neat. I have decided that I really do not get modern art...

This is art... 

But I do like to look at it! We went through this museum pretty quickly, it was pretty small. After this we walked to Glasgow Cathedral. It was really beautiful but they were doing construction on the outside. The inside was stunning, a lot of stained glass and some of the original parts of the building.

Behind the cathedral was the necropolis, which was just a bit eery on Halloween weekend. Across from it was St. Mungo (Harry Potter...) Museum of Religious Art and Life which I was excited for but it was nothing overly spectacular. They did have a nice exhibit of all the religions ceremonies and beliefs for the big five religions. After this we ate our sack lunches in a park which was nice. The leaves in Swansea haven't really changed, just dropped. However, in Scotland the leaves were perfect for fall! Orange and reds and it was wonderful.
After this we tried to make our way to another top sight but we ended up in the Royal Hospital for a nice tour and decided to go to a different place. Next we went to Kelvingrove Gallery which was huge and filled with lots of different things, both art and history. I have also decided that I like French art the best and they had a nice selection of famous artists works. They also had Salvador Dali's painting of Christ of Saint John of the Cross which was huge and a little intense. After making our way through the museum we were planning to go to another gallery but decided instead to do some more wandering through the city. We ended our evening in a little cafe in another gallery close to our accommodation where we had delicious mediterranean food, falafel!

George Square early morning!

The next day we woke up early to get to our starting point for the tour! The tour was leaving from the TI at 8:10 am taking us north into the Highlands of Scotland. There is not so much to say for this part, mostly I will just show you how beautiful it was, and the pictures do not do it justice. Lots of lochs (lakes), glens (valleys), and bens (mountains).

Small loch

Loch Linnhe 

Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness

We traveled close to 350 miles in one day, we got back around 7 pm. It was a really wonderful day, we had a small group and a really good guide. This is hard to compare to Swansea and our sea, my mom asked me if this was prettier, and it is just too different to compare. Both are equally pretty! When we got back we took the 50 minute train to Edinburgh. Edinburgh at night was very pretty and once again our hostel was in a perfect location. This hostel was our first experience in a dorm with ten other people. We have been lucky enough to have private rooms... it was an experience surely. They left the light on and were loud, but it was something that we needed to do. It was also nearly 100 degrees. In the morning we had cereal, toast and fruit provided by the hostel and left for the day.

Down the Royal Mile

Edinburgh Castle

We started at their little farmers market on the castle terrace and nearly blew away walking up the giant hill to the castle. It was a little chilly this weekend, low to mid fifties, but it was clear compared to the rain originally predicted. We wandered down the royal mile, which is in fact a Scot's mile which is longer than an English mile, a small way to rebel. It goes from the castle to Holyrood Palace, where the Queen stays when she visits. There were more tourist shops along this road and in Edinburgh than any other place we have been which was really interesting... lots of kilts, tartan scarves, and whiskey (with an E!). There were also a lot of attractions of the royal mile such as the writers museums, Giles Cathedral, the parliament etc. We stopped along the way to go into museums and had tea and cakes in Elephant House where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter which was pretty neat. The royal mile took a while to do and we did all the offshoots and that took up most of our day. We nearly tried haggis but I pansied out, even though it was the vegetarian option. For those of you who don't know how disgusting haggis is, the national dish of Scotland, let me inform you. They take out the lining of the sheeps stomach and clean it out and then fill the stomach lining with chopped up organs from the sheep and add onions, spices and oatmeal, cook it and eat it... Ew. They also sell canned haggis for those who want to torture people back home. We were too nice to do that. So, you are welcome.

It is now getting dark here around 5 pm which really puts a damper on things... we wandered around our hostel a bit and then retired for the evening to the comfy bean bags in our hostel.

Edinburgh!

Sunday we did an art gallery before catching the eight hour train ride home... All in all it was a really fun weekend that was very low stress and was beautiful. I would definitely live in Edinburgh and they are in the process of constructing an underground system which I am sure will be really convenient. Everyone should make their way to Scotland at some point.

This week has been pretty uneventful... school work and the likes... although, as my mother said it is like I am at camp. I have four hours of class here a week, all on Monday. Starting in a week I will have five as we are starting a seminar for one of my classes. School here is ridiculous and slightly frustrating. I have a lot of free time which is nice to hang out with friends and plan trips but it is definitely not something I was expecting upon arriving in the UK.

The majority of our friends... 29 of them... left for Amsterdam this evening so it is just my roommates, Alison, Maggie, and me the rest of the weekend. Alison and I are going to London tomorrow to see some museums and do a little shopping. We are just going for the day so it should be nice. Saturday is Bonfire night (formally Guy Fawkes Day). There are supposed to be lots of bonfires on the beach so we are hoping to join one of those! It should be a nice weekend! Next week we are headed to Dublin! There are seven of us going in total but two of the girls are meeting us there and are friends of our friend.

More on that in a few weeks then! This blog is more of a novel... sorry about that... Please feel free to skip around, I won't know.

Cheers! Julia