you must hate me

here you all must think that because I am home I will have more time to post pictures.

ha!

actually I just moved back up to phoenix and didn't get my computer hooked up until today. so sorry. especially because I will be seeing some of you this weekend! yay!

ok, I am way behind in pictures so we are just going to post them like crazy now. starting with the ones I had burned on a disc (and nearly lost) in Dublin. these go way back, starting with my day trip to Rochester and Leeds Castle which I think I had showed you already. anyhoo...

since then I saw Windsor Palace




they have a changing of the guard as well! only it is much easier to see







then I went to Regent's park in london





and took some nice close up pictures that I like for Screensavers.








Tower of London!!

our beefeater guide ken. he lives at the tower! how cool is he?!






ok, that finishes England pictures, because we went to the tower of london on our last day. next comes Ireland!

picture sweet home

ah...

I am home!! woo woo! seems like ages since I was last at home. but, the one thing better than my bed - my wonderful, unbroken bed - for you anyway, is the fact that pictures can return!!! woo woo!

so the flight home was great! it went so fast. and get this...I saw Greenland! yeah, I know!





and today I got to show my parents all the souvenirs I bought. I marvel at myself at how I got it all home.



ok, now you may very well be looking at your gift. if I give you something you see in this picture...act surprised anyway!


3 jackets
7 flags
9 shotglasses
9 candy bars
6 keychains
3 teas
4 bookmarks
13 t-shirts
6 soaps
1 whisky-filled flask (shhh)
3 pairs of earrings
1 swatch
11 postcards
2 hats
1 wooden jigsaw puzzle
2 brass rubbings
2 pint glasses
3 nessies
3 scarves
5 rocks
3 seashells
1 ruler with a list of all the english rulers
3 jams
1 toy
various other items

1 completely worthwhile life experience!

last day

ok, you all have been commenting about how sad you are about this blog ending. it wont end. at least not very soon.

I promise to post tons and tons of pictures when I get home. don't forget you haven't seen any of Ireland yet. so don't stop reading this blog today, keep on checking it.

so yesterday ended up being a little different than I had expected. my friend Jennifer and I and another girl, Meghan, went on an adventure to find all the cows in Edinburgh! yes, cows! they are an art exhibit of painted life-size cow statues and they are strewn all over the city. it really was an incredibly fun day, and a great way to see the entire city. of course, we knew this was a hard core mission because there are 94 cows, and it took us three hours to see the first one. and it was stolen! haha.

http://edinburgh.cowparade.com/

seriously, story of this trip. it was an hour bus ride out to the first cow...it had been stolen days earlier...and then we stopped for lunch and took the hour long bus ride back to the city. and that was just the first cow.

then we hit our stride and were seeing cows all over the place. at one point we were on a bus getting to our next site, and we were laughing and talking (not loudly) and this older man in the front of the bus just turned around and flipped us off. it was so random! then he turned around a minute later and said 'just shut up' and flipped us off again! a woman sitting near us told us not to pay any attention to him because he was drunk, but unfortunately the damage had been done. for the most part on this trip everyone we have met has been very nice. but, everyone I have talked to has been verbally accosted by one scotsman or another. I don't know what it is, because if you ask me, the scots are very nice. but we have each had an incident. it isn't even always because we are american (which we were told to expect) but they just feel a need to put us in our place. london was snobby, ireland was religious and someone gave a couple of our girls a hard time for saying 'oh my god' all the time. and scotland has been mean. overall, that is not the impression I get, but that is what our few unpleasant incidents have been. interesting.

we didnt get finished for the day until 11pm and we had seen 83 cows! 7 are missing in action (lost, stolen, etc) and we are seeing the last 11 today...well the last one is at the airport, so we will find it tomorrow!!

I also plan to finally visit Rosalind Chapel today, after planning to do it for days, and I still have last minute shopping. sheesh! and I have to pack! and I have to go have a good time in a pub with my friends while I am still legal and and and...

I can't wait to come home!

see you all real soon!

1,2,3...Smile!

oh man, long weekend! and so much to tell you about. mostly all you need to know is that I wasted £30. yeah, its a lot of money and I am pissed about it. and it is all my professor's fault.

Monday was an all day field trip to Glencoe, the Highlands and the Isle of Skye. sounded like a good trip. the problem was that it didn't go to Loch Ness. and all the Loch Ness tours went through Glencoe and the Highlands. but Chelsey and I felt that Loch Ness was important enough to see that we booked a day trip through Scotline tours to see Glencoe and Loch Ness on Saturday. it was fun and I got lots of pictures. Scotland is gorgeous (see pictures below)

cut to monday, and who comes to pick us up? Scotline tours. two buses, one of them with the same tour guide I had on Saturday. (naturally I picked the other bus, because I wanted to hear from a new guide. bad idea. I switched buses halfway through because the guide was so bad. not good at giving background of the areas we were going in, talked too much about his personal life, and would not shut up! My mom has told me in the past that I do not need to feel the need to fill every moment with the sound of my voice. his mother never told him that)
needless to say I ended up on the exact same tour! we even made a detour to Loch Ness. it really pissed me off, because the only reason I went on the day trip on saturday was that I had been assured we would not see the loch on this trip. so I am out the £30 it cost me to go on the trip the first time. I could not convince my professor that she had falsely advertised and owed me money.

and no loch ness monster sighting. sigh.

oh well, I have awesome pictures and saw so much countryside that I think in the long run it was probably worth it, but I dont yet feel that way.

friday we were going to go to Stirling castle but got to the bus station too late, so we went back to the brass rubbings center. super fun! then that night we went through Mary King's Close. it is an underground tour of a couple streets of Edinburgh that were covered over with another building in the 1700s. it was around during the plague and everything. very cool. kinda scary.
close = a side street (not much bigger than an alley) coming off of the high street (main street) in Edinburgh

Sunday, Chelsey and I did the hop on hop off tour of edinburgh and saw all the sights of the town (which we had mostly already seen from walking around but the tickets cost £8 and our professor reimburses us £10, so...you know, kinda willing to do it if I get paid £2)

ok, enough chat about the boring old weekend, which is now over, meaning I come home oh so soon! lets get to pictures!

check them out!

http://asu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2060248&l=e5211&id=10003217

I don't want to meet you Mr Poltergeist, sir.

yesterday was a lot of fun.

I had my last day of class! woo woo!

then, my friend Ali and I went to the Brass Rubbings Center. it was incredibly hard to find because we had no idea what it was called, and when googling it, didnt think of anything so simple as Brass Rubbings Center.
it was super cool though! we thought we were going to be given a piece of paper, a piece of brass, and then head into a cemetary or something, but no! we go into this converted church and there are just brass pictures on blocks, and you pick one and take it to the counter and they cover it with paper and then you have about 10 colors to choose from to rub with. pewter, silver, gold. it was a lot of fun!!
in fact, so much fun we missed meeting our friends at a pub for the US v Ghana game (we lost) and so much fun we plan to go back tomorrow!

after coloring time was over, I went to the grocery store, and then came home and it was time for us to go on a ghost tour.
I had conveniently forgotten about that. I hate being scared. but, Edinburgh is supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in the world, and the tour we were going on stops by a cemetary that is inhabited by the best documented supernatural phenomenon in the world.

the MacKenzie Poltergeist!!!! dun dun dun!

193 people on the tour have fainted and woken up with bruising on their necks. the poltergeist has gone from a level 1 to a level 4 ghost, meaning that he went from brushing up against people, to attacking them. people have been carried up the walls, inhabited by the poltergeist, and attacked.

so the tour guide says.

I didn't believe any of it. but my roommate woke up today with bruises on her arm!! dun dun dun! from the poltergeist? or from me squeezing her arm too tightly? hahaha. the latter of course (she doesnt really have bruises)

unfortunately, and oh so surprisingly, no poltergeist activity on our tour. aw shucks! but I was scared enough of him attacking me, that I was more than fine that he didn't attack anyone.

not that he is real of course.

did I mention we did this tour at 10 pm? silly girls. I woke up a 4am today and couldnt get back to sleep until I talked myself down that no poltergeist was going to attack me. sheesh, what a girl.

I am all better now.

perceptions

my dad posted a comment that he had this idea of ireland and the UK having dirt lanes between the fields, rock walls and houses made out of the same stone, and glassless windows.
not far off! everything here is old. so the houses are made out of the same rock as the walls, the dirt lanes are paved, but still no bigger (fun when you are in a bus and there is oncoming traffic, let me tell you), and they have discovered glass. the old stories and pictures that we have all seen of england and Ireland that give us those perceptions, were based on the contemporary sights of the time...and they are still here! so it is still true! buildings are never knocked down, never uninhabited. in Dublin we visited the oldest pub in town, and it was built in 1198...and has been a pub the entire time!!!! Guinness signing his 9,000 year lease for his brewery is not a unthinkable idea here.
seriously, Old Edinburgh is midieval and the buildings are still in use, and don't look like they have ever been cleaned. all the modern stuff we are used to just look so out of place in these settings. driving through the countryside I could totally believe it was 1800, except for the fact that I am seeing the countryside from a bus! haha.
a guy on the trip told me that he had to remind himself before he came on the trip, that London would not still be cobblestoned with horse and buggies all around. I totally share the sentiment. Old Edinburgh is still cobblestoned, but no horses. Europe is very surreal.

but it's a wet, freezing kind of cold

school again. last day of that class though! and it was a fun day because everyone was performing scenes from the Shakespeare plays we have been reading.
today I have my last day of school! the rest of this trip is gravy...almost. I have to write a paper on the field trip we go on on monday. easy.

so, yesterday taught me why I live in Arizona. we had a group field trip to Edinburgh Castle (I know! what?! a castle, what a concept. seriously, they are everywhere, and sadly, losing their novelty) if you can call it that, I didn't really see much Castliness, so I feel it was more of a fort.
anyhoo, the point of the story is that it was cold! cold and WINDY! as in, walking a straight line was impossible, holding an umbrella would lift me off the ground, I felt like a mime walking but not moving WINDY! gale force winds. kinda fun actually. until the rain came at you sideways.
then - oh it gets better - we had about two and a half hours between the castle and the literary pub tour we had to go on to find a place to eat and hang out. too. much. time. we found a pub, and sat in it, but when we were done eating they came with the check, and we just didn't feel like they really wanted us to hang out there. so we left, and it was raining. and COLD. and we found an alley to sit in (unfortunately for an hour) waiting for it to be acceptable to go to the pub with the tour in it.
jeans, turtleneck, shirt, jacket, windbreaker and it was cold! four layers of clothing and it was cold. and then we had the pub tour, which was a lot of walking between pubs, standing outside of pubs, and a little actual being in pubs. freezing. also, it was a literary tour, so there were two actors guiding the tour and they were giving us a history of scottish literature, and reciting poetry. I am sure they were very good. I only understood every 6th word they said, but I am sure it was coherent to someone. it became a game to see which words you could understand. it isnt an accent, it is a dialect. I understand now how the chinese can move around china and not understand one another.

I was talking to one of the actors as we walked to one of the pubs. he didn't know much about Arizona (kind of odd, most people I have talked to have heard of it and call it the desert state - our reputation goes far and wide) he asked if it is humid. and I got really excited cuz I got to say "no, it is a dry heat"

point of the story: I love arizona

the Camera Obscura... but I am seeing fine

class. really, truly, gets in the way of..life. not getting out of class until 12:45, having to check email, and then eat makes it so my sightseeing day cannot start until around 3pm. sheesh.

and then it is cold and windy and rainy...nothing to see. actually, it just gives me an excuse to go inside!

yesterday I was very successful finding my jacket, and a few other trinkets - of course. but it was cold and rainy, so I decided to go to the one attraction I really wanted to see. the Camera Obscura.

built in 1853 by a female optrician (that's right! a girl! the UK is so advanced with the whole women are awesome thing) the Camera Obscura is just that, a camera! lucky for me and my £5 entrance fee there was more than that to see, but it is really cool.
you climb five flights of stairs to get to the roof, where you can take 360 degree pictures of Edinburgh, then you go into the dark room with the camera. everyone sits around this 2 1/2' diameter, white, concave, wooden table (enough adjectives for ya?) and the camera (aka a mirror at a 45 degree angle) on the roof is projected down three lenses and shines on the table. this was really really cool, because you got the 360 view of edinburgh and it was a live picture, so you could see people walking down the street and lights flashing! and then the guide took a piece of paper and said we could have fun with the camera. she put the paper under a couple people walking down the street and lifted it up - so cool, cuz it was like lifting the people up - and then she swatted it down! haha, it was like camera voodoo! then she folded the paper and set it up on the table like a bridge and the little people would walk over it, and it really looked like they were having to go up hill. I don't know if I can adequately explain how that worked, but that was me trying.
after the camera, you go through the other floors and it is basically an optical illusion museum! cool eh? Dad and Greg would love this place. one room was all fun mirrors, and 3D stuff. one mirror was concave and if you stuck your hand in it, a 3D image of your hand popped back out at you. you could shake your own hand!! soo freakin' awesome! there was a hologram room to, even some moving picture ones. oh! one of the holograms was a 3D microscope, and get this - you could put your eye up to it and see a magnified picture of a microchip inside!!!!!!
OMG it was soooo cool! for real! you could look inside the holographic microscope. that is just about the coolest thing I have seen on this trip.

today I am visiting Edinburgh Castle and doing a literary pub tour. half our group did it yesterday and said the pub crawl was long and freezing. so I, of course, am nothing but upbeat waiting for it. Friday, I hope to go to Stirling Castle, and this weekend I want to go to Roselind Chapel (from da vinci code) and do the scotch whiskey tour. apparently there is a barrel ride to explain how whiskey is made, and then...free sample! monday we have a class trip to the Highlands, Rob Roy country, and the Isle of Skye. and tuesday, Loch Ness is my destination. and then...wednesday is my last day! wow! time flies when you have stuff planned.

also, if any of you have a specific gift you are really wanting me to get you, tell me! I try to be awesome and just know, but sometimes I don't. so don't assume I am aware of what you want, and don't be afraid to ask me to bring you something. I am doing awesome on my budget and as much as I complain, packing will not be a big deal. plus, I love shopping! especially for other people.

also, grandma has told me our family tartan is Campbell. yeah...there are four different Campbell tartans. I am not about to buy four different plaid somethings, so if we have a better idea of which Campbell we are, then I will find a magnet or scarf or something.

9 days to go....but who is counting?

my ranting about stuff closing early has led some of you to think I am living in backwardsville. not quite.
there are cell phones everywhere (although many of them seem cheap and the ringtones are all really lame and generic). there are ipods everywhere! for real, no one wants to sit on the tube or bus and have to actually listen to 'sounds of the other passengers'. as dad would like to know, there are plenty of telephone poles all over the place. I have had to consciously try to take photos without them messing up my shots. heck, Dublin had a tramline through town. Edinburgh has the train station run right through the main park...lovely, let me tell you.
all the main streets have posh stores to shop at, with merchandise I couldn't afford even if I did have a good exchange rate. I don't know how the people here afford it either. they are more cosmopolitan in the food they sell at the store, from fresh bread, to indian cuisine, to pastries. and everyplace I have stayed at has had Dell computers. although, to be fair, Dell has major plants based in Dublin. as do intel and hewlett packard. (the Irish economy is booming because of the tech market. as is the scottish)

also, I have discovered that my camera will work on this computer, the lab just doesnt want you to. so I could lose computer privileges by downloading my pics. I actually dont think for a second that they enforce that unless I were to download something bad or software or something. but my next dilemma is the little amount of time I have on the computers. I am not sure I can get many pictures on, because I can't waste away my days at the computer. (I could easily waste away my nights in London, because everything closed) I have to actually go out and see Edinburgh if you all want pictures.

but! fear not! for I will definitely get some up here, and I will post a ton of pictures when I get home. not only will I have tripto posts, but I will have my photobucket account completely set up, and you can view All of my photos...all 1,000 or so of them. fun times for sure.

I am off to go find my Scotland jacket. I have already bought a couple shirts. I think that brings my personal total of t-shirts to 8, although I have bought a couple for other people, so it is more like ten. this is hilarious when you realize I came to england with a total of 10 shirts. haha...I rationalize my new wardrobe by realizing that I can probably get my mom to make me a t-shirt quilt when I get done wearing my shirts. (unfortunately, knowing that makes me want more shirts! oh the conundrum!) there is a strong likelihood that a couple of the shirts I brought will get to stay on permanent vacation in Scotland.

I may be under your thumb, but my country isn't under England's! ...ooh, burn!

first things first

Happy 27th Birthday Greg!

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

on to posting

life sucks! ok, that is completely untrue because I am in freakin Scotland people! but, computerwise, life sucks harder than Ireland.
I know, you are all excited to hear.

1) computer lab completely closed all weekend. this coming weekend will be awful
2) lab only open from 9am-4:45pm weekdays. don't even get me started.
3)not allowed to connect any outside media such as ipods, or cameras (no pictures people, sorry)
4)I am not able to disable the popup blocker. this is the worst because it means I can't use AIM!!!! seriously. kill me now. (for you special people that I do talk to online, we will just have to use gmail chat. so all is not lost, we will just have to have latenight conversations on your end)

other than the horrible computer situation, Scotland is pretty cool.
my flight in was luckily uneventful, we flew from Dublin to London to Edinburgh, and it felt like all day. it is nothing compared to my day of flying to come home, but I am so excited to come home that I will be excited for that flight. we got settled into our flats. I still have my own room. and my roomie Alyssa and I used our bus pass and went into town. we basically just rode the bus until we were too hungry. we got off and found a 'pizza, fish, and chicken shop' and got some fish and chips. I almost got a burger and then I looked at the food, and I am pretty sure their idea of a burger is deepfried. because everything in there was battered and deepfried. I dont want a deepfried burger. gross. the fish was good though.
then we went next door to a pub and watched Ghana kick some country's butt! and everything is so cheap here! it is awesome! our professors warned us to save our money and buy stuff in Scotland, but you just don't understand until you get here and everything is cheaper! I think I will actually get to eat out some more than I have been.
and they have Strongbow here - because it is the UK! - Ireland had Bulmer's, which is Magners in the US and I will definitely look for it when I get home. but strongbow, it is just yummy...and cheap! after the game, my roomie and I started to head home and we realized we still aren't in a 24 hour town. it was 7 pm and most of the buses has stopped running at 6:30...on a saturday! sheesh! we did get on our right bus, but it makes the weekends suck more because we can't plan day trips because we have no way to get to the pick up places because the buses don't run early enough. I haven't quite figured out how I am going to fill up my weekend yet, nothing seems available.
later saturday night a group of us and one of our professors found the common room on campus and watched the US v Italy game. the italians cry everytime they get hurt. but they also scored the only US goal too. (which technically means the US has yet to score in the World Cup). one of the Italians kicked the ball the wrong way and made a goal against his own team. so the game ended 1 to 1. thanks Italy!

yesterday we took the bus all the way to the city center, and it was crazy cool. Edinburgh is possibly the oldest city I have been in. for one thing, the main road has all these posh stores on one side of the street, and then a rugged park and CASTLE on the other side! and on the side with the castle is old town. haha, old town for real. just looking at the buildings I thought I was in 16th century Scotland. old has a whole different meaning for these people.

also we got rain for the first time in 3 weeks. but it wasn't as windy cold. I have discovered that there is more to do in Edinburgh than there was in Dublin, but there is less to do in Scotland than there was in Ireland. they don't quite have the number of day tours I have been used to. my roomies and I really want to go to Loch Ness but any day trip there includes Glencoe and the Highlands, both of which we are going to see on a group field trip next monday. we are a little miffed at our professor for planning a day trip that goes right by Loch Ness but not to it. why would you do that?! Loch Ness is the one place you have to see in Scotland!!! sheesh.
we are looking into trains to a town near the Loch and then maybe a bus or something the rest of the way. there is a chance my roomie Ali and I will jump in. I may wade in. we will have to see how cold it is that day.

I come home next week! that is too exciting to really think about!

Pub Scene

last night my roomies and I went to a pub and watched our first world cup game! I know, I have been dragging my feet to do it. but it going on all month, and I have all of scotland...
anyhoo, we got to the pub and Sweden v Paraguay was just about to start. it was an awesome game! we decided to root for Sweden because they had more fans in the stands. you know, since the world cup is in Germany...and Paraguay is on a different continent. nobody scored for the first 85 minutes of the game! talk about exhausting. I am so out of shape that watching grown men running back and forth for 90 minutes left me winded. Sweden had so many missed goals, and the Paraguayan goalie was amazing! he saved so many shots, and was jumping and diving. soccer is such a rough sport I am shocked that every player didnt leave with a leg torn off. seriously, there should be limbs strewn all over the field. these guys are vicious.

after the game we were getting up to leave the pub when we heard music coming from another room in the bar. we got into that room and found traditional irish music!! I had a tour guide tell me that true irish music is started up spontaneously and in between songs the musicians drink and make jokes.
I found it! I found real Irish music! we got into the room and there were already 15 musicians sitting around a table! multiple fiddlers, guitarists, flutists, and three accordian players! in the time we were there, about five more musicians just walked in with their instruments and pulled up barstools and joined in the songs.
each song was started by one musician and as soon as the others recognized it they all joined in. it was amazing!
one Irish guy near us, told us that this was very unusual to have so many musicians together. most pubs would get maybe 4 or 5 people playing music, and he said that it wasn't really done much in Dublin either. so we hit the jackpot! I took a 15 second movie on my camera to record some of the music. apparently it happens every thursday night. yeah, I am feeling pretty cool right now.

today is Bloomsday!!

what? what do you mean you have no idea what Bloomsday is? it is only one of the biggest literary celebrations in the world. sheesh. ok, actually it is only celebrated in Dublin. but...
every June 16th Dublin has daylong festivities centered around James Joyce's book Ulysses, commonly described as 'a day in the life of an ordinary man.' the novel, a mere unreadable 800 pages, takes place on june 16th, 1904. it follows a couple characters actually, and it loosely based on the Odyssey. loosely. so far all the Irish people I have talked to have said that it is a time to see some freaks, and all of them have attempted the book, but none have read it through. hahaha

I am going to an evening performance of some key scenes in the book. it should be a nice way to end my time in Dublin. today is my last day here.

so, some housekeeping issues: I may or (more likely) may not be able to post tomorrow, or sunday. I don't know what time we get settled in Edinburgh tomorrow, and I don't know if they have computer labs open on sundays. hopefully I will have access pretty quickly though.

have a grand weekend all!

shoppingpalooza!

I am told that I can have another checked bag on the trip home from scotland. I should not have this information, because now, I will shop accordingly...and for a piece of luggage

today was a much needed lazy day. I did laundry. I went to the computer lab. I took the bus into town and visited the National Association for Deaf People. that was cool. they have an irish sign language! three or four of their alphabet signs are different from American Sign Language. I will have to email my sign teacher, she will think that is cool.
I also walked down O'Connell street (AKA the city center) and hit up the gift shops. for - get this - some gifts!! I know, crazy aint it? don't worry, most of the gifts were for me. but I made out like a bandit, and bought mostly small stuff. a couple t-shirts...I may be ditching some of the shirts I brought in lieu of the ones I bought (see how that rhymed? he he)
I am in a much better mood today. my roomies and I are headed out to a pub tonight to finally catch some world cup action! I don't know who's playing, I don't care who wins, but I am going to have fun cheering them on!

PS on the bus ride home I was talking to one of my professors, and this old Irish man came and sat next to me because he heard me mention Arizona. he told me he had visited 'the canyon' and on his way to flagstaff they got caught in the rain and were drenched. they dried their clothes in a bathroom and ten minutes later the sun was out again. he thought the canyon was beautiful, and he had been to Phoenix and Tucson as well. he told me he had been to all 48 states. I said he had to get up to Alaska, and he said it was too cold (it is the same weather here as it would be there right now, but ok) and he said that when he was in school there were only 48 states.

I just can't argue with logic like that!

his name was Harry. his daughter lives in San Francisco. cute old man

the coolest rock sculpture this side of the sun!

so today, now that I am calm enough to think about what I actually did today, I went to Newgrange. basically it is the site of a 5000 year old neolithic tomb. it was one of the first astronomical observatories in the world and was a tomb as well. stone age men built this round mound 500 years before the pyramids and the doorway lines up perfectly with the winter solstice.

our bus tour was guided by this wonderful woman who owns the tour company and she basically was a human irish history machine. plus, I had just spent my last three class periods learning irish history, so it was cool to know and recognize all the names and events she was mentioning.

we started at the Hill of Tara, the old center of Irish government. and the fabled land of King Arthur and the likes. I know! coolness eh? it is also just a grassy area with mounds all over it. there used to be buildings on the mounds.
then we headed up to the site called Newgrange. there are two other tomb/temple/observatories called Knowth and Dowth (rhymes with south) and Knowth is being excavated, Dowth hasn't been touched, and Newgrange has been excavated. they only let in 100,000 visitors a year to help conserve the mound. our tour guaranteed us entrance into the tomb, so that was cool. we get there and to go in it, you have to hold any bags you have down by your knees, and you duck and walk in and the passageway narrows at some points and you have to squeeze in sideways and it is a lot of fun. above the entrance to the mound is a 'roofhole' basically a hole above the door and that is where the sun on the solstice shines in a illuminates the tomb inside. by the time you have walked down the passage and into the tomb, that roof hole is level with your feet!! you walk uphill into the tomb and don't even know it! crazy cool!

our tourguide pointed out that the tomb had been left untouched since it was built until around 1700 when the owner of the land realized it was a building. then it was unsupervised until the 1880s when it was handed over to the government. they have no idea how much evidence was taken away by visitors in that time, but there is graffiti in there from the Victorians. those vagabonds!! (sadly, it was kinda cool to be in the tomb and see someone from 1824 had carved their name and the date in the rock) seems we love vandalizing at any timeperiod. especially the victorians. no respect I tell ya

so then when we were all in the tomb they shut off the lights and it was pitch black inside. then our guide did a demonstration of what the sun on the solstice would look like and turned on some light on the floor to simulate it. it was sooooo cool! there is a large quartz alter in the back that the sun would have hit 5,000 years ago and it would have lit the tomb up!

did I mention it is a tomb because they found cremated remains inside? they did.

the mound on the outside is a good 30 yards in diameter, but the inside is only 6 meters high by 6 meters diameter. it is much smaller than it looks.
it was a nice short day trip and it was really cool to visit one of the oldest buildings in history!

Found!

holy fecking god! that was a tense 15 minutes.

I found my disc. it was still in the computer I used last night. I thought I had checked all the computers, but this was one in the corner with a guy sitting at it. but I was desperate so i asked him to check his disc drive and there it was!!!

my precious precious life on disc. how I love thee.

(this means photos may be on their way folks!) right now I am moving them all from the disc to photobucket, so I cant lose them again.

scary.

LOST!

oh my god I am about to cry!! I have lost my CD that I had just burned of my last 250 photos!! and I already erased the memory card!!
and these are the super cool cliffs of moher and glendalough photos.

seriously about to cry.

holding out hope that the info desk has the disc.

ack! hold back the tears!

I can't even concentrate right now. Newgrange was great. I will tell you about it later.

the museum, the post office, and the gaol

I went to jail today. oops, I mean gaol.

I had class today, and we are learning about the history of ireland. this was the last class period I have in ireland and luckily it was the last day of irish history. but I have to write a paper about my thoughts on Irish independence after visiting the Killmainham Gaol, the General Post Office, and the Road to Independence exhibit at the National Museum.

this should be prefaced.

at the end of april, I went to a presentation on campus about the Easter Uprising of 1916 because my professor said we didn't have to write one of our papers for the trip if we went. and she enticed us with the promise of Irish music and dancing. I took Brian to it and everything. ugh. boring up the wazoo! it was a very monotonous lecture on the history of Ireland's fight for independence starting with the first failed rebellion and ending with one of the last failed rebellions in 1916. I swear, they are worse than the French when it comes to winning wars.

so in class today we discussed the uprising in 1916 again. I then went to Killmainham Gaol, where the leaders of the uprising were imprisoned and executed. I visited the General Post Office which was their headquarters during the rebellion (and which was burned down during the fighting. there are still bullet holes from it in the columns outside the building - way cool!) and the Road to Independence, based on the exhibit, began and ended with the 1916 rebellion.

needless to say, I don't freakin' care about this rebellion anymore! it wasn't even successful! it wasn't even the last failed rebellion! but all the leaders have become martyrs for the cause. the irish love when countrymen die for no reason except to die for Ireland.

I will admit the last letters these men wrote to their families were touching. and gaols are supercool, especially when you spell it that way. but it took me my entire day to go to these three sites. I have never been on or waited for so many buses in my life. wastes away the time that is for sure.

I guess what I am saying is that today was not the best day. but I did get all my field trips out of the way, so now I can write that paper (the paper I don't have to write is one for scotland. go figure).
I think perhaps all my constant travelling is catching up with me and I am just tired and ready to be home. I don't want to live out of a suitcase anymore. or fill my day with the sights and sounds of foreign-ness. I want to just sit around all day and do nothing. but I just don't have the time.
tomorrow should be fun. I am going to Newgrange to see a neolithic tomb built before the pyramids.

and I got my pictures burned to a disc so I can clear my memory card and take another 250 pictures! woo woo! I doubt that will last me through Scotland, but hopefully I will get to download again!

Good Day for a Dip in the Sea, the Irish Sea that is

ha! two posts in one day! I have to make up for lost time you know.

so my roomies and I did indeed go to Dublin Bay today (in the town of Dun Laoghaire - pronounced dun leery - go figure, right?!), and I did indeed go in the water.

it wasn't that bad once my legs went numb. almost felt warm.

almost.

but now I can, and do, say: I have been in the Irish Sea! no one else on my trip can say that. none of you can say that. ha, so there. history made.

you should know that I am not crazy though. there were a ton of people and their kids at the beach today. I am apparently more like the Irish than not. woo woo!

now for a hot shower and a nap. toodles!

Cliffs, Valleys, Glens, Mountains, Rocks, and Fire! It doesnt get any better!

holy cow. two days without a computer and I thought I was going to go insane. I like updating tripto as much as you all love reading it, so this has been hard for me. really hard.
saturday my roomies and I hopped on a train and went to Limerick. yeah! cool innit? once we got to Limerick we hopped a tour bus and drove out on the western coast and visited Bunratty Castle (aka tourist trap) and saw Galway bay...from the bus. no stopping for us. luckily once we got to the Cliffs of Moher we did get to stop and go out on the cliffs and click as many photos as we wanted. you have all seen the photos of Irelands cliffed coast - that is where I was! it wasn't the best tour I have taken, but it got me to the places I wanted to see. we also stopped at the Burren, translated it means rocky place and it was really cool. it was a barren landscape that I never would have expected in Ireland. apparently it used to be a glacier and when that melted it left limestone, which is susceptable to water, so now it is this rocky area with large cracks and holes all around. it was really fun.
we didn't get home until around 11pm though, which is why there was no post about it.
also, since I haven't been able to download pictures here, my memory card filled up!! eek I know! I had a back up (with only 32 pictures) so now I am going to have to find a kodak center and have my memory card burned to a disc. sucky.

Sunday, we were up bright and early to catch a tour bus in Dublin to take us through Wicklow. it has mountains, Glendalough, Peat bogs, and amazing scenery. however, we silly Americans are just too illogical. we figured the buses would be running on Sunday, the way they run everyday. no one told us they didn't. and we figured they would have. yeah...no. get to the bus stop and the first bus is at 9:15. we have to be at our tour bus at 8:50. Feck! (that is the irish way to say it. hee hee) so we had to call a cab, which also didn't want to come, and take it to our bus.
this tour was amazing! the guide was very Irish, and told us like it was. he pointed out cheap pubs, told us stuff about the Irish (factoid: Southern Ireland has a pop. 4,000,000. Dublin has 8,000,000 visitors each year!! factoid: 80% of Irish own their homes. only 6% live in 'social and affordable' housing. aka they rent.) and was all around more enjoyable. it was an exciting adventure because on our way out of Dublin we had to take three different detours. 1) the main street was closed for a film crew. 2) there was a car accident 3) we had to backtrack and pick up two more people. so we were on Plan D before we left town! this becomes important later in the story.
so off we go on this 25 person bus tour in seats that are uncomfortably close together. but we drive out to Dublin Bay and get to get out and walk on the beach and feel the water. warm enough, my friends and I think, that we are going to attempt swimming in the bay today! cuz, seriously, who else can say they did that!? after that we head to Glendalough. possibly the most beautiful place I had visited on this trip. glen (valley) da (two) lough (loch = lake) means glen between two lakes so my pictures have mountains, valleys, lakes and green! in every one of them. it is also the site of one of the oldest christian monasteries in the world! 1198 or somesuch year. so we saw the old graveyard and the really old Irish round tower (think rapunzel) and of course I have amazing pictures that you just don't get to see.
after Glendalough we drove up on top of the Wicklow Mountains! WOW! we stopped at a high point and got out for pictures, and in just that one hour difference it replaced Glendalough as the prettiest place I had ever seen! I know! you could see for miles and it looked down on a valley that is owned by the Guinness Family.
as we kept driving we got into the imfamous Irish Peat Bog. looks a bit like a tundra desert. (in fact a lot of this tour reminded me of vacations with my parents) our guide told us that it was extremely unstable and if we were to walk out on it we would sink! however, the bog is amazing at preserving stuff, and they have found bodies from hundreds of years ago in the bog that are perfectly intact. skin and everything. you can tell how the person died. crazy cool! Peat is used as a fuel source in rural areas in Ireland. they call it turf. they literally burn bricks of ground as fuel! crazy!
this leads us to why the detours are important. while we were on the bog, we could see a wild fire in the distance. our guide said they had been fighting fires out here for a week and a half and the problem is that the ground is on fire, but it burns underground. so it is virtually impossible to put out. it reminds me of when the everlast firelog factory burned down in Tucson. what are you going to do?! they are made to stay on fire forever! haha. same with the bog. it is an effective fuel source because it burns for so long.
anyhoo, our guide tells us that we are headed straight for the fire because we are on the only road back to Dublin. great. so we get to the wild fire and it is mostly just smokey, we only saw a few flames. but it is literally burning on the side of the road. the only thing keeping it from being on the other side of the road is the road! so our driver speeds up to get through the fire...yeah we drive through the smoke. and halfway in we hit a road closed blockade. that doesnt stop our driver, because this is the only road to Dublin, so he drives over the cones and we get further in (mind you, the windows are open and our bus is smokey and ash is coming in) and then there are actual firefighters along the road fighting the fire and there are fire trucks in the road. our driver tries to get us through but the fire marshal is having none of it. and makes us drive in reverse out of the fire.
there was a little side road that met our tiny road like an on ramp. meaning that it is an impossible turn for our bus. we had to pull forward (towards a huge drop off) and then back up (towards fire and burning) and then turn sharply to make this turn.
we get onto this other road and our driver is like 'ok folks we are on Plan E because I have no idea where we are or where this road leads.'
can I just say, it was awesome!! you know, except for the near death part. what an adventure! our driver was excellent and I found out later he was worried that we would run into some low bridge or something that the bus couldnt get through and we would have to turn around again and go back through Glendalough and it would be hours before we got home. turns out we see more pretty countryside, end up in some small town named Ennisbrook or something and are able to get on the Motorway back to Dublin only about a half hour later than we should have.
and by then the buses were running and we were able to catch a ride back home by 6 pm. only to discover that my account of my escapades has to wait another day because it is Sunday and the computer lab isn't open! how I love the American way and 24 hour service. I miss it very much.

Dublin is Doublin'

Dublin is an awesome city. I am really really having a good time here. we took the hop on (clap clap) hop off (clap clap...oops, wrong song) bus today, and the bus drivers are the tour guides, and they are all really funny. I am telling you, there is humor infused in this country. I think they have to lighten the mood because the great patriotic thing to say here is 'be willing to die for Ireland' instead of 'be willing to live for Ireland'. haha. it is the land of martyrs. we rode through the entire tour, hopping off at Christchurch, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Guiness factory, and Trinity college.

I have some nice pictures of both cathedrals. both of them are protestant. this is ironic 1) because Dublin is mostly Catholic, 2) because St Patrick was Catholic. the driver said that they didnt have any catholic cathedrals because no archbishop has ever asked the pope to have one here. apparently the archbishop could ask to have christchurch revoked, so it could be catholic, but they just haven't gotten around to it.

the Guiness Factory was really fun too. it didnt smell all hoppy like most breweries. and they had a nice self-guided tour to tell you how they make it. Arthur Guiness founded the company back in 1759 and he signed a 9000 year lease for the site of the brewery! that is confidence right there. so far so good for the company. Benjamin Guiness paid for the renovation of St Patrick's Cathedral and in general Guiness has been good to Dublin. the driver told us jokingly that they drink 3 million pints of guiness a week in Dublin, not because they like it, but because they feel they owe the Guiness family back for all they have done. it is a civic duty! we got a sample, and a free pint of Guiness at the factory. it is an incredibly smooth beer. but, woe alas, I do not like it. I wish I did. it would be really cool to drink guiness in ireland, but I just can't do it. the Jameson Distillery is here too, and they have whisky tasters. you get picked from the audience to try a bunch of different whiskies, but, I don't think I am going to that. we will see if I have time.

after the factory we went back to the bus and got off at trinity college to see the Book of Kells. it was a fun exhibit because it told all about how illuminated manuscripts were made, and they had blown up photos of the intricate pictures in the book. even the designs of the first letters of every paragraph were amazing and so complex. must have taken forever to make the book. there were four scribes and three illustrators working on it when it was created. I guess if you are a monk, you dont really have much else to fill your time with, so why not make beautiful copies of the bible?

after the Book of Kells you are led into the Long Room in the Trinity Library. Oh. My. God. this room is unbelievable! not only is it, indeed long, but it is two stories of old old old leatherbound books! with ladders everywhere to reach the upper most books. it is classic! it is quintessential library. coolest thing ever. (wow, after typing that I realized I am the biggest nerd ever. geez, I think libraries are cool. ugh)

as I have said before, one of the best things about Dublin is that all the souvenir shops have the same price for everything. the tourism center actually even has things for less. thank you tourism center. I love you. any souvenirs I buy in Ireland are coming from that place. so much cool stuff the only thing stopping me from buying everything is my oh so limited space in my suitcase. I did however, buy a guiness t-shirt. I know, I am awesome!

the weather has been amazing here! the sun doesnt feel like it is burning off your skin, and there is always a cool breeze. I have heard there may be storms coming in soon though. like tomorrow. and it will bring us back to temperatures in the 60s, down from the 70s of this last week. I know you are all pitying me for sure. haha.
it is also weird being so northern on the globe. the sun doesn't set until around 10:30 here. and in scotland it will be even later. the bad part is that with all this extra daylight, the stores and restaurants don't stay open any later. it doesn't seem like anything is ever open. they are big into business hours here, and then everything shuts down.

the world cup starts tonight. our bus driver told us that Ireland was really disappointed not to make it into the world cup, and it hurts them deeply that they may have to root for England. he told us that Ireland has adopted the Ivory Coast as its team because their flag is just like the Irish flag, except the order of the colors are reversed. I think that is an excellent reason to cheer on a team. I can't wait to go to a pub this week and watch the games. England plays tomorrow.

I wish I could get pictures up for you all, but the computers available to me just wont have any of that. depressing I know. if I can get pictures in Scotland then you will all be innundated with ireland pictures for my first couple days in Edinburgh. haha. or I may just edit these past entries and insert pictures. I will keep you posted.

I am doing a day trip to Galway tomorrow, and get home late. so probably no post tomorrow. sorry. Sunday I do a day tour of the countryside and we get to see mountains and lakes and it is the area that Braveheart and King Arthur were shot. so, getting some breathtaking photos there...not that you will get to see them though. silly computers.

Dublin v London

ways Dublin is better*:
-nicer people
-happier accents
-one price for stamps. letters, postcards - same price
-tourist bureau
-clean showers
-clean private bedrooms
-yummy food
-awesome gift shops

ways London is better*:
-the underground!
-easier to get around
-better organization
-program coordinators, and orientation to give us info about how to get around town
-easier to find things
-everything in english
-computer lab open later
-amazing parks

*this list may be edited upon further review