Green Phoenix Rising

10:29 AM, 8/30/06

So while posting the blogs I put up yesterday, I met a couple of American girls who were working on the computer next to me. And what a pair of cool chicks they were. Now something I’ve noticed about traveling is that the vast majority of young Americans are all really cool. I only met a few when I was in New Zealand and Australia (“hey” to any of you reading this!), but they were all just amazing people. Read the rest of this entry »

1:49 PM, 8/28/06

I love Edinburgh. From its old buildings to its friendly people to its affordable prices (finally!), the place is great. Of course my affable disposition toward the city might also have to do with the fact that I finally got to sleep in. Yes, and to 10:00 no less! Granted, that used to be long before I’d wake up back in the states—but that fact aside, it felt goood. Read the rest of this entry »

12:17 PM, 8/28/06

I got up early Monday morning and, leaving a sleeping Jacob, headed for the train that would take me north to Belfast. Only, after I got all the way across town to the station, I discovered that the departure station was the place from which I’d left. I did an about face and fortunately, the train departure times I’d found were wrong so I had no problem catching the train. I did have a problem because the train departed late, though. The train left Dublin roughly twenty minutes late and guess what, I missed the Ferry in Belfast by fifteen minutes. Awesome. I actually made it fifteen minutes before the ferry to Scotland departed, but they want you there half an hour early. The next ferry didn’t depart for about 5 hours, so I had 4 hours to kill. Oh the fun. I might have had some time to check out the city, but I didn’t have much interest in Belfast and decided to play it safe. I didn’t want to miss the next ferry so instead, I wandered off toward the edge of the city where I found a nice coffee shop to relax in. I’d started reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods when I departed for Europe and over the course of the train ride and coffee shop time, I made quite a bit of progress in the book. The coffee shop I went to actually served a half decent mocha. I’ve found that few places abroad actually have good mochas. And I’m not really a fan of lattes (which are everywhere…) Anyway, I caught the next ferry without any trouble. I’d considered that I might end up seeing Jacob on this ferry because I suggested that he might want to just leave Dublin later and catch the later ferry, but he didn’t show up. I don’t even know yet whether he’s left Dublin. I guess I’ll know when he shows up here in Edinburgh.

The ferry was huge and had like, three restaurants and two bars on it. I was in desperate need of a real meal (not bread, fruit, and water), so I had some fish and chips and a beer. Okay, so you’re thinking…that’s a real meal? Well it was. The fish was huge, almost as if they’d merely caught a tuna and deep fried the whole damn thing. And it was goood. There was a storm in the distance during the sea voyage, and I saw some huge bolts of chain lightning arcing across the seascape. The Belfast bay area was really quite beautiful and I wouldn’t have minded exploring it, if I’d had the time. The rest of my connections passed fairly easily. I caught a train in Stranaer, the port city in Scotland, and from there headed to Glasgow. I’d originally thought to stay in Glasgow for the night, but I had decided to head on to Edinburgh. The train ride was exquisite. I was riding through the Scottish countryside right at sunset. Scotland was filled with rolling hills, babbling brooks, green knolls, and all the best of literary landscapes. That is to say, everything you’ve ever read in books and poetry about transcendent landscapes, places that ensnare all the senses, it’s true about Scotland. And that was just on the train ride! Eventually darkness descended and I retreated back to my book, which I continued to make progress in. I switched trains at Glasgow, another easy transition, and then finished the journey to Edinburgh without difficulty.

I arrived in Edinburgh about 11:00 at night. Now this posed a slight problem, seeing as I was without my travel guide in a city I knew very little about. I scrounged around for a map and found a information center that directed me to the nearest hostels. I was looking for a particular hostel, Castle on the Rock, or some such, which Duncan had recommended. The information lady knew of it and directed me there…only I got lost. I wandered around a bit until I got my bearings. The gist of it was that I headed up up up. Edinburgh is perched on hills, meaning I climbed a good hundred steps before I came to the high street. It was a beautiful city at night, the cathedrals and gothic buildings seemed to glow of their own volition. The streets were fairly empty, but I felt very safe. One problem I’d already discovered is that I couldn’t understand the Scottish—at all. I mean, if they talked slow, I could get the gist of it, but whenever anyone started talking fast, especially the older folks, it became something like: ehg, mil neyor camn jez cal culnd. Yeah, basically a foreign language. I made it to the hostel and fortunately, they had vacancies. This hotel was great. They had a laundry service, two really big lounges with great features, a nice kitchen, etc. I got settled and then went to the lounge to finish American Gods; I was only about 50 pages from the end. Everyone in the hostel seemed real friendly and acquainted, though after I finished my book, I settled back into bad. A whole day of traveling really tires one out, and I was excited to get out and explore Edinburgh the next day, for it really was the picture of beauty.

7:31 AM, 8/28/06

When we last left off, Greg was enjoying a peaceful, restful night of sleep. And that it was, except for the fact that we had to be up by about 8 AM, which is probably nearly the latest we’ve slept in for the whole vacation. As Jacob and I got up, so too did Cody, the Canadian we met. He expressed interest in joining us on our bus tour into the country that day, and we were glad to have him. Read the rest of this entry »

9:41, 8/27/06

After visiting the Cliffs of Moher, we returned to Galway only to find that there was no accommodation in the hostel we had hoped to stay at. It was fully booked when we left for the cliffs and there were no cancellations unfortunately. We sought out another hostel, a little further from the city. The facilities were small and kind of dirty, but it had a nice communal feel. Read the rest of this entry »

10:07 PM, 8/25/06

We finished the trip to Galway without incident, although it took much longer to get there than we expected. Galway is a bustling city on the west coast of Ireland with a strong sense of identity. The Irishness was immediately apparent upon arrival. Read the rest of this entry »

7:38 AM, 8/24/06

What a day of travel. Yesterday we traveled by train, bus, and ferry over a period of about twelve hours. Needlessly to say, we were quite relieved when we stepped off the ferry in Ireland. We took a train to Cardiff, the capital of Wales. Read the rest of this entry »

9:54 AM, 8/23/06

Yesterday was one of those crazy, do-everything days. I found myself up at 6:30 AM again, which allowed me to get some reading and riding done—and more importantly, have the showers to myself. It’s a lot easier to relax in the early hours of the morning without other people running all over and getting ready for the day. The Canadian siblings, Matt and Nickala joined me over breakfast, and it turned out that they wanted to do some of the same stuff as Jacob and me. So I went upstairs and roused Jacob from his semi-comatosed state and we took to the streets of London, heading for the Camden Market. One of the Aussie girls had suggested it to us and Nickala also wanted to check it out. It took about half an hour to walk the distance to Camden and there were some cool stores along the way. Unfortunately, when we got there, the whole market was closed. Now we’d left early and arrived about 10:30, yet it turned out that the market didn’t even open until around 11:30. Feeling a bit put-off, we walked back toward the hostel and decided to do the “tourist thing” and take a double-decker bus tour around London. The tour took us around to all the major sights, albeit at a sometimes slow pace (traffic in central London is not very conducive to speedy travel. The bus tour was set up so you could hop on and off at the various sights. We popped off at Westminster Abbey, which cost ℑ10 to get into. Seriously. Everything in London seems reasonably priced until you remember it’s two times the cost in U.S. dollars. Thus $10.00 would be reasonable—ℑ10, unreasonable. In the British Museum, a 20 oz. bottle of coke was ℑ2. Let’s consider, $2.00….reasonable—ℑ2, bloody insane! Anyway, we explored around the abbey instead of going in and then we hopped back on the bus…only to get the wrong bus and end up heading back in the direction we’d come from. Fortunately it wasn’t difficult to switch back to the correct path and we soon arrived at Hyde Park. The park was not nearly so impressive as Sydney’s Royal Botanical Garden, but it was quite nice. We thought they had free lawn chairs sitting out in front of the pond and so the four of us all took a seat to relax. Well guess what, they weren’t free. This sneaky-looking guy slid over to where we were sitting and before he could even say anything we were just like, “these aren’t free, are they?” To which he replied “pound-fifty.” Disgruntled, we wandered off toward the rest of the park. I persuaded everyone to throw around a Frisbee for a while, but that was fairly short-lived. We returned to a bus stop and hopped back on the tour bus, only this time we got off at the wrong stop. This posed for a slight delay, but soon we were back near our hostel. The four of us had dinner at a nearby restaurant called Mables. Contrary to reputation, the British food was actually pretty good. The lager I had was even better! It definitely beat eating a pre-cooked grocery store chicken and an apple for dinner (see previous post). Our group kind of dissolved after we returned to the hostel. Matt disappeared upstairs, having slated his monstrous appetite. (He was a big guy, 6’5” or so.) And Jacob headed upstairs to shower and subsequently pass out. Nickala and I went to a nearby Internet café where we split half an hour of internet time. After returning, she went up to find Matt and I met up with Jacob and we both got pints at the Generator’s bar. We’d walked quite a few miles over the course of the day so we decided to call it an early night at around 10:30.

We awoke early the next morning for our day of departure from London. I was hoping to catch Matt and Nickala before they left for their flight to the European mainland, but they had apparently already done. Jacob and I did some planning over breakfast, trying to figure out the best way to get to Ireland. We wanted to get as far west into Ireland as possible. We headed to King’s Cross train station, only to find out we needed the Paddington station. Now let me tell you, the train stations here in Britain are really something. They’re like some kind of living, breathing organism, and if you’re not careful, you’ll get swallowed up and caught in the appendix or something. And no one likes to be caught in an appendix. In the train stations here, you’re surrounded by people, all moving, and it’s almost as if each person has some kind of innate “queuing” sixth sense that allows them to intuitively know where everything is and where all people are in relation to them. (Not that this stops people from cutting in front of you.) People move in and out of lines better than the finest road systems. The only thing that would make things go any smoother would be if each person had blinkers on their ears. We found our way around with quite a bit of ease and are now on our train heading to Cardiff. It’s my first time on a train going any long distance and I can verily say—says are neither special nor extraordinary. They’re useful, but otherwise they’re just spacious airplanes…without wings…or a jet engine….except those ones in Japan, I think they have jet engines. Anyway, I’m rambling. Time to take a nap.

1:30 AM, 8/22/06

A relatively uneventful first day, but certainly an interesting second night. The room is saturated in smoke; it’s like one of those old westerns where a “thick layer of smoke hangs heavy in the room.” I suppose I’ve got to get accustomed to it sooner or later and it may as well be now. Read the rest of this entry »

9:15 AM, 8/21/06

After my first night at The Generator hostel, I can safely say that I appear to have escaped the fiend known as jetlag. Now mind you, I woke up at 6:30AM, a feat I’ve not managed in quite some time, yet considering the 8 hour time difference, I feel that’s pretty reasonable. I had a quick bite to eat and then began exploring some of the surrounding city. Unfortunately my only map of London at this time is the little one in my Lonely Planet Western Europe, a book of about 750 pages. Needless to say, I wasn’t really inclined to carry that around as I tried to navigate the city. So now I’m waiting for Jacob to arrive. I’m hoping he’ll get here reasonably early so we’ll have some time to sightsee—I’ll give him a couple hours before I leave. We can always catch up later. That said, for now I wait.