Lots of stuff

Alright, I know I've missed a lot of time here. Apologies and all that - I went traveling and then got slammed with mid-terms. I'm going to give you a brief run down of the past two weeks; pictures are here. Even better, I will do it in reverse. This way, when you get bored, you will have read the most recent bits.

Birthday

I've made it to the ripe old age of 22. Some of the IES kids are taking me out to dinner tonight - we're going to get some Indian food. It will be very yummy.

This Last Weekend

I've been sick since Thursday. I still don't quite have a voice, but I'm feeling much better. I did make it out to grab coffee and hang out with my new Irish friend Adam, and he very nicely didn't comment on my lack of voice.

This Last Week

I wrote something like 8,000 words worth of essay last week. You can probably tell why I didn't do much else.

Northern Ireland

We took the train from Dublin to Belfast on March 1. The whole group ate lunch in a pub across from the Europa Hotel, better known as the most blown up building in Belfast. Between 1970 and 1994, it was bombed more than 30 times. That's because international journalists almost exclusively stayed at the Europa, and therefore it was an excellent place to attract media attention.

We took the Black Cab tour of Belfast. These tours take people to both Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods, focusing on the murals and graffiti supporting each side. We even saw some of the peace walls.

That evening, we took a bus to Portrush, up on the northern coast in County Antrim. The area was amazingly gorgeous. IES arranged for very nice bed and breakfasts for all of us and treated us to dinner. We walked along the beach to get to the restaurant, where I got delicious fresh salmon.

On Friday, I got up early and got breakfast. The B&B's specialty was an Ulster Fry: Bacon, sausage, fried egg, potato cake, fried tomato and fried soda bread. Seriously. I went down and walked on the beach a little while everyone else got ready. We visited the Giant's Causeway. We walked around for quite a while; it was cold and windy but very fun. We were on our own for the afternoon and evening, and just explored Portrush.

On Saturday, we found out we were going to get to see Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge, which had just opened the day before. No one had expected the weather to be good enough, so it was a great surprise. We hurried through visiting Dunluce Castle and spent about an hour on the small island the bridge connects to. The bridge was built by salmon fishermen and it's quite an experience just walking across the bridge.

We left from there, taking a bus back to Belfast and a train back to Dublin.

Wales and England

Bright and early Feb. 24, I caught a bus to the Dublin airport, so that I could wait for my (delayed) flight to Cardiff. About two hours late, at 11 a.m. I got into Cardiff International Airport, caught a bus to Cardiff City Centre and met up with Aleks, a friend from TU.

We explored Cardiff, spending the most time at Cardiff Castle (they have peacocks!). We also went to the National Museum of Wales, where there is some really amazing sculpture, including Rodin's "The Lovers." Unfortunately, a very high percentage of Cardiff's sites are plaques saying something along the lines of "Something very important used to be here. We bulldozed it and built a car park. Have a nice day."

Because of the Carling Cup (a very important soccer game) the only place we could get to stay was in Pen coed (pronounced pen-coth), about 16 miles outside of Cardiff. Also in Pen coed: a pub connected to the hotel and a McDonald's. Dinner was at the pub, breakfast at McDonald's. During dinner we got to watch Ireland beat England soundly and Wales lose horribly to Italy. Both were Six Nations rugby games, which I'm getting very into (this weekend I watched three more of the games).

In the morning, we got back into Cardiff proper and it was a madhouse! Most of London came down for the Carling Cup. Aleks and I decided to get the heck out of there, and left for Oxford (where he's studying) early. It was a nice relaxing train ride.

Aleks had classes and such, so on Monday I explored Oxford on my own. Oxford Castle was kind of a wash; it has a Krispy Kreme inside. But there are a ton of bookstores in Oxford, so I was still happy. Furthermore, there are loads of literary landmarks: the Eagle and Child (where J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis used to drink together), Christ Church (once the home of Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll and now where parts of Harry Potter are filmed), and, of course, the various locations associated with the Oxford English Dictionary. Also, at the Pitt Rivers Museum, I saw a 99 pence leaflet entitled "Shrunken Heads," as well as several shrunken heads.

Tuesday, I just relaxed and read. Wednesday was spent in travel, along with a little more exploration of Cardiff. Train, train, walking, bus, airplane, bus.