Swallowing Your Pride

So yesterday Whitney and I decided to swallow our pride and take a tour, the ultimate touristy thing to do, and it was wonderful!! We took a tour of the Wicklow Mountains and Glendalough. It was just absolutely refreshing to get out into the countryside and mountains. We first stopped in the Dublin mountains and got a view of the city, it looked much larger from the mountains and very spread out, but our view included the suburbs as well, so i guess that makes sense. Then along the way we stopped at a lake, i cant remember the name, but it was beautiful, in the backgroup there were mountains and the water was a dark color. Actually it was a popular place for Oscar Wilde to come and write, he would get tea at the tea shop next to the lake and would find inspiration alonside the lake and mountains. I can see why, it was beautiful! Then we continued along and saw Sally Gap, which is where parts of Braveheart were filmed, many of the battle scenes were filmed there. That was also fun, The Guinness estate was breathtaking as well, it is owned by the Guinness family and the Lough Tay is nicknamed "Guinness Lake" because of the dark color of the water and the sandy beach at the head that looks like a guinness setteling. We were at the top of the mountain and could look down upon all of this. On of the most recent guests here was Michael Jackson, interesting. We then stopped in the village Laragh for lunch and had a very expensive Irish meal. I had Guinness Stew which was good, but not worth its "tourist money trap". It started to snow while we were there which was much more enjoyable than rain, so I am glad that it was so cold, plus it has been a while since I have seen snow, it was rather refreshing. Our last stop was at Glendalough, which is a monastic settlement. It was founded by St. Kevin in the 6th centure, it was amazing how old these buildings were and how well preserved they were. It was woulderful walking through the old grave yard and reading the dates of when these people were buried here and really feeling the antiquity of this place. It was quite overwhelming. Our favorite part of the day was probably the walk from Glendalough to the upper and lower lakes, only a 20 min. walk, but it was wonderful to be out walking in the valley with the mountains surrounding us. We both became overjoyed with the surroundings, especially the moss, it was so green and made everything else look so alive. Our ride back to Dublin was also wonderful, we stopped along the way at an old lead mine to see where much of the film Reign of Fire was filmed, it made me think of some friends I had watched that movie with. When we got back to Dublin we wanted to take it easy so we went to get coffee and then went to the cinema for a movie. We saw the movie Becoming Jane, which is about the early life of Jane Austen. I am a huge fan of hers, so of course I loved it Even though they took huge a huge liberty with the truth of her life and cheesily did incorporate many of her most beloved characters into the film, I would recommend it to any Jane Austen fan, but i am not sure if it is playing in the states yet. We left the next morning for Galway and our train ride was great, we both got to catch up on some much needed reading and sleep. Galway is great, such a wonderful town. It is much smaller than Dublin, but I think that I prefer it. It was quite dreary today, but we walked around for a little while and decided to duck into this cute little coffee shop, it was a great place to sit and write for hours. We absolutely loved it. We then walked around the Bay for a while. It actually has been a relaxing day, very laid back. Oh and for dinner we were walking around and did not find anything that struck our appeal, and of all places we ended up at McDonalds. We felt so lame, but at the same time were curious as to what a McDonalds in another country was like. Well they only give you one packet of ketchup, and you then pay.15 euro for each after that, she was most kind though and gave me 3 and whitney 2. How funny! Tomorrow we were hoping to go to the Aran Islands, but because of the weather we are taking a bus tour around the area to the south of galway including the Cliffs of Moher. Hopefully the rain will hold of somewhat so we can enjoy it.

Snow, Snow, Snow

The last day we spent in London was fantastic!! It was my birthday, which was really quite fun to celebrate in London. The weather turned out to be wonderful, and we were able to enjoy the outdoors. We ended up not being able to see The Lion King because there were not that many tickets left, and the day was just too beautiful to not be outside. We went to Covent Gardens, which I found out after much looking, there is no garden. It was actually really funny and a nice suprise that it was a market. It kind of reminded my of the markets in charleston, but better!! There was a food festival call the Tastes of Ireland, a continuation of the celebration of St. Patrick's day. There were tons of vendors and Whitney and I ended up getting roasted vegetable bruchetta which was fantastic and so delicious. There were musicians on different corners playing irish music, it was so fun! Then we decided to go over to Russel Square before heading to the British museum. I love the little parks everywhere, it is such a peaceful spot to sit and take a break from the city. We had a little cup of coffee and some chocolate biscuits, and oranges before we headed to the museum. The museum was amazing!! Absolutely wondeful, the egyptian section was so interesting, they had tons of mosaics that were actually from the Roman period, they were so beautiful and well preserved. Oh and they had the Rosetta stone, which has been important in the process of decryption of hieroglyphics. |Oh and the Roman and Greek sections were also amazing, they had preserved wall paintings from Pompeii which were beautiful, though they were just fragments, you can imgaine the way these artists used these paintings for several different purposes whether it be asthetics or to create the illusion of more space. So interesting! My absolute favorite room was the 19th centure Victorian European room. It was filled with jewelry and tiles. This jewelry was so much more than just that, it was truly art. The amount of detail in each pin, or necklace was fascinating. I could just stare for hours and hours, wishing that these beautiful pieces of art could still be worn today! The tiles as well were so vibrant and intricate, all in all the museum was wonderful, we spent 3 hours there and really only saw about half. We didn't make it to the National Gallery, but its something to go back to London for. We took a flight this morning at 630, which means we were at the airport at 4. it has been such a long day! But we arrived in Dublin with snow falling arounds, it was beautiful, though it didnt stick and turned into rain 20 min later. It was nice having snow falling around you while you get off the plane. Dublin is great though!! So much smaller that London, definitely a different feel. Trinity is beautiful, the artictecture is so great!! Oh and St Steven's Green was beautiful!! The weather was quite cloudy and it was bitterly cold!! I mean freezing, I was wearing almost all my warm clothes and was still cold, but it was still nice to walk around. Merrion Square is also beautiful, it is another park. It is more closed in and doesn't feel open but you really feel like you aren't in the city when you are in there. Whitney and I ate lunch at a Pub and had fish and chips, it was actually delicious. We washed it down with Hard cider, mmmm. Havent tried Guiness yet, maby tomorrow. Dublin is great being so small, we saw pretty much everything today and decided to go to the south of the city tomorrow to the wicklow mountains and the countryside. It will be really refreshing to get out of the city and be in the country! Ireland is really beautiful so far and i cant wait to see more of it. Its just so beautiful and green!!

I'm in London!!

So, I got into london early on Friday morning. After I was finished in the airport (which took about 2 and half hours, it took forever to go through customs) I took a train to Victoria station to meet Whitney. Before I got on the train, though, i had to take a tram to get to the south terminal, a girl who was also waiting asked another woman where she could buy a ticket for the gatwick express, which was the train i was taking. long story short, i introduced myself because i was also traveling alone and thought it would be fun to take the ride together, it ended up she is from stone mountain which is ten minutes from where i live and we had several mutual friends. I love small world stories!! Anyway that day Whitney, Patricia, and I decided to get some lunch and take it to a park. It was such a beautiful day, even though it was cloudy. We ended up spending a lot of time in Hyde Park, which is huge. It was wonderful, the parks here are beautiful. The trees here are amazingly beautiful. I love that I get to see them when the leaves are gone and you can see the gnarly branches, they are so knotty, i love love love it!! After the park we went shopping in the Piccadilly section of town and basically window shopped which was fun. We decided to make a quick stop at St. Paul's cathedral before getting ready for the theater and i am so so so glad we did. The outside is huge and a pretty building, but when you walk in and turn into the abby your breath is literally taken away. The ceilings were so tall with the most beautiful mosaics in the front of the cathedral on the ceilings. Oh and we just happened to be there during the evensong which was beautiful, it is basically an evening service. The choir was singing kyrie eleison; it was absolutely beautiful and we just watched and took in the beauty for as long as we could. Oh and outside St. Paul's in the square, is where "Feed the Birds" takes place from Mary Poppins. I thought that was really fun!! Later that night we were starving and racing to get to the theater in time, so we stopped at Marks & Spencer Simply Food (which is probably the best healthy food store in the world, america seriously needs these around everywhere!!) and grabbed some sushi to hide and take into the theater. We saw Billy Elliot, which was fantastic! It is a musical, and a majority of the cast is young children and the talent they have is astounding. It was funny and moving all at the same time, i highly recommend it to anyone!! The theater here is amazing! There is so much to see, i love it! We are trying to go see The Lion King on sunday! Today we went and did the typical tourist thing. Went to Big Ben, Parliment, Westminster Abbey. There were so many people!! It was nice to see those things and take pictures, but I would not want to stay there for too long, so we didnt. After seeing those things (it took um, 30 min.) We walked to St. James park which is right around the corner, and it was amazing. Such a beautiful park, with again tons of beautiful trees. Oh and there are yellow daffodils everywhere in all the parks! We had a flapjack and coffee in the park. Flapjacks are amazing, they are like a glorified granola bar, mine had fruit and seeds in it and i'm absolutely in love with them! We heard a marching band going on in the opposite end of the park and tried to find it and were sad when the march had taken a turn and gone the other way. We stumbled into a diplomatic looking area though. There were flags everywhere and lots of gates too. It ended up that we were at Buckingham palace. It took us a while to figure out what it was. There were tons of people around, so we kind of assumed that it was in face buckingham palace, but were not sure because there was nothing there to tell us that it was. Well let me just say this, i was kind of disappointed with the palace, we took a few picture and were off again. Oh and we realized that the march we heard was actually changing of the guards (that would probably be the only things i would want to see, other than that, not really that exciting) But to the right of the palace is another park, which was also huge and beautiful!! we took a rest there and did some wonderful people watching. I enjoy that so much more than the tourist sites. It is suppose to rain tomorrow so we are going to the british museum, and that national gallery, and hopefully The Lion King, and it parts of the day are nice, go to notting hill and holland park. I'm so very excited about spending my birthday doing that !!!!! London is great, but i cant wait for Irealnd!!! It will be amazing as well!