Day 11 of 59

Good bye Belgium, hello Amsterdam. We're sitting on a train again, this time the journey is about 3.5 hours. Train rides are a really good time to write blog entries, since there's not much else to do, although reading the guide books about our next destination seems to be taking its spot as the solid runner-up. I've seen a bunch of hot air balloons on this train ride, not really sure why, maybe gas prices here are so high that those actually become affordable modes of transport...maybe not... it is worth noting that when we left London, gas(petrol) was almost £1/liter--$8/gallon. Crazy.

I took in all the normal Belgium things: waffles, chocolate, fries(frites), beer, and as Eli mentioned ealier, the steamed mussels. I'm only really impressed by the beer, although the waffle I did have was pretty yummy, it still wasn't anything spectalular. The beer however was quite good, especially, the unfiltered wit(wheat) we got directly from the brewery. You can also buy beer out of vending machines here, Neato!

Today we paid yet another admission fee €5/pp for the Bruges clock tower, 366 steps later, we were at the top, hands over our ears listening to the tower play its hourly symphony. I was absolutely amazed by the mechinacs of the clock, so many gears and pulleys, everything working together to keep time AND play music. Simply amazing.

Thats it for now.



WTF:

Brussels, Mussels and Bruges

Brussels is pretty interesting and there are few people who speak English. I had to order my lunch in French/Spanish...and I only know a few words of French. I did learn how to say, "I'd like" in French. That helps when ordering.

We went back to the hostel to take a nap and we were knocked out until 11pm....hhahah we were extremely tired from the travel and walking with our bags for so long. We did make it out that night for some Belgium beer. Two drinks and I was intoxicated.

Our hostel was like a crappy motel and breakfast was included. It was the typical, nasty juice and coffee and burnt toast. We called and made a reservation for a B&B in Bruges....breakfast should be better. So here I sit on a train on the way to Bruges...trying to learn some French.

Here’s the hostel:



Here's more pics...



Ok so we made it to Bruges and we are staying at a nice bed and breakfast. This city is so cute. The highlights today were sampling chocolate around the city. We did a tour of the De Halve Maan Brewery Tour...great beer. I figured out what job Peter would have had in his past life. The siphon person. Responsible for sucking the beer to get it started and also drinking the leftover beer that spills out or is left over (the guide had a better description). We went to the Church of Our Lady (has a sculpture by Michelangelo inside), did a river tour and went out to dinner and tried some local cuisine. I have to say Peter is breaking out of his "food box" he tried two of my mussels (he did gag) and then had a meal that had cream sauce. Woo hoo. Next I will get him to eat pizza...hhaha yeah right. We went out for more beers and got a bit silly. Now we are back at the B&B. Tomorrow we will check out a few more museums and maybe check out this church that is famous for housing the blood of Christ and then we will head out to Amsterdam. This place is very romantic and I would love to come back.



Eli

Brussels via London

We made it to the mainland! No more planes, now our main transportation will be on the trains. The flight over from London was quick, about an hour, then the only problem was that it was at 6:40am, and the airport was an hour away from where we were staying. Which turns into getting up at 3:00am... yuck... anyways, we hopped in the cab this morning and drove for like 30 minutes through London before we actually hit an interstate (which he drove 110 mph on the way...scary). I found this very strange, the city is GIANT, and it consists of just a bunch of neighborhoods that look very similar. We arrived in Brussels at 8:45am, caught a bus to the city, then a metro to our hostel. Check in was as 3pm, so, we put our luggage in storage room, and hit the city.

Lots of very beautiful architecture, and really ancient churches. This is the first city where we've seen alot of homeless people and street beggers, here, they don't actually make those fancy signs on cardboard, they just sit with their hands out, hoping for some spare change.

I'm almost out of time, so this post must end now... i had to pay €1.50 for 30 minutes of internet.

We're off to Bruges tommorow. ttfn.



WTF:

BBC and Scary Graveyards

I had an appointment at 2:30pm at the BBC. I almost dressed up, but then realized we are talking about radio after all. Good thing I didn't because they were all casual like I expected.

The BBC building was quite intimidating. It was built in the 20's by an American architect named Irving. There are roughly 2,000 people that work there. Peter tagged along and we joined a lady by the name of Kelly Shepard who is the managing editor of BBC World Service Future Media. She gave us the breakdown and then we met the editors, the design team, and the programmers and operations people. It was very informative and nice to know they have the same issues we have at CBS radio.

The next stop was with Bill Reis in the news division. He took us in to watch a live broadcast of the 3pm news and like all good news shows, nothing went right, but we got to see the chaos behind the perfect broadcast on-air.

We stopped by Robbie's studio and then visited a medieval church across the street. It was spooky....something right out of a horror movie. In fact the church is recorded in the Doomsday book in (1086). The church was a gift to someone in the year of 940....damn that's old. I have included a few pics.

We stuffed ourselves at dinner and then went back to the flat to watch Robbie try and walk his cat on a leash. Tonight, or rather tomorrow at 4am we leave for Brussels. London was a blast and Robbie and Elisa were awesome. I'm trying to talk them into visiting us in Seattle.

I don't think we will be sleeping tonight....hahhahah.



E

London - Round 2

For reference throughout this post: £1 ≈ $2

I don't know how to describe this city...but I shall try. It's huge, expensive, old, and the people talk funny. The underground costs about £6 a day to ride everywhere, which seems expensive ya? Not really. If you drive into town, you have to pay the congestion charge which is £8, don't forgot about the horrendous traffic. So many people get their scooters, vespas, bikes, etc and weave through traffic in whats called "filtering". Food is outrageously expensive, although, beer is actually still quite reasonable at about £2-£2.50 for a pint.

Today we went down to see a few more of the big tourist attractions. The British Library, which was quite interesting, as it houses many many old books, manuscripts, and even some symphonies. This is also the home of a few versions of the Magna Carta. Which interesting enough is about to be sold at auction. See this link for info, note the seller, LOL. Then we traveled towards the River Thames for views of a bunch of the bridges crossing over it. The London Bridge, which we found is not what most non-british people imagine it is, its actually quite a bland bridge. What most people think of is actually the Tower Bridge. Anyways, we checked out a few of the things around the river, got a view of the London Tower, the n had lunch in a old London pub just north of the London Bridge. After lunch we were off to the Tate Modern which was turned into a museum from an old power station in 2000.

We have one more day here in London, then it's off to Belgium, for really good beer and really old architecture.

Here are some pics to keep your from falling asleep reading this. The first one is actually on the plane from Dublin to London, if you look close you can see a pot of gold at the bottom of that rainbow in the middle. The picture with the lines is inside the Tate Modern. I was trying to sneak it in, but I still got busted and told "no photo". No big deal, I had already taken the shot!

Mind the gap (phrase said when stepping from the train to the platform)

Arrived in London finally... and I got stuck in the Tube/Underground door (like the subway) and people had to pull me in. Welcome to London!

Robbie and Elisa's flat is cute and huge...although the rental price is retarded. We had a short night and drank wine. I for the life of me can't flush their toilet...everyone else can though. It must be an Eli issue.

Day two in London...Elisa called in sick and off we went...not sure what everything was, but they knew where to go...we went to: Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, SOHO Covent garden, the British museum (with the Rosetta Stone), Buckingham palace, St. James' park and the Green park. Elisa made fun of our American ways and we made fun of her English ways. She did show us what the typical American tourist looks like and we don't fit that...woo hoo. I met someone who thought I was Canadian after talking to him for a while....I didn't even say Yah....hmmm.

Elisa taught us the London slang innit which is isn’t it. We keep trying to get her to say ya'll.

Right now Robbie is making us red beans and rice...I'm scared. He now says I can't eat any and have to eat sugar puffs cereal.

So London is much like New York and I think if Ryan ever came to visit he wouldn't leave. It's slower paced compared to NYC but I like it here, except the prices are high....woo man.

I think I've gotten in over my head for my BBC appointment on Thursday. I set up a media meeting through the PR department. This is my e-mail I received:

"Details of your appointments are as follows:-

2.30pm Meeting with Kelly Shephard, Managing Editor BBC World Service Future Media
3.30pm Meeting with Bill Ries, Co-ordinating Editor, BBC World Service News & Current Affairs.

Kelly will be able to give you an overall brief on our Future Media department and will then introduce you to the editorial and design team. Bill will give you an overall brief on the World Service Newsroom and should then be able to introduce you to the production teams, depending on what is going on that day."

Eeek...sounds like a business appointment.

Eli



Click here for more pics.

Travel Day

Just another short update for me....

Having a free "breakfast" with your hostel stay is nice. Although, this varies from hostel to hostel. Sometimes, the juice is from concentrate, sometimes its real juice, and sometimes, you get the really cheap non-juice juice. Coffee is hit or miss as well, this morning we had instant coffee, ewwwww. Although we could have paid €1 (currently $1.40) for "premium" coffee from some strange looking machine, we passed on that and went for the free stuff. I honestly can't remember the last time I had that. And finally, completing the trinity of hostel breakfast items, the toast. So far, most places have given us an actual choice here, white or wheat! Weeee.

We'll soon be leaving Ireland and I'm sad for that since this is such a wonderful country. We'd love to spend much more time here, but alas, there's much more to see around Europe.

Thanks everyone for your comments, it makes us smile knowing y'all are following our travels with jealously!



WTF:

Galway and Killer Ducks

We checked into our hostel…our room was separate from the hostel and was more like a town house. We had a room upstairs and the beds were bunk beds. I haven’t slept in a bunk bed since I was 12.

Galway is a cute town. Everything is written in Irish, or Gaelic. Many people here speak Irish and apparently there’s a town an hour away where all they speak is Irish.

It’s cold and windy and sometimes rains off and on. By the time you run for cover the rain stops. We made our way to the coast and fed some ducks, swans and other birds. There must have been a couple of hundred birds. I did make the mistake of feeding a few and the frenzy was on (Trisha I fed them some of your banana chips which they didn’t like). I also stepped in piles of bird shit. Peter saw a dead rat and took a picture for his mom. His mom hates rats. We took a picture of a caterpillar for my mom….she hates caterpillars….odd women they are 

We went out to a local bar….seriously we were the only tourists in this place. We made friends fast and before you know it we were getting free beer. Someone showed us some magic tricks, someone else showed us his bum (he later got kicked out because he was too drunk and man was he). The bartender taught us some Gaelic, but he could have been making it up. He had serious A.D.D. and spoke way to fast for most people understand. A dude named Glen told us we don’t look like Americans….I’m not sure what an “American” looks like,..ahhahah. Before you know it we were giving hugs and inviting people to stay with us in Seattle and stumbled back to the bunk beds.

BTW the shower contraption that I thought was so strange isn’t that strange, the shower in the hostel was the same way. I’ve included a pic of it.

We are now on the train back to Dublin so we can catch a flight to England.

(Oh and the sport I mentioned in the other blog was indeed hurling not curling, but I’ve never seen any of those sports so I couldn’t tell you the difference).

This is the odd shower contraption….take a good look at it.

This is the bunk bed Hostel:



By the way...just got to England. We took a train from Galway to Dublin, a bus from Dublin to the airport, a plane to England, a train to the center of the city and the Tube (Metro) to Robbie and Elisa's flat. Shish...long travel day. It's great catching up with Robbie. We have known each other since kids, but haven't seen each other in a while and his accent is no longer a New Orleans accent....it's mixed with an English accent...hahah. I love their flat. Tomorrow they are taking off work to hang with us. Should be fun.

E

A train to Galway

Eli seems to want to be the story teller, so it appears I will just have to pick up the slack for "the rest". Right now, we're riding in the 1st class car to Galway. It's just us and a few of the train workers, they seem shocked that people are actually sitting in here, I asked if they usaully have people and he kinda chuckled and said not very often. Since we're older than 26, we we're forced into buying the 1st class eurorail pass. This is our first ride in the 1st class car, we forgot on our other two rides to/from Belfast. Not really many difference, mainly, these have nicer, plusher seats, some kind of headrest towel thingy, more leg room, and a power port. Nice features, but I think I would have rather paid less for 2nd class.

The Ireland countryside is quite nice to look at, very green, very hilly, and your staple of grazing animals (sheep, goats, cows, horses) are just about every direction you look. Also, every now and again, I catch a glance of some really old looking stone buildings that must be 200-300 years old, mostly crumpled down and destoryed, but some still being lived in.

Anyoo, we'll be in Galway soon, ttfn.



WTF for today...

Dublin and Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dun-leary)

We started the day with an Irish breakfast. Basically it’s a fried egg, baked beans, sausage, bacon, toast, tomatoes and mushrooms...yummy. We decided to squeeze in one more museum before heading off to Dun-Laoghaire, so we checked out the National Gallery (it was free). Highlights from that were Irish painters and European masters....one included a painting from Caravaggio...one of my fav. painters.

My mom requested a 14k gold shamrock from Ireland, so we went on a jewelry hunt. I found out that it's hard to find 14k gold jewelry in Ireland. I asked why and the lady said that the Irish were poor, so they mainly wore 9k gold. This still continues. Very interesting, but I did find a 14k gold shamrock. Apparently they make some 14k gold jewelry for tourists mainly.

We took another train to Dun Laoghaire where we stayed at a bed and breakfast called Mrs. O'Sullivan’s Duncree B&B. The lady was super nice and it felt like staying at a friend’s house. Plus, it was as cheap as a hostel and included a home cooked Irish breakfast.

The town was a port town so we did a lot of walking and checked out the light house. There's a tower called the Martello tower that was the setting for the opening of the novel Ulysses.

Peter and I were exhausted....we didn't realize how much walking and running around we did in the past few days...so we passed out rather early, which we needed. By the way my bag weighs 14 kilos (which is 31 pounds). Peter's bag only weighs 29 pounds.

I have to say the shower at the B&B was the strangest shower I have ever seen. Peter took a picture. This morning started off nice with a big Irish breakfast cooked by Mrs. O'Sullivan (we have to stay in more B&B's). We took a train back to Dublin, where we took a trolly to the other train station that we will then take to Galway...hahah lots of trains. We are getting rather good at navigating where we need to be.

So here we sit 9/23/07 on the train and wait...not sure what we will do in Galway yet, but we do have a place to stay, we called yesterday to make a reservation at the Sleepzone Galway's City hostel....and we have a private room.

E

Here's the picture of the hotel room in Dublin with the 5 beds and the B&B:


More pics from Dun Laoghaire:

Giants and Whiskey...

Belfast..
Again I got up at the butt crack of dawn. What's gotten into me?
The lady from the hostel talked us into taking a tour of the coast and talked us out of visiting the Blarney stone.

In her words, "I've got a stone right here you can Kiss." (Imagine that sentence in a really thick Irish/English accent). She basically said the Blarney stone was a tourist trap and not worth it, so we will pick another destination on Sat.

Ok....took a cab to our tour launch. Our driver filled us in on Belfast politics and all I can say is wow. Also, their prison system was recently reformed in the early 90's. You can guess much of the political conflict was over religious reasons and the whole issue with Irish vs. English rule and Nationality. Much of the city is covered with large political murals and yes Bush was a subject on the international mural section. The cabbie also filled us in on what parts of the city were bombed. A hotel downtown was bombed 43 times. Some people from our tour are staying there...hahaha.

Also, the Titanic was built in Belfast. The Titanic was fine when it left the Belfast docks, but Unfortunately there was a Scottish navigator and an English captain (that was the joke the driver told us).

We went to Carrick-e-Rede Rope bridge, North Atrim Coast, stopped by the Bushmill's distillery (unfortunately we couldn't get on the tour). Peter had a Guinness pie for lunch...it's like a roast stew with no veggies. It was a lot of meat. Then we went to the Giant's Causeway and Dunlace castle. The Giant's Causeway is basically rock formations formed from cooling lava that burst through the surface in the Cainozoic period, but the Irish say it was created from a giant in Ireland that wanted to fight a giant in Scotland, so he built a bridge. There's a long interesting story that goes along with it. Sounds like a story my Dad would have told me when I was little and swear up and down that it was true.

The scenery was quite breathtaking. I've included a few photos of our fav. pics. I tried catching a goat, but they were too far.

Our luck continues....Peter got lunch for free, I felt bad and paid (they forgot to charge us). We also got a free beer last night. Our Euro rail to Dublin was not to be included on our Euro rail pass and the train dude told us to just go ahead. I'm wondering if this will get us in trouble when they come to verify during the trip. Hmmm. So now we are sitting on a train headed back to Dublin and we don't have a place to stay. I hope the Hostels aren't full.

The train guy hasn't come yet.

Ok this is way later in the night...the train guy never came and we couldn't find a hostel for the night. Apparently it's a big "curling" weekend....like football, but not, so there's this big competitive event and there are hardly hotels left. So note to self always book in advance on the weekends or you are SOL.

We are going to a seaport town tomorrow and then Galway...we didn't book a hostel yet, but we did book a flight to London on Monday...it was cheaper to fly than take a ferry. I'm drunk typing right now...so I hope my grammar rocks.

For more pics just click here.

Eli

A night in Belfast...

Last night, as I was checking the train schedules in the lobby of the hostel, the desk clerk walked by on his way to a balcony type area, and showed me a rolled up piece of paper and asked if I wanted to join him. I couldn't resist, so went out on the balcony, he lit the item in question and proceeded to puff again. He passed it to me and once I took a puff, I realized that this wasn't what I thought it was, I "think" I had two puffs of a cigarette, either that or the marijuana here tastes like nicotine. I kindly refused anymore of his smoke, and chatted it up with him till he finished. We went back inside and I finished looking up stuff and posting Eli's blog entry for her. All the while he was playing on his guitar, the likes of Zeppelin and Radiohead, he was actually quite good.

Today was my first experience on one of those big guided tour bus kinda of things, you know, the ones you always see a bunch of old people with cameras on, and you wonder why they don't just explore the area themselves. We really couldn't find a better deal on a whole day of touring, so we gave in for the £20 price and went cruising.

Lesson one for these types of tours: Pictures from the bus are terrible.

The top attraction for this tour was the Giant's Causeway which was quite amazing, the stone pillars that make up this "bridge" are incredible to look at and wonder just how they formed the way the did. The Atlantic ocean runs into shoreline here and makes for some amazing crashing waves against the rocks. The whole area surrounding the causeway it simply beautiful to just gaze upon.



an artsy fartsy photo of the causeway rocks...


and continuing the tradition, another WTF picture...

Day two in Dublin

We went park hopping and jumped on one of those sight seeing tour buses. You know the kind where you can sit in the open on top and enjoy the rain. Peter somehow got a free ticket for the bus. In a nut shell we saw Trinity college, the Book of Kells, we tried to go the Natural History Museum (it was closed), saw the president's house, sculptures and the prison.

Tricia if you read this thanks for your snacks they saved my life today :) I still have more to nibble on.

We decided we should visit Northern Ireland, so we jumped on a train and headed for Belfast. If you think Dublin accents are hard to understand, Belfast accents are much worse. The dialect is stronger. Plus, we had to get more money, we are in the land of pounds.

We met a cab driver who worked for the military as a driver and drove the likes of Clinton, Powell, The Queen and Lyndon to name a few. Interesting dude. His fav. was Clinton. Go figure. I got some other scoop too.

We are in another Hostel...this one is called Farset and it's definitely far set from the city. It's ok, but I won't be fondling the top blanket (not that I have problems fondling blankets or anything).

We ate at one of the oldest buildings in Belfast....I dropped a large pile of salt on my food....the pepper and salt are almost the same color....ok not really, it was dark and I'm a tard.

We are beat...a full day of walking and carrying a 30 pound pack makes you tired. Tomorrow morning we are going to something called the Giant's Highway on the coast. I keep calling it Monster's highway.

Peter is trying to perfect his Irish accent and is driving me nuts. Currently, I'm listening to him snore...hahaha.