Scottish Deep Thoughts

The week is over. Pretty harmless. I enjoy Friday - it is my easiest day of classes and we finish at 1:00. I came home and accomplished 3 things that made my day.

The first was my getting the CD player in my car to work. It is a very dodgy setup that I'm sure one jolt from a big enough pot-hole will undo. Oh well. Until then I have tunes!

The second was setting up a direct debit on one of my bills. Now, paying a bill is nothing special. What makes this noteworthy was that I successfully (in my opinion) chatted-up the operator. She would've have given me her number if I asked her (not that I would have). I think this illuminates two things about me:
1) I have not lost all of my very limited skills at chatting-up the ladies.
2) I am quite possibly very, very desperate.

Dammit.

The third accomplishment today was going to the butcher. I have made a decision to buy something from the local butcher at least once a week. The quality of meat is far superior to the local supermarket and they can answer any questions you have about MEAT! I bought some lamb and it was damn good.

So that was my Friday...exciting times in Grantown!!

I should preface this long and potentially insomnia-curing review of my trip with a few general comments...

I spent 9 days in Ireland with Mike, a fellow teacher from school. We started at Belfast in the north and worked our way along the east and south coast. We ended up on the Dingle peninsula on the south west corner of Ireland.

Mike is a bit older than me and has not really travelled much so, by default, the leader/decision-maker of the trip by default. I have mostly travelled by myself so going around with someone was a change. I am an easy-going traveller but there were some trying times.

We rented a car which was another first for me. Again, I was the driver by default because Mike doesn't drive. Driving stresses me out sometimes.

This brings me to a few lessons learned over my short holiday:
1: Travelling alone is different than travelling with someone else - each have their positives and negatives.
2: Renting a car is very handy but a pain in the ass at the same time. Parking is a pain and driving in foreign cities is a seriously stressful experience.
3: Guinness is better in Ireland.
4: Ireland is a very beautiful country, I think. The clouds and rain made it difficult to see some of it - go in the summer.

Day 1
Mike and I flew into Belfast on Saturday. We picked up our rental car and I nervously started on the trip. Mike doesn't drive so I am the default diver. Dammit. I really dislike driving in unfamiliar places - it is VERY stressful. I don't mind driving on the country roads but going into cities really frustrates me and gets me wound up. I quickly found out that Mike is not a navigator. Put him in the middle of a one street village and I think he would get lost! It did annoy me a bit that he couldn't answer simple questions about where we were going. I kept my cool though.

We made it into Belfast and found our hostel. We dropped our stuff off and went out in search of food and a pint. We stumbled across one cool out-of-the-way pub which turned out to be the oldest pub in Belfast! Very good atmosphere which had some decent live music. We stopped into another pub which had a good blues band playing. A good introduction to Belfast.

Day 2
We drove out to Giant's Causeway on the north coast today. Giant's Causeway is the area which boasts brilliant cliffs and some fascinating rock formations . The rocks were formed by lava and when they cooled they crakced in large pentagonal columns (wow, that sounds quite nerdy). They are pretty famous and a cool sight to see. Had some lunch on the cliffs looking at Scotland across the water.

Day 3
We went to see Shankill and Falls Roads - the two famous sectarian streets that border eachother. Falls road is Republic (Catholics wanting to separate from Britain) and Shankill is Unionist (Want to keep British rule) and the two streets show their division through murals and very in-your-face slogans. It is a very strange place to be and difficult to understand.

We went to Dublin and slowly worked our way along the map and found our hostel only to find that our room had benn over-booked. Fortunately, we were put up in a nearby hostel. It was my birthday so we went out to Temple Bar (a huge area where pubs and bars line the streets) and proceeded to sample the Guinness and many of the pubs. A good way to spend the birthday.

I do not particularly like Dublin. I have been once before for 2 days so I knew what to expect - tourists and drunkeness. Mike hadn't been there so we stayed a couple of days so he could say that he had seen it. Dublin is ok for a weekend - there is not much to do after the drinking. Go there to get drunk and get out. It is busy, expensive and teaming with tourists and international students/workers. Apart from the pubs, it could be a city anywhere in Europe.

We killed the day by going to Trinity University to see an old book (Book of Kells) and then sampled a pint of black stuff at the Guinness brewery. If nothing else, it was a good pint and a decent view of the city from the top of the brewery.

Day 4
We proceeded south to Glendalough, in the Wicklow moutains, where we went for a decent hike in the hills. It was kind of cloudy so we couldn't really see much. We ended the day by travelling to Wexford on the southeast corner of Ireland. A decent town but the small streets, tiny alleys and one-way streets made the hostel quite difficult to locate. We did find it and also found a great pub. It had a lot of character and amazing traditional Irish music playing all night by 3 old guys.

Day 5
Before we left Wexford we went out to a good beach (for Tom Hanks fans, this was the beach where the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan was filmed). We continued driving to Cork. We stopped in Waterford for a couple of hours - the crystal place. It poured rain for most of the trip but cleared up just before the sun went down. We got into Cork and found the hostel with relative ease for a change. We made some dinner and went out for a few pints. Some decent live music in a good pub. A few of the people staying in our dorm room decided to be very noisy very early in the morning. They came into the room discussing nothing of importance in French. When they had crossed the line of common courtesy by repeatedly shouting - they were definitely not using their inside voices - I asked them nicely to "keep it down". I restrained from doing the "Ross from Friends" hand gesture. 5 minutes later the wave of noise had built up again. I had was supposed to be on hoiday yet I was reverting back into "teacher-mode". I was about to ask them a little-less politely to shut up when Mike stole my thuder. He did a much better job. I'm not sure how much the French crew understood but it was still amusing to listen to the angry Scotsman yell at the petrified French folk. They were much quieter after that.

Day 6
Rain. I had planned to go to Cobh, a small village just outside Cork. A few people had recommended it to me. It's claim to fame is that it was the Titanic's final port of call before heading out to it's fate. It is a nice village but the buckets of rain dampened the experience. It was a short trip and stayed inside for the rest of the day.

Day 7
We left Cork and continued to bring the rain with us westward. We stopped in Waterford for a couple of hours and then ended up on the Dingle peninsula in a one street village called Anascaul. The hostel was pretty cool - the "Randy Leprechaun". It had a decent pub attached to it and a giant neon mural of a horny leprechaun on the front of the building, which understandably pisses off the locals.

We spent the day driving along the Dingle peninsula hoping that the clouds would lift with no luck. Instead we stared out at clouds trying to imagine what the spectacular views must look like.

The highlight of the day: While bending over to tie my shoe a lady came walking up behind me and told me in the brilliant Irish accent:
"That's a nice arse, boy."
"Huh? Oh, thanks."

Day 8
Mt. Brandon - Ireland's second highest mountain. It was the one thing that I really wanted to do on this whole trip and was a good way to end the trip. Clouds and rain threatened to prevent Mike and I from getting out to the hills. We decided to try it anyway.

Fortunately the walk was quite straightforward and was well marked all the way up. Again, clouds didn't allow any views but I'm happy enough to say that I've been to the top. We returned to the bottom nicely soaked and tired.

We had to drive to Belfast that afternoon so that we could catch our plane the next morning. It was an 8 hour drive and went smoothly.

Day 9
Flight went fine. I'm back in Scotland. School starts in 2 days. ugh.

go here:

earth.google.com

it's a cool (free) program that gives you satellite images of anywhere on earth. There is a bunch of other data/information about the world on it too. You will be impressed!

I didn't eat turkey today and I'm not bothered about it. I was happy with my frozen pizza dinner tonight. It is just like any other Monday here. The Scots don't care about the pilgrims and neither do I. I suppose I would care if I were living in a country that celebrated Thanksgiving and didn't get a decent meal. However, as I said before, it is simply just another Monday here.

I have a spider living in my car. Well, not IN my car. It hides behind my driver's side side-mirror. I have only seen my reclusive arachnid friend on two occasions but I know it is still alive. Sometimes I will intentionally swipe my hand through the web and destroy it. If there is a new web the next morning, I know it is still there. Is that mean? I wonder how long he will stay there?

Finished our first term today. Bring on the holidays. Enjoyed a couple of pints, watched an episode of Trailer Park Boys (thanks to Ian for recording a few episodes for me) and a stellar afternoon nap. I have a few things to get done before heading to Ireland on Wednesday. Gonna be pretty sweet.

The season starts tomorrow. I am getting really excited but my enthusiasm is definitely not shared by anyone around here. I am getting Ian to record the games for me as they are being broadcast on satellite (a luxury I do not have). Canucks v. Phoenix gets broadcast at 3am! To increase my excitement, my Canucks poster arrived today. It will be up on the classroom walls first thing tomorrow morning. Go Canucks go!

I am taking a computer course in web design, which is being run by our computing teacher. Tonight was the first night of the course and we were told about HTML. I was the guy who knew it all. I was the guy that everyone loved to hate. I was the guy who finished his work early. I was the guy who asked really pointless and obscure questions simply to prove his vastly superior knowledge on a completely useless topic. Yes, I was "that guy".

I went to London this weekend. A very good trip. I stayed with a couple friends who I met in Italy in the Spring.

Fortunately, our school day finishes at 1pm every Friday so I was able to be having a pint in a central London pub by 5pm. I met up with my mates and had many more pints that night.

Saturday was slow to start but I made it to the British Museum and the National Gallery. Saw a few more amazing pieces of art. My famous art checklist gets shorter. Saturday night went to a dinner party at some Londoner's place who I met in Croatia. I was the "intriguing foreign guy" for the night. I made it through the onslaught of typical questions and met some other very cool people. I took off Sunday afternoon and made it back in time for my hockey game. We got humped AGAIN (12-5) I scored 3 goals.

That was my weekend. Nothing too exciting. Now I am sick. I think breathing in the grimy air of London and then coming back to the fresh Highland air has done my lungs in. Or, it was all the drink and lack of sleep on the weekend.