Monday, May 5, 2008
This Is Home
So rad that they made it on the Prince Caspian soundtrack! Anyone else want to go to the show in September at the sleeptrain ampitheatre? They're playing with Jars of Clay too! Rock on.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Land of Ire
At my favorite coffeshop\bookstore\cafe in Prague, "The Globe", ready to finally write about my adventures to Ireland and if time permits, The Netherlands.
Ahhhhhh yesss. Ireland! Hopefully I can remember all the best parts about this trip. I've wanted to go to Ireland for years for some reason, and I was never really quite sure why. I guess I thought I might run into Bono there, or perhaps I could run and frolic with leprechauns on rolling green hills and play the flute, or perhaps it was just the accent. I don't know. I had this trip planned for a few months, and was really excited about it, getting a great deal on a flight through Ryan air. My buddy Tom was the only one to join me on the trip, and you can see a lot of our pictures on Facebook.
The first thing I noticed about Ireland is that they speak ENGLISH! Now when you've been living and traveling throughout countries that don't speak English as their first language for a while, you get used to it after a while. But once you go to a place that speaks English, it is such a relief! So many people told me that it wouldn't matter, I would still have a hard time understanding the people with the thick Irish accents. I really thought this was a joke, but seriously, it's TRUE! There are some Irish that speak so fast and slur so many words, I have no idea what they are talking about. I felt a little rude saying "what?" so many times, but better that than pretending I know what they are saying, when really I am clueless. It's also interesting how some people have different accents around the country, and how they sound similar, yet different, just like American accents. Another crazy first impression was noticing that people were driving on the wrong side of the road! It would have been much stranger to actually drive a car in Ireland, or even to be a passenger in one, but still, being on a bus and other public transit was strange enough. Crossing the street was always funny too, because naturally one from the states would look left first, but its the other way around in Ireland! So to solve this problem, I just looked left, right, left, right, left...etc. as I crossed the street. Sometimes you can't be too careful. (Just kidding, people!)
We flew into Dublin and found our hostel, which was near one of the main train stations and the Guinness Storehouse. My first "Yup, I'm in Ireland" moment, was when we were on our shuttle from the airport to the city center, and U2 comes on over the radio. Luckily, I'm a big U2 fan, so I thought this was pretty cool.
Of course it was raining (this seems to be a trend on my travels) when we arrived at our Hostel. Tom and I met up with this girl Fiona, who is Irish and lives in Dublin going to the famous Trinity College. (I met her in Berlin). It was strange seeing someone from one of my other trips in a completely new setting. We met Fiona at Trinity college, and she gave us a little tour of the school (where the Book of Kells is held). She then took us to what she described as an "old man bar" where I got my first Guinness. I'm still warming up to Beer, but I can tell that I will enjoy Guinness in the future. Very different kind of beer with a very unique and recognizable taste. Fiona then took us down some of the main streets in downtown Dublin, showing us where the movie "Once" was filmed and even some of the exact places where Glen Hansard plays guitar on the street in the movie. Pretty awesome stuff!
We decided to try saving some money by making our own food instead of going out, which led us to Fiona's apartment where we made French toast! So delicious especially when you haven't had something like that in a long time. After dinner we had a few drinks, specifically some creamy Bailey's! Now this is the way Alcohol should be! I can understand why that little drink is so dang expensive! It's like dessert! After we had our fill of Bailey's, Fiona showed us some of the nightlife in downtown Dublin. We checked out a few really cool pubs and even one club that we didn't stay in for too long. We were in this really cool, muli-level bar in downtown Dublin drinking Mojito's (which I now know I do NOT like) and listening to this live cover band when I look up and suddenly realize the band is playing "Vertigo" by U2. Geez guys, way to enforce the stereotype! I didn't think Bono was going to get this much love from the Irish since I had talked to multiple Irish people before the trip who said they thought he was quite a hack. Apparently all Irish people don't agree!
The next day, we decided (after some great advice from the guy behind the desk at our hostel) that we were going to cancel our day we had planned to stay in Cork and take two days in Galway. The train ride the next day to Galway was everything I was hoping it would be: lush, green fields and rolling hills, farmlands full of sheep and cattle and everything else you would expect from an Irish countryside. It was fantastic. This was the Ireland I came to see! I think it was that train ride when I realized that some of my favorite moments in Europe have been just relaxing on a train staring out the window listening to music. Trains are by far the best way to travel.
Galway was incredible. A mini, less crowded, country-ish version of Dublin, Galway is a place you definitely need to check out if you ever visit the city. You can walk everywhere, never needing to take public transit. Our hostel was in an amazing location, literally right in the middle of the city in the main square. One of the first things that I witnessed in Galway was a full on fight between two guys. One of them was homeless and the other was drunk. Not a good combo. What was especially interesting about this fight was that it happened right on the main street in Galway, and right next to where four cops just happened to be hanging out. 2 seconds after the first punch was thrown, the drunk guy was thrown to the ground and handcuffed. Ireland sure was living up to the hype! Beautiful country side! U2! Drunk Irish guys fighting! Where are the lucky charms???
I forgot to mention that on the plane ride over, I happened to sit next to this girl Brie, from the States, who had been studying in Galway and was getting ready to fly back home. She had a Rick Steve's (famous travel-book author) Ireland book that she said she didn't need anymore, which she gave me for free! Pretty sweet stuff!
Using the Rick Steve's book to find the main sights and attractions around Galway, Tom and I walked around and found a great place to eat lunch, visited a few churches, walked out to the bay and enjoyed seeing the ocean for the first time in months, and just did the whole touristy thing. We decided that we wanted to take a bus tour the next day, which was probably the best decision made all trip. I also got a haircut in Galway, which was an easier process than getting one in Prague would be. Trying to explain to a barber in Czech how I want my hair cut probably wouldn't go over so well. I'd rather take my chances with someone who speaks English with a crazy accent.
Our bus took us to various little villages and random castles, sights and other ruins. (Definitely check out the pictures of these on my Facebook.) The two highlights of the trip were easily the Cliffs of Moher and the walking tour through some old farmland. The Cliffs of Moher were these enormous 650 foot cliffs right on the edge of the ocean. These easily looked like something right out of Lord of the Rings. They were also INCREDIBLY windy, the kind of wind that makes it hard to even walk, but makes for some fun times. These cliffs were some of the most amazing and breathtaking sights I have ever seen. I wish we would have had more than an hour there since I easily could have just sat and looked out at the view all day.
When we got back to Dublin, we mainly just walked around the city and saw some more of the mains sights. (A really cool old jail that housed the people who started the 1916 uprising, The Book of Kells, which is an ancient copy of the Bible in Latin, and some amazing outdoor gardens.)That night, we decided to go on a "Music Pub Crawl" which turned out to be one of the best decisions of the entire trip. The pub crawl started in one of the main pubs downtown, with two traditional irish musicians (one girl who played the fiddle, and one guy who played the guitar), who played amazing Irish music for us. Not only would they play, but they would sing along, teach the audience how to sing with them, and even give people the chance to sing on their own. The duo took our crowd of about 30 around to three different pubs for about 3 hours total, and played some amazing music for us. It was really cool hearing them talk about the history of the of the jigs and what not. This was traditional Irish culture at its finest. I have some you tube videos of their performance, which I'll post whenever I get around to uploading them.
Surprisingly, the last thing we did in Dublin, was see a movie. I know, I know, we were traveling how could we have wasted our time and money on something we could have done anywhere!? Well, we were super tired, and it was getting late, and we didn't have the money or the energy to go out to a pub and drink, so there we were, at the movie theater buying tickets for the flick, "In Bruges". I talked about this a little in my last blog, but this was a good movie! And it applied to us extremely well, since it was about 2 guys traveling, specifically to Bruges, Belgium. I ended up going to Belgium two days later, which was pretty weird, but really cool. Go see this movie for the matinee price when your bored sometime.
That about sums up my time in Ireland, and I loved every second of it! I hope someday I can go back in the summer when it is much warmer, but according to some of the locals, you never know quite when that will be.
I'm enjoying my last week in Prague, just walking around the city and doing some reading. This might be the most relaxing weekend I've ever had before finals. Gotta love study abroad! Alright well I'm going to write about my last trip, The Netherlands, at some other point.
Keep rockin' and rollin'!
Ahhhhhh yesss. Ireland! Hopefully I can remember all the best parts about this trip. I've wanted to go to Ireland for years for some reason, and I was never really quite sure why. I guess I thought I might run into Bono there, or perhaps I could run and frolic with leprechauns on rolling green hills and play the flute, or perhaps it was just the accent. I don't know. I had this trip planned for a few months, and was really excited about it, getting a great deal on a flight through Ryan air. My buddy Tom was the only one to join me on the trip, and you can see a lot of our pictures on Facebook.
The first thing I noticed about Ireland is that they speak ENGLISH! Now when you've been living and traveling throughout countries that don't speak English as their first language for a while, you get used to it after a while. But once you go to a place that speaks English, it is such a relief! So many people told me that it wouldn't matter, I would still have a hard time understanding the people with the thick Irish accents. I really thought this was a joke, but seriously, it's TRUE! There are some Irish that speak so fast and slur so many words, I have no idea what they are talking about. I felt a little rude saying "what?" so many times, but better that than pretending I know what they are saying, when really I am clueless. It's also interesting how some people have different accents around the country, and how they sound similar, yet different, just like American accents. Another crazy first impression was noticing that people were driving on the wrong side of the road! It would have been much stranger to actually drive a car in Ireland, or even to be a passenger in one, but still, being on a bus and other public transit was strange enough. Crossing the street was always funny too, because naturally one from the states would look left first, but its the other way around in Ireland! So to solve this problem, I just looked left, right, left, right, left...etc. as I crossed the street. Sometimes you can't be too careful. (Just kidding, people!)
We flew into Dublin and found our hostel, which was near one of the main train stations and the Guinness Storehouse. My first "Yup, I'm in Ireland" moment, was when we were on our shuttle from the airport to the city center, and U2 comes on over the radio. Luckily, I'm a big U2 fan, so I thought this was pretty cool.
Of course it was raining (this seems to be a trend on my travels) when we arrived at our Hostel. Tom and I met up with this girl Fiona, who is Irish and lives in Dublin going to the famous Trinity College. (I met her in Berlin). It was strange seeing someone from one of my other trips in a completely new setting. We met Fiona at Trinity college, and she gave us a little tour of the school (where the Book of Kells is held). She then took us to what she described as an "old man bar" where I got my first Guinness. I'm still warming up to Beer, but I can tell that I will enjoy Guinness in the future. Very different kind of beer with a very unique and recognizable taste. Fiona then took us down some of the main streets in downtown Dublin, showing us where the movie "Once" was filmed and even some of the exact places where Glen Hansard plays guitar on the street in the movie. Pretty awesome stuff!
We decided to try saving some money by making our own food instead of going out, which led us to Fiona's apartment where we made French toast! So delicious especially when you haven't had something like that in a long time. After dinner we had a few drinks, specifically some creamy Bailey's! Now this is the way Alcohol should be! I can understand why that little drink is so dang expensive! It's like dessert! After we had our fill of Bailey's, Fiona showed us some of the nightlife in downtown Dublin. We checked out a few really cool pubs and even one club that we didn't stay in for too long. We were in this really cool, muli-level bar in downtown Dublin drinking Mojito's (which I now know I do NOT like) and listening to this live cover band when I look up and suddenly realize the band is playing "Vertigo" by U2. Geez guys, way to enforce the stereotype! I didn't think Bono was going to get this much love from the Irish since I had talked to multiple Irish people before the trip who said they thought he was quite a hack. Apparently all Irish people don't agree!
The next day, we decided (after some great advice from the guy behind the desk at our hostel) that we were going to cancel our day we had planned to stay in Cork and take two days in Galway. The train ride the next day to Galway was everything I was hoping it would be: lush, green fields and rolling hills, farmlands full of sheep and cattle and everything else you would expect from an Irish countryside. It was fantastic. This was the Ireland I came to see! I think it was that train ride when I realized that some of my favorite moments in Europe have been just relaxing on a train staring out the window listening to music. Trains are by far the best way to travel.
Galway was incredible. A mini, less crowded, country-ish version of Dublin, Galway is a place you definitely need to check out if you ever visit the city. You can walk everywhere, never needing to take public transit. Our hostel was in an amazing location, literally right in the middle of the city in the main square. One of the first things that I witnessed in Galway was a full on fight between two guys. One of them was homeless and the other was drunk. Not a good combo. What was especially interesting about this fight was that it happened right on the main street in Galway, and right next to where four cops just happened to be hanging out. 2 seconds after the first punch was thrown, the drunk guy was thrown to the ground and handcuffed. Ireland sure was living up to the hype! Beautiful country side! U2! Drunk Irish guys fighting! Where are the lucky charms???
I forgot to mention that on the plane ride over, I happened to sit next to this girl Brie, from the States, who had been studying in Galway and was getting ready to fly back home. She had a Rick Steve's (famous travel-book author) Ireland book that she said she didn't need anymore, which she gave me for free! Pretty sweet stuff!
Using the Rick Steve's book to find the main sights and attractions around Galway, Tom and I walked around and found a great place to eat lunch, visited a few churches, walked out to the bay and enjoyed seeing the ocean for the first time in months, and just did the whole touristy thing. We decided that we wanted to take a bus tour the next day, which was probably the best decision made all trip. I also got a haircut in Galway, which was an easier process than getting one in Prague would be. Trying to explain to a barber in Czech how I want my hair cut probably wouldn't go over so well. I'd rather take my chances with someone who speaks English with a crazy accent.
Our bus took us to various little villages and random castles, sights and other ruins. (Definitely check out the pictures of these on my Facebook.) The two highlights of the trip were easily the Cliffs of Moher and the walking tour through some old farmland. The Cliffs of Moher were these enormous 650 foot cliffs right on the edge of the ocean. These easily looked like something right out of Lord of the Rings. They were also INCREDIBLY windy, the kind of wind that makes it hard to even walk, but makes for some fun times. These cliffs were some of the most amazing and breathtaking sights I have ever seen. I wish we would have had more than an hour there since I easily could have just sat and looked out at the view all day.
When we got back to Dublin, we mainly just walked around the city and saw some more of the mains sights. (A really cool old jail that housed the people who started the 1916 uprising, The Book of Kells, which is an ancient copy of the Bible in Latin, and some amazing outdoor gardens.)That night, we decided to go on a "Music Pub Crawl" which turned out to be one of the best decisions of the entire trip. The pub crawl started in one of the main pubs downtown, with two traditional irish musicians (one girl who played the fiddle, and one guy who played the guitar), who played amazing Irish music for us. Not only would they play, but they would sing along, teach the audience how to sing with them, and even give people the chance to sing on their own. The duo took our crowd of about 30 around to three different pubs for about 3 hours total, and played some amazing music for us. It was really cool hearing them talk about the history of the of the jigs and what not. This was traditional Irish culture at its finest. I have some you tube videos of their performance, which I'll post whenever I get around to uploading them.
Surprisingly, the last thing we did in Dublin, was see a movie. I know, I know, we were traveling how could we have wasted our time and money on something we could have done anywhere!? Well, we were super tired, and it was getting late, and we didn't have the money or the energy to go out to a pub and drink, so there we were, at the movie theater buying tickets for the flick, "In Bruges". I talked about this a little in my last blog, but this was a good movie! And it applied to us extremely well, since it was about 2 guys traveling, specifically to Bruges, Belgium. I ended up going to Belgium two days later, which was pretty weird, but really cool. Go see this movie for the matinee price when your bored sometime.
That about sums up my time in Ireland, and I loved every second of it! I hope someday I can go back in the summer when it is much warmer, but according to some of the locals, you never know quite when that will be.
I'm enjoying my last week in Prague, just walking around the city and doing some reading. This might be the most relaxing weekend I've ever had before finals. Gotta love study abroad! Alright well I'm going to write about my last trip, The Netherlands, at some other point.
Keep rockin' and rollin'!
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