We slept at Dublin airport last night, and it was not as comfortable an experience as Stansted. The PA system kept blasting out warnings about leaving baggage unattended and making sure we adhered to the 100mL rule all night. We were aroused by the Garda (Irish police) at about 1am to check everyone's passports and flight details. At first we were afraid they would kick us out, but they were very friendly and our theory is that they were looking for non-travelling homeless people just camping for the night in the airport. On the upside, our restless night allowed us ample time to pack our bags to the weight limit and check them in stress-free. It also meant I slept soundly on both our flights. We flew to Stansted, got waived through passport control (something about arriving from Ireland), stood in a long queue to get on our next flight to Krakow and before you knew it we were on the continent. It is a lot different here to the affluent Ireland we just left. For a start, the place is covered in snow. The airport is pretty tiny (much smaller than I had expected) and the suburbs are classic Eastern Europe stereotype. Snow is everywhere, the buildings are mainly grey and brown, and a lot are pretty run down. It feels grungy, like it's still trying to catch up to the 21st century. It's exciting to be in a different place though, and in a strange way it feels a little like the outskirts of Hong Kong – I think it's the colours, or lack thereof. Everything feels grey and dull here. You can't knock the place we're staying though – Premium Hostel, a short walk out of the city centre, is clean, great value (around €12 a night each to stay in our own twin room), a pretty well-stocked kitchen, and very very friendly and helpful staff.
Tired, we didn't feel like doing much when we got here, so we went for a walk and bought some food for dinner. This was much more exciting than it sounds, though, as very few people speak even a little English here, and we managed to string some words and lots of sign language together to get a hearty meal. We are very proud of ourselves, given that we struggled to catch a bus here this arvo. We even got adventurous with our food – we found a ravioli-looking thing in the supermarket, and knowing nothing about it owing to our lack of ability to read Polish, bought it anyway. It turned out to be a bit like a Polish dim sim, at least that's what it tasted like, and we were doubly impressed with ourselves for not only experimenting but communicating in a foreign language to do it.
Tomorrow we're heading to Zakopane, a village in the mountains where we plan to go skiing. Through a fortunate twist of fate, it turns out we don't lose much at all to stay an extra four nights rather than getting a bus on Tuesday because of the prices. Of all the places in Europe, this is an okay place to be 'stuck' in that situation because the exchange rate makes it cheap. Keeley is very excited at this prospect, and it will definitely be cheaper than skiing in Switzerland or Austria (although we're not ruling that out… yet).
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Cork is a nice city, it has a lot of character and a handful of things to do, but we had explored what we wanted to explore yesterday and wanted to make the most of our time in the south of Ireland. We caught a bus to Blarney, only 8km from Cork, and visited the famous castle and Stone. We were very glad we did. The castle looms over a spectacular garden, which feels wild and free unlike a lot of strictly regimented gardens at palaces. A short walk from the ticket office follows a river to the castle itself, the north wall an imposing sheer vertical wall above us, probably four or five storeys high. It's all self-guided, with signs everywhere giving interesting pieces of information. Before you actually enter the castle, you can walk underneath it in a couple of different secret passageways that were used to get into, or escape, the castle. It was strange to be able to actually walk right in them, quite a long way, because most places would have it roped off. This is the same in the castle itself – you can explore almost every room in it, which is very cool. It has a very romantic medieval ruin feel about it, which is spectacular. The stone itself is a rather quick affair, because the man supervising it is obviously used to the summer high season (there was only one other person in the grounds with us) and he was very much lay down, reach back, kiss it, okay you're done and move on. Unfortunately this meant that I didn't get a chance to get Keeley's photo at the stone properly, but on the upside my photo wasn't much worse than the photos you can buy for €10. Regardless, it was an experience that I think everyone should do if they're in Ireland – it was a great setup and really enjoyable.
We caught the bus to Kilkenny, fortunately getting an earlier bus than we had thought we'd have to, and continued the medieval theme of the day with a tour of Kilkenny Castle. It was brilliant value at €2.50 a head (student), as the guide was incredibly detailed, professional, easy to listen to, and gave a suitable aura of respect to the place. Some of the features of the castle are very interesting – it was originally a square plan, with four walls and a central courtyard, but the south wall was destroyed in an attack and torn down, giving it a U-shape. The whole building has been restored to its 18th-century glory, including wallpaper like the bright yellow in the library (to reflect light and make it bright enough to read), the antique furniture (Keeley particularly liked the 'conversation chair'), and the gallery, which takes up the full length of one of the wings and has an ornately detailed hammerbeam roof and glass ridge to allow light in. It was one of the best experiences in terms of tours we had done.
We rounded out our very medieval day by staying in a castle. That's right, in a tiny town out of Kilkenny, there is a hostel set up in a castle. It's pretty cool, even if the caretaker seems a little out of it and the showers don't work. The dining room is set up with stone walls and the works. The only issue will be getting back to Kilkenny – it seems the bus doesn't run very regularly, so that could be fun…
DAY 29 – KILKENNY16/01/2009
The castle in Jenkinstown was fun, and as a bonus we washed our clothes for free (usually €4 a load) and got upgraded to a twin room rather than separate dorms for the same €14 a night pricetag each. This is just as well, as there was nobody else staying there, and it would have been a very lonely night. As it was, there was a creepy echo when we finally got out of bed this morning (we treated ourselves to a sleep in) suggesting we were, in fact, the only people on the property. We didn't see the weirdo caretaker again, so we just packed our bags and had brunch. We called the bus company and discovered we had less than ten minutes to dash up the road 'Amazing Race'-style to get the next service for God knows how long. It was fun. We dropped our bags at the train station, and spent the next several hours just wandering round Kilkenny. There is quite a lot of construction work going on over here, both in Kilkenny and Cork – in Cork there were two really big commercial developments in the city centre and in Kilkenny there was a hotel, a shopping centre (just completed), an urban redevelopment at the castle, and lots of other little renovations going on. Keeley looked in vain to find some replacement boots (as hers have a leak in them when it rains) but settled on a litre of choc-chip ice cream instead, which we demolished while waiting for the bus. The rest of the day has been pretty uneventful – a bus ride to Dublin, fast-food for tea (Subway for yours truly and Supermac for Keeley – she really wanted to try it as we haven't seen it elsewhere), another run for a bus from Dublin (the 16A didn't really seem to be following a timetable), and setup for another airport sleepover. Dublin airport is much quieter than Stansted, and we're secretly praying we don't get kicked out or something stupid, but we should be okay. We fly to London then straight on to Krakow tomorrow. Find great deals on eBay Net yourself a bargain
We got up nice and early to catch our bus here to Cork. Today marked a momentous day for a much bigger reason though – today was the first time in our whole trip that we've seen rain. Fortunately it wasn't torrential, just that annoying misty stuff that saturates you without really trying. It was also pretty windy, but not all that cold, which was good. We checked into our hostel (Sheila's) and went on a bit of a walk through Cork. It feels like a seaside town, with the river running through the middle of it, the grey skies and windy climate, lots of industrial and converted industrial buildings, but it has a cool vibe. There are lots of pubs and shops, though not as many as Dublin, and some really nice cobbled streets. We spent ages looking for the Butter Museum, which we thought would be really interesting and different, but when we finally found it we discovered it was closed until March. Dejected, we went south of the river to find the English market. We did eventually stumble on a pretty large food market, where we got some really good food deals. Anyway, it was really good value and we got a whole cooked chicken for €3 and some really nice bread for the next couple of days. We'll have to keep our eyes out for markets like this because it will make the trip that much better value.
We retreated back to our hostel with our food and checked the place out. It is one of the best hostels we've stayed in so far, its only downfall being that you have to buy breakfast rather than being provided. There is a really big commercial-style kitchen, free internet, clean showers, and… a sauna. That's right, we had a sauna this arvo for €2 (pretty cheap we thought). It was good to just relax after a fair bit of hectic travelling the last few days. I'd never had a sauna before and found it a bit uncomfortable, given it was so humid and around 55°C-65°C. It did give us a taste of what our families must be sweating through back home, but at least we could walk out of ours. Tonight we also had dinner with Johanna, Keeley's German exchange student from way back who is in Cork as a nanny for some rich people's kids. We went to a Chinese restaurant and ate lots, then went to a pub for a pint. It was good for Keeley to see her, but the conversation was a bit stilted (I suppose that happens when you haven't seen someone for three years). We'll see if the time with my exchange students works out like that.
Very importantly, and to my great elation, last night just before bed Lauren (our new Australian friend) allowed me to take her 40g Vegemite jar with me. Being so small it is safe from the evil airport security and I can once again enjoy the occasional piece of toast. Download free Holiday emoticons today! Messenger's gift to you!
We dragged ourselves out of bed with some effort this morning, still recovering from yesterday. It was nice to sleep in a proper bed though. Our dorm is a smallish room with six double bunks and an upstairs loft sort of thing. It's good though because everyone in our room is really nice and talkative – we spent some time chatting to Emma, an Aussie at the end of her year-long working holiday, and a couple of Italian blokes, one with an impressive tattoo on his leg of his parents birthdays. Each date is about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, so it's pretty big.
We went on the New Europe walking tour of Dublin today. Our guide, Ali, was a very entertaining and enthusiastic half-German, half-Irish bloke and we spent around three hours cruising the streets learning the history of Dublin. There have been many attempted revolutions here to overthrow the British government and monarchy throughout the ages, and we heard a bit about the many characters that have shaped the nation. The castle is really a large Georgian palace, with only a solitary tower remaining from the original medieval castle that burnt down. There is a big grassed helipad with Celtic snakes on it whose eyes light up at night to guide the choppers. One of the more amusing stories is of a plaque commemorating the death of a man who drove his horse and buggy off O'Connell Bridge – the amusing part being that he never existed and the plaque was a prank that remained unnoticed by the city council for two years. When they announced it would be removed, people started laying wreaths and flowers at the plaque in protest, so it stayed. We also saw Trinity College, and it is truly amazing. It would be very cool to study there. There are a few of the laws in the constitution of the College that outdate Irish law itself and theoretically still hold, such as the requirement that the College provide a free pint of stout to anyone arriving for their exams on horseback, or the superstition that undergrads can't walk under the tower for fear of failing, or the 'scholarship exams' that, if you finish in the top bracket (a near superhuman feat), entitle you to free meals, accommodation and postgrad tuition for five years, as well as waiving your requirement to sit exams for your final undergrad year. There is also a window that is the only one in the College where it is legal to shoot Catholics with a bow and arrow (it was originally a Protestant college).
After the tour we teamed up with Emma, another Aussie Lauren, and an English girl and went to a traditional Irish pub for some Guinness. It was much better than I remembered, and I drank mine very easily. Alas, the extreme cost of everything here prevented us getting more (€3.10 for half a pint!!). It really is ridiculously expensive here, and all the attractions cost to get in (even the churches!). We have been assured that it is only Ireland, and not the Euro currency, which is making it so bad so hopefully the continent won't be this crazy. We soaked up the city for a while, going on a walk, then not much else. We travel south to Cork early tomorrow so another early night hopefully.
Our night at the airport wasn't as uncomfortable as we had thought, and we definitely weren't alone. It seems like quite a popular thing to do with people catching early flights. Our sleeping bags that zip together were pretty handy too, and it made it a little more comfortable. We ended up getting around five hours sleep, which was just as well because we had some issues at check-in. Our bags had managed to put on about five kilos each during the last three weeks, as we had redistributed books into them, we each had some leftover alcohol from New Years, and just generally moved things around. This meant we were faced with a £120 overweight fee or to repack. Naturally we chose to repack. This crisis averted, we went through security where a more serious travesty occurred. Our Vegemite, used for only a couple of slices of toast, was seized. I was very distraught, and the tiredness probably didn't help. We had been very careful about keeping liquids and our cutlery out of our daypacks but the Vegemite had escaped our attention. The plane trip was a short one, although I managed to steal a few more precious minutes of sleep, and we arrived in Dublin ahead of schedule. This did not, however, make us feel any better about our fifty-minute wait at passport control. On the upside, we got into the city for a very cheap €1.90 each, were dropped off almost right outside our hostel (Avalon House) and logged on for some much needed internet time to ensure our families knew we weren't dead. Dublin is nice, it doesn't have the charm of Edinburgh, but it feels like it has a really nice mix of contemporary culture and history. I think we'll appreciate it more after we do our walking tour tomorrow after a good night's sleep.
We didn't really do much else, just wandered around and did some shopping. In fact, the highlight of the day was probably Keeley's "epic nachos", a truly magnificent creation of bolognaise sauce, cheese, corn chips and sour cream. Best of all the leftover sauce should feed us for the next couple of days. Find your ideal job with SEEK Time for change?
Our last two hostels had advertised free wireless internet, but they were "broken" and not on offer respectively, so I haven't updated in a couple of days. Sitting in the hostel in Dublin, will update again tonight hopefully.
DAY 21 – LONDON08/01/2009
After stumbling upon a 25% discount to the London Bridge Experience and London Tombs, we thought we'd head there and check it out, It turned out to be one of the more interesting and exciting things we'd done, although I'm not sure it will come out that well in words. We were first led through a short 'interactive' immersive exhibit where we were tasked to 'go back in time' and learnt about the history of the various bridges that have spanned the Thames at that spot (each replacing the former and all called the London Bridge). It was pretty well done, the actors were all very good and the props were impressive. There has been a bridge on that site since forty-something AD, and interestingly the wooden buildings on the stone bridge burnt down only a couple of years before the great Fire of London in 1666, and this ended up providing a barrier that prevented the fire from spreading south of the river. Following our 'experience' we went down into the not-historically-accurate frightfest that was the Tombs. It was really good, not truly terrifying but suspenseful enough shuffling through pitch-black rooms with only strobe lights to guide us and lots of people jumping out at us etc.
Our night ended with the long-awaited pub-crawl. It was very enjoyable, and we met a lot of really nice people and got really good value from our tickets, with free shots and cheap drink deals. We met a lot of Americans, who were really good fun, and although they may not be lifelong friends, they did make the night a lot easier with their shenanigans. One guy, Mike from Virginia, practically skulled a bottle of red wine that we bought on the way from one pub to another. The pubs were a good mix, with one terrible 'American-themed' one (which had really nice Long Island Iced Teas), a grungy Belushi's franchise arrangement, a no-music 'traditional British pub', a funky contemporary modern one with a cool upstairs balcony overlooking everyone, and an electro-club style one that we ended at. All of today was very much recommended for anyone coming to London, that's for sure.
DAY 22 – LONDON09/01/2009
We dragged ourselves out of bed for breakfast, but our post-2am bedtime got the better of us and we went back to bed for a bit. This hostel (one of an apparently new 'Smart' franchise, in Russell Square) is really good for that – each bed has its own little set of curtains so you can block out the light and sleep whenever you want. There's also a cool little RF keycard system, although it and the Oyster card sometimes get confused so you have to keep them separate. Brekky was good; it was much like everywhere else but with one crucial difference – the jar of Vegemite I bought in the supermarket yesterday. It was hidden on the bottom shelf, but the yellow jar and lid was unmistakable. I didn't realise how much I'd missed it, and from now on breakfasts will be that much better.
We headed to Greenwich today, in London's southeast. The train ride was interesting – the docklands has its own dedicated light rail line, similar I guess to a tram, and it snaked its way through the modern, skyscraper part of London. After spending so much time at ground level amongst old buildings, it was cool to see the contemporary part of London. Also, the train was remotely controlled by an attendant roaming the carriages, and didn't have a driver per se, or even a driver's compartment, so that was different. Once in Greenwich we were disappointed to find the Cutty Sark, an old sailing ship, was covered in scaffolding and tarps, under repair, so we went to the Old Naval College (now Greenwich University I think), saw some paintings in Inigo Jones' Queen's House (one of the first Renaissance buildings in all of the UK), and wandered through the Painted Hall and the Chapel. Both of these buildings were immaculately decorated, and the Painted Hall in particular was, unsurprisingly, painted on every surface. For example, there were regular old round columns with very lifelike flutes painted onto them, a giant mural on the ceiling, and details more delicate than some of the framed paintings we've seen. It was set up as a dining hall, and I have no doubt that it would make an incredibly impressive, and expensive, function venue. After the College, we climbed the hill in Greenwich gardens to get to the Royal Observatory, where the prime meridian of the earth is located. It's a bar in the pavement with a cool sculpture at the end, nothing particularly special, although there was a pretty interesting museum of clocks and timekeeping there. One chronometer that was designed to be taken on ships to sea took 19 years to design and had over 700 precisely engineered components. We leave London to head west to Salisbury tomorrow afternoon, so we have to finish all our sightseeing pretty quickly and make the most of the day.
DAY 23 – LONDON AND SALISBURY10/01/2009
Our last day in London… We were keen to get a couple of photos of sights we hadn't really got around to, but it turned out to be a day of surprises. First we went in search of St Paul's cathedral, a truly spectacular and massive church. Alas, to our dismay there was a very steep entry charge (£8.50 for the chapel proper and £11 for the crypt) so we decided against exploring the inside too much and contented ourselves with photos of the outside. Unfortunately, one side was also covered in scaffolding for refurbishment so that limited even external photo opportunities. We went over the Millennium Bridge, which is a little underwhelming, in search of my obsession for the week – the Clink Prison museum. I have been convinced that I visited it with the family when we came in '99 and loved it, but it has proved very elusive. It turned out to be another disappointment: it isn't open over winter. Let down, we headed toward the Borough Market (sort of accidentally) and ran into the most unlikely of people – Tom Molyneux from hockey in Geelong. Of all the people in all the places… he was apparently on holiday to France and was just in London for a week to visit his aunt, and happened to be on the same stretch of footpath as us at that moment. Bizarre. The market itself was a very pleasant experience – there were all sorts of tastings: yoghurt, cheese (lots of it!), olives, pestos, bread, sweets, fruit, meat, everything. When Jamie Oliver talks of going down 'to the local market', this is what he's talking about. It was great, exclusive-tasting food from independent producers, and it wasn't really that expensive. We picked up some really good yoghurt for fifty pence a tub, including some unusual flavours like lemon (surprisingly nice) and Keeley's favourite, a fruit called damson. It's really good, and we're looking forward to eating it on our bike ride to Stonehenge tomorrow. That's the plan, anyway. We also finally got around to catching a double-decker red bus, where we lurched from stop to stop hoping we were headed in the right direction (fortunately, we were!).
Salisbury is a cute little town, with lots of one-way streets, some nice little shops, some canals, and not much else. Except for the massive Sainsburys (a supermarket chain here) with all sorts of things in an Aldi style – TVs and toasters to food and clothing. Alas, however, it was beaten out for our affections for the smaller Tesco store across the canal where we purchased a toffee pavlova. We were impressed, to say the least, even if we did eat it half-frozen. The hostel is a country house type of arrangement, which is a welcome change from our urban hostels, and is pretty well equipped and clean, which is nice. There are no mixed dorms though, and it is rather quiet, so Keeley gets a whole 8-bed dorm to herself. Privacy is nice, but we think she'll be a bit lonely.
DAY 24 – SALISBURY11/01/2009
With our minds set on riding bikes the short 8 miles to Stonehenge, we set off this morning in search of places to hire bikes. Alas, the place that the lady at the hostel sent us to doesn't seem to exist, but a very nice girl in Costa (think Gloria Jeans) helped us out. We discovered that, unsurprisingly, everything is closed on Sundays. A little dejected, we got on the bus and headed to the famous rocks. The trip was okay, the prerecorded commentary was interesting enough, but the countryside was nothing special. There were a few burial mounds of great historic and spiritual significance along the way, but they looked like, well, mounds. Stonehenge itself was much more magnificent, rooted in a big sort of hill, looking over an otherwise pretty barren landscape. I have to admit though, the stones weren't quite a big as I had expected. Don't get me wrong, though, they weigh an average of 65 tonnes and it is suitably impressive to behold. Our £14.50 bus ticket got us fast-tracked entry into the Stonehenge area, skipping the rather modest line. As the afternoon wore on there were more and more people coming, so I can imagine it would get pretty hectic during summer. We braved the wind to listen to the complementary audio guide talk about the history of the stones, with some pretty interesting bits about its construction. It was made using carpentry methods like tongue-in-groove and mortice joints, the stones have, on average, one third of their mass below the ground, and some of the stones were transported around 240 miles, probably along the Avon river. Apparently some people tried to recreate that journey in 2002 and failed, showing how impressive a feat that was over five thousand years ago. The price probably wasn't really good value, but I'm really glad we did it. It was one of those things I'm glad I experienced in person rather than just through pictures on the net.
Faced with a lot of time to kill in Salisbury, we wandered the streets, looking in shops and the like. We also visited the Salisbury cathedral, a disproportionately large church for the size of the town, and it is really something special. It has been really well maintained, the space makes you feel tiny, there is a brilliant fountain at the front entry and a chapter house and cloister garden at the back. The chapter house annexe at the back is important because it houses one of the four surviving copies of the Magna Carta, an agreement between the people of Britain and King John which granted them specific rights. It was the first codified human rights agreement in history, and the building is a bit of a shrine to it. The guide who spoke to us about it was a bit old and doddery, and seemed to confuse herself and forget what she had already told us. It was pretty funny really.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, just sitting on buses on our way to Stansted airport. We stopped for a stunning, cheap meal at Yates' pub in Southampton, and are now settling down to a no doubt uncomfortable night on the airport tiles. We fly out early tomorrow morning and unfortunately we wouldn't be able to get here in time if relying on public transport.
After briefly visiting the Science and Natural History museums on our first day in London, we knew it was going to be a whole-day effort to try and see it all. That effort was today. We went to the Natural History museum first, and that was suitably interesting, with lots of skeletons and stuffed animals (not of the cute and cuddly kind). You forget just how big some of these animals can get – life-size models of blue whales and dinosaurs made us feel very small. There was an interesting little section on herd animals such as elephants, deer, hogs, horses, etc that was kind of cool, and the models and skeletons of the really deep sea fish were the most captivating of the animal exhibits. There was also a room upstairs devoted to rocks, minerals and crystals, which I could have probably spent hours in. The sheer number of specimens was indescribable.
The Science Museum was predictably more colourful, noisy and hands-on. We spent a fair bit of time in the energy section, where we learnt (revised?) lots of stuff about renewable energy, electricity, etc etc. Keeley played a game that cast you as the minister for energy in the government, and you had to choose the location and type of power station to provide enough energy to the community while keeping the people on side. Predictably, she failed miserably, although we think it may have been because it was an unbeatable scenario. There was an exhibit on post-WW2 Britain and the technological advances of the time – my personal favourite was the alarm clock from the 50s or 60s that boiled a pot of tea for you after you woke up. Upstairs we saw a small setup about medical science, including an iron lung, various life support machines, x-rays, CT scanners, DNA testing machines (all that chem and biology came flooding back…), the works. As we were leaving, we noticed a surprisingly large exhibition on the history of mathematics, complete with graphing machines the size of couches, and a lot of 3D models of surfaces, Klein bottles, etc. It was all really interesting, and I could have easily spent several hours in that section alone (as it was also coupled with the history of computers). One particular 'machine' was a model of the financial system, where water is used to simulate the flow of money in a closed financial environment. Various valves were adjusted to show the flow-on effect of, say, a tax cut and how it would theoretically affect consumer spending and saving habits, in turn affecting investments, so on and so forth. I could almost hear Pat telling me how it has so many inaccuracies, but it was a very cool concept and would have been fun to play around with. Alas, by this time we had spent several solid hours in the two museums and it was time to move on. We did a few tidy-ups like getting Keeley an England badge to add to her collection and a bit of research about skiing, had a really nice Italian dinner and watched a movie on the laptop. We leave for our next hostel in the morning, so we had to pack a bit today although it wasn't as bad as in Scotland (thank God). We're thinking we overpacked (surprise, surprise) so one of our families could be receiving a package soon, if we get the guts to choose which of our 'essential' items to send home.
