Oh it's like I'm part of the jetset

Ed Harcourt

So, Ireland's done, but I'll update that later. Chapter 2 starts now. I'm on my own, meeting up with Simon tomorrow, then it's Glastonbury and mainland Europe.

Oh, and I shaved my beard.

A few photos

On top of a mountain in Brecon Beacons Park, Wales


Magic Portal to NYC from London's south bank


Holyhead, Wales, waiting for the 2:20am ferry


The Irish Coast, along the Ring of Kerry


Ross Castle, in Killarney

if we leave tonight, then we leave it all behind.

Fionn Regan - Abacus

I'm in Cork now, after spending a few days in Dublin and Kilkenny.

Dublin consisted of wandering around, checking out the National History Museum, which had these awesome bodies from the middle ages preserved in bogs. The so-called "dead zoo" museum in Dublin was closed for renovations. That sucked. I went to the Chester Beatty Library. He was this rich guy who went around the world 'collecting' books and rare items. Annoyingly imperialistic, but still cool to see pages from the 800's. The Gallery of Photography was closed; they were preparing for a new show. The National Photographic Archives was tiny. It was basically one room with maybe 20 pieces on the walls. I checked out Trinity College, but didn't see the Book of Kells. Didn't feel like paying money to see that.

I went out to Temple Bar with 2 Canadian girls and an Aussie girl. One of the Canadians goes to Ottawa U. Temple Bar was fun but incredibly touristy.

I then hopped on a bus to Kilkenny and spend 2 days there, seeing the castle and cathedrals, and walking the medieval streets. Not a bad little town, but not a whole lot to do. I had a very interesting sleeping experience with 2 gay Italian boys.... fun. The hostel I stayed at (Mac Gabhainns) was fantastic, apart from that. Run by a really cool guy, and really homey, with a fantastic shower. I really hate the showers over here, with basically one temperature setting: hot. Kilkenny's nightlife is a bit lacking, though.

I'm now travelling around with the Aussie girl. This is our second day in Cork. Its not a bad town, just not a whole lot to do and we're both burnt out. We did the Blarney stone yesterday and walked around this morning. We were supposed to be in Killarney today but everything is booked for Saturday night. So we'll go there tomorrow night, stay for a couple of days, and then its off to either Doolin or Galway to check out the Burren, the Cliffs of Moher and the Aran Islands. That should be fun.

tomorrow is a brand new day, let's go somewhere else

air

So I'm in Dublin now. After a very annoying ordeal. But I'll get to that later.

I randomly decided to hike a mountain in Brecon Beacons National Park outside of Cardiff. It consisted of an hour-long busride to this middle of nowhere, and me deciding to take the steep route up. Yeah, dunno why I did that. The view from the top was fantastic, even if my legs were killing me. The bus service ran every 2 hours and stopped at 5pm, so I sort of ran down the easy trail to make it back to the bus stop.
The next day I saw Cardiff Castle and Cardiff Bay. Nothing fantastic. That night I wandered down to their nightlife on St Mary's St. Picture Canada Day in downtown Ottawa, only a lot more skanks and drunks, and it going on every weekend. The police just close the street and everyone goes wild. It was surreal, and I wasn't nearly drunk enough for it.

I then hopped on a train to make my way to Holyhead the next day, only to have one of the connecting train service just be cancelled. So thats annoying. I then take another train, which proceeds to break down. So I missed another connecting train and then missed the ferry. By the way, it only takes 2-3 hours to cross, but they only have 3 ferries a day. So I spent a good 8-9 hours in Holyhead waiting for the 2:20am boat to Dublin. Annoying. And I had booked a night at the hostel. So I get here to check in at 7am, and the guy at the desk just kind of gives me this look. I go to crash on the bed, then proceed to listen to a bunch of american/canadian ditzes talk in the room at 7am about random shit. They eventually leave, and I keep some sleep until about 9:30 when the hostel employee comes in and says "yeah, we're gonna have to move you now. we actually booked this entire room for a group. sorry for waking you."
So I've spent the day kind of wandering around, trying not to spend too much money. I might check out this Temple Bar thing here tonight, and maybe do laundry. Should probably do laundry.

Still no pictures up yet, but I still have more than half of my memory cards free. All the hostel computers dont allow you to download so I'll have to borrow someone's laptop at some point.

I'm somehow sunburnt. And it's been raining

I dunno how that happened. And its only on little strips on my arm. Weird.

Anyway, I went out to Canterbury and Dover the other day. Not a bad little daytrip. It only seemed to be sunny when I was on the train. When I actually got out to see the cathedral it was starting to rain. Same thing happened when I went to Dover. It was all overcast so I didn't even bother going to the cliffs. That, and they're an effing 40min walk from the train station. And I ran out of time because I went to the Dover castle. I went on this guided walking tour through their underground war tunnels, and there were 2 other people with me. Most of the time I spent wandering around the castle grounds I was alone. It was weird.

Yesterday I thought about going on another daytrip, but it was somewhat nice out so I walked around Hyde, St James and Green Park, and went to the British Museum. I got to finally see the pieces from the Acropolis in Athens that Lord Elgin stole and brought back with him to London. Bastard.

I also saw TWO rat tails, and a Crumpler store. That night the hostel had an awesome pub crawl. Met an Aussie who's going to Glastonbury as well, a Kiwi and a girl from London, Ontario.

Today I'm in Cardiff and I'll be here for the next few days. This is the weirdest keyboard I've typed on, too. The keys are tiny and there are huge gaps in between them.

I dislike children. A lot.

So, guess how many kids were sitting beside me, or in front of me, or behind me, during the flight? And guess how many were screaming the entire 7 hour trip? And guess how much discipline the parents handed out?

So I got no sleep on the flight. Which means I'm running on 4 hours of sleep from Saturday, but I don't really call that sleeping. The last decent night's sleep I got was Wednesday.

So I spent the morning wandering around the Thames in a delirous sleep-deprived state, looking for a bathroom for probably 2 hours. I found 1. It cost money. I found 25 ATMs, though.
I eventually found one in the Tate Modern, after walking the wrong way down the river. Oops.

I might go for a daytrip somewhere tomorrow. Maybe Bath or Canterbury. Today is definitely a wash, though. I'm still kinda out of it and I have no plans tonight. We'll see how long I stay up.