europe: bagpipes and guiness

[wednesday, february 11th]
lizzie and i got up early[ier] wednesday morning and made frenchtoast in honor of our departure. jayne dropped us off at the train station at about 11am and after lots of hugs, we said goodbye to our dear friend and headed back into the scary world. we got the train to edinburgh and found our hostel, brodies, along the royal mile, without hardly a glitch. it was a beautiful afternoon so we took our sandwiches and walked down to a park near the sir walter scott monument.


we played with the pigeons, admired the flowers' valiant efforts, and imagined the park a few months down the road with spring in full bloom. after lunch we went to the national gallery of scotland and walked through color-era coordinated rooms until they closed and we had to leave before making it to the impressionists. but we did see some rembrandt and van gogh on our way out! on our way to the hostel we got to hear some bag pipes and my "scary thing for the day" was posing close to the musician for a picture.


we got pasta at a grocery store for dinner and found jade (our third roommate from oxford who is going to grad school in aberdeen) waiting for us at the hostel when we got back. roommate reunion!


we had dinner and tea and talked around the table before going back out into the night for a "tour of hanted edinburgh," a la jade. (she'd gone on an actual tour only a few months before, so she remembered most of the stories and facts). a full moon looked down as jade led us through dark cemeteries where we saw hume's grave and ghost faces on gravestones, over "suicide bridge," and up hills past a replica of the roman parthenon (that isn't finished), and we were entertained and scared (but only a little) by stories of grave robberies, the black plague, and the ghosts inhabiting places like mary king's close.


after enough scaring for one night, we went back to the hostel for tea and much more conversation before bed that night.

[thursday, february 12th]
thursday morning dawned and we were greeted with -surprise -snow!! actually not really a surprise as snow followed us everywhere we went. not to be deterred, we bundled up and headed up the royal mile to edinburgh castle.


our labor was in vain though, as we found it closed due to the weather conditions. it was sad, but we determined to see some other sights and then check back with the castle later. we went to st. giles cathedral and stood in awe of yet another beautiful church (i keep wondering -what kind of places will we leave for future generations to admire?). after walking down the royal mile and back up again, we checked back at the castle and found it open -joy!


we sopped (literally) through the castle and saw st. mary's cathedral (the oldest part of the castle), the dog cemetery, the scottish crowned jewels, the dungeons, the prisoners of war quarters (where american pows were treated the worst, as they were assumed to be pirates), etc.


we had lunch at the castle tea rooms and even shared hot chocolate for a treat.


it was so much fun spending time with jade and walking around as the "threesome" we were at oxford.


we left the castle in the late afternoon and went back to the hostel to get our things and head for the train station (and jade to the bus station). after saying goodbye to jade we were just in time to get the 6pm train to glascow. we met my third cousin, donna clark and her husband at the glascow train station and they drove us through the stormy dark to their home right on the coast near the prestwick airport. the clarks are an amazing family with a huge 130 year old house they have been renovating. we were treated to delicious split pea soup (a homeschool home-ec project) and sandwiches and lovely hot showers and baths. once again we were spoiled by the hospitality of people we've never even met! anastasia, the 10 year old daughter, gave us her room for the night and we slept well, though not for long, only about 4 hours by the time we went to bed.

[friday, february 13th]
yep, friday the 13th! we made the most of it waking up at 4:30am to catch our super cheap (ryan air) 6:30am flights out of prestwick airport into dublin. the clarks were wonderful and made us bacon and toast for breakfast and sent us with sandwiches and cookies and apples for lunch -like i said -amazing hospitality. they left us at the airport running to catch our flight, but we got on without problem. we found ourselves in dublin before the tourist office opened, so we hung out in the lobby for awhile until we could buy bus passes to get into the city. we took the bus to a hostel only to find the prices they had advertised online were for male dorms only, (i'm not gonna lie, i felt like being a feminist) and since we weren't willing to pay more for the female dorms, we left in search of another hostel. we found avalon hostel and were glad we had continued our search as it was in the center of town, had free wireless, and had its own coffee shop! we made use of the coffee shop and wireless for the next several hours until we could get into our rooms at 2pm. at that point we were quite exhausted and couldn't imagine getting much out of walking around dublin, so we slept the afternoon away. that evening we went down to o'connel street, found a theatre, and saw "valkerie." we had seen it advertised since we started out in berlin, so we'd been wanting to see it for a long time. we had nutella sandwiches and carrots and hummus (surprise!) for dinner and went to bed pretty early, still exhausted from the early morning.

[saturday, february 14th]
we spent valentine's day roaming the streets of dublin along with all the other couples of the world. we started out with a guiness and a shot of jameson whiskey at temple bar. it was 1 o'clock and the famous bar was already crowded with people and live music. then we continued walking and went to trinity college where we saw the tail end of a football game (my team won) while eating our sandwiches. we thought about seeing the book of kells, but when we found out the display wasn't even the original, decided against it and admired it in gift shop book pictures, instead. we amused ourselves with oscar wilde quote books ("the only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself." so true.) and irish joke books (my favorite: secretary says to her boss, "mr. nobody is here to see you." boss says back, "tell him i can't see him." ha!) we left trinity college and got to st. stephen's gate just as they were closing it for the night, so we continued on. we stopped at marks and spencers on our way to the bus stop and scored on a chocolate fudge valentine's day cake. we got the bus to howth village, about 40 minutes from dublin, and walked a short bit to the home of marlene mccormick (the mother of a friend of a friend of my dad's -say that 10 times fast). she surprised us with dinner -fresh fish casserole. it was wonderful. we talked over chocolate cake and tea and planned out the next day before turning in for the night.

sunday, february 15th]
after breakfast sunday morning, marlene walked us down the coast to the howth sunday market at the pier. we admired jewelry, baked goods, vegetables, crafts, etc. and then spent a while reading on a bench out on the pier. when we were too cold to read anymore, we got the most delicious vegetable soup to share for lunch. for dessert we split a crepe, which should have been banana and nutella, but at the last second i ordered an interesting chocolate and marshmallow combination. it was good, but i'd go for banana and nutella any day. after lunch we got the bus back into dublin and continued our tour of the city with st. stephen's green. it was a beautiful sunday afternoon for a walk through the parks and we weren't the only ones who thought so. there were families and couples and friends strolling, feeding the ducks, and generally enjoying the sun. we did the same. at about 2:30pm we started walking in a round about way toward st. patrick's cathedral. we got there just in time for the afternoon service and got to enjoy the cathedral not only as a beautiful building, but as a place of worship (and by attending the service we bypassed the 6.50 entrance fee). after the service we took our time wandering through the cathedral and saw where jonathan swift (gulliver's travels) is buried. we left the cathedral and started out in the direction of the guiness brewery, without which our tour of dublin would not be complete, of course. along the way we passed by what we think were some of the famous "colored doors" of dublin. we didn't actually pay to go inside the guiness brewery, but we took a picture outside and called it good. we also found st. james gate and lizzie got her picture, though sadly she wasn't wearing her "st. james" shirt that day. we got the bus back to o'connel street and after saying goodbye to dublin, we got another bus back to howth. marlene made a lovely dinner that night and we even made it back in time to enjoy it with her. we were treated to bread pudding with fresh rhubarb -fabulous! -and after more tea, we went to bed for the last time in europe (for now) full and happy with the promise of a full irish breakfast in the morning.

[monday, february 16th]
marlene didn't disappoint -we enjoyed a full irish breakfast with all the fixins', including black pudding, on monday morning. we had packed up the night before, so we got our things together pretty quickly and were ready to head for the airport by 9:30am. before taking us to the airport, marlene took us up the cliffs at howth to see the spectacular ocean view. we took pictures and then she took us to howth castle (which has recently opened up as a culinary school) where there is a beautiful golf course and another great view of the ocean and coast line. it was gorgeous and green and lizzie and i decided again that we must come back to ireland to see more of the countryside and actually spend a decent amount of time there. marlene dropped us off at the airport in plenty of time for our flight and we said goodbye to her and the trip of a lifetime. we got on our flight for chicago at 2:30pm and spent the next hours watching movies and playing word games. we finished our books in the chicago airport, so we spent our connecting flight to seattle trying to sleep and failing miserably. thank God for sudoku! our parents were there to greet us at the bottom of the escalator in seattle and with our dads carrying our backpacks, we felt rather naked.

it's a bittersweet thing, coming back from a trip. it's wonderful to be home and we were more than ready to be done living out of a backpack for awhile, but it also meant driving off in opposite directions and waking up without the excitement of wondering what adventures will be had that day. but there are adventures at home, too -just normally not so exciting as backpacking across europe.

and with that, my europe journals are complete. thanks for reading along and joining in my adventures!