26 May 2010

Birthday Weekend 5/1-5/2

On Saturday, May 1, Mag's sister Liz had to go back to NY, but before she left, they gave me an organic carrot cake for my birthday. We had a lil tea party - it was really sweet.





Walking to the bus station in Maggie's coat



Mag and Liz - saying good-bye for a month


We went out later that night to celebrate.

On my actual birthday, May 2, Kristen, Bethany, Mag, Tracy, and I went to Pucchino's for brunch.


Maggie


Bethany (aka Schmef)


Kristen (aka Fitz)


Tracy


And me!


And this picture of me and Chuck was actually from Cinco de Mayo, but I dyed my hair reddish on my birthday, and this photo demonstrates that.

17 May 2010

Edinburgh, Scotland 25/4 - 27/4


Tracy and I went to Edinburgh, Scotland, during the last week in April. Our flight arrived at 8 am and we couldn't check into the hostel until 2, so we had tea and croissants at the Elephant House Cafe, where JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books.


View of Edinburgh Castle from the Elephant House Cafe.


City landmarks


Street performer


View from our hostel - we were in a prime location

After breakfast we went souvenir shopping on the Royal Mile. On a shelf at Oxfam, I found a book called Rochester, as in Rochester, MN. After a nap at the Castle Rock Hostel, where we stayed for 2 nights, we went out for a sushi supper.


Then we went on the Auld Reekie Ghost Tour of the underground vaults of Edinburgh. Our guide said that there were a lot of witch trials in Edinburgh in the 1700s. Apparently the term "saved by the bell" originated around this time because people were often buried alive (had the Plague, no coroner to pronounce people dead) and so rich people were buried with a bell above ground and a string attached to their wrists so if they woke up in a coffin, they could be dug up.


Spitting on the heart for good luck - all the locals do it. The heart used to be on the door of the prison that stood on this spot. People spat on it back in the day to show their contempt for the prisoners and tax collection administration inside.

The underground vaults were the scariest part of the tour. When ghost-hunting shows come to Edinburgh, this is where they go. Tracy and I held hands the entire time because we were freaking out. In the last room there was a big puddle in the middle of the floor, and the guide turned off her flashlight because she said it always goes out inside this room anyway. Tracy didn't want to go in because she was really scared, but the guide said everyone had to come in for "safety purposes." She told us the story of a big fire that happened in Edinburgh in the 1700s-1800s-ish. People remembered that there were vaults under the bridge and seeking refuse, they piled into the rooms. For some reason, they closed the door to this room and the oxygen started to get used up and the rock walls and ceiling got really hot. In the next few days when they were going through the vaults to rescue people, they found over 100 people dead in this room. That's why they think this room has the most paranormal activity and why a poltergeist (collection of evil energy) haunts this room. As we were getting more freaked out, someone in a robe jumped into the room and scared us. And we screamed. Overall, it was an exciting tour.


Our hostel was medieval-themed.


View from our room


The next day we took a free walking tour of the city. Our guide told us the story of Deacon Brodie, an "upstanding" member of Edinburgh society who was a locksmith. He lived a double life as a thief because he was able to make copies of the keys that people brought to him and then rob them later. He was the inspiration for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which was written by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson.


Yet another bagpipe player on the streets of Edinburgh


On our tour we saw the inspiration for JK Rowling's Hogwarts: George Heriot's School, which was founded by a philanthropist as a school for orphans, but is now a prestigious (and expensive) private school in Edinburgh, although it still has a few students who are orphans..


Greyfriar's Kirk (cemetery)

George Mackenzie is buried here, and he was infamous for persecuting the Covenanters, a political group in Scotland that refused to recognize the King of England as the head of their church. They were kept in the Covenanters Prison in Greyfriar's Kirk (just some walls and gates - no roof) and many people died in there because of the cold. It is believed that the poltergeist that haunts the Mausoleum is the spirit of Mackenzie after his coffin was disrupted by a homeless man. People who went inside the Black Door Mausoleum were sometimes attacked by this spirit and came out with bruises and cuts. Because of this, the Edinburgh City Council locked the door and the general public is not allowed inside.


The most haunted place in Edinburgh: the Black Door Mausoleum


The grave of Tom Riddle - young Voldemort from Harry Potter - is a real grave of a real person who lived in the 1800s.


Our tour concluded in Princes Street Gardens with a spectacular view of Edinburgh Castle.

After this tour, I saw the Sir Walter Scott Monument and visited the Writer's Museum on Lady Stair's Close, which had artifacts from the lives of Scottish writers Sir W. Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Robert Burns. Later that evening, Tracy and I made pasta and broccoli in our hostel's kitchen.

On our last day in Scotland, we went on a 12-hour bus tour of the Scottish Highlands. We saw the castle used in filming Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail - Doune Castle. The real one!! Most of the movie Braveheart was filmed in the region, too.


Our first stop was to get coffee and see Hamish, the Highland cow that is very photogenic (obviously).


Me and Tracy at the Three Sisters Mountains (so named because they are similar-looking and close together)

You know the scene in the movie Made of Honor when the Range Rovers are driving to Collin's Scottish castle? We drove on that road. And Hagrid's hut in the Harry Potter movies is shot in the region close to the Three Sisters. We stopped for lunch in Fort William and this one of the stops of the Jacobite train when it carries passengers around the Inverness region. This is the train that used as the Hogwarts Express.

The highlight of our tour was a boat trip on Loch Ness. It was really cold and windy on the top of the boat, so we went downstairs into the enclosed part of the boat. The guide talked about the monitors down here that show a sonar picture of the bottom of the lake, which is really deep.


The water looks black because it's over 700 feet deep in some spots and the soil in this area has a high concentration of peat. Loch Ness contains more fresh water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined (if you trust the accuracy of Wikipedia).


Nessie!


I told you it was windy that day.

Our tour guide showed us a picture of Nessie on his camera. He said he's seen it 5 times in his 30 years of working on the boat, but he also thinks there is more than one creature, because otherwise how would it have survived to be so old? Exactly.


Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness


These yellow flowers were all over the road sides of Scotland - it reminded me of the bountiful yellow daffodils in Ireland.


This is Blair Castle, the seat of the Dukes and Earls of Atholl. As in "little baby Atholl."

Scotland was one of my favorite places to visit this semester and when I go back, I want to see Sean Connery's portrait in the National Portrait Gallery (it was closed for an installation when we were there). There is also a mountain close to Edinburgh called Arthur's Seat that I want to climb when I go back to Scotland.

10 May 2010

Finally - Belfast! April 14-17


On the 98th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, Maggie, Liz, and I took a bus to Belfast in Northern Ireland (which is a separate country from the Republic of Ireland). We stayed at Paddy's Palace near Queens University and on our first night, ate at an Indian restaurant for supper. The next morning we went on a Paddywagon tour of the Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge, Giant's Causeway, and the city of Derry/Londonderry.



This is at the rope bridge - the coast of Scotland is only 12 miles from here.








The water looked amazingly clear; we should have brought our swimsuits!


This is the actual bridge, but it cost money to cross it so we...





...just did yoga in front of it. And by "we" I mean Liz, the yoga instructor.


The coast of Giant's Causeway is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and all the basalt columns (mostly hexagonal) are naturally formed.





It was a treacherous climb over the rocks.








A little kid was doing ninja poses on the columns and his dad was getting mad because he just wanted him to smile for pictures.


We had a quick stop at Dunluce Castle, near the Bushmills distillery, on the way to Derry.


There is still some tension in Derry/Londonderry from the "Troubles" - the conflict between Loyalists and Republicans over whether Northern Ireland should be part of the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland. Evidence of the conflict: they can't even agree on a name for the city. "Derry" is the Republican name and "Londonderry" is the Loyalist name, so depending on whose side the mapmaker is on, the city can be listed under either of these names.


These murals in Derry are like the political murals in Belfast and serve as memorials or calls to fight in the Troubles.


The next afternoon we took a black taxi tour of Belfast, something that is very popular there. It's a private tour led by the taxi driver. Our guide was Protestant and on the Loyalist side during the Troubles. He showed us these murals, which are all over the city.


An example of a black taxi, though not ours.


This is a memorial on the Republican side of the "Peace" Wall, although it represented no such thing. The wall separates the Republican and Loyalist sides of town, and often rocks and grenades were thrown over the wall; that's why the fence on top was added.


The Loyalist side of the wall was covered in graffiti and messages of both hatred and peace.


Many of the murals are painted on the sides of houses, in addition to commercial buildings.


After the tour, we went to the Botanical Gardens near Queens University and our hostel.


The lilacs were in bloom here, and it made me really miss my backyard at home.








After we got back, we found out the airspace in Ireland and the UK was closed because of the Icelandic volcano and concerns over the ash, so Mag and Liz's flight to London was canceled. I was just going to take the bus back to Cork, so my plans weren't messed up, but we treated ourselves to takeaway sushi anyway. When we got back to the hostel, we found out that virtually everyone there had flights canceled, and it felt like a snow day had just been announced. There was a sense that everyone was both excited and entrapped; people were in a unifying and generous mood, if only because some girls we met earlier had made scones with jam and frosting for anyone who wanted one. It was a feeling of "We're all in this together," minus the High School Musical sing-along.


Mag and I were walking around and we saw this: church-turned-shopping center called the Spires Shopping Mall. Creative.

My advice for anyone going to Belfast: find a bus tour that's going to Giant's Causeway for free; ours was comp through the hostel because we booked at least 2 nights there. I'm also planning to go back to Belfast in early April 2012 because it will be the centennial of the sailing of the Titanic and the city is building a new cultural center and there will be lots of festivities including tours of the Pump House and the captain's office, which has been locked since the ship's sinking. I'm planning on bringing my dad. You might have to help me convince him, even though he loves the Titanic.