Hi All!

Wow, a lot has happened since I last wrote on this blog! I will try to cover all ground but it may be hard to do cause a lot has happened and I don’t have a whole lot of the internet. Anway, so basically right before I left London for Dublin, Ireland I went out with this German guy to picadilly circus to some of the night spots. We just kind of walked around and went into a few places until like 3am or so. Good times… just wanted to check out the nightlife a little in London. Felix (the German guy) was very friendly and when I go to Germany he said call me up! I have been impressed with how well the Germans seem to speak english. They have also been some of the friendliest people I have met… Good ole’ Germans.

So I woke up in the morning at like 7ish to get to the airport – and yes, it was very brutal on only 3 hours of sleep. Walking half dead, half asleep, I went in to the train station and it looked like there was a detour to take because of construction. In the process of trying to find out where to go – so that i didnt miss my flight – I ran into this Japanese guy from Tokyo – His name was Takayuki. Anyway, he was lost and trying to find his way to the airport as well. We ended up having to take some random bus to a different train station and just traveled together talking the entire way to the airport. Takayuki was awesome – even in the short time I had met him. He was 23, a student of finance, and seriously one of the nicest, most geniune and polite people I ever met – and that seems to be my impression of the Japanese people in general – very nice and hospitable – almost like they will go way out of their way to make you feel comfortable at all costs. I’m telling you, they are very civil and decent people – I need to visit Japan! Anyway, so during our journeying and talking for a while we decided that if either of us visited each others hometown, that we would meet up and take each other around the city. He said that he would take me all over Tokyo to get Sushi cause I said how much I liked it! As we separated, I was off to catch my plane in the airport!

And oh the fun had just begun…

Once I got to the airport, I checked my bag in and realized I didnt Pay for it online – so the good ole’ Irish made me pay like 25 pounds to check the bag – about 40 bucks! Not so happy about that, and tired as hell, I hurried to through security and just kept longing for that airplane seat – TO SLEEP! Anyway, the airline I was on said to be 2 and a half hours early if you were checking bags, which was not true because I ended up waiting like 2 hours in the airport for my plane to board… haha, gotta love traveling! Anyway, we FINALLY boarded the plane and when I got on the plane I thought that I had my own row – and was sooooo happy to sleep a little. Well, to make the story short all of my hopes and dreams to sleep were shattered when this 17-year old Canadian girl – just turning 18 – walked up and said, oh this is my seat – on the window next to me. This wouldn’t usually have been so bad, but this was not ordinary girl. It was her first time flying, her first time out of the country, and she was jet lagged like crazy. She was meeting her boyfriend in Dublin and was just excited to get there. Anyway, She was super scared of flying and just thought that it would be a great idea to constantly talk to me the entire trip. I tried to be nice for a bit and talk to her – especially when she was freaking out yelling at the stewardess for the plane making funny/normal noises – because she was really scared. Anyway, after she kept making fun of the Irish accent – around a ton of Irish people – and jus tbeing very obnoxious, I told her that i needed some sleep. I must have told her this like 4 times and kept closing my eyes… but she kept right on talking to herself as if i was there.. haha. So, I ended up talking to her more and not sleeping – dying for sleep! We finally landed and the drama didn’t end there, but don’t have time to write it. More details… later.

So after waiting about 2 hours in Irish customs, and walking about 30 minutes to my hostel, I finally made it!! I got to my hostel around 5pm. After this whole day, all i wanted to do was sleep, I checked in to my hostel and walked up the stairs to the room. I put my key in the door – carrying all of my luggage, opened it up – and I kid you not – the first thing I see when I open up the door is this like 45-50 year old, ultra hairy man – standing right in front of me in only his tighty-whitey, blue underwear. I kind of just laughed from delerium and thought to myself – you have got to be kidding me. I said hello to my roomate and he went to take a shower… I guess perfect timing huh… lol. Gotta love the hostels…

So when I got there all i wanted to do was sleep – and I did – for about 2 hours. Well, that is not entirely true – I first went to this Irish pub next door to get some food cause I didnt eat all day – didnt realize it was gonna be an all day event

My first impression of Ireland was a great one. I got there during rush hour, the streets were packed, and there was amazingly old architecture all around me. I loved it. It was very traditional as you would expect. It was kinda funny because when I got off of the train station, i really didnt know where I was going so I asked someone directions. The first person I asked, i said – “Do you know how to get to this street?” and this older lady replied to me in Russian – “I don’t speak english, I’m Russian”… I just laughed and said “Oh great then you’re in luck, cause I speak Russian”… She laughed and asked me why I spoke Russian, we talked for a few minutes and she gave me directions… pretty funny

Anyway, the rest of the night I just walked around a little and went to bed early – I needed it. Well, that is all i have time to write for now, but much more to come later… that is just scratching the surface for Ireland. Dang, time is flying! Anyway, be back soon! Enjoy!

Cheers!

-DC

The day started out early again as I had to meet the tour bus at around 8am about two subway stops from my hostel. I decided to just take a tour out to Stonehenge because it seemed to be a lot easier, about the same price, and I could go to the city of Bath – which I originally did not intend to do. There was about 15 other people on the tour with me. I met a few people and somehow got talking with this older canadian lady for a while who just could not stop raving about BYU (good to know she thought it was a great school not being from the states).

Anyway, so we drove for about 2 hours or so from London to get to our first stop – Stonehenge. At first glance, it was amazing to see in the distance. You always hear about the place and see it on pictures, but never really think you would ever be there. We headed out of the bus and began to walk around and listen to an audio recording about the history of the mysterious stones. Unfortunetly, there was a rope around the stones which didn’t permit you to walk right up to the stones and touch them, etc. This was the only bummer of the tour – apparently, you need to setup ahead of time to walk right up to the stones and special permission to do so – which I didn’t know.

As I was walking around marveling at the strangeness and beauty of the stones, I met some dude from the states who recommended all kinds of places to go around Europe. He then graciously snapped my picture as I hopped over the rope, quickly ran towards the middle of the stones, got the pic, and ran back so that I wouldn’t be shot by the military tank that was driving by – apparently it is common for tanks to drive around the area – for the British military training…

Next stop – off to Bath, England – where the Roman Baths were. It took us about 1 hour to get to the baths, but wow was it worth a visit. The Roman Baths are these old roman ruins that are thousands of years old. The Romans found that there were hot springs with healing properties and decided to develop a bath house for royalty. They were pretty impressive to see – just how old they are and how they built this bathhouse – it kind of looks like and reminded me of the roman bath houses you see on the movies Gladiator or The Count of Monte Cristo.

After wondering around the baths for a while I wondered around the city of Bath – we had about a total of 3 hours to see the city. It was a very interesting and old city. It was out in the country side with a ton of old buildings, intricate architecture, and good ole cobblestone streets.

As I was walking around the city I ran into some interesting people… talked to all kinds of english people and other people wondering the city like I was – tourists. One guy that I ran into in particular was John Bedford. As I was walking around the city, I stopped to ask this old man to take a picture for me. He himself had been riding his bike and taking pictures of flowers. Anyway, I began to talk to him and we talked for quite a while. It turned out that this man was a very prominent research chemist in his life – attended Cambridge, traveled all over the world, was a university professor and seemed to have had a great life. He was in his later seventies and was primarily involved with silicon chemistry. While talking to him, he seemed excited and wanted to talk forever. He began to talk about chemistry and the technical aspects of organic chemistry, polymers, compounds, etc. As he began to lose me with his technical jargon, to my amazement it turned out that this man – that I had met in the little town of Bath (around 80,000 people or less) was the inventor material they used to make the heat resistant spaceship panels for the first spaceship they sent to the moon! He enthusiastically and excitedly told me of the experience he had – that he met all of the famous astronauts that the U.S. army recruited him to move to Corpus Christi, Texas and that all of his work during that time was classified by the U.S. government! So to say the least, it was an interesting experience. Here it was me talking to this very old man who I originally thought was nobody – turns out to be an important part of American history – all in the little town of Bath, England. You never know who you are gonna meet, so be kind to everyone – and that is all I have to say about that.

The rest of my experience in Bath was great. I ate some interesting and tasty food – some sort of hot pocket with chicken and apple pie filling, a sausage dog, and some oranges. After I wondered the curvy cobblestone streets I found my way back to the tour bus just in time to go back to London. I took some great pics so look below to see a few of them!

I then got back to hostel – eventually – and hung around for a bit. About when I was going to go to sleep, this German guy I had been talking to off and on wanted to go out downtown in London. We ended up going out at like 11:30pm to one of the many downtown areas. We wondered around amongst the people and crazy lights, went into a few different pubs to check them out, and didn’t get in until around 3am-ish. After we ate some sandwiches and joked around a bit, I finally got to bed around 3:30 or so… just in time to wake up to go to the airport at 8am! Wow, what a trip… I am now exhausted – but still smiling .

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I finally made it to London… YEA! So far everything has worked out great. I left Portland, Oregon on Wednesday, March 3 at 7:20am for London. After a brutal flight overnight, I arrived to London Heathrow airport at around 6:30am on March 4 – Today. Customs was easy and I found my bag right away… so all worked out with in that regard.

I managed to find my way to the hostel that I was staying at – YHA London Central. I had to take the train and walk a little bit this morning, but I eventually found my way! When I got to the hostel it was too early in the morning for me to check in and thus – get a room – so I relaxed for a few minutes and decided not to waste anytime. I hurried and locked my bag in the baggage room and was on my way.

First, I oriented myself and decided to get some traditional english breakfast – and oh how classic it was . I went to this little cafe called Cafe Meze, which was right by the “Tube” station. I got the Set: 1 – which came with the following – a fried egg (fairly raw), baked bean (yes, like pork n’ beans), a piece of sausage, bacon – which was mostly raw too (ooohhh yea, just the way I like it), some toast, and of course – some classic “ahenglish” (sound out your best british accent on this one) tea…

Although, it was not your typical “American” breakfast, it was pretty dang good – especially after not eating for hours.

After breakfast (which was about 10am), I hopped on the “Tube” and headed for the sights of London. To make a long day of walking and sight seeing easy to write about, basically I went to the following places: London Tower Bridge, Westminister Abbey, Buckingham palace, the London Eye, this awesome outdoor market with tons of different kinds of food, a cathedral, and just wondered for hours.

The day was great, but I have been exhausted from traveling- to say the least. Along my route I met some interesting people, which ill write about later. Anyway, so I got back to my hostel around 7pm, ate and just hung around for a while. I met a bunch or people at the hostel – most were all very friendly, etc. It’s amazing how many people are traveling alone and/or just traveling all over the place – young and old – and everything inbetween – from all over the world. Anyway, so I went to bed a bit earlier (around 11:30ish) only to get up in the morning at around 7am to go to Stonehenge and the Roman Baths!

More to come – the adventure has just begun…

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Enjoy!

Click the “read more” link to see the pics!!

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