This morning we packed all our stuff and left it in the luggage room at the hostel while we went out for one last walk around town. We had to make sure we knew how to get to the train station (back to the airport...St. Pancras Station) and then went to the British Museum for a while. It was cool to see the actual artifacts from the Pyramids and the Parthenon, can't believe how preserved they are! It was too hot in that building, so unfortunately we had to cut that short and find a park to take a nap in for a while. When we woke up, it was time for lunch...on the hunt for fish and chips. Gotta have fish and chips in England, right? They are definitely better here for some reason...even if the cod does still have the skin on one side. Time to go pick up our stuff and head back to the airport. It really is amazing how poor the customer service is...makes us appreciate the states a little bit more. We waited in line for Ryanair to check our visa's (since we weren't about to make the same mistake as last time!) for what felt like forever. The line was getting longer and there was no sign of a Ryanair employee anywhere. Kelly went to ask the service desk about it, and the man told her that we could have our passports checked at any desk. Soooo, we believed him and got out of the front of the line to go to another desk only to find that, in fact, we do have to get it from Ryanair specifically. We went and sat down in a corner for a while, till someone arrived to start checking visa's. Back to the end of the line! Good thing we allowed ourselves more than enough time for something like this to happen.
Back in Dublin for one last night. Matt went out for that pint of Guinness he had so anxiously awaited...and we sorted out our bags for the flight home. Kelly went to shower while Mallory hung out with some kid from California downstairs...talking about their art majors and stuff. We had every intention of staying up all night so we'd be able to sleep on the plane...and almost made it. Went in search for one last ice cream and the only place we found it was McDonalds. Who would have known McDonalds would be so busy at 2 in the morning...on a Tuesday!? A bunch of drunk 18 year olds (none of them could have been more than 20, I swear!) getting out of clubs, needing that greasy food for the hangover prevention. Most of them were annoying, some of them entertaining...and a few girls that were just hilarious. They were so happy and singing Wham! "Wake me up before you go go..." we all know the song...and taking pictures of the security guard that they say looks like Barack Obama. If we learned one thing from this all, it's that the Irish LOVE Spongebob...all of them commented on Kelly's pajamas as we walked past, and some of them even wanted a hug, or to give the pants a tug! Uh oh! We found Matt back outside the hostel, and people-watched some more till the streets were empty.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Day 17
Well...all we can say is...it sure is a good thing we left at noon on our walk to church (that started at 2:30pm)!!! We were walking nonstop the entire 2 1/2 hours, barely got there on time. It was nice, though, we were able to see a lot of the city that we wouldn't have otherwise! Church was pretty much the exact same as it is in Utah, really...there were probably more Americans than there were English! The first guy that spoke to us was from Highland Utah and Kelly went to school with his little brother, ha what are the chances?!
After church, we walked over to Hyde Park to meet Katie and Matt. Kelly also had emailed a couple friends in the area and told them to meet us by the Albert Memorial if they were able to, and a couple of them actually came. Mathias is actually from Austria but just so happened to be in London the same weekend as us, and Tod lives nearby and surprisingly showed up as well! It was good to see them, and spend some time in the infamous Hyde Park (HUGE, by the way).
We weren't about to walk all the way back to Russell Square, so we paid the 2 pounds to take the bus back...and parted ways with Katie at the bus station, she had to catch the last train back to Bristol.
After church, we walked over to Hyde Park to meet Katie and Matt. Kelly also had emailed a couple friends in the area and told them to meet us by the Albert Memorial if they were able to, and a couple of them actually came. Mathias is actually from Austria but just so happened to be in London the same weekend as us, and Tod lives nearby and surprisingly showed up as well! It was good to see them, and spend some time in the infamous Hyde Park (HUGE, by the way).
We weren't about to walk all the way back to Russell Square, so we paid the 2 pounds to take the bus back...and parted ways with Katie at the bus station, she had to catch the last train back to Bristol.
Day 16
Today Kelly's friend Katie came to London from Bristol to hang out and show us around town. We bought an all day train ticket so we could hop from one place to another with our guide (who doesn't like walking apparently). First, she took us to Buckingham Palace, where the Queen is presently (the flag on top of the palace is at half-mast if she is away). It was really cool to see the guards so stiff, marching back and forth every now and then so as to not pass out! It was a pretty hot day, don't know how they can stand there so still in a stuffy uniform holding a heavy rifle, and not die. We walked through St. James Park to get there, and that was just beautiful! There are so many cool parks just chillin in the middle of this big city, a nice place to sit and relax and get away from the hustle and bustle every now and then. After Buckingham, we went to the Tower of London, and Tower Bridge. Passed by the London Bridge as well. We got talking about Fergie and how in her video for "London Bridge" she actually has Tower Bridge in the background. Shocking, right? Especially with her reputation of being an educated scholar...who spells "Tasty" wrong in a song just so that it will rhyme better. Oh to be stupid and get paid for it! Haha.
We walked around Oxford Street (the shopping area) for a bit, had a nice lunch in a small cafe, and then we were off to find Kelly's one souvenir desire: Urban Decay makeup. The first department store we came to didn't have it, and Katie just wanted to keep looking...but Mallory said she'd go ask the girl at the Chanel counter. Katie, being the posh epitomy of a British snob that she is (and we love her for it!), was completely embarrassed by the fact that she would even THINK to go ask the "Chanel girl" let alone actually do it! So she was out of there in a flash, and we met her outside. Silly Americans that we are, wouldn't know that such an act is forbidden...but we got what we wanted and knew where to find the makeup counter we were looking for. Debenhams. Kelly was ecstatic about the makeup, and we were all ecstatic about getting ice cream after!
London is not as dirty as we had expected, but it's still not as clean as we're used to. We discovered that trash bins are very few and far between in this city...thus why people just throw their garbage in the street...they probably get sick of holding it, not knowing when they will find a bin! So we asked Katie why there are no bins and she said that it's because people would put bombs in them. Hmmm, hadn't thought of that. But makes sense...and I guess they've just settled for dirty streets rather than getting blown up!
We got back to the hostel and had a short nap before getting up to play with makeup and go down to the bar/club they have in the hostel. We went to find food while Katie and Matt went to get their drink on. Funny thing is, when we got back...sober as we were...it seemed we were having more fun dancing and being crazy than the drunkies were, just sittin in the corner taking pictures! Go figure! After that got boring, we went to play a game of pool (someone had told Matt that there was only one cue stick...and that other people were already using it, so we had to wait for a while just to start...then later that night, come to find 3 other cue sticks lying around! Ha! Someone just must hate us or something). The teams were Mallory and Kelly against Katie and Matt...and...WE WON!!!
Katie went to bed pretty early, and Matt disappeared, so we just went in to the lounge area to people-watch and get our giggle on. We were talking about parenting and breastfeeding for some odd reason, and even more oddly...it attracted the attention of this Aussie named Wayne, whom, quite frankly, we couldn't figure out if he was gay or straight. He was a character nonetheless and invited himself over for a chat. I was actually convinced he was gay until this cute Welsh boy came over to join the conversation, and Wayne got all sorts of jealous. Hahaha did he really think he had game while talking about breastfeeding? Hahaha. Gareth, the Welshman, was cute but an annoying drunk...one of those that knows everything about everything and has to constantly be talking...yeah. So we got bored and went to bed (at 5am). Good thing church isn't till 2:30pm!!!
We walked around Oxford Street (the shopping area) for a bit, had a nice lunch in a small cafe, and then we were off to find Kelly's one souvenir desire: Urban Decay makeup. The first department store we came to didn't have it, and Katie just wanted to keep looking...but Mallory said she'd go ask the girl at the Chanel counter. Katie, being the posh epitomy of a British snob that she is (and we love her for it!), was completely embarrassed by the fact that she would even THINK to go ask the "Chanel girl" let alone actually do it! So she was out of there in a flash, and we met her outside. Silly Americans that we are, wouldn't know that such an act is forbidden...but we got what we wanted and knew where to find the makeup counter we were looking for. Debenhams. Kelly was ecstatic about the makeup, and we were all ecstatic about getting ice cream after!
London is not as dirty as we had expected, but it's still not as clean as we're used to. We discovered that trash bins are very few and far between in this city...thus why people just throw their garbage in the street...they probably get sick of holding it, not knowing when they will find a bin! So we asked Katie why there are no bins and she said that it's because people would put bombs in them. Hmmm, hadn't thought of that. But makes sense...and I guess they've just settled for dirty streets rather than getting blown up!
We got back to the hostel and had a short nap before getting up to play with makeup and go down to the bar/club they have in the hostel. We went to find food while Katie and Matt went to get their drink on. Funny thing is, when we got back...sober as we were...it seemed we were having more fun dancing and being crazy than the drunkies were, just sittin in the corner taking pictures! Go figure! After that got boring, we went to play a game of pool (someone had told Matt that there was only one cue stick...and that other people were already using it, so we had to wait for a while just to start...then later that night, come to find 3 other cue sticks lying around! Ha! Someone just must hate us or something). The teams were Mallory and Kelly against Katie and Matt...and...WE WON!!!
Katie went to bed pretty early, and Matt disappeared, so we just went in to the lounge area to people-watch and get our giggle on. We were talking about parenting and breastfeeding for some odd reason, and even more oddly...it attracted the attention of this Aussie named Wayne, whom, quite frankly, we couldn't figure out if he was gay or straight. He was a character nonetheless and invited himself over for a chat. I was actually convinced he was gay until this cute Welsh boy came over to join the conversation, and Wayne got all sorts of jealous. Hahaha did he really think he had game while talking about breastfeeding? Hahaha. Gareth, the Welshman, was cute but an annoying drunk...one of those that knows everything about everything and has to constantly be talking...yeah. So we got bored and went to bed (at 5am). Good thing church isn't till 2:30pm!!!
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Day 15
We barely made it to the Victoria bus station after our hour walk from the hostel to catch our tour bus for Stonehenge, Windsor and Oxford. We were almost certain we were going to miss it. No big deal if we had though, you know it's our new thing to blow money on tickets we don't actually use. The first stop was Windsor castle and it was a lot bigger than we thought. Matt paid to go inside but we figured we'd rather save £15 and just take pictures from the outside. Then our next stop was Stonehenge which was slightly smaller than we thought. Still incredibly fascinating. Pretty sure we'd love to know how that freaking got there. Betting on the alien theory, only one that makes sense. After we may or may not have left a couple people from our group at Stonehenge, we headed to our last stop of the day: Oxford. It's a really old college town that was way more interesting than we expected. Once we arrived back in London we spent the rest of the night wandering around Westminster Abbey and took tons of pictures, then consulted the map a few times, like true tourists, on our route home. Matt went to bed and we went in search of soft serve ice cream that is not be found after 6pm apparently. We settled for chips and chocolate and an incredibly disgusting pomegranate juice (didn't know you could really mess up that flavor so bad) and settled in for some people-watching in the lounge at the hostel. Other than the disheveled recently divorced mid life crisis suffering Canadian man, the Italian "rock stars" that wouldn't leave us alone for about an hour were definitely the most entertaining. The only thing we could really understand through their broken english was "1. dance 2. walk 3. love 4. dance 5. love 6. love" Apparently that was to be our agenda for the evening until they finally got the hint and left us alone.
Day 14
The past few days we have spent way too much time in the Dublin airport. Wednesday morning we got there after our sweet early morning bus ride from Galway at about 9:15 and didn't get out of there with my brother Matt until about noon. Slight confusion on where he was too meet us is to blame. It worked out fine and we made it back into Dublin in time to spend the rest of the day walking all around the city.
The next morning we made a quick stop at Schuh to get some shoes for Matt then it was back to the airport. We arrived with plenty of time to spare before our flight to London. Thinking everything was great we just relaxed and waited for our flight to start boarding. When we got to the part where they scan our tickets and we get on the plane apparently two of us were missing a stamp on our ticket thus preventing from actually getting on the plane. Too bad we hadn't figured that out earlier when we had plenty of time to fix the problem instead of sitting there and eating candy and soda like everything was awesome. Oh well, what can you do. $140 each later we were on a different flight to London and well prepared to not eat for the next few days considering the amount we just blew on the freaking changing tickets. I totally blame the airport, OK it was totally our fault. Whatever.
We got into London and found our sweet hostel then set out to find the cheapest food for Matt's birthday dinner. We figured we had to at least eat out for that then we can proceed to starve ourselves until we return home. After the last supper we wandered around town and totally didn't get lost or anything for a few hours. When we finally did get back to the hostel we went to bed while Matt went to go party it up in the bar for his 25th...by himself. Apparently a couple of dudes bought him some birthday drinks though so we didn't feel bad that he came back at 3am when we all need to be up at 6:45.
The next morning we made a quick stop at Schuh to get some shoes for Matt then it was back to the airport. We arrived with plenty of time to spare before our flight to London. Thinking everything was great we just relaxed and waited for our flight to start boarding. When we got to the part where they scan our tickets and we get on the plane apparently two of us were missing a stamp on our ticket thus preventing from actually getting on the plane. Too bad we hadn't figured that out earlier when we had plenty of time to fix the problem instead of sitting there and eating candy and soda like everything was awesome. Oh well, what can you do. $140 each later we were on a different flight to London and well prepared to not eat for the next few days considering the amount we just blew on the freaking changing tickets. I totally blame the airport, OK it was totally our fault. Whatever.
We got into London and found our sweet hostel then set out to find the cheapest food for Matt's birthday dinner. We figured we had to at least eat out for that then we can proceed to starve ourselves until we return home. After the last supper we wandered around town and totally didn't get lost or anything for a few hours. When we finally did get back to the hostel we went to bed while Matt went to go party it up in the bar for his 25th...by himself. Apparently a couple of dudes bought him some birthday drinks though so we didn't feel bad that he came back at 3am when we all need to be up at 6:45.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Day 11-13
Our last three days in Galway were spent mostly doing, well nothing. Sunday we made it safely to church without being stalked by any creepy people in small cars or drunks. It was funny but not really surprising at how small the Galway branch is. We kind of laughed to ourselves when the Relief Society teacher commented on how it was so nice to have such a big group, because there was literally 9 of us, including the teacher. The rest of sunday was pretty typical: read, sleep, eat, go on a walk, you know.
On Monday we went to all the CD shops to check prices and decide which CD's we actually thought were worth buying. We have a long list of bands that Ireland has introduced to us and we pretty much want to get all of them. We really couldn't decide so we thought it would be a good idea to go home and look up more songs from each of those artists to therefore make an educated decision. So all the bands ended up being totally worth buying all their albums which was expected but also sort of sucked because that would cost a lot of money. We trekked back to the CD store and finally made our decisions. Mallory got Jape and Temper Trap and Kelly got The Frames and Guggenheim Grotto. All amazing bands, check them out for sure. The rest of the day we pretty much walked around, got ice cream as usual, watched a ton of music videos whilst hanging out with Niall.
Tuesday we walked all around town for the last time and took some video of the streets and street performers. We went and hung out at this spot by the bay where people were fishing until one guy almost hooked us with his fishing pole. We were pretty hungry by this point so we went and bought stuff to make ourselves chicken curry for dinner. It was amazing. The rest of the day was spent watching more music videos and funny videos on you tube. We stayed up most of the night maybe sleeping 3 hours at best then it was off to catch the 6am bus in the pouring rain. Who doesn't love a nice morning walk in the rain with 40lbs of luggage, I'm pretty sure everyone does.
On Monday we went to all the CD shops to check prices and decide which CD's we actually thought were worth buying. We have a long list of bands that Ireland has introduced to us and we pretty much want to get all of them. We really couldn't decide so we thought it would be a good idea to go home and look up more songs from each of those artists to therefore make an educated decision. So all the bands ended up being totally worth buying all their albums which was expected but also sort of sucked because that would cost a lot of money. We trekked back to the CD store and finally made our decisions. Mallory got Jape and Temper Trap and Kelly got The Frames and Guggenheim Grotto. All amazing bands, check them out for sure. The rest of the day we pretty much walked around, got ice cream as usual, watched a ton of music videos whilst hanging out with Niall.
Tuesday we walked all around town for the last time and took some video of the streets and street performers. We went and hung out at this spot by the bay where people were fishing until one guy almost hooked us with his fishing pole. We were pretty hungry by this point so we went and bought stuff to make ourselves chicken curry for dinner. It was amazing. The rest of the day was spent watching more music videos and funny videos on you tube. We stayed up most of the night maybe sleeping 3 hours at best then it was off to catch the 6am bus in the pouring rain. Who doesn't love a nice morning walk in the rain with 40lbs of luggage, I'm pretty sure everyone does.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Day 10
Got up this morning just in time to catch the bus to Dublin. Long 3 1/2 hour bus ride to town, but lovin the scenery. Apparently Dublin's a big deal...or maybe it was just today...but we got off the bus into a sea of extremely inconsiderate tourists. It's amazing how many people just stop abruptly in the middle of the road, right in front of you, and a bunch of other people walking at full speed...just to check out another statue that looks just like the last one. For being a big industrial city, we actually quite liked Dublin. The architecture and street performers are a lot of fun, not to mention the many gorgeous bridges along the Liffey River.
We wandered around town for a bit trying to find the Gaiety Theatre where we bought our tickets for Riverdance! Grabbed some ice cream before the show (shocking) and settled in for some entertainment. A-freaking-mazing performance!!! Well done! Seriously don't know how they get their legs moving that fast, without moving their upper body hardly at all...it's ridiculous. After the show, we grabbed some Thai food that we've been craving since we arrived...and caught the bus back to Galway. Another "long" ride back, but this time mostly just because of the obnoxious teenage girls that chose to sit right in front of us, instead of in any of the other empty seats throughout the rest of the bus.
Once we got back, around 11, we thought it'd be "smart" to go hunt down the building that our church will be meeting at in the morning. Good thing it's 20 minutes away in an industrial park, that is probably a whole lot less dodgy in daylight...but considering it's empty, and we had passed some slightly sketchy characters and a huge creepy cemetery on the way there...we were in a less than comfortable state. The little silver car that followed us around the whole time didn't help the situation. At first we figured he wouldn't possibly be thinking about killing us and stuffing us in the trunk because there was clearly no way he'd be able to fit us in there...even in bits. haha it was smaller than a Geo Metro...I mean...really!?!? Then he started circling the block and stopping when we'd turn to look and see if we were being followed...and that just sent us over the edge. We clutched each others arms and literally ran back to the main highway where we thought we'd be safe. Of course we had to be followed by two more creepy drunks on our way to Supermacs for some comfort fries. Shut up, we deserved them. We felt the need to walk off those fries, so we cruised on down to Quay street for some people watching. Oh my gosh! Some little short drunk guy (by himself, mind you) stops dead in the street...points at Kelly and yells, "Mary...? Is that you?" ...more than once. He came over, and took it upon himself to "entertain" us with his "kindness" for the next 15 minutes. His non-stop jabbering consisted mostly of "Are you guys sisters? Or lovers? ...Just friends?" and he mentioned our "permed" hair and "pearly whites" several times as well...ending in "I love America." It was great how he seriously felt inferior to Mallory's "death glare" and stopped between each sentence to comment about her facial expressions and fear for his life. Apparently she is going to "kill him." Ha, so great. We love Ireland.
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