A 3 day venture to Edinburgh, Scotland left me wanting more. The city itself has architecture and history enough to rival London (although much smaller in size and less people). Matt and I went on a free walking tour one morning which hit all the sites from the Royal Mile to the cafe that inspired JK Rowling. Our tour guide could have doubled as Ari Gold (Entourage) but was very informative and proved for a great time. The next day we hit a tour bus all over the Scottish Highlands. Originally, I planned on spending a day or 3 in the highlands region which includes Loch Ness and Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in the UK. The first week in March, however, provided rather cold temperatures and "liquid sunshine" in the highlands. Luckily, the tour guide on the bus was one of the best I've ever experienced. Descending from the clan Buchanan, his family's slogan was "Brighter hence the honour", and he proved it by getting the whole bus fired up at 7:30 in the morning with great stories, plenty of history, an attitude for adventure, and a bottle of Scotch. Just kidding about that last one, but the whole trip was great.
A week after Scotland, I bussed over to Dublin to meet up with Scott who flew in from Sweden to celebrate the weekend before St.Patty's day. It was great to be back and this time I managed to check out Kilmainham Gaol (Gaelic for jail). Perfect timing, actually, as one essay question on my Irish history test was about the Irish Revolution. On Easter Sunday, 1916, several members of the Irish Brotherhood held a rally in Dublin square and started an uprising against the British. While they lost a weeklong battle and were held and executed at Kilmainham Gaol, they did ignite the patriotic spark in hundreds more Irish who fought the British until Ireland was granted home rule status in 1919. Anyways, Dublin was packed with tourists, there was a carnival taking up 4 city blocks near Trinity College, and I met my long lost twin (or some guy that looked identical to me...unfortunate buzzed haircut and all) in one the many pubs packed with people and live music.
St.Patrick's in Cork was completely different than America. Most of the Irish went to church in the morning and packed the streets for a less than par parade (save for one amazing robot float). The Irish make pubs part of the day as well, but that's really not different from any other day of the week, except the younger crowd went at it harder. The day after I met up with my parents who survived a week in London and couldn't travel that far without going to Ireland and seeing me :) Deloris (the lovely lady operating the B&B they stayed at) greeted me each morning I went over and it was a struggle to keep the resulting conversation down to less than half an hour. After a few days of catching up, sightseeing, and perfect weather, I showed them to the bus station where they left for Dublin.
Last week actually felt like school and kept me busy everyday and night with work. I did take the opportunity to run my first colligate 5k on the track at UCC's athletics (track) meet. It was pretty low key but felt great. Now I'm done with class and gettin set to take on Europe for a month before finals start. Tentative plans include leaving for Paris next Tuesday, the beaches of Normandy on Thursday, overnight train to Barcelona Thursday night, bus to Madrid on Sunday, fly to Cairo on Monday, leave for Rome on Easter Sunday, then starting a Eurail pass and ride the rails up Italy, through Switzerland, over to Vienna, Prague, then into Germany. There's plenty of flexibility in there so hopefully I'll find plenty of other cool distractions on the way.
Cheers 'til next time.
