So my excuse for not writing this time is that my mother has arrived and is far more interesting than writing to you. Also the hostel we are staying at wants to charge us for wifi. I refuse on principal. When I need internet I can find a cafe with free wifi. But that means I mostly only do the things I need to do and unfortunately for you writing a new update is just not as high on the priority list as finding transport and accommodation.
I meant to write this on the bus yesterday but I slept instead. We don't have internet at the moment though so even if I had written it I wouldn't have been able to post it.
So much to tell you. Last you heard I was in Scotland, now I'm in Ireland having stopped in Wales and England along the way.
Edinburgh was great. Very pretty with a really good museum and good views from the castle and from the other hill. I didn't actually pay to go into the castle because £14 is ridiculous. Almost twice what I paid to get into the Vatican museum and that's the Vatican museum and you can easily spend 4 hours there. The castle's probably only worth one and I have seen quite a few castles.
But other than that and the complete lack of colour (everything is grey stone) Edinburgh was lovely.
Then I officially ran out of time. I had to be in London by the 10th but I wanted to get over to Wales as well which would have been about 13 hours and at least one change on the bus or £150 and 3 changes on the train. So I took a train to Manchester, arriving around 9pm, and then the next morning from there to Cardiff (departing around 9.30). So I spent about 12 hours in Manchester and slept through most of it. But what I saw along the walk between the bus station and the hostel had potential for being quite nice, if anything had been open.
But I got to Cardiff early enough to have a decent amount of time there even though I only had the one night. I really liked Cardiff and wish I'd had time to see more of Wales. Cardiff was surprisingly modern. For a place that's been inhabited as long as it has it didn't have so many old historic buildings. I never did find out why. I went out to the bay and saw the fancy architecture and Roald Dahl plass and the waterfront and a whole wall covered in Torchwood posters. I wandered around the central city with all its arcades. I went to the castle. It was really interesting with a really long history. They thought it was from Norman times until in the late 19th century they uncovered walls from a Roman fortification. It was privately owned and still lived in until the mid 20th century and was used as an air raid shelter in the 2nd world war.
Sadly it rained a lot in Cardiff and I started to feel a bit damp. London, however, was fairly decent weather. I caught an afternoon bus and got to the hostel in the evening. The next morning I headed out to Heathrow to meet Mum. I had a little difficulty figuring out where to go because despite pestering from me she never actually got around to emailing me her flight details. But I tracked her down eventually.
It's great to see her and to be travelling with someone again. She wasn't very happy with me forcing her to stay awake until 9pm but since her jet lag was gone in a couple of days I think she should be grateful. The first day we didn't do a whole lot. Walked to Harrods and marvelled at the egyptian themed stairway and the number of digits on the jewellery prices. The next day we went to the museum, saw the parthenon marbles, the rosetta stone, assyrian reliefs covered in cuneiform and the gift shop. That day we also managed to get to the national library which had a display of manuscripts and an impressive rare book collection including a range from papers of notes by Leonardo da Vinci to original copies of Beatles songs. And we even managed to get to Camden market about half an hour before it closed. If only we'd had more time. You could spend hours there.
The following day was Mum's birthday and Catie and I had decided the best present would be a trip to a show. So in the morning we headed out to get the discount on-the-day tickets to Wicked. Then we did touristy things like piccadilly circus, westminster abbey (which we weren't willing to pay to see. It was even more than edinburgh castle which would be at least twice the size) and europe's biggest bookstore.
That evening we went to Wicked which was fantastic. So much fun. And the songs have been stuck in my head for days. I wouldn't even know how to describe how great it was. So I won't try.
On Tuesday morning we packed up and headed back to Heathrow to catch a flight to Dublin. We arrived in the afternoon and went for a wander around the city. We didn't have any specific goals so we just walked randomly until we got hungry. It really is a lovely city. Fairly compact so easy to walk everywhere. And it just feels nice.
We didn't have a huge amount of time there because we don't have a lot of time anywhere but we managed to see everything we really wanted to. We made it to Trinity college, St Patrick's cathedral, Grafton street, Temple Bar, Christ Church cathedral, O'Connell street and the book of kells. Our second night there we went to a pub and listened to live Irish (mostly) music with all the people singing along.
Which brings us to Enniscorthy. Probably not a stop most tourists make but it is a pretty little town with a castle, a history of uprisings and, most importantly, family. That's the thing about having Irish heritage, very distant family is still family. On my dad's side of the family I've never even met any 2nd cousins but on my mum's side I've met several 2nd cousins and now a 3rd cousin and they're all just cousins. So we had 2 days there getting to know family and hearing about family histories (not all of it ours) and seeing some of small town Ireland.
And today we came to Cork. We looked up the bus times but our cousin told us it was better to take a train then a bus because otherwise we would have to drag our luggage across a big bridge. But it turned out that required back tracking and an extra 2 hours so maybe sometimes the internet is more reliable than local know how.
And that's where I am now, yelling at my phone because it died in the middle of a sentence and was contrary about turning back on quickly.
I meant to write this on the bus yesterday but I slept instead. We don't have internet at the moment though so even if I had written it I wouldn't have been able to post it.
So much to tell you. Last you heard I was in Scotland, now I'm in Ireland having stopped in Wales and England along the way.
Edinburgh was great. Very pretty with a really good museum and good views from the castle and from the other hill. I didn't actually pay to go into the castle because £14 is ridiculous. Almost twice what I paid to get into the Vatican museum and that's the Vatican museum and you can easily spend 4 hours there. The castle's probably only worth one and I have seen quite a few castles.
But other than that and the complete lack of colour (everything is grey stone) Edinburgh was lovely.
Then I officially ran out of time. I had to be in London by the 10th but I wanted to get over to Wales as well which would have been about 13 hours and at least one change on the bus or £150 and 3 changes on the train. So I took a train to Manchester, arriving around 9pm, and then the next morning from there to Cardiff (departing around 9.30). So I spent about 12 hours in Manchester and slept through most of it. But what I saw along the walk between the bus station and the hostel had potential for being quite nice, if anything had been open.
But I got to Cardiff early enough to have a decent amount of time there even though I only had the one night. I really liked Cardiff and wish I'd had time to see more of Wales. Cardiff was surprisingly modern. For a place that's been inhabited as long as it has it didn't have so many old historic buildings. I never did find out why. I went out to the bay and saw the fancy architecture and Roald Dahl plass and the waterfront and a whole wall covered in Torchwood posters. I wandered around the central city with all its arcades. I went to the castle. It was really interesting with a really long history. They thought it was from Norman times until in the late 19th century they uncovered walls from a Roman fortification. It was privately owned and still lived in until the mid 20th century and was used as an air raid shelter in the 2nd world war.
Sadly it rained a lot in Cardiff and I started to feel a bit damp. London, however, was fairly decent weather. I caught an afternoon bus and got to the hostel in the evening. The next morning I headed out to Heathrow to meet Mum. I had a little difficulty figuring out where to go because despite pestering from me she never actually got around to emailing me her flight details. But I tracked her down eventually.
It's great to see her and to be travelling with someone again. She wasn't very happy with me forcing her to stay awake until 9pm but since her jet lag was gone in a couple of days I think she should be grateful. The first day we didn't do a whole lot. Walked to Harrods and marvelled at the egyptian themed stairway and the number of digits on the jewellery prices. The next day we went to the museum, saw the parthenon marbles, the rosetta stone, assyrian reliefs covered in cuneiform and the gift shop. That day we also managed to get to the national library which had a display of manuscripts and an impressive rare book collection including a range from papers of notes by Leonardo da Vinci to original copies of Beatles songs. And we even managed to get to Camden market about half an hour before it closed. If only we'd had more time. You could spend hours there.
The following day was Mum's birthday and Catie and I had decided the best present would be a trip to a show. So in the morning we headed out to get the discount on-the-day tickets to Wicked. Then we did touristy things like piccadilly circus, westminster abbey (which we weren't willing to pay to see. It was even more than edinburgh castle which would be at least twice the size) and europe's biggest bookstore.
That evening we went to Wicked which was fantastic. So much fun. And the songs have been stuck in my head for days. I wouldn't even know how to describe how great it was. So I won't try.
On Tuesday morning we packed up and headed back to Heathrow to catch a flight to Dublin. We arrived in the afternoon and went for a wander around the city. We didn't have any specific goals so we just walked randomly until we got hungry. It really is a lovely city. Fairly compact so easy to walk everywhere. And it just feels nice.
We didn't have a huge amount of time there because we don't have a lot of time anywhere but we managed to see everything we really wanted to. We made it to Trinity college, St Patrick's cathedral, Grafton street, Temple Bar, Christ Church cathedral, O'Connell street and the book of kells. Our second night there we went to a pub and listened to live Irish (mostly) music with all the people singing along.
Which brings us to Enniscorthy. Probably not a stop most tourists make but it is a pretty little town with a castle, a history of uprisings and, most importantly, family. That's the thing about having Irish heritage, very distant family is still family. On my dad's side of the family I've never even met any 2nd cousins but on my mum's side I've met several 2nd cousins and now a 3rd cousin and they're all just cousins. So we had 2 days there getting to know family and hearing about family histories (not all of it ours) and seeing some of small town Ireland.
And today we came to Cork. We looked up the bus times but our cousin told us it was better to take a train then a bus because otherwise we would have to drag our luggage across a big bridge. But it turned out that required back tracking and an extra 2 hours so maybe sometimes the internet is more reliable than local know how.
And that's where I am now, yelling at my phone because it died in the middle of a sentence and was contrary about turning back on quickly.
