London Calling

Easter weekend 2012 was definitely eventful as Judith and I were reminded of just how close and accessible everything is when in Europe and made our way to England, just a wee 1h jaunt from Dublin! We landed in the late afternoon and took the Tube to Chelsea, where we quickly settled into our hostel, the Queen Elizabeth Fulham, before jetting off to Westminster for our first view of the city center.

And what a sight it was! Walking out of the tube station, not knowing exactly what to expect and catching a glimpse of a large ferris wheel just at the end of the tunnel... then realizing it must be the London Eye, which was quickly followed by this view as we reached the Thames and turned around!

Needless to say, we were elated! I turned to Judith to share my excitement, and next thing I knew, she was giving me the most excited hug! This reaction conveys my emotions perfectly! We spent about 30 minutes taking a million pictures around the parliament buildings, with every setting on our cameras and at every possible angle... I know... OF COURSE WE WOULD! Then walked along and around the river for as long as our legs could take us, spotting a Canada goose on the way!

Tra met up with us at the hostel early Friday morning and the three of us went over to Buckingham Palace to catch the end of the changing of the guards. It felt quite odd to be standing in such a well known place and immediately made me think of all the people that packed this very area only a year ago for the Royal Wedding.

We then walked through the Canada Gate (the two other gates surrounding the palace are Australia and South Africa) into Green Park and, by chance, were fortunate to witness a ceremony honouring Canadian soldiers from both world wars at the War Memorial! Judith and I stood by throughout the entire 2 hours and proudly sang along to O'Canada.

Canadian War Memorial

Indian food was on the menu after more walking around the city and, to finish off the evening, Judith and I went to see Chicago performed at Garrick Theatre, which was quite literally the best, and only musical I'd seen to date! It was a very hot performance and I was impressed at how fit and capable the actors were!

Saturday morning was mostly spent in the queue by the London Eye; when in Rome! (I was told the British like to queue). But the price, and the view, were worth the panoramic view of the city we were graced with once we reached the top! We jumped back onto the Tube to get back to our hostel's stop, where we would walk a few short minutes to Stamford Bridge to watch Chelsea play Wigan. It took us a few minutes to understand why the tube was so full, with almost no room to stand... of course, everyone was going to the match! At the stop, we actually could do nothing else but follow the crowd! The Premier League match was so very exciting! The whole crowd chanting in unison and 3 goals in total for Chelsea to win the match on a controversial ('offside') second goal during the extra time!

To make the most of our time, we went back out after the game and a quick bite, first finding the infamous Platform 93/4, then walking around Tower Bridge area, basking in the beautiful light of the city at night.

As an aside, I may be the only one to think this, but I though Tower Bridge was actually called London Bridge. It turns out, however, that the actual London Bridge is slightly West of Tower Bridge and, although it is nicely lit up at night, it's one of the more modern and boring bridges in London... So what I'm really saying is that if it were to fall down, I'm not sure it would be such a loss. ;)

Sunday, we signed up for a day tour, stopping to walk around Windsor Castle, then getting an audioguided tour of the Roman Baths in none other than Bath, and finally an hour gazing wonderously at the mystery of Stonehenge.

And Judith and I even made a quick stopover at Wimbledon ;)

If you think we'd done enough by now, it wasn't over as Monday rushed by with a major part of the time spent in Westminster Abbey, which ranks among cathedrals such as Santa-Maria-del-Fiore in Florence, St-Mark, Notre-Dame-de-Paris and St-Peters in my opinion. What history and intricacy it beholds!

Fish & Chips and sticky toffee pudding at a pub kept us going... for a time... in the British Museum where we caught a close-up glimpse of the 2012 Olympic medals. We decided to make one final stop before heading back to the airport, which almost cost us our flight... but how could we resist a chance to see the Olympic Venue, which still requires a good amount of work I might add!

Olympic Medals 2012!

Cool graffiti in a skatepark
in the middle of the city

Luckily, the delays caused by the Tube system delays and change-ups did NOT cost us the last flight to Dublin of the day as it turned out to be delayed by 1h30! You can only imagine how Judith and I almost hugged the perplexed check-in clerk as she wondered why these crazy Canadians were happy to have to wait over an hour for their flight! As another fun aside, I wore the Chelsea scarf I'd purchased through the airport and for a few days after in Dublin and customs officers and bus drivers kept telling me I wasn't allowed through, or on, with that around my neck! ^_^ I now have an appreciation of how difficult it must be to be a Chelsea fan! Haha

Hiking in the Croaghgorms

Two weekends ago was my first, and Judith's second trip with the DCU hiking club, which would take us North and West into the province of Ulster and Donegal County, to Dhun na nGall (Donegal Town) on a 4 hour bus ride with 33 other students. So, after frantically preparing 4 liters of pasta salad and packing 1 kg of tissues (for Judith who had unfortunately just started a cold), we were ready to venture forth into the Irish Countryside.

We stayed at a cozy hostel just 5 minutes from the city center and, as it turns out, the hiking club is actually composed almost entirely of exchange students, namely a large group of Germans, so I got to brush up on my Deutsch... or rather realize how little I really know, even after watching Sissi about a million times! I did understand bits and pieces however, which one of the guys soon realized as he caught the "I know what you're saying" loo in my eyes and noted aloud that he should probably watch what he said about me while I was around! ;)

But I digress... Friday night was spent getting to know a few of the other students and drinking Guiness at a local pub called The Reel Inn. At first, Mary, Fabian and I were the only ones there from our group and we felt quite out of place considering everyone else in the pub was over 40 besides the bartender! It turned out to be quite a good place for great live music in the end; so much so that we ended up there again on the Saturday night!

Saturday morning, we were woken up fairly early to get on out to the Bluestack Mountains (na  Cruacha Gorma), where we spent about 6 hours hiking to higher and higher peaks, before reaching an ultimate elevation of about 690 meters above sea level! It was a great workout and full of astonishing views! At one point, we all stopped for lunch and I went off to a little peak with Fabian such that we could get away from the chatter of the group and, as I sat cross-legged and closed my eyes to meditate a bit, I was surprised with a "baaaah", which turned out to be a sheep running

along some of the adjacent peaks! What a funny sight it was!

Johannes and Kili
jumping into
the bog!

In any case, the descent was full of slips and tumbles, as you all probably expected. We even stopped at one point to jump into a boggy area at the bottom of a slope (although it is safe to say I did NOT partake in this event as I cleverly only brought
1 pair of shoes and 1 pair of
pants for the entire weekend).

Judith, Mary, Felix

That night at the pub, I had my first superb dance with a drunk Irish man who couldn't keep the tempo! AND I was pleasantly surprised with a brief pub-salsa dance with Felix, who turned out to be quite the little dancer!

Sunday, Judith and I had signed up to go Coasteering, which involves donning a wet suit, bouldering along cliff faces on the coast (the COLD North Atlantic in this case) and periodically jumping into the water! Oh what fun it was! And my hands ended up so frozen by the end of it that it took me about 10 minutes (no joke) to simply untie my shoelaces!

Overall, this was one of the most memorable weekends, spent in great company, of my trip to Ireland thus far! The countryside is beautiful and hiking along in the wilderness is such a thrill! I would recommend scaling any of the little peaks in Ireland to anyone who makes a trip out here!

<-- Some more of my favorites! --

One last look back before leaving it all behind...

St-Paddy's in the IRE

St-Patrick's day involved a short amount of preparation, a few firsts, a bit of drinking, and a whole lot of walking! What a tiring weekend it was, but oh so worth it!

So many people!!

The firsts involved dressing all festively for St-Patrick's Day, learning to make a fish-braid, and wearing fake eyelashes! I felt soooo girly! But it was worth all the prep as Judith, Tra and I made our way downtown to meet up with Alex and Fabian at Trinity Bar on Dame street (where the parade would go right by us while we were warm and dry indoors). Judith and I were too eager to be in the heart of the action however, so we made our way outside and found some posts on the sidewalk which we could perch on. Turns out we became attractions of our own as countless people stopped to take our picture while walking by! I guess two pretty girls all decked out in green make for good pictures!

Some of the floats in the parade.

Cutest kid!

The parade was themed science around the world and was good craic. We also had our first beer of the day at 11 sharp! Afterwards, we all went to Alex's place, where Samuel joined us and played Kings while watching our first Six Nations rugby matches; first Whales beat France and then, unfortunately, Ireland lost to England. But it was still quite exciting! 

We wandered back out into the chilly night at that point, stopping to do dance along to some street performers on Grafton street, then making our way over to the Shelbourne Hotel where we listened to a rather eccentric pianist play and sing songs from Elton John to Queen! We finished the night off at Diceys nightclub with some dancing and, or course, more drinking; even getting free beer in my little cup hung on a string of beads (I knew I bought that for a reason!).

And that wasn't all as Judith, Fabian and I made our way over to the fairgrounds on the Sunday to enjoy some sunshine and toffee! Overall, what I would deem to be quite a successful Paddy's weekend in Dublin.

Beautiful sunset after a busy weekend! 

Cumann Lúthchleas Gael

A few weeks ago, Richard, whom I met in Paris, suggested I should go see a GAA match (Gaelic Athletic Association, or Cumann Lúthchleas Gael) and, as my interest in Hurling was sparked by my visit at Causey Farm, I was certainly keen on the idea! So, on a cloudy Sunday, David, Judith and I met up with Richard just outside Croke Park, where we joined a throng of people heading towards the stadium. At the entrance, we were given flags with the Dublin sports logo on it. Judith and I were giddy with anticipation and were not disappointed! 70 minutes of hurling between Dublin and Cork, followed by 70 minutes of Gaelic Football between Dublin and Armagh! I DID take videos, but am having trouble getting my laptop to play HD videos, so I can't post my own, but I posted some from youtube here for those of you who have never seen or heard of any of these sports!

In any case, being in the stadium with the crowd and watching the matches unfold before us was a great experience! Both these sports are so fast and involve a large number of players on the field at once (30)! Also, the players are so tough! They get pretty much pummeled out there and just get back on their feet and keep running... not like soccer players! Judith and I were both quite entertained at how developed their leg muscles were and you can only imagine us sharing a few giggles over it, and their white short-shorts! Seeing these GAA matches was enough to convince me to buy a couple hurleys though... so I'm currently on the hunt and hoping to play with a few people when I get home!