Not THAT hairy...

I completely plan on having nothing of any real substance to report for the next couple days before I come home. My plan is just to achieve perfect relaxation here in Dublin for the next couple days…even though that still includes like 10 miles of walking around each day. I really should just chill out cause I need to stop being sick but hey, when in Dubsies right?

So here are my thoughts for the day in some respect (by that I mean that you should not assume these are the only thoughts that I have had today…these are just the thoughts that I decided to share for the day):

Ok so I want to know who decided what items were appropriate to be sold in Kiosks. ‘Cause it pretty much seems like the “kiosk items” (KI) have become pretty much universal worldwide. Like who decided that, whenever people were in a crowded shopping area, they needed to all have somewhat instant access to covers for not only their own cell phone, but pretty much ever random cell phone model that exists? And it’s not like these kiosks stock up on really cool cell phone covers evern! It’s like they choose the cheesiest covers possible and tag them with a big KI. Like yeah, ok I MAY someday need another cover for my iphone. But there is absolutely no chance that I will ever need a shiny-metalic, plastic case with face diamonds stuck to it all over. I just won’t ever need that. And God knows that I’ll never need a cell phone case with a big picture of betty boop on the back giving me googly eyes. That just won’t happen. But for some reason, you can pretty much find cell phone cover kiosks just about anywhere that a significant amount of shopping is done in the world as far as I can tell.

Also, crappy sunglasses. Why? If I wan’t crappy sunglasses, I go to a gas station; not a kiosk. I guess my main deal with them is that, even if you want to argue that people actually do buy stuff at them (which I very much doubt), then I just have to say that I have almost NEVER seen anyone stopped at a kiosk and actually looking around. I just have a hard time believing that they are profitable. I’d love to look at the business model/plan for starting up a kiosk business.

Moving on. Ok so I completely understand drinking games. And by that I mean that I can easily get my mind around the reasons that people play them. They want to end up drunk and they want to have more fun doing it than can be had by just sitting around a table. Plus, if you play the right ones, you could end up drunk more quickly. It’s like having a good reason to chug beer. The thing that I don’t understand is why people seem determined to put on a charade wherein they pretend that they’re upset whenever the game forces them to drink a lot. Like the total reason that people play the games is to get drunk, but then they decide that they have to pretend that it’s not and that they’re upset. Example: there are two guys playing some weird version of beer pong in front of me and every time that one of them has to drink a lot, the guy who has forced him to do it by playing the game well, acts all excited and the guy who is having to drink a lot pretends like he hates it that he has to drink so much. But people WANT to drink! That’s why they play games. It’s like the games should be switched around to where, whenever you play well, you get to drink more. At least that would be more honest. I think the point though is that people play drinking games so that they can get drunk quickly and can still deny that they were TRYING to get drunk quickly. They just pass it off on having played the game poorly. I have resolved to, if I ever actually play a drinking game, be annoyingly honest about it and cheer when I “lose” and have to drink a lot. Probably just avoid drinking games though…

In this dining room that I am sitting here typing in, there is music playing. The song is “From Yesterday” by 30 Seconds to Mars. I cant decide whether it’s sadder that they are actually playing this song or sadder that I know every single word. Probably the latter…

So today I saw the funniest thing that I’ve seen in a while. As I’m walking around the city center, I saw a dude sitting on the ground on the side of the street begging for money. Now as pathetic as I honestly think that is (and have talked about why before) I really enjoyed the situation that this beggar was in. As I was watching, ANOTHER beggar came over and started getting his beg on TO THE OTHER BEGGAR! Haha like he was trying to talk the other beggar into giving him some of his money. I listened in on their conversation and the begging beggar totally whipped out all the stuff he would have whipped out if he was asking me for money to this other guy. He was like, “come on man, don’t you have anything you could spare for my family? I’ve gotta take care of them and I’ve got to get some money for food…” I chuckled to myself while watching. Maybe that makes me a bad person but I’ve talked about why I have a hard time appreciating beggars before and I don’t feel like preemptively defending any judgment that will come at me due to this paragraph by getting into my reasons again.

Crappy wine with a screw-top.

As I’m walking around town today, I pass many people. All of these people are very different. All of a sudden, as I’m walking, I realize that all the people that I am passing are exactly the same. Oh my gosh! All of a sudden, I’m walking through a group of about 150 (no exaggeration) TINY old women!! Like these women were really old. I’m gonna have to assume that they were all over the age of 75 at least with most of them being closer to 85. There wasn’t a single one that came above my shoulder and they were all walking really slowly. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON! But it was awesome. It was like I was in a sea of old woman for a solid 45 seconds. It was hilarious. And they all gave me the sweetest smiles. It was weird though for a minute. There were just SO MANY of them!!

Ok well I gotta go cause I need to dedicate myself more to the conversation that I’m having with Riley on facebook. I dig you all though.

Face face face!!!

I'm on a boat aaand, it's going fast aaaand...

I realize that it has been quite some time since I last updated you on the status of Laura and Christian. This is pretty much just due to the fact that I haven’t had easy/any access to internet in the past few days. Without the ability to upload anything that I typed out onto my blog, I lost my motivation to even type things out as I was going. So this is all just me trying to remember all that’s happened in the past 4 (or is it 5?) days. I don’t remember exactly where I left you and I still don’t have internet right now as I’m on a less than top notch train. Thus, I can’t get onto my blog and see the last thing I told you. However, I believe that the last time I posted was on the train when Laura and I were on our way to Edinburgh (which not only seems like forever ago, but is actually beginning to be, in all actuality, more and more of the distant past).

So I’m not going to start with where I am now, I’m going to just start where I left off. Laura and Christian in Edinburgh. Now let me say this in the nicest way I can possibly do it…Laura is a different person when she’s wearing her heavy backpack, carrying her bag laden with way too many books, and walking a mildly substantial distance either from a train station to our hostel or vice versa. Now, for those of you who know Laura well, I don’t feel like I need to explain the change in her mood during these times because I’m pretty sure you would know it all too well. On the other hand, if you do not know Laura well, you’re just going to have to miss out on this one cause I’m not going to explain it. I can understand her mood change though considering that her book-bag is like 380 pounds. Hyperbole but you get the picture. There are a LOT of books in it at this point. She even keeps the books that I buy and finish (usually I just leave the books on the bookshelf in the hostel or something when I’m done so I can avoid carrying them).

Now there’s something that I have found that I do all too often. I hear people speaking when they aren’t speaking. You know what I mean? Like sometimes people will think you said something and so they turn around and say “what?” and then you kinda give a shrug and say “uh…I didn’t say anything…”. Well I do that a lot I guess. So now, if you know Laura well and you can picture the mood that I described above, picture me being the “what?” person about 4 or 5 times on our way to the hostel…and picture her response. Hahaha it’s all good though I mean we laugh about it later and the second that we get to the hostel and that horrible burden is off her back and the book-bag is dropped to the floor, she changes back to happy girl. I just thought it was funny, especially for people who know exactly what I’m talking about without me having to really explain it.

So anyways, in Edinburgh, we really only had a half of a day there because our train got in at about 3 and we left early the next morning. It was a great half day though. We went to see the Edinburgh Castle again and checked out the crown jewels again and all that good stuff. I love that castle cause it’s so huge! (or at least compared to anything I’d seen at that point…) It’s a really cool castle though. So then we walked down the royal mile towards the area where I went on that hike that I loved so much. We didn’t do the hike though cause either one or both of us were pretty tired that day and didn’t feel like getting our mountain climb on. Instead, we walked around in the rolling hills that were kinda behind the “mountain” I climbed before. We ended up finding a beautiful! area and some really cool ruins of an old abbey that used to overlook the palace at this end of the town. It was so beautiful and Laura took a HELLA lot of pictures so I’m sure you’ll be able to see some of it when she gets back. We also found a restaurant that we really liked there (probably because it was pretty much American) and we ended up going there for dinner and then heading back again before bed to have some dessert. I had cheesecake…I LOVE cheesecake.

Oh yeah and Laura said it was by far her favorite place we went. Which is good cause it is mine as well…

So we ended up going to bed at like 10:30 maybe and got up early the next morning to head back south to London. We wanted to leave early so that we would have time to do some stuff in London when we got there. I can’t remember exactly what time we got to London but we ended up just walking around a lot that night, got some dinner, and took a ride on the London Eye. If you don’t know what that is, google it. It’s the world’s biggest Ferris Wheel. It takes you up really really high and gives you a great panoramic view of the city of London. Honestly, I could have done without that view of London. From the street, it looks so powerful and majestic. From that height though, when you could really see it all, it looked really cluttered and honestly not that impressive. There were cranes EVERYWHERE though! There’s so much construction going on in London it’s sick. But it was still a fun little ride and it WAS kinda cool to get a view of the cty from that high. It is such a huge city. Even from as high as we were, you couldn’t see the end of it.

So it was an early night for us (as most nights were actually…) and then the next day we woke up at about 9 and headed out. Now this was my last day with Laura as I was planning on taking a train to Wales early the next morning and didn’t expect her to wake up just to come down and say bye. So we had some stuff we wanted to do together in London before I left and we set out to get them done. It was an AWESOME day. The first thing we did was head to the London Tower. Now the entire time we’d been on this trip, we’d been talking about how we had no idea what the heck the London Tower was or consisted of, but we knew we needed to see it. So when we got there, I was very pleasantly surprised to find a huge castle sitting there in the middle of London for us to check out! It was really cool seriously. It was so big and you could tell that it was the kind of castle that LOTS of people lived in back in the day. Like there was plenty of space to have a market and shops and homes inside of it. And we got to see the British Crown Jewels which, though they were obviously more grand and definitely worth more, were not as moving to me as the Scottish Crown Jewels. However these were really cool to see. They had much more than just a single crown, scepter, and sword. They had bunches of crowns, scepters, staffs, swords, crosses, and even royal dishes!! There was so much gold in that place that it was insane. And even though I know the hope diamond is bigger than any of the diamonds here, they had 4 or 5 of the next biggest diamond set in these crowns and scepters. That on top of the literally thousands of other diamonds set in this assortment of wealth was breathtaking at times. Then the dishes that I was talking about were just insane. They were all solid gold and HUGE. If you came to a feast and the table was set with this stuff, you couldn’t help but be awed by your host. Which was their motive I’m sure…

Anyways, that was really awesome to see the London Tower cause it also had a massive armor exhibit with lots of weapons, armor, lances, etc. It was all cool in there and there was so much more in there than I even talked about but I shall move on because even though it was all awesome, it was by no means the highlight of my day.

The next thing we did was one of the things that Laura insisted upon for our trip and I’m very very glad she did. In London, they have an exactly replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater where they still do performances of Shakespeare’s plays every day. We went there and saw the play “As You Like It”. It was pretty much perfect. We bought standing tickets for 5 pounds each and we ended up with awesome standing spots right up against the stage, just to the right of the center. It was so cool cause we could rest our arms right up on the stage and at times, the actors would be so close we would have to move a bit to avoid touching them. The play was hilarious as well and the 3 hours that it lasted went by very quickly. It was a really awesome experience to see how they did the play. There were no microphones and hardly any set at all. Most of the time, it was just people standing on the stage. Really cool and I think Laura liked it a lot as well.

Then we headed off to see if we could do the other thing that we really wanted to do in London together; and that was to see a play on the West End (essentially Broadway in London just in case you were unaware). We went to a ticket office and basically, since this was about 2 hours before all the plays started, we just asked what was even still available. To make a long story short, we ended up with some absolutely awesome seats for Les Miserables. It was perfect cause that was actually the show that we really wanted to see anyways but we had just assumed it would be sold out. However, when we got to the box office, they said that there were a couple seats left that were in the “restricted view” area. They were restricted view because if you were a shorter person and you sat back in your seat, you might have had a small part of the front of the stage cut off by the rail in front of us. However, we are both tall and it definitely didn’t get in my way at all. So we were on the front row of the second level balcony, just to the left of center. In my opinion, they seemed like incredible seats. And the musical was just incredible as we knew it would be. I’m not even going to try to describe it other than so say that I had never seen a REAL broadway style production before and I had no idea that live theater could be so moving. Some of the actors just had the most incredible voices…it was really awesome.

So after that, we went back home (letting Laura lead the way so she could be sure she’d be able to find her way home without me…which he can) and pretty much just said goodbye and went to bed. And that’s the last time that I saw Laura. I think she was pretty excited about having a couple days alone in London though to just sit alone in parks, read, write, take pictures, and all that good stuff. If you read this Laura, I had a ton of fun traveling around with you for however long we were together! I’d totally do it again.

The next morning, I set out. I headed for my next destination which was Swansea, Wales. Fortunately, when I got to the train station, there was a direct train to Swansea (which always makes things easier) and so I hopped on the train, flipped on a movie, and by the end of the movie, I was pretty much there. Honestly, I never really planned on doing much in Swansea. I had a room all to myself there in my hotel and my plan was pretty much to just spend two days resting since I’m still annoyingly sick and I was really wiped out from traveling around and having so much going on. So when I got to Swansea, I got off the train and headed for my hotel. The only unfortunate thing here was that my hotel was literally 3 miles walk from the train station. So I hiked those three with all my stuff and, by the end was about ready to just throw away half my stuff so I wouldn’t have to carry so much stuff back to the train station in a couple days. I didn’t though…

So that afternoon, I took it really chill and just went to the grocery store, bought a bunch of picnic food (cheese, ham, chicken, bread, a lot of fruit, a bottle of wine, etc.) and I walked out onto the beach, found a nice “dune” to chill on and had my picnic for a couple hours. It was incredibly relaxing. Oh yeah, did I even mention before that Swansea is on the south coast of Wales and the entire city runs along a beautiful sandy beach? I don’t think I did. But it does. It was really pretty there definitely cause some really beautiful green hills rose out of the beach and made a really gorgeous coastline. It was the kind of area that made me wish I wasn’t feeling so incredibly lazy cause there were probably some good walks to be had. Instead though, I ended up going back to my hotel around 5 pm and fell asleep almost immediately on my bed. I woke up at about 10:30, watched TV til about 3:30 am, slept again til about 2:30, went out and got some food, brought it back to my hotel, and then spent the rest of the day pretty much just reading, eating, watching TV/movies, etc. It was glorious.

So that brings me to this morning. I woke up early and headed back the 3 miles to the train station (which sucked just as much as it did the other day except it didn’t…) And now I’m on my second of 5 different trains I must take today to end up at the right place to take a ferry over to Dublin. It is kinda annoying to have to change trains so often but that’s what I get I guess for staying in such a small town like Swansea in Wales.

If I make all my connections, I should arrive in London tonight at around 7:30 PM. Which his cool. Then I’ll be in Dublin for tonight and two more nights before I head home!!

In superfluous news, I AM still annoyingly sick. My head is still pressured up and my sinuses won’t chill out. It really is getting annoying. I’m pretty sure I’m just staying sick though because of all the traveling around and such. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get better once I’m back home. Right now, I’m trying to just ignore the fact that I have to mostly breath through my mouth and that my forehead is trying to explode. It’s working fairly well.

Also, if you have music tastes similar to mine, ask me when I get back to show you some of the bands I’ve found while over here. It’s some really bomb stuff.

So in the train station in Newport this morning (between my first train and this one) there was a guy sitting on the bench next to me waiting for the same train. While we were sitting there, a pigeon flew over and was walking around on the ground near us. Then it just decided to plop down about 6 feet from us and I’m pretty sure it went to sleep. That’s not that amazing is it? So you’re wondering why I would share this boring story? OK well the guy on the bench next to me (a middle-eastern guy obviously on vacation) took out his video camera once the bird went to sleep and took seriously 15 minutes of footage of the pigeon sleeping! What the heck? Why in the world would you possibly want to playback a video of a pigeon being almost completely still on a cement floor for 15 minutes? I almost asked him whether he ever actually planned on watching that video back and, if not, why the heck he was taking the video in the first place. I just let it go though and made a mental note to share his insanity with you on my blog. Oh yeah, and I didn’t even mention his face while he was taking the video. He kept smiling and chuckling at the video! Like something funny was happening in it or something! I leaned over at one point to make sure that his camera was capturing the same thing that I was seeing and sure enough, it was. That guy was weird that’s all I’m saying.

So in Swansea, I found the closest thing that I’ve found to a Walmart here and it made me really happy. They had a lot of stuff there including a ton of food, clothes, pharmacy stuff, soaps and shampoos, some electronics, etc. It was pretty good…I mean walmart or target would kill it in a fight...but it wasn’t a bad attempt.

OH YEAH I BOUGHT A BOWLER HAT!! I’m pretty sure I’m going to get some serious hate for it from jealous people like Joe Cowan and such but who cares, I love it and I’m totally bringing the bowler hat back in style….or maybe it already is in style, just not for people like me. I don’t know…either way, I’m wearing it and I love it.

Ok well this is officially my longest blog post yet by far and so I’m going to stop here. I won’t get to some internet until tonight at my hostel though so I’ll post it then. Later gators!

**9 or 10 hours later**

Oh my gosh. Apparently the wind was blowing too hard earlier tonight and so my ferry to Dublin was cancelled…and the next foot passenger ferry to Dublin leaves at 2:40 AM and arrives in Dublin at 6:00 AM. Wow. Ok so my train arrived here in Holyhead (pronounced like Holly not wholly…found that out the semi-embarrassing way) at 3:45 in the afternoon. My ferry now leaves at 2:40 in the morning. Do the math. That puts he here in this station for a total of 11 hours. Now, if this were an 11 hour wait in any normal-sized city, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. I’d just go walk around the city a bit, maybe find a coffee shop to chill at for a while where I could get some internet, that kind of thing. However, the town of Holyhead exists pretty much solely to facilitate a transfer from train to ferry. Like there is pretty much NOTHING outside of this station. Thus, I am forced to resort to the things made available in this station. Now, if this were any other station, it would definitely have Wi-fi. However, this station is not any other station and thus, does not have wi-fi for some reason. If this was any other station, even the small ones, it would have a couple restaurant choices including a Burger King and some kind of little pastry shop. However, this is not any other station and thus, it only has a small booth that sells stuff like candy bars and pop. This booth opens every time that a train comes in which, today, has been only about ever hour and a half. And at this point in the night (it is now 10:30) the tracks have been dead for 2 hours now. Thus, the kiosk is shut down for the night. So here I am in this little station that apparently doesn’t believe in central heating, laying on the floor with my head on my backpack, filling you in on why I did not make it to my hostel tonight, get internet, and post this like I had planned. I’m sorry I let you down…although I didn’t really because you will actually read my plan to post this later at the same time that you will see that I was unable to post it later…and it will all be the past to you anyways…so whatever.

Anyways, I just finished the 4th book in the Twilight series as much as I hate to admit it. I’ll just say this, it was a good call for her to stop at 4. Even though I pretty much tore through the last three of them in the past week, I don’t think I would have the stamina to read another if there were one. The entire series is just a bunch of things happening that, at first, seem like they’re the end of the world and then shortly afterwards, you find out that they are literally no big deal at all. EVERY situation turns out perfectly and it just got extremely annoying to me. I was getting almost mad during the last couple hundred pages of this book. I didn’t want to stop and leave it half-finished, but I was so annoyed with it. Thus, I read it as fast as I could to try to get it over with. And success is mine, it is over! The last thing I’ll say is that, in the end, I do actually like Edward more than I like Jacob for Bella. I originally didn’t. There are definitely still things that bug me a lot about him but whatever…

Ok well I don’t really have that much more to say other than that I’m bored and I hope that my hostel doesn’t cancel my reservation before I show up at 6:30 in the morning. And hopefully 6 AM can still count as “tonight” because I’m definitely going to want to sleep for a while when I get there. I’m just glad I didn’t plan to get back to Dublin the day before my flight left in the morning or I might have freaked a bit when I found out ferries could be canceled. Let’s just pray they don’t cancel the one at 3 in the morning. I cant stand to wait for the next one which leaves at noon tomorrow…

Ok I’ll post this whenever I can…

Peace out crunchy!

**Just a little bit more than 1 hour and 47 minutes later**

Revolutionary Road has got to be the most depressing movie I’ve seen in a really long time if not ever.

That’s all.

**A long time later**

It is now noon on Monday and I can report that I got to my hostel at about 6:30 AM this morning and have been sleeping since. It was an interesting ferry trip and that is a story in and of itself. Sorry though, you don't get that one right now. You've got enough here that you're probably already going to hate me for making you read so much. But I'll just say that I dig the heck out of all of you guys and i'm ready to see you...whenever that happens.

Faith, Hope, Love, and Christian...and the greatest of these is...still love...

Bears eat beets. Bears... Beets... Battlestar Galactica.

Well! Laura and I just spent a couple of hours in the York train station waiting for our train to arrive (it was more than slightly delayed) BUT! it has finally arrived and is now carrying us towards our next destination which is the incredible city of Edinburgh. We plan on having a pretty intense day considering that we’re only staying in Edinburgh for one night and thus, have to see all that we want to see today before it gets too dark (good thing the sun doesn’t peace out until like 9:30). So that should be fun. Then tomorrow we head back to London where I spend two nights more with Laura before heading off to Wales for the last bit of my trip!

So it’s been a couple of days since I’ve posted anything so I guess I should play catch up for just a minute. Laura’s and my time spent in Bath was great. I absolutely loved that city and we spent our days just walking around the city, hanging out in parks, taking pictures, reading, etc. It was cool and I feel like we got a good feel for the city before we left. It was really awesome and I’d totally go back there. Then for the past two days, we have been in York! Our time in York has been interesting definitely. We were pretty lazy while we were there and I think that this is partly due to the fact that we stayed in a B&B here instead of a hostel meaning that we had our own room with a TV and privacy to hang out in. I Tend to be down to relax almost all the time so we ended up doing a lot of that. It was kind of nice to have a break from the intensity though for me cause I feel like I’ve just been going and going and going for a long time now. I still feel that way actually…I just didn’t feel that way while we were in York and that was nice.

So one of the major negative things about where we were staying in York was that our hotel was about a 20 minute walk from the train station. Now this wouldn’t be that big of a deal if it was just a walk…but we’re carrying WAY too much stuff to be taking it long distances. And the weather is perfect outside if you’re just walking around packless, but when you’re carrying as much as we are, it’s a completely different story. You know those hoses that people run around through their flower beds and then when they turn them on, the water just kinda soaks out of them and waters the flowerbed? Well it felt like the sun was trying to turn us into human soak hoses and use us to water the pavement we were walking on. Basically we were sweating like crazy by the time we got both to our B&B and when we got to the train station this morning. We’ve decided it’s completely worthless to take a shower in the morning before we head to another destination for the day no matter how gross we feel. It’s always a better choice to just wait and take one whenever we get where we’re going.

One big problem for Laura that is growing steadily bigger by the day is that she keeps buying books. Like she now has a decently-sized suitcase that is completely devoted to books. I carried it for her for most of the way to the train station today and I can tell you, it’s not light. But she doesn’t seem to have the physical ability to throw a book away or leave it behind. She must carry them all with her. And she reads a lot. Thus, I don’t foresee this problem getting any smaller as we go on. I’ll keep you posted though.

So in York, there was this HUGE gothic cathedral that looked actually a lot like Notre Dame from the front. It was really beautiful though. Laura and I passed it on our way into town when we were walking to our B&B so once we had showered and gotten settled into our room, we decided to walk back and check it out. We had looked in a guidebook and found out that it cost like 10 dollars to get into it so we were happy to find out that enty was actually free when we got there. We were quickly forced to realize that we would probably rather have paid 10 dollars to get in than to have gotten in free for the reason we did. The reason it was free was because it was Sunday night and there was a big “Prayer Service” going on. It was wild in there. The wing of it where the prayer rally was going on was completely packed and the crowd was getting really into the song that was playing. There were a lot of flags being waved and hands going crazy in the air. All of the hands were doing the same thing though. There was this guy on stage showing everyone what to do with their hands (wave them this way, wave them that way, clap!, put them down, put them back up!) and so the whole crowd was following his lead. Then, after the song was over, everyone sat down and a guy came up on stage and I thought he was about to preach or something but then, all of a sudden, a furry-headed, sesame street-esque character popped up from behind a screen next to him. The man on stage then proceeded to have an extremely cheesy dialogue with this puppet about prayer and other things. Then, to skip ahead a bit, when Laura and I walked back by the Cathedral an hour later or so, all these people were outside yelling something and waving their flags around and stuff. Also, at this point they had decided to add the element of fire to their group so there were about 50 people carrying large torches! They were all really into it right up until it ended and then the people dispersed and it was over. Honestly, if I wasn’t a Christian and I saw that, I would totally be talking about how Christianity was some kind of weird cult. It’s kinda sad. But I did get quite a laugh out of seeing this whole thing go down.

Anyways though, going back a bit, Laura and I got away from the prayer rally and explored some of the other parts of the Cathedral. It really was beautiful in there and we were enjoying ourselves. Some guy who worked there and was wearing a yellow vest saw Laura taking a picture and came over to ask us if we were praying or just looking around. We told him we were just checking out the church and he seemed to be ok with that and was very nice and walked off. However, about a minute later, he came back with a Security guy who said very harshly, “If you’re not praying and you’re strictly here for tourism, you need to leave. Follow me.” So we were like “ok…” and we followed him to the door. As he was opening the door for us, I just said something like “hey I’m really sorry, we didn’t know we weren’t supposed to be in here and if we had known, we wouldn’t have been.” He then said “Well, there was a sign on the door. Please leave.” And he pretty much pushed us out…I immediately turned to Laura and was like, “did you see a sign on the door?” Nope, she hadn’t either. Oh well, we left the church, both kinda upset about how mean the guy had been to us when we honestly didn’t know we were doing anything wrong. And also not really understanding why it was a big deal if we were walking around …oh well though. We laughed about it.

Other than that though, York was fairly uneventful. There were some really pretty parks and ruins in York and it was cool to walk around the city wall for a bit. But honestly we spent most of our time just being lazy, reading, watching the office. It was great though.

I think Laura and I are pretty good at traveling together. No problems at all so far except for that I have begun a new game that Laura doesn’t particularly like. Basically, my game consists of just disagreeing with Laura when she’s obviously right. She hates it. Like we’ll have a discussion and she’ll make a statement that is obviously correct and I’ll just say “no…nope that’s wrong.” And for some reason, it really bugs her. Now if you know me, you would know that I can’t resist bugging people. Especially Jeff should know that. I don’t like to make people mad though…I just like to mildly annoy them but in a way that, in the end, I can get them to laugh it off. It’s like a drug for me. So we’ll see if that continues to get on her nerves.

It’s kinda weird to write on this blog because I would feel really weird writing very much about Laura. It’s completely different than if I was writing an email to my mom or something where I knew that Laura would never read it. But there’s just something about writing about someone who you know is going to go back and read what you wrote that bugs me. I can’t do it. Even though I would probably only have good things to say anyways, I can’t do it.

K well holding my computer this close to me and typing on this train is going to give me carpel tunnel if I don’t stop soon so I’m just going to cut this off here. I’ll probably write again tomorrow though cause we have like a 4 hour train ride back from Edinburgh to London. SO I’ll let you know how Edinburgh is the second time around!!

Ok love you all and thanks so much mom for saving all my stuff from my car! I was really going to miss my longboard and my glasses particularly if they had gotten totaled with my car. So thanks. And congrats fluff on getting your first Job! Fluff’s a painter! Woot to the woot.

Rah rah sis boom ROD!

everything that you thought you knew and the petty decisions that you think make a difference; so tiny that they blow away like dust

So I’ve been informed that I my discussion on phlegm was too gross. Sorry if you were one of the people who felt this way…

So Laura and I had an incredibly lazy day. Last night, we decided we were going to wake up early and head over to the MadMaxBusTours building and catch a bus tour to Stonehenge, the Cotswolds, and the Avebury Stone circles. The bus tour was scheduled to leave at 8:30. At about 10:15 AM, while lying in my bed, staring at the discombobulated pattern on the bottom of Laura’s mattress, all of a sudden, the top half of Laura’s face appeared over the side of the bed and popped into my view. I believe her first words were “we didn’t get up”. She was very correct. Anyways, we debated for about 10 seconds whether we wanted to go ahead and get up but ended up deciding that it wasn’t time yet. So we slept for another hour or so before getting up. Then, when we did get up, we decided we needed food and so we went to the grocery store this is (essentially) across the street. I got a bunch of grapes, some strawberries, and a chicken Caesar wrap. All of it was good. Laura got a couple croissants which she has recently become obsessed with. She keeps raving about them but I tried one today…it was so so. It needed butter and it would have been better. But anyways, we went and ate our food outside somewhere, then we went on a mission to find somewhere to buy Laura both a towel and a small suitcase. This is remarkably hard to do when Walmart does not exist. I mean if you needed a towel, and there was no such thing as Walmart, Target, K-mart, etc, where would you go? Exactly. So we walked around for a really long time before finally finding a place where Laura was able to purchase both a towel and a nice little yellow suitcase. Then we went back home and Laura took a much needed (her words not mine) shower. After that was over, we went and got some more fruit, some more croissants, and headed to a park where we read for a few hours. And laura took a ton of pictures. Then we walked back, hung out a bit, had some dinner, and now we’ve just been kicking it for the last couple hours. It’s great. I love being lazy…probably too much.

So at some point today, we also decided that it was time to restock on books because Laura is a freak and she reads like 2 books a day. I decided that I would pick up a book as well and I actually ended up coming home with two. Now, I’m not extremely proud of this but I did in fact buy the second book in the Twilight series even though I swore I never would. I honestly have no desire to further my knowledge of the circumstances that make up Bella’s and Edward’s lives. I really just wanted a book that I knew would be engrossing enough that I would read instead of continuing to watch movies on my computer. And I know how engrossing those books are even if they do drive me crazy at the same time. So I bought it and I am now 4 chapters in. That is my confession.

Last night, Laura wanted to “go out” somewhere and get our dance on or something. Thus, I decided we should head out on the town and see what’s up. We ended up going to the one club and it was HOPPIN! There were a bunch of people in there and there was some intense club music on and stuff. Haha it was really funny cause it become obvious almost immediately that this was just not going to be Laura’s flavor. Unfortunately, that is the flavor you get if you go out at night in Europe. That’s just how it is most of the time. Now if I had been all by myself, I may have hung out in there for a while and tried to meet some people; however, I was NOT alone and I could tell that Laura wasn’t feelin it so we peaced out and decided to spend our night checking out some parts of the town that we hadn’t seen before. It was a bomb night walk. I think, when it comes down to it, people go to clubs to drink, to meet people, and to dance. And I just think that Laura was maybe expecting more of like just a fun dance party and wasn’t interested in drinking at all or anything…so it obviously was just the wrong flavor for us. Which I was totally cool with cause I’m down for whatever. So Laura found out that she thinks clubs are kinda stupid and we kept it real and got in a nice stroll before our 11 hour sleep. All good.

Rugby is nuts. There was some big rugby game on today and there were a bunch of people watching it in this café we were in earlier. Thus, we watched part of a game on the TV. I definitely don’t get all the rules (I mean I get the gist of the game, I just don’t understand what’s a foul and stuff) but it looks like the kind of game that would be a ton of fun if I was one of those people who was completely cool with just getting the crap knocked out of me. Unfortunately, I’m not usually the one who is most interested in getting my butt kicked so it probably won’t ever be the sport for me.

Speaking of sports though, earlier, Laura and I were in the park and there was a group of dudes tossing around a Frisbee. Both of us wished we were over there throwing with them but neither of us was going to go over and ask if we could. It was funny because if I had been alone, I think I definitely would have gone over there. Also, Laura said that the chances of her going over there would be much higher if she was alone. But when we were both there together, for some reason we weren’t willing to go over there. I think it has to do with the fact that loneliness would be a driver behind us going over there if we were by ourselves. But when we’re together, we don’t have that driver. But these guys were not very good anyways. We would have owned them and looked like studs…gosh we should have gone over there.

So due to the fact that Laura is now taking a bunch of pictures every day, a fact that I had hoped to hide about my trip is going to come out eventually. I have not been changing clothes very often. Like once I find an outfit that I like and that is working for the weather, I pretty much stick with it for like 4 or 5 days. Thus, anyone who sees Laura’s pictures later, you’re going to notice that I don’t change clothes often.

OK well there’s probably a lot more that I could say right now but my laptop has now been in use for quite a while and is growing VERY warm on my lap. It’s way beyond starting to make my legs sweat. It’s getting HOT actually. Thus, I’m going to go ahead and post this and then give my baby a rest.

Hope you guys are keeping it as real as us! Love ya!

Weird the Beard

May your lives be long, may your wishes all be simple, and may your hearts stay strong.

OK this may be kinda gross…ok actually I can pre-confirm that it is kinda gross, but it is relevant in my life and thus, I shall share it because this is technically MY space and I can if I want…So I’m coming off of having that cold that I had (which, thank God, is finally going away!) but I still have the residual phlegm that I keep coughing up throughout the day. Usually, I try to be very discreet about it when I do it cause I know it’s gross, but for some reason, Its like I just don’t care if Laura gets to see the whole show. I feel bad grossing her out but I mean she’s my sister…isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? OK so here is my thought that I feel compelled to share. Whenever I cough something up, sometimes there are people all around and I don’t feel like I should spit it out right in front of the old lady walking towards me. Thus, I keep it in my mouth for up to a minute or so. Gross eh? Well the gross thing is that, while it’s in my mouth, sometimes I like to separate it by smashing it between my tongue and the roof of my mouth and I like to kinda “play with it” in my mouth. Now I know that is gross and if that was all I had to share on the matter, I wouldn’t have shared it. My thought, and the thing that I don’t understand, is why I can be so perfectly fine with doing that while it’s in my mouth, but that the second it leaves my mouth, it becomes completely and utterly revolting to me. Like there is absolutely no way in hell that I would spit it out into my hand and then put it back into my mouth. And there is no way that if I spit it out onto the ground that I would even TOUCH it! And it really is completely ridiculous but for some reason, the fact that it has left my mouth makes it completely disgusting. And the reason this baffles me is because usually, I am a very rational person and so I could go through a thought process very similar to what I just wrote, and end up either being grossed out before it left my mouth, or being perfectly fine with it after it leaves my mouth. Either way, I would at least have an uncompromising standard on the phlegm. But what baffles me is that there is just no way for me to get past it. I enjoy playing with it when it’s in my mouth and that’s not going to change. But I will still never be able to touch it once it leaves…crazy.

Ok so next thought, when I was in the hostel in London, I noticed a guy that was pretty much just ALWAYS in the dining room, writing in some book. He was obviously traveling alone and I just couldn’t figure out why in the world you would travel all by yourself to London and stay in a hostel in the center of the city, only to sit in the basement dining room and write all day. And me and Ian actually even tried to talk to him one day to get him to come hang out or at least do SOMETHING other than write. We were blown off though. So anyways, like the one time that we were in there and he actually left the room for a minute, we went over and…hehe…read his book…I know. We’re bad. But we just had to know what the heck he was writing! So anyways, what we found in the book, I don’t think either of us would ever have expected…the guy was writing a freakin cookbook!! Like all that was on any of the pages was just page after page of recipes! And we hadn’t even seen the guy cooking or anything. Like he was just making up recipes in his head and compiling his own cookbook!! It was so weird and I’m not gonna lie, we may have made fun of him behind his back….but I didn’t feel bad about it cause we had tried to get him to stop earlier and come hang out with us.

Tom’s are the worst shoe ever to go on a long hike in. I could go on for an entire paragraph about this but I just feel like it is so self-explanatory and intuitive that I don’t need to. They just have really really thin soles and so you can feel every rock underfoot. The feeling of being barefoot isn’t always a good thing…

**14 hours later**

So Laura and I woke up at about 10:30 this morning, got dressed and stuff, then we went to the bookstore to find a new book for Laura to read. She picked out three books: The Reader (respectable), The Boy Who Kicked Pigs (slightly less respectable), and The Quotable Slayer: Quotes from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the complete opposite of respectable). She claims though that she bought the latter for a friend who would enjoy it…mmmhmmm. Right…

So anyways, then we went to the grocery store and got some stuff for breakfast (including a motherload of grapes) and we set off for the park in which we are currently sitting. This brings me to the whole reason that I have gone through the events (aka nonevents) of this morning. It was so that I could tell you about the woman and her dog. So lets set up the scene: Laura and I are both laying down in this big field and I’m on my laptop and she’s reading about the future serial killer boy who likes to kick pigs. I was showing Laura a song on my laptop and then after that song was over, I decided to play the song “if I can’t have you” by adam lambert as loud as my laptop would go. So it’s blaring as this lady walks up behind me. Laura tried to give me the hint that someone was coming but I wasn’t paying much attention to anything other than the otherworldly product of lambert’s vocal chords. Thus, the woman was upon us before I really had a chance to save dignity and turn the music off. So by the time I finally turned around to see what Laura was talking about , this woman was already right on top of us and talking to us. The timing was such that, the exact moment that I turned my face around and saw the woman, her dog flew right into the nook of my neck and proceeded to nuzzle/slobber all over me. And she didn’t even try to get him to stop or anything! Like the whole time she stood here and talked to us about nothing, her dog was just all up on me and I was trying to push it away and get it to stop flinging its slobbery face and tennis ball all over the place. Anyways, by the time she left, there were little droplets of slobber all over our stuff with a large concentration of both slobber and dog hair on my right shoulder which took the brunt of the nuzzling. Let’s just say that I wish the woman hadn’t been so nice cause I actually would have been cool with it if she hadn’t stopped to talk to us. Whatever though we laughed about it so it’s all good.

So anyways, Laura and I got to Bath yesterday. We haven’t actually gone to see the bath yet but we’re planning on it at some point. I have really loved Bath so far. We got here yesterday and we were planning on just staying one night but after a couple hours, I was like Laura, I really want to stay here 3 nights…and she said we could. It’s just really peaceful here and there are parks everywhere too. It’s a pretty small town so when you’re in the middle of town, you can look up at the hills that surround it and see where town ends and it’s just kinda nice. The area that it is in is also really beautiful. Just like some rolling green hills. I think that if I were to ever have studied abroad in England, this would have beeen SO much more appealing than studying abroad in London. Even though London is really cool, it just has such a busy feel compared to this place. And the weather has been PERFECT too so that’s probably made it nicer. It’s like 60-65, sunny with a light breeze. Like my ultimate weather.

Unfortunately, Laura informed me that I was the ONLY one snoring in our room last night. That sucks. I’ve always hoped that I don’t snore. Which I don’t think I really do usually…I think it’s just cause I’m still a little sick that I snored. But whatever, I can own it.

I threw a bird a grape and it looked like it made his day. So I threw him another one and he loved that one as well. That’s my story.

I really like how long it takes to get your food at restaurants here. I mean if I had anything that I actually needed to be doing, I might care, but here, it’s so relaxing to not have your food come out like immediately and then have your plates taken away and your check brought to you immediately after you’re done. Like yesterday, Laura and I probably spent almost 2 hours eating lunch and I just thought it was really enjoyable. We were sitting outside and it was nice and the food was good when it came…I liked it. But the don’t seem to ever bring you your check til you ask for it which I appreciate because it doesn’t make it feel like the want you to go ahead and leave.

So originally, we had thought that whenever Laura got here, the pictures would flow like honey (which ironically doesn’t really flow very well…). However, as it turns out, even though Laura is taking a ton of pictures, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are on my computer and are, thus, not making it onto the ol blizog. Whatever, I’m hoping that my words will be enough for you.

As it turns out, Laura and I are very cheap. We pretty much just refuse to pay entrance fees. Like we keep walking into these places that I’ve heard about throughout my life (i.e. Westminster Abbey, The Roman Baths, etc.) and yet we just can’t seem to stomach the crazy entrance fees. But seriously though, it was 15 pounds sterling to get into Westminster. That’s like $25 in the US. That’s just way too much to get in to see one church. I mean I’m sure it’s awesome in there…but then again I’ve seen St. Peters in the Vatican so it’s not like anything is really going to top that anyways.

Sidenote: there is a guy who, the whole time we’ve been sitting here in this café, has just been STANDING in the open area near the front door, playing some game on his Nintendo DS. I don’t get it. He was here yesterday doing the exact same thing. And it’s not like there aren’t any seats or anything or that it would be weird if he just wanted to sit down…but he doesn’t. He continues to just stand there with his Nintendo about 6 inches from his face. He’s obviously really into it.

Ok well I’m going to read some more of my book right now and close this post up. But the last thing I’ll say is that Laura and I stopped into a random art gallery that we passed on the street and there was a guy with a bunch of his paintings up in there that may be one of my favorite painters I’ve seen. His name was Akash Bhatt. I haven’t looked him up online yet but I’m about to. He blew me away. And then there was another guy in there who had just one painting up in the gallery but it was the best painting in there. His name was Nathan Ford. This is the painting that was up in there:
And it looked SO much cooler even than that when it was a 4 ft by 5 ft oil painting. Really cool. Ok and I did JUST look up Akash Bhatt and he’s got some awesome stuff on his website. The kind of stuff that makes me wish I was rich enough to buy quality art.

Ok well I’m out for now. I am going to go talk to the girl sitting across the street looking lonely…oh wait. No I’m not.

Christian to the Roderick

It is literally just a huge rock. And it has it's own international airport.

So Laura is here. I mean she’s not like right here right now…but she is here in London, somewhere in this hostel. I think she’s sleeping. Let me back up a bit though. A couple nights ago, I met a bloke named Ian from Australia. He was all kinds of tight and just a real funny, good guy. So we hung out that night (Monday night) and they all day yesterday and last night. Honestly, Aussie people are my favorite people (in general) to meet. They kinda just seem to have all the good attributes of an American but with none of the bad ones. But Ian is like a computer programmer or something back in Australia and he apparently just decided one day that he needed a vacation so he bought a ticket to Europe departing the following morning and jumped on a plane. He’s been here now for just a few weeks but his company I guess likes him enough that they said that as long as he comes back within 8 months, they’ll just keep him on salary while he’s away. So basically he’s just getting free money for 8 months. Even though he doesn’t let it come across, I think he’s got a really good job and makes PLENTY of money. And he’s definitely real smart. But anyways, he was a really good guy and I had fun kickin it with him for a few days. He left this morning for Cambridge though so he’s gone and I never got his last name so I’ll probably never talk to him again. So weird…

So anyways I got up this morning and headed to the airport to meet Laura. After a tube ride that was about 3 times as long as I thought it was going to be and a couple wrong choices regarding my tube route to the airport, I arrived. There are 5 terminals in the Heathrow Airport and I had absolutely no idea which one was the right one. I randomly picked terminal 4, and I got lucky. Awesome. So I got to the “Arrivals” door where I had been informed that “she’s sure to come through that door” by the very nice and helpful lady at Information. Her plane got in at 9:35 and she didn’t walk out of that door until just after 10:30. Not gonna lie, I was about to just peace out and head for our backup meeting spot under the assumption that I must have just missed her. But then she walked out. I just couldn’t believe it took the airport that long to get her through and ready to leave. But anyways, she was finally here and I was happy about it.

We proceeded back to the hostel and she checked in, brushed her teeth, that kinda thing, and then we headed out to catch us some London. The weather sucked today cause it was fairly cold, windy and it was raining. We chose to not let that deter us though and so we soldiered on. There is about a 10 minute walk to the closest tube station from our hostel. That’s where we headed. The walk there would have been almost completely uneventful had it not been for one incident. Ok so it’s been raining right? Right. And this is the kinda thing you always see happen in movies but that you have never actually seen happen to someone because, in general, people are nice enough to other people to do there best to make sure this doesn’t happen. It happened to us though. Here we are, just walking down the sidewalk when this huge red double-decker tour bus drives past us at a high speed. Unfortunately, there was a huge puddle in the street right next to us at the exact moment that the bus drove by. Completely soaked us. Especially Laura. She actually blocked the water from getting the lower half of my body. She was completely drenched though from head to toe. It was one of those things though where right after it happens, you kinda just look at each other and you’re like “did that really just happen?” It did. And the best part about it was that there was this guy who was parked just ahead of us and saw the whole thing happen. He looked at us and gave us a really quirky smile, then gave us a shrug of his shoulders as if to say “hey, what are you gonna do?” Haha we got a really big laugh out of the situation and it really didn’t end up being that big of a deal because it was raining on us anyways so we were pretty much destined to be wet at some point. This just accelerated the process. The water did smell pretty bad though so we felt sorry for anyone sitting near us when we got on the tube…oh well.

Anyways though, we ended up just walking around for a while, checked out Big Ben again, Parliament, Westminster Abbey (though we opted out of paying roughly 25 US dollars to actually get inside cause it seemed ridiculously expensive), and just a bunch of other random stuff. Laura definitely made me take a picture of her with a random “Bobby” who was walking by us at one point. She also made me mimic the pose of a statue for a picture. Those are probably the two most touristy things that I have let happen on my trip and they’re both thanks to Laura. But hey, at least I’ll finally start having some real pictures from the trip.

Ok so as a side note, my computer’s spell/grammar check is trying to get me to change the expression “most touristy” to “touristiest”. Are you serious? Touristiest? Even if that is a word, it doesn’t sound like one. And also, when I actually type that word out, my computer then tells me that it is misspelled. Technology…love it and hate it.

So anyways, now Laura is sleeping cause she’s tired from not getting to sleep on the plane. I could definitely keep going right now but I just don’t have a very high typing stamina today. Thus I think I’m gonna end it here. As far as my health, I’m feeling a little worse today just cause my sinuses are crazy pressured up and it feels like they’re about to push my eyes out of my head. Whatever though, I’m just dealing with it. I’m hoping it’s all almost over.

Keep it real ladies and gents.

Rod

It looked like a painting I once knew back when my thoughts weren't entirely intact...

Tight band = Manchester Orchestra (hint: they are not an orchestra. They’re indie rock.) Check out the song “I Can Feel a Hot One” first. They’re good.

So sometimes I wonder whether dancing would be more fun if I was actually good at it? Like dance party dancing I mean…of course partner dancing would be more fun if I was better at it. But sometimes I think it would be awesome to be like a really baller dancer. However, I think I’ve just decided that I like it that the best I can do is dance like an idiot.

So I also just realized that on this blog, about 80% of my paragraphs start with the word “so”. I’m ok with that though and I’m about to do it again.

So yesterday I shaved for the first time on this trip. I really should have taken a picture of it before I shaved though because it was getting pretty legit. I mean it was definitely undeniable that I had facial hair. And I was pretty happy about the thickness that it came in with. I’ve always thought I probably had that really crusty, nasty facial hair that is no good but I feel like this was just pretty typical. I have no idea whether it looked good or not though cause to me, it just looked really weird. But anyways I was planning on just letting it keep coming until laura got here so that I could see her reaction but it was starting to itch just a bit. Normally, I would be perfectly cool with just dealing with the itching for a few days but considering that I was already sick and annoyed with that, I just decided that I didn’t have what it took right now to deal with the itching. Thus, in a moment of instant-gratification, I shaved it off. And I mean it’s not like it was a Gandalf beard or anything. But it was just kinda a scruffiness…yeah but I didn’t take a good picture of it before it left so…sorry…

As far as being sick, I’m really only dealing with one symptom significantly at this point. I mean my throat is still a little coughy (not a word) and my nose is still getting it’s sniffle on a bit. But really, other than that, the only real problem we have now is that I’ve got an ungodly amount of sinus pressure. I can feel it behind my cheekbones and in my forehead. It’s annoying cause whenever I walk, i can feel each step in the nerves in my teeth. And after I shower, when I shake my head to get the water out of my hair, it’s all kinds of painful all over my head. BUT I expect it to pass soon and I think I’m on the way to being all good. Either way, it’s beyond the point where it’s getting in my way so that’s the thing that really matters.

SO, I am now in London. I was very happy to leave Glasgow where I could barely understand anyone. Seriously, the accent in Glasgow was really really thick and hard to understand. I would have to have the people at cash registers repeat things like 3 times cause I just couldn’t figure out what the heck they were saying. It was bad. But here in London, now everyone just sounds like Greg Smith so it’s all good. And the train I took here was awesome. It had wifi AND power outlets for my computer. BALLER.

So it was about 24 seconds after I got off the train that I heard my first Brit say “shall we grab a spot of tea?” haHAH! That was always the thing that me and the sibs used to try to say in a british accent back in the day and here I am, in London for half a minute and I’ve already heard it correctly pronounced!! It made me happy.
So I took the subway to the station closest to my hostel from the train station. Here is a picture of me loving the “tube” in London. (although this is actually much later in the day when I went back out)
On my walk from the tube station to my hostel, I saw SO MANY nice cars. Like I started counting Ferrari’s and quit when I hit 10 after like 2 minutes. It was nuts. I finally figured out why though when I realized that my hostel is right in the middle of the “Embassy District” where all the foreign embassies are located. Thus, there were a bunch of rich diplomats living in the area. I didn’t see the US embassy on my way to the hostel but I plan on visiting it tomorrow. I DID see the german one though and I noticed that, of the roughly 40 cars in their parking lot, all but ONE of them were german made (BMW, Mercedes, Porche, Audi). Then there was the lonely single Ford Taurus. And I couldn’t help but think about how much hate that guy must get from everyone else. I mean if I worked in that embassy, there is no way I would let myself be the one guy not driving a german car. And then, to pick an AMERICAN car. Bold move.

So after taking a shower and settling in to my hostel, I decided to make use of my “all day tube pass” and go back out to see some stuff. So I went back to the tube station closest to my hostel and walked up to the huge map showing all the tubes in London and all their stops. I looked for a station name that sounded like something I recognized and finally found a station called “Westminister”. I’d heard that one so I took a couple tubes to get there. As I walked up out of the station, Big Ben was standing there directly in front of me about 30 yards in all his glory. He looked BEAUTIFUL. MAJESTIC. My first reaction was, of course to read the time on his giant hands. The thing that I thought was very ironic is that the first thing I did after finding that his hands indicated a time of 7:35 was to pull out my iphone and see if that was the “correct” time. I just challenged probably the greatest clock in the entire world. Like literally there is no clock in this world more famous than Big Ben except maybe the Sun if that even counts. And here I am challenging it. Like, if the two times HAD been different, I don’t even know what that would have meant. I guess it would have meant my phone was screwed up because Big Ben is definitely not wrong. I mean come on. What was I thinking?

Anyways, I then proceeded to turn on come coldplay really loud in my ears and walk around London like I was in a movie or something. It was awesome. I wanted to turn on the beatles just because I’m in London and everything…but I didn’t have them on my phone so I had to settle for Coldplay. AKA I did NOT settle at all because coldplay is awesome. I was listening to their first two cds and it reminded me again why I love them so much. Just forget that their most recent cds have even come out if you have to.

Ok I could keep going but I’m tired and I’m trying to get better so I’m going to go to bed. Here are the two other pictures I took today though. They are pretty much pointless and are pretty pathetic considering all the things I saw today that I SHOULD have taken pictures of. But oh well…
This was weird. The sky was a crazy color of almost pink...but yeah i'm not really even sure what this thing is. I just know that it's a lot bigger than it looks like it is in that picture and there are some huge lion statues at the bottom of it that I sat on.
This was some protest going on. I really wanted to remember what they were chanting cause it was hilarious...however, try as I might, I cannot remember. Oh well, maybe it will come to me later.

OK I'm off to bed! Nighty-night!

Christian

Dodgy...

So there’s a really weird guy who has taken the place of the Aussie man that WAS sleeping in the bunk above me. He came late yesterday afternoon and he looks to be about 20-21 or somewhere in that range. He’s traveling alone and upon first impression, he appears to be a pretty cool guy with a bit of a nerd flair. His name is Jason. Now at this point, you have no idea why he is weird. You just know that something must be coming because I started this whole paragraph with “so there’s this really weird guy”. Now even though I have given just a very minimal description of him, you must be picturing him in your mind to some degree at this point right? I feel like a normal person would be doing that…what I’m wondering is would the picture you have in your head of him be any different if I hadn’t started it out saying he was weird? Cause he’s really not. He’s actually really cool. Did the picture in your head change when I just said that?

Ok so he really is weird though. And now I’m sure you’re thoroughly confused. He really is weird though. The main reason that I say he is weird is that he has literally been in our room every single time that I come back. And I mean I’m sick still so I come back to the room fairly frequently to get something or lay down for a bit and stuff just cause I’ve been getting worn out if I’m out too long. That kind of thing. But seriously he’s here EVERY time I come back. Like I THINK he’s just traveling around and happened to stop in Glasgow but I really don’t know because he also has not said a single word since he got here. Like when he came in, I was like, “hey man what’s up?” and he then proceeded to give me a curt little wave, a small grin, looked away, and said nothing. I haven’t tried to talk to him again because almost every time I come back, he pretends that he is asleep in his bed when I walk in. And I KNOW he’s not because his phone is on his bed next to his head and the screen is still lit up! Like what in the world? He DID get up once while I was in here to plug in a charger for his little handheld gaming device. I think that’s what he does all day is just sits up there and plays it. I don’t know what his story is but it just seems weird to me to come to Glasgow and then just sit in your hostel bed all day and avoid meeting people and play a game. And I mean I still say hi and stuff when he actually makes eye contact with me but it’s like he just does not want to talk. So whatever. It’s odd though.

As far as my current medical condition, I’m definitely still sick but it’s getting better I think. I’m pretty sure the fever is on it’s way out if it hasn’t already left. Now I really just have a ton of sinus pressure in my head and a sore throat/cough. It’s not that bad though comparatively speaking. The sinuses are just giving me a headache but I’m not complaining cause it’s way better than it was yesterday. So hopefully it will keep getting better and by the time Laura gets here, I’ll be all good. I’d also be ok with it if all the sickness just wanted to peace out tonight before I head to London tomorrow. That’d be cool.

So if I had to get sick while I was in one city while I’m over here, Glasgow would definitely have been the one I would have chosen to have it happen in. Honestly, it’s a pretty boring city for a solo traveler. There really aren’t any sights to even start with for the days so when I walk around, I can’t really even be walking with a destination in mind because there really aren’t any good destinations here. It definitely feels like a real Scottish big city though. I mean you can’t find a single tourist shop here like you can find heaps of in every other city I’ve been to. And people here are, for the most part, actually Scottish. So, who knows, I mean it might be a cool place to come study for a semester or something (no desire personally but maybe for someone else) but it just is a tough place to stay busy in when you’re just a dude visiting. Supposedly the big “attraction” in Glasgow is the nightlife which is supposed to be like crazy fun. That is kinda irrelevant to me though considering that, A of all, “good nightlife” usually means “crazy party clubs” which isn’t exactly what I’m looking for if I go out at night; and B of all, I have been too sick to have any desire to go out past 10 PM. So, suffice it to say, Glasgow has been the best possible city for getting sick to happen in and, though it does seem like a decent city, I won’t be too sad to bid it farewell tomorrow and head to London. I’m pretty excited to see London. Seeing London was pretty much the reason that I first decided I wanted to even come on a trip to this part of the world.

So either there are just a lot of fights all the time in Glasgow, or I’ve had the special treat of witnessing a lot of them this weekend. We sleep with the windows open in our room, so we can hear everything that goes on down on the street below and both nights so far, there have been at least two pretty heated fights that have woken me up. They always escalate quickly and, if my interpretation based on what my ears heard is correct, they end in a few punches before some other people break them up. Just a few minutes ago though, I heard one starting and I actually got up to watch it. It was pretty awesome. Two guys were just yelling at each other a lot (couldn’t really tell what about) and then they both started taking their belts off and wrapping them around their hands and started hitting each other. Then one guy took the other to the ground and they wrestled around for a bit before other people broke it up. To ME it didn’t really seem like there was a clear winner but apparently all the onlookers decided that one of them was the winner and so he got to stick around with them and jeer at the other guy as he was eventually forced to walk away amidst taunting and more jeering. Quite a spectacle really. Then, with their impeccable timing and incredible reaction time, the Scottish police showed up about 10 minutes later cause they heard there was some fighting…hmmm, thanks guys. Hah

So there are times when you go see a movie and, at the end, you’re like “there’s definitely going to be a sequel to that.” Then, there are other times when you leave where you’re actually fairly sure that there will never be a sequel because you know that, if there was one, there is no way in hell that you would even think about watching it. Well, somehow, Hollywood keeps deciding to make sequels to the ones that I just NEVER thought would happen. There are multiple movies that I could bring up here but I shall choose to only use the example of “Night at the Museum 2”. Like are you kidding me? This is brought to my mind because today, while I was in the common room, some people were watching the first one on TV and, as it came to a close, I had the same thoughts I had at the end of it the first time I saw it. There were something to the effect of “wow, there’s definitely never going to be another movie like that. That movie sucked.” Then, at the same time, I recalled that there actually IS a sequel coming out! (which would actually explain why it’s on TV…) but why!? Whatever. I mean it must have an audience if they’re coming out with a second one. And I AM kinda anti-BenStiller. So I guess it would make sense that I wouldn’t like it anyways. Who knows. I just know that another movie that I never thought there would be a sequel to was Crank. That one I was pretty sure about though because at the end of the movie, the main character is falling out of a Helicopter with no parachute from a couple miles up. Apparently he survived to make a second ridiculously dumb movie…I don’t get it. And DON’T watch Crank even if you get the chance. It’s retarded.

So if I’m being completely honest, I have listened to a lot of Adam Lambert and Kris Allen songs today. (for those who don’t know, those are the finalists of american idol this year…yeah I know) I never would have thought I would choose to turn on an american idol contenstant’s song, but what can I say? I mean these guys have truly awesome voices and at some point, who cares what they’re singing when their voices are that impressive. Seriously though, Adam has an INSANE voice. It’s like a Celine Dion in a “semi”-male version. Or it’s like the 2009 edition of Freddy Mercury or Jackson 5. You just can’t help but want to hear him hit those notes. I have no defense other than that. I did just turn on radiohead though to try to make up for it…

I bought some fruity hard candies that are the BOMB today. For some reason, when hard candies come in a tin can and are lightly dusted with powdered sugar, you can almost always assume they’re gonna be good. And this time, you would have definitely assumed correctly. I like them in this order: White the most, then yellow, then orange, then green, then red, then purple. And I actually still like the purple even though it’s at the end of my list. That’s how good they are.

OK I’m gonna go now. I’ve gotta run downstairs and see if I can get on the internet and post this. Sometimes the internet is a bit dodgy down there though so if it doesn’t work, I won’t be posting this til tomorrow morning. IN that case, when you read it, you’ll have to pretend like the date is Sunday the 24th of May instead of Monday the 25th of May. OK? And if the internet does work, then this little paragraph is going to be rendered pointless…but I’m still going to leave it in here either way…

OK love to all and Christian, I hope you feel better soon!!

The Blender!

I'm ready for laura to be here.

I have so many things on my list of stuff to include on my post that I’m just going to have to forget about some of them. Basically though, the front and center is that I am sick as a dog. It really sucks actually. Like if ever there was a time that it would be really annoying to get sick, it’s when you’re in a foreign country, by yourself, staying in a room with 5 people you don’t know. But last night I was rockin a pretty nice fever for sure. It was the kind where no matter how many blankets I had on me, I was still shivering like crazy while at the same time, sweating like an NBA basketball player. I wasn’t into it. Also, I’ve still got this cough that is driving me insane cause it’s not like there is even anything for me to cough up or anything. It’s just this thing where I get a tickle, then I go into a violent fit of coughing for about 7 coughs and then I can tame it. I’m sure the guy sleeping in the bunk above me last night was loving it cause I was definitely shaking the bed each time it happened. Then there’s the old stopped up nose that everyone loves so much. Gosh, I’ll just say that it was not a good night and though I would much rather be sleeping than writing this right now, I simply cannot fall asleep. Thus, here we are. I DID make sure that I got up every couple hours and drank a lot of water. I hear that is supposed to help you get better? Well I’m definitely not as sick as I was last night but I still definitely have some level of fever and my head aches kinda. And I feel that the nose stoppage and the cough are just gonna hang out for a while. So whatever. Being sick always makes me miss my mom a lot.

As far as the other things that are going on…well it doesn’t really feel like that much else is really going on. The being sick is kinda taking up the whole screen at the moment. However, if I move around to the side and get a good angle on the situation, there are other things going on as well.

So speaking of the guy in the bunk above me; he reminds me a ton of dad. He’s an Australian guy who is about 45-50 and he’s just traveling around for a while looking for good places to hike around northwestern Europe. He seems like a really great guy though and so we’ve talked quite a bit.

The big thing in Scotland this weekend is the European Rugby Championship!! It’s got everywhere just completely booked up and there are groups of people just going around with their team’s flag draped over their shoulders and singing their team’s fight songs. The game is actually in Edinburgh, but because Edinburgh filled up a long time ago, there are a ton of people staying here in Glasgow and just taking a train over today. There are two guys in our room that are doing that. They are ridiculous. They came in at like 2 AM last night fairly drunk and right when they came in, one of them saw that we were sleeping (trying to sleep) and said something like “shhh man they’re sleeping.” Then, they proceeded to sit down cross-legged in the middle of the floor, open up a couple of beers, and have about an hour long conversation in tones that were anything but hushed. I was like, “are you serious?” And they kept apologizing for being so loud but then they wouldn’t talk ANY quieter at all! They were ridiculous. Then when they finally got in bed, one of them was on the phone talking with his fiancé for like another 45 minutes. Then they both snored like…I don’t know. Something that snores a lot. Maybe Caroline’s dad…So anyways, they may have contributed to the sleepless night as well. But it’s all good. Me and the aussie guy got a good laugh out of it this morning so it’s ok.

So Glasgow is a VERY different city from Edinburgh. I don’t think I like it near as much. It has much the same feel as Copenhagen did back when I went there. It just seems like a very worldly city to me…I don’t know. It’s weird though to see kids who are like 13-15 yrs old out drinking and smoking and making real dirty jokes and stuff and have nobody say anything about it. Cause I know that happens back in the states too but when it happens there, the kids get in trouble at least. Like at least it’s not just accepted as ok. And I read a stat yesterday that 1 out of every 3 kids in Glasgow is homosexual. Which is just depressing to me.. I was sitting out on a park bench yesterday though eating some Subway and a couple of 15 yr old guys were sitting near me and we started talking and it was just weird. I felt like I was talking to some guys way older than myself. It was like I got the feeling that even though they were all 15, I was the one who was young and innocent still. Just weird.

It is a very pretty city though. I didn’t really take any pictures of it yesterday though. I just have these three that really don’t show you the beauty of the city anyways but I liked em:
I thought this was awesome. If you'll notice, the sky behind the building is gray and stormy, however the reflection of the sky in the glass on the building is clear and blue. The sky was like split in half.
I don't really understand why people do this kind of graffiti. I mean I love graffiti so it's whatever...I just can't imagine going out and spraying something ridiculous like this and feeling real good about it or anything.

So how in the world is it so cool over here to wear shoes with the little Velcro straps on them? Like those were the shoes that little kids have back in the states so that their parents don’t have to worry about tying their shoes all the time. Here though, there are like these really trendy dudes walking around in cool clothes, a tight hat, scarf, and then some black pleather shoes with the Velcro straps! It’s really very confusing to me.

Another thing that is very noticeable about the style of dress here is that people are far more bold with their sunglasses choices. Like back at home, there are sunglasses that me, alex, and danny will steal from the girls and wear around as a joke for a few hours. But here, it’s like they just take it to even the next level and so you see these guys walking around in these huge, intense, sorority-girl shades and it’s just like, “what the heck? How did that get cool?” However, word on the street is that European style is always just one step ahead of American style. So alex and danny, we may get to start really wearing those shades that we so love.

So this hostel that I’m staying in here in Glasgow is huge. It’s like 10 stories tall and has probably 25-30 rooms on each floor. I am on the 6th floor in a 4-man room for just guys. It’s not bad really at all. The awesome thing about it is that the beds are really long so my feet actually don’t dangle off the end of the bed like they usually do. One thing though that is really weird about it is that it has 2 elevators. Now that isn’t the weird part though. The weird part is that, even though there are two, they work like just one big one. Like they always stick together. Such as, I will go out of my room and hit the button for the down elevator, and whenever it gets there, BOTH elevators will open up! And sometimes, I’ll be going down in one elevator and we’ll have to make a stop on a floor so that someone can get into the other elevator. It’s really weird and I just really don’t see the point.

So I was feelin kinda spicy this morning, so when I took my shower, I decided to spice it up a bit. I took my shower, the whole time, pretending that my right arm was paralyzed. I know that makes me more than weird…but sometimes I just like to change things up.

Another observation that I made yesterday was regarding one of my top 5 favorite sauces (don’t worry, I don’t really have a top 5 for sauces): ketchup. I was eating my burger at burger king (I’m really getting out there and trying some crazy foods) and I realized that I think there are 4 different levels of ketchup that can be present on a burger. There can be too much, just enough, too little, or none at all. The interesting thing about these four levels is that two of them are actually acceptable. “Too much” was, at first, hard for me to believe because I have always operated under the assumption that you could never have too much ketchup. However, in my head, I pictured myself just adding more and more and more ketchup to my burger and there was definitely a point when it got disgusting. Then of course “just enough” is the premium level. I don’t know how to quantify how much “just enough” means other than to just say that you’ll know when you are in the situation and you’re ketchuping (word?) your burger. Then there’s “too little”. This is my least favorite level because it’s the level that just gives you a taste of what you love so much but then leaves you wanting more. No one likes to be left wanting. Then, the shocking one is that the “none at all” level is actually acceptable. For some reason, even though I absolutely love ketchup and definitely prefer it’s presence, I find it very easy to still enjoy a burger even if there is no ketchup on it. There must seriously be none though. If there’s even a bit, it falls into the “too little” category which I hate. And that was a really long discussion about ketchup…sorry.

So I’ve decided that, if you are good at an instrument or have a talent that is fun to watch, you could make quite a bit of money as a street performer. Like seriously, there was a guy doing magic tricks on the street in Glasgow yesterday and at the end of his little show, he put out his hat for “tips” or “donations” (whatever you want to call them) and he seriously probably got well over 100 pounds. That’s like 170 US dollars for like 45 minutes of work. That’s pretty good. So I mean if he does a few shows like that per day, he could really make a good living. Also, sometimes I’ll walk by these guys playing their guitars and singing on the streets and I’ll look down into their open guitar case and there will be like 50 – 100 pounds sitting in there. I mean that’s not bad at all for just going out and playing your guitar on the street for a few hours. And some of them are really good but others just play songs that people will recognize and know. So I figure that my next trip overseas like this, I will just bring my guitar, make sure I know some songs that people know and love, and I’ll try to pay for my trip by playing a couple hours a day. I mean I know I’m not like awesome but I can definitely learn and play songs and unless people have just been too nice to tell me that I can’t, I think I can carry a tune pretty well. My favorite song that I’ve heard played is still the song from jungle book…by far.

Ok so why is it so fun to throw a stone into the water? It really doesn’t make any sense. But it really is fun I feel like. I mean I know that yesterday when I was waiting to be able to check into my hostel, I was bored for like an hour so I was just walking down the side of the big river here, and there were three separate times when I, without thinking, would wander off the path, search for a rock in the grass or by the street or something, and then once I found one, I’d just chuck it into the water. It’s strangely satisfying…

Another thing, I went into an Urban Outfitters yesterday and there was some art on display that made me really want to get back into stenciling. Here are some of this guy’s paintings that he was selling for like 150 to 300 pounds each:
I'm just saying...I mean I feel like if he can sell this stuff for that much, I should be able to sell something for at least a little bit...who knows. Apparently though, he's got his stuff in stores all over the place.

OK well I'm gonna go blow my nose, possibly take some medicine, and try to sleep again.

Rod-tastic

Baloo from Jungle Book may be the best disney character that has ever been.

So here is me right now:
I am worn out. I’ve been kinda sick the last couple days with a nasty chest cold and it’s driving me nuts. There’s nothing more annoying than a sickness that you can’t do anything about. You just have to live with it. I mean I bought a couple different kinds of cough syrup though and those have helped. I got one that is for “chesty coughs” and it is flavored cherry. Now I’ve always been skeptical of those medicines that are in liquid form and state that they are some flavor. I mean I’ve always felt like those flavor labels are just bold-face lies. However, my other cough syrup is for “dry itchy coughs” and it is not flavored. Oh my gosh. I seriously almost puke when I drink it. And then for the next 5 hours after I drink it, I keep burping that foul (or fowl?) taste into my mouth and gag again. But hey, it’s better than the dry itchy coughs that it effectively eliminates. I’ve got to give it that. But really, I’m just sick of my throat hurting and I’m ready to not have to deal with it anymore.

Reason number 2 that I am tired: I walk at LEAST 10 miles each day. Sometimes aimlessly, sometimes not so aimlessly. In Ireland, walking that far wasn’t so bad cause everything is flat. However, in Scotland, there are some significant elevation changes to deal with and so walking all over this city is wearing me out. I can’t really complain though right? Considering that it’s completely my choice to wear myself out?

So today I got up and went first to the National Museum of Scotland. It was ranked a prestigious 3 stars in my guide book (which I usually don’t even look at anymore) but considering that 3 stars is the highest ranking that a site can receive in this guide book (there are only 3 sites awarded the prestigious 3-star ranking in Edinburgh; one of them being the castle which was awesome), I figured I should go check it out. I was let down. It was set up with a different time period on each of it’s 6 floors and you were supposed to be able to “walk through history” as you advanced floors. Whatever. I just don’t get that excited about seeing really old jewelry and pieces of fabric that must have been from coats, etc. The only picture I took in there was of this guy cause I got a good vibe from him. He seemed legit:
So then I moved on to the real destination for my day which was a hiking trail just outside of the town area. It was called Arthur’s Seat and was a trail up to the top of this big cliff that is higher than anything in the town and overlooks the whole city. Now I DID take some pictures, but I almost don’t even want to post them cause they do this hike zero justice. It was probably the most beautiful hiking trail I’ve ever been on. And when I got up to the top, I could see straight down the Royal Mile to the Castle at the end of it perched on it’s own cliff watching over the city. It was really awesome. It wore me out though. It was about a 5 mile trail I think and it was very steep at parts. Like steep enough that I used my hands and kinda scrambled up as opposed to hiking. Totally worth it though. It was beautiful. I guess I’ll go ahead and post these pictures but just remember, these are just from my phone and do the beauty no justice:
So there’s a guy sitting in this room right now wearing a shirt that reads “Jack Bauer wouldn’t stand for this shit.” I am just trying to picture myself EVER being at a point where I would wear a shirt that said that in public. I don’t think I can. Maybe that makes me too self-conscious…

On another note, there are a ton of people playing music in the streets here in Edinburgh. I love it. But by far the best thing that I have seen happen is when this guy I was watching, who really was extremely talented, started playing an awesome acoustic version of that song from Jungle Book that goes like “I wanna be a man, man cub…” I was ALL OVER IT. I gave him like 5 pounds cause it was so awesome.

On a related note, yesterday is actually the first day on my entire trip that I have managed to come in under my original daily budget. So that’s kind of good news and bad news at the same time I guess…

Ok well I’m just really really tired and I hate how much I’m coughing right now so I’m gonna go try to sleep for a couple hours. If that doesn’t work though, I guess I’ll just watch the office and eat Pringles…which honestly sounds just as good…

Buh Bye!!

Oh and this is the mix that I made to listen to while I was walking around today. It HIT. THE. SPOT. In a major way. I know it’s random and I better not get judged for putting a John Mayer song on there..

Ok i'm out.

Tired Rod.