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.

Iconoclast Melody

Sooo now I’m in Edinburgh after a day of traveling hell yesterday. Once I got to Edinburgh at like 8 PM, it took me about an hour and a half of walking around trying to find my hostel before I finally found it and was forced into the realization that it was literally 30 feet from where my bus into the city had dropped me off 90 minutes earlier…I couldn’t be upset about it though cause I was just happy to finally be here.

This hostel is amazing. I got here, took one look around and immediately extended the amount of time that I was planning on spending here. The hostel is run by a group of about 30 younger adults (like 19-24 yrs) who each just work for like 6 or 8 hours a week keeping the place clean and running the desk. Then all the money that they make on the hostel goes towards running it stuff. So essentially, they all just work 6 to 8 hours a week and it pays for their personal rent. Plus they end up with an AWESOME place to live. They’re all kinda bohemian and the whole place has a very mideival/hippy feel. It’s awesome. Plus the views from here are just awesome. Few pictures of the hostel:
The view out of one of the windows in my room.
This is the view of the window that is right beside my bed. Like if I wake up on the right side of my body, when I open my eyes, this is what I’ll see.

This is a poor picture of the main common area in this hostel. It’s really large with lots of big couches and tables and all that good stuff.

OK so if I’m completely honest, Ireland was a let down for me. Maybe my expectations were too high but I just wasn’t impressed. Honestly it just didn’t seem like anything special to me. Just my personal opinion. I mean it did have some pretty ountryside…but that’s about it.

Edinburgh, on the other hand, is BLOWING ME AWAY! Like I have every intention of forcing Laura to come back here and check it out while she’s here with me. The whole time I’m here, I just can’t help but think about how much both my mom and Laura would be loving it. It is amazing and, contrary to Ireland, this is a place that tempts me to uproot from the US and move here. Today I went to Edinburgh castle which I didn’t really get any good pictures of just because I hate pictures with a ton of tourists in them and it was pretty full of people. Even with all the people in it though, it was so so awesome. It was one of those castles that is just massive and basically houses an entire city inside of it. It is also the home of: 1. The Scottish War Museum – which was really awesome and I will talk about more in a minute. 2. The Scottish War Memorial – which was basically a memorial with the names of everyone known who has ever died in a Scottish battle. They go back like 1000 years, and if you had Scottish ancestors who had died, you could find their names in the books. They also had an equivalent to the US’s tomb of the unknown soldier which was intriguing. 3. The dungeons – which were insane!! It would have SUCKED to be a prisoner back in the day. Like you would literally never see the sun. And it is just freezing down there and oh my gosh. It would really suck. And then 4. There was a museum holding the Honours of Scotland (the Crown Jewels) which I will also talk about more in a second.

So the War Museum: it was really cool and really emphasizes how much history Scotland has and how important they have been strategically in a lot of wars. It was cool to see the progression of their country as a power throughout the years and then to see it just suddenly die when Britain took them over and they became British. Very interesting and, like I said, I couldn’t stop thinking about my mom in there and about how much more time she would have spent than me; looking at every little thing and reading all the things on the walls. Hah She’d have loved it.

I also kinda had a moment in there. There were a couple of groups of little school kids taking tours of the castle. One group of them was in this museum while I was and I caught up with them right as they hit the big “weapons” part of the museum. I just thought it was SO interesting to see the difference in the reactions of the girls compared to the reactions of the boys. The girls seemed to have no great reaction to the WALLS of awesome weapons in there. The boys, on the other hand, were immediately ENAMORED and obsessed with the weapons. They pretty much erupted with joy looking at all of them and thought they were just sooo cool. It kinda made me think a little bit and I think my conclusion is this: Men were created to battle. I think that, as we grow up, society today says that war is just a horrible horrible thing and should be avoided at all costs. However, as I think was apparent in these young boys, we are born with something in us that WANTS to fight and I think a lot of us lose that over the years. Now I’m sure this just sounds extremely reminiscent of something in Wild at Heart or something. But for me today it was really moving. Now of course I do not want to just go pick a fight for the sake of fighting because I still believe that if something can be solved peaceably, it should be. I would always prefer not to have to fight. But at a time when my government is slowly (I believe) taking away the rights of it’s people, I think there could potentially be a point where men may have to decide whether these rights are something we wish to fight for. And really I just think it’s something that is true in all areas of life and jumps right over into the spiritual realm. I think I have a lot of friends who just despise war because it is war and have kinda convinced me almost that war is never necessary. I really just disagree. I think that God has given men the desire to be willing to fight for the things they care about and I don’t want to lose that gift. I want to care enough about some things that I really would be willing to physically fight for them if need be. Now, don’t get me wrong though, I still think war sucks and I desperately hope that war is never a necessary part of my life. I am simply saying that when you, as a guy, look at the different things that are in or are a part of your life, the realization that there are some of them that you would REALLY FIGHT for, is really cool and is a gift I believe. And I really believe that the political and social desires for peace and for eradicating war from our world have transferred over into the way that we think spiritually. I think there are also spiritual truths and spiritual “rocks” in my life that I want to be willing to “fight” for. And I think it’s funny that I just put “” around the spiritual warfare. Hah cause honestly, it’s the one that really matters and not the other. Spiritual warfare is where the battle is that matters. Anyways, so there’s my thoughts on that…

OK, so the crown jewels of Scotland consist of a scepter, a sword, and a crown. If this museum was set up where you would just walk in and they would all be sitting there in a glass case, it would not be that exciting. However, this museum delays your actual sighting of the jewels a really long time. From the second you walk in, you begin on a journey of where the crown jewels have been from the beginning. It is so cool to see it because they know the names of the people that have put work and time into the jewels and they just has such a history. Throughout the journey, you really get a bit of an understanding for what these items mean to the Scottish people and to the Scottish heritage. By the time you get to the end and actually get to see the jewels, it really is moving. And the sword was HUGE too. They were just beautiful and had a special beauty to them that definitely came from the journey I had just taken through their history.

So anyways, I walked down the main historical street in Edinburgh today after the castle. The castle sits atop large cliffs at the west end of the mile and then there is a Scottish palace at the east end. The entire mile long strip is just steeped in history and I have to guess that most of the buildings are at least a few hundred years old. It was awesome and this was the part where I really couldn’t stop thinking about bringing laura here.

Just off the way a bit was a Starbucks. Now keep in mind that this is a very busy part of Edinburgh. So this was a pretty big starbucks and it had quite a bit of business when I saw it. This may sound like a typical Starbucks sighting but it was NOT! The reason it was special was because, directly next door, there was another coffee shop called “The Chocolate Soup” (which is a dominate name I think) and it was HARD CORE outselling the Starbucks. Like this coffee shop is pretty gutsie to go in right next door to a Starbucks but they’re actually doing it! I just thought it was really rare to see another coffee shop in a big city that was outselling a Starbucks. I liked it. I went to the Chocolate Soup and got some coffee just cause.

So I think it’s really funny here in Scotland because here, if there is a trash can, it doesn’t say trash on it. It says “Litter”. Then there are always other bins that have the little recycle sign nearby which is where most people throw trash. It think it’s a funny idea because it’s almost like they are implying that refusing to recycle something is essentially just littering somewhere else (such as a landfill). Very interesting thought. But anyways, they appear to recycle just about everything.

Another thing: today I saw a couple that had 4 kids. They were in front of me at the little restaurant that I ate lunch at. I was watching them as the mother asked her four kids what they would like to eat, heard them all state their orders, then turned and gave each of their four orders perfectly and then placed her own order as well. I realized that, to have four kids, you have to be smart. I mean meal orders is just one of the many times that you have to be keeping track of 5 people at once. A mom with 5 kids has to keep track of 5 schedules! So I’ve decided that, whether this means having a dominate memory, or just coming up with a really solid system for keeping everything organized, parents with four kids ARE smart.

Ok so I just got up and bought candy bar from a vending machine. I swear, every single time that I ever buy something out of a vending machine there is a split second where my stomach drops out cause I have that moment where I doubt that the little corkscrew will not spin around QUITE enough and my candy will be left hanging on the edge. And I think this fear is strengthened by the fact that it happens all too frequently.

So I was talking with a few Spanish girls and a Dutch guy last night and one of the Spanish girls asked me whether I’d ever had “some drink name”. I was like, “I don’t even know what that means.” So she made me taste what she was drinking. It was red wine mixed with Pepsi. Oh my gosh it was like delectable heaven. I just couldn’t believe that it was really pop mixed with wine. Like that just sounds gross doesn’t it? I’ll answer that. Yes it does. But don’t let that fool you. It’s good.

Ok so I didn’t take many photos today cause I’m definitely planning on making laura come here and so I figure she’ll dominate this place photographically and that it will end up looking like a much more photogenic city than it would if I were to take a bunch. But here are the few that I did take:

Sweet cathedral on the royal mile. I went inside but "no pictures please!" It was really awesome inside though.
Something...
Another church on the royal mile. Also went inside. Also "please no pictures". Also too bad cause it was gorgeous.
View from somewhere in the castle.
This is the front of the war memorial in the Edinburgh castle.
As is this...
View from another place in the castle.
AAAND...you guessed it. Yet another view from in the castle.

So whereas I felt like Ireland could be done justice with photos, I do not believe that Scotland could possibly be captured effectively. However, we'll see what kind of magic Laura can work when she gets here.

Ok well this post is already a beast in length so I think I'll stop for now. Plus, I'm wasting good daylight and there is more I need to see today!!

I'm not a hundred percent sure who all reads this, but I'm pretty sure that I'm safe saying that I LOVE YOU ALL AND MISS YOU! However, if there happens to be some random creeper on here, that does not apply to you...sorry...

Rod!! er..ick.

Kinda a delay here...

Well, I have departed from the beautiful city of Galway. I am currently sitting in the airport in Shannon, Ireland. I wish I could tell you a little bit about Shannon, yet even though I have been here now for about 7 hours, I have seen nothing more of it than just the interior of the airport.

I had a very weird night last night. I met some real characters last night. Who should I even start with? Ok, I guess we’ll go with the most normal one first. There was an Aussie girl named Georgie who was part of the group I hung out with most of yesterday. She is from Perth and since she graduated highschool, she’s just been traveling all over by herself, getting different jobs along the way since then. She’s now 21 so she’s been doing it for over 3 years and she’s been a lot of places. The most notable thing about Georgie is that she speaks more quickly than anyone I have ever even heard of. It is nuts. And she doesn’t slur words together or anything! Like you can definitely understand what she’s saying but comprehending it quickly enough to make sense of it might be a different matter sometimes. But she was real fun though and she used all the awesome Aussie slang that we all know sounds awesome. Then the other girl who hung out with us all day’s name was Megan. Now I’ve met hippies before for sure. But this girl makes a lot of them look like just huge posers. I have never really been around a girl who doesn’t shave her armpits or legs. I’m not gonna lie, it was really disgusting. And she like didn’t even worry about it! She would wear sleeveless shirts all the time and you could totally just see the hair coming out even when her arms were down. And it was weird because she was actually kind of attractive besides the hair. But seriously there is no way that I could be initially attracted to a girl with that much pit hair and those furry legs. Regardless though, she was a really cool person and she was fun to hang out with. Her dancing made me look like I’m scared of what people think. Like she looked straight-up wild when she danced.

Next in the group was a guy from Melbourne. I can’t remember his name even though I definitely should…oh well. But he was a real tight guy too. He thought it was like the craziest thing in the world though that I was a virgin. I don’t even really remember how it came up…oh I think they were talking about weed or something and I was like, “well I’ve actually never done pot.” Then they were all really really surprised about that and the Aussie guy was like, “dude that’s just crazy! That’s like still being a virgin or something”. And I was like, “well actually, I’m that too!’ Then it was just over and he couldn’t believe it. It was cool though cause I got to explain to all of them why I choose to wait for sex and I got to tell them about how I just really believe that Jesus was really the son of God and how I really believe the things that the Bible says and so that’s just what I’ve chosen to try to live my life by. So it was pretty cool. It was kind of cool though because their reaction to just that decision that I’ve all but taken for granted at this point (as in I just don’t even think twice about it now), was just disbelief. It kinda helped me realize that living life as a radical Christian doesn’t have to be something like going to the jungles and learning how to hunt with frog poison with an unreached tribe. Just simply following the commands of Jesus in the Bible and making your day to day decisions based on His will IS RADICAL. The world can’t understand that and they can’t get their head around it! I feel like a lot of the time, I feel this need to have other Christians consider me radical. But I think that’s just one of those things where I’m comparing myself to others when I really shouldn’t. Jesus knows what he asked me to do and my doing that instead of living completely for myself as the world does, IS radical. SO anyways, that was a cool convo with those cats.

THEN, at about 6 in the evening or so, this group of like 12 college students from a school called Grace Christian in Illinois or Indiana came into the common room where the four of us were hanging out. They were the most confusing group of kids ever. Like you could totally pick out the ones who were just the big time partiers and then there were definitely a few who you could tell were going to seminary or something and then there were just the ones who you couldn’t figure out at all. But they were real fun to talk to for a while and they ended up going out for some music with us last night. There was one girl though who was seriously freaking me out. Like when they checked into their hostel, earlier in the day, she had made eye contact with me and gave the obvious smile. SO then when they came into the room we were all in later, she gave me the smile again and sat down across from me. Then they were asking the four of us how we knew each other, and we were like, “well, the three of us are in the same room and then this melbourne guy we just met randomly at a café.” And this girl said (and I quote), “man, I wish there were just random hot guys staying in MY room.” And she was looking straight at me when she said it. Now, I’m pretty much trying to stay away from girls who are trying to hook up on this trip cause just being alone over here could be dangerous and I just don’t want to put myself in the situation to be an idiot. So then, she asks me what my room number is! And so I told her cause I wasn’t really sure how to dodge that one. Then a little later, she went to the bathroom and came back and she was like, “hey, I saw where your room was…” And at this point, I’m just like how in the world is no one calling this girl out for being so creepy? Then she whips out her camera and takes a picture of me…are you kidding? OK ok so here’s the cap to the story. SHE’S ENGAGED! I saw the ring on her finger and so when I started to feel awkward, I asked her about it and she was like, yeah, I’m getting married in November. What the heck? Anyways though, she kept trying to talk to me and stuff the rest of the night and it was weird and then when they all left to go to bed, she came and gave me a hug and said goodbye. It was thoroughly weird and I’ve not felt that uncomfortable in a while.

So yeah, you might be wondering why I’ve been sitting in an airport for the last 7 hours and my plane still doesn’t leave for another 3? Well, I ended up going to bed at about 2 last night and I woke up at 4 and I just couldn’t sleep. Like 8 of the other 11 people in my room were snoring and I just couldn’t do it even though I was really tired. So I got up, took a shower, packed, and checked out. I then walked to the bus station and bought a ticket for a bus coming here that left at 6 AM and then I walked around the city for a while before my bus came. It is crazy how many people were out at like 4:30-5:30. Like they were all just still out from the night before. And it was really weird to walk around because it didn’t feel like the middle of the night. When I came outside, the sun was already up. The sun is only below the horizon between like 9:45 and 4. It’s crazy how long the days are. But yeah so I ran into some very weird people out that late. One group of 3 guys came up to me and were being just really friendly and asking where I was from and stuff (obviously drunk) and then one of them just reached in the side of my bag and grabbed my Pringles, popped off the top, and started eating them!! Haha I almost just laughed cause he definitely didn’t even realize that was weird. But anyways, that is why I have been in this airport so long. I would walk out into Shannon some but it’s raining really hard. So I’ve pushed a couple benches together, bought some food, and have watched like 6 episodes of the office and tried to sleep. I am soooo tired. When I get to my hostel tonight in Edinburgh, I know I’m just going to crash. Here’s a picture of my little hangout for these 10 hours though:
Those benches are NOT comfortable.

And I forgot to finish this while I was still in the airport so this is coming a little late. But here are a few more pictures from Galway as well:

Just a view out on the main canal headed for the ocean.
Something pretty...
A church that I hid inside for about 45 min cause it was pouring rain.
Further up the canal. The water could get pretty intense in places and there were a lot of kayakers going down it.

So sorry that this got posted a little late, but hey, here it is now.

Rodsies