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...
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