Cheers! (Dubh Linn and Londinium)

Dubh Linn and Londinium
Dublin (Gaelic) and London (Latin)

An old Irish saying, written in Irish Gaelic and English.

Day 1: Arrival Woohoo for getting up early.  Day one of our trip to the British isles involved getting up super early to head out to Memmingen Airport.  Don't let the 'woohoo' fool you; it wasn't actually that much fun.  Memmingen Airport is a tiny, tiny airport (unless you count the 'airport' at Elfin Cove, which was landing a plane in the water by a dock).  There were four or five flights leaving that day from this airport.  It was adorable.

After a brief wait to get through, during which Beaky and Cody bonded, we boarded our little RyanAir plane bound for Dublin.  RyanAir is not comfortable to fly with.  It's relatively inexpensive, yes, but it's not the most enjoyable flying experience, by any means.  It was, however, the most friendly, most talkative flight I've ever been on.  A while back, I chatted with an Irish girl, who told me that the Irish are some of the friendliest people you'll meet.  If you walk into a pub, within 30 minutes you're friends with everyone there.  This plane was filled with Irish, and they were all chatting with one another and with us.  While I doubt this plane was chartered by some big group of friends, it could certainly seem as though that was the case.

Not much went down once we got to Dublin.  We did some touring of the city, visiting the Temple Bar area specifically.  I got some beef and Guiness stew, which was delicious, albeit a tad overpriced.  (Dublin was very expensive, unfortunately.)  We walked around the city for a while.  Lena was already beginning to realize that dealing with Cody and me for an entire week might be more than she could handle.

This is basically what Lena thinks of her time with

Cody and me.  (Hint: Lena is not Amir.)

We went out again and visited some bars, one of which had live Irish music.  One song was particularly funny; the general story of the song is as follows:

A girl is trying to find love, but every time she meets a new guy, her father informs her that she cannot marry him, because he has been unfaithful to his wife and slept with the mother of the boy she is currently dating, meaning he is her half brother.  This happens with guy after guy after guy, until finally there are no more men for the girl to date.  She goes to her mother to complain, asking how her mother could have let her father do this.  The mother explains there was nothing she could have done about it, but that the daughter shouldn't worry; the mother wasn't all that faithful herself, and that while her husband may have fathered all of these sons, none of them were the daughter's brother.

It was pretty funny to listen to in song.

The Millennium Tower in Dublin.  I don't remember if that's the actual name, but it was something like that.

Yay! for not checking the settings on the camera before taking pictures.

Day 2: The City of Dublin Always, always, always do the New Europe tours.  This was my second tour, and it was a lot of fun.  The tour guides are always very knowledgeable and very funny.  These tours are a lot of fun and I will always recommend them.  They also seem like something I would really enjoy doing with my summers.  During the year, I would teach, and during the summer, I could go somewhere and give tours for three months.  That sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

We saw a lot of cool stuff on the tour.  I also got to eat some horse meat.  It was delicious.  Check out these pictures

Cody meets up with the Dublin Fire Brigade.

I've said it before: if you have the chance to take a New Europe Tour, go for it.

The oldest building in the Dublin, this was built...um...back in the day and at once point housed the crown jewels of
Ireland.  The tower, I believe is the oldest part in this picture, though the stuff around the top is not original.  Someone
didn't think it looked 'old enough', so they added that stereotypical castle topping to the tower.  Rampart?  I think that's
the word for it.  Whatever.  By the way, the crown jewels of Ireland were stolen back in the day when two guards
decided they were too lazy to lug a huge chest up to the tower, and instead locked the crown jewels in a desk drawer.
Ultimately not the best place to keep priceless royal heirlooms, they were done the next morning.

This is across from where the queen would stay when she would visit Dublin.  (She would be staying in the really old building previously discussed.)  One of the rulers got there and didn't enjoy looking at the poor that were situated outside her window.  However, instead of spending money on public works which would improve the lives of the poor, they build this carriage house which would block the queen's view of said poor people.  Touché, my queen, touché.

How stupid does this building look?  It's apparently nicknamed the 'LEGO building', due to the ridiculous coloring
scheme the architect picked out.

Cool story about this hotel.  Apparently, a musician and his band got a small record deal, and went to celebrate at the
bar in this hotel.  However, as they were not dressed appropriately, the host asked them to leave.  While he offered to
make a reservation for them at a nearby bar, the aforementioned musician, having imbibed a little bit of alcohol,
drunkenly refused to leave the bar.  Eventually getting thrown out, he promised that once he hit it big, he would come
back, buy the bar, and fire the host.  Well, a while later, this musician, now calling himself Bono, had, in fact, hit it big,
and, while walking the Temple Bar area, remembered getting thrown out of a certain hotel bar.  He returned to visit, and,
low-and-behold, the host was still working there.  While he recognized Bono as a famous musician, he did not recognize
him as the drunk he had thrown out of his bar years before.  Initially deeply embarrassed when Bono reminded him of
this story, they ultimately had a good laugh about it.  Then Bono said, "You know, if I remember correctly, I
promised to buy this bar once I hit it big.  Well, I'm a man of my word."  He then pulled out his check book and bought
the hotel, and he has co-owned it ever since.

Horse, beef, and venison.  Horse is delicious.

This is an arch on the Trinity College campus.  If you walk under this arch and
you're a virgin, the bell will ring.  Our guide asked for a volunteer to walk under.
As I walked under the arch, the group, as previously instructed by the tour
guide, yelled 'dong!' as I walked under.  It was pretty amusing.

After the tour, we went with the guide back to a pub and got food, which was delicious.  I don't remember exactly what I got, but it was really, really good.  And it was a lot.  Not enough to fill me, of course, but certainly a relatively good deal as far as super expensive Dublin is concerned.  After dinner, we did some more touring of the city on our own.  Then, that night, we did a pub crawl, run by the same company as New Europe Tours, and this was a lot of fun too.  We ended up with a fantastic group and good fun was had by all.

Day 3: The City of Dublin: The Sequel The next day in Dublin wasn't nearly as eventful as the previous.  Exhausted after a night of frivolity, we got a somewhat late start.  We ended up visiting the other side of Dublin, and visited some awesome parks, including one with a massive monument to the Duke of Wellington, celebrating his victories in Europe and India.  I also got really creepy and took pictures of people with my awesome telephoto lens.  Good times...  We also had some Iranian food, which was delicious.

I believe this is a protestant cathedral in Dublin, which is weird; I haven't seen many protestant cathedrals.

This is a monument to the Duke of Wellington in a park in Dublin.

While at the aforementioned Duke of Wellington monument, I did some creepy people watching with my telephoto
lens.  This one ended up pretty funny.  Since his legs disappear behind a hill, and his shadow is also hidden, it looks like
I just Photoshopped him in there.  That's quite the pose he's striking.  He must be really enjoying being able to see the
Duke of Wellington monument.

Day 4: A Visit to Reading, England Our travel day between Dublin and London was uneventful and quite long.  Lena made sure to get us to the airport as early as humanly possible; by the time we got through security, we had almost four hours to kill, which we utilized for deep philosophical conversations, and to take pictures of this guy:

This guy came and visited the Dublin Airport tarmac.

Aww...

He's pretty cute.

Once we got to England, we transferred to a bus, and then to another bus, and then to another bus, and finally, after a bajillion hours (plus a lovely run-in with a couple who spoke Japanese and were moving to South Africa where the husband would be doing cancer research) we arrived in Reading, England.  We were doing this because Erika, my friend from Wyoming who is also studying at Eichstätt, was visiting a friend for her birthday in Reading, and we were invited to the party, since we were going to be in the London area anyway.  What we didn't realize was just how much time we would need to get to Reading, and all we were able to do was go to the club, since we were too late to attend the actual birthday party.  It was a fun group at least.

Day 5: Not Much to Tell We didn't do a whole lot on Day 5, since we were exhausted from the club the previous night.  We slept in a bit, and then we had brunch with Erika's friends before heading back into London on a later bus.  Once back in London, we had loads of fun.  By that, I mean our hostel had lost our reservation.  Earlier, I called to cancel our first night at the hostel since we were staying with Erika's friends.  They decided to cancel the entire thing.  Awesome.  We wandered around for a bit, and we eventually did find a hostel, which ended up being pretty good.  Lena, Cody, and I spent the evening hanging out in the hostel bar, which was a pretty cool spot to hang out.  That's really all there is to say about it...

Day 6: Finally, London  It was finally time to tour London, England.  The first thing we did was hook up with the local New Europe Tour and off we were.  Unfortunately, I had forgotten to put a battery in my camera, so there are no pictures from this tour.  Anyway, the quality of this tour was par for the course for a New Europe Tour.  Our guide was a lot of fun.  She was an actress from Wales, and she had a really cool/funny accent, which she did not use when she gave the tour.  Too bad.  She was great nonetheless.

Apparently, the British Flag is a combination of the English, Scottish, and Irish flags.  Wait?  That's three parts of the United Kingdom.  Where's Wales?  According to our Welsh guide, it goes as such: Back in the day, as England was running all over the place and planting their flag, shouting mine, they came across the Scots.  When they announced, "Mine!" the Scots didn't take too kindly to this and fought back.  While it was eventually added to the British holdings, the Scots were represented in the flag, apparently in recognition of their resilience.  The same happened when the English got to Ireland.  When they planted their flag and shouted, "Mine!" the Irish didn't take to kindly to this and fought back.  Most of the country was eventually granted independence, while Protestant Northern Ireland remained with the United Kingdom, and the Irish were represented in the Union Jack.  As for Wales, when they English arrived, planted a flag, and shouted, "Mine!" the Welsh said, "Oh, really?  We're sorry.  We had no idea we were on your land.  Here, have our sheep as an apology.  Thanks for letting us know, and sorry for the confusion."

Yay! for being super touristy.

We saw a lot of cool stuff, but I can't recall too many specifics, seeing as how I don't have any pictures.  We met some Germans on the tour, who were fun to talk to, including a girl from Eichstätt.  That was pretty cool.  If I remember any cool stories, I'll update this post accordingly.  After the tour, we did some general walking around the city.  We swung by Platform 9 3/4 for some super touristy photos at the Harry Potter landmark.

Day 7: The London Museum: My Soul Mate When we woke up on Day 7, we rushed over to see the changing of the guard.  It was a ridiculously over-the-top event, and it's amazing that they do this every other day or whatever.  I think it's every other day in the winter and every day in the summer.  Regardless, it's an absurd number of times.

After that, did more general touring the city.  We saw the Tower Bridge (often mistakenly called London Bridge, which is another bridge in the city), the Tower of London, and some other general sites in the city.  We saw replicas of the crown jewels, and Beaky got some good photo ops.

The Tower of London, where bad stuff happens to people.

Beaky hanging out with the Tower Bridge on the right and the Tower of London in the back.

Beaky hanging out in front of the Tower Bridge.

After that, we split up to see some different things.  I ended up at the British Museum, and, yeah, it was spectacular.  At first it was nothing sensational, aside from having several well-known artefacts (I'm spelling it the British English way), such as the Rosetta Stone, which was pretty cool to see in person.

The Rosetta Stone, discovered 1799, was the key to deciphering Egyptian
hieroglyphics.  The stone, created in 196 BC, has the same message written in
hieroglyphics, ancient Greek, and Demotic script (another ancient Egyptian language,
which used letters instead of pictographs).

There were also lots of old carvings from the Middle East, and statues from Greece and Rome.

Really cool Mesopotamian relief sculptures.

All-in-all, awesome stuff.  And then I reached the library of King George III...

This room was amazing.  It's the library of King George III, donated by his son in 1823.  It is so cool.  I love libraries, and
this was an absolutely beautiful one.  I can't wait until I have a library of my own.  I hope it looks like this one, since, you
know, I'm going to make tons of money as a teacher.

I don't really know why, but I lost it.  It was about the nerdiest thing I've ever done in my life, and I've done some pretty weird, nerdy stuff.  I love books and libraries.  Honestly, when I see disaster movies, this is what I'm concerned about, ranked from more to less important:

1. deaths of of a character which has been developed over the course of the film and have effected from me an emotional investment in their well-being (see  ► SPOILERS ◄  the death of Agent Phil Coulson in The Avengers  ► SPOILERS ◄
2. information stored in books, documents, computers, etc
3. the on-screen deaths of any animals (see I Am Legend for a gut-wrenching example)
4. the dozens/hundreds/thousands/millions of people who are killed when the aliens/terrorists/natural distaster/monster starts destroying everything
5. the fact that the post-apocalyptic world likely lacks Cluck-U Chicken and Döner.

It's awful, but it's unfortunately true.  In the movie National Treasure 2, the bad guy burns a letter sent from, um, I want to say the Queen of England to...someone else important.  I audibly protested this action while watching a movie.  The destruction of this fake document evokes a greater response from me than watching New York City blow up in Independence Day/The Avengers/etc.

Anyway, now that we've established how much I like information (and what an awful person I am), here's how I reacted to see the beautiful library of King George III: I literally started freaking out.  It was so cool, that I literally lost track of what I was doing, started breathing heaving, and just started rushing around the museum trying to see everything without actually registering what I was seeing.  This lasted for probably about 10 minutes or so, and it's pretty funny in retrospect.

I don't remember what this is, but it's really old and therefore really cool.  Oh wait, I know what this is.  This is a tile
from the Parthenon.  A few weeks prior, I visited Greece, and our tour guide explained how, while Greece was under
Ottoman rule, a Brit showed up, bribed a bunch of officials, chiseled the panels off, and shipped them back to England.
They eventually ended up in the possession of the British Museum.  Despite requests by the Greek government and
other groups for the pieces to be returned, they remain at the British Museum.  It was kind of cool to here about items
being lost (taken), and then subsequently getting to see them.

Mummies are cool!

There was also a pub crawl, but it wasn't that great.


Day 8: Zurück Nach Eichstätt  The return to Germany was uneventful.  We were tired from the pub crawl the previous night, so not a lot went on en route.  All said, it was a fun trip.  Both cities were very interesting, but I don't think I could every spend more than a small period of time in either of them.  They're too expensive and too city-ish for my liking.  I will admit, however, that British accents, Irish accents, and the British Museum make living there almost worth it.

For more pictures, check out Facebook and Google+.  At least I think I put something on Google+.  Maybe not...it takes way too much time to upload pictures to that website.  Whatever.  You should be able to access Facebook no problem.  Bis später!

Beaky loves a good deal.