No more wastin' time (May 21st)

Today started off very similarly from the two previous days:

Woke up.

Watched some Arrested Development.

Chatted with some people online.

But today would not end up like the others.  I got my "lounging around and wasting my day" thing out of the way, so I set off to explore Dublin.

Well, it turns out I was just re-exploring a lot of the territory that Scott and I covered in the few days we were in Dublin.

After a good 3 or 4 hours of walking around, I met up with Nath, Aidan, Jason and Peter at a pub to watch the championship game of the Champions League:  Man U vs. Chelsea.

I really couldn't have cared less who won, but I was going for Man U simply because I knew TWO of their players...two more then I knew on Chelsea's team.

From what I hear, this was one of the best matches in recent history.  Man U and Chelsea were tied, 1-1, after the first 90 minutes of regulation and 30 minutes of extra time.

This meant their would be a shootout, where each team selects 5 players to take penalty kicks and whoever has the most wins.  Well, the best player for Man U, Ronaldo, missed his penalty kick, which set it up for Chelsea's best player, Terry, to win it.  But he slipped on the wet grass, causing his shot to go wide left.

Everyone in the pub exploded with cheers, as they were mostly made up of Man U fans...or at least they shouted the loudest.

This meant that each team would get one more kicker each until someone eventually won.

Not too long after, the Man U goalkeeper made the game saving stop and then the pub erupted once again.  What had started off as a pretty good crowd before the match ended up as a mob with nowhere to move around in the pub.

Such a good game to watch...probably the best football game i'll ever see...until early August when ANY REAL football preseason game is on.

After the match, we headed out on the town.  After a few pints at a good pub, we ended up heading to a terrible pub, or actually a dance club, and had a few more pints.  It was not my type of atmosphere...terrible lighting and music that was way too loud.

Finally we left the club and "hired" a taxi back to their apartment, where I quickly passed out while watching Arrested Development.

Nothin' to do, nowhere to go Part II (May 20th)

This day was an utter waste of time.

I got up.

I watched some Arrested Development.

I chatted with people online.

Nath and Aidan got home and we watched some more TV.

Nath had a date, so Aidan and I stayed home and chilled.

We watched Casino Royale...first time I'd seen it and it was really good.

I went to bed.

Such a waste of a day...I'm definitely not going to waste my day tomorrow.

Nothin' to do, nowhere to go (May 19th)

This day was an utter waste of time.

I got up.  

I went and ate lunch with Nath and his friends.

I came home and watched more Arrested Development.

I chatted with some people online.

Nath and Aidan got done with work.

We went and got some food and beers.

We came home and watched more Arrested Development.

We didn't do anything exciting.

I went to bed.

Such a waste of a day...I'm definitely not going to waste my day tomorrow.

Oh Guinness, how I've missed you (May 18th)

Today was the first time I think I've ever seen 3:30am from the waking up side of a day.  I'm happy to never have it happen again.

I hazily got myself onto the bus this morning and the eastern sky was already starting to get light.  I got to the airport and had another 3 hours to kill before my flight left.  It's funny, because the flight only ended up taking 35 minutes to get to Dublin.

A variety of buses finally got me to Nath's place around 1.  I would've gotten there sooner had Nath given me more then 14 words of directions.  But alas, I made it and it was good to see him.

Nath and his roommate, Aidan, had started watching Arrested Development the night before and were in the middle of season 2 by the time I got there.  It wasn't long until I was hooked in so we spent a good couple of hours watching that.

After about 6 episodes we headed out to a pub, which was amazing cause I've been desperate for a Guinness since I last left Dublin...but I decided to wait until I got back here before having one.  When we got there, I tasted that blissful bit of heaven and it wasn't long until I had another...and then a few more...and then one or two more...followed by just one more....and then another and then we went home.

While we were out, we met a cool girl named Charlotte that we hung out with for the rest of the night.  I foolishly thought that 25 euro would cover my time for the night, but that lasted about 7 minutes, so Nath was gracious enough to spot me...such a new concept.

Somehow it was 11 by the time we were catching the last bus home.  I heard it was a pretty good night.

Braveharder! (May 17th)

Come on...you didn't really think I was gonna get to the foot of the Wallace Monument and not actually go in, did you?

I retraced my steps from a few days before and found myself in Stirling once again.  I took the same bus and got up to the Wallace Monument where I now had all day to spend if I wanted to...not just a few minutes.

I browsed around the gift shop and found just about anything William Wallace or Braveheart you could ever ask for.  My favorite was the William Wallace beer...but I passed it up to save the 6 bucks and the weight off of my shoulders in my pack.

I didn't have a working camera, so I opted to spend $18 on a disposable camera...damn weak dollar.

I finally began climbing the 250 stairs of the monument.  Half way up though, I stopped and saw William Wallace's ACTUAL sword!  It was quite a site to behold, even though it didn't look like the sword used in the movies.  Personally, I think it was a good idea to create a new one because it looked much cooler then the real one.

He was a truly giant of a man though, as the sword was 1.6 meters long!  Some men's swords are longer then others I suppose.

After a few snap shots and checking out the terrible video they had of actors portraying William Wallace (honestly, they should've just put Braveheart on repeat), I headed to the top for...you guessed it...another great view of the surrounding area!

The bad thing about when I went was that it was freakin' cold out!  Couple that with the wind up on high and I could barely stand it.  Luckily, I found the one spot protected from the wind up there and was able to stay for a good half an hour.

I helped the moment by listening to the Braveheart soundtrack as I enjoyed the good view.  I know, how awesome am I??

After my nerd time was up, I decided it'd be cool to try to climb up some of the nice landscape I had just observed.  Heck, they didn't look that hard to get to, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Me and my legs were sorely mistaken.

Literally, 5 HOURS LATER!  I still hadn't gotten to climb up anything!  I'll bet I walked 15 miles.

It wasn't all bad though.  I passed a super market more than one and enjoyed milk and cookies as I walked.  Now THAT was great!

I got to walk around Stirling University though, which reminded me a bit of Iowa State.  It had a Loch instead of Lake, and a golf course, but other then that it felt very similar.

My legs were very absolutely spent, so I started walking back to the train station.  I passed over Stirling bridge, the location of Wallace's greatest victory that earned him the title of Guardian of Scotland.  Though the original wooden structure had been destroyed, this one was from the 1500's and was still an interesting bit of history to experience.

I eventually tore myself away and hopped on my train back to Edinburgh.  I told Kaylie that I couldn't leave Scotland without trying some Haggis, so we set out and found some.

Now I don't know if it was TRUE haggis, but it actually tasted pretty good.  It was smothered in a pretty good house whiskey sauce, which may have dulled the true flavor of it.  When I come back I'll have to try the nothing-to-hide version.

The rest of the night was spent getting prepared to depart Scotland.  Kaylie wiped the tears of sadness from her eyes and said goodbye and good night.  By the time I went to bed, I only had a few hours of sleep before I had to catch my bus.

Hope my early morning travels go better then the other half of Places Productions...

Is this seat taken? (May 16th)

Sam had finished his essays that he needed to write the day before, so we ended up hanging out most of the day.  We headed up to Arthur's seat, which is this massive hill just outside of the old town.  It didn't look like it would be too difficult to climb when we approached it, but Sam warned me that it was quite deceiving.

Pffff, wasn't tough to climb AT ALL...if you don't count the 5 or 6 breaks we took on our way to the top.

But alas, we made it up there and found some truly spectacular views.  From up there you felt like you could see forever.  Some truly bonny and comely views (thank you Merriam Webster thesaurus).

We had spent all this time climbing up to the top of the hill, but when we got up there, there really wasn't much to do, so we ended up climbing down after about 15 minutes.

We got to the bottom and trekked through some uncharted territory for me.  We expertly calculated how long a certain tunnel was using math.  MATH!

Stopped for lunch as the Mosque Kitchen and had some Indian food.  Despite one of my good friends being Indian, I don't remember ever actually having it before.  It was pretty darn good...though we ordered way too much and I couldn't finish mine.  Even Sam couldn't quite get all of his food down and he can EAT!

Spent yet MORE time in St. Princes Gardens lounging around until we headed back to the flat.  Sam was going to visit his dad down in southern England and took off shortly there after.

That left me with pretty much nothing to do because Kaylie needed time to work on her essay that she was freaking out about...oh how I don't miss school...good thing I'm not going back there anytime soon...

So I headed out on the town and grabbed a mocha about 5 feet from where JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter!!!  Sure I payed about twice as much for my drink then anywhere else in town....but this was where HARRY POTTER WAS BORN!!!  Amazing!  I even got to see "Hogwarts", or at least structure that inspired it.  Other then the 4 separate towers representing the different houses, it really didn't look anything like the Hogwarts of the movies.  But it was still awesome to see.

After the mocha, I popped in my headphones and walked around town for a good couple of hours.  Because it's so far north, it doesn't get completely dark around Edinburgh until about 10 o'clock, so I had a good amount of daylight to walk around in.

I've really grown accustomed to wandering.  It's the best way to see a city, like I've probably said millions of times.

When I got back Kaylie was scarfing down a pear and was STARVING...probably should've come back a bit sooner, but I enjoyed the walk.  We headed out in search of a baked potato...which are apparently popular enough to have an entire restaurant with just baked potatoes and toppings.

Sadly, they were all closed, but we did manage to find some good food and then we called it a night.  Good times...