Blarney!

So the third leg of the trip is nearly done, as we jump onto another plane in about three hours. The bus ride from Dublin to Cork was relatively awesome (moreso than Cork itself, unfortunately). Ireland is an unbelievably beautiful country: it is so green it is ridiculous, and there is something about passing an occasional rundown castle that simply blows your mind, and not just because it looks like they filmed all the Highlander movies here.

Cork has been... relaxing, mainly because we couldn't really figure out what to do. This is the problem with doing no research before showing up somewhere, although it is probably good that we only decided to stay here for a day. As we were taking the bus to Blarney, it finally came to me that I maybe should have asked Sarah what she did during the year she lived here in college. But that would have made too much sense.

We made it to Blarney Castle today. The castle is about 8 kilometers outside of Cork. The walk from the village to the castle is awesome, as you pass over a creek or three and through some huge green fields, and then there's this thousand-year-old castle. A lot of history over here, you might say. I am awestruck when walking through New York or Philadelphia and looking at 300-ish-year-old buildings, and then I come over here and see castles and parapets and bridges and churches that were built right around when my great-grandparents-to-the-fifteenth-degree were my age.

The Irish like their quotes, probably because they have a ridiculous history of writers and poets, and somehow I have managed to give Cameron a literary tour of Ireland without him knowing it (or me planning it). We went on the literary pub crawl, then found ourselves on the top floor of the Guinness Storehouse surrounded by Joyce quotes, and then get to the top of Blarney Castle and there is a fantastic, humble quote from George Bernard Shaw, whose house was right down the block from where we stayed in Dublin: "....it is not necessary for me to seek eloquence at Blarney....my natural gifts in that direction being sufficient, if not somewhat excessive." I love Irish people.

After the castle, Cameron and I stopped at a quaint little coffee shop with a backyard garden enclosed by what was probably a 500-year-old stone wall (I base that on the unsupported fact that everything in Ireland is pretty much 500 years old.). It was overcast, finally (after two sunny, 75-degree days in Dublin, I was beginning to wonder if we were actually really in Ireland). The gray arrived today. It's about damn time.

Hanging out with some Corkers

Not sure what else to call the people from Cork. Cork is much smaller and more behaved than Dublin. Our bus ride was amazingly green and uneventful. We walked around Cork about 5 or 6 times before eating in a hotel and then going out for drinks after.

We somehow found a pub that had 2.90 pints until 9pm. They also played the entire Metallica album while we were there. We had a number of pints. I also tried to branch out and have something besides Guinness; shit. I tried some stupid Cider. This is why I don't try new things. So, after a number of pints (I think we bought them 2 at a time) we went back to our super posh hotel. This morning we saw Blarney Castle and the stone and then had some coffee in a super nice little shop.

Tonight we meet up with the Villas, and if we are lucky one more football match. I am sure that Villa has been checking for it. Also, my cord is packed away, so I will have to post pics later. I did draw one...

Slainte

T-minus one hour until we take a long, hopefully scenic bus ride to Cork. Dublin was a trip. There was a lot of Guinness involved, including a trip to the storehouse. They have a pretty good setup there. Charge for roughly three-and-a-half Guinness and grant one free Guinness when you reach the finish line. Although you do get seven free James Joyce quotes at the top of the building, so that's a plus.

Some other thoughts on Guinness: in the mid-80s into the 90s, they used Rutger Hauer as the "Man with the Guinness" for ads all over the UK. I wish they had used them in the US, too, because he is awesome, and those ads must have been incredibly creepy.

We caught some Irish music at Temple Bar last night, and it gave me some insight into the thought process of non-Americans towards the US (note: this insight is not insightful). First, the band asked if there were any Americans in the room. Then they said they were going to play us a tune. To that point, they had dropped in a Dylan song between every three or four Irish jigs, but this time they busted out with something called "Erie Canal." I would wager that most Americans don't know where the hell that is. Cameron is one of them. He thought it was in Indiana, which is an understandable mistake given the epic 1990s television show, "Eerie, Indiana." Also, Cameron is an idiot.

I have a couple of other belated things to post (mainly because I have been reprimanded for not having covered these before. Peer pressure is a bitch.).

Firstly, for everyone's pleasure and amusement: I was nearly attacked by a Spanish schoolgirl while riding my bike in Barcelona. I'll go into more detail, even though that is probably enough for you. I was at the front of the bike tour pack when we passed through an alley full of schoolchildren, all of whom started laughing and pointing at us. And then one girl, rather feisty for having been born in 1997 or so, wheeled up her leg and took aim at my front tire. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to steal Mike's patented bunny hop and swerve into the wall. This pretty much served no purpose other than to allow the children to laugh and point more.

Now then. Food. We'll just speed through the London portion of the trip. As Mike said last week, he was disappointed with the McDonalds chicken mcnuggets, and when you are A) going to McDonalds in the first place and B) complaining about the food, it's not a good sign. I later accidentally ordered a ham and cheese sandwich on sliced white bread, which cost me something like $5. I was less than pleased. English food sucked.

Moving on to Barcelona... tapas, paella (I have absolutely no idea if i spelled that right), gelato, rabbit and snail (everyone criticized me for eating rabbits because they are cute, but I do not care; it's not like they're going endangered. Contrarywise, one place we went to had large and small "sea cow claws" on the menu. Reading that hurt my soul.). But my favorite part was that we were around the block from an open-air market, so we got croissants and fresh fruit and nifty smoothie things for breakfast every morning. Spanish food was good.

Irish food has been like English food, but less terrible. And when you count Guinness as a food, we have had like 15 meals a day. We have also happily discovered that they know what coffee is here, though. It is not espresso. Or espresso. Or espresso.

To Cork!

Finally, Ireland

I would have never guessed I was here unless it started raining, which it did, last night. The weather has been perfect, warm, and sunny. Today it is overcast and the kind of Ireland I have been expecting. I am leaving on a bus for Cork in about an hour and will get to see the countryside.

There isn't much to do in Dublin but drink, and we did that just fine. Last night we saw a live band at the Temple Bar which was a lot of fun. We did a mandatory tour of the Guinness Factory and saw the book of Kells. If you ever get a chance to see it, know that while impressive, they did not know how to use perspective so the art isn't the best. Trinity College is the real treat here in Dublin and like I said there isn't much to do but drink.

I don't have many pictures, just some videos of the band. The problem is they are too large to upload so imagine if you could an extremely crowded place with everyone singing along in their best voice, or maybe just their loudest.

Well off to cork and some castles and rocks you can kiss.

cheers

Christy is Evil, and Cameron is a Year Older

Dear Mike and Christy,

Cameron and I made it to Ireland relatively unscathed, despite the best efforts of Christy to get everyone unexpectedly trashed that last night in Barcelona. I hope you two hurt as much as Cameron and I did when we went to the airport yesterday. Nonetheless, I am suffering from separation anxiety and am counting the minutes until we complain together about another bland serving of fish and chips.

I am having flashbacks to my Dublin trip almost five years ago, when Jacob somehow convinced me that I should ante up and spend some money for possibly the first time in my life. We are staying about four blocks south of St Stephen's Green and Trinity, which is where Jake studied. I don't know how the hotel thing has worked out for you in Paris, but Dublin has kept alive our streak of ridiculously well-located hotels. Mike, you'd love it: the longest walk so far has been for about 15 minutes.

Anyhow, it's 11:30 a.m., high time to go get another drink. Yesterday we went on the literary pub crawl, and today we are hitting up the Guinness factory. And, in the worst of worst-case scenarios, Cameron managed to win second-place in a trivia contest last night during the pub crawl. His well-timed guess that Samuel Beckett was the only of four Irish authors to be on a national sports team meant that he won a mini-bottle of Jameson, which will probably mean bad things for me.

hugs and kisses,
matt

I feel sorry for England.

Ireland is outstanding. Just like Barcelona the girls are amazingly beautiful. I feel really sorry for poor London. I didn't see one cute girl there. Barcelona has too many of them and I couldn't keep track. Ireland is full of girls I could marry today. The weather here is perfect and we are located right in the middle of everything important.

Today is my birthday and I will be spending it having as many pints as I can. We are going to see the Book of Kells after this and then off to the Guinness factory. Last night was outstanding since we went on a literary tour (pub crawl) that was a lot of fun. I ended up winning myself some Jameson and just coming up short for the grand prize t-shirt. I was also able to sit down and read in the park for a hour or two yesterday. Ireland is just what I needed at this point. Matt and I having a well poured Guinness during the tour. I also had a video, but it is 10mb. It is of the tour guide playing U2 with our group, which include 30 danish kids that knew all the words. genius.

One more thing. On our last night in Barcelona we got wasted with two people from Liverpool. Christy was the instigator; curse her. I was so hungover on the way to the airport.

I Ride Bike Good.

I think I last rode a bike in 2003, although I am probably forgetting something in New York. Remembering how to ride a bike was much easier this time than that time, when I almost fell off while trying to get on. And to think, I used to be good at it.

We went on a 3ish-hour bike tour around Barcelona today. Our guide was an enthusiastic woman who never told us her name but did give us some pretty neat historical information, including a lot that essentially proved wrong all the wild theories we had come up with during our self-guided tour yesterday. We covered a lot of the same ground, but this time it did not involve walking through 18 miles of Metro connector tunnels. We also saw a bunch of new stuff, including the Arc de Triomph and the Parc de la Ciutadella, which had an amazing fountain. We found out that a lot of the shorefront hadn't existed before the Barcelona Olympics, which means that there were not a lot of unfortunately naked people on the beaches before the Barcelona Olympics. And we saw a ton more Gaudi, because his stuff is everywhere. And insane. And awesome. Although I would have nightmares if I lived in any of his houses.

Perhaps most miraculously, none of us got hit by (or ran into) a car, bike, pedestrian, dog, scooter, or building, despite the fact that the traffic lights were absolutely impossible to figure out, although Cameron did manage to lose the group immediately after the ride. And on the way from the Park to the Sagrada Familia, I almost found myself left behind, as I was engrossed in a very deep metaphysical conversation with a guy from Sweden and a girl from Seattle. We were discussing the NBA playoffs; he had played for a Swedish basketball league, and she had played college basketball, and I played in grammar school and read a lot of espn.com. These are the things that bring people together (or apart, if we're talking about the rest of the bikers).

Tomorrow, Dublin! I may be forced to drink whiskey (Cameron has already stated that that is one thing he wants for his birthday. Another thing he wants is his Marissa Miller magazine, which Christy has not yet returned. Another thing he wants is a pony.) Oher people on this trip seem to want me to be more entertaining. I think that by "entertaining" they mean they want to see me do something photo/blog-worthy, like run head-first into a pole or hitchike or order Jameson and ginger ale for the entire bar or say something grammatically or common-sensically incorrect, like, "I don't want no euros." I do not know how they get these ideas into their heads.

Gaudi this and Gaudi that.

I am awake and feeling like I can make it the whole day without sleeping on the floor, or dropping whenever I feel tired. I was able to see a lot of the city today. We took a three hour bike tour and learned why some of the Sagrada Familia is clean; it is because it is new. They are not finished building it.

Amazing buildings are tucked everywhere in the city. The tour was full of information and quite a thrill. We rode on the streets with the cars and all of the scooters. In fact any serious scooter enthusist should come to live here. We saw a lot of Guadi's' works and everyone loves him here.

It is an experience. Barcelona has been a lot of fun, but sadly my spanish, while handy, isn't what I thought it would be. They have different words for everything. I don't know why I try learning anything.

I think Matt is enjoying the trip as well, but he is suffering from continued night terrors. I am pretty sure that he wakes up every hour or so sreaming for someone to save him from his nightmares. I usually just turn up my headphones. Tomorrow we leave for Ireland.

Capri's are in

Cinco de Mayo:

Today I am feeling much better. Started the day by heading out on the Metro towards the Sagrada Familia...amazing. They are in the process of cleaning it so it was half clean half dirty and full of lines. I took a picutre of the dirty portion, since it was the best anyway. After that we went to the Gaudi park; so much fun. He tried to design a entire neigborhood, but I guess ran over budget. The place was a lot of fun and packed. It was an excelllent walk which included walking to a vista with a view of the city. Apparently Capris are in.

Tonight we are going to watch a soccer game in one of the 20 irish pubs. If the weather holds tomorrow we will be going on a bike ride tour. That should be a lot of fun. I hope today marks the point in the trip where I adjust to the 8 hour time change.

Barcelona is full of MUCH BETTER LOOKING people than London. London had some interesting people but they all have something wrong with them. Here there are tons of great looking people each with tons of style. It seems like a very fashionable place and it was fun to people watch over lunch.

I have been writing everything in wordpad since villa doesn't have WORD and we cannot find internet anywhere. If Sonja were here she would have enjoyed me asking for an Internet Cafe; the guy ignored me completely. Apparently all the cool kids ask for Wi-Fi.

Hasta Manana.

PS - I think matt might be a vampire. He doesn't ever sleep and if he nods off for a minute he has night terrors...guilt for all the people he has had to kill over the years as an undead solider.

Finding the Internet...

The morning was spent waking up quite early and heading to the Gatwick Express. The train took us to the airport we arrived in Barcelona. I read it was supposed to rain the entire weekend, but it was in the high 70's and beautiful. I am still thinking about the outstanding match I went to yesterday. It was really something to see everyone go nuts for the team. Everyone chanted for the entire 90 minutes; I have never seen such dedication. Everyone should experience something like that; even people that hate the sport. So. Much. Fun.

Barcelona started out with some massive amounts of walking. We made it to the beach and saw some of the sites. After a walk filled afternoon I made it back in time to pass out for four hours. The time change probably caught up with me. In the evening Matt and I cruised around the sites, and had a few beers in the one of the plazas. Very enjoyable. Due to my four hour nap and some super jet lag I stayed up until 4am. Probably not what I was looking for.
Barcelona is pretty and pretty large. It seems much more filled with tourists than London was. Also, I it has been impossible to find the internets anywhere even though I know it exists world wide. This is probably why I had to post all these "blogs" in one day.

Today was outstanding. I almost have the hang of being 8 hours ahead. I can usually push through the slow spots by using my outstanding will power. Woke this morning, washed up, and headed out for breakfast. We walked a ton today seeing the Buckingham Palace, the river, and St. James's Park. Last night we hit the other big monuments and sites. To be honest it was underwhelming seeing the palace even thought there were 10,000 people waiting to get inside.

We headed to the tube and went out for the real prize of the day, footy match. The atmosphere was great around the stadium and we walked around for and hour or two. It was only after we went in the stadium that we realized that they had cheap everything inside; that includes beer. I was shocked. We had Carlsbergs for 7 dollars american; sadly this was the best deal of the trip.

Our seats were second row and amazing. We were amazingly close to the pitch and the action was great. The home team ended up winning 2 - 0. This was a result of the guy behind us getting into the Birmingham City players. One of their players was called out by name, "Hey Murphy!", when he turned to look the guy behind simply said, "Fuck you". It was clear and concise. Murphy didn't play the same after that.

I took video of the first goal. It was a free kick and I wasn't really ready for it, but Villa was also taking video as well. I hope his turned out better. London is an amazingly interesting place. However, be warned, everyone here is just a bit...off. No other way to describe it.

Cheers.

happy Cinco de Mayo to all you people at work

Day 2 in Barcelona. So far, we have walked roughly 300 miles, which is a lot even for me.

Yesterday we walked to the beach, where there were some very unfortunately naked people, and then Mike and Cameron napped for roughly half a day while I watched some amazing music videos (remember when the Offspring didn't suck? Me neither.). Then, for some reason (namely, hunger), the Baron and I decided to go back outside.

Continental Europe operates on a schedule very much like mine. People eat dinner at 11 p.m., watch sports highlights into the early morning, and mostly don't sleep (on the flipside, they are much, much, much, much better looking, and that includes the strange street mimes who dress like trees and robots). After the required 10 p.m. Espresso Hour, Cameron and I went to one of the town squares and got drinks, and I am pretty sure that, along with the bothersome tourists and homeless jugglers, there was a school field trip or three that showed up after midnight. And they all stopped to drink beer with us. So that was cool. Then I went back to the hotel and singlehandedly deciphered the secrets of the Metro system while listening to the sage advice of 90210 in Translation.

Today we pretty much had our minds blown by the Sagrada Familia (the church designed by Gaudi) and Park Guell (Gaudi's hilltop park-city). Both places are a testament to the fact that sometimes individuals come up with things completely beyond comprehension or imagination. Beautiful, creepy, monumental, magical... I've had nine hours to think about what I saw, and I still haven't come up with much. I spent a lot of time walking around looking up and running into poles and swallowing flies and being one of those people that I usually point and laugh at and give incorrect directions to.

This would be the point for photos, but unfortunately Cameron is asleep on the floor. There will also be photos of Cameron asleep on the floor once I figure out how to hook his camera up to the computer.

Tomorrow: bike tour! Mike and I are going to dress up like Lance Armstrong and Floyd whatever his name was and wear bright yellow spandex. It will be glorious.

London Part I, postscript

We're not in London anymore, but we do have internet, and this is what I wrote sans internet a couple of evenings ago (also, my apologies for the lack of photos, but that is what Cameron and his digital camera are for [more to come on that later])...

Christy picked a good hotel. It has art and things, including a painting of a giant panda face, which is pretty awesome because it is like they decorated the hotel based on our softball team's name (the Stupid Pandas, for those of you not familiar with the team; and I say "our" team despite the fact that I am not on the team. I feel that I contribute quite a bit to team morale by joining Mike's grandpa in yelling from the bleachers.).

The hotel is at the southwest part of West End (I figured out we were in West End because we are down the block from where "Wicked" is playing, and one of the posters outside said something about it being a "West End sensation"; that is a significant improvement over the book, which blew.). We are a 10-15 minute walk from the Thames and Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, which all look spectacular at night. The Abbey was built in something like 1065, which is just silly. That was, like, before the wheel was invented. We are also about 10 minutes from the Albert, a Pub we have already hit up twice. It serves "extra cold" Guinness, which is pretty much the greatest thing ever. It also seems to have a playlist that only consists of disco and Queen songs.

We went to a football match today. I will leave it to the football fans (i.e., go see Mike and Christy's blog: http://twovillasineurope.blogspot.com/) on this trip to describe it justly. Suffice to say, my new crapass team to support will be Fulham, because I was the only one who managed to get a jersey, and because I am all about lost causes. Fulham is at the bottom of the Premiership standings and in danger of dropping into the lower division, and when they scored a goal to make it 2-nil with about 10 minutes left, the crowd started chanting, "We will stay up! We'll stay up!" We had seats in the second row, close enough for everyone (including the two 10-year-olds sitting in front of us) to scream obscenities at the opposing team's players. The energy in the stadium was palpable, even though it was a match between bottom feeders in the Premiership.

and then we left England way too early on Sunday morning to go to Barcelona, where there is real food... and moving on to blog #2.

Lethal Weapon 4!!!!

In case anyone was wondering, Lethal Weapon 4 is no better when watching it in England 15 or so years after it was released. Contrarywise, eastern European men's water polo is awesome, especially when the announcers get excited.

On a related note, our hotel is about a fifteen-minute walk from Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Thames (which all of us hope to learn to pronounce correctly at some point), and, supposedly, a dungeon. We hope to find the dungeon today.

All Roads lead to Cockfosters

Made it safe and sound to England. No one is dead but everyone is tired. We are having breakfast after a great walk around town during the night. We finished things off with a night cap and are getting ready to visit some palaces, maybe a dungeon. Everyone is staring at me so I think I have to finish up and get on my way. Cheers to all!

Pictures to follow...

Time to go

Since none of you will hear from us for approximately I don't know how long, I will leave you with this photo of Cameron and a friend from a couple of years ago.

Cheers! I am at work this morning and as soon as I finish payroll and some general number crunching I will be on my way. I had a nice little farewell dinner with my sister and Alex; Matt was there too. I now owe Matt a low four-figure sum which I am sure he will remind me about during the trip. The reason is because I have limited success booking my own tickets and reservations. Since, we all want to enjoy our trip I was not allowed to plan anything. My next stop is London where this Saturday I will be attending my first "footy" match. Hopefully, pictures and stories to follow.

I will be away from work for two weeks for some well deserved vacation. I don't think I will miss working, but I will miss someone...my 10 key...

We almost have an itinerary

We leave in less than 24 hours. Today, Cameron and I finally decided it was time to look into what the hell we will be doing in Ireland in a week. After about an hour and $400 (I cringe thinking of how many burritos that would buy--at least 61, plus a couple of rolled tacos), we had found ourselves a place to stay in Dublin. We had also booked a flight out of Cork, so at some point on May 9 (the day after Cameron hopefully gets punched in the face by an Irish girl) we will make our way southwest.

This brings Cameron's tab up to something over $1,000.

Contusion caused by blunt impact

I am going to write all my posts in italic, since it is much more annoying...

I hate Matt. However, I am glad he had decided to take the lead in booking all our rooms and flights (except for Ireland) since I am incapable of doing it correctly. About the only thing I am responsible for during the trip is turning 29, which I think I will do without any help from anyone. In fact, Matt and I will be somewhere in Ireland and my only wish is to challenge someone to a drinking contest for my birthday. Hopefully, it is a girl or a little person (ie. leprechaun) weighing less than 125 pounds.

I am getting excited about the trip. With that I will leave you with a picture of my bruise (taken with the mighty camera phone). The bruise is courtesy of Christy Villa's line drive into my thigh.You can start to make out the stitch marks from the ball after three days; this is why I hate left handed people.


Bruise Day 1:

Bruise Day 3:

Cameron versus Matt: Prologue

T-minus one week until takeoff. The trip is set, except for the small matter of planning a three-day visit to Ireland. The plane tickets are bought (except for Ireland), the hotels are booked (except for Ireland), and all without Cameron mistakenly scheduling everything for a month ago.

This weekend, we prepare by birthday-ing, first for Jewel and then for Molly.

This is all very interesting, I know. And no one will actually read this yet, because we haven't sent anyone the link. But I digress. I must lay the groundwork for the epic journey ahead. In three weeks, it will all be but a memory, and Cameron will be even more of an old, broken man.