I couldn’t quite get myself out of bed this morning. Maybe it was the mattress that made my back feel slightly better, or the fact that if I did I was likely to punch the snoring guy in the face. Regardless, at 1030 I finally got up, showered and headed to the grocery for an overpriced and underfilling meal.

I began my wanderings in hopes of finding the Jameson Irish Whiskey distillery, but a blocked road on the way there led me into a friary/church, presided over by a regular priest (though the brown Friar Tuck-esque outfits made an appearance). Irish Catholic masses aren’t really any different than American ones, but it is kinda hard to understand some of the congregation’s thickly accented responses. The priest had an exaggerated Captain Kirk-esque way of pausing when he spoke which at times was hard to listen to, but all the same it was a good experience.

Following that, I did find the distillery and was able to take a tour. It wasn’t nearly as cool or involved as the Woodford Reserve tour that I did over the summer, but then this is no longer a functioning production facility, but the shell of the old one. The new one is in Cork, which I will likely pass through on my journey this week.

Our guide was fun, and picked me and 5 others out of 30 to do a tutored whiskey taste test. So, on top of little more than a sandwich and OJ, I tried samples of Powers, Jameson and Paddy’s Irish whiskey, Johnny Walker Red Label Scotch, and Jack Daniel’s (ugh). The Jameson did come out on top taste wise for me, but I informed our guide that if they used bourbon it would give them a run for its money. Unfortunately Jack Daniel’s is the world’s best selling American whiskey, which is unfortunate because it is poison. They actually use bourbon barrels to make some batches of Jameson, which was interesting, and Jameson is triple distilled like Woodford Reserve.

So I got to wander home in a bit of a haze, and upon discovering some international basketball on TV in the common room took a nap before coming to this internet cafe, leaving, grabbing dinner, and coming back. Tonite will not be quite as exciting as last, but I suspect the tour this coming week will be non stop action, or at least I’ll have some people with whom I can talk.

That’s all for now. Ta ta.

Craig

Not so, but it is pretty green here. And I have just noticed that I have been missing trees. There really aren’t a whole lot to be found in the other cities to which I have been, but there are a few here and I realized that I miss them.

I woke up really early this morning, too early for breakfast, unfortunately. After snaking my way through Paris subways for an hour and a half I made it to Charles De Gaulle airport for my final European connector flight.

Arriving in Dublin I took the bus to my hostel to find a ridiculous number of people, remodeling going on on the 1st floor, and little else. After overpaying for a bagel and cream cheese, therefore vowing to only grocery eat for the weekend, I started to trek around the city. It is easily walkable, small and friendly, though there are an UNBELIEVEABLE amount of tourists here. It’s a Saturday in January, and there is no festival going on, but everywhere is still packed. Just plain silly; I’m glad I’ll be seeing the smaller parts of the country.

I went to St. Patrick’s cathedral, which charged admission and therefore didn’t enter.  I walked down the Temple bar street, which is supposedly famous, and went to Trinity College and bought a Tshirt. Barring Guinness factory and Jameson distillery I’ve done about all the touristy things there are here. Tonite after dinner I will probably see a movie, possibly find a pub with some live music, and hit the sack.

Tomorrow I plan on doing church and the Jameson factory, and then who knows what else. I was fortunate to have landed a hostel on the corner opposite of the tour company, so the 8AM time of departure won’t include a super early wake up and rush to find it.

Not much else to tell, the bill is running up here at the internet cafe, so I will check in tomorrow and let everyone know how the Jameson factory was.

One week from tomorrow I return home. Strange to think that I will have been gone for 5.5 weeks. Still time to enjoy what I have here. I hope everyone has a great rest of the weekend.

Craig

It was an eventful trip here. Well, the last part at least. The flight was smooth and arrived 15 minutes early, but not early enough to catch the last late train to the city centre. Which left me with very few options on a Thursday night considering the distance between the airport and my hostel. I therefore had to make a split second decision that makes at the very least a good story.

 Apparently there are official and unofficial cab drivers here in Paris and other cities. The unofficials can be scary, overpriced, and lock your luggage in the trunk until you give them all your money. Mine were a mild version. I paid €65 to get from the airport to my hostel, likely €25 more than a standard cab and a full €55 more than the train. But I had no other options so it had to be done, as the hostel curfew was at 2 AM and time was short. These fellows (2 of them) were Moroccan I believe from their appearance and choice of music, and cheerfully helped me into a new SUV with a nav device and no markings. Yay. They proceeded to almost run right through a gate-barrier at the airport and speed across the beltway almost hitting 4 or 5 cars on the way to the hostel. I would bet, however, that noone has ever gotten from Charles De Gaulle Airport to my hostel faster. An interesting if terrifying experience.

 After that harrowing journey, both my wallet and strength were sapped, so I did some light reconnaissance of the hostel, decided to take the free tour today, set my alarm for 9 AM, and summarily passed out.

After showering and missing breakfast, I waited on the free 3.5 hour tour guide to show up and followed her through several trains to a fountain and met a different guide who was doing the English tour. The route took us around Notre Dame, the old Royal Palace, the art museums, to a cafe for lunch where I got to know some Ohioans and (another) Aussie, and down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe and le Grand Palais and le Petit Palais. I got some great pictures today, some of the best of the trip I believe, but I can’t post them nor see how good/bad they look outside of the camera display (which is very small) until I get home unfortunately.

After the tour I had several hours to kill so I walked down and got some pictures of the Eiffel Tower. I was suprised but I do believe that so far, at least visually, this is my favorite monument. Architecturally and otherwise it is just a neat thing to look at, and I got some pictures with it.

Paris really is a beautiful city, and I walked down the Seine seeing all the different vendors (almost exclusively of books and art, nothing trashy or trinkety like the other cities, and they aren’t even aggressive, surprising and satisfying), historical buildings and the river itself. Just before dark I made it to Notre Dame (the weather was beautiful today, apparently atypically) I loved the cathedral, but was disappointed to see how commercial it was, gift stores and stands actually within the sanctuary, dischordant organ music that sounded amateurish, and a general lack of respectful attitude that one would hope for in a cathedral of that age, size and beauty. I wanted to go up in one of the towers, both because thats where Quasimodo hung out and because they say it’s one of the best views in Paris besides the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately it was getting late, I was getting hungry and I couldn’t find any entrance or anything.

So I made my way back to the hostel, asked about a good cafe and found one, though through broken French and English the waitress and I were only able to come across a cheeseburger. Which was good, and came with fries and salad, but unfortunatley was not very french. I did have a baguette with basically a chocolate chip muffin for lunch, and that was heavenly. No crepes, sadly. I still have breakfast tomorrow to give that a try, however.

Tomorrow it is off to Dublin, which I am very excited about due to common language (not that it has been a problem) the prospect of meeting people over the 6 day tour, and the general fascination I have developed regarding the Emerald Isle recently. So thats what is happening with me. I hope I have a little better luck getting to the airport and to my hostel in Dublin tomorrow, but I am not worried since I made it here just fine and the train will for sure be running.

Very exciting times, and I am loving every minute. I will talk to you soon.

 Adieu,

 Craig

Roma has been totally awesome, definitely my favorite so far. This morning I did some more sightseeing to cap off this trip. I headed out around 930 to the Colosseum, Palatino, Forum, and Circus Maximus. The Colosseum, so named for the gigantic statue that once stood next to it, is magnificent in spite of its crumbling appearance. It doesnt take much imagination to be able to picture gladiatiorial games and other types of shows going on within in spite of its ruined condition. I spent about an hour inside looking around and went from there to the Forum, a collection of general ruins in the middle of the city, mostly columns and arches and random marble fragments. It was again interesting to try and paint a mental picture filling in the blanks to see what was once there. I also saw an aqueduct, and the Palatino, which I presume is some sort of palace or something; there was no descriptive literature in English that I could find but it had some beautiful gardens and fountains and looked just like a large villa.

The final stop was the Circus Maxmus next door, which was essentially just a large oval shaped park with a very small amount of ruins on the end. Not super impressive but one can picture what it would have been like to view a chariot race here; the berm that had been built up on the sides. likely to hold bleachers, was visible as well as the area for the track. Very cool.

Lunch consisted of chef boyardee sauce over gnocchi, or potato dumplings. I have one more chance before my flight leaves to try and get some good pasta so hopefuly I can duck into an alley or something and find some good lasagne or something similar.

Paris is coming up, and I plan to see the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe along with the Cathedral of Notre Dame. I’d do the Louvre of the Musee D’Orsay if I had time but with only 1 day I am going to hit the big monuments as I likely won’t be able to do those museums justice in my limited time there.

I am posting this in the afternoon because of the lateness of my flight and the fact that I am unsure as to whether I will have the ability to post tomorrow. I usually can but there are no guarantees in this hostel business, and there is apparently some sort of lock out policy from 11-5 in the afternoon and a 2 AM curfew so that will be fun to deal with.

Well off I go. Rome gets an A+. Talk to you soon,

Craig

It was a long, tiring and alltogether AWESOME day here in the eternal city. After attempting for 2 hours to sleep off what was left of my illness amidst the pink flourescent light of the dorm and the extremely out of place african drum circle going on on the first floor, I finally was able to sleep last night.

I got to take advantage of a pretty good breakfast buffet, included in my hostel rate, this morning with croissants and other baked delights as well as…corn flakes??  From there it was off to the Vatican, where I expected huge crowds and long lines but found neither as the metro dropped me off and I was in directly to the museums. It was quite a sight; EVERY room has some sort of thematic artwork adorning the walls and ceilings, and there are artifacts galore. I saw the Sistine Chapel; I honestly can’t fathom what the fuss is over I suppose its good religious art. I was most impressed with the Raphael rooms, 4 of them with all sorts of sculpture and painting all over it. Very beautiful but very full of the extravagance of the early papacy and overglorification of the office. Kind of makes you sad in a way to think about how corrupt it used to be and how much power and influence it took to get these sorts of things made for it.

From there I avoided the crowds at the front of St. Peter’s Basilica and went in the back way to discover a building into which at least a Rupp Arena and a half could fit. This cathedral is enormous and magnificent. The Pieta is housed there which is pretty cool, and there is just a ton of gold ornamentation and side chapels and alcoves and whatnot. Just a really cool experience in general.

I spent about a half a day in an entirely different country (Vatican City). I left there and saw several different castles and piazzas along the way to the Pantheon, which is a really cool piece of architecture. I stopped for lunch and got some pizza from a guy who was beckoning people off the streets to eat in his restaurant. I can never turn people like that down; you have to have some confidence in your food to do that and I wasn’t disappointed. The final monument of the day was Trevi Fountain, which is cool but there are a lot of in your face trinket vendors. I had a headache so I left from there to take a nap. When I woke up I figured out what to do for dinner by asking the lady at the front desk for a place that only Italians go to eat, and I got just that. It was fairly good, though I think if I had made a better selection than merely a bolognese fettucine I might have been more satisfied. Regardless I wrapped up a good culinary day with a massive amount of gelato for a pretty low price.

I’ve done a ton of walking today, but I am ready to finish up Rome in grand style tomorrow with the Colosseum, Circus Maximus, and the Forum before I head to Paris tomorrow night at 9:40. I’ve yet to find any souvenirs that I just have to have; mostly just overpriced clothes that can be bought in the US and Italia soccer jerseys. Hopefully Ireland will have some cool stuff. I know I am going to go to Trinity College Dublin for a t shirt for sure.

Things that have surprised me about Rome: Scooters outnumber people 2 to 1, this is a purely speculative number, and could be 3 to 1, but it is a mind boggling number. Italians must only eat Italian food, because aside from the occasional McDonalds its pretty much pizzerias, pasta and sandwich shops, gelaterias, and the like. Which is fine with me, stick to what you know. Rome is a big city, with a population of 2.7 million, but the city is very walkable, not overcrowded and does not seem super spread out. There is a huge shopping district; people must come here from all over Europe or something because there are clothing stores EVERYWHERE. I am taking in a TON of history, all over there are papal memorials and statues, fountains and piazzas, and all sorts of awesome things.

Cool beans. Good day, more to cometomorrow.

Talk to everyone soon.

Craig

I suppose that Romans don’t actually do a whole lot of touristy stuff, but I am doing my best to make sure that I see as much as possible around here.

My illness is mild and didn’t prevent me from getting here in one piece and taking a 3 hour hike around the city, mostly through the shopping districts. I found a small cafe where I got some spicy pasta and on the way home picked up some tasty tiramisu from a bakery. It is pretty nice because it gets dark at normal time around here instead of 4 PM.  The afro sporting friendly Italian desk clerk named Mario used to be a tour guide and gave me several routes to follow around the city. Tomorrow I head for the Vatican by metro and, though its a bit of a hike, I am walking back to the hostel to visit the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain. The Colosseum, Forum, and Circus Maximus round out the trip Thursday morning/afternoon before I head to Paris late that evening. Hopefully the weather will continue to be sunny and in the 50s like it was today.

Still taking tons of photos, still no way to post them. Tomorrow in addition to LOTS of walking I hope to find some authentic pizza. I am wary of faux touristy Italian food; I came for the real thing!

Not much else to share. I am exhausted and will likely go to bed soon, even though its only 9 right now. Arriva derci.

Craig

Ah, the wonderful world of Prague puns. My cellphone alarm failed to awaken me this morning, which is troubling since I need to wake up at a pretty early time tomorrow in order to make my flight. Nonetheless I woke up roughly on time and headed off to explore the city.

This is a big, bustling place with a population of over 2 million, but you wouldn’t know it to walk the streets. It is very clean, relatively quiet and has a lot of character. I went down the main shopping strip, a name I cannot pronounce, and got a chocolate filled croissant with orange juice squeezed right in front of me for breakfast. Moving along, I meandered through to the old city square, across the famous Charles Bridge with many statues adorning it. I trekked up the hill to Prague Castle. Within the castle walls is St. Vitus Cathedral, and absolutely beautiful and GIGANTIC monument of Gothic architecture, complete with flying buttresses, vaulted arches, and gargoyles (I knew that junior year project would come in handy eventually). The castle itself was a Bohemian Crhapsody, as it looked more like a glorified office building than a real castle, so I opted to skip. For lunch I had some authentic goulash soup, which was good, albeit very salty. I trekked back through the city, still exploring, and found the national museum on the way back. If you ever visit Prague, I recommend taking a rain Czech on this particular monument. I paid way too much for literally a bunch of rocks and stuffed animals, but it did take up some of my afternoon and the building was pretty cool.

I got some outstanding views today and took about 35 pictures, hopefully most will turn out well. I had some more questionable Czech fare tonite, but with a delicious pilsner. I spent a good deal of time trying to find a place to serve me strudel with little success. Alas.

I found out tonite that I am sharing a room with a Las Vegas native and a Scot, with both of whom I chatted at length before settling down with Into the Wild, a book that I picked up while I was out today.

Roma tomorrow, hopefully it will still be daylight when I arrive and also hopefully I can find some real authentic Italian food and not just touristy ungoodness. Further, I am praying that it holds the myriad of pun opportunities that Ive been able to concoct. Finally, that the dry scratchiness in my throat is not impending illness and, if so, is mild.

That being said, Prague gets an A minus for being a fun place but not the most awesome ever. Well done, Eastern Europe.

Hopefully I can talk tomorrow. If not, soon. Adieu.

Craig

Thats the way they spell it here. I left Edinburgh this morning with mixed feelings on my stay there. Disappointment from not being able to get any traction in relation to jobs or socializing, but happy that I was able to explore a new city and cut my international teeth, even in a small way. It is a beautiful place, as well.

Airports and transit into a new city are frequently scary times for me. Fortunately today went off without a hitch. Even though I got here in the dark, Prague is a charming place. I realize now why so many people told me it was cool when I mentioned I might be working here for ESL. It is actually pretty dead on the streets, being a Sunday night and all. Apparently I am just missing the Bohemian Festival which starts in the middle of next week.

My hostel is beautiful. Miss Sophies has a central location, is extremely clean and has free internet, which you may thank for this post. And its cheap, how bout them Kannapels. I cant figure out this international keyboard entirely so you will have to go without question marks and apostrophes for the time being.

I plan to pretty much wander the city, probably taking in the castle and the famous Charles bridge, and St. Vitus Cathedral if I can find it. More on that tomorrow.

When I got here I asked the desk for recommendations of good Czech restaurants. I found a good one that brought me a GIGANTIC Pilsner Urquell, which is available in the US but is all they have on tap and apparently quite famous for being from here, in spite of reminding one of the nerdy guy from Family Matters (hehehe snort). I had a steak with an egg on top and some fries with a salad, and was treated to an accordion and tuba concert with the meal, while some drunken Brits at the table next to me applauded. I got some pictures but have no way of posting just now, I will try when I get to the next hostel.

Looking forward to tomorrow. Ill Czech you later.

Craig

After tying up some loose ends with regards to souvenirs and travel, I spent that majority of the evening playing in an inter-hostel pool tournament. I met several Australians and even some Frenchies (the first I’ve seen). Unfortunately I lost both my singles and doubles game by a single ball, which was disappointing but nonetheless fun as I had a few impressive shots (total luck).

Not sure what I will do tomorrow besides laundry and mailing this faithful laptop home. I’ve been kind of struggling, as a result of several conversations, with coming home. I know its the right decision, and I am sure that I have done everything I could to stay. I wish things had turned out differently, but I am at least going to make the most of the next 2 weeks. I read a good quote today that sums up my feelings on the situation:

“If you climb out on the branch and it breaks, at least you can say you climbed the tree”

I suppose the best thing I can do with what has happened in the last 3 weeks and in the 2 to come is learn from it, good and bad, and bring it home to relationships, teaching, and just in living. One thing is for sure, this isn’t my last trip by a long shot; the travel bug has securely planted itself in my mind.

Sorry to get all philosophical on you, but since I am mailing my laptop home tomorrow I am not entirely sure how frequent my posts on here will be. It is likely that I will be able to get on an internet cafe somewhere, but not for certain. Keep checking. I’ll talk to you soon.

Craig

After a long day at the computer, I have about closed up my travel plans. As soon as I can book my Paris to Dublin flight I will be mostly finished. I’m leaving Sunday the 20th at 3PM for Prague, where I will stay until Tuesday evening at 630, when I fly to Rome. I’m staying there from Tuesday night until Thursday night, and I go to Paris from Thursday evening until Saturday morning when I fly to Dublin for my weeklong tour and eventual homeward journey. It is certainly stressful organizing such flight plans, but I know it’s all going to be worth it (including the higher fairs that I hadn’t anticipated having to shell out)

As for work, its basically a desk job where I check spelling errors of scanned documents that have been “read” by a computer. It determines energy efficiency in heating of homes (by Scottish Gas Co.) and is used by this charity, called Changeworks, to get grants, etc. They also run their own mini recycling plant for paper, plastic and other materials. The boss is a very numbers oriented dude who stressed the importance of “efficiency and productivity,” trying to get me and the other temps to work faster in order to turn profit. Not a super friendly environment, especially after I had arrived an hour late yesterday having taken the wrong direction of the bus. I only make minimum wage, but every little bit helps, especially with the exchange rate! The work is dull but I’m going to need the cash I make to pay for this 2 week excursion across Europe. I’m defnitely nervous about it, but I know it’s going to be the trip of a lifetime. I just hope I get to see everything in which I am interested!

Bidding Edinburgh good bye will be bittersweet, I am sure. It’s a comfortable place, though not very exciting. It was good to test my international sea legs here for a time, but I am definitely ready to move on to bigger and better things, intimidating though they may be.

Anyway, back to itenterary making. More to come tomorrow. Adieu.

Craig