My Goodness, My Guinness

In the morning I finally checked myself out of Palmer's Lodge and took a bit of flack from the girls that worked the front counter as they had come to know me like part of the furniture around the hostel. They seemed upset to see me go.

I took the tube to the Euston train station and waited for the departure of my train towards Holyhead. The train trip was about 4 hours long and was probably one of my favourite journeys so far because of how quiet and un-crowded the train cars were.

When we got to Holyhead it was time to switch up on to the ferry which would take me to Dublin. On my way towards to ferry check-in a guy saw my Canadian flag patch and had to inquire where I was from. Turns out the guy, Corbin, was from Saskatoon and was on his way to Dublin as well. I now had something to help me pass the time on the ferry. We were both a bit afraid of the ferry ride as we had both only paid £26 for the whole train and ferry ride journey. When you try to book a ferry separate it usually amounts to £20 just by itself, so I started to wonder what kind of leaky tub they were going to set us up on. It turned out to be quite the other way around. The ferry was something that I imagine is used in pleasure cruises.

Once the ferry made port we hopped on a bus into the city center and started the search for our hostels. Mine was pretty close to the central train station where as Corbin's was a bit further out. We exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet up later for some drinks. My hostel was a bit on the nice side of things...too nice actually. It was lacking a major feature which is essential for meeting people in hostels which is a common room with a or some comfy couches. Basically just a place where folks will chill out and you can chat. So, I guess making friends here was going to be a bit tougher. Turns out it wasn't too bad. Several of my roommates were great to talk with and pass the time, but didn't seem to be big on the Guinness drinking.

I met up with Corbin in the evening and we headed out for the fabled night spot area of Dublin called Temple Bar. Actually, we were pretty stupid and thought temple bar was the name of an actual bar (which it is) and only found out later that the whole area is called temple bar as well. For being a monday night we weren't expecting too much of a busy night life. We were quite surprised to see that the whole place was packed and busy and made for a friendly and enjoyable night out.

The next day we both agreed to set out on a bus tour around Dublin and end off the day with a visit to the Guinness storehouse. The tour was quite informative and proved to be worth the money, much like the one Jeff and I used in Brussels. The Guinness storehouse was of course the highlight of our day, but it ended up being not all that interesting. The price was more then I would pay for any normal museum and wasn't nearly as interesting. The good part was they finish off your tour with a pint in the bar at the top of the factory which has a (almost) 360 degree view of Dublin. That evening we hit up temple bar again for a fun time, but it was an early night as Corbin was leaving for Galway to start working.

I was back on my own wandering around Dublin and checked out some more sights like Trinity College, St.Patricks Cathedral, Phoenix Park. I also took the time to book into a 6 day all Ireland tour called the Paddywagon which didn't depart until the day after. So I had a pretty boring day before my tour started as I didn't have anything to really see or do as I felt I had done everything I wanted to. I instead did a lot of reading and people watching in one of the parks and some more wandering around the city ensued. I turned in really early as I had to get up very early for my tour bus which would take me on the most interesting ride of my life. The next 6 days would find me befriending some of the craziest and funniest people I've met to date.

The Flying Dutchman and I are going straight to hell

The days following Jeff's departure were usually made up of me doing some sights that I didn't get to see the first two times around (Mainly the Tower of London where I got to see the crown jewels) and devising my next step.

I got a bit of a scare one day while hanging out in the TV room of the hostel while I was reading. I was kind of eave strapping in on a conversation between two German girls (yes they were speaking in German, so I guess I was only half eave strapping). My next thought was to join in and introduce myself (as I have the huge German girl fetish), but as I looked up I gave myself a bit of a startle. One of the girls looked quite similar to a German girl that had caused me a lot of grief in Australia (readers from my last blog will remember her, as I wrote about her quite regularly. I shall refer her as Freya for privacy reasons this time around). The face was similar, especially the nose and even the small things like the shoes she wore were exactly the same as those that Freya wore when I first met her. I know it sounds weird to remember things such as that, but I have tenancy to remember useless facts which explains my limited brain capacity in other areas. After noticing such similarities I decided against getting involved in their conversation and just walking away. I know it was not the same girl, but just the scare of mistaking her for Freya for a split second was too much for me to deal with at the current time. This brings me just one step closer to the possibility that I may have to deal with the real Freya one day. It could be a reality seemings as how we ran into each other randomly 5 different times throughout Australia after our initial meeting, and Australia's landmass rivals that of the United States. Germany is quite smaller on the landmass front. For now I'll take this as a warning of what I could be encountering in the future, but I will not let it get in the way of my trip.

Just as I was figuring out that Ireland was going to be the next destination and I started to research the money and time involved getting up there, I ended up receiving a message from my dutch buddy, Bjorn whom I know from Australia. Turns out he was headed out to London for a weeks vacation and was wondering if I was still going to be there. I couldn't turn down this opportunity to see Bjorn again, so I put my Ireland plans on the back burner and awaited Bjorn's arrival.

Bjorn wasn't due to arrive until late Friday night so Luke, Chris (another ozzy) and Anne (an American girl who lives in Scotland) all went out to this Australian pub called the Walkabout (which I believe I've written about before, but this is a different walkabout located just down the street from our hostel). This place was going off. Tons of people having a great time and we all got a chance to join in. I promptly wore my "Kiss me I'm Canadian" T-shirt to distinguish my from the Ozzy and Kiwi folks to frequent this bar. One of the female bartenders made a point of giving me a kiss everytime I ordered a drink, so I guess in practice the shirt works. I got a message from Bjorn when he arrived at our hostel so I made the quick walk back to the place to meet up with him and then promptly bring him down to the walkabout to meet the group. Just like old times we were together drinking and sharing the stories of what we did with the rest of our Australian journey and the 2 years after our returns home. This probably ended up being one of the more memorable nights in London to this point.

On Sunday morning Bjorn and I had made plans to goto a bar called "The Church" which is only open on Sundays from noon until 4pm. We had to line up for an hour and a half just to get in. Once we got in it was just a complete party. Drinks were bought in plastic bags of 3 and there was plenty of entertainment to keep everyone going for the day. We had heard a lot of great things about this place, it had strippers and wet t-shirt contests and all that, so I had my hopes set real high only to kind of be let down. I had a lot of fun and the place delivered on the strippers and wet t-shirt competition, but (as sad as this sounds) I saw much more lewd acts in Australian backpacker bars, so all of this seemed a bit tame to me. A great time was still had by all. After everyone gets kicked out at 4pm they all congregate at the Walkabout in the sheppards bush area (also known as She-bu). Bjorn and I made the very drunk journey only to find that it really wasn't worth it. It was just a super packed bar to the point where it was quite difficult to move around. While some may think that's a great time, I think it's a bit silly if I have to take 20 minutes to go from the dance floor to the bar. We packed it in and headed back home where we thought we'd have a quiet evening.

The quiet evening was out of the question. We met a bunch of new people in the hostel bar that night and kept going (yep, way too much drinking. I know). I met a girl from San Francisco named Hilary (I took it upon myself to only call her San Fran all night) who was trying to convince me to drop all of my plans (like I had any) and leave to Israel in the morning with her. While I had to decline this offer, I did actually put some thought into it just because she had a bit of a cuteness factor to her. We continued the evening playing UNO and Jenga until the bar closed up. We continued the madness by moving into the quiet room with a bottle of rum and coke. I stayed up til about 3am and finally thought that this day has to end at some point.

Bjorn convinced me to goto a football game with him as it is something you should experience while in England. He found a local team playing that wouldn't charge an arm and a leg for tickets called Millwall. We made the long journey (which funny enough had us goto the "Canada Water" tube station) and got our selves some tickets. We took up our seats in the general section and took in the mayhem that is football hooligans. The amount of police presence at a football game is absolutely amazing. Even the fact that the fans of the visiting team had to sit in a separate section away from all the home team fans was kind of crazy. All in all it was a great experience with some of the rowdiest fans I've ever seen at any sporting event.

Later in the week I went to the walkabout (it became a favourite hangout) with Luke to watch some of the Rugby world cup action. We saw the New Zealand vs Italy game and Australia vs Japan. After all was said and done we went back to the hostel and took part in a huge BBQ and watched the England vs Israel football match. I had made plans to goto the church with him the next day so I was going to call it in early evening to get my rest. This did not happen. I ended up meeting some more American folks (2 girls from California and a guy from New York). We ended up having quite the conversation for a few hours and I started to fall for Erin, one of the Cali girls. That was until she expressed her over-whelming desire for some weed. Which brings me to another pet peeve. I don't mind what people do and don't do, but what bothers me is when people clearly have the addiction thing going and have to express how much they need to drink/smoke/whatever. It's just an unattractive trait when people feel the "need" for some kind of substance such as those.

So with my attraction to Erin lasting all of about 20 minutes, I left them to go on their hunt for weed while I stayed behind and began a new conversation with 2 Spanish girls and 2 Belgian girls. Okay, I lied. The conversation was mainly between me and the Spanish girls and the 2 Belgians couldn't speak English. This was a real shame as I tried my hardest to muster up any French I could remember to try and talk with the extremely beautiful Belgian girl, Emilie. Just to put in perspective how cute this girl was, I thought she was a cross between Keira Knightly and Winona Ryder. Almost on cue, 2 French guys arrived out of no where and I was able enlist the help of one of them to play my interpreter for the evening. Back and forth Emilie and I talked through our new interpreter and quickly I found myself becoming really smitten with this girl. She kept giving me those cute smiles and shyly looking away only to quickly look up to see if I was still smiling at her. oh, it was just too cute, but we knew there was nothing we could really do as we were lost without someone to translate our thoughts and feelings. After 2 hours of this I felt I had to end it and go off to bed. I had my translator inform Emilie that I thought she was very beautiful and sweet and apologize to her for my inability to speak to her myself all evening. He did just that and she gave me hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. I'm also finding that in my attempt to romance these women I never ever get a picture of them (probably because my mind is on other things). I need a sticky note to remind me: Take plenty of pictures of the pretty girls!!!

It was time to leave London finally. I felt I was getting no where fast in this expensive city and needed a change of scenery. Ireland became the country of choice for the next leg of my journey.

Onward! To the Guinness brewery!

London III (London the 3rd)

Sometime in the early hours of the morning of our last day in Edinburgh I was awakened by the return of our roommates, two welsh girls. Now this is usually not a big deal as I rolled over to go back to sleep. As I was just about to nod off I heard the two girls arguing a bit, so this disrupted my return to my slumber so I thought I'll just ride it out and maybe they'll shut up once they get back into bed. I suppose it wasn't all bad as one of them seemed to have no problem stripping down to nothing without closing the curtains. I suppose a rude awakening for a bit of a show is something I can live with (call me a pervert all you like, but any guy would've done the same thing).

Once morning arrived I began to pack my things as Jeff had already packed up his belongings and was waiting on me. The girls woke up as well and resumed their angry banter with each other. One of them left to get a shower so I was left in the room with the one who gave me the free show. We started chatting for a bit as I shoved the last few items into my bag. The gorgeous girl jumps out of bed revealing that she isn't wearing that much at to do a bit of a morning stretch. At this point I now feel bad for staring and felt it was best if I double my efforts and leave in more of a hurry before she starts to think I'm strange.

Jeff and I now had 3 hours before our train was to depart. We sat around the train station, sitting on our bags, and I did what I enjoy best when I'm bored and in a very busy public place. I started to people watch. I'm not sure what it is about places like train stations and airports that make me happy. Maybe it's the gateway to adventure bit, or maybe it is the fact that you can watch people from all over the world and all walks of life passing through one building. People watching in these places always brings up a good question though, why is there so much hate in the world? in the train station all I saw was people over joyed to see a family member or loved one walk through the gates towards them, or people who were sad to see someone go. There's a lot emotions in buildings like these.

Finally we had reached a time when we could board our train and take off back to London for the 3rd time. Jeff and I were separated on the train this time. He was at one table across the aisle from my table and we would both have to endure a family of 3 at both of our table seats for the whole journey. It reminded me of the game "Freak roulette" that we used to play on the bus rides home from school. Essentially the rules were you had to sit in a different seat from all of your friends on the bus and see which stranger sits beside you. Whoever gets the biggest freak, lost. I know it sounds horrible, but keep in mind we were teenagers at the time. If we were playing the game on the train this day then it was clear that I lost big time. I was with a family from the middle east somewhere, which didn't bother me at first but then there young daughter (maybe 5 years old) started to get anxious. This always bothers me no matter what form of transportation I'm taking. Parents seem to think their young kids will just behave themselves for 6 or 7 hours on a train or Plane with nothing to do. Give me a break. Don't act all surprised when they start misbehaving and crying. They are kids and they are bored to tears! Gah! Just one of my travel pet peeves I suppose.

The train ride was uneventful until near the end of the trip. Some lady missed her stop and started to get all grouchy and mean. It turns out she missed the next stop after that as well and went off the handle. Thankfully there is train security to deal with people such as this. I suppose the fact that she had consumed a few beers didn't help her. What a twit.

The rest of the ride went smoothly sans the fact that we ended up arriving about an hour later then we had been told. No biggie. I just wanted to check into a hostel so I could dump my bag.
We found it quite quickly and easily, but immediately we were not pleased. The place was a bit of a hole and was really expensive because of it's proximity to the Notting Hill Carnivale that would be started the next day (the one that we had no idea was going on until we tried to return from Edinburgh). We shelled out the money and found that the hostel was split into two sections. The black peoples section and the white people section. Jeff still insists that they were Pimps and whores on that side and that I'm naive just because I couldn't see a feathered hat out of the whole bunch. Thankfully we had good roommates. The rest of the building lived up the garbage reputation. I found only one toilet in the whole building and the showers were more like a hose taped to the wall. Now I've been to my fair share of hostels between Australia and here, so I believe it's safe for me to say that this is truly the worst hostel I have stayed at. I wish could hand out some award to them. This prompted Jeff and I to search for a new hostel after our two nights near Hyde Park were done.

The next day we decided to check out what this whole carnival thing was and found it didn't seem to be too spectacular except for an excuse to drink (like you need one in England). We ended up spending our day in Hyde Park relaxing in the sun as it happened to be the most beautiful day we've seen out here. I went on to tan my arms up a bit and Jeff's face got the brunt of the sun to leave a nice line where his bandanna was.

In the evening we headed back to the Famous 3 Kings pub in west kensington for the cheap food, and so Jeff could check to see if his cute waitress was working. I didn't see her, but the food was still cheap and exactly what we needed.

The next day we checked out and went in search of our new hostel up in the Swiss Cottage area, Palmer's Lodge. Somewhere inbetween booking the place and getting up there neither of us had bothered to write down the address. I guess I'll take the blame on this one as it was my idea to hit up this hostel. So we wandered around the Swiss cottage area for about half an hour until a friendly couple asked us if we needed help (again, we get help without asking for it. Such friendly people). They point us in the right direction, but just to be on the safe side I decide that we should hit up an internet cafe to double check the address for sure. We get everything sorted and find our way to the hostel only to think that maybe we walked right by it (and it wouldn't surprise me if we did).

When we check in and get to our room we end up meeting our new roommates. One particular fellow is an Ozzy guy named Luke. We make some small talk for a bit until we decide to all meet in the hostel bar in the basement (Yay for hostel bars). We do just that and find that we all get along quite well. This just proves the point that Ozzies and Canadians mix real well and I'll bet in mainly has to do with our laid back natures.

The next morning I wake up early to go to the train station with Jeff where he catches a train to the airport to fly home. It was sad seeing him go. We had gotten along pretty well the last two weeks. I mean there were no fights or disagreements and when we did have a tussle it was usually laughed off or forgotten real easily. These were traits that I knew I would never find in a travel buddy again. If it weren't for Jeff then I probably wouldn't have had to chance to see places like Paris, Brussels and Edinburgh so soon into my trip, but I'm very thankful that I have. I can't imagine how my trip would've gone so far if it weren't for this guy and I owe him a lot. Maybe a few drinks when I return.

Now it was time to get serious. Being back on my own meant it was time to start following the signs and hope that they will lead me to what I'm searching for.