It's a grand old land so it is

Bon Soir everyone!

Last time I spoke with you, I had just cooked tex-mex style food in Paris, which was difficult because the small stores we went to didn’t have things that I take for granted like cheddar cheese, or any cheese besides brie or emmenthal. Our tostadas still turned out alright, however, and we left our host with an entire pot full of refried beans. We also had an awesome pear tart and I had AMAZING apricot ice cream the day before we left Paris and I intend to replicate them both at the earliest opportunity.

We saw some art museums but other than that we didn’t do much of note in Paris but relax and enjoy, I think we really baffled all of the Frenchmen we met because we treated France as much more of a meeting place than a destination. Although I loved the food in Paris I think I would like to see other parts of France because it reminds me a bit of New York City and it would be interesting to see smaller towns.

For breakfast the next morning we left we had a bread dessert (pain perdu) our host made for us with bread sugar and cream and egg and bean burritos which we ate on the way to the subway as the sun rose.

Our flight to Dublin was fine except for the Beauvais airport, which was a huge cluster of madness largely because of the fact that the airport had one security line and four gates. Also, French people have no idea how to queue, which is why I am glad to be back in the UK area.

Dublin was lovely, we had full days of activities all four days we were there, but we never had to rush around too much. We saw the national art museum, the national history museum (which had lots of neat old metalwork and some bodies of people that were recovered from bogs. Bog people, by the way, never just fell into a bog and died, they all were brutally killed and then thrown in)

After the museums we appropriately ended the day with a tour of the old Guinness storehouse. The building doesn’t function anymore except as a museum (sort of like the coca cola museum for you southerners) but it was interesting to see all of the old ad campaigns and we did get a free pint and a novelty pint shaped oven mitt to keep Courtney’s ghost oven mitt company. An oven mitt collection is really dangerous by the way, so we have restricted ourselves to only novelty SHAPES not just designs. Guinness here is much lighter than Guinness at home and very nice except for the slight burnt popcorn taste.

The next morning we saw the Oscar Wilde memorial and did a bit of shopping (I got an Ireland soccer jersey—I have discovered that I have very expensive taste in clothes except that I go for soccer jerseys instead of Louis Vuitton purses) and then we went to the Old Jameson distillery. This tour was a bit redundant because making whiskey is pretty similar to making beer except for distillation, but there was a completely ridiculous audio visual (video) about John Jameson at the beginning. It was about a ten minute video on a man that managed to give the audience absolutely no personal information about him, his business, or the process of making whiskey. We learned that he: was patient, awesome, wore a green jacket and shoes, and we saw a lot of shots of the old buildings in Dublin in sepia so we could imagine it back in “his time.”

We met Courtney’s high school friend Stacey on one night in Dublin and watched football and went to Messrs McGuire and someone I don’t remember’s Pub, where they had a beer that tasted like a pale version of Guinness somehow and a very odd dj, but the building itself was old with lots of carving and a huge wood staircase so it was still enjoyable.

Since that night we have been on a three day bus tour targeted at young backpackers so that you can see the countryside on a budget. It is nice because our days are planned for us and transportation to all of these small places would be difficult on our own. Plus the people watching in our group of fellow travelers is amazing. We have the odd couple (literally) the pretty couple, the American newlyweds, 80’s guy, and sandwich guy (who has since graduated to food guy). We have seen:

*Countryside in fair weather and not

*Another distillery

*An old monastery (Clonmacnoise) where there is an awesome whispering doorway that has carving that transfers sound from one side of an archway to another

*Lots of cliffs, lots of ruins, and lots of good Irish superstitious stories told in a very convincing fashion.

*The Atlantic ocean, which we put our feet in because the saying goes that when you put a foot in the ocean in Ireland you leave a little piece of your heart here (awwww)

Tomorrow we go to see the blarney stone and another castle before we go back to Dublin and on Monday we leave for a tour of northern Ireland, which is nice because people watching is getting boring with this particular group as we have already categorized everyone in it.

Pictures to be added on my return to the US July 16 or later, deal with it.

Slante everyone! (Pronounced Slan-sha, which is a Gaelic toast meaning good health)

How I Spent My Summer, I Mean, Winter Vacation...

Well it has been a very long time since I updated this blog, and I apologize for this but as is to be expected when one is both in school and in a foreign country, I have been very busy.

About two weeks ago I flew with my two Scottish friends to Brisbane and then spent the next week and a half driving back from Brisbane to Canberra. This drive takes about 18-20 hours in one trip so we thought that over 10 days we would have no trouble. The original idea was to enjoy the balmy subtropical weather of southeastern Queensland for a while before we headed back to wintery Canberra. The weather during this time for about the last 12 years has been sunny and in the 70’s (Fahrenheit, thank god). So, accordingly, we packed our swimsuits, shorts, tank tops, sunhats, and summer tents and flew north.

We stayed in a cute hostel called the yellow submarine that promised free sailing on Wednesdays. We arrived on a Wednesday but discovered the wind was up to several knots, aka too fast for us to sail, and we a little disappointed but at the same time exhausted from travel crashed in our three bed room for a nap. We explored the city a little in the afternoon and I liked it a lot. It’s industrial and apparently undergoing a huge economic boom because there was construction everywhere. There was a river going right through it and a river/bus public transport system that was quite fun. At this point in the trip both of my friends were writing papers for their schools back in Scotland, and we spent a lot of time in the Brisbane public library, which had free wifi (so nice!), which was unfortunately right next to the public daycare center. One of the girls finished her paper quickly and she and I explored the city while our other friend spent most of the first 5 days of our trip on her computer. The public services here are really nice, free museum access and free library access, all really nice buildings to boot. We also got some shopping done and I got some very fun heels and a dress (yes, I was weak and bought a dress if you’re judging me now this is going to be a long post for you)

Brisbane was lovely and sunny the first day we were there, from then on we spent our time gambling with our health and belongings taking outings in the rain. On one such venture it POURED rain while we were walking across a bridge to the library, laptops in bag. We had no shelter and by the time we got to the library the rain stopped, but we were soaked; we had to get a cab back to the hostel just to change and walk across the bridge again. (Don’t worry, all of our laptops survived)

The other fun thing we did in Brizzy was go to Chinatown, which was kind of like a row of buildings from the old west that just happened to have Chinese restaurants. Seriously, they should shoot the next Shanghai Noon there. We had a huge amount of Chinese food in an arcade/restaurant where they sold HUGE bottles of Singh Tao (can’t remember exact spelling) but almost liter bottles of beer, it was ridiculous. It was the sketchiest Chinese place I’ve been to in a while, but quite good.

On Saturday we took a tour of Frazer Island, and thank god we didn’t try to tackle it ourselves. This was in my opinion the highlight of our trip because we hadn’t yet had our hopes completely and repeatedly dashed by the rain, it was beautiful, and we didn’t have to drive. We rode in a 4x4 bus to Frazer with a German couple, and a group of 6 Midwesterners. It is bizarre suddenly hearing a familiar accent after a few months without, and let me say these people were nice, but exactly the reason people hate American tourists. It was two couples, and the two daughters of one of the couples who were respectively 20 and 22. I mention their age specifically because until I talked with them I though both of the girls were in high school. I realize that when traveling with family children are bound to act more like children, but seriously. One of the men actually bought a pair of bright yellow crocs and put them on while on the bus. Turns out the reason I recognized their accent so well was that they were all from St. Louis, my frequent stomping ground, and lived in Creve Coeur. One of the girls went to St. Louis U and had just finished a semester at some school in Queensland.

Anyway, the tour. It was run by a middle aged Aussie man who loved making jokes about Americans and generally making fun of anyone in the group, usually in poor taste. (I could just be sore because he made fun of me for being American AND for being short). He actually asked one of the women if her husband ever ‘played’ Tarzan when we saw actual swinging vines (I tried to climb one to the amusement of the group, I have no upper arm strength anymore sadly). The island itself was made entirely up of sand that had built up on some ancient mountain that had been covered by the ocean. It had freshwater from mainland AUS because it was still a part of the water table, and the water was so sweet because it was filtered through hundreds of feet of sand over about 10 years. Oh, and the sand is silica sand so it was really soft. (I actually managed to impress our guide because I knew they used silica for computers and makeup, I guess all Americans aren’t dumb. And by not dumb I mean some of us have memories for useless facts.) Anyway the island was beautiful but all off-road driving, in the rain. Thank god we didn’t drive it ourselves or we would have been turned over in a puddle within 10 minutes.

The rest of the trip we were dirty and constantly damp. None of us had packed for cold weather, which resulted in several opp shop (good will) purchases, including a faux sheep lined jacket by myself and a koala wooly jumper (sweater) by my friend. We all bought pants (underwear, that one caused lots of miscommunications. The Scottish call pants trousers or jeans if they are in fact jeans) because we had no laundry facilities and were constantly soaked, and lilos (I have no idea how that one is spelled, but it refers to inflatable sleeping pads or mattresses.) Our tent leaked so our grand scheme of saving money by camping and spending hours on the leach was ruined. By the way, small beach towns are cute and have endless possibilities for activities UNITIL in rains. We ended up renting and borrowing a lot of movies in a lot of hostels.

Cute towns:
Surfer’s Paradise: this wasn’t cute but deserves mention because it is so advertised. The area around it is home to Queensland’s major theme parks including movie world. It’s got famous because it allegedly is rain free 300 days of the year (ok, it didn’t actually rain, but it threatened) and has surfable surf year round. It was terrible; imagine Orlando plus Mexico plus terrible buildings. The beaches were actually empty, so that was nice, but I think that was more the weather.

Byron Bay: south of Surfer's, it is a really cute semi commercialized beach town with lots of shops and pretty beaches, this was pretty much the last time we saw the sun on the coast. We did more shopping, because of the rain, and I got a necklace as my one big this is my way to remember Australia purchase.

Coffs harbor: we camped here, oh my god it was rainy and boring. Thank goodness we got inflatable mattresses. However it seems I was the only warm one as I had a winter camping sleeping bag and neither of my companions did; also they were both tall enough to touch each end of the tent with heads and toes so I think they got dripped on a bit. I of course was snug in the middle of them curled up and slept probably the most of all nights on the trip.

Maclean: pronounced ‘maclane’ this is a small settlement of people who were given free passage to Australia after being driven out of the highlands. Because of a recent heritage project, all of the townspeople’s tartans are painted on the electrical and telephone poles. There are also several heritage things posted about haggis and other stereotypical Scottish traditions. People here seem really repulsed by haggis, but since people from the southern US used to and probably still do eat chitlins it doesn’t really faze me. And to be fair, anything more foreign than a burger or sausage seems to distress Australians. They do not understand the sweet + savory concept, as is highlighted by their fear and distrust of several American traditions: PB&J, cheddar cheese on pie, French fries “chips” dipped in frosty, pumpkin pie, jam on toast on the side with eggs. Anyway, maclaen was cool and a bit of a homecoming for my Scottish friends. Plus they got to laugh every time I mispronounced something.

Newcastle: cool industrial town, our spirits were broken by the time we made it here because we drove in the dark in the rain to get there and were sooo excited to stay in a hostel indoors only to find a leaky roof and uncomfortable spring mattresses. We stayed two nights hoping the rain would clear. If we had actually been able to walk around a bit I think we would have liked it; it was surrounded by water and was originally a prison town built for people who committed crimes AFTER being sent to Australia for other crimes.

After these stops we drove the 5-6 hours to Canberra and relished our own beds. We had the car for an extra day and proceeded to go to places like the hardware store where we couldn’t normally drive. We also saw a local landmark, the Telstra tower. Which to me is one of the main problems with Canberra. Their two major landmarks (the other being the capitol building. I mean, it's pretty on the inside but the flag pole is ugh. Also, they built it inot a hill with the idea being that the government is 'on the same level' as the people. a really good sentiment, but forgettable building) are simultaneously not that attractive and forgettable. Who cares about the Telstra tower when there’s Uluru and the Sydney harbor bridge and opera house to see?

After a long grey trip, we found that not only had it been warm and sunny in Canberra the whole time, but that it was once again sunny in Brisbane. People were flabbergasted, as they hadn’t had that much rain in 10 years! Yay for them, the end of the Australian drought had to begin on our beach holiday. Now that we are home we have all managed to get pretty sick, I guess it is all the rain.

On the bright side, I am getting to do something I haven’t in a few years, experience fall. The leaves in Canberra right now are gorgeous and I actually get to wear my sheep wool lined coat, scarf and hat as more than just fashion accessories! I love how brisk it is until I get home and realize my bedroom has no insulation. This morning I left the house bundled up only to realize it was colder inside my room than outdoors. (I just bought an electric blanket, what an amazing invention!)

Well this has probably sounded like a lot of complaining but we did manage to enjoy ourselves a bit. People from Ireland and the UK constantly harassed us. (The Scottish draw them like magnets.) I got a newsboy hat that apparently screams ‘steal me or mess with me in some fashion!’ to every stranger around. And at times we were so giddy from our exhausting misfortunes that little things like dry socks and electrical outlets sent us to the heights of ecstasy.

No pictures for now because apparently my household has a bandwidth limit I was previously unaware of. And because I stopped bringing my camera out after Byron bay; when my friends give me pictures, I will ammend this post.

Cheerio!