Itin update - Spain

TJ is still working on his additions, so we should have a France update soon. We are currently in Barcelona and are headed to Granada and Seville next.

Itin update - Andorra?

Sorry, we are still a little behind. I have just added 3 entries from London and Paris. As I mentioned before, we met up with some friends for a camping trip, so we are just writing those up now. We are leaving France tomorrow morning to head to Andorra. Then into Spain after a day or two.

Paris, France – 05/13 – 05/14

(Michelle) On Sunday, TJ went to the war museum and I went to the D’Orsay, which houses art more recent that those pieces at the Louvre. Before I got to D’Orsay, I took a nice stroll down the Champs Elysees and ended up in the Tuileries park. I thought about getting a crepe as a snack, but while I was looking at a café menu, I was hit on for the first time on our trip. A Frenchman introduced himself to me and asked to buy me a drink at the café. I politely declined and left without a crepe. (Single girls… he wasn’t bad looking, about our age… so perhaps a solo trip to Paris is not a bad idea??? – Although, it did sort of remind me of Eddie Murphy “What’s a beautiful girl like you doing alone in the Isle of love?”). The museum was quite nice, with a large collection of Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh and Degas. There were also a lot of Cezanne, but he seems to have a lot of still lives, and as much as my 8th grade humanities class drilled into me what an important role the still life is in art history, and just can’t get into fruit on a table. For supper, we headed to a new area to look for another restaurant in our guide. We ended up on the street with all the porn shops and strip clubs. Ooops. Fortunately, it was still light out, so it didn’t feel too seedy. On Monday, we went to the Louvre. That place is crazy busy and HUGE. You can get the regular audio guide for 5 euro, or the DAVINCI CODE audio guide for 10 euro. There was a long line for this cheesy expensive version, but I guess the Louvre is allowed to make money off Hollywood like everyone else. I am a little freaked out by the Mona Lisa now though… I felt fine going into the museum and immediately after trying to stare down the Mona, I walked away with a horrible headache that would not go away. If there is one thing I can say about the Lourve, is that hands down, they have got to have the largest collection of random not so famous artists that have painted Mary and Jesus. Perhaps I should have known this, but apparently, Mary always wears blue and red.
We thought we were being smart by waiting out the “rush” on the metro after the Louvre closed by eating in the food court outside the Louvre. This was a huge mistake. This was by far the worst food we have had on this trip so far. Gross.

(TJ) Yes I went to another war Museum; it was quite interesting to see the exhibits on WW1 and WW2 from the French perspective. It was however much more difficult to follow since about a ¼ of the artifacts were translated to English, well it is France. Still it was a good museum however with very little translation. Napoleon’s tomb is also at the museum and is by all means a cathedral. His sarcophogis looked to be a made out of a giant piece of stone (granite?); we’re talking 15’ long 8’ wide and 12’ tall in the center of a highly gilded rotunda. Also in the same tomb in side chapels are his wife Josephine, Marshall Fock of WW1 and some other famous French generals. This was second visit to the Louvre, the last time I think that we walked it in about 3 hours. Let’s just say that this place probably would take a couple of days to see the full collections. We got the audio guides this time which were helpful in enlightening us to the history and style of some of the works of art that we saw. I think that I enjoyed the sculptures made of marble more than the paintings but then again I think we probably saw less then half of the paintings. Also let me just say that had I been the one hit on in the park by some young Parisian temptress and told Michelle about it, I would have been beaten and my body dumped in the Seine. Guess that’s something to keep in my back pocket when it happens in another country.

(Michelle) True dat. TJ fortunately has not spoken of any incidences of other women on this trip, so he lives another day.

Paris, France – 05/11 – 05/12

(Michelle) We got to Paris after an 8 hour bus/ferry ride. We checked into our hotel and then went to look for food. According to the LP guide, like any other big city, cheap good eats are often foreign foods. We went hunting for a Japanese restaurant in the guide. We ended up on a street filled with Japanese restaurants, all very authentic looking. We are not talking sushi here, other more traditional daily Japanese meals. For the first time since visiting Sachi in Vancouver (Dec 98) I was treated to OKONOMIYAKI!!! Very exciting for me (I have searched for this all over the states with NO luck). Since I speak more Japanese than French, it was easier for me to order as well. On Saturday, we had a full day of Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Catacombs and the Eiffel Tower. Jean, I think we once discussed what happens when a cemetery is so old that nobody knows anybody buried there anymore… apparently when that happened in Paris, they dug up all the bodies and stacked their bones up in an old query. They made little designs out of skulls and everything. I touched some bones, but TJ wasn’t prepared to do that. I am not usually afraid of heights, but going up the elevator at Eiffel Tower did make me a little uneasy. We hung up there for a while to try to get a sunset shot, but to no avail. Unfortunately, it was so late that we couldn’t easily get a meal anymore. We got a little pizza place to let us get in a take away order. Unfortunately, with the language barrier, we received pepperoni pizzas with egg on top. Gross. This is followed by a small flub up on the Mc D’s order earlier where instead of getting no Mayo, TJ got double mayo on his chicken sandwich.
Pretty much every train we ended up on had some sort of “live music” act for spare change. My favorite one so far is the guy with guitar that he didn’t play (he had basically a karaoke machine) and all he sang were Dire Straits songs. There is nothing wrong with hearing a little Walk of Life / Sultans of Swing first thing in the morning on the train.

(TJ) Notre Dame is impressive of course and you can imagine how it dominated the Paris skyline for centuries. While wondering around the cathedral we found that one of the chapels in between some flying buttress’s (support walls for the cathedral) was a chapel dedicated to St. Denis and that its financial backer was an Aubin from the 1600’s. All sins absolved for him I guess, he must have felt really guilty about something. The stained glass and stone carvings in every corner are really impressive. The Eiffel tower is also very impressive. I would think twice if you are afraid of heights and are claustrophobic however. The views are great but the wait to get up is a killer, I think that we waited around an hour to get up. The catacombs that we saw were unreal apparently there are millions of remains in it, including many leading figures that were beheaded during the revolution. Apparently they converted these old stone quarries that had been used since roman times bone yard about 300 ft below the surface. This all happened in the late 1700’s. Basically you walk around these tunnels and you have retaining walls that are made of femur bones and other long bones stacked like Lincoln logs that then have a course of skulls staring out at you every 2-3 ft. These retaining walls are 6-8 ft high, behind them are just piled clavicles, pelvises, ribs, vertebra, etc. Let’s just say that it is a little surreal. I felt like I was in the Goonies and that Michelle was going to have to play us out of the place on a organ made of finger bones before the Frattelli’s got us.

London, England – 05/09 – 05/10

(Michelle) Finally, Tuesday night we got to have some Fish and Chips. We certainly tried in Ireland, but Chris and Laura came through with some for us. On Wednesday, we had another leisurely morning. Then we went out to see the Chenies Manor. This house had a long history (including stays by Henry VIII, his alleged ghost is still there every year on a particular date in September). The house was pretty cool, a lot skinnier on the inside than it looked on the outside, and no hallways… just each room leading to the next. This house really goes to show you that when you try to preserve too many of the historicalness of a house, you can really live in a sort of goofy looking home (some really important sounding family still currently lives there, they only open it to the public two afternoons a week). Each item in the house was cool, but put together… not always aesthetically pleasing… what was aesthetically pleasing was the gardens outside. They kicked ass. This was an incredible garden with various different paths and even a living maze. I beat TJ in the maze, but he will tell you lies that he came out first and went in for a second try. Whatevs. On Thursday, we finally parted ways with my former roomie. I’m sure she was happy to see that I left a room there almost as messy as our college dorm room used to be (Laura produced a picture of our messy old St. O dorm room for TJ to see). Thanks so much to Laura, Chris and little Thomas Jack for their hospitality.
We arrived back in London with hopes of a nice like cruise on the Thames. It was raining and we basically ended up getting on a water taxi instead of a tourist cruise. Oh well. We decided to do some much needed shopping at the Primark. We learned about the UK dept store Primark from our former travel buddy Steve, so we knew the price was right. So does a large percentage of the total London population on a Thursday night, apparently. The upside is that we did leave there with a variety of small needed items, but it took about an hour of waiting in various lines to do so. We stayed in a different hostel than the previous one in London, this time – TJ and I slept in different dorm rooms. At first, that seemed a little weird for me, but it was actually pretty uneventful.

Itin Update

So, based on the last blog itin update, we found out that our friends Nadirah and Nathan are vacationing in France and they invited us along on their road/camping trip in France. SWEET. We have many blog updates, but I can't get to a good connection right now to upload them... sorry for the wait. Right now we are in Amboise, France headed south.

Photos

Since we spent a couple of days at Laura's house (and she has INTERNET!!) we were finally able to upload some photos. For some reason, my map link doesn't seem to be adding my new dots yet.. I'll have to figure that one out. Anyway, if you want to see the ones that would be on the map, just go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tj-michelle

Also, we have more on there than that, but these are the only ones marked public. If you want access to more pics, get a free flickr account, let us know your yahoo address for that flickr account, and we will add you as a contact.

Itin Update

We think we will likely head to France and then Spain next. We'll see what happens.

London, England – 05/06 – 05/08

(Michelle) We arrived on the overnight uncomfortable bus at 6:15 am on Sunday morning. We took the tube out to our hostel to drop off our stuff and then headed back… look kids, Big Ben, Parliament. We sat in the park across from Big Ben with our coffee and muffins watching the cars circle the roundabout. Then we attempted to take a ride on the London Eye, but for 30 minutes it’s 16 pounds (about 32$ each) so not quite worth it. We headed on to what TJ was looking forward to, the Imperial War Museum. I thought it would be more regimenty stuff like at the Scotland War Museum, but this was actually a fantastic museum. Tons of actual memorabilia from WWI and WWII (an actual WWI trench is “recreated” for a walk through), but the most interesting thing in the museum is the two full floors on the Holocaust – although there were other exhibits we didn’t even get a chance to see. There were countless true individual stories from not only the camps, but the Warsaw (and other) ghettos as well. Other items included last letters, fake papers, and a whole case of actual shoes turned in by people at the camps. TJ and I spent 8 hours at the museum.
It was then 6 o’clock on a Sunday before a bank holiday Monday, which means that there were few options of things we could still see, so we took a walk by Buckingham Palace.
We shared a dorm room that night with 2 other couples, who we didn’t actual speak with, as we were the last ones back in the room at 10:30 pm that night.
The next morning, we pretended we were new money and went “shopping” at Harrods. The ultimate in Dept Stores, I really didn’t think I would be impressed, but I was.
Then we went to the cabinet war rooms. Yes, this is where all the major decisions were made during WWII. Recreated to look exactly as this bunker did in the 40s, it was quite impressive. We did not know, upon entering though, that there was a really well done museum solely on the life of Churchill. While I am sure TJ could say other interesting things about the museum, I would have to say that I was most interested to learn that Churchill basically invented the velour leisure suit. So, now I know where my J-Lo track suit really descended from.
We then took a 40 minute train out to the Chiltern Hills area to visit with my college roomie, Laura O (now W), where she is living with her husband Chris and 5 month old son, Thomas Jack… two TJ’s in the house.
Chris cooked us an excellent sausage and rice dinner! The next morning, the two Thomas’ slept until noon, while Laura and I had tea and caught up. We then had lunch at a real Elephant and Castle (there is a recreated Elephant and Castle in downtown Chicago). I was very happy to learn that my absolute favorite childhood author wrote the majority of his books about 10 minutes from where Laura lives. So in the afternoon, we went to the Roald Dahl museum. It is nice to feel like a little kid again for a while – I was right back to the schoolroom where my fourth grade teacher read us James and the Giant Peach. The museum housed (on loan) the actual coat, hat and cane that Johnny Depp wore in the new Charlie and the Chocolate factory, and in addition, there is a nice picture of Roald with the original Oompa Loompa’s from the Gene Wilder version. The outside of the building has the B.F.G. painted on it… my favorite children's book of all.

(TJ) I’d describe the Imperial War Museum as the Smithsonian of war museums. You walk in and there artillery pieces, tanks, shells and fighter planes hanging from the ceiling. In my opinion a must see. The cabinet war rooms were a bit of a surprise. I was expecting a deep bunker underground with mannequin’s displays etc. In reality there are the mannequins but the war rooms are only at basement level. They installed a 6’ thick slab of reinforced concrete before the war that probably would have been destroyed by a direct hit with a 500kg bomb. The museum also has a huge exhibit on Winston Churchill which was very interesting. I like his style of doing work in his bed until 10am and then slipping on basically a velvet jumpsuit to a full day of smoking cigars drinking wine brandy, port and champagne until and mixing in some work until 2am. Mind you he was doing this when he was 65. As a side note we found a toy soldier shop while walking to the Cabinet War Rooms which was extremely cool, good thing I can not buy any souvenirs. I’d been to Harrods last time I was in London and its still amazing the second time around. They have anything you could want, however you will pay dearly for it. I did not remember that you could buy groceries there the last time I visited. You could buy an apple for $4 or a pint of ice cream for $10 or a DVD of Eddie Murphy Delirious for $20?. The amazing part is that we saw people shopping there for groceries/etc. at these prices. All that said it’s an unreal store that makes you realize how poor/smart you are in relation to the individuals who shop there.

I felt like I was on field trip sponsored by my English class when we visited the Roald Dahl museum. I had never even heard of him when Michelle asked me about going. She is a big fan and read many of his books, I have seen Charlie and the Chocolate factory in IMAX and like to see Oompa Loompas at costume parties and sing their songs. Needless to say I was a bit disappointed that were no live Oomph Loompas at the museum and there was no pyscadalic boat cruise down a chocolate river at the museum.

Edinburgh, Scotland – 05/03 – 05/05

(Michelle) We parted ways with Steve and took the ferry over to Scotland. We had originally come to Edinburgh thinking we would go to Edinburgh first and then go back to Glasgow second (where cheaper flights might be found to London). We ended up staying in Edinburgh the whole time. This is my favorite city so far, as far as how it looks. The whole city center looks like it is part of the whole castle on the rock. We were fortunate to get some free housing in Edinburgh for two nights, as it turns out the people who own the hostel we stayed at in Derry are in the process of opening a new hostel in Edinburgh. They weren’t quite ready for business yet, but Steve (different from Aussie Steve) thought it would be nice to see what it was like to have people stay there to help him see what he was still missing, so he let us stay two nights for free as the first guests of this new hostel. In return, we helped Steve with feedback on various tours.
The first night, we went on an ok, but way overpriced, night ghost tour. At least we got to go to a cemetery at night, which is always fun. We then went to a bar where we heard some traditional music (not all that different from Irish really, just a big group of people sitting around with multiple violins, a couple two tree accordions, a guitar and a Irish goat skin drum)… No bagpipe, but we would hear that later.
The next day we went to Edinburgh castle. We saw the crown jewels of Scotland and read a lot of history about important people like King James VI/I, Queen Mary and even a little about William Wallace and Robert the Bruce (Every man dies, but not every man truly lives). There were several other separate military museums within the castle (there was even one on the military horses, but I put my foot down on that one). The military regiment names all confused me really. Then we spent an hour at the free art gallery where we saw more priceless works of art by Monet, Renoir, Degas and most importantly… Titian, honest to god (for those unaware, an excellent SNL skit from the 70s)… Unfortunately I only got one shot off on my camera of a Titian before I got busted by the gallery police (how would I know… at the Met in NY, you were allowed to take pictures). They kept a tight leash on me after that, so I could not get a photo of a Titian where I could actually say “what’s that right there”. We took a nice walk down to Holyroodhouse (where the Queen stays when she comes to Scotland) and parliament.
On our last day in Scotland, we did the Real Mary Close Tour. When Edinburgh was first built, there were some main streets up on the rock, but mostly it was overcrowed 12 story houses built up the hill with a tiny little stairway in between each row called a “close”. Back in the 16 and 1700s, when overcrowing and sewage was a real problem, twice a day at set times, people would yell “gardylou” and throw all their human waste out the window onto the close. This would roll down the stairs, finally entering the lake where most of the drinking water came from. Nice. Many of the old closes were built over in the 1800s and this particular tour takes you into built over close, now a tunnel, into a recreation of what some of these old houses/closes looked like. Not a tour for the claustrophobic. We then went to the free museum of Scotland, which we unfortunately did not set enough time aside for, as it was MUCH bigger than it looked and had a ton of information in it (starting from dinosaur age Scotland forward). We then left for our 9:30pm overnight bus to London.

(TJ) Check out the Museum of Scotland it has great Roman Artifacts and a huge number of other cool exhibits. Edibinburough castle also very cool looking, I could have spent a lot more time there at the Scottish Military Museums or the Scottish Regimental Museums that are onsite. Most of the city looks to be at least 200 years old if not older, I’d put the charter of this city right on par with Prague. It looks like something that has come out of a fairy tale. I’d definitely go back, hopefully with a lot more money since it is very expensive

Derry and Belfast, Northern Ireland – 05/01 – 05/02

(Michelle) (PS, this entry is REALLY long)
As we rode the bus from Donegal to Derry, we were happy to see the Foy family name on a chain of furniture stores in eastern Donegal County. Upon arriving, It was another solid 1k walk with our packs to our next hostel in Derry, Northern Ireland. We went dorm style for the first time, as we had been spending quite a bit of money on accommodation getting private rooms and we weren’t really meeting anyone. Upon entering the 10 bed dorm, we met our first travel buddy, Steve. Nice Australian fellow who was starting a European tour now after finishing six months of working in Miami. He mentioned a museum and tour that we decided to check out. It was a museum dedicated to Bloody Sunday (the fellow who works in the museum had a brother killed on Bloody Sunday) and the tour guide was a 40 year old man who was raised in the Bogside (Catholic side of the troubles in Derry). This tour was extremely interesting. He walked us around the Bogside of Derry explaining some of the murals, the conflict as he saw it growing up and the fence which currently separates the Protestant side. He has never crossed that fence. The town of Derry itself also has an interesting layout with the walled city and the outside sections. That night, Steve, TJ and I checked out the main drag of bars in Derry. There was a local band at one that was quite good (a wide mix of covers)… Nicole Helland, if I’d have had a cell phone, you would have gotten a call… they perfectly covered the Ben Harper version of “Sexual Healing”. The next morning, TJ did a solo run to Derry history museum and then Steve, TJ and I headed off on the bus to Belfast. In Belfast, the main activity for us was a walk around town checking out their Catholic and Protestant murals. The tour guide in Derry had explained that the start of the wall murals was really the way they spread news about what was going on during the troubles, but as they currently stand, they each give their own version of various snapshots of the troubles.

(TJ) I’d highly recommend Derry for anyone going to N. Ireland, it’s a beautiful city and totally safe. The city walls are 400 years old and until recently were manned by the British army, apparently it was the longest operational military wall in the world. The Bloody Sunday museum does an excellent job of showing the civil rights movement in the North, how Bloody Sunday happened, its aftermath and its subsequent cover up by the British. I also visited the city museum which gives a good overview of the city and N. Ireland history. The walking tour we had was very good since our tour guide could show us the site of the shootings and illustrated what led up to Bloody Sunday and what happened afterwards. At the time of the massacre Catholics were crowded into a slum called the Bogside. It was illegal for Catholics to live outside this area so you would have 6-8 people living in an apartment meant for two people. When it got too crowded the government built large “planet of the apes” apartment towers that Catholics could only rent, which have since been demolished. Compounding this frustration was that in order to vote you had to own a house or run a business, owning a house was almost impossible and owning a legal business was illegal for Catholics. Even if they could vote all of the votes only would have been for one district “Bogside” since it was illegal to live outside of this area. Protestants felt that this was their right since the N. Ireland was founded as a “Protestant land for a Protestant people” after Ireland got self rule and if Catholics didn’t like it they can go to the republic of Ireland. These complaints formed the basis of the civil rights movement. Apparently the civil rights movement scared the protestant government which started interning people with out trial and beating marchers on various occasions. After this had went on the Catholics blockaded their neighborhood to keep the police out which they succeeded in doing. After this success the Protestant government asked for the British military to be called in. Initially this was welcomed by the Catholics seeing them as a fair broker unlike the protestant police. However the situation changed quickly when the British troops started interning people without trial and started firing rubber and plastic bullets on protesters of which a few died. The march on Bloody Sunday was for the vote and against the forced internment. The original march route was to go to the center of town; however this route was blocked by military barricades. The main march avoided the barricade and went the other direct. Youths however started throwing stones at military which was responded to with rubber bullet and tear gas. A short time later away from this small riot, Paratroopers opened fire on the main marchers. The gunfire killed 13 people and wounded 15 whom were running from the gunfire or who were crawling to get to wounded or killed people. There were numerous accounts of those who died and evidence of how they died by survivors in the museum of how people were killed waving white handkerchiefs or were shot in the back by the looks of their jackets. In the aftermath of this the British Military claimed that marchers had fired upon them first. Guns were later planted on the dead to suit this story despite multiple sworn statements to the contrary by marchers and clergy. The British Military produced a whitewash report exonerating the Paratroopers of any wrong doing. After this incident many young people abandoned nonviolence/civil rights movement in the North and joined the IRA or at least supported the IRA, leading to the next two decades of attacks and reprisals on both sides. It has only been since 1995 there has been any lasting peace. I believe that one of the stipulations of the peace process was to have a new commission look at the bloody Sunday incident; the commission has been going since 1997 with no report sent. From what we heard the report has not been published because one of the main British officers on the scene that day (Michael Jackson) is now the British commander in the Mideast. Apparently he is supposed to retire next year. This will probably mean that there will be a report published soon afterwards. Since the peace Catholics have gotten their vote and rights as ordinary citizens. However the North is still divided in every aspect along secratarian lines, schools, work and areas and has a poor economy with 45% unemployment in Derry. It has only been in the last couple of days that the Unionist Party (Protestant) and Sinn Fein (Catholic) have formed a coalition government to rule the North under strong pressure from Britain and Ireland. Sorry that was longwinded but it was really interesting to see and speak with people that had been involved in the conflict.

Donegal and Carrick, Ireland – 04/29 – 04/30

(Michelle) The trip from Sligo to Donegal was about an hour. We are on the west coast of Ireland heading north. After arriving in Donegal, we walked another 1k with our bags to get to the hostel we were staying at there. This place was really more like a B&B than a hostel, other than that there was no breakfast. Linda, the owner, was very chatty. She told us a nice back road way along the river back into town. We went back into Donegal to check out Donegal Castle and Donegal Abbey. This castle was built in the 16th century by the powerful O’Donnell family. When the British took over in the 1600s, the Brooks family took it over and added onto it. The tour was very nice. The cemetery was overlooking Donegal Bay and people have been buried there for four or five hundred years… one as recently as 2006. It looked pretty full to us though. We had one beer in town, a Bulmer’s Cider. TJ said it had an after taste like Rosen’s Onion rolls. We were a little grossed out by that until we decided that we both like Rosen’s Onion rolls and then it was fine. Donegal town is only about 3,000 people and it is Sunday night, so we decided to make it an early night and headed back to the hostel. We watched “Celebrity Jigs and Reels”, which is the same thing as Dancing with the Stars, but they are Irish Celebs and they have to dance traditional Irish. We had originally headed to Donegal to get closer to Slieve’s League, which is suppose to have the highest cliff into the ocean in all of Europe. We thought we could rent bikes on Monday to get there, but we heard the road there was really hilly and we were advised against it. So we went to the tourist booth where a crazy lady (in her late 40s but with pink died bangs to go with her blond curly hair) told us that we could take the 1 o’clock bus to the “Rock”. That did not end up being true, the 1 o’clock only went as far as Killybegs. We took it anyway and then took a cab from Killybegs to Carrick. The elderly cabbie was really into being our tour guide any continuously pointed out new summer homes that were going up in the area. He was really hard to understand. Slieve’s League was about a 2 mile walk just to get to the information center from our hotel (before ascending the cliffs). The whole walk there was very scenic though, so it was nice. TJ got to talk to more sheep. Two hours later, we were on top of the world… or just on top of one of the lower cliffs. Still, it was quite a beautiful view. We decided not to continue any further due to the fact that
1) The guy at the info booth looked at us like we were mad when we asked for a map of the mountain and he also told us that after a certain point there was no path.
2) We hadn’t brought any food and we really hadn’t eaten much that day.
3) We were still looking at a potential two hour walk back to the hotel.
4) Apparently “One Man’s Walk” path is named such because only one man can walk on it an there are steep drop off’s on both sides… scary.
As we retreated, we were not looking forward to the walk back as we were getting really hungry, so we thumbed it once we got back to the road (sorry mom- but we’ve been told numerous times that hitching is quite normal here). The first car that drove by pulled over and it was a very nice Italian couple. They gladly dropped us back at the hotel and even offered to take us along with them to try and see the most northern point of Slieve’s League. If we hadn’t been so hungry, we may have taken them up on it. It turns out that in Carrick, the ONLY place to get food after 4pm is at the Chinese Take Away. That is funny. We thought we would get decent fish for dinner at one point, but that does not seem to be in the cards for us.

(TJ)
1. Celebrity Jigs and Reels beats dancing with the stars hands down. You try to be dance expressively by only moving you leg below that knee, I dare you. Also the people are much better looking on the show than in the states with those unsightly tans.
2. I don’t talk to the sheep, the sheep talk to me.
3. If you want a nice holiday home over looking the ocean, check out County Donegal, housing for $100,000.
4. The Chinese takeaway was pretty decent.
5. I will eat some fish before I leave Ireland.

Dublin and Sligo, Ireland – 04/27 – 04/28

(Michelle) TJ went for a little run to Phoenix park… I found a good excuse to get out of the running as I am experiencing my first health issue – a good sinus infection. After TJ returned we got some food from the Spar (convenient store) and sat outside on a lovely skinny street where about 30 busses sprayed exhaust on our food. At least we were in the sun. It is so chilling in Dublin in the shade. We took the city bus to the Kilmainham Gaol, which is a jail that housed many of the Irish ‘rebels’ from 1799 until 1922. We treated ourselves to a nice dinner at a Thai restaurant, which is the best food we have had since we got here. Then we headed out on one more attempt to hear some Irish music. We stopped in for a beer at Stag’s Head, which is supposed to be a favorite. It was pretty packed. We just stayed for one and then we headed to O’Donoghue’s. This bar was even more packed than Stag’s Head, we hung out here for a while and they did have local music, but it was really hard to hear it. You had to sit really close to the front to hear anything. We still had a good time there though.
Saturday morning we left Dublin for Sligo – Northwest Coast. After we got here, we headed over to the Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery. The burial remains there have been dated back to 4000 B.C. Sligo is a smaller town and we weren’t sure if there was a local way to get there so we walked. It was about 4 miles through country roads. TJ had a good time talked to the cows and the sheep along the way. We probably walked a total of 10 miles today… at the end of the day the dogs were barking.

(TJ) Kilmainham Gaol was a great place to see an 18th Century/Victorian Jail, it also has a good exhibit on the Easter rising (and subsequent executions) and Irish civil war. We went on a guided tour that was very good. Apparently the jail has been in several films such as In the Name of the Father, Michael Collins and also a U2 video was filmed there.