Days 180 - 188: Scotland, Ireland and England - Dublin, Ireland
Dublin, Ireland
I write this in front of a fireplace, with the cold English weather blowing a gale outside. Dave's aunty Margaret and uncle Mike are giving us a relaxing weekend away in their home in Nuneaton Midlands. We were lucky enough to also spend Sunday afternoon with his other uncle John and Glynis, and her hilarious mother Betty before Dave's cousin Helen and family joined us too. Dave's other cousin's Andy and Ian also popped over for a visit that weekend as well. Neither Dave and I aren't used to such a big family but Dave actually has a very LARGE family in England as his Dad was 1 of 8. They all are so welcoming, so similar to Dave and its like we've known them forever. This has been the good thing that has come out of our urgent last minute visa trip to London plus its Margaret's birthday so what better place to be.
The London visa interview went so well, the interviewer couldn't see the need for us to even have a visa. In the two days we were in London before we headed to the Midlands, we braved the cold and did a 3hour free walking tour. There's one story I have to share and its about the people who have broken into the Queen's digs, Buckingham Palace. The first lot were innocent German campers who camped the night in her majesties front garden thinking it was Hyde Park, only to be awoken by the guards questioning their ignorance. The next fella Michael Fagan, decided to climb through an open window in Buckingham Palace to fetch some food. Michael was hungry but the only food he found and consumed was biscuits and half bottle of wine. A month later he returned, finding a closed window this time so broke in and set the alarm off. The Queen's guards thought it must be a glitch in the system so ignored it. When the second alarm went off the guard turned the whole systems off, including the Queen's bedside alarm. Michael harmlessly made it all the way to the Queen's bedroom before the Queen awoke to find Michael sitting at the end of her bed.. thankfully the Queen is well practiced in small chit-chat, which developed trust before cleverly asking Michael if he'd like a cigarette. The Queen phoned for a cigarette "for the man at the end of my bed". Obviously then he was taken away but only charged with steeling, the wine and biscuits, as at that time Buckingham Palace wasn't a 'designated site' so he wasn't trespassing as such...According to the Aussie guide who told me this story anyway.
Leaving the home comforts of Margaret and Mike's house was hard. They looked after us just like we were at home - even had Sunday roast! But the reality set in as we were on the road again. The 9 hour overnight bus delivered us into the cold climates of Edinburgh Scotland where the daytime temperature is 2degrees above and night time is 2 below. The haar, fog from the North sea, and 4:30pm darkness makes this old brick town feel very mysterious. It's hardly surprising this is where Harry Potter was dreamed up. From the warmth of the Elephant House Cafe, each day a very poor J.K Rowling ordered 1 cup of coffee while nursing her baby and wrote the first Harry Potter book. The view from that cafe is of a private school with 4 towers (the four House Towers) and if you plonked that school on top of the view of Edinburgh castle you'd have Hogwarts. Just below the cafe window you can see Greyfriars Cemetery. In there lies the gravestones of her inspiration for characters names; Mad-eye Moody, Professor Mcgonagall and Tom Riddle - aka Voldemort. Fortunately J.K Rowling chose Tom Riddle's name well, there's no living relatives left to get offended by the gifts and letters from deluded diehard fans and haters left on Tom Riddle's (Voldemort) actual grave.
Apart from the Harry Potter fans visiting, this cemetery is also visited by fans of Bobby and his little grave. Throughout Edinburgh there is Bobby everything; Bobby cafe, Bobby art shop, Bobby statues etc. Bobby was the tiny guard dog belonging to the graveyard's night guard but only for 2 years before the night guard died. The following 14 years Bobby guarded his master's grave. As Bobby had no owner, he was considered stray and could theoretically be shot even though the city folk loved Bobby. As this was well and truly before RSPCA, this predicament could only be resolved by awarding Bobby the Keys of the City and gave him citizenship. This dog could vote before females...
These odd stories of Edinburgh are far more interesting than castles and churches - to me anyway. As I write this we are sitting in the Harry Potter / Elephant House cafe with a number of school kids who are in uniforms similar to that of the Gryffindor uniform. Dave doesn't share the same Potter enthusiasm so after this we are off to visit the Edinburgh castle. Marriage is about compromise...for us it comes in the form of wizards and castles. Following the castle visit, Dave wanted to do a Scotch Whiskey tour in the worlds largest Scotch Whiskey collection, displaying over 3000 varieties. For my outing, I chose to take a train north to see a little village in central Scotland called Stirling. We were in Stirling long enough to; buy a souviner (St. Andrew golf balls and a 2£ book on Princess Kate - I chose the golf balls..), witness the strongest accent of the English language we'd ever heard, eat Scottish shortbread & Scottish fudge and get drenched in the cold Scottish rain.
The stay here wouldn't be complete without some traditional Scottish music. What better place than at the famous Maggie Dickson pub. In 1723 Maggie concealed her pregnancy before giving birth to a still born baby. Illegal under the Concealment of Pregnancy Act (yes this was a real Act) she was sentenced by hanging. Pronounced dead, she was then taken to the gravesite but just before her burial screams came from within the coffin. Taken back for a second hang, a man in the crowd shouted for her to be saved. As she was pronounced dead, any change in that was "an act of god". She married that man and lived another 40years. Appropriately, that pub is next to the hanging post and the pub 'The Last Drop', where prisoners went for their last shot of whiskey before their hanging and where we went for hot Pimms with apple and hot port... Another takeaway idea for a cold Brisbane day (obviously the drinks).
We have eaten a number of things along our travels; crickets, tarantulas even silkworms but the only national dish i've struggled to eat is Scotland's Haggis neeps and tatties. This is basically sheep's pluck: heart, liver and lungs shoved into the lining of a sheep's stomach (nowadays sausage wrap) and is served with turnips and potatoes. It looked and tasted similar to a beef pattie but I couldn't 'stomach' more than a few mouthfuls. It's not all bad cuisine though, their soft drink brand supersedes Coke sales here and with twice the sugar content its delicious. Irn Bru soft drink tastes like creaming soda on steroids and complements well with a nip of vodka, Madori or both.
For a cold wet place we actually enjoyed Scotland; for its stories, beauty, serenity and hot port. The Queen has chosen her holiday home location wisely, but will she still stay here if the Scottish vote to become independent in next year's referendum? Without exception, every scotsman we've came across was welcoming and friendly but after two nights we have left for Dublin, Ireland - home of; Guinness, Kilkenny, the Irish jig, Irish pubs, bus lanes built too narrowly for buses, hurling, Gaelic football and all things leprechaun green.
The London hostel kindly gave us mice, the Edinburgh hostel kindly gave us a room next to 50 American teenagers partying till 3, but thankfully the Dublin hostel gave us free airport transfers and a free 9 hour bus tour of Ireland (to accompany the no running water for 2 days)!
14 days in Ireland without rain is officially called a drought so you can imagine how green the countryside is, and now in the autumn the deciduous trees are a mixture of reds, oranges and browns. With that we're off to the land where two films (pronounced fil-lim) were filmed, Braveheart and P.S I Love You: Glendaloch (translating to valley of two locks) and Kilkenny (translating to the church of St Canice - or home of beer).
If you're going to have Irish stew with a pint of Kilkenny you may as well do it in one of Ireland's oldest pubs in KILKENNY. It has a famous castle too but we opted for enjoying the warmth of the pub rather than visiting a castle that doesn't serve beer. New-age travellers right there!
Only 5-7% of the locals can actually speak the national language - Irish Gaelic. I didn't even know they had another language, I just thought their English sounded funny. That was until seeing a second language on sign posts. Although the Irish language isn't spoken as adults, throughout schools its taught. The first phrase learnt as a 5year old on day one is: An bhfuil cead agam dul go dhi an leithreas? (phonetically: On will cead agum dull gut dee on lehraas?). This translates to the all important question for any little one, except they have to say it in a foreign language before being excused: May I go to the toilet?
Quite often id breakout into a little giggle hearing these people speak, particularly mixed in with their sense of humour and use of everyday phrases...like who actually says "top of the morning to ya".. Not the modern day Irish - they say "100,000 welcomes to ya" or phonetically pronounced in Irish "cead mile failte"!
The highlight of my day was when we went for a walk in the countryside, a little Irish man in a cheese cutter said in the thickest accent I've ever heard "wiell doont yoo sund fuunnie". Spose we do to him.
The best thing to do following a night out in Dublin's Temple Bar is to visit the Guinness brewery house. The brewery is 7 levels, and is shaped like a glass of Guinness. If the worlds biggest glass was filled, it would hold 14.3million pints. As most will know, i'm not really a beer drinker but to enjoy it, its all in the way you drink it as said at the Heineken Brewery in Amsterdam and at Guinness here in Dublin. The best way to drink Guinness is look up towards the horizon, arm up at 90 degrees, big breath in, take your swig then breath out. It works - I drunk a whole half a pint of the retched stuff. It made for a good breakfast before heading to our last European free walking tour - yippee. Thankfully it was a goodie. We learnt how to Irish dance, play the Irish pipes and I even volunteered for a game of hurling with the guide - their national sport. My last fact from these walking tours is why all the doors in Dublin are randomly painted bright colours. Well, most will know the north and the south of Ireland don't really get along but more outwardly they don't seem too fond of the British down here. One of the previous Queen's of England cousin died. This cousin loved Ireland but had never been so when the Queen requested the people of Dublin show their respect and morn the loss of this cousin by painting all the doors in Dublin black. Dublin's response was to paint them every colour but black. This war between the north and the south is primarily over religion...believe it or not.... These religions are indicated on the Irish flag with three stripes of colour. Green for celtic catholic, orange for protestant and white for an attempt at piece in the middle.
The next cultural experience was to actively participate in one of ten types of available Irish pub crawls. Feedback from an Irishman on 'Irish pubs abroad' is they are what the pubs here would of looked like in the 50s, not to mention those abroad are often very twee and gimmicky. And after a paid experience of Dublin's finest pubs, he's kinda right. Pubs here are wooden but not bright green with leprechauns painted on the walls. I would never of thought myself enjoying a pub crawl, but when run properly they're such a good way for people from all walks of life to get to know one another. We met the coolest American couple, Jessica and Collin, working in the american military but placed separately in South Korea and England. I've never seen anyone chug a beer at the speed Collin could - but he won the Viking Pub crawl tee shirt, shown in the photo.
On the last night in Dublin we were ridiculously tired, so tired we (Dave) made dinner at 4pm ready for an early night in in our trackiedacks. That was until a bunch of Kiwi girls walked into the hostel kitchen. By 8pm they were heading out and we sporadically decided to join them for another night out in Irish town, trackiedacks and all. I'm so glad we did - that feeling of Irish dancing to Galway Girl sung by 4 old Irish codgers is something ill never forget. On the walk back to the hostel, we walked past many buskers. But one particular band of 6 really got under my skin, like all good music does. The long haired, pasty white skin and long orange beards of these Irish fellows playing these instrument like I've never seen before. The energy and passion that went into that performance summed up the Irish. When we are listing to their CD back home, it'll be of fond memories from one of Europe's coolest cities, made that way because of the little orange haired, funny sounding local inhabitants.
With 4 leaf clovers not far from my mind, I couldn't believe how lucky we were to catch up with my cousin Martin and his wife Tricia, just a 30 minute plane ride from Dublin to Lancashire, England. It was their granddaughter's forth birthday party so I met my other family members too; Ben, Cathy, Sophie and Jessica as well as John and his beautiful girlfriend Alex and Nathan which is Ben and Laurence's youngest brother. Stopping over with family is a backpackers dream, to feel included in a normal homely environment (not to mention Tricia's amazing cooking). But we felt particularly fortunate as family from both sides have always lived afar, its not often we'd get to spend quality time with them. Although for only a short time, it felt like we'd know them ages. The following day we left the Trengove's just out of Manchester for the Morton side of the family just north of London. Ian (Dave's cousin) and his lovely wife Becky had us to stay in their beautiful home for two nights. We love our English pubs so they took us out for dinner to their local on the first night. On the second night, for the first time in England had true blue English fish and chips with mushy peas. Its just a shame Australia is so far away, we're loving this dinner with family thing.
With our packed lunch in hand (thanks Ian) we headed to London for the final time. On our last full day out we went for a wander around the warren of Camden Town Market and visited Harrods. Harrods reminds me of Myer but on a much much grander and sparklier scale. Its complete with multiple restaurants, bars, an Egyptian elevator, overpriced artwork and sculptures including a 5ft tall set of glass jelly babies for a measly $760,000. When I was 12, mum and I visited an English opp shop where they put our second hand clothes in an old Harrods bag and I thought I was the coolest kid out. At 27, I'm not much better. Dressed in flea market clothes I bought a royal family post card from Harrods (cheapest item there) and got my green bag - just reliving sad moments in my life - as you do. We also picked up our all important but very stressful USA visa today. You begin to appreciate a good travel agent when sorting issues from afar (we couldn't have done this or much else without you Danielle Adams - thank you and for putting up with my daily email).
Much to Dave's disgust and embarrassment, the final stop was to find 'Platform 9 3/4' at Kings Cross Station. I'm sure he thought I was the only one daft enough to run at the brick wall but they knew I was coming.. my wand, round Potter glasses and Gryffindor scarf awaited my arrival. You just can't take life too seriously, you may not get out alive!
To celebrate getting to the half way mark of this trip and surviving 3 months of actual 'hardcore backpacking' we are off to laugh our socks off at the Book of Mormon theatre production in West End London before flying out to the USA the next day. What that really means to us is 2 weeks on a cruise boat with the same home each night with unlimited food and no bloody jam sams and a long awaited hug from my Mum and Dad :-)