Dublin!

First a quick hello/goodbye to Bristol... where I stayed 1 night on the 11th... Really it was just enough time for a quick bite and a bit of a walk around the harbor... Seeing more of the south side this time around! But it was a lovely evening and morning!

Next stop (this time via a very smooth and convenient... if still decidedly budget... Ryanair flight) to Dublin. I am only here for 2 full days and 3 nights. Not sure that was my smartest idea... but it is what it is! A quick visit is better than no visit... and it feels a lot like the trip to Amsterdam a few weeks ago. (How is that already/only a few weeks ago?!) Edinburgh, btw, was better planned... There it will be more like 3 nights and 4 days... C:

So Dublin: I had 3 nights and 3 projects... listen to old fashioned straight out of a chick flick novel Irish music at a local pub, possibly see a play at the National Theatre that Yeats built, and do some kind of literary themed pub crawl. And I did those things! The play on at the Abbey was Hedda Gabler, which was fun. And the pub crawl was one of my fave things in this whirlwind visit! And I actually dipped into a pub for music (at the touristy Temple Bar admittedly, but then I'm a tourist) a 2nd time this last evening...

Then I had to manage to do stuff in those 2 days... ;-)

Day 1- yeaterday- was the best. It was quite flowing and casual and packed and fun! Today it rained... and I had to still fit in whatever I could that was left over from yesterday.

So yesterday I wandered about downtown, then took a walking tour focusing on the history of Dublin in the late morning... a 3 hour tour!! ;-) Then I was *ravenous* for lunch and tried out this really awesome veggie restaurant. I actually liked them so much I returned for lunch again today... C: Then I visited a place mentioned during the tour... the national (?) library... not the one at Trinity... that was having an exhibition of Yeats' work. That was awesome!! His copy of Walden, his Nobel medal, lots of manuscript pages... including of 2nd Coming!! After that, it was near or after 5 pm and things were closing. There *was* however still the Irish Whiskey Museum open. The morning's tour guide had actually suggested it as the best alcohol themed tour/venue in town... beating Jamison and Guinness traps... And of course I'm researching whiskey now for that chapter... And it was a fun tour... much I already knew (remember I really am researching this...it's not some kind of code) but a lot of new stuff too. And I did taste... and *cough*... I'm still a wine girl I think!! Something to think about: the first time I went wine tasting outside Santa Barbara, at Bridlewood for those of you keeping track, I liked the wine. I didn't really have to acquire a taste... This whiskey is harming my throat and chest!! I don't get it yet. BUT Twain's favorite drink wasn't whiskey straight. It was a cocktail... (and it was with Scotch...) And I've tried one of those drinks... something called an Old Faithful or something (NOT that) with sugar and lemon. It's a perfectly pleasant drink. And Twain *literally* swore by it as a nightly tonic. Also, Irish whiskey is the best for Irish coffee... that's another potential in for me... ;-) After the tasting I went over to pick up a ticket for the play... grabbed a quick and somewhat mediocre bite at another veggie restaurant... and watched the show. Which was good/fine... but not London theatre. Apparently I am now a snob!!!

Day 2 was almost busier...b/c there was just so much still to do! Trinity and Book of Kells was first. Well, 1st was really my slog through the rain to get to Trinity. My feet and the rest of me were early soaked and stayed that way pretty much for the remainder of the day. I was pretty much a drenched cat in terms of mood, as well. Ooh and I forgot... before 1st I stopped at one of the main independent/used book stores in town and allowed myself to buy 1 book! A Terry Pratchett that I hope I don't already have... I'm so annoyed with plane weight restrictions for luggage! Ok back to Kells... and all the crowds... and me being wicked cranky! My consolation was that I don't think there is ever a good time to go to see one of Ireland's biggest tourist destinations. So I suffered in more or less silence... And the Long room or whatever that's called is really and truly amazing and worth all the waiting. It's a bibliophile's dream room. Better than anything of Belle's... I could live in that room! After lunch I decided to keep on the indoor tourism track on a rainy day. So I did the History/Archaeology museum. The big winners from that museum were the bog mummies (ok... I swear on one that still had a lot of skin and stuff, you could see the mummified penis. Just the skin really at this point... Now that's beyond even the Egyptians!) and all the gold and jewelry. It was so very shiny and pretty. I think I need a gigantic gold necklace made of a big sheet of gold. I don't care where you stand on the silver/gold debate, that would look good on anyone! That was a cool/interesting museum and I'd recommend it! The Dublin National Gallery, tho, my next stop after a quick detour to pay homage to Oscar wild, I would not... Dublin and Ireland in general are known for *many* things, but not their paintings. So I saw a couple of lesser Picasso/Monet/Goya paintings... Meh! By then I was getting peckish again...and needing coffee...so I stopped at the place named KC... and had a fine but not shattering latte. Actually, the best coffee I had in Dublin was at the lunch place. That place just *rocked*! Then, weirdly enough, I had an odd gap in my day's schedule. It was 5 pm and all the museums and indoor places I'd want to possibly visit were closed. But the literary pub crawl didn't start till 7:30... Tricky! I decided... it had finally stopped raining... to wander up to the famine memorial and famine ship. Things I could photograph even after they'd closed. So I wandered up the vaguely grungy Liffey... and not having my London ecstacy as I would have walking along the Thames... and then when I got up to the memorial I knew I would NOT photograph it. Statues representing people... and a dog!... starving to death!! Shudder!! It's really the Irish version of the Holocaust... the potato famine... and it's just too tragic for a selfie or something! So I turned around and wandered back. I decided just to head to the pub where the tour started and grab an early pint and a light dinner. And then the pub crawl started...and I didn't drink a drop the whole time! How is this possible?! But it was fun. It was led by performers, and they acted out bits from Waiting for Godot, for example, and other Irish literary works. Lots of Bloom references. And I was one of a very few people to have actually read Ulysses! Then it wasn't dark yet or too late feeling, do I wandered back to the touristy part of town and dipped into a pub and listened to some more jam sessions. It was a lovely way to end the day. The tour and the live music made me not be a wet cranky cat anymore! C:

And it just occurred to me that I don't think I wrote about Glastonbury or the Lost Garden Of Heligan... from the Cornwall trip. But now I'm tired... So just know that I went and they were fun!

And next stop: Edinburgh!

Cornwall!

Ah... the complete and total opposite experience of Barcelona...

Barca was loud...but I didn't get the *full* experience because I was there during the middle of the week. On the other hand, I'm in Cornwall... a sleepy quiet rustic place where I'm pretty much camping... on the weekend. Cackle! I know how to do this!!

Fortunately after a first day of rainy foggy chilly weather, Britain seems to be bringing me the sun... and oh my do I appreciate it!!

Yesterday's adventure was just getting here. Flight was an hour late. Spanish football hooligans roamed the aisle in a really odd way. I'm not used to being on flights where people wander the aisle anymore. But they were sitting on the arm of each other's seats and all kinds of just weirdness. Maybe they were just small enough people that such behavior wasn't uncomfortable as everything is for me on an airplane. (Ooh... quick snark interruption of my snark: The exit aisles were entirely populated by old guys. I almost laughed aloud when the flight attendant made her spiel... How would those guys save us?? Of course this was a non issue, thankfully.) Ok Spanish obnoxious guys eventually smacked me upside the head...oh so literally... in their enthusiasm. And now I *really* hate them. How hard is it to *not* hit someone! Also I'd just fallen asleep, so I was smacked awake. Fun times! Then some crap kid started screaming and just never stopped for the rest of the flight. Don't they run out at some point? And the folks did nothing at all. The whole plane was grumbling and annoyed... maybe even football hooligans.

I really miss Southwest! At certain points I was wishing I was taking a night bus again! Dang!!

And I got in trouble with British customs again. I never answer their oddly tricky questions right... which always leads to about a million more questions and the danger of me slipping into *special* voice and being imprisoned in some kind of black site. Maybe I *wouldn't* make the ideal drug mule after all!

Ok now at Bristol airport and checking out my rental car... right on time... I honestly have no idea how that happened. I did add a bunch of time onto the schedule for *eventualities*... and there was a time change... still it was a treat. :-)

And the guy tried to up sell me on an Audi with Sat Nav and such. I would have been tempted too, if it hadn't quadrupled the cost. Oh well... my Hyundai is fine. And it's fun to drive a stick again... tho it's almost too fancy for me. Tech changes on me so much between cars! And the left side isn't too bad. I got that side of my car crazy muddy the first rainy night pulling into a mud puddle off the side of the lane pulling over for a bus to go by on these wee Cornish lanes. That was an adventure. But my paint job seems intact. Whew! And I passed a couple of accidents coming down. It was rainy and *really* foggy... bad combo... but I'll always be grateful that I learned to drive in Boulder Creek. Fog, inclement weather, windy roads... these are in my muscle memory!!

Ok... so now I'm actually IN Cornwall. The place I remembered as my favorite part of the UK... The part of the UK most like CA. Does it maintain that place after a day of driving around these little lanes?

Well, the cliffy beaches near the hostel are definitely NorCal. Today I went to Newquay... somewhere I never got last time and always wanted to... and it was all sandy beaches and surfers... AND Aussie accents!! I'd forgotten that's another reason I enjoyed this part of the world. It's all Aussies on their gap year!! Surfing! Swoon!!

And I visited this hippie version of Kew Gardens today as well... where my hostel is located... The Eden Project. It's this biosphere project built on a gutted part of the country that had been mined and abandoned. Literally post Apocalyptic. And these people decided to make it green and beautiful again... and zero emissions... carbon neutral... make it an experiment of if this *could* be done for real with people living in these kinds of sites. Would it work? It's all very hopeful and forward thinking!

There are two biomes: tropical and Mediterranean. The tropical one was especially interesting. Could a community use these biomes to grow their food even in other kinds of real climates? There were banana trees and peanuts and rubber and all kinds of stuff! Rice of course... The Med one felt very comfy... just like home. They even had CA poppies growing in the CA section! It is seriously up there with Kew Gardens on the interest level... just in a completely different way! This is most definitely NOT an English garden! C:

My onsite hostel is similarly hippie. I'm staying in a converted shiping container. The room is small and basic... but totally clean and the bed is perfectly comfy. (Indeed last night I feel asleep almost as soon as I lay down...almost *too* comfy! This all says something tragic about my bed at the London flat... where I could feel the springs in my ribs and sometimes was driven to whimper. NOT comfy!!)

My big goal for tomorrow is to brave the windy lanes again to visit Tintagel... the supposed birthplace of King Arthur. Another place I never made it to last time and have always regretted. That's the main thing and I really don't have a sense of how long that will take. But if there's time I'll try also to go to a nearby garden that is apparently connected to the Eden Project: the Lost Garden. Such romantic names!!

I'll let you know... C:

Barcelona!

Ok... I've been lazy and awful and am just getting around to writing about Barcelona here at the end of my trip! As I'm doing a round of laundry, no less!

So I took the dread night bus to get here... from Paris no less... but oddly enough it wasn't that bad. My bus from Lancaster to London was worse... And I *did* get to pass through some lovely French country in the early morning... Think lots of vineyards and rolling hills! And then we were in Barcelona! I can now say I've been through Basque country... tho I wouldn't know it from anywhere else...

The Airbnb is a lovely place with just small drawbacks. The couple here is clearly using this as an income source... so there are nice touches everywhere. But at the same time some things are missing that could be obvious. A soap dish... a shower door to keep out all the water... that kind of thing. (Once again I'm impressed by the guy who renovated my house... I have the same kind of half wall shower... but the water stays *in* the shower very well. Here half ends up on the bathroom floor and even bedroom floor. Also I have a rain shower... Omg signs of shower home sickness?)

And of course they were waiting for my call and I didn't know I was supposed to call... so that was fun for about a half hour! All in all, tho, the place has been great! Nice bed and pretty private. And I've really only used it to fall down in at the end of the night until this evening's laundry chore...

And omg you should see the architecture here!!

Ok... so what have I actually been doing here... other than just enjoying the pleasant weather... (rained in Paris the *whole* time AND it looks like it's going to be raining in the British Isles too... SIGH!) So I *really* enjoyed this weather... oh so much! Or mucho mucho!!

Still... I did do stuff. Day 1: Picasso Museum, a veggie restaurant called Catbar (it's fun with felines here - especially as Cat is a fun pun on Catalunya and such), and in the evening a late showing of FF7 en Español! That was a blast btw! I understood a good chunk of it... and it was almost more car porn than the first time watching bc it was a more visual experience...

Fun lines: Él no juege por tus reglas... No tengo amigos. Tengo familia... La calle siempre ganá...

Day 2... I decided this day I would *walk* oh heaven help me! This was my Gaudí day. I saw Park Güell and Sagrada Familia and several other apartments he'd designed... tho I didn't go into these others... and a fountain at the Park Ciutadella... Oh my how I love Gaudí! His stuff is all so happy and full of fun! You'll see in the pics...

I also found a fun (actually a fabulous) English language used book store that I returned to on day 3... and I had tapas, tapas, and more tapas... even tried some vermouth as it turns out that's the Catalan specialty. Who knew?

My evening was spent with a coffee and chocolate croissant at a café right on the playa in Barcolenta... Swoon!!

Day 3: so I don't know if you got a sense of how much walking I did yesterday... A LOT... feet falling off blisters occurring and popping kind of walking (you're welcome for that).

So today I wanted to chill a bit while still seeing stuff...my last day here and all... AND I had to do the flipping laundry with flipping European washing machines and dryers that take 9 hours to do one load. So I had to keep running up to the flat to check on it... I had a bit of a leash today...

But that wasn't bad either. I wandered the market on Las Ramblas... The crazy High Street shops at Plaza Catalunya... A few more Gaudí buildings... the beach and the beach again... and just wandering around the teensy alleys in the Barrio Gotic where I'm staying. Wicked!!! And I ate... and ate... and ate... More tapas, goat cheese, veggie paella, and a bit more vermouth. And one more espresso and chocolate croissant...

And that leads us to now...mas o menos...

And the never ending laundry...

And then the packing... so now you're *really* jealous of me! Just wait till tomorrow... I'll get to report on wrong side driving!

Paris pt 2 and Disney!

So day 2 of Paris was my day to see a museum: I chose Musee D ' Orsay over the Louvre for this visit. C: Unfortunately it's a holiday weekend here so the rest of the world was also visiting the museum on a rainy day. There was an hour wait and then the place was crazy crowded... but at least I *love* these artists and works. So it was still lovely! A few cat pics of course!

Then I met up with Rachel and Chris and hit up a French market... so atmospheric of course! Next Shakespeare and Co Bookstore where Chris bonded with the resident cat. (Perhaps the best thing about Paris is how much they libe their cats!) We then wandered back up for dinner and drinks and just hanging out. But we tried to make an early night of it in prep for Disney the next day!

So yesterday...all day really...was Disney magic! In the rain... ;) The rain in the morning was a downer for sure... BUT it seriously cleared out the park! Rach and I never were longer than 20 minutes in any line! Takeaways were that Haunted Mansion has this whole wild west ghost element towards the end... Pirates was lovely... Possibly even more so than in CA and it was really long... maybe longer than in CA. And it was fun to go on rides like Star Tours and Small World that haven't been renovated yet. Kind of nostalgic!

The other park... Disney Studios... wasn't as great. There was a new section about Ratatouille that we were excited about... but so was the rest of the world. The ride was a 2 hr wait... the restaurant was sold out for the day... and it was so busy... and of course this corresponded with us being starving... so we started to get grumpy then. Couldn't have the fun restaurant we wanted we ended up at a whatever cafeteria and at least found somewhere to sit and eat and relax a bit.

Then we did a couple of rides and shows and such... but we really weren't feeling Disney Studios... and probably a multi pass isn't necessary in my opinion.

We were still trying to kill time until the Nighttime show at 10:30... so we did Disney village just in time for a happy hour and had some cheap wine... then saw a Disney version of busking... basically Cirque du Soleil for free! Then grabbed a Starbucks Coffee mostly for the wifi. And back to the original park.

We'd done it all once already... and we'd successfully gotten it to after 8pm... so we were pretty chill on return. Did Star Tours again, did Buzz Lightyear for the first time, and then Haunted Mansion again before grabbing a *quick* snack and getting our spot right before the show...

It was really amazing what they could project against the castle. (Poss my fave of the Disney castles,  btw.) It won some Paris award for best entertainment for over a million euros... 20 minutes of spectacular...

And then a long and weary but not bad hour home... and Sleep!!!

Today I'll slowly see a few more things... but no pressure... before heading to Barcelona!

Our Disney rides and such:
Haunted Mansion
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril
(where we accidentally ride a mondo roller coaster and almost die! )
Pirates
Star Tours
Sleeping Beauty Castle
Taniere du Dragon (dragon in a cave)
Small World
Fairy tale cruise
(Storybook Island in French... a team fave!)
Peter Pan
And we saw a Goofy garden party show twice during all this!

Ate in Studio 1
Armageddon special effects (weren't fans)
Tower of Terror (Rach waited for me as I went on quickly)
Cinemagique

Disney village: happy hour in a castle
Acrobatic show... with hula hoops
Starbucks!

Star Tours I I
Buzz Lightyear
Haunted Mansion I I
Disney Dreams Spectacular (or whatever that's called)

The *long* but happy ride home!