Cardiff

I arrived in Cardiff and took a 45 minute bus ride from the airport to the central bus/train station. My hostel was just a 5 minute walk around the corner. I checked in and was put in a 16 bunk room instead of an 8 bunk room, but I was too tired to complain. I settled in and fell asleep for a good 15 hours! I feel bad wasting the evening, but it felt god to recover.
Breakfast was very simple, just toast and cereal. I had a few slices, checked out, and lugged my suitcase towards the castle. It's a pretty cool castle from the outside, but I didn't want to tour the inside and miss my Doctor Who tour. In hindsight, the castle would probably have been better.
Instead, I wandered through Bute Park, the 2nd largest city park in the world next to Central Park. The wall to the park is a bunch of animal statues aptly named The Animal Wall, designed by W.M. Burges. In the park I got ambushed by a marathon, so that was weird. I managed to find a weak spot in the flow of oncoming people and get onto a different footpath.
I still had a few hours before my tour started, so I checked out the pedestrian street area and stopped The Cornish Bakery for 2 sausage rolls. They left me a little queasy but I kept wandering. The street was nice and I was sure I was going to find the Hard Rock in this area. I didn't, and later I found out that the Cafe closed in October. Oh well.
After wandering I headed back to the castle, popped into a souvenir shop to pick up a Cardiff tankard, where I learned that the term "spooning" is probably derived from the Welsh custom of giving loved ones carved wooden spoons. After shopping I waited for people to show up for the tour. . And waited, and waited. Even though I was there at noon, and the tour started at 12:30, it wasn't until 1ish that our guide came and said that the tour started a half hour ago. How did that happen?! I missed seeing some buildings, so it wasn't a huge loss.

The tour itself was a let down. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but thinking through it, I should have put it together. It was basically a group of fans on a bus with an extra as our tour guide, going to random buildings in Cardiff and him pointing out "this is where blah blah was filmed". He had some amusing stories about the cast, and the tour did take us out of Cardiff to some smaller surrounding villages, including a reenactment that reminded me of Mount Vernor. If I had to do it again, I would have stuck with a hop on, hop off tour and done the castle.
After the tour, I grabbed something called a Lamb Oggie for dinner. It was a mix between a shepherd's pie and a calzone. Tasted great. Warm flaky crust with cold lamb and veggies in the middle.
I made my way to the train station and headed back to London to stay the night before taking another train to Edinburgh.
The train ride was great. The English country side was just lovely, and since the sun doesn't set until after 10PM, there was plenty to see.
I got into London, took the Express to the airport, and then a taxi to my airport hotel.

Dublin wrap up

I wasn't in Dublin for very long, and most of it was event related, so I'll just wrap up the experience.
Over the course of 3 days I ate an Irish beef and Guinness pie, a ham starter, and a lamb shank. The lamb shank came back to say hello to my 5 star hotel room floor, the outside of my luggage, and somehow the inside of my luggage, the last night when I foolishly tried to keep up with the HP Ireland team. Black and Vodka destroyed me-turns out Black Currant, while delicious, is an energy drink, and I don't do too well mixing energy drinks with booze. I also threw up in the Glenn's rental car on the way to the airport. My bad, Storage team.

Leaving Ireland proved to be somewhat difficult, maybe because I was hungover. I ended up making a wrong turn because my gate wasn't open yet and I didn't see the sign, so the path I followed was the only open one in the direction previous signs were pointing to.... Turns out I managed to go through immigration back into Ireland. I thought it strange at the time, but I know that some countries require you to go throw passport control to leave, and I thought I had to do this during Christmas in Dublin. Anyway, I go through the check point and find myself in baggage claim. I follow signs to connecting flights and end up at the first security screening checkpoint. Oops.
Lesson learned. Leave the Irish to their own designs!

London Day 4

Today I saw the matinee showing of The Lion King at the Lyceum Theater.
HOLY CRAP! What a spectacle. The customers were insane, the staging was clever, and the theater itself was built with all sorts of cool moving parts. The songs were great (of course)and Zazu stole the show. This is a must see for anyone, it really blew me away.
Afterwards I headed to the event hotel to do some actual work.
The event had a good turn out on both days and I think it went really well.
On to Dublin!

London Day 3

Today started off very lazily. I stayed in bed, still recovering from jet lag apparently, and didn't get moving until the afternoon. The good news is, by that time the fish n chips shop, George's, was in full swing. It was a pretty good lunch, and it did turn out to be the best fish n chips I had the whole time I was in Great Britain. Jaime Oliver knows his staples, I guess.
Doctor Faustus at The Globe was the only real thing on today's agenda, but I got to the area with plenty of time to explore. I walked across the Thames on the Millennium Bridge, just to say I did.
The play was quite good, and Arthur Darville (Roy from Doctor Who) made an excellent Mephistopheles. My only complaint was at the very end, the whole cast did an extreme bizarre curtain call involving the hellish demon puppets. It was inexplicable and kind of ruined the whole mood that play is supposed to put you in.
I got lost for the first time on the way back to the flat because of Tube closures. London is trying to cram 10 years of repair into 2 to get ready for the Olympics. I had to take a different line, and when I got off I thought I was walking parallel to where I wanted to go but was in fact walking perpendicular and missed my intersection. It only turned out to be about a 30 minute diversion, but it was a pleasant night and I didn't mind the walk.

London Day 2

Today I woke up refreshed and ready to go. I started my day with an attempt to eat at Jamie Oliver's favorite fish n chips shop, which is just around the corner from the flat, but they were not open yet.
I had big plans for today- The British Museum, the Grant Zoology Museum, and Wicked at the Victoria theater. The British Museum is HUGE! I spent most of my time in the Enlightenment, Ancient Greece, Assyria, and Egypt sections. After getting burned out on history and culture, I headed up the street to the Zoology Museum.
What a hidden gem! I saw dodo bird remains and the rarest intact skeleton in the world, the Quagga- a half zebra, half horse. It is striped in the front and brown in the back. They also had a mammoth tusk and mammoth hair on display. Very Cool!
Since the Zoology Museum was smaller than I thought, and I was feeling reinvigorated, I went back to the British Museum and stumbled across a history of money section and a room on clocks, both of which are subjects I really find interesting.
After the museum I headed down to Victoria Theater, right across from Victoria Station, to get my tickets for Wicked. Dan met me a little before the show started and we went to find our seats. They were "obstructed view" and we had the misfortune to sit behind a high school couple making out most of the time, but all in all it was a pretty fun experience. Show was quite good and the cast was excellent, but there wasn't really anything spectacular about the staging.
We got out at 10:30 and tried to find some food, but all the kitchens closed at 10. That seemed like a bad plan as they missed the after theater crowd. Dan and I found a "fast food" sandwich place called Pret a Manger that made everything fresh daily. I had a pretty good meatball wrap and a Fanta. Gotta have Fanta when in Europe!

New Post!

I got really lazy and never finished last November's trip. I'll get to that eventually along with Chicago/Minneapolis and Sacramento, but for now I'm going to blog about my most recent trip: a few days in London and Dublin followed by some vacation in Cardiff and Edinburgh.

London Day 1:
I can usually get some sleep on long flights, but sadly this was not the case this time. I landed groggy and tired in London at 7AM, and then had a bit of a nightmare trying to clear customs. I got in a line that then got folded and put at the back of a longer line that wasn't there when I first got off the plane. It took 2 hours to shuffle through and get into the UK.
I had made arrangements to stay with a family friend, and it was very simple to get to her place from the airport. London sure knows how to do public transportation! A quick 20 min. trip on the express train to Paddington, and then a few tube stops to Ladbroke Grove and I was good to go. It was great to see Freya and her roommate is very nice. I ended up crashing from jetlag for most of the morning and afternoon, but remembered to set an alarm so I wouldn't miss the London Symphony Orchestra.
The LSO was great. I grabbed a quick hummus and bread platter before the show.
The guest pianist was a famous Spanish lady, and she played some wonderful Mozart. After the Mozart piece, the Robinsons showed up fresh from their trip to Bath.
After the symphony I tagged along for a late dinner at a place called The Modern Pantry. It was a very interesting place. I ended up having 2 orders of the scotch quail egg appetizers for my meal, and they were pretty tasty.
Afterwards I took the tube back to Freya's and crashed on the sofabed.