The other day, Britt, her boyfriend Chris and I got together for coffee and then we hiked up to the old fort tower on the hill in Vélez-Málaga (the adjoining town to mine). Here are some of the pictures from that day.
You can kinda see the ocean on the horizon at the top left of the photo.
The mountains to the west of Velez
At the tower fort
The mountains to the East of Velez. It had snowed up there the day before.
Also, last week was "el classico"- the matchup in soccer (fútbol) between Real Madrid and Barcelona, the two best teams in the league. We all went to a local bar to watch the game.
12/31 Early early early this morning, Robby and I woke up, went to the airport and flew over to Dublin. There wasn't all that much open due to it being New Years Eve, but they couldn't close everything. We stopped by the Abbey theatre to buy tickets to that evening's show and we walked down the river to the Guinness storehouse since it was still giving tours. It was the old Guinness storehouse, but now it has been converted into a guinness museum and just gives tours there. I came into this museum knowing practically nothing about brewing beer, but I think I have a little bit of a better understanding now. At least now I understand what people mean when they talk about "hops."
With entrance to the tour, you get one free pint of Guinness, which if you wanted to, you could pour yourself. So and Robby and I went into the room and were taught how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness and enjoyed a pint in a comfortable little lounge. I even have a certificate that I did, after all, pour the perfect pint.
After the Guinness Factory, we went to see the matinee performance of an Irish Translation of The Governer Inspector at the Abbey Theatre. The Abbey Theatre is Irelands National theatre, dedicated to doing new works only by Irish playwrights, keeping the storytelling tradition of Ireland alive. Although this play wasn't originally Irish, I think because it was translated by an Irish playwright, it counted. Unfortunately I was extremely tired due to hardly any sleep the night before, but I still enjoyed it. I won't go into my review of the show here, but all in all it was a good feel-good play, but it wasn't something to rave about theatrically. Still really glad I got to experience seeing theatre at the famous Abbey Theatre though.
Then, at night, Robby and I rang in the New Year together in Ireland.
It was an amazing amazing year, and I hope that the next one continues to be filled with happiness as well. I mean, I am starting off the year in Ireland, that's gotta count for something.
1/1/12
It's the New Year!! 2012!! This morning Robby and I did our fair share of sleeping in, but not too much so as to miss out on being in Ireland. Like I said, since it's around the New Year, much is closed, but we still managed to walk around the city, see the outsides of cool buildings and churches, and walk around a neat park.
Tonight, we were cooking in the kitchen in our hostel and met a girl from Canada, two guys from the US, and two guys from Germany. So after dinner, we headed out for a drink at a nearby pub for a little bit and then called it an early night.
1/2
This is the trip of early mornings. With our hostel stay, we got a free bus tour of Glendalough, the Wicklow Mountains and the old Irish capitol, Kilkenny. Glendalough means valley between two lakes. We had a while to just walk around the woods and the lakes and also explore the old monastic ruins there. Robby and I took a wrong turn on one of the lake paths, so we ended up getting really turned around (Sorry Robby!) but we still had plenty of time. The we went through the Wicklow Mountains where scenes from Braveheart and P.S. I Love You were filmed. On the top of the Mountain we got out of the bus for a photo opportunity and I walked on my first (and probably only) snow of year. The Bus driver was very chatty and had great stories to tell. He also had a great sense of humor which made the tour thoroughly enjoyable. For example, apparently at one point, we didn't run over roadkill...we ran over a dead leprechaun. And when we went over the bridge where a scene from P.S. I Love You was filmed, all the girls were supposed to let out a very long "awwwww". Then our final stop was in Kilkenny which is the old Irish capitol city. There's an old Irish castle, a couple of abbeys and churches, and the Smithwicks storehouse. On the drive back to Dublin, there was some great traditional Irish music playing and the bus driver taught us some of the songs. This was a particular catchy one:
At one of the "lough"s of Glendalough
The old monastic settlement there
The view from the bus over the bridge from P.S. I Love You
The castle at Kilkenny
Later that night, back in Dublin, Robby and I met up with our friend Julia and her friend Amanda. They had just gotten into Dublin that day for their Christmas vacation travels. We went out to The Temple Bar area and had a few pints. We ended up in The Temple Bar which had an amazing atmosphere (along with the overpriced drinks). There was a live irish band in there and I heard a few of the songs that I had heard on bus ride. Even though the drinks were definitely overpriced at that bar, I absolutely loved it. The atmosphere was amazing.
1/3
Early early this morning we got up to take a bus to the airport to head over to Scotland. The wind was really bad that you could feel it shaking the bus and walking into the airport, it was hard to walk in a straight line. But our flight took off anyway for the longest flight of my life, even though it was only like 45 minutes. The plane started its descent, but then had to pull up and circle around in horrible turbulence because the wind gusts on the ground were too much. I thought we were either going to die trying to land the plane or we were going to have to fly to another country and wait out the storm. We did land eventually. Not the smoothest landing of my life, but it was smooth enough to get us safely into Scotland. Our plans this day were to take a train up to Glasgow and spend our first day in Scotland with our friends Aileen and Steven. We're at the train station, and a message comes through the loudspeaker- all trains are cancelled until further notice due to averse weather. So we figure we'll just get a coffee and wait for it to get better and get on the first available train. Well...the roof of this train station is made of glass, so within an hour of us getting there, the whole train station was being evacuated. We didn't really know where to go, so we found a map and got ourselves to the bus station hoping for some luck there. But the wind was so bad that even the bus routes were suspended. We had nowhere to go and the weather was really too terrible to do any sort of sightseeing. So we just sat in the bus station waiting for busses to start running again. Luckily we didn't have to wait much more than an hour and a half and we finally got on a bus on our way to Glasgow. When we got there, we had a late lunch/early dinner with Aileen and her friend Maria and then went back to Aileen's house. After such a stressful and long day, we just stayed in and ordered pizza and watched movies. It was perfect and just what we needed.
1/4
After getting up and getting ready, we headed back to Edinburgh for the day. While there we went to the Camera Obscura which had a lot of really cool and fun optical illusions and we also went to the Edinburgh Dungeons. There we learned about Edinburgh's creepy history full of cannibals and ghosts. I, not being able to handle myself very well in scary situations, held tightly onto Aileen's hand, and she, not being able to handle herself very well in scary situations, did the same. I'm sure it was quite a sight, seeing the two of us jump at every little thing. Robby got some good laughs out of it I'm sure.
1/5
Today, Julia and Amanda came into Glasgow after their trip in Dublin and Aileen and Steven showed us all around Glasgow. We went to the science museum, which was very hands-on, and we just played around in there for a while. It reminded me a lot of when I went to the Franklin Institute and the Museum of Play with Heather and Brandon. Loads of fun.
Then we met up with Aileen's brothers and some friends to have delicious burgers and then we went back to Aileen's house to get ready to go out for the night.
1/6 Today we all slept in, which was great after having so many early mornings on this trip. And then Robby and I went into Edinburgh. First we checked in at our hostel, since the next day we were flying out of the Edinburgh airport and then we walked along the Royal Mile, got some dinner, and then just walked around more parts of the city. We headed down a random street and on that street we passed one of the pubs I went to when I was here for the theatre class during the Fringe Festival. The whole city looks so different without the tents and the crowds. I got used to finding my way around the city using Fringe Festival markers, so coming up on this pub randomly surprised me, but it was a nice surprise. We met up with Amanda and Julia for coffee at the Elephant House where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter. We didn't stay out too late because we wanted to see more of the city during the daytime.
1/7 It's the day of our departure, but our flight doesn't leave until the afternoon, so we wake up early, check out the church and then go to the Edinburgh Castle. There's so much to see within this castle and the history is so interesting. It has never once been taken over forcefully, only surrendered. And I'm not surprised. It sits on top of a huge hill with many layers of walls and many defensive structures. We spent pretty much the whole morning walking around the castle and then we headed to the airport and got on our flight back to Málaga.
This was a wonderful Christmas break and I loved everywhere I went. It's good to be back in Málaga though where the weather is warmer and the days are longer.
(Disclaimer. This post is very long and it's been taking me a while to write, so I have divided it into two parts. This is Part 1)
My two week Christmas vacation was filled with both ups and downs, but ultimately, it was a great adventure.
Since it was about two weeks long, I'll try to just give highlights.
12/26
To start it off, Robby and I flew out of Málaga on Monday morning, the day after Christmas. It was a very comfortable flight and we landed in London Luton airport at around 9pm. Going through immigration took forever since they only had one person checking all of the non-EU or UK passports and since it's England, they drill you with many questions each. On our flight, the guy next to us informed us of the strike that was currently going on in England. Since it was Boxing Day, all of the train drivers were going on strike since they did not get their requested triple pay and extra holiday. This of course affected us since the majority of people going to Luton, usually take the train into the city. But today, everyone was forced to take the bus. Which leads us to the next line. The bus queue. They told us it would probably be about an hour and a half, but luckily they were quick with bringing the busses around so it probably only took an hour. Unfortunately, we only had directions to our hostel by way of the tube, so we took this bus all the way to the central bus station to figure out how to get to our hostel. We hopped on the night bus and took it all the way to the end of its line and finally got to our hostel after 2am.
12/27 We had to sleep in the next day, but we also didn't want to waste our first day in London. So we got up fairly early and took the bus into the city to start our vacation. We walked along oxford circus down to Trafalgar square. There were tons of people on the streets since it was still so close to Boxing day, all the stores had their big sales. We saw Big Ben and the London Eye and then I went into Westminster Abbey and a guided tour took me along the huge church. It was really quite fascinating. My favorite part was probably the "poet's corner" where they have a statue to Shakespeare and a lot of writers and musicians are buried. Another great part was at the end of the tour where they have buried an Unknown Warrior, whose body was brought back from France. His grave reads as follows:
BENEATH THIS STONE RESTS THE BODY OF A BRITISH WARRIOR UNKNOWN BY NAME OR RANK BROUGHT FROM FRANCE TO LIE AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS OF THE LAND AND BURIED HERE ON ARMISTICE DAY 11 NOV: 1920, IN THE PRESENCE OF HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE V HIS MINISTERS OF STATE THE CHIEFS OF HIS FORCES AND A VAST CONCOURSE OF THE NATION THUS ARE COMMEMORATED THE MANY MULTITUDES WHO DURING THE GREAT WAR OF 1914-1918 GAVE THE MOST THAT MAN CAN GIVE LIFE ITSELF FOR GOD FOR KING AND COUNTRY FOR LOVED ONES HOME AND EMPIRE FOR THE SACRED CAUSE OF JUSTICE AND THE FREEDOM OF THE WORLD THEY BURIED HIM AMONG THE KINGS BECAUSE HE HAD DONE GOOD TOWARD GOD AND TOWARD HIS HOUSE
Then after getting some coffee, Robby and I went back into Westminster Abbey to partake in the Evensong service. The choir sounded magnificent and the service was lovely. Definitely a highlight of the trip.
Tonight Robby and I made dinner in our hostel's kitchen. While we were there, our roommate in our dorm room came in to cook also. He's from Barcelona, so we were all speaking Spanish together along with a couple other people. Robby and I sat down at one of the tables to eat our meal and one of the other people asked if he could join us since all of the other tables were taken. We got to talking and we come to find out that he isn't actually from Spain as we had assumed since he was speaking Spanish. He's actually Italian. And he actually made the exact same assumption about us. He thought we were Spanish since we were speaking in Spanish. But it was really cool to have that common language even though it wasn't any of our first language.
12/28
Today we did more touristy things of course. We saw St. Paul's Cathedral, we walked down the Thames river past Shakespeare's Globe and the National Theatre where we saw some fun street performers in that area. Then we checked out the Camden market where there were a lot of cute little stalls.
But the highlight from today comes in the evening. During the day, Robby and I "shopped around" for day-of tickets to see Wicked. We got some cheap tickets even though they were crazy high up and far away. The cast was amazing. Although I had already seen it, it was great to see it a second time. I caught a lot more of the foreshadowing and the characterizations. I also was able to focus on more of the background activity such as the outstanding choreography. Coming back from Wicked, I just had this craving to start choreographing a musical or something again.
12/29 Today we got up early to catch our train to Bath. Bath is a small city outside of London situated on an old Roman bath that draws water from the local hot spring. Robby and I walked around the city, saw some of the architectural sights and then went to the Roman Baths. It was cool to be walking around in such an old and historically important place.
12/30 Today's highlight: Stonehenge. This morning we got up early and took a short train from Bath to Salisbury. Once in Salisbury, we got on a bus tour that took us around Salisbury (although this was very small), through the countryside to Stonehenge and then on the way back, stopped at Old Sarum. Stonehenge was very impressive. Although you couldn't really get near the stones, there was a really cool audio tour that talked about the different stones, the different stages of Stonehenge and the different mysteries surrounding the structure. What really impressed me was that the stones were alligned so that you could tell the month depending on between which slit of rocks the sun rose and set, going between the winter and summer solstice. On the way back from Stonehenge, we stopped at Old Sarum which was the old castle fort of William the Conqueror that existed before the city of Salisbury. There wasn't much left of it since the rocks of the castle were recycled to build the city, but it was still an interesting old site.
The last big stop of the day was visiting the Salisbury Cathedral. The Salisbury Cathedral has the tallest church spire in all of England. So tall, that the supporting beams buckled a little bit and the spire is now crooked. It's not very noticeable, but still a cool fact.
England has been incredible and it really is nice to be in an English speaking country again. This was our last day in England. In the next post I'll recount our journeys through Ireland and Scotland.
Early early early this morning, Robby and I woke up, went to the airport and flew over to Dublin. There wasn't all that much open due to it being New Years Eve, but they couldn't close everything. We stopped by the Abbey theatre to buy tickets to that evening's show and we walked down the river to the Guinness storehouse since it was still giving tours. It was the old Guinness storehouse, but now it has been converted into a guinness museum and just gives tours there. I came into this museum knowing practically nothing about brewing beer, but I think I have a little bit of a better understanding now. At least now I understand what people mean when they talk about "hops."
Today we all slept in, which was great after having so many early mornings on this trip. And then Robby and I went into Edinburgh. First we checked in at our hostel, since the next day we were flying out of the Edinburgh airport and then we walked along the Royal Mile, got some dinner, and then just walked around more parts of the city. We headed down a random street and on that street we passed one of the pubs I went to when I was here for the theatre class during the Fringe Festival. The whole city looks so different without the tents and the crowds. I got used to finding my way around the city using Fringe Festival markers, so coming up on this pub randomly surprised me, but it was a nice surprise. We met up with Amanda and Julia for coffee at the Elephant House where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter. We didn't stay out too late because we wanted to see more of the city during the daytime.
It's the day of our departure, but our flight doesn't leave until the afternoon, so we wake up early, check out the church and then go to the Edinburgh Castle. There's so much to see within this castle and the history is so interesting. It has never once been taken over forcefully, only surrendered. And I'm not surprised. It sits on top of a huge hill with many layers of walls and many defensive structures. We spent pretty much the whole morning walking around the castle and then we headed to the airport and got on our flight back to Málaga.
We had to sleep in the next day, but we also didn't want to waste our first day in London. So we got up fairly early and took the bus into the city to start our vacation. We walked along oxford circus down to Trafalgar square. There were tons of people on the streets since it was still so close to Boxing day, all the stores had their big sales. We saw Big Ben and the London Eye and then I went into Westminster Abbey and a guided tour took me along the huge church. It was really quite fascinating. My favorite part was probably the "poet's corner" where they have a statue to Shakespeare and a lot of writers and musicians are buried. Another great part was at the end of the tour where they have buried an Unknown Warrior, whose body was brought back from France. His grave reads as follows:
Today we got up early to catch our train to Bath. Bath is a small city outside of London situated on an old Roman bath that draws water from the local hot spring. Robby and I walked around the city, saw some of the architectural sights and then went to the Roman Baths. It was cool to be walking around in such an old and historically important place.
Today's highlight: Stonehenge. This morning we got up early and took a short train from Bath to Salisbury. Once in Salisbury, we got on a bus tour that took us around Salisbury (although this was very small), through the countryside to Stonehenge and then on the way back, stopped at Old Sarum. Stonehenge was very impressive. Although you couldn't really get near the stones, there was a really cool audio tour that talked about the different stones, the different stages of Stonehenge and the different mysteries surrounding the structure. What really impressed me was that the stones were alligned so that you could tell the month depending on between which slit of rocks the sun rose and set, going between the winter and summer solstice.
On the way back from Stonehenge, we stopped at Old Sarum which was the old castle fort of William the Conqueror that existed before the city of Salisbury. There wasn't much left of it since the rocks of the castle were recycled to build the city, but it was still an interesting old site.