Dublin

The next day, St. Stephen's Day, I caught a mid-day flight from Stansted Airport, north of London to Dublin. Throughout the journey, I flew with an Irish airline called Ryan Air. For those that do not know, Ryan Air is the least expensive airline in Europe, but as the saying goes, "You get what you pay for." Ryan Air is a glorified bus line. Ticket prices are next to nothing, but you are charged for every conceivable thing, from the checking of baggage to overweight carry-ons to checking in at the gate to the toilet on the airplane. Thus I was very relieved when in Stansted my airline-allotted one bag was exactly 200 grams under the weight limit for carry-on luggage.

I arrived in Dublin that evening and easily found my hostel (here I am going to make a second sidenote to say that my ability to find my two hostels and one hotel in the massive urbanity that is London and Dublin is proof enough that God was taking care of me throughout my travels). I checked in at the hostel and went out to find a meal. I was horribly disappointed to discover that Dublin is more expensive than London, a city notorious for being expensive. I settled for a sandwich from one of the local grocery stores and determined to eat a large breakfast the next day at the hostel.

To be honest, my first impressions of Dublin were not positive. Dublin is truly everything you imagine it to be, the good and the bad. My first night I mostly encountered the bad when I wandered in the wrong direction and walked along what appeared to me to be a prison wall and passed small gangs of ruffian children. I did receive some jeers and unwelcoming stares, but like most places, if one squares his shoulders and walks with a purpose, it is unlikely that he will receive anything more aggressive.

The next day, I was so exhausted after ten days in London that I decided to spend the day in my hostel room. Everyone who had been staying in the room from Christmas had left that morning and everyone due to arrive for the New Year's celebrations had not yet arrived, so I was able to rest, do laundry and reorganize my luggage that afternoon.

As I said, Dublin contains all of the good and the bed one expects of the city and despite my early disappointment, I ended up thoroughly enjoying myself there. Dublin does contain plenty of interesting things to see and do. It is home to many museums, several breweries and distilleries, interesting shops, churches and of course, more pubs than probably anywhere else in the world. I saw it all. My first day, I visited the country's oldest and most famous university, Trinity University. I did not see the Book of Kells (a famous and beautifully illuminated Bible from the Dark Ages) simply because I wished to save my money for other things. I did, however, take a tour of the Guinness brewery at St. James' Gate. I intentionally took my time to visit the various sites of Dublin. Still over the course of the next week, I saw much of what Dublin had to offer. I was there for New Years', so I went to prayers at Christ's Church Cathedral on 1 January. It was a small gathering, but very beautiful and impressive to be able to be more than just a tourist in such a beautiful church.

But I came to Dublin for the music. I met my friend Bríd, another fiddle player, the third or fourth day I was in Dublin, and she took me to her favorite music store in Dublin to inquire about where to find the best sessions. The clerc suggested Gogarty's in the Temple Bar district, the massive collection of bars and Irish restaurants on the south bank of the Liffey River that Bríd told me she would never walk through after dark when she was a student in Dublin fifteen years ago. Nevertheless, Temple Bar has been greatly gentrified in the last ten years and I found Gogarty's easily. I was greatly disappointed, however, when I entered the bar on the ground floor and heard "YMCA" on the speakers, but I noticed a sign on my way out that indicated a second floor to the bar. I climbed the stairs with anticipation and was relieved that before I even arrived on the landing, I heard the distinct sounds of a fiddle and Irish pipes. I was at home, and out of the nine nights I was Dublin, I spent four of those nights in Gogarty's until the early hours of the morning. The only unfortunate part of all of this was that my own violin was still in France; it was more than a little painful to be stuck outside of the circle of musicians.

By the end of my trip, I was anxious to return to France, so I was content to check out of my hostel at 11:00 am on 4 January. My plan was to bum around Dublin for the rest of the day and then catch the last bus from Connelly Station in central Dublin to the airport and pass the night reading and potentially sleeping in the Dublin airport until my 6:00 am flight. Unfortunately, Dublin airport closes overnight, a problem I had thought about but hoped would not occur. I had already passed through security, but after midnight, all of the airport employees except the cleaning staff disappeared. The only real problem with all of this was that the airport also turned off the heat during this time. It was roughly thirty degrees outside, and with the large windows and high ceilings, it did not take long for the interior of the airport to fall to that temperature as well. There was one other passenger in the airport, a German man who happened to be on my flight to London. Being alone together, we talked for several hours, mostly about European politics but also about travels and how uncomfortable the chairs in the Dublin airport were, all the while receiving confused looks from the cleaning staff who later told me we were not supposed to be in the airport. I did start to worry when around 2:30 that morning it began to snow. Like Western Washington, when it snows in Ireland and the UK, everything shuts down. I was very worried I would not make my connection in Stansted back to Pau since I had less than two hours between flights. Fortunately, the snow stopped at about 4:00 am and very little of stuck. The delay for deicing lasted only fifteen minutes.

I again arrived safely in London, and shortly before my flight, met up with my friends Oliver and Josi who had spent the night in the Stansted airport after returning from their own vacation in Stockholm. We all were fatigued from the lack of heat and sleep in the airports but were happy to be together.

We were all on the same flight and when we arrived back in Pau, their host mother was already waiting for us. She was happy that we were back safely in France and immediately drove us back to their house for lunch. After lunch, I walked back to my own house. I was quite happy to be home and my host parents were almost as happy to have me back when they returned home from work that evening. It was a comforting feeling to be able to shower and sleep that night in what essentially feels like home to me now.

The Bank of Ireland:

St. Patrick's Cathedral:
The well where St. Patrick is thought to have baptized his first converts in Ireland:

Christ's Church:

Trinity College:
Edmund Burke in front of the school gates:

The Campanile:
Graduate's Memorial Building:

Oscar Wilde at Merrion Square Park:

O'Connell Street:

St. James' Gate:

Molly Malone:

The Four Courts:

The Customs House:

Looking west and east along the Liffey River:

Samuel Beckett Bridge:

Jeanie Johnston, one of the ships to carry hundreds of thousands of emigrants to America:

The Linesman:

The famine memorial:

With my friend Bríd:

Gogarty's:

London

I have now been safely and comfortably back in France since 5 January. Classes have restarted and I am very happy to be back to normal life here in Pau. That being said, I still had a very nice vacation. In total, I was away from France for twenty days: ten days in London and ten days in Dublin. Since it is such a length of time to be traveling, my description of my vacation will be split between two entries. This will be the entry for my first ten days, spent in London...

Classes ended for the semester 15 December and on 17 December, I was on a plane on my way to London. I was very excited about my trip because, while I was traveling alone, I had several friends who lived in London and whom I expected to see often. Unfortunately, the trip did not work out as I had planned in that respect as everyone was very busy with seeing family and celebrating the holidays. I was able to spend some time with friends, but not nearly as much as I had expected. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in London.

While there, I saw all of the standard tourist attractions: from the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace to all of the eccentricities and bizarre attractions at Camden Market. Probably my favorite thing about London was all of the museums.

For those that have not been to London, nearly all of the museums are free to the public. One of my favorite museums was the British Museum. I spent a total of eight hours there over the course of two days and I only scratched the surface. Upon looking at the map of the exhibits, I consciously made an effort to only explore the exhibits that interested me the most: the Rosetta Stone, the exhibit of ancient Assyrian art, Egyptian mummies and two or three other small areas. I think my favorite exhibit from the British Museum was that of Assyrian artwork, simply because I had not expected what I saw: the intricacy of the carving and the size of the murals were unimagi

nable; pictures from books and historians' descriptions do not do them justice. It was also a bit overwhelming to turn a corner and suddenly be faced by infamous, five-legged Lamasu from the Balawat Gates. My other favorite was the Tate Modern. There, I gained a new appreciation for modern art, particularly Surrealism, Andy Warhol and Russian Communist propagandist art. Like in the Louvre and the Musée D'Orsay, it was an exciting experience to be standing in front of the art I had studied in classes 5,000 miles away: Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Henry Matisse, René Magritte, Georges Braque. Like the British Museum, I returned more than once.

I spent a total of ten days in London, meaning this was where I spent my Christmas. Before leaving France, I had booked myself I decent hotel in the western London borough of Hammersmith, and I am very glad I did as my hostel was less than ideal. I arrived at the hotel Christmas Eve, and assuming that I would be alone for Christmas, decided to treat myself to a nice dinner that night before finding someplace to attend Christmas services. I had never had proper Indian food, so I chose the nicest that I could find in the area; it was run by a former four-star London chef who had decided to open his own restaurant outside of the city center. I had a delicious meal of chicken curry and despite ordering a few items had I not originally intended to order, everything was delicious and the meal was still quite affordable.

Well, fed, I then ventured out to find a church. I had not seen any yet that day, so I decided to ask at one of the local pubs (the source of all information when anywhere in Great Britain). I was directed to a Catholic Church that was not far from my hotel, the only church the barman knew of. I went to the church directly from the pub in order to see at what time midnight mass started, and as it happened, an earlier mass was about to begin just as I was arriving. Since I was already dressed for dinner and church, and since I thought it would be too awkward to leave then only to return later, I followed the rest of the congregation and took my seat inside. It was roughly at this point that I was puzzled by the fact that the bulletin was primarily written in Arabic. But knowing that this area was had a large immigrant population, I did not think about this problem again until the mass started. Unfortunately, the entire mass, save two verses of a Christmas carol, was delivered entirely in Arabic. Between my previous experiences with Catholic masses and by keeping a close watch on my neighbors with my peripheral vision, I survived.

After mass, I received a text from a friend I had made earlier at the hostel, Lara; she was from Galway, but was spending Christmas with her mother at her cousin's house in London. Her text invited me to eat Christmas dinner with her and her family the next day. I was hesitant to accept as I thought I would be an intrusion, but she assured me there would be more than enough food and the she herself would not know everyone there anyways. I accepted and was instructed to meet her in Sloane Square in central London just after noon Christmas day. As there were no buses nor subways runni

ng on that day, I decided to try to save my money and walk. I knew it would be about an hour's walk, so I left appropriately early. Unfortunately, after half an hour of walking, I realized I was going the wrong way. I had already killed half an hour and was now even farther from my destination, so I had to take a taxi, which was painfully expensive. But I arrived safely and with Lara and her mom, I went to her cousin's house in a comfortable London suburb south of the Thames. I was warmly welcomed and had a lov

ely, Irish-English Christmas. We all arrived back at Lara's hotel at Sloane Square sometime around 10:00 that night, and I walked back to my hotel, this time going in the correct direction.

I arrived safely back at my hotel without any disturbances. Side note: while I do not necessarily advocate walking around London at such an hour, I will say that if such a thing must be done, it is best to do as I did and walk through Chelsea, the notoriously most wealthy borough of London. I arrived at my hotel with the intention of calling my parents and Maren, but unfortunately ran out of money on my cell phone talking with my dad. I went to bed slightly disappointed, but still quite content that I had been fortunate enough to be so warmly welcomed for Christmas day.

In front of my hostel in Bayswater:

Apsley House, former residence of the Duke of Wellington:

Wellington Arch, across the street from the Apsley House:

Buckingham Palace:

Changing of the Guards:

Horse Guards' Parade:

Horse Guards' Road looking south:

Clarence House, residence of the Prince of Wales:

St. James' Park:

St. Paul's Cathedral:

Thames River:

Mounted Police:

Natural History Museum:

London architecture:

church at Pont Street Mews:

The Royal Exchange:

Afternoon Tea:

Royal College of Music:

Royal Albert Hall:

Queen Victoria in front of Kensington Palace in Hyde Park:

Kensington Palace:

At the pond in Hyde Park:

Westminster Abbey:

Big Ben:

Houses of Parliament and Commons on the Thames River: