I'm sitting here in a rather swanky dorm room (comparatively speaking, of course, with reference to the dumps we've been inhabiting lately) at University College Dublin, and Brian's out at the kick-off session to his week-long intensive summer school. Tonight's attraction: Stanley Fish. Jealous?
So, it's been a while since the last post, and for that reason, I'll bring you up to speed. As planned, our last full day in Edinburgh was spent drinking coffee in the morning and catching up on a little school-related reading. After dropping the laptop and books back at the hostel (pictured below--f.y.i., it's right at the bottom of the steps to Edinburgh Castle... did I say that already?), we met up with our free tour of the city.
About fifty bajillion other tourists had the same tour in mind, so we were split up into three groups of about 25 people each. Brian and I were lucky enough to have Andy, a "canoe-faced" young guy (his words) from Oklahoma with a puzzling Oxfordian-sounding accent, as our guide. He was quite funny, very knowledgeable and warm enough that both of us left with slight platonic crushes on him. The tour took us through many of the places we'd already been, but it helped us understand a bit more about the city, why it looks and feels the way it does today, and what kinds of social narratives are playing out on top of its physical, geographical features.
Near the beginning, we were taken back to Greyfriar's Kirkyard and told a few creepy stories--for example, about the way bodies used to be kept above ground for a few days in "mortsafes" to ensure the people were dead (sometimes, as in the case of Maggie Dickson, they weren't!). We also heard the story of Greyfriar's Bobby (statue below), the now-famous Skye terrier who waited by his dead owner's grave every day for fourteen years before eventually dying on it. Now, people from all over, along with some local kids, come to put sticks on Bobby's little grave. The groundskeeper picks them all up and scatters them around the graveyard at the end of each week, so the whole shebang can start anew.
After the kirkyard, our amorphous blob of a tour group moved from sight to sight, checking out Robbie Burns' house (below), Princes Street Gardens, the Grassmarket area (mostly pubs and shops) and a lot of other things we would have overlooked if left to our own devices. Just like on the highland tour of Skye, the stories were the best part.
Since the tour didn't take us up to the Castle, we decided to take ourselves there once the group dispersed. Looking up from the Princes Street Gardens (formerly the canal where Edinburgh's citizens used to collectively "drop the kids off at the pool", so to speak--read: this is where all the crap went in the 1700s), we could see a path leading up the steep, grassy hill between the us (in the lowest part of the city) and the castle (the highest part). We climbed all the way to the top, only to find out that one can't actually access the Castle from that angle--it was fenced off. We had to climb back down again and approach it from the street. All was not lost, however, as we were able to snap a few pictures of the New Town from way up high. Then, when we reached the castle, we found our way to the little plaque indicating the 12 X 12 area on the castle grounds that is legally Nova Scotia. Needless to say, we're satisfied and we no longer need to come home in September. PSYCH!
Having ended up just across the street from our hostel, we called it a night, under-cooked two store-bought, refrigerated, personal pizzas, and holed up in our room for the rest of the evening, packing and preparing for the next day's travel.
Worried that we might be cutting it too close otherwise, we woke up at 5am, scarfed a few crumpets for breakfast, and hiked down to the bus station. We caught a 6am Citylink to Glasgow, and from there, we hopped on another bus at 7am to Prestwick airport, the hub of Ryanair. If you're unfamiliar with this airline, I suggest you check out their website to get a feel for how kitschy, cheap, and flagrantly funded by advertising they are. That said, we arrived on time, had no problems before, during or after the flight, and aren't too nervous about our return trip with them in a week. The flight from Glasgow to Dublin was only 30 minutes (during which time the airline managed to squeeze in a mind-boggling number of sales-pitches for beer, food, on-board shopping, and so on), and upon landing, we took an hour-long bus ride through the city centre and out to UCD, where we are now. We were famished by the time we arrived here, and scoured the campus for something--anything--to eat. We found a hot food counter in a convenience store and tossed back two panini without tasting them (probably best), and dropped our things off at the residences. We set off again immediately in search of groceries to feed ourselves while we're here, came back, watched Hancock online whilst eating crackers in bed (it's a tradition hearkening back to our Vegas trip), and went to bed.
We woke up this morning feeling like a million bucks--a full night's sleep, a clean, quiet room, a bed that's more than egg-carton foam on plywood (seriously, that's what we slept on at Castle Rock), and ENSUITE bathrooms really go a long way. Stoked abouty the beautiful weather, we got on a bus and set about exploring the city centre, through the posh shops we can't even afford a sideways glance at (below), along the historic, hipster-infested Temple Bar area, and through St. Stephen's Green, a park that, quite frankly, is no prettier or more inviting than Public Gardens in Halifax (SSG is pictured below--you be the judge).
None of the shops were open when we first rolled into the city, so we continued walking along the Liffey, stopping for a cappucino, and carrying on through the brewery district to Kilmainham Gaol, a prison built in 1792, one of the first to take up Jeremy Bentham's "panopticon", used to house political prisoners, other purported "criminals" and even children who'd stolen diapers, played hopscotch when they weren't supposed to, or, like many adults of the day, helped themselves to someone else's food during the famine. The prison fell into disrepair in the early 1900s, until it was restored by a group of volunteers to its present state as a museum and educational tour. Being there was beyond words. The older wing, where prisoners were often crammed into overcrowded cells meant for one person each, was chilling and moving--the halls were dank, musty and cold; the walls were scrawled with writing, some of it legitimately that of prisoners, some of it from other tourists.
The newer wing of the jail--the panoptic part--was equally stunning. The structure itself was breathtaking, and the idea of constant, thorough surveillance and the philosophy supporting it were so cool to think about.
The tour ended in the execution yard, and we were told about the final few prisoners to inhabit the gaol, and a handful of the ones who died there. Needless to say, it was a pretty moving experience... well, unless you were that freaking guy who kept laughing at everything. He must have been nervous or uncomfortable, but come on... really?
We were pretty pooped by the end of the tour--and, as luck would have it, Brian's developing a bit of a cold--so we walked slowly back into the city centre, ducked into a few shops along the way (i.e., I found myself tugged in by a supernatural force called 'shopping', and Brian reluctantly followed or loitered outside), and caught a bus back to the university. We had an exquisite meal of spaghetti from a can and a gourmet salad made of lettuce that had frozen in the too-cold refrigerator, discounted cherry tomatoes and a price-busted cucumber, slathered in that most mysterious of European and British condiments, "Salad Cream".
All of the pictures we've taken thus far (all 500 of em) are now viewable online--just click the icons below. We'll let you know what happens tomorrow, after it happens, of course. Tomorrow.
So, it's been a while since the last post, and for that reason, I'll bring you up to speed. As planned, our last full day in Edinburgh was spent drinking coffee in the morning and catching up on a little school-related reading. After dropping the laptop and books back at the hostel (pictured below--f.y.i., it's right at the bottom of the steps to Edinburgh Castle... did I say that already?), we met up with our free tour of the city.
About fifty bajillion other tourists had the same tour in mind, so we were split up into three groups of about 25 people each. Brian and I were lucky enough to have Andy, a "canoe-faced" young guy (his words) from Oklahoma with a puzzling Oxfordian-sounding accent, as our guide. He was quite funny, very knowledgeable and warm enough that both of us left with slight platonic crushes on him. The tour took us through many of the places we'd already been, but it helped us understand a bit more about the city, why it looks and feels the way it does today, and what kinds of social narratives are playing out on top of its physical, geographical features.
Near the beginning, we were taken back to Greyfriar's Kirkyard and told a few creepy stories--for example, about the way bodies used to be kept above ground for a few days in "mortsafes" to ensure the people were dead (sometimes, as in the case of Maggie Dickson, they weren't!). We also heard the story of Greyfriar's Bobby (statue below), the now-famous Skye terrier who waited by his dead owner's grave every day for fourteen years before eventually dying on it. Now, people from all over, along with some local kids, come to put sticks on Bobby's little grave. The groundskeeper picks them all up and scatters them around the graveyard at the end of each week, so the whole shebang can start anew.
After the kirkyard, our amorphous blob of a tour group moved from sight to sight, checking out Robbie Burns' house (below), Princes Street Gardens, the Grassmarket area (mostly pubs and shops) and a lot of other things we would have overlooked if left to our own devices. Just like on the highland tour of Skye, the stories were the best part.
Since the tour didn't take us up to the Castle, we decided to take ourselves there once the group dispersed. Looking up from the Princes Street Gardens (formerly the canal where Edinburgh's citizens used to collectively "drop the kids off at the pool", so to speak--read: this is where all the crap went in the 1700s), we could see a path leading up the steep, grassy hill between the us (in the lowest part of the city) and the castle (the highest part). We climbed all the way to the top, only to find out that one can't actually access the Castle from that angle--it was fenced off. We had to climb back down again and approach it from the street. All was not lost, however, as we were able to snap a few pictures of the New Town from way up high. Then, when we reached the castle, we found our way to the little plaque indicating the 12 X 12 area on the castle grounds that is legally Nova Scotia. Needless to say, we're satisfied and we no longer need to come home in September. PSYCH!
Having ended up just across the street from our hostel, we called it a night, under-cooked two store-bought, refrigerated, personal pizzas, and holed up in our room for the rest of the evening, packing and preparing for the next day's travel.Worried that we might be cutting it too close otherwise, we woke up at 5am, scarfed a few crumpets for breakfast, and hiked down to the bus station. We caught a 6am Citylink to Glasgow, and from there, we hopped on another bus at 7am to Prestwick airport, the hub of Ryanair. If you're unfamiliar with this airline, I suggest you check out their website to get a feel for how kitschy, cheap, and flagrantly funded by advertising they are. That said, we arrived on time, had no problems before, during or after the flight, and aren't too nervous about our return trip with them in a week. The flight from Glasgow to Dublin was only 30 minutes (during which time the airline managed to squeeze in a mind-boggling number of sales-pitches for beer, food, on-board shopping, and so on), and upon landing, we took an hour-long bus ride through the city centre and out to UCD, where we are now. We were famished by the time we arrived here, and scoured the campus for something--anything--to eat. We found a hot food counter in a convenience store and tossed back two panini without tasting them (probably best), and dropped our things off at the residences. We set off again immediately in search of groceries to feed ourselves while we're here, came back, watched Hancock online whilst eating crackers in bed (it's a tradition hearkening back to our Vegas trip), and went to bed.
We woke up this morning feeling like a million bucks--a full night's sleep, a clean, quiet room, a bed that's more than egg-carton foam on plywood (seriously, that's what we slept on at Castle Rock), and ENSUITE bathrooms really go a long way. Stoked abouty the beautiful weather, we got on a bus and set about exploring the city centre, through the posh shops we can't even afford a sideways glance at (below), along the historic, hipster-infested Temple Bar area, and through St. Stephen's Green, a park that, quite frankly, is no prettier or more inviting than Public Gardens in Halifax (SSG is pictured below--you be the judge).
None of the shops were open when we first rolled into the city, so we continued walking along the Liffey, stopping for a cappucino, and carrying on through the brewery district to Kilmainham Gaol, a prison built in 1792, one of the first to take up Jeremy Bentham's "panopticon", used to house political prisoners, other purported "criminals" and even children who'd stolen diapers, played hopscotch when they weren't supposed to, or, like many adults of the day, helped themselves to someone else's food during the famine. The prison fell into disrepair in the early 1900s, until it was restored by a group of volunteers to its present state as a museum and educational tour. Being there was beyond words. The older wing, where prisoners were often crammed into overcrowded cells meant for one person each, was chilling and moving--the halls were dank, musty and cold; the walls were scrawled with writing, some of it legitimately that of prisoners, some of it from other tourists.
The newer wing of the jail--the panoptic part--was equally stunning. The structure itself was breathtaking, and the idea of constant, thorough surveillance and the philosophy supporting it were so cool to think about.
The tour ended in the execution yard, and we were told about the final few prisoners to inhabit the gaol, and a handful of the ones who died there. Needless to say, it was a pretty moving experience... well, unless you were that freaking guy who kept laughing at everything. He must have been nervous or uncomfortable, but come on... really?
We were pretty pooped by the end of the tour--and, as luck would have it, Brian's developing a bit of a cold--so we walked slowly back into the city centre, ducked into a few shops along the way (i.e., I found myself tugged in by a supernatural force called 'shopping', and Brian reluctantly followed or loitered outside), and caught a bus back to the university. We had an exquisite meal of spaghetti from a can and a gourmet salad made of lettuce that had frozen in the too-cold refrigerator, discounted cherry tomatoes and a price-busted cucumber, slathered in that most mysterious of European and British condiments, "Salad Cream".All of the pictures we've taken thus far (all 500 of em) are now viewable online--just click the icons below. We'll let you know what happens tomorrow, after it happens, of course. Tomorrow.
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| Scotland - Part 1 |
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| Scotland Part 2 + Dublin Part 1 |
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