Oh, the Places We'll Go! Part 2

I'll sum up the rest of our trip this July....the next two days in Ireland, we went to Glendalough, a sweet hiking area in the Wicklow Mountains, and to County Cork where we kissed the Blarney Stone. Turns out the stone isn't actually for luck, but for the gift of eloquence/persuasion. Who knew? After gaining our rightful gift, we flew to Edinburgh from Cork on Ryan Air (of course, we got a picture of Ryan in front of the plane...and if you look carefully, he might look a little bulgy...that's because he's got on four shirts and a fleece to keep his backpack under regulation size).

It was getting dark when we got off the bus from the Edinburgh airport. Dark, cold and rainy. But how much better did that make it when we found our hostel? Not just any hostel, but a CATHEDRAL. For serious. It was a small cathedral renovated into a hostel. Like, they turned the sanctuary into two makeshift hallways with separate rooms. We were only in the hostel to sleep the next two nights, but it was still glorious. Our room's "roof" had a window at the top so we could see the stained glass sanctuary windows. A window through a window.

The next day we left crazy early to take a bus up to Loch Ness...we got there around noon and walked by the water, mostly just touring Inverness, a city along the lake. And did we find ol' Nessie? You better believe it. Turns out she turns herself into a bunch of swans and we got a picture of her transformation. She's quite the trickster. We spent part of the afternoon sitting by the lake, talking about where we saw ourselves in five years...turns out we don't know the future. Lame.

Around 6 we took the bus back to Edinburgh. It was a lot of driving for one day, but like the trains in Ireland, the scenery was well worth it. The next morning we got up at 4 AM. What? And somehow I was totally ok with that. We took an early train to Sheffield, England, where we met up with MARIEEEEEEE. She was getting her Masters there and we crashed in her flat. That day we walked around Sheffield and took a bus to the Peak District where we ate at a pub (Marie and I got a roast that was...freaking...delicious).

The next day we went into London after ANOTHER early morning (5 if I remember). Our first stop was Kings Cross to pose by the trolley outside the Hogwarts Express. Actually, the trolley isn't even between platforms 9 and 10. Super lame. It's just thrown by some random wall in the station. Guess most tourists don't want to pay to actually get into the station.

The next stop, after dropping our bags off somewhere, was St. Paul's. I'd been there before, but had never climbed up the the Whispering Gallery...a mere thousand steps up to the top of the dome where you get a crazy view of London. Back at the bottom, my leg would twitch when I leaned forward in just the right way. I thought it was the coolest thing ever, but Marie and Ryan didn't seemed impressed. Also at the bottom I paid to light a candle with a prayer for mom who just found out about her breast cancer, which I don't think I'd done before, but it really felt more sacred to pray that way.

We then went to see the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham where uniformed people yell at you to keep moving...keep moving...keep the sidewalk clear...come on, people, don't block the way.

And then it was Westminster Abbey. Another place I'd seen, but not fully. Before, I'd seen the outside, but the audio tour was well worth it. We struggled to find Marie after that, but eventually saw her flailing around Big Ben. After THAT we went to The British Museum to see The Rosetta Stone and surprising amounts of Egyptian stuff. There was also a Horse Exhibit with old arrow heads from 8,000 BC. Crazy. I don't know how to handle looking at stuff that old.

Before we left the museum, I messed with my camera to see if it was working again (I brilliantly washed it at Marie's, forgetting it was in one of my pockets). It was splotchy and blurry, but it worked! And throughout the trip, it eventually cleared up more.

Sadly, this was the time when we had to part with Marie. We said our farewells at the tube station. It was awful. I just didn't really think before then how SHORT it would be with her. She left for her train back to Sheffield and Ryan and I made it just in time to see The Mousetrap at St. Martin's Theatre.

We grabbed our bags after the show and took the tube to our hostel. It was around midnight by that point and it was so great to finally get to Hostel #8 and feel like we were coming to a home of sorts. We were cheap when we booked stuff, so stayed in a 21-person room...basically just rows of bunk beds and lockers. But for $10 a night, who cares?

London was still on our list the next day. We made it to The Globe and spent hours at The Tower of London and Tower Bridge. We saw the Crown Jewels and this is just amazing...to keep tourists from standing too long in front of the jewels and blocking everyone, you go on a moving walkway. That's just freaking genius. We took a river cruise back to the east side of London, which got interesting when the heavens themselves burst forth rain. It almost felt like a scene out of Titanic, people fleeing across the top of the boat to get into shelter.

The NEXT day we did a bus tour of Oxford, Windsor and Stonehenge. Super good thing we did a tour since buses/trains don't go very consistently between the three. And our tour guide was sweet...brown suit with a bowler hat and pipe. Interesting guy.

This was now Monday and our last night at #8 Hostel (no alcohol allowed...as they have their own bar). We left at 4:15 the next morning for a bus into London for another bus to Standsted Airport. For a cheap-o flight, they had the most intense screening ever. The lady emptied EVERYthing in my bag. Granted, I had liquids all over the place like a dummy. So this was our flight to Budapest. We had to end up on that side of Europe, so found this cheap-o flight to a country neither of us had been to before. We were only in Budapest about 6 hours, but walked around and ate this plate of potato/cheese/egg goodness with lemonade for just 3 euros. We took a bus that afternoon to Vienna, which we got off around 10 pm. When we got out onto the dark streets of Vienna....we realized we had no idea where to go from there. We had an address, but weren't seeing trains, so cheated at took a cab. But I'm glad we did because we met Mr. Cabdriver who had moved to Vienna from Africa several years ago and still didn't have good friends where he lived. Apparently Austria is beautiful, but not very friendly. So we gave him a good tip and I said I'd talk to everyone in Vienna, telling them to be nicer.

At our Vienna hostel, right away it was so different from the western European ones we'd been at. As in, it was QUIET. There was a girl sleeping across from me from Malaysia (or Mongolia?) who was really friendly, asking where we were going and seeming genuinely sad that we were only at the hostel until the morning.

So the next day we took a train to Salzburg, officially my favorite city ever. Vienna's great and all, but Salzburg is how I actually picture Austria...mountains and old buildings with copper-topped towers. And the apple streudels! Gah. And the hostel THERE was even better than Vienna's. It was a youth hostel, but NICE. Definitely the cleanest we'd seen. When I woke up the next morning, I just stared at the sun coming through the window, marveling at the epicness of our trip. But soon it was off to do more craziness. We rented bikes (apparently everywhere in Salzburg rents bikes) and rode to the Germany border so Ryan could say he'd been there. On the way back to the city, we stopped by different Sound of Music landmarks. The night before, we'd stopped by the fortress overlooking the city and Nonnberg Abbey (where I had an amazing wipe-out on the rain-covered cobblestones).

That night we took the train back to Vienna for one night back at the hostel with the nice Malaysian/Mongolian girl, except she wasn't there when we got back. We just crashed, charged up our camera and Ryan's beard trimmer, then woke up to meet our church group at the Vienna Airport. It was the strangest thing, seeing people we KNEW there. Sure, we'd seen Marie, but that already felt like ages ago. The next 11 days we were in Slovakia, teaching English at the KECY camp. For some reason, the second the camp started I lost pretty much all the gratuitous amounts of energy I'd had during our backpacking. Although, it didn't keep me from enjoying the Slovak campers and getting to know them.

I don't even know what all to write about camp. I spoke one of the nights, which was hard because I so wanted to express how I believe in a loving God even when everything seems chaotic and confusing. I think I communicated that, but it's hard to tell with the whole language barrier. What's more important, though, are the friendships. I really miss them and was sad when we left the city on a train for Prague.

We stayed in Prague for the next two nights with Dave and Angie, then flew home.

And that, my friends, is the summed up version of our trip!