His and Her Stories: October 2014

Ray and I just returned from a week long vacation that had been our way to celebrate being back together after our summer apart. We went to Dublin, Ireland; Edinburgh, Scotland; and London, England.

I feel like it was a miracle vacation because I planned everything myself; all our transfers, flights, accommodations, etc... and there was quite a bit of those too since we flew from Frankfurt to Dublin, Dublin to Edinburgh, took a train down to London, and then flew back to Frankfurt within one week... and yet nothing went wrong! We made every connection, nothing was delayed, there were no issues with tickets or passports, we found every hotel without a problem, and we even saw everything we wanted to see plus some! Seriously, things don't usually go this smoothly. It was eerie and somehow even more exhausting than a trip with lots of glitches... How does that happen?

I'll start at the very beginning. I never want to forget this trip. It was so much fun.

We flew into Dublin late Sunday night and took a bus into the city center. We only had to walk a short distance to our hostel which was located in the Temple Bar district of the city. We enjoyed the walk as we marveled that people were up and stores were open at midnight- nothing like Germany! Our hostel was bright green with wrought iron shamrocks and had not one but two public houses attached to it! Even at midnight on Sunday the bar was packed and cheery jigs and reels met us as we approached. We checked in and went straight to bed so we could be up for a full day.

The best part of Dublin may have been the food. From bangers & mash, Irish beef stew, and fish and chips to the most incredibly thick and delicious soft serve vanilla ice cream we've ever had in our lives. We had all of those on Monday and we took a "Paddy Wagon" tour out to the Wicklow Mountains and Glendalough. It was beautiful to see the countryside of Ireland. The Wicklow area is where the film "P.S. I Love You" was filmed. Plenty of other films were made there too since it is so gorgeous and so conveniently located to Dublin. Glendalough is Gaelic for "valley with two lakes" we took a nice hike there to see the lakes and then enjoyed the ride back through the country into the city. That night we ate dessert in the pub at our hostel and listened to some traditional Irish tunes. Ray surprised me by knowing several of the songs and being quite possibly the only person in the place who could actually sing along.

Our guide said the colloquial name of this loch is Guinness Lake. Surprise?

The last little bit of this season's heather.

First lake at Glendalough.

Second lake. I love how tiny Ray looks in this. Dwarfed by nature.

Old Monastic church.

On Day 2 we walked all through the city of Dublin. We visited the Chester Beatty Library and walked through Trinity College Campus. We saw the medieval wall that protected the city, and some of the viking influences on the city. It was all over too soon and then we were on the bus back to the airport to catch an 8PM flight over to Edinburgh

Edinburgh. By far, was my favorite. Ray says he liked all of the trip, but I know he liked Edinburgh best. We got into the city late again and took the bus to Waverly train station and then walked to our hostel from there. Did you know Old Town Edinburgh is built on an old volcano and hence up a huge hill? Neither did we until we were suddenly climbing 20 flights of steps to get to the Royal Mile! We felt so adventurous making our way through the dark enclosures, up more steps, with our backpacks strapped on tight in old Edinburgh. We walked to the top of the Royal Mile to see the castle all lit up, and then went down one more flight of stairs to make it directly to our hostel.

We followed a similar schedule as Dublin and on our first day in Edinburgh we took a full day tour that took us up into the Highlands of Scotland. It was breathtaking. We stopped at a monument to William Wallace. If you've never heard of him before you should definitely go read up on him. Suffice it to say he was not Braveheart but the movie was based upon him, and his life bore many similarities to the story that we know today as Robin Hood. This guy was hardcore awesome no matter which way you look at it. Hence the monument to him. The bus took us on tiny winding roads, sometimes only gravel covered. We saw several lakes, sorry lochs, Scottish hairy cows, and the Castle Doune. The castle visit was especially enjoyable because that's where much of Monty Python's Holy Grail was filmed. We quoted the movie the entire time as we walked around the grounds; equally pleased with the scenery and the sillyness of it all.

Hiking up to the William Wallace Monument

This castle was where Mary Queen of Scots was crowned.

I found my new favorite dessert: Sticky Toffee Pudding. We went to some tiny one street town in the Highlands and had lunch in a home front cafe. I am convinced I will never eat anything so good ever again in my life.

Feeding the hairy cows!!!

"Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!" Sheesh, this was the best stop.

There was a really beautiful river next to the castle that we explored to. Then we had some fun taking pictures...

Too much fun?

The next day entirely dedicated to exploring every nook and cranny of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh! We took the free walking tour which was incredibly informative and took up the majority of our morning and early afternoon. I learned a whole bunch about Scotland's history, but please do not judge me when I tell you: I learned a whole lot more about Harry Potter and I'm okay with that.

We went to the Elephant House Cafe which is where J.K. Rowling sat and wrote out most of the first few Potter books. We saw the old private school that Rowling imagined placed on top of Edinburgh castle to create Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. We walked through the cemetery where she got several name ideas for her characters. You might say that tour was a dream come true. Plus it walked us right past the Scottish Family History Center which was just down one more staircase from our hostel- so we ended up spending a few hours there too working on our Scottish lines! It was amazing. I had one ancestor whose dates were clearly wrong but I could not find records of him anywhere online. I pulled up FamilySearch.org and the polite old man helping me immediately pulled out a microfilm that had the parish records from the 1700's documenting the birth and baptism of my ancestor. I also learned the profession of this ancestor's father. I was able to get almost all the dates to complete my family member's story. It was so exciting to be able to do all of this in Scotland.

Apparently the religion of this church changed so frequently, that they got tired of changing out the crosses and what not; so they put a golden rooster atop the cathedral and called it a day.

This...

plus

This...

equals Hogwarts!!!

McGonagall - a laughably awful poet of Edinburgh

Moodie

Shut up. Tom Riddle's grave. I was totally geekin' out, guys. I think I embarrassed Ray.

It was like an early Christmas.

The unicorn is Scotland's mascot? Because it's hardy and mystical...?

Edinburgh Castle at night.

Like I said, Edinburgh was great- but it didn't stop there! On Friday morning we took a 0630 train to London. We were so tired and slept mostly, but did manage to stay awake to watch the sunrise over the water and Eastern shore of the United Kingdom. Stunning.

Our train terminated in King's Cross Station. And you know what that means right? Yup, I most certainly did go to Platform 9 3/4! It's all set up so you have to wait in line to get a photo and they doll you up with a Hogwarts scarf and a wand. But I didn't really want that experience, I just wanted to say I'd been there. It's more magical without the commercialism. Die hard Harry Potter Fan problems...

We stayed in an apartment in London- which was actually cheaper than a shared hostel room. Ridiculous, right? The apartment was just up the street from Hyde Park and only a mile walk to Portobello Road. So guess where we went?

"Portobello Road! Portobello Road! Street where the riches of ages are sold!" Yup, I definitely hummed that song the entire time we walked the old street market. They had so many fascinating and beautiful things. We started a new collection there too. Old Peter Pan books. We bought two that were circa 1940's with some beautiful artwork in them. I love the classic Peter Pan style. These books are something I look forward to treasuring for my entire life.

That night we went to Piccadilly Circus and saw Les Mis at the Queen's Theater. Seeing a show is one of our favorite things to do in London now and we're already trying to plan another quick weekend trip to see the Phantom of the Opera.

On the final day of our trip we took a lazy morning and then strolled through Hyde Park. This was of course the only time it rained the entire trip. But no worries, once through the park we had a day of museums to keep us dry. We went to the Science Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Museum of Natural History. The last was probably the best and we didn't allot nearly enough time to it to see everything. But we got through the earth science wing and the dinosaurs, so it was still perfect. We ate a delicious dinner of Indian food that night and then hit they hay so we could wake up at 0300 to catch a taxi to the coach station so we could be to the airport in time.