The E's in Europe, Part 3

Read Part 1 Here
and Part 2 Here

Though we were sad to leave Edinburgh after only two days (of course in hindsight your favorite is going to be the one you plan the least time in!) we were excited to head to London. I was especially excited as I'm a bit of an Olympics nerd, and the Paralympics had started the day prior to our arrival.

Visiting during the games was both a good and a bad thing. Good, um, we were in London just weeks after the 2012 Olympics finished and the Paralympics were still going on. I can't tell you how many times Sean breathed a worried, "What!?!" as I gasped every time I saw another country's workout sweats walking the same street as us. Full-blown fangirl here.

Bad, it was crowded. Everywhere. Even more crowded than a touristy city like London usually is. And we didn't think to try to get tickets to any events before we got there, so they were all gone. And if you don't have a ticket, you don't get into Olympic Park. Instead, you take photos of Olympic Park from the (free) third floor of Marks & Spencer.

For the record, Marks & Spencer is a pretty amazing sight as it is. Housewares, clothes, food, drugstore, even full blown bank. You name it, they've got it. Feel free to bring that one across the pond any day now, Europe. And I noticed some pretty decent prices, too. Except for the fact that they were charging guests to look out their fourth floor windows to see Olympic Park... which is why we stopped at the third floor.

That's just part of the crowd getting off the tube headed to Olympic Park. The fact that we're not really "city" people might have added to the crowd anxiety.

I've always wanted to attend the Olympics as a spectator (there was even a dream in there for a brief moment as a kid that I'd someday end up fast enough to be an Olympic swimmer myself) and I remember saying when London won the bid in 2005 that 2012 would surely be my year to attend... I'd always wanted to go to London, and I'd always wanted to see the Olympics live.

I actually ended up vising London for a day just over a year later in 2006 when I was on my way to Spain. Then I kind of forgot about my need to be an Olympic spectator once I graduated college and realized just how much it would cost me. Years later, we began planning this trip in early 2012 and I suddenly realized my goal just might be a possibility.

Until my grad school finals and graduation didn't quite line up with the Olympic schedule, ha! I obviously didn't end up getting to go to London 2012, but it was enough for me to be in the city around the time of the games, and during the Paralympics. Rio... you're on my short list. Moving on...

Our first day in London was mostly travel and food. We ordered a "Great British Pub Platter" for dinner that night which consisted of fish, chips, scampi, mashed peas, sausage, steak and kidney pie, chicken and mushroom pie, Yorkshire pudding (my personal favorite), pickled onions annnnd gravy. Plus a Pimm's for me and a warm Old Speckled Hen for Sean. Good thing we walked a lot on this trip!

Our second day we headed to Greenwich to the Prime Meridian site. We drop a ball in New York once per year. In Greenwich, they drop a ball every day at 1pm. And lucky us, we were there at just the right time to see the ball drop.

And take some photos of us standing on both sides of the line:

There was also a museum with lots of history about keeping time. We definitely recommend checking it out if you're ever in the area.

After Greenwich, we headed back to Westminster by ferry to see Parliament and Big Ben...

Westminster Abbey,

and Buckingham Palace, of course. You know, the typical touristy stuff that would be a sin to neglect seeing.

And then began our self-guided Harry Potter tour of London. If you haven't read the HP series or at least seen the movies, first, shame on you, and second, bear with me while I share just how much of a geek I can be. First, we headed to Cecil Street, which is rumored to be the inspiration for Diagon Alley:

One of the stores on this street actually sells Gringott's money. There's also a couple of book stores and a place called the Witch's Ball. After a brief stop there, we headed to, where else, the entrance to the ministry of magic from the HP movies...

Though in the movies they dragged a red London phone booth to right about the location I'm standing. We'd had enough walking for the day at this point so we searched for a place to eat, and called it a night.

But the next day we were back at it! After spending the morning at the Tower of London (I'll come back to this later in the post) we hit up Leadenhall Market, where the actual Diagon Alley was filmed for the movies:

And of course, hopped on the tube to King's Cross Station, which the movies show as this building:

Though that's actually St. Pancras station in real life, just across the street from King's Cross Station. Inside King's Cross we visited Platform 9 3/4 for a photo opp:

And with that, we called the Harry Potter self-guided tour of London a success. I'd also like to point out that I'm totally jealous that Sean had the idea to hold his coat so it looked as if he was really running through the wall, and I did not.

So back to what we did the morning of our last day in London. First, we made our way to the historic, original, Liberty of London, another request of mine.

Let's just say I was in heaven.

And Sean had fun wondering just how much inventory in U.S. dollars might be in that massive store (Liberty is NOT cheap... not a single product)

Obviously they carry more than just fabric- housewares, clothes, other crafting supplies, paper goods, accessories, etc. But you know where my interests lie. I managed to purchase a small pin cushion jar full of buttons, and some art to remember our trip by that I'll be sure to share once I finally hang it up in our house!

Then we made our way to the Tower of London. Sean really loved this tour. I thought if it weren't for the tour guide, I probably would have wanted a refund. (It's expensive!) But the tour guide was great, comical, and dressed as a Beefeater:

But that's honestly not a costume. They're really referred to as Yeoman Warders (Beefeater is a nickname) and they actually live on the Tower grounds. In order to become a Yeoman Warder guide, they are required to have served in the armed forces for at least 22 years.

We saw the armory, the Crown Jewels, and some torture devices. The reason I was disappointed was because you had to get on a conveyor belt to view the Crown Jewels for 1.5 seconds in a giant crowd of smelly people. Plus, I was for some reason led to believe that the torture devices abound at the Tower of London, and they most certainly do not.

There's probably five of them in one tiny room (though five is really enough, how did they dream those things up!?) and it takes 5 minutes to see them all. I also was under the impression that torture was the Tower's claim to fame, but in fact, there were less than 100 tortures, and only seven deaths, executed there in all its hundreds of years of operation. It was primarily a royal palace and fortress.

So after the tower we finished our Harry Potter tour, headed to Olympic Park and decided to get ice cream for our last dinner abroad. We stopped at Green Park as we headed back to our hotel to enjoy the last few moments of British daylight and rest our aching feet...

And the next morning, we hopped on over to Heathrow to head back to the good old USA.

The E's in Europe, Part 2

You catch up on the first part of our European adventure here.

The next morning, we had a 6:30 flight to Edinburgh, so we were up very early. It was a quick flight, and by 8:30, we had left the airport by bus and were walking to our hotel amongst the morning commuters making their way to work for the day. That was an interesting process with crowded sidewalks and us with two suitcases on wheels, but we made it, dropped our bags off at our hotel, and headed out to experience Edinburgh.

After a quick bite to eat at a cute restaurant near our hotel called Two Thin Laddies, we decided to make our way to Holyrood Park to climb Arthur's Seat.

Sean and I both agree that Edinburgh was our favorite leg of our trip, especially because of this particular day. Edinburgh is a big city, built on top of what was once a volcano. Holyrood Park just kind of pops up in the middle of all the buildings and streets, a huge green mass of trees, plants, grass, and hills to climb. Well, it really is more of a mountain than hills once you get to the top, you'll see. Our climb took us to the left side of the photo above to start.

Some friends of ours had been to Edinburgh before and warned us that Arthur's Seat was not an easy climb. I think it ended up being about five miles total... but that's my best guess. Anyway, the photo above is how it starts out. Slight incline, flat path, easy. I thought, "Surely our friends must have been exaggerating..."

And then we rounded a corner, and the path started going straight up. Within 20 minutes I was sweating so hard, so fast, that I had stripped down all my layers to just a tank top. And in doing so I managed to get a niiice sunburn. In Scotland. A feat I'm sure only I could accomplish.

Looking around, however, there were plenty of other people taking breaks headed up to the top, so I felt a little less out of shape.

 Especially because, as you can see in the photo above, I managed to climb the whole thing while wearing Toms. Probably not the best choice, but much better than the boots I left in my luggage.

I immediately put my sweater and coat back on once we got to the top as it was instantly cold and windy. We were actually scooting around on our hands and bums to get through a few parts because it was hard to stay standing otherwise.

 We spent a good hour at the top, and while Sean took his time taking photos, I just laid in the grass and enjoyed the warmth of the sun. By that time, we were ready for lunch, and we made our way (much more quickly than heading up) back down the mountain.

We wandered down a few streets and I gasped when I saw the name of this restaurant. The Elephant House, I knew from prior research about Edinburgh, was were J.K. Rowling started writing the Harry Potter series (as they obviously now capitalize on from the sign in the window!) I told Sean we MUST eat here, so we headed into the crowd and ordered some panini. (foreshadowing: this is not where my obsession with Harry Potter ends on this Europe trip...)

Panini plus, ham and English mustard potato chips. If there's anything I love about traveling it's testing out new foods, and this, though packaged and processed as opposed to locally cooked, had to have been one of my top experiences. They sound gross, I know, but I was feeling adventurous, and these chips definitely delivered. Something I also noticed about Scotland was that the tomatoes at every restaurant we visited were excellent. I don't know if that's always true or if we were just there at the right time of year, but I have never had such delicious tomatoes before or since.

I took a quick trip to the bathroom at the end of the meal, and I was floored to see that every last inch of every wall was covered in graffiti. But not just any graffiti. Harry Potter graffiti. My favorite from this little chunk I was able to capture in one corner is "I suspect the nargles are behind it ~ Luna Lovegood." So much fun to see just how many fans those books really captured.

After lunch we decided to keep moving and headed over to Edinburgh Castle. The castle is built on top of one of the highest points in the city (also part of the extinct volcano) so we had more climbing to do to get there.

But the climb (and the entrance fee) was totally worth it. We learned a lot about Scotland that we didn't know, including lots of history of Mary Queen of Scots, who actually lived in Edinburgh Castle. I don't need to give you the entire history lesson, so you can read more about the Castle here.

This isn't the best photo above but I wanted to share it as I was amazed at the size of the fireplaces in the castle. The armor on either side is probably 7.5-8 feet tall from the floor to the tops of their heads.

We were admiring the giant fireplace above when a couple of castle employees asked us if we would be a part of a promotional video for their website. We were asked to look at a guidebook, then look up at the fireplace in awe. Simple right? Well, they didn't like our first take, so we did another. I've checked the castle's website since, and there's definitely another guy doing the same thing we were asked to in one of their videos, but we're nowhere to be seen. I guess our "looking in awe" skills just weren't up to par.

So after packing all of that into a single day, we were ready to check into our hotel. Then we grabbed some dinner, and headed back early to go to sleep. The next day, we headed to the free Museum of Scotland. You could easily spend an entire weekend inside this museum and never get through it all; it's absolutely huge. We stuck to a lot of Scottish history. And of course, the one touristy thing that drew me in in the first place:

Dolly! I was only about ten when Dolly's whole cloning process went down, and at the time I didn't even realized it had anything to do with Scotland. But you bet as soon as I started researching Edinburgh and found out Dolly had been preserved after her death to be displayed in the museum... I had to see it. It was super cheesy, she's inside this rotating glass box with spotlights on her from every direction. But it totally satisfied my touristy needs.

We did some shopping on the Royal Mile, and I dragged Sean into a Tartan Factory tour that turned out to be one giant gift shop. 

Then we headed across the street for a tour at the Scotch Whisky Experience. The tour involved a short ride in a giant whisky barrel that led us through the process of making whisky, and then to the room you see above for a tasting. I do not enjoy whisky so I took half a sip and gave the rest to Sean. The museum houses the largest whisky collection in the world, and the photo above shows only about 1/8 of all the bottles in the collection. It was really cool to see, with some of the bottles dating back to the 1800's.

We wrapped up our second day in Edinburgh with a taste of some haggis, tatties, and neeps (which really weren't bad at all, though we think they may have overcooked the haggis) and a Ghost Tour with a fellow dressed up as a dead William Burke... which was entertaining, but thankfully, free.

Up next, we head to London for the final stop on our European adventure.

The E's in Europe, Part 1

Six months ago today I had completely finished my master's degree. Sean and I had flown back from commencement in Baltimore, and while he had to head to work for a few days, I was scurrying around the house preparing for our trip to Europe. It was a celebration of my graduation and an early anniversary gift to ourselves. Today I am reminiscing, thumbing through out photos, and would love to share our travels with you.

We started our trip in Dublin, Ireland. We landed at 6am local time, which meant we should have slept on the plane... but we were seated in the very last row, right in front of the lavatory. Which means our seats didn't recline, and there was always someone using the lavatory with at least one person in line. Hard to sleep when you get hit by every person who walks by... Sleeping wasn't an option once we landed either, so we left our luggage at our hotel, where we couldn't check in yet, and headed out to find some breakfast.

The barista (do they call them that in Ireland?) must have seen the super sleepy look on my face, so he made a little bear in my coffee. Made me smile. As did the breakfast... I'm a big fan of oatmeal for breakfast anyday, but the Irish know how to do porridge just right! Mine involved quite a bit of butter, so yeah, obviously delicious. 

We sat at Bewley's (off Grafton Street) and tried to come up with a plan to fit all of the places we wanted to visit into our 3 day stay in Ireland. I specifically remember the guy outside playing the theme song from Titanic... you know, the instrumental version of My Heart Will Go On.

We headed over and took a tour at Trinity College to see the book of Kells. It was cool... but packed, and rushed, and you couldn't take photos inside. We thought the library there was the best part (where we also couldn't take photos) and made the entrance fee worth it. Soooo many old, I mean OLD, books from floor to ceiling. You can see what I mean here.

I took the photo above on the Trinity College campus to test out the Camera+ app on my iPhone. Most of the photos I took with that turned out wayyy to over-HDR, but I thought I'd at least share because it does look cool... and you should try out the app.

We wandered the city for a few hours while we waited to get into our hotel room. After a quick nap, we walked a few miles over to the Guinness Storehouse for a self-guided tour. Sean brews beer, so it was interesting to see the differences in what he does compared to a really huge operation like Guinness. The biggest difference... well, everything is BIG. The building itself was about 7 stories high, and though most of it is museum space, it was once the only place Guinness was brewed. Things are a little different now; there was actually a wedding going on while we were there, if you're looking for a venue!

At the very top you get a drink ticket for a free pint. I finished about 1/4 of mine and had to hand it over to Sean. It could take me all day to drink a whole pint of that stuff- it's much thicker than the brews I'm used to. Here's a portion of the 360 degree view from the top:

The following day we took a day trip to Trim Castle. It was an experience to just hop on a city bus and get dropped off 50 yards from a castle out in the countryside. You have likely seen Trim castle before... many parts of the movie Braveheart were filmed here in the early 90's.

 We took a tour inside the tall building you see in the photo above. That's the part that has survived the longest- rightfully so as it was the keep where its inhabitants lived. Trim was built in the late 1100's.

We have a lot of photos of me looking pensive as I sit in various European locations. One of Sean's biggest hobbies, as you already know, is photography. I've learned that it's best to just have a seat, relax, and let him get all of his shots, I usually have no idea he's moved the lens to include me until I go back through the camera later!

But then there are times that he asks me to smile or pose, and that lasts about five minutes tops before I'm ready to move on.

Above is what happens when I am asked to being the subject of too many photos. Off with his head! (I'm sure you know I'm kidding... but just in case... I'm kidding. I don't often get as many opportunities to take photos of Sean as he does of me, so this is a total gem.)

 If you've never been to Ireland, you may have heard that it's very green. I can definitely confirm that this is a very true statement. I don't think there's ever been a single dried out plant in the entire country. Though it rained nearly two out of three days we were there, it's definitely worth it to see so much green!

The next day we took a day trip to Kilkenny through Glendalough (pronounced Glend-a-lock, "lough" means lake) and the Wicklow Mountains.  We made a few stops, one at a very old cemetery and church, where a hotel sat on top of a river. We walked through the cemetery in the rain, up a trail about a half mile, to get to Glendalough. It was a little creepy, but also really cool.

Back on the tour bus, our guide pointed out more places that Braveheart was filmed, THE road/bridge from P.S. I Love you (if you've seen it you'll get what I mean by THE... otherwise, go watch it) and lots and lots of sheep. We made a few quick stops for photos before we got to Kilkenny.

We took our time and wandered the little town, made a quick stop at the castle (above), went in some shops, and ate lunch. We were pretty worn out at this point so we just took our time walking and enjoyed our full bellies. We ate at a pub called the Playwright, and I can still remember just how delicious that sausage and mash was.

This is also where we began the "List of Beverages Sean Tried on Our Trip to Europe." After 3 days in Ireland, 2 in Scotland, and 3 in England, it included 11 varieties of beer, (some of them more than once) and three brands of whiskey. What can we say... it's a passion. Next, we headed to Edinburgh, Scotland. Check back tomorrow to hear more!