February

2.24.2006

ROSALIA'S VISIT FROM CANADA!!!

My sweetest friend, Rosalia, came to visit me during her Reading week from U of T on Wednesday. She first went to Phil's Tues morning and came to Leeds Wednesday evening, just in time for my hiking social so I could show her off to all my new friends and give her a taste of the awesome people I have met here.

The next day we headed to Durham, a small medieval town 2 hrs. north of Leeds. It was cold and wet, so we did the only thing possible to entertain ourselves..pierced our ears! haha. I've wanted to re-pierce them for awhile, finally I had the chance and someone to push me to do it. We also both got our cartilege pierced as a 'remembrance' shall I put it, or rather a token commorating our friendship. It didn't hurt..too much! That night we went to the pub with my housemates, low key.

Friday was not exactly wasted, but we did nothing. It was so cold and ugly out that we slept and Rosalia worked on her assignments/resume. That night we went to Marina's for a home-cooked meal and Willa came along as well! It was yummy food and good convo w/ my closest friends, what could be better? After a few bottles of wine, we were off to a "cabarat," but I don't know why it was called that because it was more of a comedy night. We managed to down 2 more bottles on win walking to the club, only to have to sit on the floor in the front because there was no more room. So funny when the performers kept making comments at us and we would cheer the loudest! Good night!

Saturday morning we were off to London, with a few hours to spare to look around Leeds. Rosalia just bought out Leeds with all her present shopping! We met Tom after much trouble and subway closures at Ellie's place (Richard's gf) at Earl's Court. She had a cozy flat with another girl who we didn't meet. The three of us went out to look around London and found ourselves up high in the London eye, looking down at darkening sky above London. It was hard to make out many things, just the parliament buildings and a bit of St. Paul's Cathedral. I was disppointed I could see Tower Bridge lit up from the sky..too many high rises in the way. That night was Ellie's birthday party, so before we got back, we bought some sparkling wine as a gift. Phil also came down to London for the weekend, so you can imagine how surreal is was to have RIchard, Tom, Phil (exchange brits from Toronto last year) and Rosalia all together once again!!!! This time last year we were up north at the chalet in Blue Mountain skiing! It was sooooo lovely having my old friends back together...I got teary eyed, but you couldn't tell because I had pink-eye at the time and my eyes look ridiculously red and gross. We went to a bar/club and danced a bit after the homemade dinner and treats!

Sunday Tom, Rosalia and I toured London...a lot o shopping (again) because Rosalia wanted to bring back gifts. Nearer the end of the day we actually managed to see some of the sights, only then was Rosalia kicking herself we wasted the morning looking at stores. We soon had to say bye to our beloved Tom. Strange how it was so natural to hang out together, like we've known eachother for ages! wow, what a feeling, it's hard to describe. Anyway I was off early Monday to catch my afternoon lecture, but managed to see Phil one last time. I'm so glad Rosalia got a taste of my life here, and I know she loved every minutes of it! It means so much she came to visit, I still can't believe it happened!

Hiking Social. Jame's bro, Crazy Sam, me, Martin, James. We were in dry dock at this point. It's a large beached "ship." A rocky/edgy kind of bar. Very popular because they have cheap drinks.

Bubs and Feefs!

Durham Castle....it's now converted in a university!!!! how cool is that???! How come I didn't hear about Durham before, I could've gone on exchange to live in a castle!! Oh well, maybe in another lifetime.

Our newly pierced ears!! Ow, it hurt to sleep on, I don't know why I pierced it on my left, b/c that's the side I sleep on....oh well, it doesn't hurt anymore.

the girls! Rosie, me, Aleks, Anna and Faye!

my Ralphie, Eugene, Chris and half of Faye.

The girls at the "cabaret." It was more of a weird comedy/singing act. One of the acts pretended to be David Bowie in these tight silver leather pants and a tacky wig. He'd come right up to us (because we were sitting at the very front) and started dancing with us, practically giving Willa a lap dance!!! hahaha, sooo funny! There was a cute jazzy band afterward we danced to.

Trying to get to Harry Potter thorugh platform 9 3/4....didn't work. sigh.

View of the Parliament buildings in London at sundown from the London Eye.

Victoria statue infront of Buckingham palace.

Tom, me and Rosalia in Trafalgar Square!! AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

2.22.2006

FORT WILLIAM, SCOTLAND -- Feb 17-20

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ANOTHER AMAZING weekend! Absolutely clear blue skies from the top of the highest mountain in the UK--Ben Nevis. Yes, I hiked up that. Funny, because to most of you reading this, I probably sound really hardcore, but I don't see myself like that at all. It's not easy for me! I feel like I feel more pain than others, probably because I complain, haha...though when my feet were completely numb during the first hour of both walks, I knew I felt more pain that others. It was untolerable. My body is terribly achy and sore now. I think mostly from snowboarding yesterday and falling off the stupid, I repeat stupid, T-bar! UGH. The bruises I have from being dragged by it. Not cool.

On a better note, as I type this one of my bestest friends in the whole world is in England!!!! Rosalia flew in this morning, train up to Lancaster to see Phil and is coming to Leeds tomorrow in time for the hiking social so I can introduce her to everyone. I am sooooo excited!!!!!!! It is unreal she is here! I can't wait to show her around and see what I see and experience everyday in Leeds..something you can't see in my photos. Now to my essay...grrrr.

down we go...descending a VERY steep hill so we're going front first and digging out toes in the fluffy, large amounts of snow. I practically slid down on my toes and Dave P yelled at me to stop taking away the foot holes. oppps. But my way was faster.

Herdie, the ski monster

2.21.2006

IRELAND -- Feb 2-8

There is just WAYYYYYY to much to write about all out adventures in Ireland. What I will say though is that skipping one week of class was the best decision ever because with Marina and Willa, travelling Ireland was the most adventurous, fun, memorable experience that I know will always rank up there as my favourite journies. We took over combined over 900 pictures! Yes, we are picture fiends. Marina took 500 alone, me 300 and Willa about 100 because her memory was smaller. The three of us together calls for a ton of laughter, a ton of sweets being eaten, as well as bread, hitch-hiking, picture taking, and lots of Guiness consumption. I've grown to like Ale, especially Guiness!! I can't believe I'm saying this...a year ago I scorned dark Ale saying it tastes worse that bad. haha. I think my travels have REALLY opened up my mind to so many things. For instance, I eat humus now and I always used to make a gross face at Alice and Rosalia eating that in first year. hehe, no more! I can't think of more examples at the moment..but there are many more! :) There wasn't one day of sun, only this 24/7 grey cloud in the sky but only rained once in Belfast. I guess that's what happens when you live on a small island off the Atlantic ocean.

We flew into Belfast and got the first bus down to Dublin to stay the night. Such fun "Irish dancing," or rather trying to Irish dance in the Oliver St. John Gogarty pub and meeting random people we end up chatting the night away with. The conversation always comes back to accents and weird cultural differences...ALWAYS. But it's still amusing. The next morning we met Giovanni, and friendly Italian --pure Gino with his crisp white bomber jacket, geled hair, and cool shades. We were soon off with our packs to move to our new, cheaper hostel. We made our way through the city on the way, taking in the sights. We went to Dublin University, in the library that looks really cool, like in Beauty and the Beast when Belle slides across the bookshelves with the ladder. It was neat. We managed to make it to the Guiness just before closing. Good times in that place.

We actually bumped into Giovanni him that night at the pub again when he declared that I speak like an angel and would come to Leeds just for a coffee with me. I said he's crazy, and in his charming Italian accent only knowing a decent amount of English "no, no I'm not crazy, I'm just crazy for you!" AHHHHH. oh my, these Italian boys, they barely speak English and still know how to charm girls. I swear, it's innate. We danced the night away and soon were tired, just enough energy to walk to our new, cheaper hostel a further 20min. away.

James Joyce...a famous Irish poet/novelist

In the court in Dublin "castle", or rather where the old castle stood. There was one original turnet it looked like.

confused in Dublin University.

some remembrance fountain.

Me and Giovanni

Dublin University Library...two tiers of books on either side of this aisle. The books looked gold with their old binding. Very cool!

After a day in Dublin we took a tourist bus north to the burial chambers of Newgrange...OLDER than the Great Pyramids at Giza! Newgrange dates from 3000 B.C. wow. The front white stone is a reonstruction because lumberjacks found Newgrange in a pitiful state covered in shrubs and underground during the Victorian period. They unearthed all these large white stones with it and recently designed it back to the way it would have been thousands of years ago. It was a dreary day, perfect for visiting old dead chambers. The landscape was damp and covered with dark green rolling hills with what looked like dead trees and and large, random stones everywhere.

After a few hours there, we had to run back to catch our tourist bus, who kindly dropped us off at Drogeda, a nearby town, instead of taking us all the way back to Dublin. In Drogeda, the train was too expensive and we missed the first bus so we stayed in a pub and drank Guiness and ate chips. We headed to another pub, but they didn’t serve us food..losers! A nice barman brought us chicken nuggets though, random. We didn’t even ask for them, but I think he felt bad for us…I was sooo hungry. We couldn’t make it up to the North coast that night so we just walked to a hostel in Belfast.

The next morning we took a train to Portsrush, a small town on the beach, where it was FREEZING! I’m glad Marina brought 2 hats. It was Sunday so everything was closed, well, that's assuming there were shops there..I didn't see any. We started walking along the beach toward a castle, over 2 miles away. The beach was lovely, horses running along it, dogs walking with their owner. There were LOADS of surfers in ther freezing water, what troopers! WE were hoping for one of them to give us a ride to the castle in their van..but we only got honks from them along the road.

Newgrange

The beach in Portsrush.

Our lovely coastal stroll toward the castle.

Me and my pal Oscar Wilde.

In the Guiness brewing factory. It was a lot of fun in there...we were acting so silly. They give you a little sample of Guiness half way up the museum, but Marina asked for more. They were like "umm, we're not supposed to do that," but one of the employees, Robert, hooked us up with more "samples." hehe. He continued to show us around the museum and explain things. Then at the top of the museum where you get a complementary pint of Guiness, he also gave us an extra one. We also managed to bump into him at a pub that night! Well, actually he recommended it so we went. We also bumped into people Marina knew from her Uni back in Brazil. Very coincedental. I love when those kind of things happen!

At the 7th floor bar with the 360 degrees windows. Nice view! Too bad it was too dark to distinguish anything.

Dunluce Castle. It must have been so cold on the coast to live there! geesh! It was pretty much just walls that still stood. Marina sat and drew for 20 min. while Willa and I frolicked and danced around the place like weirdos. haha. We found a latrine which I pretended to use, and Willa found an oven, which she pretended to be cooked in. lol. The picture is funny, but I had to limit myself.

After the castle, we hitch-hiked with a nice, older lady about 5min. card ride to the small town of Bushmills...the distillery famous for being the oldest licensed distillery in the world! We headed to a nice hotel that night for a good, wholesome meal. It was soooo yummy, chicken caesar salad, Cantonese vegetarian noddle dish, and cheese and mash! We just all shared everything. We stole, errm, I mean took, a lot of complementary chocolate from the front desk and ended up taking a taxi home because it was too dark and late to walk along the road back to our hostel. I passed out soon after, but Willa and Marina stayed and played board games.

We woke up at 6am the next morning to walk 2miles to Giant'ts Causeway-- cool, 6 sided pilars shaped by a volcanic eruption and fast cooling lava. WOW!! It was beautiful, too bad it wasn't a nice sunrise...too many clouds. We were there when it was still dark when we got there, with the waves pounding against the large cliffs beneath...ohhh so cool. It was a such a reflection time, just sitting and thinkin in this remote place when no one was awake yet, and no one was around. We headed to the Whiskey Distillery when we got back, after 10am. It was really interesting to see how whiskey is made and see the bottling process --behind the scenes!

We made our way back to the coast and after walking along the coast for an extended period of time to a rope bridge linking a small island, we found out it was not put up until a week later. grrrrrrr. It was a beautiful walk along the almost turquoise coloured water and craggy cliffside. Making it to the bus stop for the last bus out of the 100 person town was a close call. The bus ride along the Antrim Mountains on the coast would have been nice, but it was getting dark and none of us could keep our eyes open. Oh well, we made it to Belfast and regained our energy for another good ol' Irish pub. Except, this pub was full of drunk, scary old men. One was showing us a picture of his nurse and without using his crutches just started dancing like Napolean Dynamite to the Acordian type music. OH MY. It was quite funny, but he was sooooo weird! We met some younger guys and soon talked with them and away from the weirdo. One of them was soooo funny, judging our dancing and saying I was the best, the Marina was vey passionate adn that Willa was a copycat. I haven't let her live that down. It was a good night.

The next day in dark and dreary Belfast we took a black taxi tour that showed us around the scary part of town where the Catholics and Protestants, to this day, still fight. It's been a city of much violence and some parts were scary, especially when our driver said houses had been burned the other night because of the IRA was retaliation to some other crime. It made me sick that a group of people hold such power of a community and with all these killings, the government hasn't caught any of the IRA!! It's soooo corrupt! We wrote on the peacewall (a large wall connecting between the Catholic and Protestant residential sections...bombs and other crap are still thrown over it to this day!! We wondered who would want to live so close to the all and he said that the proud people live there, they want to defend their side. Our drive gave us crayon to write on the wall....I wrote Love is Beauty (i dunno, it was short), but because I'm a retard I forgot the ''u', and wrote love it beaty. hahaha. oh my. One funny quote on it was written by another Canadian "you guys think you have problems, get over it! the Americans steal our fish!" lol. We got back to the hostel after it started pouring on us and had a quick nap before the Belle and Sebastian concert. What a fabulous end to a fabulous trip! :)

cheese!

In Belfast...numerious, and I mean NUMERIOUS, wall murals. Very powerful.

The Peace Wall...it separates the Catholic and Protestant communities. Bombs and things are still thrown over the wall in spite. I couldn't believe that! Well, I do, but OMG, grow up and MOVE ON! It's scary how the IRA (Irish Republican Army) still are able to burn families out of town and not get caught and arrested. Supposedly there's not enough evidence...3 houses were burned the night we arrived, to do with an IRA member shooting an innocent person, so the IRA burned their member and all his relatives out of town! unbelievable!

In Belfast, this pub called "the Crown" is a listed building, meaning they can't tear it down. It's very historical and original. These tall booths we're sitting in were meant for women in the Victorian olden days, because they were not allowed at the bar. There was even a door for these cubicles to completely block yourself out to the rest of the pub. It was really neat!

oops, wrong place..but this is us hitch hiking near the Gian't Causeway. A nice Welsh couple picked us up. We realy only hitched hiked like 10 min.

Belle and Sebastian!