Mischief in Europe: May 2012

I explored the endless streets of London on Tuesday. No art, no plays, no plan. Just walking around the city. I really love it here. This morning I was supposed to go to Amsterdam. On the tube ride to the coach station my train kept stopping and waiting on the tracks. By the time I finally got to my stop I was gonna be cuttin it close for making my bus. I hauled ass running through the otherwise orderly streets of London. I made it to the station in the nick of time, found my already loaded bus, ran up to it sweaty and out of breath only to be told I need to check in. Crap. This is something that has never happened on megabus before, I assume it was because it was going from the UK (not part of the European Union) to The Netherlands (part of the EU). So I run back in the station and get directed to the wrong queue, finally get to the right queue only to exchange the following dialogue with the wretched little witch behind the counter:

Me panting "Hi, I need to check in to go to Amsterdam."
Her stonefaced "You need to do that an hour before the bus leaves."
Me pleadingly desperate "It's not yet 9, can I just do it now?"
Her still stonefaced "No."
Me exasperatedly looking at the bus "Can just I switch my ticket for the next bus."
Her still being a miserable succubus "No."
Me still looking at the bus on the pavement "Well, can I get a refund?"
Her showing unprecedented amounts of not giving a crap "No."

She could have saved 5 minutes out of both of our lives if she just flipped me the bird and we were done with it. I checked my confirmation email from megabus when I got back, there was no mention of needing to show up a whole hour early. Hopefully my bank sides with me so I can get my 50 bucks back. I'm gonna try again tomorrow and, for once in my life, I hope "checking in" is somehow a lengthy process to justify today's disappointment. Here is yesterdays photoadventure around London. It was the first day since I've arrived that I didn't need a jacket. It was glorious.

There were no messengers 6 weeks ago. I saw a bunch this time. Are they some sort of fair weather riders?

I left sketchy Dublin and headed to Galway only because of the song Galway Girl. There are 70,000 people in the quaint seaside city.The town center was always bustling with activity and musicians. A short walk from the city is Salthill. Some sandy beaches and a diving board into the bay. I thought the diving boards were cool. Even cooler were the signs warning you about the jagged rocks you were diving into. It was still pretty cold and I wasn't ready to take the plunge, mainly because no one was there to take a picture of me in the ocean. I'll get my "other side of the Atlantic" fix in France. There wasn't much to see in the city of Galway, you can explore it in a day. One of my favorite things to do in Ireland is to go into a pub and have a pint and strike up a conversation with somebody else. It's effortless, the Irish love to talk. Galway didn't disappoint. Over the sounds of a fiddle and a guitar I have talked to lots of Irishmen about subjects both meaningless and meaningful. Remember the Scotsman I met in Edinburgh from Shetland; the island with no trees that builds Viking ships all year long just to torch them? On his recommendation I headed to Cork for "the cheese".

Let me tell you about Cork. The city is pretty lame. No cool architecture, no decent museums, and terrible weather. One highlight is they have a market with bakers, butchers, fresh produce, fishmongers. You know, all the ingredients for a proper market. I really enjoy going to them for some fruit and a baguette and a little haggling over the cheapest things. I even bought some cheese, and it was indeed tasty. While eating the spoils of my victorious haggling campaign I discovered you can still make friends eating on a bench in a light drizzle. I'm glad to have moved on but I am going to miss the warmth of the Irish. In my hostel I met some cool guys from England and hung out with them a bunch. One thing led to another and I ended up at their buddy's wedding. Everyone thought it was great that I was just traveling around by myself and were thrilled that I chose to join them. Really great people them Irish. After a couple days in Cork I headed back to London to rest a little and have a couple slow days. The bus and ferry ride here cost about a 1/3 of what it would have been if I had flown, the only catch was that it was 14 hours and didn't arrive in London until 8 am. Needless to say, it sucked. Monday in London I relaxed and slept for most of the day, because bus engineers don't design buses for napping. Today (Tuesday) I hopped on the tube and would just get off, explore an area, hop back on, and explore some more. I really, really like London. I like how one part of town will house a lot of the antique shops, another the record stores, another has lots of bookstores, and so on. It has it's own flow and I feel like I can be anywhere in the world when I turn a corner and can't read any of the signs and don't understand the languages around me. I leave for Amsterdam tomorrow morning and I'm gonna miss the witty speech patterns and clever vocabulary that the English use. Not gonna miss the

weather.

Galway

They're like rebar palm trees

The underwhelming Spanish Arch

According to local folklore the tower housed four clocks. One on each side. Allegedly a large Catholic neighborhood was on one side of the tower so the Protestants took out the clock, thus spawning the saying "They wouldn't even give you the time of day"