Woah, Sleep!

Monday the 31^st of Jan.

I accidentally slept in until 11am.  Mind you, this was no small feat since my bedroom was the living room and the kids got up at 6am.  I was exhausted and Seth and Jessica were incredible and kept the kids really quiet so I slept like a baby. 

Once I finally woke up, Seth and I packed a lunch and headed out to Declan’s Hermitage. Saint Declan came over from England and his servant forgot to pack his prized bell.  He prayed that God would restore it to him and legend has it that they spotted the bell floating on a rock.  The followed the rock until it stopped in Ardmore where they set up camp.  If my camera battery hadn’t died I could show you pictures of the rock, I’m not sure what really happened but it definitely looks out of place.

The hermitage itself was unbelievable. So picturesque.  It was this bright green hillside beside the ocean with the white and gray stone structures jutting out of the land.  Flowing through the middle of the hermitage was a spring that supposedly has healing properties.  (As I’m typing this I have my iTunes set on random and the End Credits from Braveheart just came on.  How apropos!)

Next we hiked along these incredible cliffs. It was just amazing to walk with the waves crashing below you, the clouds above you and nothing but green beside you. 

Here’s a couple of shots where I tried to capture the sky.

Metering the ground.

Metering the sky.

We finally got to a point where there was ocean on both sides.  The bay on our left and the Atlantic on our right.  It was gorgeous.  The wind was really howlng at this point and it got kind of cold but thankfully there were structures to duck into.  One was a small shack built to look for German U-boats and the other was an older castle, probably built to look for Viking or Norman raiders.  We climbed all in and over both and it was a blast.

This is a little further down the trail looking back at the point. 
You can see the castle on the left side.

Even the paths we were hiking were pretty.  So green!  Even in February!  Unfortunately, shortly after taking that photo my camera battery died so the remainder of the day will be photo-less. 

We finished the loop and hiked down into town to see the church there and to find the stone where the bell had supposedly rested.  Once those two objectives were accomplished we took our picnic back to the Hermitage to eat.

On the way home we stopped at Moby Dick’s for a pint of Guinness.  I’ll be darned but it really does taste better here.  I don’t like it at all in the States but I actually enjoyed it here.  Moby Dick’s is named thusly because it’s where they filmed the old movie of the same name.  Once we got home we had a really wonderful dinner and just chilled out.  I love relaxing and feeling like a local and not a tourist.

I’m in Ireland!

Sunday, the 30^th of Jan.

The church Seth, Jessica and family attend, Youghal Baptist Church, is really great.  I met people from Ireland, Romania, Hungary, Canada and the US.  This particular Sunday was “kids church” where the children stay in the service instead of leaving for children’s church but Pastor Mervyn did a great job of making it accessible to the kids while still keeping some meat in there for the adults.  He preached from 2 Kings 7:3-20, especially verse 9:  “We are not doing right.  This day is a day of good news!”  The basic tenet of his message was that should be our response to the Gospel.  It is such good news that we should feel guilty and fear punishment if we keep it to ourselves.  It’s not very cool to right now in the church to talk about guilt and punishment but studying law has given me a good perspective on both.  They are both necessary evils.  No one would want to live in a society where people felt no guilt for doing wrong or where that wrong went unpunished. They key is feeling guilty for the proper reasons and I think Pastor Mervyn nailed it.

The church meets in a traditional Irish dance school overlooking the bay.  It’s a gorgeous setting.  The name of the school, Bru na Si (pronounced “she”) means house of the dancing fairies.  I thought of my friend Mary Martha and how she used to do Irish dancing.  Made me really want to take lessons.

After church the whole congregation had a pot-luck lunch.  Yum!  Then we took the kids home for nap-time.  While they slept, Seth and I went out and explored the town.  The whole town is really kind of quaint and very pretty.  The outskirts of the town have a suburban feel that Americans would recognize but the downtown is where the action’s at.  It’s a lot of narrow roads, houses all in a row, and cool shops with living quarters above them, surrounded by beautiful countrysides. 

Look!  I found a lawyer!

The old church, the first one in the village is the Collegiate Church of Saint Mary, Youghal.  In a territorial feud between the Anglican and Catholic churches the Catholics built a new Saint Mary which is called simply “Saint Mary.”  (To make it more confusing, Collegiate was Catholic when built.)

The church had a fortress nearby to keep intruders at bay since the church at the time controlled almost all the money and land marauders would often head straight to the church.

The church itself was inspiring.  It was built in 1220!  Can you believe that?  That’s around 800 years ago!  And it’s still standing!  It has towering wooden-beamed ceilings, beautiful stain-glass windows and magnificent stone floors. 

I could not get over the fact that I was walking under a ceiling erected eight centuries ago.

The wings had some creepy grave sites.

The cemetery behind the church was really fascinating as well.  There were gravesites that were centuries old, as well as a mass grave for all the victims of the Potato Famine.  There was even a coffin-shaped hole in the old city walls which ran behind the church.  Seth explained that they used to keep a coffin there for anyone who couldn’t afford a proper burial.  They would put the person in the coffin take them to a paupers grave and dump them out before returning the coffin to the wall, but at least this way the person got the appearances of a decent burial.

Sir Walter Raleigh lived here for a while, back when Youghal was one of the largest ports in the region, bigger even than London.  Seth showed me his old house, which was in a sad state of disrepair because the old lady who owns it won’t let the village maintain it.  What a shame.

The whole town was full of really short doorways and some of the tombs in the church were less than four feet in length leading both of us to surmise that people did not used to be as tall.

Yep, that’s the towering giant that I am.  All 5’9” of me.

After touring we went home, ate a traditional dinner of fish and chips, played DDR on the Wii (Viki and Jessica are UNREAL at that game) and then watched Waking Ned Devine, which was a great movie about Irish culture that was really funny.  Apparently every Sunday night the Lewis family plays DDR and watches a movie while eating popcorn covered in Ranch powder.  Sounds like a great tradition to me.  I was delighted to be invited to join the tradition.

On to Ireland!

Saturday, the 29^th of Jan.

Today is one of my designated travel days as I am headed to the Republican of Ireland.  (FN1) We had planned to get up early and go visit some of the parks but everyone slept in, which was fine by me.  I spent the day re-packing my bags so that I could get everything I needed for a week into the one carry-on that RyanAir allows (no personal item, just one bag).

Everything went fine until I got to the train station.  I got there a little early so I decided to call home since I hadn’t talked to my parents the entire trip.  I figured a “hey, I’m alive” phone call was in order.  Well, I’m standing at the right platform for my train to Stansted airport but the train arrives early.  I get on it, it starts to pull away and immediately I realize I’m on the wrong train going the opposite direction.  As a result I had to take a cab to the airport, which stunk.  It also meant that instead of arriving comfortably early to the airport I arrived 8 minutes before the gate was supposed to close.

By the grace of God, and my wily traveler skills (hah), I made it onto the flight but I was quite a sight.  Stansted is a very long airport.  Instead of having lots of terminals that are spokes off a hub, Stansted is all one, long, long, long terminal (think Detroit if you’ve ever flown out of Northwest’s terminal there).  It’s hard for me to tell for sure since I was running through at full-sprint, but I think it was over half a mile long.  Of course my gate was the very last one.  So I’m sprinting through the airport hauling my carry-on (which probably weighed 30 pounds and was awkward to carry) and wearing a sweatshirt and jacket because it was 2 or 3° Celsius outside (around 38 F).  By the time I made it onto the plane I was sweating, but I didn’t care because I just wanted to be on that flight.  It was a RyanAir flight which meant that I purchased the ticket for £6 (about $10) but if I had to change my flight it would be £45 ($72) so I didn’t want to miss that flight.

The flight itself was really interesting.  RyanAir obviously doesn’t make its money from ticket sales (in fact, until this year they sold all their flights for a pence [penny]) so they make it up other ways (like that huge change fee).  The flight had a carnival atmosphere with the attendants hawking everything from vacation packages to lottery tickets.  It was great.  I slept through most of it though.

Seth picked me up from the airport and we went straight to the missions conference his church was helping to host in Cork.  It was really cool to meet people from all over Ireland right away.  They kept saying, “well you can probably tell I’m not from around here” but I had no clue.  By the end of the week I could tell certain accents apart, but not then. (FN2)  The pastor who spoke used the Will Smith classic Independence Day as one of his sermon illustrations which I thought was hilarious.  (Essentially his point was that it was very American to make a movie where our president saves the entire world himself. Haha.)  It was really sobering to hear stories from the missionaries gathered about the persecution the churches were under in the countries where they ministered.  It’s hard to believe that torture still occurs for someone’s beliefs, but it does. 

I think the coolest part of the conference was realizing that I’ve seen the body of Christ in four countries on three continents in the last month and I’m about to add one more country and continent!  It really does remind you of how big and awesome God is when you see the work he is doing all over the world.

After the conference we loaded everyone up in the van and started driving back to Youghal which was 45 minutes away.  During the van ride I made the comment, “wow, I love the winding back-country roads!” And the entire car burst out laughing.  Turns out we were on the major highway in the county.  Whoops.

When I got to Seth and Jessica’s they had a warm coal fire burning in the fireplace and I made my bed beside it and slept like a baby.  I felt so cool to be sleeping by a coal fire in Ireland.

FN1 Ireland.  The Emerald Isle is divided into two parts: Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.  Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom (all parts) and Great Britain (the part of the UK that’s in the British Isles).  Southern Ireland, which is about 2/3 of the isle, is a separate country, the Republic of Ireland.  It is a member of the EU and has its own government.  There are no border controls between northern and southern Ireland, but there are between England and Ireland.  (In fact, in some places the boundary between northern and southern Ireland is not even marked at all.)

FN2 Accents.  Northern Ireland has the thickest accents.  Lot of brogue and is probably what you think of when you think of an Irish accent.  The middle seems to have the softest accents while the south, especially County Cork has its own distinct accent.

Cambridge Proper

Friday, the 28^th of Jan.

Today we toured downtown Cambridge and the University.  The downtown still has a very medieval feel to it.  It was awesome.  Lots of cobblestone sidewalks and streets with narrow roads and shops all built in a row.  It’s like one giant strip-mall, only really cool looking and the shops are interesting.  There is a market in the center of the town where we spent some time browsing.  Basically our day consisted of wondering around sightseeing until the girls got cold, at which point we’d duck into a random shop for tea.  It was great.

The entrance to one of the many colleges of Cambridge University.

A street in downtown Cambridge.

The same street shot to show the sky.

Near the market downtown.

At one point Haley got really creeped out by this guy that was leaning on a balcony watching everything.  Only it turns out that “he” was a statute.

Maybe it’s just because I’m in England, but everything feels classier.  The homeless here don’t beg for money they sell “The Big Issue” which is a newspaper.  The street performers weren’t The Naked Cowboy but instead we witnessed a duet between a bassoon and violin.  Straight class that was.

We toured Jesus College and the Fellow’s Garden there.  It was unbelievable.  I don’t really know how to describe it.  A lot of amazing buildings with beautiful gardens.  It felt very Secret Garden to me.  You’d walk around the corner and there would be a stone wall stretching into the distance with moss and vines growing over it and a very intriguing door every so often.

After that we went to meet up with Lauren, an old buddy from Auburn who’s currently getting her masters at the University here.  She toured us around St. John’s College which was unbelievable as well.  Lots more open space.  Whereas Jesus felt like Secret Garden, St. John’s felt like Lord of the Rings.  Sorry for resorting to cheap movie references, but word pictures have never been my specialty.  St. John’s had tons of towering, majestic buildings with wide-open courtyards and green-spaces between them.  At one point you cross the Bridge of Sighs over the river which is supposed to be one of the most famous bridges in England.

The low light was killing me.  It was already well into dusk at this point.

Next we went to Evensong where Sam, another American getting his masters here, joined us.  I hesitate to even describe Evensong because it was so awesome.  Sam is a minister in the Anglican Church so it was great to have him there because he knew so much of the history behind the service.  It’s a chapel service from the Book of Common Prayer and has been worshiped regularly since 1622.  It’s in the Cathedral at King’s College. (FN1)  The cathedral is tall with warm woodwork everywhere and plenty of stain-glass windows.  There is a big organ in roughly the middle of the church that services a divider of sorts.  It allows them to use part of the huge cathedral as more of a chapel without seeming empty.  Very ingenious design.

The actual service consisted of the King’s College Boys Choir singing in Latin and English with the congregation doing responsive readings and the priests reading Scripture and praying.  It was amazing.  If you do one thing in England this is it hands down.  It’s done every Friday evening at 5:30.  Better line up early though.  We got there at 5:10 and that was plenty early, but I imagine during tourist season that earlier arrival would be necessary.

The line forming outside the famous chapel.

After Evensong we left to try and get dinner.  We first tried The Eagle where the discovery of DNA was announced by Watson and Crick.  However, it was packed so we moved on.  We wound up at B.  It was great.  Great food and great drink selection.  As everyone says, the service just isn’t the same outside the US.  We were sitting there after placing our dinner order when a manger-type person appeared and put a sign on our table saying that the table was reserved at 8:30 (in 45 minutes).  Who just tells paying patrons they have to relinquish their seats in 45 minutes?  I tracked him down and we got things sorted out, but I was slightly incredulous.  We celebrated Lauren passing her first round of exams.  It’s similar to law school in that her entire masters program consists of two papers and a thesis so there’s not a lot of feedback and a ton of pressure on those papers.  Afterwards we migrated over to All Bar One where we hung out some more. 

Haley, Elizabeth, Adam, Me, and Lauren

The highlights of our time at ABO were Haley taking her tip back from the bartender after she felt like his service was subsequently lacking and me forgetting my souvenir sweatshirt and having to run back several blocks to get it.  Some things aren’t different no matter where you are and running through crowds of drunk people will get you the same cheers and jeers here that it will in the US.  Hahaha good times.

FN1. Colleges.  The university system is different over here.  Instead of doing it by subject matter (I graduated for example from Auburn’s creatively named College of Business), they do colleges by residence.  So your college is more like your community.  Then each major/faculty would have its own separate buildings which I think are located within a college, but not necessarily your college.  All the colleges I have named in this post are part of Cambridge University.

London!

Thursday, the 27^th of Jan.

I am so pumped to be headed back to London WITHOUT all the luggage.  Good grief that was so miserable hauling all that gear around the Tube and train.  We took the train from Cambridge to King’s Cross and changed over to the Tube (the Underground).  From there we went to Buckingham Palace.  Quite regal.  There was some kind of ceremony going on and we could see in and watch them taking pictures with some dignitary.  The Palace is quite impressive and their guards look way cooler than our Secret Service, but if I wanted someone protecting me, I’d pick our boys every day of the week.

The English are quite thoughtful of us poor ignorant Americans and I kept cracking up at the street paintings which remind us to look the other way before crossing.  I finally took a picture of one just because it amused me.  (FN1)



Haley missed Elizabeth’s “look serious” memo.



Next, since any tour of London is not complete without large department stores, we went to Harrods of London.  It wasn’t my choice to go there, but man, it was something else to see.  We never even made it past the first two levels.  It was HUGE.  Easily the entire city block and I think seven stories tall.  They had about eight restaurants in the bottom.  They had several large rooms for watches only.  It was ridiculous.  We saw a watch there that was £750,000 ($1,200,000)!  For a WATCH!  It was wild.



We at lunch at this place called Pret, and I only mention it because I HIGHLY endorse it.  It was awesome and fairly cheap for London.

Next we moved on to the Thames, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and the Eye of London because they are all right together.  Big Ben is really cool looking and impressive.  It looks simultaneously futuristic and historical.  It sits on the corner of the Houses of Parliament which were also cool looking, especially for government buildings which are normally quite drab.  We didn’t go into Westminster Abbey because it costs a lot of money and I wasn’t presently interested in paying money to see dead people.  Some day when I have more money and time I definitely want to see it though.

Big Ben and the Tube

Parliament and one of the iconic double-decker buses

Another shot of the Houses of Parliament

Westminster Abbey

The River Thames

Then we moved on to see the changing of the guard at the Household Calvary.  It was kind of cool, but not a lot of action for the time it took.  It’s like all the other changing of the guard ceremonies I’ve seen, except on horseback, which was kind of cool. 

Then we moved on to

Trafalgar Square

, which is a place I’ve always wanted to see.  I think it’s because every good novel set in England mentions it (authors from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Tom Clancy have used it).  So even though there’s not much there the girls graciously indulged me. 

It was only a short walk from the Square to Café in the Crypt.  Which is at St. Martins in the Fields! The NPR nerd in me got really excited when I realized that.  *smooth voice talking* “And now we’ll have Gianni Schicchi’s O mio babbino caro played by the Orchestra of the Academy of St. Martins in the Fields directed by Peter Frankl.”

 The Café is actually in old catacombs and it was so cool.  We had a spot of tea nestled in the catacombs and it was delightful.  As we were leaving they turned out the lights and lit candles so I made a mental note to go back some time in the evening.  (I am DEFINITELY going back, despite the fact that Elizabeth and I separately spotted mice roaming.  Haha.)

We spent the rest of the day wondering the shopping district.  Anthro was my favorite because it had great chairs for me to sit and read emails on my Blackberry.  I also have to give a shout-out to FCUK.  As in French Connection United Kingdom.

FN1.  Traffic.  Actually, it isn’t just Americans.  Brits, and their former possessions/territories, are about the only people in the world who drive on the left side of the road. In fact, about 2/3 of the world drive on the right side of the road.

British Culture

I feel like this is an appropriate time to delve into little things I noticed. Like the fact that they have strange flavors over here.

Roast chicken?  Really?

Chips = fries.  Crisps = chips.

Biscuits = cookies.

Using the bathroom = $$$.  I couldn’t believe this one but its true: restrooms generally cost money.

England = cool words.  They just use cooler words than we do.  Case in point is this sign on the train from Cambridge to London exhorting you not to litter.

We now return to our regularly scheduled blogging.