U.K: Wales

Caught a bus & train from Edinburgh down to Shrewsbury in England where Liz Shanklin (a family friend who I'd never met before) picked me up. We walked her gorgeous collies up the Wrekin (a big hill) and set off for her holiday house in Abersoch, Wales that night when Simon got home from work. I've really missed having contact with family dogs!

Had a really nice relaxing couple of days in Abersoch with the Shanklins (Liz, Simon, their children Sandy & Tori), it's a little beach holiday town where people tend to spend the whole summer, all the kids get summer jobs in cafes or the sailing club etc. The whole family was so kind- Sandy gave me his room to sleep in, showed me around town and the sailing school where he teaches, and took me for a sail. Tori was so sweet and chatty and let me use her laptop to organise photos and took a real interest in my trip. With all the walks and dogs and beach it felt very much like a Hoadley holiday and I was made to feel very welcome. So thankyou to Granny & Pa for putting me in contact, and to the Shanklins for having me! Plus I got to use the hiking boots I've been lugging around!

Headed down to Aberdovey after this to stay with Drew, a mate I'd travelled with in Laos/ Vietnam. He's English but again holidays in North Wales, so stayed with him and his friends in one of their houses. Met a lot of his friends who spend all summer together at the beach and vistited them all in their various holiday jobs during the day (ice cream shops, lolly shops, beach warden..) and then hung out in the arvo & night. Almost went for a surf but no waves, jumped off the jetty into the freezing ocean, pottered around in a cave with gumboots and bike helmet on but didn't do the pitch black abseil (again with the scary caves... I know) and swung on a rope swing over a gully. The town was really pretty and Drew took me on a 'roman walk' along the coast, looking out over Cardigan Bay. The Welsh signs on everything were fantastic, there was a house called 'Llareggub.' (read backwards)

At first when speaking to British people I thought I must look really lost or something because everyone greeted me with a concerned 'are you alright?' but then I realised it's just their 'how's it going' equivalent. And now I automatically substitute flipflops for thongs, wellies for gumboots, cashpoint for ATM, swimmers for bathers, and trousers for pants to avoid confusion!

U.K: Scotland

Imagine a wide, cobbled avenue lined with medieval buildings & gothic cathedrals, tiny skinny 'wynds' and 'closes' cutting through either side offering glimpses down over the city, and a grand old castle at the top of the road. This is the Royal Mile in the Old City of Edinburgh and I was lucky enough to stay in a flat on this road with two lovely couchsurfers! I arrived here around 8.30pm in the soft summer evening, to crowds of Spanish supporters pouring out of bars as they'd just beat Germany. Apparently Edinburgh's two largest immigrant populations are Spanish & Polish (one of the many interesting facts I learnt from Dan who was hosting me!)

Dan took me up to the castle which is on top of an extinct volcano at the end of the Royal Mile, (the parade ground for the Edinburgh tattoo is just outside it and looks bigger on TV) and we got in for free thanks to his friend working there. It has

• the oldest building in Edinburgh (a tiny chapel from 1100's with stained glass window of William Wallace)


• massive cannons & cannon balls


• a cemetery for Soldier's Dogs


• the Stone of Destiny (a slab of rock thought to have Biblical origins, used by Scottish in all inaugurations of monarchs, stolen by English in 1296, put in a golden coronation chair on which all English monarchs were enthroned, stolen back by 4 Scottish students who broke into Westminster abbey on christmas day 1950, then in 1996 The Queen officially allowed it to stay in Scotland.)
  

Walked all the way down the Royal Mile to Parliament, then around the base of Arthur's Seat (another volcanic hill) where suddenly it felt like you were in the countryside with woods and marsh and long grass. Up the top of Calton Hill was another spot I loved, it was quiet with great 360 degree views over the city/ castle/ water/ and the industrial town Leith where Trainspotting was set.

That night Dan & I went on an 'adults only because it's so scary' ghost tour but managed to stuff it up, listened to the first guy until he realised we didn't have tickets yet so started listening to the next tour, who was telling exactly the same stories, so we went to have a pint and then caught them up at the bit we hadn't heard yet... in the Underground Vaults. Learnt all the dark secrets of Edinburgh Old City with murders and betrayals and tortures and hauntings... and the vaults were really scary! They used to house the black markets & brothels etc and our guide would point out corners of rooms and tell of who had been seen there... and blow out the candles and make us stand right back at the edge of the rooms! If only he didn't have such an annoying pommy accent (the second guide wasn't scottish) so 'rocks and rubble' became 'wocks and wubble..'

Came back outside at the perfect moment of the clocktower striking midnight and watched a film crew spraying hoses into the air to make it look like it was raining on a horse and cart. It's the sort of place where you put a horse and cart in front of you and suddenly you're so easily transported back in time.

Unfortunately didn't experience any "jumper-ooterer's" who are uni students employed by the ghost tours (at £10 a scare!) to hide and jump out to scare tour groups around town!

U.K: Northern Ireland

There's no border control here so suddenly the road signs change into miles, the gaelic disappears, and when we stopped at Tesco's for groceries we had to pay in pounds. The scenery changed too; the stone walls transformed into hedges and the land looked more green and farmy with woods and wild deer. After an epic days drive on Zoe's behalf we arrived at Port Rush (right up on the north coast near Coleraine) at her aunty's holiday apartment, it was so nice and cosy with views over the beach (white sand,) comfy couches, and heating. We spent a few days here and lots of tea was drunk, blocks of chocolate were eaten and movies on TV were watched!

It's a sleepy little holiday town which really reminded me of Apollo bay, the light on the hills and sea were the same. Zoe's cousin and his friends took us out on Saturday night, it was mostly unintelligible because their northern Irish accents were so thick! Loved it here because we cooked all the things we'd been craving, did lots of washing, and read our books on the couch under a rug.

Had a sightseeing day of Dunluce castle (an awesome old ruin on the edge of a cliff which was built and ruled and pillaged and ruined before there was white settlement on Australia,) the Giants Causeway which looks bigger in pictures but was still pretty bizarre with the paved effect of the stones, and then Carrick-a-rede rope bridge where we tiptoed across a gorge to an island which was so windy I was afraid for the safety of small children. I was in heaven with the colours and textures and movement- the long grass billowing and flattening across all the hill sides, the ocean swelling and heaving, the birds wheeling around in a whirlpool of wind.

Drove down to Belfast and did a great city tour; saw where the Titanic was built (they are so proud of it! and they take no responsibility for it sinking because after all the captain was an Englishman so it's his fault!) Also saw all the main sights of The Troubles which was eye-opening, the 'peace walls' are still standing (tall fences topped with barbed wire seperating Nationalist/ Unionist sections because "if they can't see each other, they can't shoot each other." And heard all about the bombing terrorist attacks and hunger strikes etc and saw the political murals which are starting to be painted over because they are offensive to residents, reminding them everyday of a horrible and upsetting past. They are going to be painted over with more peaceful & international murals, and ones celebrating all nice things Belfast like Titanic, George Best football star, CS Lewis & JRR Tolkien. One of the murals is the 'Belfast Mona Lisa' because his rifle barrel seems to follow you where-ever you are... And the tour guide said that now if you wear a t-shirt with the wrong political slogan on it down the wrong end of town you will still get your head kicked in (but you won't be shot anymore.)

Mel flew to London and then home, Zoe & I stayed one night in Mogherafelt (pronounced mochafelt) with her aunty uncle & cousin on their property inbetween paddocks and a graveyard! Then they dropped me back in Belfast, Zoe was heading home to Melbourne and I was off to Edinburgh.

Ireland

*Flashback* to arriving at Reus airport in Spain with Mel and trying deperately to get our passports stamped, but all the officials either 'no hablo ingles'ed us or didn't understand that we didn't want to be illegal immigrants... the airport was the size of a garage and all the other passengers just scampered, so after holding our passports out to anyone who'd look (we really just wanted a pretty Spain stamp to add to the collection) we hopped on a bus and forgot about it. This bus turned out to be the last straw in a series of frustrating getting-lost-due-to-not-wanting-to-lose-face-by-asking-silly-questions moments which made me promise myself for the future that I would prefer to look like an idiot and keep asking for help rather than get lost and stranded in completely the wrong corner of town on a Sunday afternoon when everything is shut and no-one is around to ask for help and no-one speaks the language and it's really hot and we're tired....
ANYWAY we only remembered about our no stamp situation when we got to Barcelona airport to leave the country, but there was no problem and we got a neat little rectangle stamp with an aeroplane in it so you should have seen how happy we were about that, especially Mel whose brand new passport needs some serious decorating!

After we said Hola and Grathyas (yes you have to lisp it) to the very fair and freckly Irish flight attendants we decided it was time for a can of magners Irish cider to get in the mood on the plane, and we touched down in Dublin at about midnight in some lovely chilly drizzle. The signs were now in English and Gaelic, and we felt like we were cheating when saying Hello and Thankyou to people, it just felt too easy. We liked Ireland straight away when the customs official looked at us sternly and said there's one important rule for Ireland, and that's not to break any hearts! And then the taxi driver took us on a chatty tour of the city at the deserted hour of 1am and told us that 'if you can't be safe be careful!' Of course it sounded so much better in their accents.

Met Zoe in our hotel and she fed us up with a selection of Tesco goodies like coleslaw (Irish coleslaw is amazing! And I'm not usually a massive fan) and some special mint chocolate I've forgotten what it's called. Next day after annoying Zoe with our "top o' the mornin to ye"s we caught the DART into town and had a nice cooked Irish breakfast with mugs of tea in the Temple Bar district.

Dublin felt a lot more like home than anywhere I've been so far, maybe because the cars are back on the left side of the road for the first time since Thailand and there were trams, normal shops, & obviously English being spoken. Actually the switching of the side of the road just made us more confused because we just about got used to looking the other way first before crossing, standing on the other side of the escalators, going up the other side of the staircase... and now we just look wildly both ways, confused, and hope for the best.

Dragged the others to the Dublin Writers Museum which I really loved, (first admission price we'd paid in a while, Mel & I managed to admire all of Barcelona's sights from the free outside ;) it told the life stories of Jonothan Swift (Gulliver's travels) James Joyce (Ulysses) Oscar Wilde (Importance of Being Ernest etc) Yeats, Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot etc) George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion) Bram Stoker (Dracula)... who were all Dubliners.

Sun was out today; jeans and tshirt weather. Unfortunately for my budget we went into a bookshop and I came out with Marion Keyes and Oscar Wilde short stories to really get in the Irish mindframe, and that night I ate the best meal I'd had in a long time, a guinness & beef stew with mashed potato and Zoe gave me her onion ring cos she can't eat the gluten, so all in all it was a very stereotyped irish day! We went out to Temple Bar district that night which is full of touristy Irish pubs and clubs and restaurants but it was lots of fun and we met some "fairmen" (firemen) who taught us the lingo: What's the craic? (pronounced 'crack') Te craic is rapo! Or te craic is deadly! Or they just say 'Craic?' and you nod and say 'Deadly.'

Zoe had her auntys car so we drove around for the next few days, went across to the west coast to Galway and down to Cliffs of Moher from there, the roads were so narrow and windy with grey stone walls either side and boxing up the paddocks. Weird stone hills in County Clare covered in wildflowers, bog and peat and sheep with black faces (baa ram ewe..) ruins of castles and walls on the hilltops. If you got stuck behind a tractor on those skinny lanes you're stuffed for hours!

The cliffs were awesome and so windy at the top, I felt like I could fully lean into the wind and not fall over (but I probably would have.) They were 200m+ sheer drops down to the rolling Atlantic ocean which seemed to swell in slow motion and then shatter up the cliff face.

Spain: Barcelona

"Too bad if you've been learning Spanish, because here we speak Catalan!" Greeted us in Barcelona. After having got by happily in France, suddenly every transaction was a challange (read: battle) and despite the ipod spanish lessons I could say and understand practically nothing!

We negotiated the metro and found our hostel in the Gothic Quarter- would recommend this hostel (Centric point) it was awesome! Our dorm had about 8 sets of bunks but it was in a massive room, and the top bunks were really like lofts up a 2 metre ladder. They felt like private cubbies or tree-houses; with room for our bags, a locker, reading light, power point and surrounded by walls and curtains. Mine was right on the end so I had a window overlooking the narrow cobbled street.

We loved the vibe of Barcelona and could have easily stayed here two weeks instead of 3 days! The beach was absolutely packed (and the number of full-frontals reminded us we were really in Europe) and along the beach were strips of tapas and sangria bars, ice cream, cafes and restaurants and nightclubs. We tended to spend the mornings walking around, (seeing Gaudi architecture, shops, gardens, La Ramblas, etc) then eating, then laying on the beach, then eating, then going out at night. Our wishlist for Spain mostly consisted of food and drink and we happily worked through it: nachos, churros, tapas, sangria, paella...

We were told by so many people, at so many different times, to watch out for theives and pickpockets and not to walk around with my camera around my neck because it would get ripped/slashed/ distracted off me, so I sadly locked it in my backpack until I really wanted a photo then had to unlock backpack, take it out, take photo, put it back in and lock again. So I couldnt take as many spontaneous street photos as I would have liked, but at least we survived without anything getting nicked.

The weather was gorgeous and hot, we watched the Spain vs Portugal soccer match at a beach bar (but it wasn't as crazy as we expected, someone explained it was because we aren't really in Spain!), we met some local Spanish people out one night, and tried not to oggle too much at the naked old leathery men who paraded around the beach every day!

Next for a bit of a change in scenery: Ireland!