Monthly Archives: September 2014

England, Ireland

If you’re looking for sunshine, stand here.

I lucked out in London four weeks ago. It was pure, blissful sunshine for five days straight. Then I went to Dublin. Surely it was going to rain in Ireland, so I bought a rain coat. A week in Dublin, a couple days in Kilkenny, then Killarney, then Dingle, Doolin, Galway… it didn’t matter where I looked, I couldn’t find rain. So I went to Scotland. I flew from Dublin to Glasgow and spent three dry days there, then I went to Edinburgh, and still, I couldn’t catch a drop. I got pretty close – the ground was wet in Edinburgh when I arrived, but I’d just missed it. Three days later, I took a bus to London and the sun found me there too. I’m just about to embark on day two in London and it appears it may have rained this morning, but now that I’m going out and about, the sun is beaming!

If you’re looking for sunshine, stand next to me. My shadow’s always dry.

 

 

Ireland

Oops, wrong side. Driving in Ireland…

The Irish call it the right side; I call it the wrong side. Truly, it’s the left side. It took me two hours to drive from the west coast of Ireland to the east, Galway to Dublin. I did a quick test drive through a small neighbourhood, swiping just one tree against the left side of the car. Ready, confident, and not a wee bit weary I headed for the real roads. Contrary to my Canadian heritage, I stuck to the speed limit. (In Canada they’re more like minimums. You won’t even get a ticket unless you’re +10 over). But this is Ireland, and my driver’s license card is somewhere in Thailand. So I stuck to the limit, 120km/h.

The only mishap was when I was approaching a toll station on the highway. I naturally reached my hand out to downshift and almost shifted the door handle. Wrong side, we shift with the left hand in Ireland.

 

 

Thoughts

Plane, train, or automobile? Or something else?

You’ve got options. Should you fly, take the train, or catch the bus? Or should you consider some other means of transportation? If you’re wondering which option you should choose to travel from A to B and C to D, just pick the happy path.

As I sat in the ferry terminal in Holyhead, Wales, I looked around and laughed thinking “this place is like a homeless shelter…” To my left was someone’s plastic-wrapped, duct-taped luggage and tattered gym bag. To my right was a person laying on the floor in a sleeping bag. The 7 other travellers in sight looked pale and depressed, but I sat happily against a wall with my legs stretched out, laptop on top, with my colourful new suitcase to my side. So, why the dichotomy? Why were they all so miserable-looking while I was laughing and loving life? Besides the obvious difference that I’m probably the only person travelling around the world at the moment, I actually wanted to take the evening bus and 2am ferry. I enjoy the late night quiet time to read, write, and manage my latest photos. It’s peaceful. I embrace having 7.5 hours on a bus, 2 hours at the ferry dock, and 3.5 hours crossing the ocean. That’s a total of 13 distraction-free hours to be really productive, and a 6am arrival time. Sounds horrible, right? I actually like it. I even prefer it. And I like the savings too.

Making your own “happy path” is actually quite simple. Figure out what your comforts and boundaries are, then spend less on the things that don’t matter to you (like getting from A to B at a normal hour) and more on the things that make you happy – maybe a Michelin meal, a boutique hotel, or in my case, a new Patagonia rain coat to kick off a week in Ireland.

Happy travels!

 

 

England

5 days in London, an absurd itinerary.

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Am I f’ing lucky, or is this a normal itinerary in London?…

Day 1 – Stay with awesome, fun, generous friends in their beautiful home, complete with the most adorable golden retriever puppy that’s ever walked the earth. Go out on the town with extended colleagues and step inside Japan at Koya, home of incredible udon.

Day 2 – Get your run on and discover Wandsworth Common, a beautiful local park full of puppies, ponds and swans. Then hire a Barclays citybike and ride down to the Natural History Museum. Learn about fascinating things like earthquakes, volcanoes and a billion different species, for free. Stumble upon Afterhours, a jazzy cocktail event at the museum, make friends with a cool group of big kids like yourself and share a drink before watching the animatronic dinosaurs come to life. Then head out for food with your new friends and wait so long for a table that you get complimentary pizza-bread and a bottle of wine for the trouble.

Day 3 – Get photo-bombed by a police officer beside the Shakespeare Globe Theatre. Discover an amazing singer/songwriter busking along the Thames. Buy his CD and learn that he’s Mark Wilkinson, the Australian sensation who just concluded his European tour with a sold-out performance night before. Follow that up by meeting last night’s new museum friend at the Tate Modern art gallery, and score free tickets from random passers-by to the very cool Matisse exhibit. Finish the night with a jagerbomb and dancing on the bar at Covent Garden Cocktail Club with more new friends, a byproduct of your previous night out in London during the world cup finals. Take a double-decker bus home but get kicked off when the driver decides his shift is over, and hire a convenient Barclays bike to cycle the rest of the way, docking in the last available spot in the closest station to home.

Day 4 – Have some tasty street food, witness an odd public wedding in a blow-up church along Southbank, get serenaded on the lawn by an odd busker and receive an exit applause from the large audience for the song material. For dinner, relive your time in Thailand with none other that your Thailand chef mate, a fellow foodie and co-student from Cooking Love Thai restaurant in Chiang Mai. Talk the night away with stories of gay stags in Soho and Sex And The City.

Day 5 – Put your personal chef to the test with ricotta pancakes and maple bacon for breakfast (Big win!) Catch up with another lovely Chiang Mai mate for a 2-pint liquid dinner and write a list of very important questions one should ask on a date, like “how do you feel about pineapple?” Attempt to test said new questions and wander the empty downtown streets until 1am. Catch the closest night bus and walk the last 30 mins, meeting a family of foxes on the way.

Departure day – Enjoy the sunny morning with a 5 mile run through the park, a nice prep for the afternoon’s 13-hour overnight bus/ferry to Dublin.

London, you’re absolutely lovely. Thank you Lui, Trent, Cooper, Jeff, Ruaridh, Elliott, Pranav, Mark, Busker Koldewey and everyone else who’s been a part of this unusually awesome itinerary.

This adventure’s pictures are on Flickr:
Amyleajacobs in London