Hello? Are you still out there?
We made it home safe and sound... erm, 3 months ago. It was weird getting home, I thought it would be a culture shock having to stay in one place more than 5 days but no. It was as if Europe never happened.
I started back at my old work place, in an entry level position, 2 days a week, and I started working from sun up to sun down the other 5 days a week on building my nail business and... now we're here. Quite literally.
Christmas Day marked the first day where I didn't work at all, which means I worked 87 days in a row. The 2 weeks before Christmas I didn't even have time to run the business, I was so busy actually DOING nails from 8.30am until 9, 10 or even 11pm. At one point I thought I might burn out, but I soldiered on, and the only thing that slowed me down was the fact that I started melting the skin off my hands.
I've always had mild reactions to Acrylic Liquid when I've been exposed to it for long periods of time - usually the week before Christmas when even as a part time Nail Tech I would work 5pm-11pm every night. I didn't do a lot of Acrylic work immediately before Christmas though, with natural nail and Colour Gloss services taking over. It wasn't until my hands split open that I stoped to think about all the Nail Polish Remover I was using.
The first bad cracks were almost a month ago now. The worst was when I couldn't touch ANYTHING because my hands itched and burned simultaneously and constantly. Courtney has been doing up my pants, cutting up my food and feeding the dog for weeks now because I simply couldn't. It didn't stop me doing nails though - splint on the worst split finger, cotton gloves to protect me from the rubber gloves, then rubber gloves on top and I kept doing nails. A new business can't say no to clients.
And so now after 5 days of no nails my hands are dry and wrinkled and peeling BUT not itchy and not sore. I can manage my Dermatitis and Psoriasis from here on out.
I'm having to schedule time to actually run the business and run my household too, so I don't end up having a meltdown over pulling myself in 20 directions.
This year I will go to bed at a normal time so that I can get up at a normal time and brush my hair every day instead of hurriedly knotting it on my way to a client. I will clean my house daily so it doesn't get into an unmanageable state and I will do my business admin straight after for the same reason. THEN I'll book Nail Appointments in.
I can do this! Any tips?
PS I'm here https://www.facebook.com/MonacoNailArtists if you want to see what I've been up to :)
Showing posts with label long haired boy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label long haired boy. Show all posts
Monday, January 2, 2012
Friday, August 19, 2011
Playing Marco Polo
Our third day at PartySan was good but not particularly blog-inspiring. We went back into town, back to the little restaurant and this time got the schnitzel meals we had seen being served the day before. We charged all our chargeables, got a couple of things from the supermarket and went back to camp with very full stomachs.
Courts went and showered and I promptly fell asleep, which is how he left me when he went searching for friends to drink with. The previous day he had bought a dozen beers and completely forgotten he couldn’t take glass into the campgrounds. Luckily he had also bought a massive 5 litre bottle of water so he emptied it out and filled it with beer, which almost filled the bottle. So there he is walking around camp with this ridiculously huge bottle of beer – he doesn’t do things by halves!
Courts looked for his friend from home in the vague direction of where she said her tent was but couldn’t find her. He went to a camp where there was a New Zealand flag amongst others but the Kiwi wasn’t home and the others weren’t particularly welcoming. And so it is that he found himself asking a German group if they had seen any other Kiwi flags and not really leaving their camp. Well, he did for a minute, until one ran after him to ask if he was really from New Zealand and before you know it he’s sharing his massive beer bottle and having a good old time.
Meanwhile, I had woken up and was packing what I could in preparation for an early start the next day. Courts had said he would be in the festival grounds at a particular time and so knowing him and his timekeeping habits I headed into the grounds an hour after said time. I did a loop of the field which is small enough that every other time we’ve used this method of searching for each other it’s worked. It doesn’t work if the person you’re searching for is still at the other end of the run way, which is where Courts was still happily socializing. I watched Hail of Bullets from Courtney’s favourite spot to the right of the stage figuring if he was off getting beer or at the toilet, he’d come back to this point.
After half an hour (and some very cool pyrotechnics) I got bored and did another loop to no avail and so decided to hunt for these Kiwi camps myself. I walked the entire length of the camp looking and listening for any sign of a loud long haired boy and then looped back at the end of the run way and started for camp. I figured if he wasn’t there, I’d go back into the festival for dinner and then go to bed – after all it was closing in on 10pm by this time.
Courts wasn’t at the tent but his almost empty beer bottle was so I figured he was inside. As I walked towards the entrance, he walked towards me, having been looking for me for an hour or so. Turns out as I walked forward through the Hail of Bullets crowd to do my second loop of the field. He had pretty much walked up to take my place in the crowd, where he stood to watch the end of Hail of Bullets. We missed each other by minutes if not seconds and so when Hail of Bullets had finished he had done a loop of his own and then gone back towards the tent, which is when we found each other.
We watched Watain’s set - which featured a very cool stage filled with burning goblets and tridents – ate our last festival dinner and then went back to the tent. Courts left again at one point to watch Enslaved but gave up on At The Gates when the set was over 45 minutes late and it started pouring with rain. So we slept, again to the sound of rain drowning out the last of the music.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Legends at Our Fingertips
Our second full day at Wacken started early with an opening set by Primal Fear. Only at Wacken does a midday opening band have a crowd that stretches further than the eye can see. Yet, we walked straight up to the front, and the set was awesome. That man can really sing!
After Primal Fear we had a break so we made our way to the toilets. While I was in the girls queue, the two boys long finished, they made friends with a couple of Germans, one called Mario who was about 45 and a 20-something guy who didn’t seem to speak as much English. Mario had at least 10 Wacken wristbands on from years gone by and was stoked to learn the boys were from New Zealand. Once I made it back to the group, he asked us if we wanted a beer at the nearby pub stand and then wouldn’t let us pay. I don’t know how he does it, but Courtney attracts free beer. Aside from these full beers we had bought for us, random strangers frequently offer him sips from their mugs.
After drawing us a map to find their camp, we left Mario to continue the day. I wanted to get our phone charged and swap the t-shirt I had bought the day before so I left Courts with one of our friends from camp and they went off to see Morbid Angel (from the second row again might I add) and I went off to the Metal Market. I swapped my shirt, bought Courts a Blind Guardian shirt and left the phone at the charging station before heading back down to the stages.
I was able to catch the end of Sodom, the second band the boys saw without me, and do so sitting on the ground with a drink, relaxing in the reluctant sun (I say because it’s been raining every night from the wee hours until after breakfast). Even from my spot on the ground I could see the stage. I met up with the boys again in the few minutes we had before Rhapsody started at the next stage over, we were able to walk straight to the front for that too. It is epic being able to see legends play that close up, and without a struggle. People who are on the front bar are obviously there to stay but everyone else is fine as long as they can see.
We picked up the phone and had a break in the tent for an hour before we made our way back to the festival for Judas Priest. The set was part of their Farewell Tour and as such they had two and a half hours of stage time to fill. We entered the gates 15 minutes before they started and made our way forward. About 30 rows from the front we hit a patch of rowdy circle pit moshers and decided to try and get past them to the calm spots that tend to occur right at the front. The problem we found here though was that there was a slight uphill incline right at the front and it was almost impossible to reach. We ended up in the midst of a massive crush, being toppled by crowd surfers every few seconds with little chance to recover. It wouldn’t have been so bad except for having my glasses on and trying to protect them. We ended up retreating back behind the initial rowdy moshers and finding a good spot with breathing room and a good view.
Despite having no idea whatsoever what happened on stage during our few minutes at the front, the rest of the Judas Priest set was incredible. The boys were completely on form, starting with pyrotechnics right from the first song and bringing motorbikes and all sorts on stage. The band was incredible and made for a definite highlight of the festival if not the whole trip.
Two days down, one to go!Our second full day at Wacken started early with an opening set by Primal Fear. Only at Wacken does a midday opening band have a crowd that stretches further than the eye can see. Yet, we walked straight up to the front, and the set was awesome. That man can really sing!
After Primal Fear we had a break so we made our way to the toilets. While I was in the girls queue, the two boys long finished, they made friends with a couple of Germans, one called Mario who was about 45 and a 20-something guy who didn’t seem to speak as much English. Mario had at least 10 Wacken wristbands on from years gone by and was stoked to learn the boys were from New Zealand. Once I made it back to the group, he asked us if we wanted a beer at the nearby pub stand and then wouldn’t let us pay. I don’t know how he does it, but Courtney attracts free beer. Aside from these full beers we had bought for us, random strangers frequently offer him sips from their mugs.
After drawing us a map to find their camp, we left Mario to continue the day. I wanted to get our phone charged and swap the t-shirt I had bought the day before so I left Courts with one of our friends from camp and they went off to see Morbid Angel (from the second row again might I add) and I went off to the Metal Market. I swapped my shirt, bought Courts a Blind Guardian shirt and left the phone at the charging station before heading back down to the stages.
I was able to catch the end of Sodom, the second band the boys saw without me, and do so sitting on the ground with a drink, relaxing in the reluctant sun (I say because it’s been raining every night from the wee hours until after breakfast). Even from my spot on the ground I could see the stage. I met up with the boys again in the few minutes we had before Rhapsody started at the next stage over, we were able to walk straight to the front for that too. It is epic being able to see legends play that close up, and without a struggle. People who are on the front bar are obviously there to stay but everyone else is fine as long as they can see.
We picked up the phone and had a break in the tent for an hour before we made our way back to the festival for Judas Priest. The set was part of their Farewell Tour and as such they had two and a half hours of stage time to fill. We entered the gates 15 minutes before they started and made our way forward. About 30 rows from the front we hit a patch of rowdy circle pit moshers and decided to try and get past them to the calm spots that tend to occur right at the front. The problem we found here though was that there was a slight uphill incline right at the front and it was almost impossible to reach. We ended up in the midst of a massive crush, being toppled by crowd surfers every few seconds with little chance to recover. It wouldn’t have been so bad except for having my glasses on and trying to protect them. We ended up retreating back behind the initial rowdy moshers and finding a good spot with breathing room and a good view.
Despite having no idea whatsoever what happened on stage during our few minutes at the front, the rest of the Judas Priest set was incredible. The boys were completely on form, starting with pyrotechnics right from the first song and bringing motorbikes and all sorts on stage. The band was incredible and made for a definite highlight of the festival if not the whole trip.
Two days down, one to go!
Monday, August 8, 2011
Arriving at Wacken
First things first. If you have ever considered going to Wacken Open Air, do it. It is not ‘too’ expensive or ‘too’ far away, there aren’t too many people and it’s not too dirty. And it’s worth sleeping in a tent no matter how much you hate tents. Wacken is everything you’ve ever dreamed it might be, but on steroids. It’s everything you ever imagined it would be, multiplied by the amount you love music, squared by the amount you love your Mum.
Back to where we left off. After Anne Frank Huis we still had a full day left in Amsterdam but we lazed it away with Courtney making a run to the Laundromat and the Supermarket and me half-packing, sewing one of Courtney’s must-needed metal shirts back up and posting blogs. We ate a Billy-cooked feast of chicken, mashed potatos and gravy, so much that we didn’t have room for the strawberries and canned whipped cream and had to eat them for breakfast instead. They couldn’t go on the bike, we had no choice!
People in Wacken seemed impressed that we drove all the way from Amsterdam but for us it was a regular ride day. We set off late, around 9.30 or 10am and only made one wrong turn – that we know of. Courtney says he noticed the landscape change between the Netherlands and Germany just as we noticed it change between France and Spain but if it did, I was oblivious. It was, however, very exciting to see the mark of the border and to finally be in the home of Wacken.
I’ve wanted to go to Wacken ever since I saw a guy in front of me in a moshpit wearing a Wacken t-shirt and realized something like it existed. Germany really holds little interest for me other than Wacken, where as Courtney would have been happy visiting Germany and only Germany, just for the music. This is really Courtney’s leg of the trip in many ways, but the bike had a little extra power running through it from the buzz we had the second we saw the first car with ‘WOA’ in masking tape on the back windshield.
As we neared Hamburg, the closest city to Wacken, and then passed it and got closer and closer to the small village of Wacken itself, more and more of these WOA cars drove past, at times as many as 4 or 5 in a row displaying their pride at attending metal mecca. It made me feel like I was really part of something big, and it felt even more awesome knowing it was a love of music powering half the cars on the autobahn (which, as an aside is the slowest and least daunting of the highways we’ve driven so far despite many warnings from people at home). As excitement grew, it felt like we were all 7 year olds racing towards Christmas morning together, the first sighting of the turn off to Wacken like seeing reindeer in the sky.
The benefits of a bike became extremely apparent almost the second we entered the outskirts of the village of Wacken. We zipped up the middle of the street, ducking in to the massive queue of cars whenever a car came the other way. Even then it took us a long time to get into the festival grounds and an even longer time to find Campground Y, which is where our friends had said they were set up. One of the only negatives I can push myself to think of for Wacken is that the many many campgrounds aren’t labeled very clearly, but this is only an issue if you’re looking for someone. Then again, if you’re looking for someone in the city that is the Wacken campground, good luck. Hundreds of flags fly high above the sea of campervans and tents, and those flags are the only way we found our friends.
The people of FiberFIB have obviously never been here. We pitched our tent in the huge section our friends had staked their claim on. There were no mind games, no rushing, no fighting – just a massive space that no one had protested the reservation of. With 20-plus people all joining our group at some point or another, we all fit in, including our vehicles and with room to spare. As we pulled up, the group of people next door (complete strangers to us and our friends) ran over with a plank of wood for the bike stand and then offered us dinner, which we politely declined as we set up our tent.
Setting up was so easy and calm, other than the race between finding our friends and running out of petrol. You can park your car or bike or whatever you have, anywhere you want. As you drive into the campground a person tears off one of the two stubs on your ticket and hands it back to you. You drive anywhere you want, take as much space as you want, and when you’re ready you head into the festival grounds to exchange the second ticket stub for a wristband that will allow you access anywhere in the complex. Compared to FiberFIB, where no employees knew where the carpark was and we had to get wristbands before we were allowed anywhere near the overcrowded campground, it’s like going to a tropical resort.
When we had set up we had a couple of drinks with our friends and met the rest of the people they were camping with. After awhile though, the itch to see what we had just entered into took over and we made our way towards the action. Throughout the massive camping grounds there were mini supermarkets and breakfast bars scattered around, and we spotted areas of pay-to-use toilets and showers if you wanted to upgrade from the portaloos. So you have to pay to shower – Amsterdam got us used to that, maybe it’s a northern thing – but the facilities here are awesome.
Once we hit the edge of the tent city, we entered the first section of the festival grounds – the medieval market. A living, breathing source of sensory overload. You can buy drinking horns, hand crafted metal jewellery and leather wristbands, never mind the swords, helmets and chainmail. Everyone is dressed up and as we later found, there’s an area where people who regularly live like this demonstrate parts of medieval life. It was a little weird to walk past some poor kid being strung up on a real working torture rack!
Throughout the day there are Bruchenball tournaments, Viking battles, and knight combat with swords and all kinds of insane weapons. You can just see the area where they stage these things from your position next to the Viking boat. Not just any Viking boat – this one is full of medieval folk that serve you honey or cherry mead. The awesome thing about drinking at Wacken is that they give you Wacken branded cups when you buy alcohol. There is a deposit for the cup – 5 Euros for the clay mug the mead came in, 1 Euro for a small plastic beer glass or 3 Euro for a massive plastic beer stein – and if you return the cup, you get it back. If you don’t return the cup no one cares, and you have an awesome and cheap Wacken souvenir.
Of course if you’re drinking you’re probably wanting to eat too. You can get Chinese, Dutch or Middle Eastern food amongst the burgers and pizzas but the food in the Medieval Market makes me seriously wonder why this food isn’t more common in every day life. Massive skewers piercing huge chunks of turkey which then has some sort of savoury donut-like dough wrapped around it before the whole thing is fried. Battered apple slices deep fried and then skewered together and covered in cinnamon sugar. Hot bread rolls fresh from the oven, covered in sour cream and chives and filled with more cheese and ham than the casing can handle. There’s a reason they give you several napkins.
Eventually we convinced ourselves to leave the Medieval Market and we did get our wrist bands, from a booth in the second section of the festival grounds. We had to wait an hour in the queue, but the sweeten the deal by giving you a goodie bag with your wristband. We now have Wacken branded ponchos, earplugs, condoms, bumbags, lanyard tags, posters and rubix cubes. We really didn’t look beyond the booth, instead heading back through the Medieval Market towards camp.
We spent a good while socializing with the group that had gathered at camp but after awhile I went to bed. It had been a long day and to be honest it was quite overwhelming chatting to new people again. I used to be very shy when I was younger and I pushed myself out of that shell when I was a teenager. At home I have my amazing friends and I’m happy being outgoing and chatty when I’m in a situation I’m happy and comfortable in, which is most situations. In Europe I’ve met and chatted with plenty of people but if Courtney isn’t the one that starts the conversation, he usually naturally takes it over with his gift of the gab. I didn’t realize until Wacken, but I’ve become accustomed to letting Courts do the talking while I sit back, so after pushing myself to actively converse for an hour or so, our tent was calling.
All this and it’s only arrival day!
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Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Switzerland for the Day
Courts is far more qualified to write this post, but I’ll give it a go. After 2 days of nothing much in Cormatin, we ventured out of town on a day trip. Not just any day trip, we went to Switzerland for the day.
We had been planning to do this for many months, ever since we discovered it was a 2 hour drive to the border at Geneva – because that’s where CERN is. CERN is the largest Nuclear Physics Laboratory in the world. If you’ve read Dan Browns books, CERN is the place where the bad guys steal the Antimatter at the start of… Angels and Demons, I think.
The fictionally stolen Antimatter comes from a real place – The Large Hadron Collider. Again you might have heard of this – it was in the news when it finally started operating last year, recreating the effects of the Big Bang in a circular underground tunnel. The tunnel is 27km in circumference and 100-150m underground. The physicists at CERN send groups of particles in opposite directions around the tunnel to eventually collide with each other on the other side at speeds near the sound of light. These collisions create new particles, the same ones seen in the universe seconds after the Big Bang and some never seen since, until now.
With Courtney being most of the way through a Physics degree (he’ll be finishing it next year) CERN is like a playground to him, and so we reserved places on a free but high-demand tour of the facilities as soon as we knew we’d be in the area.
We set out from camp just before 7am and made it to CERN with plenty of time before our 10.30am tour. Due to a legitimately innocent wrong turn at the border and the ill-sighted cops that waived us through, we were cruising Switzerland without a Motorway Vignet, a compulsory windshield sticker that costs 40 Euro at the border. Once we parked the bike, thankfully only 20 minutes from the border itself, I was relieved to no longer be fast-moving targets for massive Swiss fines.
After a video detailing the history of CERN, our tour guide took over, a young woman with bright red hair and good but broken English. She took us across the road from reception to stand in front of a massive super-conducting magnet as she went talked about the LHC and why it’s so exciting. Over the next two hours we were taken through Atlas, the biggest of four experiment sights set up around the circumference of the LHC tunnel. We saw a short 3D movie showing how they put it all together and peered through windows at the physicists operating the sight itself.
Once the guided tour was over, we were free to explore the two exhibits on site. The first was in a room that was basically a massive projector screen that surrounded you on all sides. Every half an hour a video played using up all parts of the room and explaining more about particles. Throughout the room were pods that were either touchscreen and full of information, or hollow and containing exhibits. We saw the first ever circular collider - which was tiny and fit easily inside an exhibition pod – and the first ever server for the World Wide Web, which was invented at CERN.
The other exhibit, Microcosms, was much bigger and really interactive. They’ve really made a big effort to make the whole thing really interesting and they use sound, film, pictures and interaction to do so. I’m discovering on this trip that I’m not really one for exhibits so I spent a bit of time sitting in the film rooms just watching the clips while Courts devoured every part of the rest of the exhibit.
All in all we were at CERN for 5 hours and it was well worth going. Courts absolutely loved it, and the only time I got bored was when we were going through the exhibit rooms, but I get bored in exhibit rooms no matter what the subject matter. They’ve done really well to make it interesting for kids and adults alike, and aim the information low enough for people like me that don’t have much background knowledge but high enough to keep someone like Courts entertained.
Plus, it’s kind of cool to say we went to Switzerland for the day.
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Friday, July 15, 2011
We Hate it Here
I hate it here. Actually, it’s 8.30pm here now and I don’t hate it, but I did this morning. As I touched on earlier, we didn’t have the best first night in Benicassim. At one point someone fell on our heads as they stumbled past and then when the camp finally went quiet in the not so early hours, 5 or so boys decided the so-well-fought-for space in front of our tent looked like a good place to sit and yell drunken slurs about dickheads (5 full minutes of ranting by a guy at one point and 90% of the words he used were either ‘dick’ or ‘head’).
I tolerated the noise for about half an hour, accepting that we are at a festival and at least the tent was up and we could go to the beach in the morning. When one of the guys passed out on our tent however, it became a different story. We have 2 and a half more months in this tent and while I expect it will suffer a certain amount of wear and tear, I’m not going to sit back and watch it happen. As it turns out, I couldn’t actually leave the tent to yell at them, with one passed out across the bottom of the awning and another sat on the only other zip. I told them to get off the tent and eventually got the guy sat on the zip to move.
In all fairness when the one that was passed out was roused by my conversation with guy number 1, and realized he was on the tent, he was very apologetic and moved straight away. With the tent safe again, I thought I might be able to get some more rest, but while most of the guys disappeared, guy number 1 had unfinished business with a ballsy British chick whose teepee had been caved in by one of the boys. A massive row ensued with all sorts of abuse between the two. With people like that next door I’m glad I didn’t make any enemies – knock on wood.
As soon as we were awake enough to leave, we gapped it. After the madness of getting our tent up and then the rude awakening, we wanted to escape camp. We found breakfast and happily discovered that with the multitude of English tourists here for the festival, many cafes offered the big cooked breakfasts we have at home.
That was pretty much the highlight of the morning because the town Benicassim plainly sucks. The beach is awesome, and the beach side shops have awesome deals (much cheaper than our beloved San Sebastian) but the town itself is dirty and covered in graffiti. Wrought iron fences are bent at crazy angles and wire fences jump out at you from hedges. It’s bizarre because some of the beach side houses are stunning with beautiful mosaic pools and terracotta walls, and they will be right next to overgrown alleys with broken glass and spray paint.
I had a slight breakdown with Courts once we got to the beach. I’d been thinking a lot about why I was hating it so much, and I couldn’t get my head around it. I’ve wanted to come to this festival since I was 16, I had a decent understanding of the anticipated mess and debauchery and I knew how hot it would be. I still hated it. While everyone else chilled out and drank beers and made the most of it, I was miserable.
I think part of it was the fact that I knew Courts wasn’t into it. I thought it wouldn’t matter so much, I’ve been to concerts by myself when I’ve travelled before, and he’s with me for everything else. But we bought tickets based on the reputation of the festival, because artists hadn’t been announced at the time, and while there are plenty of artists I want to see, there aren’t any I would die if I missed them. I kind of need someone else’s energy to bounce off.
It made me homesick. I missed Squish because we are festival buddies and both open to all the same kinds of music, and together we would have made ourselves make the most of it. And I missed Soul Buddy because I knew she would feel the same as me, surrounded by drunks and wanting to escape to a hotel with a wine, to be a grown up and do the same fun things at the beach and in the town but without the insanity.
Surrounded by party animals I felt old and boring. When I’m single I tend to party more and I wondered if I were here single, would I still hate it? Not at all because I want to be, but because I was trying to decide if it was attitude or age that was affecting my mood.
I don’t want to be wasted 24/7 and lose half my stuff and break that which I don’t. I like the quiet campsites we’ve been to, where we can do our own thing at our own pace in our own space. We’ve made friends at them and we’ve drunk a couple of times. We’re not boring, just making the most of our holiday. Our favourite bits have been exploring new towns and experiencing the countries like locals, but this town sucks and the locals are in hiding. I would feel better if I was crazy excited about the music, feeding off someone else, the town was nicer or I didn’t have to worry about our tent and our stuff. One of the four would be grand.
In saying all this, all is not lost. Once I spilled all this on Courts, it was easier to put into perspective. On the one hand we paid a lot of money to be here, we knew what to expect and it could end up being amazing. On the other, we have 15 weeks here, and the freedom of a bike. Is there any point sitting around in a place I hate for a week? Courts reminded me what I told him in the beginning – we should treat this like a beach holiday with a couple of concerts thrown in.
To combat the town, we’re going to go for a couple of day trips to explore the surrounding areas, like Valencia to the south and maybe Tarragona to the north. The music doesn’t start until 6pm each night and the best artists are around 8.30-9pm so we can have the best of both worlds. I’ve always wanted to be here, so I need to suck it up and make the most of it. I hated London that first night when we saw the hostel for the first time, and I took awhile to shine to Paris. Both places ended up being good, and this will too.
We went grocery shopping and bought yummy Spanish food (I don’t think it helped my mood all the bad food we’ve been eating lately, I paid 2 Euro for a slice of watermelon last night and it was the best 2 Euro I’ve ever spent) and then hired 2 cushioned beach loungers and a little cabana-type umbrella at the beach for 10 Euro for the rest of the day. I slept while Courts swam (and found 10 Euro on the bottom of the ocean!) and at 6pm he finally got me into the water. I swam in the Mediterranean Sea and then had a Chicken Salad for dinner.
Dark clouds loomed in the mountains as we headed back to camp, and at one point lightening struck the ground right by us. It was terrifying and awesome at the same time, everyone around us felt the energy and we’ve never seen anything so bright or heard thunder so loud. I twisted my neck when I jumped from the fright but once we were safely back at camp the experience was kind of awesome in hindsight. The tent and bike were in one piece and we survived day one. One more relax day before the music starts the next.
Arriving at Benicassim
We spent the morning being spoiled with Spanish pastries and preserves by the only hotel staff member that spoke English, and finally having the luxury of both power and wifi at the same time in the restaurant. We aimed to leave at 9 and finally left around 12.30pm, aiming for Benicassim, the site of our first music festival, FiberFIB.
FiberFIB had been a point of debate for months. I’ve wanted to go since I was 16 and first heard that there was a music festival where you got 4 days of music and 8 days at the beach on the Mediterranean Coast of Spain, all for one ticket price. Courts on the other hand, was not looking forward to it. He likes metal music, and only metal music, and this festival offers nothing of that variety. In a few weeks time he gets two exclusively metal festivals nearly back to back so he gets his turn, but that didn’t make the idea of FiberFIB any more palatable.
Riding into Benicassim he was awestuck by the mass of beach that lay out before us and the crystal clear waters. Riding further towards the venue and being met with intense heat and dust clouds didn’t sit well. No one knew where we could park our bike so we kind of just left it in the middle of somewhere while we went and swapped our tickets for wristbands that would allow us access to the entire festival.
We took a gamble riding down what looked like a pedestrian path but did eventually find a carpark. It was only after we parked the bike that we realized we had to walk half way back the way we came to enter the campground. In 35-40 degree heat and riding gear it was probably the least fun 30 minutes of the trip.
Actually, the least fun we’ve had on the trip came after we put our stuff down. The campground was divided into sections, each covered with shade sails. Many we full and it appeared they were filling them one by one. Masses of people were standing around the edges of the closest empty one while a power tripping Spanish chick stood in the middle with a megaphone, stopping anyone putting up their tents.
I’m going to presume that the reasoning behind this was that they have limited camping space and they wanted to ensure people we packed in as tightly as possible, but at the time it certainly felt like they were messing with us for the hell of it. Once there were more people crowded around than could possibly fit in the space, she announced we could enter, and there was a huge mad dash as everyone tried to find a space.
In the heat and the crowds Courtney was not in a good mood and was 100% not interested in the idea of fighting for space. He stood there saying we would just go to another space while I frantically claimed space for our tent. As the afternoon wore on and each section was allocated in the same way, it was obvious that trying a different area would have proved fruitless. We ended up unable to put up the front of our awning and almost unable to enter and exit, surrounded on all sides by tent walls.
Luckily, while we gave up and went to the beach, the tents in front and to the right of us decided to pack up and move on so we were eventually able to finish putting up the tent. The whole experience was ridiculous, and we have 2 more of these festivals to go on the trip.
The 10-15 minute walk to the beach cheered everything up, as did the festival program. All the bands I want to see are playing the main stage, generally one after the other, and generally after 8pm – I guess that’s the benefit of being foreign and only recognizing the biggest acts. So we have to look at the week this way – the tent is for the most minimal part of our stay, we are at the beach for the week and for 4 of the nights we are here, I will go off to a concert, and Courtney and either come with me or not. It’s a beach holiday, with music, and as long as we don’t get woken up by drunks passing out on top of our tent like we did after night one, we should be fine. And at least one of us will enjoy Portishead, Arcade Fire, The Strokes, Brandon Flowers, Mumford and Sons, Arctic Monkeys and Primal Scream.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Disneyland and the Palace of Versaille
After getting home at 1am with pieces of his foot missing, you would think Courtney would want a day off the next day. Not so – damned if he was missing Disneyland. We already had tickets, and we had been looking forward to this day for an age, so we jumped (OK, hobbled) onto the train and headed on our way.
Disneyland is the happiest place on earth. Even though Euro Disney is smaller than it’s American counterpart it was well worth it. We stumbled upon the opening of Thunder Mountain, a wild west/gold digging type roller coaster and got on with no queue. We saw an acrobatic show based on Tarzan and Jane, we saw a glass blower making crystal Donald Ducks out of nothing. We went on Space Mountain three times once we figured out how to use FastPass, a system that lets you reserve a queue place and come back. And we saw the evening parade that I’ve heard stories of since I was little.
We stayed until the very last minute they would allow us, jumping on the Teacups just because it was the closest ride at closing time and we wanted to squeeze one more in. We caught the train half way home and then found out the trains home had stopped for the night (it was 10pm) but catching our second taxi in 2 days didn’t bother us – we spent the day at Disneyland!
If Disneyland is heaven for kids, Versaille is some sort of equivalent. The day after Disney, we rode the 20 minutes or so to the town of Versaille to see the palace of Marie Antoinette. I have never seen anything so opulent. The palace is gilded, even the gates have gold on them. Access is only to a small percentage of the massive building yet the rooms of velvet walls, renaissance-painted ceilings and floor to ceiling windows roll on and on and on.
The view is a whole other story. Walking around the palace, standing in the King and Queens bedrooms and staring out across acres and acres of landscaped gardens, you see how you could get used to having the curtains opened for you each morning and thinking ‘This is mine’. The gardens are no less stunning up close and you could spend literally days exploring them. It’s a 25 minute walk from the main palace to the Grand Trianon – the King and Queens ‘recreational residence’ and the Petite Trianon – Marie Antoinette’s personal apartments, complete with it’s own set of landscaped gardens. We cheated a little bit and got a mini train back to the main Palace before the ride home.
On the one hand I wished I had gone straight back into Paris after that first day, to try and see another area and get a feel for the city. On the other, it was nice to step away from the city, where the crowds are just as thick but you feel like you’ve got time to take it in.
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Monday, July 4, 2011
Sometimes The Silver Lining is Impossible to Miss
The absolute highlight of Paris so far crept up on us without us knowing. Being driven along in a taxi late at night, the trees eased and faded out, and there she was. The Eiffel Tower sparkles every hour on the hour, did you know that? I didn’t, until I saw it. As the taxi wove through traffic, the driver so used to the sight he was oblivious, the lights glittered and the Tower stood proud, like a girl spinning in a new dress.
I managed to get a single photo of it, paused at changing lights for a split second. I sat there, enjoying the moment, deleting the several other unsuccessful attempts at photos. I looked away for just a second and was confronted by the Arc de Triomphe – which is huge by the way – again lit up against the night sky. The imposing yet beautiful nature of the structure distracted me from the fact we were on one of the world’s most dangerous roundabouts, and then the Arc was gone.
It’s just unfortunate that all this glory only happened because we had just spent 6 hours in hospital.
Rewind 6 hours. Day was turning to evening and we were considering where to have dinner. We had caught a train to the city that morning and been instantly lost. The streets in Paris curve every which way and a lot of the romantic, artistic vibe of the city comes from the fact that you can lose yourself in it. I just didn’t realize they meant literally. Street signs hide in the least obvious places, buildings and statues and hanging baskets and monuments tangle amongst themselves.
It sounds beautiful and it is, but on the second 40 degree day in a row and hot on the heels of the most stressful day of our trip so far, all I wanted was to find the damn river so I could get some bearings.
Throughout the day we managed to find Notre Dame, the Fountain of St Michel, the Pantheon and Luxembourg Gardens. We didn’t go in to Notre Dame or the Pantheon due to the massive queues. We just relished in their size and detail and moved on. We ate crepes and Croque Monsieur, wandered the streets, cursed the heat and melted into the shade. Overwhelmingly though, the thing we did most was Get Out of the Way.
I had expected Paris to be busy but to be relaxing, a place where you could sit and watch the world go by, meander and take it all in. Not so, at least not in that part of town. Maybe we fill find what I’m looking for somewhere else, but that day we did not.
And so we found ourselves wandering back towards the Louvre, not entirely sure of our ultimate direction. We stopped for photos of the pyramids and the ridiculous expanse that is the museum, and Courtney wanted to pose for one more photo.
Kids, don’t climb lampposts in jandels.
The cops that stopped us from desperately trying to hail a cab in the middle of a very busy street were lovely. They thought it was hilarious that the manner in which Courtney hurt his foot was to slip down on the metal spine of a decorative fish and gouge himself. They also kept saying New Zealand men were strong. They were right, if by strong you meant dumb enough to gouge your foot and then climb the post again. Courts didn’t even tell me he had done anything, just climbed again and posed, because damned if he was wasting his injury on not achieving his goal. He climbed down and then calmly advised that we needed to find a doctor. So calmly, that until I saw the blood I thought he was joking.
The wonderful cops, including some on rollerblades, called the ‘firemen’ for us (broken English for ‘ambulance’) and stayed with us right until the point that the ambulance officers decided Courtney needed to go to a hospital.
6 hours, 7 stitches, a thunderstorm, a smuggled scalpel (thanks to a lovely or insane doctor who knew it would be hard for us to get back to get the stitches taken out) and a couple of crazy homeless people later, we stumbled out, hailed a cab, and were enroute to the Eiffel Tower. We just didn’t know it.
Sometimes it’s nice when the silver lining sparkles so you can’t miss it.
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Sunday, July 3, 2011
Tomorrow is a New Day
We set off from Beauvoir in good humour, having just been jump started by our new friends and on our way to the city dreams are made of – Paris. The 3.5 hour ride meant out 10.30am start was reasonable. Even with stops we expected to arrive around 4pm, however the travel gods had other plans for us.
I’m fairly certain we took a wrong turn very early on, and that we took the longest possible route to Paris. For the bulk of it, we didn’t really care. The countryside in France is incredible, the roads empty, the expanses grand, and the castles and cathedrals frequent.
We had pizza, spaghetti bolognaise and chocolate mousse (the only names we recognized) for lunch and a restaurant in a small town we will probably never know the name of. We played with their Labrador puppy and another dog that looked like a grizzly bear that had been shrunk down. We cooled down and drank copious amounts of icy water, keeping a close eye on the bike outside in the 35-40 Degree Celsius heat.
We rode on and made a few other stops to get drinks, petrol and directions. The Navman (well, my phone with maps installed) was low on battery and we wanted to save it for when we got closer to Paris. Seeing the first sign for Paris was exhilarating and as we got closer and started seeing signs for Versaille as well we were more and more excited.
Then we got lost. Which, as I’ve now found, is extremely easy to do in this city, even on the outskirts. We knew the campsite was halfway between Versaille and Paris, which itself is a 30 minute ride, so we decided to get off the motorway at the first sign for Versaille and check directions. Since Versaille was the closer of the two destinations we should be able to navigate 15 minutes past it quite easily.
By this time the phone was flat. My own fault because I had packed the charger somewhere in the panniers and we couldn’t get it out to recharge the phone over lunch. We were in the middle of Versaille, in 40 degree heat, with a couple of forget-to-look-left-instead-of-right moments behind us earlier in the day and suddenly surrounded by roundabouts, one way streets and thousands of insane drivers undecided on which lane they wanted to be on. Stress much?
I was freaking out at the other drivers, Courts was freaking out at the heat (it’s not so bad when you’re moving, but stopped at traffic light after traffic light it’s pretty intense) and we were both freaking out at each other. A restaurant kindly let us use their wifi with our laptop to copy down directions. They went really well until we got off the motorway and were faced with busy Parisian roads again. We ended up in a nasty looking part of town, turned back the way we came and luckily almost fell on Maisons-Lafitte, our destination. It was 8pm, we were hot, tired and grumpy, and we didn’t love Paris so far.
Thanks to a very friendly campsite-shop assistant and the beer he sold us, everything evened out. We had grapes for dinner with no other option and settled in early. It’s days like this you take comfort in knowing the sun will go down and tomorrow it will come up again afresh.
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Tuesday, June 21, 2011
It Should Have Been Obvious
Our first impression of Dublin was that it wasn't as Irish as the places we had previously visited. After visiting the national treasure (Guinness Brewery) and some national history (Kilmainham Gaol) we spent our second day in Dublin in and around Grafton Street. We had a late start but I was desperate to see the bog bodies at the National Museum of Archaeology and Grafton Street was not only nearby, but came on high recommendation from a taxi driver - the best kind of recommendation.
We loved Grafton Street, 100%, but it came across very much as a tourist trap and not somewhere the locals go to wile away a Sunday afternoon. Every few metres were street performers of every skill set (and skill level), from musicians to magicians. Our favourite was one of the three living statues scattered down the street, this one painted to look like the blackened statues of the city rather than someone with a bucket of metallic face paint poured over them. He held a pipe which we later figured out was filled with bird seed, and pigeons took turns perching on him to add to the display.
After successfully navigating the museum and finally seeing the bog bodies (just as morbid, creepy and cool as I hoped they would be) we still felt Dublin was more of a city of the world than of Ireland. Making our way back to the hostel to pack, we were drawn to a pub only a few hundred metres from home, but on the main stretch of O'Connell Street. Loud and more importantly live Irish music blasted out the door and Courts looked longingly at the blackboard as our last few coins burned a whole in our pockets. It would be wrong not to spend our last few dollars on a pint wouldn't it?
As we sat in the garden bar out the back, I suddenly found myself in the middle of Ireland. While Courtney watched a game of Hurling on the big screen (his new favourite pastime) I watched the people. I kept thinking about something we learnt in Athlone - that no one in Ireland really has house parties. At home it's normal for a night out to begin at one persons house and to possibly end at anothers. It's just as normal for a night out to be at a persons house, rather than a club or pub. As much as we love the pub atmosphere, it didn't entirely make sense to us why the Irish would entirely exclude house parties from their social agenda.
At this pub we were at, a few people sat to one side in pairs, most of us looking as un-Irish as the next. It was very obviously the tourist side of the bar, people who wanted to be outside but were weary of being in the thick of it. The 'thick of it' was centred around a couple of snooker tables and the tables surrounding them. After one of a group of men turned the heater off, a comment passed between their group and one of women at the next table. Next minute, one member of the boys is sitting with the girls and they've discovered they grew up in the same town and know the same people. Half an hour of comments between the groups later and a comment goes across the girls to a third group on the far side. Now all three groups are involved in varying degrees of conversation, all within half an hour.
The garden bar we were at backed onto the garden bars of two other bars, all sharing a communal middle section. If in half an hour, 3 groups of 3 or 4 people can begin melting into one, all at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon, imagine Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights. As each bar slowly melds into one group of friends, the three bars can collectively do the same. Soon, everyone knows everyone - it's no wonder that in big-small towns like Athlone with several thousand residents, everyone still knows everyone.
Why would you need a house party? Everyone at the bar is going to be your friend soon anyway. So, with only an hour or so until we left Dublin, we finally found Ireland in the city. Behind a pub, surrounded by the disregarded and neglected rear-ends of several buildings, walls crumbling, windows cracked. Faces aged, teeth chipped, old and young, men and women. United by the mere fact they're Irish. Which isn't a 'mere' fact at all. Irish people conquered the world, without losing their culture or letting it fade into anyone elses. Even when you think it's dissolved and faded, you find it in the least likely of places. Ireland's just chilling out behind the pub.
Thanks Ireland, it's been grand.
We loved Grafton Street, 100%, but it came across very much as a tourist trap and not somewhere the locals go to wile away a Sunday afternoon. Every few metres were street performers of every skill set (and skill level), from musicians to magicians. Our favourite was one of the three living statues scattered down the street, this one painted to look like the blackened statues of the city rather than someone with a bucket of metallic face paint poured over them. He held a pipe which we later figured out was filled with bird seed, and pigeons took turns perching on him to add to the display.
After successfully navigating the museum and finally seeing the bog bodies (just as morbid, creepy and cool as I hoped they would be) we still felt Dublin was more of a city of the world than of Ireland. Making our way back to the hostel to pack, we were drawn to a pub only a few hundred metres from home, but on the main stretch of O'Connell Street. Loud and more importantly live Irish music blasted out the door and Courts looked longingly at the blackboard as our last few coins burned a whole in our pockets. It would be wrong not to spend our last few dollars on a pint wouldn't it?
As we sat in the garden bar out the back, I suddenly found myself in the middle of Ireland. While Courtney watched a game of Hurling on the big screen (his new favourite pastime) I watched the people. I kept thinking about something we learnt in Athlone - that no one in Ireland really has house parties. At home it's normal for a night out to begin at one persons house and to possibly end at anothers. It's just as normal for a night out to be at a persons house, rather than a club or pub. As much as we love the pub atmosphere, it didn't entirely make sense to us why the Irish would entirely exclude house parties from their social agenda.
At this pub we were at, a few people sat to one side in pairs, most of us looking as un-Irish as the next. It was very obviously the tourist side of the bar, people who wanted to be outside but were weary of being in the thick of it. The 'thick of it' was centred around a couple of snooker tables and the tables surrounding them. After one of a group of men turned the heater off, a comment passed between their group and one of women at the next table. Next minute, one member of the boys is sitting with the girls and they've discovered they grew up in the same town and know the same people. Half an hour of comments between the groups later and a comment goes across the girls to a third group on the far side. Now all three groups are involved in varying degrees of conversation, all within half an hour.
The garden bar we were at backed onto the garden bars of two other bars, all sharing a communal middle section. If in half an hour, 3 groups of 3 or 4 people can begin melting into one, all at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon, imagine Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights. As each bar slowly melds into one group of friends, the three bars can collectively do the same. Soon, everyone knows everyone - it's no wonder that in big-small towns like Athlone with several thousand residents, everyone still knows everyone.
Why would you need a house party? Everyone at the bar is going to be your friend soon anyway. So, with only an hour or so until we left Dublin, we finally found Ireland in the city. Behind a pub, surrounded by the disregarded and neglected rear-ends of several buildings, walls crumbling, windows cracked. Faces aged, teeth chipped, old and young, men and women. United by the mere fact they're Irish. Which isn't a 'mere' fact at all. Irish people conquered the world, without losing their culture or letting it fade into anyone elses. Even when you think it's dissolved and faded, you find it in the least likely of places. Ireland's just chilling out behind the pub.
Thanks Ireland, it's been grand.
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Recommendations Vs. Reputations
After such a great start to our Dublin adventure, we had big plans for our first full day. First on our list was the Guinness Brewery, but it wouldn't be so much fun if we got there the easy way, right? After filling up on free breakfast, getting ready in the (yay, clean!) showers and checking in online, we headed back down O'Connell Street, this time only stopping for a photo at Eddie Rockets before continuing over the bridge that spans the River Liffey.
We had plans to find a food market we saw advertised and wandered through the streets of Temple Bar to find it. Temple Bar was like striking gold - everything I imagined Dublin would be, right down to the last detail, was crammed onto these streets. Cobblestones, red brick, thin roads and thinner footpaths. Hanging baskets of flowers, handpainted pub signs, wrought iron lamp posts and chalk drawn menus. We only ever managed to find part of the market - it's normal location was being renovated and so stall holders were spread around three locations. We found one and got coffee and crepes but we didn't bother searching out the other two locations - too much like hard work when all we wanted was breakfast.
We accidentally fell upon the State Apartments and in turn Dublin Castle when we spotted a walking tour and were curious as to what they were looking at. We hadn't planned on seeking out the castle, not only because we were a little castled-out from the Burren but because Dublin Castle just didn't look that great online. It wasn't, although better than expected. Photos taken, we continued an age towards the Guinness Brewery. It dawned on us as the pubs and shops got rougher and the broken windows more frequent that maybe the Brewery wasn't in the nicest of Dublin neighbourhoods. It wasn't until we returned to the hostel that night that we found out just how rough, thanks to our lovely friend Google.
Guinness Brewery kept Courts happy for the best part of a few hours. We didn't expect it to be so museum like, but it was very professionally presented as a real tourist attraction. I expected to be led across viewing platforms overlooking the machinery and workers, but the whole thing was actually in the original Storehouse, with views over the current brewing premised. There are 5 levels of exhibits showing every step of growing the barley, hops and yeast, sourcing the water and processing it all, along with 200 years of advertising, bottling and branding.
The entire tour is self guided, and while most of the way is easy to follow thanks to big orange arrows on the floor, at times it was a little overwhelming or confusing, in part due to layout and in part due to the huge crowds of people. That's the other thing I didn't anticipate - despite knowing the brewery is Ireland's top tourist attraction I really didn't imagine so many people to be there. Courtney was in Long Haired Heaven, soaking in every morsel of information - and free Guiness - he could. Personally I got a little bit bored at times with the level of detail, but overall it was really well done and worth doing. The absolute highlight was the Gravity Bar on the top story. It provides 360 degree views of Dublin from one of the highest points in the city, all served with a pint.
Not satisfied with our achievements for the day, we set out to find Kilmainham Gaol, which by the tourist map appeared to be a stones throw from Guinness and had been highly recommended to us by Irish friends. First up, the tourist map lied. We walked for miles, feeling more and more uneasy with the area we were in (I'm pretty sure it was the basis for Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch, but without Jason Statham to protect us) before turning back. Tired, grumpy and unable to find toilets let alone the damn Gaol, we bickered our way back almost to Guinness before deciding to water the gardens of a nearby hospital (Shhh) and then catch a taxi.
The taxi took us all the way back the way we had tried and then some - we would have never found the Gaol on our own. We were just in time for the last tour of the day and after all that walking and grumping we weren't leaving without what we came for. The tour was really good but not amazing. I was a little spoilt having done the awesome Fremantle Prison tour in Perth, Australia, and this one didn't quite match up. Courts on the other hand needed to pee the whole time, again (thank you Guinness) so he didn't enjoy it as much either.
By the time we made it back to Eddie Rockets for the second night running, we had walked miles, literally through both the warmest sun of the trip and the heaviest rain. It was a long, long walk back to O'Connell Street after Kilmainham but Eddie made everything OK. Well, maybe not in Courtney's books - even Eddie would have a hard time making up for that walk because our Courts ain't a walker!
At the end of the day, I was left wondering about the attraction of the attractions of the day - if that makes sense. Guinness, on the one hand, has an entire culture preceeding it. Every single bar in Ireland proudly displays Guinness signage and when you research a trip to Dublin, whether you drink Guinness or not (I don't) you are almost obliged to visit the brewery because it's so culturally significant. We hadn't actually heard of anyone doing the tour though and so went entirely based on the idea of it. Kilmainham on the other hand was something we wrote off until several people recommended it and we went solely on their recommnedations. So which is better? Despite probably enjoying Guinness Brewery more, I think I would usually rely on real life recommendations over branding - although I do love a good gimick. Which would you prefer? Ever been let down by branding or a good recommendation?
We had plans to find a food market we saw advertised and wandered through the streets of Temple Bar to find it. Temple Bar was like striking gold - everything I imagined Dublin would be, right down to the last detail, was crammed onto these streets. Cobblestones, red brick, thin roads and thinner footpaths. Hanging baskets of flowers, handpainted pub signs, wrought iron lamp posts and chalk drawn menus. We only ever managed to find part of the market - it's normal location was being renovated and so stall holders were spread around three locations. We found one and got coffee and crepes but we didn't bother searching out the other two locations - too much like hard work when all we wanted was breakfast.
We accidentally fell upon the State Apartments and in turn Dublin Castle when we spotted a walking tour and were curious as to what they were looking at. We hadn't planned on seeking out the castle, not only because we were a little castled-out from the Burren but because Dublin Castle just didn't look that great online. It wasn't, although better than expected. Photos taken, we continued an age towards the Guinness Brewery. It dawned on us as the pubs and shops got rougher and the broken windows more frequent that maybe the Brewery wasn't in the nicest of Dublin neighbourhoods. It wasn't until we returned to the hostel that night that we found out just how rough, thanks to our lovely friend Google.
Guinness Brewery kept Courts happy for the best part of a few hours. We didn't expect it to be so museum like, but it was very professionally presented as a real tourist attraction. I expected to be led across viewing platforms overlooking the machinery and workers, but the whole thing was actually in the original Storehouse, with views over the current brewing premised. There are 5 levels of exhibits showing every step of growing the barley, hops and yeast, sourcing the water and processing it all, along with 200 years of advertising, bottling and branding.
The entire tour is self guided, and while most of the way is easy to follow thanks to big orange arrows on the floor, at times it was a little overwhelming or confusing, in part due to layout and in part due to the huge crowds of people. That's the other thing I didn't anticipate - despite knowing the brewery is Ireland's top tourist attraction I really didn't imagine so many people to be there. Courtney was in Long Haired Heaven, soaking in every morsel of information - and free Guiness - he could. Personally I got a little bit bored at times with the level of detail, but overall it was really well done and worth doing. The absolute highlight was the Gravity Bar on the top story. It provides 360 degree views of Dublin from one of the highest points in the city, all served with a pint.
Not satisfied with our achievements for the day, we set out to find Kilmainham Gaol, which by the tourist map appeared to be a stones throw from Guinness and had been highly recommended to us by Irish friends. First up, the tourist map lied. We walked for miles, feeling more and more uneasy with the area we were in (I'm pretty sure it was the basis for Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch, but without Jason Statham to protect us) before turning back. Tired, grumpy and unable to find toilets let alone the damn Gaol, we bickered our way back almost to Guinness before deciding to water the gardens of a nearby hospital (Shhh) and then catch a taxi.
The taxi took us all the way back the way we had tried and then some - we would have never found the Gaol on our own. We were just in time for the last tour of the day and after all that walking and grumping we weren't leaving without what we came for. The tour was really good but not amazing. I was a little spoilt having done the awesome Fremantle Prison tour in Perth, Australia, and this one didn't quite match up. Courts on the other hand needed to pee the whole time, again (thank you Guinness) so he didn't enjoy it as much either.
By the time we made it back to Eddie Rockets for the second night running, we had walked miles, literally through both the warmest sun of the trip and the heaviest rain. It was a long, long walk back to O'Connell Street after Kilmainham but Eddie made everything OK. Well, maybe not in Courtney's books - even Eddie would have a hard time making up for that walk because our Courts ain't a walker!
At the end of the day, I was left wondering about the attraction of the attractions of the day - if that makes sense. Guinness, on the one hand, has an entire culture preceeding it. Every single bar in Ireland proudly displays Guinness signage and when you research a trip to Dublin, whether you drink Guinness or not (I don't) you are almost obliged to visit the brewery because it's so culturally significant. We hadn't actually heard of anyone doing the tour though and so went entirely based on the idea of it. Kilmainham on the other hand was something we wrote off until several people recommended it and we went solely on their recommnedations. So which is better? Despite probably enjoying Guinness Brewery more, I think I would usually rely on real life recommendations over branding - although I do love a good gimick. Which would you prefer? Ever been let down by branding or a good recommendation?
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