Classes finished up well, and I headed out of the flat on March 27 with my friend Georgie to see her area of Yorkshire. I got to know her friends, see her town Pontefract, and spend some time in York and Leeds. York was definitely the best, with a nice old cathedral (Yorkminster) and lots of windy medieval streets to navigate. We spent some time looking in the shops, smelling candles, and of course looking at books. It was a bit of a drizzly day, so after our touring we went into a bar/restaurant and had some very good thai food (that I actually liked — unusual for Thai) and spent a long time over lunch. At that point it was time to head to Leeds where she needed to buy tickets to Leeds festival this summer. Due to the cold and rainy nature of the day, I dropped her off in line and took her boyfriend to a book store where we bought books, then headed over to Starbucks to have some tea and avoid getting wet. While Georgie greatly appreciated this, she then got us to go home once she’d gotten her ticket and we went to the bus station and back to Pontefract.
After a short trip home with some eventful trains, I headed south to Cambridge where I met another friend, Abi. Her house is beautiful and partially thatched, and her family was very welcoming and fun to get to know. Her dad is a chemistry professor at Cambridge, so we enjoyed discussing the chemicals in Japanese Hair Straightening. (which I now forget, go figure) We took some walks around her village, and went to Aldeburgh for a day. It’s a small seaside town where we had fish and chips, or chips and pineapple fritters for me, sat on a rocky beach and stuck our feet in the water. That part didn’t last very long, and my feet ached for quite a while after that. We wandered some around the town and then returned to her house for dinner. The next day we went to Cambridge where we went punting, or the boat/pole thing in the river that they do in Venice. We contracted her sister, a rower, to do the punting itself, and enjoyed sitting in the boat on a beautiful day to eat our sandwiches and take pictures of the colleges we passed. Afterward, we went to Clare College to sit in the gardens and soak in some sun before I got on the train to Paris.
I met Kat at the Gare du Nord in Paris, where she took me back to her foyer to tuck in for the night. The next day I headed out on a walk toward the center of the city, and spent most of the day walking, sitting in parks, reading, and avoiding strange parisians. My friend Karen and her boyfriend were also in Paris for the weekend, so we met Kat that evening and got some crepes to eat and sat along the river on Ile de la Cite before going for a late night Louvre session. As it turns out, all Parisian museums are free for anyone under 26 who lives in the EU. This made my trip much cheaper.
The next day I did some more walking and sitting, but went up to Montmartre where I had a baguette and brownie, wandered about, and returned to the Salvador Dali museum that we went to several years ago. It’s still incredibly interesting and I was happy to see it again. Later I went down to Notre Dame and went inside, though it’s much less impressive than other cathedrals once you get inside. I think it’s a bit big and empty compared to the more intricate and dark churches found elsewhere. Still very nice, though. I then walked over to the Eiffel Tower where I met Kat and Karen for a picnic under the tower before heading up for a nighttime look at the city. It was incredibly cold and the lines were relatively long, but we all enjoyed the trip.
After a very sound night’s sleep, I got up and went to Musee Rodin, had lunch there, and then went to le Jardin du Luxembourg for a nice sit. The Musee Rodin was wonderful, with a nice garden with many sculptures, and then many more inside a beautiful old house. It was a perfect day to walk around and enjoy the art outdoors, and I highly recommend it. After my travels of the day, I returned to Kat’s where we met with Karen again for a dinner in Le Quartier Latin which was surprisingly cheap and very good. (set dinners are my friend) We parted, and went to sleep before an early rise to get to Paris Beauvais airport to go to Dublin.
I got to Dublin around midday and met my roomate Meadhbh in the airport. We stored my bag in a locker at the bus station, and then walked around the city to see some of the sights. We stopped in Temple Bar to eat in the restaurant upstairs, where we had a very nice meal with a very incompetent waiter. Funny how the two go together. I really enjoyed Dublin, and it reminded me in parts of Philadelphia. At the end of the day, we got on the bus and went to Belfast where she lives. The next day we walked around Belfast, seeing the murals and the rest of the city. I never felt comfortable taking pictures of the murals, so those are missing, but it was very interesting to see them. We had an Argentinian lunch which was really good, and I had linguine with roasted vegetables and goat cheese, with ice cream and a brownie for dessert. Perfection. We took a bit of a walk through the botanic gardens, and then went home for the night.
The next day we went to Derry where we visited our friend Conor. Again, we walked around, this time on the walls, saw the murals, had some noodles for lunch, and walked along the river for a ways. Finally we’d seen all of Derry about three times, so we caught the bus back to Belfast. We took a quiet day after that to slow down a bit, and then we took a walk into Belfast through a different route than before so that we saw more. We stopped at Clement’s, a coffee shop, for lunch where I had a panini and coffee, and then walked another ways to get dessert, a berry cheesecake for me. Then we realized that there was a volcano spewing ash and travel might be difficult. They cancelled my flight (Ryanair), let me reschedule, but for a flight that they claimed wasn’t going, so once her flight was also cancelled we booked a ferry just in the nick of time to get us back to Glasgow on Saturday. It worked — no idea how – with a lot of luck, and so we returned two days ago and have been settling back in and trying to get some work done. All in all, a very good Easter Break. Hope to do some more traveling before I leave, but we’ll have to see what this volcano thinks of next.
