After Portstewart I took a bus into Belfast, a fascinating city. With it's recent history of terrorism and conflict I was excited to get a feel for the city. While there was still plenty of visible evidence of the past troubles I felt safe the majority of the time I was there (well the hostel was a bit dodgy, and after I booked it I heard some stories about theft, but all was well). As I arrived and eventually tracked down a cafe with wireless internet access I was able to assess the damage down to my bank account by the [View Full Entry]

---

---

Northern Ireland has been a highlight of the trip and my trip to Portstewart on the coast to see the Giant's Causeway was spectacular. I finally met up with my friends in Galway and had a bit of craic (a good laugh) with them as the sun shined down on us. It was another lovely day and as we chatted about memories of Prague and what the future had in store for us athletes were running and biking through the streets of the nice college town. It was some sort of adventure race with what appeared to be teams of [View Full Entry]

---

---

I've been to a few stops since my last post, more up's and down's and more brushes with coming home. Me and Kate and Jess didn't see a whole lot of Glasgow until we were walking around with our bags waiting for our bus to Edinburgh and took a grand total of zero pictures. After a quiet first night in the hostel we made some friends the second night and stayed up pretty late exchanging stories so I was fairly groggy the rest of the day traveling back to Edinburgh (after scoring bus tickets on line for just 1 pound [View Full Entry]

---

---

I finally bought a card reader for my camera and have spent like a whole day going back and adding pictures to the posts (and doing some editing, like it no longer says Wein, the German word for wine it's actually the name of the city, Wien, little things like that, and there are still plenty of spelling mistakes. The favorite one I found was misspelling grammatical as I was apologizing for them ha). So take a look back at some of the older posts and I hope you enjoy the pictures because it took forever to get them all up. [View Full Entry]

---

---

We left Oban on Sunday morning and turned back toward Edinburgh as the tour drew closer to a finish. Ewan took a gamble and took us down an amazing (and narrow, probably too narrow for the bus but Ewan worked his magic and the roads weren't too flooded) route through what Ewan called teletubby land. Beautiful rolling grassy hills with a small stream cutting through and great little farm houses dotted the country side. The ground was still soaked from the nights rain but the sun had just come out and as we drove everything shimmered and glowed in a truly [View Full Entry]

---

---

Me and Donna, Felicity and the two Idoa's (two Spanish girls with the same name, it's very common in there small town) are waiting for Ewan to park the bus before we get some famously good fish in chips in the small sea side town of Oban. It was a wildly successful, interesting, beautiful and full day of busing to sights through the highlands. The day started with stories of the brutality of English empiricism as well as some fauna info about the heather plant that turns the highlands a lovely purple color and a visit to the ruins of an [View Full Entry]

---

---

Day one of the three day highland romp bus tour and I am back to really enjoying myself. It was up early this morning to make sure I made my bus on time because the hostel I have been staying at in Edinburgh is a ways out of the city center. Yesterday I had a good Scottish day that started of with a sampling of haggis, which was dddddelicious! After I walked around and made sure I knew where my tour bus was leaving from and dropped in on another comedy show. I stopped in on the Scottish National Gallery (at [View Full Entry]

---

---

It's been more ups and downs but right now I am having a good time discovering all that the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh has to offer. Edinburgh is another stunning city with old old history and a great skyline, I love the castle perched on the sharp bluff. The festival is fun, and since it pours rain on and off it doesn't get too overly crowded, but last night was a bit squeezed for me. This morning it hasn't been raining, so I am thinking I should scoot down real quick, but I'm sure if I rush and try to force [View Full Entry]

---

---

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels I dont know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through Looking into their eyes I see them running too Running on - running on empty Running on - running blind Running on - running into the sun But Im running behind Honey you really tempt me You know the way you look so kind Id love to stick around but Im running behind You know I dont even know what Im hoping [View Full Entry]

---

---

Currently I am waiting at my hostel in London after spending two days in the spectacularly impressive (sights and prices!) city. The last blog post was all fluffy and warm and everything was roses. Oh how quickly the tide can change. Upon arrival in Madrid my wallet was promptly stolen as me and Shannon crammed onto a crowded bus strapped down by our bags. We thought we were going to have it easy as the tram line went straight to our hostel, but no such luck as construction halted tram services exactly from where we were to where we were [View Full Entry]

---

---