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Published: August 4th 2008
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HELLO! we have left the uk! finally get to use euros woo. well it has been ages, internet suddenly got epically expensive but at this hostel its free, AMAZING haha. we are meant to be using the time to try and get some planning done for scandinavia (arriving in under a week, so excited!) but procrastinating and photo sharing is way funner obviously. guess will try and do a catch up?
we last wrote in liverpool, which is way too many cities ago for much detail....we saw a museum and a gallery, hung out with our couchsurfing host, cooked a real dinner in his kitchen, and played with the SUPERLAMBANANAS. our favourite part of liverpool, it is europes culture city or something for 2008 and to celebrate there are these weird statues all over the place, we argued a bit about what kind of animal they were meant to be, funnily enough none of us guessed a sheep/banana hybrid. they were fantastic!
from liverpool we bussed up to carlisle to visit georgia and ellen, who finished year 12 with us. they were great hosts! gave us a key to their house and everything! and its so great they are
liverpool
kinda hard to capture in a photo but it is a massive, massive cathedral. massive. all just sharehousing in england WOW. they had to work lots which was a bit sucky but we stayed up to greet them every night! they dont finish till 3 so this was a big effort ha. but hung out with them during the day, and we saw batman which was exciting times.
we stayed in carlise 3 nights then took a 5am (yeuk) bus up to edinburgh. the actual trip was pretty spectacular though despite the time, the sun was coming up through the misty hilly greens of southern scotland and it was just so beautiful. arrived in edinburgh and we all fell head over heels in love with the city. it is everything we loved about england but prettier, more interesting history, nicer people, better accents, more cobblestones, a castle, fantastic! our hostel was a bit out of town but we loved it, a massive old edwardian place renovated into a hostel, right on the water, and our bunks had little privacy curtains (darkness is such a luxury...). while in edinburgh we had coffee in the elephant house cafe, where jk rowling wrote harry potter! rad!
we were determined to see the countryside of scotland after
missing out on northern wales so after 2 nights in edinburgh we caught a train up to inverness. absolutely lovely trip, although busses are wayy cheaper the train is much more comfortable and the scenery was pretty much spectacular. inverness is a pretty cute city, not heaps to do but heaps of nessie memorobillia! we stayed there 3 nights, mostly because we had been to unorganised to find accomodation in glasgow. while in inverness we did a day trip down to drumnadrochit, urqhart castle and loch ness. definately one of our most memorable days, loch ness is actually totally great. i mean we knew it was going to be big and everything, BUT IT IS SERIOUSLY REALLY HUGE. we did a cruise on the 'nessie hunter' and found out that if it was emptied you could fit the entire population of the world 3 times over! so many 'omg that is so beautiful' moments, and our picnic lunch of olives and dips and bread (splashed out!) in the shade of a castle was a moment to sit back and be amazed at what we were seeing. great times!
from inverness we bussed down to glasgow, which is so much
like melbourne that its just weird. glasgow was not our favourite city, most likely coloured badly by the horrible hostel we stayed in but i think also we were just ready to move on from the uk. plus it was really just so much like home! great atmosphere though, and we had a night out to celebrate one month of successful travels!
on monday we left glasgow for a ferry to belfast. now we expected the ferry to be nothing special, a barge of some sort, pretty much a big bus that can swim you know. but it was great! more like a cruise ship than a ferry, with a casino and cinema and shops and heaps of seats next to big windows and yay! we arrived in belfast and were taken to our hostel by a lovely taxi driver whose daughter is in australia backpacking, he was very helpful and informative and great! parents with kids travelling are our favourite, they always love us haha. belfast is a pretty amazing city, we scored a cheap bus tour and the tour guide was really good, we learnt a lot about the city and saw all the obvious sites as
well as c.s lewis' school, van morrisons old neighbourhood and the docks where the titanic was built. later in the afternoon we walked back to shankill rd (didnt see a butcher...) and falls rd, where we had driven on the bus but wanted to go back to. the streets were the strongholds of the loyalists and nationalists respectively, during the 'troubles' in belfast. the two are only a couple of blocks apart and are divided by a peace wall, and both covered in propoganda murals and heaps of flags and stuff, we all really enjoyed it but its hard to find a word to describe the experience, somewhere between enlightening and sobering. the next day in belfast we went up to cave hill, had been hoping to walk to the top but it was going to take too long, but we did get a wonderful stroll through the parklands in the rain, and explored the big old house (they call it a castle but pfft) and gardens that were built there by the family who owned the land in the early 1900s.
around 3 we caught a bus into the republic of ireland, our first stop out of the
uk! and while we all liked belfast, the republic is really much more picturesque and how we imagined and hoped ireland to be, very green, rolling, lots of sheep. were staying in galway, in the cutest hostel, my (isab) favourite so far. it is very poky and quirky, like the rest of the city really. today we just wandered around and enjoyed the atmosphere of galway, lots of winding alleys and little book shops, went to the museum, and had a real irish pub experience (guinness, traditional music, and the walls were green..). also we cooked bolognaise! i love real meals! (well obviously roz didnt eat bolognaise but it was still exciting for her im sure).
from here we continue our whirlwind tour of ireland with 2 nights in cork and 2 in dublin before flying across to helsinki. im sick of typing! but thinking of everyone back home, and personal apology for being so bad at emailing, hopefully this will make up for it to some extent.
ps got lazy with uploading photos, me and rozzie have decided its tea time!
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sarah
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yay first comment! trip sounds awes so far, aww i want to see nessie too! :( and emma i just got our postcard today (finally). love you girls keep safe and upload more photossss :) they're my favourite