Saint Paddy's Day!

Green fever, leprachawn leasure...Saint Paddy definitely blessed Ireland with a uncanning merry attitude and contagious joy. This fact was evident as we disembarced the ferry from Scotland. Lost in freeway web of Belfast, Northern Ireland, we stopped for help..."Excuse me sir, we're lost..."...to which the jolly gentleman immediatly responsed, "you're not L0ST, you're in IRELAND!"...brought smiles to our worrisome faces. Once on track, it was a quick 3 hours to Dublin through the Irish 'brilliant' green mellows and prairies. We stayed at a 'lovely' bed & breakfast in a suburb of Dublin called Howth. It was a charming town really on the edge of the water isolated from the city by it narrow peninsula; however, we opted to swing through Dublin for the festivities. It was shear pandimoniom...green everywhere...people had costumes and a variety of props...I even saw a guy with large inflatable hammer that read "It's St. Paddy's Day...Get hammered!" that was nailing everyone on the head. Others would paint shamrocks and Guiness beers mugs on your face for free. Through this madness we all lasted for 4 hours when Tia Susana and Mami returned. Camila and I lasred the rest of the night until that last bus left for Howth. I met many people from around the world including Australians, French, Spanish, Polish, American, Italian and Irish. It was amazingly a fun time all around with now foul encounters or beligerent behavior common with people and alcohol in large quantity. I even had to borrow an extra couple Euros from some locals to cover our bus fare!!! ;)

Edinburgh, Scotland

Edinburgh, Scotland...what an awesome city. Filled with feudal history and architecture, it's a wonderland for anyone who was inspired by the stories of King Arthur, William Walace, or Rob Roy. We arrived during the day to a massive city buzzing with crazy traffic and bus only streets. Compounded with driving on the left side and being completely lost, it made for apretty stressful time. Eventually with the help of some fine samaritans we found are way and settled in to a sizable apartment close to the downtown. We picked up some groceries, ate'm up, took a nap, and rolled out to catch Edinburgh by night. The first interesting encounter of the evening were two obviously intoxicated ladies lying on the sidewalk laughing histerically. Well dressed and coherent, one asked a passerby for help to get up while the other picked herself up with the side rail. We had a beer at acloseby bar and then bounced over to the night club Espionage to get jiggy with it. Made up of five floors underground, we were happy to find a good crowd in the last dungeon floor. Upon leaving at closing time (3am) we found ourselves in the middle of a full snowfall...which instigated a healthy snowball fight amongst strangers. That was a fun experience.

Take yourself back to the medieval times with Edinburgh castle. Wow! what a point of interest. It stands high above the city center it on the crest of an extinct volcano. At about £12/person, I was doubtful of the exhibitions' worth. I was pleasantly surprised, however, with no need for the audio guide. The 3 hours we were there were not enough to study all the displays but we took many pictures to capture its greatness. Since most of the castle viewing was outside, the bitter cold and snowy wind took a toll on our body temperatures. We took refuge in one of the worlds' oldest department stores, Jenners. Parking ourselves at the wiskey tasting counter, we learned the heating powers of aged drink along with the details of its laborious fabrication. We left happy as ever to return to the apartment for some tasty lamb roast prepared by Tia Susana and Mami. A full coarse meal indeed, we turned in early for the break of dawn rise to travel to Ireland... Saint Patty's Day, baby!

Again if you wanna send me a note, hit me back at richard.grundy@gmail.com!

Saludos,
Ricky

Hardrian's Wall

Today we drove form York to Carlisle through the Lakes district. It was my first experience driving on the left side but not at all as frightening as I imagined. The snow and narrow lanes were scary enough. Upon arriving and settling into our B&B, Camila and I ventured out to explore Tuesday nights in Carlisle. I saw a guy deck a girl and several near clothesless ladies walking the streets. Today we explore Hadrian's Wall seen behind me...

York This

The precursor to the business capital of the world (New York), the city of York welcomes me with freezing arms...yes people I took a vacation from South Beach to enjoy splendid high prices and low temps of the UK...at least I got to throw a snowball, ;)

UK Circuit 2006

Hey there, I've been running behind on my posts but I have a lot to share. Particularly a little trip that I just took...a series of belated posts will follow but at least you'll get the gist of my trip. The purpose was to cover as much of the United Kingdom as possible in 9 days. Groups members included Mami, Tia Susana, prima Camila, and me. Landing in London on March 10, 2006, I collected my things and hitched the Heathrow Express into town...Bayswater Station of the Underground. Price £14.50...for those who don't know the current exchange rate is about 2:1...so we're talking ~$30. Ouch. Anyway, needless to say that it was immediately clear that the trip was going to be an expensive one. Renting a car at $100/day not including gas, bed and breakfasts at $200/night, and meals at $20/each took a toll on the wallet. We cooked our own meals as many times as possible, whenever there was a kitchen accessible. Tia Susana and Mami were experts at throwing yummy meals together as shown in the picture above. The grovery store experience in the UK was very interesting mainly with their selection of produce. Almost 95% of the fruit and vegetables are imported from all over the world. Green beans from Guatemala, apples from South Africa, pears from Argentina, grapes from Chile, peas from Kenya, etc. Great Britan is covered with lush green pastures that are dedicated extensively to livestock...mainly sheep and cattle. Prone to heavy rainfall throughout the year, it was clear that the land was once a heavily forested area but since has been converted to grasslands. This explains how the Brits evolved as a super power since mideival times. The abundance of wood (chief source of fuel and construction material in those times) allowed them to evolve quickly. Now it seems Britain has no trees older than 100 years. You can tell while driving in the coutryside as all the trees are neatly lined up.

One of the main highlights of my time in London was going to see The Producers Musical...a very funny production from Mel Brooks, it served as an entertaining event for us all. "Springtime for Hitler"...sounds like a hit!

You can check out the rest of the pictures from the trip here.