Tumbleweeds: Review of UK and Ireland

Well, this trip was back in February and March of this year (’08), so I’m not going to recount it with as much detail as I would like to (as it’s now 6 months later). However, I do want to post the photos from the adventure and I definitely think that it deserves some sort of official write-up, since all of my records of it are currently spread through two journals in the form of scraps of paper, random observations, and my infamous vocabulary lists. Okay okay, so maybe I can remember the trip in pretty clear detail, but the real challenge here is piecing together a coherent and moderately interesting brief of the journey from my bizarre and sporadic journaling, and to stop being lazy long enough to actually write it all in one cohesive entry. The trip started at Heathrow airport, technically, where I arrived after flying from the states, but the real adventure started at Victoria bus station, where I caught a bus to Cardiff, Wales, about 3 hours after I landed in London. I was on spring break from university, and had gone back to the states to visit my parents for a month or so. I had been saving up mileage points, and had enough to take a pretty big trip, but I could only use them to and from the states, because of the airline they were with, so I decided to plunk a trip to the UK and Ireland right in the middle of my visit home. Anyway, getting back to the bus trip to Wales, the true beginning of my adventure- this was my first time to see the UK, I had previously cycled around Co. Clare and Galway in Ireland, but have never been anywhere else in Europe, and having been in Tokyo for over a year at that point, England and Wales were a fascinating change. I met an awesome guy on the bus, who edits a fantastic music magazine in Cardiff called Krueger Magazine.
I spent a few days in Wales, couchsurfing with an awesome girl named Sally, and I was amazed at the hospitability and general tremendous friendliness and warmth shown by the people of Cardiff- after the general closedness and radically different attitudes of Tokyo people, I have to admit I had some serious culture shock (the euphoria inducing kind) for the first few days I was there. I was lucky enough, the first night I was there, to have a chance to go see an old favourite band of mine, the Canadian duo Tegan and Sara, which turned out to be an entertaining experience, complete with crazy good music, old churches converted into music venues, a horde of punked out highschool aged kids, and Canadian girls trying to repeat weird Welsh jokes. Good fun!
My next plan was to get to Fishguard to catch the ferry to Roslare, Ireland, so on the advice of one of Sally’s friends, I took a train through the gorgeous green sheep filled countryside to Haverfordwest, and then, with only slight confusion, found a bus (or two) that would get me to Fishguard and then down to the docks, and spent another hour hurtling through the countryside over tiny Welsh roads, narrowly missing sheep and small children and various other obstacles. On the ferry, after a false start where I tried to board with the crew, I spent 5 hours being accosted by a semi-homeless semi-drunk (it was 3pm) Irish gypsy named James (I think) who had just spent 3 years living under a tree in a forest (which, don’t get me wrong, I think is incredibly awesome). The conversation went from, hi, how’s it going, to the ocean, to Terry Pratchett, to the James’ pregnant girlfriend, to my Irish fiddle playing, to if he could kiss me on the cheek, or buy me a drink, or…you see where this is going. Well, eventually he had one cider too many and passed out face down on one of the tables, and shortly after that we arrived, so I escaped none the worse for wear and rather amused. We arrived in Ireland, and there was no hostel in Roslare, and this is where my plan started to get a bit fuzzy- I had plans to couchsurf the next night with a guy in Dublin, but I had nowhere to stay that night, and it was getting quite cold and dark. So I took a bus to Wexford, where the lady at the ferry station said she thought there was a hostel, at least, there had been one there a few years ago. So I got a rough map from her and a bus ticket, and with the help of two older Welsh men, managed to find the hostel (which did still exist), and had a few drinks and some laughs with the Welsh guys and their local friends.
The next day I had my first ever adventure with hitchhiking- I hiked and hiked and hiked, about 2 hours up to the turnaround where the road to Dublin split off, and eventually caught a ride part of the way to Dublin with a young country couple, whose accents were so thick, I had trouble understanding that they were speaking English at first. I eventually made it to Dublin, and couldn't make contact with the guy I was surfing with for a while, so I hauled my backpack and violin all around the town, exploring the downtown area and Trinity University. Wow what a beautiful town. I spent a lot of the time I was there those few days sitting in one fair trade cafe that I totally fell in love with, writing. I eventually met up with my couchsurfing friend, who was an incredibly cool guy, and we played music and went busking and he cooked and it was heaven for a few days, in Dublin.
Then I headed up to Belfast, where my plan was to crash one night, and take the ferry to Scotland the next morning, but of course, plans have a way of changing. I met my host, Ara, who was totally NUTS and a fanstastic guy, and he introduced me to the other hosts in the area, who were lovely and with whom we ate pineapple and drank wine, and I ended up spending an extra two days in there. Belfast was an amazing, beautifully architected, sad, crazy town. Ara and Nat took me around and gave me a historical overview of many of the places, and Ara took me to his favourite pub to watch fighting people get thrown out drunken and bloody onto the street and whisked away by a waiting ambulence. And the SOS vans, lets not forget them, giving out tea and cookies to drunkards (and a cookie loving me) as they stumbled home late at night.
Then, one morning, it was time to move on, and I caught the ferry to Stranraer, Scotland, then a bus to Glasgow and then to Edinburgh (I did almost leave my pack on the bus in Glasgow, something the busdriver teased me about to no end). When I finally got to Edinburgh, my friend who was putting me up was out on a date until 11pm or so (it was 6 when I arrived), so I decided to wander the town a bit and look for a cafe to sit and write in for a few hours. Unfortunately, nothing is open in Scotland on sunday. So I walked for about two hours, and was cold and sore from carrying everything, and exausted, so I found a movie theatre and bought a ticket (and a metric ton of candy) and watched Juno for the 5th or 6th time, until my friend called me. I spent the next few days exploring the university, talking to the head of the creative writing department, and trying to climb Arthur's Seat in the rain barefoot. It was a beautiful few days. My friend cooked wonderful food and was so gracious to let me stay, and then I caught a flight out a few days early, and was on my way back to the states before I knew what had hit me.

Cardiff Castle