Europe, Friday April 9 (day 3 of our trip)

After only a couple of days in England, we headed out to see more of Europe. Dublin would be first. We had trouble with the printers at Cole's house, so he went to his college to print our boarding passes. Unfortunately, he logged in about 10 minutes too late, and Ryan Air charges a 40 pound fee if you don't print your passes 4 hours in advance! We hoped to argue our way out of the fee. Keep in mind that Ryan Air is a super-cheap airline, and our tickets were only 30 pounds! We would soon find out that they try to make up more money however they can, including peddling stuff in the aisles of the plane.

Anyway, we headed to the airport by train, which is a very smooth ride by the way, and checked in. We ran over when they announced the gate, because seats are first-come, first-serve, but still had to wait in a long line. Checking bags are another way they try to make up their money, so we made the decision before leaving, that we would travel to our other destinations carrying just backpacks. The attendants still made us put our bags into a box to make sure they were small enough. The front pocket of my bag was so full it got stuck, but fortunately the lady was distracted while I swore under my breath and pried it out.

We arrived in Dublin after only an hour, and noticed a bunch of people outside the airport. They were all rowdy, with flags and matching yellow and blue jumpers (yes, that is a british-ism). We found out later that they were French, and had turned out to root on their rugby team. I was actually surprised that Frenchmen get riled up like that - you hear they're snooty and rude, and then find out they're normal people. Didn't see that coming. The Irish fans had white flags and clothing.

My impression on the bus to Dublin, was that the city was actually a bit worn down. It didn't feel all that "Irishey" to me - could have been any city really. I'm not sure what I expected, more rolling hills I suppose, but we would need to leave town to see those. Maybe on our next trip. Anyway, we walked for what felt like ages, until we arrived at our hostel, which was near the center of town. Our beds in the hostel were on the very top floor, and I don't think we ever climbed those stairs with less than a pint of guinness in us - it got tiring. The large room where we would be staying held 20 beds, but was split into little cubicles of 4 beds each. Funnily, the 4th person in our cubicle would turn out to be from Colorado Springs! Small world.

Well, we headed out for a late lunch. I take that back - first we went into a very sketchy pub with 10-15 locals, and nervously drank our first guinnesses. I don't know if we enjoyed those as much as ones we'd drink later, because we were overwhelmed and being stared at. Then we really needed to eat. We tried to limit ourselves to something authentic, but eventually caved when we smelled the sweet aroma of pizza. We went inside, and laughed as we noticed that the flavors offered were East Indian (curry and other spices), but the visual theme was American Indian. Would the people of Ireland really not notice the difference? Were they just too lazy to figure out what American Indians would put on pizza (the answer being: buffalo and corn)? We took photos.

Next, we wandered around and did a bit of sight-seeing, and I pushed for a little shopping. However, despite it being a Friday when you'd think people would be out and about, all of the shops closed between 5-6! So most of the places were closing their doors. Cole said that Britian was the same way. It didn't matter what kind of job you had, 5:00 is quitting time. I like that policy, and yet I like shopping after work. Tricky. I didn't mind much though, because all of these stores were international, and I can go to a mall in the US. We decided to throw in the towel and go to another pub. Which I think, is also the national policy of Britian and Ireland.

We each had another pint of Guinness, and then got around to asking some people where we could watch the game. The 2 women we talked to suggested Sinnick, where the downstairs was filled with big screens. We found our way to the pub, and it was definitely the place to watch the game. It was packed with fans, and the excited mood was infectious. We (especially I) didn't understand all the rules of rugby, but were impressed by things like: a tackle would occur, and 10 men would be piled on top of each other, and yet the play would continue! Somehow, someone always seemed to get the ball and just keep running! We saw how they lifted a man up to catch he ball when it was thrown in from the border line, how they did a "scrum" where they huddled up and tried to push the other team, and learned that you can pass backwards but kick forwards.

Due to all the guinness, I took a trip to the bathroom. Each one had an attendant. Ours was talking on her cellphone when I finished washing my hands, and handed me a couple squares of toilet paper. As I tried to swipe the tiny pieces off, I made the decision to save the Euro in my pocket for someone else. I still feel guilty for not tipping.

The game went on, and we were extremely excited when the Irish team won by 1 point - despite the French team being favored to win! The bar erupted in shouts. By this time, we were pretty amped up, and decided to continue our night of fun with a dance place. Ben got out-voted on this decision. We ended up at a place called "Club War." One of their gimmicks was to put war paint on you if you so desired - and we did obviously. We eventually found out that it was GLS night, but that made it all the more fun - great dancing and crazily dressed people to watch. We danced the night away, and then on our way back to the hostel, picked up late-night gyros at "Abra-kababra."

I jumped in the shower when we got back to the Hostel, since I was sure the bathroom would be crazy the next morning. We decided we would sleep in the next day - little did we know that Hostels are a terrible place for sleeping. Even though that's their whole function ;)

England, Day 2

Yesterday, Ben woke up bright and early, and headed out for coffee. I still felt a bit sleepy and jet-lagged, but dragged myself out of bed. After breakfast, we headed out for a busy day, which would include a local sport, "punting." But first, we did a bit more sight-seeing. We started out at Queens college, a beautiful place with a cool chapel, but it was under a lot of construction so we headed on to New College. "So it's the newest one on campus?" Ben asked? "Well, it was built in the 1200's replied Cole." And that's something that makes an impression on you around here. Everything is so OLD! It really puts into perspective how young our country really is.

New college was amazing and beautiful, but I have to say I was extra excited because there was a courtyard with a huge tree, where in Harry Potter, Mad-Eye Moody turned Malfoy into a ferret. You could totally recognize the spot too.

Then we headed into the New College gardens, which in Cole's words, is very "Wonderland-esque." In the middle of the garden though, is this weird mound with many many steps leading up, which we couldn't associate with anything except Mayan human sacrifice! The top of the mound didn't give us any better clues - it was just a platform. At that moment, I wished for a table and a sword so we could re-inact a head chopping for the camera. Maybe better that those items weren't available.

Our next stop was at the punting rental place. Punting is a sport where you push a boat along from the back, similar to the Venetian gondolas. It sounded very ideallic and fun, and with very little instruction, we hopped on, with Ben taking the "wheel" first. We would be punting around a small island: down one side and up the other, and we rounded the first side within about 10 minutes, so we decided to be adventurous and continue down, floating toward the Thames. We almost made it to a second, miniature island, when we realized we At  were actually off the map, and had better turn around and head back.

That's when the trouble started. When you push from the back and the current comes from the front, it is very easy for the current to spin you around just when you think you're situated! We were turned around once, and straightened ourselves with some tree branches. Then twice, and straightened ourselves with the wall on the other side of the stream. Then the guide came floating by heading up-river like a pro. "We can't seem to get in control!" we cried, "what should we be doing?" First the guide just said "well try not to cut me off here, try not to cut me off!" All of the people in our boat were thinking "didn't we just say we're not in control?" Then he said that there was a number we could call to arrange a pick-up, and to watch what he was doing as he left us in the dust. He was putting his pole into the water, then pushing off it in a very straight line. It wasn't very helpful since obviously, that's what we'd been going for as well.

So, we called the number. Basically, their message was "ok, you need to turn around, and head up river." What great advice! But, although they didn't offer to pick us up, they seemed ok with us coming in late since we'd called in. At that point the boat was backwards, with the punting platform in the front. Cole was on that end as well and said "well I haven't tried punting yet, I'll just do it from here." So he started pulling us from the front, rather than pushing from the back, and if you think about it—when you're fighting a current this is really the best way to keep on course. Ben rowed like a pro from the back, and I was the "cheerleader" in the middle. At one point, we passed an embankment where dozens of people were enjoying the sun and watching the punters. We started talking about how much we missed our homeland of Canada, and how beautiful Vancouver and Montreal were this time of year. This became an ongoing joke to avoid proving ourselves to be "stupid Americans."

Our very last hurdle was a concrete tunnel that we needed to go through, then turn left to park the boat. Unfortunately, the tourguides who sat only a few feet away offered no help whatsoever, and before we parked we nearly plowed into a young family. But eventually we got out of the boat (to our great relief). Cole walked confidently up to the window and said "we got here on time. We just had to wait to park." I think his confidence confused them and they gave us the 1 hour rate without argument. As we walked away, Ben said "Well, I'm glad we did it…but I never want to do it again."

We decided to have a pint at the King's Arms to simmer down a bit. We sat outside and enjoyed Strongbow, a tasty cider. Then, we headed over to the Oxford athletic club, where we would be meeting friends of Cole's for some Cricket. Tom, Paul, Emily, Shro, and Chin all came along, and the more experienced people showed us how to pitch the ball. You have to keep your arm straight as you pitch, and take a running start, then bounce the ball once before the batter hits it. For Cole, Emily and I, it was a comic attempt at concentrating on too many things at once. Ben picked it up much more easily, and was soon making decent pitches, then even took a turn at bat. Cole, Emily and I ended up standing on the sidelines chatting and admiring the advertisement hot-air balloons.

Once we finished, we went out for pints at the pub called "On the River." It was beautiful, and we were surprised that such a swanky place was like any other pub, and there were no servers. We met Cole's friend Mfundu, who told us about her experience with baboons attacking her picnic in South Africa, and Ben picked Tom's brain (the only Brit in our group), to try and wrap his head around the fact that Whales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England are sort of separate countries, but yet under the UK. Emily explained that it was sort of like states all under the United States - and although these are separate countries, they share just one seat in the UN.

Our final stop of the night was a restaurant called Checkers. It too had a gorgeous interior, and totally surprised us in that it was still considered a pub, and therefore had no waiters. I ordered Chicken Tikka Masala, and the guy behind the counter laughed, saying I pronounced it very posh. I still don't get the joke!

A quote from Ben-----
As an aside, when you go to a pub, there is no wait staff so you always have to go to the bar to order. Food, drinks, everthing. I had a british man straight up laugh at me when I asked if we would get a server at our table. You also don't tip bartender at all. The first night here I put a pound down after being served my drink and was told by another bar patron to take it back. When I said I was leaving a tip he said "You dont tip a bartender!". So that saves a little money.

England Day 1

So, I generally use this blog to convey funny anecdotes from my life, but I'm on vacation and usually try to journal what I do each day when I travel, and I thought, why not do it here?

 Our trip (as most do) started at the airport. My mother kindly dropped us off, which was a leap of faith since we were flying standby. After going through security, we still had 1.5 hours until the plane left. When the gate agent arrived at his desk, we went up to let him know we were standby, and Ben asked how far down we were on the list. "Pretty far" the gate agent told us. Ben and I freaked out a little at that point. Through the extreme generosity of friends, we had these cheap tickets, but had to fly standby. However, we found out an hour later that the gate agent was messing with us, and we were the second couple called to the desk! As an added bonus, we were able to sit in business class.

Business class was as wonderful as you've heard. We had an amazing British stewardess who kept refilling our glasses (beer for Ben, champaigne for me!), and would often say "cheers"when she served us, in the most endearing way. She recommended that, when we arrive, we should try to stay up until nightfall in order to avoid the worst of the jet lag we would encounter. We did our best to sleep through the night: I got about 5 hours while Ben got only 2 or so. We arrived a bit early and couldn't get Cole's number to work (Cole is our host in England), but eventually he walked through the doors and we headed home to Oxford.

We dropped off our things at his place, which is a house, but each room has an individual lock, and there are two shared kitchens and bathrooms. We changed, and then headed out on the town. This city is awesome because you can walk just about everywhere, and it's all so beautiful! And my dad will enjoy this: our room overlooks the field where Roger Bannister first ran the 4-minute mile.

The university is intermingled with the shops and things, so Cole pointed out all sorts of colleges with beautiful arches and spires, most of which I'll have to ask him the name of again. We walked by the famous Radcliff Camera library, then took a tour of Christ Church, which was so amazingly beautiful, and - bonus - was the location of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films! So we went through and pointed out areas we thought we rememembered from the film. Most of it appeared smaller than it looked in the movies, but still surprisingly recognizable.

We stopped for some meat pies, then a delicious cookie (best in England, according to Cole, although my orange-chocolate-chip one was a little strange). We also got our cell phone working, and saw some other places...it's a bit of a blur. Silly Ben wore shorts though and no jacket, so we cut off our tour a bit early to go home and get warm. Shortly after calling family members on skype, Ben looked and sounded like he was about to drop dead, so we decided on a nap. We managed to wake ourselves up after about 90 min, through some miracle, and it actually revived us nicely so we could stay awake until it was actually night time. So, we headed out to a pub around the street (Oxford Blue), to watch the soccer game with England versus Germany. It was a pretty exciting game with lots of goals scored at the beginning. England appeared to have won 3-2, but apparently the score is an aggregate with another game so really they lost. Too bad, but still fun.

We ate cheese fries and bangers and mash, and Cole's friend Leah joined us. After the game, we played Taboo, a game offered by the bar. It was funny because we group of Americans (and one Romanian), had to skip many of the cards with "British-isms." It was boys versus girls: boys won, but fun for all.

Random note: one of the differences here that we've come accross, is that the faucet is always split between hot and cold heads, so you can't adjust the temperature - your left hand burns while your right hand freezes! So funny :)

Lots of fun plans in the next few days: stay tuned!

There's a snake in my bed!

So the other day, Cory jumped out of the bed where he enjoys warming himself under the covers, but all I noticed were the blankets slithering around. I started just as Ben walked into the room, and he asked what was wrong, and I told him I swore there was a snake in the bed! He informed me in a formal manner that despite what I knew from real life, the Bible says that snakes can't climb trees anymore.

"Anymore like, compared to 10,000 years ago, which you remember well?"

"I'm just saying, a snake couldn't possibly be in your bed because they're doomed to crawl the earth on their bellies or whatever!"

"I can't believe you just made a biblical reference to support a totally illogical point! I'm so proud of you."

"Yeah we should tell that one to your parents."

The Hoover salesman

So, a guy just came to my door and said "I'm going door to door just trying to get answers to a couple questions." "ok..." "Do you use this product in your home? (holds kleenex box up)" "Not really" "Ok well this is for you, and I'll be right back" (thinking to myself...what??)

"I see you have some carpet over there, can I set up there?" "Um ok (I really just wanted to get inside from the cold doorway)." The guy started to open up the box and makes small talk. I try to imply that my roommate is right downstairs, as I have just realized that I've allowed a strange man into my house while I'm all alone.

So the guy opens up the box and I ask, "Is that a vacuum cleaner?" "Yes it is" "Um ok well we just bought a vacuum and we're pretty happy with it so I don't want you to waste your time..." "well my boss pays me to just open this up and push it around, do you think I could do that for you?" "I'd rather not, I'd prefer to just get back to what I was doing you know?" The guy argued a little more, and I kept insisting that although I was sure Hoover was a fine brand (thinking all the while about my parent's heavy clunky stupid Hoover), I wasn't interested, wasn't interested, but was still polite but NOT INTERESTED. "Are you sure?" the guy asks..."Um YES I'm fucking sure, Mr. Hoover salesman masquerading as a Kleenex rep and/or statistics gatherer! Get out of my house!"

Actually my real life response was much less bold but if I could do it all over again that's what I would say :)

Habaneros: spicy or no?

Two nights ago, Ben and I had dinner then he headed to hockey, so I had a free evening. I decided to prep a recipe for the next day, because half the time during the week, I get home and just can't face making an entire meal. The name of the recipe is "Habanero Chicken Over a Bed of Pasta." I have never cooked with habaneros, but of course I know in theory that they are one of the hottest peppers out there. I say "in theory," because for some reason I wasn't all that wary about their spiciness. There are times when I've worn gloves just to cut jalapenos because sometimes the spice can really sting if it gets under your nails, but these peppers just looked so cute. "These peppers won't hurt me" I thought as I cut them into small pieces.

Well, the chopping went fine, I put the chicken in a bowl with lime juice, salt, and pepper, and then put the onions, peppers, and other spices into tupperware for the next day. I proceeded to wash my hands, then clean up a bit (meaning my hands came in contact with some anti-germ soaps). Then I worked out and sweated up a storm. After that, I took a shower. When I took my contacts out at the end of the evening, I noticed a slight stinging, but figured it would be fine after they marinated over night.

Ok, well the next morning, I started my morning routine, and started putting my contacts in. I rubbed one of my contacts around on my palm, then gave it a rinse and held it to my eye. As soon as it made contact...I knew I'd made a big mistake. At first I thought the stinging might subside. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I actually have experience with stinging contacts from jalapenos, which sting for a bit but then your eyes tear up and it's ok. But as the burning pain did not subside and I felt like my eye was a boiling pit of tar, I knew things weren't going to be ok. I forced my eye open, and stuck my fingers in which were STILL SPICY from the night before.

I realized that these contacts might be a lost cause, and my hands were definitely not helping me out, so I headed over to my office and grabbed some disposable latex gloves that I use for dying my hair. I got out two brand-new contacts, then did my best to rinse off all the preserving chemicals they came in. I noticed that the latex gloves actually extend much further than my fingers and therefore aren't very good for precision work. Finally, I got the new contacts in my eyes, and looked at the clock: this part of my morning ate up 20 min. But the important thing was: I could see.

So that's the end of my harrowing story of spicy fingers. Later, I realized the irony that the way I figured out that habaneros are spicier than jalapenos...is by testing them out on my eyeballs.

Nyquil tastes like Jeager

So, earlier this week I was a little stressed at work, and super tired, but so anxious about needing sleep that I couldn't actually fall asleep. So, I thought I'd take a little non-medicinal Nyquil to knock me out. Ben couldn't believe I could even drink that stuff because it tastes so awful. I took a sip and had to agree.

"Why did the makers of Nyquil think that licorice would be a good idea for a flavor? People don't drink Jeager for the taste. I dont think." I asked

"Licorice and Root Beer?" Ben asked

I had no idea what he was talking about but I was on a roll so I continued "I have a great idea for our new cold syrup - let's make it taste like Jeager, that won't make people want to vomit when they drink it!"

Ben: "Licorice and Root Beer?"

Me: "Licorice and vomit more like, that's what I taste when I drink it. And then vomit."

Ben: "Licorice and root beer?"

Me: "I feel like you're so focused on your joke that you're not paying attention to mine. And yours isn't very good. Why do you keep saying that anyway, are you saying that's what Jeager is supposed to taste like?"

Ben: "Yes"

Me: "Well stop saying that and laugh at my joke"

Ben: "Licorice and Root Beer?—If you don't think my joke is funny, then why are you laughing?"

Then he got punched.