Return to London

I've lived in several places since graduating from high school, but I haven't really gone back to visit many of them. Obviously, I moved back to my college town, and I was shocked at how much things had changed. But I haven't been back to Milwaukee, Columbus or Charlottesville (yet, the flight is booked) since moving away.

And this trip was the first time I've been back to London since I spent a semester there in 2005. For me, going back was similar to how it would be to go back to any of the other cities, except that there is a lot more to see in London. But I loved seeing what had changed and what stayed the same, and I spent a lot of time trying to picture in my head what it was like seven years ago. We stayed in a hotel in the neighborhood where I lived. The hotel wasn't great, but it was nice to already know my way around to some extent.

We went back and saw my apartment building, and I walked back from dinner one night on a route I used to take pretty frequently and stopped at the grocery store where I used to shop. We'd also be out exploring the city, and I'd pause at a spot and know what was done a random street or realize we were on the same route I always took to work or to classes.

WHAT CHANGED: There used to be a pretty ghetto grocery store next to the tube stop, and it's been replaced by a much nicer grocery store. There's also a Whole Foods on Kensington High Street. Frozen yogurt shops have popped up everywhere there, similar to the U.S., and it felt like that had replaced gelato (sad!). There seemed to be free Wifi everywhere. Granted that seven years ago, I had a laptop instead of an iPhone so I wouldn't have noticed all the hotspots but still free Wifi in the tube stations, very hard to believe! I didn't even see the Internet cafe I used constantly in the neighborhood, but why would you need it?

Maybe it's because I'm not a student trying to use money wisely or that the exchange rate was 1.5 pounds to $1 instead of 2 pounds to $1, but it felt less expensive than it did when I was living there. But that might just be my perception or lack of calculating the exchange rate at that point in the trip. And I mostly focused on seeing things that don't charge an entrance fee.

I was in London from January to April, so I missed the bulk of the tourist season. (By the end of April, it was getting too crowded for me.) And I don't know if this is a time of year thing or just changes in the last seven years, but Portobello Market has grown a lot, not just in people but in the length of it and the number of booths. These crowds made me a little anxious.

And obviously, the Olympics have changed some things. In 2005, London was competing with other cities to get the Olympics, so there were lots of London 2012 signs. But now that they are just a couple of weeks away from the Olympics, most of the signs are warning people to prepare for increased traffic everywhere — on buses, trains, roads. But there were cool things like the countdown in Trafalgar Square, the Olympic rings in St. Pancras station and the gold medals on display at the British Museum.

I also felt like I was in Paris in February — everything was being "refurbished." Everywhere we went there was construction (including at our hotel). And stuff was closed or limited because of renovations, nothing terrible, but it really made me wonder if all this stuff was going to be ready. Because when I was there, London was not looking prepared to be shown off to the world. Hopefully, they get it together and things run smoothly for the Olympics.

WHAT STAYED THE SAME: The thing about traveling in Europe is that everything is old. We think things that are 100 or 200 years old in the U.S. are really old, but in Europe you have stuff that has been around for much longer than 200 years and obviously that doesn't change. Roads stay the same, as does the tube system. I used my A to Z map and tube map a fair amount, but there were some places I probably could have gotten to without a map.

Since we stayed in my old neighborhood, we used the same tube station I used daily for four months, and nothing had changed about it. We ended up in an underground walkway to a tube station that I used to walk through frequently to get from work to class. The smell is still the same, and birds still get in freak you out.

The exhibits in museums are always changing, and I don't remember that many of the museums. But there was definitely a familiarity in the museums we visited. In the Victoria & Albert Museum, it took me a while, but I found the balcony over the room of sculptures that I loved. Of course, it was all being "refurbished" but at least it existed.

The bigger grocery store I shopped in was still there and looked exactly the same. I could go right to the aisle I needed. (The candy aisle, in case you were wondering. Cadbury chocolate is much better over there.)

OK, I'm sure there are many more things, but this was my brain dump on London. The next post will have lots of pictures.

Day 7: Giant's Causeway and Belfast

From Derry, we traveled along the Northern Ireland coast to Giant's Causeway. The coast was beautiful, maybe even more beautiful than the southern coast or maybe it had just been a day or so since we had been on the coast.

Giant's Causeway is a rock formation on the coast that was formed by an underwater volcano. I loved walking out to some of the points farther out and higher. There was also a rock in the shape of a boot off to the side.

After Giant's Causeway, we traveled to Belfast to go to the brand-new Titanic museum (remember how I said there was a Titanic theme?). The Titanic was built in Belfast, and the museum was built at the shipyard where the Titanic was built. It was a pretty incredible museum, very modern and interactive. There were some things I thought were overdone. I didn't really need to be in a moving car to see the exhibit on what it was like to work on the Titanic. And as I said in the post about Derry, there is definitely an effort in Northern Ireland to be more tourist-friendly.

From Belfast, we drove back to Dublin for our final night and farewell dinner. We went to a place called the Abbey Tavern where we had dinner, and there was an Irish band and Irish dancers. It was a lot of fun, and several people from our tour group volunteered to go on stage to dance and to clap along with the band. We had a last drink with the group in the hotel bar and said goodbye. I was surprised how much I enjoyed everyone's company on the trip and that it was sad to say goodbye to these people.

Next up: A return to London

Day 6: Knock and Derry

If you scroll down to the post below, you can see my Shutterfly photo book of the trip. When I selected embeding it in blogger, I didn't realize it would post it immediately, oh well.

Not much was going to compete with the Cliffs of Moher, and I felt like this day was a bit of a break. I think I slept every time we got on the bus, and I never even pulled out my big camera, just snapped some stuff with my iPhone. It also rained a lot. But it was nice to have a relaxing day.

Our first stop was Knock, where there is a large shrine. Villagers saw a vision of the Virgin Mary there in 1879. The shrine is the very modern building in the pictures and seems out of place with all of the older buildings everywhere else.

There is a whole wall that has spigots with holy water.

The next stop was the churchyard where W.B. Yeats was buried.

We had lunch in Donegal Bay, but I don't have photos to prove it. We drove into Northern Ireland to our hotel in Derry. We went on a tour of Derry and had an excellent local tour guide. I've always known there was a lot of unrest in Northern Ireland, but I just didn't realize how raw things were there. There was a very different feeling in Northern Ireland compared to the Republic of Ireland. It was pretty obvious there aren't that many tourists in Derry; in fact, everywhere we went in Northern Ireland, everyone was telling us to come back and send friends.

Derry is a walled city, and on the tour we got to walk on the top of the walls, something that wasn't possible a few years ago. And fortunately, the rain stopped for that part.

Next up: The Northern Ireland coast and Giant's Causeway

Photo Book

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Turn your favorite photos into a photo book at Shutterfly.com.

Day 5: Cliffs of Moher

This was my favorite day of the Ireland tour. The weather cleared, and we had sun and blue skies, it was perfect.

We left Killareny and stopped at the Flying Boat Museum in Foynes. The first passenger transatlantic flights had to take off from the water because they were so heavy with fuel. The airport was supposed to be in Shannon, but it wasn't ready so the first flights were from Foynes. The museum had a replica flying boat. I would be more excited about international flights if the planes were like that. All the seats turned into bunkbeds with curtains, and there was a separate dining area.

After the Flying Boat Museum, we stopped in Bunratty for lunch. This is where the original Durty Nelly's is. We didn't actually eat there because we didn't have much time.

And then, we went to our last stop of the day: the Cliffs of Moher. It was absolutely breathtaking. On one side you have the cliffs and on the other side there is a castle and a good view of the cliffs. We walked up to the castle side first, and then walked along the cliffs. There is a point where the wall ends, and there is a sign that says not to go further but we kept going anyway. I'm not sure what cliff we made it out to, but we walked out for a while. We were only a few minutes late, but we were definitely the last ones on the bus after that. But I didn't feel guilty at all. I was just in awe of the beauty there and was not ready to leave. And now I will overload you with pictures:

After the Cliffs of Moher, we traveled to Galway where we stayed the night. This might have been my favorite hotel. It was definitely my favorite dinner. The bad thing about the hotel was that it was pretty far out of the city center. But a group of us from the tour made the walk into town after dinner. We were told it was only 20 minutes, but I think it was closer to 40 minutes. But there was a pedestrian-only area that reminded me of Charlottesville's Downtown Mall. Andrea decided Galway is where she would want to live in Ireland, and I agree it is a decent-size city but not as crazy as Dublin.