Dublin (and Oxegen), 7-12 July 2010

It was summer, and all around us people were going to sold out festivals like Glastonbury, T in the Park, Latitude, and countless others. So we discovered a seemingly lesser-known festival called Oxegen, just out of Dublin. We could kill two birds with one stone and see a bit of Dublin as well, we thought.

We Ryanaired it to Dublin, where we were to have a look around for a couple of days before going to the music festival. We were travelling light, so needed to buy a tent, sleeping bag, and gumboots (it invariably rains at this festival). It was a bit of an ordeal dragging all our stuff to our hotel, so we welcomed a good stout and Irish Stew for dinner. We managed to have a pretty good look round Dublin over the next couple of days, including Temple Bar which is the touristy part of town and has the Wall of Fame, with all the Irish musicians that have made it big (and there's a few).

The River Liffey separates North and South Dublin.

In Temple Bar they had street theatre on for summer. This guy took us on a comedy tour of Temple Bar with some hilarious little acts on the side. There are also a lot of typical Irish bars in Temple Bar with live music, really aimed at the tourists. We didn't stick around though.

The next day we did a free walking tour and got the distinct impression the tour-guide didn't like to ruin a good story with the truth. He was very entertaining but I didn't want to take much of what he said as history. It was cool when he showed us the bullet holes in the post office though.

We went to the Guinness Factory, and learnt how to pour a Guinness the right way.

Then we got to drink the results.

We managed to catch another comedy act (also part of the summer festival, despite the rain...) called Cirque de Legume. We were in hysterics. The whole act is just these two and vegetables, and it is much funnier than you would expect something like that to be....

On Friday it was Oxegen day! We lined up, and lined up, and lined up for the bus (but on the plus side got free stuff while we were waiting). When we finally got there we were a bit disheartened at the fact our campsite was already full, so we had to go to the one furtherest away. It was actually fine though and turned out to be closer to the music than we thought.

This is the line-up:

It was extremely difficult to decide which stage to be at at which time! We tried to make a wee schedule up. In the end we saw: A bit of Plan B, Empire of the Sun, Vampire Weekend, Stereophonics, Jay-Z and Fat Boy Slim.

On Saturday we saw some of the Drums and Hurts, Ellie Goulding, La Roux, Bombay Bicycle Club, Biffy Clyro, Florence and the Machine, Kasabian, The Black Eyed Peas and Ash. There was a lot of running back and forth, and agonising over whether to see Muse or not - which we had tickets for next month.

It was wet... Florence took her shoes off and danced, and the smile never left her face despite getting soaked. She was one of our faves.
It was also muddy. Drunk people plus mud can be pretty damn funny.

Drowned rats!

The fashion of the weekend was patterned wellies and leggings for the girls.

Sunday it stopped raining, thank goodness. We debated whether to go on one of the fair rides, but decided we might get puked on by someone drunk. We saw Kate Nash, Diana Vickers, Earth, Wind and Fire, Newton Faulkner (one of the highlights!), the Temper Trap, 30 Seconds to Mars (below), Paolo Nutini, Eminem and the last of the Prodigy.

We got the bus back on the Sunday night so left before Mumford and Sons which we were a bit bummed out about, but we're sure we will get another chance to see them. We ended up getting into our hostel at about 2 in the morning, and the shower was probably the best ever (needless to say we relied on baby-wipe baths during the festival, mmm).

The next day we were able to have a bit more of a look around, and soak up the sun which had decided to put in an appearance now that the festival was over...

Next time we go to Ireland we will have to look at the country outside of Dublin.

May and June 2010

We had no trips planned for a while after Bruges, but plenty of concerts and things. We had Flight of the Conchords booked for the weekend after we got back. The boys were brilliant, and did us proud. There were a lot of New Zealand accents in the crowd. The next weekend we went to see Enron, The Musical, a very odd but very good Westend show based on, well, Enron of course. The next day (Sunday, 23 May) was the London Sevens, and one of the hottest days of the year. We went dressed up as Where's Wally - as part of the tradition of everyone that goes dresses up.
New Zealand got third and Australia won.

Our next concert was Jonsi - an Icelandic singer that is one of Rob's favourites. He put on a great show. The weekend after that we went to Polo in the Park - a tournament held at Hurlingham Park which is just over the bridge from us. It is one of those English events that you buy strawberries and cream and champagne at for exorbitant amounts, and ladies wear high heels and get pissed in the Pimms tent (we didn't). They also had trick riders do displays which were amazing. They did things like hanging upside down off the saddle to grab a hat while the horse is galloping, and standing with each leg on a different horse while the horses are galloping, and then racing each other...

The weekend after that we decided to go for a day trip to Oxford - University city.

We were greeted by a spectacular Morris Dancing extravaganza. Oxford is amazing in the detail. The builders obviously went mad with their creative sides, and everywhere there are little gargoyles and statues stuck into niches and up on cornices.

We went and looked around quite a few of the colleges, like Christchurch College and Lincoln College (obviously), and Magdelene College, and took loads of photos - a real architect's dream. We did a walking tour and got some interesting background. Most of the students weren't around because it was holidays, but these boys were obviously doing some maintenance.

We had to do the obligatory punting trip, which was really lovely, nice and peaceful and there were a few end of term parties going on on the banks which was amusing, especially when the drunk students wanted to try punting.

Another of the sculptures that took our fancy.

The weekend after, we decided to go and have a look at Greenwich. We took a boat from Waterloo Pier (you can take a boat from Putney but we decided it would take too long). It is great as you get to see things from a different perspective - like Tower Bridge.
At Greenwich they had a summer festival. We watched a great Indian dancing troupe first - they must have been good as they got the whole crowd up dancing - including us! An aerial group did some impressive somersaults and acrobatics while hanging off off ropes, and there was an awesome mechanical dragon that went for a walk around the gardens, breathing smoke and fluttering its eyelids.

After we'd got our fill of the acts we climbed the hill up to Greenwich Observatory and straddled the Meridian.

We learnt all about Latitude and Longitude, and the history of Greenwich - it was quite interesting actually. You get an amazing view of London from up the hill, although it was a little misty that day.

Our next event was a couple of weeks later. We had tickets for Pearl Jam in Hyde Park. I was chuffed as we had just missed out on Pearl Jam in Christchurch. In the end it wasn't as good as we hoped. Ben Harper was supporting and seemed to be slightly unhappy to be there, and was a bit boring. Pearl Jam was great but not as mind blowing as we expected. A few days later we went to Kings of Leon. It was good, but I got a bit unhappy at everyone throwing their full and open beer bottles in the air, and got smacked on the head a few times.


The best was yet to come though, as next month we were going to the Oxegen festival in Ireland...

Aberdeen, 8-10 May 2010

Sarah and Simon offered us a bed in Aberdeen (where they were living) so we decided to make that our next trip, to take place in May. The weekend after we went to Bruges was Easter weekend, but we decided to stay home over Easter so we could watch the Putney Boat Race. We were able to watch the beginning, then walk back to the flat to catch the rest of it on Sky. There was quite a number of posh people getting drunk around, and lots and lots of light blue and dark blue balloons around - a very festive atmosphere! The rest of April was uneventful, but we did go to the ANZAC day Dawn Service at Hyde Park which was moving. Then it was my birthday - the big 3-0, on the 29th of April. The night before we had tickets to Ricky Gervais at Wembley Arena, and he put on a great show. We were in hysterics. Then for my birthday night we went out to a Morrocan restuarant then to a comedy club in Soho, so we had a nice night, despite the devastating age! The flatmates also pooled together to get the biggest turning 30 card in the world...
The week before our trip to Aberdeen Georgia had organised to go to Macbeth at the Globe Theatre (for her birthday). The show was spectacular, the acting fantastic, and they had set it up so the "groundlings" - the people standing in front of the stage, were covered with black cloth so only their heads stuck out, and this was used as a prop - for ghosts to emerge from, for a boat to sail on, and the groundlings got plenty of water thrown on them which was good entertainment... The only problem was that we had great seats but our view was blocked by a big ring erected over the stage, presumably for some effect that was no longer working. So we went to the box office afterwards and they let us have complimentary tickets for any other show. We picked Bedlam, to be shown in September.

We went to Aberdeen on the 8th of May courtesy of Easyjet, and got there in one piece. Sarah picked us up from the airport. We went to their massive Sainsburys to get supplies for dinner, and went to a movie that night. On Sunday Sarah and Simon took us on a drive round the Highlands of Scotland. There are some beautiful places, but it was a little chilly. Scotland is about 2 months behind the rest of the UK, and it actually snowed on the Monday where Sarah worked, an hour out of Aberdeen. I had always wanted to try out heather, so had to have a photo lying in it!

We came upon the obligatory ruined castle.

Then we had a tour of Glenfidditch Distillery, which I was pleasantly surprised at. It was more interesting than I thought it would be. Our tour guide was a Scottish woman, probably about 50, who spoke like Sean Connery and obviously liked a tipple herself. At the end of it we got to taste the wares.

We explored a bit more of the Highlands, including this amazing old bridge. You aren't allowed to go on it anymore, which of course was like a green light to Rob... Luckily it held up OK.

We came across some of the natives.
We had a lovely surprise after the invigorating day, as Simon cooked us haggis, neeps and taties. It was really good, and Simon was pleased that we'd taken on the Scottish challenge and conquered it.

The next day Sarah and Simon were working, so Rob and Em explored old Aberdeen. It is very pretty, with cobbled streets and the university there. The spring blossom was beautiful.

Back to Aberdeen proper we were back to grayscale. They say that the granite they use all over the city sparkles in the sun. But you need to have sun for that to happen...

We took a bus out to Stonehaven so we could see the castle Dunottar. It is pretty impressive.

We went home Monday night, unfortunately not overwhelmingly impressed with Aberdeen and the weather, but impressed with the Highlands and our friends' hospitality.

Bruges, 26-29 March 2010

We are shocked and dismayed at our lapse in blogging over the last year. An immediate remedy is to be put in place, albeit many months late.

After Egypt we kept ourselves occupied. We went to concerts - Bat for Lashes in Bexhill on Sea (which is a cute little seaside town where we stayed in a B & B), and Stereophonics at Wembley Arena (an amazing show with brilliant lighting effects!). We also went to Avenue Q, the musical which was absolutely hilarious but definately not PG.

The next big trip we took after Egypt was Bruges, where we went for a long weekend with our friends Sarah and Simon. This was at the end of March 2010. We took the Eurostar which was great - fast, smooth, and no waiting around at the airport, which has got to be good. The Eurostar went to Brussels, and the ticket included any train travel within Belgium. We had a look round Brussels first and eventually found some breakfast that wasn't just pastries (Rob was insistent he had to have a "proper breakfast" - I was happy with pastries!). Brussels had some pretty spectacular graffiti, and some very impressive buildings. We managed to find the famous Mannikin Pis and got the obligatory photo. Eventually we jumped on a train to Bruges and were amused by the fact it was a double decker. We got to Bruges and got on the bus to go to our hotel which was a little out of town (and nice and cheap because of that!). The trouble was is it turned out to be the wrong bus, so we got dropped off in the middle of nowhere, and had to walk miles before eventually finding the hotel. Sarah and Simon arrived not long after, so we took the right bus into town to get dinner and have a look around.

The town is beautiful, with a lovely town centre with a big cathedral (you might remember it from the movie "In Bruges"...).

We managed to find a tiny little restaurant that served amazing food and had a wander before going back to the hotel for the night.

The next day we were able to explore the city in the daylight. The square in the centre is crazy, with horse-pulled carriages flying around corners at stupid speeds.

We climbed the cathedral and got some amazing views.

Being in Bruges, it was essential we sample the chocolate, and the beer, and in one case a combination of the two. We went to a shop that had hundreds of beers of offer, including chocolate beer and cookie beer,
then we went to a pub which had a menu of the beers that was pretty much a novel - here are Sarah and Simon enjoying - well, Sarah's not a beer fan, hence the wine for her...
The next day we had a healthy breakfast...
The horse and carriages chilled out while waiting for customers - this was one of the occupants.
Being spring, there were daffodils everywhere. This is the Beguinage - a nunnery. It is a lovely peaceful place.
We took a canal ride, unfortunately just as it started raining, but on the plus side it meant the boat wasn't packed with tourists like it usually was. It did clear up about half-way through as well so we got the last laugh.

It was great getting to see all the beautiful buildings from the perspective of the canal. Another must-do was the Chocolate factory in Bruges, where we learnt about the history of chocolate and got to see truffles being made. On Monday we had a bit more time in Brussels, and I had to use some French in a pharmacy to buy some cough medicine when the assistant couldn't speak English. It was more sign language and coughing than speaking French - but it was still fun. We left Belgium with full bellies and a suitcase full of chocolate, mm-mm!