Youval and Roni's English Adventure part 1.5- Anfield

So we wanted this post to be part of the Liverpool/Newcastle post but we quickly realized that considering we spent so much time at Anfield and took enough pictures to fill up several blog posts, we should probably just do a blog specifically for Anfield rather than try and combine it with others.

So, we took the bus out of the city centre towards Anfield. We got off the bus and the first thing we saw was a HUGE window with photos of Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, and Jamie Carragher in the new red kit. Clearly we were in the right place! We picked up our tickets and since we had 30 minutes until our tour started we looked around the shop a bit. This was a good thing because Youval wound up finding a jacket that she not only like better than the one she had bought the day before, but it was also significantly cheaper! I also found a cool jacket/sweatshirt/thing made of the material that North Face jackets are made of (yeah, you know what I mean) that I really liked so we bought those and then left the store before we bought anything else that we really didn't need. It was then time for our tour and we began at the statue of Bill Shankly, the legendary Liverpool manager who took over the squad and made them into champions. Our guide was a friendly old man named Steven (who had an assistant named Kevin) and he was clearly a lifelong Liverpool fan who knew tons about the squad and the stadium.



We went into the stadium and sat in the dugout where the players sit when they're not on the pitch. From there, Steven told us about the pitch and the stadium. We learned, among other things, that the capacity of Anfield is 45,562 (I said 46,000 and I still say I was right because you round up from 45,562), that Liverpool is one of 5 teams to win the Champions League at least 5 times (Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, AC Milan, and Ajax), that the pitch is 96% grass, 4% nylon, the mowers can walk up to 6 miles while cutting the grass, and that Liverpool is the most successful British football team in history (18 league titles, 5 Champions League titles, 3 UEFA/Europa Cup titles, 7 FA cup titles, 3 League cup titles). From the dugout area we moved over to the Kop end, the most famous section of the stadium where the most fanatic of the Liverpool supporters sit.

While on the Spion Kop end we learned that the Kop takes its name from the Battle of Spion Kop, a battle from the South African Boer Wars. Spion Kop was a big hill that was fought over by the British and the Dutch and, in one day of the battle, over 300 people were killed, mostly from the regiments in and around Liverpool. We also learned that most of the stadiums in the UK used to have standing areas and, before they put in the seats, the Kop would hold 28,000 people. Following the Hillsborough Disaster in 1989, however it was mandated that British stadiums install seats and so the Kop diminished significantly in capacity. It was (and still is) said that, whenever Liverpool attacks the Kop end, the Kop inhales and the ball is sucked into the net. The Kop used to be a huge attraction for television cameras and did wonders for spreading the name of Liverpool Football club in the 50s and 60s. Back then, and still today, the Kop was famous for its songs, chants, and banners.

Because they are redoing all the flooring inside of the stadium we were unable to see the locker rooms or the inside of the stadium which was defo a bummer, but it was still cool to see what we saw. After the tour we went into the museum. First thing we saw was the memorial to the victims of the Hillsborough Disaster. If you don't know what this is, you can read up on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_Disaster. Liverpool players (especially those who remember learning about the disaster day of, including Steven Gerrard who had a cousin that was killed) hold this tragedy close to their hearts and a yearly ceremony is held at Anfield that all the players attend.

We don't know what the story behind this is but it was pretty amazing anyway because it combines Liverpool and surfing. Um, hello, perfect!
The museum took you through the history of Liverpool Football Club, beginning in 1892 when the club split from the other Liverpool club, Everton. The club did well in the early years but following World War II it floundered and was stuck in the second division. That is until Bill Shankly showed up and worked a few miracles, bringing the team to a league championship in a few short years. This quite pretty much sums up his philosophy and what he accomplished.
Shankly did wonders with the club but even after he left the club in 1972 they continued to improve, now under the leadership of Bob Paisley. They won the FA Cup in 1974 and then in 1977/8 and 1978/9 they won back to back Champions League titles. Liverpool then went on to again win the Champions League in 1981 and 1984 and won the UEFA cup and FA cup many times as well.
2005 saw Liverpool play in arguably the best Champions League final ever. This game cannot be described with words, you must simply watch this film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHtjmofqBeM&feature=related

They showed clips from an LFC documentary on the game in the museum and, despite the fact that we've seen what happens many many many many times, we still found ourselves getting worked up and excited and nervous all over again. This picture made us laugh and we felt it should be included.
When a team wins the Champions League, the are given a replica of the trophy to take home with them. However, if you win the cup 5 times, you get to keep the actual trophy and they made a new one. Here is the actual trophy that Liverpool won in 2005.
The rest of the museum highlighted other honors won my Liverpool, including the 2006 FA Cup (another epic final). Check that one out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm6-S6T_nGk

After the tour we walked around the stadium to the Shankly Gates (with Liverpool's motto You'll Never Walk Alone written across the top) and the Hillsborough Memorial. Someone was cleaning the Memorial so we couldn't get any great pictures of it, but it was good to see it anyway.


All in all, a great day at the greatest stadium in England! I (Roni) can't wait to come back for another match (this time hopefully I can snag a ticket on the Kop end), and I will be really sad when Liverpool gets the new stadium that is long overdue and they tear Anfield down.....

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming, the rest of our time in Liverpool and Newcastle.

Youval and Roni's English Adventure part 2

Before leaving Liverpool to head to Newcastle we decided to walk through Stanley Park (the future site of Liverpool's new stadium) to the other stadium in Liverpool, Goodison Park where Everton plays. Now, as a Liverpool supporters, we know that we're supposed to hate Everton but considering Timmy Howard is their goalkeeper its really hard for us to hate them. We wandered around the stadium a bit, took some pictures, and marvelled at the, shall we say, interestingness of the new Everton kit. Lets just say it is pink. That is all that needs to be said about it.

We got on a train from Liverpool to Newcastle and once we had dropped our backs off at the hostel decided that we hadn't seen enough stadiums yet that day so we headed up to St James Park where Newcastle plays. St James is a relatively new stadium but there wasn't much to see from the outside so we just walked around it once and moved on.


We wandered around Newcastle a bit more that evening, walking through Chinatown and seeing the old walls of the city. We then got dinner and an early bedtime so as to wake up early and get the most of our full day in Newcastle.

The next morning we began down on the River Tyne, walking along Quayside. There are 9 bridges spanning the Tyne in Newcastle and the first that we saw was the High Level Bridge. At the time it was developed it was one of the first to have a road on one level with railroad tracks on a second level. A bit further up river we saw a blue bridge but I don't remember which bridge that was. Just down river from the High Level bridge is the Swing Bridge, one of the only swing bridges still in operation in England. The next bridge over was the Tyne Bridge, one of the most recognizable landmarks along the River Tyne.
The next bridge is equally recognizable, but it a very different way. This pedestrian bridge is the Gateshead Millennium Bridge and it is a rotating bridge and tilts to allow boats to pass underneath.

In between the Tyne and Gateshead bridges is the Sage Gateshead, a music venue, conference centre, and education centre. This extremely unique (or weird) building is a striking part of the Tyne landscape.

We walked across the Millenium bridge, along the river past the Sage Gateshead, and back across the Tyne Bridge to the Castle Keep and Black Gate. The Castle Keep is whats left over from the castle that gave Newcastle its name. This castle was built by William the Conquerers eldest (but illegitimate) son.

From the Castle Keep we walked to Grainger market, a large covered market that sells anything from bread to sandwiches to meat to fish to clothing to fabrics to books to hardware equipment to greeting cards to fireplaces. Yes, they sell fireplaces. Anyways, we made note to come back and get lunch in the market. Just outside the market is a large monument to Earl Grey who was Prime Minister but is really better known for the tea that takes him name.
We continued north to the Great North Museum which is a sort of Natural History/History museum that had an exhibit on Hadrian's Wall, some information about the Anglo-Saxons, Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians. They had an actual mummy that was unwrapped, which was pretty cool to see.

From the Great North we backtracked a bit and went to the Laing Art Gallery. This gallery had a large exhibit of Japanese art including the famous Wave painting. If you know anything about art then you'll know what I'm talking about. There was also a couple galleries of English painters, one of them had a really cool painting on Sodom and Gommorah.

We then returned to the market, got some sandwiches and raspberries, and ate them out on Earl Grey's monument. Sitting down felt really good and we didn't really want to get up afterwards but we did anyways and headed to the Discovery Museum which advertised itself as a museum where you could learn about life Tyneside.

That is most definitely what is was and it was a really cool museum. We started in the Life in Newcastle exhibit but, such is our luck, we went through it backwards. So we started out in modern times and went back towards the time of the Romans. Oh well, it was interesting anyways....

The next exhibit we saw was about the bridges across the Tyne which is the only reason we knew those random facts about the bridges that I mentioned earlier. After this we saw an exhibit about the life of soldiers from 19th century onwards. The next exhibit was about life on the Tyne, including the shipping and work that went on/goes on on the river. After that we wandered through an exhibit about clothing, then once that had just a bunch of random sciencey stuff (there were tons of obnoxious teens in there so we kind of left in a hurry) and then we saw an exhibit about inventions. In this one we were very proud to successfully construct 2 arch bridges and a cantilever bridge as well as help discover the lightbulb and fit together some cool puzzles. We looked as some placards that talked about life in Newcastle during the coalminer strikes (Billy Elliot anyone??) and then wandered through a Steampunk exhibit that was even stranger than the one I saw in Oxford a few months ago. You can check out Michal's blog if you want to read about that.

From the Discovery Museum we went to the Life Centre which we thought was a science museum similar to the Discover Science Center. We got there and realized that is was more about evolution and life sciences and, while there was Doctor Who exhibition similar to the one in Cardiff going on, we didn't really want to pay for a museum that neither of us was all that interested in to begin with. So instead we walked back down to the river and went into the Baltic Tower which is now a modern art museum. The tower has several viewing decks from which you can see the Millenium Bridge, the Sage Gateshead, and the Tyne Bridge, and while we were hoping to see the Millenium Bridge lit up, it is summer and it therefore gets dark really late and so we were too early for that. By this time, however, we were both pretty exhausted from a long day of lots and lots of walking so we decided to call it a night. We got some takeout Chinese food from Chinatown and ate it in the hostel kitchen. We read some atrociously bad books in the hostel lounge (I have never read such a soap opera of a book in my life) and then went to sleep.

Unfortunately we were both up at the crack of dawn this morning and had nothing to do before we caught out train back to Oxford. We finished the horrible books we had started the night before and then went and waiting at the train station for our lovely 4 hour ride back to Ox. Once back in Ox we walked through the Museum of Oxford (where Michal used to work) and then got some Ben's cookies before heading back home. Tonight I have football training and then we'll probably watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade because Youval hasn't seen it. Tomorrow is Stratford and after that, who knows???

Youval and Roni's English Adventure part 1

So, I will have a guest co-blogger with me for these next few posts as I/we chronicle our epic adventure around England. As is tradition in the Yadlin family, after high school graduation, a trip to England is made. Now, when I saw its tradition, of course I mean everyone ELSE got to do it because I had a week-long summer vacation before going STRAIGHT to Basic Training. So I never got my England trip but I'm clearly over it...... or not. This year, Youval graduated and before heading off to University of Denver (go Pioneers) she and my parents came out here. We all spent a day in London and then my parents promptly left again, heading off to Amsterdam first then Germany second. Youval and I decided to stay in England and travel around here instead. So here is what we did in our first few days. We don't have any pictures from the London day because those are on my parents camera but just imagine what I'm saying...

Like I said, the fam arrived in London and I met them at Liverpool Street Station. It was a very warm day so we just wandered around the city seeing some of the sights. We started off at the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge before crossing over the bridge to walk along the South Bank. We needed to dodge groups of students which is extremely frustrating and is something I must deal with all the time in Ox. We walked along the South Bank to Borough Market, one of my favorite place in London, and got some lunch there. My mom and sister were not very hungry so they went with a croissant and brownie (clearly healthy options were not considered) while my dad and I went for a sandwich. I had one of game (supposedly boar and veal) cooked with apricots and red wine whereas my dad had lamb cooked with coriander and something else that I can't remember. They were quite delicious. From Borough Market we continues to the Globe Theatre. Youval and I commented on the fact that the Globe is a tetradecagon and then realized we are total nerds. Not because of the fact that know what the proper term for a 14 sided figure is, not the fact that we know that the Globe has 14 sides, but the fact that we learned this information from Doctor Who. Yes, feel free to point and laugh.

After the Globe we crossed the Thames on the Millenium footbridge and went up to St Paul's cathedral. From there we decided we didn't want to walk any more so we rode on the top of a double-decker (and melted while onboard because of how hot it was) to Trafalgar Square. There we went into the National Gallery and saw the Impressionist paintings, mine and my mom's favorite. Again Youval and I Doctor Who geeked out with the Van Gogh paintings because of his lovely guest appearance this past season. From Trafalgar we walked through the Admiralty Arch and down the Mall to Buckingham Palace then around and into St James Park. We sat and relaxed in the shade there, Youval sneaking a little nap, and enjoyed the lovely breeze. From there we walked to Parliament Square which was covered in a tent city protesting something involving war or something or other. Don't know exactly what but it sort of killed the atmosphere a bit.

We then got on the Tube and rode to Picadilly Circus, got out and looked at it, then got back on the Tube to Covent Garden. After wandering around the market a bit we got some 99 Flake, the fam's first introduction to it (not the best but its never bad so it was good) and then we got back on the EXTREMELY CROWDED tube to go back to Liverpool Street Station. We left my parents there and grabbed our suitcases, heading off to Queens Theatre to see Les Miserables!!!!!!!!!

Our reasons for Les Mis were twofold. First of all, it is my ALL TIME FAVORITE musical and is in its 25th year on the West End and I would see it many many many many times if the opportunity arose. Secondly, Nick Jonas was playing Marius and while I am not really a Jonas Brothers fan, I was quite curious as to how he would perform. As always, the show was AMAZING. There is no better adjective for it than "epic" and it didn't disappoint. Nick was quite good, way way way better than the girl playing Cosette, which was a slight disappointment, but he was a pleasant surprise. From the theatre we headed to Paddington and then home to Ox. It was a long long day but a good one.

The next morning we headed off to Cardiff. While most people wouldn't choose to go to Cardiff on a trip to England, we are not most people. Again, we went to Cardiff for one reason and one reason only: Doctor Who. Doctor Who is filmed in Cardiff (as is the spinoff Torchwood) and there is a large "Doctor Who Up Close" exhibition there with tons of props and exhibits from the show. Because we needed to do something touristy we went to Caerphilly Castle, the largest in Wales and one of the largest in Great Britain. The castle was recently refurbished and it is really a great place to go to see what British castles used to be like. There was a wedding being set up and so Youval added "getting married in a castle" to her list of things to do in her life.




After Caerphilly we headed back to Cardiff and went down to the Bay for some Doctor Who. The exhibition is SUPER COOL and, according to Youval, was "the coolest thing ever." We spent quite a while in the gift shop and Youval decided to get an 11th Doctor and Amy poster for her dorm room. Her roommate is going to think she is some crazy person who likes stupid tv shows and is marginally obsessed with an English football club. We were tempted to buy the lifesize cardboard cutout of the Doctor or Captain Jack, and were very tempted to buy the lifesize inflatable Dalek, but we restrained ourselves.
While we were walking around the bay pointing out various places that are featured in the show (like the Millenium Centre or the Rift) we were walking towards a restaurant that they eat in in the Boomtown episode and I was going to point out the entrance to Torchwood (I'm sorry if this means nothing to you. Fell free to skip ahead past the next picture). Before I could point out the entrance, however, it was very clear where the entrance was because it was COVERED with cards and flowers and photos and posters. A bit of background: one year ago Torchwood ran a 5 part mini-series called Children of the Earth. In this mini-series, the beloved character of Ianto Jones, a fan favorite who also happened to be dating the show's main character, was killed. This prompted a fan run petition to the writer of the show to "Brink back Ianto Jones". Acting as if the character were real, people went to the Torchwood entrance and left tributes to Ianto as they would have to an actual person who dies. A FULL YEAR LATER, these are STILL THERE and some of them are new. People are STILL LEAVING TRIBUTES TO A FICTIONAL CHARACTER. This made me feel a lot better about my level of obsession with Doctor Who and made me realize that in comparison, I really do have a life.

From Cardiff we went down to Exeter in the hopes of heading across the Dartmoor the next morning. We went to the bus station to catch the bus across the Moor and waited. And waited. And waited with the crowd of people that had gathered to wait for the 82 Transmoor Link. That never came. So we were pretty disappointed that we didn't get to see the moor. So we decided to head back to Ox, through Reading, and check out the Museum of Reading which has a replica of the Bayeux Tapestry (from William the Conquerers Battle of Hastings 1066, as Youval's Mrs Millers automatic response was). It was pretty cool and we basically took enough pictures of it to recreate the tapestry.
We then went back to Ox, wandered around a little, drank smoothies in the Exeter Fellows Garden which looking at Radcliffe Square, then escaped from the heat back to my house. We hung around the house waiting for the World Cup final (WOOHOO) and then watched the match with Ian, Alex, Neal, Hila, Kim, and Si. We were STOKED that Spain won, even though Fernando got hurt, but we're going to look on the bright side and say that maybe now people won't want to buy him and he'll stay at Liverpool and recover from the injury and score tons and tons of goals for us. Also, we were VERY happy that Villa and Sjneider didn't score because it means that Muller won the Golden Boot! All in all a great result (even though I'm pretty sure Xabi Alonso will have a boot imprint on his chest the rest of his life).

This morning we got on a train to the one and only Liverpool! So exciting! We didn't get seats for the first leg of the trip which was annoying and uncomfortable but it went quickly and soon enough we were in Liverpool. We dropped our bags at the hostel and went exploring. We tried to go to the Liverpool Cathedral but there was a graduation ceremony for John Moores University there so we couldn't go in.
We went down to the docks and explored the Albert Dock. We saw the Tate Liverpool and some statues that will soon be in the Museum of Liverpool once it is completed. We ate our lunch on a bench looking across the Mersey and fought with the pigeons that were circling trying to steal out food. We then went to the Merseyside Maritime Museum and Slavery Museum. We looked at some really cool exhibits including one that talked about the shipwrecks of the Titanic, the Lusitania, and the Empress of Ireland, all which happened between 1912 and 1915 and had direct ties to Liverpool. Also in the museum was a great exhibit about the War of the Atlantic in WWII and a cool interactive exhibit about the Customs and Revenue service. We managed to catch a smuggling ship in the cool video game thing they had. We were really proud of ourselves...

We then went to Liverpool One, a huge new shopping centre right on the river. They have an LFC store and Youval wanted a jacket so it was, again, an exercise in self control. She got a really cool red jacket that will serve well as a raincoat next year in Denver and I managed to not spend anything and control myself admirably.... The new jerseys are growing on me, if anyone is curious.

From the museum we wandered a little more, checking out some other buildings along the river and seeing a cool exhibit on the "Lambananas", these statues that look like lambs with bananas for tails that are all around Liverpool. I prefer the name "Bananalamba" but I don't get to name these things.


We then ate dinner at Cafe Sports England, the restaurant owned by Jamie Carragher. The inside was decorated with tons of pictures of sports in Liverpool, including Liverpool FC, Everton FC, and other sports as well. The atmosphere was family friendly and had lots of character, and while were were really tempted to order Penne Carragher, it had mayonnaise in the pasta sauce so we decided against it. The food was really good and it looked like an amazing place to go watch sports and eat food. Too bad Jamie didn't show up....


After dinner we wandered a little more, checking out the Cavern Club where the Beatles were discovered and then performed. There is a lot of Beatles stuff in and around Liverpool but it seems that, for the most part, people are just trying to cash in on the Beatles and the love that people have for them.
We then headed back to the hostel and got into our room. We are SUPER SUPER excited about going to Anfield tomorrow, even though we can only do the stadium mini-tour. Tomorrow afternoon we say goodbye (for now, but I'll be back) to Liverpool and head off to Newcastle. More to come in a few days!!

Ireland + 4th of July + friends = AWESOME

This 4th of July weekend I figured that if I couldn't be in the states, I may as well still have some fun! Kristen and I have wanted to go to Ireland for quite some time and so it seemed as good a time as any. Kristen's roommate (and my freshman year squadmate) Greg came as well, and by came as well I mean pretty much planned the whole thing. We flew from Stansted (worst airport to get to/from EVER) to Cork and dropped our stuff at the hostel. Too bad our hostel was at the top of a very very steep hill. Our calves got quite the workout throughout the weekend. We got some advice from the nice friendly man at the hostel and set out in search of some food. He recommended the English market which turned out to be an AMAZING recommendation. It was quite like the Covered Market in Oxford but much much better. We got some scones and bread from the amazing bakery place and then got some lemon and garlic hummus from this cute little Greek stand. After we had collected our food we headed out to a little park in the centre of Cork and ate our breakfast/lunch/whatever meal it was. This was just the first of the many many meals we had throughout the weekend. It seemed as if all we did was eat!!
After we had finished eating we walked around Cork. The city centre of Cork is on an island connected to the mainland by several bridges. Cork is quite small and so in an hour or so we had managed to see pretty much all of it. We saw the Cork Cathedral as well as what supposedly was the old Fort but it is now a police station (Garda station in Ireland) and so we didn't really see much there.

We then decided to go see the Cork Gaol (or Jail for non-Brits). The jail was off the map of the city centre that we had but since everything around Cork was so close together we assumed it was just a short jaunt. Well, we were a bit mistaken. Turns out its a bit of a trek, not made any easier by the fact that it is uphill the whole way. There were several attempts at mutiny from one or the other of my travelling mates but I was determined to get there. Eventually I got fed up as well and decided (in my head) that if it wasn't at the next intersection then I would agree to turn around. Good thing we didn't because, what do you know, at the next intersection there was a sign pointing us towards the gaol! Of course it was up another hill but we finally made it and made our way inside. We didn't know it at the time but as we walked in we were walking underneath the place where they used to hang their prisoners. So thats pleasant.
We wandered about the gaol using audio-guides. The best thing about the audio-guides was the fact that they were actually walk-men. With cassette tapes. I haven't seen one of those in, perhaps, 15 years! It was really cool to hear about the history of the gaol and learn about the people who were imprisoned there.
After the gaol, the fact that we had been up since early that morning (and for me, had been up since the previous morning because I caught a 1am bus out on Ox to get to the airport) hit us and we needed a nap. We went back to the hostel and slept in their "cinema room" on some beanbags that were in there because we didn't have a room yet. We woke up just in time to catch the Germany-Argentina game. I was SO excited to see that Germany walked all over Argentina and absolutely annihilated them. We had wagamama for lunch during halftime, eating outside the pub in shifts so that we wouldn't lose our really good seats!

After the game we went back to the hostel and got into our room. We had a German roommate, we named him Hans, and he was a bit awkward. We took another short nap, getting up in time for the Spain-Paraguay game which we watched in another pub. I was again very very happy with the result.
Following the game we got dinner at a gourmet place. The burgers had really interesting names and, according to the different name or theme of the burger, they put little flags in the burgers that had some sort of connection to it. For example, Kristen had the Translyvania burger (named so because of the garlic it had on it, among other things) and they put a Romanian flag into her burger. It was cute and creative, I guess. After a long long day of walking and eating and not really sleeping we went back to the hostel and collapsed into bed.

The next day we decided to go to two towns near Cork, Midleton and Cobh. We chose Midleton first and were on our way on the train when we started going down one path on the tracks where they split. As per our recollection of the map that we had looked at earlier, we were under the impression that we were going the wrong way. Soon after that the train stopped. Shortly after that the conductor walked past going to the other end of the train. Before we knew it we were backing up and going back to the previous station so that they could throw the switch correctly on the tracks and actually take us to Midleton! That was a new one for me....

We eventually arrive in Midleton and went to the Jameson Distillery. I'm not a huge whiskey drinker but it was really cool to see the process of how whiskey is made and learn about the differences between different types of whiskey.
Following the tour Greg did a whiskey tasting comparing Irish, Scotch, and American whiskey and we all enjoyed our free drink (Greg on the rock, Kristen with cranberry, me with ginger ale). We looked around the shop for a little while and I decided that I should wear newsboys hats more often. Just not one with such a horrible pattern to it.
After Jameson we had some time to kill before our train. Also we were getting hungry and whiskey on an empty stomach is never a good thing. We got some lunch before getting back on the train and making our way to Cobh. No directional mishaps this time.

Cobh (pronounced Cove) is a port city where most ships coming from Ireland to the states depart. Because of this, most Irish immigrants who came to the states came through Cobh and there is a large heritage centre there where people can come to learn about their ancestors and heritage.
Some other ships that left from Cobh included the Lusitania and the Titanic. Both of these ships had memorials to them in Cobh although I was surprised by how small the Titanic memorial was.

Lusitania Memorial

Titanic Memorial

We then walked up another hill (didn't realize Ireland was so hilly) to the Cobh Cathedral. This cathedral wasn't completed until the early 1900s and is probably the newest/most modern cathedral I've ever seen. It was, however, really pretty and the Carillon (bells) were playing the entire time we were there which was really cool.

It was the 4th of July so we I of course had to take this picture. We made sure to "celebrate" by chanting "'Merica" or "USA" every so often just to remind people what day it was. It wasn't quite the same as if we had been in England because, to be honest, the Irish are probably glad that we won the Revolution. We were unable to have a real 4th of July type dinner though so we just settled for some amazing schnitzel at a German restaurant.
When waiting to take the train back to Cork from Cobh we were unfortunate enough to sit near two middle aged women who, shall we say, had a little too much to drink. I have never heard someone slur their words so badly in real life. Furthermore, they seemed to be having some sort of disagreement because they were cussing each other out like mad! Either they hate each other a lot or they're so close that they can say stuff like that to each other with no problem. Either way we made sure to stay away from them on the train.

The next morning we went back to the English market for some breakfast. Man, those scones were amazing. We also picked up some sandwhiches and wraps for lunch that day and got on a bus to Blarney. Kristen and Greg went to see Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney stone but since I had already been and I have to finish my 60 page transfer report, I stayed in a little cafe, got myself some hot chocolate to fortify myself and got to work. I was quite proud of myself because I managed to get 5 pages done which, considering I was in Ireland and "on vacation" was way more than I would have imagined getting done!

We made one more stop at the market when we got back to Cork, got Greg some Irish coffee, had one more pint of Bulmers cider and then headed off to the airport. All in all a great weekend!!


One regret I have for the weekend is that I was unable to find a shirt I wanted. I really wanted to get an "Anyone but France" shirt that the Irish made in honor of the World Cup. If you don't know what I'm talking about you can probably just google "Thierry Henry" and "handball" and perhaps put "Ireland" in there and you will soon find out.