Europe Day 26 - Part Two

From Newgrange we went to Old Mellifont Abbey, which is basically an Abbey in ruin from the 12th century that is special because it’s  the first that used the cross shaped chapel area (that they know of).

There was a tiny tiny visitor’s center with a little museum area talking about the architecture, and the history of the place. Basically it was built onto over hundreds of years before being abandoned after some battle in… the 1600s? Or thereabouts. So there’s lots of different kinds of architecture.

Yay ruins!

Europe Day 26 - Part One

Newgrange day!

It’s a huge mound older than Stonehenge, which is a tomb but also maybe more, oooooh.

You drive up to a museum/exhibit building, which talks about the area and the tomb, and you can get your tour tickets. You can’t get to the tomb except through the tour.

Then there’s quite a, lovely, jaunt to walk to some buses, which take you to the mound.

Here’s the wiki, if you’re really curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange

Newgrange~!

Europe Day 25 - Part Two

So after St. Patrick’s Cathedral we got back on the bus, and our next stop was Kilmainham Gaol, where we took a tour and learned a lot about Irish politics.

Welcome to Gaol!

Europe Day 25 - Part One

This day we got up earlier, gramma actually adjusted to the jetlag pretty quickly because she has the amazing ability to sleep anywhere at anytime (this is a skill, I’m told, you learn with age), so the adjusting person was my mum.

I’m pretty sure before we set out BA was called again because she still didn’t have her luggage. I didn’t speak to them this time, my mum did, so I don’t remember what they told her. We were all still a bit hung up on the original person telling us it was on that 2nd flight. I’d much rather an airline tell me “Look we misplaced your luggage, we don’t know where it is” than the continuous “it’s on the next flight.” I’ve always liked BA too so this whole debacle put a dent in my opinion of them.

Anyway!

Those bus tickets are good for two days, so we took the subway in again and got on yay. Our first stop was St. Patrick’s Cathedral. E wanted to go here not because of history, or what’s actually there, or any actual logical reason, but that her birthday is St. Patrick’s Day.

Another stunning church!

Europe Day 24

I am totally sold on B&Bs!

First full day in Ireland!

Europe Day 23

Soooo, I’d set my alarm for 7:00am, given the time it would take to get to Heathrow, and my gramma’s plane was due in at 9:05. So got up, made myself tea, and got online to double check my route and to check the flight status (hoping she’d be late so I’d have some morning time w/ Katy :D). Not only not late, but early! So I had to zoom wake E up, fold bedding, and scoot ;_; I wanted to write some sort of cute note, but ended up just sending an e-mail.  

Then we walked to a little gas station shop to break some money for bus change for E, I thankfully still had my oyster card. Then bus to tube to Heathrow!

We got in right around 10:00, which made me suuuuper worried for my gramma, but when we checked the boards it said it’d only just landed and baggage was offloading. So we actually ended up waiting for her about 15 minutes. And then she came out, wheeled by an attendant… with no bags.

Lost luggage.

Europe Day 22 - Part Three

Last part of the last day in Rome!

After the ruins we set out for the Bocca della Verita



Which honestly I don’t know much about other than it’s in Roman Holiday and E wanted to go. But it was still fun!

Last doings after the break!

Europe Day 22 - Part Two

From the Colosseum we moved onto this huuuuge archeological site, which the ticket include admission to.



That is not it. That’s the Arch of Constantine. Which is right outside.

See after the break!

Europe Day 22 - Part One

Whoops, had this all written up and forgot to post 8D

2nd and last day in Rome!
We had leftover pizza for breakfast and hit the same cafe for awesome deliciousness, then off to… the Colosseum! I was most excited about this :D



Onto the Colosseum!

Star Wars Exhibit!

Alright! Brief break from Europe so some more current happenings. Local travels! Nearish to me is the Tech Museum, which is a lot of fun and I recommend it in general, but they also have exhibit space for temporary exhibits or traveling exhibits and such. They had a nice Star Trek exhibit some years back, the traveling Body Works (or whatever it’s called) was there, and a wonderful DiVinci exhibit was there a few years back. Of course there’s been more, but those are the ones I’ve been to.

Anyway, on the 15th I went and checked out the Star Wars exhibit! It will be there until February 13th, 2014. So if you’re around San Jose before then, and like Star Wars, I recommend checking it out!

I took loads of pics, so clicking any of these will take you to my flickr gallery.

But here are some of my favourites