Back In The USSR

Hey all,

We're back in Cardiff after a gruelling day of travel from Paris. Paris was a very cool town, of course, but I'm afraid we had reached our saturation point by then, so all the mind-blowing architecture, art and whatever else was a bit lost on us.

One fun thing was seeing the tomb of Napoleon (pictured above). It's in a huge church thingy, and looks like it's a huge, simple shape made of plastic. Really it's polished stone (some weird red stone that the French liked to use called poryphyry), and definitely would have been a wonder in the pre-plastic days. Still, I had to laugh at his big plastic tomb. I guess it took 21 years to make the thing and its surroundings.

That's all you get to hear about Paris. Oh, and that we went up the Eiffel Tower, and to the Louvre, and all that other touristy stuff that you'd expect. It was all fun, and overly crowded!

We left Paris by bus. The bus went straight to London, including a ferry, an immigration parking lot (one of our passengers didn't get through), and other fun stuff. The ferry went from Calais (where we saw the famous beaches of Normandy) to Dover (The white cliffs were really pretty). It wasn't too long. We got to London at around 6:00, right during rush hour, and the tube was INSANE. It sucked. We made it to our train station in a mad rush, and finally got on a train. They didn't let people on the train until 5 minutes before it was to leave (I guess it took extra time to prepare it), so when they finally announced the platform, there was stampede of people in business clothes running ahead of us to get on. I can see why people hate London's pace. It would be ok, as long as you weren't ever in a hurry.

Exhausted, we enjoyed some refreshingly well-priced Strongbows very much and watched the dark night go by.

It was nice to hit the pillow in Cardiff.

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I'm not sure I've ever mentioned our host in Cardiff, Desmond. Nicole's cousin, Desmond has been totally incredible. The best host one could ever ask for, and nearly too generous for his own good. I'd like to publicly thank him for his wonderful hospitality. He's left to his other house now, so we have the place alone, but we miss him.

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I'm now officially scrambling to find a job in Cardiff. I've all but given up on Archaeology, and have set my sights on a job I've seen advertised. I would be working at a halfway house/day centre for people with acquired brain injuries, doing various activities. Cooking, playing music, going on field trips, going to the gym, and pretty much helping these people get back on track. It sounds right up the Easter Seal alley that I really enjoyed, and I think it would be great. I'll call tomorrow about it.

Anyway, I've blabbed enough. Hope it wasn't boring. See you all later!

Luke

Don't chase me, I'm full of chocolate. Really.

Hello from Bruges. It's great here, amazing, really. So incredible that it's probably boring to read about. I just wanted to tell all the people back home hello. I'm starting to feel pretty removed from things back home. I hope things are well there. What's new with everyone? Jeff just emailed me about starting classes, and I thought to myself, "my God, it's already fall!".

What are you all doing? Justin, are you reading this? If so, drop me a line telling me how things are in Calgary. Any trips to Palm Beach in the works?

Anyway, a bit about our trip:

-eating WAY too much chocolate.
-Bruges is a maze
-walked around all night last night looking for a decently priced restaraunt, eventually found out the one in our hotel is obscenely cheap and good. We got a huge rack of top quality ribs, curry-buttered baked potato and a beer for 11 euros each! We'll be back tonight...
-Went to the chocolate museum, which oddly had 1st CE obsidian Aztec sacrificial knives. Crazy things. I guess the aztecs mixed cocoa beans with human blood for offerings to the gods. Ate more chocolate there.
-Took a boat ride on the canals
-climbed up some really high bell tower in the square. Kind of scary on the way up the winding staircase!

Gotta go, ladies and gents. Drop me a line if you read this, and tell me something new!


Luker

Brussels

WOW! We had a better look at Brussels today, and it blew me away. Especially Le Palais de Justice (look it up, its unbelievable). It was the best example of Classical architecture taken to the Nth degree that I've ever seen. We just happened upon this huge place-you walk up the main stairs and find yourself in a maze of massive pillars and huge ornate staircases that are guarded by huge roman style statues. This town has some killer architecture. I know you're all globetrotters at heart, so get your butts to Brussels!

I bought my mom a birthday present today, too.

Great day.

Miss you all lots, despite exciting surroundings!

Luker

Belgique!

Hello from Brussels!

We arrived on the bus from Amsterdam yesterday after a fantastic time. When we arrived at our hostel, found that it had been double-booked. Not to worry, the guy working there just took us to a different, much swankier hotel and gave us the same price! Great. Brussels is pretty cool. We took a walk around the Grand Place (big main square) and had a glass of red in a nice café. Continental Europe very satisfyingly meets my expectations. It feels just like you'd expect, specifically in the older areas. The new areas are suburbia, just like everywhere else.

Today we caught the train to Marche-Lez-Ecaussines, where my mom's dad's relatives lived for a while. It was a sleepy, quaint little place, surrounded by countryside that smelled and looked a bit like home. After a quick walk around, we found my great-grandparents house, and we even talked briefly to the woman who lived there. Her door was wide open, and being a rowhouse on a small lane, we were practically inside just trying to find the house number. She seemed pretty disinterested, but I managed to catch a glimpse of a dark-stained wood interior while Nicole gave her our story. At a store nearby we asked if they knew anyone with my grandpa's last name, and sure enough, Ecaussines ( the next town over) has some. I guess they used to run a butcher shop there. Tomorrow we head to Bruges, and from there, somewhere in France.

I'm spending money like it's going out of style on this trip. I guess that's to be expected, but I need to line up a job in Cardiff if I want to be able to pull my weight!

I want to take this opportunity to say Happy Anniversary to mom and dad. What number is it?? I hope your trip is going well.

Well, gotta find a place to stay in Bruges.

Take care!

Luke

My first trip to London and Continental Europe. Whoa!

Today we're touring around Amsterdam. We caught the train to London on Sunday morning (I was calling it "My London Debut") and from the train station we took the Underground straight to...

The British Museum.

WOW! THE British Museum. It was insane, that's all I can say. Well, I can say a bit more. They could call it "that incredibly huge and beautiful building full of ridiculous amounts of stolen loot". Parts of the Parthenon (scandalous!), crazy statues, gold and jewels coming out of the wazoo, and everything else you can imagine. A fantastic place. Cameras were allowed. One thing I couldn't believe was that most of the statues were just sitting there at floor level (eye level if they were busts), or just slightly raised up. Priceless things! Things that I've been looking at in books for years, like ancient busts of Greek philosophers and Roman emperors. These things are thousands of years old, and you could (seemingly) just knock one over, lean on them, or sneeze all over them if you weren't careful. Nicole took a great photo of the emperor Trajan and I, "just chillin' out ". Security was pretty light, too.

Anyway, I highly reccommend that museum. The downside was that other than the tube stations, it was the only thing we saw in London. We knew that would be the case, and we plan to go back for a more representative visit.

After the Museum, we went back down to the tube, and caught the underground out to a train station. We had booked a night at a B&B out by the Stansted Airport (about 45 min. on the train from central London) and we headed there. It was great, pretty much a little house to ourselves, and very nice. In the morning we caught our plane to Eindhoven, Holland. Things had gone far too smoothly in London the day before, and so it was fated that RyanAir should leave our two smaller bags (which we had been forced to check) in London. Apparently it happens a lot, and they should be at our hotel today. I hope so. We're ok, though.

From Eindhoven we took a 2 hour bus ride to Amsterdam, and checked into our hostel/hotel. We've been wandering around Amsterdam ever since, enjoying the crazy atmosphere and goregeous canals. Last night we went to Madame Toussaud's, walked around the red light district, (a big tourist spot-pretty strange place, that's for sure) and went to a few pubs. Today we plan to see either the Rembrandt Museum or the Reijksmuseum (spelling?) and the Anne Frank House.

Anyway, it should be fun!

I hope you all are well. We'll post photos soon!

Luke

Digging for Gwynness

Hello All!

Well, sorry to all you Welsh (except Alid Warwick) for this bastardization of their language. I don't even know how "GWY" is pronounced, but I've seen it everywhere.

I'm in Wales. Cardiff, to be exact, and I'm having a great time. Cardiff is an interesting city, with lots of cool old houses, very impressive huge old buildings, shopping malls, ethnic restauraunt districts, office towers, and, possibly most importantly, decent rum and cokes!!

I arrived in Bristol yesterday about an hour late, after making my way through the busiest airport I've ever experienced in Dublin. I was 4KG over the weight limit and unable to take my guitar as a carry on, and together these ended up costing more than my ticket and taxes combined. I reluctantly left behind the Hurley (a weapon-like Irish sporting stick-worth looking up!) that my friend Eoin had given me. I managed to shrug this off, and everything went great after that. I arrived in Bristol, and walked right off the plane and out into Wales without a soul stopping me. Somewhat worried about not having my passport looked at (in case I needed my work permit validated), I had to spend some time convincing a security guard that I hadn't passed through immigration. He had someone run down and stamp it. Bristol airport was an extremely nice, quiet airport with two security/police guys toting huge black machine guns walking around the lobby. My bus was waiting for me right when I walked out the door.

After a very pretty bus ride through Bristol to the very pretty train station, I caught a train to Cardiff, and well, here I am!

We plan to take off to Netherlands, Belgium and France on Monday from London. Things are going quite well, though still no jobs lined up.

Well, miss you all!

Luke

Out of Ireland, OR, What I've learned in and about Ireland

Well, not yet.

I have my ticket booked, finally, for Wednesday at 12:10. I'll land in Bristol, God Willing at 1:10 PM. I've watched Nicole and all of my friends that I've made here come and go, and this town seems a touch less friendly now that I no longer know someone around every corner. The house is ready: sparkling clean, devoid of food, and all of my things packed into two bags and a guitar case. I was amazed it all fit, but it must be because many of my daily items were supplied at the house- dishes, bedding, furniture, etc. I do feel a touch of sadness leaving the Emerald Isle, but far less than I would have if I hadn't been stuck here at the end. Being stuck somewhere can really affect your image of the place.

Comments about Ireland?

Well, here's what I'd say I've found about the country, all summed up in point form (this is an abbreviated list, as I'm sure more stuff, and likely more profound revelations, will hit me in years to come):

-Being the second richest country in the world (by some standards, it was in all the papers, so I believe it) doesn't seem to make Ireland very happy. Irish warmth and friendliness are legendary, and I really feel it in the older generations. However, Nicole and I really noticed a cold, "are you finished?" attidtude among lots of people, almost like the influx of people and wealth into the country has left people a bit overwhelmed.

-All the postcards are true, this place is incredibly beautiful

-People in Ireland don't ever talk about Leprechauns, they're a western tourist thing

-Banshee is pronounced as two words "Ban Shee"

-Don't go digging around in Ringforts

-Before I came here, I had an almost cartoony image of the place

-Irish pubs can be very lonely, quiet places

-Houses with wooden signs that advertise "surgery" are common, and creepy

-Lough is the Irish spelling of Loch, said the same way

-The Brits did bad things here, so they aren't well liked as a country. Still, they are treated kindly by most.

-The Aran Islands are a must-see, as is countryside in Cork.

-Ireland is much more backwards and backwoods than one would expect. Things really aren't sorted out here yet, and stuff like infrastructure and bureaucracy, especially involving Gardai Certificates of Registration, are in early development stages.

-A rum and coke can cost you 7 euros, because you have to buy a shot of rum, and a bottle of coke. Conversely, a pint of Guinness costs 3 Euros 20. Not bad.

-Don't drink the rum

-Murphy's is the smoothest beer EVER, though it has a bit less of a full flavour than Guinness. Guinness often has a hell of a pang for an aftertaste. It also, according to the locals, has fallen in quality catastrophically in the past five years. Alas, I'll never taste a true one, I guess. I should mention, I've had a pint at the Yard and Flagon that was more than a match for those at the Guinness Brewery. The best ones here were at one of the local pubs.

-Guinness quality is variable.

-Cliffs make me weak in the knees

-Despite, (well, quite possibly contributing to) its beauty, Ireland is a strangely sad place. All of its landscapes are perfectly suited to sad movie sequences, or solemn processions.

-"How's the farm? Nothing strange?" is my favorite greeting here.

-People really like REM and Paul Simon here.

-Irish commercial radio ROCKS. It blows the Saskatoon equivalent out of the water. You hear a mix of new stuff, and other GOOD stuff, not just the one-hit-wonder top 40 backlogs from the past 30 years.

-Soda bread tastes like plain salty wholeweat muffins. It's great.

-Lots of Irish people think U2 are americanized hacks

And much more.

All in all, its been great.

Miss you all,

ON TO WALES!
Luke

Twisted Ankles, Ferry Trips, and Miami Vice

Hey Yall,

How is everything? I hope this week has been good. I am officially alone in Ireland now, as my roomate Anita moved out this morning. I twisted my ankle carrying luggage out to the car for her! My ankles need physiotherapy, I think, as that's my third ankle twist in the past three weeks. The first two were during a bad soccer match (the first one was a mild setback, when the other one went, it was worse and put me out of the game).

I've decided not to book a flight for tuesday, as I can lose money on that, but instead to take a ferry that day. I realized this afternoon that my visa was approved on friday, not thursday, as I had thought, and therefore I may not get it until tuesday if they didn't send it yet... It's safer to wait.

I want to publicly wish my mom a happy 50th birthday. I'll call you tonight, mom!

Tonight I'm in Athlone, the next town over, limping around, killing some time. On a whim I saw Miami Vice the Movie, and was suprised by how impressed I was. Jesse, you have to see this one if you haven't already. It's great. Ok, here goes, I'm making my case for the movie in a cheesy film review:

I thought it was great. I was expecting a lame, coked-out world of pink neon and cheap glam, with some cops thrown in. What I got was a well-plotted, well-acted, well-paced flick that turned out to be all moody and dark, with lots of character and grit. Now, I admit that I am often extra succeptible to movies when I am tired and alone, but I think I was somewhat objective. They used some great film tricks to make the film grainy sometimes, and there is grainy "COPS" style footage interspersed with slick, greyishly lit windswept florida coastline stuff that really worked well. Now sometimes, of course, it was completely contrived, like all of the slow music kicking in long before the "love scenes", but I was impressed by how they pulled it off without too much gloss. In most of the action scenes, they managed to keep up some intensity and dark moodiness that really helped. I especially like that they remembered to put in lots of speedboats (one of the only things I can remember about the old show, other than Crockett's white mesh sandals that every kid had a stinky pair of). Good use of Ferraris (Do they really give cops ferraris in Miami? If they belong to the cops, how do they afford them?), good characters, good stuff.

I give it 4/5.

Well, that's that. Hope you like my random blogging.

Cheers,

Luke

Title? I guess its either "Mr." or "BA", I'm not quite sure...

AUGUST 10, 2006, 3:08 PM
HARNEY'S COMPUTER SOLUTIONS
BALLINASLOE

I'm still hanging on. Life is good, despite the cold. I went out and played darts last night with a guy from the dig named Eoin who is still here too. It sounds like Nico is enjoying Cardiff, which is always nice to hear.

A few bits of news have popped up today.

First, apparently they foiled some airplane terrorist attack in the UK and US. Good news that it was foiled. The only downside is that that I'll probably have to get a body cavity search to get to Cardiff! That and apparently it means you can't bring your own beverages on planes anymore. What next? Hats? Shoes? Wallets? We'll have to fly naked, or in backless hospital-style airplane gowns. Yikes! I may just take the ferry over to avoid all of the B.S.!



Next, Chris has announced October 8th as his departure to tour Europe. Apparently it all starts in Frankfurt, just in time for Oktoberfest. Good on ya, man. Oh, and by the way, Chris, there's a package in the mail for ya buddy.


Lastly... well, that's about it. I hope you all are having fun. I'm off to get a hot cup of something to fix me up.

Luker

Athlone Alone

Hey Party People,

How is everyone? I'm not bad, thanks. I'm hanging out in Athlone today all by my lonesome, as Nicole flew to Cardiff today. I'm waiting around in our house for my UK work visa to come land in my mailbox, then I can follow her out there. I foresee my blogs becoming more frequent and neurotic while I spend my days watching out the window for the postman. Things have been well, except that I've been really quite sick with a bad cold since the weekend. It was inevitable, whenever you finish a long stretch of ditch digging, your immune system takes a vacation and you plunge into sickness. Oh well. I'm currently at the clearing-out-my-chest-and-sinus stage, so at least I'm past the sore throat. That's the worst part by far.

No more whining. Sorry.

Athlone is somewhat entertaining; if I want to, I can go see Superman Returns at the movie theater (quite a step up from theater-less Ballinasloe), or possibly spontaneously catch a bus somewhere new. God forbid. I have no idea where I'd go, but maybe there's something worth a look. I'm in Ireland for god's sake! Athlone is really a hub of bus travel around the country, being located in the dead centre, so if I can muster the guts, it may be fun to see where I end up. I wouldn't mind a look at Kilkenny Castle, but it may have been a good idea to pack a toothbrush or some clean shorts! I do have some eltroxin with me. I thought of that one.

So far all is quiet on the Welsh job front. I'm hoping something falls into my lap just when I need it to. It always seems to work out that way.

Hey Jeff and Dave (and Jim!) how did the beer night go? Do you have details you could send? Photos? I've obviously heard some rumours, and some sum-ups from various sources, but I want the grimy details. How much cash did we make? Can we save the album? Hmm..

Last time I looked out the window it was pouring rain. Now it is sunny with not a cloud to be seen. What a place.

Ok, well, that's all for me for now. I'm off to see what this day brings.

Luke

Loughrea and Woodlawn House

Hello,

Today we went out on a bit of a field trip. After work on Wednesday, our friend Micheal (pronounced "Mee-hall", or that's the best I can do, anyway) took us out to see the peat bogs. On the way, we stopped at an incredible, huge, abandoned manor house that overlooks the small village where he is from, Woodlawn. It was unbelieveable. It has a huge manmade lake, with a huge stone bridge that crosses it. I guess that by turning a wheel, you could raise or lower the lake. It was lived in until the '70s, but now it's abandoned. The owner is trying to sell it, apparently. There are cows sleeping on the front steps now. Anyway, we brought Simon there today for another look, and brought the camera this time. We didn't go inside at all, but I found some photos of the thing online, so here they are. Our photos will be up eventually, when we get them uploaded to disc. We're in Loughrea now, just hanging out at the Internet Cafe. I think we'll take a stroll along the Lough afterward. I've been through this town several times on the way to Galway, but have never had a look at the lake!


Anyway, Take care, and enjoy the photos!

Luke







a link to more photos:
http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=4982

Galway: Last time for a while

Hello,

We're in Galway today for the last time on this trip. Well, I think so, anyway. The Galway Races are on this week, so there's a lot of people around. We finished up at the site yesterday, so I'm officially unemployed again until I find something in Wales. I'm in pretty good financial shape, thankfully, so I'm not too worried. I brought my guitar today to do a bit of busking. I set up in a really nice quiet spot, but a guy in a high-vis vest told me I couldn't play there. Alas. On the bright side, it didn't stop me from making a quick 3 euros for my only song. That would be a good rate!

I bought some jeans today, my others are ratched.

Nicole was looking at her program online today, and it looks like she gets to do a rural retreat with her program. Pretty sweet, eh?

Here's some photos of us I took with the webcam here.

Later!

Luke