Christmas adventures....a month and a half late.

What to do when you feel all on your own? Well have a glass of wine and write about your holiday. Write about your holiday before it becomes ancient history.

For Christmas I embarked on a lovely journey. I departed my part of West Yorkshire on the 22nd of December. It was evening. It was damp enough that I wore my heavy coat, a sweater, and packed my roomy sweatshirt from back in the days of the daycamps. I took the coach from here, all the way across to Dublin. From there I had to change coaches to get to Cork. I'm talking about Ireland by the way. I went to spend my Christmas with an old friend and her family. It was great fun.

The journey wasn't too bad. I had my own seat for most of the way. Or perhaps it was just part of the way. When you travel at night, things start to blur together. Eventually, the coach filled up and I had a man sitting beside me that was heading home to mother. She bought his ticket because she wasn't putting up with any excuse as to why he wouldn't be home for Christmas. It was quite a decent story the way he told it (until I heard it ten times). He may have been a bit overzealous with his drinking prior to getting on the coach, which is why I think that he told and retold the story. He also kept asking me the same questions again and again, almost like he didn't realise he has asked me several times already.

Eventually we arrived at Hollyhead which is where the ferry is caught. Before getting on the ferry we all had to get off the coach, collect our luggage and pile into this shed. I kid you not, it was a large shed. The door behind us had to be closed before they would check our passports and let us out the other side to board the next coach.

The ferry was nice. I had a full breakfast at 2am.

I went out on deck to see the view (very dark at night-go figure). I also wanted to take a picture of the ferry. I was almost knocked into the sea by the wind. The wind was very impressive.

Getting off the ferry meant a coach change in Dublin. It was about 6 am when we arrived. I had forty minutes between coaches which meant that  I say in the terminal and was bored for that time. There was a nicely decorated christmas tree though. Reminded me of the time of year. It is so odd, after all the years of working retail, I don't notice that it is Christmas time unless I see something like that. I think that also has to do with my lack of television. Television programs and commercials are big informers of the time of year I'm finding. Living without them leaves you a little out of the loop. 

Once I reach Sligo I was greeted by Sue and Phil at the bus station. I was so happy to see them! They took me to this cute little cafe where we had wraps for lunch. This wrap that I ate was amazing. I enjoyed it so much that I wish I had taken a picture. 

Here are some pictures of the Sligo town. I loved how colourful Sligo was. It is such a change from all of the Stone in West Yorkshire. 

 In the picture below is Pepper Alley, the cafe that Sue and Phil took me to for lunch. If is the shopfront that has the purple sign just to the left of the red building (not that you can really see the sign colour). If you are ever in Sligo, go to Pepper Alley.

 Sue!  This is the main river. Just around this area, the town council of Sligo invested a lot of money during the economic boom to fix up the area. They made it into a big pedestrianized area with a beautiful walkway along the river and some really modernized buildings like the one I'm standing in front of in the later picture.

 This carving is in the front of a shop that belongs to M. Quirke. He's pretty much world-famous. He started out as a butcher, and is now a wood-carver. His shop was closed the day I was in town so I had to look from the window. Very cool though.

When in Ireland, one does not ask for Strongbow. Since I don't drink beer I drink cider. You must have Bulmers. It's the closest thing to the national cider as you can get. In England Bulmers is sold under then label of Magners because the name Bulmers was already taken by a different cider. By the way, Bulmers is better than Strongbow.

 My fantastic hosts! This is Christmas eve. We went into the town for a few errands and had lunch at the pub. The pub's name is The Swagman Bar. They had a very interesting menu. My favourite thing on the menu (in terms of description was the Funky Chunky Chips. I didn't order them, but Sue did. She said they were a bit disappointing. My burger, however was not. Irish beef is MUCH better than English. According to the Irish it is because the cows are allowed to roam the pastures and eat grass instead of being grain-fed.

 I just loved how the sky looked!

 This is the village pub. It was down the road from where we were staying with Niall and Jill. What you see in this picture is literally the whole pub. It was pretty quiet that night (Christmas Eve) but we had a nice evening having a pint. I tried Guiness. Guiness in Ireland is not pasteurized, like the stuff that is exported. All of the Irish in the group swore that it made a difference in the taste. Regardless, I was still not a fan. I think what I liked the best about this pub was the open fire place, which is right behind where I'm standing on the right and that it is literally the smallest pub I have ever seen. The pub part is literally all you see in this picture and behind the man who took the picture for me is a partition which divides the front area which is large enough for three people to stand in and sells essentials like flower and dishliquid.

 Over Christmas I saw some lovely and warm temperatures like 12 degrees! Everything was so green. I've always grumbled about green Christmases, but this one was great!

 Boxing day.  Boxing day in Ireland is called St. Stephen's Day. Let's go to Strandhill! This is where Phill and his brothers grew up, not far from Sligo. It's still in Sligo district though. It was pretty rainy Boxing day hence the rainbow. We went for some lunch and to see the ocean.

 Phil suggested that I go for a swim in the turbulent waters. Then I saw the sign that said no swimming, I think he was trying to kill me....
The neat thing about Strandhill is that it is famous for surfing. Being right on the ocean it has good waves.

Cool random sculpture also on the coast. 

 Why is there a connon here? Someone looked this up for me, but I don't remember why. Something history and war related.

 Before dropping me off the next day at the bus station, I was brought back to The Strand for lunch.

 Fish and chips = excellent.

 Back in Sligo.

 Bittersweet: tired from excitement, but not wanting to go because it was so wonderful being in Ireland.

 Food and drink break on the way back to Bradford....

 On the ferry from Ireland...You can get...Scottish shortbread.

In England we love our potatoes!

 Creepy.

My London Adventures

***note, this was written the day after my London Adventures. Edited and posted much later...

My London Adventures.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s good to have a plan but if you plan too much its annoying. For my trip to London I had a general plan of stay with Charlie, see Kayla and do stuff. I 100% accomplished my plan.

I took the train into Kings Cross station, yes KINGS Cross not King’s Cross.

I found (on my way back to Bradford) the spot of Platform 9 ¾. I decided that I was too tired to wait in line this time and will do the photo op next time I’m in London.

Back to the plan...

After meeting up with Charlie to find out where his plat was and to leave my bag so that I didn’t have to carry it about London. His flat is in the Bounds Green area of London, which to me really just means get on the Piccadilly Line of the Underground and get off at the stop that says Bounds Green. Well the original plan was that Charlie was going to show me the Camden Town Markets. However my train was delayed and he had Basketball plans at 5pm so instead he pointed me in the correct direction and off I went.

The very first thing I did when arriving in London was to get myself an Oyster Card. This little gem is like a declining balance card for all London transit. It’s great! You deposit money onto your card, swipe it to get in and out of the underground stations and this is what allows you to tavel about London. If you use less than the amount of a day pass then you pay for what you used. If you use more than the amount of a day pass, your card is no longer charged past the day pass amount. This is nice for someone like me that likes to get lost or wander about aimlessly on and off buses and tubes. I stuck to the tube system and my own two feet for this trip. I decided that buses might get me too lost, but I think that my next trip into London I will take some buses just to see London without having to do a lot of walking. The tubes I found pretty convenient. They run more often than the Toronto subways. We’re talking about every three to five minutes which is fantastic. The longest wait I saw for a tube train was 6 minutes and that was at 10:45 in Leicester Square which is an incredibly busy area in the evenings.

Back to the fun stuff.

Camden Town Markets – these are HUGE. Candem town is really cool (and incidentally has the British Museum in it too). This is apparently the area of London that a lot of big name musical artists got their start. There are tonnes of little nooks and crannies, different pubs and places to eat. There were also more than a few venues that also host live music later in the evenings. I didn’t take in any music while I was in the area since it was too early. I hit the markets. There are tent markets set up in on area. This is the Camden Market. There are stalls of hoodies, and jewelry and dresses and sweaters and tunics and coats. I saw so many beautiful coats that I wanted, but I resisted the urge to try them on since I already have a coat. The vendors in this market are very forward. You stop for half a second to look at something (which is really just long enough to get your eyes to focus on what you are looking at and they just on you “you like that, it’s really nice, I make you a good deal” It’s a bit startling at first when you aren’t expecting it. Yet, unless you are planning on either spending a lot of money, being rude or leaving altogether you get used to it pretty quickly. I did find a nice warm sweater there that I liked and I paid less for it than I would have in a store so that isn’t so bad. If you continue down the street (I have no idea which street I was actually on but when you walk down it you see tonnes of different shops. There was your standard tourist souvenir shops, (there were many of those really) as well as funky shoe stores, and fashion shops (and I don’t mean ‘in fashion’ but different kinds of fashion). In this area there was really something for everyone. Well between the street and the following area called the Stables Markets. This area used to be a giant stables that served that section of London. It was cleaned up and converted into this market when it fell out of use as a stables after trains and other types of transportation took over. There are hundreds of these little shops set up in this market. Each stall is now a little shop. You can find incense, African art, clothing, but trendy, vintage, gothic, etc, bags and purses, different leather products, souvenirs and so much more. There is also a wide variety of food stalls to visit. I saw Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Lebanese foods and donuts! Fresh fried donuts are so good, and you really don’t need to eat four of them. Trust me, one is enough, you’re full after three, four is really pushing it. Regardless they were good. Now I remember wandering through these markets thinking that they were just incredibly huge. I really am not sure just how huge they are since they are very maze like and just twist and turn around back onto to each other. There are also multiple floors. I found the set up very confusing. There were a couple of things that I wanted to go back to but couldn’t simply because I couldn’t find them, which is fine because really it meant that I saved money.

After wandering about these never-ending markets I decided to head over to Piccadilly Circus to see what was in that area. I left the tube station and started wandering. It began as I was following the crowds. Then as the crowds petered off then I was following one woman, when that became boring I started following the important-looking buildings. Which is pretty easy to do in this country (especially in London) since everything is made out of stone and is huge so it all looks important to me. Anyway, I ended up in a few places where I was genuinely confused and impressed at the same time. 

Where I ended up was actually part of the Jubilee Walkway, that was designed to commemorate the Queen's Silver Julibee in 1977. The whole walkway runs from Buckingham Palace to St. Pauls. It's 24 km long. I don't know that I will walk the whole thing next time that I'm in London, but I will definitely try and do at least some of it as it passes many of the London landmarks. 

I found Trafalgar Square which has some impressive stove carvings, not to mention Nelson’s monument which is unforgettable. It’s especially impressive at night as the fountains in the square are lit up. I sat there just people watching for a few minutes and it just felt amazing to sit there and let it all soak in. I had a moment where I realized (again) that I am in England and it never ceases to amaze me. I don’t know if I was feeling a bit lonely and needing to share the moment with someone or excited to tell someone, so I called my mother and told her how amazing it was. I’m pretty sure that she thinks that I’m crazy to call and tell her that everything around me is giant and made out of stone, but that is the conversation that we had last night.

Once my phone call was completed I continued on my aimless wanderings. I ended up in Leicester Square which if I’m not mistaken in is Soho. This is the entertainment district of London. I saw advertisements for many shows that I have not heard of, but also ones that I have. There was ‘Singing in the Rain’ and my all-time favourite of ‘Les Miserables.’ I have to say the most amazing thing ever happened. My curiosity made me go and ask what the ticket prices were for ‘Les Mis’ just so that I could plan my next London trip around a theatre show. Well it turns out that there were a few tickets still available for last night’s show. And since the show had started already I was able to get one at a discounted price. I paid a third of the ticket price for a seat in the stalls (orchestra floor) near the aisle. I had a fantastic view for which I was grateful since I had left my glasses in my bag back at Charlie’s flat.  

Seeing ‘Les Mis’ was amazing. I’ve seen it before on television and at the cinema last year when they had the anniversary broadcaster from London which was fantastic. However nothing and I mean absolutely NOTHING beats seeing it live. It was well done and the show itself is so powerful that I spent a lot of it with tears in my eyes. It was so fantastic. I will definately be going again and next time I will see the entire thing since the Prologue is my favourite part of the show. ‘Les Mis’ was a fantastic part of this trip.

The following day, Charley and I went to grab some breakfast at a little place not far from his flat. We both had variations of a traditional English breakfast, which really is not all that different from what a lot of people get as a full breakfast in Canada. We’re talking about eggs, toast, hashbrowns (or chips), a sausage, bacon (like back bacon only without the peameal) and beans. The beans is the bit that is off from what I’m used to seeing in Canada. But I really, I have to say I like it. When I say beans, I mean beans in tomatoe sauce, or baked beans. I never really liked them as a child, although I ate them when I had to. Now I have to say I enjoy them. They go quite well with the other breakfast foods and I now associate it with having a proper breakfast when I go out for breakfast.

After that, Charley dropped me at the Tube station with some vague directions taking me past Buckingham Palace and through St. James’s park to get me to Borough Market.

St. James Park

 I have to say. I partially forgot his directions, got lost, asked a police woman for help (she thought that I was absolutely crazy for wanting to walk from Buckingham to the market because she said it would take 45 minutes. In reality if you are confident about your directions its really about 25), got within two blocks and gave up and took the train the rest of the way there. Needless to say, I survived and I got there.

 River near Buckingham Palace

Known commonly as Big Ben, now renamed Elizabeth Tower for the Diamond Jubilee. Apparently it was never really named Big Ben....

I found Kayla and we had a lovely although fast wander through the market. We had lunch. It was some sort of shrimp, tomatoe, sausage rice dish. 

It was very good. We also both purchased some baked goods to cheer our weekends. She got foccaccia (not sure about the spelling) and I got a custard tart and a brownie. It was interesting, having a custard tart. It was a new experience for me, but I figured since I always used to watch ‘As Time Goes By’ and one of my favourite characters was obsessed with custard tarts, that I might as well try one, especially since I am in England after all. So I had a custard tart in London, just like Lionel Hardcastle. I’m chuckling as I’m sitting here typing this since I think that most people will have no clue what I’m on about at the moment, but that is just fine.

After my rendezvous with Kayla, I headed back in the direction of King’s Cross. I wandered about, ate some more food. I found some street food vendors and I got some gyoza. Since I love gyoza, I had to get some even though I wasn’t all that hungry. Anyway, Gyoza, Edame, and crunky rainbow salad made for a delicious second lunch. 

Other than street food, that was pretty much the end of my London Adventure. I found some fuzzy slippers in the train station shop, but I decided that they weren’t worth what they were priced at... That is all. 

Leeds and the adventures that it holds

It sounds like such an exciting title. I don't know if the following entry will live up to it, but even if it doesn't the title still did its job of being attention grabbing.

I've been to Leeds a couple of times now. It's nice and close so it is really good for a day trip. It's just a short train ride away (and I do mean short, as it's only 20 minutes!). There is also a bus, but as I understand it the bus takes longer. I haven't yet taken the bus although I think that I should considering I can do so using my pass without having to pay the extra 4.30. I like the train though. Perhaps I need to force myself to be cheaper though.

I've been to Leeds now on my own, with another Canadian teacher and with my department. The trip with my department was quite interesting as it was right at the beginning of the break and everyone needed to blow off some steam. It really made e see that people are very different just depending on the context in which they are in, as well as how certain actions here are seen in a very different light.

My other two trips were far more eventful and full of sights. Where to start with describing is really the question. When I went to Leeds the first time I really had no idea what I was after other than a bit of shopping and some sort of sights. I was talking with a woman before I left for Leeds that I met waiting in line to pay for something. She told me that I had to go to the Corn Exchange, the art gallery and a gallery that has art exhibits but is NOT the art gallery.

 This is the Corn Exchange.

I must say, on my first trip I didn't make it to the Corn Exchange at all. I did on my second trip, but I was there before the shops inside of it opened. So I made due with peaking through the windows of all the little shops. It's a lot of just gift shops. Many of them sold little knicknacks and such that a lot of people give as gifts. You know, the quaint stuff that everyone 'oohs' and 'ahhs' about but no one really wants sitting in their house because it's just one more thing for them to have to dust when they're cleaning. There were a few fashion stores. One of the stores looked very much like it was a cross between a studio and a shop for a local designer. There were a great number of different textiles in the shop that had a variety of colours and textures. It really reminded me of Joyce Seppula's shop in Thunder Bay.


I did make it to the Art Gallery. I've been there twice now. There is a variety of art from different periods of history in the gallery in Leeds. I have to say it was quite interesting because I saw one or two pieces that I remember reading about when I took first year Art History in university. Even for the pieces that I didn't already know it was quite something to be face to face with art that you don't find as much in North America. Now before I bore you with jibber jabber about old art there was an assortment of modern and contemporary art as well. I don't know how to describe it, and I didn't take photos so really all I can say is that what I viewed was unique and interesting.

I also went to see an exhibit by Sarah Lucas in the Henry Moore Institute. This is the gallery beside the Art Gallery. I was there the last weekend of the exhibit. From what I understand about this artist is her work is largely feminist. This particular exhibit (Ordinary Things) was made up of tree knobs painted white to emphasize the phallic nature of them and pantihose stuffed with cotton wool and then twisted and arranged into different shapes. For the most part I thought the way in which the pantihose was contorted and arranged gave the exhibit an undertone of violence. There was one particular piece that really sticks out in my mind from this exhibit. This one you see right when you enter into the gallery. It was a mattress with everyday objects arranged on it to represent a man and a woman. Here is a photo of it that I found on the internet. This is exactly what visitors to the exhibit faced right when they walked into the gallery.

In addition to the art and my random wanderings during that particular trip I did some shopping. I walked around the pedestrian only areas of Leeds where there is a decent variety of shops. There is Marks and Spencers which began in Leeds. There is an H&M (I got a sweater there this weekend), and a whole array of shops that I have never heard of before coming to the UK. There is Next, Dorothy Perkins, Topman/TopShop, Harvey Nichols (which I am told is incredibly famous). I went into the Harvey Nichols. The clothing looks nice enough but let me tell you from experience that it is all high ed designers that design their clothing only for those women who have absolutely no figure. It's funny too because all of the clothing is designed for one body type (the stick) and yet the prices are such that it seems like it is impossible for them to make any money. Of course the price tag is exactly why they still make money I'm sure. I will say, as terrible as I found the pants (trousers) I did like the Jimmy Choo shoes that I tried on. Heaven! And no, I didn't have a mental lapse and buy them. 

I also visited the shopping arcades which are divided up into different quarters. The one that is listed on the tourism websites and such is the Victorian Quarter. This one is listed for it's popular shopping as well as the architecture. 

Below is a street shot of a building that I liked the look of. 

Here is one of the city buildings. This is right next door to the Leeds Library and Art Gallery. I thought that it was City Hall, but when I was in Leeds the second time around I found that there is another city hall. So on that particular point I am a little bit confused. No matter, here is what I do know about this building...

 It has columns which make it very official looking.

 There are sculptures of lions on the outside of the building.

Above the entrance to the building there is a collection of figures that really reminded me of the tops of Greek and Roman temples  and buildings. The stone work that can be found on the building in Yorkshire is really amazing compared to what little that is seen in Canada. Really, I have quite enjoyed it.