All You Need is Love

After returning from my unbelievable trip to Ireland, I was lucky enough to go on a Beatles tour. I grew up dancing to songs like "Day Tripper" and "Yellow Submarine" starting before I even hit kindergarten. And, like many others, the Beatles have always been a part of my life.

A view of Abbey Road. The tour guide says that still today, many cab drivers get annoyed when they have to drive through Abbey Road, but still stop for tourists to take their version of the famous album.

When I was over at a friend's house on East Campus at Mizzou, I pointed to their poster of the Abbey Road album they had on there wall and said, "I've been there. And I have written on that wall behind them."

Many people come to graffiti on the famous wall on Abbey Road. While the city of Westminster allows it, they come to wall every two weeks to whitewash it. People continue to come to the wall to leave a little piece of them behind even though it will be gone two weeks later.

I decided to write lyrics from one of my favorite Beatles songs, Blackbird. When I was younger and had guitar lessons, Blackbird was one of the first songs I decided to learn. I also wrote "Eleanor Rigby" on one part of the wall because I have always been obsessed with that song since I was young.

Our next stop was Paul McCartney's current home. The tour guide said it was the first time he had seen the gates open in a while, due to yard matinence. 

The wall on Abbey Road is not the only victim of graffiti. The brick gates outside McCartney's home also hold messages of appreciation for the artist as well as the Beatles.

The tourist in me gathered with the others in the group to attempt at getting past the gates to capture the house behind them, however this is all I could really get.

We headed towards the Beatles store, filled with anything you could imagine. Somehow, they are able to relate everything back to the Beatles.

Another view of the Bealtes store.

This is our tour guide at our final stop. In the basement of this building is where the Beatles recorded their last song together. Although there were interesting stops, the tour guide could have done a better job talking about each spot, as it is hard for me to even remember what we talked about during the tour. Because of this I don't have a lot of information attached to each location, so I will make sure to update this post after a little more research.

What once was just a band of boys out of Liverpool playing at a pub transformed into one of the most memorable and influential bands in history. Today, England still makes sure that they are remembered and seen in every way possible. From souvenirs to current news stories about the living members, the Beatles have remained a part of popular culture today. It will take quite a while for the world to forget them, which is alright with me.

Luck of the Irish

I can say in confidence that Ireland is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The people there couldn't be nicer, which supports the saying "the farther north you get, the nicer the people are." Meg, Meara, Chelsey and I pretty much sprinted to get to our bus that took us to the airport, where we then sprinted to our gate to fly out to Dublin.

When we landed, the air itself just smelled fresher, cleaner. We got off good old Ryanair and walked into the airport, where signs were written in English as well as Gaelic. We got the bus and got off at the Spire to go to our hostel. The four of us were able to get into a five person room, thinking we were the only ones that would be staying in it. We burst into our room extremely excited and, being typical Americans, were screaming and were extremely loud. Meg continued to squeal, "You guys, there is a fireplace!!! and a sweater....." Once we turn on the light, who do we find but a 40-year-old French man sleeping. Not awkward at all. So we try as hard as we can to be quiet and get to bed since it was so late.

The next morning, we got on a Dublin bus tour to see the city. It's really nice to take these types of bus tours because they run on a hop-on and hop-off system, where anyone can get off at a stop they want to check out more and can get back on a different bus when they are done and want to continue the tour.

A tomb in Christ Church. 

This is also from Christ Church. The cat chased the rat into the organ in 1850s and they were both mummified. Someone stole the real rat, so the one in the display is a replacement.

One of my favorite stops was the Guinness Storehouse, where we took a tour. It is set up to show the process of making a Guinness. It also discusses the history where it began in 1759. We also got a free Guinness at the top of the Storehouse, with views that overlooked Dublin.

Meg riding up the escalator to one of the floors in the storehouse.

The introduction to all of the areas where the ingredients were explained as well as how they are used.

My favorite of the Guinness memorabilia: the toucan.

Getting served our free Guinness after getting to the top!

The view from the top while enjoying a free Guinness. 

After the Guiness Storehouse, we went back to our hostel to get ready for the pub crawl that we signed up to go on. We went to different pubs that provided either a free shot or drink specials to the group. We ended at a club near the Temple Bar area. We met a couple of students from Atlanta who were also staying in our hostel as well as a brother and sister from California backpacking through Europe. 

The next morning we woke up extremely early, with some difficulty, and made it to our tour of the countryside. We went with a group of about 12 or 15 people, and had a wonderful tour guide who knew so much about his country. This tour was by far my favorite part of Ireland. We drove through the countryside listening to songs such as the Swallow Tail Jig. There was just nothing quite like it.

Meg frolicking through the fields with Meara.

Beautiful view of Ireland. If you look far enough you can see the coast.

Pictures just can't do it justice.

Me on the bridge where P.S. I Love You was filmed.

The bridge from a different angle.

Loch Tay, also known as Guinness Lake for the shape of the lake and beach on the right, which looks like foam. To the far right not in the photo there is an excluded manison where celebrities such as Elton John and Michael Jackson have stayed in as a getaway.

Monastery

It is said if one can wrap their arms around this Celtic cross and are able to touch their hands together, three things are true: One of their wishes will come true, they will return to the same spot one day, and finally, they have really long arms. This is Meg's attempt, while Meara actually accomplished it. Guess she will be lucky enough to return at some point, and hopefully I will be with her too.

After the tour, we went out to the Arlington Hotel, where we indulged in an amazing three course meal while listening to Irish classics from a live band. Suprisingly, "Take Me Home, Country Roads" by John Denver was a hit there as well, and this will sound cheesy, but a moment I will always remember in Ireland is singing to that song with a glass of wine in my hand surrounded by the friendliest people in the world. The band was followed by Irish dancing, which was unbelievable. They also took participants from the audience, where Meg and Meara joined them on stage as well to show their skills and even recieved certificates for their accomplishment. The following photos are courtesy of Meara, Meg and Chelsey.

All four of us with the band from Arlington Hotel. Notice Meg with her Irish dancing certificate in hand.

So proud of my little Irish dancers!

After our amazing three course meal we went to Temple Bar, where all of the pubs are. Our flight left extremely early in the morning, so we decided it would be best to just stay out all night until our flight. 

Only in Temple Bar can you find a chicken in hay on the street. 

A friend that we found that had some great dance moves.

After getting late night munchies we went to bed for an hour and then got on our plane back to London. We returned to rainy skies and cold weather that pretty much matched the attitude of the people we ran into on the way back to our flat. It only made me miss Dublin even more. I can only hope that this isn't the last time that I will experience that wonderful country.

Breaking Old Habits

As you can probably see, I am a very terrible blogger. I  haven't posted in almost two months, and what an unbelievable two months it has been.

I now sit in my bed at home, in the humidity of St. Louis with heat indexes reaching up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. And yes- I am back to the world of Fahrenheit, driving on the left side of the road and highly processed American food that stays good four times as long as London groceries.

I sit here feeling like I woke up from some sort of dream. I have a poster of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in my room, and still even right now when I look at it, my head is telling me that there is no possible way that I went to Paris this summer and ventured on top of it to marvel the city.

Arc de Triomphe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 View from the top of Arc de Triomphe

 

 

 

I am also haunted by the dead silence the town of Kirkwood is sitting in at the moment. Last night, I fell asleep to the sound of crickets instead of the constant traffic- the honking of taxis, ambulance alarms and drunken yelling until the sun rises again in the morning.

I can't really explain how I feel right now to be back- we were told before even leaving for London this summer that we would most likely have an even worse culture shock to coming back home than we would in London. My stomach was in knots when I landed in Chicago, wondering how I would react: how do I go back to the life I lived before when I just spent a summer in one of the greatest cities in the world? One that never sleeps, runs by tube and double-decker bus and where the workplace breaks for tea every 5 minutes. A place where you can hop on a sketchy flight through Ryanair and get to Barcelona in four hours, or hop on the Eurostar to Paris that takes as much time to make a commute to Columbia. A place where everywhere you look, you see a building that is thousands of years old, has battle scars from WWII and blows any piece of architecture you have ever seen in your life out of the water. How was I going to feel coming back home and leaving all of it?

The first thing I did this morning was wake up and look around my room, trying to think of where I had just been and where I am now. And honestly- I feel nothing. I don't know if it is initial shock. I  don't know if it is because I don't want to let myself believe I have just found the city I want to live in the future.

I honestly feel like... almost as if I am heading back there in a week. I'm just home visiting, and heading back in a week or so. I guess as time goes on I will start to realize that it will be a while before I go back to Britain. I just can't believe that right now- I won't believe it until it smacks me in the face that there aren't any more cues, no soft spoken accents that make American accents seem foreign to me. No more global presence- no more Muslim women fully clothed in black with just their eyes showing (which was seen a lot where I lived- I will go in more detail of it later), no more French, Australian, New Zelanders or "Kiwis" as they are called. No more pubs on every corner. No more running through Hyde Park that is somehow so peaceful, even with the buzzing city around it. No more shopping in Oxford Circus- no more clothes that set the trends all around the world. None of this will be a part of my everyday life for years, if not longer. So how do I feel nothing right now when all of it is running through my head as I write?

Whenever I do start to realize all of this- I feel that I can hit two birds with one stone by continuing this blog: 1. To make up for never writing about the rest of my trip before this 2. To give myself an outlet to relive the experience. To maybe, just for a moment when times get hard, to throw myself back into the dream and savor it.

So again, I apologize for a couple of things. I am sorry I am a terrible blogger- that will change after this. And, I apologize to London, since nothing I will ever write in this blog, no matter how hard I try, will do the city justice. I can never begin to describe how it truly feels to be a part of, and for that I am sorry. But I will do my best.