Gypsy in Ireland: June 2013

The following is in no particular order.

1. I am so excited to Jacob LaFond. He is the member of my family that it has been the longest since I have seen. He is also one of my best friends.

2. Leaving these kids and this family is one of the hardest things I have ever done.

3. In my church we pay tithing eg. 10% of your income you give to the church. The church uses it to get aid to those who need it, to support education, to build temples and chapels ect. I have been very blessed for doing that this year.

4. I love European chocolate. I am considering giving up chocolate this summer. Because I need to loose weight somehow. Once I get to the point when I will like American chocolate again I will, hopefully be back in school in Wales.

5. A lot of people travel to meet new friends. I find a beautiful aspect of traveling is complete one on one time with yourself.

6. That isn't to say that I haven't made brilliant friends this year.

7. "Brilliant", "fantastic", "manky", "class", "posh" "hiya" "cheers" and "spanner" are now all part of my vocabulary.

8. I can say "That's mine." In Irish, which means that I can have an argument with a toddler in Irish.

9. I no longer use "British" and "English" as synonyms. because they are actually two very different things. Britain is the Kingdom comprised of four countries. England is one o those countries.

10. Along those lines, Ireland and Northern Ireland are different countries as well. Approximately 6000 people have died in the last forty years fighting about this fact.

11. I have gone native. I can rattle on for hours about Irish history, specifically everything the English subjected the Irish too.

12. The Irish and the English are friends now. There will always be extremest on both sides. But, now the reasonable people have seen what catastrophic consequences listening to these people can have.

13. I've said it before but again the Irish are some of the kindest and most genuine, generous and open people you will ever meet.

14. I will miss an efficient public transport system.

15. I had never seen Doctor Who before this year.

16. I did National (technically it is international) Novel Writing Month. I won.

17. I decided to get my post graduate degree in International Relations rather than Theatre, Film, and Performance.

18. I have been accepted into the best program in the UK for International Relations.

19. Irish people don't name their children Shannon.That was a name Irish Americans came up with who missed Ireland.

20. I have been to four countries this year. Not as many as I thought. But still impressive and I loved them all.

21. I made it most the year basically without a bank account. I will be glad to have one again.

22. Excited for flip-flops again.

23. It feels like I am going to a foreign country rather than my native one.

24. Excited to go to thrift stores with my mom and sister.

25.Turns out "Gypsy" has very negative connotations in Ireland. When you say Gypsy here you are not referring to a fairy-tale like people based on real people but who have become very romanticized. Here if I were to call myself a Gypsy people would interpret it as my calling myself a crack-whore. Not that all people of traveler dissent are bad. But that is what the word "Gypsy" carries. So yeah, that made this blog title interesting.

Over Easter Break I went to London.
It was an exhausting and beautiful mini break. Why I am blogging about it now? Because I am waiting for my mom to get online and call me so I can talk to her about arriving tomorrow. Also I need to stay up all night so I can hopefully sleep through my 14 hour excursion home tomorrow.

Day one was a Friday. My host mom let me off early in the afternoon and gave me an extra thirty euros bonus because I'd had a few extra hours that week. Well, that was the reason she gave. Mostly she is just nice.

Because of my early afternoon I got to the air-port hours early. It was nice to be on my way... but airports get boring after about six hours when your gate isn't even yet listed.

I got a look of myself in the bathroom mirror and I looked so bad. Saggy eyes and wrinkly eyes. Megan would have held me down and pushed eye cream on me. Anyway. Then I was board and positive my eyes were ugly. It is funny what you obsess over.

Finally, when I thought I was going to die of a migraine I was on the plane. Luckily, it is like 45 minutes from Dublin to London by flight.

I managed to find a shuttle to Victoria Station. There was a nice Lithuanian girl who let me know which stop was Victoria. Once there I tried to find the bus that my directions said would take me to my hostel. A muscular, tall, beautiful Middle Eastern man saw me waiting and asked me if I would like to come back to his hotel room with him.
This scared the begeebers out of me. I ran to the other side of the street and hailed a cab and hopped in.
But, on the positive side as creeped out as I was I felt better about the bags under my eyes.

My hostel turned out to be like the mankiest place in London. It was apparent after two minutes inside that the "No smoking" rules were a formality.

But I was able to get enough sleep to head out for an adventurous weekend.

SATURDAY:

St. Paul's Cathedral. Didn't get to go in this time. But I saw it at a distance and it is just so lovely. Supposedly during the London Blitz in WWII every morning Churchill would ask "Is St. Paul's still standing?" And miraculously it always was.

London Fire memorial.

Tower of London.

Entrance.

Tower Bridge from Tower of London

I don't know but it was lovely so I shot it.

London from Tower.

Real Entrance

Traitor's Gate. I have been reading about this place since I was... what fourteen? Most people who entered this way never left again.

Look at all the tourists. He also had an old woman executed here. Her crime? Her son, The Cardinal I think, had pissed him off. But this son was in Rome doing Church things. So, Henry had his mother killed. She refused to put her head on the block saying, I am paraphrasing "That is for traitors and I am innocent." She then picked up her skirts and ran. The executioner chased after her hacking her to death. An old woman. An innocent old woman.

The bottom floor was where they tortured people. They lived in higher floors. I am not kidding this is a creepy place.

That is where the Crown Jewels are kept. It seemed silly to go all that way and not see them. But the que was much to long. Hours long. Which means you would have been herded pas the jewels once you finally got there anyway. So, I didn't see them. Maybe next time. If I ever go back. The Tower actually really shook me up.

These are the houses where the Yomen live with their families. Which is cool.

Memorial to Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Jane Grey.

But one of these homes is where poor Jane Grey was forced to wait and watch as they dragged her husband away to be beheaded. By the way, both of them were teenagers. She was somewhere between 15 and 17. She then had to watch them drag his headless body back past the window. Then she watched as they built the scaffolding for her own beheading. Then the poor girl was beheaded. I knew all this. I have read about this for years. But still, the cruelty people can impose on one another still appalls me like it is the first time I have heard it.

Top Old Cannon. Bottom ruins of the Original Wall of London.

Getting artsy.

Tower Bridge.

I also went to Harrods the largest department store on Saturday night. It was lovely. Lush lip-sticks, silky gloves, clothes to make you faint... I bought a stake pie and chocolate. It was Easter after all.