Literary Expeditionists: March 2006

It's Impossible To Update This Thing

We're in Halkidiki, Greece. The house manager screwed us over on the promised hi speed net so we're stuck with a really slow cafe. Updates will be infrequent for now, sorry.

P.S. Having a great time on our semi private beach.

P.S.S. Notice the irony of the title. :) I'm brilliant!

Dear Diary, Today We Awoke To Gunfire.

Since my last post Paul and I have left Dublin and flown to Helsinki, Finland, and, yesterday, from Finland we flew into Athens, Greece.
Why Helsinki?
Well, the simple answer is because Conan O'brien has been doing a Finland bit for quite some time and so, of course, I wanted to see what it's all about.
Actually, the real reason is because it's one of the places that my ancestors are from and because of that I have some distant cousins that live in the area.
So, we went to the below freezing land of Helsinki and met one of my cousins.

Her name is Pirjo.
Her and her husband, Viktor, made us a very nice Russian/Finnish dinner and afterwards we actually watched the Conan O'brien episode from earlier this month where he visited Helsinki. (They actually had it taped. It's no joke. They really like Conan out there!)

Other things about Finland you may be interested in...
1. The women are mind bogglingly beautiful. If you're into that sort of thing.
2. In almost every restaurant or bar or wherever there's either a poker table, blackjack table, or both.
3. It's cold. All of the time. Cold.
4. It's the leading country in the study of Aurora Borealis.

And then there's Athens, Greece.

Yesterday, we flew into this lovely town. It looks a lot like Los Angeles without tall buildings and absolutely no smog. The weather is about the same and the people are beautiful everywhere you look. Actually the part of town we're in reminds me a lot of Beverly Hills. Like a really old Beverly Hills.
On the hill directly across from the hotel we're staying in (Hotel St. George) sits the ancient Parthenon. Hopefully, we'll check that out really soon.
Today happens to be a big holiday here. It's their version of 4th of July Independence Day for us. Because of this we woke up to canons firing off at 6:30am which then proceeded to fire several times at nearly every hour. So, anyway, we checked out the military parade in front of the parliament building at 11am. It was cool with the jets and helicopters flying by and cool weapons and military personel on display.
I may post the pics o' the day later. Goodbye and happy Independence Day! Freedom or Death! Down with the ancient Turks!

A Dose of Dublin

We've been in Dublin for a couple of days now. It's a fun city. We arrived on St. Patrick's day, dropped off our bags at the hotel and headed into town for the celebration. The streets weren't very packed like we had expected, but then we tried to get into our first bar... Every place in town that had beer was packed to the doorway with patrons. It was a really fun night with no incidents, which Paul and I both expected we might have, being that it was the land of the fighting Irish that we were partying in. I had green beer for the first time that night!

Yesterday we entered an Irish pub and watched England get beat by the Irish in a "6 Nations" Rugby Tournament. Being around all the fans in that bar made watching the game more fun than the Super Bowl at home (sorry). Then we caught a movie (V for Vendetta) and walked around town.

Today we got up and went straight to the largest brewery in the world; the Guiness Brewery. Paul described it best, "It's like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, only for adults." After the tour we went up to the 7th floor of the visitor's center called the Gravity Bar. It brags of a 360 degree view of Dublin. Very cool!

A free pint for going on the tour. Cheers!

The Brewery as seen from the bar (and through somone's nasty handprint).

Tomorrow is our last full day in Dublin and then we head to Helsinki. Three days there and we're off to Greece. We have an apartment in the town where Aristotle was born, right next to Thessaloniki.

Everyone Gather Round For The Picture

Okay, here's the next series in the Boysza-Lake Collection:

Edinburgh, Scotland. Paul tries Haggis for the first time.

Looks like the big guy likes it!

Edinburgh Scotch distillery museum. (trick photography)

About to put our new knowledge of Scotch to the test.

A cool castle we found on our way to Galway, Ireland.

Another cool castle.

Our illegal trek through farmland to the ruins of the Castle of Moher.

We had the cliffs and the ruins to ourselves. (A good view of the 500 foot drop below)

The Castle of Moher... And Paul.

I Sometimes Give In To Peer Pressure

That's the only reason why there is an update today. Too many of my peeps want the scoop on life in the land of leprechauns.

Well, we're still in the wee town of Liscannor. We leave for Dublin in a few days and we're fine with that. It's time to see new things.

Since we last spoke not much has happened really. We drove along the coast the other day to Galway just to see what the Galwegians are up to... Not much (I made up Galwegi... nevermind). We ate dinner, bought a couple of Rap n' Roll cds (I'm coining that phrase) and drove back to the safety of Liscannor. (By the way, Liscannor is pronounced Lis-CAN-er, so stop saying Liscuhner; it's annoying and the locals detest the ignorance.)

We made friends with some local bar maids the other day and went out with them to the only night club within 30 miles. Holy crap it smelled like crap in there. A tiny club that opens at 12 and closes at 2. I don't think it has a name... just the club. Everyone and their grandmother (no pun intended) shows. There's "liquid" on the floors with bits of glass mixed in for texture and... traction? Anyway, it was awful and the girls were awkward, so no more clubs for awhile. Also, as a little tip to anyone planning on finding this club or any club in the U.K. I suggest that you leave the hats at home. Most clubs make you take them off before you enter (I asked dozens of bouncers, bartenders, coat check girls, bathroom assistants, etc. and no one knows why you take your hat off) and for the few clubs that allow you to leave them on, I'm convinced it's as a form of punishment. Everyone takes your hat and tries to wear it. I spend half the night chasing my hat around as it bounces around from head to head. Not to mention the absurd amount of Lysol I'm burning through.

Alright, that's it. Word on the street is once we get to Greece at the end of the month we'll have highspeed internet in the apartment, so I'll post lots of pictures then, cool?

Lates

This is Challenging

Sorry, the posts aren't coming very often. The internet in the U.K. is extremely slow everywhere we go and it makes it very difficult to commit to posting everyday or even every other day for that matter. And posting pictures is a joke because it takes about 6 minutes to download just one image. When you're paying per minute that equals = not worth it.

Anyway, we're leaving Scotland today at 2pm and heading back to Ireland. We'll stay there until the 21st. We bumped Helsinki to 21-24 for those loyalists that are tracking our every move.

Edinburgh was very enjoyable. It's an extremely beautiful city. Paul and I agree, though, that the youth that live here are hurting. The longer you stick around the more you're aware of the negative vibe that the kids give off. It's sad. I was personally assaulted once and we witnessed several other violent moments just in the six days that we were here. I'm sure this happens all of the time in certain ghetto areas of every city, but this was going on anywhere we went in Edinburgh.

We saw some really fascinating sites during our visit including castles and museums. Today we went on a tour through a Scotch whiskey distillery which was very interesting. I think we could go on a thousand wine tasting or liqour tasting tours and never experience the kind that we went on today. I won't go into much detail, but I will say this... Our tour included holographic ghost lectures.

Anyway, we're ready to head back to the quiet of our Ireland flat and focus on writing again. Hopefully I'll be able to update again in the next few days.

Our hotel on Loriston Street, Edinburgh.

The next house Paul's going to buy; Edinburgh Castle.

Edinburgh, Scotland

We're currently in Edinburgh, Scotland for a few days and then we'll return to Ireland. We haven't checked out the area yet so I don't have much to say, although, we've spotted plenty of cool structures (castles, schools, etc.).

Here's some pics I've been holding for a while: