almost a year

It's been just under a year since I returned from Prague. A bunch of Czechs that we met while in europe are now studying here at Union.

You can check out my website at www.mattbeenen.com for news and other happenings.

nearing the end

I don't really have much to share right now. I've been doing a lot of work and studying with class ending this week and finals next week. If it's nice out tomorrow, I plan on heading into town to take some final pictures of the city. Anyway, I've put up a lot of my pictures on a Flickr site. Here, you can browse them without having to read my blabbering.

My flickr Page

If you don't already use flickr to host your photos, I suggest checking it out and signing up. They offer plenty of space for free users and unlimited space and bandwidth to pro users. Look for one last update before I head home on Friday, December 21st.

As for the blog, I'm not sure what will happen to it. I think I'll probably continue updating it but just less often. Keep checking back!

dublin, ireland

Our trip to Dublin was relatively painless (as painless as RyanAir can get). We got to our hostel quickly and dropped of our stuff in our room before heading our. Were we going to have this 10 bed room to ourselves?

Haha, yeah right. After plenty of wandering around and some food at a pub, we got back to a room full of American girls studying abroad. Now, I know what you're thinking. "Two shockingly handsome guys in a room with 8 American girls visiting Ireland. Sounds great!" You haven't stayed in a 12' x 20' room with 8 American college girls. You probably haven't even been in a room with said demographics. Drowning them out with my iPod, I got to sleep without too much trouble. The morning adventure to the shower was, well, interesting. Picture a truck stop restroom, converted to a shower room and painted lime green. I might have thought that they were trying to conserve water by lowering the pressure in the shower. That is, if the fixtures hadn't been duct-taped to the wall. (I'll post a full review of this hostel sometime this weekend)

The next day was spent on a hop-on hop-off bus tour. This got us around the whole city and we felt as if we had seen everything. Among the most popular stops were the Guiness Brewery and the Jameson Distillery. We arrived at the Guiness Brewery at 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon. Bad idea. Luckily, I've got a policy. It's pretty simple, really. If the exit isn't guarded, why the heck not? So, we casually strolled past the 200 yard line (no exaggeration) and hopped into the exit while the security guard was busy letting a delivery truck out of the gate. After 3 flights of stairs against a steady flow of angry tourists, we made it. The best part? My in-the-exit policy sometimes requires that you take the tour (or whatever it may be) backwards. Not only did this pop us out after the 200 yard line, but it delivered us to a point immediately after the ticket counter. No line, no admission fee.

The next popular stop was the Jameson Irish Whisky Distillery. This wasn't quite as busy and that meant we needed to pay. Oh well. It was a really nice place with a really nice guided tour. Outside was one of the original distillation 'pots'.

One of our last stops was the famous Temple Bar. This is situated in the center of the Temple Bar Area of Dublin, a very culturally diverse area full of restaurants and arts for everyone.

I'll admit, I'm not usually the first to 'donate' to a street musician; not only could this guy play the accordion, but I had to have a picture of him.

I suppose this last one could be anywhere but I needed to share it. On our last day in Dublin, we spent the day just wandering the streets looking for cool things to take pictures of. We ended up wandering into the 'projects' of Dublin. Anyway, I saw this and before I knew it I had already taken the picture. I wish I hadn't put my camera away so quick, as we spent the following 2 minutes running from the dog and the 5 minutes after that walking nearly as fast to get out of the neighborhood. This 'little guy' meant business and well, teeth are teeth.

We took the last bus to the airport at 11:00pm on Sunday night and caught our flight at 6:05am Monday. I'll save that story for another day.

edinburgh, scotland

We spent three days in Scotland between the 27th and the 30th of November. This hostel was a little bit outside of the city (around 15 minutes by bus). At first we were skeptical of this, but it turned out to be great. Out hostel was built in an old castle-esque building right on the ocean.

The above view was taken from the top of Cramond Island looking back at the shore. Our hostel was situated about 50 yards off of the left side of the photo. The first morning we were there, we checked the tide charts and figured out when we could make it out (and back) to the island. There was about a 3 hour span of time when the tide is low enough that you can make the journey out to the island from shore (just over a mile).

We quickly discovered that this island was covered in WWII ruins. These buildings included gun turrets (to gauge the port), ammunition storage as well as bunkers and housing. We were the only ones on the island and it was a pretty dark and wet day. The atmosphere in these buildings was seriously creepy.

The next day the weather cleared up and we had a chance to see the town, castle and scenery. Edinburgh Castle offered a great view of the entire city and was pretty spectacular itself. Seen below is St. Mary's Cathedral.

We got there at a decent hour in the morning and this late in the season, the sun never makes it to the top of the sky. That meant great light for pictures pretty much all day.

After leaving the castle, we walked back into town for some dinner and then headed back to the hostel just before it started raining.

Arriving back at the hostel, the sky had cleared up a bit and the sun was just setting. In search of a nice sunset view, we stumbled through through some brush and over an already-down fence onto a golf course. We spent the evening watching movies and reading. The next morning we traveled to Dublin pretty early.

london, england

On the Nov. 24th, we flew through Dublin into London Gatwick. This was to facilitate the round trip airfare with RyanAir. (more on that later) Arriving in the city around 1:00, we made our way to the hostel. In this case, by hostel, I mean bed in someone's house. Anyway, the weather was overcast but we still left quickly after dropping off our things to meet friends studying in London.

We spent the next day walking around London and using the underground when available. We saw just about everything we could and the weather was great. Stopping at the London Eye, we realized that a weekend afternoon wasn't the best time.

The next morning, we got up early and made the trip down to the Eye. Arriving at 9:30 when tickets went on sale, we were the first up and had our own 'pod'. The view was incredible and the weather was great while we were up there. We spent the rest of the day wandering town and taking pictures. Tower Bridge was a favorite.

We then wandered farther East on the south bank of the River Thames and found the London Design Museum. We gladly paid admission and waded through the hipster art crowd towards the exhibits. One of the themes was 'space'. This included furniture, lighting, and vehicles.

There was also some fashion design exhibit that we wandered through on the way out. The colors were very bright and the pictures showed them well, so I thought I'd share.

At night, we spent our time walking through the theater district with another friend studying in London. The fountains in Trafalgar Square provided a great opportunity for us to just hang around and wander.

There are plenty more pictures of this part of the trip (400 or so), and when I've got time to sift through them more carefully, I'll put up a full gallery. Overall, our time in London was great. Our hostel was just a couple blocks from Victoria Station and that meant it was easy to get anywhere. The only part of the trip that began to wear on us is the exchange rate. Things seemed to be priced the same as they are at home. The only problem with that is, the 2:1 exchange rate. No big deal though! We made due on a few meals out and plenty of food from the grocery store.

An update on our time in Edinburgh, Scotland will come as soon as I've got the time to sort out some photos and write a summary.

edinburgh, scotland

The hostel here has an 'internet cafe' so I've got a couple minutes to catch up on emails and such. We made it to Scotland today after a quick plane and a bus or two. We flew EasyJet this time and I found it to be much nicer than RyanAir. Anyway, the hostel here is really nice (and cheap, under $20 USD a night) and is right on the water. It was a little wet this evening and will probably stay that way for the next few days. Oh well! We'll make the best of it!

Traveling to the UK has been a nice break from the cold weather in Prague. It's much more mild here. It's also nice to see green grass everywhere. Sorry, still no pictures! I've taken over 650 in the last 3 days so you can expect a lot when I get back on the 3rd.

london

Well, I found a computer to use and there's a wireless signal coming from a few doors down here at our hostel in London. We arrived last night just after dark and got settled in before going to dinner in the theater district. I don't have pictures for you because I've got no way to upload them to this computer, but I thought I'd update you on the big trip.

We flew through Dublin into London yesterday using RyanAir. It went smoothly and we found the 'general admission' seating to be funny. On Tuesday we fly easyjet to Edinburgh, Scotland and we'll be able to compare.

Expect more when we get to Scotland!