Boarding for Home

The last day consisted of:
London drinks
London shopping
London pubs
London spicy-as-hell Indian food
London pool, sauna and steam room.

Now we are sitting in the Amsterdam airport. The man to my right is continually omitting a variety of scents. It's not pleasant. I hope he isn't next to me on the 9 hour flight home.

London!!

Well well well. Suddenly it is our last day in London! We have had an amazing time so far. After we got to our hotel (which is pretty awesome btw) we hopped on the sweaty Tube and went to go see some sights! We saw the Parliament buildings, the Tower London Bridge, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye and Westminster Abbey! After that we went back to our hotel and had a good night's rest!

Second day in London began with going to see the Changing of the Guard... Or so we tried. Turns out they only do it every other day, so we ended staring at men in Canadian black bear hats and red suits for an hour. Oops. Afterwards, we did some museum-hopping. We went to the National Gallery and Brad kindly waited patiently while I saw a bunch of artists' work that made me feel a little starstruck. Picasso, Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Cézanne, Manet, Monet, and Renoir were all in the enormous gallery!!! It was so awesome! That evening Brad arranged for us to attend a show, so we went and saw Wicked. It was pretty wicked, haaaaaa! (Although Sydney or Sam would have nailed the part as Glinda the Good better than the lead did).

Yesterday, we started our day off with actually watching the changing of the guard. Honestly, it is a bit ridiculous, but it is something that I am glad I can say that I saw. Brad had to start throwing elbows when a pushy woman literally tried to move him out of the way (just kidding, but he did look at her and asked her to excuse herself). Brad took a bunch of pretty swell photos due to his higher height than mine. Then, we went to the British Museum. First thing we saw: the Rosetta Stone. This stone is basically what enabled archaeologists to decode what the hiyroglifics (I know I really butchered the spelling on that) meant in the Egyptian remains. There are lots of amazing artefacts there! Since it appears like we will never go to Egypt, it was cool to see some of their historical remains.

I had a case of crowd after this, so we were in need of a change of pace. That morning we planned it, and we went to Evensong at Westminster Abbey. It was so lovely to listen to the choir sing, and kind of crazy to see where all the royal weddings happened!! Brad and I were those people two or so years ago who stayed up and watched the royal wedding take place, and we can both confirm to you that the church looks just as amazing in real life as it did on TV. The ceiling is unbelievably high, and the structures are ornate.

After a chill evening, we decided to go on a walking pub crawl. We went to some cool London pubs thanks to trip advisor! One pub in particular stood out. It was called Cockpit and the bartender there was fantastic. It was the last cock-fighting bar in London and was the former location of Shakespeare's daughter's house. Pretty cool. I can't get over how every place here has a story. It is so entertaining and I love listening to the history! We also tried what locals like to drink. Here, they have warm beer, or "live" beer. The kegs only last 3 days, and they still contain the yeast and sediments. They have to let the keg settle for 24 hours before they sell it so that you don't get the sediments in the beer. They keep them at 12c. I had a bitter beer and it was DELICIOUS. We then went back to our hotel and went in the sweetest pool ever. It was dark stone with red lights throughout it. It also had a sauna and steam room. It is a classy place!

Our last day has been spent shopping and just doing whatever. We went on a high in the sky gondola ride!

Beer!

This is a real British beer. It is stored and served at a warm 12ish degrees celsius. It is called a 'live' beer because there is sediment in the bottom of the keg which includes live yeast that continues to ferment even as the keg is tapped and poured. 

New and surprisingly different tasting! 

Good life

Josie did some good old fashioned laundry for us last night. She was sweating in the bathroom while I drank a beer and watched TV. Just the way it should be...

Now we are waiting for our quick ryanair flight from Dublin to London. We ate an enormous Irish breakfast and now we are having some morning beers. Just the way it should be...

Giant's Causeway

Well, I am sitting in the Dublin Airport with Free Wifi so why now fill you all in.

Yesterday we got up in a hurry when the fire alarm in our hostel went off. It is amazing how poorly I function when I am half a sleep. I was trying to put on jeans and my hoodie, but it was like every article of clothing sprouted holes where they don't belong. Luckily, the alarm stopped ringing bloody murder and I fell back asleep.

The highlight of our day yesterday was Giant's Causeway. I have never seen anything t quite like it. We went on about a two hour hike around it to get shots from every angle. The hexagonal basalt columns are really something to be seen!

After, we went to the Old Bushmills Distillery. The cool thing about this distillery is that it is a working distillery. The room where they do the distillation is something like that of a hot day in Mexico. I don't know how people handle working in there.

We are currently awaiting our flight for the last part of our adventure: London! Brad is looking forward to not having to drive on this part of the trip. I can't say I blame him after the roads we have been down!!

Newgrange and Knowth

Well, we enjoyed going to the Clonmacnoise Monestary, which had one arch that was quite interesting. Often known as "the whispering arch" one can stand facing one side and whisper to it, while the person on the other side can hear it. Brad and I were in disbelief, so we tried it... Low and behold, it works. That night, we drove into Drogheda to stay the evening in a hostel. Turns out, the hostel was pretty cool. It was a loft in the top of a pretty cool building, with a poop muncher. If you don't know what a poop muncher is, it acts like a garbarator for your toilet. Once you flush it, it munches evening. It also made you feel like you were waking up the world in the middle of the night. We chilled, bought a bag of soup and had some beers.

We got up bright and early to head to the Bru Na Boinne passage tombs. After a few wrong turns, we finally got there and toured the Newgrange and Knowth passage tombs. Turns out these things are old... Really old. A thousand years older than Stonehenge. We went inside the one at Newgrange and were able to see how they were built. It is amazing that they have survived all this time without being damaged!! As to why they were built or who built them, we have no idea. They were certainly worth going to!

After Newgrange, we went back to Drogheda to St. Peter's Cathedral to see a preserved head of St. Oliver Plunkett. He was hung in 1681, and they removed his head and stuck it in the church. I was quite stunned by the whole thing. Brad laughed at me and took my picture of the 350 year old head and myself.

After Drogheda, we headed to Belfast. Belfast is in Northern Ireland, so it is actually an entirely different country. It felt totally different there! We learned that Belfast has an extremely dark past and there has been very divided Protestant and Catholic ways. We took a black taxi tour, and our driver filled us in on some brief history. There are many murals around the city, as a reminder of the violence that occurred over religion. Peace is certainly the answer they want to maintain. There is a peace wall that divides two "hardcore" neighbourhoods: the Catholics and the Protestants. The wall is 16m high and is used to keep people separate when riots get out of control. What shocked us: they still lock the gates when riots happen. Shocking thing #2: the Europa hotel has been bombed 33 times. We walked by it and both felt pretty uneasy.

Today we went and walked around Belfast. We went to the Titanic museum, which is built where they actually built it!! The museum took us over 2 hours to get through, but was seriously worth it.

Chill evening tonight, watching the ocean and drinking wine.

Cliffs of Moher

We had an amazing day hiking the Cliffs of Moher. Using our trusty Lonely Planet book, I researched and learned the Cliff view from the tourist lookout is pretty lame and not worth your €6. The book suggested we hike out an extra 10 minutes to get the money shot. Well, turns out the longer you walk, the more you get to see. We ended up doing a 10k hike and saw the cliffs. It was crazy hiking along them!!! You were only a couple feet from plummeting to your death the entire way, enough to make you feel fairly crawly when you looked over the edge. It was also enough to make you feel fairly concerned when the wind gusted... But Brad and I are both still here to tell you all about it!

We stayed in Galway City tonight in a fairly overpriced hotel. It was €99 (so about $150CDN) and was pretty crappy compared to the places we have stayed at. Also, we had to pay an additional €10 for parking in the snuggest parkade ever... Which we had one heck of a time trying to get out of! All the gates were locked and there was definitely a moment of complete utter irritation from both of us hungry travellers. However, we finally got out of the stupid parkade and went pub walking. Irish pubs know how to do their live music. Everyplace has amazing entertainment! We ended up watching FOUR bands last night, the last one being the most amazing. It was actually at our hotel bar, with a fiddle, banjo and guitar. We watched until they finished for the night.

Today we headed out to Roundstone, a tiny town on the west coast, as Brad wanted to go visit a music shop there. Well, it turns out the owner of this shop is the only fulltime bodhran (Irish drum) maker in Ireland and he made the drums for the Riverdance!! He was extremely kind and proud owner of Malachy Kearns. Needless to say, Brad bought a drum to complete his collection after getting a deal (it pays to be a musician).

We are on our way to Clonmacnoise Monestary to see some neat remains from the 10th and 12th centuries before driving to our more moderately priced hostel for the evening! Brad is having a food swing (I think he is having one for me) so we are stopping for dinner first. Stay tuned!

Part 2

Accidentally erased a bunch of text from before. Continued

So the Ring of Kerry was a beautiful drive full of coast, islands, and lush scenery. We took 8 hours exploring everything and making many photos. It was awesome. We stopped for some fresh fish and chips. Delicious meal, but I must have an allergy or intolerance to deep fried foods. I will be avoiding them for life and certainly made Brad pull over so I could make the side of the highway's ashtray my personal lavatory. Oops.

We took in more Puck Fair tonight, taking in a goat named King Puck raised high above the town and listening to a Queen tribute band. The locals loved us Canadians and thought Brad was Chad Kroeger.

Ring of Kerry

Well, we spent a night in Blarney and saw Blarney Castle.. Kissed the Blarney Stone. Now neither of us can shut up.

We went and drove around the Ring of Kerry yesterday. It was a crazy experience! The roads in Ireland are huge... With very slow speed limits. Just kidding. The roads are extremely narrow... Only enough room for one car to go down at a time. However, these are two direction roads and so you must just slow down to a snails' pace and drive into the trees until you have passed each other. Also, the speed limit is 100km/h, and if you took the switchbacks that fast you would certainly fly off the cliff.

Why you shouldn't plan

We had an incredible day!

I have an aversion to blatant tourist attractions. For this reason I did not want to go and see the blarney stone or blarney castle. However, having missed other standard tourist attractions i'm other European cities in the past, I knew that I needed to go simply for the bragging rights.

I was so very pleasantly surprised! Even upon entering the gates for the castle I was pleased. I was able to get us in for the student rate even though we "forgot our student cards at home". Soon after this I saw the castle. It was awesome! We have seen a bunch of castles already on our trip but this one was impressive. It towered high above the trees!

We had a great time check  everything out, and yes, we kissed the blarney stone. It is at the very top of the castle and you have to hang your head down over the edge to kids this thing that thousands of others have kissed. To help ease my anxiety, after the episode was complete I took a picture of the line behind me so I could remember all the people who were about to share some of my kiss.

---------

Josie and I have not planned anything or planned anything for these eight days in the middle of our trip. Because of this, we normally use unlocked phones and the friendliness of locals to help us find places to eat and more importantly, to stay. As we arrived in Killarney this afternoon, we realized that finding a place would be very challenging due to some sort of festival that was going on. Even the tourist office laughed and told us to find a place to stay in another city.

On a whim, Josie phoned a B&B in a small town nearby. They offered us a room for two nights, but not one. Feeling lucky, we took the deal. Upon arriving, we realized that there was another festival happening in this town!

We lager found out that this he the 400th anniversary of Puck Fair and that we got a sweet hotel room on the corner of the action because the previously booked hotel had a cancellation before we called.

We spent the night drinking beer in small crowded pubs listening to music and then drinking beer in the street whole bands play.

Tomorrow we look forward to the main festivities where a goat will be lifted to the top lg this tower:

Dublin!

Well, we have spent the last two days immersed in the joy that is Dublin culture. On Monday, we took a fairly bumpy ferry ride from Liverpool to Dublin and enjoyed watching people stumble all over the place. Brad of course decided to walk to the bathroom when a huge rocky wave hit and rocked the boat so hard everyone gasped and Brad ended up hugging a pole. Once in Dublin, we had enough time to get to our awesome hotel called Clontarf Castle, and go explore. As of today, we have visited the Temple Bar, O'Connell Street and went to Christ Church Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin Castle, visited numerous pubs, have had countless pints of Guinness, and have visited the Guinness Brewery. It was a sight to be seen! Irish people have been extremely kind so far, and mostly easy to understand... When we get into the more Gaelic-speaking parts of Ireland, we may have some difficulty. Tomorrow we begin our crazy driving adventure! People drive like maniacs here and stop for nothing. The lines are jus guidelines. Also, on a side note, our cellphone companies are ripping us off in Canada. Brad bought a 2 GB SIM for €10. What the heck!

Liverpool

We had a lengthy bus trip today from Edinburgh, Scotland to Liverpool, England. We stopped near the border of the two countries for lunch and a final chance to buy Scottish souvenirs. I buckled and bought some Scottish whiskey liquor and a tartan tie. I hope the neck tie lasts longer than the liquor will. 

Once we arrived in Liverpool, the choir sang a concert at Liverpool Cathedral. Because I was working I didn't get a good picture but it is worth googling to see how grand and wonderful this so called 'modern' cathedral is.  The concert went well and we all enjoyed singing our pieces one last time.

After we checked into our hostel we ate dinner and headed out on a walking tour. We learned lots of interesting tidbits about Liverpool and the Beatles. Perhaps the most exciting sights were the remaining stragglers from the gay pride festival.... 

Once our day had settled down, some of the crew from the tour had a pint at a local pub where they brew their own beer downstairs. We happened upon the monthly Sea Chanty Night and were able to hear a group of people singing at the top of their lungs from the back room. Definitely a highlight!

Departing.

Well, I am currently sitting at the gate waiting for our flight to board. I am feeling very excited and have already met a couple pretty cool people. I am feeling a little anxious about my connecting flight, but right now I can't wait to just get on the plane and relax for nine hours!! I am so excited to see Brad and begin our European adventure:-)!

Aberfoyle and Stirling

We had a big but relaxing day today! We began by visiting Stirling Castle where we were fortunate to be able to sing a concert at the Royal Chapel. We were incredibly well received and we had a great concert. The acoustics were awesome!

After our concert we had a rare chance to have some free time in the town for shopping. I took the time to get a local Sim card for my phone and have a beer at a local pub. 

After this we visited Hamish the bull. During the mad cow disease crisis a few years ago, most of the cows were supposed to be killed here.  Because Hamish was being researched at the time, and everyone loved him, the town petitioned to spare him from his demise.  This fiasco has launched Hamish from lab rat to stardom!

All of the roads in Scotland are plain old narrow! After making a decision to take a short cut, our bus was cruising down a road now wider than a bike path. The bus fit on the road perfectly. The problem arose when we came head to head with a tractor in a game of chicken. This has happened a few times on the narrow, twisty, bumpy roads of the highlands!

After our long day I was tired so Lori helped me:

To finish off our day we were treated to a Ceilidh. That is, a traditional Scottish dance party. The word Ceilidh means 'playing music at a distillery'. In reality, it was a cross between square dancing and a good old barn dance. A caller tells you the steps and you dance in pairs or groups. We had a great time dancing and twirling!

The Discovery

We stopped in Dundee to check out the ship, the Discovery. This ship was responsible for many Antarctic and Arctic explorations starting in 1900. this ship visited Frobisher Bay many times so considering that the choir's hit single 

Last day of Aberdeen

-------- Original message -------- Subject: Last day of Aberdeen From: Bradley van Middelkoop To: bvanmiddelkoop.africa@blogger.com CC:

Today we took a walking tour of old Aberdeen. We learned that this town is much much older than anything in Canada! The university was basically the beginning of the town and it was founded in the 15th century! 

The picture above is an old part of town where women used to do laundry but is now a beautiful inner city park! 

After our walking tour we headed an hour out of town to the small city Berlin to do a concert.  We sand in a cathedral that was built 800 years ago!!! 

We had an awesome concert and were very well received! Frobisher Bay continues to be a crowd favorite and it improves everyone we sing it.

The Aberdeen Youth Festival has been fantastic! Off in a northern direction!

Scotland day 2

Today we sang at St. Mary's cathedral in Aberdeen during their church service. We were incredibly well received and fed! The official opening ceremony of the festival was today so we were treated to 16 national anthems with flags and then a traditional Scottish bagpipe group finished the ceremony.  The group produced so much sound it was deafening! 

Tonight we learned how to Scottish dance in the hottest,  sweatiest, most packed party I have ever seen. Man, who would have thought dancing could be dangerous but with all the spinning and partner switching you really have to watch yourself!

And of course, the night ended with several laughs and pints! 

Aberdeen!

After battling jet lag with will power, beer, and making some new friends, I woke up this morning feeling quite refreshed and ready to get this choir tour underway.

All 800 or so participants at the Aberdeen International Youth Festival gathered and paraded down the main street in Aberdeen, performing along the way. 

This was my view as we walked.  We tried to keep a chair distance away from the "Happy German Bagpipers" in front of us.  We sang and handed out small Canadian flags to the onlookers as we went.

This afternoon we performed a small set in the shopping mall and then sang some a cappella tunes at this place:

This is the municipal offices of Aberdeen and inside is a huge square.  It great acoustics for an outdoor space and the audience loved us.

It is now beer o'clock which means I will likely have a pint of Tanners which is a Scottish lager.  Tonight we hear the National Youth Orchestra, then go to a cabaret and then have a disco!

Cheers!

Girls' Choir treats me well

We are on our way to the Calgary airport and our tour manager handed me this:

This is my lunch money.  All that I need to do is replace this ten dollar bill with a receipt. Excellent service!

Getting Ready

It has been years since this blog has been updated but that is because it has been years since a Koop has traveled and had something to say about it!

I am getting ready to take the lovely Medicine Hat College Girls' Choir to the Aberdeen International Youth Festival in Scotland! 

After choir tour, the lovely Josie Piché will be joining me to tour Ireland and London! 

Today is my last day in Canada and I have left all of my preparations Until now.  Here is a picture of how I have coordinated my Girls' Choir t-shirts with my lululemon underwear.

Stay tuned for travel updates, pictures, and maybe even the ramblings of some special guest bloggers!

Cheers!