Patrick in Spain

Posts Tagged ‘Flight’

Today was our last day in Liverpool. We were be here Tuesday and last night, and the today, we’re flying over to Dublin.

So, we leave the train station where we just arrived from London. Outside the station, nobody knew exactly what direction to head in, and it turns out that whoever got directions only got that “it’s really close once you leave the station”. As it turns out, that’s not quite the case. We picked the direction with more lights and headed that way. It took a while to get to the first corner, so when we reached it, it was time to figure out where Hatter’s hostel was. There was a bar across the street, so a couple of people went over to ask for directions. Apparently, they got an earful. First, they asked the bartender, and he started out fine. He got stuck though, and asked one of the waiters. Apparently multiple waiters ended up talking, and so did some of the regular customers. Eventually, we see them come out with an older gentleman who we learned was named Joe.

Joe chats with us for a minute as he ponders the directions. Shortly, a woman walks up to us. She doesn’t look homeless, but she’s definitely not in her right mind, most likely drunk from the same bar. She asks for 20 pence to make a phone call. So, one of us asks her if she’s knows the way to Hatter’s hostel. She says she does, so Joe gives her the 20p (They don’t actually say “pence”, they just say “p”, if I haven’t mentioned that before). Ben, however, didn’t notice that she’d already been given the money, and proceeded to give it to her himself. We asked her where Hatter’s was, and she kind of blankly stared at us, so Joe, deciding she didn’t really know what she was talking about and with Ben having given her additional 20p asks for his money back. “You didn’t give me 20p,” she responds. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but this sounds like it could be headed in an amusing direction. “Yes, I just did,” Joe retorts, his slightly intoxicated, Liverpool accent thick. “No, ya di’n't,” she replies again. Finally, apparently frustrated, Joe shouts “P*ss off, ya f*ggin’ slag!”

Anyway, we ended up getting directions 3 more times, multiple of which mentioned a “wig wam” shaped building. It turned out, the cathedral they were referring to really was wigwam shaped. My camera was buried in my bag at the time, but one of the others got a couple pictures.

The Hostel was okay, slightly smaller that a freshman dorm with its own bathroom and 4 beds in two bunks, so we had 2 rooms for all 8 of us. We were pretty hungry at this point and headed down the street, opposite of the direction we came, to see if we could find a place that was still open to get some food. We found this place that was pretty much a Döner Kebab, where we got some chicken fingers, burgers, and whatever the typical Döner Kebab meat thing is. When we went back outside, we realized that we were here earlier, and that this was in fact relatively close to the train station compared to all that winding around we did. Oh well, at least interacting with the people was entertaining.

We watched TV for a little bit as we finished our food, but after that pretty much took showers and crashed since it was kind of late. Just like London, there was free breakfast in the morning of cereal, milk, toast, and juice.

The next morning, we got a couple cabs (There are 8 of us) and headed to the Liverpool football (soccer) stadium. Apparently, there are two stadiums in the area, one blue (the opposing team, Everton) and one red (the local team, Liverpool). Dennis, Ben, and kind of Vlad were all Liverpool fans, but the rest of us didn’t particularly have a preference. The driver of the cab I was in was a Liverpool fan, and thus by the rules of rivalry, had to down Everton. As we were heading up a hill at one point, he pointed off into the distance and said,  “And if you look over that way, you can see that blue s***hole [Everton Stadium], though I don’t know why you’d want to.” Later, he made another comment to the effect of “Better dead than blue.”

When we finally got there, we grabbed some hotdogs at a little cafe and listened to their American music, since everywhere has American music, before the tour was supposed to start. Only Ben, Dennis, and Conrad actually went on the tour since it was like €12. The rest of us just chilled in the cafe till they were done, except for Vlad who went to get shave old school barbershop style. Unfortunately, the place he found, the main guy was out for lunch. Since we didn’t have enough time for him to really wait, he got a shave anyway with an electric. Once they finished, we visited the gift shop where Vlad and Ben got shirts. After that, we called the Beatles Fab Four Taxi Tour cabs which came and got us. First off, I recommend the tour to anyone that makes it to Liverpool. It was definitely worth it. Better than any of the bus tours they offer.

On the Beatles Tour, we visited pretty much all of the historical Beatles sites in Liverpool. Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, various houses that the members lived in, and even the church where some of the founding members met. The cab drivers were really nice, and knew a lot, which made it much more enjoyable. One of them was an Everton fan, though, and ragged constantly on Vlad (who was the only one wearing his recently purchased Liverpool shirt). Our cab driver, probably to make it more even, often ragged on the other driver for being an Evertonian. Anyway, the tour was a bit long, but I found the whole thing to be enjoyable. We got out at every stop to give time for pictures and detailed explanations of the Beatles story. I only found out after the fact that a couple of the people on the trip really didn’t care about the Beatles at all, but I won’t list their names for their protection. Overall, though, I think everyone had a great time, and it lives up to all the hype.

The drivers dropped us off at the last attraction which was where, if I recall correctly, John Lennon and Yoko Ono were married. They probably would’ve driven us back, but Hatter’s was only a few doors down, so it wasn’t any trouble just to walk. Once back, I purchased the three hours of internet card which Vlad split with me. I was going to let him use 15 minutes of it for free, and I told him to sign out when he was done. I took a short nap, and when I awoke an hour later, he was still using it. After he finished, he’d used like an hour 15, so we just split the cost of the card at that point.

By this point, we were hungry again, so we got something to eat at a little shop. After that, we headed to a club/bar thing called Bumper. It was pretty close by, only a couple blocks over, and had a really nice atmosphere. Mostly young people in the 20 to 25 range, and it had the feel of the kind of place people went to hang out and dance, and not so much to pick up random strangers. The kind of place you could get to know all the regulars if you came frequently enough. Everyone got a drink (soda for minors), and we chilled out on a couch and had a good time. The music selection got more interesting as the DJ became more intoxicated (hopefully all the empty bottles on the table weren’t his, as he probably could’ve inebriated a small elephant with that amount).

The next morning, we got up really early to catch our flight. We called another set of cabs and checked out. We piled in, and the cabs took off. Now, I can’t say how the other groups cab went, they pulled off slightly before us, and we didn’t see them again till we got to the airport. Ours went phenomenally. Instead of pulling out behind the other cab, he did a U-turn and headed in the other direction. I was a little concerned at first, but after a bit, we just went with it.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned the zig-zig lines in another post, or in just a picture, but England has these lines on the road in some places:

They mean that you aren’t supposed to pass other cars, here. Essentially everywhere else, you are allowed to pass. Well, our driver passed in those sections, looked both ways and ran a couple lights, and sped us to that airport faster than was legal, I’m certain. Going only like 10-15 miles, and having left slightly behind them, we shouldn’t have beat the other taxi by 5 minutes, but we did, and it was awesome.

After that, we went and got on our flight to Dublin. The only complication we had was that the one bag we were checking was overweight, so Anya removed some things from it. Vlad later had trouble getting through security with Ben’s shaving gel because of that, but it didn’t affect us making it on the flight, and Ben will have to buy more gel.

Getting settled in in Dublin, and I’ll update again when I can.

It’s hard to know where to begin speaking of the events of yesterday, but I guess the beginning is the place they usually suggest, so here goes.

I can’t say we quite scrambled, but there were a number of things I needed to get that I still had not gotten. So, we went to Dillard’s and got some Ecco slip-on leather shoes and a sport coat, then to Best Buy to grab an electrical converter/adapter (Onix, my hotel, uses outlets that look like this, type F plugs. Much of Barcelona appears to use these as well.) since they also use 220 Volts instead of the 110 that we use. I also bought a Canon Powershot SD790 IS. So far the camera is great, the software it comes with is great, and the photos come out really nicely. It autocorrects for motion, so I was able to take photos just fine even on a moving bus.

Speaking of photos, I’ll be posting them as soon as I’ve configured some kind of photo gallery software. I looked at 4Images, Coppermine, and Gallery, and I’m sure Chris would be strongly recommending Gallery, but I’m just not feeling it. So, since this is WordPress, I looked for a plugin, and I think I’m going to settle on PhotoQ. (Edit: See End of First Week)

Anyway, after I gathered my stuff, it was a little later than I wanted it to be, but we made it to Hartsfield pretty quickly. I breezed through security without any trouble and headed up to Gate E7 to wait. Brian and I talked for a second while I checked in, then we headed for pizza at one of the airport shops. We made it back just after Zones 1-6 had loaded, which was great timing since Brian was Zone 7. I waited another 10 minutes and Zone 9 loaded.

The plane ride was rather long at 9 hours, but I was able to keep myself more or less entertained. Each seat had a screen in the back of the headrest that was a touchscreen and there was a headphone jack in the armrest. It was all On-Demand style, so I watched an episode of Law and Order, one of Law and Order: SVU, one of Family Guy, the movie Taken, and the movie Quantum of Solace. (Taken was good if you like that sort of action movie. Quantum of Solace was not nearly as good.)I read Physics for Future Presidents for the remaining couple of hours, but I was feeling more motion sick from reading than I normally do.

We landed around 8:15AM Barcelona time (Barcelona is GMT + 1, and Georgia is typicaly GMT – 5, so 6 hour difference). The plane unloaded on the tarmac and we were bussed back to the terminal. We were escorted to the busses from the plane by 8 people with breathing masks on, which was kind of odd. We got into the terminal and went through security which just took the H1N1 influenza forms and stamped our passports.

From the airport, we got on charter buses and rode to Onix, our residence for the time we’re in Barcelona. The room is nice, and I’ve been describing it as the room you would get if a small condo and a freshman dorm had kids. There’s a market just around the corner with set up like an open air market on the first floor of the building (not actually open air since it’s inside the building) and a regular grocery store on a lower floor.

Brian, Ben, and I spent most of the rest of the day wandering the city looking for places to buy phone plans, electrical adapters, and food. We had little success in the directions we were given and probably walked quite a few miles before eating back near Onix. I eventually learned from Eric and Katie that there was a store called El Corte Inglés that has pretty much everything. It has 12 floors and contains a restaurant, a grocery floor, an electronics and toys floor, kid’s clothing floor, men’s clothing floor, women’s clothing floor, youth clothing floor, accessories floor, appliances and hardware floor, and enough other stuff to fill any floors I couldn’t remember. There, I slightly overpaid 13 euros ($19 US) for an extra adapter. I was told by and English-speaking employee when Ben was looking for one that voltage converters are illegal to sell in the European Union, but I can’t seem to find any mention of this online. For the record then, El Corte Inglés does not sell volatage converters.

The day was about 36 hours long because of the time change on the flight, so I crashed pretty hard and started writing this the next day.