Guinness, construction, British wigs, and Irish carveries

so we're actually leaving tomorrow. I can't believe it's been a whole five weeks in some sense, but of course I'm ready to go back in others. Especially since almost every city or region we visited in France has now had some riots. It's absolutely insane.

Let's see ... Sunday we visited the Guinness Factory, and I saw several things in more detail than last time; Joe certainly enjoyed himself, and it's always fun shopping in the store there ... genius advertising. Unfortunately we mistimed our attempt to go on a musical pub crawl that night, so we had to settle for watching The Legend of Zorro in the same theater Ken and I saw Bruce Almighty in two years ago. The best line of the night came from the bartender at a pub near our hotel, who informed me that "we don't serve orange juice at 11 o'clock on Saturday nights" and had me going for a few seconds.

On Monday, I think the Rice women's soccer team made my day by beating UTEP 3-0 to reach the NCAA tournament for the second straight year. I didn't find that out until the end of the day, however. The main point of the day was to visit the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) museum at Croke Park, where they play the particularly Irish sports of hurling and Gaelic football. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the bus stop and ended up walking there, missing the last tour by about 15 minutes. So we could only go in the museum. But I did end up walking on the field and going into the interview room underneath the stands, so I'm sure that'll make a few people jealous (weird people like me, but they still count).

On Tuesday, we rode the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) in the morning to Sandycove, where I intended to have lunch at the Eagle House, a favorite of my crew from two years ago. But the whole darn thing was under construction, so we had to walk back and eat in Dun Laoghrie. Then we went back to Dublin and got the train to Belfast. When we arrived around 1720, it was almost completely dark, pouring rain, and freezing thanks to icy winds. Definitely worse than Lyon. We wandered into a few hotels dripping wet and finally settled on the Jury's Inn ... I dripped while signing the bill. But we warmed up and enjoyed our dinner at a nearby restaurant ... man do I hate spending pounds.

Yesterday was just an awesome day. We took a black taxi tour, which I had taken before but Joe had not. So he got to ask a lot of questions about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and I got to see some things that weren't on the last tour. We even got to stand outside the Sinn Fein headquarters and the vice president of the party passed us ... turns out they were negotiating amnesty for some exiles that day, so some of the big guys were in town. We arrived back in the city center in time for a free tour of city hall, after which we wandered around town for a while. Then we went back for dinner before the day-of decision to see Miss Saigon. It was playing in the Grand Opera House right near our hotel, so we got tickets and went to see it. Miss Saigon was the first musical I ever saw, so it was really neat to see it again, and it was also definitely cool to see a musical so based on concepts of the United States while traveling abroad.

Today we checked out and went to the Royal Courts of Justice. We ended up sitting in on some hearings about the logistics of prisoners' bail, and it was really interesting. Crazy Brits. "M'lord this," and "M'lord that." And they still wear those ridiculous wigs! It was hilarious. In the afternoon we took the train back to Dublin and caught a cab to our airport hotel. The cabby was terrificly entertaining and recommended a pub in walking distance from the hotel. So we eventually checked out and were able, somewhat to our surprise, to find it. And it was terrific. Don't let anyone tell you the Irish can't do food. Just ask for a pub with a carvery. Man. Great eating and that truly authentic Irish atmosphere everybody looks for.

And that's it. We go home tomorrow morning. And then I'm bound for Texas for a week, which I'm really excited about. But it's been an unbelievable five weeks, and we successfully avoided any riots and had a great time. I feel amazingly lucky to have done this, but I'm glad to go home and get on with my normal pastimes.

Luck o' the Irish

well we've made it to Dublin now, leaving France just in time. As Joe put it, "We got off a sinking ship," in terms of the Parisian riots and all. Good times. We saw none of it.

We had a great time at the game in Lens Thursday, a 5-0 win for the home side and their very vociferous fans. We took a morning train to the airport and had an easy flight over here to Dublin. Our hotel is farther away from Trinity College and the city center, where I feel at home, than we'd like, but it's close to the Guinness factory! We went to what could be our last game of the trip last night, seeing my old Irish friends, Bohemians. They're struggling a lot more than when I was here, but at least they pulled out a 1-0 win on a very cold night here in Dublin.

Today the Guinness Factory, tomorrow Croke Park, and then we're heading up to Belfast for a couple days and flying home Thursday morning. A big shout-out to the Rice soccer team for making it to the conference final (on CSTV Sunday afternoon) and I really think they've got a good shot to make the NCAA tournament again.

Other than that, not too much to report. It's weird being here without my friends from my study-abroad program two years ago, but I'm thinking of you, guys, and trying to revisit some old haunts!

Andorra, Man United, leaving the continent

okay, it's been a while and we're back on French keyboards, so I will attempt to be brief.

MONDAY
So Monday we discovered exactly how one should NOT try to go to Andorra: by train. After two train rides and a bus ride, with LONG waits in between, we got there. Our longest wait was in this surreal town called L'Hospitalet, which had Joe in heaven because it reminded him of a video game. But it was pretty dead. And when the bus finally came, the driver was not the friendliest of sorts. But we made it into Andorra on a long drive through what we assumed to be stunning scenery. We stayed in Andorra la Vella, the capital, basically located in a valley between the various mountains that make up the rest of Andorra. So just walking to dinner late Monday night involved some seriously steep climbing. We also got separate rooms for the first time, since they had singles available; and that was a nice change for one night.

TUESDAY
We got up reasonably early to enjoy Andorra. We walked through town to the old town in hopes of seeing the Andorran parliament. Turns out you need a reservation, or so they say; nobody seemed to be in the building, so we think they were afeared of a hostile takeover. But we saw a picture of the room later and wish we'd seen it. But we walked around enjoying the ridiculous scenery and their monument to their (1993) constitution. Joe's favorite fact about Andorra? They were left out of the Treaty of Versailles and thus did not sign a World War I treaty with Germany until 1958. That's right, World War ONE. Hilarious.

I dragged Joe to the national soccer stadium, which MIGHT seat 1,000 if it was packed, and it looked exactly like its picture I'd seen online. Which is logical, but it was still cool to see it in person. We ate lunch at an Andorran sports bar with Super 12 rugby on TV and pretty American food. We're nothing if not multicultural. Then we caught the bus to Toulouse. Note the absence of a middle direction. If you ever want to go to Andorra, we highly recommend direct bus routes to and/or from Barcelona and/or Toulouse. The ride out of Andorra fulfilled every expectation we had picked up the night before. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in a Lord-of-the-Rings-wilderness kind of way. But, predictably, we fell asleep en route to Toulouse.

In Toulouse, we tried to reserve our tickets to Paris for the next day, but they had nothing on the TGV (fast) train OR in a non-smoking car. But we recovered to enjoy a good dinner in Toulouse, even if the waiter was giving us seriously dirty looks the whole time. We figured one of my many reprehensible eating habits had offended him.

WEDNESDAY
We actually missed our alarm and had to hurry a bit to get on the train at 0730. The smoking was not that bad for the first part of the trip; people seemed to use a different part of the car. We had engine trouble and were delayed 30 minutes, but nothing too serious. After the restart, however, the smoking intensified, so I moved to a non-smoking car and snoozed through much of the ride, getting to Paris around 1400. And, waiting for us, were Manchester United fans.

Now English soccer fans have long been notorious as the most fervent, belligerent, and violent in the world. Their reputation contributed to English teams being banned from European competition for five years in the late 1980s. Things have calmed down since, but they still have the reputation. They were everywhere around the station when we arrived in Paris, drinking and chanting, and we had to track down a hotel a bit farther from the station as a result. It was incredibly odd to hear so much English spoken and know most people could understand you.

The game was a Champions' League match between Lille, which is one hour north of Paris but playing there due to stadium problems, and Manchester United, the richest club in the world going through a terrible stretch on the field. The game, played in the now familiar Stade de France, set a record for attendance at a French club match with more than 66,000 fans. Man U really were not very good, and Lille got a goal in the first half to win 1-0. It was their first goal in four games in the competition, yet they are now in position to advance. The Man U fans (maybe 10,000 of them?) dominated until the goal, and things were quiet after that. French fans just aren't that rowdy.

THURSDAY
Today we slept late, for us at least, and went to the train station to see if we could catch one more game. For once, the travel plans set up just as I had envisioned them, so we took a train to Lens, France. It is north of Paris almost to Lille, but not quite. We're here tonight, in a small town with a big consumer district that we can't figure out. Tomorrow we take a train to Charles de Gaulle and fly to Ireland. I can't believe we're leaving the continent and only have one week left, but I'm very excited to be back home as well.

Next stop: tomorrow, Dublin, Ireland
Next games: tonight, UEFA Cup, RC Lens v. Halmstads BK (Sweden)
tomorrow, Eircom League of Ireland, Bohemians v. Longford Town