"Are you saying that england doesn't exist?" "It's far too silly a place to be real"

Long long overdue but that's what moving countries does to you. My last few days in London were filled to the brim. I got back to London from Dublin on Wednesday and headed straight for the gallery our show was at to help take down the photographs. Once I was done there I headed over to the Duke to meet up with my friend Matty and to say goodbye to our chef Simon as they, along with my friend Ivan were heading off on Thursday to NYC and I wouldn't see them before I left. Since the England/Croatia football game was on I stuck around to watch that and have some drinks before Jemma joined me at the bar, we were slumber partying for two nights at her place before Mom and Dad got back to London.

Thursday I mailed off my photograph to Andrew's, not really sure what I did after that until I met my friend Paul around 5 to have some beers and hang out for a bit. Then it was off to see the Master of Photo Journalism's show which opened that night in the same gallery ours was in. I barely walked in the door and grabbed a beer before our tutors decided we should go get a beer at the pub next door before heading out to dinner. A group of us from class got together to take a few of the tutors out to dinner so we grabbed the drinks at the pub first before sitting down to a goodbye dinner with them. It was really nice to get everyone together. Headed to the Duke after that, surprise surprise, Jemma has finished working for the night so we sat for a drink before heading back to her place.

Friday I met my friend India for breakfast and we wandered around a bit before I dropped my stuff off at the B&B before meeting my old flatmate Paddy from when I lived in London back in 2005. We wandered a bit before going to one of my favorite mexican restaurant, Wahaca's. It was so delicious, I tried their chocolate ice cream for desert, since it's authentic mexican they add chili to the chocolate. It was a strange combination because the chili made my throat hot and the ice cream soothed it, really tasty. I met up with Mom and Dad and, surprise surprise, headed over to the Duke to meet Uncle Scott for a drink and grab some dinner at this great seafood place around the corner called The Seaport. Uncle Scott and I went there once before with Andrew and it was just as good the second time around. The owner was even nice enough to give us nightcaps to top off the meal.

Saturday we grabbed my bags from where I stashed them at Radi's house, realized how brutal my bags were going to be and hailed a cab back to the B&B. We tried to go together to the whiskey shop Dad loves over by Baker Street and while Mom and I made it just fine Dad had...issues. It started when he couldn't get on the bus because he didn't have enough money on his Oyster card, we didn't realize this until we were upstairs on the bus. We looked down and saw him on the street waving to us. We double checked with him that he'd meet us down by Baker St. The first problem was that the next bus only went part way instead of the whole way and Dad didn't hear this and since he was sitting up top the driver didn't notice he was still on until they got back towards where we got on. So Dad got off and hopped the next bus, the problem this time was that Dad didn't realize the bus was only going to say "George St" not "Glouchester Place for Baker St" so he ended up a ways past us near St. John's Wood. He walked over to get the tube back to Baker St only to discover that the line that runs through there was closed for the day, so he finally caught a bus back to Baker St and met up with us. It was quite amusing, at least for Mom and I. After we finally made it to the whiskey shop I directed Mom and Dad to the Duke so they could drop off their whiskey and went to meet up with Paul again for some time in the London sun.

I met Mom and Dad to check out this thai place that Paul and his flatmate John swear-by called Monkey and Me, it was a worthy destination and perfect for my last London meal. It was then time for my lovely leaving do at the Duke. We had a really great time, they set up a nice spread of snacks for me and everyone. My parents hung around with Uncle Scott for a while chatting with Bev and some of the regulars. Some of my classmates came along which was really cool and James, my old flatmate, hung on til the very end with us.

Me, Jemma and Carly, Duke barwenches

Me and Jemma

Me and Clyde, one of my all time favorite regulars

Me and Norah

Me and India

Jemma, Tom and me

Me and Paul

Me and James

James

Tom taking me for a spin on the dance floor

Jemma and Paul

The last ones standing

We were going to try and make it all the way til 5:30am when I'd have to make sure Mom and Dad were up to get to the airport but by 4am we were falling asleep on the bar, so Paul walked James and I to the bus stop, from there I took James to Victoria Station, we were just in time for him to get the first train back home and I headed to the B&B to get an hours sleep. Luckily I am a light sleeper and woke up to discover Mom and Dad's alarm didn't go off so the girl who barely slept roused the troops and got them moving out the door. We dragged everything to a cab, piled it all in and happily sat back to ride in peace to the airport. Checking-in went smoothly for everyone and all the bags were under the weight limit, both surprises and reliefs. Since we were flying different airlines I left Mom and Dad and headed towards my terminal and onto my plane where I sat back and relaxed for the first time in days with nothing to do besides sleep, eat and watch a few movies, I loved every minute of it.

As I was walking off my plane I saw Mom and Dad's plane pull in next to mine so I met them quickly on the other side of passport control, we grabbed our bags and headed out to meet Aunt Deb who fed me before we drove the 4 hours home. I just collapsed after that incredibly long day of partying, sad goodbyes and traveling.

Filling in on the time in the states will come along soon.

Smiling Irish Eyes

Still a week behind but I'll catch up quickly now that I'm back in the states. Last Sunday I got up early with the parents and caught a train out to the coast of Wales where we boarded a ferry to Dublin. After 8 hours of traveling we were exhausted getting to the bed and breakfast we were staying at so we just grabbed a quick dinner and relaxed for the evening.

Saturday we got up and headed into the city centre to join up with one of the New Europe free tours around the city. We saw a lot of the city that way and learned all about how the British kept taking over the country and losing it, taking it over again and losing it again, pretty interesting.

Random Guinness signage on a pub

Church at Dublin Castle

Part of Dublin Castle garden

Colourful part of Dublin Castle

Cool street art

Replica of a Rory Gallagher guitar

View from one of the bridges

St. Patrick's Cathedral

After the free tour we made our way over to the Guinness factory to take a tour and have some free Guinness in their Gravity Bar which is the highest bar in Dublin and had great 360° view of the city. From there we grabbed a drink in the oldest pub in Dublin, got some dinner and called it a night. (I went a little photo happy in the Guinness factory)

Free beer in the Gravity bar

Window of a building outside of the factory, if you can't tell it's a glass of Guinness
next to the creepy mannequin head

Tuesday Mom and Dad headed out to Dingle, Ireland, I stayed behind in Dublin for another day because I had to be back in London Wednesday to take down the gallery show. I made an attempt to get outside the city and ended up at Newgrange which predates some of the pyramids. Newgrange is an old burial mound and sacred space out in the countryside. I actually visited Newgrange and Knowth, two of the largest places of this type. It was interesting but not quite what I was looking to see that day, I really wanted to see the countryside a bit more. Oh, although I did see three rebels cows jump a fence and sneak off in to the woods, I think I saw them trying to hide a bottle of whiskey and pack of cigarettes. It was really funny to watch because one was over the fence already when I got there and he was waiting by the edge of the woods looking back at the other two encouragingly who jumped the fence one at a time and ran over to the first cow before they bolted into the woods with one last glance back at me to make sure I wasn't going to tell. It was really entertaining.

View from the top of the mound at Knowth

Me on top of the mound in Knowth

Cool carved stone patterns, they're on all the rocks at Knowth at the base of the mound

Newgrange

Rebel cows

Wednesday I headed to the airport to catch the plane Dad booked for me two nights before. Turns out Dad had booked my flight for Tuesday instead of Wednesday (this stuff must run in the country). Much hassle later I finally landed in London and headed over to the gallery to do my part taking everything down. All the rest will appear in, sadly, my last London blog....

If you type "Google" into Google, you can break the Internet. So please, no one try it, even for a joke.

I stepped off the plane from Amsterdam after 6pm on the 27th, checked in to my housing by 9:30pm and done for the night. By 9:30am I was out at Harrow meeting up with everyone from the masters program getting ready to load a good size truck with the boards, paint and other supplies to build the walls for our gallery space. We were loaded and ready to go by 11:30am and off to the gallery to unload and start working on the space. By 4pm I was out the door to get ready to meet my friend Paul, his flatmate and some others for some drinks. We tried out a few different bars near Marylebone where they gallery is and where Paul lives.

Saturday it was lots of painting in the gallery, so much fun times. It was a slow but steady process. Luckily since it was a bank holiday weekend so we had Sunday and Monday off.

Angela, Chantel and I painting away

Our ritual of lunch in the park to get at least a bit of sunlight

Sunday I met up with Jemma to check out what was supposed to be a beach at Trafalgar Square, the photo in the paper showed sand and everything, this was a very very sad concrete non-beach. From there we decided to walk to the river and down towards the Borough market and grab some lunch, only to have walked an hour to find out the market is closed on Sundays (what kind of market isn't open on a weekend). Finally we decided to take the tube up to Notting Hill and go check out the Notting Hill Carnival which was set for Sunday and Monday.

Sand sculptures along the Thames, a strange site indeed

I'm so glad we went on Sunday which was supposed to be the calmer day because that alone was almost too much for me to handle. There were crowds of people everywhere, we had trouble getting through some spots. Around the outside streets they had a parade going round with floats (flatbed trucks with lots of speakers and djs or rappers) and people dancing behind the floats covering spectators with chocolate or some gold covered liquid. Some of the floats were so loud they literally shook you too the core with their music. On the inside streets they had impromptu stands set up with more djs and rappers and crowds of people around them dancing. I've never seen anything like it. Notting Hill is an incredibly posh area and because of this many of the shops in the area closed for the weekend and boarded up their windows because this is an event known to get out of hand (this year there were 222 arrests, what an even number). We still don't know what it was for except something to do with celebrating the caribbean and african countries, we're just not sure what.

Monday I ran around a bit before meeting Jemma again in the late afternoon. We grabbed some drinks and snacks before heading in to Hyde Park down by the pond to sit and relax a bit and enjoy the sun. A nice end of the weekend before I had to get back to the chaos of the build.

Tuesday we began actually building the walls for the show. It was a lot of hard work and everytime I tried to drill something this one older guy kept coming and taking the drill from me and insisting on doing it, it got very irritating by the end of the day.

Wednesday was more of the same, building and such. Although this time my friend Angela and I got a drill and went to work and when they guy from before tried to take it from me and do it we told him no, we were good, and kept drilling. It was so great, to be able to build something like that. I left after the morning shift to go meet up with Mom and Dad who had just arrived. I dropped my stuff at the B&B before we went out to grab a quick late lunch at a pub around the corner. We decided to do a bit of walking after that. We went down to Harrods where Mom got some perfume she couldn't find in the states any more and we look at some dresses, none of which cost less then £300, one even being £7759. From there I took them in to South Kensington to show them around where Andrew and I lived. After that we grabbed a quick bite to eat at the restaurant of Ken Lo's daughter (Ken Lo is a famous Cantonese chef in Europe) before crashing out for the night.

Angela, Radi and I and our building skills:

The blue wall outside our flat

Thursday was the big day. I brought everything I needed for the opening with me knowing there would be no time to leave the gallery once I got there in the morning. We continued to build, paint and hang work while the technicians put up lights for us and we scrambled around doing I honestly don't remember what. The alumni and first year part-time students were coming by at 5:30pm, about the time all of us were heading to the bathrooms to get ready. We quickly changed and made ourselves up before heading out to socialize, not even being able to take a breathe between finishing the gallery and being out in it.

The night was wonderful and exhausting at once. There was constantly someone to talk to, many of my friends from the pub came by which just made me so happy that they came out of their way for me. My old flatmate James even came up from Brighton so he could come by. It was all very nice. Of course by the time we got out of there at 10:20pm I felt like I could happily face-plant into the pavement and sleep quite happily for a few days. Instead a bunch of us from the show hit up a few pubs together before dragging ourselves home by the last tube.

Morning of the show, 10am

Angela quickly washing paint off her feet

Evening of the show, 5:30pm, half an hour before we opened the doors

Me and Angela looking nice and dressed up

The gallery crowd

With Shelia, a painter who is one of my subjects for the project

The portrait I exhibited, sadly I could only afford to print and hang one of the 3

Friday morning I was up and at the gallery bright and early, not to build or paint this time, thank god, but to oversee the space and answer questions while people were looking around. It was a non-stressful day (even though our tutors were there marking us) and by the end of it the head of the department casually let us know we had all passed. With that weight off my shoulders I could no longer care about it all and completely relax. I met Mom and Dad by Oxford Circus to go see Sister Act the musical (not bad but I prefer the movie) and pop over to a members only whisky and jazz club for a late dinner, again crashing out pretty quickly.

Saturday I was, surprise surprise, at the gallery again. I popped out for lunch with Angela and one of her friends and then hung around until 6 when I ran by the hotel and over to Radi's to switch out suitcases before running up to The Duke to see Jemma working and my friend Matty for his birthday. It was a fairly typical Duke night, although Bev kept getting emotional cause I'm leaving soon, and it took a phone call from Mom reminding me we had to be up in a few hours to get the train to get me moving for the door because early Sunday morning we headed towards Ireland, which is the next blog, hopefully to come out before I head back to the states on Sunday...we'll see.