Coventry and York

OK here we are in Coventry. It is known for two things. Lady Godiva, whose Naked romp on horse back gave birth to Peeping Tom. And second for the church that got blasted during a WWII German bombing run. It was a great time.









These pictures are of the Old Cathedral that was blasted by the Nazi's in WWII. It is quite scenic and they have a memorial there as well . I loved this quote below. I thought that it was moving.




Here is the memorial stone in the floor of the Old cathedral. It is quite beautiful.



Directly across from the old cathedral is the new one. This statute on the wall is over Michael putting Lucifer under his feet, and so you know according to this statute. Satan is Hung!!! I got a picture of it, but I wasn't allowed, Sorry Lynn.

This is the view of the stain glass inside the cathedral over there. It is quite stunning. You were supposed to pay to take pictures inside. Ya right. No way I was going to pay three pounds for pictures. My tourism money is paying for enough. So bugger off. That is more or less how the conversation went.

Here is the round stain glass over the west? entrance in York. This cathedral was awesome. The whole town of York felt like a Charles DIckens landscape. It seemed to be the most pure place that we visited. We wished we would have had more than a couple of hours to stay there. Unfortunately we didn't. What can you do? We enjoyed the time that we did have. Guy Fawkes lived in York and Nov 5 is Guy Fawkes day, as well as our anniversary. It was interesting he tried to blow up parliment.

This christ on the cross stain glass stood out to me. It is interesting how there are items that are so far from our common beliefs and then others that parallels them. The stain glass was awesome. I think we stayed in the cathedral for several hours. It was breath taking and huge. It took sooo long to build that there are several styles of architecture on the outside as well.

I loved the way that the building could stand alone. This little ally shows how unsquare the architecture really is. This river is just on the ouside of the town walls. It was scenic and there is a guy rowing in the back ground. It was very pictureesque.

Galway and the Cliffs of Moher

Galway, is located on a huge bay on the western shore of Ireland. It is very scenic and beautiful. The Stream to the left had some fly fisherman in it, I suppose fishing for trout but we didn't have the chance to ask. Just up the road from this river was the local cathedral.
The stain glass here was quite awesome and, really, only the church in York had prettier stain glass. From Galway we continued south along the coast and every once in while a castle like this is on the side of the road.



















From there we reached the Cliffs of Moher. I think they look like the cliffs of Insanity from the Princess Bride. It was very inspiring the way they had that little look out castle. I loved the vantage point that we had here. Had we enough time I would have enjoyed walking out to the point out in the distance. But still I find that the view of that castle gives good proportion to the size the cliffs actually are. They were awesome. The two pictures below are on the way from Galway heading south. The one below on the right is the infamous Galway Bay.




This castle was on the bay as well, it was real low tide so you could see way out. Then I don't know if you would have figured it out by the photo alone, but Ali had a runny nose. I have (being married to her) seen her at her high points and low points and I think this would fall right there in the middle. (Ryan got sick too, but as you can see he didn't want to include the photos we took of him when he was sick in bed...) The joys of taking a bus tour... When one person gets stick, the entire bus gets sick... one poor soul at a time. All in all, we still had a FABULOUS time!

Dublin, Ireland

Look, A DOOR. This doors was once the front door of King John Edward the 3rd of Scotland and 47th of England. He is known for his massacre of the Serfs. Wait that would have to be King George, since these are Georgian Style homes, sooo.

OK that is just a lie, however, our tour guide took us to see about 400 doors, and each one had its own unique story and that is all. Unlike the states, the door is the only thing a famliy can do here to be unique. So there is some excellent craftsmanship. The city is known for a couple things. The River Iffy, Trinity College, and our favorite, The Guiness Factory. All were very fun to see and tour. Near our hotel was Temple Bar, which is a small gathering area for locals to do their thing. It was like 3rd street promenade in Santa Monica. Below is a picture of one of the buildings that was there.



These Statutes were outside of our hotel and were a memorial to those that suffer from the Potato famine. They consisted of a group of emaciated individiuals. As I looked at them all I could think of was John Belushi on SNL when he went through his luck of the Irish Spiel. However, on a more solemn note, Roz had family who went through the famine and had written a letter to her family in Australia, calling them out saying that they should get off their fat butts and send them some money since they had nothing. The severity of it really came to life as she shared her personal experiences.

This is the view from the Gravity Bar. This is the best view in all of Dublin. On the top of the Guiness Factory, is where this bar is located. You can see the whole city. It was a great view. I was glad that Ali allowed us to go to the factory. Below is Ali in front of the St. James gate. It was fun. To get to the factory we walked in place of taking a taxi, it was about a two to three mile walk. Phil did it well even though his leg was hurting. He ended up drinking our free beer that we got at the end of the tour.


On the walls there were quotes written. I'm not sure if they were over the place where the person was from, however, it added to the whole atmosphere.

The Brazen Head. The oldest bar in Dublin, it is rumored that Robin Hood had a pint here. The front is just a facade and the real bar is behind. It was cool to see a bar that is older than the U.S. I wished we would have had a chance to get inside, but we were lucky to get this picture as we drove past.

This is the Liffy. As the Brits call it the Iffy Wiffy Liffy. The cool thing is that the tide in Dublin is about a 12 swing, if not more. So at low tide as seen here you can see all sorts of things on the river bottom. Bikes, Shoes, Bodies, whatever. However, when the tide came up there was only about a meter of clearance. The better thing was that they had boats that were made like unto a dish that could still go under the bridges at high tide. They were bizzare looking.

Scotland

Scotland, what a great country. These shots are from the castle overlooking Edinburg. The Edinburg castle is a great one, in terms of inherent beauty. It is located on the side of a cliff and from it one can see for miles. The road leading into the castle is called the "Royal Mile" There are shops up and down, where you can buy all sorts of gifts. The castle starts like all castles should, at the front gate and then corkscrews up to the left.

All the way up there are Turrets that overlooked the city and down onto Prince's blvd.


Here is the Ceremony of the Haggis, it is quite spicy. The guy on the Left was the announcer and more or less entertaining. It wasn't until this night that I learned that the Scot like the Acordian too. Who would have thought it. I figured them to be more manly than that.

Ali even tried the haggis. I was suprised.








So like the other countries over there the stain glass is impressive to say the least. This one was a standout to me. I like the bible story that was included and before the actual stories were replaced by the apostostic teachings of the catholic church.

This one here is of Mel Gibson. Just kidding. Although they are quite proud of Braveheart over there. I'm sure they would have done more in the day had they known about the press they would be getting now. No this is WILLIAM WALLACE, yes the same who gave my fore-fathers " the Johnstone Clan" a castle since they were so good at killing the British. If you have met the a true brit you will know why anyone would want to kill them. HAHA This was found in the church that was in the compound of the castle. It was a tiny church but nonetheless beautiful

The Royal Mile leads up to the front gate of the Castle in Edingburgh and it is like the 3rd street promenade in Santa Monica, there are shops and street performers everywhere. But rather than have that obnoxious black guy who paints himself silver and puts a whislte in his mouth, this here play the Bag Pipes. That is much much better

Now this is a cannon. Seems like it wouldn't be very practical, hence why it is in Scotland. That is a british joke. See that is why we hate them. Ali is there just for perspective. Thanks babe. In situations like this I would tell her to go and act like Vanna White. Here however she was too cold to put her arms up.

London

These are some of our pictures from London. We had such an amazing time. Not sure how we can put all our experiences down in words...




This is a lake in Hyde Park, in London. It is right near the Castle that Princess Diana lived before she was killed.

Below are pictures from Big Ben. The one in the distance shows Big Ben, with the clock, and the other, behind is the Parliment building. Both were amazing buildings. The second picture is a close up of some of the details on the buildings. We were amazed. There is nothing close to this in the US. We loved this area. We loved London. Actually, we loved our entire trip! We can't wait to go back again someday! We just barely scrapped the surface of things to do and see while we were there. We loved it!













The picture of us is in front of Pricess Diana's home before she was killed. These gates were the ones covered with flowers in memory of her. These are famous gates.

Above is the Tower Bridge, right near the Tower of London. It was raining all day, but the Bridge sure looked cool!

To the left is a model of one of the tourture devices used in the Tower of London long ago. This one was used to stretch people. There were other devices and it was all a bit creapy... although I think Ryan liked looking and reading all about it...

Catalina

Catalina Island!
This trip we did right before I began Law School - over a year ago! We left early in the morning and took the boat over. It was fun, a little cold, but very fun. There were pods of Dolphins that we saw while on the boat over, but I'm glad that it was only an hour because I thought that I was going to toss my cookies... In fact, we got there so early the shops were not even open yet! We ended up eating the breakfast that we had brought on some random park bench because nothing was open...

We snorkeled in the afternoon and hung out at "lover's cove." Not sure why they call it Lover's Cove becase there isn't really any place to sit down... It is all rocks, and no beach. It was a nice little cove and there were a ton of big fish. The only problem was that it was cold. We didn't bring wet suits, so we only lasted as long as our bodies stayed warm. Surprisingly, Alison wasn't as cold as Ryan was!

Avalon is the main town there, and it is quite small. We walked the entire thing several times throughout the day. Alison is here standing at the center of town... Exciting. We couldn't really find anywhere to sit or relax on the extemely small man made beach, so we went to a hotel. There was this hotel that had a nice grassy area with lounge chairs so we went in, grabbed a lounge chair, read our books and relaxed. It was great! We both fell asleep and it was nice.


Before we went our on trip we scheduled a helicopter ride home. We were so excited. The only problem was that we were tired and wanted to go home before our scheduled helicopter trip... So we tried to change the time we could go and got to leave about 30 minutes earlier. We were so excited! It was AMAZING! We video taped the whole thing, and then the video camera was stoeln... No more video... But, we will always remember the way it felt and the exciting 10 minute ride. It was so cool! We can't wait to do it again... when we save up our money... It was a pricey 10 minute ride, but totally worth it!