Hotel Taco

This past weekend I payed my first visit to London, England. My plane left at 6:25am from Dublin and arrived 1 hour later at Standstead airport. There is a reason for the early flights being cheap...no one in their right mind should take one. I had to wake up at 3:30am to catch my flight! That seems like a time more suitable to going to bed rather than waking up.

When I arrived at Stanstead, I had to take a bus for another hour to get to central London. This cost me 15 Pounds return, which is over 30$ CAD. London is bloody expensive. It's a little bit more than Dublin. For a 1 way ticket on the Tube (Subway) it is 4 pounds, that is 8CAD! For a 1 way subway ride!! The buses are 2Pounds...that's more than 4$!

After arriving downtown I wasted no time exploring. I walked to Buckingham Palace to say hi to the Queen. I also saw the Roayl Guards with the big black fuzzy hats. I've always wanted to see one of them. Next, I strolled through St. james Park and watched swans swimming around. I then made my way to Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. The buildings in London are amazing. Everywhere I turned, there was something that caused me to stop and stare.

After lunch, I went to see the London Eye (friggin 20Pounds to go on so I skipped that. it's a big ferris wheel that they built for 2000 and you can see a nice view of London), walked along the Thames River, saw Cleopatra's Needle, the Roayl Courts of Justice and St. Paul's Cathedral.

It started to get dark around 4pm so I saw the National Gallery and Nelson's Column all light up. I next wandered around randomly and found myself in some cool shopping districts. I wish I had money to shop in London...but alas, I am not rich...yet!!!

Around 8pm, I took the subway to meet Taco. Taco was a classmate of mine for the past 4 years at CMCC and he is now doing his Master's in London. For those that don't know him, he's a little crazy...but you would have to be to go back to school after CMCC...jk.....anyways, Taco was a great host. He cooked dinner for me and showed me places that I could visit the next day in London. He knows London pretty well and also provided me with some history of the places I would see. My neck and shoulders were sore from carrying my stupid backpack around all day and so I got treatment too! Taco's roomate had an extra mattress and sleeping bag so I got some much needed sleep. I'm so glad that I did not have to stay in a hostel! Hotel Taco gets 2 thumbs up and I recommend the place to anyone...though, the neighbourhood is a little bit "dodgey", but if you are lucky like me and got bus service, i.e. got picked up from the bus station, it's all good.

I woke the next morning to start my sightseeing adventures again. This time I went to the Horse Guard where I met horses that are like the Royal Guards that just stand there and do not move. I also got my picture taken with one of the guards. After that, I went to the Admirality Arch, back to Trafalgar Square to the Telecome Tower and finally to the British Museum. I had a day pass for the tube on Sunday so I just randomly hopped on and off to different places.

The British Museum was huge! I only got there towards the end of the day so I only saw the Egyptian and Roman stuff. It's nice to see all those things but funny at the same time because they really belong in Egypt and Rome. When I was in Egypt, I saw the pyramids and temples but they were empty. In the British Museum, I saw all the things that were supposed to be in those same temples and pyramids.

I took the bus back to Standstead airport at some insane hour and slept at the airport until my 6am flight to Dublin. At first, I wasn't sure about spending the night in the airport so I was going to just stay up all night but when I got there, there were already lots and lots of people doing the same thing as I, so, I laided down on my coat and napped for a few hours before my flight. By the time I got into my bed in Dublin, it was 9:30am. Good thing I didn't have any patients booked this morning!

Ok, now to decide where to go for Christmas...any suggestions?

Tall Non-fat No-Whip Extra-Hot Hot Chocolate

What does that title mean?...yep....that's right, I'm back part time at Starbucks again. I never thought that I would have to make another frappachino again in my life but I was wrong. It's starting to pick up at the clinic but it's still rather slow so i've decided to get a part time job on top of the chiropractic one. Since I worked at Starbucks during school, it was easy to go back. I know the job and the scheduling is flexible. I work at the clinic 3-4 times a week and I'll be at Starbucks for 2 times a week.

I worked my frist shift yesterday. The dress code is black or beige pants with a back or while collared shirt with black shoes. I had not had time to get black shoes yet so I showed up with my white ones on. I had planned on going during my break because the Starbucks is right in town....however, I ended up going a little earlier then I expected. When I got to work, the supervisor told me to go and buy new shoes cause he wouldn't let me work until I had them.....lol. Normally, I would have been pissed but I was happy cause I got to go shopping! I came back half an hour with my cheap black shoes and started work. He wasn't too pleased with me until he found out that I used to work for Starbucks and that he could put me on bar right away. When he found that out, he actually said "Ok, I am happy again".

I woke up late this morning and missed my morning workout but I only had one patient this morning and I don't work again until 6pm so I can go to the gym now. I guess I really needed to sleep. Ok, off to the gym.

Belfast and the Giant's Causeway

This past weekend, I was in Belfast. My friend Ryan and I took a 2.5hr bus ride from Dublin to get there. Belfast is much smaller than I thought it would be and much cheaper than Dublin too. I thought that Belfast would be more expensive with the sterling but it only cost 6.50£ for a bed in the hostel.

We arrived on saturday and spent the day wandering around the city. City hall is interesting because just in front of it is a big ferris wheel. I wanted to go on but it was 6£ which I felt was a little steep. After city hall, we wandered to Lagan Weir and Lookout. Here there is a statue of a giant ceramic salmon covered with tiles that tells the history of Belfast.

Belfast is also the city that gave birth to the Titanic so we walked around to where it first set sail. After dinner, we decided we wanted to stay for the night and had to call up hostels since we didn't book in advance. After checking into a cheap hostel, we went back out to wander and explore some more of the town.

The next morning, we woke early and went on a tour to see the Giant's Causeway. This place was AMAZING. Please look at the pictures as my words cannot do it justice. It is one of Northern Ireland's main attractions. The Giant's Causeway is a vast expance of regular, close packed, hexagonal stone columns. In olden times, they thought that Giant's had built this place. From here, you can see the shores of Scotland and it was said that there was a Giant from Ireland who wanted to battle the Giant from Scotland and they created the causeway to get from Ireland to Scotland. There are 2 walks and we decided to take the cliff-top path to the chimney tops.

With our tour, we also saw the 16th century Dunseveruc Castle from the outside and the spectacular White Park Bay which has wide, sweeping sandy beaches. We were supposed to walk across the famous Carrick a Rede Rope Bridge but it was closed down for the winter. It is a 20m long, 1m wide bridge of wire rope that spans the chasm between the sea cliffs and a little island.

We arrived back into Belfast around 6pm and then had to catch another bus back to Dublin. All I can say is, look at the pictures!!

The Things Your Patient Say...

So I went into clinic today and my patient says "I feel worse now then I did when I came in last time and I think it's your fault". Lol, gotta love when you hear that! But, alas, it is part of the profession. I then proceeded to to ask the patient what happened since I last saw them...."well, after you last fixed my back, I felt much better, so I went for a run." So I say, "didn't I advise you to take it easy for the first few days because you just recently injured your back?", patient answers "yes, but it felt better and now it feels worse"....urgh...really now, how is it my fault that you went out and ran 5km after injuring your back??

So after 1 week in Cork, Carla, my classmate from CMCC has come back to Dublin. She decided that she liked Dublin better than Cork and this was the place she needed to be right now. Yay! Also, Ryan got a job in Dublin so he's back here as well. It's nice to have people that know you around. Carla and I met downtown yesterday and ended up chatting for hours over tea....and she had only been gone for 5 days!

It's great to be back in da gym and eating well. I definately see a change in my energy levels. I decided to detox again so i'm staying clear of junk food. However, to make it a little easier, I have built in 1 cheat meal a week. It's much easier to stick to a regime if you know you can eat whatever you want for at least 1 meal. Hope this keeps up!

The Journey of the Heavy Suitcase

On Wednesday, I went to meet my friend Brian at the airport b/c he had a stopover in Dublin before he met up with his wife, Trina, in London. Since Brian was in Ottawa, I asked him to bring me some of my medical equipement i.e. reflex hammer, bp cuff, etc. What I got was, all my medical equipment, my speeder board (used for adjustments) and 5 textbooks in a huge suitcase! I had no idea I was going to get all that stuff. The suitcase was also not one of the regular square suitcases that you could pull it by the top with the handle on wheels. It was one of those hard cover ones where the handle doesn't extend out too far and you pull/drag it by the side so you have to lift half of it to make use of the wheels. Let's just say that the suitcase was really really heavy.

After meeting Brian, I dragged the suitcase out of the airport and on to the public bus. I'm glad that the bus dropped me off close to work. When I reached my stop, I struggled to get the suitcase off the bus and brought it to work. One thing I forgot to mention, I could only drag the suitcase with my right arm b/c if I used my left, the suitcase ends up hitting against my leg. I got the suitcase to the back room of the office, narrowly avoiding hitting the walls. To be honest, I actually hit one of them, but no one was there to see me.

After work, I had to get my suitcase home. It's normally a 20min. walk but this trip took me 40 mins! I started with my right arm but got really tired after about 10mins so I switched to my left. After several bruises to my leg, I switched to pulling it with both hands but walking backwards. After nearly killing myself on the uneven sidewalks (a trademark of Ireland), I turned back around and tried pulling again with my right arm. When that got sore again, I decided to take a break and sit on my suitcase for a while and rest. After my rest, I continued again...I went b/w my right arm, left arm w/ bruises and rest until I got home. Why did I not take a taxi you ask? None had come by! I even contemplated hitchiking it back home....but i sucked it up and kept on pulling. I think I used every swear word in every language I knew on my walk home! But in the end, I did make it home.

On another note, I'm going to London on Nov 24! I found return tickets on Ryanair from Dublin to Stansted for 18 Euro including all the taxes! The only thing is, I have to catch the flight at 6am and somehow get from Standstead Airport to London, but that shouldn't be so hard. Yay, London!