Addis Ababa to Los Angeles

August is a time to escape Addis.

Imagine that it's been raining like crazy for two months, guaranteed like clockwork everyday around 3pm. Its chilly, and everything is muddy. It's possible to leave Addis and go south or north in Ethiopia and escape the rain, but since most business happens in the capital, you're basically stuck.

Emp. Menelik moved the capital from Northern Shoa to Addis Ababa (literally New Flower) around 100 years ago. Mostly for protection from surrounding mountains, and so his wife Taitu could bathe in the hot springs. I bet he didn’t know then that it would be one of the rainiest climate zones in the country.

This summer I left in late July to go back to the States to refresh and see family and friends.

Ethiopian started a flight recently to Los Angeles, so I decided to fly there first and work my way east. A few friends had just moved there as well so it was a great opportunity to visit them.

I stayed with Matt and Ally, I’ve known Matt since Columbia. He moved to start a new branch of his growing indy book publisher, The Perch. He has had successful projects in Chicago and has now opened a branch in LA.

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Matt and Ally's place

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Seems like typical southwestern feeling of a house.

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Matt at work.

An exhibition catalog that he was binding at the time. 

After a couple of days I was eastbound for Chicago, via Amtrak. I had taken long journeys on Amtrak before, but never for more than 18-20 hours. The time to Chicago on the website said around 40+ hours. In total it took around 48 hours to get from LA to Chicago.

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The ride was beautiful though!

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Observation car

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Connecting a freight engine as ours has decided to quit on us. Bad part was that freight engines can only maintain 70mph.. thus cutting into our time quite a bit. 

On the way we stopped in Flagstaff, Albuquerque, and through the backwoods of NM, up through southeast CO and onto Iowa and finally Illinois.

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Some Amish doing some shopping. I did a bit of my own an bought a Mexican blanket, straight from Mexico!

It was one of the most scenic rides I’ve ever been on. The food wasn’t great, company was ok (tons of weirdos who ride the train), but overall a really great experience. Next time I take the train I think I’ll opt for booking a sleeper car.

Not so interesting meal: repurposed hamburger turned salisbury steak. About all I could manage after I was banned from using my card at the Cafe car and ran out of cash. 

We made it into Chicago about 6 hours behind schedule, sort of the Amtrak mantra. Overall it was a really pleasant trip, regardless if we were on time or not. I would really recommend the trip if you have a couple of free days to spare. I think next year I will consider the Chicago to Portland route, which passes along the border of Canada and through Montana and other pretty sights in the north. 

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Parting pic: lucky penny found on the chair when I first sat down in the observation car.

Kenyan Countryside

I recently took a trip down to Kenya to see a bit of the countryside and visit friends living in Nairobi. We spent a few days traveling by car a bit northwest of Nairobi, Naivasha as well as Nakuru National Park. We saw loads of animals: many zebra and wild birds, water buffalo, giraffes as well as antelopes and dik dik - and even a famous white rhino. I had a really great time and I'm thinking about going back next month for the Maasai Olympics in Amboseli national park. Will keep you posted on that one. Here are some pictures from the trip.

A guide from Crescent Island breaks the skull of a hippo to get a tooth for me.

This hut in on the property of Linda, the owner of Crescent Island near Niavasha.

Madeleine feeds a giraffe - or tries to.

Guinea fowl doing a strange dance.

Endangered white rhino.

Some people taking a picture of a pelican.

Hippos kissing 

Your typical African landscape including zebras and a acacia tree.

Baby monkey

Dublin in 5 hours, right good time laddie

Last Thursday morning around 6am I left Galway after 3 days and nights of hanging around and seeing the sights. I met some pretty cool people in the process. When traveling it seems like those who travel always seem to end up together - something in the way of like minds attract.

Anyways I left the place I was couchsurfing and headed for the bus terminal which would bring me to Dublin in about 3 hours time. It's right straight across the country. First time I can say that I've been across an entire country in one day.

Upon reaching Dublin I noticed that its very different than Galway and the countryside sights that I had become used to. Its quite city like: metropolitan, diverse and much larger comparatively. The pastel coloring of Galway had been replaced by rather cold concrete and muted colors. I checked my bags into left luggage at the airport and took the bus into town for about 7€ not too terrible as that pass also allowed me to use the city busses all day. The left luggage area was only about 12€ for the day. 

I got into town and was let off around O'Connell street. Coincidentally there was a statue of this O'Connell character - friend Jason (mentioned in an earlier post) said that this guy is his great-great-great Grandfather. So snapped a pic and sent it off to Jason. He'd seen it before a few years back when he visited but he was still psyched all the same to see it again.

The current state of O'Connell is being overwrought with pigeon / seagull issues.

As you can see from the picture, Dublin at first glance looks European overall - similar building styles, not to mention that kind of dome shape on the building to the right. I might not go as far as comparisons to Parisian architecture but its on the way there nearly.

The first stop I visited was the old Dublin Castle, now used for parliament and government business. It was originally a Viking settlement then converted into a grounds when the British government took over.

Dublin City Castle

The yard at the Castle

I had heard from a few people that I should check out the area down by the river as well - Templebar. It's a popular area to go, especially at night apparently but I wasn't around long enough to see it. There's lots of bars and stuff and I even came across a few art spaces, one being the photo archive, the National archive was also nearby.

Temple bar area. The streets are small and cobblestone. There's this viking dude hawking chicken wings or something or other.

The veritable "Temple Bar" itself.

Oldest fish and chips place ever apparently. Though I've only had one meal of Fish and Chips so far. 

Street performers - not entirely sure what exactly they're performing other than a variant of blackface?

This was near the photo archive which was sadly closed for an exhibition.

After temple bar I headed for the Irish Museum of Modern Art which is about a 20-25 minute walk across town. In that time I walked pass the Guinness brewery - costs 15€ to get in so I passed. I took a few pics along the way anyway. Quite a massive compound that takes up a few city blocks.

This is nearby the brewery, the town seems a bit more run down in this area.

This is the entrance to the visitors section (I think). Like I said the compound is crazy big so I wasnt entirely sure. I gave some Spanish girls directions to this though - seems like a legit point of entry.

More sort of a stockade type looking building.

The art museum was well tucked into a kind of residential pocket of the city. There were quite a few blocks of flats I walked by till I nearly convinced myself I was going the wrong direction. Persistance paid however, as when I turned the corner it sprung out at me. The building is super nice. It's an old 17th century converted hospital, formerly Royal Hospital Kilmainham built around 1650. The museum has been there since 1990.

As you can see the structure is a really great example of 17th century architecture, and makes a great place to host exhibitions. The space was well utilized, they had a show on architecture, a collection show and one paid entry show of a contemporary artist. More info on here. Definitely recommended if you have a day or two in Dublin.

Yea so after seeing the museum I caught a bus back to downtown and had a Guinness just to say that I did. I noticed a bit more froth (or maybe I just thought I did, not sure). Either way my appreciation for Guinness has like quadrupled since I've been to Ireland now. After the beer I caught the bus out to the airport on my way to London. Will be updating soon with my first post from England in the next day or so. 

Galway, good craic had by all!

I left Ballyvaughan on Monday for the Cliffs of Moher, and eventually headed onto Galway via Bus Eireann. I reached Galway around 530pm or so and had to go find the hostel that I would stay at that night. It's called Sleepzone - really great place and nice people as well. Pretty cheap overall, was around 12€ for the night. The following two nights I spent at a couchsurfer's place who lived nearby, in order to save some money. As my first time couchsurfing it was very nice, the person I stayed with was very accommodating and genial guy. I left Galway Thursday morning for Dublin, which I will detail in a following post.

The front of Sleepzone.

Managed a pint early on. This pub is directly off of Eyre Square. Stopped there immediately after getting settled into the hostel.

Some bathroom humor at the Hostel.

Lidl, an amazing German grocery somewhere between Aldi and Ikea.

Found some super cheap Brie and bread for the nights foods.

Galway is a pretty small town, with maybe something like 100k people living there total. At the center is Eyre Square. The sleepzone hostel was nearby, only about a 10 minute walk. Nearby are many attractions: A couple of historic Churches, the Corrib river, a Spanish arch, as well as loads of bars. It seems like most of the busy places was done at pubs really - drinking is a large part of the culture. And as they say when in Rome, drink a lot of Guinness.

The town itself is really quaint. It has a small town feel to it, the buildings are painting in a rather pastel fashion. There are shops and boutique markets that sell clothes and other goods. There were often people playing music on the street.

A street sign in Galway. They always use Gaelic as well as English on all the signs. This is in an attempt to preserve original language as its spoken by so few people now a days. I heard it spoken a couple of times - quite a nice language love the way it sounds.

You can see the festive decor already happening here. There was a nice feeling to the city.

Guy playing music, the street signs are cool.

I like the colors the buildings have.

The way into the smaller streets of the city.

More weird signs.

A fine example of a litter bin.

The Spanish Arch.

A girl painting by the riverside.

The city has a path that leads out to the west off the Galway Bay to a place called Salthill. Its about a 30 minute walk from the main square. Its a really scenic walk starting from the river to the bay and eventually a nice look at the causeway and greater bay area.

Goose getting wacky out there on the river.

The river Corrib.

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Nice view of the bay and some grass.

The causeway.

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The sunset brought some nice colors.

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Obligatory sunset pic.

Caught a small arts exhibition while we were walking around town too. Its called Tulca and has been happening for the past 10 years or so. There were about 8 different spaces participating in it, all curated by one person. Galway actually has a decent art scene, theres a theatre in town as well as lots of visual arts spaces. It also hosts the Galway Arts Festival yearly July. Galway Arts Festival has gotten some international acclaim and one of the biggest arts event in the country.

Friend Matthew who I met in the hostel.

So like I mentioned apart from nice scenery there is a bit of a nightlife. The city boasts quite a fair amount of traditional pubs as well as some clubs, though I never ventured out to those. I think part of the reason is that Galway is also a college town, having about 3 or 4 colleges in the near vicinity. We all know what college types like to do on their weekend time, or anytime really. As I was there during midweek it was decently busy, however apparently on weekends the hostels really fill up and the party really rolls into town. Below are a couple photos of the nightlife.

Yea, I mostly drank Guinness while in Ireland. Just made the most sense, I never used to like it soo much but I think primarily it was because it doesn't travel so well to the states. Here it was extremely smooth and creamy, and not too heavy either.

A local band playing some Irish tunes, really great experience. The guy with the harmonica was singing as well. It was really emotive, very pleasant.

Managed to attend also a silent disco. For those of you not familiar, there is no actual music played from loudspeakers. As you enter, everyone grabs headphones and tunes to either channel one or two. The two djs spin two different kinds of music and you can switch back and forth during the course of the night. Super weird but I kinda liked it.

Overall I had a really great time in Galway. Of course I wish it would have been a bit longer stay but for the amount of time I was able to spend there it was well worth it.