Anecdotes

As we have been returned now to Ireland for two days, and the trip will shortly be coming to an end, I wanted to take a break and reflect on some of the smaller curiosities of the trip:

I didn't bring a razor to Europe, as I figured if I wanted to shave I could purchase the requisite tools over here. Thus, in Dublin I wandered into the Euro 2 store where everything is 2 Euro and bought a pack of ten disposable razors. I didn't buy shaving cream, saying to myself, 'I'll just cowboy-up and use water. This of course resulted in the most painful shave of my life. I probably would have had a closer, gentler shave if I'd used a roofing shingle.
In London I bought a bottle of shaving cream which made the next time only the second most painful shave of my life.

On the steps outside of Abraham House in Dublin, a Frenchman engaged me in conversation. A few minutes in, he asked in his broken English, "Do you like Obama?" I replied "no." He frowned and was silent. I came back with, "Do you like Sarkozy?" He shook his head fervently and said, "No, he is uh, very bad."
Our conversation pretty much ended there.

In Dublin, an Irish woman stopped us to beg for money by first asking us, in Ireland mind you, "do you speak English?"

On our Wicklow Tour, Tour Guide Steven liked to joke about Gypsies ("they have an uncanny way of finding things before they go missing"). He said in Ireland they are called Travellers, or Tinkers, in England they are called Pikies, and in Georgia they are called Rednecks. Ashley confronted him at the end of the tour, telling him that we were from Georgia and that his joke was in poor taste. Turns out, Steven had lived in Thomasville for a few months on a soccer scholarship. We forgave him the slight, but only once.

In London, Chris and I spoke with a Spaniard from Galacia who told us that Italy was filthy, and then proceeded to emphasize his point by acting as though he was wading through mud to signify all of the garbage on the streets of Rome.

From the train, as we passed through Wales into Western England, we saw acres of trailer parks, on both sides of the tracks. They were cleaned and orderly, but stretched for miles.