May the Wind Be Always At Your Back

Upon arrival at the Dublin Airport we now had to find our way by bus into the city centre and find our hostel-Paddy's Palace.  We talked to the tourism office and they pointed us in the right direction and we found ourselves headed into the city.  Unfortunately, we didn't have a map of the bus stops and the bus driver wasn't being very helpful so we had to ask someone where exactly O'Connell street was and how we would know when we arrived there (none of the bus stops were marked either).  We eventually arrived at the hostel and checked in.  This hostel was okay, but our building you had to go outside to get to and you also had to be let in by a person at their front desk (they called it VIP service but really they are just too cheap to fix the door so we can get in!).  We picked our beds and headed out to find a bite to eat before we had to meet Brian and Rita (relatives of Amanda's cousin and also locals of Dublin) at the front gate of Trinity College.  We ate at O'Briens and my sandwich bread was shaped like a shamrock (which was awesome!).  We then left to meet them and we quickly found that they were super friendly and nice.  Rita got us into The Book of Kells (the Gospel in Latin written by Celtic monks around 800 a.d.) for free because she works at Trinity College.  We were amazed by this and also the library at Trinity College.  We spent the rest of the day walking around the city to see the castle, Christ Church Cathedral, Beatty Library (where we saw ancient pages of the bible and other religious documents as well), and even stopped at The Brazen Head Pub (which is where Brian and Rita had their first date!).  It was a really neat day.  We even got to meet Rita's elderly mother who was a character, she told us, "What you can't cure, you must endure".  Finally, Brian and Rita welcomed us into their home and fed us a delicious three course dinner!  It was soo good and I haven't been that full in forever (we didn't realize they would be giving us so much food!).  I wish I could describe what Brian cooked for us, but honestly I didn't know what most of it was!  We had a great time talking to them about our lives, school, and our ancestry from Ireland.  They took us back to the hostel at about 10pm because Amanda and I were exhausted from traveling and staying up pretty much all of the previous night.  It was a great experience though and I am so happy we got to spend time with real Irish folk.  When we got to the hostel we found it just as sketchy as ever.  They let us in and they had no lights on in the hallways so that it was difficult to find our room.  Then we both experienced a sound of scratching while showering (we were like 10 feet from each other) that was creepy as well.  Nevertheless, we got in bed to get ready for our early morning on Friday.

May the Road Rise to Meet You

I'll begin my Ireland trip on Wednesday.  Unfortunately, we had a short week but the entire school had to stay on Wednesday afternoon from 2-4pm for our British Studies test.  I don't understand why, but you would have thought we were taking the ACT or final exams or something because the whole school made a huge deal about this test.  We even got to look at questions from the past exams to study and I felt like although it wasn't easy, it was just as I expected it should be.  I was so relieved to have it over with because everyone studying was stressing me out!  Afterwards, we ate and packed for Ireland.  We had to take a train into London Gatwick Airport on Wednesday night for our 9:40am flight on Thursday because unfortunately, there aren't trains that go early enough in the morning to get us there on time.  Minor detail that was rather annoying but we figured it out and we just had to deal with sleeping in the airport all night (from arriving at 1am until our plane left at 9).  In the train station we met up with another girl from harlaxton headed to France via the same airport so we formed a group and made our way there to camp out.  Unfortunately, we picked a clean spot to sit on the main floor of the terminal that just happened to be by the door to the underground train.  The door kept opening all night and letting in cold air and then they were also doing construction so we really didn't get any sleep.  After a while, we decided to take a walk to warm up and we realized that if you walked upstairs, it was like a sauna compared to downstairs and we were able to snag some bench space to get a couple hours of sleep before checking in.  We checked in and got through security okay (I was randomly searched but it was no big deal).  We eventually boarded the airplane and took another nap as we flew to Dublin.  It was a beautiful sunshining day an it was really cool to see that outside of the airplane window rather than the dark and rain that we typically have experienced.  We even arrived early which was a plus!

"An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day."-Henry David Thoreau

Okay, so maybe Saturday's walk wasn't really that early, but we were up and going before pretty much everyone else on campus.  We woke up really early with the plan to just walk in whatever direction away from our manor that we found ourselves drawn to.  This turned out to be a success!  We left around 10:45am with our packed lunches and off we went.  We walked down the lane, out to Harlaxton village and then climbed up a hill going away from town and the other direction from Grantham (the only city we have visited in the immediate area other than Harlaxton).  The hill was intense, but it finally plateaued and we walked along that road until finally we came to the fork in the road.  It was super windy that day and pretty cloudy but we were fortunate enough not to get rained on.  We decided to take the country road into Grantham (sign posted it as another 3.5 miles).  This road was much busier so we had to walk in the muddy grass to avoid being run over by the cars zooming past us.  A guy even stopped and asked if we needed a lift (you do not ask for a ride here).  I'm guessing that means that not very many pedestrians use that route for leisure walking lol.  It was neat to see the country houses as we progressed towards Grantham.  We even passed by another field of sheep, and also saw a game of football (soccer) being played.  We arrived in Grantham and set out to find a place to sit and eat our lunches.  We ended up eating them at the bus stop for lack of any benches or picnic tables in the city.  Afterwards, we stopped in at Morrison's (a grocery store) to pick up a few items.  I purchased some biscuits (actually cookies), and also a bag of crisps (chips in the US) for traveling snacks.  We then left the store and were able to catch the shuttle back to school (which was awesome because our feet were sore after walking like 3 hours)!

Peterborough & a Long Walk

This has been a pretty average school week.  Unfortunately we have classes today (Friday) to make up for the Ireland trip next weekend.  Anyway, I did get to take a pretty fun trip on Wednesday afternoon to Peterborough.  We rode in a double decker coach which was fun except the wind was intense and so it was swaying pretty bad on the top level as we made are way down the A1 (interstate).  When we arrived, we walked around the city centre for a bit which was nice.  It was very similar to the shopping centers at all of the other cities in the UK we have previously visited.  We made sure to stop in at Poundland to pick up a few essentials.  I got a cool UK flag passport holder which was nice because the paper envelope that I previously have been using is on it's last leg!  We then went to the main attraction of the city that truly was impossible to miss, the cathedral.  It was magnificant and unfortunately I do not have any photos of the inside because you weren't able to take any :(  It is a significant point of interest though because the tomb of Katharine of Aragon is housed within the majestic walls.  Furthermore, the tomb of Mary Queen of Scots formerly was in the same cathedral.  It is so cool to get to see first hand things that we are learning about in our British Studies class!  Yesterday (Thursday) my English Novel class took a walking trip while we discussed the novel Jane Eyre.  We took one break at The Gregory pub and cafe to talk about the reading and then some of us went with our professor on a walk about the town of Harlaxton.  It was beautiful.  We walked through a residential are, along the canal, and also through hilly and green pastures.  One really neat thing about England is that their are footpaths leading through their fields so it is possible to walk about the farmland.  It was neat because we got to use a "stile" like Mr. Rochester and Jane do in the book.  All in all, the walk was 7 1/2 miles-->quite a trek!  It was very nice though.  Okay, well I need to get ready to go to my final class for the week so until next time :)

The Long and Winding Road

Sunday was pretty much all a travel day.  We woke up, ate breakfast, and were on the road by 9 am.  We stopped again at the Scotland/England border for photos and then trekked on to Hadrian's Wall.  Hadrian's Wall was built during the Roman conquest of England to mark and divide the border between England and Scotland.  It was to keep out the "barbarians".  We also got to check out the remains of an ancient fort that was built there as well by the Romans.  It was beautiful here because we were literally just in the middle of the countryside.  They even had sheep grazing out around the property.  The sky was big, the grass was the greenest of green, and the sun shone through the clouds like light from the heavens.  Truly a breathtaking sight!  We loaded the coach once again and stopped for the final break at Durham.  Durham is a town in England and we had a short break for lunch before we loaded up and drove the final 3 hours back to the manor.  It was nice to be back!  I was so tired of traveling on the coach (I compared it to the pilgrims riding the Mayflower).  Back just in time to get a good night's rest and prepare for another week of classes.

Keep your black and white, I'm thinking tartan :)

Saturday was definitely a marathon day.  We rolled out of bed and got down to breakfast by 8am.  They served us a full english breakfast which was pretty good.  We embarked on the city and first headed to the Edinburgh Castle.  Here we got a great view of the city and saw cool stuff like the Scotland crown jewels and the Stone of Destiny.  The stone of Destiny has been an integral part of monarch coronations for a long time and even be used when Prince Charles becomes crowned King.  It can be seen placed under the throne during the ceremony (I'm excited for that to happen because I can honestly say I've seen it in person).  Afterwards, we headed down the street to the Scottish Whisky Experience.  Famous in Scotland as their drink of choice we learned about the process that it takes to produce the drink.  I also have learned that Irish Whiskey is spelled with an "e" and Scottish Whisky without.  We grabbed some lunch in their restaurant that was pretty good.  I had a bacon and cheese sandwich with chicken soup (turned out to actually have beef in it so I'm not sure what happened?).  From here we trekked down the royal mile to visit the other places on our agenda such as the cathedral, adam smith's grave site (founder of modern economics), and the royal palace.  All were quite enjoyable :)  Tired as we were it was now time to climb up to Arthur's Seat to capture a breathtaking view of the city.  It was intense, but worth it.  We saw the entire city and were able to pick out places that we had visited during the weekend.  You could see everything!  Oh and I accidently lost one of my gloves on the way up so we were looking for it on the way back down.  Just as we gave up all hope it turned up and it was really funny.  Also, the girls and I passed the time on the way back down by singing songs.  It was a hoot!  We made the uphill trek all the way back to Princes Steet (where our hotel was) and then we took a rest and planned out ghost tour.  The ghost tour was neat because it took us down into the underground vaults of the city.  They are supposedly haunted and claimed to be the most haunted place on earth.  It was kind of silly, but fun as well.  We headed back and went to bed because we were all literally exhausted.  It was a great day though!

My Journey to Scotland

This trip ran slightly differently than my trip to Germany because we went on the school led trip.  In other words, all of the transportation and lodging was organized by Harlaxton.  The coach was scheduled to leave Friday morning at 8 am so we all got up really early and ate breakfast in time to load the coach.  Unfortunately, the coach that we were going to take broke down, so we lost an hour due to them having to switch it before we could leave.  This was sort of dissappointing because that pushed back out arrival time.  We made two stops on the way, first at a rest stop to eat our lunches, and then at the England/Scotland border for a photo op.  As we arrived in Scotland, I immediately fell in love with the beautiful countryside and view of the North Sea.  It was truly magnificant.  We arrived in Edinburgh (pronounced Edinborough) at 3:30 pm and by the time we got checked in to our hotel, it was 4pm.  This left us with no time for hitting the major "sight-seeing" places in the capital of Scotland.  Nevertheless, Amanda, Clare, Christina, and I took a walk around to sort of see what the city had to offer.  We did a little souvenir shopping and then set off to find the Birthplace of Harry Potter.  J.K. Rowling began writing this amazing series in a little cafe called The Elephant House.  We decided to have our dinner here and so we sat down for a relaxing meal.  Afterwards, we also checked out the statue of Greyfriar's Bobby because it was also located near the cafe.  The story is that this little dog sat by the grave of his master for 7 years after he died.  It was a cute story and the statue of the dog was fun.  We walked back to the hotel then to plan our adventure for the following day, because now we had to fit all of Edinburgh in a single day.  After we got organized, Amanda and I also left and walked around the city to experience some of the night life.  We tried a fried Mars Bar which was good, but sooo greasy!  I liked it, but I don't think I'll be getting another one anytime soon!  We also met a couple new Scottish friends and we learned a lot about their country.  It was interesting, their driver's license are pink and their permits are green!  Also, they wear the tartan (famous plaid design) kilts to formal events such as weddings even now.  Everyone was very nice, and it was a good time.  We headed back to the hotel to catch a few hours of sleep before we had to wake up early for our touring the following day.