"There's no place like London.."

Ok so I really, really should be writing my short paper for my British History class, but motivation to write that particular assignment is pretty low right now. Instead, I’m going to finish up my updates on what I’ve been up to in this crazy country. I left you with the end of our trip to the Emerald Isle and the Land o’ the Kilt and Sporran ( haha Clyde! :)). We recovered from our adventures and headed out again on Friday for the University sponsored field trip for us ‘mericans to the Tower of London and the Globe Theatre. This was my first trip to London since I was gone for the first field trip and hadn’t ventured there on my own time…because I haven’t had much to spare. Clyde was able to bum a ride on the coach with us because there was one open seat. I was pretty excited to see London and really glad that we got to go to the Tower. The Tower was really cool, although the guide we had was not the most entertaining and I would rather have taken one of the Beefeater tours instead, but oh well. We saw The Bloody Tower (very sad & sort of creepy), the White Tower (lots of guns and sharp, pointy things), the Crown Jewels (ooo sparkly!) Overall it was a good visit and I took quite a few pictures. Clyde and I ended up breaking away from the group, got some lunch and started walking towards St. Paul’s Cathedral which wasn’t too far away. I loved walking in London and seeing all of the cool buildings. St. Paul’s was gorgeous and I couldn’t help, but think of Marry Poppins the whole time I was there. We were going to try and go inside, but they weren’t letting anyone in, possibly because they were going to be having some sort of speech for Remembrance Sunday, which they celebrate all week long in London. I got some good pictures and we kept moving. Since we didn’t go far enough west, I wasn’t able to really see Big Ben, Parliament, etc. but I did catch a glimpse of the London Eye. Walking along the River Thames was really, nice with great views of the surrounding city. We had to meet the group at the Globe around 3pm for our tour there. We got to walk across Millennium Bridge, which pretty much brought us straight to the Globe. The tour of the theatre was really interesting, even though I already knew about the theatre from British Lit. classes in high school. Clyde and I walked back down the river, this time on the south side, back towards the Tower and Tower Bridge. It was getting dark, but I still snagged a few good pictures of the bridge, the Tower and the HMS Belfast that is anchored near there. I really enjoyed my first visit to London and can’t what to go back to explore all of the things that I didn’t during my first trip. Jordan comes on Nov. 21st until 30th and we are planning on trying to make it to London a few times. Well, I guess I’ve procrastinated enough and should probably get that paper done. I need to try and get ahead of my work before I leave again on Friday. Beth, Amy and I are leaving Friday morning for Oslo, Norway and staying with my mom’s friend Mona and her family until Monday night. I’m really excited to go to Norway, although I don’t know what possessed me to want to go to Norway in November where it will be freezing cold. I really don’t care though, I know it’s going to be a great experience in a place that not a whole lot of people can say they’ve been to and we get to meet some new friends. I’m pumped!

e

Whew...

...so I would post about my first trip to London, but I'm way to tired of typing. This business of updating has pretty much taken me all day. I'm so glad I got it all down, but I'm exhusted. Clyde left yesterday which was very hard to say goodbye again, but in a bit over a month I'll be home. Felt pretty down today and the weather is pretty crummy, so it was a good day to update and stay in my pjs all day! Hope you enjoy the updates and pictures. I enjoyed all the adventures and taking the pictures! Wish everyone well back home and I miss you all terribly!
e

Emmy and Clyde-EDINBURGH & STIRLING

Edinburgh was definitely a highlight and trip full of wonderful highlights. It was another gorgeous day (the weather was exceptionally good throughout the whole trip, if not a bit nippy). Took the bus to the city centre and began wandering down Princes Street, eventually making our way to the Royal Mile and the castle. I loved hearing the pipes everywhere we went, although we did hear some pretty poor play as well from a guy on the street corner. The castle was amazing and we ended up spending over four hours exploring the castle alone on Sunday. There was so much to see and the guided tour we took was really good and informative. There was the prisons, the memorial chapel, the Scottish crown jewels, Mons Meg, and to top it all off the National War Museum of Scotland which was fantastic! There were lots of exhibits about how bagpipes have been used in war throughout the centuries and Clyde enjoyed all of the weapons. We probably could have spent even more time than we did, but it was off to see other things. We needed to find a hotel to stay in for the next two nights, so we went to the TI centre and found one close to the Royal Mile. We really wanted to get rid of our packs, we knew what it was like to literally carry them all day in Dublin and knew that we didn’t want that to happen again. So after getting rid of the packs we had supper at a nice little Italian place called Bella Italia that was not far from the hotel. We both had wonderful pasta and even some wine! :) I love being legal in Europe :) We went up to a store to see if we could book a bus tour up to Inverness and the Highlands, but they were all sold out, so we decided that we would just go to the train station and see if we could just take a train up there. The next morning we got up and had breakfast at a place called Chocolate Soup. It was sooooo yummy! We had bagels and porridge (this is what they call oatmeal…so cute). At the train station we discovered it would take four hours on the train to get to Inverness and four hours back, so we looked at some other options. Stirling was only 40 minutes by train and it has a castle (always a hit with Clyde :)) so we got tickets, found the train and we were off. The train ride was another beautiful one- Scotland is absolutely gorgeous, especially in such beautiful weather.

Stirling was a neat little university town situated at the foothills of the Highlands. We walked around the main shopping area and found the TI centre for a map and made our way to Stirling castle. The castle, like in Edinburgh sets up above the town and is beautiful. It actually is a lot like Edinburgh castle in many ways. We did another guided tour and our tour guide could not have been better. Before the tour started I saw this guy who looked like he worked there and I turned to Clyde and said, “If that guys is our tour guide I’m going to be so happy.” And it turned out that he was! He was wearing trews and a glengerry (reference the picture posted) and had the best Scottish accent ever! He was so passionate about the castle and you could tell that he loved his job. The only bone I have to pick with him is that he stabbed Clyde 27 times, chopped his head off with a poll ax and threw him out a window several stories up. What a meany. :) He was actually talking about a man who was killed in that manner by a king and used Clyde to demonstrate. We had a blast with this guide and really enjoyed the castle. For lunch we got big bowls of really, really good soup at a place called Creama, then since we were still hungry got Subways. It took us three times, but we finally got onto a bus that would take us to the Wallace monument…well, you see the bus didn’t go directly there and when we got close the bus driver stopped and yelled at us from the front to get off if we wanted to go the monument. We walked off that bus with ever pair of eyes from the full bus on us. To top it off we walked up to the monument and found out that it had closed an hour ago. Oh well, it still makes for a funny and memorable sorry.

Caught a train back to Edinburgh and went on our long awaited search for Belhaven, a really good Scottish beer. We found it at Deacon Brodie’s tavern on the Royal Mile. We both got pints and it was good, but Clyde had to help me finish mine. Got some pizza at Pizza Express and called it a night. Tuesday was the last day of our trip, since we had to fly back to England that evening. There is a very large hill/mountain thing in the city of Edinburgh, almost like a really big park for hiking and such called Arthur’s seat. We decided we would take part of the day to climb to the top. We fueled up at Chocolate Soup again for breakfast before walking to the base of the big hill thing. We ended up by the Queen’s Scottish palace and the Scottish Parliament building. Note about the parliament building, the architect must have been on crack when he designed it, it’s crazy! Cool, but crazy! The hike started with a really, really steep climb and by the time it leveled out we were complaining about how out of shape we were. Then we discovered that we had gone up the wrong way and there was still the whole of the Arthur’s seat to climb in order to reach the top. Instead of killing ourselves we just climbed around the area we were and sat at the top for a while to take in the breathtaking view. We hiked back down into the city and wandered around some shops looking for Ghille brogues to add to our pipe band uniforms, but no luck. I was able to get a kilt outfit for the bear I’m going to make at Build-a-Bear in Canterbury, it’s super cute. After eating subway..again (twas yummy though) we hopped on the bus back to the airport. We both could have stayed in Scotland a lot longer, but we have to save some things for next time…

Emmy and Clyde-ANTRIM COAST

Our drive up the Antrim Coast was beautiful and makes me want to live in Northern Ireland so bad! There were the prettiest little farm houses with sheep everywhere and lovely, rolling countryside and I decided that if I ever have a farm I want sheep. Anyway, the first coastal town we came to was Portrush and started to follow the coastal highway. We stopped at a beach that was actually having a surfing competition. It had to be freezing for them, we felt how cold the North Irish Sea was and I knew you couldn’t pay me enough to do that, but they looked like they were having fun. The next spot we came to was the Dunluce Castle ruins that are located on a cliff right by the sea. In the 1800s part of the castle fell into the sea when the cliff gave way and Dunluce Castle was left to ruin and they moved further inland. It was really neat to walk around there was actually a place where you could walk into this tunnel under part of the castle that led into the sea, all the time being amazed by the beauty surrounding us. Our next stop was Bushmill where we took a tour of Bushmill’s Distillery, the oldest licensed whiskey distillery in the world. The tour was interesting, but when it came to the free sample of their whiskey at the end, we both discovered that we really, really don’t like whiskey. Both of us really wanted to get to the Giant’s Causeway and Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge before it got too dark, but thankfully both things were close together. The Giant’s Causeway was amazing and obviously created by Finn MacCool, the giant, and not all that volcanic nonsense that the scientists talk about. :) In Rick Steves’ Ireland travel book he describes the causeway as “the earth offering God 60,000 cigarettes” and that’s a pretty accurate description. We played on the rocks for a bit then walked back up the long path to head on to the rope bridge. I’ll admit I was a bit apprehensive about crossing this bridge, it wasn’t the height thing, it was the ROPE bridge part. Well, it was about a kilometer walk to get to it and by the time we got there I had decided that I would do it. I did and was just fine, felt pretty accomplished too. The water was so pretty and blue and you could see Scotland! It had started to get sort of dark on the hike back to the car and we decided to take a different route back to the airport so we would be able to catch our flight to Scotland with plenty of time. We stopped in Ballycastle to find some food and ended up buying PB and J fixin’s at a grocery store. Clyde drove while I made us sandwiches on our map…it was pretty comical I must admit. Our flight was at about 9pm and we were in Scotland before 10pm. We took a cab to a hotel near the airport and rested up for our first full day in Edinburgh!

Emmy and Clyde-BELFAST

Ok, so the next leg of our journey took us on a two hour train ride along the eastern coast of Ireland and up into Northern Ireland. It was a beautiful ride through the countryside and we could see the Mourne Mountains once we got into Northern Ireland. We walked from the train station to Donegal Square in downtown Belfast. Couldn’t help, but compare things in Belfast to London landmarks. There was the gorgeous city hall that resembled St. Paul’s. Right next to that was a Ferris wheel that reminded us of the London Eye and a clock tower like Big Ben. Anyway, we walked around for a bit and after visiting the TI centre decided to do a hop on-hop off bus tour of the city that took us into the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods of Belfast, something we both really wanted to see. Around 4 we hoped on the bus after eating at Subway…yes we’re that cool. The tour was awesome! It took us out to the docks where the Titanic was built and the two biggest cranes in the world. It went around the city, explaining things along the way, then onto Shankill Road, a large Protestant neighborhood with lots of murals dealing with “the troubles” and unionist supporters. Then we went through the open peace wall, it’s locked after 7pm every night, but only a few years ago it was a checkpoint and guarded day and night. Then we went to Falls Road which is a heavily Catholic area with its own murals and memorials to those lost in the fighting. It was hard to believe what went on there not too long ago and that gunmen were snipping from apartment buildings and gun battles were going on across the very roads we were traveling on. They told us that it wasn’t until recently that the buses could go into those neighborhoods safely and that before, tourist weren’t safe because if they didn’t recognize you they thought you could be a terrorist planting a bomb. It was a fantastic tour and we were both glad that we decided to do it. We had a hotel booked in Antrim, not far from Belfast airport and the TI people told us that there was a bus that went directly to the airport from just outside the centre. It was suppose to come like every 20min or something, but we (along with some other very annoyed people) waited for almost an hour. When it finally did come though we got a free ride! So in a way it was worth it, I warmed up eventually. We had a really nice dinner in Antrim near the hotel at a place called Moe’s Grill. It was sort of American-ish, but pretty nice. We got Kopparberg, my favorite drink I’ve found here in the UK. It’s an alcoholic cider (all cider here is alcoholic, not the kind you get from apple orchards in the states) and it comes in apple, pear or mixed fruit. Dave got apple and I had pear and it was wonderful! We’re now both big fans! :) We had got a rental car at the airport so we could drive up to the Antrim coast on Saturday.

Emmy and Clyde-DUBLIN

Wow, where to begin? Well, I guess the beginning would be a very good place to start. The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of fun and new experiences, but it feels like I haven’t posted in forever. I’ll break it up again to make it easy to read. So, my lovely David came on Tuesday the 28th and I was the happiest girl in the world. It had been almost two months since I had left him at O’Hare, but to see him after all that time was the best feeling in the world. We both didn’t want to let the other go, but we eventually got his stuff in and settled. We decided to walk down to High St. and give him a quick tour around, even swept through the cathedral quickly. Wednesday I decided to skip my British History class because I was tired and have heard enough about Henry VIII to last me a lifetime. Dave audited my Modern Britain class and enjoyed hearing the discussions during the seminar. We left that night around 8:30pm out of Gatwick airport for Dublin. It was a really quick flight and once we got to the airport we had to figure out how to get to the hotel. Thankfully there was a shuttle from the terminal to the hotel, so that was pretty hassle free. The next morning we grabbed some breakfast at the hotel and went back to the airport to get a bus into the city centre. We ended up getting this Dublin pass thing that gets you into a lot of tourist sites in Dublin, as well as gets you on a bus down to the centre. It ended up not paying for itself as we thought, but we weren’t that worried about it. It was pretty chilly and rainy, but the rain sort of went away later in the day. The bus let us off near Trinity College and we decided to go see the Book of Kells that is kept there. The college itself is really cool and so was the Book of Kells, it’s so old and detailed, simply amazing! I actually enjoyed the library in that same building more that the book. The library was really old and massive! It reminded me of the library from Beauty and the Beast with ladders the roll along the shelves and just row after row of really old books. I wish I could have taken pictures of it because as a book nerd, it was thrilling! After a stop into the tourism information centre, we made our way down Grafton St. which is a big shopping area in Dublin. Had to take a picture of Molly Malone, or “the tart with the cart”- the picture should explain it. :) At the end of Grafton St. was an entrance into St. Stephen’s Green, a beautiful park in the city with lots of ponds, beautiful trees and some interesting memorials. Dave and I both really enjoyed walking around the green and taking pictures. We decided to try to find Dublin Castle on the way to the Guinness Storehouse. Well, we found it and it was really disappointing, especially after the castles I’ve seen in Europe. So we kept going and found the Guinness Storehouse in sort of a shady area. The exhibition they have there is really cool because the building is shaped like a huge pint glass. At the very top is the gravity bar where you can get the pint that comes with your admission. Since I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast I decided to just share with Dave. It was honestly the best Guinness I’ve ever had, considering the stuff I’ve had before was awful. We walked through the exhibits and went to find the Jameson Distillery that wasn’t supposed to be too far…yes we’re such boozers, I know, but what else are you suppose to do in Dublin or Ireland for that matter? ;)

Well, to make a long story short, we found it, but we didn’t realize it so we did go…I know that doesn’t make sense, but there are better things to explain. I really, really wanted to see the General Post Office in Dublin where the Easter Rising in 1916 had taken place. I couldn’t believe that I was actually seeing the building that I had read so much about. The inside was really cool and old looking and the outside you could see some of the bullet holes still. Pretty cool. We were both pretty hungry…by now it was late afternoon so we grabbed some quick eats at a place called Munchies…not the greatest and we were still hungry, but we wanted to get to our hotel so we had some time before the concert. We asked at the TI what bus would get us close to the Ardmore Hotel and there was a bus that stopped right in front of it, but we had to walk a ways down O’Connell St. to get to it. Some people were smoking on t he bus which wasn’t pleasant, especially since we were stuck in traffic. We were both really tired because we had walked all day with our packs on and not a whole lot to eat. It felt great when we got to the hotel and were able to relax for a bit. Both of us were really excited to get to see the High Kings that night. We took a taxi from the Helix and had a really nice driver that made us laugh..a lot. To put it mildly, the concert was amazing! I was obsessed with them before and to see them, in Dublin, with a mostly Irish crowd, with the one I love was a dream come true. Dave and I had a great time singing along with the songs and listening to the conversations going around near us. These little old Irish ladies were so funny. They are all so agreeable with each other it just made us laugh. After the concert was over we got to meet them and get our tickets signed by them. My sister, who has fallen pretty hard for the High Kings at only 10 years old, is extremely jealous and now wants to see them live too. After another ride with an awesome Irish taxi driver we crashed for the night and took the train to Belfast for Halloween!

Oxford, the Cotswolds, Bath, Lacock and Stonehenge tour

Hi everyone!
It's been a busy weekend traveling around the western part of England, but I was able to see so much! The tour was poorly managed with timing, but it was enjoyable none the less. We took a bus Saturday morning from Canterbury up to Oxford. We got stuck in traffic on the M25 (the main motorway that circles London...very busy all the time) for about on hour, so our schedule for the rest of the day was sort of messed up. We had an hour walking tour of Oxford with a really great guide who happened to be our guide for the entire trip. There was a lot of interesting buildings to see at Oxford University. I never realized that so many colleges made up that huge university! So many famous people have gone to Oxford including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and they re also buried nearby. A lot of the Harry Potter films were also filmed in various locations aroudn Oxford. I got near some of them, but didn't want to pay the money to go in to see them...yep, I'm cheap. The one place we were going to pay to go into was Christ Church were the Great Hall from the movie was filmed, but when we got there, there was a sign that said it didn't open until 2:15pm and we had to be back by 2pm. O well, it was still pretty building to take pictures. After Oxford, we drove into the Cotswolds and visited a few of the villages there. I loved the Cotswolds, everything was so quiant and beautiful. I can't believe people actually get to live in these beautiful little villages! We got about 45min or so in each village, which was not enough time, but we were able to take a lot of pictures and enjoy walking around. We stayed in Bristol for the night and after so much time on the bus we were ready to be off and relax. Beth, Amy, Laura and I shared a room and we literally ran to Sainsbury's to get food because we just needed to release some energy. In Burford, one of the Cotswold villages, we bought an apple pie in a little bakery to have later that night. We completely demolished that pie...and a lot of the ice cream we bought at Sainsbury's. It was really, really good, but not quite like an American apple pie, but we weren't complaining...pie is pie. Everyone had a rough night of sleep, but we were off again in the morning after setting our clocks back a hour in to GMT. Our first stop was Bath for another walking tour of the Royal Crecent and down to the old Roman baths. I didn't actually go into were you could see the baths, but I saw it from the ourside. There was a really pretty abbey right next to the baths and I spent most of the time on my own just walking around the city, taking in all of the beautiful views, even though it was raining. Next stop was Lacock, another village in the Cotswolds and another filming location for Harry Potter. Amy, Laura and I decided to have a little lunch in this cute tea room we found. It was so yummy and the soup we had was perfect for such a cold, rainy day. After Lacock we drove to Stonehenge, we were really getting tired of the bus by now. Stonehenge was cool to see, but I probably wouldn't go back again. It is one of those things to see once, just to say you've been there. We didn't have much time there, but I was ok with that since I really only needed about 10 minutes to see what I needed to see. We got back to Canters at about 7pm, after a nearly 3 hour bus ride. I'd be ok if don't get on a charter bus for a while now. Today I have a paper to write and get ready for Dave to come tomorrow! I can't believe he's actually going to be here, but I'm so exited. The plan now is to leave for Dublin on Wednesday night, go to Belfast on Friday, Antrim coast on Saturday and Sunday leave for Scotland. We'll see how that all plays out, especially if there is trouble in Northern Ireland...I hope not. It will probably be after we get back from Ireland and Scotland before I write again. Take care!
e