Dublin.... Finally

Sorry it took so long to get these up and captioned. Unfortunately after missing our first flight (I don't want to talk about it) we get to Dublin on saturday. And of course it's freezing, incredibly windy, and torrentially raining. So needless to say not much was accomplished that day. However, the following day was beautiful, and the nice thing about Dublin is that everything is really close together so we ended up getting to see everything we wanted to in the one day we were there. We also had the help of my roommate's friend's boyfriend who is a native of Dublin. He circled all the places on the map he thought we should see. We called it the Grahame guided tour, but he was really helpful. We couldn't have seen all we wanted to see without his help.

This is the bridge yo see in all the photos of Dublin... it's just not at night, lit up, and doctored to look prettier than it is. It was actually quite lovely as is though.
About 2/3 of the way through our day we were exhausted and needed a break, so we found our way into a beautiful park. It give us the breather we needed to push on and see everything else.
See? Isn't it lovely?

And we of course did the tour of the Guinness storehouse tour. This is my Guinness which shortly after I attempted to stomach down, but quickly lost any interest and abandoned it. I'm not a big fan of Guinness as it turns out. However the tour was very interesting and the bartender made a shamrock design in the foam on my beer. So it was totally worth it.

The sign outside the brewery.

Random street in Dublin. I actually think this is where we had lunch and is famous for it's nightlife with bars and live music.
St. Peter's Cathedral. It was beautiful. But a little strange because there is a gift shop in the middle of the cathedral... not in a separate room or anything. Something about that struck me funny.
Christ's Church. Also beautiful.

So Dublin actually turned out to be a great experience. We were there for such a short time that I unfortunately didn't get to see any countryside, but I'm still quite satisfied with my trip. It was a nice relaxing trip to get away from the crazy pace and spread out layout of London. 

So I thought I would actually finish my blog series about Paris.... nearly two weeks later. It's honestly a bit harder than I thought to keep up with this but I'll try my best to catch up. Anyway, our last full day in Paris was largely spent in the Louvre. As I mentioned previously we had wandered around outside the Louvre but we came back the next day to actually spend some time inside.

This is pretty much our travel group for the weekend. We were the only ones who never wanted to take a nap in the middle of the day, 'cause you know, we're only in Paris once. Oh well. We're super tourists.

We saw some pretty famous stuff.... Just sayin.

I believe you may know her. Hey Mona!

I feel like this isn't that terribly famous but I just thought it was beautiful.

Then we hiked a marathon to get to the Arc de Triomphe. I forgot how big it was. Once we got up close I could not get the whole thing in my camera lens. I couldn't even get half of it in there.

Sorry for the short post but our day was literally almost entirely spent in the Louvre. It's massive. So long Paris, you are a beautiful city with a beautiful history and a creepy male population.

A Birthday in Paris

Paris was wonderful. I had a fantastic weekend and a wonderful birthday. The first night we were so exhausted we just wandered around Paris for awhile and then eventually settled at The Eiffel Tower for the evening to watch the sky grow dark and the tower light up. It was beautiful

So now begins the series of ridiculous amounts of Eiffel Tower photos.

Our first glimpse of the Tower
A lot of our group that went for the weekend.

I just really love this picture

Getting darker....

Every hour on the hour the tower sparkles for a few minutes which is incredible. However, it's a bit difficult to capture on camera so I'm really quite proud of this shot.

Day 2 in Paris (Saturday and my birthday)

First thing we did for my b-day was go shopping.... and then we found the giant bunnies. It was some sort of strange ad campaign. Either way I bought myself a dress and a scarf which I love, so happy birthday to me.

Then we had a delicious lunch, after which I got this instead of birthday cake. It was way better. Sooo good. Let's just say real whipped cream and rich creamy chocolate ice cream in a massive glass. best ice cream ever.

We then walked by the Louvre, but it was getting a bit on in the day and we were afraid we wouldn't have enough time to see everything we wanted so we went back the next day. This turned out to be a great idea because we ended up spending a good three or more hours in the Louvre. Seriously, it's massive.

We spent quite a bit of our weekend walking along this, which made for quite a lovely weekend. 

And then we ended our day of tourism at Notre Dame.... pretty much my favorite church in the world.

I couldn't take flash photography (out of respect) so I had to alter these images a bit in iphoto but I feel like they turned out fairly well.

And that's where I'll leave you for now. I'll post the rest of my Paris trip soon. Thank you for all the birthday wishes and birthday cards!

Cheese Rolling

So cheese rolling. It's a bit of a strange tradition, and it was probably one of the most bizarre days I've ever experienced. However it was lovely to get out of the city and into the countryside for awhile. 

Here's the view from part of the way up the hill. We didn't get to do the cheese run for insurance reasons but I don't think I would have liked to do it anyway. It's a bit dangerous.

I should probably explain what cheese rolling is. Essentially people race to the top of this really steep hill seen below. Then someone tosses a roll of cheese down the hill. As soon as the cheese starts to roll down people race to the bottom of the hill and whoever gets down there first wins the cheese. The only problem is that the hill is so steep that running down the hill is more like throwing yourself down a cliff. It was violent looking.

When we arrived at the town the sort of guide guy literally said "I'm sorry but you guys can't participate because our insurance doesn't cover you launching yourself down a hill after a wheel of cheese". 

So let's recap. In order to get up to a decent vantage point to watch the cheese rolling we had to hike up a hill nearly as steep as the cheese rolling hill itself for 3/4 of a mile to watch groups of people who were often in strangely clad costumes (imagine the Turkey Trot) throw themselves down a giant hill after a wheel of cheese.

I missed the cheese rolling down but here are the people. This is just the end of the hill, I didn't get a chance to see them come down the entire hill. I feel like it's brutal enough anyway.

Weird day. But I loved it.

My First Weekend in London Part 2

I realized that my previous post was getting too long so I thought I would split it up into two different posts. This one will be mostly pictures anyway.

Sunday:

This day was spent entirely at Hyde Park. It was a rare 70 degrees with clear blue skies in London and we took advantage of every minute of it. We headed to the park with the best of intentions to get some reading done, but that of course didn't happen. Instead we played frisbee, walked around the park, and generally enjoyed the sunshine and good spirits. 

My day at Hyde Park was honestly probably the best day of my trip thus far. Everyone was in a fantastic mood, and I'm not just referring to my lit london group. There were happy families, friends, couples, and even dogs everywhere in the park. The atmosphere in general seemed almost unreal it was so wonderful and positive.

Here's a shot of part of the park from where we were sitting. I couldn't believe how big the park was. we tried to walk around the lake-type thing in the distance but it was too long so we had to cross a foot bridge.

Me attempting to self-take a photo of myself and Allie.

People LOVE to roller blade in the park. This is a shot of people dancing to music on roller blades. It was quite impressive.

And of course the token phone booth picture.

Me at Hyde Park. Cheers! I love you all!

My First London Weekend

Lucky for us we have four day weekends in our class schedules. And I have to say it was quite a lovely weekend.

Friday:

We slept in after an exhausting week of adjusting time zones and going on crazy packed days of tours. It was fantastic. Then after lunch we decided to head over to the Tower of London since it's right across the bridge from us (for those just tuning in I live on Tower Bridge road as in the road that goes over the bridge and literally just a couple of blocks from the bridge. In some ways a very nice location and in others a bit far from things). Anyway, Tower of London was fascinating and we easily spent the entire afternoon there. We began with a tour with a Beefeater - somewhat of a guard for the tower - and then wandered throughout the towers on our own. It was fascinating to see the messages prisoners inscribed on the walls from hundreds of years ago. I didn't get to see Hitler's lou which was the cell we expected to hold Hitler in if he was captured, which of course didn't happen. Overall it was a great day, but I unfortunately forgot my camera.

Saturday:

Saturday was our day trip to Oxford (the real Oxford not Ohio Oxford) and it was gorgeous. A beautiful day and beautiful architecture meant me taken a lot of self-indulgent pictures that have no memory purpose except that they are pretty.

Oxford is known as the city of dreaming spires. I thought that was a lovely description. And it's true. There are spires everywhere. It's such a beautiful town. I wish I went to school in THAT Oxford. Although Ohio Oxford is pretty as well.... just not quite the same.

Oxford is the oldest university in England. So there is some incredibly interesting and historical things in Oxford. But I found myself just enjoying the beautiful scenery and the amazingly beautiful day, so unfortunately I don't have much in the way of historical anecdotes to put up here.

This is the stairwell where Professor McGona-something (I forget how to spell it) greets the students in the first Harry Potter film - "Welcome to Hogwarts" and all that jazz. It was fun to see, but some girl in our group literally shrieked when our tour guide mentioned this. It was a bit obnoxious.

We had lunch here. This is the pub where CS Lewis, JRR Tolkein, and several other slighlty less famous members of "Inklings" would meet up and share each other's writings.

And here's a random picture of people doing what is called "punting". Kinda like a gondola but a little less classy and a little more likely that someone will fall in. We unfortunately didn't have enough time to give it a go.

One of the only group shots I took all day. Some fellow Lit Londoners. From left to right Carrie, Alice, Kelsey, myself, Brittany, and Hannah. 

The Globe and The National Gallery

Thursday.

I know I haven't put up entries for the other days this week, bu

t I just don't have the energy right now. I'm hoping to sort through everything this weekend, so until then things will be a bit out of order.

Our first scheduled tour today was of the Globe Theatre. Or at least the replication of the Globe. It is amazing how much they've been able to put together based on the history they've uncovered. Always a fascinating tour. 

This shot shows the open roof.

They were setting up the set for Romeo and Juliet during our tour.

And this is the outside of the theatre.

After the play we had a two hour break to eat and do whatever so we just relaxed out in the sun on the Thames.

 

After our break we walked over to Trafalgar Square and had a Blue Badge tour of the National Gallery. After a couple of hours of that we went over to the National Portrait Gallery where my group in my Shakespeare class gave a presentation of a portrait of Henry VIII. Our group was the first to present - the other groups will be staggered throughout the trip - and it wasn't fantastic but I'm glad we have it out of the way.

Now begins the series of Trafalgar Square photos. Apparently there are these big lions that rest at the foot of the iconic statue of Trafalgar Square that people always climb all over. The boys attempted this....

The lions turned out to be a little more awkward than they expected to climb. This is Alex flinging himself up the lion's bum. They tried it several times, nearly all of the attempts ending with them slowly sliding back down the lion's butt. A twelve year old kid eventually had to show them how to get up there. It was the epitome of the word dignity let me tell you. 

They eventually made it. I thought Alex (on top of the lion's head) looked especially triumphant. Erin, Amanda and I were laughing hysterically the whole time. They were actually so ridiculous that a guy making a tourist film came up and asked them to be in their film. 

And here's a bonus pics for the parents. Here we are sitting on the lawn in front of the national gallery. The girl in the red is part of our group and taking a nap. So I just wanted you to know I'm doing well and having a great time!