Final Weeks in London (and Greece :))

Well as you can about imagine, the past few weeks have been packed with a bunch of different things as my semester is wrapping up very quickly! I’ll try to catch you up as quick as possible.

- My friends Erica and Jackie put on a fantastic 22nd birthday for me. The day was complete with shopping, a high-end car rally with every high end car you can think of (Porsche, BMW, Rolls Royce, Ferrari, and many many more), then we went for dinner at a place called Roadhouse where a lot of the other students from Vandon joined us for an excellent night!

- I finally went to see the musical Legally Blonde on may 3! It was so good and I even got the leading lady’s (Sheridan Smith) and a few others’ autographs after the show.

- I gave my final presentation and finished my LMU final papers before we headed off for the weekend (which was a huge relief!)

- During last week, we not only had issues with the volcanic ash cloud disrupting flights but more specifically for where Erica, fonzie and i were planning to go for the weekend – GREECE :). Two days before we were supposed to leave, riots broke out in Athens and they turned violent leaving 3 bankers dead. They are in major debt and their government is taking action to get out of it by freezing pensions and cutting a lot of jobs and the people are not so fond of this idea. Needless to say, i was freaking out and wondering if it was still safe to go. Athens airport was closed most of Wednesday so we decided to just wait it out. We ended up going and it was the best trip i’ve gone on yet! We flew into Athens, found the bus that took us to the port, bought ferry tickets and boarded with ease. We then had a 45 min ferry ride to the island of Aegina where we took a 20 mins cab ride to the other side of the island to our hotel. Things could not have gone smoother! Greece is probably the most beautiful place i have ever been to besides New Zealand (they are pretty close though!) We woke up to birds chirping and scooters riding up and down the narrow streets! We had breakfast and talked with the owners of the hotel who were so nice and accommodating and really made us feel at home! We did a little Greek shopping and decided to find the Temple of Afia. We were told it was just up the road and to the left. Turned out it was up the road and about a 2 mile hike up the mountain later, we finally arrived! :) Let’s just say flip flops were not the smartest thing to wear! We spent time admiring the view from the top and taking pictures and then made it back down. We then decided to check out the beach and it just so happened that there was a wave runner race/exhibition going on so we got a little entertainment as well! because technically, if i would have been back home, i would have been graduating, we celebrated by having dinner “on the rocks” overlooking the water and watching the sunset and then walking down the beach to a cute beach bar thing to enjoy Grasshoppers, thanks to Erica :) The next day we explored the town a little more and watched the last day of the wave runner race. On Monday, we got up on time to catch the ferry back to Athens and tried to figure out the transportation system in this city. We had a little trouble! We spent abut 2 hours trying to get to the acropolis and Parthenon. When we finally found it, we took pictures, admired the view and had to get back to the airport to catch our flight home. I definitely suggest Greece as a holiday destination! It is spectacular!!

- We arrived back in London on Monday evening. Tuesday i finished my final paper for my Central Class and handed in the last of my LMU paperwork. We took our final tests on Thursday – i am officially done with college! At night, we had a final farewell at vandon house with a traditional British summer drink, PIMS and took pictures with my new friends. We did a lot of random stuff last night including climbing the lions at Trafalgar square, walking through St. James Park and taking a dip in Buckingham Palace (yep we were soaking wet!)  It was a great last night in London with the best people i’ve met this semester!

- Today I went to bring my friend Benji to the airport for him to head back to Chicago and went with jackie to bring some of her suitcases to storage as she is travelling over Europe with her sisters starting next week. I finished up some souvenir shopping and finished up the endless task of packing up my semester into 2 suitcases! Tonight will be a chill night of watching movies and hanging out!

- Tomorrow Erica and I make our way to Benidorm Spain for 5 nights as one last “Shabang” before we make our way back home! Ready or not!

- I will fly into Minneapolis on Saturday May 22nd. I can’t believe how fast this semester has flown by and how many amazing people i have met along the way!

Another week down…mixed feelings :)

Almost another week almost down! Monday Erica and I went to the Imperial War Museum for an assignment (yes it was due at the end of that day :S) but we got it in on time so its all good! And it was the best museum i’ve gone to so far. It was interesting to see exhibits from a country and city where the wars were fought. We hear about the wars in school but its a different sort of feeling when you pass by a building here in London and you can see holes or cracks that were done during the war. They had an exhibit from the perspective of the children living in England at the time of the war and evacution which was very interesting. There was also a trench exhibit set up for visitors to experience what life was like in the trenches during WWI – this was also where i met a member of the Royal Army who just so happened to run the marathon the day before! But that’s another story. Anyway, we finished with the holocust exhibit – what an experience that was! I will never understand… the exhibit was put together very well and it was very very interesting. Before we knew it, we spent over 3 hours in the museum and decided to walk back to Vandon – a lovely 45 mins i believe! It was a great day!

Tuesday – another day at Hoxton Trust. Today we spent the majority of the time working on updating her contact database and trying to figure out how to import Karina’s contacts into the outlook on the other computers…not as easy at it sounds :) It was Kiley’s last day so we went to our favorite “greasy spoon” where we are known as “their American girls” and had lunch. we attempted to make pancakes for dinner…lets just say our first ones were a little questionable as English pancakes are way thinner than they are back home. But after a little experimenting we mastered it!

Wednesday – class day, went to the library for a while to work on papers and then headed back to Vandon. Tonight was the long anticipated Vandon house ladies night out as we will all be heading back to America soon. We went to a place called Tiger Tiger were we received 50% off of everything! There was also a Groovy Wonderland downstairs where they had disco music playing and a cool lit dance floor. It was a fun time and a great opportunity for us all to hang out as a big group a final time!

Thursday – Central classes in the morning and then I met my LMU presentation group at 1 to go over our final presentation – which we went over time by 3 minutes but we rocked it! Only have to finish 2 papers and write a full one and i’m done for good! My group and i went to the Rocket (the student union place) to celebrate and play pool – I won :). It was fun to talk something other than our presentation topic.

Today erica and i decided to go on a walk with the destination of Hyde Park. However, we got distracted by the Royal Navy. We had never seen those uniforms yet so we weren’t sure what was going on or if we were missing something important. So we asked a bobby and said they were going to st. james’ palace. We weren’t sure where  that was so we walked through the park and eventually caught up with them marching down the street and found out where it is – in the same complex where the princes live (or have lived im not really sure). Anyway, we couldn’t go in…some sort of security something or other…lame! anyway we made our way down picadilly and eventually made it to hyde park where we found out there was a 5k race every last friday of the month – we had to register online though so we couldn’t do it. The rest of the afternoon was spent on homework...i know it was as exciting as it sounded :) But it was worth it cuz we watched new moon – 10 girls in the lounge! Fun stuff!

Time is flying!

Wow! What a week! Tuesday was my internship day so Kiley and I worked on a may newsletter that could be sent out to the local residents compared to the trustees and other stakeholders of the Hoxton Trust. During our lunch break, I had my first official cream tea – tea with cakes. We met one of Karina’s friends who talked about the time she had tea with the queen! It was pretty cool and she was obviously very proud of it!

Wednesday and Thursday was class day…lets just say its getting a little monotonous as we have all the material we need to write our final papers :) I guess maybe there’s a little senioritis involved as well!

Then we get to the weekend! It was absolutely beautiful! Friday Jackie, Erica, Benji, Alfonso and I took the train to a small beach town south of London called Brighton. We walked around the town for a while and checked out a few of the boutiques and then headed to the pier. We spent sometime taking some pictures of the view and then made our way down the stone beach to get ourselves some traditional fish and chips and found a spot to chill for the rest of the afternoon. We were a little disappointed it wasn’t warmer but when we got back that night we discovered most of us got a little sunburnt!

Saturday – very productive morning! I worked on my papers and worked on my presentation information. Days are winding down – my final presentation on charity events is this Thursday (say a little prayer for me on that day please:)) It should go pretty well – my only problem is that i have way too much information for the time i’m given. Things could be worse! Then I have to finish my 3 final papers, finish my internship stuff and take a final for my contemporary Britian exam – Time is flying!! Erica and I rewarded our productivity by spending a few hours in Green park soaking in some sunshine!

Today (Sunday) was the day of the London Marathon – and if you must ask, i decided to be a spectator instead of running the race today – i just wasn’t feeling it when i woke up this morning :) In all seriousness it was one of the coolest events ive been too! It started somewhere in Greenwich and ended right past Buckingham Palace so it was just down the road from Vandon. The first guy to cross the finish line ran it in 2 hours and 5 mins! Craziness!! There were so many runners of all ages and countries. Some were dressed up in costumes like Fred Flinstone, super man, babies, bananas, etc. It was so cool to see how the runners helped each other out. When one of them fell down because their legs gave out, there would be two people right there to help them cross the finish line. It was a lot of fun!

Productive Monday

We had the best weekend in london this past weekend! With the volcano that blew up in iceland, there were (and still are no) flights in or out of the UK and the surrounding countries. We could tell, because the tourist level around buckingham palace was way down! The weather was perfect! We even pulled out the shorts and headed to Green park for a picnic. It’s crazy how the atmosphere and attitude changes when the sun is shining! Erica, Benji, Jackie and I decided to put the end of the semester stress away for the time and just sit in the park and enjoy the rays, read a book or magazine, people watch and just chill!

Today was a very productive day. For one of our assignments for British Experience Seminar (BES) we had to interview someone who lived through WWII and hear their stories and experiences. My friend Sadie and I went to the Chelsea Pensioners and were directed to a man named Bill – an 89 year old veteran who fought in Italy. He went through about 5 cigarettes in the hour we talked with him and told us about his friend Willy who he fought and about how he never got seriously wounded. The thing that surprised me the most was his respect and gratitude for America. Usually, the US gets spit on for some of the actions that have occurred in our history. But Bill had nothing but great things to say about American troops! He said “young people forget about the things that happened, but my generation remembers what really happened – I will always remember.” We had such a great morning with Bill!

Then Erica and I went to Liverpool Street to do a required walk around for one of our journal assignments for the same class – after we finished we somehow ended up on Oxford Street…but it was a very productive day overall!

Spring Break – Europe style!

alright a lot has happened in the last 2 weeks and i am way behind cuz i didn’t take my computer with me :) so this is going to be just a brief overview!

Thursday, April 1:

I pick up my parents from the airport and they have their first experience with London’s underground. We walk through Green park where the london weather gives the van’t hof clan a warm welcome – with a nice downpouring of rain :)

We went to see the musical Wicked (and yes it’s just as good the 2nd time!!)

Friday:

changing of the guards and ALOT of walking around (in the rain mostly) but they still saw the main sites including Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, houses of parliament, london eye, trafalger’s square, pall mall, leicester square and even up regent street a ways. We put on some serious miles!

Saturday:

Did the The Original Bus Tour through London where we saw more of the sites including the cathedral, tower of london, tower bridge, and london bridge. We hopped off at the tower of london for a tour of the. It was used for a palace, fortress, prison and one other thing i can’t remember. There were alot of prisoners who died in this place! We then hopped on a river boat that took us up the Thames, we switched buses and walked a bit to get to Harrods – a massive designer department store like place that had $2000 hand bags and the like! A great place to have a wedding registry :) We then did more walking and found a lovely mexican resturant and finished the evening walking to the london eye for a picturesque light veiwing of the city.

Sunday:

Up way to early to catch our flight. To make matters worse i didn’t realize picadilly line was closed so we got the opportunity to experience the infamous london taxis to the airport! Very fun! Check that off the to do list! We arrived in Rome, got talked into taking some shaddy hotel shuttle service but were glad when the guy actually dropped us off at our hotel and not some random other place! We were supposed to have a city tour that evening and we went to meet the elephant statue as we were told to and waited 1/2 hour in the pouring rain in our bus ponchos for our guide to show up. we got sick of it and left to find a place to eat and went back to our hotel.

Monday:

Our tour guide from the night before contacted us asking where we were – apparantly being on time means nothing in Rome :) but we rescheduled the tour for that night. The rest of the day we mastered the bus service and walked around to the coloseum, the republica, the trevie fountain, and a bunch of other historic places that i can’t pronounce. Everywhere you looked there was something beautiful to see! This is something we don’t get in the US because we are such a young country! But Rome has tons of it and it’s so beautiful! We also had a beautiful day and i thing i even got a little pink! We had our walking tour that evening where our London born guide explained the history and other interesting facts about the places we had seen earlier. We had our first gelato when we were finished and it was phenominal!!

Tuesday:

We checked out of our hotel and headed to the vatican today! This time our guide was a minnesota born girl – burnsville to be exact – who came to rome on a one way ticket and never went back home! She was a lot of fun and definetly knew her stuff! We saw a lot of artwork, the sistine chapel, St. John’s basilica. We even took the 365 (i think) steps to the top of the basilica for a beautiful viewing of the city! We then went back to get our suitcases to board our overnight train to paris. This was an experience in itself. Our train attended didn’t speak english, only italian, spanish german and french. He even came in at 8:30 to tell us it was time for bed but saying “Bed.” We had 2 private room reserved for this extravaganza – little did we know, these two room combined were smaller than our bathroom! There was a lot of family bonding going on :) But it was a great experience and i had a lot of fun!

Wednesday:

Arrive in paris at 9:30 and caught a cab to our hotel. We had to wait a little bit to check in so we went wandering around to find a few very cute shops and boutiques and an excellent pizza place for lunch. We then checked in to our hotel and cleaned up and ventured out again for more exploring – the louvre, concord, eiffel tower – yep saw it all! We also stopped at angelina for their famous hot chocolate! When we were at the eiffel tower to took the lift to the top for an amazing view of paris. We then had a few troubles finding a bus to take us back to our hotel, but a very nice american student helped us figure out what metro to take. Let’s just say London’s underground is way better than paris’!

Thursday:

We walked down to Notre Dame to walk through it and after waiting in line for 45 mins to walk to the towers to see the gargoyles we decided to check out the shopping instead before we boarded our on and off tour of paris. The tour was cold, but because we saw alot of it when we were walking the day before, we didn’t have to get off a lot and we could listen to the history and such too! We also went deeper into the city with this and saw the arch and where a lot of the really good shopping is! We saw the part of paris that i thought we were going to see  - like in movies like Passport to Paris and such, ya know!? we also went through the part of town where moulin rouge is and even were involved in an accident. Some guy in a mini van was trying to go around the bus and clipped the corner of the bus at a standstill. Very interesting! Don’t worry though, no one was hurt! We had an amazing american meal at Hard Rock Cafe (tadd was having a craving for a burger :)) and i was super excited to actually have ranch dressing with my chips!! It was a great day in Paris!

Friday:

Another early morning taxi ride to the train station to board the train to amsterdam. This time, it was only 3 hours and there was a beautiful sunrise to make the morning worth it! We checked into our hotel and did a little research on what there is to do in amsterdam. We took the hotel shuttle back to schipol and took the train into the city. We decided to walk along the canal and see where it took us. We ended up checking out the Ice Bar – a bar made completely of ice. It reminded me of a MN winter – way too cold! But there were some sweet ice sculptures!

Saturday:

We did a city bus tour that took us around the whole city and even got us into the Gassan Diamond factory where i learned alot of the different diamonds and tricks to test the clarity and color! Saw a 2 carot diamond – talk about large! we didn’t get to spend as much time as we would liked because our bus was leaving. But we then boarded another bus for our countryside tour! The best part of holland! We went to a dutch shoe making place, cheese factory, the windmills, the village called Marken and a fishing town that i could definetly go back and spend more time in! So cute!!

Sunday:

Traci and Tadd had to fly out today so we brought them to the airport and then the parents and I went back into amsterdam to walk around somemore. We ended up shopping a bit and then watching the tottenham and portsmouth football match. We then headed back to our hotel for a nice dinner and a full night’s sleep!

Monday:

We flew back to London today and our driver, Barry, picked us up from Gatwich airport and brought us 2 hours to an area called the Cotswolds in England. We stayed at a B&B in a small village. The cotswolds are known because most every house has to be built in the limestone brick but each place is built with its own unique style. Very cute!! Today we just walked the streets and visited the church and had dinner at a local pub.

Tuesday:

Barry picked us up this morning for our 4 hour driving tour of the cotswolds. This is one of the most beautiful places in england!! There’s a lot of sheep and a lot of green grass! It was a great tour and we saw alot of things. If you want more detail of what we saw just email me or talk to my parents :) We headed back to London with another guy Paul who dropped us off at mom and dad’s hotel. We did some last minute shopping on oxford street and finished up with dinner at nandos (the closed thing to b-dubbs i’ve found thus far) We then headed back to vandon and then i walked them back to their hotel, had a pint at a pub and then i took the bus back to vandon. As much fun as travelling europe has been, it was defintely a relief to be back home in london where most people speak our language :) i now can empathise with people who don’t know english – it’s really hard!!

Wednesday:

I met my parents at their hotel and then we went to victoria station to take them back to heathrow airport. After a little confusion we finally to our parting point – hammersmith, where i go one way to class and then go the other to the airport. You’'ll have to ask them how the trip to the airport was – sorry mom and dad :)

recap of the week

This past week was not too eventful. Spring break is approaching very fast so we are all anxiously awaiting leaving for our trips and more even anxious for my parents, traci and tadd to get here!! Tuesday I had a very productive day at Hoxton Trust. We put the april newsletter together and took new spring pictures of the garden to put in the newsletter. This was quite an experience. Karina didn’t have the cord to upload the pictures right to our computers. So, we went to buy a cd put the pictures on that and then upload the pictures to the computer from the cd. Well, we get to the “chemist” (like our pharmacy) where they have the photo kiosk. We have no idea how to use it, so we ask the lady to help us. She said that the cd burner doesn’t work. But she says we could try something else. Long story short – 45 mins later i finally politely cut in and suggest we just go through the steps that the machine tells us to do. It works. Funny. The lady says we are the first people to ever get it to work – we can’t believe this because the machine looks like it had been there awhile. Karina took us out for lunch to a cute little sandwich shop where we had our first experience with jacket potatoes. They are similar to our bakes potatoes but apparantly they are pretty popular in London.

Wednesday was class day for me at LMU. This was the last class before spring break so the attendance was terrible. Jackie and i both agreed that going to class was pointless because all the lecturers do is read through the slides. But in order for us to keep our visas, we had to actually go to class :) But the upside to this is that LMU’s spring break is 2 weeks so next week will be a breeze! After class, i worked on homework. For my Contemporary Britain seminar, we have to each give a 5 min seminar discussion starter. So i pulled some stuff together on British consumer and travel trends. Interesting huh? If you would like more information on this, just let me know and ill be sure to help ya out. That night jackie and benji got 2-4-1 movie tickets so kim and i went with them to see alice in wonderland in 3D. I didn’t really know what to expect from it but it was a pretty good movie!

Thursday was another class day. We watched London’s bid for the olympics in my events seminar and talked about the impacts it will have. Then erica, benji, fonzie, and i went out for indian with jackie because she was leaving the next morning for her spring break to china!

Friday erica, benji and i went up to notting hill and portabello market. It’s a market that has a lot of antique things so it was different than the other ones i had been to. Most of the shops/vendors were legit, but there were others where it felt that i was at some crazy lady’s garage sale! But it’s in a really cool part of town so it was fun to see something other than Westminster :) We later got caught in the rain but it was ok because when the rain stopped we saw a rainbow!!

We have had some really sunny weather lately! So we went for a few walks through the parks and just enjoying the sun! I honestly don’t think it’s going to stay this way – just have a feeling i guess. This is NOT typical london weather :) but if it stays this way, i will not complain that’s for sure!

Luck of the Irish? I think not!

Well Erica and I went on our first journey outside of the UK this past weekend – to IRELAND. The place I have wanted to go to since I knew I was going to be studying abroad! We were both really excited and we got a really good deal on our flights as well. Our Ryanair flight was scheduled to leave 9:55, gates close at 9:15. We left Vandon at the right time cuz as we were walking out the door, the power goes out cuz the construction that gives us our wake up call every morning hit some line so they had to shut the power off for fear of shock. So we left to take the train to Gatwick airport plenty on time so we wouldn’t have any problems. We checked in online so we had our printed boarding passes, checked in when we got there and headed through security. Things are going well and we have plenty of time before we have to make our way to the gate – the gate wasn't even up on the board yet so we checked out the duty free stuff. Finally, they put up the gate number and we make our way to the gate to board the plane. We get to the place where they tear our tickets and the guys says, “you were supposed to go through a passport check before you went through security because you are a non-EU passport holder. You will have to be escorted out to the bag check and get your ticket stamped. We can’t let you on the plane. You won’t make this flight.” WHAT?! are you kidding me? we just spent 2 hours messing around the airport and we had to get a stupid stamp? Apparently it was on our ticket, but we thought that’s what we did when we ‘checked in.’ apparantly not! So we book it back to the desk where we were supposed to be escorted out. Of course there is no one sitting there, so we have to call them and they tell us they will send someone down. 20 mins later 3 people finally show up – we are about in tears and very frustrated. We get escorted out to get the stupid stamp and they tell us there is no way we will make the flight so we will have to book another transfer flight but “unfortunately our flight was the last one to dublin that night’ and we will have to wait til tomorrow morning. Interestingly enough, Erica was talking with a guy and he said that’s what Ryanair does…even if we would have made it back to the gate in time (they close the check in gate 40 mins before the plane departs) they would have sent out someone to “randomly bag check” us so we would have missed the flight anyway so we would have to pay for another ticket. They more than likely had already sold our seats to someone else. Talk about being very upset and very angry!

Well, from here we had two options – book a transfer flight for 100 pounds or check out what we could find online. Well, we would have just went back to Vandon house to check our online sources but since the power was out we had to use the internet at the airport. The flight prices were outrageous so we decided to head back to vandon and figure it out in the morning. We heard from our friend that since the power was out Vandon was compensating us a meal for dinner so we found the only open place on Victoria street we could find at midnight and got ourselves some mcdonald’s as we talked about what just happened and what our next step would be. We walked back home…yep lights still off. We walk up the 3 flights of pitch black stairs with the only lighting from my phone, throw our bags down and go to bed.
The next morning, i go downstairs only to find that the power was still off. Reception said that it will be figured out by 2 and to just go out for breakfast and hopefully they know what's going on when we get back. So we did that and went to starbuck’s to use the internet and find that we can get to dublin by taking 2 trains across England and Wales and then a fairy from Holyhead to Dublin. So we go back to Vandon, grab our already packed bags and go to the train station. Awesome, we can still get there and spend some time in Ireland!! Things are looking up! The trainrides when really well! The ferry was really sweet as well! It was like a mini cruise! There was a buffet-style restaurant available, a bar, slot machines, arcade games, a movie playing, shopping and even a VIP lounge you could upgrade to if you wanted. 7 1/2 hours later we arrive in Dublin. We find out we just missed the last bus into town so we’ll have to take a cab. Thats what we do – except we have bigger problems. We don’t have a place to stay tonight. We call a few places and they are completely booked. There’s a concert going on in town and tomorrow there’s the big Ireland v Scotland rugby game. Everything is full! SWEEEEEET!! So our driver drops us off a hostel where they would be able to point us in the right direction.

We get rejected by the first 3 – fully booked. But they told us to check out Gardiner Street cuz it was lined with a bunch of places to stay. So we checked out i don’t know how many hostels and b&b’s but at least we had some options. We went into one and the guy showed us the room he was trying to sell us for the night – it was just mattresses on the floor, the bathroom was outside the room with the sink falling off the wall….yeah it was that bad!! So we said, “yeah we’ll think about it…” We were discussing our best options on the street when a guy came up to us and asked us if we needed a place to stay. He then brought us back to one we had been already which was one of the cheaper options we had and somehow talked us into giving him the money without seeing the room first. Let’s just explain the atmosphere in this terrifying experience shall we?!? we walk in and there was a group of 5 or 6 guys just sitting there looking like they were part of the maphia. Then the guy takes us through another room that had about 20 guys and one girl – eyeing us down and talking in whatever language they were speaking…we then proceed down a few steps to our room where the guy “unlocks” our room by pushing a few buttons on the door and saying the key code outloud for all to hear. Talk about feeling safe?! we walk in the room – half of the beds weren’t made from the last people who stayed there, the window is being held open with toilet paper rolls because it stunk so bad! The guy leaves and Erica looks at me and my eyes had to be about as big as ping pong balls with the most terrified look i have ever had in my life. I felt like we were going to be the next stars of “Taken” part two Dublin city centre style – and we were not going to take the part of liam neeson! Needless to say, we did not stay here long! Erica went back and told the guy were were not comfortable here and they sent us up to another hostel they owned up the road. It wasn’t great but it was a whole lot better than the first one! We ended up meeting another one of the owners ( a family with like 7 siblings own a number of hostels in dublin) and another guy who was with him. They were playing darts before we arrived so they taught us about the game of darts. It’s pretty big in Ireland i guess! I am not very good at all! but i think i made a little improvement!

The plan was to get up at 5:45 to meet the guys from our program (who were couchsurfing or at a different hostel for the night) to catch a bus tour to the cliffs of moher. Well, we looked online and it was too late to book online so we were just going to find an atm and pay for it before boarding. We get up on time (getting about 3.5 hours of sleep) and make our way through the drizzle to where we thought we were supposed to get on the bus. We called the guys and we were in a completely different part of town and still had to find an atm. Well, we didn’t make the bus and we were soaked. Great start to the morning, right? So we made our way to Mcdonalds for a little breakfast and a regrouping session. We decided to do different bus tour that some of our friends did when they came to dublin. We thought we were supposed to meet the bus at quarter to 10 but we get a phone call around 9:30 and we were supposed to meet them at quarter after 9. Oops! But our luck changed cuz we told them where we were at and they came to pick us up in the red van right there! The tour was so amazing and definetly the right tour to take! It went through the Wicklow Mountains on the back roads that aren’t used much :) We saw many lakes, an old monastery from the time when Christianity made it’s big spread throughout Ireland and also, my favorite, to places where they filmed bits of PS I love you and Braveheart! it was really laid back tour where we never stayed on the bus more than 15 mins so we could take pics and stuff. We had a great time!! I thought England was pretty, and it is, but nothing like Ireland!

When we got back we booked a hostel for Sunday night so we would be sure to make it to the airport on time. Then we went back to an internet cafe to check out a relaxing/chill/ safe place to stay that night so we could shower! We found a place online in a coastal suburb of dublin called swords that served breakfast and had a private room. We had a slight mix up with reservations but they sent us up the road to another place with open rooms and it all worked out fine! The place was super cute and quiet and Erica and I agreed it was probably the best shower we’ve had since we got to England (which says alot about Vandon’s plumbing… :)) We finally started to chuckle about the night before and how amazing Ireland was. however, it didn’t take long before we were both out cold from exhaustion! We got up on for our full Irish breakfast and got ready for the day wondering what the day held for us.

We took the bus back into dublin and dropped our bags off at our hostel. It’s crazy how heavy those bags can get when you carry them around all day! Then we did the most touristy thing we could have done in dublin – the hop on hop off bus tour! It’s like the big bus company tour in london where it takes you around the city to see all the historic and popular tourist sites. We saw trinity college, the largest park in England, Guinness brewery, the cathedral and a lot more. There was like 20 different stops! we didnt get off too much because we were a little pressed for time but it was a fun way to see the whole city! After the tour, we went to walk by the river Liffy and found a bench and just watched the river until one of our friends came to find us and we walked around for 2 hours to find a restaurant “off the path.” We didn’t find one. We ended up an Eddie rocket’s – a very american diner type restaurant. Then Erica and I went back to the hostel(the good one! an amazing one comapred to our past experience!) to clean up a bit before we went out to check out temple bar. We walked around temple bar for a while trying to find a chill place with come live irish music. We found one, got a table and took in the atmosphere and did a lot of people watching. There was a big rugby game that day, where Ireland lost to Scotland, so there were a lot of guys in kilts walking around! We never got a picture with one of them but it was still really sweet to see! We even met a few guys who were born and raised in dublin who told us about “lady guinness.” We didn’t know what they were saying half the time but their accents were really cool! That was our last night in Dublin!

We got up the next morning, boarded the bus that took us to the airport, went through the PASSPORT CHECK! and waited at our boarding gate. There was no way we were going to miss this flight! and we didn’t. We slept most of the way and we were back in london in no time! We really did have a great time in ireland, but we were glad to be back home in London - despite the fact that when we got back, they were tearing apart the Vandon House dining room and working on the electric so the downstairs had no power. They are remodeling our dining room – which when it’s done it will be nice, but until then its a pain in the butt! but o well – there are worse things! It was great first trip outside of the UK! and things can only get better i’m sure!!