Galway, Ireland

The weekend after I went to Newquay, I went to Galway, Ireland to visit my sorority sister Vanessa. She is there for grad school as well. I flew from London to Shannon, Ireland and then had to take a hour and a half bus ride to Galway. There is no other way there. Vanessa met me at the bus station and we walked through the town center towards her apartment. Let me point out that it is not really her apartment. She was living with three other girls in this small place which wasn't in the safest of neighborhoods, so they all eventually moved in with their boyfriends, who just so happened to all live in the same place. The boys' place was in a much nicer area. When I first got there we ended up ordering pizza and hanging out around her place. Later when he boyfriend got back from studying for his exams, we went to a pub and had a drink. The first night wasn't too exciting. I lucked out and the whole time I was there, there was a free bed for me to stay in.

The second day we went shopping and walked around Galway. Vanessa showed me her school and we met up with a few of her friends and talked with them for awhile. While we were heading to her school we stumbled upon a really cute cafe. It reminded me of a flower nursery. You could buy some flowers but also eat and drink tea. So we order a pot of tea for each of us. Her school is really pretty. There is a lot of grass and trees, and this really weird yellow sculpture that her and her boyfriend were making fun of. That night we tried to make plans to go out, got ready and everything, but ended up hanging out with Vanessa's roommates and never actually made it to the bar.

The next day Vanessa had to work, so I went to a place called Salthill. It was about a 10 minute bus ride. When I first got there, I found a cafe and had some tea and read a book. In Ireland, when you ask for tea, they don't give you just a small cup of it. They give you a huge pot. I managed to drink the whole pot I had, but had to pee so badly afterwards. That's what I get. After that I walked along the beach and sat on some rocks and read a little more. Then wondered the town and headed back to Galway. Once I got there, I walked around a bit then went back to Vanessa's apartment and hung out with her roommates until she got back from work.

The last day there, Vanessa had to work again, so I woke up a bit early, got ready and then headed into town stopping to get a few souvenirs for myself, my parents and Dan. I met up with Vanessa at her work for lunch and then headed to catch the bus back to Shannon Airport. This weekend was a lot of fun. I didn't do too much, but I really enjoyed my time there. I wish I had more time to go back again. Vanessa is coming to London again soon and then we are heading to Croatia for the weekend. This Tuesday I am heading to NY for two weeks. I won't have time to make it down to Maryland though, which makes me sad. While I am in NY I am going to try and pick up shifts at Ruby Tuesday where I worked when I lived up there. Dan's brother is graduating so we are going to that. We are also going to the Bronx Zoo and a Yankee's Baseball game. Plus my friend's wedding. So it will be busy. Love and miss you all xoxo



Galway, Ireland

Maryland/Newquay

I am really slacking on this blog thing. I guess this is why I never kept a diary as a kid. Anyways, most of the pictures I took while I was home in Maryland were at the wedding so I am not posting any of those up, but I will tell you a bit about home. The first thing I did when I landed was go to Ruby Tuesday with my dad. We didn't eat there but just got me some spring rolls that I had been craving for, for about FOREVER! He is such a nice daddy. The day after, Dan came down from NY. While he was there we went to Great Falls, My mom's house, saw the babies and kept pretty busy. I had two doctors appointments (check-ups, everything is fine) and an interview with Montgomery County Public Schools. Hopefully I get to work with them one day, along with a few other family members. :) Afterwards, I flew back to London. I had fun at home, and while relaxing, busy at the same time.


About a week after I got back from Maryland, I took the train to southern England to Newquay to visit the Grahams. All of the pictures that are from Newquay are located in the slide-show. I figured it was an easier way to upload the images on my end, and for you to look at them on yours. The first night I got there, we had dinner and went to see Iron Man 2. This movie came out a week earlier then it did in the States, so of course I had to see it so I could brag to Dan that I saw it before him (he goes to the midnight movies of everything). I really enjoyed it.

The next day we went to Plymouth. Yeah, it's that place that the Pilgrims set sail from on the Mayflower. We first went shopping for a bit and then headed over towards the water. It was beautiful. This small little beach town. Well not really small, but anyways. Elaine told me that they are fixing up a pool that is right by the ocean that they built forever ago. I guess the sea water comes in there during the day and then they drain it at night, like they do on cruise ships. There were all these little changing huts on the side of the hills for people to change and areas for them to relax. There were not that many people out when I was there since it was still a bit too chilly. We walked along the harbor and ended up near the stairs where the Mayflower set sail from. Not really all that exciting to look at. Apparently, about half of the dock/walkway is gone. There were booths set up with people selling food, jewelry and other stuff. It was pretty nice. Ashley finally found a watch. She had been hunting for one for forever. On the way back to Newquay from Plymouth, we stopped at an American diner. It was really nice for them to do, but I have to admit, it is weird having a British person serving you your food.

The next day we went to Boscastle. This tiny little town set in a small valley. The river that runs through the town flooded a few years ago, destroying half of the town. The river runs right into the ocean when it is high tide. We walked up the hill and once you were at the top it was just cliffs and the ocean from there, next stop would be America. It was so windy, to the point we couldn't stop laughing because our hair was flying around all over the place. Well the girl's hair, not David's. It was really pretty here. We also got to see a seal just swimming around and heading back into the ocean. It was so cool. I wish I could have gotten closer to it. Afterwards we headed to Tintagel. This is the location of the castle that King Arthur was born at. They wanted to charge us to walk around the castle, but it was so ruined, that all the stone was starting to look like it was part of nature and had been there forever. Well it had been there forever, King Arthur would be very old by now. All of the places we visited while I was there were right along the coast so everything was beautiful. We walked around here too. We ended up coming up to a church and there was a sign on the door saying it had been a holy ground since the 1400s. We were walking around the graveyard trying to find old stones, but we couldn't tell too many of them because the salt water in the air had made some of even the newest ones, look old and hard to read. That night I finally watched Avatar for the first time. Not too shabby.

My final day there we went to Bedruthan. That had to be my favorite place that we visited while I was down there. The water was so blue and so pretty. We had to climb down these steps to get to the water. It was scary! They were so steep. Might as well have been climbing down a ladder. When we first got there, the water was a lot higher up, but it was slowly becoming low tide as we were walking around and climbing on the rocks. There were these dogs that kept running into the water. It was really cute. Elaine said that when the tide is out, you can walk for miles around all the edges of the cliffs right along the water. We were not able to do that on this visit since I needed to get back to the train station. I had a lot of fun when I was down there. When I got back to London, my roommate, Jessie, saw my pictures and she liked them, so we both decided we are going to head back down again for a weekend at the end of July. I can't wait. :)



NEWQUAY!!!!

No Good Very Bad Blog Updater

I know, I'm horrible. I hope one day you can find it in your hearts to forgive me for the lack of updates. I swear, half the time I am not doing anything fun and exciting. I promise promise that when I get back from Ireland on Monday (I leave Friday), that I will have some entries up for you. It will be about Maryland, Newquay and Ireland, with pretty pictures too!

If you want to look at some pictures now, here are two links:

Pictures #1

Pictures #2

Miss you all.

Video

HAPPY EASTER

Hope you had great food!!

(Source)

Visit

My sorority sister Lisa came to visit me on Sunday and she stayed until yesterday (Friday). It was really nice to see her! When she got into town we hung out for a bit then walked around so she could see a bit of London at night. Please forgive me as I can't remember the exact days we did stuff. But while she was here we went to the Tower of London. We did the tour so Lisa could see the inside of the Chapel. Afterwards we walked over to Tower Bridge to climb up it. I suggest going up this instead of going on the London Eye. It's just as awesome of a view and you can take as long as you want. The London Eye takes half an hour no matter what, and it gets boring after awhile (well I think it does). Plus the Tower of London is A LOT cheaper. Yay for student discounts as well! We also went to Kensington Palace to this new exhibit called 'The Enchanted Princesses' It was really cool. They had designers created dresses specifically for the exhibit. When you walk in its like you are in a mix of a Tim Burton world and Alice and Wonderland. There were people walking around as investigators. You are supposed to go from room to room looking for the Princesses names hidden throughout the palace. There was one investigator who was singing as I was trying to walk through the door she stopped and stared at me. It was one of the funniest things because as I walked through the door she just kept starting. I know it sounds odd and I guess it was kind of you had to be there thing. Lisa and I also went to see 'How to Tame your Dragon' It was so cool! I recommend this to EVERYBODY. It is also one of the best 3D movies I have seen in awhile. The rest of the time Lisa was in town we just walked around and hung out. Both Lisa and my roommate Jessie left on Friday leaving me here for a week and a half by myself. It's okay though I have a lot of reading to do. I am meeting with some classmates on Thursday to hang out and I am hanging out with Verity on Tuesday. I am home in 12 days!!! YAYYYY!! See you all soon :)

Slide Show

I was playing around with my Flickr site, where I keep all of my pictures online (The link is on the right side of my blog). And I figured out I could make a slide show with some or all of my images. So here is a slideshow with any of the pictures I have taken in London since 2007, when I studied abroad, to today.

*Move your mouse away from the slideshow if you want all the bars surrounding the pictures to go away*

Update

So after that last post I am going to try and make this one brief. Just wanted to share some of the pictures I have been taking for class. I am trying to take pictures of the tourist locations but to make them look a little differently and make it so you are not quite sure what the actual image is. So I made all of the images unfocused and have the individual lights that is in each area the main focus. You can click on the images to make them larger.

London Bridge area

London Bridge area

Tower Bridge

Across the River Thames

Across the River Thames

Big Ben

London Eye

Road with Big Ben in the background

These images are going to be used for my dissertation which I am writing about tourism and how is affects the city and those who live there. Well that is my general idea right now. It could change between now and when it is finished. My formal classes end next week. From there on out I am still technically in school but I only meet with my teacher when I need to and I can use the library all summer. While I am here the rest of the time I have two papers to write that are due in April and then my dissertation is due in September, but I am moving back in August. I will turn in my dissertation before I move back. I am going to be doing quite a bit of traveling between now and by the time I leave. At the end of this month one of my sorority sisters who is studying abroad in Spain is going to be visiting for a few days. If you want to find me in the world the rest of the time, here is my schedule:

April 14th-21st

Maryland for my Dad and Julie's wedding

April 30th-May 3rd

Newquay, England to visit the Grahams

First Great Western Leave Paddington: 12:06pm

May 7th-10th

Galway, Ireland to visit one of sorority sisters

May 25th-June 7th

New York/Maryland for vacation and a wedding

June 18th-21st

Dubrovnik, Croatia with my sorority sister for vacation

June 28th-July 13th

New York/Maryland for vacation and two weddings

August sometime:

Home for good!!

I will have my American cell phone on and working while I am back in the states. Still the same number that you all have. xoxo

Brussels

Please please please forgive me for not updating in forever. I really have no good excuse for why I have not written. I wish I did. This is going to be two entries. This one about my trip to Brussels and then an update on everything else. There are going to be a TON of pictures. So sorry if you don't like long blogs.

So Aunty Brenda came to London on February 12th. She was supposed to arrive a day earlier but because of the massive amounts of snow that everybody got at home her flight got delayed. She arrived early in the morning came back to my apartment and slept for a little while. We then caught the bus to St. Pancras train station to catch the train to Brussels. It took up about two hours to get there. I took a nap on the way there.

Aunty Brenda and I

Our train information. Woohoo!!

Once we arrived in Brussels my first thought of the country was yum it smells like chocolate! Because well, it did! But the farther we walked around in the train station it didn't smell so pleasant. Plus it was not the nicest of places to walk around in. We were supposed to catch a really quick train to bring us to the station we needed to get to for our hotel but we both got confused and ended up on their metro. We ended up getting on going in the wrong direction, but eventually found our way to the hotel. Their metro is clean but it is really dated and old so it seems like it isn't clean. I guess that would be the best way to explain it. The station we needed was directly across the street from the hotel we were staying at. They were doing roadwork so if we wanted to walk to the hotel we had to walk around all of the work. It was a little annoying when you had snow blowing in your face. It was so nice seeing snow though. I know Aunty Brenda was tired of the snow after leaving all of it back in Maryland, but I hadn't really gotten any in London. The snow wasn't sticking on the ground though in Brussels. I really liked our hotel. The bed was a lot harder then I was expecting but I guess I need to get over the softness of beds over here. My bed in London was hard until I finally splurged on a mattress pad. We showered and went to bed early that night.

Our hotel room.

The next day we woke up and walked around Brussels for a few to find something to eat, explore and then walked to the train station to catch our train to Brugge. While we were walking around we had our first of I couldn't even tell you how many cups of hot chocolate. Each one just kept getting better and better. I did fall asleep for a bit on the train ride to Brugge, but the little I did of the country-side was beautiful and covered in snow. Once we arrived at the Brugge station we left the train and followed the crowd towards what we assumed was the city. Brugge is BEAUTIFUL. It's small and cute and what you would expect a small European town to look like. There are chocolate shops everywhere and they all smell amazing and have unbelievable window displays. I wanted to take everything home but it was all so expensive. We went to a chocolate festival that they were having that day. There were tons of different chocolate makers inside. Most of them giving samples. I can't even begin to explain how good some of the chocolate was. There was one piece a guy gave me that looked all crumbly and when I bit into it, it was sofa and there was a almost Three Musketeer like filling in the center, but so much softer and smoother. It was heaven. There was a section where people were painting on paper with chocolate and a girl sitting having a face mask painted on her face with chocolate. I would rather each the chocolate then put it on my face. Afterwards we went to eat at this really cute little place. Too bad the owner of the place got into a huge argument with one of the customers and ended up having the police called. Once they left, everything was really nice. From there we just walked around and explored the city. Before we left we had another hot chocolate. This was so awesome because if I remember this hot chocolate correctly, it was chocolate on a spoon, like in the shape of an ice cube and you take it and put it into a cup of hot milk and stir it until it melted. SO AMAZING.

Church across the street from our hotel.

Brussels is so cute.

My favorite Godmother.

Brussels

Please somebody get me one of these??

Our hotel

Brugge train station

So many bikes

It was so cold the water froze over. The sound that the ice made when the boat broke through it was really cool.

So cute.

Yum!

ALL of this is chocolate and ALL of it was for sale.

Center of the city.

Made out of chocolate at the festival.

Yup, this is chocolate too.

This is the mask made out of chocolate.

Walking around the city, it was a cheese and meat shop.

City center again.

The guy made it while we were having out hot chocolate.

When we got back to Brussels we walked around for a little bit and ended up at this place that had the most amazing mussels. I got so many in a pot that I couldn't eat all of it. It was this place that had so many tables crammed in that we were basically sitting on top of the table next to us. It was great. Afterwards we went to find Aunty Brenda a crepe.

The next morning for breakfast we went to get me a Belgian Waffle. See below. It was so good. It looks like it was really filling, and it was, but it didn't make me feel sick after eating all of it. It wasn't as heavy in my stomach as the waffles at home are. It was light and fluffy and so much goodness in my belly.

Before

After

Our next destination was the Atomium. For the older world fairs, each city would put up a piece, for example, Paris was the Eiffel Tower. This was Brussels. We did not go up since it was overcast and a lot of money. If it was nicer out we might have. This thing was massive and it was really neat to see the reflections of the surrounding area in the building/statue/whatever you want to call it. By the time we got back into the city center. It was starting to not get pretty out. It got dark really quickly and was sprinkling to the point you were getting soaked. We walked around to find the fountain with the little boy peeing. There are so many rumors as to what this story is about. Something to do with a little boy peeing on a fire, then another one about him getting lost. He has outfits that he wears depending on the season and holiday. While we were there, he wasn't wearing anything. I got a shot glass with his picture on it. There were tons of chocolate pieces shaped like him a well. It was really weird to see a town love a statue of a boy peeing.

Atomium

Aunty Brenda and I

Chocolate sculpture that is bigger then the actual Statue.

Little boy peeing.

Later that night we caught the train back to London. I ended up staying awake for the whole ride back. I was bored since Aunty Brenda was sitting behind me this time. The next day we got up early-ish and went to see if we could get tickets for a play for that night. We ended up seeing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. James Earl Jones and Phylicia Rashad were starring. The play was really good but so long. There were two intermissions!!

Us outside of the theatre.

The next day Aunty Brenda walked around by herself for a little while to see some of the stuff she wanted to see while I stayed home and tried to get some work done. The night before she left we went to see Wicked. It was my third time seeing it, but I love it so much so I was okay with seeing it again. It was Aunty Brenda's first time seeing it. She loved it too. Finally Aunty Brenda had to leave me and go home. :( I was really glad to have her here and enjoyed my time with her both in London and Brussels. Yay!

The stage for Wicked.

SORRY!!

I am so sorry for lack of updates. I PROMISE PROMISE I will have a really long entry soon.

xoxo