London weekend

Today is the last day of classes! That’s very strange but… oh so nice J Unfortunately, that means the due date for my massive pile of final papers is looming ever closer. My plan is to finish at least one of them by tonight… so naturally, I take this time to update you all on my life! See how much I care about you all?

Last weekend I went to Paris with Lauren and Megan, my two friends from Villanova, and my roommate Niki. Thursday night we went to see Les Miserables which, as some of you may know, is one of my absolute favorite musicals of all time! The performance was incredible. Megan and I had each seen it already, but Niki and Lauren hadn’t so we were excited to see what they both thought. Everyone thought it was amazing… a wonderful way to start our trip!

Niki and Megan had both been to London before and done all the touristy things, so we all kind of broke apart and did our own thing for the day. Before we split up, though, the four of us went to see Abbey Road together and went to Kings Cross Station to try to get to Platform 9 ¾ . After that, Lauren and I decided to stick together and find our way to the Tower of London. We took a guided tour with one of the Yeoman Guards and got to see the Crown Jewels! The tour was very informative and a lot of fun. After that we headed over towards Buckingham Palace and ended up walking through St. James Park, which was beautiful! We did some bird watching and found the oddest-looking bird we have ever seen. The only way to describe it is it looked like a dinosaur bird. Unfortunately, searching “dinosaur bird” on google hasn’t returned any good results yet. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the streets of London, finding Shakespeare’s Globe theatre and the Millennium Bridge. The other girls met up after that because they were going to a concert but, since it was to see a band I wasn’t really familiar with, I decided to save the 30 pounds and wander around Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus for a while, then went to explore Harrods. All very good decisions, I must say. The Egyptian Elevator in Harrods is ridiculously cool.

Saturday we took a bus tour to Windsor Castle (the Queen was home!), Bath, and Stonehenge. Stonehenge was definitely my favorite part. It was so cool to finally get to see it! It was also kind of funny to see people protesting tourism at Stonehenge… people with signs that said things like “Let our ancestors that are laid to rest STAY at rest.” There really isn’t enough evidence to suggest that Stonehenge itself is a burial ground… nor do we know whose ancestors actually built it… Anyway, we also went to the reconstructed Roman Bath house in Bath. I got to nerd out and show off my archaeological knowledge… it was fun J

Sunday was… not that exciting. Just caught our flight home and started working on that massive pile of papers…

So Sunday I head off to Paris for a few days! Disneyland Paris is launching their “New Generation Festival” on Saturday so we got a pretty good deal to go down for it which should be fun. They’re officially opening a few new rides and a bunch of the more recent Disney characters will be around. Then Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are exploring Paris and Versailles, and back to Galway on Friday! And then only a few more weeks until I’m back… how strange!

Bruges, Jess's Visit, Prague, and St. Patty's Day!

And once again I epically fail at keeping my blog updated in a timely fashion… ah well, I’m sure you’re all used to it by now J My latest adventures have taken me to Bruges, Belgium and to Prague, Czech Republic. Still working on posting Bruges pictures to facebook… they’ve been causing an annoying amount of trouble, but Prague pictures are up! My friend Jess from high school also came to visit over her spring break, which was really nice! So let’s see… bullet point time…

1. Bruges, Belgium
1. Ate lots and lots and lots of chocolate! Too delicious for its own good… or for my own good! We found this one chocolate shop called Dumon. It’s set a street back from one of the main squares and looks like a little cottage in the middle of the city (which is not entirely out of place since it’s one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe). It’s run by these two nice older ladies that were very chatty. We would go in pretty much every day to get a couple pieces of candy so they knew us well by the time we had to head home. Our last morning we stopped in to stock up on chocolates and they were very sad to see that we were leaving… probably because we were such reliable business!
2. Tried some of the “famous” Belgian beers… not my cup-o-tea… probably because I would take tea over beer anyway… but I’m glad I tried them. One of the girls I was traveling with really likes Belgian beers (family tradition at holidays) so she picked a couple out for me to try but… not a fan.
3. Went on a day trip out into the country and learned the difference between a Belgian castle (for military purposes) and château (for residential purposes). Also drove out to a nearby town and walked through a graveyard in which our guide told us that, because the ground was so waterlogged and coffins in Belgium aren’t very strong, you often find bones that have made their way to the surface. He then promptly picked up a vertebra to demonstrate this. Since he had been joking with us all day we thought he might have just planted it… until my (quite impressive) archaeological skills found a rib in another area… very eerie but kind of cool too. Definitely never heard of anything like that before! As part of the tour we also got waffles (delicious), saw how the chocolate pralines are made (complete with equally delicious free samples), and went on a beer tasting (not quite as delicious, but interesting to try… they had a cherry flavored beer which was interesting).
4. Went into the “Cathedral of the Holy Blood” which houses, you guessed it, a vial of the holy blood. Story says it was brought back from the crusades.
5. Ate more chocolates, and waffles!
6. Went on a canal tour
7. Saw the old almshouses where the poor could go to live and rich people would pay their living expenses, provided the poor prayed for the health and wellbeing of the rich.
8. Did lots of other site seeing, including a stop at a lace shop where the woman showed us how they make the lace.

2. Jess’s visit!
1. Me, Jess, and one of Jess’s sorority sisters from Villanova (and thus one of my sorority sisters as well) mostly hung out around Galway, showing her the pubs and shops and the claddagh and such
2. Had a really nice day so we walked down to Salthill and hung out by the beach before going out to dinner
3. Took a day trip around Connemara which was absolutely beautiful
4. It was so nice getting to see one of my friends from home! I miss everyone so much that it’s really nice when I get to see a familiar face.

3. Prague, Czech Republic
1. Went to visit my UMD roommate from the past two year’s Beth in Prague, where she’s studying for the semester!
2. Went out to lunch near her apartment the first day and got some delicious Czech food that later decided it didn’t like me eating it L
3. Went on a field trip with her program to a glass blowing factory where we actually got to make our own pieces! I made a decorative (and non-functioning) water jug. I blew the jug myself, and added the handle! Buuuut wasn’t allowed to add the spout… oop haha.
4. Went to the town of Litomerice where we had lunch and then went to a wine tasting!
5. Did a free walking tour of the city one day while Beth was in class. It was a great tour (with a company that I’ve done tours with before in other cities) and I learned a lot about the extensive history of the city. Convinced Beth to come along on their castle tour and, even though Beth knew most of the info already, we had fun and learned a few things.
6. Again, it was soooo nice to be able to see a friend from home, especially since I hadn’t seen Beth since around June or July.

4. St. Patrick’s Day!
1. Celebrated St. Patty’s here in Galway, which was amazing! The parade started at 12:30 so we went down around 11:45 and it was already ridiculously crowded! The most people I have ever seen in Galway!
2. Parade theme was “Over the Moon” so instead of being St. Patrick’s Day themed everything was space themed and the parade came complete with dancing stormtroopers… yeah, that’s right, DANCING stormtroopers.
3. Spent the rest of the day hanging out in pubs, going out for a fish and chips dinner, and watching everyone celebrate dressed up in Irish flags, wigs, face paint, the works.
4. Went to a pub after dinner and heard the WORST pickup line ever used on one of my friends!

-“Is your second name Jacobs?”

~”Um… no?”

-“Oh, cuz you’re a real cracker!”

~”I…don’t understand…”

Apparently telling someone they’re a “cracker” in Ireland means they’re very attractive but… doesn’t exactly translate haha

5. Sadly, the Irish party HARD and I got pushed into by a very drunk Irishman, fell down, and twisted my knee again L 3 days later and I’m still pretty much confined to my apartment. Hopefully it gets better soon!

Off to London next weekend, classes end March 31^st, spending a couple days in Paris and Euro Disney during NUIG’s spring break, and then home April 26^th… mixed feelings about that but I think I’m ready to come home. It’ll be nice to see everyone again!

Maybe if y’all are lucky I’ll get another update in before coming home… I think it’s doable… especially since I’ll have lots of papers to procrastinate writing!