Céad míle fáilte

A hundred thousand welcomes.

I visited Ireland from the eighth through the twelfth, soon after my second timed essay for history.
I think it went alright.
I'll find out after I get back home.

I have my physical chemistry final on Friday...I haven't really started studying for it yet. I know, I know...First I go posting the cliff pictures on Mother's day, now I'll have her all worried that I'm not studying and I'm letting my grades go to the pit. Naw Mom, I'll be alright. I'm just having a lazy day, that's all. I needed to catch up on sleep anyway.

So on Wednesday I hadn't even started packing until 4. I just missed the airport bus that leaves at 6 ( I got there at 6:05). What's annoying is that the bridge that leads from Pulteney Road to the train station is under repair until after I leave, which means it takes me an extra 10 minutes to walk to the bus stop. I have to use Lower Bristol road bridge near the bus station. (You guys should be capable of using google maps if you want to see what I mean.) I decided to check a bag into hold this time since I'd be staying 4 nights. I probably could have managed just the backpack but it was nice not to have to get out the baggie of fluids and it was much less of a hassle. I'm pretty used to this flying stuff now. On my flight back I managed to sleep nearly the entire way, which is only about an hour flight. Anyway my plane was the last to leave Bristol at about 10:30. I got into Dublin airport a bit late and took the bus to my hostel. Oh, and Dublin airport has free wifi, which is awesome! I love airports with free wifi! Three other girls were looking for the hostel as well. I think we were all looking for some big lit-up sign, so it took us about a half hour to find even though it was like, a minute walk from the bus stop. We got Talbot Street and Talbot Place confused. I got to sleep around 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning.

Thursday I got up at 6 for my giant's causeway tour. The pick up place was only about a one or two minute walk, so that was nice. Bought a coke. Slept a bit on the bus. Our tour guide/driver was pretty funny. He knew a lot about his route and the history of Ireland.

So I'm tired of writing and I said I'd go to Molloy's and I need to eat something first so I'll get back to editing this later.

The City of Light

Paris is everything you dream about.
It is that magical city where people fall in love and the Eiffel Tower stands proudly above it all.
It is the epitome of grandeur.
It is a city that I actually like.

Mom told me that I haven't posted a blog in a while. I may have rolled my eyes and said "yeah but I've posted pictures and the pictures have descriptions!" But I know what she means. I'm sitting here realizing that all the travelling I've done in the past week and a half has sort of left me in a bit of a shock. What will happen to me when my life returns to normalcy? Will it? Will I always be travelling whenever I have the funds from now on?
So I realized that I need to do a little reflecting on my travels.
Or maybe I'm just putting off studying and laundry.

So I flew with easyjet, and the workers seem to be quite a bit more pleased with their jobs than the Ryanair employees, because they were a lot less short and demanding. Maybe it has something to do with everyone not pushing to get onto the plane first so they can have a windowseat with legroom. I personally like sitting until I really have to leave but maybe that's something to do with being a slightly impatient American. In fact, I would rather sit and get an aisle seat but not have to stand in line for 45 minutes than, well, stand for 45 minutes and get a window seat. Every time I get on a plane it gets easier.

Arrived in CDG (Charles de gaulle?) and took a train into town. Didn't end up finding a place to eat but I wasn't that hungry. Decided to climb up to the second platform of the Eiffel tower and then take an elevator for 5 euros from there to the top. So I guess it's 21 stories to the first platform and then another 22 to the second...but it really didn't seem like that much, and maybe that was the endorphins talking, or pent-up energy from the plane. Either way I think it's worth walking up instead of taking the elevator. It's certaintly a lot cheaper.

I was on the Tower for one like show and decided to stick around for the next. Then I went back to the hostel.

The following morning was annoying because I missed breakfast because even though I set my alarm for 9 or 9:30 I had to wait for the three other girls to use the bathroom and shower, so it was past 10 by the time I finally got my turn. They were good to talk to and nice and everything though, it was just annoying that we all happened to get up at once.

I decided to walk from the 15th arrondissement where my hostel was to the touristy areas. This is not a good idea. Do not do this. If you are not in the 1-9th arr. please just take the metro. Not only is it not worth your time but you might have some creepy 40 year old come up to you and start talking to you, ask you a million questions and where you're going, attempt to go with you, and not be able to dodge until a crosswalk turns green and you can skit across it after he's already kept walking.

So: Don't walk in Paris alone if you're a girl. Take the metro. Lesson learned.

So I was just wandering around. I got a sandwich on my way along with the most delicious piece of chocolate cake I have had in years. I stumbled into the Garden of Luxembourg, which was very pretty with all of the flowers. Then after some point and found myself at the Louvre. The plan was to follow Rick Steve's Historic Paris tour but I thought it wouldn't take as long to walk to Notre Dame as it did.
First of all, they tell you the Louvre is huge. The biggest museum in the world.
But you don't realize how big it's going to be until you get there. This place used to be a palace, and it definitely is grand.
I also didn't know how much was in it, how many famous things it contains.
So of course I saw Mona Lisa and the Winged Guardian and Venus de Milo but my favorite room was the one with the Michelangelo statues.

 I feel like I should explain the lock picture. One the pedestrian bridge, couples will buy a lock and throw the key in the river (or just away) to prove they've been there and be all romantic. I saw it on a bridge in Innsbruck as well. I think it's a cute idea but I wonder what the locals think of it. Suppose it's better than carving on trees.

After the Louvre I decided to do what I could of Rick Steve's tour, so I went to Notre Dame and inside and that was the only place on the tour that was open, besides the Memorial des Martyrs de la Deportation, which is a pretty cool little memorial to the jews who were deported from Paris. It's pretty moving really because it gives you a sense of the lack of their freedom and such. I ate in the Latin Quarter and tried snail. They're actually quite tasty. I wasn't quite sure if I was eating them right, I mostly dug them out of their shell with prongs...maybe there isn't a correct way to eat snail...? Then I walked around the island Notre Dame was on. Later I took the metro to the Arc De Triomphe, which is also HUGE.

The next day I went back to see the inside of Sainte Chapelle and the Conciergerie. (It was free, being a student in the UK.) I walked to the Bastille and then through the 3rd arrondissement to the Lafayette galleries (I think I made it there at least, I'm not really that interested in shopping.) I saw some street art that I recognized as either Space Invader's or people copying him. He uses tiles, which are weather resistant. I think parisians might even like his work, I didn't bother to ask. I went to the Musee d'Orsay, which was very busy. I loved Manet's paintings and saw some Van Gogh's and Renault's and it was cool but I was trying to follow Rick Steve's guide, and all the paintings were in different places so I just got tired of being there and pushing my way through the other tourists (it's not the biggest building, and, fun fact, used to be a train station). Then I walked over to the Eiffel tower in the day, which wasn't too far away. Champs de Mars was a lot more crowded during the day than at night. Then I took the metro to Sacre Couer and fought through the crowds to get uphill for a picture, then took the metro to Gare du Nord to get back to the airport. The flight back was pretty uneventful, except for this lady throwing a fit because they had to put her carry on luggage in the hold. There was a lot of turbulence as well.

On Monday I was really tired but I had a wonderful time, despite the city being a little scary. I probably wouldn't travel alone there again, but if I knew the same things would happen all over again and I hadn't been to Paris I would still go. It is definitely a city worth seeing, and there's a reason it's on most tourist's lists when they do a Europe tour. Much better than any city in England, that's for sure. :) Well that's all for Paris.

Lazy Friday

I don't feel like writing a blog today.

Too lazy.

Btw, I had one of those flowerpot chocolate muffins from my "Typical Tuesday" post on Monday and it was every bit as good as it looks. And I made chocolate chip cookies yesterday and they are the best things ever...

Floating Down the Grand Canal

So I had a brilliant idea while planning how I would get to Venice. My thoughts were like this:
"Oh Jana gets into Venice at 11!"
"Oh look! The cheapest flight gets into Venice at 10:30."
And so I booked it.

And now I have decided something.
First, I never want to fly into or out of Gatwick or Stansted again.
Second, it is not a good idea to need to be at a European airport for a 7:30 flight.
Now I don't know how public transportation even really works at home since I never use it. I've got my trusty car. My car that I miss very much even in our short time together. My car is a symbol of freedom. It can take me to steak and shake at 1:00 in the morning. It can take me to Walmart at 2:00 for the ink that just ran out of my printer or for poptarts or whatever I needed that I didn't think to get during the day.
But England does not have a 24 hour lifestyle. And I miss it! There is nothing like American convenience.

So I left Bath Spa train station around 10:30 P.M. the night before...
(I'm pretty sure this was the latest train that left Bath for London.)
and I got into Paddington station and the underground had JUST closed. Which was the route my ticket had said to take...but there was a bus to Victoria Station.
But the bus doesn't drop you out directly in front of Victoria.
So I walked around with two guys trying to find it.
Then we got there and it was closed. The gates were shut. There was no way to get in.
Well at least we had an hour before our train was supposed to leave (I think they actually leave every hour.)
So I was freaking out a little. How were we supposed to get on the train if the station was closed, which, why the %$*# was the station closed?!?! THIS WOULD NOT HAPPEN IN AMERICA EXCEPT ON CHRISTMAS AND MAYBE NOT EVEN THEN! Haha.
But yeah they let everyone in about 10 minutes before the train was supposed to get there. There were about 50 of us hanging around Victoria station waiting to get inside I think.

So I got to Gatwick with relatively few problems.
Slept until 4:30 when the machines turned on so I could print out my boarding pass. I have something to admit actually...there were already people sleeping on the bench so I slept on the floor. *face of shame* Checked my bag on. Slept in the main part of the airport. Gatwick is odd though, they don't tell you what gate your plane is departing from until like 5-10 minutes before it's supposed to board. Made me kind of nervous because that just makes it seem like nothing is organized.
The flight itself was nice. I sat next to an American couple who were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary and I think they had some kids around my age. I know they had a daughter named Sarah so that was pretty interesting. And I remember they'd been to Indianapolis for a Colt's game. That's really all I remember about them though. Oh and I had a window seat!

So I got into the airport and there was like, no customs. You could just walk through. I think the guy in front of me did just walk through. Well I wanted a stamp on my passport so I made sure to show mine to the guy and then I collected my baggage and waited for Katie. It took me like an hour to find an ATM because they didn't have one on the first floor, it was on the second. Bought a Venice Pass for like 22 euros. (which we really didn't need since they never checked tickets on the waterbusses, called vaporettos.) Bought a pepsi. Katie's flight got in at 2. Jana missed her flight. Jana told us to find the waterbusses so we asked the information booth how to get to them (even though Jana had given us instructions) and we ended up taking a bus to venice so that was a bit weird...I was able to call Lorenzo, the guy that was supposed to give us the key to our apartment, with my England-bought phone so that was all good. We met Lorenzo but then he had some family thing to do so we wandered around the market stalls and some streets near San Marco's before getting to our apartment. I got some mint gelato. It was good. It wasn't rainy but it was cloudy. Oh I also bought Brian's postcard (I get him one from every city I visit) and decided to get him a cloudy one since it was an accurate representation.

It was a nice place. Katie was practically obsessed with the coffee press. She probably has a picture of it. There wasn't any wifi though.
I took all these photos from the same location on the couch in the kitchen:

Katie and I decided to go cheap for dinner since we didn't know our way around very well either. ("Jana will want to eat out the rest of the nights anyway and we might as well use the kitchen while we have one.") We just got a frozen pizza and wine and salad and I got an apple. Oh and chocolate. The salad dressing had an extremely weird taste. It took us about thirty minutes to get the wine bottle open. It was quite an ordeal.

And that was day one.

The next day we got up a little late. We had about an hour and a half to kill. Jana had told us to meet her in San Marco's square. It was raining and I bought a poncho. We decided to take a waterbus down the Grand Canal but we got on the wrong one but still ended up on the North end of Rialto Bridge. So we were around 15 minutes late for Jana and we finally found her about like, an hour later. We took her back to the apartment. We were hungry but we went to the Bell Tower in San Marco's Square and saw a wonderful panorama of Venice. My poncho ripped open from the hole from my neck I think in the wind (because I didn't think to take it off), so that was a waste of a few euros. Oh well.

  And really we saw a lot of cool stuff. We didn't go into St. Mark's Basilica but we saw the outside (which was under construction). We walked to Ponte di Accademia. I was really confused this whole time, because I thought were were looking for a cafe or some place to eat and we just kept walking and Jana kept saying we were going to the Accademia and I had no idea what she was talking about, I especially didn't know it was a bridge. Anyway so we crossed over to the other side and saw the Basilica di Santa Maria dell Salute (or just the Salute for short, which translates to "the Health"). We then finally ate after that. I got salmon penne and it was like heaven in my mouth. And then I was confused about whether you had to pay for water and I got water instead of wine or beer but I just went with it. Jana was under the impression that I didn't like beer. I'd say I'm definitely used to the taste now and like it quite a bit. :)

We took a vaporetto to Ponte di Rialto and walked over it and then we went back to our apartment and rested some. Jana fell asleep and it was very hard to wake her up for dinner but we managed it. We went back to San Marco's afterwards and discovered acqua alta, or "what those random boards everywhere were for." We didn't get caught in any flooding but our favorite route was cut off so we did have to go around out to the waterfront to get to San Marco's at night. A few people were there but it was mostly empty since the weather was crap (cold and rainy) and it was a bit late. Then we went back to our apartment to prepare for getting up at 4:30 in the morning...I was not too happy that we'd have to get up that early at the time, but now I'm glad we got the full next day in Florence.

Rialto Bridge

More pretty pictures on facebook. If you want to see good pictures of Venice I'd just look them up on google, it was rainy or at least cloudy when we were there any way, so my pictures aren't going to compare.

Also I thought I should mention the city of Venice is in the shape of a fish.

Easter Holiday

I don't have a very creative title for you right now. I apologize for that. I slept for about 4 hours last night, preparing for a presentation that I gave around 10:30 this morning. I was pretty nervous. I looked down quite a bit, my legs were crossed, I was doing crazy arm gestures and my voice was nervous and probably uneven. But it's over and it was 20% of my grade. This was for history. It was over science, basically between 1650-1700, but honestly the stuff before it was a bit more interesting. I got my paper back from that class today as well and I did well, so I don't have to write the next one if I don't want to because only one counts.

My Easter Holiday was 2 weeks. Long.
I think I will split it up into about eight sections so it may take more than a week to write about.

For this post, I don't have access to photos right now (they're in my dorm room, and I don't want to walk back down that hill and then walk back up in two hours in the rain, because it is supposed to rain later today as well), so I think I will just give a summary of what I might talk about in each post.

1. Venice
 Churches, acqua alta, canals everywhere, first gelato experience, salmon penne, the cork that wouldn't come off, and meeting up with my sisters
2. Florence
 David, Medici's, leather, The Arno, Duomo di Firenze, "individual pizzas", Ponte Vecchio, The Uffizi
3. Tuscany and Cinque Terre
 Cheesy Pictures, frustrations with lack of payphones, steps and hills, wine, towers, more gelato, some sunshine, zebra cathedral
4. Rome
 Crowds, easter, the Vatican, the Colisseum, the Forum, the metro, Mama Angela's, the cappuchins and their decorative bones
5. Salzburg
 Festung Hohensalzburg, Mozart, Sound of Music, Walking everywhere and along the river, cloudy, Mirabell
6. Innsbruck (with a section on Bologna)
 The hostel without locks, the Alps, the colorful houses, lack of information on hiking trails, alpenzoo, the alps, the alps, the alps
7. Munich
 Dachau memorial, sausage traditions, Augustiner's, Hofbrauhaus, expensive but safe, Bavaria, pretzels, BEER, Rauthus-Glockenspiel
8. Fussen
 Hohenschwangau, Neuschwanstein, ridiculous fog, horse-drawn carriages, UNO with a danish couple, tourists everywhere, Found american students!, stein souvenir, getting back home

I was a bit glad to get back "home" to people I knew and sleep in my own bed. I actually did miss England a bit. I wasn't quite expecting that. It's also nice that it's a bit warmer out now than when I left. Spring is coming, however slowly.

Wells on Wednesday

Hello!

On Wednesday I went to Wells. I took the 173 bus. Google maps says it only takes 45 minutes but I could have sworn it took twice that time to get back (probably because schools were getting out). Round trip was about 7 pounds (6.50 maybe?).

Basically it's a town with a Cathedral and a palace where the bishop lived next to it (aptly named Bishop's Palace), a place for the choir to live on the opposite side (Vicar's close), and a market west of all this. The city grew where it did due to natural "wells" that bubbled up from the ground. Water from the Mendip hills runs underground in a river and at Wells the water is forced to the surface (though I believe most of the river continues to run underground). Inside Bishops palace, there are some pools where you can see it bubbling up. It's probably hard to see, and not the best quality, but I took a really short video of it.

I posted 50 pictures to facebook and took about twice as much, partially because to take pictures in the church you had to pay for a photography permit (3 pounds) and I decided since I'd only paid 1/6th of the suggested donation I'd buy a permit to help out. I was really impressed with the stained glass windows. I was also impressed by the size of the church, considering that it's construction began in 1180. I feel like painting the roofs and putting the decorated bosses up and all that jazz would be pretty dangerous in that time. There was an older medieval and saxon church before the current cathedral was built. There was a garden outside the cloisters where you could see some of the old foundations. If you want to read more about the history of the church, their website is pretty good. They have guided tours at 11 and 12 (and in between too as well I think, there were plenty of guides) but I was content with just walking around, taking photos, and occasionally listening in.

I'm really glad it didn't end up raining all day. The forecast said it was likely to, and it was cloudy for most of the morning, but the sun came out a few times and there was even a bit of blue sky!

Overall it was a nice day trip. My motivation for going was mostly because Hot Fuzz was filmed there, and Brian loves that film. Unfortunately market square looks quite a bit different when there's an actual market going on there, so I wasn't really able to obtain pictures of the "set" that looked good, but I was still there. I also couldn't find the Somerfield Supermarket...(it's in the movie).

That's really all I have to say. I'm not sure how well I'll be able to blog about my trip to Italy next week and Austria and Munich after that. We'll see.

In Harry Potter's Footsteps

Yesterday I went to Lacock Abbey.

You know I really don't feel like blogging about this.

I at least don't intend on making this a formal post. (Read: incorrect grammar and fragmented sentences ahead)

It was a great trip but I need to figure out chemistry but I feel like I need a book to do that because I don't really get what's going on.
I think I shall have one of these "freakingoutwhydoIprocrastinate" introductory paragraphs before I actually go into my post.

Being homesick makes me grumpy. Not having a car makes me grumpy. Not getting sleep makes me grumpy. Eating the same things many times makes me grumpy. What if I just want arby's?? GAH!
I like my digital picture frame though. Definitely one of my favorite Christmas presents even if I don't want to admit it. Hey I got him skyward sword. That is a good game! I miss it.
I am holding back the desire to cuss for the kiddos that may be reading this that are related to me. Oh did I mention I also get grumpy when the third fire drill in 3-4 days wakes me up from bed YET AGAIN.

So this was a nice little daytrip. Didn't take a whole lot of planning. The Abbey didn't open up until 10 or 11. Rode a train (3.50 pounds for a return ticket/there and back) to Chippenham. Explored it a bit. It's a pretty small little town. The main street was shut down for a market. We (Matt and I) walked around St. Andrew's church and saw a couple of tudor-style houses and we walked past a building called The Bear and we found the bus station eventually and we ate breakfast at Gregg's which is this bakery and I had hot chocolate (which really wasn't that good but it was a hot drink) and a bacon and sausage sandwich thing for 2 pounds. It was great. And the bread was fresh.

Well we had 45 minutes until the bus left, so we checked out the Chippenham museum. The two elder gentleman manning the visitor's desk were very eager to talk to us and impart knowledge. They were very friendly, it was a good use of time. The museum itself was alright. We found out Chippenham established the first police force in England. I think Gloucester was not far behind. They told us to eat at the George.

So we got on our bus to Lacock and we got off a stop too early but we walked around and charmed by how cute the little town was and how incredibly English it was. When an American thinks of an English town, the image that comes to their mind is this city. Perhaps it's because a lot of filming is done there.

The abbey itself costs about 10 pounds to get into. The abbey is surrounded by gardens, but the crocuses were only just coming up. You could see the purple buds but the only thing that was blooming were a couple of rare daffodils. Some daisies and round pink little flowers were coming up, and some tulips too, though there are not going to be any tulips in the rose garden this year because a badger ate them.
I'd say the 10 pounds was worth it, because then you can go upstairs and stay out of the cold and explore the rooms. There are a lot of interesting things in there because the Talbot's had a lot of scientific interests and collected seashells and books and many other knick knacks. There are paintings of people that lived in the house all over the walls. Some looked quite familiar, but it could have been the style more than the actual painting. There were stone fireplaces everywhere...
Really the whole reason I went was because some Harry Potter scenes were filmed in the cloisters. It's the only part that still feels like it was an Abbey. It was one of the last churches/abbeys to be destroyed by Henry the 8th because it had the most money. To destroy churches, they would strip the lead from the roof. Someone bought the abbey and used it as a home and took down the church, but the cloisters remained untouched and most of the changes were made to the upstairs.

The abbey is also where the first photo negative was taken. It was taken out of one of the windows with a rather primitive camera. I think it was taken by a camera in the style of one of the "mousetrap" cameras in the picture on the right.

And that's really all I have to say. The food at the George was pretty good. It was 7.50 pounds for me to eat fish and chips and a water (Fish and chips always come with peas here), so that's not so bad for a touristy area.

More photos of the Abbey. (The window the first photo negative was taken out a bay window next to the octagonal tower. You can see it in the first photo (farthest left) in the third row down).

 

The following photos are from the great hall.

 These photos are from the garden