Happy Thanksgiving!

To all those States-side,

Happy Thanksgiving!

We just had a nice meal with all the traditional Thanksgiving foods, even pumpkin pie!

Much love.

The beginning of November

Well, it's 4 pm here in the UK, and it is now nearly fully dark. The sun sets early here ever since our daylight savings time, and my body clock is not very fond of it. And it's Wednesday, which means I have no afternoon classes. I had a lovely nap, and now I am updating you, my lovely readers, on what I did in the beginning of November.

First off, I was in an act in the talent show here at Harlaxton. On a whim, I 'auditioned' for a step team that was gathering to compete in the talent show. We practiced twice a week for about four weeks, and we were the opening act! It was a blast. There were eight of us, including the two students from Western Kentucky who instructed us and wrote the routine. We didn't win (my friend Laura did; she wrote a fabulous song about all the British professors here), but we did manage to ensure another performance for the Steppers! We are performing next week at the choir concert; the choir director loved us! But if you are interested in seeing what step is, I have a video of the performance from the talent show.

The weekend after the talent show (Oct 31-Nov 2) Libby, Lea, and I went to Germany! I love being able to say, "I went to Germany for the weekend." But we really did. We bought really cheap airfare to Frankfurt-Hahn airport, which is a 1.5 hour bus ride from Frankfurt. We left school on that Friday morning at the ungodly hour of 6, caught all the necessary trains, and jetted off to Frankfurt. We arrived in the city at about five and proceeded to find our hostel. When we booked our hostel, the website said it was new, clean, nice,...and in the red light district of Frankfurt, though they said it was really safe. We walked down the necessary roads, attempting to read the German names in the dark. We found our hostel! It was indeed in the middle of the red light district, but I have never felt safer in my life. There were lots of neon signs and thumping techno beats, but the streets were pretty much deserted, and they stayed that way. We walked around the city that night, just exploring - Frankfurt is really safe at night. The river was beautiful!

Some pictures from our traveling to and first night in Frankfurt:

Our very early morning in the train station

The beautiful German countryside - the bus ride was actually nice since we were away from the city.

Lea trying to make the top bunk at the hostel.

The view from our hostel. You can see some of the neon lights. But seriously, our hostel was great.

After an amazing night of sleep at the hostel (the three of us were the only ones in the 6 person room!), we set off to wander around the city with no real agenda. This is my favorite thing to do when traveling - maybe have an idea of what you want to see, but just go wherever your sense of adventure takes you. We found a giant Euro statue, the older part of Frankfurt (most of the older city was destroyed by bombing in WWII), awesome modern art, St. Bartholomew's Cathedral, and a huge indoor market. Some pictures:

Lea was very excited about the giant Euro!

New meets old in downtown Frankfurt.

Very cool lampposts. Frankfurt in general is a beautiful city.

View across the river. Again, we had gorgeous weather!

Your lovely blogger in front of the river.

The leaves were changing! It was wonderful - the leaves don't really change here in the UK; they more just fall off the tree. No pretty colors.

Cool building!

A large collection of cool buildings!

Libby is now the kaiser! Note: when we have no real agenda, we tend to take goofy pictures.

Candles inside St. Bartholomew's.

The inside of St. Bartholomew's - it was the most colorful church I've been in over here. The brick/stone was all red - a nice change from the grey and white.

The steeple - as you can tell, it's being renovated.

Yay for modern art and self-timers on cameras!

This was so beautiful!

Part of Frankfurt's skyline.

Now, we only really spent that day in Frankfurt. Our flight back to the UK was at six am on Sunday morning, so we were sleeping in the airport. We caught the bus back at 10 on Saturday night, and bunkered down under the stairs at Frankfurt-Hahn. We ate bread, cheese, and apples we bought at the market. Lea was lucky enough to pass out fairly early. Libby and I, however, did not sleep at all. My body was in some strange survival mode, and I was not sleepy at all. I woke up Lea around 4:30; we freshened up in the bathroom, checked in, and made our way to the gate. I wasn't feeling all that sleepy until we got on the plane. When the safety demonstration started, I remember thinking, "I don't need to hear this; I know it all." I put my head on Libby's shoulder, and the next thing I know, we are landing in London! I don't remember taking off or any of the 1.5 flight. I guess I was that tired! Libby was kind enough to fill out my landing card for me. Customs went by fairly smooth (for once!) and we made it back to school without any mishaps. Needless to say, I took a wonderful nap that Sunday afternoon!

There's my trip to Germany! Frankfurt was wonderful, and I wish I had more time in other German cities. The language barrier wasn't an issue, as most people spoke a little English. Otherwise, pointing and smiling tended to work well. We had three people approach us on separate occasions and speak to us in German, assuming we were natives. All three looked shocked when we shook our heads and said "Sorry! English."

Hope all is well! I'll be home in about a month (how sad!).

What was October?

After Ireland, I decided it would be best to spend a few weekends around the manor (read: save some money). So between working shifts on the library on Sundays and a few day trips here and there, I enjoyed sleeping in and wearing lots of sweatpants. My roommate was often off traveling these few weekends, so I had the room to myself. I usually slept in til around 10, take a shower, eat lunch around noon, then work on homework til dinner.

I had lots of homework due in about a two week span. A few quizzes, lots of Shakespeare to read, a Shakespeare presentation and paper on two film versions of Henry V, a rough draft for my term paper in British Studies. It was exhausting! But I survived.

One Saturday, my friend Libby and I went to Skegness. Now, we had heard that Skegness was

kinda...shady. I mean, it's a touristy British vacation place. In all actually, it is the Smokey

Mountain area of the coast of England. It's like Pigeon Forge was picked up and relocated. But I loved it! The train took us right there, and we just walked around. But here, pictures do a better job than my paltry words.

This is actually the view from my window, looking a little to the left. It's quite lovely, no?

This is the real reason we went to Skegness - baby seals!

They have a HUGE rescue operation - they rehabilitate them for however long, then release them back in the wild. Since they have been doing this (the 80s, I think), they have released over 80.

We even got to watch them be fed!

Sadly, we could not pet the seals. The illustration is my favorite.

Aren't they cute? They are just like dogs waiting to be fed.

I love this picture. This is an adult seal that they keep for breeding/study purposes. They have four or five adults.

The beach at Skegness. Not the most picturesque, but I liked it. See the windmills? Yay for renewable energy!

Libby and your lovely blogger on the beach. We're rocking the shades that day.

The pier.

You can see the rides and such.

Beautiful weather!

All closed up.

Really, Skegness was a nice little jaunt away from campus. It was nice to walk around in the the fresh air!

The next exciting thing to happen was a field trip! Here in the UK, we get to go on field trips still, even in college! It's wonderful. The first field trip was to Lincoln, and it was nice. The second one was...okay. We went to Southwell (pronounced Suth-ul) Workhouse. The workhouse was a Victorian institution that was founded on the idea that poverty could be avoided by putting the poor in these houses and making them work, all day, for just food, room, and board. Somehow, it was supposed to make them want to get a real job. I'm still unclear on how exactly it was supposed to work myself. After Southwell, we went to Belvoir (pronounced Beaver, I don't lie) Castle. The Duke of Rutland lives there, as he has for many, many years.

The workhouse was cold and depressing, and the castle was huge and ornate. The best part? Belvoir had peacocks! So yours truly became The Peacock Wrangler Extraordinare.

See, they are trying to run. But they can't!

I got thisclose to a peacock. And didn't run. Somehow, England has made me hate birds of all sorts. The peacock is okay. Pigeons are my new worst enemy.

Our bus driver started feeding them nutra-grain bars.

Well, that was October for the most part. Lots of studying and chilling here on campus. I love staying here some weekends, simply because I live in a giant Victorian manor house. It's beautiful.

If you want a little present-time update, I just got back from Amsterdam. It's a beautiful city with lots to do and wonderful museums. But that update will come soon enough!

Much love.

AH!

I'm almost a month behind on posting - how can that happen?

Anyway, loyal readers (haha), I'm sorry for dropping the ball. Lessee. Here's a picture post of Ireland, complete with captions! Get excited!

A little setup to the trip: We had our first British Studies exam right before we left. It consisted of two hours, three essays to write, and a lot of stressed out kids. The test was set to finish at 4, and we had a taxi ordered for 4:05. Yay for cutting it close! But I finished the test early, and my travel buddies did fine as well. Andrew, Safire, and I caught our trains on time and made it to the airport. After a short flight to Ireland, we landed in Dublin. Andrew went off to find his hostel, and Safire and I were picked up by Mary, a good family friend of Safire's family. She lovingly put us up in her attic from Wednesday through Sunday nights. It was so nice to sleep on a real bed and shower in a non-hostel shower! Plus, she made us comfort food (tacos, mac and cheese). It was great. Picture time!

We spent two days bumming around Dublin, and two days getting out into the countryside.

Safire and I outside the tourist center in downtown Dublin. It was really windy, but we had great weather the whole time.

Temple Bar, an area with lots of, well, bars and pubs and shops in Dublin.

The interior of Christchurch Cathedral. It's beautiful!

The floor tiles in Christchurch. They were modelled after the original floor tiles (part of which they have an original section of tiles!)

St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.

So the first day was spent just kind of wandering around and then going inside Christchurch. That night, after navigating the bus system back to Mary's house, she took us out with some of her friends to the pub. Lots of Guinness was consumed, and we had a great time getting to mingle with the locals.

Second day: more touristy things in Dublin. First stop, Guinness Factory! Then we rode a double-decker bus around and went to Kilmainham Gaol where they kept and executed all the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rebellion.

Safire and me!

One of my favorite Guinness advertisements.

At the top of the Guinness factory, they have a bar with a 360 view of Dublin. And they give you free pints!

A line of cells in the jail (I didn't take many pictures here; it was really creepy).

Looking up from one of the "exercise yards" of the prison.

It was really cold on the top of the doubledecker bus!

Nelson's Column, commerating Nelson, who defeated Napoleon. Apparently, he was born in Ireland.

Statue of O'Connell on the street named after him. He was an Irish nationalist in the Victorian era.

At the end of the second day, Mary again took us out to another pub. Here, they were playing music! It was so cool. The band was primarily older men, and they played a mixture of everything! I had a good time. The third day, Safire and I got up really early and went on a Paddywagon tour to Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone! We stopped in Limerick to change buses, so we have a couple pictures from there too.

The more historical side of Limerick (the Paddywagon driver told us there were gang wars going on, so we didn't spend a lot of time here...)

Hey look, it's your lovely blogger!

The looming Blarney Castle!

I thought this was pretty.

View from one of the windows in the lord's bedroom at Blarney.

After climbing a whole bunch of windy, slippery stairs, we got to the top of the castle! The ramparts.

The view from the top. The countryside around was beautiful.

Me kissing the Blarney Stone! I now have eternal eloquence.

Standing in front of the castle. What a cool trip!

We got back late to downtown Dublin, then somehow managed to get on the correct bus route going to wrong way. So, we took a lovely bus ride to the southeast side of Dublin, then got back on the bus, went back to the city center, then made our way to Mary's house.

The second day, Safire, Andrew, and I took the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) out to Howth, a little fishing village on the coast. It was by far my favorite part of the trip. I got to see the ocean and stick my feet in. Plus, there was a market going on, and we ate fresh crepes for both lunch and dinner. It was wonderful.

Fishing boats (as you can see, we had PERFECT weather this day)

The coast.

One of the lighthouses. There's another one at Howth.

I don't think this would do much good out in the Irish Sea...

Safire and I - as you can tell by my mane of hair, it was a little bit windy. Some very nice Portuguese woman took this for us.

The ruins of an Abbey in the hillside.

More ruins.

They had a large cemetery with beautiful headstones.

These were growing on one of the graves.

Taking my shoes off to get my feet in the water!

My feet - in the Irish Sea! This is as far out as I went - it was really, really cold.

Rocks on the jetty we were on.

Lots of sailboats were out that day.

Looking back on Howth.

After Howth, we spent one more night in Mary's attic, then it was back to school on Monday - yes, we skipped classes to stay in Ireland an extra day! It was well worth it.

Well, that was the first long weekend. The second long weekend is next week! Yay!

Hopefully this weekend I can do some more posting and get caught up. That would be wonderful!

As always, I have many, many more pictures, so if you're interested in seeing some, let me know once I'm back in the States!