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!