Week at the Manor!

The weekend of the 15th-16th-17th was actually quite nice, I stayed here at Harlaxton! Let me back up though, to that Wednesday which, as of right now, has gone down in history as the best day I have ever had at Harlaxton!

That day should have been awful. In preparation for our field trip the following week, we had double British Studies so, two lectures and two seminars. However, for the first seminar, we got split into groups and had to perform a scene from John Gay's The Beggar's Opera. My teacher challenged us to come up with something creative, but then said that most people just sit and read it. If you know me, this kind of stuff makes me SUPER excited. My group is awesome and we decided to set all the "airs" (songs) to the tune of QUEEN songs. We had Bohemian Rhapsody, Fat Bottom Girls, Another One Bites The Dust, and We Are The Champions. Also, I had to play a pregnant whore, so I had a scarf balled up under my shirt and I had to scream at my friend Sam for knocking me up and promising to marry another chick. My teacher LOVED it. We did so awesome. Far better than all the other groups who just read it out loud and sat in their seats.

So I was flying high after that, and it was pizza day at lunch so that was just icing on the cake. Then we had another lecture and my favorite person ever was giving it so Anne and I of course sat up front, then seminar afterward was good because Dr. Green said "I hate Romantic poetry, and I especially hate the daffodil poem." BALLER!!!! We didn't have to read the daffodil one. Then we got our tests back and I got an A-! So excited.

THEN it was Mexican Night for dinner! Another quality meal. Then it all came down to the Big Kahuna . . . 80s night in the Bistro. I went as Robin Sparkles from How I Met Your Mother, complete with shoulder pads, blazer, black net gloves, pearls, everything. It was amazing. Best night I've had in a long time. I peed in the faculty bathroom. I'm not sure if that's definitely off-limits or not, but it was totally awkward.

One of the best parts is that I didn't have Politics in the morning so . . . I got to sleep in! The day was just so good in so many ways.

Saturday was a day trip to York, which was fun. Kelley Boothe and I just basically walked around, climbed on more Roman walls, sat in a pretty park and talked about stupid sorority stuff--it was nice! That night I just chilled out in the room all by myself and watched The Young Victoria which is a pretty damn good movie.

More stuff to come -- I still have to blog about Poland and Halloween! Not to mention I'm leaving for Wales in about 8 hours! YIKES!

Oxford, Bath, and Stonehenge

Wow, loyal readers, I'm really sorry I've been so suck-tastic at blogging lately.  Truth be told, I'm just so busy/tired/lazy to do it, so here goes nothing!

The weekend of the 9th-10th-11th I went to Oxford, Bath and Stonehenge.  It was a really laid-back trip.  Oxford is a pretty cool place, the best part about it was Christchurch College which is where . . . yep . . . HARRY POTTER was filmed!  So awesome.  The other super cool thing about Oxford was Alice's Shop, because Lewis Carroll wrote a large chunk of Alice in Wonderland in Oxford.  They had some really cool stuff -- I bought some postcards and a copy of the book.  I sent Matt a postcard of the thingee smoking a hookah, which he loved.

We ate at a cute cafe where the guy gave me a free cookie for no reason, then hit up the bus again to go to Bath.  Bath is a really REALLY beautiful town, but our hostel was at the very top of Bathwick Hill which is a BEE-YOTCH to climb.  Sweating, panting, calves aching, the whole shebang.  It was far away from the center of town where all the cool stuff is, but we braved the hill and went to a cheap and awesome bar for dinner.  We were all pretty exhausted, though, and went to bed fairly early that night.

Saturday was nice -- we slept in for the first time in weeks!  Six girls getting ready in one hostel room was a challege, but I'm pretty laid back so I just let the girls hog the mirror and brushed my teeth and called it a day.  We set off down the freaking hill but soon split up because some people wanted to go shopping and some wanted to see sights (like me).  So me, Jessica, Danielle, and Alex went to the Jane Austen center which was so cool, I bought Northanger Abbey and Sense and Sensibility as well as a Colin Firth card for Katie.

Then we basically just wandered around, shopped a bit, went back to the hostel and took a nap.  We didn't feel like getting ready and going out, because that would entail walking ALL THE WAY there and back again, so we ended up in the hostel bar.  Unfortunately, they closed that at 9:30pm. REALLY?  So somehow I ended up at a pub with the Dean of Students (Ed), Alex, Matt and Danielle.  I got . . . intoxicated  . . . and when we woke up the next morning at 8am to go to the Roman baths let's just say I still felt it.

The baths were amazing!  The Roman stuff still kills me.  They were so advanced, and then civilization kind of reverted . . . I don't know, it's just very interesting.

I got to sleep on the bus on the way to Stonehenge so needless to say I was in MUCH better shape for that one.  It really is just a circle of rocks, but it's hard to explain how fascinating it is.  The stones were transported from Wales, aligned perfectly with the solstices, human remains were found in the Y and Z holes, and I'm standing there thousands of years later looking at it.  I wish you could get close to it, though.  I wanted to pull a Claire and get transported back in time to find my Jamie.  (Any Outlander fans here?  No?)

All in all it was a great weekend, pretty laid back but well worth it!

THE MOTHERLAND! Ireland!

It's been a while since I last updated but aside from two major trips, not too much has been going on.  I'm still hating the school aspect of school, but everything else is great!

Ireland!  I'm just going to begin by saying that it is hands-down the most beautiful place I have ever seen.  I felt like it wasn't real the entire time I was there.

Anyway,  after I bombed my British Studies exam on Wednesday, we took off on the coach to Wales where we caught a ferry over to the Emerald Isle.  The bus ride / ferry ride sucked because it was overnight, so sleep = none.  However, when we got to Ireland in the morning we stopped for a "full Irish breakfast" which was delicious.  Then it was back on the coach heading for Blarney Castle.  Yes, I kissed the Blarney Stone and I have a certificate to prove it!  The castle was my favorite so far I think -- you could explore all these random dungeons and passageways and see graffiti from the 19th century and stuff.  Pretty amazing stuff.  It's also really cool to go into gift shops and see your name all over everything!

We got back on the bus and headed over to Killarney, in County Kerry.  Such a cute little town!  I had some amazing Irish lasagna (sounds weird, but it wasn't Italian lasagna . . . ) which was freaking fantastic, and I tried Murphy's beer which was very good, tastes a lot like Guinness.  That night we were exhausted so after dinner we just went back to the room and watched Heathers on my computer and went to bed.

The next day -- holy shite.  The Ring of Kerry.  If anyone goes to Ireland ever, I mean it, do the Ring of Kerry tour.  It is gorgeous.  We began with a stop at the Red Fox Inn and Bog Village, and the Red Fox Inn has world famous Irish coffee, so I had coffee and Jameson's whiskey at 10am and it was beautiful!  The scenery was breathtaking.  Then it was off for more sightseeing on the bus, and we stopped at this gorgeous view of the Atlantic Ocean.  We ate Irish blackberries growing by the side of the road.  So quaint! haha.  Back on the bus, more awesome scenery, and we stopped in a little town for lunch.  This pub had 10 Irish men at the bar at 11:15am, and we watched them drink 4 Guinnesses each - and that's just what we SAW them drink.  It was just like O'Hara's :( .  I had another Irish coffee and this one was much stronger.  2 whiskys before noon -- I think I'm an O'Hara.

After that we stopped at Waterville, a tiny seaside town on Balinskelligs Bay, which again, was BEAUTIFUL.  I'm trying to find more adjectives, I apologize p

rofusely.  I took off my shoes and ran into the sea, but it was really cold so I basically ran right back out.  But now I can say I had my toes in Ballinskelligs Bay.  I stole some rocks from there too.

Then we went up a mountain to another amazing view, where we met an Irish man who played the accordion and his little dog that played Frisbee with us.  Some people climbed up the rest of the mountain and we definitely enjoyed watching them try to book it down to make the bus. 

Our next stop was Sneem, a tiny town in which all the houses are painted a different color.  This way, when an Irishman is stumbling home from the pub piss drunk, he can find his house easily because it's the only one of that color.  I bought some great gifts for my aunties here :)

And after Sneem is the stop which basically made my entire trip.  We stopped at Ladies' View in Killarney National Forest, and I have a hard time believing that I took this picture with my camera.  It looks like a post card.

 The picture at the top of this post is from Ladies' View too.  Not gonna lie, I teared up a little bit looking at this.  After Ladies' View we stopped at a beautiful waterfall, then headed back to Killarney.  All in all the Ring of Kerry was SPECTACULAR.

That night in Killarney, we went out to a really good dinner, then even though I was starting to not feel well we went to a pub where WE FOUND O'HARA'S BEER!  I stole the bottles to bring home with me.  We got hit on by two Irish guys, it was weird.  

In the morning I woke up with a pretty bad sore throat but I trucked through and we made our way to the bus to head to Dublin.  The thing about Ireland is that even a 6-hour bus ride is awesome because of the landscape.  We stopped for lunch somewhere and I bought cold medicine and cough drops to get me through.  When we got to Dublin Alex and I booked it for the Guinness Factory since it closes at 5pm and it was already 3:30.  Needless to say we spent way too much time in the shop and barely any on the actual tour, but it's okay.  Then we did a little bit more shopping, went back to the hotel, watched a movie then went to a beer hall where they literally had over 300 kinds of beer.  Then it was back to the hotel and to bed.  I'm kind of sad we didn't get more time in Dublin, but I'm more sad that I was sick and couldn't get drunk in Ireland.  But we had to be on the bus at 6:30am on Sunday so I wasn't too upset!

The ferry ride back to Wales was much better because it wasn't the middle of the night.  I got coffee and shopped in the little shop and slept and read my stupid History book.  In Wales we stopped at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch which is the city with the longest name in Europe.  I'm not lying.  All we did was eat lunch there though.  So basically, Ireland was a success, although I really wish I would not have been sick!  I'm bringing my parents there one day for sure :)