Last week or so in London

One of my friends on the program, Natalie, had her internship at a PR firm. She had an amazing job which besides for the hard work involved meeting famous people, getting into clubs free, and going to awesome events. Luckily for me, Natalie had access to free passes to the new Star Trek movie screening in London and she invited Carly, Ashley, and I to go with her on Thursday April 16. The movie was screening in the Empire Theater. Security was very tight and everyone had to turn in their phones and cameras to avoid piracy. Inside the theater was massive and had the screen had a curtain like we were seeing a play.
















I am surprised to say that I actually really liked the movie! It was action packed and fun. It reminded me when my Daddy, Jimmy, and I would watch “Star Trek: the Next Generation” when I was little! (The one with Patrick Stewart as the captain John Luke Picard).

Saturday April 18 was an absolutely gorgeous day and even though I had a paper to write and a final to study for, I needed to enjoy my last Saturday in London. I think Carly and I did a pretty good job of making the most of it….

Carly and I headed to the fabulous Portobello Market. It is a large outdoor market on Portobello Road in Notting Hill. I absolutely loved it! The area itself is adorable with cute little houses and shops painted in pretty and bright colors. There were really funky shops filled with everything fun silly street signs to old antiques. The market was also full of great food…I bought one of the best fruit cups I have ever had!








































































After the market we headed down to Fortnum & Masons, a department store most famous for its tea. We spent a fair amount of time looking at their chocolate bar, shortbreads, tea, and tea accessories, which were adorable. I have decided that I simply must have a proper full “tea service” (tea set) when I have my own house. I love tea now and might be permanently converted from coffee. Due to our new obsession with tea, we decided to get afternoon tea at the Fortnum & Masons parlor. Afternoon tea is now one of my favorite socializing events and I am determined to find some good places in Boston.



































That night a bunch of us went out to O’Neil’s, an Irish pub that is one of our favorites! We stayed there for awhile, and then Carly, Ashley, Natalie, Masha and I broke off to go to Baroque, a very upscale club in the Mayfair neighborhood that Natalie’s boss had arranged for to get in free. We met up with a promoter Natalie new through her internship and drank free! Needless to say, I had an amazing time! Thanks Natalie













































































The rest of my weekend and the beginning of the week was pretty quiet because I had a big paper and final due for my Shakespeare class. I wrote a nice 7 pager about the women in Othello, hopefully my teacher likes it! I have to say that I will really miss my Shakespeare professor, Professor Allen. It is really hard to explain, but he an energy about him that made the class (and Henry IV Part I and Part II) much more interesting than if someone else had taught it. He had a fascinating way of putting together words and idea in extremely bombastic language, but instead of being annoying, it was very entering. He would use phrases like “as lightly as the flicker of a butterfly’s wings” all the time and seeming to not even think about it!

Wednesday April 22 I went out to breakfast with Ashley and Hilary to celebrate Hillary’s 21st birthday! Yay! But we weren’t going to really celebrate till Thursday because everyone had finals/papers.
After finishing my paper I went to afternoon tea one more time (I told you I liked it!) with Carly at the Madeville Hotel in Knightsbridge. I obviously loved it, but I think too much of the pastries because I felt kind of sick afterwards.

My final was in the early afternoon of Thursday April 23. Right afterwards I ran some errands for my big trip to central Europe and grabbed some Snog (frozen yogurt place that is a complete replica of Pink Berry) with Ashley.

That night we all got ready to go out for Hillary’s birthday. The plan was to have a pre-gaming kitchen party, then go to Road House, Porter House and finally finishing at O’Neil’s. However, we kind of got a little carried away with the kitchen party, hehe. Part of the problem is that everyone needed to drink all their alcohol before they left Saturday morning….the other part of the problem was that we started playing throwback music like N’Sync, Backstreet Boys, and Spice Girls….so mixing the two together meant that we left an hour and half later than we planned. We had an amazing time just singing a long and dancing to the music of our middle school years! At one point in time we all ran and got our sunglasses and we worse those for awhile just because it seemed like a good idea at the time. We did make it to O’Neil’s though where I switched over to drinking “Snakebite Blacks” which is a mixture of cider, lager, and blackcurrant syrup, they are amazing and I will miss them so much. The night was so fun! HAPPY BIRTHDAY HILLARY! I would have been proud to say the night was my birthday hehe












































































Friday April 24 was my last full day in London on the program (I am returning for two days with Hillary before our final flight back to the states, but we will be staying in a hotel, not the dorm. And it will just be the two of us..).

I went out for one more time with Carly for some touristy stuff. First, I went to Harrod’s alone to pick up some presents(!) and look around one more time. Then, I met up with Carly and we headed to part of London known as Shortage (sp ?) and visit Spittlefields Market. We saw Brick Lane which is where all the amazing Indian food is, but we didn't get any....we went to a pub for our last meal together instead.

That night was very sad as everyone packed, said good bye, and reminisced….

Saturday April 25 I leave for a 9 day trip to Central Europe with Hillary. We first go to Budapest, then Prague, then Vienna.

Globe Theater

Monday, April 6 I went to the Globe for a field trip with my Shakespeare class as a field trip. I had been there before, but it was still fun. The professor arranged for a Shakespearean researcher lecture to tell us some things about the globe and the use of "cue" scripts. A "cue script" is script which only includes that actors lines, it is essentially only a part of the play and come as a rolled up parchment. And that is where the words "part" and "role' comes from for a character. The actor would only know his lines and then the last few words of a person before him. So if a conversion on stage was:

A: "Hello, I am having an excellent day. How are you?"

B: "Amazing!"

Part B's script would look like this:

"...are you?"

B: "Amazing!"

This made the actors stay on their toes because they had no idea who was saying their line or when it was coming in the scene. It made the play look less like a play and more like real life. It also saved paper from the expensive printing of Shakespeare's time and saved plays from being stolen by competitors since no play whole plays were not distrusted to anyone, not even actors.

It was to bad that the stage was under construction for an upcoming production of Romeo and Juliet, but considering the whole thing is a giant reconstruction, it was fine.

Great class field trip :-)

Irish Easter Weekend

In Britain and Ireland Easter weekend is a four day weekend with bank holidays on Good Friday and Easter Monday. So Thursday April, 9 Ashley and I left work early to visit Ireland for Easter weekend. We had arranged to stay with my Aunt Kate's old friends, Mary and Diarmuid. Kate and Mary had first met when Mary lived in the States awhile ago. They had kept in touch throughout the years and Kate immediately suggest I visit her if I go to Ireland.

Mary picked us up from the airport and made us some tea before we headed to bed. Mary and Diarmuid's house had a great location, just a 15 minute walk from the center of Dublin! Ashley and I shared a guest bedroom...Mary and Diarmuid's house was so cute! It was SO nice to be in a house...I have been in dorms and hotel rooms for the last 3 months. They had a cat named Cassie and three chickens!

Friday, April 10 Ashley and I woke up bright and early for a day trip to Blarney Castel. Mary had an amazing breakfast of hot cross buns (I didn't know they were real, I thought it was just a song!!), toast, fruit, and granola cereal waiting for us. We did the trip through a tour company called Paddy Wagons and Mary very kindly drove us to the pick up point.

The drive to Blarney was long, about 4 hours, but we were able to see a lot of the picturesque Irish countryside. Ashley kept saying it reminded her of Vermont. In the English countryside there are a lot of sheep and cows. However, the Irish countryside seemed to have a better mixed of sheep an cows. Oh and all the road signs in Ireland are in Irish and English! Mary told us later that after breaking from England was written in their constitution that Irish would be the first language of the country. Therefore, all kids from when they are little through high school are forced to learn old Irish, but only about 10% of the country is fluent in it.

We also had a rest stop in Limerick near River Shannon and the castle. Inside the castle is the treaty stone, named for the treaty of signed on it in 1691 ending the war between the Jacobites and William of Orange supporters. Limerick is known as Treaty City because of this event.

Unfortunately, Limerick is also known as "Stab City" due to all the gang wars there. All the guides made jokes about how it shouldn't be called "stab city" because you are more likely to get shot at. It was really sad though because the day before we went to Limerick, there had been a gang shooting...but a person not associated with gangs was shot instead of the intended target.

We moved on to Blarney and arrived around noon. We grabbed a quick snack and then headed into the castle. The blarney stone is at the top of the castle. The castle had many rooms and hallways to explore before actually reaching the top. It had a very medieval feel and felt like it came out of a fairy tale.

We finally made it to the top and prepared to kiss the blarney stone. The blarney stone is in the bottom portion of a wall, so one has to lay down on the back and be held almost upside down to kiss it! I am afraid of heights so it was a little scary, but I did it! If you kiss the blarney stone, it is suppose to give you 7 years of eloquence, or a gift of gab. I heard that the guy who holds people as they kissed the stone is part of the tradition because he has been working there for decades! And before they figured out this way to kiss the stone, people use to be held by their ankles to kiss it and there were no protective cross bars underneath the stone to stop one from plummeting to their death if something went wrong!

The word Blamey was supposedly first said by Queen Elizabeth! Except from Wikipedia (okay I know but its the best I can do right now):

"It is claimed that the synonymy of "Blarney" with "empty flattery" derives from a circumstance in which Queen Elizabeth I, while requesting an oath of loyalty to retain occupancy of land, received responses from Cormac Teige McCarthy, the Lord of Blarney, which amounted to subtle diplomacy, and promised loyalty to the Queen without "giving in". Elizabeth proclaimed that McCarthy was giving her "(a lot of) Blarney", thus apparently giving rise to the legend".

After the castle itself we walk around the grounds for a little bit. The grounds were beautiful and very green. We saw some awesome trees and even climbed them, kind of....We saw from the outside the Blarney House, which is a gorgeous mansion on the castle grounds, but we didn't have time to go in.

We walked down to the through the Rock Close and saw the Witch's Cave and the Wishing Stairs. According to legend a witch with strong magical powers lives on the ground and so the blarney castle staff leave her kindle wood each evening (supposedly in the mornings the coals of her fire will still be hot). In return for the staff's kindness the witch will grant visitors wishes if they walk up and down the stairs with their eyes closed and think of nothing but their wish.

The Irish are very superstitious people. Our tour guide pointed out fairy rings to us on the way home and said that Irish people won't go near them. The fairy rings our guide pointed out were tree circles, but I guess mushroom circles are also considered fairy rings. They are considered gate ways to the fairy's world in folklore and the fairies dance inside them. Going near the rings upsets the fairies and they will play tricks on you, force you to dance with them, or even kill you for doing so. The guide said that some farmers still build fences around fairy rings on their property so that their animals won't disturb them.

On the way home our bus stopped at Ballybeg Priory, an old almost destroyed abbey.

The trip back felt long, but Ashley and I slept on and off. We didn't get back to Mary and Diarmuid's till about 8:30. Mary had two friends, Mary and Shavonn over. We ate a great dinner with all of them and had great conversation about politics, Ireland, and America. After dinner we sat around the fire with wine and chatted about many things. They were so much fun!

Saturday, April 11 we woke up around 8 to get ready for a busy day around Dublin. After another excellent breakfast from Mary, we walked to Trinity College to see the book of Kells. The Book of Kells itself is a little anti-climatic because it is only open to 2 pages! But the exhibit about the book was excellent. It explained the history of the book and how a work like that was made and illuminated by monks back in the 9th century. We also saw "The Long Hall" which at one point in time was the longest hall of books in the world. It is filled with 200,000 of Trinity's oldest books. It also olds an 800 year old harp, which is the symbol of Dublin (and Guinness!)

At 11 am we headed over to meet up with my usual free guided tour. Our tour guide was Barry and he was pretty fun.

We started at the city hall and then went up to Dublin "Castle", but it doesn't look like a castle at all. Only one corner of it retains a castle like appearance.

We went around the castle to see the Coach House, which was built for a visit from Queen Victoria. Right next to the Coach House is the Chester Beatty Library which has the world's second largest collection of Korans! Isn't that weird? We also went by Jonathan Swift's birth place. Then we headed up to Christ's Church (which now a protestant church) and over to a Viking Memorial.

Although the Vikings are depicted as pretty savage people through out history, they were also very advanced people and brought skills and knowledge to Ireland. We had a quick break and Ashley and I got scones at this wicked cute cafe called "The Queen of Tarts". We walked through Temple Bar and saw the art center U2 got its start in and the hotel they now own. Barry took across the River Liffy and we crossed the Ha'Penny Bridge and then went back over the O'Connell bridge.

We saw the millennium spire which 200 meters tall and the largest statue in the world.

Next, Barry brought us over to Trinity College and pointed out the Bell Tower and told us about many Trinity traditions. We walked by the Irish Parliament and then ended in St. Stephen's Green and Barry told us the story of the Easter Rising of 1916 and how the Irish won their independence from Britain. It was a great story, especially considering how it was Easter Weekend!

After the tour we walked to the Guinness Factory with Maria, an American student travelling by herself. We stopped quickly in St. Patrick's Cathedral (now a protestant church) to look around.

The Guinness Factory was really fun but was packed! We probably wanted about an hour in line to start our tour. The tour took you through the ingredients of Guinness, the process, and the history of the company. The tour ended in the Guinness Gravity Lounge on the 7th floor. Everyone got one free pint of Guinness and you could enjoy your Guinness while looking out over amazing views of Dublin.

We headed back to the house and got ready for dinner. We really wanted to take Mary and Diarmuid out to eat for all of their generosity and kindness for hosting us. We ended up at a pub in Temple Bar. Temple Bar was packed due to the holiday so we had to try a few places before we found one without a wait. Ashley had Guinness beef stew! And I got a sea food chowder and fried mushrooms.

After dinner Mary and Diarmuid headed home but Ashley and I went to the Turk's Head to meet up with our friends Hillary and Jen who were in Ireland for the weekend as well. I got a pear beer! :-) We met some guys there who told us to go to the Porter House because their friend's band would be playing around 11:30. We headed over to the Oliver St. John Goganty. It was simply packed and crazy on the first floor. But we bought some drinks and headed up stairs where it was a bit more quiet. There was a performer who was great and even sang "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen and some more traditional Irish music.

We did head back to the Porter Head eventually and saw the band the boys suggested. The boys themselves got really annoying so we did a location change on them and watch the band from a different floor. The band did a lot of covers and played the Kings of Leon and the Killers :-) yay!

Sunday April 12 (Easter Sunday) Ashley, Mary, and I went to Catholic mass. I have only been to a few Catholic services before so I found it very interesting to note the diffeences between my church and the Catholic church. It was also cool because the arch bishop of Dublin presided over the mass.

After mass Ashley and I caught a train to Howth, a pretty sea side town about 30 minutes north of Dublin. We walk around the pier out to a light house and did a little mini cliff walk. It was a nice sunny day so I got some ice cream at a local ice cream palor. We also stopped an outdoor market right near the docks. It was nice to be on the ocean and all the sailboats made me think of Jimmy and how I still need to learn to sail from him!

When we got back to the house we ran out to rent a movie and then got ready for Easter dinner. Mary's parents came over for dinner and the were so nice! We talked to them about our travels and about America. For Easter dinner we had lamb, steamed carrots and brocoli, potatos, mashed pototas, and pate (which I actually tried!). For dessert we had sticky toffee pudding and some apple tart. It was an amazing meal!

After dinner Mary, Ashley, and I sat down with some wine to watch "P.S. I Love You". Usually we would want to go out and experience Dublin for one more night but Mary's house was so warm and welcoming that staying in to watch a movie in front of the fire sounded perfrect. The movie was great too because part of it isin Ireland so Mary could point stuff out to us.

The next morning, Monday April 13, (after another amazing breakfast!) Mary drove us to the airport to head back to London.... :-(

Ireland was an amazing trip and Mary and Diarmuid made it even more special :-)