An Irish St. Patrick's Day

So I went to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day Weekend. It was crazy, let me tell you. But before I talk about that trip, I need to tell you about Oxford! Our group took a bus into the town and first we took a walking tour around town and saw the different colleges and learned about how the University works. It is split up into many separate colleges that all make up the uni. Students are enrolled and live in their own college and have a common room and play in sports matches against the other colleges just like at Hogwarts. (Just a quick overview)

Then it was time for lunch!

We went to this pub which is famous because JRR Tolkein and CS Lewis would meet here for drinks and discuss literature!

The my sorority sister, Lauren, who attends grad school at Oxford came to see me! She showed my friend, Rachel, and I her college and the local market and some other neat Oxford sights. This picture was taken in front of the library!

Then we went on a tour of Christ Church College which is probably the most famous one because it is the oldest and most prestigious.

This is the entrance to the great hall where the scenes were shot in the first Harry Potter movie! All the first years queued here before getting sorted.

This is the main courtyard, very pretty!

Oxford was just a day trip, so we weren't there long. But it was great!

Now for IRELAND

We took a very long bus and ferry ride overnight into Dublin then immediately got on a tour bus and headed to Southern Ireland. Our first stop was the Rock of Cashel.

This was a very old castle that was built around 1100. Ireland was not under the rule of one king at that time, so the King of the county known as Munster lived here. It was very beautiful and almost haunting as it softly rained and a mist covered the countryside.

Then we got back on the bus and headed more south towards Cork. And our next stop was the famous Blarney Castle!

at Blarney Castle!

Me kissing the Blarney Stone! Rumor has it, if someone is brave enough to climb the castle and dangle outside to kiss the stone, he or she will be blessed with the Gift of Gab or ability to speak eloquently. I've not really noticed a difference so that means it is just a legend, or I already speak with grandeur and elegance! ;)

We also walked around the grounds and the gardens were lovely. Ireland is really very green and deserves its nickname of the Emerald Isle.

Then we went on to Cork and walked around for a while. And I found a shamrock shake!!

After this very long day we got back to Dublin and crashed in our hotel.

DAY 2- DUBLIN and ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!

Dublin was crazy all day! People were running around in leprechaun outfits and Irish flags and drinking in the streets and altogether causing chaos. There was this big parade in the streets that lasted 3 hours and it was bizarre, not the outpouring of Irish culture like I thought it would be. After the parade we spent most of the day at the Guinness Factory!

Outside St. James' Gate!

We learned to pour the perfect pint. I was very successful.

All 3 of us were!

We also got our caricature done, listened to some Irish music and met quite a few friends along the way.

Then it was nighttime in Dublin! So we headed to the most famous spot- Temple Bar!

Yay for Temple Bar on St. Patrick's Day! It was such an experience.

The next day we took it down a couple notches and did some sightseeing. We first went to Trinity College and saw the Old Library and the Book of Kells.

Its the oldest bible in existence. A very big deal.

Me in front of the Ha' Penny Bridge. This is what is on most postcards of Dublin.

Outside St. Patrick's Cathedral.

In the gardens of Dublin Castle.

After a day of sightseeing we went back to our hotel and onto Dublin Port to catch the ferry home! It was a wonderful weekend and certainly gets a big check on the Bucket List! I love everything about Ireland, but too bad I'm not Irish. But then again, everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day!

Exploring England

I know I have been very delinquent in my posting! But to make up for it I have 2 big trips to talk about!

York & Northern England and Windsor Castle! Plus a lot of other stuff I did.

So it was my birthday on the 22nd! It was my "angel birthday" 22 on 2/22! I had a very Leigh Moring bday and went to the oldest museum in the world, The British Museum, this really cool bookstore called Waterstone's, and to the very 1st Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. On top of all that, it was Reading Week, aka no class all week. Who knows why, but I wasn't complaining. So yes The British Museum was pretty cool just because of the importance of all the artifacts inside like the ROSETTA STONE for instance. But I found the Medieval England room more interesting, personally. The museum was neat, but I have a lot of criticisms and suggestions on how to improve it. I won't get into that now. Waterstone's is this great bookstore a little like Barnes & Noble but with much more charm as it is in an old Victorian building that has 4 floors that you must use stairs in. I bought a book about Paddington Bear and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. You heard correctly, the UK edition!!

Hard Rock Cafe was really fun. My birthday is also National Margarita Day, so I had a raspberry margarita on the rocks and a birthday shot of jaeger. It was a very fun atmosphere with the music videos going and surrounded by guitars and clothing by some of rock's greatest like The Beatles and Madonna. We had some really good food and I had barbeque for the first time since December! It was pretty good for non-southern bbq.

So then it was the weekend and time for a trip up North to York, Ripon, and Haworth! York is a very old city founded by the Romans which was later invaded by the Vikings. The Vikings took over, plundering monasteries and pretty much wreaking havoc and doing whatever they wanted all over Northern England. When they started to take over more territory, King Albert the Great established danelaw, where he drew a line that ran diagonally along the North east of the country and let the vikings stay there if they promised not to move south of this line. So York was their main hang out. The wall that they built along the city is still there and you can walk on top of it. Our coach pulled in around noon as it is ways north from London, and we took a walking tour all over, saw York Minster (the 2nd most important cathedral in England behind Canterbury), and checked out the town. Here are some pictures of York.

That night we had dinner as a group (there were 20 of us) and went on a little pub crawl around town. We stayed in a youth hostel which actually wasn't that bad, and then had a full English breakfast that morning which was great! Then we were off to Fountains Abbey in Ripon. The abbey was founded in 1132 by cistercian monks who lived there for 400 years until Henry VIII decided that making a brand new religion was the only way he could get a son. So, he proclaimed himself head of the Anglican Church of England, and the monasteries were dissolved. The monks were kicked out with nowhere to go and people raided the abbeys for anything valuable. Kind of sad, and now they abbey lays in ruins, but it is still cool nonetheless. We walked around the grounds for a while which were really beautiful. Here are a couple pictures.

Next we went to Howarth, which is where the Brontes are from! We took a tour of their family house which was neat. Their story is quite sad, with all 6 children dying before their father who had already lost his wife early on. We also walked around the moors which were absolutely gorgeous. It was definitely the English Countryside!

After that, we hopped back on the coach and came back to London! It was a great weekend. This past week I did a number of things as well. I took a tour of the Imperial War Museum which is definitely a world class museum with all its war artifacts and really cool simulations of a WWI trench and WWII London bomb shelter. I also toured the National Theatre and went backstage and met some actors. It was good to be around a theatre again, I miss it sometimes. That day was gorgeous, so I decided to walk around the south bank and go see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey again.

The next day was not so nice weatherwise, but I worked on a project for a class by walking around Kensington and then I took a run through Regent's Park and checked out Kensington Palace and the Diana Memorial Gardens. They're fixing it up for William and Kate to come live there next year!

Yesterday I went to Windsor Castle which was great! I had been before in 2004, but it was lovely to go back. First we went to Eton College, established by Henry VIII, where a lot of the royal boys went to high school including William and Harry! This is a part of Eton.

Windsor Castle is the oldest that is continuously occupied by royals. We saw the state rooms that are used for official dinners and entertaining guests. I also saw King Henry VIII's armor! He was a large lad to say the least. The best part of Windsor though was definitely Saint George's Chapel. I was pretty much freaking out because of who is buried there. King Henry VI, Henry VIII, Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodville, Jane Seymour, and the Queen Mother. I had to take a moment. I also found the Elizabeth I arch that I took a picture in when I was 14!

The last thing we did was take a picture with a guard, and guess what? I made him smile! I went up next to him and said that I'm sure it was annoying to have people take pictures with him all the time and that if it made him feel better he would be in my profile picture. And he smiled and nodded! To be true to my word, he is in my fbook picture! It was really fun. Then we hit a pub for a late lunch and took the train home.

Today I took a tour of Olympic Park which was really cool. I saw the main stadium, swimming facilities, and velodrome. It will be neat to watch and say that I was there!

So I had a pretty busy 2 weeks. Next up in my adventures are seeing a musical on the West End, going to Oxford and seeing my friend who is in grad school there, and then our Ireland Expedition! March is sure to be a fun month!