Top of the Morning to ya Ireland!

November 5-7, 2010

Our weekend began with a mandatory field trip to London for our British Studies class. Darn, I know, too bad we have to go to London. It was perfect because we went to the places I hadn't been yet! We visited the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery which house some of the most famous art pieces. They gave us a booklet of art to find within the museums- so it was fun going on a scavenger hunt throughout and seeing the art we have been learning about and analyzing.Then we made our way to St. Paul's cathedral, built between 1675 and 1710 (before the USA existed) after the first cathedral was destroyed by London's Great fire of 1666. Inside the cathedral we got a tour around and then we made our way up via the stairs to the Whispering Gallery. This is the first level of the dome where you can stand opposite one another and whisper, and still hear eachother. Then we went up to the next level, up a winding staircase- and the kind you can see through; (the metal ones with holes!) it was kind of scary! But we finally made it to the top of St. Paul's for a great view down at London!

After our academic duties were done I met up with friends in Trafalgar Square and we headed to Chipotle for a much needed burrito! We also got some yummy gelato and then Shelby, Stephanie, and I headed to the Victoria Tube stop in order to board the Gatwick express for the airport. We made it with no problem and our flight to Dublin was to leave shortly. It was a kind of sad weekend as this was the Three Amigos final trip all together :'(. The weeks have been flying by so fast lately.

Funny story, I probably can't tell it as funny as it was at the time though. So, we were walking outside to the airplane from the gate, because that's how you get to the plane for Easyjet. Shelby and Stephanie are walking in front of me and I'm talking to them from behind. We were walking along side caution tape which was blocking us from an area in the tarmac where you aren't allowed. In mid-sentence this caution tape flies over my head and engulfs me and for some odd reason (perhaps cause we were headed to Ireland) I let out this leprechaun noise. It's hard to explain. But Shelby and Stephanie look back and just start cracking up cause I'm trying to get out of this caution tape. This was the beginning of a very entertaining evening.

Next story: We are sitting in the airplane with Shelby by the window, me in the middle (the youngest always gets stuck in the middle), and then Stephanie on the aisle. Sidenote: At the airport we had each bought a powerade for the trip. We were all sitting quietly listening to music and what not. Then Shelby gets out her powerade, takes the top off, and opens the mouth piece and the pressure of the airplane sends a fountain of red powerade all over me. It just sprays all over my face! Shelby saw my face, Stephanie and I saw Shelby's face and it was the most hilarious thing ever. Shelby was sobbing because it was so funny. I just needed to make sure I didn't have red all over my cream jacket!

Later on in our journey Stephanie and Shelby were listening to their ipods and I thought it would be funny to listen to one headphone from each of them. So I had a slow melody going from Shelby's ipod and some intense rap from Stephanie. Then Shelby played a rap song and was dancing in her seat acting out the lyrics...with her eyes closed I might add. Little did we know, the flight attendant was coming around telling people to turn their electronics off. So there we are, Shelby breaking it down, me watching her and laughing and the flight attendant standing at the aisle just watching and waiting for us to look up at him. Finally we saw him and cracked up cause he was watching the whole thing!

Then we landed in Dublin and had to take a bus to the city center. This was about 11pm at night- I suppose we were a little slap happy by this hour. On the moving double decker bus we proceeded to throw gummy candy for Shelby to catch them in her mouth.

We've learned to make our hours of transportation more fun!

We arrived in the rainy city and found our hostel and called it a night, as it was about 1am already and we had to be at another hostel at 7am the next morning for our Paddywagon tour to the Cliffs of Moher. Here's the green bus we were in for about 14 hours!

Our tour started and we made our way to Galway. We stopped at an old monastery and then at the shore to take pictures. I believe this was at the Burren.

Next we made our way to the small village town of Doolin where we stopped for a very quick bite to eat. I had some soup to warm me up!

Then we headed up the mountain to the Cliffs of Moher, what this day was all about. It was the most windy experience ever. We could barely walk it was so windy.

It was so beautiful up there. The coastline was green, the water was so blue!

That ended our adventure -- we would return to our hostel for a final day in Dublin.

Sunday we ventured around the city, but couldn't find many things to do. Dublin was not what I expected.; perhaps a Sunday morning wasn't the best time to explore though.

Nonetheless, Ireland was a good experience. We made our way back to Harlaxton that evening to begin another week of classes.

Next is Austria and Switzerland :)

Keep reading,

Aunt Kate

Oxford, Stonehenge, and Bath

October 29-31, 2010

This weekend would be the final weekend 'school' trip for our semester at Harlaxton. (I say 'our' because I feel like I'm writing on behalf of Stephanie, Shelby, and myself) We left on Friday morning to drive to Oxford University. Oxford is the oldest Univeristy in the English-Speaking world - and second worldwide. I have already seen it's 'other half' - Cambridge, which is said to have been created by some academics that were disputing at Oxford. So they created Cambridge, the other half of the Oxbridge education that British history is known for. Arriving in the town of Oxford you don't get the University feel as you do when entering WKU's campus. It's not similar at all. It's a city and you don't know what is an academic building and what isn't. Our task for Biology was to do a Scientific walk around Oxford to check out sights, museums, etc. that will help us see what we are learning about in the British Influence on Science. One of the cool places we visited was The Natural History University Museum. We saw some fossils, and rocks, and animals - even one dressed like me!
Christ's Church was another place we visited. We just saw the outside and the gardens around but it was so gorgeous.

Here's Stephanie and I showing some love. You can't tell from this picture, but the vines on the building looked like they were the shape of a heart and we color accented the red.

After our quick 4 hour day at Oxford I feel like I didn't really get to see the entirety of it. Our day was cut short when we had to meet back at the bus in order to continue on to Bath. (said like moth but with a B) Our meet a family tried to teach us how to say it with an English accent. So funny!

We arrived in Bath at our hostel - way up a huge hill, practically overlooking the entire city of Bath. That evening we ventured into town where we indulged ourselves with real mashed potatoes and other yummy foods!

Day 2 began with a scheduled tour to the city of Wells where we saw Wells Cathedral. It is a very good example of well-preserved early English architecture, begun in the 12th century. It was really pretty inside but we weren't allowed to take pictures.

Then we made our way by coach to Glastonbury Abbey, the ruins of a monastery that is associated with the legend of King Arthur. Supposedly his remains were once at this monastery. Our tour guide, the youngest monk there, showed us around pointing out all the remains from the ancient monastery. The entire time we were kind of taken aback. As Shelby put it, "Needless to say, I was in a bit of shock." We weren't shocked at the structure itself, instead, we were shocked at the fact that he was acting as if he were alive during the time.He was about 1000 years old I guess. "The fact that he still looked so young and exhuberant was mindblowing," Shelby stated.

After our day of sightseeing we were dropped off in the town center in Bath. Bath is a really neat town. 200 years ago, Bath was the trendsetting Hollywood of Britain. First stop, a delicious candy store that had caramel covered apples, rolled in mini chocolate chips, and sporatic marshmellows! So delicious!!!! With more shopping on the agenda we carried on for a few more hours until heading up the dreaded hill back to the hostel.

As it was Oct. 30, all of us were going to dress up and go out for the night for Halloween!! We had so much fun just getting ready in the room. In our room for 10 people, there were literally 20 or more people that ended up in there!

Starting from the left there is Stephanie, the gangster, Shelby the dude, Katie as Rosie the Riveter and me as Kitty Kait :)

The next morning we got up to see what Bath is all about, The Roman Baths! The were really impressive. A museum surrounds the ancient bath showing artifacts, mosaics and the mouth of the spring. The bath is a large area where Romans would once bathe in the naturally heated water. They warn you not to touch the water, as it is not treated - but I was adventurous and touched it, it was really warm! We even got to talk to real Roman women that were taking baths - they looked really good too, for being so old. Haha.

I almost forgot to mention one of the most epic parts of the weekend. There was just so much that we did! The last part of the trip was our visit to Stonehenge. "As old as the pyramids, and older than the Acropolis and Colosseum, this iconic stone circle amazed medieval Europeans, who figured it was built by a race of giants" (Rick Steves). It's a very mysterious structure as no one knows exactly how, when, or why it was built. "Stonehenge still functions as a remarkably accurate celestial calendar. As the sun rises on the summer solstice (June 21), the 'heel stone' lines up with the sun and the altar at the center of the stone circle" (Rick Steves). Most of the stones are about 25 tons, and the largest is 45 tons. How they got them all the way from Wales, 'only' 240 miles away, and stacked them, is a mystery.

Overall it was a really great weekend. We saw so many sites of the United Kingdom- which is really important since this is where we are living. It's good not just to see the big city of London, that's not all the England is. There is so much more that tourists don't explore. With very few weekends left of time is drawing to the close. Still many more memories to write about though.

Ireland is next. Check back soon!

Aunt Kate

Cambridge University

Friday, October 22nd, our Biology class had a field trip to Cambridge University. It's such a beautiful University. I felt so asstute and academic walking around the bicycle filled streets. Our first stop was the famous Cavendish Laboratory, where world renowned scientists did their research. One of the most famous being Watson and Crick who discovered the double helix structure of DNA. There are
so many scientific relics filling the halls where students pass by everyday. I'm sure that some don't even realize what priceless items lay in those wooden cabinets.

I couldn't help but laugh when the tour guide was explaining how scientists discovered things that did not previously exist -- it just seemed so beyond my level of thought to think of the unthinkable. Purely astounding that someone could create a device to detect neutrons - something with no charge!

Then we went to The Eagle, a pub in Cambridge where Watson and Crick visited frequently. It was at this pub, in 1953, that they came in and announced that they had discovered the secret of life.

At risk of boring you with more biology and chemistry things, I will move on to our next stop. Next we visited King's College Chapel. It's a beautiful church. We have seen a lot of church's though..

Then we visited Trinity College, where Issac Newton studied.

Interestingly enough, Newton is actually from Grantham. (We visited his childhood home at an earlier time). As a matter of fact, we actually ran into Newton while we were there.

Our day trip was really nice. I enjoyed the afternoon spent at Cambridge. Overall, this field trip was not only a sight seeing adventure, but a time to put ourselves in the shoes of the scientists we are studying, and see what they saw, and experience what they experienced.

Lake District

Thursday, October 14 we departed Harlaxton for an adventurous weekend at Lake District. That night we arrived in Ambleside, England at our Youth Hostel which overlooks England's largest lake - Windemere. Although Lake Windemere is the largest lake in England, it's only 9 miles long; but so beautiful. The entire landscape was so picturesque. Mountains, waterfalls, fall colored leaves - so pretty. Friday we had a free day and began by making our way to the nearby town of Grasmere. Our goal was to visit the famous Gingerbread store. We bought some gingerbread in the tiny shop - it was different than usual gingerbread, but very good. We simply visited shops and walked around taking in all the sights. Then we got on a random bus and just rode it until we decided to get off --this was the adventurous part of the day. We joked that is was a really big deal for me and Jessie to go somewhere without planning. We later found out that the city we had made our way to was Bowness. This is where Beatrix Potter world is! We found Peter Rabbit.

Continuing our nice relaxing day, we stopped for a picnic in the town square. Then we made our way down to the Lake and made friends with many geese and swans. Shelby got especially close with them. Guess what she stepped in this weekend?!

A big glob of goose poop! She has great luck with her shoes.

We just moseyed around the rest of the afternoon until dinner when we ate at a delcious authentic Italian restaurant.

Saturday was activities day! We had a big day ahead complete with kayaking in the morning and ghyll scrambling in the afternoon. We had to get suited up first - it was gonna be cold!

First was kayaking. We went down to the Lake, right outside our hostel, where our guide met us. He provided us with some waterproof pants (thank goodness), a lifejacket, kayak, and paddle. It was definitely a learn as you go kind of thing. As soon as we got in, I felt a little unsteady and was really hoping to stay dry! We all got the hang of it rather quickly and determined it was pretty hard to flip your kayak. After a short jaunt we stopped to play a fun game of British Bulldogs - our version of sharks and minnows. I was the champion! It was a lot of fun. No one could catch me on my kayak. haha. One person even flipped over during this game. So hilarious. After winding down even further we decided to stop to play another game with our group. This time we were in two teams. There was a tennis ball and the idea was to get the tennis ball and throw it to the instructor - and who ever's team it was that threw it, got a point. It got a little vicious at times - and another person flipped. Thank goodness I was able to stay in my little kayak.

After a quick lunch and re-charge it was time to get on the bus and head out for ghyll scrambling. Ghyll scrambling is fancy way of saying, climbing awesome waterfalls that have freezing water coming down them! Yes, I did this. I know you might be skeptical, but I beasted it. It was so much fun. Although I returned with bruised legs, sore muscles, and frozen EVERYTHING, it was SO worth it. The highlight of the weekened. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from it because my body was fully submerged in water at times - meaning, no camera allowed. It started as a small creek at the bottom of the mountain. Instead of merely walking along side, we walked through it! Then we got to a point where there was a small cliff. Our awesome guide, Ian, walked up it pretty much, making it look so easy, but dropped a rope down for us to climb with his assistance. Then came the part where I had to literally swim across in order to get to the other side - that was fun. Ice cold water rising all the way up to your neck. Intense. We just continued making our way up the mountain and the most strenuous, and craziest part was at the very end. This waterfall was tall, steep, and had water rushing down it. And did we simply go around it, no! We climbed directly up the middle of it. Water was splashing in my face, I couldn't see, my hands were so cold they wouldn't grasp anything tightly, and the moss was causing my feet to slip. A great combination. But guess what, I made it up! We were the fastest group and made it the furthest too! Go team.

That evening, our awesome group of 4, Shelby, Jessie, and Katie and I enjoyed a much needed helping of nachos and burgers. Then we went to the cinema for the evening in Ambleside to see the best movie ever, Wall Street. (sarcasm, it was boring)

Sunday we made our way to another city, Keswick, where we took in the magnificent view of the lake. We had fun taking pictures, maybe a little too much fun. Haha. The picture to the right is what Shelby captured of my epic jump. Epic fail on the photographer's end. :)

Lake District was a good time had by all - one of the best weekends yet! We enjoy the natural beauty of England so much more than the hustle and bustle of the city. Country girls at heart.