The bittersweet dessert--Last day(-ish) in London

Well, here it is. The last time I will make an entry into our little meeting spot. Just one more thing in my life that I have to bring to an end. Come on now, don't cry. We need to just cherish the time that we have spent in this cyber meeting place and look forward to the future. Lets just rip of this band-aid then and not draw this out too much, ok?

Unfortunately, my last day in London was not overly glamourous. But it was good, none the less. The day started out nice and early as I tried to catch Gaby before she left for work. We had a nice little chat as she got ready for the day and I had a cup of tea with her. By the time that she left for work Brett was up and we got started with all of the packing that needed to be done. As I started packing, I realized that I desperately needed to do some laundry and there was going to be no way that I could make it either to or through my holiday with my parents in Florida (yay Disneyworld!). So, I figured out how to use Gaby's washing machine (she didn't even know how!). I was able to figure it out in about 2 minutes, haha. So we packed ourselves up as we waited for the laundry to get out of the machine to be laid out to dry. Unfortunately, my last day in London was typical London weather... rain. Yuck. But we persisted none the less. After the laundry was done, we walked to the Tube station and hopped on the Piccadilly to CAPA to check our emails again and print off a few things. After our computer addictions had been satisfied, we headed to try and get some tickets to see Billy Elliot, only to discover that they did not have any student tickets, so we decided to seek out other options. After visiting the Leicester Square Tkts booth, unsuccessfully, we decided to walk over to see if we could get some student tickets to see Mary Poppins. Success. After securing our entertainment for that evening, we grabbed a bit of lunch at Pizza Express and headed down to the Underground once more. This time we headed to Holborn, destined for the British Museum. It was absolutely breathtaking. It was so amazing to see so many artifacts from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, from all over Ancient Greece and Europe. The Rosetta Stone was just sitting there. No big deal. It was amazing. The history nerd in me came out in full force. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see everything because we had to get back to see Mary Poppins and make a last trip to Top Shop. By far my least expensive trip ever to Top Shop. I only bought a necklace. That is it. While there was tons that I wanted, I knew that my wallet couldn't afford anymore shopping (after having to admit defeat and ask for money from my parents in Switzerland, I think that is a sign that shopping is a no no). So I just bought my one necklace to go with one of my dresses for rush. After saying goodbye to Top Shop for the last time, we headed back to Leicester Square, grabbed some Pret and a cup of tea and went to see Mary Poppins. The show was absolutely fabulous. The little kid in me definitely came out and I didn't care. All of the dancing was pretty impressive, and it made me really miss dancing. All too soon my last day in London was over and Brett and I headed back to Gaby's.

Wednesday morning Brett and Gaby went to the airport bright and early, leaving me alone. When I finally woke up, I finished all of my packing (even though some of my stuff was still damp), and walked to the Tube station. I must have looked ridiculous. I was there with my big backpack on my bag, my big dufflebag on my front, a big tote bag on one shoulder, my purse on the other and a bag of garbage in my hand (because there was just too much to leave there, I felt bad). After a frustrating ride on the Piccadilly, having to get on and off switching trains because they kept terminating, I finally made it to Heathrow. My fourth time in that airport, it didn't seem real that I was leaving until I had all of my bags checked in. I just sat there in the terminal not knowing what to do with myself. It was just so sad. Everything was over so fast. I didn't want to come home. I mean, yes, I missed America and all of my friends and family, but I also realized that London had sort of become my home too. I was leaving the familiar once more. I had known as I went along that my life was changing, but sitting in Heathrow it became real that I had to go back to my old life now, with new experiences, new dispositions, new hopes, fears and dreams, and plenty of new friends.

Looking back on the whole summer, I had a wonderful time. While there are some things that I would change, some things that I wish were different, it was a great experience. I learned a lot about work, the world, life and about myself. Now the next challenge is going to be life in America, finding my place and continuing down the path towards my future. There are still plenty more adventures to come. We'll just have to see what happens next.

Yours Always,

Jessica--Pond Jumper Extraordinaire

And the entree-- One Contiki European Horizons tour, well done with a side of shenanigans

Our first day, Saturday, was spent in Amsterdam. Well, I should really say that Amsterdam was our ultimate destination. The majority of our day, like most of those to come, was spent on a bus. We left London at 7:00am trekking from the Royal National to Dover to catch the ferry to France. Like much of my time on the bus, I spent a significant chunk of time sleeping. I had taken some motion sickness pills, which made me even more tired than my 5:00 wake-up already had, so I could not keep my eyes open. The bitch of it is, making me tired was about all the motion sickness pills did. I still felt queasy on the ferry. As some of the boys described, I get sea sick standing on wet grass (I was greatly amused by this description, hence the inclusion). We arrived in France after about an hour and a half on the ferry and made our way to Belgium. To be completely honest, I slept through the majority of our time in Belgium. But from what I saw, I don’t think I missed much. While I am sure the cities are lovely, my memories of Belgium are of pavement and flat farmland. Very exciting. After my nap(s), I woke up for our ride through The Netherlands, or Holland if you prefer. It was just like you might think, complete with tons of farmland, little ponds, and, oh yes, windmills. After a few more hours and a another nap, we were in Amsterdam. I had only known Amsterdam for its famously liberal attitudes about sex and drugs, with the Red Light District and the decriminalization of weed. But beyond that, there is so much more to the city! Amsterdam is absolutely beautiful, with a ton of cultural things all around. When we first got into the city, we went to the hostel and got all settled in before dinner. After our tanks were all topped off we all got ready for an exciting night out of the town in one of the most famous party cities in the world. We started the night off with a nice booze cruise on a river boat, floating through the canals. There was a spectacular view of the city, and it certainly didn’t hurt that it was all your could drink wine and beer. The booze cruise was the first group bonding experience of our trip. This was my first introduction to some really great people. First there was Jackie. Jackie is from Wisconsin, but she is living just outside of London, working as a kindergarten teacher. Along with Jackie there was Becca. Becca was also from Wisconsin, and she still lived there with her cute little daughter. In addition to these lovely ladies there was Lauren and Cristina, from New York, both still in school, and Shamus and Dane, from Sydney. Shamus and Dane were always a hoot, very entertaining, always looking for a good time. Shamus is a carpenter back in Sydney, looking to move to the UK, and Dane is a international politics student at the University of Sydney. We were all taking photos, dancing and socializing. Well, while we were all chatting it up, I decided to sit on the opposite side of the boat and chat with some of my fellow travelers. Well, less than two minutes after I sat down, a huge speed boat flew by, sending a huge wave of water in through the windows, soaking me to the bone. Although slightly traumatic in my largely white dress, it was hilarious. We cruised the canal for an hour and a half, ending near the red light district, everyone filled up on the social lubricant known as alcohol. After the river cruise, a group of us from the tour headed into the Red Light District to one of the many Casa Rosa for an infamous sex show. All of the girls were given penis shaped suckers, and the boys were all given condoms with some funny saying on them. The stands for the ropes outside the show were topped off with penises, which was very funny when the boys realized that they were not holding onto a normal post, but a penis. Great reactions from all. We stayed at the sex show for about an hour. In my personal opinion, a huge waste of money, but oh well. When in Rome, eh? It was not remotely sexy. In fact after about 10 minutes I was bored out of my mind. We were supposed to get two free drinks in the club, but I didn’t really understand how to redeem them, so I didn’t even get those. After the club a bunch of people went out to the various clubs and coffeehouses, but Brett and I followed a group home to the hostel, making a slight detour at the Hard Rock Café for some t-shirts.

Sunday morning was a little bit rough waking up after a late night, especially since we had to be up and at breakfast at 7:00am. I barely dragged my bum out of bed, but I made it down for breakfast, but then was forced to pack in a hurry as we were heading into the city for the morning. Once we were finally in the city, a large group of us, including my California Asians (three boys who just got out of university in California), walked over to the Anne Frank Haus, the house of Anne Frank that Stephen Spielberg (with the money from Schindler’s List) converted into a museum. The house was actually surprisingly more large and comfortable than I had expected. It was completely unfurnished (which may have made it seem larger) but was full of all kinds of artifacts from the Franks, including Anne’s original diary. Very cool. After we had thoroughly explored the house, Brett and I wandered the city a bit, visiting the infamous floating flower market (which surprisingly had very few live flowers and was not really very floaty, but the stores kind of just hung over the river). I picked up a few bulbs to give as gifts (although, disappointingly, the coolest of the flowers could not be imported to the States) and Brett and I sort of wandered the city. While we were wandering we ran across a cute little market, where we both splurged a little on some bags. They were made from former gas mask bags from the fifties, made more stylish with real vintage fabric from Scandinavia in the 1970’s. They might not have been exactly in the budget, but I probably would have regretted not buying one later. After we finished at the market, we tried to go into a coffeehouse just to get the experience, a few of which were advertising that they had juice bars. None of them did. At least not that we could tell. They were really pretty dodgy really. I’m sure they were more sketchy because it was the middle of the day (well really the morning, still). After giving up on all of that, we went meet up with the rest of the group to catch the coach and head to Germany. Once back on the coach, I caught up with some much needed sleep as we made our way.Tuesday we left Munich bright and early, as always and set out for Austria, home of the VonTrapp family, birthplace of the Governator, producer of RedBull, and worshipers of all that is David Hasselhoff. The bus ride was full of its normal mix of napping, good music, laughter, and checking out the sights as we drove by. This trip was especially glorious as it was punctuated with the musical talents of The Hoff, and a full bus sing-a-long to “Do A Deer” from The Sound of Music. Glorious. As we got close to Austria, the view continuously got better and better. The view out the window of the Austrian Alps was able to compensate for the windy roads (that always make little me so car sick). After about two hours of driving, we arrived in Tirol to do a bit of whitewater rafting. It was simply brilliant. The water was freezing, but it was overall completely worth it. Our guide Mike was a hoot. Just after we got onto the water Mike admitted that he was still slightly drunk from the night before. Fabulous. The rapids were the perfect size, enough to dunk you a bit, but never risk falling out or getting hurt or anything. Some of the rapids we actually rode down standing on the outer edges of the boat, supported by our oars inside of the boat. We did our fair share of swimming down the river, which was tons of fun, but the downside was that the water was so cold that your hands went numb after a minute. We were on the river for about 2 hours, but the time absolutely flew by. On the river there was a great view of the surrounding area, including the mountain that is used for the Paramount Pictures logo. Very fancy. All along the river there were all kinds of bridges, old bridges, new bridges, steel bridges, wooden bridges, everything, and lots of pretty little beachy river banks. After we made it to the end, we all took a shot of schnapps (which was horrible, for the record), returned our equipment, grabbed a spot of lunch, and hopped back on the bus. After another two and a half hours or so of sitting on the bus we arrived in the cute little town of Hopfgarten. Hopfgarten is at its peak during the winter ski season, nestled at the foot of a mountain, prime for skiing. Once we reached Hopfgarten, we split into three different groups, one going into town, one going paragliding, and my group, going on a biking tour of the city. We biked for about an hour and a half, getting a little tour along the way. The church in the center of town was so adorable. It was painted bright yellow, and apparently the inside was gorgeous (so I heard from the group that had gone into town). We biked through the woods surrounding the town, the main streets of the town, down to the Trout Farm (where you could catch and eat your own fish, but we didn’t have enough time—the theme of the trip), then up to a little playground/amusement park. Once we reached the little amusement park, we all had some cake or ice cream. I opted for the plum cake, but after tasting the ice cream, I will admit that would have been a better choice. This sundae had all kinds of fruit, a mango/raspberry ice cream, vanilla ice cream, raspberry sauce and cookies (plus a little party sparkler kind of thing in the top). Delicious. After we were reenergized with some sugar, we biked back up to the town to catch the bus again. To our surprise, we were told that we were receiving an upgrade from the hostel that we were supposed to be staying at and we would be staying in a hotel instead. And what an upgrade it was! This hotel was absolutely ADORABLE, a little chateau with almost every room having a little balcony with a flower box. And even better, dinner was fabulous! We had a proper 4 four course meal with soup, salad, pasta and dessert. Very nice (Borat style). After dinner we all went upstairs and got ready for the White Out party that was taking place that night. Brett and I thought that we would for sure win the contest of best outfit, as he dressed in a kilt (which admittedly looked like a toga) made from one of the bed sheets and I was dressed in white ghetto clothing (Brett’s shorts, a white tee shirt, a white head scarf, a bandana around m arm and a Nelly-esque Band-Aid drawn on with a highlighter). Unfortunately, we were out done by Jerry, one of the South Africans, who wore only a pair of white boxer briefs and a pair of white sunglasses, with money hanging out his shorts and belt. Well played, sir. Well played. We had plenty of fun, assisted by the schnapps shot tray special (strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, kiwi, a blow job, and an obstler—a disgusting 80% alcohol content drink of death), and the lady’s special (vodka, strawberry schnapps, and strawberry juice). We were celebrating a 20th birthday of Farid, one of our American travelers. Once we were all properly happy, Janelle (the tour manager) and I, along with the assistance of other girls, got every single boy’s shirt off in the group. It was absolutely amazing. You can’t even imagine how hilarious this night was. A proper tribute to the awesomeness of Austria.

For a change of pace, we thought we might get an early start on Wednesday (note the dripping sarcasm from this sentence). After the same breakfast of deli meat, cheese and rolls (fourth day in a row) we packed up all of our bags and hopped on the coach we call home. After about an hour of driving we were in Italy, on our way to the beautiful city of Venice. It was another long day on the bus, not too exciting (although there was a bit of a view of the beautiful Italian Alps—but I was sleeping for a lot of it, as usual). We finally arrived into our campsite, got settled a bit, and headed via boat into the city (sea sick—yuck). Venice itself was quite beautiful though. We started our expedition off by walking to St. Mark’s Square, the most famous area of the city, just outside of St. Mark’s Cathedral full of pigeons (but no pigeon poop because the pellets they give to people to feed them with are constipators and simultaneously kill and sterilize all the pigeons!). After looking around the square a bit, we went into a Venetian glass shop and were showed exactly how Venetian glass items are made. It was actually really amazing. The demonstrator made a glass horse in less than a minute. It was really impressive. Inside of the shop there were about a hundred things that I wanted to buy, from vases, to chandeliers to jewelry, but zero that I could afford to buy (sad face). Coming to grips with this conclusion quickly, Brett and I headed over to St. Mark’s to get in line to go inside. This turned out to be very fortunate, because only about 10 people in total (not in our group) got in after us because the Cathedral was closing! So we just barely made it in, and if we would have stayed in the shop any longer we would have missed one of the greatest parts of Venice. Inside of the Cathedral, everything was breathtaking. The entire floor and ceiling was in these beautiful mosaics (sorry, no pictures allowed!) in brilliant colors and gold. The actual floor was very uneven because it was sinking along with the rest of the city. After we had seen the interior of the cathedral, we set out to find a bottle of wine for our gondola ride. That was quite an adventure, but eventually we found a store (but no one had a bottle opener, so we had to either get twist caps or champagne, which was warm… we ended up with a bit of both) and headed back to St. Mark’s Square to meet up with the rest of the group for our gondola ride through the city. There were six of us in the boat, and Brett and I got the “love seat,” a little couch sort of thing right in front of the gondolier. Sadly, our gondolier would not sing for us, so Brett and I were forced to compensate for him and thus Brett and I spent the entire ride serenading the rest of our boat with everything from The Elephant Love Melody (Moulin Rouge) to I’ve had the Time of My Life (Dirty Dancing). Everyone in our boat was quite entertained by it. We rode around the city for about 45 minutes, and finally returned back to dry ground. Because it was getting late, Brett and I decided to grab a bite to eat. Long story short, it was unimpressive, I will spare the details. Then we did a bit more shopping (we had done some before the gondola ride), picking up a few random sort of knick knacks. Wandering around a bit, we spotted Janelle, our lovely Tour Manager, in St. Mark’s Square, which was beginning to flood with the incoming tide. Janelle suggested that we go to a particular bridge before we had to meet up, and so we took off. But before we made it very far, I got the nose bleed to end all nose bleeds. I am pretty sure I terrified about half of the population of Venice (that is an exaggeration, I only saw a few people, most of whom were in this little restaurant where I sought sanctuary). I know I certainly terrified Brett as he ran to get me some napkins, only to turn around and see me behind him with blood all over me and running down my arms (too graphic? I will stop). The people at the restaurant were so nice and let me use their bathroom and the little bartender (who was probably in his late 60’s or so) kept coming in to check on me. After about 20 minutes, when my nose finally started to cooperate and allow me to leave the bathroom, we set out for this bridge again. Unfortunately, we never made it to the bridge, but had to turn around in order to meet the group (stopping along the way to get Brett a gelato). It’s a pretty good thing that we didn’t dawdle getting back to the square, because about ten people ended up getting left in the city to find their own way back to the campsite. We walked through the city to the boat pick-up, and rode back to the campsite. Although the camp’s bar was supposedly legendary, we decided to pass, mostly because I was feeling sick from blood loss (and the connected sore throat from the bloody nose) and because I was a mess, with my dress covered in blood. It’s enough to put anyone off. Instead we watched EuroTrip, and I called home from a payphone (I broke down and bought a phone card). I guess no one in the group was really able to enjoy the bar, though, because it was just ridiculously crowded, and by the time that we got in, everyone else in the bar was properly toasted and therefore obnoxious.

Thursday was the first time that we had a proper breakfast for the first time on the trip. Because it was a Contiki campsite, there were people there who were assigned to cook for us and thus, in addition to our normal cereal and yogurt and toast, we had OMELETTES! Woo Hoo! A good way to start the day. It was a big driving day as we made our way from Italy all the way to the Swiss Alps. Not a ton to say I suppose about the drive. We stopped for the afternoon in Lucerne where we walked around a bit taking in the sights. One of the cool things in town was a memorial which Mark Twain described as one of the most moving monuments in the world. It was a giant lion carved into the side of a mountain, commemorating the commitment of the 100 Swiss guards protecting Louis the XXIV during the French Revolution. Every single one of these guards was slaughtered protecting the castle and the king and queen had already fled (unknown to them). This story reminds me of one of my favourite things about the Swiss, that they are fucking crazy. Up until very recently it was mandatory for every able bodied man to be part of the Swiss army (now some people are allowed to be conscious objectors). Every single military member (therefore pretty much every man) is required to have 50 rounds and a rifle in his home and this is checked twice a year. Pretty much every town has its own armory and the whole country is littered with airfields and hangers, many of which are camouflaged from the sky. It is crazy. And it only gets better. All of over the roads there are effectively booby traps, explosives set to make the roads untravelable upon detonation in case anyone was to invade. It’s pretty nuts. Ok, back to the topic at hand. The city also had this amazing wooden footbridge that was painted very intricately with flowers and historical scenes. On the other side of that bridge we went to a little shop selling Swiss army knives and Swiss watches, in addition to a cute little chocolate shop. Gotta love the heights of Swiss industry. As always we only had a little bit of time to look around before we had to get right back onto the bus. After our little break, we got back on the rode and headed for our camping area at the base of Jungfrau, one of the highest mountains in the Swiss Alps. When we finally got into town, which was decked out to the nines in Swiss flags, and highlighted by beautiful waterfalls throughout the town, we quickly unloaded our stuff into the “loft” and headed down to dinner. The accommodations in Switzerland were some of the best out of the whole trip (second only to Austria, I would say). We had a huge room to ourselves in the top floor of the building, with a skylight, and the food was actually quite good. We got started off with some cheese fondue, then we had some really good chicken with salad (! Yes, I said salad in Europe) and some dessert. After dinner, we headed back to the room to have another movie night, this time inviting the boys that are now affectionately known as the BCB, the British Columbia Boys (Devin, Walker, Ben, and Liam, for those of you dying to know). We started watching The Producers, and I feeling a little under the weather, fell asleep in the middle! Ops.

Friday was spent in an unbelievably cold way, considering it is August. After a hearty breakfast, Brett and I, along with a selected few from the group, took an hour and a half train ride up Jungfrau. Apparently in the days prior to our arrival, the area around Jungfrau had received an abnormal amount of precipitation, meaning that there was an abnormal amount of snow on the way up to and at the top of the mountain. Of course being the goofball that I am, this meant that I initiated a snowball fight with those going up the mountain when we changed trains. On our second train on the way up the mountain, we made two stops on our route, taking a chance to snap a few photos of the surrounding mountains. When we finally reached the top of Jungfrau (via the highest train station in Europe) we took in the view from the windows of the station before heading into the Ice Palace. The Ice Palace is a series of ice caves with tons of ice sculptures and such. Literally EVERYTHING is ice, including the floor, which was at times problematic, but overall really cool (get it… ice caves… cool…I’m so funny). After we explored the ice caves, we headed out to the viewing area, out in the freezing cold. I, unfortunately only brought along my little slippers and sandals with me on our Contiki trip, meaning that I was out in the snow and ice with little pink slipper shoes. Not so easy. As we went out to the viewing area, we were forced to battle ice and snow, along with a really intense wind. Needless to say, we tired of the viewing area quite quickly and moved back inside to check out the highest point in the train station area, surrounded by glass and serviced by the world’s fastest elevator. After seeing all of this, we headed out into the cold once more. This time though, we were on a mission. Brett and I were going to be the first of Janelle’s people ever to hike all the way out to this château on the side of the mountain. It was not an easy task by any means, but we finally made it, along with one of the other girls in our group, to enjoy a bit of lunch. After our hour long struggle uphill, barely able to keep our breath, we felt that it was justified to eat pretty much whatever we wanted. The only problem, however, was the prices. Switzerland has one of the highest costs of living in Europe, and at the top of the mountain, there was an even more pronounced high cost. So, Brett and I shared a ridiculously rich entrée made of bread, egg, and ham covered in an overly rich cheese sauce. I finally surrendered to the dish, because it was just too rich (and came back with a vengeance as we were on our way back down the mountain). So the three of us hiked back down the mountain (which was much easier than on the way up, assisted by the sliding of my shoes down the mountain) and caught the train back down. As I alluded, I felt like vomiting, so I spent the majority of the trip asleep. When we finally got back down the mountain (past all of the cows and sheep and crazy Swiss people) we did a little bit of shopping (new hat!) and spying (oooh, one of the girls on the trip on a “late lunch” date with the bus driver, after having been in his room late the night before, oh la la), we headed back to the room for a nap. Unfortunately, neither of us actually fell asleep. Defeated, we watched High School Musical (not a bad consolation prize) and headed down to dinner for some burgers and fries. After dinner we gathered our BCB and Dustin, another one of the boys from the trip, and watched Freedom Writers. While we watched the movie, Brett took the initiative to get drunk, alone, with the bottle of wine that we had bought (by this time, I had full blown cold and was in no position to help him drink it). He also had to use the last of the Swiss francs that he had taken out, so he went down to the bar and bought a few frugles (a Red Bull flavored liquor) and came back up to the room. Crazy kid. What can you do?

Saturday was another big driving day. We were up and adam bright and early, grabbing breakfast at 6:45 (ouch) and hopping quickly on the bus. The rest of the day was spent on the road (blah!). But, at least the trip was spiced up with a few games, known as the Bus Olympics. There was the relay race, requiring certain items to be passed from the back of the bus to the front of the bus (with intense stealing at times). Things got a little intense in the Olympics, and quite amusing, especially when things that needed to be passed around were things like bras, condoms and tampons (yes, we are immature, but it was amusing). But in my opinion, the highlight of the game was when we had to pass a photo of a gondola to the front. Being at the front, I received the camera and was forced to find the picture within Gerard’s camera. To my shock, I did not find a picture of a gondola, but a picture of one of the Contiki staff’s (I think it was a bartender’s) almost nether-regions. Shocking, hilarious. Janelle and I were thoroughly amused to say the least. After the conclusion of this game, we started another game, proving that combined, Brett and I are the biggest losers ever. This game was a sort of Name that Tune game, where we were as a team supposed to identify the television show or movie’s theme song that was playing. Brett and I impressively got 42 out of 50 theme songs correct (with the assistance of our bus neighbors, Julie and Dustin, who did not want to play). Yep, we are losers. By around 5:00, we had arrived in Paris and immediately headed to the Eiffel Tower. As a group we jumped to queue and went up to the top of the tower, getting an amazing view of the city. A great introduction to Paris. After our trip up the Eiffel Tower, we took a thirty minute to the campsite that we were staying at. When we arrived we dropped off our stuff in the cabins, we went to the food tent to grab some grub. Before dinner we were greeted with escargot and pink champagne. Tre bien! After dinner, Dustin, who was also a bit under the weather, joined Brett and I in our cabin for a little bit of Harry Potter action. But, once again, I fell asleep before the end of the movie (which they apparently did not even reach because the boys got too tired as well).

Sunday, our last day of action. Sadness. The day started out in the usual way, breakfast. After breakfast, we headed back into Paris (with a little city tour along the way), to start the day off with a group photo in from of the Eiffel Tower. How romantic. Needless to say, there was plenty of picture taking by all. After our group photo, we piled on the bus and headed to a small perfumery for a tour. Before we were able to enter the perfumery, we were forced to sit outside and wait for them to be ready. Fortunately for (some) us, we were just outside of the National Opera House, the setting of the Phantom of the Opera (it unfortunately was closed, since it was a Sunday). Impressive, none the less. After about fifteen minutes, we finally got into the perfumery for a little history and tour of the perfume museum before heading into the store (everything ends in a gift shop now a days, doesn’t it?). Despite my best efforts, my stuffy nose prevented me from really getting a feel for any of the perfumes that they had. Oh well. By this time I didn’t really (and still don’t) have the money for any of these luxuries. After the perfumery, everyone (slowly but surely) piled back onto the bus to be dropped off at their choice of the two points in the city, at the Muse D’Orsey or (as we chose) the Arc de Triumph. At the Arc we met up with Brett’s friend Betsy who was living in Paris for the summer doing an internship. After meeting up with Betsy, we started walking around the city, heading into a park for some crepes. Betsy, in her perfect French ordered a couple of crepes for Brett and I (the real kind, not the sweet kind). Delicious. After our little snack break, we continued to walk around the city, taking in all of the sights. Before coming into the city, Brett and I decided to eat our way through Paris. So we did our best to do just that. After just a few minutes of walking, we found a little pastry shop (most pasty places were closed because it was a Sunday). So we stopped in and grabbed an éclair and a piece of cake and went up to the second floor and had some tea along with our desserts. After our dessert break, we hit the pavement once more, walking to the Louvre, taking our required pictures, then walking over to Notre Dame (of course stopping along the way in many of the little shops along the way). After Notre Dame, we walked across the river and along the little stands lining the river, selling everything from books, to paintings, to posters, to little souvenirs. I bought a lovely little painting to be paired with the other paintings that I already have. After walking along the river for a few minutes, we went into the area of San Michel, a very lively area compared to the rest of the city on that sleepy, cloudy Sunday. After wandering through San Michel for a few minutes (stopping and getting a crepe for Betsy). All too soon, it was time for us to meet up with the rest of our group for a group dinner. The dinner was absolutely fabulous, with plenty of wine, delicious food, a crazy accordion player who thought that he was a sort of rock star. After I had had my fill of onion soup, duck a l’orange, cheese and dessert (and wine!) I headed out with the rest of the group to meet the bus once more, this time heading to the cabaret show. The show was very entertaining, full of dancing, topless girls, jugglers, acrobats, comedians, and other performers. Brett even ended up on stage as jugglers knocked a hat, a cigarette, and glasses right off of his face with bowling pins without hitting him. It was really impressive. This, however, made me incredibly nervous because by the point that Brett was on stage he was thoroughly drunk (after over a bottle of wine and half a bottle of champagne), so sitting still was not entirely in his grasp. But he lived, at least for another ten minutes. After that ten minutes was up, he passed out on my shoulder for probably another 20 minutes. I literally picked the kid up by his hair and he didn’t wake up. It was intense. Everyone else got a real kick out of it, but I was seriously pissed off. And who wouldn’t be. None the less we ended up in a huge fight (which he has no recollection of). After we finally got back to the campsite I put him to bed and met up with a few of my BCB. We attempted to go to the bar at the campsite, but it was entirely lame, so we headed back to their cabin. When we got back to the cabin, Liam was sleeping, so I took the liberty of hopping into the bed with him for some snuggles while the other boys (Ben and Devon) got settled in for the night. We had a wonderful time just messing around, and after a few more snuggles with Devon I headed back to my cabin to get some sleep.

Monday morning was very sad. After waking up to still-drunk Brett, we grabbed some breakfast at the food tent and finished packing. Then we had to say goodbye to about 20 people out of 51, those who were leaving from Paris to travel to other parts of the continent (or home to other countries in some cases). I had to say goodbye to my California Asians and (tear!) my BCB. The BCB was headed to Barcelona, so they were taking a train from Paris. The rest of the day was kind of depressing, knowing that we were headed back to London. Because we got rid of so many people, most people now had their own seats, so they sprawled out and fell asleep. Unable to sleep, despite my late night the evening before, I sat up at the front of the bus chatting with Janelle and Amos, our tour manager and coach captain, about everything under the sun. Between talking to Janelle and Amos and having my last little chats with Becca and Jackie, time just flew by. Before I knew it we were at the ferry and had to go through passport control. They thought they were going to have to leave me there because I ended up getting hung up with this jerk customs officer. When I was coming back from Dublin, I had accidentally thrown out the computer print out that had my return flight details and I never had an opportunity to find somewhere to print it out again, and they wanted to see these details when I was going through the customs at the ferry. They might have let it slide if I hadn’t had problems twice before (when I was first coming to London and when I was coming back from Barcelona) at immigration about my return flight. So then the guy asked me to show him some school ID to prove that I was a student. But all I had was my ISIC (International Student ID) card, which to him “wasn’t worth the paper that it was printed on.” So then he asked to see my drivers license and then tried to tell me that it was expired because it was 11-05-2007, which he read as May 11. So I had to explain to him that in America, the date is not read like that (what kind of immigration officer wouldn’t know that!?). So finally he let me through. Amos and Janelle were terrified that I was going to say that I worked for a political magazine, which they thought would cause the immigrations officers to want to empty the whole bus and go through everyone’s bag. Haha. But after all that drama we finally got on the ferry, where I quickly ate some lunch and fell asleep before I had the opportunity to get sea sick. After that, it was a blur and we were back in London and getting dropped off. After saying all of our goodbyes to everyone, Brett and I hopped on the Tube toward Ealing to be met by Gaby to go back to her house. After getting settled and taking a shower, Gaby, Brett and I headed over to Sam’s house to hang out for a bit and check our email before the four of us headed to dinner at a little Asian noodle bar (I tried squid for the first time!). After a lovely little dinner, Gaby and Sam headed out to a friend’s birthday party and Brett and I headed back to Gaby’s to crash.

So there it is. The entrée. I hope you enjoyed it. I know it was kind of dense, but there is just so much to say! I had a fabulous time, and now in comparison to this week my life is going to seem so boring for a while! Don’t worry. There is still a little dessert coming at you. My last day in London! How sad. So that will be coming at you in just a moment… I’m sure the anticipation is killing you…

Crying into the soup and salad... Saying goodbye to London and Scotland (and saying hello to Ireland!)

Alright, so you still want more, eh? Well I will oblige. We last left off at the beginning of my final week in London. Things are stressful with schoolwork, I'm still having separation anxiety from Scotland (which was not lessened by a weekend in Roma), and I have to pack up my whole apartment. Oh, and Brett is on his way to see me for the first time in six months. Can we say hectic?

Even though I probably should have, and definitely could have, I didn’t really sleep in after getting in at 1:30 and not getting into bed until about 4. Instead I woke up bright and early and started to clean my room and finished up all of the final touches on my portfolio due that evening. I also ended up meeting (finally!) with my supervisor at Foresight Communications (the internship with the now infamous Dr. Onkar Sahota). We met up and went out for a cup of tea in a nearby restaurant. Wow, was it nice. This place even had its own piano player and was decked out completely in leather couches and chairs, wait staff clad in dress shirts and tuxedo pants. Anywho, our meeting really shed some light on to my situation and why things turned out the way that they did. I think if I would have known before what I know now, I could have had a much better experience and been much more helpful. But, none the less, a good conclusion to the whole situation. After our meeting I headed to Vauxhall to print off some things at Dods for my portfolio. I just love everyone at Dods. So nice. I printed off all of my portfolio and bound all of the pages then set off (in the rain) for Cromwell Road for my final Perspectives on Experiential Learning Abroad class. I got there with quite a bit of time before my class started, so I decided to break down and purchase Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I had refused to pay 27 Euro in Italy for the book, but I just could not continue to resist, so I went down to Sainsbury’s and picked it up and started reading. Well, our PELA class only lasted about 15 minutes, then we turned in our portfolios and went our separate ways. Most everyone else went down to the pub after class, but I could not resist the temptation of Harry Potter, so I went home and read instead. I spent the rest of the evening alternating between Harry Potter, cleaning, and being on the phone. Very nice.

Tuesday, not so exciting, I guess. Work. Uploaded the magazine, as usual to the website, transcribed some interviews, prank phone calls (they weren’t really prank calls, I was checking to make sure that all of the phone numbers in our directory were still correct, but I felt like I was doing prank calls). Thrilling really. The evening was spent in a similar fashion to the previous evening, this time with a bit of packing thrown into the mix. Wow, I know.

Wednesday was a bit more exciting, just on the principle that the day that I had been counting down to for the previous six months had finally arrived. Brett and I finally we back together for the first time since January, when he had left for Australia. The day started off a bit rocky, as I missed my bus stop at Kings Cross Thameslink because I was so busy reading Harry Potter! Fortunately though, I was only one stop too far, so I rushed back in a solid power walk. Work was actually borderline torturous on Wednesday. The whole day was spent transcribing interviews. Three interviews. Yikes. But I none the less survived in one piece. Success. The evening was full of cleaning, attempts at doing laundry, and Harry Potter. Around 9pm I headed out for the airport to pick up Brett. Like an idiot, I forgot to check what airline he was flying with before I left. I recalled it being British Airways, so I went to the BA terminal and was waiting there (already a few minutes late) and I noticed that there were no flights coming in from the US, let along Chicago. So in a panic, I called my mom who checked my email. He was flying American Airlines, which of course is on the total opposite side of the airport. Seeing as the Underground was closing in a few minutes, I ran from one terminal to the other, and barely had time to greet Brett, who was sitting patiently waiting for me, before we had to rush to back to the Underground. After we got back to the CMC (that’s Charles Morton Court, my apartment building) Brett got all settled and we headed to bed.

Up early on Thursday, getting ready for my last day of work. Harry Potter joined me once more on my last commute to work (this time I was careful not to take the bus too far!). Once at work I was assigned with making a list of all of the heads of government for every single country in the world. Needless to say, that took quite a bit of time. By the time I was finished with that, it was about lunch time. Because it was my last day, Richard, my supervisor, and Sarah, my would be supervisor took me out to a lovely long lunch a few blocks away. We had a bottle of wine, starters, entrees, the whole works. In the middle of our lunch it started raining, and since I was the only one who had brought an umbrella, we sat around a bit longer than we might have otherwise waiting for the rain to stop. We talked about all kinds of things, mostly politics, of course, and just had a wonderful time. After lunch I finished up my last assignment (a transcript of course! L) and said my goodbyes. Seeing as I had only been there a month and previous to that day had never been out with any of my coworkers before, it was surprisingly sad. After work I met up with the rest of the students from my group for a goodbye dinner at a pub nearby CAPA. Filled up on meat, cheese, fish, veggies and pita, I headed back to my apartment to meet up with Brett, who had gone out earlier to meet up with some of his friends back from Australia. The rest of the night was spent doing some final packing, deciding what needed to come to Florida (where I will be taking a holiday with my parents after my European tour), what needed to come to Europe, and what just needed to be sent home with Brett to Michigan. So that pretty much took the whole evening, complimented with a couple of movies.

Friday was kind of a sad day. Last day with the people that I had just spent the past 3 months with, day and night, for better and for worse. I was one of about ten people (at best) that went to class. We turned in our final papers and got a lecture for about an hour and a half about the future of the United Kingdom. If he couldn’t already sense it, I think Sofia (one of the older women in our group)’s comment of “we don’t want to be here all day” made it obvious to our professor that he was expected to keep the class short. As he lectured, I felt for the first time a great deal of personal opinion coming through, especially regarding the topic of Devolution. Lets just say, if Russell were there, there may have been a full scale brawl over some of the things that Professor Meenagh said about Scotland. I called him immediately after class to share the blasphemous things that I had been told. He was fuming. After class I met up with Brett at the Tower of London, where we took a tour of the complex, guided by a saucy Beefeater. We was really quite amusing. He shared all of the history of London and the Tower, as well as informed us about the origins of many phrases (a great number of which I had never heard of before). Fabulous tour. After the tour ended we went into the Jewel House and saw the Crown Jewels. It was really unbelievable how gaudy some of the things were. I enjoyed imagining Elizabeth just making a phone call to pull some of the items out to use them at parties, like the punch bowl the size of a bathtub. And then of course there was the 530 carat diamond in the scepter. You know, it wasn’t that impressive, I have seen bigger (not really, it was ginormous, to the point that I didn’t even believe that it could possibly be real). After seeing the Crown Jewels, we went into the Armoury (which neither of us were particularly interested in, but they have a way of trapping you so you have to go up like 5 flights of stairs and go through the whole building to exit), and then to a one room exhibit about Torture at the Tower (oohh, scary!) complete with famous torture devises like The Rack. After going through the Tower, we headed back to my apartment to finish packing, clean up, and drop our things off at Brett’s friend Gaby’s house, since I was going to be kicked out of my apartment the following day. Well, long story short, after about six phone calls, three texts, a Facebook message, and a Skype call later, we realized that she had bailed on us. So not only did we not have a place for our luggage while we headed to Bristol the next day, but we also had no where to stay for the next three days. Enter crazy idea. Impromptu trip to Scotland. Sleeping in airports. Sounds fabulous. I called to check with Russell if he and Graham would be free to meet up if I were to come. While the boys contemplated this idea, Brett and I went out with my TWC group to Piccadilly Circus to The Zoo for a final night of Shenanigans. Like an idiot I had forgotten my Oyster card for the Underground when we left, so we got separated from the rest of the group. Once we got to Piccadilly no one was answering their phones to give directions to the club! By some miracle we found our way there anyway, only for me to realize that I also had forgotten all of my ID. Fortunately, the bouncer fell for my white lie that my purse had been stolen and let me into the bar anyway. Finally I met up with everyone else, and the proper evening of shenanigans commenced. There was plenty of dancing (sometimes on top of bars), chatting, late night eating, and our final trip on the N 73 (tear). By the time that we got back to the CMC it was quite late (considering Brett and I had a 9:00am bus to Bristol the next morning). So I said my final goodbyes and booked our flight and Brett’s hostel for Scotland (I was staying with Russell in Edinburgh). It is actually quite fortunate that I did this at 3:00am rather than waiting until the morning, because by the time that we woke up at 3:30, the internet had been shut off.

The internet was not the only thing that had been shut off in the wee hours of the morning. After packing and getting all situated, Brett and I went to take some garbage from my room and the apartment out to the dumpster, only to find that my keys had been shut off to the building. All of our luggage, my purse and my cell phone were all locked inside. Fortunately, by some miracle, Brett had his cell phone in his pocket and we were able to call the after hours line to have someone come and let us in (who had apparently been doing this since 3:45am, poor guy). Crisis Averted. So Brett and I grabbed all of our bags and hopped on the 73 for the last time, got on the Underground (all six bags in had) and went to Victoria Station, where we put our luggage into storage and went to the coach station to catch our bus to Bristol. We were going to see Starlight Express, an Andrew Lloyd Webber play that I had known the soundtrack to since the age of 11, but never seen. Well, Bristol didn’t really have a ton to offer. We walked around the city a bit and stopped in at a few shops (where I found a fabulous pair of pink flats for only 7 pounds) and then just went right into the theater. The play was great, although admittedly, not quite what I was hoping for. The play had been modified because it was on such a small stage, and some of the songs were cut out while others were added in, and even some characters were cut out! There was also a 3D part that was not in the original version (which I thought was a little hokey, but I could see how little kids would love it). But overall, the play was still very good. We ended up catching a earlier bus to London, because there was nothing else that we really wanted to see in Bristol after the play was over (although we did walk around a different part of town again, but most places were beginning to close). Once back in London we switched my extra bags to a different (read cheaper) luggage storage place, grabbed some dinner, and hopped on a train to London Gatwick for our first night of sleeping in the airport.

We arose at 4:00am to check in (not that either of us were sleeping particularly well on our bench). After clearing security we grabbed some breakfast and hung out until our flight finally took off for Edinburgh. I got those wonderful butterflies in my stomach just being back in Scotland (really it’s such a fabulous country). We took the airbus into town and checked Brett in to his hostel, dropped off our stuff and went out to explore. We took a stroll down part of the Royal Mile to Hollyrood Castle, taking some pictures. After the castle we walked down past the new (hate it or love it) Scottish Parliament building and just outside of town to walk up the mountain, heading for Arthur’s Seat. We hiked/climbed the mountain for about two hours, taking some fabulous photos (really, any photo of Scotland is a fabulous photo) then walked back in towards town. We walked back up the Royal Mile in the other direction, towards Edinburgh Castle, stopping in a number of the cute little shops, and booking Brett a Haggis Day Tour up into the Highlands, so that he could get a sense of the Scotland I love. On our way to the castle we stopped in at a little restaurant where I manned up and tried some haggis (in the form of a pizza). It wasn’t bad, but I was definitely glad that I didn’t order JUST haggis, because it seemed like one of those things that you could get sick of really quickly. After walking up to the Castle (deciding not to go in based on the ticket price and being told that it was pretty overrated) we walked down past some of the many museums in Edinburgh and down into the gorge across from Prince Street where there was jazz festival going on. Since it was a beautiful Sunday, the hill was littered with people enjoying the music and sunshine. Brett and I walked down to the fountain at the far side of the gorge and grabbed a seat on one of the benches and joined the others enjoying the day. In the gorge there was not only a beautiful fountain, but an adorable carousel, a bungee bouncy castle and a spectacular view of the Castle, up on the hill. Trying to make the most of our time, we forced ourselves to move away from our little bench and we walked down Princes Street stopping in a couple of the shops, walking towards some monuments at the end of the street, up on the hill. The view from the top of the hill was spectacular. There was not only a fabulous view of the entire city of Edinburgh, but there was also an amazing view out toward the ocean. We played around at the top of the hill a bit, watching some massive rain clouds coming in toward the city. With this cue, we walked down toward the Royal Mile again, to check out some more of the shops out that way. We were not lucky enough to outrun the rain however. But, a little drizzle never hurt anyone. We walked the Royal Mile again, and decided to head back toward Princes Street (because I wanted to check out the ultra chic Zara—we couldn’t go before because we had drinks). After a ridiculously long walk to end up ultimately unsuccessful in my shopping exploits, the rain was still following us, on and off. We decided to seek shelter in a Costa Coffee, burning a little bit more time before returning to Brett’s hostel to get ready for the evening, where I would be meeting up with my darling Haggis driver, Russell. Before meeting up with Russell, Brett and I grabbed a drink at WalkAbout, an Australian pub, where I tried my first snakebite (a half beer, half cider drink died pink with grenadine). After I had finished my snakebite and Brett finished his beer, we walked to the Scott Memorial for me to meet up with Russell. After introducing Brett and Russell, Brett went back toward the hostel and Russell and I went to a pub to grab some food and a couple of drinks. After chatting away, like always, for about 3 hours, we finally dropped off my stuff, changed and went out again to the Grassmarket hopping around a few different bars, ending up finally at the Last Drop, the bar that people being executed were taken to for their last drink before being killed. Overall, a fabulous evening of debauchery.

Monday morning we slowly started the day off, watching a bit of BBC, then grabbing some lovely breakfast. After breakfast we started wandering the city. Russell is pretty much a walking encyclopedia on everything. So the day was full of learning about little factoids of Scottish knowledge. We walked up toward the gorge, then up toward the castle ending up once more at the Grassmarket, then toward the Royal Mile. We stopped in at a few churches and cemeteries (where I of course was listening intently about all of the little stories associated with the buildings and people buried in them). After our walk down the Royal Mile, we went into the Scottish Parliament, grabbed a coffee/tea, then took a little peak around the inside of the building, including the chamber (where we ended up sitting and talking for about an hour). After the Parliament, we started walking back up the Royal Mile, doing a bit of shopping, and buying Russell a new kilt, made from scratch (which the process of choosing this kilt took about an hour and half between finding the best price, choosing the best tartan, measuring, paying, etc.). We met a cute little old woman, helping us put the whole thing together. She was quite amusing. A saucy little woman. After we FINALLY got everything all settled with Russell’s kilt we got back to our aimless wandering of the city, focusing our efforts primarily on shopping for a birthday present for Russell’s sister (which worked out nicely because I was sort of vicariously shopping… I got to pick everything out, but I didn’t have to spend any of the money). It was on this little adventure that we discovered a number of cute little shops around Edinburgh, both on the Royal Mile and in the Grassmarket. In between our shopping, Russell took me to a little toy museum, but by the time that we made it inside, Russell had decided that the wonder that he remembered from his childhood wasn’t really there, and that it was lame, so we quickly made an exit (I didn’t have a problem with it, personally. It was kind of cute, full of toys from a ton of different eras and such—I am a history nerd, I know.) When Russell was satisfied with all of his purchases (both for his sister and himself) we went on to satisfy a longtime craving that I had been having, oh yes, MEXICAN! Our last dinner was legend, a chimichanga and margarita for me and a beer and burrito for my man lover. Granted, it was no Border Cantina, but it definitely did the trick. The day flew by, and before I knew it, it was time to pick up our bags and get Russell to the train station and me to the airport. Sad. I don’t want to think about it. No more Scotland. Change the subject. After just a few hours Brett and I were back in London Gatwick airport for yet another night of sleeping in airports. Woo Hoo. Joyous times in Gatwick. Not exactly ideal, but it was economical. What can you do? Lots of Harry Potter reading, phone talking and halfway sleeping on a bench.

Brett and I survived the night and made it successfully to Dublin after yet another delayed flight, to arrive into the city centre in the middle of the afternoon. In proper Irish fashion, we started our Dublin adventures off with a pint in the neighboring pub while we waited to check in to our “hostel” (aka sketchy-ass hole in the wall with beds). We finally got all checked in and settled, and cleaned up from our airport adventures before we headed out for a bit of exploring around the city on a beautiful sunny day. We walked around a bit and eventually ended up out by Trinity College and in the Temple Bar. We grabbed a bit of dinner and walked around the campus of Trinity College, taking time to stop and sit a bit on a little bench under a tree and enjoy the last bits of the day. We called it a night pretty early, because we would be getting a ridiculously early start the next day to take a tour of Northern Ireland (well, selected parts of Northern Ireland, obviously).

Our day started at 5:15 am to make our 5:45 departure from Dublin for Belfast to begin our day. To be completely honest, I slept pretty much the entire bus ride to Belfast. When we finally arrived into the city, we went to the tour’s meeting spot where we were greeted by our guide for the day (who’s name I never actually caught, because our speaker was broken in the back). Brett insists it was either Michael or Patrick Mc Something, but I told him that he was just a racist (haha). But no matter. He was so cute. Exactly what you would expect from and Irishman… red hair, strong accent (duh), pale skin, skinny, and spent the whole day singing. Like I said, very cute. Our tour started off heading toward Giant’s Causeway (which I had seen the corresponding side of in Scotland). But before we reached the causeway we stopped at the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. This bridge, which originally was only 3 ropes, one to walk on and two to hold, was used by fisherman to catch salmon as they approached this little island and diverted around it. So we hiked for about 30 minutes through little hills to the rope bridge, crossed it, then hiked around the little island for about 20 minutes before we headed back across the bridge to the bus. From this area you could actually see across the sea to the coast of Scotland (tear! So close, yet so far!) I considered just jumping in the ocean and taking a swim. Nevermind that. The whole day this one group of three people was late getting back to the bus at every stop. The bridge was the first instance, and there were about 4 more to follow. They were never just 5 minutes late. No, they were about 20 minutes late AT EVERY STOP. At the final stop our bus driver was basically like, if you are late again, I will leave you here (and that was the first and only time they were punctual for the bus). Anywho, after leaving the rope bridge we drove to the Giant’s Causeway. While we were driving there, our driver told us the story of the Causeway. Now, this story varies slightly whether an Irishman is telling it or a Scotsman, but here is the gist. Because we are reflecting upon the Irish portion of my travels, I will tell it from an Irish perspective (forgive me Russell!). There was an Irish giant who would stand on the shores of Ireland every day. One day he spotted in the distance a fair Scottish lassie (or princess, as some say). Every day after that, the Irish giant would stand at the shore watching the Scottish lass, wishing that she would be his. One day with the help of his gang, the Irish giant decided that he would go over to Scotland and get his bonnie girl. So one stepping stone at a time, the Irish giant placed rocks into the sea and walked over to Scotland. When he was there, he finally spoke to this girl of his dreams and asked her to come back with him to Ireland. She agreed, and they both returned to Ireland and were living there quite happily. But one day while the Irish giant was away from the house a Scottish giant, who the Scottish girl was supposed to have married came over Ireland, demanding that the girl return to Scotland. She told the Scottish giant to return the next day and fight her Irish giant husband, and then she would follow him back to Scotland. That night when the Irish giant returned the Scottish girl told him what had happened that day and told her Irish giant that she had a plan. That night she told her husband to shave his entire body. The next day as they saw the Scottish giant approaching, the woman told her husband to hop into the baby’s cradle in the corner. When the Scottish giant reached their house, he was ready for a fight. The Scottish woman invited him in and made small talk telling the Scottish giant that her husband was still out and it was just her and her baby in the house. She then proceeded to introduce the Scottish giant to her “baby.” Seeing the size of this baby (and therefore drawing conclusions about the father), the Scottish giant took off in a sprint from the house and ran back across the sea, smashing the stepping stones behind him as he retreated to Scotland. And from this we have what we call the Giants Causeway. The actual sight was really cool. There were tons of cliffs and such, but the coolest part was these rock formations that were like little octagons and hexagons everywhere along the beach. I’m pretty sure I have pictures, it is kind of hard to describe, I guess. So we hiked around the Causeway, along the beach, to the Amphitheatre (a rock formation that is- gasp!- in the shape of an amphitheatre) then up 200-something stairs where we got some lunch and hopped back onto the Paddywagon bus (where the annoying group was late again). It was at this point that the warm bus, the full tummy from lunch, the driver’s singing, and the light rain that had started outside the bus lulled me into a deep sleep (it was quite a good little nap, I will say). I was woken up in Derry, a really important city in Northern Ireland in the battle between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Although I missed the official lecture about Derry (and so did Brett because of our broken speaker) I feel like now I have a pretty good grasp on the situation. One interesting factoid about Derry is that it is one of the only walled cities that still has its walls still completely intact (and it had been sieged quite intensely by the English many times before). But the modern importance of Derry was within the conflict between the Catholics and Protestants and the English (British) military presence in the area. In the 1970’s conflict raged between the military and the people with many protests and riots because of (and causing more) violence by the military. Now the city is covered in murals all over the buildings depicting the pain and suffering of the town caused by religious persecution and the violence against its citizens. The whole thing was really quite interesting and the murals were extremely beautiful, and really moving. After Brett and I had looked around at all of the murals, we wandered Derry for a bit, and returned to the Paddywagon. From Derry we made our way back to Belfast and caught the bus back to Dublin. When we got back to Dublin, we grabbed some kebabs from MoMo’s, a place recommended to us by some kid Brett met in Edinburgh. Not bad, really, but it was no Green Lanes kebab, that’s for sure. After we had finished our kebabs, we walked around the Temple Bar area again, trying to find a bar that Brett had read about. When we finally found what we thought was the bar he had wanted to find, he suddenly doubted whether that was it (because it had sounded absolutely massive and cool, and when we got there it was less that spectacular in all these respects). Nonetheless, we did not stay, instead heading back to the “hostel.” I should mention that I use the quotations because our room had no lock on the door, no lockers for our stuff, our one bathroom had mold covering all the walls, and the other backed up to the porch but only had curtains covering the top half (in other words, you could see my bum through the window getting in and out of the shower and on the potty. Pretty classy place, I know).So realistically, Thursday was our only day in the city, so we jam packed everything in. Well, actually it wasn’t really packed. There is surprisingly little that we could actually do in the city. We started the day off with a tour of the Guinness factory (an obvious must in Dublin). It was your pretty standard brewery tour (self-guided). My favourite part was actually looking at all of the old Guinness advertising, especially all of the animal cartoons that are now famous. We spent about 2 hours just looking around the tour area before we headed up to the bar on the seventh floor for our free pints (I tried a bit and just gave mine to Brett). The bar itself was pretty cool because the whole thing was enclosed in glass, giving a nice view of the city. So while Brett was skulling his beers, I took pictures of Dublin. After the Guinness factory we walked to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, looked around the gardens a bit, and grabbed a bite to eat at a Johnny Rocket’s kind of diner. After lunch we headed out to catch a walking tour of the city, only to find that the guide book was a piece of crap and had an incorrect time for the start of the tour, meaning that we missed the tour for the day (figures, the one thing I really wanted to do in the whole bloody city). Totally crushed, we headed to Dublin Castle to look around there for a bit. Inside the walls of the castle there were four artists making sand sculptures. Very cool. We opted to skip the charge to go inside of the castle, and made our way across the river to St. Michan’s Church, which had supposedly inspired the book Dracula. It was soon after this that we came to the conclusion that Dublin was a filthy city. I am having trouble recalling any time that I have ever seen a dirtier city. Not only was there garbage everywhere, but there were the most disgusting smells that I have ever encountered in my life. Ugh, just thinking about some of the smells makes me want to gag. New topic. After the church we headed to the General Post Office, the one must-see I was given by Russell. The only problem was he neglected to say that I needed to go upstairs into the museum about the 1916 Rebellion. Inside it is literally a post office. I mean, there is a statute about the Rebellion, but otherwise it is a post office, complete with stamps, letters, and all that jazz. Outside the post office (which the exterior was quite impressive) you could still see the bullet holes in the pillars from British troops attacking the rebels inside of the post office. So that was pretty cool. After being overall unimpressed by the GPO, we started wandering a bit, not know what to hit up next. We sat the steps of a hotel trying to regroup. Nothing came to mind. Eventually when we started walking again, we were passed by a city tours bus, and the lighting bolt of inspiration hit. We walked to Trinity College and hopped on the city tours bus and finally got to see Dublin as more than a festering trash dump (better late than never I suppose). The only negative thing was that we were approaching the end of the day, so we couldn’t really just hop on and off the bus everywhere, but had o be more selective. We decided to hop off the bus at Kilmainham Goal Prison, but unfortunately we had missed the last tour. However, we were able to look around the museum a bit. The museum was really cool, and had a ton of information on the 1916 rebellion. After we were kicked out of the museum (closing time!) we hopped back on the city sightseeing bus (where our driver was so LAME in comparison to our first driver) and spun around the city, letting our brains soak in the sights and knowledge from the tour. After we had done the whole loop, we set out for the internet café to satisfy our technological addictions (at least mine). After we had our fix, Brett wanted to head over to Little Italy on the other side of the river for a bite to eat. Well, let’s just say Little Italy was a good description. There were only about five restaurants, only one of which actually was serving food (opposed to just appetizers). We ended up at an Italian Restaurant in the Temple Bar area. It was actually quite a lovely little meal. I had a pizza, Brett had pasta. We shared some bruschetta and a bottle of wine and had a splendid time. We were planning on going out to grab a pint in the Temple Bar district, but all of the pubs were too crowded and my tummy couldn’t handle any more substance. Instead we walked back to the “hostel” and I sat with Brett in the adjacent pub while he had a pint and listened to the musician playing. After he had finished his drinks, we went back to the room, where I was forced to pack up all of my stuff in the complete dark. Interesting. Definitely interesting.

Friday morning we headed to Dublin airport, leaving our hostel at 5:45am (ouch). We successfully checked in and awaited our departure and the final chapters of Harry Potter were helping me pass the time. Around 9:30 am we took off back for London. When we arrived back at Gatwick, I felt a little pull at my heartstrings, saying goodbye to the airport that had pretty much been home for the past few days. I knew that I had to move on with my life, so I gathered my strength, grabbed my bags, and we headed off for the train back to Victoria. After sorting out all of my luggage that had been in storage, we hopped on the Undergound and headed to Gaby’s to clean up, repack, and grab a bite to eat. After we sorted everything out in Ealing, we headed back into Central London, checked in with Contiki, and checked into the Royal National Hotel in Russell Square. The rest of the evening we just grabbed a bite to eat, went to our welcome meeting, and took a bit of a walk around the city, before hitting the sheets with a bit of High School Musical. Lots of rest was required, although we may not have known it then, we were heading to a high impact week of adventure!

Alright, I hope you are still hungry, because the entree is on it's way... One Contiki European Horizon's Tour coming up!

Time Flies When You Are Having Fun

So I know that it has been a while since we've met here, but it doesn't mean that I love you any less! Things are just very complicated for me now. Between all of my work at the office and things that I had to do for my classes, and all of my traveling, I know you got put on the back burner. And I am sorry. But I am going to make it up to you. So here goes... this is gonna be a long one. I will give you a little taste now, let that soak in a bit, then give you a second helping. And who knows, maybe there will be a dessert.

I last wrote you on my last day of “working” for Dr. Sahota’s campaign for a seat in Parliament. I went in to work bright and early Monday morning after returning from Scotland (sigh…) only to arrive to an email saying that he had withdrawn his candidacy. Of course this email was sent 45 minutes after I left my flat to head in for the morning. Just one more example of my lovely boss’s incompetence. To put the icing on the cake, when I emailed Onkar telling him that I was already in the office, he told me that he would be in in about an hour, and we could have one last meeting and permanently go our separate ways. Well, he did eventually make it to the office, but it was a full 3 hours later. Charming, eh? But what can you do. After leaving Ealing for the last time, I went to TopShop to try to ease some of my sorrow with a bit of shopping. While I did find two very cute dresses, their presence did not fill the void that Scotland had left behind. Laboured sigh. Wow, I just wrote laboured naturally. I really am assimilating into London life. Haha. Following my potentially last TopShop excursion, I went to my PELA class, where we each were giving a presentation about differences between the American workplace and the British workplace. While some presentations were amusing, others made me want to go play in traffic out on Cromwell Rd (the street that my school is on) because they were so tedious to sit through. But alas, I have survived.

Now it seems like the remainder of the week just FLEW by. Tuesday I went into work, as usual and did my typical Tuesday ritual of uploading that week’s House Magazine onto the website (featuring two stories from yours truly). About halfway through my uploading process, I was offered a chance to go to a press conference with one of the magazine’s writers, Ed. We trucked it across the Westminster area to the Foreign Correspondents’ Association where we were briefed by Gordon Brown’s press secretary on the various issues of the day and updates on numerous policy situations (the majority of these went right over my head, partly because I was at the back and couldn’t hear, and partly because unlike everyone else in the room, loyal attendees, I was not part of the daily crowd). After the press conference, Ed had a few spare minutes before an interview at Parliament, so he gave me a bit of an informal tour of the Houses of Parliament. It was fabulous. Ed was actually surprisingly well versed in his knowledge of the building for being simply a reporter. He claims that he listens to the real tours as they go by to learn all kinds of little factoids. I enjoyed it, that is for sure. My Tuesday evening was far less exciting, consisting of feeble attempts at continued research for my paper on World War II appeasement, followed my more drafting of the actual document. Thrilling, I know.

To be entirely honest, Wednesday and Thursday have now completely blended together, probably because nothing particularly exciting happened. I wrote a few stories for m co-worker Sam’s publication, the Regional Monitor, and picked out corresponding photos to go into the magazine as well as updated the index pages of the magazine itself. Fortunately all of my efforts have lead to yet another mention of me in the credits of the actual publication as a sub-editor. Not too shabby I would say! Beyond the credential builders, I had the typical mix of odd jobs, mostly transcribing (YES! My favourite! Actually, I don’t mind it that much, especially because one of my coworkers, Matt, always gives me a KitKat bar whenever I transcribe something for him J Who doesn’t like a bit of sweet?). By evenings were equally un-compelling, as I worked hard to finish up my portfolio for my PELA class. So I essentially locked myself in my bedroom for the week working on final projects. Such a good little girl, eh? I try. I really do. The downside of being a good little girl with her priorities straight, was that I missed out on a group excursion to this awesome bar in the city where everything is made of ice. I was told that they were only allowed to stay for 45 minutes, because it was -10 degrees! Upon arrival they were given parkas to keep warm and a glass made of ice, with a free drink. Literally everything in the bar was made of ice. There was an ice telephone booth, a map of the Underground carved into ice, and all these other things. So I was a bit sad that I missed out on this (but for 15 pounds for 45 minutes, not including any additional drinks, it had better be pretty amazing!)

Friday was quite an interesting day, with a bit more jet setting. I left, as always, bright and early and went to my class. Like all of the previous weeks, attendance was dismal at best, and this week the professor was 25 minutes late. We persevered none the less. In the middle of class a monsoon hit London. It was raining so hard that water actually started bubbling up from the floor of our classroom. Poor Ellen was making her way to CAPA (our school) right at this time to meet up with us before going to the airport for our adventures to Rome (for the record, I was the only one in our little group that was actually in class, but nevermind that.) The rain on Friday was so bad that more than half of the Tube stations (at least on the Circle line that we were riding on) were closed. Severe delays. A Londoner’s worst nightmare. Especially problematic for us as we tried to make our way to the proper station to catch the train to Stansted airport. After some fancy maneuvering on the buses, we girls were able to make it to the train station and purchase our tickets. RJ was not quite as successful, probably because his level of awesomeness was far inferior to ours (or because he was coming from Islington instead of Kensington, where we were). We finally all met up and made our way to the airport. After checking in and getting to the gate, I was having a deep philosophical chat about fate and strange coincidences with RJ, when I turned around to see Andrew Camallerri, a fellow Novi Wildcat, two people behind me in line for our flight to Rome. Ironic, isn’t it? We finally made it into Rome, grabbed some delicious dinner, and checked into our hotel. Before hitting the hay, we grabbed a nightcap at the hotel bar, where we discovered that there was a free breakfast buffet every morning. Don’t worry, we made the most of it.

The buffet was the first thing on our Roman to do list, followed by a trip to the Coliseum, where we took a guided tour. While I had been inside the Coliseum just in February, it was a terrific experience, because this time I had the benefit of the knowledgeable and quirky tour guide (who, just for the record could not hold a candle to the stellar guidance of Russell and Graham, my newest Scottish lovers, haha). But none the less, I learned the ins and outs of the Coliseum, from everything to the training and fighting of gladiators, the set up and traditions of events within the walls, and the prostitution and other intricacies of Roman culture surrounding the historic building. The only downside was that it was BLISTERINGLY hot, and the sun was beaming down, not a cloud in the sky. It was probably over 90 degrees, with little if any shade to be found. After taking a rest and grabbing something to drink, we regrouped with the tour company and took a free tour of the Palatine Hill and Forum. A different guide this time, but also quite cool. He was rolling and smoking his own cigarettes while simultaneously lecturing us on Roman history and the history of the sights we were seeing. We saw the Vestal Temple, the cave of Romulus and Remus, the Temple of Julius Caesar, and a bunch of other historical sights. Following our wonderful tour, the four of us took the initiative to browse the Forum a bit more. As we wandered, we took in the sights and I ended up taking a pretty nasty fall down a flight of steps after slipping on some ancient dirt on the stairs. After some significant blushing and wanting to crawl in a hole and die, we continued to look around the Forum. Just a few moments after my embarrassing tumble I was mortified again. I had turned around to take a picture, and when I looked back Ellen, Raquel and RJ had all disappeared. So I was standing in the middle of the Forum like a five year old lost in a grocery store, just waiting for someone to come and find me. Sometimes I don’t even believe that I am actually 20. Thankfully I found my travel buddies a minute later, spotting them up on the top of a nearby hill. By this time we were all about to melt from the ridiculous heat, with very little shelter in the ruins, so we climbed out of the Forum and had our first Italian gelato experience. We enjoyed this delicious treat on the edge of a beautiful fountain. The only problem was that the fountain was in the middle of the street. After a few near roadkill situations, mostly with Roman busses, we thought it might be wise to move to another location. Energized from our gelato (containing twice the sugar of American ice cream) we headed for the Pantheon. The Pantheon was, well, the Panteon. Crawling with tourists as usual. Hole in the ceiling, as usual. Yep. Everything still there. Post Pantheon, we started walking a bit more, with no particular destination in mind. By this time, we were all pretty hungry, having never stopped for lunch. So around 5:00 (crazy early for all those Italians) we stopped and had dinner number one. I love Italian food. It has been decided. I had some delicious gnocchi and was content. The only problem with Italian food is that the portions are not very big, especially in comparison with its American counterpart. But none the less, excellent. After dinner, we decided that we had done all that we could for the meantime, so we headed back to the lovely Best Western Globus. When we got back we all hopped on the bed to make a game plan for the rest of the day. Well, I apparently left the game plan to everyone else, because within a few minutes, I was passed out asleep. Bunny was tired! Too much heat and walking, combined with not enough sleep, I suppose will do that. After my nap we all gathered our strength, cleaned up, bought a few bottles of wine and headed down to the Trevi Fountain. But of course before we got there, we stopped for a second dinner. A few slices of pizza and a piece of tiramisu later, and we were back on the route to the Fountain. Once at the fountain, we grabbed a few seats nice and close and did some people watching while drinking our wine (gotta love the open liquor laws in Europe!). Soon after we got to the fountain Raquel’s friend from El Salvador met up with us and the two of them were chatting away the rest of the night. Ellen and I got in some lovely conversation with a cute Australian family visiting on holiday (we didn’t even notice their extremely attractive, surfer body son. Didn’t notice him at all…). After the Trevi Fountain, we went into a little club. We got in for free because of our Salvadorian connections. Yet another time that me pretending to be Hispanic, excuse me, Latina, has saved me some dinero. For a Saturday night the club was surprisingly empty. The only other people there were fellow tourists there on a pub crawl (which may have been why there was no one else there). So after a few drinks, we gave up, exhausted, and retreated to the Globus once more and hit the sheets.

Sunday morning we were up bright and early(-ish) busy packing and getting ready for the day. We hit up the wonderful breakfast buffet once more and moved our things out of the room. We headed to Vatican City to start our day off. Having heard that it was closed on Sundays, we expected to only be able to look around the outside of the Vatican. However we were slightly misinformed. The Vatican Museum is closed on Sundays, but not St. Peter’s, the one thing that I really wanted to see. The problem was, Raquel and I both had on tube tops, not expecting to be able to go in anywhere in the Vatican. This was not up to the dress code of the Church. Ironically, Raquel and I, the two Catholics were not allowed in to Basilica, but Ellen and RJ, the Mormon and the Hindu were allowed in. Like I said, ironic. But Raquel and I were not about to let the dress code stop us. We quickly ran down to the shops surrounding the Vatican and bought little scarves for 2 Euro, and wrapped those around our shoulders in order to bypass the “bare shoulders” rule. This time we easily got in, and were pretty easily able to meet up with RJ and Ellen inside St. Peter’s. The inside of the Cathedral was absolutely breathtaking. But like always, the queues were ridiculously long, so we didn’t go into the top of the dome or anything. RJ and Ellen were both able to see the tomb of Pope John Paul II while Raquel and I sorted out our wardrobe issues and cleared security again. Overall though, I am glad that I made it over to the Vatican again. After the Vatican we took the Metro to the Spanish Steps. No one else was particular interested in the Spanish Steps, and none of the flowers were in bloom. All this combined with the heat and the crowds, made the whole area less than impressive. So we moved along quite quickly and grabbed our last Italian meal, a bit more pizza and a glass of wine for me (yum). With only about an hour left to sightsee in the city, we headed to the Crypt of the Capuchin monks. This crypt was decorated completely in bones of other monks and other people who had been buried in the monk’s former cemetery. There were chandeliers, alters, and clocks, all made completely from bones. Some of the bodies that were whole inside of the crypt actually still had flesh on their bones! However, the whole thing was surprisingly less creepy than it should have been. As I was going through I kind of joined on to a tour group that was also going through and therefore got the full explanation of each of the rooms. Very interesting. After the crypt, we headed back to the hotel and grabbed all of our luggage before catching the bus to the airport. We finally arrived back to London around 11 after yet another delayed flight (just one of the many that I have run into on my adventures). So by the time that I finally got back to my apartment, it was 1:30. But, on the positive side, I didn’t have to work the next morning!

So there is your appetizer. Savor it, because the soup and salad is on the way...

Words cannot even describe...

Words cannot even describe what I am feeling right now. Less than 24 hours ago I was in the Highlands of Scotland, having one of the best times of my life and now I am just heartbroken. I don't even remember feeling this bad after breaking up with boyfriends! London has just completely lost its sparkle. If this keeps up, I think I am going to have to quit my jobs and go live in Scotland for a the rest of my time here. Ah, but before I get too emotional, I have a week to update you on.

Well, I guess the last time we left off I was just about to travel to Bath and Stonehenge. Both were lovely (but not as lovely as Scotland...). We got off to a bit of a rough start though. We were supposed to be leaving our flat to go meet up with tour at 7:30 to make sure we were on time for our 8:45 pick up. Well, at 7:30 I was the only one ready. Fortunately Ellen was only running a few minutes behind, but at 7:40 there was still no sign of Raquel or RJ. I went and knocked on Raquel's door, and she was not awake. Apparently Raquel and RJ and some other people in the TWC group decided to go out for some drinks on Saturday night and neither of them woke up to their alarms. Well, fortunately in the long run, we ended up making the bus just fine, no problems. So then we traveled on our little Anderson Coach up to Stonehenge. Stonehenge was really neat, and it was so interesting to hear how long it took for all of these stones to be put into place. Apparently the whole project from its little beginnings as a circular ditch, to placing the highest stones, took something like 1,500 years. And the whole thing was done without any significant tools, and with tribes of only 20 or so people. But the thing is, it would take something like 400 people to move one of these stones. So that was all very interesting. I took my little audioguide tour, and the required touristy pictures. After about an hour or so at Stonehenge, we moved on to Bath. Bath was also very interesting, seeing all of the ruins of the ancient Roman Baths that had been there. The actual city of Bath was also really beautiful. The architechure on all of the buildings was great. Every building, from the 18th Century all the way until now, is required to use the same cream-ish colored Bath Stone. It was a very quaint little town. The only problem was, we only had about 2 hours to see the Roman Bath Museum, eat and see the entire city of Bath. By the time we finished eating after our little audioguide tour of the museum, we only had about 40 minutes to see the city. So we were very rushed. Yuck. After seeing Bath we headed back to Londontown for a relaxed evening. Unfortunately I had to get a jump start on a paper I have due quite soon.

Monday I woke up to a nice little surprise, an email from Onkar saying he didn't really have anything for me to do, telling me to just stay home. Very exciting. So when I finally woke up around 9:45, a significant improvement from my usual 6:45, I had a spot of breakfast and got back to work on this paper. I am still in the middle of the writing process, but hopefully I should finish up within the next few days. I am looking at how air warfare affected Great Britain, making it more willing to appease Germany around the time of the Munich Crisis. Perhaps boring to some, but I think that it is interesting. So I pretty much spent most of the day dividing my attention between research for my paper, talking to Brett online, and doing laundry. A VERY exciting day, I know. In the evening I of course had my Monday class, the contents of with I won't bore you with. After class it was back to the apartment for some more reading and research.

Tuesday was also pretty uneventful (especially compared to the thrills of my past weekend). I got into work a bit early, knowing that I had some time to make up for leaving early a few days last week and realizing that I would have to leave work early on Thursday to leave for the airport. I posted the week's House Magazine online, like the before, but this time it was more exciting. It was more exciting because I posted my first article. My little 200 word article about elections in Turkey. Hey, you have got to start small. After finishing up with that, I started a little bit of work for a new magazine. This little number is called The Monitor Digest, looking at the progress of legislation, the composure of parliamentary committees, work by think tanks, all of that. While it was a bit dull, I got rewarded with a credit in the front page as an editor! Woo hoo. I also wrote a two more articles for the "Electionwatch" section of House Magazine again, this time looking at drug traffickers in Guatemala funding political campaigns, and corrupt local elections in China. So lots more to come from me in House. After work I ran a few errands, then headed back home to finally get a start on my paper. I wrote about 600 words of the 2,000 and lost motivation, saying I would work on it more Wednesday. Long story short, I didn't. But that is ok.

Wednesday was another relatively unexciting day. I got into work early again, and did some more work on the Digest. When this finally comes out a few days before I leave, it will pretty much be my little baby. I did all of the editing work on the entire magazine (its only about 25 pages long) and I picked out all of the photos that go along with everything. After finishing that all up, I also did a bit of transcribing for the reporters. Some of the people that we interview are some real pieces of work. I tell you! When I finally went home, I did a few more errands, mostly corresponding to the errands run on Tuesday, then headed home for a bit of dinner with Ellen. After dinner I sat down to work on my paper a bit more, but then decided it would probably be a better idea to pack for my Scotland adventures. After finally getting all packed up, I sat down again to work on it. But, I decided that I was too tired, so I put back on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (which I had originally put on when I was packing to keep me entertained), intending to fall asleep. Well I didn't fall asleep, instead I just watched Harry Potter instead of doing work. If I knew all of the exciting and beautiful things that I would be seeing in the next few days I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway...

Thursday I woke up extra early to make sure that I had plenty of time to make sure I had all of my things in order for my trip. And its a good thing I did! I left intending to get into work early again, but London public transportation decided otherwise. Instead of taking my new usual 30 minute walk to0 Highbury, I decided to take the ridiculously crowded bus to King's Cross, mostly because I had all of my stuff for Scotland with me, and it was raining a bit. It's very fortunate that I made this decision. The line that I would normally take to work, and the only line that goes through Highbury & Islington was suspended because of signalling problems. So I was forced to take the much slower, and much older Circle line into Westminster tube station, about a 10 minute farther walk than my usual Vauxhall. But, like I said, it all worked out nicely because I just randomly decided to take the bus, and I had left plenty early. My work load was pretty light on Thursday, scrapping the bottom of the barrel for tasks at times. I put the finishing touches on the Digest, finally finishing everything up, wrote the "Backtracks" article for House, talking about things that happened during that week in British political history (I chose Churchill losing the election to Attlee in 1945), and alphabetized all of the cds of photographs that we had in our cupboard. After all of that excitement I headed to the Tube, to catch my train, to catch my plane to what I now know to be pretty much the most beautiful country in the world. Apparently I have bad luck with flights around here though. Apparently only about 25% of flights are delayed (I mean we are talking budget airlines, so you can't really complain). But I seem to be catching all the wrong flights, because all of my flights are delayed. haha. My flight to Edinburgh was delayed by about 45 minutes, so not too bad. Fortunately I had made the impulse buy of a book at the bookshop in the airport. After a few chapters of my book I was in Edinburgh and about to have the most fabulous experience ever. I took the bus from the airport into the center of Edinburgh and slowly but surely found my way to my hostel. One of the great things about Scotland is everyone is just so friendly. As I was standing at a corner trying to figure out my crossroads, someone just came up and offered me help. Heck, in London you would be run over by about a million people pushing past you, and the only time you would get help was if you asked. So I checked into my hostel right around 10pm, dropped off my bag, grabbed my camera and went exploring around Edinburgh. For such a small town there is so much to see! The architecture in Edinburgh was also amazing, and all of the monuments and buildings were lit up at night, and just looked breathtaking. I took lots of pictures and walked all around the city, doing a little window shopping too. After seeing Edinburgh Castle, the medieval Old Town, Georgian New Town, Scottish Parliament, the Scott Memorial, and the Palace of Hollyroodhouse, I headed back to my hostel for a wee bit of shut eye before an early morning start.

I woke up bright an early Friday morning, after getting back almost at 12:45 from my walks around Edinburgh. I was so paranoid that I was going to oversleep my 6:45 alarm that I woke up about every hour all night. It also didn't help that I had to creakiest mattress in the world. After waiting outside the bathroom for about 40 minutes, I was forced to forgo my shower in order to be sure that I would be on time for my 8:15 bus. So after finally getting ready, I rushed from Old Town to New Town to grab some breakfast, but nothing was open until 8. Finally I just decided to wait until 8, grabbed some Burger King (because it was the closest thing to me, don't judge) and rushed back down to Old Town checked out (not even my hostel was open before 8) and rushed back up to the Royal Mile to check in. Phew. After a few minutes the big yellow coach bus that I would come to love pulled up and we all loaded in. The tour was great, telling us all kinds of fascinating things about Scottish history, places, important Scots, various things that Scottish people invented, etc. (you would be very surprised how many things Scottish people actually invented, or at least inspired). There were always lots of interesting stories or funny little jokes throughout the whole day, and plenty of music... traditional Scottish music, modern Scottish music, regular popular music, just tons and tons of cool stuff. I have to include one of my favorite stories from the first day though. Apparently the Edinburgh Zoo is famous for it's specialization in penguins. I was told that they allow their penguins out once a day, around 1 or 2 pm and they are allowed to just sort of wander around the zoo. They are right there with all the people, and they can go see the lions or whatever (so cool, I know. Just one of the many reasons that I need to go back ASAP). Well apparently this one time, some guy decided that he wanted a penguin as a pet and STOLE penguin from the zoo when they were out on their little penguin walk one day. Well then he got the penguin home and realized that he knew absolutely nothing about penguins and didn't know how to take care of it. So the next day he took it back to the zoo. They hadn't even noticed it was missing when he returned it!!! And they didn't even do anything to prosecute him or anything. haha. See, I told you Scottish people were very nice! So I am going to have to go to Edinburgh Zoo and steal me a penguin. Although, it might be hard getting a penguin through security at the airport. After leaving Edinburgh, we headed first to Sterling, a really important city for Scotland because it is sort of a bottleneck from the Lowlands to the Highlands. Basically, in terms of Scottish history, whoever held Sterling was in control of Scotland. This is the city where the big battle with William Wallace leading the Scottish armies during the wars for independence. So in Sterling we climbed up (literally climbed, most of the way up the path was at about a 35-40 degree angle) to see the William Wallace monument. I have been told that it is the largest monument to a single person in all of the UK, and something like the 4th largest in the world (but I seriously question that fact). After Sterling we headed into the Highlands. When we stopped for lunch I tried my first Scottish foods, cullin skink, a sort of fish chowder, and IrnBru, an orange colored soda that has more sugar than Coke, with an indescribable taste (the best I can come up with is bubble gum?), and enough crap to rot straight through your stomach. But overall it was quite good. We slowly wound our way through the Highlands to Loch Ness, stopping pretty frequently to take in some amazing views and take a few hikes down the mountains and around to some beautiful little rivers and lakes. Gorgeous. Like I said, our ultimate destination was a little town called Fort Augustus along the banks of Loch Ness. When we got in to Fort Augustus we went to see a little show by this guy Ken inside of a little house that was similar to what Highland families would have used. He showed us all of the weapons that Highlanders used, and gave us quite a bit of insight into Highland life. A very interesting show. Ken is an amazingly interesting guy, but I can get into more of that later. After the show we went and checked into our hostel, grabbed some dinner, and then headed out to a little boat trip around Loch Ness. It was amazing how much information there is. I was completely a Loch Ness Monster skeptic, but after seeing all of the sort of videos and pictures and sonar information that the captain of this boat had, it is hard not to believe it. This guy had a picture of the back of one of the "creatures," which they think is basically a dinosaur, about 10 feet away from him. You can even see the sort of bone structure and stuff, so you know that it is definitely not a fish. Another interesting little fact, although Loch Ness in not the widest, or longest or deepest lake in Scotland (it ranks number 2 in all of these categories) if it were to empty, all of the water from all of the lakes and rivers and streams in all of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland could not fill it back up. Ok, keep it short Jess, no one has all day to read this. After the boat trip a few of us went back to the hostel into the little bar there. My new friend Pam, from New Zealand, one of the Australian girls, our guide Russell, and I played a bit of Jenga, until this guy Davy came and played a little mini concert of all sorts of Scottish Music and regular music on the guitar. When he stopped to take a break, we moved a couple of the tables out of the way and spent the rest of the night dancing away to all of these fabulous songs. A bunch of the locals came up to the hostel to hear Davy play, including Ken, the guy from earlier, and this guy Rorie. Rorie is a bit of a character. He wears his kilt and all, and lives in a wigwam down the road from the hostel. The only thing is, the wigwam is not on his property. He just sort of sets up in someone's front yard. It's great. Actually, a bunch of the Scottish guys in the bar (there weren't many)were wearing kilts and all. Ken, he is the guy from the show, he is pretty awesome too. Not quite so weird, but just a really fascinating guy. He has climbed all 284 mountains over 3,000 ft in Scotland. He hasn't done it just once, he has done it 5 times, once with each of his dogs. This guy even brought his dog out to the bar both nights. Great dog, by the way. Sorry. Straying away again. Ok, so we were dancing and drinking the night away, and then I had a bit of bonding time with one of our guides, Russell, after Davy stopped playing. We chatted for a really long time about random shit, mostly politics. Before we knew it, it was already 2:15 am, so we both hit the sheets. We had to be ready and on the bus at 8:30 again. Which meant that I only got a little over 4 hours of sleep before I had to be up again. Noticing a pattern? I don't sleep on my "vacations." haha.

On Saturday we went to the Isle of Skye, one of the islands off the western coast of Scotland. Skye was fabulous. It had rained on Friday night, so all of these amazing waterfalls just sort of appeared on the sides of all of these mountains. It was so peaceful and beautiful. I took lots and lots of pictures. Skye is very small, like most of the Highlands, population wise. The whole island is basically houses scattered about every few miles with just tons and tons of open land (with lots of cute little sheep running around). The scenery was quite picturesque. Skye is said to be the land of the faeries, basically the Scottish equivalent of a leprechaun. In the early afternoon we went down to this little river, which legend has it has healing powers and will make you beautiful and all held our heads in the river for 7 seconds. The water was really cold, but heck, it is part of the experience. Then we went to the largest town on the Isle of Skye, Portree, has about 5 streets on it. We stopped there for lunch and we were able to see the whole town in about 20 minutes. haha. After lunch we went to this amazing little waterfall, said to be in the heart of faerie land. Well this must be true, because I think a faerie stole my brand new toe ring! I had climbed all the way to the top of this little hill so get my picture at the top of the waterfall. Because it was next to a river and it had rained the night before, like I said, and the area was very boggy because of all of the peat. So I struggled to get up in all of the mud (realizing after the fact that Graham, our other guide had said to make sure to go up the left side because the right side was very boggy, and of course I was on the right). On the way back down I was going very slowly, determined not to fall because Graham had put money on me falling on the way down. Well I was almost to the bottom when I slipped in the mud a bit. Because the ground was so soft, I couldn't really stop myself from slipping more, because the slope of the hill was pretty steep. So I just started running down, hoping to make it to the bottom without falling. Well I almost made it. Fortunately for the one and only pair of jeans brought with me to Scotland, I didn't fall until I was out of the mud and on solid grass. Quite miraculously, I only had a few speckles of mud on my legs, and that was it. Unfortunately, it was went I was distracted by my muddy run down the hill (I was barefoot because it was so muddy) that a faerie stole my toe ring. Bastard. Didn't even have it for 24 hours yet. Oh well I suppose. After that we went to some an amazing cliff, Ramasaig Cliff, along the side of the island closest to Ireland. They were beautiful. Graham got a bit of karma thrown at him for betting that I would fall, because it was at this cliff that his favorite rugby ball, which some of the guys were playing around with, got punted off the side of the cliff. Poor Graham. After Ramasaig Cliff, we headed back to Fort Augustus for a bit of dinner, before heading down to a pub in town. This was the beginning of a fabulous evening. I know that whatever I write cannot fully encompass it. It's just one of those things that you had to be there. Down at the pub we had a few drinks, and a little bit into the night, one of the bartenders just busted out a set of bagpipes and started playing a few songs. Fabulous. A little while later I attempted to play pool for the first time, Russell and I versus Pam and Graham. Fortunately Pam and I were both first timers, and both a bit too drunk to be successful at this game. Russell and I ended up winning, and two of the other girls from the trip, one from Spain and one from New Zealand, both of which were not as drunk as me and were both at least decent playing pool, took us on. Needless to say, it didn't end well. Basically every time it was my turn, I ended up sinking the cue ball into a pocket. Ops. After pool the pub was closing, but we were all ready to keep the night going. So Russell, Graham, Pam and I took a walk along the locks leading into Loch Ness. It was a very quiet night, so Graham showed us all this really cool thing that when you laid on the dock and hung your head over the edge and looked at the reflections, everything was an absolute perfect reflection, but when you looked at the water without your head upside down, it wasn't. Difficult to describe, but soooo cool. Then we realized as we were lying there on the docks that we could mess with people passing by, because it was too dark for anyone to really see us lying there on the dock. So we would lie very quietly as they passed by, and Graham would make animal noises at these people. The reactions were hilarious. One kid started yelling stop that, stop making noises, and threatened to fight whatever it was. For all he knew it was a bird. I guess a typical Highlander reaction, wanting to fight anything. haha. It doesn't sound funny now, but at the time we were all laughing so hard that my sides were cramping and my eyes were watering. Russell, trying to hold in a laugh ended up ripping a HUGE fart. That's when it all broke loose. I don't exactly remember how, but somehow we got onto the topic of spooning (in typical Jessica Harbin fashion). I guess I should probably note here that Graham is about 6'7. A big guy. For whatever reason, I said that he was too big to be the little spoon, and then he got all sad. So, to comfort him as he was lying there on the dock, I went up and let him be the little spoon. So as not to leave out Pam and Russell, we all started spooning, hence inventing the quadraspoon, to go down in history. We lied there all spooning and talking for a long time, and of course, I was in heaven. Finally it got too cold, so we walked back to the hostel and talked a bit more before turning in. I couldn't believe it, but it was already 3:30 when I finally made it to bed.

Another early morning yesterday, as we had to be on the bus with all of our stuff packed up by 8:30. After such a wonderful night, I spent the whole day dreading having to leave. We drove around the far side of Loch Ness, and started heading back towards Edinburgh. We drove through Inverness, a little town (actually dubbed the ugliest city in the UK, and not talking about the buildings). Inverness is famous for having dolphins and seals in the little salt water river that runs through the town. We stopped at this battlefield, famous during the Jacobite Wars where the British and Jacobite forces met. It was really interesting learning all weekend about Scottish History, and what a huge role these Jacobite Wars had, potentially changing world history. After that, we stopped in another cute little town for a bit of pub grub, but unfortunately we had to spend most of the day just driving straight through. One interesting place we did stop was Dunkeld Cathedral, right along this beautiful river. Inside of the cathedral is where the "Wolf of Badenoch" is buried. The Wolf of Badenoch was Alexander Stewart, the illegitimate son of King Robert II, and was pretty much a crazy mother f-er. He would go around killing people for no reason and burning down churches. When he died no churches would take his body because he was such a horrible person, but at the same time he was royalty. Dunkeld Cathedral finally took his body because it was one of the only churches he didn't burn down, and the royal family paid the church a ton of money. After Dunkeld Cathedral we headed straight back into Edinburgh. Since I stepped off the bus I have felt incomplete. I dreaded coming back to London, and I gave some serious thought to calling in sick to work and staying in Edinburgh one more night. But alas, I came home.

Hopefully this DSL (deep Scottish love) will wear off a bit soon, and I can feel whole again. That or I will just have to go back to the Highlands immediately.

Things to look forward to this week:

Nothing. I am not in Scotland.
Just kidding.

Tomorrow: drinks with Pam and Cat from the tour
Wednesday or Thursday: Drinks with Gaby and Sam
Friday-Sunday: Rome