Stonehenge, Bath, and Mevy's Birthday

In hindsight a lot went on in February! School has been picking up and I have a project due in a few days. After Dublin some of my friends and I went on a day trip to Stonehenge and Bath with a tour group through school (the same one that took us to Wales in January). Stonehenge was really cool and a lot bigger than I thought it would be, but it was also really cold! We wanted to stay longer and listen to the audio sets they gave us, but we ended up running back to the bus as soon as we got some good pictures.

After going to Stonehenge, which is like an hour and a half bus ride from London, we went further west to visit Bath, where a natural hot spring is. When the Romans came in like 300/500-ish BC they set up camp there because they were used to having public baths in Italy. We got to tour a museum that was built around one of the remaining baths where the Romans would bathe, worship, and hang out with friends. It was so cold I seriously considered diving in... :)

Then Mevy's 21st birthday was last week! Though obviously it's not as big of a deal here because the drinking age is 18, a group of friends all went out to dinner with her at this really cool place called Giraffe. They had amazing burgers and sweet potato fries! After that we headed over to a bar called The Marlyebone, where we had a couple of drinks before heading home. It was fun, but nothing like a true American 21st birthday party, so we promised Mevy we'd give her one of those when we get back!

Now I have one more trip this upcoming weekend to Camrbidge, which is apparently one of the most beautiful cities in the UK. That's just a day trip, but it's my last for a while, since most of my projects and reports are due mid- to late March!

Post-Dublin Update!

Dublin was SO fun! My friends Liz, Mevy, Shannon and I ended up staying in the Generator Hostel in Dublin, which apparently used to be a big hotel. It's super close to downtown, maybe a 10 minute walk, so we didn't have to worry about a cab much when we wanted to grab a bite to eat or go out at night. I realized I never got a picture of the outside of the building, but this is a photo from the website.

That being said, our stay there was great. There were tons of people there, and the walls were paper thin, so besides being woken up by kids in the hallways every morning at 8 am, I can't complain much. We booked a private quad, so we had the room to ourselves, and a private bathroom too. Downstairs there was a cafeteria and a bar, so we could always go down there for a beer at night or breakfast in the morning. I only ended up taking one picture of downstairs, and it's a picture of the cool light fixtures in the bar.

We got into Dublin Saturday night with time to check in and walk around downtown to find somewhere for dinner. We ended up trying to go into like four different pubs before finding one that actually had a table available for four people. I guess that's what we get for trying to go out in downtown Dublin on a Saturday night...gotta get there early to get the drinks!
The next day was cold, but we decided to go on a three hour free walking tour around Dublin. Our tour guide Sinead was super knowledgable, and the guides work for tips only, so even though the cold ended up getting the best of Mevy and Shannon and we left early, we still tried to tip her decently. We went to a great sports bar for lunch called Fitzsimmons where we got to watch a great soccer game between Chelsea and Brentford!

This is Christ Church Cathedral, one of the oldest cathedrals/churches in Dublin. Find out more about it here. 

We got to see Dublin Castle on the first part of the walking tour, which ended up not looking much like a castle at all. This is the only remaining part of the castle from centuries ago, the prison. Here is more info on it.
I can't remember what the river is on one side of downtown Dublin, but we had to cross a bridge every time we wanted to get there. It was beautiful!

After lunch we ended up walking around downtown Dublin in an area called Temple Bar for a while. Eventually Liz and I decided to go to Dublin Zoo, while Mevy and Shannon wanted to continue walking around. When we got to the zoo there was so much more to do than just see the animals! There were tons of open green spaces to walk around in, and a giant monument that I'm honestly still not sure what it stood for.
Just saying, at the zoo we got to see lions and tigers super up close, and they had a pack of wolves that started howling for like 5 minutes all together! Is it bad that that was probably the highlight of that day? I feel like I shouldn't have been as excited as I was.

Just to give you some perspective on its size, that's Liz at the base after the stairs up.

That night when we all met back up at the hostel (and I had a little power nap - as in an hour nap) we all headed out to dinner, only to find that the bars, again, were all crowded. And on a Sunday. Literally, there were no seats. Instead, we went to this small Greek restaurant called Corfu, and it was amazing. We had pretty much been having muffins and sweets every chance we could, so the soup and vegetables there were delicious. Not saying we didn't get dessert (because we absolutely did - best chocolate cake ever), but the food warranted another trip...so we went there again Monday night for drinks after dinner.
Monday's weather was SO much better and prettier than Sunday's. I haven't seen such a beautiful, clear and sunny day since I've been abroad. Some vitamin D was definitely needed. Monday we walked over to the Guinness Factory to check out how the Irish make their beer.
So obviously we took advantage of their free beverages.

Once we were good and full after the tour, we headed over to the Connolly train station to take a 25 minute train ride to Howth, a fishing town that my friend from Southern Weddings Magazine told me to check out! Howth was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. The town is right on the water and has some amazing views. Though we got there pretty early, around 2:00, we ended up staying for dinner to have some good, fresh seafood. I had crabcakes and shrimp, which were de-li-cious. Of course, not near as good as the seafood at Edisto or Beaufort, but still so good!

Being so close (though definitely not in, it was still only like 45 degrees) to the water made me miss Edisto so much, but the Irish accents are so cool to listen to. I couldn't decide if I wanted to stay in Dublin or come back to London.

The flight was only about an hour, so we made good time coming back! I don't know how people travel so much, the flight was short, but I was so knocked out this afternoon. Congratulations to all of you who can fly better than I can!

So that's it for the trip! This week I don't have classes because Westminster has a GIS week, but I'll be working on lots of presentations and projects that are due mid- to late March. I have a trip to Stonehenge and Bath this weekend, but luckily that's just a bus ride away!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I just wanted to post here and wish everyone at home a happy Valentine's Day! I don't have any big plans, so this is how I am spending V-Day.

Since I don't have a boyfriend, wine. Since we missed National Pancake Day in the states, pancakes.

And since candy always makes things better, sweet conversation hearts from my mama. She's the best!

A Day in the Park

I finally got the chance to walk around Regents Park today! I've been meaning to do some more exploring lately, but it seems like every time I want to, the train to get there is down for construction, or the weather isn't suitable. I'm so glad I got a chance to walk around by myself and take some photos. I saw my first bit of a rugby game (by a group of boys who couldn't have been older than 10) and found some primo picnicking spots! I didn't get a chance to see the London Zoo (which is in Regents Park), but considering a ticket costs 20 pounds, I guess I'll have to see it some other time when I have more spare cash!

Not Much Has Been Happening

Mom, this post is for you.

So not much has happened since I posted last. Classes have been getting a little more involved, and we've gotten into our groups in my three classes (out of four) that have group projects due. Last week was my roommate Liz's 21st birthday, so a group of girls all went out to celebrate and go to dinner. We ate at this Thai restaurant called Brown Sugar that was so good, especially seeing as I've never had Thai food before!

Back in September Mevy and I went to a show of this musician Ed Sheeran, who is really big in the UK and he's just starting to get big in the US. A one man band called Passenger opened for him, and he played a show last week that Mevy and I got tickets for in October. It was a lot more mellow than the Ed Sheeran show, mostly because there weren't 15 year olds screaming the entire time. I'm hoping he'll be able to come back to the UK or to America when we get back, because his show really was great.

This is Stu Larsen, who opened for Passenger. He's playing a show in a few weeks in London on his own and Mevy and I will be going to that one too. The tickets are only like $15, how can we not? This isn't my video (the person who took it had a way closer view than we did), but the venue was actually really good for the size of the crowd!

This second video isn't mine either (my videos' audio isn't good), but this is a much more uplifting song he played for the encore. It just shows how much he got the crowd involved!

This is a song I hadn't heard before this show, but I think it's so good, in a sad kind of way.

Again, besides that I've just been hanging out and realizing how much London actually costs (which is a lotttt). I'm heading out to Dublin in a couple of weeks with a few friends and I've already gotten a few suggestions of things to do, so I'll definitely post photos once I get back!