london, england

             This year was the first time I have been out of the country for Thanksgiving! Though it was a little strange, it was hard to be sad because I currently have so much to be thankful for… We ended up celebrating thanksgiving dinner in a true British fashion and walked down to an awesome little pub Canterbury for a roast dinner and a beer! Yum!

             The next day it was off to London for the weekend! EAP had organized a traditional American dinner for us, and we couldn’t turn down a free meal. Katie and I arrived early on Friday and our first stop was Platform 9 ¾ for a quick trip to Hogwarts. 

            We checked into our hostel and spent the afternoon walking around Camden’s market. Afterwards we met up with Charlie and his mom at the Natural History museum and wandered around a bit before it was time for our Thanksgiving feast. It was great to be able to reconnect with some of the other EAP kids we met at orientation, and the dinner was actually pretty good! 

The Street our Hostel was on 

Natural History Museum

Having a little Movember fun at the Museum 

           Later that night we met up with Charlie’s friends who took us out to some of their favorite local bars in Camden. We went to a place called the Monarch, which was so much fun and was playing 90's music all night! 

By the end of the night, everyone was wearing those glasses. definitely a great purchase.

            The next day we spent wandering around London. We went to Portobello Market, saw the Christmas lights on Oxford Street, and checked out Denmark Street which is lined with music shops. We even had Chipotle for lunch!! (yes, we found the only one in Europe!! SUCCESS).

            That night we went to “Winter Wonderland” at Hyde Park. They had a huge fair complete with rides, games, food, and lots of mulled wine! It was absolutely packed! It was the perfect thing to get us in the Christmas spirit after Thanksgiving! The highlight of the night was being able to ice skate! They had a huge outdoor rink that had a live band playing Christmas music. It was so amazing to be skating in London with all my friends, and miraculously no one fell! Unfortunately they wouldn’t let us bring cameras onto the ice, but that’s probably for the better…

At Winter Wonderland 

Ice Skating at Hyde Park

            On Sunday we hit up all the usual tourist spots in London. We started out at Abbey Road where we took the obligatory photo and left our mark on the Beatles wall. The next stop was the changing of the guards, followed by a walk through Trafalgar Square where we saw the countdown clock for the Olympic games! (Only 240 days, mom and dad!) We had lunch in Convent Garden and then walked around by the Christmas markets, the London Eye, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and Parliament. We then hopped on the tube and checked out Saint Paul’s Cathedral, the Millennium Bridge, and the Tate Modern (One of my favorite parts of London). We ended the night with some Indian food on Brick Lane.

Abbey Road! 

Trafalgar Square 

Big Ben 

The London Eye 

            Overall it was an amazing weekend, which merely reinforced my love for London. I have decided that I am definitely going to live in London at some point in my life…Katie and I have already started looking at apartments!!

 

bath, stonehenge, and bristol

Everyday that I am in England, I am introduced to something new; new friends, new foods, new pastimes and lots of new music! In fact, one of my new favorite bands, Portugal. The Man, are actually an American band that Charlie introduced me to. While they released their newest album in the US over the summer, the UK release was just last week. Because of that, we spent the week listening to them on spotify, watching their music videos, and searching for the new album in the less than impressive music shops of Canterbury. Slightly defeated that it was no where to be found, Charlie ended up buying it online and sharing it with us so we would all have something to listen to on the train during our weekend getaway.

            We planned our trip to Bath and Bristol so long ago that it was hard to believe that it was finally time to go! (I am constantly reminded how fast time goes by here…I wish it would slow down…) The plans for the weekend included sightseeing in Bath, possibly visiting Stonehenge and then heading to Bristol to see Explosions in the Sky, another absolutely amazing band I have recently been exposed to. We all knew that it was going to be a fun weekend, but we had no idea just how great it was going to be…

              We arrived in Bath late Friday night. Katie, Crystal, Charlie and I checked into our YMCA hostel and met up with David and Nick who had travelled separately. We went to some of the local bars and had a fun night that ended in a full a cappella rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody as well as an interactive performance of, “it’s fun to stay at the YMCA” (given that our hostel was a YMCA, it seemed like a necessity).

            We woke up early the next day and discussed the day’s plans over breakfast. Despite every single one of our English friends telling us that Stonehenge was a rip-off, we decided that had to see it. We tried to work out the cheapest way to go and eventually decided on an embarrassingly touristy purple bus. The tour wasn’t until 1 so we spent the rest of the morning sightseeing in Bath. We visited the Royal Crescent, saw where Jane Austen lived, and visited Bath’s Abbey. We also got caught up in a Mummers parade, which consisted of hundreds of strangely dressed street performers walking next to us and interacting with us. Words cannot describe the absurdity…

In front of the Royal Crescent (G-Phi shout-out) 

Bath's Abbey

Casually chatting up the Mummers

            We then boarded our purple bus and began our adventure to the “Henge”. After an hour of driving we finally caught our first glimpse of it. To be honest, it was a bit of a sad sight. An arrangement of stones right next to the highway…despite this, we refused to be let down, we had paid 14 pounds and we were fully prepared to be amazed by the henge’s glory. We were given audio guides that droned on and we began to take pictures of ourselves posing in front of it. Then Charlie turned to tell us that the guy who had just walked by looked like the lead singer form Portugal. The Man, the band we had been obsessing over. We all laughed a little and carried on with our pictures. Charlie however, went to get a second look, and eventually came running back saying that it was not only him, but that it was the WHOLE band as well. We were SHOCKED to say the very least. We approached them and asked for a picture. I can honestly say it was the most epic picture I’ve ever been in. Our group, Portugal. The Man, and Stonehenge. Three great things all in one photo. They were all so nice and after we talked for a while, they invited us to their show in Bristol THAT night! They took down our names and said they put us on the VIP guest list!! We were all overly excited as well as a bit freaked out. What were the odds that the American band we had all been consistently listening to would be at Stonehenge (which is in the middle of nowhere) at the EXACT same moment as us. I honestly believe that Stonehenge worked some sort of mystical power on us…

Stonehenge! 

Us with Portugal. The Man 

            That night we headed up to Bristol for the show! They were playing at an awesome little venue called the Louisiana. We stood in the front row and got a little shout-out from the band when they saw us. The show was absolutely amazing and afterwards when they were talking to their fans they kept coming up to us telling us that we would all hang out in a little.  We ended up staying for over an hour, talking to the band and hanging out, they even bought us a round of drinks!! It was definitely one of the coolest nights I’ve ever had.  

            By the time we left the venue, we had missed all the trains back to Bath and had to take a taxi. We ordered a 7-person taxi but when it arrived we were surprised to see a tiny 5-seater Toyota. After a lot of negotiating and a bit of a guilt-trip from Charlie about how this was our only ride home, the driver somehow agreed to take us all. So all 7 of us (4 guys and 3 girls…) climbed into the car, one in the front and 6 in the back….it was a tight squeeze to say the least…especially for our 20 minute journey. I went to bed that night actually wondering if it had all been a dream…who randomly meets a band at Stonehenge, goes to their show and then hangs out with them?? Us I guess…

Front row view! 

Charlie playing Portugal. The Man's guitar. Pure happiness...

            We woke up the next day knowing that the previous day was going to be hard to top…Despite that, we still had the Explosions in the Sky concert that night that we were all extremely excited about. We spent the day touring around the Roman Baths, which included a free sample of water, which was warm and tasted like metal. We laughed later at the fact that we had all drunken warm bath water…

Katie and I at the Baths! 

Roman baths

            It was then time to head back to Bristol! We had now managed to go from Bath to Bristol, back to Bath and then back to Bristol all in one weekend (thank god for good public transportation!).

            When we planned the trip we realized that the Explosions concert was a Sunday night and seeing that we needed to return to Canterbury for Monday lectures, we decided not to book a hostel and catch the first train back…the only problem was that the first train left at 5am… that being said, we took the afternoon easy, walking around Bristol and preparing ourselves for our homeless night.

            At one point, while we were sitting on some benches in an outdoor shopping center, we noticed some teenage girls (clearly Bristol natives) talking about us. They confronted us and told us, well me specifically, to stop laughing so loud. They claimed all of Bristol could hear me and continued to harass our group. The argument continued on for a while and a stalemate arose between our two adjacent benches. The problem was that the argument was so ridiculous that it continued to make me laugh…clearly not helping the situation. We came to the eventual conclusion that these girls must have an incredibly boring life to be picking fights with people laughing in public areas. We eventually left, as we heard them say, “Ya, that’s right you better walk away…” Oh, the life of a troubled teen in Bristol…I really do feel sorry for them. The one thing that I did take away from the situation despite a hilarious story, is how lucky I am to have such wonderful friends who will stand behind me at all times. I am truly fortunate.

            It was then time for the concert! We parted ways with David who had opted out of going to the concert and was meeting a friend for an organized pub crawl called “Carnage” (we knew by the name what kind of night he’d be having!). Despite being one of the shortest people at the concert, (I swear they have exceptionally tall fans) the show was so much fun, Explosions had put on an incredible live performance. 

Explosions in the Sky 

The boys forming a blockade for us at the show

              Afterwards we waited outside for the band to come and Charlie was able to give them one of his CDs to listen to! Meeting two bands in one weekend, we couldn’t believe it… We were about to leave when suddenly out of no where we see David running down the alley towards us. He reached us and told us he had to get away from the absolute craziness. We were all happy to be reunited and left to find somewhere to sty until our 5 am train. As we walked through the town we began to see the craziness David was talking about. There were literally over a thousand drunk teens running around! We saw a huge street fight and some kids trying to steal a car, luckily the police arrived just in time. The whole city was in complete and utter chaos. Eventually we stumbled upon a little quiet bar to hang out in, away from all the madness. It turned out to be a real gem; it was open until 2am and had a DJ that played only vinyl’s! We stayed there until closing, dancing away to some classic oldies. Once the bar closed we wandered around to an area near the water and hung out in a big open pavilion by the houseboats for the remainder of the night. Time passed surprisingly fast and soon it was time to head to the train station. Once we got on our train I passed out for pretty much the whole ride (I was only awaken once by the angry ticket collector…whoops!) When we got back I had to go straight to my two-hour seminar… I was sooo tired but the trip was definitely worth it!!

Homeless in Bristol 

Sitting on the water, waiting for our train...

Remember, Remember the 5th of November...

            In 1605 Guy Fawkes formed an elaborate plan to assassinate King James I of England. He ultimately failed and was captured and burned at the stake. That night English people around the country were encouraged by the government to light bonfires and celebrate the King’s escape from death. To this day, the tradition has lived on and every year on November 5^th the English celebrate Guy Fawkes Day by lighting huge bonfires and setting off fireworks! They even burn a fake Guy Fawkes doll! (Morbid, I know…but also very amusing).

            We were lucky enough to have a bonfire celebration right next to our campus. The bonfire was HUGE and despite fairly consistent rain, it continued burning all night. Accompanying the bonfire was a full fireworks show (complete with background music of anything they felt related to fire and fireworks, i.e. Katy Perry’s-Firework and Johnny Cash’s- Ring of Fire, just to name a few). The event was absolutely packed with students and families out to celebrate the night, there was also a very…interesting…fire dance performed by a man named “Circus Paul”. 

the bonfire!!

If you look closely...you can see us standing in front of the fire...

Bonfire with the crowd in the back 

Rain and fire 

edinburgh & dublin

              Reading week is a time in which professors in England give you a week off of lectures to catch up on reading for the course. It is coincidentally a time when exchange students flee the country to travel Europe. With that in mind, Crystal, Katie and I boarded a train to Edinburgh, leaving our reading far behind us (we prefer to focus on the abroad portion of “studying abroad”). On the way up, we picked up Lani in London. I really can’t think of a better or more epic reunion than on the train platform at Kings Cross... It was so great to be able to travel with her while she was in Europe; all we were missing was Kirby! (and Dinah of course…)

            After a lot of catching up and a small nap on the train, we finally arrived in Edinburgh! We checked into our hostel, which was located across the street from the Edinburgh castle, I couldn’t have asked for a better view. Edinburgh itself is set-up on a large hill. On one end of the High street lies the Castle and on the other lies the Hollyrood House, where the royal family stays. The distance in between the two is roughly a mile and thus the High Street is often called the Royal mile. We walked along the Royal mile, and stopped into one of the pubs for dinner. I went traditional Scottish with some Bangers and Mash and even tried some Haggis! (I’ll spare you the details of what Haggis is, but if you’re curious I suggest you google it, it was actually quite tasty!) We finished up with some sticky toffee pudding and headed home to get some rest.

Edinburgh!

         The next day we got the full Edinburgh experience! We started out by taking the Sandeman’s free walking tour. The tour was really informative and to top it all off our tour guide looked and talked like a Scottish pirate. We walked around the city seeing the sights and learning all about the Scottish origins of Harry Potter, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Sherlock Holmes. We finished the tour and had lunch at the café in which JK Rowling sat and wrote Harry Potter. We were lucky enough to get the table right by the window where we enjoyed our lunch and tea while feeling exceptionally inspired. 

JK Rowling's cafe! This was our table, with the view of the Castle out the window!

The Greyfriar Graveyard! 

               That evening we headed to the Scottish Whisky Experience, and what an experience it was! They start you off on a amusement park-like barrel ride through the creation of Scottish Whisky followed immediately by a full presentation on the different types of whisky Scotland has to offer (the presentation was fully-equipped with individual scratch and sniff cards for every type). They finish up by taking you through the largest collection of Whisky in the world and by giving you a Whisky sample. Disappointed by the fact that it didn’t taste anything like tropical fruit flavor the scratch and sniff card promised, we all somehow managed to get through it… it was definitely an experience to say the least… We finished day with a ghost tour of the city that took us all over the city at night! It was really cool because Edinburgh is claimed to be the second spookiest city in Europe (not sure what the first is, or how they even determine that…)

The largest collection of Whisky in the World!

             The next day was Halloween! After taking the ghost tour the night before we quickly realized that we had picked the perfect Halloween destination! We woke up and had a delicious breakfast of Scottish porridge in a little café near our hostel and then did some shopping. We then decided to take on Arthur’s seat in the afternoon. Arthur’s seat is a giant hill in Edinburgh that provides a beautiful panoramic view of the city.  The only problem is that once you get to the top you are faced with torrential winds. You honestly could not stand up for more than 3 seconds without feeling like you were going to be blown over. The excessive wind combined with the jagged cliff edge was a deadly combo but in the end, we all got a huge laugh out of the fact that it was so excessively windy and against all odds, we actually managed to get a few good pictures (wearing a headband that day was the best decision of my life!). The view from the top of Arthur’s seat was absolutely stunning and definitely worth the climb and the tangled mess that my hair was in.  

We climbed to the top of that!!

Sooooo windy, but the view was worth it!

             That night we celebrated Halloween by doing an organized pub-crawl. Although it was no Halloween in IV, it was so much fun! Having practically no room in our backpacks (the pains to travelling on Ryanair) we had to keep our costumes simple, so that night we busted out the nerdy glasses and suspenders and took on the streets of Edinburgh.

Halloween!

             The next morning was a bit rough as we checked out of the hostel and boarded a bus at 4:30am the next morning. Lucky for us we had been prepared and had all bought our own bottle of Iron-Bru. Claimed to be the 2^nd national drink of Scotland (second only to whisky of course…), Iron-bru is a sort of orange soda energy drink. Unlucky for us, it tasted like crushed up smarties. We laughed at ourselves as we sat deliriously on the bus choking down our warm drinks.

             I do feel a little bad because the last thing we did on Scottish land was toss away four nearly full bottles of Scotland’s “finest” drink before heading in to board our flight to Dublin. So to any Scots we offended, I’m sorry.

            Our next stop was Dublin, which I was especially excited to see! (Still wasn’t over the time my entire family went there without me…I guess I can forgive you all now…)We boarded the bus for the city center and the first thing we saw was a poster for Alcoholics Anonymous; yup, we had successfully made it to Ireland!

            We took it easy the rest of the day, as we were all exhausted after getting 2 hours of sleep the night before. We met up with Katie’s friend Amber who was staying with us in Dublin and walked around the city, stopping in at a café to get some lunch and indulge in some people watching. Later that night we met up with some of Katie’s other friends who are studying abroad in Dublin. We had dinner with them and went back to their adorable apartment in the city to hang out!

Lady Justice outside the Dublin Castle 

            The next day we took the free walking tour of Dublin! (We’ve now become accustomed to doing the Sandeman’s tour in every major European city…) We walked all around the city, seeing the sights including Trinity College, the Temple Bar area and Saint Stephens Green. We were even able to see them filming a show about the Titanic outside of the castle area. After the tour, we took the afternoon to do the obligatory Guinness factory tour. We walked around the factory and had a pint at the Gravity bar, enjoying the 360 view of Dublin. Later that night we went out on a pub-crawl that took us to some really awesome pubs around the city! Two of the bars were owned by U2 and another one had a really great Irish band playing live!  

Christ Church 

Temple Bar! 

Lovely day for a Guinness!

               The next day was our last day in Dublin; we woke up had breakfast and did a little shopping. We all bought each other Irish Claddagh rings, which are a symbol of love and friendship. Shortly after that, it was time for Crystal, Katie and I to say goodbye to Lani and Amber and head back to Canterbury. This is where our problems began…

                It seems that every trip we go ends up having some sort of hitch… for Dublin it was catching the bus. We left the hostel over two hours before our flight, leaving plenty of time for the 30-minute bus to the airport. We set out with our backpacks filled to the brim, to find the bus stop but couldn’t find it anywhere. Finally after about 10 minutes of searching and about 3 minutes being harassed by a small group of children, we went back to the hostel to ask for directions. We eventually made it to the bus stop 10 minutes before our bus was to arrive. We waited patiently and when it arrived we approached the curb only to see it zoom past us. The next one wasn’t coming for another forty minutes, so naturally we started running down the busy streets of Dublin trying to catch it. After that failed, we walked another 6 blocks to the next stop where the next bus was coming in 20 minutes. Once again we waited….then we continued to wait….and wait… until we realized that the bus wasn’t coming. By that time it had been over 40 minutes and the next one was scheduled to come soon. We were beginning to get really worried but luckily the bus finally arrived! We were so relieved to be on the bus, and although we were cutting it extremely close to our flight time we thought it’d be ok.

            It was approximately 7 minutes into our ride when the bus lights started to flicker. The engine shut off then quickly came back on again. We looked at each other in shock. This cycle continued about 5 times before they made the announcement that the bus had officially broken down and that a replacement was coming in 20 minutes. We were in such a state of disbelief that we just laughed. We knew we’d be missing our flight. Then, luckily for us a different bus appeared 5 minutes later.

            When we arrived at the airport we had roughly 10 minutes to get on our flight. It was then that we became those obnoxious people running on the moving walkway. We finally made to our gate JUST in time. We found our seats on the plane and took our first deep breath in 2 hours. Such a relief. Then, to top it all off, the plane was delayed 40 minutes (typical Ryanair). I fell asleep on the runway and woke up to find we were still on the ground. Needless to say it was quite the adventure, but we eventually made it back to Canterbury after an amazing trip to Edinburgh and Dublin.

            It was then time to face the consequences of skipping out on reading week….we spent the next few days locked in our rooms writing the papers we had pushed to the back of our minds for the week; luckily the trip was definitely worth it!