photobloggin' it
Ok, this is pretty late, but here's my photoblog from the first week of my trip (because that's the only week where my camera worked - I'll probably do the other two weeks using stolen pictures eventually).
There are lots of pictures. Be warned.
I expect this will not be interesting to most of you. If you like travel stories/pictures (MacKenzie, you should at least enjoy this) it might be mildly interesting, otherwise it will be mind-numbingly boring. Be warned.
Hopefully the pictures won't be warped and distorted, because they keep going from normal to abnormal.
Also a lot of these will end up on facebook with probably the exact same captions.
DAY 1
Flying day.
The feet of the British couple next to me on the plane. I had a pretty nice convo with the guy, who happened to have bad teeth.
DAY 2
We went to Hampton Court Palace and had some time to explore before it opened.
This is the British Lays. Notice that it's "Big Eat," not "Big Grab." Both are really awkward phrases. Chips come in flavors like prawn, bacon, chicken, and lamb.
Pretty killer Suessical-like trees
Climbing the mountainous tree.
Asian tourists are everywhere.
The palace was pretty much a beaute.
I really liked this gate.
It was the home of Henry VIII, by the way.
Meghan, Libby, and I navigated the really frustrating maze. This is them being sad.
We did make it eventually. Pretty exciting.
After the palace we went to the most depressing restaurant on earth - Don Pepe's. Man that really made me want to go home.
DAY 3
In the morning we drove to London.
Our highly qualified guide, Prudy, short for Prudence. She was pretty awesome and made me love listening to guides. And she said things like "If the bus leaves and I'm for some reason unconscious, please take me with you"
Prudy took us to a lecture with "Sir Andrew Bowdoin" which I actually thought was pretty cool.
In London: wish tree from Yoko Ono. I really love things like this. This one says "I wish that which makes the world love and be happy would really turn out to be that there is a God. I wish the universe to be true, I wish the universe to be real. I wish there is a God."
I've always wanted to go to one of those medieval style banquet places. The food was pretty crappy.
Then: Tower of London/Crown Jewels, cruise on the river Thames, dinner at Planet Hollywood (WTF? That's so American), The Producers on Drury Lane.
We were at the London premiere of POTC 2. I think Tay has a picture of Johnny Depp.
Take that, desperate fan girls.
DAY 4
Driving. We did a lot of that.
Being prehistoric at Stonehenge.
Bath really caught me offguard. It's just so huge, pristine, and Roman. It was really cool when we saw places that looked like they belonged in another country - like these hills and beaches we saw in Wales that looked South American.
Streets of Bath. We didn't get to spend enough time in Bath. We spent forever in the Royal Baths, though, which were pretty awesome.
Guess what? POTC 2 is huge in the UK.
There is a mock castle designed by William Burges which is beautifully decorated. It was totally fascinating, especially since it had been lived in more recently. This is the only place we could take pictures, and it's not a very good one so just take my word for it.
1st century Cardiff Castle.
I climbed to the top with Libby and Brendan. And we were buildings. To celebrate climbing one, or something.
We watched the world cup semifinals that night, with other people in the hotel. Watching the world cup with people from around the world was like, whoa.
DAY 5
Drove to the ferry, went on the ferry. I like ferries a whole lot.
Drove to Waterford crystal factory. That was a bit of a snore. Well, relative to the other things we did it was one of the more forgettable excursions.
Our hotel was really cool and traditional. I had stew for dinner which had lamb in it. Not something I would normally do.
I LOVE GROCERY STORES. ESPECIALLY EUROPEAN ONES. Actually this is more like a convience store.
You can see Katie here on the far left. Katie was our leader who was seriously outrageous. Check out her pink eyeshadow (she wore it every day) and her long braided blond hair with the wispy bangs in the front. She was way immature too. But a constant source of amusement. PLUS. SHE LOOKED LIKE STEPHANIE TANNER.
Dungarvan, during our evening exploration.
My roomate was Kassie, who is pretty awesome, and we left our rooms after room checks (yeah, we had rules. But I still would have rather gone with the group than otherwise) to Claire's room - realized Claire is cooler than I thought (soon to realize she is hillllllarious).
DAY 6
We saw a lot of views like these out of the bus windows.
Part of Blarney castle.
View from the top.
I wanted to take a jumping picture at every castle. It was kind of silly, but I like having missions. It would be nice if you could see more of the castle in the background, though. Also, Katie tried to take pictures for me at first, and she SUCKED (I think all Katie news should be reported).
I kissed the germy stone, which my parents thought I would not do. I love stone though, and people kissing a stone, leaving pretty much no residue, is much less gross than fresh spit, sweat, etc.
I'll touch stone and moss all the live long day. I don't like metal and dirty plastic and such.
On the bus ride after that I said bad-ass which apparently secured me friends for life.
DAY 7
We went to a farm in Ireland and spent the better part of the day there. This guy taught us a bit of hurling.
Nick, our British delegation manager and the guy in the tan sweater, tried to fling poop at Katie (because she put some in his pocket, she is seriously immature) and hit Zack (most hated kid on the trip) in the face. It was pretty good.
Katie, on the right, running from Nick. What a sight.
post-poop flinging
Ceilidh in this stone building we spent a lot of time in. Whoever wanted to could perform.
So of course, Katie and Margaux had to sing "Devil Went Down to Georgia." I felt pretty embarassed for America (there were French and Irish people there).
We piled in a trailer, walked through the forest, then went to the bog.
Before the bog, Katie swung me way too hard on this rope thing (which was way fun nevertheless) and the rope went into my eye. I was annoyed about it for a long time.
The bog, full of dead things and manure. It was had a bunch of air bubbles and felt pretty great. I basically stayed in this position the whole time because my flip-flops created a counterforce that made it practically impossible to get my feet out. I rescued one flip-flop, but the other is left there, to be preserved forever. Or hundreds of years. Possibly.
I didn't take this, because I was otherwise occupied in the bog, but I really like this picture.
Post-bog
Libby, Me, Claire who is hilarious, Adam who is hilarious, Tay, who is oodles of fun and basically became my best friend on the trip that night.
We made soda bread and it was pretty yum.
That night: we rode the train to Dublin then walked around. It was pretty damn fun.
I like this for multiple reasons.
There are lots of pictures. Be warned.
I expect this will not be interesting to most of you. If you like travel stories/pictures (MacKenzie, you should at least enjoy this) it might be mildly interesting, otherwise it will be mind-numbingly boring. Be warned.
Hopefully the pictures won't be warped and distorted, because they keep going from normal to abnormal.
Also a lot of these will end up on facebook with probably the exact same captions.
DAY 1
Flying day.
The feet of the British couple next to me on the plane. I had a pretty nice convo with the guy, who happened to have bad teeth.
DAY 2
We went to Hampton Court Palace and had some time to explore before it opened.
This is the British Lays. Notice that it's "Big Eat," not "Big Grab." Both are really awkward phrases. Chips come in flavors like prawn, bacon, chicken, and lamb.
Pretty killer Suessical-like trees
Climbing the mountainous tree.
Asian tourists are everywhere.
The palace was pretty much a beaute.
I really liked this gate.
It was the home of Henry VIII, by the way.
Meghan, Libby, and I navigated the really frustrating maze. This is them being sad.
We did make it eventually. Pretty exciting.
After the palace we went to the most depressing restaurant on earth - Don Pepe's. Man that really made me want to go home.
DAY 3
In the morning we drove to London.
Our highly qualified guide, Prudy, short for Prudence. She was pretty awesome and made me love listening to guides. And she said things like "If the bus leaves and I'm for some reason unconscious, please take me with you"
Prudy took us to a lecture with "Sir Andrew Bowdoin" which I actually thought was pretty cool.
In London: wish tree from Yoko Ono. I really love things like this. This one says "I wish that which makes the world love and be happy would really turn out to be that there is a God. I wish the universe to be true, I wish the universe to be real. I wish there is a God."
I've always wanted to go to one of those medieval style banquet places. The food was pretty crappy.
Then: Tower of London/Crown Jewels, cruise on the river Thames, dinner at Planet Hollywood (WTF? That's so American), The Producers on Drury Lane.
We were at the London premiere of POTC 2. I think Tay has a picture of Johnny Depp.
Take that, desperate fan girls.
DAY 4
Driving. We did a lot of that.
Being prehistoric at Stonehenge.
Bath really caught me offguard. It's just so huge, pristine, and Roman. It was really cool when we saw places that looked like they belonged in another country - like these hills and beaches we saw in Wales that looked South American.
Streets of Bath. We didn't get to spend enough time in Bath. We spent forever in the Royal Baths, though, which were pretty awesome.
Guess what? POTC 2 is huge in the UK.
There is a mock castle designed by William Burges which is beautifully decorated. It was totally fascinating, especially since it had been lived in more recently. This is the only place we could take pictures, and it's not a very good one so just take my word for it.
1st century Cardiff Castle.
I climbed to the top with Libby and Brendan. And we were buildings. To celebrate climbing one, or something.
We watched the world cup semifinals that night, with other people in the hotel. Watching the world cup with people from around the world was like, whoa.
DAY 5
Drove to the ferry, went on the ferry. I like ferries a whole lot.
Drove to Waterford crystal factory. That was a bit of a snore. Well, relative to the other things we did it was one of the more forgettable excursions.
Our hotel was really cool and traditional. I had stew for dinner which had lamb in it. Not something I would normally do.
I LOVE GROCERY STORES. ESPECIALLY EUROPEAN ONES. Actually this is more like a convience store.
You can see Katie here on the far left. Katie was our leader who was seriously outrageous. Check out her pink eyeshadow (she wore it every day) and her long braided blond hair with the wispy bangs in the front. She was way immature too. But a constant source of amusement. PLUS. SHE LOOKED LIKE STEPHANIE TANNER.
Dungarvan, during our evening exploration.
My roomate was Kassie, who is pretty awesome, and we left our rooms after room checks (yeah, we had rules. But I still would have rather gone with the group than otherwise) to Claire's room - realized Claire is cooler than I thought (soon to realize she is hillllllarious).
DAY 6
We saw a lot of views like these out of the bus windows.
Part of Blarney castle.
View from the top.
I wanted to take a jumping picture at every castle. It was kind of silly, but I like having missions. It would be nice if you could see more of the castle in the background, though. Also, Katie tried to take pictures for me at first, and she SUCKED (I think all Katie news should be reported).
I kissed the germy stone, which my parents thought I would not do. I love stone though, and people kissing a stone, leaving pretty much no residue, is much less gross than fresh spit, sweat, etc.
I'll touch stone and moss all the live long day. I don't like metal and dirty plastic and such.
On the bus ride after that I said bad-ass which apparently secured me friends for life.
DAY 7
We went to a farm in Ireland and spent the better part of the day there. This guy taught us a bit of hurling.
Nick, our British delegation manager and the guy in the tan sweater, tried to fling poop at Katie (because she put some in his pocket, she is seriously immature) and hit Zack (most hated kid on the trip) in the face. It was pretty good.
Katie, on the right, running from Nick. What a sight.
post-poop flinging
Ceilidh in this stone building we spent a lot of time in. Whoever wanted to could perform.
So of course, Katie and Margaux had to sing "Devil Went Down to Georgia." I felt pretty embarassed for America (there were French and Irish people there).
We piled in a trailer, walked through the forest, then went to the bog.
Before the bog, Katie swung me way too hard on this rope thing (which was way fun nevertheless) and the rope went into my eye. I was annoyed about it for a long time.
The bog, full of dead things and manure. It was had a bunch of air bubbles and felt pretty great. I basically stayed in this position the whole time because my flip-flops created a counterforce that made it practically impossible to get my feet out. I rescued one flip-flop, but the other is left there, to be preserved forever. Or hundreds of years. Possibly.
I didn't take this, because I was otherwise occupied in the bog, but I really like this picture.
Post-bog
Libby, Me, Claire who is hilarious, Adam who is hilarious, Tay, who is oodles of fun and basically became my best friend on the trip that night.
We made soda bread and it was pretty yum.
That night: we rode the train to Dublin then walked around. It was pretty damn fun.
I like this for multiple reasons.