The Finale

Well, this is it people. I’m pretty much done in Nottingham. People keep asking me how I feel, and the only fitting word is ‘weird’ because I’m so happy to go home but so sad to leave Nottingham and the friends I made here. But I know they are always just a Skype call away (we are already accustomed to Skyping with each other from across campus so this really shouldn’t be a problem…)

Let’s see, what have I gotten up to since Thanksgiving. It has all been a blur. I got sick for awhile after Thanksgiving, like with a fever/cold of some sort, that was a bummer, but it was okay because I just stayed in bed and wrote my paper that I needed to do. Since finishing the paper, I have just been relaxing. The funny thing about leaving Nottingham though is that I will not be done with school–my two finals aren’t until January 12 and 19, PLUS I have two papers to write by January 10. Ugh, but I’ll work through it.

I’ve just been trying to spend a bunch of time with my friends these past couple weeks. Lots of hanging out in peoples’ rooms and just talking or watching movies. Our final hurrah will be tomorrow night, we’re going to what is probs my favorite bar in Notts called The Bodega. Then we’ll come back here and hang out until 5 a.m. or so, when my taxi comes to take me to the bus station, where I will take a bus to London, and from there I will take the Tube to Heathrow where I catch my 9 hour direct flight to ATL (daaang!). Hopefully I will be exhausted enough to sleep on the flight!

I don’t know what else to say, I don’t want to get all sappy about leaving yet. I still have nearly 36 hours in Nottingham! But I do want all my Notts friends reading this to know that you have really made this experience the most amazing thing–I couldn’t love Nottingham the way I do without you guys in it! And as for everyone anxiously awaiting my return to America (lol) I can’t wait to see you all! I really appreciate your interest in my coming home, as it makes leaving a lot less depressing, haha.

I wish I had more English-y stuff to say, but hopefully I will have picked up some legit phrases over here that I bring back. Surely I’ve grown to be a more worldly individual? Because I feel like the only British expressions and words I’ve picked up are either inappropriate or… well yeah, mainly just inappropriate. We’ll see though.

Okay I’ve got to end this because it’s time for our s’mores party (that’s right) in a bit and I have to try and not look like a hobo, as usual. I LOVE YOU ENGLAND! Thanks for being so great to me! Oh and shout-out to The Conster and Patty (the rents) for letting me study abroad. Baller parenting, you two, can’t wait to see you both. And everyone else in Murrica!!

Ok. Enough. JOLLY GOOD RUN, CHAPS!

Thanksgiving: Euro Style

Sorry I haven’t updated in awhile! I just haven’t had a whole lot say but the past couple days have been pretty eventful! Before I talk about Thanksgiving, I’ll say a bit about Wednesday because it was pretty epic, by my standards. A couple friends and myself went to city centre for a shopping trip to my favorite store ever, Primark. I got some great clothes. But nobody really cares about that so yeah. But THEN we went to a tea house called The Walk, and it was so cute! It’s like a bakery/tea place and I just got tea, but the atmosphere is really what makes the place. I will be uploading pictures to Facebook ASAP.

That wasn’t as much as I could’ve hoped to say on the subject but it really just has to be seen in pictures. Now for Thanksgiving.

I had classes because of course, Thanksgiving is nothing over here. After classes I watched some of the Macy’s Parade online because of course I had to watch Annie (my sister) marching in it! It was cool to watch and brought back great memories of marching in it myself SIX YEARS AGO (that is so absurd to even think about, I can’t believe it was six years ago. But I digress). So I was feeling a little nostalgic but still excited for MY Thanksgiving plans! It was my friend Emily’s 21st birthday and her mom is visiting, so we made plans to go out for Indian food and drinks afterwards. So while I was waiting to go out, I tried (and failed) to work on my essay. Instead, my friend Justine and I had a brilliant dance party in her dorm’s library when nobody else was there.

When it finally was time to go out, we took the bus into city centre and went to Cumin, which turned out to be a DELICIOUS Indian restaurant. Some of my friends had been there before (among them the birthday girl) and one of the waitresses recognized them which was pretty cool, as they went a couple months back. The service was great and at the end of the meal they gave Emily a piece of Indian carrot cake with “HAPPY BIRTH DAY” written on the plate, it was adorable. Also, they gave us as many mints as we wanted, plus each of us got two bangles for free! And no, they definitely didn’t do that for anyone else who came for dinner that night. They basically loved us. Or they knew it was Thanksgiving (doubtful). But I like to think they knew.

Afterwards, we went to a place called Coco Tang. It was a really cute bar/club with adorable drinks… I got something that tasted like sweet tarts and came with some sweet tarts on the side, one of my friends got a drink that tasted like M&Ms and came with a shot glass full of them, etc. You get the idea, really fun but overpriced drinks. But the real fun came when we went to the bathroom…

Weird, I know. But this was the COOLEST BATHROOM EVER. First of all, they had two full length mirrors. I dunno what it is, but the University of Nottingham is really anti-full length mirror. As in until tonight, I don’t remember the last time I saw myself in one. There’s a mirror over the sink in my bedroom, and I’d guess it’s about one foot tall and three feet wide. Because there are people with 3-feet-wide faces. NOT, stupid Nottingham. If I really feel the need to see what my torso looks like, I stand on my bed and sort of bend my knees. If I want to see my legs… I look down. But anyway, so we took lots of glamour MySpace shots in the full length mirrors.

Also, there were vanity mirrors with the cool bulbs all around them, and a blow dryer (free use) and a straightener (1 pound per use). We obviously also took glamour shots in these mirrors, with the (blow dryer) wind in our hair. But the best part was the last stall in the bathroom. It had TWO toilets in it. I didn’t really understand this. Like yeah, girls like to go powder their noses together but this was taking it a bit too far, I’d say. Regardless, we took glamour shots in this stall. All these pictures and more will be up on Facebook hopefully soon, when I get time.

All in all it was a great Thanksgiving and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Super duper special shout out to Emily’s and Adrienne’s WONDERFUL moms who funded our ridiculous night out, it was so great meeting them both and I thoroughly enjoyed their company.

I would write more probably about random bits and bobs (a legit British expression) but is after 4 a.m. here and I have to wake up at 10 for class. This insomnia is getting to be a problem. GOODNIGHT!

Reasons to set things on fire

It is a rare occasion indeed that I can find reasons to set things on fire. In fact, upon reflection, I can only think of three things I’ve ever had reasons to set on fire:

1. Wood: because I’m cold
2. Candles: because it’s someone’s birthday, Halloween, or fancy dinner time
3. Bits of colorful scrap plastic: because it burns neat-o

Other than that, nada. But man, these Brits, they know what they want and they will find legitimate reason to do it. What do they want? FIRE! Why do they want it? BECAUSE SOME GUY (no pun intended) TRIED TO BLOW UP PARLIAMENT! This, my friends, is how Guy Fawkes Day was born.

Gay Fawkes Day, or more simply known as Fireworks Day, happens every 5th of November and commemorates the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. This plot was a failed assassination attempt on King James I. Guy Fawkes, funnily enough, was not responsible for leading the plot–he was just the guy caught red-handed hiding amongst 36 barrels of gunpowder in the House of Lords late the night of November 4. But it is he who the people remember, and he who they incinerate an effigy of in a bonfire of epic proportions. He’s one lucky guy, no? (Okay maybe pun intended that time).

Sorry that it’s a bit blurry. For an idea of how big this bonfire was, you can just barely make out the firefighter standing directly to the right of the bonfire. Unfortunately you can’t make out Guy Fawkes himself, but he is (was) perched atop the wood pile, looking quite like a poorly made scarecrow with a marker-drawn smiley face. It was all very realistic and just as it was that fateful day of 1605.

As the fire died down, the night gave way to an exceptional fireworks show. Not much to say on that though… we all know what fireworks look like, and we all know how impossible it is to take pictures of them without a high-quality camera. This was the best I got:

It looks nervous… like a firework with many jelly-like legs.

Fireworks Day was kind of like the Fourth of July but instead of celebrating independence, we were celebrating attempted terrorism. Bravo, England.

It was also like the Fourth in that people celebrated by setting off their own fun-sized fireworks on the days preceding and following the actual holiday, which was nice because I got to view numerous simpler fireworks shows from the comfort of my dorm.

So there you have it, Guy Fawkes Day. In other news, I officially have less than one month (now that it’s after midnight here) to spend in/at this wonderful country/city/university, which is quite sad. And as excited as I am about going home for Christmas, I am starting to feel particularly blue over the prospect of leaving the wonderful friends I have made during my time here; I’ve only known them (at most) for two months but it feels like two decades. But it’s too soon to get sappy–a month is a pretty decent amount of time! So I better stop talking to you all and GET OUT THERE! Well, actually, I’m going to stop talking to you all and go to sleep… but when I wake up I’m going to GET OUT THERE! Fo sho.

FINALLY met Robin Hood!

See?! Haha, my friends and I went to Nottingham Castle a week ago and of course we all took pictures with the Robin Hood Statue. The castle itself wasn’t quite as exciting as I’d hoped–it’s not especially interesting or ancient looking, mainly because I’m pretty sure it’s been destroyed and rebuilt a number of times. But the grounds were really beautiful, especially with all the autumn colors, and it was a nice day to be out on the town in Nottingham.

I haven’t written in awhile because I haven’t had a lot to say… let’s see, Halloween was fun! Friday the 29th a group of us got in costume and went to a club. I was a ‘devil’ only out of convenience: my suite-mate had little plastic devil horns she let me borrow. Didn’t do much over Halloween weekend though, I stayed in with a couple of friends and watched Hocus Pocus and Double, Double Toil and Trouble during the day and carved pumpkins!

The skull and Georgia ‘G’ are mine, and the happy pumpkin face is my friend Emily’s. Not bad, right? Unfortunately, the pumpkins met a sad fate indeed. Later that night after I’d already gone to sleep, my suite-mate was hanging out with friends in the hall and some pranksters went in our common room and stole them. I don’t think they were terrible people because they didn’t take anything else, they were probably just some stupid drunk kids. No big deal, at least they got rid of the pumpkins for me!

That’s all for now, I’ll leave you with another easy adjustment/difficult adjustment to life in England!

In England, I have adjusted well to: the weather. I really thought I would dislike frequent raining and actually worried I might be a bit depressed by it. But it’s not so bad, really. There are still sunny days 2-3 days a week and when it does rain, it certainly doesn’t pour–the rain is more of a sprinkle.

I have had much more trouble adjusting to: paper writing. I have my first big paper due November 18, and I am rather nervous about it. For one thing, I hardly ever have to write essays at home. In fact I don’t remember the last time I did. On top of that, they write papers differently here. For example, I was taught NEVER to write in the first person in a formal essay, but that’s perfectly acceptable here. I figure I’ll try to crank out a couple pages and ask my professor to read it and see if I’m going in the right direction. No big deal, it’s only 50% of my final grade… hah…

Note to self: don’t go into nonprofit

Why, you ask? Well, as it turns out, I am really, really bad at getting people to give me money, regardless of the cause. I could be on the streets collecting money for disabled children and I bet you people wouldn’t give me a dime! I know this because I did [try to] collect money for disabled children, and I did in fact receive zero dimes. Well, that’s because they don’t have dimes here, but that’s not the point. Allow me to start from the beginning…

There’s a student-run organization at Nottingham called Karnival that raises money for various charities year-round. I think Karnival actually exists at numerous universities in the UK, but Nottingham’s is pretty great: last year alone they raised 2 million pounds for charity. Anyway, one of the ways you can get involved in Karni is by going on a rag raid, which is what I did last Saturday. Here are the basics of a rag raid: you pay 7 pounds to wear a crazy costume, get on a bus with other people from your hall, go to a random city in England, collect money for charity from people on the street, and get back on the bus and drink… a lot.

For my hall, the theme was Grannies & Trannies (classy, I know), and the destination was Birmingham, which is about an hour south-west of Nottingham. I was a bit nervous about going because I wasn’t really tight with people in my dorm. I had a few close acquaintances, but nobody I felt super buddy-buddy with. But I decided to be brave and hope for the best. Who knows, maybe I’d make some new friends, right?

So I dressed up in a robe, knee-high hosiery, a big sweater, and some funky old-school glasses (shout-out to Justine for being naturally inclined to dress like a granny and lending me all of the above items). The bus ride there was uneventful; made some small talk with a couple people, blah blah blah. Then we were off the bus and in the city centre and told to scatter and collect. The Karnival representatives (upper-class students who work with Karni) give us these fancy little collection cups (for lack of a better word) that we’re supposed to fill as full as we possibly can.

Well, this is where I had serious problems. Nobody wanted to give me money! I smiled and friendlily (that’s a legit word by the way) said directly to people, “Spare change to help disabled children? Spare change for charity?” which is more or less what everyone else was saying. Over the course of approximately six hours of this, I’d say MAYBE 15 people gave me money. Seriously. Oh, and the Karni reps give out punishments (just teasingly, but still) to the lowest collector on the bus, and everyone who came up to me and weighed my collection cup in their hand shouted “YES! I’m not going to be the loser!” Seriously. I probably got that more times on Saturday than I did donations. It was a sad affair.

I was seriously starting to regret ever going, not because I was going to be the “loser” so much as I was slightly depressed with the number of people willing to give 50 pence to charity. It was quite disheartening. I think I was taking it too personally as well. But anyway, I was just really glad to get on the bus to go home… And that’s when the madness began.

Karni reps started pouring liters and liters of cider, fruit punch, and vodka into a trash can on the bus. There is excessive spillage. And they pretty much just fill up plastic cups and pass ‘em down the whole bus. If you want more, you pass your cup back and they fill it up, but when a bus of 40 plus people is doing this, you’re bound to get a different cup back. I don’t want to know how many people I shared cups with on that bus. I was probably asking to get sick again, but oh well, it didn’t happen so I’m none the worse for it.

I’ve gone on way too long so I’ll wrap it up: I made a few friends on the bus ride home, so that was a success, and I didn’t end up getting punished for being the lowest collector after all, which was great! Not because I wasn’t the lowest collector though, I definitely was… just because they didn’t give out awards/punishments on this Rag Raid.

Overall, good experience. Probably wouldn’t do it again unless I REALLY liked the costume theme and had a good friend go with me.

One other quick thing: I went to a professional football (soccer) match on Tuesday! We got there late so I missed the beginning, and we were freezing so we left early, haha, but it was still a cool experience. It’s fun to listen to the crowd chant in unison. I won’t repeat any of their chants though, as they’re quite obscene. Let’s just say at home, if someone is hurt on the field, the crowd usually falls silent. In England if someone gets hurt, it gives the other team a primo opportunity to call that player particularly rude names. Talk about kicking someone when they’re down.

Sorry it’s so long! I’ll write again as soon as I have something worth mentioning!

A VERY quick post…

See below for the real post I did just yesterday.

BUT I’ve just remembered that I met a British guy in a bar who was conceived in Battle Creek, Michigan! Represent! Thought the fam would appreciate this.

Giorgio Primarni

Sooo I didn’t update again quite as soon as I had wished, but better late than never! So last I wrote a little bit about University of Nottingham and campus and the likes. For anyone who’s interested, I’ll post a bunch more pictures of campus in my Nottingham Facebook album soon so you can look for those.

For now, I’ll try to talk a little bit about Nottingham city centre. It’s easy to get around on foot—the city as a whole isn’t necessarily, because my campus is about a 10 minute ride to city centre, but once you’re in the real city-ish part of the city, you can walk most anywhere. I wouldn’t say I know my way around, per say, but every time I go, I pass all the same shops and bars and clubs I’m used to going to, so I think it’d be hard to get truly lost.

The city centre more or less revolves around Old Market Square, which is just a giant plaza with a fountain and people sitting on benches and whatnot. From there, it’s about a 5 minute walk to Victoria Centre, a.k.a. the mall, and only about a 2 minute walk to one of my favorite places ever, Primark, or ‘Primarni’ (as in Armani) as my friend overheard some British girls say (it’s like how Americans sometimes call Target ‘Tar-jay’ pretty much). Primark is a pretty stylish place with remarkable bargains. I got two tank tops, a skirt, a sweater, a blouse, and two dresses for 24 pounds, or $35-40 (Mom was proud). PS, the skirt and the blouse were each one pound, which is practically impossible anywhere, let alone in England where I feel like they jack the price up on umm yeah, everything.

A word of caution to Primark shoppers: never, EVER go on Saturday. It’s like Black Friday in New York City times a million. Seriously, I felt claustrophobic and got zero shopping done what with clothes flying around and all that jazz, nope, no thank you. I had to go back on a Wednesday.

I won’t make this a terribly long entry because I don’t have too much to say. I’ve almost fully recovered from this persistent cold, and this weekend I’m 90% sure I’m going to Birmingham on a Rag Raid. I know you’re like “What?” and that’s the point; I’ll explain Rag Raids in my next blog (just to keep you guys hanging).

One last thing: I’ve decided to (try to) do this new thing every post where I list one thing I am well-adjusted to in England and one thing I still can’t get the hang of. Who knows if I’ll keep this up, but I thought it might be cool. So:

In England, I have adjusted well to: looking right instead of left before I cross the street (I was pretty good about this from the beginning, which I was proud of).

I have had much more trouble adjusting to: greetings. Here, everyone says “You all right?” or “You ok?” instead of “How are you?” or “What’s up” and it throws me off every time, because I feel like I must look sad or something (initially, I thought this really was the case until everyone said it and I was like ‘Okay, I can’t possibly look sad all the time’ and figured out it’s just a common greeting). I am still unsure of the proper response, mostly I just say “Yeah, you?” which is pretty lame. I don’t feel confidently English enough to use the expression myself, so I never learn the natural response. I’m working on it though.

The moment you’ve all been waiting for…

I’M GOING TO TALK ABOUT NOTTINGHAM! I’m sure you all have been holding your breath for this (hopefully not, or you’d be dead); sorry for the delay. Classes FINALLY began last Monday, so I have been working to get back into the good old academic swing of things, plus maintain a social life (because it’s quite a task here in the UK) PLUS I’ve had a bit of a cold so I’ve been slightly preoccupied. But here goes, a post that will probably be relatively long but for all the stuff I’m cramming into it, for me, it will be keeping it short.

International week was 2 weeks back, and it was a great time! I was totally freaked out about making friends, of course, and I may have mentioned before that it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be because everyone was, naturally, completely desperate for friends. I’m not usually the most outgoing person, but this was a dire situation. They had a coach bus that took us from Heathrow to Nottingham, and as I was getting on the bus, I distinctly remember thinking that I should choose wisely where I sit… Afterall, the person I sit by could determine what my next 3 months will be like… They could be my best friend…

And before you know it, I was frantically eyeing everyone on the bus, trying to pinpoint which one had the most best friend potential because obviously this was my only chance to pick a best friend. Then I told myself to just breathe and quit being a crazy person, and I sat down by a friendly looking girl. As it turns out, I did a good job: she was really nice, we talked the whole way there pretty much, and then we were on the same hall for international week and she made a friend who then became my friend and before you know it I had a good little group going! And they’re still the friends I hang out with pretty much every day. Basically, my crazy chick method worked.

I won’t talk about the logistics of international week, it was essentially an intro to the campus, the city, registration, etc. Mostly I just wandered campus with my new friends and went to sessions with names like “Do you need to register with the police? CHECK YOUR VISA!” and “Can you work in the UK? CHECK YOUR VISA!” etc.

At the end of international week came freshers week, which was essentially a madhouse of 18-year-olds partying 24/7 in the halls. Every night had a different dress-up theme (toga, rumble in the jungle, uniformity, rave) that you could buy a ticket for and all these students would load up on double-decker buses and sing hall pride songs that were really rather vulgar, before being dropped off at various clubs. I’m not really into the club scene… it’s very loud, which makes me feel deaf when I leave, and everyone is just mindlessly dancing on top of everyone else. No thanks. But it’s pretty huge in Nottingham. There are a lot of cool, chill bars too though so it evens out.

I learned three things during freshers week: 1) Forget clothes, bring lots and lots of costumes to England; 2) Learn which coins are which before you get in the dark cab (imagine 6 girls squished together all trying to hold money up to the window for the street lights’ faint orange glow); and 3) My immune system is just a weaksauce as it was the last time I lived in a dorm. Life lessons, people. Life lessons.

Okay, I think I’m going to head to bed now, but I’ll write again soon about classes and maybe more about campus. Thanks for reading!

The 309,580,954 8th Wonder of the World

Well, Freshers Week has officially ended, and classes start today! I definitely need to get a move on with this blog. I may just skip Scotland and go back to it later. Weird, but perhaps best.

So, this entry will cover what was probably my favorite part of the trip. Belfast seemed like a really cool town, and it would have been interesting to explore more of the rich and somewhat dark history of the city, but unfortunately we didn’t have much time for that. We were only there for a day, and in that time we had booked a day trip to visit the northern countryside of Ireland.

The first stop on the tour was Carrickfergus Castle. It was just a photo opp–we didn’t have a chance to tour the castle or anything like that. It was on the shore of Belfast Lough (in other words, a lake, I’m pretty sure) and the view was quite pretty, as was the castle. The castle was in use by many various militaries including the Scots, Irish, English, and French until 1928. Today, it remains one of the most well-preserved castles in Ireland.

Next, we stopped at the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge, where I had the pleasure of paying two pounds to nearly wet my pants spanning 20 meters across a rickety suspension bridge to an island 30 meters above sea level. It was really quite cool, despite my legs shaking for nearly an hour afterwards. I think that was mostly due to the fact that it was rather windy. It was worth it, if only for the amazing views. It’s really pretty stupid to sit here and go on about how beautiful I think Northern Ireland is, but that’s really what made this my favorite part of the trip–it was probably the most beautiful place I have ever been in my life.

After I nearly plummeted to my death, the tour continued on to Dunluce Castle for another quick photo opp. Dunluce castle is in ruins now, but it’s still a very cool sitel. Our tour guide told us a story about how the kitchen part of the castle crumbled to the sea when a previous owner was having a dinner party there, and nearly all of the help was killed. Probably put a serious damper on his partay. This was like in the 1500s, by the way. But needless to say, the owner soon moved out. Didn’t quite feel safe.

The next stop was the Bushmills Whiskey Distillery, the oldest licensed distillery in the world. We didn’t have time for a tour here either, but we were allowed to pop in for a quick taste. However, our visit was cut short by a fire alarm going off–never a good sign when you’re inside a whiskey distillery. So Susan and I never got our Hot Toddies (some sort of warm whiskey drink) but that’s okay.

Finally, we went to the biggest stop on the tour, Giant’s Causeway, a.k.a. “the eighth wonder of the world,” which Susan pointed out there were about a hundred of. Because I can’t exaplin it quite like Wikipedia can, here is what Wiki had to say about Giant’s Casueway: “Giant’s Casueway is is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. The tallest are about 12 metres (36 ft) high, and the solidified lava in the cliffs is 28 metres thick in places.” Pretty much, if you haven’t seen my pictures from this place, you need to. These columns are shaped like hexagons for the most part (some are four, five, seven, or eight sided) and all of them are very, very cool looking. We were free to climb all over them towards the sea, which was awesome because we just got sit amongst these ancient rocks and look out at the sea for a couple hours. The weather was perfect and it was one of the most enjoyable parts of the trip.

Okay, I know that was sort of a lame ending to this subpar blog entry, but I wrote it in somewhat of a hurry because I have to get to my FIRST CLASS AT NOTTS WOO! So sorry for any grammatical/spelling errors in the entry and of course, the general lameness of it all.

‘Publin’

Susan and I took a three-hour bus to the Bristol airport on the morning of September 6 and caught a plane to Dublin in the afternoon. Side note, for those of you who haven’t heard me brag about it yet, I got the tickets through RyanAir, an Irish airline, for about 6 quid per person, which would be roughly the equivalent of spending $10 on a plane ticket from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. This is obviously unheard of, which is why RyanAir has changed my life.

By the time we checked into our hostel in Dublin, it was getting close to dinnertime. We decided to go to a tapas bar called Market Bar, which had delicious patatas bravas and calamari.

Afterwards, we consulted our handy dandy travel guides and chose three well-liked pubs to check out. First, we went to a place called the Stag’s Head, an old pub with a really cool interior and beautiful stained glass. We ordered Guinness, of course, because we were in Dublin! I had never had Guinness before, and I hadn’t heard good things about it back home, but people in Dublin truly worship Guinness. It is unbelievable the number of signs you see advertising it. I also find it amusing that in the window of every pub, club, and restaurant you come across is a sign that says “We have GUINNESS on draft!” as if this somehow sets them apart. Anyway, I tried it, and maybe it’s just because I had been told that “drinking Guinness in Dublin WILL make you appreciate the taste of Guinness,” but I did in fact like it. Now I have to try it back in the States and see if I feel the same way.

We left the Stag’s Head for our second pub of the night, the Porterhouse, which was BRILLIANT! So good, in fact, that we never made it to our third pub (we’ll never know what could have been…) but we were having such a good time at Porterhouse! It was downright bumpin’ for a Monday night, with live music and everything. We got a sampling of drinks (literally, the menu had something called the Sampler), which included a Guinness, a Porterhouse Red, and… something else that was good but I don’t remember the name of it. After the sampler, we got cider in these giant bottles. Which reminds me…

If we could all pause for a moment so I can compose a love song for cider. I really have Susan to thank for introducing me to cider in general, as it has since become my drink of choice (especially considering the mix bar in my dorm has Blackthorn cider on tap for 1.70, and the student union shop has this lovely concoction called Frosty Jack’s cider for 2.50… PER 3 LITRE BOTTLE!) It’s delicious. That’s all I have to say on the matter because this is probably starting to sound a tad worrisomely alcoholic.

We walked back to our hostel that night supremely happy with our Dublin ‘nightlife’ experience. In the morning, we got up to see the city before we had to catch a bus for Belfast later that night. In order to most efficiently see the city, we bought tickets for a hop-on hop-off bus tour, which self-explanatorily means you can hop-on or hop-off at will to see the sights.

If my memory serves me well, we started by getting off the bus at Trinity College, a beautiful university, particularly (if not obviously) the architecture. Then we checked out Christ Church Cathedral, even going inside and taking a self-led audio tour. It was interesting, of not a bit awkward because Susan and I paid for one set of headphones to be cost effective and therefore had to walk around as close together and in-sync as possible. It mostly worked out. Afterwards, we went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, though we didn’t tour here.

I think our next stop was Kilmainham Gaol, which was one of my favorite experiences of the whole trip. The jail has an important place in Irish history, as it was host to many influential people in Ireland’s campaign for independence, and is probably most famously known for its role in the 1916 Easter Rising, in which the British jailed and executed most of the leaders of the insurrection. Today, the names of the leaders are on plaques over the doors of the cells they were held in. This was especially cool to me because I like the movie Michael Collins, which is all about Ireland’s road to independence. Though Michael Collins was never actually put in Kilmainham, part of the movie was filmed in the jail. Other movies filmed at Kilaminham include ‘The Italian Job’ and ‘In the Name of the Father’, as well as U2’s music video for the song ‘A Celebration’.

There was one big mystery to Kilmainham: in one of the cells, you could see through the peephole what looked like a giant stick tumbleweed. We had no idea why it was there, so Susan asked our tour guide, who told us they had a modern art exhibit at the jail a couple years ago, and that the ball of sticks was a part of it—however, it began to soak up water from the ground and expanded so big that they could no longer get it out of the cell. So they just left it!

We only had one thing left on our agenda in Dublin: the Guinness Storehouse! We took a tour through the factory on how Guinness is made and saw how it has changed through the years, etc. It’s kind of like walking through the World of Coke or Cereal City. Which we all know means one thing: free[ish, because you already paid for the ticket to get in] samples! At the Guinness factory, you get a whole pint, and you drink it at the very top, called the sky bar, where you get a panoramic view of the city. It was super cool.

The only other exciting thing we did in Dublin was grab some locally famous fish n’ chips from Leo Burdock’s before jumping on a bus northbound for Belfast! More on that VERY soon (I’m getting antsy to get to the present!)