Sorry to my total of 3 readers that I didn't update last weekend! I was exhausted by the time I got back from Germany and had to throw myself into school work.
Anyway, last weekend, as I said, was spent at Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany. It was a blast. Our hostel was great, the city was great, the festival was great, the travel SUCKED! I felt like we traveled forever! Luckily the journey to Germany started out great because this fabulous boy I met (oh yeah, did I mention I met a boy?!), Matt, drove me and the 3 other girls going on the trip 2 and a half hours at 3 in the morning to the airport to catch our plane. After that is when it went to hell. At security they took ALL of my toiletries and some of my makeup because it was contaminated by traces of hydrogen peroxide and I could blow up the plane. Really? With TRACES!? No. My contact solution contains some hydrogen peroxide and it leaked making everything in my little airline approved quart bag a bomb. The man at the counter was rude about it, I had to have a full body search in a closed off little room, and the brought a cop with a MACHINE GUN to do a background check on me. It was fun. Once I was deemed not a terrorist the long day began. We traveled by plane, bus, train and tram that day and collapsed at our hostel once we got there. They had a huge bonfire and some great food so the night was spent hanging out with our hostel-mates.
The next day was the opening day of Oktoberfest. We watched the processional in the morning and headed to the festival immediately. First things first, we needed to get some food. Brats and pretzels to be exact and they were delicious. After walking around for a bit the girl's and I figured we should look for an opening in a beer tent. We actually found one pretty quickly in Spatenbrau and sat next to some middle-aged Italian men that couldn't speak much English. This made communicating pretty entertaining. We enjoyed a stein and headed to ride a roller-coaster! (whoever thought "hey! let's have a beer festival and include spinny rides!"wasn't that bright.) No-one got sick, thank goodness. The rest of the day was spent walking around and enjoying the city and trying to fit 5 people in a 2 person tent.
Travel the next day started at 5am and ended at 4 pm. It was a long but enjoyable trip and I had never been so happy to be home!
Link to pictures! (Warning: I am drinking in some of the pictures Grandma, don't freak out. :) )
ttp://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2830774&id=8643848&l=bf4087933f
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
Mission: Edinburgh, Scotland
Hello again to whom ever may read this!
My adventures continued this weekend with a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. Between hearing how great of a place it is to how it's "just another city" my expectations weren't that high. Turns out, Edinburgh exceeded my expectations! Plus, on our way there we saw a rainbow over the Scottish countryside. Our hotel was right on Princes Street, where a large majority of the action is, and everything was withing walking distance.
Our first night there we had some dinner at the Standing Order which was good and cheap and then made our way to the City of the Dead tour. The tour ended up being too expensive for some of us so while two of the girls did the tour the rest of us headed to find some pubs. On our way we found The Elephant House cafe which is where J.K Rowling started writing Harry Potter. We took pics and chatted with one of the girls that worked there. Needless to say, one of the boys took a liking to her. He then wouldn't shut up about her for the rest of the trip even though she told him she was seventeen and he was filling every American stereotype. We were so embarrassed.
Next we found a pub/club called Frankenstein. This place turned out to be a blast and had the coolest bouncer ever. He let me in with my railcard because I didn't bring my passport with, for fear of losing it, and all I had to do was tell him my "star sign". Dancing and drinking ensued and we met a couple Scottish people after miss Brittany knocked a glass to the floor and it shattered in their "dance circle" . One was named Himish which made me laugh a little.
We were then off to meet up with the girls who went on the tour. While waiting for them a drunk, possibly homeless, man approached two members of our group who were across the street. They sent him our way and he asked for Collin and Sarah. Collin fessed up to being himself while Brittany said, "Um it's actually Sierra and Collin and I are engaged!" and took the rap for me... literally. This man proceeded to "freestyle" about Collin and "Sierra" and the only word we could understand was "reality" which he said over and over. We ran away pretty quickly and finally the girls showed up and one of the guys and I headed back to the hotel while everyone else went clubbing.
The next day we climbed a volcano called "Arthur's Seat" and the view was AMAZING and crazy windy! On our way up we came upon a green patch where people had written messages out of stones so we decided that since it was September 11th we would write USA 9-11. It turned out pretty neat. I can't really say much about this because I can't really put it into words. What I can say is that I am still feeling the soreness today!
Later on Saturday we hopped a train to North Berwick to see the North Sea. It was freezing but we went in a bit anyways. This place was beautiful and I wish we could have spent more time there.
Sunday morning we headed home with stops at Hadrian's Wall, which isn't much of a wall anymore being 1900 years old, and Durham. At this point I just wanted to get home so I didn't enjoy them as much as I maybe could have.
Now, I'm on to a week full of quizzes, exams, and field trips. Then off to Germany for Oktoberfest I go!
Scotland Photo link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2827591&id=8643848&l=bd943c97d2
My adventures continued this weekend with a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. Between hearing how great of a place it is to how it's "just another city" my expectations weren't that high. Turns out, Edinburgh exceeded my expectations! Plus, on our way there we saw a rainbow over the Scottish countryside. Our hotel was right on Princes Street, where a large majority of the action is, and everything was withing walking distance.
Our first night there we had some dinner at the Standing Order which was good and cheap and then made our way to the City of the Dead tour. The tour ended up being too expensive for some of us so while two of the girls did the tour the rest of us headed to find some pubs. On our way we found The Elephant House cafe which is where J.K Rowling started writing Harry Potter. We took pics and chatted with one of the girls that worked there. Needless to say, one of the boys took a liking to her. He then wouldn't shut up about her for the rest of the trip even though she told him she was seventeen and he was filling every American stereotype. We were so embarrassed.
Next we found a pub/club called Frankenstein. This place turned out to be a blast and had the coolest bouncer ever. He let me in with my railcard because I didn't bring my passport with, for fear of losing it, and all I had to do was tell him my "star sign". Dancing and drinking ensued and we met a couple Scottish people after miss Brittany knocked a glass to the floor and it shattered in their "dance circle" . One was named Himish which made me laugh a little.
We were then off to meet up with the girls who went on the tour. While waiting for them a drunk, possibly homeless, man approached two members of our group who were across the street. They sent him our way and he asked for Collin and Sarah. Collin fessed up to being himself while Brittany said, "Um it's actually Sierra and Collin and I are engaged!" and took the rap for me... literally. This man proceeded to "freestyle" about Collin and "Sierra" and the only word we could understand was "reality" which he said over and over. We ran away pretty quickly and finally the girls showed up and one of the guys and I headed back to the hotel while everyone else went clubbing.
The next day we climbed a volcano called "Arthur's Seat" and the view was AMAZING and crazy windy! On our way up we came upon a green patch where people had written messages out of stones so we decided that since it was September 11th we would write USA 9-11. It turned out pretty neat. I can't really say much about this because I can't really put it into words. What I can say is that I am still feeling the soreness today!
Later on Saturday we hopped a train to North Berwick to see the North Sea. It was freezing but we went in a bit anyways. This place was beautiful and I wish we could have spent more time there.
Sunday morning we headed home with stops at Hadrian's Wall, which isn't much of a wall anymore being 1900 years old, and Durham. At this point I just wanted to get home so I didn't enjoy them as much as I maybe could have.
 |
| The view from the top of Arthur's Seat |
Scotland Photo link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2827591&id=8643848&l=bd943c97d2
Monday, September 6, 2010
Mission: Take over Harlaxton and London
Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't been on in a very long time. Everything kind of happened in a whirlwind and I'm finally in England, done with my first week of classes and made it to London and back over the weekend.
The first couple days here were a little nerve wracking. Not knowing people, and not knowing how you're going to be accepted is just like kindergarten all over again! But as it turns out the manor is absolutely amazing and I love it here! Everyone gets along pretty well so far and I feel like we've been here for months! My roomate and I get along great and we even bonded over our last names. Hers is Potter and mine is Holmes. We are the most British roomates in the whole place! :) There is a group of theatre kids from University of Evansville and they are a blast to hang out with. A group of us went into town to go to a pub or two and actually ran into some locals and they invited us to tag along! They were celebrating a birthday and were all dressed like golfers. It was amusing. They were great fun and even invited some of us to join them for pub quiz (which we failed at) and bingo the next night. Soon they will be coming to the manor and we are teaching them beer pong and flippy cup. I'm sure they will teach us a few things too. Like how to say squirrel and mirror properly :)
Classes have been ok. It's hard to pay attention in Brit Studies because there are 128 more people in the room and the rooms are so gorgeous that listening to a soothing British accent for an hour puts me right to sleep or I end up just looking around the whole time, not even realizing that I'm missing the lecture! Thank goodness for seminars and note sheets! My art class is hell. I hate it, as does everyone else in the class. It's basically art history, which would be fine, but he assigns SO MUCH HOMEWORK! Everyday we get a multiple choice worksheet and then have to answer, in 1 1/2 pages or more each, 2 essay questions. Then he'll add stuff on top of that. This weekend, for instance, he added a "found art" project and we were required, while in London, to find 5 pieces of art and write up essays on those and how they fit into the qualities of a creative person. It's ridiculous. It's very obvious that my favorite class will be Shakespeare. We read a play a week and discuss it in class. No lecture. Now that I can do.
As I mentioned I went to London oiew ver the weekend. We did A LOT of walking and got to see all of the typical touristy things. Did some shopping and actually found some pretty fabulous deals. Boots for 20 GBP? Yes please! The best part of it all was going to see the play Deathtrap. It is still in its preview stages and was absolutely amazing! Never have I seen a show that made me jump from horror and laugh hysterically. Not to mention the fact that Jonathan Groff (Spring Awakening, Glee) was in the show! The quality of his performance brought up my respect for him even more. It was believable in every sense. Everyone in the show was just fabulous. Afterwards my friend Mary Ashlyn and I decided to stand by the stage door just to see if he would come out. He did! He looked so surprised to see people waiting for him and he took the time to sign and take pictures with everyone there. Respect up 20 more notches. Overall it was an amazing experience.
I'm adding a link for all you non-facebook users (*cough* mom and grandma) Here you can view all the pictures I took in London and I'll put a second link with pictures of the manor and our night out. Highlight, copy and paste them into the address bar if they aren't clickable.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2823085&id=8643848&l=78b9150d20
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2766156&id=8643848&l=e4c09bd995
The first couple days here were a little nerve wracking. Not knowing people, and not knowing how you're going to be accepted is just like kindergarten all over again! But as it turns out the manor is absolutely amazing and I love it here! Everyone gets along pretty well so far and I feel like we've been here for months! My roomate and I get along great and we even bonded over our last names. Hers is Potter and mine is Holmes. We are the most British roomates in the whole place! :) There is a group of theatre kids from University of Evansville and they are a blast to hang out with. A group of us went into town to go to a pub or two and actually ran into some locals and they invited us to tag along! They were celebrating a birthday and were all dressed like golfers. It was amusing. They were great fun and even invited some of us to join them for pub quiz (which we failed at) and bingo the next night. Soon they will be coming to the manor and we are teaching them beer pong and flippy cup. I'm sure they will teach us a few things too. Like how to say squirrel and mirror properly :)
As I mentioned I went to London oiew ver the weekend. We did A LOT of walking and got to see all of the typical touristy things. Did some shopping and actually found some pretty fabulous deals. Boots for 20 GBP? Yes please! The best part of it all was going to see the play Deathtrap. It is still in its preview stages and was absolutely amazing! Never have I seen a show that made me jump from horror and laugh hysterically. Not to mention the fact that Jonathan Groff (Spring Awakening, Glee) was in the show! The quality of his performance brought up my respect for him even more. It was believable in every sense. Everyone in the show was just fabulous. Afterwards my friend Mary Ashlyn and I decided to stand by the stage door just to see if he would come out. He did! He looked so surprised to see people waiting for him and he took the time to sign and take pictures with everyone there. Respect up 20 more notches. Overall it was an amazing experience.
I'm adding a link for all you non-facebook users (*cough* mom and grandma) Here you can view all the pictures I took in London and I'll put a second link with pictures of the manor and our night out. Highlight, copy and paste them into the address bar if they aren't clickable.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2823085&id=8643848&l=78b9150d20
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2766156&id=8643848&l=e4c09bd995
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