I’m the worst, I know. 3 weekends have passed since I’ve
posted. But I was busy, and then it got harder and harder to post because more
and more had happened. Spiraled.
The first of those 3 weekends- Halfway weekend, I went to
London with my friend Darcy. Oh boy we did a lot. We went to the London Eye,
Victoria & Albert Museum (amazing), Changing of the Guard, Kensington
Créperie again, Tower of London, and Westminster. It was amazing. I’ll let my
pictures tell about those. But some funny stories from that weekend- we were
getting into a subway car and as we stepped in a pigeon flew out, right at us
and Darcy screamed. It got on the stop before and was trying to get out the
whole time and this huge group of guys in the car were obviously watching this,
anticipating it and they just died. Great.
There was a lot of accidental J. Crew matching between Darcy and I,
resulting in many references to Mary-Kate and Ashley winning London. We also took a selfie with guards at Tower of
London, so I think that was a win.
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| View from the Eye |
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| Changing of the Guard |
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| Favorite Westminster Picture (sorry couldn't use cameras in most parts) |
The next weekend- Belgium with my mom. After a quick pit stop in London Friday night
(and quick trip to Platform 9 ¾), we took the train to Brussels on Saturday
morning. Gotta say, train is the way to travel within Europe. We left our room
in the King’s Cross Renaissance Hotel, and 45 minutes later were through
security and customs, had grabbed a quick breakfast, and were departing for
Belgium. While there were some minor difficulties when we first got there
because much less English was spoken than we expected, it all went very
well. The fries and chocolate were on
par. And waffles and beer. It was just
great. And Saturday we continued on the Brugge in Belgium via train, which was
an adorable little town. My mom was not pleased when I did not inform her that
there were exactly 336 stairs on our ascent in a tower in the main square. I
assumed she realized that since it was one of the few things in English there.
It was crazy though, I knew prior to going to Belgium that it was a country
created by England as a buffer state prior to WWI, and consisted of little
pieces of many countries, but was unaware of how that still affected it much
today. The country is split in half by
languages, half of the country (including Brugge) speaks Dutch and half of the
country (including Brussels) speaks French. So it was very, very interesting.
So Saturday we spent in Brussels, and I have to say the Grand Place is my
favorite European square yet, it’s absolutely beautiful. Besides that, the Royal Palace was amazing. And
bizarre because there was no admission or line for a tour. You just walked in
the gates, and followed the people. It was beautiful and even better because it
was free and quick.
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| Brugge |
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| Brugge |
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| My favorite part of the Grand Place |
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| Royal Palace |
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| Inside the Royal Palace |
Now this past weekend- Dublin with Caitlin and my cousin
Stephen. It was so much fun. We went to the Guinness Factory Saturday,
which was so great. The best beer I have
ever had in my life. And one of the best lunches as well. But the first beer
Caitlin and I had there we looked at each other amazed, it was so smooth that
you tasted it, but didn’t even feel it go down your throat. It was just an
amazing experience there. And then the next day we started our day at the Kilmainham
jail, a historic jail that housed many leaders of the Irish Liberation Army.
From there, we went to the Jameson Factory tour. Very similar to the Guinness tour, just on a
smaller scale. Caitlin was chosen as one
of the 6 or 7 tasters who compared Jameson triple-distilled whiskey to Scotch
double-distilled whiskey to American single-distilled whiskey. 5/7 said
Jameson’s was the best. And then we went to HURLING. It was unreal. For those
of you who don’t know what it is, it’s a Gaelic sport, which we described as
field hockey combined with rugby. It is
so violent. About 7 people went down
with injuries during the game. There
were 62,000 fans there so it was just a lot of fun.
Sorry no Ireland pictures yet!
So there’s my life the past few weeks! Plus a few
classes, formal halls, and some punting.
