Barthhhhhhhelona or Spain expedition number two

So, I took off to Barcelona, Spain last weekend with a few other students. It was great to be back in Spain. Me and one of the other girls were the only people who spoke Spanish, out of the seven of us, so I felt really cool translating for everyone. The first thing we notices about Barcelona was the oppressive heat! Just stepping off the plane you could feel it. Now, most people know I'm not a heat person, so you can imagine how I felt. It was really hot, but in looking back, it really wasn't so bad after the first day. You just drink a lot of water and stay in the shade when you can. Oh, and not worry about smelling worse then you ever have in your life. There were plenty of sites to see and we started right away. Most of the things there are from an architect - Gaudi. Look him up if you don't know anything about him. His work is amazing! There were also street markets and fun stores as we walked around the city. For one of our days there, four of us decided we wanted to spend some time at the beach. I didn't bring my swimming suit so I consigned myself to sit by and one of the other girls even said that she wasn't planning on getting in, so I didn't feel too bad. Well, we got there and the water looked so lovely and cool that I really couldn't resist. We went to a little clothes shop and I bought a swimming suit and something to go over it (because of course the only suits they had were skimpy bikinis) and headed into the water. IT WAS AMAZING! The water was really cool and was just the remedy we were looking for on the hot day. We played in the waves and body surfed a little. It was nice even to just stand or lay in the water. After we decided we had enough salt water up our noses, we went out to dry off on the beach. Unfortunately we hadn't brought towels so we all ended up kind of sharing one because the beach chairs they had on the beach it turns out you have to pay for. We probably laid out for an hour or so until our clothes were mostly dry. Little did we know that we would pay for it later. After getting out of the sun we started noticing that everyone was really red. We stopped to take in the damage and decided we needed some aloe. Well, suffice it to say that we were all in great pain the next few days, and I know that at least I am still in pain. I found a blister on my shoulder today. I don't know if it's been there the whole time or if it is recently formed. I'm also peeling, but apparantly pulling the skin off was not a good idea because it hurts even worse now. Oh well, there's really not much I can do but wait it out. The only real complaint I have is it makes it rather hard to sleep. And carrying around a backpack all day can be rather taxing. But don't worry about me! I'll be fine. It was completely worth it to spend the day swimming in the Mediterranean. Now I'm back in London and we really only have one and a half more weeks here before we take off. Were going to be traveling outside of London to places like Cardiff, Bath, Salisbury (home of Stonehenge) and other places this weekend. I just hope I don't get more bug bites. That would really make my day to deal with those on top of my sunburn. But I don't know what I can really do about that short of sleeping on the floor. I'll just keep my fingers crossed that the hostels are nice.

498 . . .499 . . . 500 . . . 501 . . .

I think I never want to see another stair in my life. Today was a lazy morning and I did some planning to see when we could do what in order to get all the required and elective sites for my classes done. I knew I wanted to get out at some point, so my roomie and I decided we'd go to St. Paul's Cathedral. It is one of the most beautiful places I've seen. The decorations and sculpture and architecture are all superb. As I was walking through the cathedral I saw a sign for a walk up to the dome/tower thing. Just outside of the steps was a warning the for people who have health conditions or whatever shouldn't do this. That should have been my warning. The first walk up to what they call the whispering gallery, inside the dome, wasn't so bad, but my heart was pounding by the time I got there. Of course I decided to continue, even with seeing the sign that said there were roughly 150 steps on the way up to the next stop. I thought, meh, 150 is not so bad. Well, it's not.....if you're trained to run a marathon. After that there were only 150 more steps and I figured that if I'd made it up this far already, I might as well go all the way. So I did. It was worth it. Coming back down may have been worse because it makes you dizzy, always rotating and having to look at your feet. So I tried to look up instead of down most of the time, but my legs felt like jelly by the time I made it all the way to the bottom. I started fanning myself while finishing looking around and people were looking at me strangely, but I didn't really care because I was burning up. Picture from the top of the tower included:

After that we went to the Tate Modern museum. There were some really interesting pieces, but also really good ones. They had an original cast of Rodin's The Kiss, and many other famous pieces that I enjoyed seeing. Others were just really wierd and there were actually quite a few that included nudity. But it was good in any case. I just don't know that I ever want to see a stair again.

Ghost Dreams

It's official! I have fallen back in love with Phantom of the Opera....especially since I saw it last night!!! It was so wonderful, amazing, awesome, and lovely. It made my heart so happy. My roomate here in London went together and we were both really giddy when it started and the music was coming up. It has been one of the best experiences I've had so far. As we speak I'm listening to the music. It was hard for me not to sing along. I'm sure the people around me are grateful.
That was only one thing we did yesterday. We had a busy day. We went to Platform 9 3/4 in King's Cross station and got a bunch of silly pictures of us pushing the cart through the wall. Then we went to the British Library and saw one of the most amazing exhibits ever. They had a whole bunch of old manuscripts and things from all over the world. There were original Jane Austen books, a handwritten Jane Eyre, a Gutenburg bible, some pages from Leonardo Da Vinci's notebook, the Lindisfarne Gosples, original notebooks from Mozart, Handel, Ravel, and others, an original copy of the Magna Carta, and there were plenty of other things that were amazing. After that we went to the British Museum and saw other equally famous/important artifacts. Some include the Rosetta Stone, the Sutton Hoo burial, Roman, Viking, Egyptian and Assyrian scupltures and artifacts, an Easter Island statue, and the turquoise serpent from the Aztecs. There were also plenty of other amazing things and it would probably take three days to go through the whole museum completely. They had these cool hands-on exhibits where you could handle some of the artifacts, so I spent some time there and it was amazing to learn about the different things various civilizations used. We also had an experience in Leicester Square where all of the tickets for shows are sold. We were there in the afternoon so it wasn't as packed as it would have been around 6 when all the scalpers are out and everyone is trying to buy/sell at the best price.
I don't know what the plan is for today, but I do know that the weeks to come will be just as packed. Most people do different things every day and even though I know I'll have time to do most of those things, I feel left out because I want to do everything! It is all so amazing. I never knew I could come so close to so many old and important items as well as great popular culture. I LOVE LONDON!

Londonia

Well, here I am. Safe and arrived in London. We got here late yesterday, but still had time to check in and hit the grocery store. I feel rather lame, but I'm really trying to be conservative with my money, considering I spent almost $200 in the first week. I think that was mostly because we ate at restaurants all the time and didn't really think about it. So I bought some groceries that will hopefully hold me over for a while and perhaps I can save my money to spend on things I want to do/see/buy. Anyway, today we had our first day of class and walked to the Hyde Park chapel. It was almost like a temple, I thought. After that, my roomate and I went to the science museum that is just across the street from the chapel. There were some fun things there, but nothing TOO interesting unless you wanted to pay. I also did laundry today, which, while expensive, is quite nice to have done. Tomorrow we're heading to Oxford and going to be hanging out around there for the day. I feel like so far I haven't really related any experience, but that has mostly been because I've had limited time on the internet and usually only a few minutes before I needed to go to bed. Right now I've got a headache and I don't think staring at the screen is helping it any, but I promise that I'll put up some pictures and stories tomorrow. Cheers!

July the Fourth

Well happy fourth of July everyone! Here I am in Ireland and its the Fourth. Today we did a whole bunch of sight-seeing in Dublin. One of the sights was a place called Kilmainham Gaol which was an old jail that was used to hold many of the political prisoners from Ireland's many revolutions. Our tour guide was great and told us all about the different rebellions and the leaders of them. It was appropriate for today I think, the fight for independence, even if it is a different country. Here are a couple of pictures from the main jail and also a cell. Ok, so the internet is still being quite slow, it comes and goes here. I hope the pictures work. If not, I'll try again later. In any case, I just wanted to let everyone know that everything is going well and perhaps I'll have a little more time to post things (and a steady internet connection) when we get to London on Tuesday. If anyone wants to try to talk, I have skype, which I assume you can look me up under my name or my email address. I'm most reliably online in the evening here, which is around noon there, I think. Much love to everyone!

Day 2 - Late Post

Yesterday, after we picked everyone up at the airport, we went to Bunratty castle, which was between the airport and the town that the directors and I stayed in the first night. They have the castle and then some other houses, farms and things that are supposed to be like what was around at the time. We went on a tour of the castle and our tour guide was hilarious! He was this little old man and he was teaching us how to Irish dance, and was just really funny the whole time. I got some video of him, so I can show it to anyone interested. Perhaps I’ll post it. After that we got on a bus and drove to this little village called Adare. Our bus driver/tour guide-ish person said that it was his favorite little town that showed the blending of history and modern living. So there were still some thatched-roof houses as well as more modern ones, but it was all so quaint and perfect. Will, another student, and I went to this little park where we saw a plaque saying that the town had won the “tidy towns” award. Haha. We got on the bus again and were driving to Dingle, a town and a peninsula, and the sights were magnificent! We were driving right up against the coast line most of the time, which could be a little intimidating in a big tour bus. The roads are also super tight the whole time, so it was kind of nerve-racking when cars were coming the other way. We stopped in Dingle and had some fish and chips, which were amazing and you could tell that the fish was really fresh. Will and I also shared a fried Mars bar. Amazing! If you ever get the chance, you should try it. We continued on to our hostel in Dun Choain (pronounced Dun Quinn or Queen) which is also just off the coast. The sunset was amazing! It is also quite hard to sleep next to a window here because currently the sun doesn’t go down until almost 11 p.m. and comes up around 5 or 6 a.m. Right now it’s 7:30 and I’m wide awake, though I thought I’d still be asleep. Must be those twelve hours I got last night…
Everything here is so perfect. The land is GORGEOUS and the people are wonderful. Everyone is so gracious and friendly. It is a little hard to get used to driving/seeing cars driving on the opposite side of the road, so we have all had near-death experiences crossing the streets because we don’t think to look to the right for oncoming cars. It was a little rainy yesterday, but even with that the weather has been amazing. I’d say average 70’s, but I can’t really tell. Oh, I was going to say that it is a bit strange to see the coast line with little to no beach. The land just comes right up out of the water, which doesn’t sound really strange, but when you’re used to seeing miles of beach before the ocean, it looks almost like someone took a cookie-cutter and cut out the islands. Today we’re going to go see some more pre-historic ruins and things and then end up in Killarney for the next couple of nights. I’m quite hungry currently, but the sign says breakfast isn’t until nine. Hopefully I can make it. P.S. – Our bus driver is amazing. He is always telling us all these facts and things about the coast and he even sung us a song about the Dingle Peninsula. We’re all grateful that we were lucky enough to have such an amiable person with us for the next week.