In Transit -- July 2-4, 2009

So I've been a little slow with posts, mostly because we have been in transit over the past couple of days. A quick update...

Thursday morning we woke up early and checked out of our little hostel in Cork and headed to the train station. We caught the train for Dublin - a nice long train ride. Once we arrived in Dublin, we caught a bus to the airport so we could catch our flight back to London. While checking in at the airport, I got slammed with a 178 Euro charge for my luggage which made me really angry -- but apparenlty I should have been charged going over there as well, which I wasn't, so I guess overall I got lucky. But don't fly bmi. They were rude.

After checking in, we had a nice long wait in the Dublin airport -- about 5 hours. Intense, I know. We just hung out and read and ate sandwiches and scraped together the last of our Euros to buy some final snacks. A chicken sandwich, a bag of salt and vinegar chips, and a Cadbury's bar totally counts for a suitable lunch and dinner....We finally boarded and flew back to London, where we gathered our luggage and took the Hotel Hoppa to our hotel - the Sheraton right out by Heathrow. Definitely worth the money -- it was so nice. We had a huge comfortable bed - much better than our rock beds in Cork. And all sorts of television channels. Very nice.

Friday morning we woke up and got ready then spent some time working out how we were going to get from London to Oxford. Finally we took the tube into London and started out at the National Gallery - well, after grabbing lunch at McDonald's. No judging - I'm all about trying different food. But it's soooo much cheaper, esp. in the city. So we had some hamburgers. The National Gallery was amazing. 8 Monets in one room. And Van Gogh Sunflowers. So beautiful. Definitely had to buy a few prints and things -- just couldn't resist.

After walking around a bit (we definitely walked through Leicester Square where they do movie premiers....HARRY POTTER comes out there on TUESDAY. I would do ANYTHING to be there. Oh Daniel...) we took the tube over to London Tower and toured the Tower of London. It was AWESOME. I thought it was just the crown jewels there but there's so much more. There's a lot of different parts open and you can see all sorts of things and they do a really good job of telling you a lot of the history while you tour, which of course I love. Also, you get really good views of London Bridge. Which did not fall down.

But even if the Tower wasn't fantastic enough the crown jewels were worth the $20 something dollar ticket. OH MY GOD. I want to be royal. Please please. I don't care if the crown weighs 5 something pounds....I'll wear it for hours....it's encrusted with over 2000 diamonds! Oh my god. So beautiful. I so badly wanted to buy a tiara from the gift shop. It was hard to say no, haha.

After the tower things were starting to close down and we were getting pretty tired, so we found a grocery store and picked up some cheese and grapes and baguettes then headed back to the hotel where we just hung out and watched tv and rested for a while.

Saturday morning we got up and checked out of the hotel, then headed to Heathrow. At the airport we caught a coach for Oxford...it was cool to drive through the countryside a bit. We arrived at Oxford about 3 hours before the rest of the group, so we were able to unpack, have lunch, and do some grocery shopping before everyone else arrived.

Once everyone got here, we had orientation for the session, then a tour of the grounds. Oh my god. I want to go to school here. It's seriously the most beautiful place I have ever seen in my life. Ever. No wonder all these famous writers come out of Oxford...they only go to school in the most beautiful, inspiring place ever.

We then had dinner in the hall - so cool. Dinner is a sit down affair every night and is served in 3 courses. How cute. After dinner we had a quick walking tour of Oxford so we could kind of figure out where things are. Afterwards Anna and I decided to head out to the Four Candles pub for a bit...add another creeper to that creeper count. This one was British though. Haha. We called it an early night though, since we were still pretty tired from traveling and such.

My dorm room in Oxford is precious. So much nicer than I was imagining. We have a nice big room, and we have private rooms with private bathrooms. Twin beds, and a big desk with lots of shelves and things. The bathrooms are tiny...and the showers are weird because it just sticks out of the wall and there's a curtain...but there's no actual like shower room place....everything gets all wet when you shower. Oh well, they are really nice. I'll have to take some pictures so you have a better idea.

I loved loved loved the traveling, but it felt so good to unpack my suitcase! And I definitely know I'll be back in Ireland one day. I'm too in love to never go back.