Trip #4: Dublin

I'm going to follow the blessing rather than go in chronological order, try to stick with me!

Sunbeam: On Saturday Cass and I took a day trip to Killiney/ Dun Laoghaire to get out of the city of Dublin and see some of the coast line. We were extremely lucky and picked the most beautiful day to go and walk around, it was sunny and warm and we felt like we were in a movie. We got fish and chips at a local to-go place and sat on the pier, living the life. Literally every other person we saw walked by with ice cream cones, which we wanted to get but after the fish and chips we were literally stuffed. It was a relaxing day and the perfect follow up to the *good luck* we had the night before...


Good Luck: Simply put, Friday night was amazing. I knew that there was no one way Dublin could be a bad trip because we planned to see Ben Folds, but this concert surpassed all my expectations. We ended up getting to the venue literally five minutes before they opened the doors, perfect timing. Since the place was pretty small, it was all standing room and we got to be in the second row. While Ben was playing I could literally see the sweat on his face -- gross, but awesome!! The concert went by too quickly, he played so many great songs. Afterwards, we hung out for a little bit and talked to the guitarist... see yah in London, Ryan!

 

Sheltering Angel: I stayed (fo free) with one of my best friends and old roommate, Cass, for the weekend. I'm such a lucky gal, seeing Matthias last weekend and then Cass the next. She fed me some Magnum bars (yummm), showed me the lay of the land, and gave me a comfy place to sleep. 

Trying my first & last Irish Guiness with Cass... not my drink of choice

Laughter & Friends: Cass and I can always share a good laugh... its ironic that I'm talking about her in my blog considering blogs are the source of our endless entertainment. But also in the business program with Cass are two fellow VIPers (Volunteer Illini Projects, for those of you who do not know of the largest student-run, student-staffed volunteer organization on campus {free advertising}), so it was great to laugh with them too! And Chad was there to rep the Chi O-Sig Ep bond.

     

Whenever you Pray: I arrived in Dublin around 11am on Thursday, Cass and I went out to lunch & then I wandered around Dublin while she was in class. I tried to pretend like I was a local and strolled into St. Stephen's Park, which was so pretty. Dublin isn't that big so I kept on finding myself re-tracing my steps, but in those steps I found Christchurch Cathedral and a random Polish Cathedral that was actually really cool inside. I have yet to find a church that I haven't enjoyed going in to.

St. Stephens Park

Christchurch

Polish Cathedral

Other anecdotes:

Irish people are the friendliest people I've met so far. Even the bus driver was in a good mood and happy to help. Specifically at the Irish Pub though is where they show their full friendliness. On Thursday night a few Irish guys led us to Flannery's, a popular pub with a really fun young crowd. At said pub, you'd think the Irish guys would be flirting with the girls. Well, we did get our fair share of attention, but mostly it was Chad and another one of Cass's friend from Uni who the guys were excited about. "Chad" is apparently a really American name (I know one Chad...?) and so they were constantly taking solo pictures of him on their phone and asking to have pictures with him. I mean, I know he looks like NPH, but that doesn't mean he's a celebrity (they were probably just confused).

Saw the Book of Kells for free because a fellow Chi O is friends with a guy who goes to Trinity College and students get to bring guests. It was so interesting! My favorite part though was the big library after you see the book.... it has dark wooden walls and really high ceilings. Not quite as majestic as the scene in Beauty and the Beast, but the same idea that you get on those library ladders and can slide around and just pick out extremely old/important books. I love libraries almost as much as churches. 

 And that concludes my blessed Irish weekend!

Cheers!

Trip #3: Stockholm

To get to where we were staying the first night we had to:

1. Take a bus from UEA to the airport at 3am
2. Ryan Air flight to Skavsta Airport at 8:40am
3. Take bus from airport to Central Station (that got stuck in the snow for about 10 mins on the way)
4. Train from central station towards Marsta (get off after 2 stops)
5. Take 2 rights, go through the woods, up the stairs (before the tunnel), turn to the right and go up to the 7th floor

Now the last step might seem  a little strange, and that's because we decided on this trip to try something new and "coach surf" for a night. "Coach Surfing" is a social networking site that connects people all over the world and, if you want to, you can host people in your home/apartment for free. People have profiles and if you're hosting someone you have to get certified and meet with a coach surfing representative to make sure you're sane and you can also read reviews. We found a woman that seemed really nice and willing to have all four of us (which not many people were willing to do!)

Snowy forests on the bus ride into the city

Colin and I on the train to the apartment

Where our bus momentarily got stuck

We got to her apartment easily and were very proud of ourselves for following the candyland directions correctly. However, when we opened the door we were immediately greeted by two cats jumping around. I am personally not a fan of cats, I think they're creepy and if you're going to have an animal out of a cage, get a dog. Unfortunately for my friend Liz, her dislike for cats runs even deeper. She is about one step short of being dangerously allergic. So, we put our backpacks down and left nearly immediately to get some touristy stuff in as well as some cat-free air. 

That first night we walked around and tried to get our bearings of the city. I once again had the pressure on and was the fearless leader, so I valiantly led us in circles around the Museum we wanted to go in to a few times before we finally went inside. After the museum we walked around a bit more and then found a pub to warm up and get dinner at. I tried malt wine which is actually delicious! We were pretty exhausted from a long day of travel and wanted to get up early the next morning so after hanging out at the pub for a bit we made our way back to the apartment.

 Some pictures from our walks:

Buildings in Old Town

When we arrived back at the apartment, we were immediately attacked by a third cat! Just Liz's luck. Thankfully in the train terminal we stopped at a convenience store and she got some Claritin, so we didn't have to start planning her funeral. However the problem with these cats (and with cats in general) is that they had no boundaries, so their fur/etc. was over everything, making it very difficult for Liz to breathe. We ended up spending some quality time chasing the cats out of our room then closing the door to confine ourselves to a cat-free zone.

Colin attempting to get the cat out of our room

The next morning we woke up early and made our way to a clean environment! We found our hostel really easily and who is the first person I see when I walk through the door? Matthias!! It was so nice to see a familiar face. We had known we were both going to be in Stockholm/ staying at the same hostel but it was lucky that him and his friends were starting the day the same time as us.

Leading the way to the hostel

We set our bags down and then were going to go to the Medieval museum but it didn't open until noon so I went to a church while the gang went to a cafe to get some breakfast. After that, we met back up with Matthias and his friends and watched the changing of the guards at the royal palace. Matthias and I stood on a huge snow pile so we had the perfect view of the entire thing! It was freezing, but definitely worth it.

Our awesome viewing spot

Following the changing of the guards we went to the Royal Armory where we got to hold replicas of 15th century swords. We then made our way to the Vasa Museum that has a ship that sank in 1622 but they just gained the technology in the 60's to bring it up out of the water. It was an amazing museum that not only had the huge ship but a lot of other great artifacts and information about Stockholm and the time period of the 1600s. After the Vasa we took the tram back to central city, stopped in another cool church and then headed back to the hostel to shower/ get ready for the night.

In front of a replica of the ship

Saturday night we went to a Medieval Pub in Old Town (Gamla Stan) which was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. All the workers dressed up in medieval garb and the whole place was decorated like it was an old tavern in the Viking period. The food was delicious and it was great company too! A perfect way to end the weekend!

The group at the medieval pub

Reunited!

Sunday we had to make a sprinting finish to the bus leaving Stockholm to get to the airport but we made it in time and all was well! Another successful adventure!

Cheers.

Trip #2: Nottingham

The trip began with us foolishly thinking that 1. Megabus would leave from the bus station because 2. megabus was a bus. Well, we were wrong on both accounts because Megabus is in fact EastMidlands Trains and therefore leaves from the train station.

It was a very nice train...

So then we got confused because everyone else had actual print out tickets from a machine and all we had was the reference number from when we bought it online. We asked multiple people, looking like true morons and then just decided to hop on the train and hope for the best. At first Erica and I sat in someone else's reserved seat, so we had to awkwardly move; but the conductor ended up never asking us for our tickets, so we were happy campers. On the way home we asked a ticket vendor what was up and he explained that we actually did the right thing, that since we bought it online it was "ticketless travel." We quickly realized that this meant we could have just gotten on a train with nothing and claimed ticketless travel without paying, but we're better than that. 

Once we arrived it was about 8pm and we were starving! Unfortunately around 8 all the nice restaurants are packed and most of the decent ones are closed. So what did we do? Head to YoYo Noodle. It was either that or McDonald's so we decided to take the risk. And it was delicious! 

yummy stir fry

Sorry this is turning into a detailed play-by-play, I'll fast forward. 

On Saturday we went to Nottingham Castle and saw the Robin Hood Statue. 

And played some dress-up in the hood...

After the Castle we went to the oldest Inn/Pub in England. It is built into the hilly rocks that the castle is on so its basically a cave. 

Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem Inn

We then went to the Museum of Nottingham Life which had a section of caves you could go into that they used during WWII for protection from the bombings. Next we made our way to St.Mary's Church which was cool because we were the only ones in there... then we spent the rest of the day going to a few other historical sites, etc. and found some cute shops. 

Look, Memere! Whoopie Pies have gone international! Who knew there were so many variations.

Cool store

It was a great trip and definitely the perfect baby step for our adventure to Stockholm next weekend! 

Cheers.