After the stress of finals were over i got to await the arrival of my family for some winter-time travels. Anna got to Scotland at around 7pm on the 13th. After Verizon royally screwed up her phone plan leaving it absolutely unusable we had to communicate via smoke signal- which was made difficult by the level of darkness reached by 7pm in Edinburgh. So after her flight from Londy was delayed i had little more than a guess at what time she would be stepping off of the blue wonder that is the Edinburgh Airlink. I guessed wrong, i was late by about 20 minutes and in the freezing weather, she almost lost a finger or two. after that fiasco, we spent the night at my flat and headed out bright and early to the airport to leave for paris. As a result of the first uneventful flight (un-delayed/un-canceled) we arrived raring to tackle the french language (which i supposedly should be decent at after about 6 years of study- nope) and figure out how to get into the city, which- after a few phone calls to Anna's friend and our host for a few nights, we managed to find. We stayed with Abe for two nights and because it was his last few nights in paris before he went home, he showed us around the less touristy places as we all did some christmas shopping. My favorite find was definitely this "beautiful" tea shop called Mariage Freres. Every possible kind of tea and they all smelled amazing, it was so hard to chose! One nights he showed us this cute little wine bar and the next we went to a bar with some of the other kids from his program- both were really fun. On our third day in paris we moved to a hotel which was actually located in the Bermuda Triangle, we got lost just about every time we tried to find it. We spent one day trying to see as many of the touristy sites as we could. We spent a few hours in the Louvre and then walked over to the Eiffel Tour- this sounds like a nice little jaunt, but in actuality we were walking for around 9-10 hours. By the time we got within the vicinity of our hotel we were grumpy, hungry, and tired. So we stopped by a grocery store and got bread, cheese, wine ( which we forgot to get an opener for) and some apples. The next day we went to Sacre Coeur and St Sulpice before we wandered back to the hotel and had the same sort of dinner. The next day we checked out of the hotel and made our way back to the bus stop where we waited in a cafe for a few hours (nursing one cafe au lait each) before we decided to catch a bus out to Beauvais. Midway through the trip to the airport we hit a blizzard. As previously mentioned, i have had a lot of issues with snow and this sudden snow storm had me a bit stressed out. When we arrived at Beauvais, we checked to make sure our flight was on time- it was, but it was still about 3 hours until takeoff. First of all, Beauvais is the worst airport ever built. It has a strange system that requires people to wait in the "lobby" area of the airport- complete with automatic sliding doors to the blizzard outside- until their flight is boarding, at which time you can go through security and customs and then board the plane. After waiting in the freezing (and lacking in seating) lobby for about 2 and a half hours, our flight gets pushed back another hour and a half. So again, we sat in a very small cafe for around two hours- nursing one espresso each. Finally we board and take off. We fly into Glasgow-Prestwick just in time to catch the last train to the city center, but too late to catch a train from Glasgow to Edinburgh. We were instructed to find the bus, which we do, the next bus doesnt leave until 130 am. After sitting outside in the well-below freezing Glasgow weather, we catch the bus and arrive in Edinburgh at around 230am and get back to my flat at 3am.
At this point, i actually despise traveling, airports, and foreign countries in general. But the good this is that our parents had made it through the hell-hole that was the Amsterdam airport and after a 36 hour "layover" ended up in Edinburgh.
We met up the next day and spent the next week sightseeing around the city, christmas shopping, and eating and drinking way too much. We took a nice day trip up to St. Andrews which was covered in the snow that arrived in Southern Scotland a matter of hours after Anna and I landed from France.
It was really fun showing my family the city and great to finally get drinks with my parents- and have them pay for them :). After a nice Christmas day and dinner at a local pub/restaurant, my parents headed back to the States on Boxing Day while Anna and I departed for Dublin.
Dublin was really interesting, very similar culturally to England and Scotland- but with its own unique and strong heritage. We stayed at a hostel that specialized in tours of the surrounding country. We got a "free" tour for booking more than two nights that took us to the small town of Kilkenny. Really quaint but nice. We then took a day to tour around the city- taking advantage of a free walking tour. Then we walked all the way out to Kilmainham Gol Prison and the Guinness Storehouse. Both we pretty interesting. The prison is most famous for holding political prisoners from the Irish revolution against the British- most famously the uprising of 1916. The Guinness Storehouse was mainly a ploy to drink a Guinness in "the highest bar in Dublin"- the Gravity Bar. The next day we took a tour out to the Cliffs of Moher- unfortunately the winter weather made it impossible for us to see more than 20 feet in front of us and completely fogged in the Cliffs. The next day we walked around the Temple Bar area and then caught a shuttle to the airport. After arriving in Edinburgh, we had approximately 10 hours before we departed for the States. I packed for hours and finally got everything zipped into a bag or donated to my flatmates.
In the morning we treked to the airlink stop, which to our astonishment had been moved to make way for the famous Hogmanay celebrations (essentially New Years Eve) in the city. After spending 20 hours traveling, i made it home and off to a New Years Eve party to see all of my friends.
My time abroad was so much fun, and a great learning experience. I met so many people that i really enjoyed and made my time in Edinburgh a time to remember, i am going to miss everyone terribly, but as i sit in the San Jose airport on my way down to school, i can only look ahead to the rest of my junior year. I am very excited to move into a house with my best friends and for lacrosse season to start ( i need something to get me back in shape!).
Thanks everyone who read this blog, it was fun to write this all down- even if there really isnt anyone reading this :)
and one more time,
CHEERS!
