Germany

Germany……hmmmm wow what did I do?! Gosh I can’t remember, I must’ve drank WAY too much German beer. Hahaha totally kidding. Well, it was my first trip flying Ryanair, the really really cheap European flight service which is a gift from God. It’s more expensive for me to fly from Manhattan to KC than it is for me to fly to Germany or Paris….I love Europe. I went to Germany to visit my friend Johannes, who was a friend of mine from highschool who was a foreign exchange student during my sophomore year. Anyways, my round trip tickets to Germany were 12 pounds total. Yes. I was actually wondering if I’d be taking an actual plane or if they would just catapult me across Euorpe. Well, I got to the airport and it turns out to be a legitimate plane! It would’ve been a pleasant flight over had there not been two drunk French guys aboard. They honestly slightly scared me, they kept getting up and wandering around the plane drunk. The flight attendants kept having to come over and tell them to stay in their seats and settle down. Well if that wasn’t enough, when the pilot came on to say we’d be beginning our descent and everyone was buckled back up, even the attendants, one of the guys got up and started running towards the front of the plane. I don’t know about you all, but when someone gets up when everyone is supposed to be seated and started bolting for the front of the plane, you kinda freak out. Well, I did anyways. Thankfully one of the flight attendants flew out of their seat to chase after him, and turns out he needed to use the bathroom…again.

After that super fun flight I landed in Memmingen airport and got through security to face many many German signs. Awesome. I eventually found Johannes and we began to head to his hometown of Kaufbeauren in Bavaria. Thankfully they drive on the correct side of the road in Germany, but the autobahn is pretty scary to drive on as no speed limits exist! Johannes gave me a tour of the city centre which is like a town from a story book! The big town hall, with the fountain the middle of the cobbled street, all the shops painted different colors of pastel shades. It was such a pretty little town! After this, we went to his house where I got to meet the rest of his family. His mom speaks English, and so does his dad and brother, but not quite as well as Johannes. His littlest brother is around 10 years old and speaks only German, and even though I could not understand anything he said to me, he was still the most entertaining kid I’ve ever met! I loved hanging out with him. I was shown many books, and all of his toys in his room…in German…and he loved every minute of showing me all of his stuff, which made it even more fun for me to see him so excited about showing me all of his things.

the centre of the town of Kaufbeauren

Later that night we went to a marching band festival. In Bavaria at least, most towns have their own marching band, made of members of all ages. Johannes is in his town’s marching band and they had a two different contests the weekend I was there. The one I went to Friday night was more a concert band style concert. They even had judges that held up numbers after they were done playing them, ranking them on different categories from 1-10. Well…since this was in Germany, everyone spoke in German, so I just clapped when everyone else clapped and pretended I could understand what was being said before each band came on. I think I got the numbers 6-9 down though, those were said a lot! It was still really neat to see!

On Saturday we got up and ate breakfast, which usually consists of lots of different breads and cheese and meat if you want. I ate the different breads of course! They were so good! And…Johannes’ mom makes all of the jam that they use, so I definitely ate that up. It was amazing. She gave me her recipe…hopefully I can recreate it. My track record of cooking doesn’t provide a promising outcome though. We shall see! After breakfast I went with Johannes to his friends’ wedding. It was in an absolutely gorgeous Catholic church. They obviously didn’t need to spend any money on decorations, the church stood on it’s own. Johannes and his friend also wore traditional Bavarian outfits to the wedding. I was informed that this was not usual attire for weddings, but that they had just felt like wearing them and asked their friend getting married if it would be all right. Haha it was pretty entertaining. The entire wedding was also in German of course, but it was a catholic mass so I sort of kind of new a little bit where we were in the ceremony…but overall..I honestly had no clue haha. But none the less it was fun to witness!

After the wedding we went back to Johanne’s house where his mom made Schnitzel for dinner…it was sooo good! Then after we left to go see Neuschwanstein castle…the castle that Disney based their castle off of! It’s situated right near the start of the Alps, so it makes a for a pretty much breathtaking view, and tons of beautiful scenery around it. We went and looked around near the castle and also at some lakes nearby, one being “Swan Lake”. I still have no idea if the ballet was based off of that lake…I should google that. Anyways, it was a great day out as well, so it made for a perfect time to wander around some Germany forests and mountainous areas.

On Sunday we got up and had the glorious bread and jam breakfast again : ) I could live off of baguettes and jam…as you will also notice when I write my blog on my trip to Paris. Baguettes are the world’s greatest food. Hands down. After breakfast we went on a bike ride around Kaufbeauren up to this really old church...that was built around 1100. That is OLD. It was a gorgeous Sunday morning and the bike ride was through these fields that reminded me of Kansas. It was such a nice bike ride! Sunday afternoon I went to watch a Bavarian music festival parade that Johanne’s marching band was marching in. It was definitely a cultural experience! It was very German…of course…and definitely really interesting and fun to watch! I’ve never watched a German parade, just American ones…and this was pretty cool. Not only did they have these guys who played really long horn looking things, but they had girls doing flips down the street and girls playing volleyball…while walking forward. Impressive. The costumes were all very traditional as well. I also got to go in to a German beer tent. One German beer mug seriously must hold 8 beer cans…maybe more. I don’t even know.

After the music festival we drove to Munich where I got to explore the town for a while. Definitely a beautiful city with lots of great buildings and gorgeous churches…such as every city in Europe I’ve noticed, though! Also, the Munich soccer (football) team had just gotten back earlier in the day from winning a big game, and so all the fans were still around singing drunk German soccer songs…hahaha also very entertaining. That pretty much marks the end of my German adventure. The next day I just did some last minute souvenir shopping and was driven back to the airport by Johannes’ mom. It was a great trip and I’m really glad I could go visit! I definitely hope to make it back there some day : )

London!

So, this past weekend, myself, Cati, Jonathan and Forrest took an adventure into London. We decided to take the overnight bus (just like Harry Potter) that left Friday night and got into London around 7 am Saturday morning. I think the best part was when we boarded the bus, the driver asked only us if we had any alcohol because it wasn’t allowed on, to which Forrest responded, “Not Yet!” That overnight bus was definitely not as fun as the one Harry was on. It was rather miserable actually haha. Nonetheless, it was worth it! Once we arrived, we decided to attempt to find our hostel. The public transportation system is extremely handy in London, as you can get just about anywhere by hopping onto a bus. A creepy old man who randomly started talking to me actually sent us in the right direction…who knew? Well our hostel ended up being really nice, so that was a relief. The weather was really nice during the day on Saturday…it was sunny and warm, which has been quite rare here I’ve come to realize. That being sad, we decided to start our London excursion by starting out in Hyde Park. I think Forrest had the ultimate tourist outfit….grey sweatpants, a maroon Goofy sweatshirt, and a backpack. Classic. So, we walked through the park, saw the Princess Diana Fountain Memorial, the Peter Pan statue, and ended up on the other side of the park near Kensington Palace. We walked around the gardens there, which were absolutely beautiful. Being the cheap college students we are, we decided to save our money and not go into Kensington Palace but instead take jumping pictures by this “Physical Energy” statue…

After this, we went to see the Albert Monument and then walked on down towards Buckingham Palace. The park outside Buckingham palace is really nice place, as well as the gardens just outside of the palace. Of course there were the palace guards standing outside, doing possibly the most boring job in the world in my opinion. Then there was a policeman with a huge gun. Apparently the guards in the red coats and tall black hats aren’t very intimidating…

We then proceeded to go eat lunch…in the food court of the train station. We don’t’ need to experience expensive cultural London food….cheap Subway and McDonalds are cultural enough for us! After lunch we decided to go see how much tickets to ‘Wicked’ would be and if they had any left for the show later that night. Well…we ended up getting 6o pound tickets for 25..so I’d say that was a steal! We then decided to spend some of the afternoon looking for Abbey Road. Might I add that I had pretty much navigated us around town using a map and a handy bus map…considering my history and following maps and directions, I was doing a pretty decent job! Well…we waited at this so called bus stop that would take us to abbey road for an hour….the bus was supposed to come every 7-10 minutes. Lies. All lies. We gave up and decided to head to King’s Cross Station to see the one and only Platform 9 ¾ ! (Or, according to Forrest...Pier 3 ½). I naturally ran in there quite quickly with my Gryffindor scarf ready for the picture, and we couldn’t find it! I definitely did NOT want to be that American tourist that asked for directions to Platform 9 ¾….so we just kept looking and finally saw a group of people snapping pictures at something…and finally found it…

After we left, the usual rain shower began, harder than usual, so that was not so fun. Thank goodness we were just heading to dinner and then to go see ‘Wicked’. We ate at a pizza buffet…again in the train station food court, and it was amazing! I can’t remember the last time I had pizza…let alone a buffet…ahh how I miss America sometimes lol. After dinner we went to ‘Wicked’. It was absolutely amazing! The best musical I’ve ever seen by far. We had great seats and the music, sets, costumes, dancing, lighting, and everything was just unbelievable! Even the guys loved it…and so did Cati…who hates musicals. So it was definitely worth the money and probably the highlight of the trip for me.

This next bit is oh so entertaining…our attempt to return to our hostel for the evening. Well, you’d assume that we’d just go the exact same way we did that morning, right? No, I thought I’d be smart and attempt to get us there quicker. BAD IDEA. I got us on the wrong bus….but we didn’t realize it until the bus began to slow down and the loud speaker called “This bus terminates here”…hmmm we don’t know where ‘here’ is. So, we get off the bus…it’s raining…it’s dark…we have no idea where we are in relation to our hostel…and we’re kind of in the ghetto of London. Yep, I slightly began to freak out. After wandering around in the rain talking to people who didn’t speak English about taxis, we finally found a cab company who got us back to our hostel…that was actually only a few minutes away. Hey, at least we made it. That’s what matters.

Our stay in the hostel was quite nice…for the four of us we got a room of four with bunk beds…like camp! Haha. Breakfast in the morning was decent as well. Unfortunately, when we woke up, we realized it was raining…and the weather online said rain was in the forecast all day until about 7 pm. Great. The day we saved for sightseeing for the big stuff, it decides to rain. So after some wandering around on buses for a good hour or so and getting sort of lost..we decided to head to Harrod’s…the department store that sells a hair clip for 500 pound. This is naturally my kind of store! Haha. We first went into Burberry down the street, and we got some death glares walking in. We obviously did not look worthy enough to be setting foot inside their store. They even gave us plastic bags to put our umbrellas in so they didn’t ‘drip on the floor’. After that fun little excursion we made it into Harrods and looked around for a while. I’m pretty sure the candy store was our favorite. It literally looked like the candy store in your mind when you think of what you’d like a candy store to look like as a child. Following this, we found some lunch and afterwards decided to just suck it up and go out and ‘soak in’ all the sight seeing we could (Pun completely intended). Just as we go to our first destination, the tower of London, the rain started to subside and stayed that way for the rest of the day! Perfect timing. We walked along the tower bridge (They totally named the wrong “London Bridge”..because it’s pretty lame… the ‘Tower Bridge’ should definitely be the official London Bridge). Then we went towards the London Eye and walked along the river to see Big Ben and the Parliament Building. We saw Westminster Abbey and where Gordon Brown lives (though as I type this, the UK is voting on whether or not they will let him live there a bit longer…). Then we got on the bus to head back to our hostel to get our stuff to head home….the boys then noticed a huge sports store, so naturally we had to get off and look around. I must admit, it was a pretty awesome store, 6 floors I believe. Once we got back on the bus we went to the hostel to grab our stuff, and then set out to try and accomplish one more thing…finding Abbey Road! We wandered around a bit and tried to ask for directions and didn’t really get a very good response but eventually found Abbey Road. Obviously the picture in the Beatle’s Album cover is in one particular spot…and Abbey Road is a road that extends for more than a block…so we had no idea which way to go. Thankfully someone could blatantly tell that we were completely lost and stopped to asked if we needed help finding anything. The guy ended up being from California studying music in London and pointed us in the right direction. Thank goodness for him otherwise we never would’ve found it! So the last thing we did before we left London was get the best picture of the trip…

We then quickly got a bus back into town and ran and took some night pictures of London. It was incredible; London lit up at night is definitely a sight to see. It was sort of surreal taking pictures on a bridge overlooking the city of London at night. I feel so luck to be experiencing all of these things! I have definitely had such a blast here and am sad that I have to leave it all behind in just one month! But I definitely miss everyone back home so I am excited for that.

So the bus trip back from London was even worse than the way there but again, definitely worth it! I think the best part about Sunday was that we were so tired already that everything was absolutely hilarious and so even if it did rain all day, it wouldn’t have bothered us. This was definitely one of the most fun weekends I’ve had here and I wish we would’ve had more time. London is definitely on the top of my list of places to return to someday!

On an entirely different note, I was at a BBQ the other day and there were donuts on the table, so I asked for one, and the guy said "Well aren't you the stereotype!" GREAT.

Used to Tornadoes disrupting my travel plans...NOT Volcanoes.

Welll again it's been a while since I've updated! I've really only taken one big trip since my last update. During our spring break I traveled to Newcastle, England where I stayed the parents of a girl who plays golf for K-State! Small world right? Anyways, I left the Thursday before our break and ended up getting there late because my train was delayed because someone had been hit and killed at one of the stations my train was going through. Yeah and on the train they apologized at every stop for the inconvenience....really? They also said sorry for the inconvenience, there was a casualty...as if we had a right to be mad about that. Oh well, anyways, my train from Edinburgh to Newcastle was really great! The view was spectacular! The train rode right along the coast the whole time, I mean I literally could look out my window and we were on the edge of a cliff looking over the ocean. When I was on the train it was around sunset, so the views were spectacular! I made it to Newcastle eventually where Malcomb and Helen were waiting to pick me up. I stayed with them until the following Wednesday and it was a blast! They took me all sorts of places in and around Newcastle. I went to this little island called Holy Island, to some other small towns around the coast, and to Alnwick castle where they filmed the first flying lesson in Harry Potter.

In front of the Castle on Holy Island

Helen gave me all sorts of fun sweets to try. I am now obsessed with scones and crumpets. She also gave me some cookbooks to start cooking...I've been getting better! I also drank more tea that week than I have in my entire life. I will be purchasing a tea pot to bring home...I am now a big fan of tea and scones :) I ate at this Italian restaurant which was amazing. I've never had any Italian quite like it. Olive Garden doesn't even hold a flame to this stuff. They also took me to a big mall in Newcastle called the Metro Center. It was huge and SO CROWDED! I've been to Chicago around Christmas time and this mall was crazier than that. Though everything in general seemed very crowded to me. Then Helen and Malcomb pointed out to me that England is in fact smaller than Kansas. Kansas has somewhere around 2.5 million people...England has around 60 million people. I now understand. I was there over Easter and went to church with a family friend of Helen and Malcomb's. After church we had a traditional easter dinner with roast, tons and tons of vegetables and yorkshire pudding. It was DELICIOUS. And they said they have that meal just about every Sunday. I wish we had Easter meals every Sunday! I also received two huge chocolate Easter Eggs...they don't do Easter baskets here but instead give each other these huge Cadburry Chocolate easter eggs. They're also pretty much amazing as well. It was definitely a great Easter! The next few days we did some more traveling around. We went to Hexham where we went to this amazing abbey called Hexham Abbey. I also got to go see Hadrian's wall which was really neat to see! It was really great just being able to get some homecooking for a week and sleep in a real bed in a real house :) I was sad to leave!

Standing on part of Hadrian's Wall

Sooooo since then nothing too exciting has gone on other than I've been working on some essays I have to turn in. I know. I'm mad I actually have to do schoolwork...what gives?? Oh yeah I guess the whole ICLEAND VOLCANIC ERUPTION has been quite the buzz kill here. I mean this thing just starts erupting out of nowhere in ICELAND and shuts down all traffic in EUROPE. Of course. Of course, right as my planned flight trips are starting to get all situated. And the worst part is, you can't see any of this ash cloud they claim is disrupting the atmosphere! I mean if it's gonna cause so much chaos, I at least want a sweet picture of me standing outside with volcanic ash surrounding me. But no, the skies are clear and blue. They said the last time this happened was in 1862 and it erupted for 2 years or something. Wellll that's no good now is it?! I'm supposed to be on a plane this Friday morning to Ireland. As of now the flights aren't cancelled...but they are up until Wednesday. Looks like I better find a decent swimsuit cause we might be swimming on over to the land of the Irish.

Here's a picture of the lovely eruption...

"Wild and Sexy!" - Haggis Tour

So this past weekend was probably one of the best weekends I’ve had so far! Myself, Cati, Shannon, and Ellie all went on a “Haggis Tour”! Great name I know, and the side of the bus says “Wild and Sexy” and the other side says “Gorgeous”. Perfectly fitting for us girls naturally :)

So anyways, we left Friday morning very early so we could make sure we got sweet spots on the bus…which we did; right behind our lovely 24 year old tour guide from Stirling, Dan. We started off on our adventure and headed out and our first stop was to meet “Hamish” the highland cow. Lovely thing it was. Lots of hair, big horns, ya know.

Then we passed through Ft. William, saw Ben Nevis, and headed off to some more photo stop points. It started to rain a wee bit J and so we took a tour through Ben Nevis Whiskey Distillery. It smelled like vomit. No really, it did. The guy that ran the place basically said the Americans don’t know how to drink whiskey, that they don’t drink it for the ‘taste’ and are missing out on some great whiskey. Hmmm…as if we weren’t already aware of that haha. Oh he also basically said they ship all the crappy whiskey to the states and keep the good stuff for themselves. Just thought you whiskey lovers should know that. Anyways, we also took a stop at a location where Dan the tour guide told me they were filming some Harry Potter that day….FAKE OUT. I was so disappointed. I even had my scarf on hand so I could run on set to try and blend in! I told Dan this and he told me I would look like a “some Scottish name” that I can’t quite remember….and when I asked what it meant he said “idiot”. Haha GREAT. But don’t worry, Dan wasn’t being mean, we were his favorites, I’m sure of it. Here’s a picture from that location...

We ended that evening in Loch Ness, where we stayed in a hostel Friday and Saturday night. We went to a pub for dinner in the local town…which is VERY small. And we got a lot of weird looks from the locals in the pub, it was the first time I felt like I was seriously being stared at in a negative way for being American haha. But the food was good! After that our tour went to this little building and a local Scotsman was there to demonstrate to us how the Scottish clans lived in the highlands back in the day. It is unbelievably interesting and amazing to say the least. They would live in groups of up to 20 in little tiny hut things, and only shower maybe one a year (shower meaning wash their face). They wore the same outfit all year and brought in the animals at night to escape the cold…so there were 20 people plus animals and more in their houses. Their kilts can seriously function about a billion different ways it’s crazy. After being shown their weapons, I would rather get shot in the face 10 times then ever come across the things they used to kill people. Let’s just say for the guys, wearing a cup would do nothing for you, it’d probably make the killing process worse. The guy demonstrating these weapons scared me a few times in the too….

The next morning we headed out to start our journey to the Isle of Skye. First though, we stopped at the Eilean Donan Castle where they filmed some of the James Bond movies, and more importantly…Made of Honor!

We then drove on and ended up in the capital of Skye; Portree. Situated in a little harbor, it’s a very picturesque city with brightly colored houses along the water (story about why to come later).

We ate at this little café and we ate some amazing food for very cheap…gotta love that! We then went shopping around the area and got back on the bus. Dan told us that the tour usually stops there and turns around…but he said that was lame and that he knew of a spot that he wanted to take us all. I’m definitely glad he did, because you really didn’t see much of Skye from Portree, and where Dan took us ended up being one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been! As we traveled up to the lookout spot, the ocean came into view with all the hills and mountains in the background. It was unreal. One of those moments where you just kinda have to remind yourself that you’re really truly in Scotland! It was awesome, what I saw I’d only seen on postcards and on google images…never thought I’d see such amazing sights in person. The only scary part was the road he took our “Wild and Sexy” bus on…I literally thought we were just gonna fall over the edge. But Dan knows whats up, and he got us there safely! (He drives like my dad, so those of you that know how that is can understand why I was so nervous.) When we finally got to our destination, I thought I was in a painting. You looked out over the edge of the cliff on to monstrous green hills, an amazing blue sky with white fluffy clouds, and a blue ocean. We decided that seeing this one location itself in person was worth all the money we spent on this entire trip…it was that amazing! (my parents might disagree with that statement….seeing one location for the amount of tuition, I’ll try to fit a few more things in before I come home J ) haha. Anyways, we then decided to climb up this “little” hill that we saw that Dan told us was the best look out spot and that you could see everything from the top. Well…that LITTLE hill was not so little. Just when you thought you were at the top, another hill continuing up appeared. I thought I was in shape. I was wrong. Anyways, we made it to the top and the view was even better! We took some jumping pictures of course!

After this trip, we went back to the hostel on Loch Ness and spent our last night there. The next morning we got up and drove on to stop on the shores of Loch Ness and the gift shop. This is probably the best gift shop ever! Everything you don’t need, yet everything you want is in this place! It’s great stuff I tell ya. I bought a loch ness coffee mug. It’s awesome. Nessie’s neck is the handle, and her head connects to the top of the mug while the rest of her body is the bottom of the mug. Love it. After this we really just made a few other stops; the battle site of Culloden and some other places before we made it back home. Needless to say it was a great day! We even got to clean our Haggis Tour bus……hah oh what fun. Cleaning the windows with Windex only reminded me of what awaits me at work when I arrive home…But the cleaning did get us a free ride home! Oh the things we do to save a few pounds. (aka DOLLARS for you non Scottish knowing folk.)

P.S. So Dan told us LOTS of really awesome Scottish stories. I have them written down so I don’t forget, but to add them to this post would make this ridiculously long. SO keep an eye out for upcoming updates with some fun Scottish stories!

It's Just a Flesh Wound!

Welllll lots has gone on here in good ole' stirling and its surrounding areas these past few days. My mom came up Friday, had a little flight trouble but she made it here! Long story short, I'll put it this way: She was supposed to fly out of KC to Newark, then Newark to Edinburgh...she ended up flying out of Omaha to Newark, then Newark to London, then London to Edinburgh...getting here about half a day later...but hey I didn't have to get up as early to go meet her at the airport :) No I was glad she made it, they were telling her she might not have gotten here till yesterday!

Saturday we went to Doune Castle, which is where 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' was filmed! It was a great day outside, so it was fun to explore that. The town of Doune is sooo cute and small too! Definitely a stereotypical Scottish town. It was so quiet when we got there, and wondered where everyone was, then we heard a whistle and some cheering...so everyone must've been at the local 'football' game. I fell on the way up to the castle and totally busted my face open and just started bleeding like crazy everywhere...to which I just shouted out to everyone, "IT'S JUST A FLESH WOUND!!!" haha only joking...that never happened, so please don't be concerned for my face. Here is a picture of us galloping up towards the castle...we could not find any coconuts. That is a true statement.

On the way back we sat in front of a lovely Scotsman on the little bus. He had definitely been having some fun at the Doune pubs before getting on. He told me I was gorgeous, stunning, and beautiful, and asked if American men thought this as well (given my current relationship status, need I answer that question?? lol joking)...Oh and he also said I was definitely a 9 out of 10 (shoot...I don't settle for anything less than perfect, come on! hahah) Well, this was all very nice of him to say, except for the fact that he was plastered and he was talking so fast and drunken that I couldn't make out any word he said! My mom couldn't understand either. Cati was our interpreter. The guy asked me if I was french, since Cati was having to tell me what he was saying...to which I replied quite loudly "FRENCH?!" (so hopefully there weren't any French on board that bus). Anyways, he then proceeded to tell me that even though he has a girlfriend, he would have my hand in marriage. After he got off the bus and we started to take off, he ran along the side of it, jumped up and kissed my window. The guy in front of us turned around and said "We're not all like that ya know". hahah it was great. Uncomfortable and awkward, but none the less great! ha

Yesterday we took a tour of the Highlands, we went to Glencoe, Loch Ness, and drove through Inverness. There are some spectacular views! Everything is even more amazing in person. Here are some pictures from Glencoe....

and Loch Ness...no we didn't see 'Nessie'. I was hoping, cause I'd take the money that you'd for sure get for getting a picture of it!

St. Andrews

I finally made it to the one place I wanted to visit...St. Andrews. The birthplace of golf! Since it's a rather small town and they have no train station, we had to go by bus. After meeting an oh so lovely bus driver...(not) and having a rather scary charter bus drive, we made it to St. Andrews. We first went to eat at a local pub on their main street, where the bar tender asked Cati if she would like "chips" with her meal. Of course, we've already figured out that chips are fries, but since she hestitated for maybe a second, the guy looked at her and said "would you like fries with that" in an attempted American accent. Thank you. But the guy was actually nice so we couldn't be too offended! Anyways, lunch was great and we headed to the castle, which they were closing down to take a lunch break, so we headed off to the beach! We took some pretty awesome pictures I've gotta say. I think we've got sort of a jumping theme going on, I'll have to think of some new ones here soon... But the views are amazing! I've never seen such a beautiful place. It really was unbelievable!

Anyways, we went out to this little sand bar thing to take some pictures...and we were having so much fun that we did not realize the tide rising and surrounding our little "island". Before we know it, we were pretty much trapped out in the North Sea. Ok, so it wasn't that life threatening...but we were kinda trapped and had to figure out how to run through the water to get back to some dry land.

After that adventure we made it to the golf course which is just off the beach. We walked around there for a bit and took some pictures on the "Old Course". That was pretty awesome to be on as well. So many people have golf there, it was just incredible! We ventured into the gift shop to spend all sorts of money on souvenirs of course :)

Then we managed to get back to the castle where the views were even more spectacular. The castle isn't much of a castle anymore but of just ruins. But none the less it was really cool to explore. Especially the mine shafts underneath....not so much. I definitely was anticipating either the walls to cave in on top of us or some guy with a saw to run out in a mask. Needless to say we were all anxious to get out of there.

We took some more jumping pics in the castle as well...we had a blast. Definitely the most fun trip I've had so far!

After that we made it to the cathedral and climbed the "tower"....to what I assumed heaven because we walked SO many winding stairs. My thighs were burning by the time we got to the top we basically almost all collapsed once we reached it. But again...of course it had some amazing views....

To end our trip, we ended up in a little ice cream parlor where we had the BEST sundae I've ever had in my life... a Banoffee Sundae. Its basically bananas, toffee, vanilla ice cream, whip cream..and amazingness.

Our trip was definitely my favorite place I've been so far. I loved the small town feel and the great scenery...and of course the golf course! We will definitely be making a trip or two back there...hopefully to play some golf!

Polo!...(and I'm not referring to Ralph Lauren clothing)

I had a polo lesson yesterday. As in polo on horses. Ya know...where you ride around in the awesome helmets swinging a stick trying to hit the ball. Personally I've only ever seen it played in movies, so I felt sort of like royalty when I got on the horse. I actually got on the horse quite easily...getting off I got stuck halfway down and basically was laying draped over this big brown horse with my head crushed into its huge side. The instructor just looked at me and asked if I was alright....no sir, I'm not alright, can you not see my face is sticking into the side of the horse right now and i can't move? I didn't actually say that...especially since my instructor was a 23 year old English guy who I'd definitely pay the 30 pound weekly lesson fee if it were him that would be teaching the lessons. But he's not..oh well. Anyways, the other instructor there, an older man was describing the equipment used for the game. He was showing us the stick. Apparently that's what it's called; the 'stick'. To which he quickly added, "The Americans call it a mallet. They are wrong. The Americans are often...wrong." After this I started singing our national anthem. Only joking...I kept quiet and didn't saying anything naturally haha. But anyways, I've decided I do love riding horses...except when they move their head around and you can't control it and it looks as if they're trying to bite your foot off...that's not so cool. But other than that, the whole evening was very fun learning how to sort of play. We only learned to ride, and then learned how to use the stick and hit the ball...we didn't actually put two and two together. You have to pay more to come back for that...so I guess that will be the end of my polo career! haha. But I actually do have this new desire to buy a horse some day so I can just ride it around wherever I want. Yep.

Oh, random note...my New Hollywood Cinema professor is going to be gone for the next two weeks. Where's he going?? Oh yes, he will be in the audience at the Academy Awards. NICE.

Is it bad that when I type all of this, in my mind I'm hearing both English and Scottish accents say everything??? Oh no...