In the past two weeks I have been in four different countries, got four new stamps on my passport, and managed to fall in love with London and Dublin!
Before Tara and I set out on our trip we had two more goodbyes. Saturday night we had a final AIK gathering to send off Tiff and Daniela. Two more awesome friends I met in Denmark! Tiff, although not an official member of the AIK, slowly became an unofficial member! So there was no problem with having a goodbye party at the AIK before she headed out on a Contiki tour of Europe for a month before heading home to Australia! And Daniela was also heading home to Austria so Saturday became a combined party for the two of them! We had planned to go to the street, but somethings went down and we ended up staying at the AIK that night, which was fine! I think it was a great last night together!
June 9th- Sunday was a bright and early day as Tara and I headed to the airport at 8am to catch our plane to London! That's right, an English speaking country! Ahh, how I missed it! At the Aalborg airport we got our first stamp of the trip! Our flight over was good and it went by fast! Once in London we had to clear security. Not going to lie, it was a little nerve-wracking! While we waited to clear security we saw a few people put into the little confinement area. Luckily, Tara and I cleared security and received our second stamp of the trip! From there we found which train would take us to where we needed to be and we were able to find our hostel with very little problems. Unsure of how much we would actually be able to see since we only had two days in London, we decided to do a Double-Decker Bus Tour of London! It was wonderful!
On the top of the bus!
The tour was so much fun and we saw a lot, which would be helpful to us the next day! The tour lasted about two hours and we saw all of the main sights, learned some history, and enjoyed not having to walk all over town to find these sights! The sights included Big Ben, London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace Gates, Oxford Street, Piccadilly Circus, Tower Bridge, Tower of London and many other sights as well! We were both pretty worn out from travel and the party the night before so we called it an early night, got some food, and headed back to the hostel to rest and get ready for our full day in London!
June 10th- This morning we got us quite early, had breakfast, and planned our day. When we went to ask which is the best way to the Tower of London, the guy at the front desk suggested we walk. So, we set out along the River Thames towards the Tower of London. Along the way we got some great views of some very famous buildings!
In front of Westminster Abbey!
London Eye, Big Ben, and a few of the houses of Parliament!
A Memorial for the Battle of Britain "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few" Winston Churchill.
London Eye and the London Aquarium along the River Thames
The Official marker of London is the Dragons!
After a 45 minute walk we made it to the Tower of London! On our tour the previous day, they said you can get tickets to attractions at reduced prices, so along the way we stopped to get a ticket! We saved about 2£ and we didn't have to wait in line! As we got through the gate a tour with a Yeoman was starting up, so we joined in that! The Yeoman lead us through the Tower, gave us some history, and provided us with some laughs!
The Yeoman who gave us our tour.
It was a great tour! We learned about the different towers within the Tower of London and got to go in St. Peter ad Vincula, the Chapel in the Tower of London. This chapel holds the remains of Anne Boleyn, Sir Thomas Moore, Lady Jane Grey, and so many others.
Left to Right: The Queens Quarters (Anne Boleyn lived here), The doctors house, St. Peter ad Vincula Chapel and the last building holds the Crown Jewels. On the green grass is where the executions of six nobles took place!
Back in high school I went through an Anne Boleyn/King Henry VIII phase, so being here, where they lived, was beyond exciting! We spent some time looking around after the Yeoman tour and decided to go to see the Crown Jewels!
The building is guarded quite heavily, a guard outside (as we learned on our tour, he recently just got back from Afghanistan and the Queen appoints only the best to look after the Crown Jewels) There were also guards all around, not all visible. At night, the guards wear camouflage. Impressive! The Crown Jewels are so beautiful! I wish there was another word to describe them because beautiful does not do them justice! There was some history along the way, the video of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother's coronation was on repeat, and all of the pieces were labeled and explained when they are used! They were beautiful and very shiny!
From there we decided to walk around the Tower some more before heading out to find something to eat. We stopped and got sandwiches and decided to walk back along the River Thames and find a place to sit and eat. Apparently around lunch time is the time to run in London. As we sat and ate our food about 35 people were out running. Good for them! After we ate, we made our way to Oxford Street for some shopping! As we made our way down the street, in and out of shops, it hit me that I was shopping on one of the most famous streets in the world! We went into some new stores (Top Shop, Uniqlo, Urban Outfitters, and many more) and some familiar shops. It was a lot of fun, mostly because we were not looking for anything specific! If you are wondering, both Tara and I made purchases! It was really fun! After a few hours we decided to find a place to eat. There were a lot of places, but very expensive! We finally found a pub to eat at, but when we went in it was packed so we turned around and found another option--Rainforest Cafe! A first for me, but we had fun!
We enjoyed the surrounds and many, many animal noises while we ate! Haha!
That night, we had made plans to meet up with Tiff as her tour started in London! Tara and I had done some research and found a pub that was halfway between where we were staying and where Tiff was staying. So we found the Red Lion Pub where we said we would meet Tiff. Only problem, Tiff wasn't there and the pub was looking like an all guys hangout. So we sat outside for a bit, watching and waiting for Tiff. We walked over to Piccadilly Circus to see if Tiff was there, and eventually to the McDonald's to try and get internet. No luck.The hardest thing about trying to meet up with others is when one or both parties do not have working phones. We had been using Facebook to communicate with Tiff. After about an hour and a half, we decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel as we had to be up early to get to the airport. When we got back we found a message from Tiff saying she had some troubles with traveling and wouldn't be able to meet us. It was a little sad knowing that I didn't get to properly say goodbye to Tiff, but as I mentioned in the last post, a road trip of America next summer will come soon enough! We walked back to our hostel from Piccadilly Circus. We had a great day in London! We saw so much and got to do everything we wanted to!
June 11th- Travel day! We headed to the train station at 8am to get a train to the airport. At the airport we got some coffee and breakfast and waited until our gate was called. Again, another good flight over to Dublin! Once we landed we had to clear security again and a third stamp was acquired! We found which bus would take us to where we needed to be and we found our hostel with no problems! Of our two trips that Tara and I have taken together, this was the easiest hostel to find! We checked-in to the hostel and decided to get some food and sit along the River Liffey and eat. It was gorgeous out as the sun was shining! We still had some time before we could put our stuff in our room so we decided to wander off, without a map! We walked around, crossed over the River Liffey and stumbled upon the
Christ Church Cathedral. We decided not to go in but we spent some time looking around it. It's very pretty from the outside! We decided to head back to the hostel and get into our room. We rested for a bit before heading out to find the Dublin Castle, which sadly is not a castle. We walked around the museum and the garden for a bit. It was beautiful! here are a few of the things we saw inside the garden.
I forgot how much I miss nature. Don't get me wrong, there is nature in Denmark, but walking through the trees and flowers was wonderful!
From there we walked around some more and came across Temple Bar, pub central! A few blocks with lots of pubs, a candy shop, a few clothing stores, and my personal favorite, a fishing and tackle store. We didn't end up going into it, but I admired it from the outside! We made our way over to Tara Street so Tara could walk down her street, which lead us to Trinity College Dublin, a beautiful campus in Dublin! It reminded me of JC, all of the academic buildings and residence buildings in walking distance from each other! It also had a completely different feel from the rest of the city, it was really nice! We walked around for a bit before heading out! We made our way down Grafton Street, Dublin's famous shopping street! We made one stop, but we had gotten all of our shopping done in London so we didn't spend too much time there! We found St. Stephen's Green, a gorgeous park! We spent over an hour walking around and loving nature!
One of the ponds in St. Stephen's Green, look closely for the ducks!
In the center of the park, a nice grassy area! Lots of resting places and paths from this location! Like I said, nature in Dublin!
That night we decided that we had to go to a pub, I mean we're in Dublin! So we walked around Temple Bar area and decided on:
We shared a delicious pizza, Tara got a Guinness, and there was a musician playing! He played both American classics and Irish classics! It was so much fun! Lots of interaction with the crowd! It made the pub experience so much more than I expected! We called it a night and headed back to the hostel for the night!
June 12th- After some breakfast at the hostel, we set out to find Kilmainham Gaol! We decided again to walk as we felt we could see more along the way, and we were right! We found St. Patrick's Cathedral.
But again, did not go in. It was very pretty from the outside! We walked around the little garden/park area! It was gorgeous. We continued on. We saw the Guinness Headquarters, another Cathedral, and lot of other things along the way. We eventually made it to Kilmainham Gaol with only a few wrong turns and having to get directions, twice! We were lucky enough to get there in time for the next tour! The tour lead us through the chapel
The oldest wing of the prion, then a slightly newer wing of the prison (picture below)
And then to the newest wing of the prison like so:
Note: the prison was build in 1796 and had it's last prisoners in 1924. So we didn't have to worry about any prisoners trying to attack us!
We got to go into the cells and take a look around, nice and spacey!
Tara didn't like it as much!
It was a very good tour! Lots of history, not only of the jail but also of some of the more famous prisoners it held! We also got to take a tour of the courtyard and the execution site.
The courtyard where the prisoners got to enjoy sunlight for an hour a day, in complete silence.
Execution site. Where the cross is, is where 13 famous political prisoners were executed. The 14th prisoner was executed directly opposite of this cross at another cross where he was tied to a chair as he was unable to stand.
This plaque holds the names of the 14 political prisoners executed at Kilmainham Gaol. It was a great tour full of history. The once-upon-a-time-Criminal-Justice-major in me loved it! Mostly because it was set out to be a new jail with a new system. Unfortunately it didn't last, but some of the practices are still in use today! Guess who paid attention to that tour! This kid! haha!
From there we walked along the River Liffey and found a place to sit and eat lunch. Around that time, it was starting to get rather cloudy and really windy! We weren't too far from our hostel so we went to warm up! Knowing that we only had a day and a half in Dublin we had only planed to see a few things. And by 2 pm, we had seen everything on our list! We decided to take a look at the map and find some more things we wanted to see! We settled on Dublina, the Viking museum! Not only did we get a student discount, but we also found a coupon for 1 Euro off at the hostel! Winning! We walked around and learned all about the Vikings, mostly the Scandinavian Vikings, but also a little bit about the Irish Vikings! The second floors was about Medieval Dublin and the top floor was the excavations of some Irish Vikings! It was very informative, but good! When we got outside it was raining so we decided to find some coffee and avoid rain! We sat in Starbucks for a while before deciding to go back to the hostel. After a change of clothes, we headed out to find a place for supper. We had a very American meal--hamburgers, french fries, and a milkshake! It was good! We called it an early night and headed back to the hostel!
June 13th-- Traveling home! We made our way back to the Dublin Airport, had breakfast and waited for our first flight of the day! Naturally, both Tara and I got randomly selected for security checks! Go us! We got some coffee and again, waited for our flight! The flight was good! I was lucky enough to have a whole row to myself! It was wonderful, the free wifi on the Norwegian flight was a bonus as well! The view of Ireland from above was gorgeous! I would love to go back one day and visit the country side!
Who wouldn't want to explore this gorgeous place?! We had a three hour lay-over in Oslo, Norway! That's right family, I went to Norway! We cleared security and received our fourth and final stamps of the trip! Four stamps, four countries, four days --we didn't even get one our our 12 day trip through France and Italy!
Two full pages in my passport! Guess who is one happy camper! The 5th stamp is from when I arrived in DK!
We had a bit of a struggle to find where we could get our tickets printed off as no one would help us! Norwegians make the Danes seem like the most friendly people on the earth (little hint: the Danes are not very friendly*) After an hour we finally found how to get our tickets and had to go through security again! Tara was lucky enough to be randomly selected again for security purposes! We spent some time walking around, got some food, and eventually made our way to our gate! A rather new experience for me, they bussed us to the plane! It was exciting! The flight back was good, really fast! We made it back to the AIK in time for supper!
That night we had some wine and celebrated our last night with Ali as she headed for her Contiki tour on Friday! I, luckily, will get to meet Ali in Vienna on July 4th! Tara, on the other hand, won't get to see Ali until our Great American Road Trip! So on Friday, we had breakfast, helped her with her packing, and Matthieu, Tara, and I escorted Ali to the airport! It was a weird mix of emotions. I know that I'll get to see Ali in a few weeks, but for Tara she won't get to. I'm so thankful I'll get to see Ali again, but when I see Ali again, I know it's only for a week before we head home.
On Saturday, we got to participate in another wonderful Danish tradition! Haiyong turned 25! And in Danish tradition, when someone turns 25** they are to be tied up and hot water, cold water, and cinnamon is to be thrown on them. However, this only happens if the person is single. So we got the pleasure of tying Haiyong up and dump a bunch of cinnamon on him!
As you can see, it's a very exciting thing for those of us who get to pour cinnamon on the person! Haiyong really got it! You can see Nicolai's 900g bag of cinnamon! Haiyong was a good sport! And it made for a great night! We all hung out in the common area and had a few beverages.
Other than that the only other really exciting things I have to look forward to is my Oral Defense on Thursday! Speaking of which, I should probably prepare for that soon! And then the celebrations of everyone being done with their projects! However, next week will bring a lot of goodbyes as people are heading home for summer and for others, for good! It will be an emotional week! But until then, one day at a time!
"Traveling--it leaves you speechless, than turns you into a storyteller." Ibn Battuta
-Suz
*This is not aimed at the Danes in the AIK--you are the exception!
**The same thing is done with a person turns 30 and is still single, only this time they use pepper! yum!
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