A Vacation Vacation

Whew.  I need a vacation from my vacation.  Like I'm talking a week on a tropical beach somewhere, with not a bus, plane, or underground train in sight.  Apparently my travel stamina wasn't quite up to scratch, because after 2 hardcore weeks of sight-seeing with Emilia, I was sleep-deprived, cold-ridden, and had developed a terrible allergy to tours.

Which leads me to the realization...I'VE GONE SOFT!  Gone are the college days where I would be up in the dark for a 7 am work meeting, go to 2 hours of class, then 6 hours of work, then 2 more hours of class, and then face another 2 hours of lab meetings, and finally make it back home at 8, just in time for 3 hours of frantic catch-up studying.  And that was a pretty normal day.  What happened to that Sarah??  I guess 5 months of unwinding (minus the waitressing part) in the South African sunshine addled my brains and turned me into a relaxation junkie without me even knowing it.  And I'm not really sure if this is a good or a bad thing.  Maybe good?  I'm sure my stress levels are immeasurably lower, and my average daily list count is down to about 0.5 (I mean, with the "stickie note" application on my laptop this is the lowest it's ever going to go).  But on the other hand, I will be joining the grad school rat race in less than 4 months, and I can't go getting colds every time I stay up past 11 pm.

That reminds me- I should probably mention that in Dublin two weeks ago, after much antagonized deliberation, I finally decided which graduate school that I'm going to be attending this fall.  I am going to be a Tar Heel at UNC Chapel Hill!  I'll be starting my first year of the three-year MPH/RD program (public health and dietetics), so will be embarking on a new adventure in a new town, at a new school, pretty much in a new state as well.  I will forever be a UCLA athletics fan (except maybe for basketball) so there's no question of loyalty, there's no need to even go there.  But I am looking forward to continuing my studies, now that I've had a break and will be able to look at a lecture slide again without instant nausea.

But enough of my musings, you're probably wondering what "hardcore" sightseeing is, and what could I have possibly been doing that left me allergic to tours.  Here, I will show you!  In 5 days, this is what we got up to:

Went on a day trip to Stonehenge and Bath:

Stonehenge

Bath, a city that 3 hours does no justice to 

The Roman Baths- so old!  

Did a tour of St. Paul's Cathedral: 

The outside of the cathedral, which really is no comparison to the breathtaking inside.  Which I would show you, except that no photos allowed on the inside unfortunately.  Interestingly enough functions as a church, landmark, and burial grounds.  Lots of famous people are buried in the crypt, including Winston Churchill.

Went on a boat trip up the Thames to Greenwich:

Emilia and I at the Greenwich clock, which is right next to the Meridian Line.  This was right before a downpour that left us with mushy socks for the rest of the day.  We also went to the National Maritime Museum (yes Dad, I voluntarily went to a maritime museum). 

Went to the Royal Albert Hall to see a classical concert with John and David:

We saw a collection of performances: piano, orchestra, clarinet, trumpet, and a soprano as well.  They were all amazing!  And I perfected the art of interval nose blowing during applause only.

Spent a day walking around the Portobello Market in Notting Hill:

Me in front of the bookshop that's in the movie "Notting Hill"

Like I said, whew!  But wouldn't trade it for anything, we had an amazing time.  This week I've been taking my version of a mini vacation vacation, and spending my time cooking, relaxing, and watching Glee reruns on TV.  Pretty much just regaining my sight-seeing stamina and getting over my aversion to tours, because next Wednesday my college roommate Jessi and I are starting our 2 week Eastern European adventure to Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, and Munich!  I'm really looking forward to it.  Buses, planes, and trains, here we come!    

Rolling Green Hills and Leprechauns

I have friends!  After being mostly friendless for the past 6 months, it's so nice to see Emilia and Dante, two Modestans who have come out to London for 2 weeks to see the sights with me.  They arrived on Easter Sunday, and ever since then it's been a whirlwind of traveling.  And eating.  With maybe a little bit of drinking in between, just a little.  But when in Rome, you know how it goes....

Our first day got off to an unpromising start when Emilia and I spent 2 hours waiting at the Victoria tube station, where we were supposed to meet Dante at 10 am.  Turns out he was also there, but somehow we miraculously missed each other that whole time?  Who knows.  Anyway, we visited the British Museum, which pretty much covered the history of the whole world (or so it seemed), and saw the Rosetta Stone and a few other odds n ends.   I was kept busy trying to keep those 2 awake and pumped full of caffeine, because they were exhausted from a red-eye flight, and it seemed like the probability of them lapsing into sleep-walking increased exponentially as the day wore on.

Emilia and I at Pret, the British version of Starbucks, on caffeine stop #1

Tuesday started at 3:30 am, when Emilia and I woke up to take 2 buses to the Stanstead Airport, 40 miles outside London, to catch our flight to Dublin.  At first, Ireland seemed just like England, but after spending even 2 hours there I noticed a difference right away.  The Irish are so friendly, and proud, yet self-depreciating at the same time- a very charming combination!  They are quick to tell you what they love about their country, but just as quick to crack a joke about the "bloody fools" running their government, and the potential doom of their economy.  There are literally 5 pubs per block, I'm really not exaggerating, and I think it's safe to say that the Irish do love their alcohol.  But they also love their music, and nearly every pub or bar we went into over the course of our visit had some type of live music going on.  My favorite part of Dublin was the CRUNCHIE MCFLURRIES at McDonalds.  I ate an embarrassing number of McFlurries over the course of the 3 days we were in Ireland.  I'm not going to disclose the number.  Just imagine if your favorite childhood candy bar was available in McFlurry form for a limited time in a foreign country...what would you do?  Yup, I thought so.       

My blissful discovery of this marvel

Needless to say, I was very dismayed when we got back to London and they also have that variety here in London.  How did I never notice that before??!  I'm going to need to reign in my new addiction though, if I have any hope of fitting into my clothes by the time I leave England.

The next day we spent traveling around Dublin, taking a free hostel tour of the city, with a hilarious free-swearing tour guide who brought even the oldest and driest history come alive.

According to our guide, the most "unique" architecture you'll ever see in your life.  

Our third day we took a day bus trip into Wicklow, Glendalough, and Kilkenny, which is about 2 hours outside Dublin in the neighboring countryside.  Probably my favorite part of our trip, it was soo beautiful and green and medieval.  Makes America seem like a newborn baby compared to Ireland!  

An old monastery in Glendalough

Glendalough- the valley of the 2 lakes

Emilia and I outside the Kilkenny Castle

Our tour guide was a buck-toothed Irish man who kept making "baahhh" sounds every time we drove past a sheep (which was a lot), but at least we learned more a lot about the places we visited, and Irish history, than we would have otherwise!  

That night we went on a pub crawl with our hostel, with a group of other young travellers who turned out to be primarily American as well.  We tried a sampling of 5 Irish pubs and bars, which was actually really nice because our guide took us to a good variety of places where we could get a feel for the Dublin nightlife scene.  That's all the description I'm going to go into regarding this event, although I will say that none of us were hung over, and we still woke up on time the next morning, so we didn't get into tooo much mischief relatively speaking....I will say that we were all disappointed when we checked our wallets the next day though!  Oh well, at least we did our bit for the Irish economy.

After visiting the Guinness brewery on Friday morning, we flew back to London on Friday evening, with Emilia and I finally arriving back in Chiswick at 10:30 pm after taking 4 buses and a plane from Dublin (I'm telling you, we're bus experts now).  We slept like the dead that night, and like champs carried on running on the traveller's treadmill when we woke up bright and early the next morning to take a Oscar Wilde walking tour of London.  We still haven't caught up on our sleep from all of the traveling, walking, eating, and drinking that we've done in the last week, but as they say, we can sleep when we're dead!  

Tomorrow morning we are waking up early again to take a bus to Stonehenge and Bath for the day, so there will be more to follow....