London and Going Home

So I know it has been a while, and do you know why? Because I’m back in America! The end of our trip has happened and I have been sitting back in Auburn, Alabama trying to think of what words could describe the experience I’ve had. It’s been a great two months, and I couldn’t think of anybody else except for the people I was with that I would rather do the trip with! I have had so many great adventures with these people, and I’m blessed that this trip took me along. Ireland will have a special place in my heart. So what happened in London? Let me tell you!

             So our second day after getting in to London was a free day, so we decided to make it the biggest day! We had a test on that Thursday so we had to make the best of London before hunkering down to study. We took the tube to Westminster and got out to see amazing views of Big Ben and parliament. It was a seriously gorgeous day out, sunny and perfect, which has been our good luck on this trip (we took good weather everywhere!). We decided to walk to Buckingham palace through the gardens rather than up the crowded streets and ended up being able to see the end of the changing of the guard. For anyone who has never been to London, this is a must see! It is colorful and fun to see the band march through the streets and exciting to see the palace surrounded by so many people! We made it out of the crowd to take pictures near the gates and split up to walk through Green Park to get ice cream for lunch. We came back together after sitting on the grass soaking up the sun to walk further downtown. We ended up in Knightsbridge, where I stayed last time I was in London, and I loved seeing the upscale transformation that goes on once you leave the park district. We, of course, had to stop into Harrods so that our group could be amazed at the pure size and depth (both size and department-wise) of the store! We kept going to the Victoria and Albert Museum which has great collections of The Great Exhibition (1851 World’s Fair) and a fair amount of design history including some pieces I got to see at the Milan Furniture Fair. We got to go through the museum at a good pace, seeing the ceramics, ironworks, and even their great fashion exhibit (that I wish I got to see more of since it was under construction). We then left from the V&A to go shopping for our theater night the next day. I just needed some nicer shoes since I had to throw out some in Edinburgh due to the fact that mine were falling apart. All the girls in my group found something they liked so we heading back on the tube to Tower Hill and to a dinner of pizza.

Awesome view coming out of Westminster underground

Outside the gates at Buckingham Palace

Inside courtyard of the V&A

Ceramics at the V&A

Harrods from outside

             Tuesday we had a somewhat planned schedule, so first up was walking across London Bridge to the Design Museum. A museum I had never heard of, but probably one the best I had ever been to (but I might be a little biased!). The museum was undergoing some construction so the only exhibit we got to see was the Designs of the Year 2015 exhibit. We got to see the top voted designs of this year including the BMW i8(!!!), Current table (a table that photosynthesizes energy), a streetlamp that plays with your shadow, a 3D printer that uses just sun and sand to create, and a lot more. So basically we got to see a whole bunch of very cool and new design that intrigued us all. Next we did a group lunch and then met back up at the tube to go to Seymour Powell, a prestigious design firm in England. We met up with one of the employees there and he gave us the run down on what they do there. Their list is extensive and interesting, so it was nice to explore their work for an hour or so. We then were released to go back to the hostel, where we had about 15 minutes to change and look nice to get back on the tube and go to Picadilly Circus. Circus only begins to describe what we experienced get to and back from the theater. We went to see The Phantom of the Opera where it has been running for 29 years in the historic Her Majesty’s Theatre so we expected crazy and we got it. We made it to the theater relatively unscathed (minus a fall by Shari due to someone tripping her) and had pretty good seats on the ground floor set back a good deal. We got to see the whole stage minus a couple of the high up parts of the musical, and I really enjoyed the whole production! After the show we headed back to the tube, which is where the craziness set in, and we got back to the hostel exhausted.

The London Bridge

The BMW i8

The Current Table

The group of us going to see Phantom of the Opera

             Wednesday we had less of a big day. That morning we all took a break from studying to go to the London Eye where we all piled into one of the cars (whatever you call them!) which are massive! I can’t imagine going on a busy day! We picked a pretty good day to go, because it finally started to look like normal weather in London (that is to say it was rainy and foggy) so none of the tourists seemed to be interesting in standing out in it. We had fun walking around the car pointing at sights and taking A LOT of photos of each other, monuments, and even giving the mandatory photo near the end of the ride some thought. We made faces and some of the boys even mooned the camera so I think the photo operators had some fun with that! After we got off, we all headed back to a Tesco to pick up snacks and lunch before settling in our rooms to cram for the test on Thursday. We had just received the last PowerPoint that day do we had a lot to learn before being ready to take the test. Ashley’s parents had flown in and wanted to take us out to dinner so later that night Shari, Hunter, and I went with Ashley to meet them at a nice restaurant. We had amazing fillets and it was probably the fanciest thing I ate on the whole trip! We got more studying in that night before heading to bed.

The London Eye

Me and a rainy London view

Most of the group goofing off on the London Eye

             Thursday was our last day and the day of the last history test. We got the test out of the way in the morning and I felt pretty good about what I knew. After we were done with the test, Shannon, Becca, and I decided to take the tube to see Kensington Palace. A lot of people don’t know very much about Kensington, but basically it is where William and Kate live when they are in London, but it is split up so that the public can tour part of it where Victoria and Albert used to stay. The first thing you see when you walk through the front doors after going through Hyde Park is a great light sculpture that has crystals intertwined in it. There are many things on exhibit at Kensington that include collections of Victoria and Albert’s personal and work items that have been saved, an exhibit on old English traditions including dress and accessories, and even a pretty extensive look at fashion for Her Majesty, Princess Diana, and Princess Margaret that includes pieces they have worn. It was interesting to go through and know that people still live in a Palace right in the middle of London. After touring Kensington we walked the length of Hyde Park talking in the sun again and walked to another Primark. For those that have never been, it’s hard to explain. We have no equivalent in America because they have so many clothes, shoes, accessories for SO cheap. And they have all sorts of styles so it’s really hard not to find anything that you don’t like. Anyways we had a bit of a last day spree enjoying the fact that Primark is just plain fun to walk through. We took the tube back to Tower Hill and met up with the rest of our group for a tappas meal that was incredibly fun. Tappas is when you order a bunch of small appetizer-like food and share them with a group. We were really good about splitting things and since we were on one really long table it was fun to just pass things down the table. Later that night, we had made plans to go out and celebrate but everyone had to pack and was pretty tired. Instead we stayed in the hostel drinking, but ultimately having a really chill nights just being with everybody for the last night. It was a good night to end on!

The light sculpture in Kensington

The signs in Kensington, complete with the creepy Princess Di wallpaper

Our last dinner together

             Friday was the day we had to leave. We took the tube to Heathrow, leaving only a couple people behind because they had plans to keep travelling. We checked bags and went through security with little to no problems (to all of our reliefs, because of our experience from the flight over!). This time since we didn’t have to switch flights, we were all basically around each other on the flight, and I even got to sit with my friend Shari on the way back. On the flight Shari and I managed to start 2 movies together (we were really good at matching the time up!) so we watched The Theory of Everything and If I Stay. The flight was made easier to handle because we watched the movies together, and I did some reading as well to break up the time a little bit more. We landed early in Atlanta, and going through customs and getting our bags was surprisingly painless for everyone. My sister picked me up, and we took 3 other people home to Auburn (with a bit of a delay since we got off track on the road).

               

Now, for the rest of the week I am going to move out of my room into the other room in our condo, and wait around until my sister’s graduation this upcoming weekend. I have plans to meet up with Shari, because we already have separation problems but other than that I am sad and also a tad bit relieved to have a break from those friends for a whole summer. We were all joking that it will be good to have a break from each other, but we are going to miss each other and the adventures we went on! Thank you for reading about my last two months, and I really enjoying have a blog to write out what’s been going on! It’s like having a travel diary with an audience. I have a couple of packing tips and other tidbits to write about, so stay tuned if you are interested! 

Edinburgh and living on the Royal Mile

So I have been in Edinburgh before this trip with my family we stayed on the old side of town, behind Edinburgh castle and the Royal Mile. This time around our hostel was maybe 20 steps from the train station in front of the castle and on the backside of the Royal Mile leading up to it. For reference if you don’t know much about Edinburgh, the castle itself is a big indicator of where you are if you aren’t sure and leading down from the front of it is a giant hill called the Royal Mile. If you go down any of the steps or passages leading off of the Royal Mile you would find yourself near our hostel and near bridges that lead you to new town Edinburgh. If you across any of the bridges, you know you are in new town and you usually end up on Princes Street which is famous for its shopping and all around craziness. The big plus of our hostel was that we were one bridge away from the Princes street gardens which when the sun would come out were perfectly wonderful to be in. So you’ve already heard a little bit about my first day, but really all it involved was walking around to get our bearings and hanging out in the gardens before going to see the second Avengers. We had to walk through new town to get to the theater and the Scot’s steps that we took to avoid a hill were killer for our legs. One thing that I can count on Edinburgh for is the amount of steps you have to take to get anywhere will be huge! Our room in the hostel is one the 4^th floor so we had to do 4 flights of stairs before going up any other stairs or hills!

The castle from the gardens

Looking up the Royal Mile

Friday we went to Edinburgh Castle as a group where our professor left us so that the rest of the day after that was up to us. We toured the whole thing, which hadn’t much changed since the last time I was here only about a year ago, but was still interesting nonetheless. It is a castle, so you really can’t go wrong. We saw the canons, the crown jewels and Stone of Destiny, the war memorial, the war museum, and last we saw the military museum which was probably the most interesting besides the crown jewels. They changed out the last exhibit in the military museum since the last time I went through and had pictures from the soldiers in the Middle East which were very well done and interesting to look through. They were a very different yet similar subject, but instead felt like an art exhibit in the respect that was put for the photographer and the people who were photographed. So after about 2 hours or so, we left the castle and took a stroll down the Royal Mile. We popped into a lunch spot that some of group recommend from the night before and did a quick sandwich and wrap lunch. After lunch we decided to look around on the mile again briefly before going back to the hostel for a quick break. After the break getting Wi-Fi and out of the sun (which surprisingly was out in force, locals kept reassuring us this was not natural!) we went back out to just stroll along until dinner. For some reason we were all exhausted from our not very busy day, so we just decided to grab a dinner with drinks down at the bar next to the hostel. We went back to the Wi-Fi area again after to do some history lectures and then I stole one of the books from the swap to read in my room until I was too tired to do much else besides sleep.

The view from the castle

Princes Street gardens 

Sadly, our radiator had other plans for our room besides sleeping. At 2:30 am that next morning, our radiator let out an obnoxious buzzing sound that woke up 3 of us in the room like an alarm. The sound was so loud that when we tried to talk to each other, it was more like yelling. We soon realized where the sound was coming from and were as equally surprised to see that the other girl in our room, Christina was still asleep even though she was closest to it and it was emitting so much heat it was hard to even go near it. We left her, and one of the girls in our room left to go downstairs to complain to the front desk about the noise. She came back fairly quickly and we already had other people on the hall looking outside their rooms to see what the noise was. Ten minutes later, Christina was still asleep despite the fact that our light was on and we were all around her bed trying to figure out how to shut off the sound. Two men from the hostel came in, one who had lost his voice (rendering him even harder to understand as he had a thick accent) and one who was much too loud and happy for 2:45 am. They talked to themselves and to us trying to figure out what was happening and then without warning the one with the lost voice climbed over Christina (who was still asleep crazily enough, we tried to wake her up!) to get the radiator. Finally at this, she woke up very confused as to what was going on between the random two men in the room and the incredibly loud noise that was very close to her. Quickly after, they seemed to figure out what was wrong and twisted something enough to make the noise stop. We thanked them and they left, when Christina piped up still lost on what was happening. Unfortunately, that was not the end of the craziness as the sound proceeded to go off every hour like a snooze button until someone got up and did the same thing the men did. Basically, we didn’t get much sleep and there were many complaints to go around at the desk the next morning. 

              Saturday we tried to have a lazy morning due to the crazy night, but we ended up making plans around 10 so that we wouldn’t waste the day. The plan that we actually stuck to was to get a brunch around 11 because the toast and yogurt hostel breakfast that day just wasn’t going to cut it, and then grab pastries as dessert and have those in the park. We went to a French bakery and café, getting whatever meal sounded best, breakfast or lunch, and had take-away little cakes and even a bag of macaroons. The cakes in the park were amazing as it had rainy and gray until that moment. On a sugar high, we went further into new town and found the Georgian House. The Georgian House is basically a house that has been fixed up to the way the original owners would have had it, and you get to tour it and learn a bit of history. I’m pretty sure out of the group I was with, I was the only one who actually really enjoyed it before we ran into the volunteer in the kitchen who would not let us alone the whole time we were looking through. Our favorite lines that she said (and that have been repeated several times already) were: in reference to a dish cover with a circle handle “If you like science, here’s a perfect circle!” and after discussing everything on the sheets we were given on the way in “You just look around now, I won’t bother, but if you have any questions about anything you see you let me know. For instance this! This is…..”. She was interesting, and quite a character. The other volunteer we spoke in length with at the house, was a student at the university who told us where the places to go out would be in old town. We decided to take his advice that night after going around a bit more historical places during the day and check out some of the places near the college. And thankfully after coming back that night, we did not have any radiator problems.

Enjoying our cake in the park!

              Today though, we have had our share of problems. Nothing that we couldn’t handle, but at the time we did not know what was going to happen. So we checked out of the hostel at 10 am and then walked to the train station to board our 4 and half hour train to King’s Cross in London. We were doing pretty well 2 hours into the trip and I had already made it through 2 more history lectures (on which we have a another test before we leave London in 4 days, so its slightly stressful that we haven’t even gotten all the material!) when we get the PA announcement that we are stopping in York and everyone on the train has to get off because they are having breaking problems. Now this is where we are all thinking the same thing, that when we have to line up to learn of another train we are gonna have a hard time finding one to fit 23 people all together. What really happened is that we basically let everyone else from our train get on the next train to King’s Cross and we took the second so that we could stay together. From there we had no problems, and got into the station and grabbed oyster cards for the tube. Once on the tube after waiting for several other trains to pass us, we also had to get off two stops early because something was wrong with the next stop. We waited and then got the next possible train for our stop at Tower Hill. We are staying 3 blocks from London Tower and the river Thames in a very classy hostel named Wombat’s which is a step up from the places we have been staying. I’m talking about the fact that I am sitting in our room typing this because there is (gasp) fast Wi-Fi in the rooms and each bed has its own light and USB plug with an outlet too. Honestly I am very glad that this the last place we are staying! I’ll tell you about our London adventures very soon!

Moving to Scotland and into Glasgow

Sunday was a day full of travelling with different modes of transportation the whole day. First we loaded up in probably the fanciest coach bus I’ve ever been on (we had tables on the bus!) and went about 15 minutes until we reached the edge of Belfast to get on a ferry. When I imagined a ferry, I thought a big boat sure with a lot of seats, not a luxury cruise liner with 10 floors and so many activities to do. This is a 2 hour ferry from Belfast, Ireland to Cairnryan, Scotland and I got a manicure and a pretty nice meal with some extra time to spare to check out what else they had on board (which included gambling slots, an arcade, the on-board spa, theater room, I think several bars and a restaurant, and shops with luxury items). To say I was impressed is an understatement. Everyone on the trip was amazed that this was the “ferry” to Scotland, A+ rating to Stenaline. Anyways after exploring the ship, a couple girls and I decided that a spa day would be nice so Shari and I got get manicures, and Ashley and Abbey decided to get massages. It was very nice and we all wished we could’ve brought swimsuits to get into the Jacuzzi! We all grabbed a quick bite to eat which ended up being GIANT kid’s meals that were perfect to hold us over. After sadly docking and getting off the ship, we boarded another coach bus which took us an hour and 45 minutes north to a town called Ayr. Whoever told me I was going to be too busy to read on this trip obviously has not sat on enough buses and trains while traveling, I am burning through books on my kindle. After getting into Ayr, we took a 50 minute train up and into Glasgow. From the Central Station, we walked 20 minutes or so uphill (which was killer, we all joke we better have great legs and arms from carrying our stuff after this trip) to our guesthouse. Glasgow is not how I expected it to be, but I actually really like it. It is surprisingly extremely hilly, like they have the slope marked on all the hills and let me tell you they are a workout. We settled in and then went out to explore a bit before coming back for a big day Monday. Sadly I somehow have NO pictures of this amazement so I have my fingers crossed someone captured it!                    

  

Monday was a new kind of day on this trip which was a really nice change of pace. Instead of going to a school or doing history lessons, we started working with a company called Snook here in Glasgow. Snook is hard to explain and I want to do them the best justice, so I’ll just say they are a service design company that work with a variety of organizations and people to bring the best type of ingenuity to lots of different products and types of problems to make things easier than how they are already. I know, very vague and broad! Basically, as this is the best example they gave us, if you have two coffee shops that sell the same coffee and have the same prices, service design is what makes you choose one shop over the other. Anyways, with Snook we were divided into groups of 7 and 8 and charged with a specific question to tackle. The group that I was put with was charged with the question of how we could better market alcohol awareness to the ages of 16-25 in Glasgow. We did some idea brainstorming in some creative ways, which I am thankful for, because when you think too hard about one singular goal it’s hard to just find the solution. I like that sometimes you can just back into an idea after getting inspiration from something completely different. We took a couple of hours after lunch to roughly craft some ideas, and with some refinement (and lots of arguing) we had 3 fleshed out ideas to run by people in research. That night we were in encouraged to go out and ask some questions of people, so we took that and ran with it. We decided on the bar Nice n’ Sleazy (which was actually was more nice than sleazy) and questioned a couple people while also appreciating the weirdness of the whole thing. It was a good way to end Monday.         

   

The team in action brainstorming

Our friends at MakLab let us use their basement

Tuesday we were back at Snook, where we combined some of our ideas in order to create a better platform for alcohol awareness. We knew we had to present our ideas at the end of the day, so most of our time was focused on getting the rough edges smooth and creating a visual and representative presentation. Our idea in basic was that we would create cheap coasters with humorous pictures and slogans with lead ins to a website with hangover cures that you could vote on, alcohol facts, advertisement from companies encouraging safe drinking, and taxi services that you could use while checking out the website. We did a PowerPoint, handed out rough mock-ups of the coasters, and had a poster with what the website could look like. We got some great feedback from the people at Snook where they told us how we could engage people better, and gave us good examples of the direction we were headed towards. After presentations, we walked to their actual building about 10 minutes away, because we had been using a space underneath a fabrication center. Snook is actually located above a bar and a tea room, so we were taken around their studio and then went downstairs to grab celebratory drinks. After taking with more Snook employees and hanging out we went for a group dinner at Wagamama, which is a really good Japanese chain around the UK. Though after dinner, we were told some bad news about one of the 3^rd year students from Auburn in our program and we all just decided to go back to the guesthouse and chill out there.

Our board being used for organization

Our website mock-up

Wednesday was our free day in Glasgow, so after breakfast Shari, Ashley, and I grabbed some coffee at a shop around the corner and decide to just walk until we saw something we wanted to do. The only thing that was permanent on our schedule was seeing the Glasgow School of Art which was designed by Charles Mackintosh, whom I’m pretty sure we all have a design crush on. Sadly though, last spring the Mackintosh building of the school was damaged in a fire, so they lost the library and still have scaffolding up blocking the building from being used. We got to hang around the newer building and go through a little exhibit they had up explaining Mackintosh’s work, but our last history test was over his work so we already knew most of the information. We could’ve gone on the tour, but if I was going to pay for it I would have wanted to see in the Mackintosh building. We then walked out of the middle of the city to the park district, where Ashley decided she needed to go back to the guesthouse so Shari and I walked around aimlessly taking in the fresh air. We took the long way around the park and then made our way back towards St. George’s square in the middle of Glasgow. We stopped at the Willow Tea Rooms which was also designed by Mackintosh and had a midday break. After walking around the models on the first floor of never built works and grabbing a quick bite to eat, we walked past the markets lining the pedestrian walkway. We, of course, walked into the Primark (which is just like Penneys where EVERYTHING is so cheap) and I had to talk myself out of some great shoes. We just walked until the exhaustion of the day caught up to us and I went back to my room to do a new history lecture since we do have a test before we go home.     

A model of Glasgow School of Art

The real outside of Glasgow School of Art (scaffolding and all)

A detail of the new building of Glasgow School of Art

The fountain in the park

The view from the park

Today we have had a lazy morning where we didn’t leave for Edinburgh until 10:45. We walked another really long walk to a different train station, Queen's street station. We got into Edinburgh and I walked around with Becca and Christina near Princes Street and made a big loop around the castle which we are going to see tomorrow. With Ashley though, I went to see Avengers:Age of Ultron because it came out earlier here than it does in the U.S. and I did enjoy that! I'm off to do another history lesson so I'll fill you in on the rest of Edinburgh soon!              

Italy and the state of my feet

              Tuesday was probably the longest day on this trip so far. We woke up at 2:50 am to make sure we were all packed and ready to leave Kinlay house at 3:30 am for the airport. We then proceeded to be an hour earlier than we needed to be for our 6 am flight, because our professor was scared there was going to be a rush. After a needed Starbucks visit, we got to our gate in the Dublin airport. I appreciated the outside of the Dublin airport because it was lit up and beautifully built. I did not appreciate the inside of the airport, as there were just really long hallways with nothing in them to take to gates where there were no bathrooms or anything at all besides lines. Anyways, we got on our flight (with two less bags I could cry about having just one carry-on for our trip to Italy) and made a 2 hour trip on which I slept most of the time. We got off and headed straight through passport control and towards our bus, which took us from the Bergamo airport to Desenzano. We were staying in Desenzano at the Aurora hotel and making day trips to everywhere else since it’s in the middle of Milan and Venice. Since we had landed at 8 am Italy time, we got into Desenzano around 11 with enough time to explore the city. First we walked up and down the market that was down one of the main streets and picked up a few cheap things. We grabbed an amazing lunch of Italian pizza (which has to be one of my favorite dishes there because it has more of an olive oil base than tomato) where the waiter took our badly spoken Italian orders and proceeded to use the wrong pronunciations we used when he presented the food laughing and told us the right way to pronounce our food. Since Desenzano isn’t exactly a tourist city we experienced some language barrier while we stayed there, but I still remembered some phrases from the last time I went and I learned some essential words to get through the week.

The "Old Harbor" in the middle of Desenzano

Desenzano from the water

Harbor at Desenzano

              Tuesday still was even longer as after lunch, we explored the city seeing the castle that sits at the top of the hill looking down on the city and seeing the pebble beaches which line the lake Desenzano sits near. We went window shopping and walked through the alleys and cobblestoned streets trying to scope out what we wanted to eat later and where would be good places to go. We sat down for dinner a short while later and our new professor Jarrod who is taking over after we get back from Italy also ate with us. I got seafood pasta and Jarrod accidentally engaged one of the guys who were going around with roses so he ended up having to pay for the roses that were thrust into all the girl’s hands at the table. He joked that it would be on the University, but he just laughed about the fact that it had happened so quickly!

              Wednesday was Milan day. We walked to and then took a train in the morning which was around 2 hours into Milan. Then we quickly went to the subway and took two lines to get to the edge of the city where the Salone del Mobile Milano was. This is a HUGE convention center with 24 exhibit halls which were all filled with design companies showing off their best stuff and student work as well. I would recommend anyone who likes to walk through Ikea, likes looking at home magazines, or even just appreciates design should for sure go to this Salone. I wished I could’ve stayed for 4 more days though to see everything because for reference, out of those 24 exhibit halls I only saw 6 of them and we were hustling because we only had a couple of hours. The original plan of going into Milan was to go to the Salon and walk around for 2 hours, then meet up with an Auburn alumni from our program, and then leave to go see The Last Supper. When we reached Chris Gibbons, the Auburn alumni, as a group we decided to veto The Last Supper so that we could stay and look around for longer. It was a perfect amount of time to see what we could before the fatigue of the day caught up to us. What I didn’t realize was that the Salon is something like 3 miles long and you have to walk a good distance with help from those moving sidewalks to walk between exhibit halls. I also, dumbly, was excited that the weather in Italy was warm and sunny rather than rainy and cold so I wore sandals. Little did I know how much walking I would be doing so after leaving the Salon I was happy to be sitting on the subway towards the Duomo. We got off of the Duomo stop and split off to catch separate trains back to Desenzano by the end of the day. Christina and Ashley stuck with me and we made a wide ark of the Duomo going down the side alleys before having to heading back on the subway to the train around 7:30.

The housing for the convention center!

At the Salone

One of the exhibits to draw attention

I just liked this chair, cool back!

Flatpack Lighting

Interesting chair setup!

Pantone chair with miniatures

              Thursday we did another day trip, but this time to Venice. I have been to Venice before, but we got off a ferry the first time. Coming off a train is the completely opposite side of Venice which I was grateful for. We collected as a group and made the trek to the heart of the city. After getting dumped out into St. Marco’s square, we had free time in Venice for about 4-5 hours. I ended up being in a group of my friends - Ashley, Shari, and Becca – and we walked around, found a place to eat lunch, and then ran into our professor Jarrod about 4 times without seeing anyone else! We walked with him occasionally if he was going same direction we wanted to go, and Jarrod and I ended up placing a bet on who could walk the most steps, him or me, because we both had Fitbits (I won by the way!). Eventually we split off after realizing Jarrod probably wouldn’t want to go around shopping with us. We found a leather store where Ashley and Becca both got purses and I found a nice wallet in a rich brown color. We walked around window shopping in the expensive places and really had to take a lot of breaks to soothe our tired feet. As previously stated my footwear for the Italy trip was not wisely picked out, so by the end of the day I had a couple blisters and a weird step pattern that I tried to use to ease the pain. Anyways, 38 bridges, 2 gelato cones, and a cup of sangria later, we met back up as a group at the train station to catch the train back to Desenzano.

View from St. Marco's square

Cool view of the flags

Cute little canal and bridge

View off of one of the Grand Canals

Plaque of Venice

              Friday we had a free day where we had to be back before 6:30 pm to make sure we could get to the airport in time. There was a ferry that could take across the lake to the peninsula town called Sirmione so a group of us decided to do that. There is a castle inside the town that is much grander than the one in Desenzano so we poked around that for a bit, and grabbed a quick bite to eat. We did some more window shopping and some souvenir shopping before making it down to the beach. We wanted today to be a chill day to let our feet have a rest so we just sat looking out on the water and the mountains for a little while before heading back into town. I went into a shop that had 135 different gelato flavors and they were crazy about handing you samples. They were just thrusting them into your hands speaking in rapid Italian so that before I even ordered anything I had 7 generous sample spoons worth of gelato. I ended up going with an apple flavor and another flavor that I don’t even know what it’s English name is because there was no picture or obvious translation, but it was good. We then caught an even quicker ferry ride back into Deszenzano with very full stomachs so we ended up just sitting around watching the Italian version of old MTV where it’s just music videos all the time. We got picked up the bus not too much later and headed back to Bergamo to catch our flight back into Dublin. We grabbed our other bags from the luggage locker that we left them and then checked into Kinlay house for the last time. By the time I had repacked everything and got ready for bed it was 2:30 am so at least it was full circle on our Italy trip!

Sirmione Castle

The beach and the water in Sirmione

              Today we have taken a train from Dublin into Belfast, so that we can take a ferry to Scotland. The train was uneventful and we are back in the same hostel in the same rooms that we were the last time we were in Belfast. We had to work on a PowerPoint of what we did in Carlow for a grade so that’s all we’ve really been doing. I did have Indian fusion food when Ashley and I were craving Mexican food and then with a couple of friends found a burrito place that was actually really Indian food in burritos and tacos! I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if my mouth was on fire for half the burrito bowl! Anyways, the day is just to catch up on sleep and blogging so that tomorrow we can be ready to move to Scotland! Talk to you about it soon!

              

The Road to Belfast and the Walled City

We left Inch house at 7 am on Thursday morning to drive up and around the Atlantic Coast in a long drive to get to Belfast. We originally had a lot planned for Thursday and sadly our professor cut the day down so that we only had 2 stops instead. The first stop we made was at Dunluce Castle which is also known as Harrenhall to Game of Thrones’ fans (thanks Hunter and Ashley for giving me the names of all the Game of Thrones places we went). It was beautiful, but sadly not open because it’s not quite the tour season. We got to take lots of pictures and enjoy the view, and even went down to a cove called “Mermaid’s Cave” that used to connect up to the castle. Next we drove past Bushmill’s Whiskey Distillery (which was originally on our schedule and the oldest whiskey distillery in Europe) and to the Giant’s Causeway. We walked down past the visitor center and straight to the causeway hearing stories of the giants that made it. We had about an hour to walk around and explore the geological wonder and take photos before loading back onto the bus. We then passed up the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge which I also had been looking forward to going on since before the trip, but I guess this gives me something to come back to Ireland for. We drove onto Belfast and checked into our hostel for the night. And of course I immediately looked for a Mexican restaurant as Ashley and I have been craving it again, and we found a place with burritos that made my mouth water. This was probably one of the first time in months that Mexican food made my mouth burn and my lips tingle with that familiar spice and flavor! So good!

Dunluce Castle

A view of Giant's Causeway

Chilling at the top of one of the formations

View of the ocean and the causeway

The hexagonal pattern of the causeway 

Friday we had an eventful day starting at 10 with a trip to a design firm called The Design Factor to get shown around and spoken to by William Lee, the man who founded the company. His talk was very interesting and I was really glad that we took the time to stop there. Next we had the quickest lunch ever, like honestly running in an out of a KFC, to catch our Black Taxi Tour which was too soon after The Design Factor. We got to drive around Belfast with our driver, Jerry, and he pointed out places in Belfast with importance like the Europa hotel, the most bombed building in Europe since WWII which was carried out by the IRA, and the Crown Bar which is the oldest bar in Belfast. We stopped at the Peace walls that have a eerie way about them similar to the Berlin Wall to look at murals that change up to every 6 weeks to reflect new problems or highlight triumphs. There are 22 walls around the city with 7 gates that close and open during business hours in the week, and 2 of those gates don’t even open on the weekends. The largest peace wall is around 5 km long which is crazy to me. We stopped to sign one of the walls, which is the only legal place for graffiti in the world. They did, in fact, take pictures from what the Berlin Wall looked like and repainted it on this wall and have it available for visitors to sign so that it could maybe come down one day like the Berlin Wall. I hope it comes down so that the insane segregation stops, and maybe all those signatures will be worth something.

The building for The Design Factor

One of the walls covered in murals

Writing on the Peace Wall

Posing with my signature 

Next we got dropped off at the Titanic Museum which is a beautiful building at the very north of town. The building itself is supposed to represent either the boughs of a ships, the iceberg that the Titanic hit, or a star in honor of White Star Lines, the company that the Titanic was under. The museum itself was interesting but not what I was expecting at all! At this museum we started with the building of the ship as Belfast was the city where Titanic was built before going to sea. Then to the shock to everyone on our trip there is actually a ride in the museum that takes you through the ship-building experience! It was fun like the E.T. ride that takes you up and down through a bunch of screens and a voice walking you through the process. We went through 2 more floors exploring how the rooms would have been actually set up for each class of people, what supplies the Titanic had aboard (I didn’t realize they had to bring all the linen possible because they had no way to wash it and actually how much mail it was holding as a Royal Mail ship), and the survivor stories. The telegraphs that Titanic last sent certainly put a chill up my spine, and the tour on a huge screen of the wreckage kept it there. The museum even has a part where you can stand on screens above the debris field that makes you feel like you are swimming above it, way cool. We finished off the exhibitions and walked to the nearest train station to take us down back to where our hostel was. 

The Titanic Museum in Belfast

A group of us posing in the sign

           Saturday was a free day for us, so after a lazy morning we decided to go the city center to see the town hall and check out the shopping. After realizing how expensive going from the euro to the pound is, we quickly gave up shopping to retreat back to the hostel only to get stuck in hail again. We have a huge sketching assignment due on Monday, so a lot of us hunkered down to get most of that done before dinner. I hit a snag when my mom let me know that my card was being used in California, so she and I figured out a way that I could get money for the trip with as little trouble as possible (with her doing most of the heavy lifting on the task and I just listened). With that all settled our group dinner was right around the corner at the Europa hotel. We didn’t get bombed, no worries. We did have a 3-course meal that was typical of fancy restaurants, that being that the courses were extremely small but at the end of dinner I felt full. We were going to go out that night, but the assignment that we have and the cost in pounds deterred us.

           Today we are taking a train back into Dublin, where we are staying for 2 days and then taking a plane over to Italy for an international furniture fair in Milan(!!!) and a day trip to Venice! I’m super excited to both be going back to Dublin and back to Italy where I have been to Venice, but not Milan. We have some great plans for the limited time we are there, but I think what everyone is looking forward to most, collectively as a group at least, is that we don’t have to wear layers in Italy. It’s actually warm there! I’ll tell you all about it soon!