Paris, J'Taime! <3

Bonjour!

Oh my goodness...Paris...what an amazing city. I didn't know what to think of it at first. I thought, "huh, maybe it's all cliche and hollywood makes it up to be this big, overly ROMANTIC city." I would just like to say that I was pleasently incorrect. Hollywood just amplifies the city's actual mood. It really is what it's all hyped up to be. Yes, it is a city for lovers but not just couples, all kinds of love. Parent and child, boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife and siblings, love of nature and music and God and food and...well...you get my drift yes? I am no longer curious on why so many people are inspired by this place. Anywhooooo...

My family and I took the Eurostar under the chunnel to get to Paris from London. I'm not going to lie, the trip from Canterbury to London was the trip FROM HELL. Let's talk about unnecessary panic and the number of round-a-bouts we had to take...RAWR! It was awful. Luckily, Mommy and Papa found a really nice rich man to give us his useful map! We made it to the Eurostar on time and had a safe travel there. Once we got to Paris we made our way to the hotel that Mom had booked. It was really nice (at least, I thought it was...) but Mama and Papa didn't like it. When I stated my two cents, Papa said that it was only because I had been living in hostels for 3 months. True. In my opinion, any hotel is better than a hostel. Well, after we dropped off a few things we decided to go out and explore the city. We didn't need to walk far before getting to the Arc De Triomphe! That was pretty cool! There were a lot of people on the street taking pictures of it from the sidewalk and in the middle of the road (I was eventually one of them ^^;;). After seeing the Arc, we made our way in the direction of the Eiffel Tower. When we got there, we stood on the bridge that lead to it and took some awsome pictures. It was when we got closer that the coolest event EVER happened!

The Eiffel Tower was BLUE. A great blue too and there was a circle of stars in front of it...very spiritual looking for sure. We explored the skirt of the tower for a few moments before we realized that it was SPARKLING! I had remembered my friends telling me that it had done this so we raced out from under it to see the top. Wow! It was so beautiful there are no words to discribe it! After the sparkles had ended we realized that we were chilly and decided to indulge in some hot chocolat. Later on that night (almost 9pm to be exact) we realized that we were starving and ate at an Italian pizza place called Roma. It was Italian but Frenchly owned...is that possible? Anyway, I wanted to order our meal for us because I would be able to use the very little French that I remembered from school and still get us our dinner without any conflict with a language barrier. BUT my parents had a strange fascination with ordering our food before I could do it...IN ENGLISH! Oh, silly parents. Through-out the trip Lily would push me in front or kick me to order before they did, but this was to no evail.

The next day we decided to go to Notre Dame. It was excellent! The inside was absolutly beautiful and reminded me of the Disney movie (yes, yes, go ahead and laugh). You weren't aloud to take pictures but pretty much everyone did anyway...I only took 3 but was good not to take anymore than that. The only downside to Notre Dame was the loonies living outside. There was this one guy who grunted loudly at Mom for no apparent reason and this other young guy dressed in a old man mask touching her back for a long period of time. She didn't do anything about it because she thought it was ME! Yeah...it was pretty creepy. We were also very fortunate to see Varsailles that day too! It was raining cats and dogs when we went but luckily we were inside the whole time looking at the palace. It was such a beautiful place to be and I wish it wasn't raining so that we could see the gardens without drowning! That night we went on the metro to the Moulin Rouge. At first we couldn't find it and I think Papa was getting a little anxious but I was determined to find it! Eventually we did and it was so worth the confusion! I would someday like to see a show just to say that I did...maybe someday soon. Eventually we made it back to the Eiffel Tower and went to the lst floor. After exploring the tower for the last time we made our way to a little crepe stand to eat some chocolate crepes! MMMM! They were just divine!

I could get into the discussion of the Eurostar breaking down on us on our way back from Cailis...but that's far too depressing. I'll end it on a better note:

Paris was wonderful! I don't think I will ever be the same again after being in such a lobely city! I enjoyed every minute of it and I'm glad that I was able to experience it with my family! <3 Oh Paris, J'Taime!

Windsor Castle! Jolly Good!

Hey!

I went to Windsor Castle on Friday! It was pretty neat...chilly out...but neat. I got one of the portable audio tour guides and followed the little numbered landmarks around like the tourist I am. It was cool to see Mary Louise's doll house and...well...interesting to see Prince Charles's baby pictures and toys. Yes, they have a whole room dedicated to the Prince Charles. I don't know, I guess because he's still alive it was a little weird looking at his old things - like I was rumaging through his closet or something. Anyway, a lot of the students had no idea that he and Diana had divorced the year before she died. I was like, where have you been the past 10 years!? That's why there was a controversy!! Oh my goodness.

We all wanted to see the changing of the guard but that was an epic fail. They had started 10 mins or so before we could even get there. It wasn't worth the running we probably would have done. Instead, Christina, Nikita and I had our own little encounter with a guard. He was standing outside near the exit of the castle and Christina was like, "I want my picture with him! But I'm afraid he'll yell at me..." she had already been called out by a woman in a gift shop and a lady in the chapel for whatever reason we have no idea. Anyway, I told her that she shouldn't worry and Nikita pointed out that he probably got asked all of the time. Well, she asked him and he said, "Sure." Simple as that apparently. ^^ I was anxious to see my family all day so Windsor was a little rushed but it was a lot of fun none the less.

My Lagan Love (DUBLIN)

ello!

I just got back from DUBLIN! Wow, what can i say? It was the most amazing city! It reminded me a lot of Edinburgh, Scotland (although Edinburgh was much smaller).

There was some confusion before we left though. The day before we left we thought that Southern Ireland was a part of the UK...LIES!! Poor Christina kept telling us that Dublin took the pound and not the Euro...until we found out for sure last Thursday. Luckily, we found out just in time. We got to Dublin at around 1:30pm on Friday and took an Airlink bus from the airport to the city. At first, we were a little lost, one thing that I've noticed about Europe is that their signage is a little iffy and most of the time things aren't marked at all. After a very very very very brief freak out we found out the bridge that we were supposed to cross. Once we got to the right street, we started to realize that the place our hostel was in was...well...REALLY cool! It was a place called Temple Bar, and it was like the Theatre District of the city. They had small film and photo colleges inside as well as gift shops, museums, pubs, an Urban Outfitters, record and thrift stores! It was def the place to stay for a bunch of 20 year old students. The hostel that we stayed in was called Barnacles (suggested by my lovely cousin!). They were very nice and extremely helpful.
Our hostel room was really cute but kinda tiny. It was a six bed room and we shared it the first two nights with a kind French lady traveling by herself. The first night we explored Temple Bar and ate a REAL restaurant meal at the HardRock Cafe. It was so nice to eat warm, filling food and Shanna was glad to finally eat at a place that sold both veggie and meaty things, I thought that she would faint after taking a huge bite of her burger ^____^ she misses meat.
After eating, we went to Urban Outfitters and killed loads of time before taking a nice long walk, then crashing in our hostel.

The next day we got up at around 9:00am and ate our free toast and tea breakfast in the public kitchen. Boy was it fabulous...toast never tasted so good. We then left the hostel and made our way to the Guiness Factory. It was a long but comfortable walk. We always knew we were headed in the right direction because once in awhile we could smell the distinct smell of Guiness in the air. It was pretty cool; but the factory was in the ghetto in Dublin so I'm glad we went early in the morning. The back streets were really cool though and there was a place where you could take a ride with some ponies. Nikita was so excited to finally pet some ponies she didn't want to wash her hands afterwards haha! After looking through the gift shop and through some of the factory we went back to Temple Bar and ate lunch. The place we went to was a little market right outside of the photo museum. It had a bunch a things like chicken, crepes, cheese and Indian food. One place had a bunch of dead pheasents and ducks hanging by their necks ouside the tent! I ate some AMAZING Indian food, I swear I will never be able to get anything that good ever again.

After going to the photo museum (which was a little lame) we went to Trinity College! It was so cool! I wanted to go see the book of Kells but no one else wante dto spend the money! I said that I would go alone if I had to...and I did! Everyone was so nice to wait for me! It really was the coolest thing! I love old stuff. I also got to see the old Library of Trinity College. Okay...so you know the library in Beauty and the Beast? Yep, I saw that. It was so majestic I almost cried! BOOKS EVERYWHERE! It was then that we stopped at the Molly Malone statue for Nikita and then we made our way to the statue of Oscar Wilde in the park. Oscar Wilde was full of himself, for sure, but it was all most in a cool way. He wasn't afraid to be an ass and he wasn't afraid to say it either. Even though that would be a major turn off, I respect him. He was cool...like the Fanz.
That night, we ate dinner at a place called Half Moon. It sold toasties, paninis, and crepes. It was so cute and cheap! We had a great time taking goofy pictures and eating our yummy affordable food. The waiter I think had a crush on us because he gave us a couple of free nutella crepes with ice cream! It was so good! All of a sudden we all had second stomachs!

The next day, Mandi, Shanna, Nikita and I took a small bus tour to Wicklow and Glendough. Caroline went to Galway for the day by herself. As we travelled through the mountains we stopped at different places to take pictures like various lakes and farm land. It was so beautiful and amazing no words can describe it! There were three really cute boys sitting behind me on the bus too ^___^ hehe. Oh, before I forget, Nikita and I had to use the bathroom REALLY bad so on one of our stops we had to go into a really creepy forest and rough it! I hadn't done anything like that since Girl Scouts! Anyway, while Nikita was peeing she yelled out to me while I was going. I didn't hear what she said the first time so I yelled back. "What!?" I said. "I said I found a SKELLINTON!" it was the skellinton of a deer apparently...creeppyyy.

We got back at 5:00pm and were extremely hungery! We stopped and got some last minute presents and then went to the grocery store to pick up some noodles and garlic bread for dinner. It was then that we crashed really hard and were ready to leave the next day. We were going to miss Dublin, it had been so kind to us. :(

Stonehenge, Oxford, Bath, and Halloween! ^^

Wow...sorry for the update retardedness...

Okay, so last weekend our whole class plus some people from Canada went to the places listed above! (except Halloween of course). It was hosted by a company called European Friends and it was a lovely 2 day trip...somewhat...The first place they took us to was Oxford, and it was pretty amazing! A lot of Harry Potter stuff was there like the Great Hall and The Library. It was where J.R.R Tolkien and C.S. Lewis taught and where Helena Bonham Carter went to school. I wish we could have stayed longer because there were a lot of other little shops and places to see! They took us around to a couple of other little towns in Cotswald that didn't really have anything to do with...well...anything. They were extremely kawaii but we didn't really walk through them as long/short (it depended on the town) as we wanted.

That night, we stayed in a Holiday Inn, which was amazing! It was so nice to stay in a hotel for once instead of a hostel. Nikita, Caroline, Shanna and I shared a room. It was so funny because as soon as we got there we turned the television on and watched random British gameshows and a UK version of Funniest Home Videos. We don't have TV in our flats so it was crazy how we went for the TV as soon as we saw it hahaha. We went to the local grocery store and bought microwavable food. When we got to the "public" kitchen we found out that the microwave was broken...figures...so, Erica came up and told us that the kitchen for the resteraunt in the hotel would take our food and microwave it for us! Yay! It took awhile but we finally got all of our food and went to our room to eat Indian food, mac & cheese, tomato soup and tea MMMMM! I felt bad for Christina and Mandi. They ordered Chinese and it took forever for it to come!


The next day, European Friends took us to Bath! It rained a little bit but not that bad really. It was livable. We had a fun time looking through all of the little shops and at all of the oldish bulidings! We wanted to go look at the Roman Baths but we didn't have enough money! Oh well. There were mixed reviews from our friends who went so we were okay with it in the end. After Bath, Friends took us to the one and only Stonehenge! It was so amazing! It was so mysterious and erie! There were black birds hanging all over it like creepers which made it even more interesting. Bahar, Caroline and Nikita were thinking of jumping the fence (aka small rope close to the ground) so that they could run up and touch Stonehenge (which wasn't aloud!). Buuutttt, Sanders told Bahar that she would get into trouble and get his students in trouble as well. She tried to argue with him saying that her ancesters were the druids but he didn't give in...she pouted her face and called him a kill joy. It was pretty funny.

Friday was Halloween! It was great! I was a zombie student! I bought some make-up at the local Halloween shop in Canters. Nikita was a vampire and I did her make-up as well as my friends Mark (fellow zombie) and Jake* (the Joker). That morning I got up early and made myself some eggs and toast while listening to Halloween music. Then I watch some Disney Halloween on youtube (my family would know what I speak of). Later that night we had a party in one of the flats and afterwards went to the Jolly Sailor for some chair dancing, wine spilling, candy munching fun! hehe. We decided that since it was a successful Halloween we should go to the local Kabab eatery and get chips and pizza. MMMM! Everyone else scattered afterwards but Nikita and I went back to my flat and watched SCREAM. It was great fun!