Back "Home"

Thank you to all who've been reading this blog while I was away, it's been really fun to read your comments! I hope you all continue to read it even though I'm officially back home in the States. For some reason or other I was locked out of my blog for about a month while I was abroad so I need to do some catch up reports in the next few weeks. Here's a trailer of what's to come: France and the gorgeous palace of Versailles, Ireland and Belfast home stays, and random things that I think about. Possibly even some more travel writing like I did for Lindisfarne! I will also be adding pictures to my previous couple blogs due to poor internet connections when I posted them last. So, thanks again for reading and hope to see your comments in the future!

Second Time in London

Just a small note to those who read this blog: I come home in less than a week! Sad day, I’ll miss England L. About a month ago our second professor Mark Bruce and his wife, Julianne and daughter Rhiannon came over. Our first professor Dan Ritchie and his wife Judie left us before I left for Italy and returned to the States a week later. The transition between teaching styles and pace of the trip changed a lot when Mark came over. Not in a bad way, just different. Mark’s style of teaching is much more laid back than Ritchie’s so it took a few days to get used to the more frequent and more discussion-based classes. And since Mark and Julianne’s daughter Rhiannon, who is five years old, is along with us for this later part of England Term it took a couple days to get used to having a lil’ kid with us-though she is always a pleasure.

After coming back from free travel (at 2 am on the very, very last day possible) we all assembled again in London at the Celtic Hotel, our favorite “home base”. We were there for a week having class and recovering from our ten days of living completely on our own. We may or may not have done a little shopping too…

We went to the British Library to see a performance of the first third of Beowulf done by this guy who sat up on a stage with coloured backlights and a harp of sorts. He sang slash spoke the poem and played little interludes or background music along with the text. It was a really neat experience but I think I might have gotten more out it if I had read the poem previous to the trip or in high school or something. …Or if it hadn’t been performed at night in a dark, warm room with light harp-like melodies being played, if you catch my drift. The library itself is very larger and has a ton of reference materials for use. The majority of us however, went to the gift shop to look for literary souvenirs.

The next place we stayed was a retreat center in Turnbridge Wells called Salamon’s. It is a center that belongs to a Christian university somewhere in England. The main building was amazing, all stone and old looking, though it probably was not older than perhaps a hundred years-if that. There were separate dorm-like rooms a few hundred feet from the main building and huge gardens slash back yard. There was a good few acres stretching out behind the mansion style house. The yard sloped down the further away from the house it lay creating a step-like look in the grass. Off to the side of the yard was a forested area. We used this treed area for our ropes course.

One of our two main activities at this location was an intense ropes course. If you don’t know what that is, it is a team building workshop involving heights, ropes, harnesses, and screaming encouragingly by the people you’re with. There were these two guys who led the activity. We divided up into two groups and grabbed white, hard helmets and an awkwardly fitting harness and chose our starting activity. My group started with an activity that involved climbing a very high wooden pole and standing on a little platform like circus animals, then leaning backwards…with two other people up there with you at the same time. I would say that it was between 25 and 30 feet in the air but I’m a bad estimator. We all had our harnesses on and were attached to a line to hold us up while we were climbing up the pole. Others down on the ground attended to the slack of the rope and kept it taut and secure. I made it up to the top with one other person. But when we clasped hands to lean back we were unbalanced weight-wise so after a few seconds we fell off and swung in the air for a bit before making a graceful, fairy-like landing.

Our next activity was to climb up an even higher pole and free jump at a trapeze, hopefully making it. This one was harder for me and I lost energy at the top and couldn’t make it. I wasn’t really scared, I just didn’t have any strength left, which I was sad about ‘cause I really wanted to make the jump.

Our next big activity at Salamon’s was Halloween! Which, I will be posting a separate blog for because it was so awesome.

Ahhh!!! Read this one 'k?

I've been having a lot of issues accessing my blog as of late, so that is why there haven't been many new updates. I plan to continue writing even after I get back so that I can more fully tell stories and elaborate the details so you can get the whole bog experience. (lol) okay, so I'm getting home soon, but still check your emails!

Anna

Un Petite Update

Hey all, I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while, I've been away from the internets and very busy with homework. Just wanted to let all you readers (all three of you) that I will soon be adding another entry so don't think I've fallen off the end of the earth due to too much exploring. 'Kthanksbye!

(This is me and my friends at the palace of Versailles)

Travel Writing: Seashore Serenity

Imagine yourself walking along the seashore, the water gently lapping at your toes and receding. See the setting sun in the west, the sky changing colors with time, first yellow, then orange and pink, and finally shades of purple. You take a sip of the hot chocolate in your hands and feel it warm your body as you swallow. The wind blows softly, just enough to make you hug your cashmere sweater closer to your shoulders but not enough to make you shiver. The sweet smell of salt water and sand fills your senses and the distant shouts of a man and his dog echo in your ears. Sandy beaches are one of the most relaxing places to visit while abroad, providing a calming atmosphere, gorgeous scenery, and a spot of time to remember long after you’ve left.

The historic Lindisfarne, or “Holy Island” as is the common name, is one of the most beautiful seashores in Europe and is located east of England next to the North Sea. The island is a causeway surrounded by water from late afternoon until early morning shutting it off completely from the rest of England. The island does have shops that focus on the island’s Celtic background and even a small church founded by a missionary saint to the island long ago. But by far the shoreline is the most satisfying part of the island and will cost you nothing to enjoy.

Walking down to the shore is not hard, but if you get disoriented don’t be afraid to ask someone for directions. The island is small and natives of Lindisfarne are used to tourists, in fact the island’s population nearly doubles everyday from the number of visitors who come to see the sites and sounds of the sea. The walkable coastline is fairly long and there are many access points from different parts on the island. If you prefer strolling barefoot with sand and surf between your toes, the occasional sea crab scuttling by, and rocky cliffs then the southeastern part of the shoreline is where you will find your serenity. If you prefer a more educational, yet poignant outdoor experience, you can try walking the Pilgrim’s Way trails in the sand that follow the causeway road. These are the paths used before roads were constructed that missionaries and townsfolk alike used to get on and off the island.

Walking leisurely next to a vast expanse of water is a great stress reliever and can be enjoyed by people of all ages. For the younger crowd the sand and water is probably enough to get the excitement going, and as well for everyone. There are tiny pieces of smoothed sea glass and broken, painted chinaware to collect while walking. That was my favorite part, collecting a multitude of odd-shaped blue and white chinaware, saving them for a later date in which to decorate with. There are also a couple of benches along the way where you can sit and admire the splendor that is the North Sea and the visible horizon that blends earth and sky.

One thing that you will notice about the sky when you venture out at night on Lindisfarne is how clearly you are able to view the stars. The distance from major cities and lack of streetlights creates a blanket of darkness that envelopes any and all in a silent stillness, punctuated only by the sound of the waves on the shore. The cover of night and the quietness of the island lends a hand to a time of reflection and thought, and the vastness of the stars are no hindrance to your ponderings. This stargazing activity is sure to show you all that the island has to offer at nighttime: a gorgeous, ebony sky, unmarred by human invention, a soundtrack better than any relaxation CD you can buy, and a view of the stars Galelao would envy.

If you venture a little further down the coast you will come across the Lindisfarne Castle that stands on an eastern hill overlooking the sea and the island. It is open to visitors during the day but is locked and gated at night. And if sunrises or sunsets along the beach spark your interest this is definitely a place to visit. Depending on the season the sun rises and sets at different times but is always a blissful start or end to a day outdoors. When I visited, I walked out to the eastern tip of the island, past lush, green fields of grass filled with sleepy sheep towards the castle and positioned myself next to a stone wall and waited for the sky to change colors. First shades of purple, then pink and orange, and finally yellow…

As enjoyable, exciting, and peaceful these outdoor seashore activities might be on Lindisfarne, remember one very important thing when walking along the beach or sitting in the sand watching the sun: the tide. As all tides go, there is high tide at night, which leads to the causeway being emerged, and low tide during the day. Low tide is the best time to walk the beaches because it gives you much more sandy area to walk, even providing a very shallow and easily waded path to a sandbar not far from shore. I almost lost my shoes and bag to the rising tide but rescued them just in time. Watching the tide rise and fall can be a very relaxing activity, from a safe distance. Feeling the sea breezes and hearing the waves against the rocks and sand is a great way to spend an evening outdoors.

If it’s walking on paths admiring the general splendor of things you fancy then there are also non-shoreline jaunts on Lindisfarne too. You still get all the shoreline experience except you are a few meters back and a few meters up from the water. On the island, there are sand and dirt paths from the upper beach up to the top of the rock cliffs and across to ancient ruins of an old Celtic cathedral and past that to a lighthouse. From there you can look down and out to the North Sea or try and spot land in the distance. These paths lead you around the eastern side of the island and eventually back into the town, but not before taking you through a sheep field or two. First you get to walk through turn-style gates and then make your way across an open pasture where sheep openly graze and become curious about their visitors. These paths are public footpaths, and though they cross through private property, must be upkept by the owners of the land. So while walking on the paths is perfectly fine, walking across the fields is not, so mind your feet.

On this trip to the beach, your feet are going to be the most valuable resource you have, they can take you any and everywhere. When in Europe, walking outdoors is the best experience you can have, especially when walking near the shore and overlooking a great stretch of sea and sky. Lindisfarne provides all of these outdoor experiences, the sunrises, sunsets and stars, the sand and surf, the souvenirs from the shoreline, and the sounds and breezes off the waters. If taking long walks along the beach is in your interests, this is a must. The island of Lindisfarne is rich in scenery and sensory engaging outdoor activities sure to lead to countless memories of sand between your toes and the fragrance of open water.

Glendalough, Literary Pub Crawl, and Guinness' 250 Year Anniversary

Today was one of the best days of England Term thus far. Top three for sure. We're in Dublin and we took a day trip to see some sights associated with James Joyce, an Irish writer and poet. First we took a ride to the James Joyce Museum located off the coast of the Irish Sea. The building was this stone circular watch tower of sorts. The guide said that there were 100 built every mile along the coast to watch for French ships led by Napoleon, the Irish were afraid of an invasion. The museum is also near the town or county of Dun Laoghaire, which as you may know, is mentioned in P.S. I Love You. (Pronounced "Dun Leary"). This made me happy when our guide mentioned it.

My favorite part about this stop was that after we took a look in the museum we all headed out to the shore of the Sea and climbed down and across the rocks to the start of the sea and tide pools. It was GORGEOUS and so fun! Barnacles clung to the rocks and there was algae on the rocks making them really slippery. A friend of mine, Nelly, thought her plan out ahead of time and packed an extra change of clothes so she could go for a dip if the moment presented itself. Needless to say she slipped in a few minutes before we left and swam for a few seconds in her clothes. My friend Emily W. took cool pictures of us on the rocks and climbing, I'll have to edit this post when I can get them from her. They are sweet, so come back and look at them!

The second part of the day came when we got back on the coach and drove to Glendalough. (Pronounced Glenda-low, low as in "aLOWed") The coach driver drove very jerkily and made us all sort of sick. He slammed on the breaks twice, which I don't think should be done to a small coach bus carrying 25 people. Glendalough is a monastic ruins site where this St. Kevin guy founded a church and people came to follow him. The site itself was okay, my favorite part about the site was the graveyards in which we found a gravestone for an Edward Cullen. YES, I am that much of a nerd. Pictures of this to come later too. But apart from that occurrence it was only okay. The fabulous part was again, the landscape. It looked similar to the lake district, placed in a valley, trees of various natures and types with moss on their trunks growing on either side surrounded by medium tall grass and a couple walking paths. As soon as we left the monastic city the adventure began.

I traveled with three other friends, Emily C., Joel, and Katie. As we walked along the path towards the two lakes in this area we stopped to recreate scenes from LOTR. These will also be posted at a soon but later date. The path ran next to a wooded hill on the left and various other landscapes on the right. The left is where all our interest lay on this particular walk. We found this huge boulder where Joel crouched on top looking menacing and about to pounce (Smegal) and I stood below looking oh so innocent appearing to gaze at the "ring" in my hands (a hobit). It was great. We also found a spot up in the wooded hill area to our left to sit and read for about 45 mins. It was also great, we could see everyone who passed by us and they could see us, though it was fun to make animal noises in their direction before they noticed us.

After this we continued along the path and came to the second lake. (We had passed the first one because we couldn't really find a good place to sit) This lake was in between giant tree-lined hills and the water lapped at the gravel shore. There were some tame-ish ducks that followed us around when we got there and one of them stole an ice cream cone from this other walked and made a run for it into the lake, only to have the cone soon disintegrate about 15 feet out, but not before we all had a good laugh. Pictures of this to come also.

We finished the day with a quick dinner at Subway and a Literary Pub Crawl. Basically it was this neat, guided tour of four famous pubs that famous Irish Writers drank in. Our guides were really funny and at the end had a trivia time for a T-shirt. Whoever got the most questions right won a T-shirt. Some lady from Canada won. The tour was really neat, and though I had heard most of the information before, it was cool to see the places I'd heard so much about in connection to the writers I'd read. Thirteen of us from the group went on the tour this time and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The pubs were severely crowded more than normal and the guides had to speak louder than normal in order to cover the voices of the drunken Dubliners surrounding us. This bring me to the celebration of Guinness' 250th Year as a beer. (These guys here were our guides. Ironically the left guy has lost weight since the picture was taken and the right guy has gained.)

Earlier in the evening, exactly at 5:59 pm, tons of people crowded into any and all pubs in the city, especially those located in the popular Temple Bar area where food and drink is always over priced, and raised their glasses of Guinness to...well the invention of the thing. From our hotel windows shouts of "Woo!" and "Yeah!" could be heard from the nearby pubs. People came straight from work to help the country celebrate this "momentous" day in history and continue to celebrate as I write this-at 1:36 am.

Walking the streets we saw the "most interesting things" in relation to this celebration. Early in the day there was this guy who was escorted into an ambulance with a bloody forearm, and throughout the night we saw person after person stumble around the sidewalk, singing songs as if trying to imitate alley cats. We heard numerous unintelligible shouts across streets and shouts from the person standing right next to you to the person right next to them. My roommate reported to me that she saw a guy try to stop traffic and wave his friends across, then proceed to dancing with arms straight and extended in front of him towards the next sidewalk. Strange things I tell you!

But this day was definitely a good one. Relaxing at Glendalough and amusing at the pub crawl and afterwards.

Thanks for reading!

Mount Snowdon, Wales, Flowers, and Variety Shows

Hmmmm, what haven't you heard about my trip since we last talked? Well let's see...I climbed a mountain, stayed in an amazing library, had two variety show parties, went to the Beatles Story in Liverpool, saw amazing flowers and streams in Botnant Garndens in Wales, went to an antique shop in Wales and bought some sweet old keys, went to the Brontë sister's home, and did a whole lot in London...I think I might make London another entry altogether.

Okay so to start out let me tell you about our stay at St. Deiniol's Library. It's actually a study center that is focused around an amazing library that this guy named Gladstone who was this guy who evangelized to prostitutes. Don't worry, nothing happened. His wife actually came along with him when he did this and together they tried to get these women of the night to change their ways. In this study center there are numerous painting and pictures and cartoons of Gladstone hanging EVERYWHERE on the walls, in the library, in every single hall, in the dining room, in the lounge, in the front hallway, in the stairwells...and the best thing is that in every picture of him, he's got those type of eyes that follow you wherever you go so he is always staring at you. It was rather creepy at times.

While at St. Deiniol's our schedule was rather hobit-like:

8-9 am- Breakfast

9:30 am- Class

10:45ish am- Morning Tea/Coffee and Cake

11:15 am- Class

Noon- Lunch

4 pm- Afternoon Tea/Coffee and Cake

6:45 pm- Dinner

7:45 pm- After-dinner refreshments (Tea/Coffee)

So as you can see, our schedule was something to the extent of eat, sleep, eat, class, eat, lunch, eat, dinner, eat, sleep, eat. But that was totally acceptable because we climbed a mountain that week and in that day alone we burned something like 3,107 calories or more. Needless to say whenever we ate a lot we justified it with, "But we climbed a mountain yesterday...two days ago...three days ago...in the last week."

A few things we came to notice about food in the UK was that they put sweet cream on a LOT of stuff, mostly desserts. Sweet cream is like thick cream that you would put in your coffee but a lot sweeter. Something else was that fish and chips is pretty much equivalent to the hamburger in the US...there are fish and chips places everywhere and they always have it on the menu.

And now to the mountain I mentioned. When we were in Wales we took a bus ride to the location of this mountain in Snowdonia. Sweet name, I know. The hike up took about 3 1/2 hours and 2 hours back down. Now, I do have something to confess. I did not make it all the way to the top. I was within about 25 minutes of reaching the summit. But in my defense, I was pretty much climbing alone for the most part, I hadn't had a lot to eat, and I got stuck in a cloud very close to the top. In that cloud the rain was pelting my hood of my jacket almost horizontal to the ground, it was so cold that the rain was really tiny, sharp, shards of ice. There were also ice crystals on my pants and my glasses were useless because of the weather. Due to the very nature of a cloud it was also very foggy and I couldn't see more than about ten feet in front of me with or without my glasses. If I would have been a few minute fast and had more energy I could have avoided the worst of the weather and gotten above the clouds, but alas. I'm still amazed that I made it all the way up that far though.

Climbing up, the scenery was beautiful and it kept increasing. There was a trolly line that took people up to the top so they could just to the climb down. We like to refer to those people as "cheaters". I met some interesting people during the climb. There was a couple that I stopped and had a snack with at the last resting point before the summit and there was an Irishman I met on the way down smoking a cigarette that had encountered the same thing in the cloud that I had and likewise had to turn back.

My knees and ankles were so sore the next two days, it hurt to climb up to my room and go down to tea. It felt like I had started skating again and went straight for the Senior long program-no warm up.

Towards the end of our stay at St. Deiniol's Library we had our first ET party consisting of everyone doing a talent, or reading something they wrote, or dancing. I had previously collected from people "Literary confessions/ET confessions" in which people wrote down things they wanted to anonymously share with the group. For instance, I got submissions like "I haven't started my paper that's due in two days or read the reading yet", "I hate Pride and Prejudice", and "I'm not going to lie, I applied for ET because I think British accents are hot." So I read those off and they were pretty funny. I also read off a couple haikus I had written. One was:

One, two, three, four, five.

One, two, three, four, five, six, sev'.

One, two, three, four, five.

Other students sang Beatles' songs with musical accompaniments by other members of the group including the professor. Two girls lip-synced to Aaron Carter's "Aaron's Party" song from the middle school era. It was great. A couple people played the piano and all the guys on the trip made a band which they named something like the Spectacular Six and played and sang a bunch of Beatles' songs. St. Deiniol's was fabulous and I wish we could go back.

Thanks for reading!

Pictures to come later, due to the fact that my camera is full and I have to load them on my laptop first.

Beatrix Potter and the Lake District

So I realize now that, even though I have internet in my room, that doesn't guarantee a blog entry. But that means that I've been really active and too tired to write, so...I think it's okay. So when I last left you I believe I was still in Edinburgh, Scotland. I am now in Keswick-silent "w"-England. This is a small town in the Lake District. Before coming to the Lake District we stayed one night on an island off the eastern coast of England called Lindisfarne or Holy Island. I actually didn't know what this island was or where it was until our prof Dr. Ritchie ("DR") told us a little about it. I then realized that it was the very same island that was a focus point of a BBC TV show from the '80s that I had watched and LOVED over the summer. So to make a connection to a place was really a cool experience. The place we stayed in was a Christian B&B of sorts. They didn't require any payment but had a suggested donation. It was a three story house with really narrow staircases and only a couple bathrooms and showers. Two people had to stay in another house they owned down the street because there were so many of us. I had to lug my suitcase all the way to the  top floor. Before heading to bed that night, a group of us walked along the beach of the North Sea and talked and enjoyed ourselves, walking barefoot and skipping stones into the sea. As we walked we noticed that there we a lot of unusual things in the sand that we didn't normally see in the states or the midwest. My friend Allison collected sea glass and I collected bits of broken painted china. We found lots of crabs along the shore, some dead, some alive. There was a steep cliff near the beach on which was a castle and various ruins of previous buildings. We sat up there and watched the sea for a while, the boys even climbed the rock face up to the top. And one detail about this island I have not yet mentioned is that it is connected to the mainland by a causeway, which means that during the day through four o'clock you can get onto and off the island. After that and overnight, the tide comes in and seals off the island. So while we were walking the beach we had taken off our shoes and set them on a bunch of rocks some 30 feet from the sea. Well, about an hour later we came back to that spot and notice that the water had come up about 20 feet in the time that we'd been gone. So we put our shoes back a bit and kept walking in the other direction. When we started back to our shoes from that direction we turned around and noticed that our path was completely obscured and we had to then walk on rocks and seaweed. It was really gross! We got to our shoes and things just in time. The place we stayed at served us home made dinner and breakfast with our stay-it was delicious quiche and toast and cereal and such. Lots of tea too!  In the morning I got up to watch the sun rise. I had to get up at 5:15am and I walked out to the east end of the island near the castle. At the point where I stood, the sea was on my right with a handful of fishing boats in in, and on my left was a stone wall with a field of sleepy sheep on the other side. In front of me lay the island castle. Twas a beautiful sunrise! Almost like the movies, but better :) The picture below of the castle I didn't take but on the path where all people are is where I stood, and the tide was in so there were boats in the water to the right.

The next night we had to leave our suitcases on the coach bus and pack stuff in out backpacks for a night because it was a quarter mile walk to our overnight place from where the coach dropped us off. We stayed at Durham University in Durham Hall I think it was. They had pretty nice dorms and wifi. That was the night before our first journal entries were due so a lot of us stayed up late to finish. After we left Durham and before we came to the Lake District, we climbed Hadrian's Wall, which is a wall the the emperor Hadrian built to keep people out of his land or something like that. It was really steep at points but it was totally worth it when we got to the top and saw the landscape. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera operating for a few days so I personally didn't get any pics of this place but others did and when they upload them I will show you! There's this one my friend Corbin took of me where I'm right out on the edge of a drop and the landscape stretches out behind me. It's pretty epic. There were three hills we climbed, all were led up and down by wet slippery rocks placed as steps. A couple of times I wished that mom hadn't told me her "rock shock" story so many times.

After Hadrian's Wall we arrived in the Lake District and settled down in a Christian center in Keswick (remember the silent "w"!). Also a nice facilities, but when we started to do some wash we discovered that there was only one washer and dryer and that it took two hours to wash and two hours to dry clothes, and even then they weren't dry. So a few people did laundry like this, one person even got up at 4am to finish his. My roommate went to do some and came back and told me she found out that all you had to do was turn the setting to "quick" and off of "cotton" and it only took 35 minutes. HAHA. All those people spent time doing laundry for four hours but all you had to do was program it differently. But I suppose that could have happened to me too, but it didn't. We've been doing lots of hiking and sightseeing while we are in the Lake District. The other day we went to a poet's house named Wordsworth. Not the house, the poet. We hiked up six miles to see Castlerigg, a stonehenge type of ruin that is in Keswick. That was actually really pretty and the hike itself was beautiful. I have some pics in my friends' cameras from that trip too. One day, we went to an outdoors adventures place and went canoeing and did archery. It was heavy rain that day so they gave us waterproofs and Wellies (Wellington rain boots) to wear. I AM SO GLAD THEY DID. I still got soaked to the skin but at least I was relatively warm and some of me was dry. The leaders first taught us how to make a raft out of two canoes tied together with ropes and two wooden boards. We had to come up with a paddle chant to keep in time with each other. Our's was the name of our other professor who's joining us later in the trip. So when we were out in the middle of the lake you could hear us chanting "MARK. BRUCE. MARK. BRUCE. MARK. BRUCE." They then had us do a practice figure eight around two buoys just offshore and then paddle halfway around a nearby island. When we got to the other side they had us do some exercises in teamwork and canoe balancing. They made us rotate 360 degrees around the raft from where we were sitting originally by walking from one end to the other then crawling across the wooden plank (over the water, and the plank was like 4 inches wide) to the other canoe and then the same thing again to get back to our original spot. THEN they had us tie two rafts together (four canoes total) and do the same thing and rotate. After this exercise we played a game of "Canoe Polo" in which it was played with a tennis ball and pretty much like basket ball in canoes and on water. The goals were the two leader's small motor boats. We had to pass the ball between team members and toss it into the goal boat. The fun thing was that we got COMPLETELY competitive and thus completely soaked because we would splash each the opposing team to try and make them lose their concentration or give up the ball. It was actually our professor who initiated this form of competitive spirit and began soaking his students with water with the handy use of his paddle. After my team lost this game (2 to 5) we paddle against the wind back to shore but mid paddle we started to gain ground considerably faster than we had been previously paddling. We then realized that we were being pushed from behind by our leader and his boat. He was also pulling our team mates behind him in their raft. It was an extremely fun activity. After we spit into two groups, one who went and did some more deep water activities, and my group who did orienteering and archery. I didn't like the orienteering very much but I LOVED the archery! I got third place in scores at the end and even hit a balloon on the last round with my arrow. We were so tired that afternoon when we came back that we all kind of pooped out and napped or relaxed and made a communal meal of stir fry. 

Since then we've done a lot of reading, had some class time, and hiked some more. Today I went to Beatrix Potter's house. It was neat but a little anti-climactic. We we met by some women at the door who told us all the rules of the house: your backpacks had to be held in front of you, not on your back or to the side, water bottle had to be removed and left at the door, and there was no photography of any kind inside the house. We ended up leaving our back packs at the door because it was ridiculous to carry them in front of ourselves. They gave us a little slip of paper that had a return number on it and we had to present it to get our back packs back, even though we were the only Americans there and we were the only two who had back packs up front. The  house looked bigger from the outside than it did inside, the rooms were tiny and had lower ceilings than usual. They had some of her original drawings for her books on display which was actually pretty neat. I love Beatrix Potter stories! Especially her drawings, they are adorable! I remembered the video that we had a Grandma's house that had on it a recorded episode of Peter Cottontale and Benjamin Bunny. We also went to see another place that had more of her stuff on display and I bought some postcards to put up on my wall when I get home of her stories. A group of girls and I went to a café called Poppi Red that had attached to it, a boutique type of store that had amazing stuff! Really cute girly/sophisticated/vintage/patterned/rhinestoned and pearled/lacey/vintage/boutique-y/unique stuff all over their walls and on tables and on sewing mannequins and sprawled out everywhere. It looked almost like the bedroom of Penelope in the movie Penelope. It was there that I spied my first real purchase of the trip: an off-white wire-shaped dress jewelry holder. It is shaped just like the necklace mom got for me after I passed my Senior Moves in the Field test and Senior Freestyle but about a foot tall and is beautifully bent so there is swirls and hooks on the dress that are for putting one's jewelry on. Oh! which reminds me, I found my rings that I couldn't f ind before I left in a pocket of my purse a couple days into the trip! They are still with me and I am so happy to have found them again! Anyways, I have been legitimately looking for a wall/desk thing to decoratively hang stuff on since middle school, so it is really cool that I found something in England for just that purpose! The website for the shop is: http://www.poppi-red.co.uk/  Check it out! 

Well, it is almost 2am here and my roommate is sleeping so I'm going to sign off for now, but hopefully I will write again soon. Especially if I've forgotten anything important :) Lots o' hugs!

Thanks for reading!

So... St. Giles Uses Wine for Communion

In case you're worried about the title, don't be. I'll explain later. 

I think the last thing I left you with was about stuff on Thursday morning. That was a bit ago, sorry. Thursday night we went to the Scottish Military Tattoo. NO, I did not GET a tattoo, I WENT to one. This one showed a bunch of military bands who performed a number of pieces. Some were original compositions, some were random pop songs played by musicians in uniforms dancing to the beat and making formation after formation. It was kind of like drum line show or ice show. There were spotlights and projections of images on the castle wall. (oh, sorry forgot to mention it was just outside the gates of Edinburgh Castle) There were fireworks throughout the show and all kinds of performances from bands from Scotland, South Africa, Switzerland, and many others. My guess is that they were all countries in alliance or who help out/are part of the Scottish military. Not exactly sure how it works but it was really cool. At the beginning of the show before things got started the announcer got over the loud speaker and welcomed each group of attendants from each of their countries and each country's citizen's cheered when they were announced. Sadly, our England Term group also cheered when the name of Robert Burns was announced, for it is the 240th anniversary of his birth or death. Can't remember. But then again, what do you expect from a bunch of English Lit nerds? (see bottom for video)

A few of Burns' poems were read and dances were done along to the reading. There were also a couple of his poems that were sung by a performer. Oh, and at the very beginning of the show, they very first performance was about a hundred bagpipers marching in formation playing a couple of pieces. It was awesome! I have a video of it and if I can, I will post it. If you guys ever have a chance to go to a military tattoo anywhere, I HIGHLY suggest you go, though you will have to be on the lookout for tickets WAY in advance. We got ours in January and we didn't even have main seats. We could definitely see everything, but I was literally the last person in the middle row on the very end of the stadium.

Friday morning we had class again at Edinburgh University. We had a Robert Burns impersonator/interpreter come in and give a "one man show" of sorts. He gave info about his life growing up and how he got into writing poetry and then worked in some of his poetry into the performance. At one point he got so intense in his recitation that he kind of started foaming at the mouth, but I think it was really just spit from speaking so fast and in a heavy Scottish accent. And about halfway through he asked for two guy volunteers to act out a drinking poem with him. He took them aside and told them what he wanted and then they sat down and started singing one of Burns' drinking poems and "taking shots". One of the volunteers was a theatre major so he really hammed up the drinking of the "whisky", which was really tea. It was really funny! After class and questions to Chris Tait (the Burns guy) we had the day free. Some of the group was going to a professional Fringe play called Iago (a one man show, and a take off of Othello) and the rest of us are going tonight. During the rest of the day I went with a group and my professor Mark Bruce, to the Scottish History Museum where there were a ton of artifacts and these guys playing sweet scottish music. After a while I got a little bored and ventured away with another group to the Elephant House Café where J.K. Rowling first went to write Harry Potter. It was small but nice. You can see Edinburgh Castle from the back window! After that I went back to my flat and chilled, then went to the Metropole Café (where I've been every day this week) and had coffee and did homework and went to bed. 

Wait, I lied. I also went to the Palace at Holyrood where the Queen comes to stay when she's in Scotland. It was a loooooong walk there but totally worth it! The palace was amazing! The grounds were huge and there was a gorgeous hill next to it which I did not climb. Others did, but me and my posse were tired from the day and had a lot to carry. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the palace but I'm sure you can find them online. Me and another friend went to a Fringe show called "How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse". It was a "seminar" on...how to survive a zombie apocalypse. Pretty self explanatory. It was really funny and well written. We finished there and then walked back and went to bed. Yep, I think that's it for Friday. 

Saturday dawned and we had a day trip planned with Mark to another palace and another Castle. Linlithgow Palace was this abandoned old ruin of a castle...HUGE and very, windy. We got to go to the top of one of the turrets and look down. It looked higher once you were up there than when you were down on the ground looking up. Me and a friend had to use the bathroom and discovered they didn't have one so we had to trek down to a public loo and pay ten pence to use it. It was worth it. 

Our next stop was at Stirling Castle. IT WAS SO GORGEOUS. Looked around a little and sat down on a hill to write and look out over the land. Google pics of it, it's so pretty! We got back from that and everyone took naps and got awakened by a loud fire alarm set off by someone's shower steam. Second time that's happened this week. Annoying. We just kinda hung around our flat and made a spaghetti dinner. Me and three others then went to another Fringe show called Broken Holmes which was a take off of a Sherlock Holmes play. Funny for the most part. 

Today (Sunday), I went to church with friends at St. Giles church in Edinburgh. It is a Presbyterian church and a really pretty venue. There was communion and apparently I hadn't thought to think about whether I'd be wine or grape juice. I should have know it'd be wine, but in my little Baptist-grape-juice train of thought, it just didn't come up. So it was only after I tasted it that I realized it tasted a little more...alcoholic than what I was used to. But everything else went well and the church service and "sermon" picked up right where my church back home left off-exactly. Funny how that works huh?

And that leads up until right now, where I am writing this blog and plan to do laundry later and repack my suitcase. It has somehow kind of exploded. So, I think that's it and comment please!

Thanks for reading! More photos to come for the last bit of this entry...didn't upload them from camera yet.

Castle and University of Edinburgh

Yesterday was our first full day of touring around and getting used to using our flat, our keys and navigating Scottish streets. I think we did pretty well! We found our way to the Castle of Edinburgh and down the streets through the Royal Mile which is where the original town sprouted up down the hill alongside the "driveway" to the castle. There are tons of tourist shops and little tours to take and all. It's all very busy and crowded but strangely I kind of felt a little more at home there because I knew everyone else was probably a tourist too. Especially because it is in the middle of the Fringe Festival. The Fringe Festival, for those who don't know ( I didn't until yesterday!) is a huge week long festival of theatre, dance, musical and pretty much any other performance you could imagine put on by anyone and everyone. But the sweet thing is that there are a ton of legit plays and question-answer things to go to! Some are comedy, some are drama, others...well use your imagination. When you walk down the street everyone is dressed in costumes and sometimes performing in the street and sidewalks and courtyards. Everyone is trying their hardest to get you to come to their performance and to pay their entrance fee or even just to get their name and face out there that you get bombarded by pamphlets and people with really weird face paint and costumes. There was even a guy with bat/dracula-like wing walking around on stilts and a guy dressed up in a wizard's clothes singing a song he dedicated to "Sabrina the Teenage Witch". His CDs were selling for £2, and people were buying them. 

And before all this my roommates and I and a few other girls went up to the Edinburgh Castle. It was huge! I think I was still a little out of it from traveling because I kind of felt removed from the experience but I still enjoyed it immensely. There was a gorgeous view from the top in which there was also this shear-ish sort of drop. My favorite parts were visiting the dungeons and seeing the prisoner of war parts of the castle. It was so neat! It was dank and dark, but clean because of all the tourists who pass through daily. Admission was £13. They also had the crown jewels on display as well as the crown and a ceremonial sward and a TON of massive shiny objects we commonly call "diamonds and other precious stones". In the gift shop they had these little bookmark things of all the different Scottish clans and their family crest along with a plaid pattern. Reminded me of Brigadoon :) But of course it would...because I'm in Scotland!

Today, we had two short classes in a room at the University of Edinburgh. One on travel writing, which is not at all what I thought it was. It's more of learning to write articles on how to get around places, what to do in certain cities if you want to make the best of your stay, or where the good places are to visit or even exploring local shops and culture. I thought it was just a fancy way of saying we'd have essays and papers to write on the trip. PSH. We have those due too, as well as journals about our experiences. 

The other class was on some of the reading we had to finish by today. Mainly history of Scotland and some works of John Knox and an article out of Christianity Today about protestants making pilgrimages of sorts. I really liked that one, it was interesting because the author pointed out that we can find something spiritual about everywhere we go and learn and grow from every trip. There was more to it but that was the general gist.  

More to come! Thanks for reading!

I'M HERE!!!!!

I made it safely and soundly through about 8 1/2 hours of flights, two airports and two plane meals (which were quite good actually) and now I am sitting in an internet café with like eight other people listening to live music via a singer and a bass player. The funny thing is that the singer just said that he wrote a song for a very famous stand up comedian in the US...I've never heard of him. 

After leaving Minneapolis we arrived at the Amsterdam airport around 11:00. I got a few minutes of sleep here and there but it's hard staying in one position for 7 hours. There were in-flight movies in front of each person built into the seat back. I didn't watch anything because I was really tired to begin with and then I decided to take a Dramamine so I could maybe get some sleep to set my body's clock closer to the time it should be. I didn't do much other than listen to my iPod (thank you Ryan for the earbuds!!) and sleep. 

The flight attendants came around with a chicken dinner and potatoes, a bread roll with butter, crackers and cheese, and a brownie. All normal drinks were free...it was fun and the food was really good. They closed the sliding things on the windows to block the sunlight so we could sleep. And then in the morning we got some sort of egg and cheese McMuffin thing. Then we had a layover at Amsterdam and had an hour flight to Edinburgh. 

We got picked up from the airport by someone and taken to our campus flats that we're staying in for 3 days or so. We each have our own rooms for the most part or share with one other person in each little apartment. We even have a kitchen and dining room! And my room has two little corner windows that open at the top...no blankets though that I've seen yet...maybe I'll find some later. 

We all had about an hour and a half to grab dinner and get back for a short meeting with the leaders of the trip and everyone else. Me and five other girls wondered around a little bit until we found a pub of sorts that had cheapish food (mine was £6). I ordered "Highland Chicken" which was a chicken breast stuffed with haggis and mashed potatoes on the side with this weird salty, light-colored gravy. It was really good! I'm surprised at how haggis tasted. I don't think I'd order it again but I liked it enough of each about 2/3 of it.

After our meeting we all agreed to check out this wireless café that we'd seen while searching for dinner. And that's where I am now! But I have to let someone else use the laptop now...Pictures and more blogging later! 

Thanks for reading!

Á Travers L'étang

Roughly translated: "across the pond".

So in two days I will be on a plane traveling abroad to study on location in England, France, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and hopefully Italy. I am studying literature, drama, and writing as we travel Western Europe. I don't know when I'll be able to blog when abroad, but my goal is to update whoever reads this thing as often as I have time, an internet connection, and whenever I have something interesting or witty to report. Perhaps I'll meet and become best friends with some international celebrity. That, I will dutifully report. But since travel such as this is all new to me, you may also get the occasional "I accidentally walked into the wrong bathroom!" story or the "Got mugged again. Bummer of a day" too. Read at your own risk.

I'm kinda nervous to fly and to travel in places where I don't know what's going on. I mean, I don't even use public transportation here where I live! But hopefully I will find a travel buddy who knows what they're doing and is not afraid of me tagging along looking like a lost puppy. BUT WAIT! What if I get over there and suddenly have this revelation and I just KNOW what I'm doing and how to navigate the trains? Though highly unlikely in all probability, I'm hoping for the best possible statistical outcome between the two methods of getting from Point A to Point B. 

One thing I am not nervous about is being away from my family. Though I have never been away as long as a semester, (10 days is the longest) I think I tend to do alright on the homesickness scale. I miss people, but only those who I talk to everyday and really depend on for support and friendship. Which may or may not include my family depending on the day. Only kidding. But I think the thing I'm looking forward to the most is just learning to rely on myself and seeing what I can accomplish outside of my home or house. Home=university, house=where I live during summers :)

In conclusion, finally, to sum up, and altogether, I hope that I will be okay and fine on this trip, including growing in my faith and ability to navigate public transport. Also perhaps packing a suitcase. I will try to update as much as possible, but not bore you with the typical stories you hear from travelers like "the airline lost my luggage" and "so apparently it's the rainy season and I don't have a jacket". Also, if you find anything I write interesting or commentable, please let me know by dropping a comment in the box located through the "comments" link at the end of each post. I love to hear from you mysterious few readers! Until next time, au revoir et...

 Merci pour lirez!

I'd like a cup of cheeze, please. Cheddar if you have it.

So here comes the blog that inevitably talks about Life with a capital 'L' and about what I've learned so far and how I'm doing with my choices. Basically a huge bucket of "OMG, that is soooo cheesy" is about to happen. Thus the title. In case you were wondering.

...Well you could have been.

Up until starting college, I really never had any friends-YES, I had friends, there's more to the sentence, keep reading-that went to the same school as me and the same church. Or the same church and who skated with me. Or any other combination of school, skating and church. I was pretty tucked away by my lonesome. But going to college I found a fantastic group of friends, both handsome guys and lovely ladies, who are by my side in everything. We go to school together and some of us go to church together. I don't skate anymore so that part is out of the equation. But I have found that for the most part I am able to stay acquainted at the least with some skating friends, even though we no longer skate together-or at all. 

In going to college at a private Christian university, I am able to strengthen my faith as well as learn life lessons on and off campus through a variety of mediums: classes, church, relationships with people, or on my own. I am aware that being a private university I am, to an extent in what the students like to call "the bubble". Meaning everything is well and good on campus and in classes and with your friends, but due to the nature of the type of school, there is a kind of separation from the "real world" that we experience. It's not always a huge difference, but we are aware of it. But I think, to someone who is spiritually healthy and trusts God, it doesn't matter where you are, you will have strife and you will have peace.

In the last two years of school, I have really come to see what it means to live a Christian life, both on campus and off. Which in reality, should not be any different. The most important life lesson that God has taught me and continues to teach me is that I can trust in Him and Him alone for my needs. When I am down and out, no money, struggling with a relationship with a friend at the time, or just feel like crap, He is always there to talk to and to trust. And even though I might want to talk to friends or family or rely "luck" to get me through the next week of final exams, those things and people cannot in any way measure up to God's faithfulness and steadfast love for me. I have been taught this lesson many times in the last two years. First when I was deciding when and how to stop skating. I did NOT want to do it, but I couldn't see any way TO continue in the sport financially or emotionally. So I passed my last two Gold tests, competed my last competition at the collegiate level, and sat back and anxiously waited for God to show me what to do next. I had no freakin' clue what was going to happen or what I was going to fall back on once skating was done. Skating was my life and who I was, I didn't know what type of person I would become without the daily trips to the rink and sore muscle and the same four minute music playing day after day. Who was I to become without this activity? Well, apparently God knew what He was doing-ha, of course he did. He got me deeply involved with music and playing in the university orchestra as a cellist. He gave me a wonderful Christ-oriented conductor who is passionate about what she does and knows that even though the playing of the music is in itself a performance, it is firstly a way to glorify God and all that he has done and given to us, in beauty, trouble, angst, passion, love, and of course, melodies. God also gave me a wonderful dorm to live in and some swell RAs and an RD and his wife to hang out with. Yes, I just used "swell". Deal with it, I'm takin' it back old-school yo. Okay, I'm done with old-school. Moving on.

Then recently at the end of spring term, I was incredibly down and out with money. I mean, a maximum of $7 to my name at any given point and I had to pay for last minute books so I could study for finals, I had to pay for my cell phone, and other small things that very quickly added up to more than I had. I ended up where I had about a week left and I really needed to pay for some stuff. I couldn't sleep and I was hurrying to finish papers as well as stressing MAJORLY about the money issue. A couple nights that week, I literally just broke down and cried out of frustration and fear and asked God to come save me, to come rescue me from myself and somehow provide some money for the next couple of weeks. I even asked my RA, my brilliant RA Chris, to pray for me and keep me in his thoughts. He could really tell I was stressing and kept inquiring about the state of my consciousness and social compatibility level with others that last week of school. I'm pretty sure he was one of the people who kept me sane that week. Then, out of no where I get two checks in my PO. One comes with an email saying that I was the "social leader" for the orchestra and that it is a paid position. I'm thinking, "What? I've been a social leader for a semester and not known it? Wait. I've been employed for a semester or more and not known it? SA-WEET!" Thank you God! I guess my conductor thought it was worth her while to pay me for getting her on Facebook and setting up groups and events for concerts and making fan videos of all the stuff our ensemble did that year. So, out of nowhere I had about a hundred bucks. I also got a check from another small job I had on campus or something, I can't exactly remember, but it helped tremendously. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to keep much of that money, but I didn't need it to keep, I needed it for bills that had to get paid. God provided for me in a great way.

Now, I'm learning to look to Him first when I get in trouble or feel alone or confused. Three major things are on my mind currently: again money for studying abroad in three weeks, losing weight, and boys. Specifically a boy. I desperately needs funds for the fall. I was not able to find a job this summer due to the current economy and the fact that I'm leaving mid-August. I have NO CLUE where I'm going to come up with spending money for the trip and I'm actually really scared about that. I've been praying a lot, but I'm not seeing any opportunities yet. I am also stressing about my weight. Mostly because my mother incessantly nags me about getting medical tests done to check why I've gained weight in the last two years. Well, three things that most likely caused that: I'm an emotional eater and she stresses me like no other, I've stopped skating, thus I don't burn upwards of 800 calories a day, and I'm in college. Again that adds stress. I'm working on it, that's all I can say. And finally that boy. There's always one isn't there? I've recently become aware that I'd like to be loved. I want to captivate someone. No really, I am without a doubt loved by my family and my girlfriends, but I feel that I could handle some attention from the opposite sex. The only thing is that I don't know if he's at all interested, plus I'm not sure if he likes this other girl I know or not. That, of course, provides it's own problems and I'd be really sad if he was already taken. PLUS, I'm going away for almost four months so I wouldn't see him and he wouldn't see me. And you know what they say, "Location, location, location." *ARGH!*

So, that is what I've learned and experience and what is on my mind and heart up until now. One last thing. Above all I have learned that love can conquer all. Not in a cheesy movie type, well maybe, and definitely not in a hippie "make love not war" way, but in a real, honest, pure way. Love is all that we can give on this earth. It is so much more infinitely powerful than any other emotion or action; especially more powerful than hate. Love one another despite what they do or don't do. You don't have to agree with their choices, but love them no matter what and leave the rest in God's hands. He'll know what to do.

I leave you with two verses than mean a lot to me and that have been very active in my life lately:

Matthew 6:25-34

²⁵"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

 ²⁸"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

 

And Psalm 150

¹ Praise the LORD. 

      Praise God in his sanctuary; 

      praise him in his mighty heavens.

 ² Praise him for his acts of power; 
       praise him for his surpassing greatness.

 ³ Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, 
       praise him with the harp and lyre,

 ⁴ praise him with tambourine and dancing, 
       praise him with the strings and flute,

 ⁵ praise him with the clash of cymbals, 
       praise him with resounding cymbals.

 ⁶ Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. 
       Praise the LORD.

Thanks for reading!