Traveling the world

There's an excerpt from a work by Montesquieu that we studied in class this semester about a Persian who travels the world and ends up in Paris. He says that even though they occupy the same green Earth as the Persians, they are completely different people. I've realized in all of my traveling (especially the 4 different places that I was these past two weeks,) that the world really is huge and the way that we live is all so incredibly different.

You've already heard a bit about our trip to Rome and Venice, so here's the brief rundown of the Cheryls taking on Dublin and London!

Dublin was by far the best trip to date (in my opinion)! Okay, so Dublin itself is cool, but not where I'd like to spend the rest of my life, type deal. Our first day there, we wandered around the city..which really isn't that big. We met some Anglican ministers from Newfoundland in front of Christ Church Cathedral and talked with them for a bit. We thought that they were Irishmen at first since their accent was so thick! Cheryl and I were both on a budget, so we didn't pay to do much in Ireland, so that meant that we enjoyed the cathedrals from the outside, which was okay since there were beautiful gardens everywhere and gorgeous smelling tulips that we stopped to smell! We sat in the gardens outside of St. Patrick's Cathedral for quite some time, enjoying the sun when it peeped out, Cheryl whipped through two books and I made sure my diary was up to date. It was nice and relaxing. We then wandered through St. Stephen's Green and saw the bridge fom the movie "Leap Year", that we had watched before we left, and we meandered down Grafton Street - the busy, touristy, street performer street.

I must tell you of a highlight of the day. Upon leaving St. Patrick's Cathedral and pondering as to what we were to eat for lunch, we came across one of the best signs in the world: a supermarket sold products from TIM HORTONS!!!! We both became super excited and, with goofy smiles on our drooling faces, we basically ran into the supermarket and to the counter at the back where we found a pot of gold containing Tim Hortons muffins, donuts, coffee and hot chocolate. Okay, so it wasn't the best selection possible, nor did it really taste as "Always Fresh" as yours did this morning, but it was heavenly nonetheless.

The next day was the best day so far in Europe!! Cheryl and I hopped on a mini tour bus (14-16 seater) and, with our bus driver and guide Danny, took off for the Irish hills! There is so much to say about this day that it is impossible to explain it all here, and the views that we saw were so spectacular that no camera could ever truly capture what we saw, nor what we felt as we saw it. I could have spent entire weeks at some of the lakes that we saw or in some of the mountains that we drove through. Some highlights of the day: For Braveheart fans - yes, most of the movie was filmed in Scotland, but we saw a huge valley where some of it was filmed in Ireland. For P.S. I Love You fans - we stopped off at the bridge where Gerard Butler and Hilary Swank walk!! We took loads of pictures and tried to remember everything from that scene and had to explain the significance of that place to some German guys who had never heard of the movie (what a shame..). So basically - it was an incredible day, full of God's incredible, breath-taking creation that I wish I could have spent more time in.

Our next stop was London, England. Travel note for those who want to go there: never fly into Gatwick Airport. It's super far from the city and when it's late at night and you have no clue where to go, getting to your hostel in the northwest end of the city (sketchville, really) is difficult and annoying. But after a train, the tube (metro) and a taxi, we finally made it. There, No. 8 Hostel took like all of our money (legit - towel RENTALS were 3.50 English pounds!), and we finally went up to our room. We shared a room with a French girl and an English girl, which was actually super fun.

In England, it rains. So of course it would rain our first day there. But at least it doesn't rain for long/constantly/not a down pour. We saw the Tower Bridge and sang "London Bridge is Falling Down" and "London's Burning", cuz what else do you do when you're within sight of it? We saw the Tower of London, which I returned to later (there having a great tour with a Yaoman Warder and saw the Crown Jewels - including the biggest diamond in the world, which is over 500 carets and I was told not to compare my "tiny" diamonds on my hand to it). Cheryl and I visited Shakespeare's Globe, where his plays took place, but we couldn't go in since there was a play going on at that time. We also went on the London Eye that night. That was a lot of fun - seeing London from high up and spotting all the major landmarks. Highlight from that day: there was a 4D experience thing at the London Eye that our ticket included, so we went and the people next to us have probably never seen anything in 3D, much less 4D, since they got super excited and exclaimed at everything that popped out of the screen. Cheryl and I enjoyed their reactions almost better than the movie.

The next day was full: we had perfect spots to watch the changing of the guard in front of Buckingham Palace, and though I kept hoping that the queen would stick her head out the window and say hi, she never did. We took our time going through Westminster Abbey, seeing the graves of tons of famous people (many that I didn't even know were buried there), seeing where the monarchs are coronated and where Will and Kate got married and listening to tons of interesting history. We snapped some pictures of Big Ben, which was really cool to see, and sat in St. James' Park for awhile, seeing Canadian geese, the first squirrels we've seen since leaving Canada, and feeding pigeons out of our hands. Then we headed off to Trafalgar Square. Neither one of us really knew what to expect there, but we weren't prepared for what we did see. There was basketball stuff everywhere! Some international juniors thing was there and we so watched a basketball game! Then they invited people in the crowd to come onto the court and play Bump. So what do the Cheryls do? They go and play Bump in the middle of Trafalgar Square! That was something that neither one of us will forget anytime soon, I'm sure! We won't mention that Cheryl was bumped out by a kid... but he ended up winning the whole thing, so that makes it not so embarrassing ;)

The bus through the Chunnel wasn't as exciting as you'd think, but hey - I can say that I've been through the Chunnel! And that, my dear friends, was the end of our two week vacation. Now we're into exams - one last full week of classes this week, exams and review classes next week, and then our big, final grammar and oral exams. So close to being done, and yet so much still to do ... like that Art History paper that I'm supposed to be doing right now...