Pictures

Pictures from the British Museum and the trip to Dublin are up.  Only four more days til the West Coast of Ireland.

The Boat Race

Sunday was the only college sporting event the English care about, the Boat Race between Cambridge and Oxford.  This is a 16-18 minute rowing race around a bend in the Thames in Western London.  As we were told this was a huge event, we hopped on the Tube and headed down around 2.  The race started at 3:40.  As soon as we got out of the station, we knew exactly which way to head to get to the river because there were just massive crowds.  As soon as we got to the river and walked up on a bridge to see where in the course we should stand, I immediately realized the atmosphere was exactly like the South Side Irish parade.  There were bars lining the riverfront, packed with people on all floors looking onto the river, people lining the walls over the river, with a couple lanes of people trying to walk each way.  It looked exactly like 105th-109th and Western, people crammed between the gates and the store/bar fronts.  And no one really seemed to care about the race too much, it was more a day long event.  Everyone paid attention as the boats went by their part of the race, but then at the end when Oxford passed the line first, there was barely a loud cheer.  Maybe at the finish line there was a bigger celebration, but needless to say, the English don't treat college athletics like we do in the States.  

Eire go Brach

This weekend's adventure was to Dublin with William.  We left our flats at 4:40 am on Friday to catch a bus to another bus to the airport for our 8 am flight to Dublin.  We got into Dublin around 9 am, enough time for a full Friday.  Dublin is a rather small city compared to London, with not too many tourist attractions.  So, we walked through Trinity College, visited St. Patrick's Cathedral, saw the Guinness storehouse and Jameson distillery, walked through their awesomely green (as you'd expect) parks, went to the markets at Temple Bar, and saw the Dublin castle in our two days.  I really enjoyed the trip, probably because of the people.  The Irish were easily the friendliest people I've come across over here, and they love music.  All the pubs pretty much have free live music on the weekend, something London could definitely use.  It also was a bit of a shock to see Irish flags everywhere and have them be on government buildings not people's houses and rooms.. I guess that's what I get for living on the South Side.  

And now I just have to survive this week and a philo paper before its time to head to good old County Mayo.  I cannot wait to see the countryside and ride from the east coast to the west coast.  I've already warned those traveling with me that I'll be like a 6 year old on Christmas morning... 

May the roads rise up to meet you,

May the wind be always at your back,

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

The rain fall soft upon your fields,

And, until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand..

Big Time Dinner

Well, the time finally came for me to move past the Foreman and attempt by far our most courageous dinner to date.  Daniel James and myself headed out on a bit of an adventure to two grocery stores (one that was a bit easier to find than the other).  After receiving the recipe via e-mail from Dan's mom, we bought a solid share of pasta, chicken, peppers, walnuts, and basil pesto.  Since we had chicken breasts instead of an entire chicken as the recipe called for, I fried the chickens with olive oil on the stove.  As soon as those were cooked the male-only stove team moved onto frying the walnuts and then sauteing the peppers.  Once that was all done, we fried them all a bit together and mixed in pesto noodles.   To go with, I made some garlic cheese tomato ciabatta bread, easily my best bread creation.  We had ourselves quite the feast, and people said they actually enjoyed it.  

Les Miserables

One of the benefits of living in London versus South Bend (and there are many believe me) is some of the best theatre in the world five minutes away from school.  This Monday night a group of 7 of us got to the Les Miserables ticket booth a little over an hour early to get in line for student tickets (West End shows put all their unsold tickets up for sale at half price an hour before the show for students)  We were able to get a group of 5 and a group of 2 tickets together in the stalls.  The seats were amazing, third row, but the music and show were even better.  You know it's good when the three hours fly by like nothing.  Better than Wicked or Joseph or any other musical I believe I've seen back home.

Happy Mother's Day

A Happy Mother's Day to my mom and mothers everywhere.. Today happens to be Mother's Day over here in England, so I guess you get two this year Mom.  Have Dad buy you a box a Pixies for me.. 

Friday Adventures

Not having class on Fridays is something I could definitely get used to.  This weekend friends from the Rome and Toledo programs were visiting, so I went with them to the British Museum in the morning, followed by introducing them to the best Fish & Chips at Fryer's Delight, and then a trip to the treasures of the British Library.  The British Museum is pretty amazing, a large collection of things raided from Egypt, the Far East, and Greece by the Brits.  The treasures of the British Library were amazing though.  Highlights included a section on the Beatles with envelopes, pieces of paper, and napkins with the lyrics to Ticket to Ride, Michele, Yesterday, Help!, and Hard Day's Night written all over them by John and Paul.  That was pretty cool to see, with all the scratchouts and changes.  Then an original copy of the Magna Carta, the Oldest New Testament in the world, Illuminated Bibles, DaVinci Notebooks, Beethoven's notebook, Handel's original Messiah, Lewis Carroll's journal, Mozart's Marriage contract, and Captain Cook's journal.. A pretty decent collection for just two rooms.

Then we went out to Camden Town Market to walk around one pretty interesting marketplace.  A nice productive day in Londontown.. 

I also had the joy of providing American like cheeseburgers to the visitors because they cannot get them in Italy or Spain.  We had quite the feast of burgers and Garlic cheese potatoes for 10 people, the Foreman was working away

Exmouth Arms

So apparently we were in the same pub as Emma Watson (actress who plays Hermione Granger) this evening, missing her by just an hour.. It's good to know I frequent the same places as people who go to Hogwarts

paris

all of the Paris pictures are up on Picasa now (picasaweb.google.com/PKirkland5), well that is all the pictures I could take before my camera died, so there will be none of the Louvre up there.  I have to get those from Will.

Also, apparently the English and the rest of the world for that matter do not treat St. Patrick's Day like the Americans do.  People at work were shocked to hear we dye the river Green.. Well and now the White House Fountains too ('There's no one as Irish as Barack Obama' is easily the catchiest song ever)  

Cead Mile Failte

Pictures

the pictures from prague, berlin, and brussels are up on Picasa, without captions yet.. that may take a good while.  Paris should be up soon, however the internet is not cooperating with me now, so that will have to wait until tomorrow

Back in London

Well I survived and made it through 10 days of hostels, trains, planes, and four countries.  Pretty amazing, and probably a trip I'll never be able to match in my life.

It's still all setting in, trying to understand how much we did in 10 days

Highlights (I'll try to say more later)

Prague Castle

St. Charles Bridge

Old Town Square in Prague

Crossing the Berlin Wall

Seeing the Berlin Wall

Crossing Checkpoint Charlie

Going underneath the Brandenburg Gate

Will saying "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" at the Gate

Top of the Reichstag (German Parliament) 

Meeting Will's Belgian relatives

Manneken Pis

Grand Place in Brussels

Atomium 

Sacre Couer (Basilica in Paris, view of it from the terrace of our Hostel)

Cafes in Paris

Arc de Triumphe (at the ceremony for their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier)

Actually remembering some French

Eiffel Tower at night (3 straight nights)

Going to the top of the Eiffel Tower, as it sparkled for the hour

Walking the whole city of Paris in one day

Tulieries Gardens

Le Louvre

Seeing Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, the Wedding Feast at Cana, and the Code of Hammurabi in person

The rest of the works at the Louvre

Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral

The Windows at Notre Dame Cathedral

The Seine River

Champs-Elysees

Czech Goulash and Dumplings

German Bratwurst 

German Scalloped Potatoes 

Belgian Waffles (strawberries, bananas, chocolate, powdered sugar all in one)

Belgian Chocolate

French baguettes 

French pastries

French Crepes...

And the Whites Go Marching

First football match this evening, Fulham FC v Hull City.  Fulham (the home team of Will's MP's constituency and the "Whites") had a pretty cool stadium, mix between original brick from 100 yrs ago and newer stands.  We sat 5th row just to the right of the goal on the Fulham side. It was amazing to see the speed of real football first hand, though it was pretty chilly.  Fulham easily should've scored at the end of the first half or beginning of the second.  The American Clint Dempsey (people in first row had a Texas flag for him) had probably the best shot.  Hull at least played decently in the second half, and scored a lucky goal on a cross in injury time.  Though it would've been nice to see Fulham win, still a pretty sweet experience.  

Platform 9 3/4

So our train to Walsingham for the retreat this weekend left from King's Cross Station.  For those of you don't recall, that would be the station that the Hogwarts Express leaves from.  Needless to say, I was pretty excited to go visit Platform 9 3/4, possibly more excited than I have been for anything else.  The picture should be up soon, because I managed to forget my camera, so I'll be stealing all the pictures from this weekend to put up on Picasa.  No worries though, I should be back at King's Cross soon enough to take another good set of pictures with my hands on the cart going  through to the other side.

The retreat though was amazing.  It was absolutely silent up in Walsingham.  The countryside was beautiful, rolling green hills with the funniest sounding sheep all over.  We visited an Anglican shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham and then the Catholic shrine as well (Our Lady of Walsingham apparently appeared to a woman in the 10th or 11th century and asked her to build a copy of the house of the Holy Family from Nazareth in Walsingham so people could visit.  Then a pilgrimage began, especially given how hard it was to visit the Holy Land during the Crusades. Though that original replica was destroyed, the new replica of the replica still draws a lot of visitors each year.)  Probably the most beautiful was a beach on the Eastern coast of England we went to.  We were able to walk about 2 or so miles on sand where the water is during high tide.  The tide comes in at 5 mph, so visiting during low tide was amazing.  It also helped it was a perfect, sunny day, and we were playing catch on the beach.  That, a few intense games of mafia Friday night and on the train, along with the return on 90/10 juice from Kairos made for quite the weekend. 

and pictures are now up on the picasa site