Firenze: Italy full throttle

In many ways Italy was a final culmination of my travel experiences all fall. I’d never really had the chance to do so much independent traveling before, to actually plan and execute these adventures on my own. I had been planning all semester (and it might even be said my entire life), this journey to the country of my ancestors. My travel maters, Manishi and Julia, two fantastic Emory friends, understood this, and were happy to let me do all the research, make all the plans and lead them around Italy in my own way. They were happy simply to come along for the ride. I think they thought I was doing them a favor, but really, it was a great gift they gave to me.
Florence is of course one of the most famed cities in Italy, but it was the one I knew the least about before we arrived. It is such an interesting place; a sophisticated modern city crowded with historical squares, palazzos, basilicas and museums. I wasn’t sure where to start, but our hostel was an excellent references point, just two blocks away from the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, or as it’s commonly calls the Duomo, because of it’s massive terra cotta dome. Everything about the Duomo was massive, from its elaborate emerald façade to its vast empty insides and its shiny interior dome, painted by Michelangelo and, in my opinion, even more impressive then the Sistine Chapel.
Using this as a starting point we were able to hit many of Florence’s highlights during a 36 hour spree of hard core sightseeing (this whole trip was so short, and so intense, we would often collapse at our hostel by 10 pm, just to tear ourselves out of bed early morning to see more glories). My personal favorites were the Fountain of Neptune and the sculpture garden in the Piazza del Signoria – the original home of The David and where you can still see the Rape of the Sabine Women among other sculptures, the street markets outside the Basilica di Orsanmichelle (can’t resist a good street market), and the stunning views from the Ponte Vecchio. The Ponte is a medieval bridge which spans the river Arno and has spectacular vistas of the hills of Florence.
Although I’m not hugely knowledgeable about art, even a passing interest, and a single semester of Art History, was enough to leave me stunned by the art museums of Florence. There is of course the massive Uffizi Gallery, where I was stunned by the Birth of Venus among other priceless pieces in the vast collection. And of course we couldn’t miss dropping in on The David in the Galleria D’Accademia, which was more breathtaking then any of us could have imagine.
Aside from the almost endless sightseeing we did, Florence is where I really began to get a taste of the true Italian lifestyle. Venice is special, but it is also quite different from the rest of the country, so it wasn’t until we went further south that we really felt like we were in Italy. Above all else, this meant food! We treated ourselves almost daily to gelato, and fabulous pasta dinner’s every night. There was always room for pizza, or a sweet pastry from a café. We sampled the famous Tuscan wine, and limoncello liquor, a personal favorite of mine. It’s safe to say we gorged ourselves, although from all the walking we did I’d say we deserved it. They certainly know how to live the good life there. Everyone was friendly, especially the men. Everyone warned me that the Italian’s love blondes, but I still wasn’t prepared for the amount of attention I got. I didn’t mind, they were non-threatening and oh-so cute. With my broken Italian and my naturally friendly nature, I made quite a few new friends. Oh, how I loved Italy!
My favorite moment of the entire Italy trip actually didn’t involve cute boys or food (shocking, yes). Our last morning in Florence we happened to wander into the Basilica di San Marco (a different Basilica di San Marco of course), near the train station. There I used my limited, but surprisingly functional, Italian skills to strike up a conversation with an adorable elderly Italian priest. He was thrilled that we were Americans, showed us the American flag pin he keeps attached to his vestments and enthusiastically told me about his trip to visit family in New Jersey, “un paese bello!” Although Julia and Manishi had no clue what he was saying and I only a limited amount, he told us a great deal about the history of the Basilica and about Florence. Finally, he asked me to teach him “Buon Natale” in English, and with a “Merry Christmas” we were off to catch our train. After several days of extreme tourism, it was nice to have a personal moment of understanding. I think moments of true connection like this are what traveling is really all about.

Finally, Venice

There hasn’t been much from me lately because I’ve been quite busy, first dealing with finals and then traveling. Won’t bore you with all the gory academic detail, pulling an all-nighter is essentially the same no matter what continent you are on. Instead I will skip right to the good stuff, my trip to Italy! I was only there for a week yet I saw so much (and took an amazing amount of pictures, 500+!) that I will split the posts up by city, starting with the city of my dreams: Venice.
Venice is the number one place I have always wanted to visit, ever since I was captivated by a pictorial in National Geographic at age ten. It has always held an aura of romance, mystery and exoticism in my mind, and it did no disappoint. A misty aqua fog surrounded the city during our time there. It was freezing and drizzly but that only emphasized the uniqueness of the canal city with its beautiful architecture, breath-taking churches and winding streets. We spent a lot of time just wandering the twisty side streets and bridges. This is the number one thing everyone tells you to do in Venice: get as lost as possible. Turning each corner we were presented with a stunning postcard picture, it took a lot of restrain not to photograph everything. It was almost unreal.
When we finally found ourselves among the slippery streets, we gravitated to La Piazza San Marco. By far the most famous point in the city, La Piazza is basically a giant square populated by extremely bold (and frightening pigeons) and dominated by the Basilica de San Marco. Built during the middle ages, the basilica was breathtaking inside and out. It is a mixture of European and Byzantine architecture with opulent marble floors and glittering mosaic ceilings. It was my favorite of all the churches I’ve seen this semester (including the Vatican).
In the afternoon, when we finished glutting ourselves on the mysteries of the city, we took a ferry to the Venetian island of Murano. The tiny village, just a fifteen minute boat ride from mainland Venice, is legendary for its glass blowing industry. The local’s techniques are passed down from father to son, and result in the most exquisite glass vases, figures and jewelry in every color and shape imaginable. We were able to watch a live glassblowing demonstration and spent several hours perusing the dozens of glass shops. The windows held everything from glass jewelry to intricate glass nativity scenes.
From Murano, and the rest of the area, it was clear that Venice’s number one industry by far is tourism. It’s an understandable issue, with a city so unique, but it does mar the picturesque effect somewhat. The winding Venetian streets are crowded with souvenir shops, all selling pretty much the same exact merchandise. As we were there in December, the crowds were thin, but I can only imagine how zoo-like the place must be in the summer. Even so, Venice, like all of Italy I found, was everything I had hoped while still more then I could conceivably have ever imagined.

Scotland Adventures

This past weekend I took the train up north to finally see some more of Great Britain. I made some friends earlier this semester up at St. Andrews so I decided to go visit them. I am part Scottish so I was really excited to finally go see some of my native homeland, and I wasn't dissapointed. Scotland is beautiful and interesting and I hope I have a chance to return when I have more time. (which would be...when?)

First I took the train to Edinburgh, one of Scotland's bigger cities, and met up with my friend Susan. She is an Emory friend who happened to be visiting her Scottish relatives for Thanksgiving. I was so excited to see her and have her show me the sites of Edinburgh! I really lucked out that afternoon, it was brilliantly sunny, although very cold (my entire trip could probably be summed up as very, very, cold). It was friday and the city was just putting up it's christmas lights, there was this cute little carnival going on downtown outside the train station. This is a picture of the carnival in front of the very large and gothic monument to Sir Walter Scott.
I was only in Edinburgh for an afternoon, not nearly enough. We had lunch (while I caught up on all the Emory news) poked around a street fair and then went up the Edinburgh castle. It is a hulking mass high on the hill, huge and dominating. We did a whirlwind tour, climbing to the top for the view, peeking into the church and the WWI memorial and stopping briefly to hear a knight speak on scottish fighting techniques (basically act tough and kick everyone's butt). It was a pretty impressive castle, reminded me a bit of Dover Castle. It get's dark even earlier there then here, the sun started to set aroung three! We did a little but of shopping on Princes Street, the high street and then hugged our goodbyes. She hopped on the bus back to her grandparents and I was off to St. Andrews.
I was very excited to see St. Andrews after hearing all about it from Jason and others. It is one of the oldest universities in the UK and home of the first golf course ever! It is a very cute little town, very very small. The entire town consists of about three streets. Still it is very much a college town, it has the highest concentration of pubs of anywhere in the UK! I could tell that they party hard there, I think they have to if only to keep warm! I was able to sample some Scottish pubs (quite similar to English ones) and some Scottish whiskey of course. Fun stuff.
Aside from the bars and the golfing, St. Andrews is known for the great castle and cathedral ruins. As you should know by now I love old things, especially cemetaries and ruins, so this was right up my alley. The castle is from the thirteenth century and only small parts remain. I didn't pay to go inside, I walked around the outside and took pictures. I think most of what was there could be seen from the outside anyways. I especially loved the cathedral ruins dating from the tenth to the sixteenth century. It was once Scotland's largest building, now there are only a few pieces left standing. They are perched on this cliff overlooking the North Sea. It was windy and near dusk when I went which made it very, very chilly but the view, the sea and the sky were spectacular. There is a large cemetary all around where the cathedral once was so I spent some time waundering around in there as well. The ruins were beautiful against the dusky sky, it was all very romantic to see. And I took a lot a lot of pictures, I am becoming a picture taking addict.

The one thing I will probably remember most about Scotland was how incredibly nice the people were. I don't mean my friends at St. Andrews (although they are very nice and fun) but the actual Scottish people. They were all so friendly, especially compared to the English! I ran into some trouble on my way back home and I don't know what I would have done without their help. Basically I needed to take a bus and two seperate trains to get home. The bus dropped me off at the train station at Leuchars (the closest station to St. Andrews) at which point I discovered that the station was actually closed for the day due to construction! There was a bus taking passengers to the next station but I missed it by about 30 seconds, the next one wouldn't be there until 1:30. I needed to take that train to get into Edinburgh to take my second train home at 2 pm, there was no way I could wait that long. I happened to meet another student from St. Andrews who had missed the bus and we tried to figure out what to do. Suddenly a man approached us, I think he may have been a professor and asked if we needed help. When we told him what had happened he offered to drive us himself to the next train station so we could catch the train! He had just gotten his wife onto the bus and felt bad for us being stranded there. It was so incredibly nice of him I was totally taken aback. And thanks to him I was able to actually make it home thank goodness. I am definatly a fan of the scottish. I snapped this picture out the window of the train as we were leaving Scotland. What a beautiful welcoming place it was.
My mother is flying in tomorrow morning, how exciting! We will do some sightseeing and other fun things but then it's really going to be time to really work hard- only three weeks to go!

Being a tourist

So as you know I've been spending quite a bit of time traveling around Europe. This has been fantastic but as a result I haven't spent nearly as much time as I would like actually seeing the sights of London! I know Bloomsbury pretty well because that is where I go to school. I've been to the markets, the globe, soho, and a few other cool sights on my daily waunderings and social engagements. But I really haven't spent a whole lot of time doing London sightseeing. This past weekend I was actually IN london for a change so I decided to be a typical London tourist for a day! I set off on my own (sometimes I am a better tourist flying solo I've discovered) and headed for the most tourist-y part of town- Westminster.

I was following a Wesminster guided walk from my Rick Steves tour book (I recomend him-he's a smart guy). So I started at the tube, walked over the Wesminster Bridge while contemplating Wordsworth, then checked out Big Ben and Parliment. Would you beleive I've been here for two months and this was the first time I've seen Big Ben up close?

Then I headed for Wesminster's most famous attraction- Westminster Abbey! I'd actually been here on my family London trip years ago, but I remembered loving it and wanting to go back. I'm so glad I did. It was even more awe-inspring then I remembered and I can definatly appreciate it more knowing what I now do about English history and literature. They won't let you take pictures inside but the huge cathedral is basically crammed with monuments and memorials to all the greats of England. It is where most of the royals and other really important figures are buried, including Queen Elizabeth, Edward the Confessor (who built the church around 1100) and Geoffrey Chaucer. In a lot of ways it is an indoor graveyard, but with stained glass and unbeleivable gothic architecture. I spent a good three hours waundering around, reading the monuments and reflecting. When I left at 2:30 the choir had come in to sing the Evensong service, so I got to hear some of that which was really beautiful as well.
Part of the reason I am a very good solo tourist is that I tend to go on random flights of fancy when something catches my eye. I was originally planning to walk to Trafalger Square and go to the National Gallery, but instead somehow waundered into St. James's park, one of the luscious parks London possesses. The sun was just starting to go down (the sun starts to set around 3:30 here remember) and it reflected brilliantly on the brightly changing leaves. St. James has a huge lake in the center and is known for it's waterfowl. There were dozens and dozens of ducks, pigeons and geese waundering the sidewalks, along with Londoners enjoying what was left of the beautiful day. I ended up walking all the way through the park and ended up at Buckingham Palace. The palace was not on my list of things to see because it is really not that pretty or interesting on the outside. Even so I walked around, took a few pictures (I now have literally hundreds and hundreds of pictures from this trip) and then slowly wound my way to Piccadilly Circus- also not a very interesting place, but kind of pretty since they have put up the christmas lights.

All in all it was a productive sightseeing day. Crossed a couple big things off my list of things to do before i leave in just about three weeks (saaad)! Hopefully when my mom comes we will do some more sightseeing!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

Budapest Pictures

Okay clearly I am never going to get around to writing about Budapest. This is unfortunate as it is my favorite city I've visited in Europe! I've been pouring all my writing effort into essays on things like "money as a social currency in Thackeray's Vanity Fair." This weekend I'm going to Scotland so I will have new adventure to write about. In the meantime here are some Budapest pictures at least:





This is the City Park, absolutly beautiful with the leaves changing...




Anonymous, the greatest scribe in Hungarian history. He is the Magyars primary source of knowledge about the history of the Hungarian people. Obviously they know nothing about him (leading us to question if he was even a man at all?). Scholars visit his statue and rub his pencil for good luck. So far it hasn't helped me much!



This is St. Stephen's Basilica, an enormous Catholic church. It took almost 100 years to build (partly because it collapsed a couple of times. We walked all the way to the top of the dome where there is an amazing 360 view of all of Pest. Inside of the church they also have the mummified hand of St. Stephen, Hungarys first king and patron saint. it was gross.

Heroe's Square, a monument to the great leaders of Hungary. Apparently there were a lot. During communist times this entire edifice was covered with a giant picture of Marx. Like many beautiful things in this country, it managed to endure.

Fisherman's Bastion, not actually a fortress but a very pretty piece of architecture hanging off of Buda Castle with again, beautiful views



The Gellert Baths. Hungary is known for it's famous thermal bath houses. Only half of our group was brave enough to test them out. Fortunatly I was one of the brave ones. Although it involved seeing many, many more naked Hungarian women then I ever really wanted to, the baths were wonderful and cheap to boot. You can get a 30 minute full body massage for the equivalent of 15 american dollars. but when they say full body, rest assured, the mean full body...


I have seen a LOT of churches on this trip and St. Matthias in Buda Castle was one of the most unique. It has existed on that spot for almost a thousand years. At one point Hungary was overtaken by Muslim forces and the church was changed into a mosque, only to eventuall be changed back. As a result it has a gorgeous east-meets-west motif. It is amazing how many of these churches managed to endure through so many invasions. It's amazing how the Hungarians managed to keep their culture intact even after 4 major occupations (the muslims, the austrians, the nazis and the soviets).

As with most of the places I've been the pictures really don't do Budapest justice. It was a beautiful, modern, golden city with such a rich history. Okay I sound like a travel brochure I know, but it was awesome.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Rest assured I have plans. They may not do Thanksgiving in britain but I know enough Americans that the holiday won't go totally unobserved. Then Friday I am off to Scotland!

Praha Part Two

Even though Prague was subjected to a double whammy of destructive occupations, first the Nazis then the Soviets, there are still an amazing amount of churches and synagogues perfectly preserved. The churches have far outlasted the faith of the people- this city is something like 86% atheist, but they have the most beautiful religious buildings. The most impressive in my opinion was Saint Vitus Cathedral. St. Vitus is actually in the center part of Prague Castle, one of the biggest castles in the entire world. It was kind of cold and rainy so I didn't see most of the castle, just the cathedral with it's amazing stain-glass windows which were glowing despite the pouring rain. I actually saw several different beautiful churchs in Prague, all roman catholic and Renaissance or Baroque in style. They shared similar painted ceilings, huge frescoes and gold gilding. I haven't been to Rome (yet) but these were the most beautiful churches I've seen thus far.

Europe is of course full of grand churches, but what is unique to Prague is the pefectly preserved Jewish Quarter of the city called Josefov. Almost all the Jews in the city were wiped out by Hitler (I think there are about 600 left in the city today) but he left the buildings just as they were. Sickenly, he meant them to serve as a museum of the "extinct race." The lucky thing is that all these synagogues are still there, you can visit them all for one price, including the oldest synagogue in Europe (it is confusingly called the Old-New synagogue) and a really elaborate Spanish synagogue. My favorite part of the Jewish Quarter was the Old Jewish cemetary (Europe's oldest jewish cemetary). Yes, I have a thing for cemetaries. Yes, I know that is weird. I just really like them okay? What made this one interesting was the unique arrangment of tombstones. The cemetary has been around for so many years that people have been buried in layers one over top of one another, which has cause odd rippling and sinking in the ground. As a result the tombstones are extremely crowded together, leaning against each other, on top of each other, sinking into the ground, just general chaos. It's a little hard to describe but very interesting to see.
Other cool things I saw in Prague included the Charles Bridge. This is a medeval bridge which crosses the Vlatva river and has these amazingly huge religious statues dominating it, such as the one on the right. We went there are sunset and watched the sky change from gray to pink to purple, blue and black. Very beautiful and very romantic. I also really enjoyed waundering the old quarter of town. I happened upon some very cool shops and this cute outdoor market selling fruit, food and souveniers. Prague was a very pretty city, it fit exactly into my ideas of Old Europe. Still, after four days in the city I felt like I'd pretty much seen all of it and I was ready to move on.
Coming up: Budapest- aka the best city in the entire world (except maybe london)!

The Eastern Bloc: Praha Part One

This past week was Reading Week at University College London, a time for students to catch up on the massive amounts of work the professors pile on us. Or, if you are an American, time to go on a European vacation! Which is exactly what three of my awesome London friends and I did, spending our week in Prague and Budapest. I will warn you guys that this is going to be a several part story because we did an absurd amount this week.
We arrived in Prague early Saturday (note on future travels: flights/trains before 9am are simply not feasible). I was really excited for Prague because so many people have told me about it and because I had never been anywhere so far east. Both Hungary and the Czech Republic were of course part of the Soviet Bloc until 17 years ago. I wasn't sure what to respect in that regard, but I think Prague has changed dramatically since then. Everything I learned in IB twentieth century topics came rushing back to me this week. This picture is me with a giant statue of Vladimir Lenin at the cities Communist Museum. It was an interesting study in contrasts that that museum was located above a McDonalds and next to a casino. A fast changing place indeed. Wenceslas Square, the large central boulevard in Nove Mesto (translated as "New Town" although it's actually about 600 years old) has seen 4 revolutions in the past 100 years. That is a lot of murder, violence and suicide in one place. Everything is peaceful now though and it is a major shopping area actually.
Of Course Prague has a history stretching way back past communism. The city is 1000 years old, and this can best be seen in Stare Mesto, the Old Town. This area is full of old buildings and churches remarkable preserved and still used. A dominant feature is the Astronomical Clock, a giant medieval clock which shows the time, the phase of the moon, the star sign and a variety of other important facts. It is quite beautiful and people crowd around it right before the hour to watch the various mechanical figures dance when it strikes the hour. My favorite part was a small dancing skeleton figure holding an hourglass- he is supposed to remind the citizens to be aware of their own mortality. Kind of dark but kind of cool too. Most of the Old Town is very touristy, full of restaurants and gift shops selling nesting dolls and tee shirts. Even so it is very pretty, especially when the sun comes out, as it only did one afternoon of our four day stay in Prague.
Prague is known as a party city but it also has some pretty cool shows at night as well. My favorite that we went to was an all marionette version of Don Giovanni. Puppets singing opera sounds kind of lame, and isn't for everyone, but it was actually pretty funny and well done. We also saw a black light show which was incredibly stange and trippy. Not really my thing, but if you like dancing eyeballs wearing powder wigs or a three foot tall red mouth singing yellow submarine, definatly worth checking out.

Coming up: Churches, Castles and Nazis!

Catching Up: Birthdays, Castles and Halloween, British Style

Hey Guys!
Life has been busy these past two weeks, hence the lack of updates. I wish I could say I've been off jet-setting around, but primarily I've been doing a lot of school work and fun things like that.
Some exciting things have happened lately though- in particular I celebrated my 22nd birthday last Thursday. When I first decided to come here I admit I was worried about being forced to spend my birthday alone in a strange city. Fortunatly this was not the case and I was able to celebrate with about twenty of my closest friends at my favorite bar, The Rocket. I was actually impressed by how many people ended up coming, friends I've made over the past month and half in class, in my dorm and through the Emory programss. Here is a picture which unfortunatly came out rather blurry, although that sort of suited the mood of the night as my drink kept being refilled. We drank snakebites (half beer, half cider with a shot of black current liquor- my new favorite drink), hung out and danced into the late hours. It was a really great birthday and it made me feel really lucky to know so many really awesome people here.
On Saturday we had the last of our Emory day trips, to Broughton Castle, a Medevial castle in Oxfordshire. What made this trip different from the rest of the stately homes we've been to is that Lord and Lady Saye are actually still in residence in the house. They are friends with our trip coordinator Rachel, and thus we were granted a private off season tour of the house. It is huge and drafty and historic of course. Also unlike other tours we were actually allowed to take pictures inside the house. Here is a picture of one of Lord and Lady Sayes guest bedrooms, it is called the Kings Room because, well because that is where the King used to stay back in the day. It was a gorgeous room with this elaborate hand painted chinese wall paper. Everything in the house was rich and opulent and historic, it was so cool to actually be able to get up close and personal with it all (I even got to try on a medeval battle helmut and sword). At the end of the tour we actually got to meet the Lord and Lady, my first brush with the English aristocracy. They were incredibly nice and normal, although they had a very ugly dog. Incidentally the Saye's informal last name is Fiennes, they are actually relatives of Ralph and Joseph Fiennes. This beautiful castle has been used in the filming of several movies including Shakespeare in Love.
It's finally getting cold here.This week has been mostly about paper writing, which unfortunatly caused me to miss out on Halloween festivities. Contrary to popular beleif Halloween IS celebrated in England, just not to the full extent it is in America. I don't beleive Trick or Treating is in fashion, and I haven't seen much about haunted houses. As far as I can tell Halloween is mainly an excuse for young adults to go out and party while wearing crazy costumes. It's a shame I missed it to because I had a good costume too...
This friday I am going to see some early Guy Fawkes fireworks, then I am off to the continent. I am spending my reading week in Prague and Budapest, so prepare yourself for some (hopefully) awesome stories on my return...

A weekend at the shore

Sorry guys ,I am starting to fall behind in my updating. Life is getting in the way as they say. This week has been crazy busy with school work so I haven't had a single moment until just now to sit down and reflect on this past weekend.
All day Saturday and Sunday I was away on an Emory sponsored trip. We visited several stately homes in the Kent countryside and spent the night in Dover. It was great fun because I got to hang out with all my favorite Emory kids and to meet a bunch of the Emory people who are studying up at St. Andrews in Scotland.
On Saturday we visited Knole House which is a palatial home owned by English aristocrats. It was once the home of Vita Sackville West, Virginia Woolf's lover for whom she wrote Orlando. I haven't read Orlando yet(it is sitting on my shelf) but the house was amazing. It is called a calender house because it has 365 rooms, 52 staircases and 7 courtyards. We only saw a fraction of that, all decorated in unbeleivable opulence. My favorite part were the hundreds of free range deer which roam the property with basically no fear of human contact.
After Knole we visited Chartwell House, which was the private home of Winston Churchill. It is a very pretty, cozy little house with excellent views of the Kent countryside. The house had really beautiful gardens, you can see me sitting in one of them in the big picture on the left. I spent a long time taking slightly pretentious, but very pretty, pictures of the flowers and the grounds.
Later that evening we rolled into Dover. Dover is a seaside town, right on the English Channel (it's where the Chunnel starts I think). I'm told on a clear day you can see all the way to Europe. Unfortunatly we didn't have a clear day so France is still a mystery to me. I think I've mentioned before how these Emory excursions are entirely paid for by the school. This is is amazing. For this trip they rented out an entire bed & breakfast for the group. They also treated us to a fantastically boozy Chinese food feast that night. I've honestly never seen or eaten so much chinese food before in my life, it was pretty fantastic. Later that night we all went down to the beach. It was very cold but very pretty, you could see Dover Castle glimmering up on the hill, and on the horizon lights of I like to imagine (but what almost certainly was not) France.
Early the next morning we walked up to Dover Castle. Dover is this hulking medeival fortress, which has been known as the key to England because of it's inconquerability. It was absolutly huge, I think we only saw a small part of the whole place. We took a tour of the secret underground tunnels used in World War Two for defense. Despite the fact that our tourguide was clearly stoned, the tunnels were pretty creepy, and we may have actually seen a ghost! We were also able to go to the top of the Keep, that is the highest tower in the castle, and look down over Dover and the surrounding lands. Sadly, it was still too foggy to see France!
After a gross lunch of fish and chips (ick) we visited one last site, a beautiful historic mansion call Igtham Mote. It doesn't have a whole lot of significance other then it is really pretty and has a cool Mote running around it. I think I would like my house to have a mote. You can walk around the house which is decorated in a cool, 1930's style and is very, very big. Very pretty gardens again; I've seen more gardens in the past month then in my entire life, yet I don't seem to get tired of them. Finally the bus too the exhausted lot of us home. It was such a fun and interesting weekend and it is always nice to get outside of London and see the rest of England.
So my adventures continue this weekend in Brussels and Amsterdam. I am excited but also tired. Every day of this trip is exciting and crazy and different but also takes so much energy. In some ways it is good I am only here for a few months, I'm not sure I could keep up this pace much longer then that. Although do not get me wrong: life here is so much fun. Every day is a new adventure in learning and living and it is exhausting and demanding but I am loving every single minute of it.