Wrap-up :)

I'm so sorry I didn't post in Dublin! Our internet was pretty slow in the hotel.

The plane ride from Heathrow to Dublin was quick and painless. We stepped outside to catch our bus and the weather was beautiful. There were only a few minutes until the buses were to arrive, and all of a sudden it started hailing! We all knew then that the weather was going to be as unpredictable in Dublin as it was in London.

We climbed aboard the bus and stowed our luggage, then made our ways up to the top of the double-decker. It only took a few minutes to get from the airport to our hotel, and on the way we were serenaded by a 3 year old Irish boy crooning "The Wheels on the Bus." I told the girls, "If my children have accents, they are going to be spoiled rotten; I'll never be able to tell them 'no!'"

The Gresham was a gorgeous hotel; a HUGE improvement from our lodgings in Oxford. The hotel in Oxford (The Linton Lodge) was frustrating from the moment we walked through the narrow doorway. Rachel Brown and I discussed it, and our initial thoughts when we walked in were "Fawlty Towers?!" The staff were anything but helpful. There were two elevators which brought residents to two separate parts of the hotel... two separate parts which couldn't be reached if you took the wrong elevator.

Of course, I took the wrong elevator. I lugged my suitcase, backpack, and viola onto the tiny elevator, dragged everything around on the 2nd floor and couldn't find my room anywhere. I wanted to scream! I had to bring everything back down again, and then make two trips to get all of my things up to my room in the right area. Whoo, was I ever grumpy!!

The Gresham in Dublin was much, much different. The lobby was enormous. There were two pubs, restaurant service throughout the entire lobby, and a really lovely restaurant called 23 tucked back in the corner. Our room was on the 3rd floor and had plenty of room. The shower, however, was the highlight of the hotel. Finally, I had water pressure! For the whole trip, my hair was full of soap... but now? Now, I could take a quick shower and not worry about my hair looking like a wet dog for the rest of the day. What a relief!

On our second day in Dublin, we all ventured to County Wicklow. It was absolutely beautiful, and there are pictures in my photobucket album, which I'll post the link to at the end of this post. We saw an old monastery that was gorgeous, and we were able to walk around for a few hours and take pictures. Everyone did different things in Dublin; a few girls went horseback riding, took a day trip to another area on a rainy day, visited the Guinness Brewery... I had convinced myself that I was running out of money, so I stuck around town. I had a wonderful time shopping and I went to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College. What a good read; I couldn't put it down. ;)

I was so sad to leave on Friday. I really felt like I hadn't spent enough time in each place. I even asked at US Customs when we arrived in Chicago, "What can I say for you to deny me entry?" but they wouldn't take me seriously.

It is good to be home, though. After all, I had to watch the season finales of The Office, Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives, and Grey's Anatomy...

Thanks for reading, everyone. :) Cheers!

http://s195.photobucket.com/albums/z76/ktjonesuk/

The pictures are backwards, so if you go to the end of the album, you can start in London and work your way back towards Wicklow. :)

Warwick Castle and Hadrian's Wall

Those should all be from Hadrian's Wall and Warwick Castle. The one of my foot is from when I brushed up against a prickly plant... I can't remember what it was called! It hurt for about 2 days though.

So... Warwick Castle was definitely my favorite so far. We went there on the way to Oxford from Chester. Chester... ehh... it was pretty, but we didn't really meet anyone nice the entire time. Also, our concert? A whopping two people showed up to the concert and one of them kept falling asleep. Chester was a bit disappointing.

As soon as we arrived at Warwick, Rachel and I ran into the gift shop and bought plastic swords. We had a bunch of duels all over the place, and then once we got into the great hall, we were able to try on some real helmets. It was pretty amazing. I have a video of us fighting on top of Guy's Tower, and I'm going to try to put it on youtube.

Today we went to Bath. It was amazing!! Unfortunately, my camera has been dead for 2 days. I'll have to try to charge it tonight, because we're going to Ireland TOMORROW!! I have to wake up around 4:45 to get everything together... so I'll need to get to bed now. Only a few days in Ireland and then I'm back home!

Just to let you all know...

On my last night in Edinburgh, I ate haggis.

Yes, I ate haggis. Yes... I liked it. A lot. I was actually pretty disturbed by the fact that I enjoyed it so much. I have a picture of it, so I'll have to load that soon. However, the internet in our hotel in Chester is really, really slow. Free of charge, but slow.

I'll update more later, but for now I need to jump in the shower and prepare for our concert tonight at St. Mary's. This is our last concert, and then tomorrow we travel by bus to Oxford for 3 days... then onto Ireland! :)

Random Pictures

I don't have a whole lot of time, but I'm going to post a few pictures from the trip so far! I'm sitting down the street from the hotel in a pub with free wi-fi! Thaaaank goodness. It's so hard to find cheap internet over here!

The concert yesterday went really really well. Here's where we played!



The chapel is being renovated and aired out at the moment. It's surrounded by scaffolding and a huge "umbrella" so it was pretty hard to get a good picture of the outside, but I have a lot of them anyways.

Here I am outside in front of the pretty bushes.



It was nice outside for the most part, but the wind up here is outrageous. We were all freezing, even in the chapel. It was difficult to play our pizzicato parts in the 2nd movement of Hebrew Lovesongs :)


This picture was taken in England, right after we saw the Queen :)



This one is from today. We went to Edinburgh Castle. My favorite part was the prisons where they held American soldiers in the 1700s. I was able to walk through where they slept and ate and I even saw some carvings they did on the doors. They also displayed a lot of really gorgeous, ornate boxes that the prisoners made out of the bones from their food or straw and wood. This is me with two guards outside the castle.



I'm going to make another post now with just pictures, and I'll try to give explanations later for them. It's 5:10 PM here, and I need to go find some food. :)

Edinburgh

So, we arrived in Edinburgh yesterday after hours on the train. It was a beautiful ride, and I must say... the food here is about a billion times better than in London. The mashed potatoes I ate anywhere there were absolutely bland, but we ate at this place called Conan Doyle's (there's a Sherlock Holmes statue on the outside!) and I almost cried when I tasted the potatoes; it was heaven. I had a steak pie as well, no kidney, but it was fantastic.

I'd load pictures up but 1. my camera died yesterday and is now charging and 2. even if I had been able to take pictures, the internet cafe doesn't allow us to connect our cameras and the like. I'll have to steal a bunch of pictures from other people on the trip when I get back, because I was unable to photograph some really gorgeous stuff.

York was fun yesterday. We stopped there on the way to Edinburgh. We only had a few hours, though, and I didn't get to go everywhere I would have liked.

Last night after arriving, we went out and had the amazing food. Then, we walked down to a pub where a bunch of the choir members and people were. It was a fun place and the music was lively, but there was a guy at the bar who seemed to have had a few too many. He started yelling really loud and then a guy came up and got in his face. Angryman was blocked from our view for a few seconds, but when the other guy stepped to the side... well, he must have said something very upsetting, because Angryman was in tears. He kicked the door open and ran down the street.

A few minutes later, he stumbled back in and yelled something completely unrecognizable and then chased some other guy out the door and down the street again. I ALMOST witnessed my first pub fight. I kind of felt cheated when he started crying.

Well, now we're about to walk back to the hotel to get ready for Rosslyn tonight. 8 PM!! That's 2 PM in Illinois, so be crossing your fingers that we sound lovely. I'll let you know how it turns out. :)

Love you all.
Katie

Internet Cafes are FANTASTIC :)

... but UK Keyboards are so weird!

Yesterday was busy busy busy. I don't think I've ever walked so much in my life! I wish I could connect my camera to this computer so that I could show everyone what we were up to yesterday, but I don't think it's possible... and I'm not going to pay again at my hotel to use internet when I can get it down the street for practically nothing!

We woke up and left by 9 AM to go to Westminster Abbey. They had to split our group in two, so my group went with Charlie first to walk around the area and get acquainted so we could go to lunch on our own. We walked through a beatiful park and past Buckingham Palace... down the Pall Mall and the Horse Parade place? I can't remember exactly what it was called. We were pretty sure we saw some important member of parliament leaving the area, but no one was positive.

Westminster Abbey was amazing. My favorite areas were definitely the Musician and Poet's corners, and our guide was just fantastic. I have lots of pictures from outside, but we weren't allowed to snap any shots in the Abbey.

After Westminster, we broke off on our own for lunch. Dr. Mishra(s) Dr. Archer, Jackie, Rachel, Rachel, Beth, Maggie,Dan and I all went to this restaurant and I had stuffed mushrooms and chips. Delicious! Unfortunately, there wasn't steak and kidney pie on the menu... I have yet to try it. But I promise, Dad, I will!

Gosh, we did so much yesterday, I'm having trouble remembering! But THIS was the biggest event of the day.

Jackie, Beth, Rachel G and I all walked down to Buckingham Palace. We were standing around because everyone else was standing around, and I took a few pictures for fellow tourists. Jackie and I were in painful need of a loo after all of that walking, and we ALMOST left when all of a sudden, a bunch of police motorcycles pulled in. We decided to stick around to see who was coming out... but we seriously never thought it would be... THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND. We were standing right in the front and she waved at us. It was pretty darn cool. Rachel took a great picture of her in her car.

We went to Queen Elizabeth Hall last night, too. There were people from the Royal Philharmonia? playing a Mahler piano quartet and an Elgar piano quintet. It was beautiful, but the seats really didn't help me to relax after a long day of walking.

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to change and then decided to go out on the town. Leicester Square was pretty busy, and we ended up having to ask the time (none of us had watches.) Jackie stopped a guy and asked him, and he claimed he didn't speak English. She wasn't satisfied with that answer, so she asked him in Spanish. Sure enough, he turned around and smiled and showed us his watch. I don't know how, because we couldn't understand a word the other was saying, but they ended up coming to our concert today at St James. We also talked to an older couple on the Tube this morning on our way to rehearse, and they came out to see it, too!

The concert was BEAUTIFUL. The church was absolutely gorgeous and the sound was amazing. I wasn't able to take pictures, but a lot of the people from the group have a lot and I'm sure I'll be able to post them once we get home.

I'm going back down the street to the hotel now. I hope everyone is doing well back home! I'm having a great time :)