Apartments in London and Country-side Cottages in Ireland

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Well, I’ve returned! It has been quite a busy and travel-filled week, however it was well worth the trip. Let me explain, but please don’t feel obligated to read all of this. It’s going to be a novel!

We left Nantes on Saturday, Valentine’s Day. It was slightly depressing not having fun plans for Valentine’s Day but as I walked down the street to the bus stop, chocolate bar in hand, I thought – hey, this isn’t a bad Valentine’s Day gift! Chocolate and a trip to London! We flew out of the Nantes airport via Ryanair (which is a very inexpensive European airline that prides itself on being timely – each flight ended with a trumpet sound and an enthusiastic voice saying “We’re on time!”). Arriving in London, we then proceeded to take a bus into the city, found our hostel, and indulged in some much needed food (Chinese, actually – it was the only thing open). The best part of the day happened when we were standing in line at the ATM machine. An old English man came up behind us and in a very cute British accent asked, “Are you folks queuing?” Apparently, the word “queue” is used for standing in line over there (it’s also used in French, but who knew?)! This could quite possibly become a new catchphrase of mine; it just sounds so much better than “standing in line.”

Sunday led us to Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately, we were unable to actually go inside (they don’t give tours on Sundays and you have to pay admission on other days). However, the outside was beautiful and reminded me of my senior year Art History class. After pictures of the Abbey, Parliament, and Big Ben, three of us girls headed to the double-decker bus tour station. I had heard from a few people that this was the thing to do in London. And sure enough, it was! Although a little chilly, we sat on the top of the bus and took the two hour tour of London which was beautiful and incredibly informative – definitely worth the money. It was a fantastic way to see all of London. I also drank my first Starbucks in two months – I loved having coffee places to go on this trip. As silly as it is, I miss that immensely here! After a quick trip to the National Art Gallery, we ended up eating dinner at a little old-fashioned English pub and I ordered fish and chips. Yum! After dinner, we spent three hours walking along the Thames. We took night pictures of the Tower Bridge, of the city skyline, of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and of Parliament/Big Ben. It was absolutely gorgeous. We discovered lots of cute little restaurants along the way and saw some great street performers. It was a neat way to see London at night and even though our feet were aching by the time we returned to the hostel, it was well worth the walk!

Monday took us to the British Library, which I now adore! If I lived in London, I would study there every day. It’s so pretty and has the cutest little café. Anyhow, we saw a few exhibitions there – one in which there were works from famous authors (i.e. a journal from Lewis Carroll) and famous singers (envelopes and scraps of papers on which the Beatles jotted down their lyrics). We also went to King’s Cross Station which was not as cool as it is in the Harry Potter movie. We found Platform 9 ¾ (for all of you Harry Potter fans) and I think I had my expectations a bit too high. I was expecting some sort of shrine to Harry Potter and it was instead just a wall with half a buggy attached to it – nothing spectacular, but sort of cool all the same. I then took the tube, which I LOVED taking (not sure why, but taking the tube is relatively easy and I felt like such a Londoner), to meet two other girls in my group to spend the afternoon doing some more sight-seeing. Our double-decker pass lasted 48 hours which was great. We could get off and on at any spot and not spend money on transportation. After getting slightly lost (which was NOT fun) and eating an expensive lunch (which was NOT good), we made it on the bus over to the Globe Theatre. We took a tour of the Globe Theatre which was one of the better tours I’ve ever experienced. The woman made it very interesting and it was cool to see how they managed to rebuild an almost-exact replica of the original theatre. Secretly and dorkily, I enjoyed brushing up on my Shakespeare and could picture myself recounting all of this information to my future English classes! After our Globe Theatre tour, we headed back to the Picadilly Circus/Soho area to see a show. We saw “Three Days of Rain,” a drama starring James McAvoy. I know him as Mr. Tumnus from Chronicles of Narnia but apparently, he was in “Atonement” and “Becoming Jane” as well. The play was very well done and we didn’t have to pay much for it, so overall it was just fun to see a show in London. After the show, the friend I went with insisted on going behind the theatre to see if he would come out. And sure enough he did! So I now have James McAvoy’s autograph, which I suppose is kind of cool. :)

Tuesday was our last full day in London. Another girl from IES (Maryn) was staying with family friends in London and she invited Ana (another girl in my group) and me to hang out with her that day. It was honestly quite nice to get a break from the group. Ana and I began our day at Madame Tussaud’s, the famous wax museum. So we spent the morning taking pictures with wax figures of Barack Obama, Albert Einstein, Julia Roberts, the Queen of England, etc… The museum was actually really cool and definitely worth seeing. After that, we spent some time walking around and I discovered my new favorite store in the whole wide world. It’s called “Accessorize” and carries hats, purses, jewelry, and shoes that are to-die-for-cute. I could have spent the entire afternoon pining over some of the purses in that store! We then met Maryn at the London Eye for our 15-minute Ferris wheel ride that showed us all of beautiful London at great heights! We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Imperial War Museum, which was awesome. There were close to 5 or 6 floors and I only made it through two. One floor was solely dedicated to the two World Wars, which was incredibly interesting (I kept thinking how much my dad would have enjoyed reading all of the information and seeing all of the artifacts). The second floor was a new Holocaust exhibition. I could have spent hours walking through that exhibition – it was very powerful and moving. I am always astounded by the horror that is the Holocaust and the number of deaths. The figures are mind-blowing and the mental psychology behind all that occurred is frankly, quite scary. After a quite amusing “trench” experience that included standing in a faux cave and being offered tea, we were on our way (if you so desire to know the whole story, ask me when I get back)! Maryn picked out a great little restaurant for us to eat at. I had a really delicious shrimp Caesar salad. We then restaurant hopped to Bella Italia for dessert, where I indulged in banoffee (a banana, pastry-caramel mesh of goodness) – a typically British dessert. We spent our last night at a little restaurant we found on the Thames. You could sit on the deck curled up in a blanket, overlooking the Thames and drinking hot chocolate. It was a perfect way to end our time in London!

Wednesday was spent buying a few souvenirs, visiting Buckingham Palace, walking through a few gardens (great potential running spots), and leaving for Dublin. Arriving in Dublin, we found our hostel and ate Chinese food again! Go figure… it’s the only kind of restaurant open at 10 o’clock at night! Our hostel in Dublin was much nicer than our hostel in London. While the London hostel was decent, the Dublin hostel was really clean and comfortable. We enjoyed our stay there!

Thursday was a rainy day in Dublin. We visited the National Library of Ireland. There were two exhibitions – one on the history of Ireland and one on W.B. Yeats. The Yeats exhibition was fantastic. They had a screen that read some of his famous poems and showed pictures. I spent fifteen minutes just sitting in the dark listening to these poems. I’ve always enjoyed Yeats’ works and I was happy to learn a bit more about his life/be able to read more of his collection. We then spent a bit of time in St. Stephen’s Green, which was really beautiful despite the gloomy weather. Afterward, I left the group and headed to the National Archives of Ireland. Dad had given me the names of some of our ancestors in Ireland and I was determined to find them in the genealogy archives. However, I didn’t have enough information with me to find it quickly and the kind elderly woman at the counter informed me that it would take me hours poring over microfiches. I told her I’d send my dad back in a few years! I wandered around Dublin a bit and then met the girls for dinner. We ended up eating at an Irish pub playing live music, so that was fun.

Friday was my favorite day in Ireland. I have a friend at Hope whose boyfriend lives in Ireland. Emily (said friend) was kind enough to put the connection together for me and Phil (her boyfriend) met us in Belfast to show us the Northern coast of Ireland. We took a train to Belfast Friday morning, grabbed a quick lunch at Subway with Phil, and then headed to the coast. It was absolutely gorgeous to see the landscape and the countryside (and the sheep!). We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day weather-wise (Phil informed us that the weather in Ireland can be entirely unpredictable). He took us to a spot on the coast called Giant’s Causeway (an area where the rocks have formed into connected-cylinder like shapes). We spent some time hiking up the mountain there and taking pictures. It was right on the Atlantic Ocean – I can’t even begin to describe how beautiful it was! God’s beauty was clearly evident. Phil was a great tour guide and we were so thankful to have someone who knew the way with us. We spent some time in a little town on the coast getting ice cream, etc… and then we grabbed dinner and caught the train back to Dublin. It was a fantastic day and the reason behind my wish for a country-side cottage in Ireland. :)

Because Thursday was kind of a let-down in Dublin, I spent Saturday trying to make up for it. I spent the morning exploring the Dublin Writer’s Museum (which appealed to the English major in me) and Trinity College. Trinity was gorgeous (Emily, you are going to love it!) and I was also able to see the Book of Kells (the first four gospels translated into Latin). That was one of the most interesting things I learned about and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the actual book – so intricate! The tour then took us up to “The Long Room” which was more than fantastic. Picture a long banquet-hall type room two stories high with books stacked to the ceiling in shelves. I literally just walked around staring at all the beautiful old books. They also had an exhibition displaying the history of detective novels. And because I was so inspired by this, I bought Agatha Christie’s novel “The Body in the Library.” :) I then got coffee at a little café called “The Joy of Coffee” (cute, right?) and wandered around a book sale (they had a used book sale in London too and I had to tear myself away from both because I had absolutely no room in my backpack to bring home books!). To end the day, I met up with Kimille and we took a tour of the Guinness Factory. This was surprisingly interesting, despite the beer being unsurprisingly unpleasant! Did you know that Arthur Guinness (founder of Guinness beer) had so much confidence in the recipe for his beer that he signed a 9,000 year contract? After the tour, we grabbed dinner at another local pub and then got gelato in Temple Bar (the pub/bar area of Dublin).

Sunday we woke up at the crack of dawn to catch an early morning flight to Paris. We spent most of the afternoon sleeping, reading, and doing Sudoku puzzles in the train station before we took our train back to Nantes. I arrived “home” exhausted but content (and my host mom was kind enough to come running downstairs when I opened the door to give me two bisous (kisses) on the cheek to welcome me back).

Overall, it was a really great trip. It was somewhat difficult at times travelling with five-six girls and we were certainly not without our conflicts (unfortunately)! But I thoroughly enjoyed myself regardless of such and loved getting to see more of the world. I fell in love with London. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy the city as much as I did but I can definitely see myself going back for a visit. The city was beautiful and the people were smiley (very different from France)! I also enjoyed Ireland, but I think I would much prefer the small towns and countryside there. Dublin was a bit dirtier than London and there were definitely quite a few drunk, Irish men! However, the Irish were the friendliest and had the greatest accents. So that goes in their favor! In general, though, I was just thankful for the opportunity to visit two new countries! Sometimes it just hits me that I’m in a foreign country, a place I’ve wanted to visit my whole life. And I feel very thankful for being able to do so.

If you’re still reading this, thanks! You’ve made it through the saga of Madelyn’s travels.
Hope all is well in your part of the world!