Trip 7: A job at Westminster Abbey.

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12/01-5/02

I flew back to Ohio for one week after my semester in Prague. I celebrated Christmas there before heading right back to Europe. For some reason, my mom bought be a roundtrip ticket from Prague, so I spent an evening there and flew to London the next day. I had a six month British work visa through the BUNAC program and spent the next five months living in London. I lived at the BUNAC hostel in the West End, right around the corner from the British Museum. My first job was as a waiter at a restaurant called Le Metro near Harrod's. That only lasted about a month before I realized that it was not for me. I was quickly able to find a new postion as a cashier at the Westminster Abbey bookshop. It was an amazing place to work. I took my lunch breaks in the cloisters everyday and basically could poke around any area of the Abbey that I pleased.

One of the main reasons I moved to England was to watch football. While the idea of living in Newcastle instead of London was out of the question, I was able to attend three Newcastle matches during my time in England. Newcastle won 2 and drew 1 en route to a Champions' League spot!

My mom and brother visited me in London in March and we took the Eurostar to Paris for a long daytrip. I went to Scottish Highlands for a long weekend and made it as far north as the Isle of Skye. I also took a weekend in the county of Shropshire where a friend of mine showed me a bucolic land dotted with small villages. The town of Ludlow was one particularly nice place we visited. After my time working in London, I took a mini-trip. I first went to the Netherlands and Belgium, joining many people from eurotrip.com (now eurotrek.com) for another Queen's Day bash. I flew from Belgium to Ireland to explore Dublin and the west coast. I wasn't a fan of Dublin at all, but the Cliffs of Moher and the Dingle Peninsula/Great Blasket Island were very enjoyable and great places for hiking.

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