Continuation of Adventures

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Hi Everyone! I have typed up (in Microsoft word first of course) the next chapter in Cassie’s adventures Abroad!

I have had a cold practically since I arrived here in England and am working really hard to get over it, but the last couple days have been a little more miserable than others, so forgive me if this entry is not as upbeat as it should be. I am still having fun, believe me!!

I believe I left off in Scotland, I last talked about the amazing night we had being serenaded by traditional Scottish music. It really was amazing. Ahem, ok. Us girls then met up with the rest of the crew at our hostel, where they had been hangin’ out and meeting other hostel residents and world travelers. I am truly in love with the hostel life, I think it is such an amazing atmosphere and culture. In my next life I would like to own and run one! Too many things to do and places to see I tell you!

We all trickled off to bed, I stayed in a 4 person room with Aubrey from Missouri, Vanessa, and Matt who are both from California. There were 2 bunk beds-which I love and miss from my childhood-and of course as we were all tucked in we got to talking about the day and just everything. We called the chat session ‘Girl Talk With Matt’. I don’t think he minded though, he enjoys our conversations and with 3 beautiful girls who wouldn’t?!

The next day was the last day in Scotland, we had to get as much done as we could! There is a dormant volcano on the outside of town, right by the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Queen Elizabeth II’s official residence in Scotland. Anyhoo, this mountain is huge. And we climbed it! That’s right, about 6 of us took on the adventure of climbing a volcano. It was steep going, and some of us started to wonder where our senses went. Alas, we made it and were rewarded with the most amazing view of the harbor and the city…and with the fact that there was a much easier and shorter way to climb up this thing. Had we only known! It was still an adventure, and we certainly earned our meal that day! After admiring the view and staying tough in the windy coldness at the top, we decided to head out to find sustenance. We ran across a few people from our group at the Palace, but we opted to pay for food instead of entrance to the royal residence. Maybe next time we’re in Scotland!

We got to explore some little alleys and side streets on our way back to town, there are truly some unseen treasures sometimes if you just let yourself wander wherever the wind takes you. Now, I don’t know if you all remember my saying this earlier, but we got lucky in that the days started out beautiful and sunny in Scotland. But like all things on this big island it didn’t last. On our way back from lunch we got doused in Scottish rains. Fun right? We were souvenir shopping though, so we were able to duck into shops along the road. We collected our things from the hostel and headed on our merry way back to Preston. Some of our group caught the train around 2 in the afternoon, and others had to relax and explore some more while they waited for the next train. We all got safely back home and relaxed or of course went out to get ready for the week. Typical night in Preston!

This brings me to the next weekend, because sadly too much happens during the week and I cannot recall the exact details of that one. It was only the 2nd week of class, so it was more learning how to understand the professors and getting organized for classes, er excuse me, modules.

So, the next weekend Aubrey and I took a day trip to Liverpool!! Home of the Beatles and a massive port city. First off, we bought our tickets that morning to Liverpool and because the very nice gentleman at the ticket window stared at Aubrey’s credit card for a good 10 minutes we missed our train, by only a minute! They really do leave on time, or early here if they stop at all. But that’s another story of course. I will share that with you shortly!
We had to go a different route, and from this kind gentleman at the window we got instructions on how to get two other trains to connect to Liverpool. We followed the directions thoroughly and arrived in Liverpool with no further mishaps.
We found a map at the tourist center and looked at each other and looked at this big town and had no idea where to even start. So we started walking.
We found ourselves in front of the old parliament buildings with statues of men on horses and massive lions. Down the way and around the corner we saw more old massive buildings that were museums or parliament buildings. We decided to keep moving to see the rest of what Liverpool had to offer, so we wandered around pretty much aimlessly until we came across a very large catholic cathedral, called St. Johns. It was so tall and old, it was a beautiful building. They really don’t build them like they used to, the detail in lots of the old buildings and churches we have seen around England and Scotland are just so complex and delicate.
We learned that there was a garden around behind the cathedral, so we took the trails back there and took lots of pictures. The trail and actually the entire garden were lined with headstones, some dating back to the 1300s! It was a sunny morning and an absolute beautiful day in general. And since I was with Miss Photographer, I decided to try my hand at some of the techniques we learned in high school photography class. It was a fine time.
From there, we started heading towards the waterfront where we came across Albert’s Dock. This is a big tourist area is, where the Mersytime Mariner Museum, the Slavery Museum, and The Beatle’s Story are located along with lots of restaurants, bistros, and shops. We wandered around the Mariner Museum and read about the 3 most famous and tragic ships in history including the Titanic, Lusitania, and the Empress of Ireland. It was a lot of reading, pictures, artifacts, and models of the ships also. I would have been able to spend all day in that museum (story of my life of museums over here) but we could not afford to. There was so much else to see and do, and our stomachs were growling at us for food. We had a sandwich and soup in a little shop called Nosh. It was yummy!
We then shopped a bit for souvenirs, not for us of course and wandered away from Albert’s Dock after getting pictures by the museum about the Beatles, the Beatles Story. (It was a bit pricy to go in and we budgeted ourselves.) Aubrey and I then walked along the river and sat out there for a while because while it was a little chilly, the sun was out!!!! We sunbathed a bit and then kept walking around a monument and the big clock building famous in Liverpool’s skyline.
The theme of the trip was really to let our feet carry us wherever they wanted to go. We ended up walking into a different part of town towards massive wind turbines for electricity. They looked closer than they actually were and it was getting late so we headed back downtown towards the train station. We walked through something you always find in big cities…you guessed it, a shopping mall! Except that it wasn’t really a shopping mall like you think of when you hear that. I don’t know what to call it really, maybe a shopping district? There are just roads lined with shops and pubs with people walking literally everywhere in every direction. There is no room for cars, only people allowed! No wonder it seems like on all of my days off I end up shopping!
Anyhoo, we had some time before the next train came so we decided to pop into a pub for a pint. The name of the pub I am sure is something shorter, but where the name would be it only says ‘the First Irish-American Pub in Liverpool’. We thought it was humorous, so we went in. And we ended up staying there longer than we planned because the Irish barman misheard me and gave me not a full pint, but 4 pints. We stopped him when we figured it out, but being that he had now 2 extra pints, the kind-hearted gave them to us anyways. So we had 2 extra pints to go through. Congratulations Aubrey! Needless to say, we had a very silly and fun ride home.
Once we got home we got directions to a friend’s flat to throw birthday party number one of the semester. It was Vincent’s, one of our French friends, surprise birthday party and boy was he surprised! We had a good night of friends and food. His girlfriend Helene cooked a potato, cheese and onion French dish for all of us. We then had some desserts, and our only problem was that we had a hard time with the plates and silverware for so many people. There were probably about 30 of us or more.

Over the next week I just went to classes and hung out with everyone in the international posse, playing games some nights in the flats and other nights going out and dancing the night away. I am getting more comfortable with the classes, but need to start on writing the ‘seen questions’ for the exams and doing the independent study work. It’s hard knowing how things work over here while everyone around me has everything figured out. Most of my classes are third year level classes, and it’s the last semester. It’s like being a Freshman in Senior level Spring semester classes before graduation. Have no fear, I will get it all together here soon. On the other hand, we are starting to learn techniques on the knitting machines in my fashion knitting class and it’s kinda fun. I am glad there are machines though, because hand knitting is hard!

Over the next week, Aubrey, Jori (from Kentucky, you know her from last blog) Susan (New York) and I planned a trip to a small town called Coventry. My friend Kim Coventry is from Australia (but came to the University of Kentucky to play tennis) and she requested that I go to Coventry, if only for the time it took to get a picture for her. I abliged, and we ended up staying there most of the morning. We added on Stratford-Upon-Avon and Birmingham to the trip because we didn’t think there was all that much to do in Coventry, but we were wrong. There was a bombing there in World War II and a church was destroyed, but the old walls are still standing and they built a new church right beside it. The ruins are amazing to look at, but sad at the same time to see the broken stained glass and the blackened stones and memorials for those killed in the tragedy. We took pictures and walked among the town, and of course more shopping areas. It’s ironic to see the oldest buildings and churches among the modern shopping centers, restaurants and movie theaters. There is an IKEA in Coventry, so we made a detour before going back to the train station so Miss Aubrey could go in. I had never been in one to be honest, but now understand why so many people love them and how you can spend your life there. The inside is a maze for crying out loud! They practically hide the exit from you and they don’t ever want to let you out! It was a task finding the outside again, but eventually we did and made our way to the train station. By this time we were starving, and had to get off the train in Birmingham and switch train stations. The other station went to Stratford-Upon-Avon, which is the 2nd most visited tourist attraction outside of London. It’s where Shakespeare was from…and here comes adventure time!!
We waited patiently for the train to come get us, and we got on it. Only to end up in a little town called Dorridge. Who has ever heard of Dorridge? Not us. We definitely took the wrong train. Awesome! It was 3 in the afternoon, we were freezing, and we were hungry. So we go walking around in search of food. Apparently they have siestas in Dorridge, because everywhere closed at 2 pm and opened back up again at 5 pm. Except for a really expensive looking place. W exnayed that, and got some sandwiches and munchies from a little convenience store and ate in the train station. We were still cold, but we didn’t want to miss the train back to Birmingham!
Soooo we get back to Birmingham…we were lucky because no one asked us for our tickets the whole way there. Something tells me the tickets we had would not have worked. We have about 30 minutes until the next train came for us to Stratford, so we waited for it. And waited for it. And waited for it. It was very cold may I remind you…and we continued waiting for it. It kept running late, and then later…and later. Then we saw it! We checked to make sure, it had Stratford written on the light board, and we were so excited! We saw it slow down! We continued watching it! And watching it…and watching it…and watched it as it swooooooooooshed right past the platform and the 30 or so people crowded around waiting. We all looked around at each other…seriously? Did this really happen? Holy crap the train just left us. No, that implies that it stopped and then left…it didn’t even stop! Who does that? In the words of Jori…the conductor has ONE job! Start, and stop the train! And he couldn’t even do it! Who DOES that!? And so here we were, having to wait another 40 minutes or so for the next train. It was getting late, we were all freezing our toesies off, Aubrey hasn’t been able to feel her body in 4 hours and was begging for alcohol (which is NOT like her) just to warm up, standing on a platform crowded by people who were left by a train that didn’t even stop where and when it was supposed to. Who does that?? While Susan and Aubrey were being responsible and looking for the train timetable, Jori and I were laughing so hard at everything that we couldn’t breath but we could feel our lungs crying out for air. Yes, I know you may have had to be there to understand, but it was pretty garsh darn hilarious to us at the time. At least Jori and I thought so…you’ll have to ask Susan and Aubrey what they thought.
Needless to say, we were completely skeptical that the next train would even come much less stop for us. But it did! Yay! We were ecstatic, it stopped and actually let us all get on it! Of course it was still cold, and dark when we FINALLY got to Stratford-Upon-Avon, but we got there! And then we had to maneuver our way through the town to the Shakespearean area that the travel books directed us towards. We had to ask for directions, because we had no big map of the city but we finally got to a place we could see on the map. Success! We saw the outside of Shakespeare’s house, (it was really old) and it was really neat. We got pictures all together outside of it. We also met some people from Spain and Lithuania who were looking for the same thing, and who ran into the same problem trying to get on a train that forgot to stop. Anyways…
We ended up walking around the cute little town, again lots of streets lined with really old buildings and shops and pubs. We tried to go see the River Avon, but it was dark! And it was under construction anyways. We popped into a couple stores to get souvenirs and chocolate (apparently that is also where Cadburry chocolate is made?) and we continued on our way through the cold dark streets. Every other pub or store called itself ‘The Shakespeare’ or had ‘Shakespeare’ in the name somewhere. Can’t imagine why!
We had another hour or so before the train took us back to Birmingham because by this time, we were really, really ready to go home and get warm. We got some tea and hot chocolate at a really old pub that had supposedly had over 500 years of history! But we figured out by the dates was really there for not even 400. You can even find false advertising in Shakespeare’s hometown…sad really. Lol
We safely got back onto the train there, it stopped and everything! And we walked through this intense cool looking mall to get to the other train station. It looks like this part of the mall building was made of push tacks….but they lit up at night! You will see pictures…it’s really cool.
OK, so as if we didn’t have enough of an adventure already. We get to the big train station, and where the timetable says there should be a train to Preston, we don’t see one on the light boards. Something is wrong…and there is no one at the information desk. We do find the place to ask, and they tell us there is no train home and we have to catch 2 trains to get there. Yay. We take the print out instructions, and we go find food because of course by this time it is close to 9 o’clock at night. We thought a pub in the station served food, but noooooo, they only serve beverages. ?? Annoying…but we can eat other food in there so we go in pairs to get sustenance while we wait for the train. Thank goodness it was soon because we were approached by a very drunk gentleman who bought us cokes (not pop or soda, but cokes here in England. The debate continues) and who could not remember our names or where we were from. Thank goodness. We don’t want him remembering us, as nice as he was.
Another good part of the story, we got on the train we were supposed to. It went to Crewe and I couldn’t help but think of “Falhurst of Crewe” in a Knight’s Tale. It made me happy. We switched trains there and the other girls decided to get some shuteye. Poor Jori was especially exhausted as she had been losing her voice more and more as the day wore on. (Come to find out Monday she has laryngitis…poor girl.) As tired as I was, I was running on slap-happiness by that point, and those of you who know me, know there really was no hope for me to get sleep. So I read my book instead. It is an interesting book, I will have to share with you when I get home but it’s about a girl living in the big city of Manhattan. I think an English person wrote it though, it has a different kind of rhythm to it than American writers do.
That night and the next day we rested since we had such an adventurous day! I ended up doing what else on Monday of no classes, but running errands and shopping. I have gone to the health clinic to see if anything can be done for me, but alas it is hopeless. It’s a viral infection, so she just said to take Sudafed and to let it run it’s course. Lovely.
I stayed up late again, 2 nights in a row because apparently England doesn’t want me to ever get to sleep before 4 am. Again, lovely! I made it to class and then ran around town for a bit with Vanessa. Last night we ended up hanging around Harry (New York) and Jesus (Mexico) flats chit chatting. Today I ran to the ‘chemist’ or pharmacy to get some Vick’s Vaporub and band-aids and spent just under 2 hours in the knitting lab knitting some sample knits for class. Apparently I am really slow, but only because I am learning, and I double and triple check everything. They turned out really well though, I will show you all when I come home.
So, you are all caught up on my life until today so I will retire now since I have been sick for 2 or 3 weeks as have most of us international kids (apparently we share everything!). I need rest! I will write soon, I promise.

I miss you all, and love you more!!!

Love,
sick and ailing England dweller 😉

PS I threw in a BUNCH of pictures of some of my friends, so you have some idea of who the International Kids are! Hope you enjoy!

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Photos

Miss Photographer taking photos
Also known as Aubrey

Comments

[Jul]

Your pictures make me want to jump on a plane and go to england right now!!!