Week One

So.. here is the start of my 5-week vacation!!
The break started with Friday afternoon getting on a coach to London and meeting Emily Raney!!! We met her for supper that first night. Saturday the three of us met up again, and we walked through Hyde Park. There was some cool stuff, including a Princess Diana memorial playground, (which was mostly just a big pirate ship, was she a pirate? i hope so.) or maybe it was a huge conspiracy and the pirates who killed her also had a laugh and built her a memorial of a pirate ship... i think that is the most likely story.)
We went on a little walking tour with Emily's class, and that was alrite. We walked by Shakespear's Globe Theatre.. that was really cool. Cara and I split off from their group and went to the Tate Modern Art Museum.. wow, talk about dumb. I just can't call something art when all it is is a canvas painted gray. that is not art.
We saw some people protesting Scientology.. that was pretty cool, we also saw them the last time we were in London. they wear the Guy Fawkes (from V for Vendetta) masks.
Sunday morning, Emily, Cara and I went to church at the Westminster abbey. Wow that place is huge!! it was pretty cool, but it was a very short service (it was just communion?), there were some readings and liturgy and stuff, but no sermon and not very long (weird Catholics.)
The rest of Sunday was very cold, and Cara and I just wandered around London trying to stay warm and visit places.

Monday morning Cara and I went to the airport and flew to Barcelona to meet up with her family.
Barcelona was a really neat place, with lots of little side streets full of funky little shops. We went to a park that has the longest park bench in the world! It was decorated with some neat mosaic stuff. We also went to the Picasso Museum. That was pretty cool, and it was fun to see how he went through phases in paintings, for instance, he went through a phase where all his paintings were ridiculously blue, and then there was a red phase after that. The only thing I didn't like was some stuff he did pretty late in his life. it was pretty bad, and I think I could have made better paintings (okay.. obviously not.. but still.. not the best paintings)
After Barcelona, all of Cara's family and Cara and I drove to Monaco. Monaco was ridiculously beautiful. There are lots of small, winding roads, it is right on the coast of the Mediterranean. The hotel was super nice, with amazing views.
We went to the Monte Carlo casino (from all the James Bond films) and that was amazing. This casino was decorated amazingly with huge paintings and cool statues. Of course, I got a martini inside the casino (i didn't dare ask for it shaken, not stirred though).
Cara and I went to the beach, but it was very cold, and laying on the beach is not much fun when you have to wear jeans and a sweatshirt to be comfortable.
The next day, Cara's mother and Cara and I walked around Monaco. We went up to the Palace, and saw Prince Rainier III's personal collection of Napoleon memorabilia. There was some cool stuff in there, including a pipe where the bowl was in the shape of Napoleon's head. There was a sword in there that was a gift from some Russian czar, and the hilt was completely encrusted with diamonds! it was beautiful, but wow.. so many diamonds...
We also walked into a really cool cathedral in Monaco (the one where Grace Kelly and the Prince got married) and it was a very ornate cathedral. The graves of many princes and princesses (including Grace Kelly and Rainier) were around the front of the cathedral.

After Monaco, Cara and I went on a train from Nice to Bologna where we met Anna Maria (a coworker of my dad's.) She took very good care of us and took us on a couple tours of the city of Bologna, which was a very cool city. There are still two very tall towers remaining from long ago, and one is leaning a lot! It was pretty crappy weather in Bologna, but that is okay because you can walk for 38 kilometres around the city while staying under these great arches that cover that much of the sidewalks!
One interesting thing we walked by is a very nice shoestore where they hand make these great shoes, and Arnold the Govenator and Danny DeVito used to come there twice a year to get shoes.
Anna Maria's sister cooked us a delicious lasagne one night (they make there lasagne with a white sauce, not red, and it is amazing!) The other night, Anna Maria took us to a favorite restaurant of her's, and it was also very delicious.
Tuesday morning Cara and I got on a train to Florence, where we are now!

Wow, I am caught up! yahoo! Hopefully I will be able to blog again soon, i love you all!

Scotland and Ireland

Well, I am sitting here at my hostel in Florence, taking a little break, and catching up on some blogs. I am now in week 2 of the 5-week spring break. I will hopefully be able to catch everyone up with some quick blogs.

So the trip to Scotland was organized by the school, so there were about 40 kids (mostly from Leicester.) This was okay, because I got to stay in the hostel with people I knew, but I much prefer smaller group traveling than the big groups. We got into Edinburgh and had a little walking tour, seeing some interesting things including author's houses, and heard a story about the man who Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was based on. There was a huge castle in Edinburgh that we unfortunately did not get to visit because we arrived too late. We went to the White Elephant, where JK Rowling started writing the Harry Potter books.
That night, cara and I actually ate haggis!! I was expecting something horrible... but it actually wasn't too bad, kind of like meatloaf.
The next day, we drove up through the highlands (wow.. beautiful) and I learned a lot about the history of the Scottish Highlanders. I also saw the train line that is the Hogwarts express train from the movies. We made it to Loch Ness, and I jumped in... but sadly the monster didn't come get me.. and I didn't even see it. that was sad, but i'm glad i got to jump in loch ness. (even though the water was freezing.. about 40 degrees fahrenheit! yikes!)
We stayed in Inverness which was okay.. and then the next day we drove back down, stopping at Urqhuart castle, which was mostly ruined, but a couple walls were still up. I also learned about how historically inaccurate Braveheart was... thanks a lot mel gibson...
One of the best things, we drove by and saw the castle that is every castle (except the one at the end of the film, on the island) in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The next weekend, cara and i got up super early to leave for Dublin. Most of our time in Dublin was wandering around looking at things. There is a weird monument (just a really tall single spire) right in the center of O'Connell street(a very main street). We went to Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells. That was really sweet.. I dont remember when it was done, but it was very very ornate and colorful. There was also a really cool exhibit talking about how it was made.
There was a really cool Viking museum that talked about the Viking inhabitation of Dublin, and I learned a lot about Viking culture and that was pretty neat. I also saw a Viking longboat that was made exactly like one they dug up in Denmark, and then they actually sailed this boat over to Dublin. It was really cool.
The Guinness Store house was awesome, a huge museum where you could see much of the history of Guinness and its brewing. There is also a cool observatory at the top where there is a great view of the whole city, and they gave you a free pint of Guinness, and wow was that fresh Guinness delicious!!
oh yeah.. also there was an Archaeological museum, and we saw some bodies that had been mummified in bogs.. that was pretty sweet.

That was about it for Ireland and Scotland.. i'm sure i forgot some stuff.. just ask me about it later!