London Calling

So I am fresh back from a weekend trip to London! The trip was amazing and busy and tiring. We did London in about 2 days if that says anything at all about the pace of our trip. But it was a good experience and we are proud of ourselves for getting ourselves to and from London and navigating in the city.

First a few highlights from the week before we went to London:
1. Tour of the Irish Parliament Building, Leinster House. The tour was given to our Notre Dame group by one of the Irish senators, Mark Daly. The building was beautiful and had a lot of history in it. Though, I have to say, the highlight of the night was having drinks in the bar (Yes, they have a bar in their Parliament Building. It's Ireland after all.) Senator Daly (all of us girls in the group have a little bit of a crush on him) did a great job with the tour and made time to chat with everyone in our group before the end of the night. He's invited our group to his hometown, Kenmare, the first weekend of March which should be a fun trip.

2. Finding Phoenix Park with my friend Ashley. Neither of us had class on Thursday so we decided to ride the 10 bus as far as it would take us which is to Phoenix Park. Phoenix Park is on the north side of the river so it was nice to explore a new part of the city. We found the zoo and a really cute spot for a cup of tea.
3. Irish Literature Class. Yes, I am going to class while I'm here. I'm taking this class at O'Connell House with some other Notre Dame students. It's a highlight because our professor for the class is absolutely brilliant. His name is Seamus Deane (here's his wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seamus_Deane). He is a famous Irish poet and as Kevin Whelan, the director of our programme who is brilliant in his own right, says, "Seamus Deane is probably the smartest man in Ireland." We're really lucky to have him teaching the course because he hasn't been able to teach it since last year because of health issues. When I say he is brilliant, I mean that in Wednesday's lecture I barely understood what he was talking about (neither did my English major friends). I'm excited to continue learning from him and am hoping I can manage to keep up with the class.

Now on to London. Our trip to London was a whirlwind. Here's what we did.

Day One:
We left for the airport at 5 in the morning and got into the city around 11. We went to King's Cross and took pictures at Platform 9 3/4. At noon we met up at the Natural History Museum with one of Ashley's friends from ND who is studying in London for the semester and one of Ryan's friends who is studying at Oxford. From the Natural History museum we headed out to attempt to get tickets for a show that night. We were on a mission! So we trucked our way through part of Hyde Park, past Buckingham Palace, and finally made it to Trafalgar Square. Ashley and her friend headed out alone to see if they could get us tickets while the rest of us went into the National Gallery. We were pretty wiped out at this point but it was worth it because we got tickets (half-priced) to see Avenue Q that night! It was a great musical with a great cast and we had awesome tickets in the middle of the 4th row!

Day Two:
We got up early and after breakfast at our hostel headed out to see London! We rode the tube right to central London. When you walked out of the station, you immediately saw Big Ben! Next we went to Westminster Abbey and then walked along the river before heading to Covent Gardens for a bit. Then we met my friend Jen who has been studying at Oxford and who I have not seen since September! We did Globe Theatre, Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, and then the British Museum. The night ended with Thai food and drinks at a pub after.

If you can't tell from this, we did a ton of stuff in barely two days. I could have spent a week there easily and know that someday I will have to return! I was proud of our group for having the energy to fit everything in that we wanted to see, getting around the city easily (a special thanks to my friend Ashley who was basically our guide for the trip) and just having so much fun even when we were really tired from all the traveling and walking.

This coming week I actually need to be productive: homework, laundry, grocery shopping and all that fun stuff. But we might do a daytrip or overnight trip somewhere in Ireland this weekend and on Sunday we're having a Super Bowl watch at the O'Connell House!

Also I've now been in Ireland for three weeks which is crazy! It's going by quickly already!