I'm Back!!!

Hey friends!!!

Sorry it has been so long!! I've been pretty tied up with stuff and haven't had time to write. I haven't really done anything too terribly interesting the past 10 days so here are what pictures I have... Lindsay's friend Sasha came to visit so we took her all around London and Oxford!!

Earlier this week we went to the Ashmolean and looked around. They have an incredible collection of Greek artifacts that I loved looking through and reading about! Above is a statue of Athena... Patron god of Athens and goddess of wisdom and battle strategy!

Even though they used the wrong picture, Katie, Rachel, and I were really excited we were on the staff page!! It's weird to think that our picture is in the same place as all of our favorite counselors from when we were campers!

 It was an extra special week because not only did my Camp Longhorn annual arrive at home... My early bird finally arrived! I'm super stoked for spending summer #12 among the hills and dales.

 We made the trek over to Abbey Road just to take this picture. We couldn't help but laugh at the people trying to reenact the Beatles cover photo while cars were flying down this busy street. No worries! Nobody was injured!!

We finally made it to Kings Cross Station to see Platform 9 3/4!! We were very happy that we brought our own scarfs because they highly encourage you to wear one of their communal ones if you don't have one of your own. That aside, it was a really fun little detour because we finally got to see one of the most iconic sights in children's literature!!

 We also finally toured Christ Church in Oxford. It was absolutely gorgeous!!!

 The church was actually a filming location AND a set inspiration sight for the Harry Potter movies!!

         

The hall in Christ Church provided the set designers with inspiration for the Hogwarts Great Hall!! They had the long tables and the main table in the front of the hall. It was very pretty, but very very crowded. 

The staircase pictures is the one where Professor McGonnagall welcomes the new Hogwarts students at the beginning of Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone. Apparently they had to beg for permission from the head of the church to film there. They also had to pay an insane amount of money!!

 We also got to tour their Cathedral. It reminded us a lot of Salisbury Cathedral that we toured last month. They both had a lot of tombs, but Salisbury Cathedral is about 5x the size of the Christ Church Cathedral. We loved looking at all of their beautiful stained glass windows and I listened to one of the volunteers explain the story behind one of them. It was fascinating!!

After all of our walking around, we ate lunch and then got tea. I ordered a baked potato and they put so much cheese on it you couldn't even taste the potato!! As for the tea... I think I'm hooked!! It was delicious and very relaxing!

Tonight, Sophie (my new Australian friend) and I went to see Love, Rosie which is a British rom-com. It was fabulous and did a great job of staying true to the book.  

Next week Lindsay and I are heading off the Zürich and Lucerne Switzerland and couldn't be more pumped!! Until then, friends!!
xoxo
SG

One Short Weekend in The Emerald Country

Hey friends!!

I had this song stuck in my head all weekend so it seemed fitting to include it!! I'm still exhausted from this weekend so this post is going to be mainly photos and a lot of typos so bear with me!! We had the best and worst luck with public transit, it was insane!! We almost missed our flight out to Dublin because the bus from Oxford took waaaaay longer than usual. After sprinting through the airport, Amazing Race style, we got to our gate like two minutes before the gate was supposed to close and found out that our flight had been delayed!! Thank goodness!! We also had a really late flight on Monday night to get back to London that got delayed. We didn't think we were going to make the last train back to central London, so we had to sprint through the airport, once again, and made it on about 30 seconds before they closed the doors. We got home around 4 AM and needless to say, we learned our lesson about booking flights that take off so late!! Ireland was really different. We had expected Dublin to be similar to London because it is Ireland's "cosmopolitan" city. However, we quickly found out that there really wasn't that much to do in terms of sight seeing.

Our first day we went on a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher. We got to stop at Belfast and a few other places along the way, but really none of it could live up to how magnificent God's handiwork of the cliffs was. This was by far my favorite part of the trip and the pictures really don't do it justice because it is truly breathtaking. As we were driving through Ireland we decided that like Oz, everything really was "grand and green"!!

 

After an incredible day at the cliffs, we were ready to hit the group running in Dublin. We started off the morning at the National Leprechaun Museum which was really really cute 'n' fun and we had a good time learning about Irish folklore! After that, we walked around Dublin and went to see the Book of Kells, an illustrated copy of the Bible that the Irish created to return the importance of Christianity to society... Thanks for the recommendation, Mimi!!. The colors were so vivid and beautiful and they had to import dyes all around the world to complete the project. After a lunch break and a trip to the sweet shoppe, we went on a walking tour that showed us many of the historical sights around town and our guide told us all about the history behind them.

The rainbow we walked through to get to...

The pot of gold!!

Leprechaun Museum!!

They apparently painted these lovely historic buildings vivid colors to remind the people of Dublin that they lived in a costal town... Interesting tactic!!

Trinity College 

Ireland was really really fun, but I'm super excited to get back into the classroom at the primary school I'm observing at and to London for the next two weekends!! They say distance makes the heart grow fonder, and that is 100% true when it come to me and my new favorite city!!

Until then my friends!!

xoxo 

SG