Second-to-last Post...

Today is the first of three days of studying for our last exam, but I am struggling to get going. So I figured I might as well be "productive" and write a new post. Not much will be happening between now and our departure, so my last post can focus on final thoughts/memories and looking back at the semester as a whole. But this one will just serve as an update for my (many) recent adventures.

So let's start back on last Wednesday, when Jillian, Rosie, and I took a train down to Bath, where we met George (he goes to school in Bristol, which is pretty close to Bath). The trip down was eventful, though - we were cutting it close for time in terms of making our train, so the three of us had to ditch our plan of taking the bus (it was taking too long to show up) and catch the Tube. No problem there, but when we arrived at Paddington Station, we ran into some problems. That morning Jillian had taken one of her debit cards out of her wallet as a precaution, so that she wouldn't be carrying all three around. When we got to the station, the machines used to print out pre-booked tickets required the purchasing credit card. Unfortunately, her other two cards didn't work, and it became clear she had used the one she had taken out earlier to purchase her tickets. So we rushed to the ticket office to ask them to print out the tickets, but the teller informed us that he couldn't print them without the card, so Jilli was forced to purchase an additional one way ticket that was more expensive than our original round trip tickets. She grabbed the ticket and we ran to the train, just making it on before departure. Jillian was understandably upset at the mistake, and if we had had more time, she might have been able to convince the teller to print the tickets since she knew the credit card number. She was also concerned she would be hit with an overdraw fee (she ended up having enough in the account by a slim margin) and that she was going to lose even more money by having to buy a ticket for the trip back. Luckily, the woman working in the smaller, less crowded Bath station printed out her return trip ticket for her, so that additional crisis was avoided. She tried for a refund later, but so far, no luck. To her credit, after her initial dismay, she moved on and didn't let the incident put a damper on our day in Bath. But considering the amount of traveling we've done, we have been pretty successful for that to have been the first real issue we have had.

So we met up with George, just as it started to rain. Lovely. The four of us headed to a French cafe that George and Rosie knew about (they've both been to Bath a bunch of times) and got paninis for lunch. After that, Jillian and I toured the Roman baths, which were very cool - the museum was well done and the excavations are in really good condition. Rosie and George walked around some shops while we went in, and we met up again after. Next up was the Abbey in town, which had a "suggested" donation upon entry. We weren't really inclined to pay to get in, but also weren't sure how strong of a "suggestion" the employees would make when we entered. But as we stood in the entrance deliberating, a group entered without paying while the employee was distracted, and we simply tagged along behind them. Success. The church was very pretty, with a really unique ceiling. I am not anywhere near knowledgeable enough in architecture/design to describe it, but there were lots of cool liney-things branching out in circles. Helpful, right? If you're interested, there are plenty of images on Google. Upon leaving the Abbey, we tried to figure out what to do next. Bath isn't particularly large, and there aren't a ton of sights - people visit mostly to shop and just see the city. So we walked around a bit, and went to see a part of town with a large building shaped like a semi-circle. The rest of the afternoon was spent looking at a park, walking in a garden maze, and eating delicious cookies from a chain called Ben's Cookies. We had a lot of time to kill in the city, since our train didn't leave until 8:40. So we just hung out and passed the time in various locations, before parting ways - Rosie went back to Bristol with George for the night. We said goodbye to George for the last time, and the four of us pledged to visit each other sometime in the near future (on both continents). As a whole, Bath was nice, but not incredible, and especially since I had heard it was gorgeous, I was a bit disappointed. I am glad we went, but it's not something I would advise people to go way out of their way to do. The best part of the trip was spending one last day with Rosie and George.

After a long day in Bath, Jillian and I had a 3:00 AM wake-up to begin our travel to Croatia. Since the weather report showed rain for both days we were supposed to be there, both of us were less excited about the trip than when we had initially booked it a few weeks earlier. It also didn't help that I was still completely exhausted from late nights of studying, and that we were leaving BEFORE the crack of dawn. But after a walk, bus, plane, and cab, we arrived at our hotel in Pula. Upon arrival it was pouring, so we decided to take a nap. When we awoke, we were surprised to see no trace of the rain and clear, sunny skies. The good weather continued for the rest of that day and the next, so we actually were able to spend our two days there relaxing in the sun. We napped, read, listened to music, ate, and just enjoyed doing nothing while taking in the pretty views of the ocean and harbor. The hotel was one of a handful within the same compound/resort area, which was a bit odd and isolated, but it was fine for what we wanted. We had another booking issue though, just two days after the Bath fiasco - the hotel charged us more than the room we had booked. I won't go into all of the gory details, but we ended up having to pay about 50 Euros more than we thought, through a combination of our own mistake and a misleading website. Not the end of the world when split between the two of us, but annoying nonetheless. Although there weren't really any beaches nearby, we enjoyed being out on the terrace with views of the ocean, and the trip was a nice change of pace. We headed back on the 15th, and planned our upcoming activities, armed with a list of final things we wanted to do in London.

So started the week of lasts: last big shop at Sainsbury's, last trip to Borough Market, last trip to Harrod's (and last cheese and onion baguette there), last trip to Oxford Street, last trip to the Italian restaurant Prezzo, last trip to TGI Friday's, last trip to Covent Garden, and even last goodbyes to Janista and Anitra, our two other American flatmates who have returned to the States. Lauren and Michael are also stopping by in a bit to say goodbye, as they leave tomorrow for their own trip to Croatia and Paris for a week - we'll be gone when they return briefly for a night before heading back Stateside themselves.

But in addition to some farewells, we also had some firsts. We finally went on the London Eye, which is the enormous Ferris wheel that overlooks the city. It takes 30 minutes to go around once, and it was cool to see the city from above and be able to point out all the places we knew. We went with Lauren and Michael in the evening, and got to see the sun set in the distance despite the cloudy weather. After the Eye, we went to Gordon's Wine Bar, which had been recommended to Jillian and me by our friend Amanda, who studied here for a couple of months last summer. It was a really cool place - all of the seating was in an underground cellar. We got there not long before closing, so our stay was short but sweet. Additionally, later in the week Jillian and I finally had tea in London - we had had it with Sheri in Ireland, but never here. We took Lauren and Michael's advice and went to a cafe in Harrod's for tea and scones. The room was very pretty, and the tea and scones were pretty good, although the whole experience paled in comparison to the Shelbourne in Dublin. Still memorable, though.

Other than that, Jillian and I got some food we had been eying for a while - we went to a bakery that opened recently near us (we've been here long enough to see the hamburger place that was there go out of business, empty out, be redecorated, and open up as a new bakery), got sandwiches, and had a picnic in Regent's Park. The sandwiches were really good, and the park was very pretty. Another fun outing in our last few days here. Throughout the week we also went to a Thai restaurant last night (more stir-fry than Thai though) which was decent, a Patisserie we had our eyes on (I got a very good fruit tart), a Dutch Pancake House for dinner, and a bakery called Candy Cakes (Jillian got an enormous muffin covered in icing). Much of this has been with Rosie, so it's been fun to get to spend some time with her before we had to start studying. It's definitely quieter in the flat now that it's just the three of us, and a bit surreal. Our time really is winding down.

So as you can see, we have covered a lot of ground in the last few days here in London - but we also took a day trip on the 18th to Scotland. Yes, everything has been as chaotic as it sounds, but we aren't likely to leave London with any regrets of not doing something! We woke up on Tuesday the 18th, again at 3:00 AM (I most certainly will not miss those types of travel days), and repeated our steps of a 20 minute walk and hour long bus to the airport (Luton this time, though, and not Standsted). We arrived in Edinburgh in the early morning, and took a bus into town. We had a loooong time before our departure (about 12 hours), so the day was very leisurely. The city is absolutely stunning, with pretty brown buildings surrounded by huge rocky mountains, upon one of which is an old castle overlooking the city. It definitely helped that we had a picturesque sunny day, as the buildings looked like they could be quite depressing during a snowy, grey winter. We spent the day sitting/lying in the sun in various locations: on top of Calton Hill overlooking the city (another monument up there to our man Admiral Nelson, whose history we explained to Rosie the other day - look how far we've come, Dad and Sheri!), up by the castle (which we didn't actually go in), in St. Andrew's Square (where we were entertained by the competition among sea gulls and pigeons for food), and lastly in the Prince Street Gardens, where we picnicked with our sandwiches we had packed. We also saw the Sir Walter Scott Monument, and toured the Scottish National Gallery. We purchased our last magnet, #17 in the collection, and eventually headed back to the airport. Our flight was delayed for 30 minutes, which Jillian found quite aggravating - I realized during the delay, though, that it was our first delay of any sort throughout the entire semester. Pretty impressive, and America could learn a few lessons. We didn't get back to Schafer until about 11 PM, and didn't have dinner until 12 - obviously, quite a long day. But I think we were both really glad to have gone. I really loved the city, even though it was on the smaller side and there weren't a ton of tourist attractions - the castle did look very interesting though, and I'm sure we could have spent an entire day there. For me it was the most beautiful city we've seen along with Prague, and it would have been a shame not to get there when we had been so close. So I'm very glad we went, and also thankful for your recommendation, Mom!

Well, I think I've finally caught you up. No more traveling for us, or sightseeing around London. We have one more activity planned for our last night after our final - we are going to Wembley Stadium to see a friendly between the English and Mexican national teams: a really cool way to wrap up the trip. It looked as if we weren't going to be able to make it to any soccer games, which would have been really disappointing. So I'm glad this one worked out, and I'm hoping most of the starters should be playing for each side since the World Cup is so soon.

Between keeping this blog and writing in journals when we traveled, I have been kept busy with logging our activities. Nightly journal entries during trips were particularly tedious and boring at times, but I persisted because I knew how thankful I'd be to have them in the future. Those, combined with the blog (written in part to keep everyone at home updated, but also very much for my own benefit in the future) will let me revisit my time spent here this semester. I've also been collecting various mementos from the entire semester, and Jillian and I have plans to make a scrapbook out of all of them. We also plan to make a photo album, and have the blogs converted into print form. Assuming we follow through with all of that, we will have plenty of happy reminders of our incredible semester abroad. Not to mention the large amount of money invested in magnets. But I think we've done a good job of documenting our time here, and have plenty of souvenirs.

Time to bring this entry to a close - one final one to come sometime next week, possibly upon my return to Philly. Maybe before I leave, we'll see. Thanks for reading, and I hope the blog helped everyone follow along with our adventures. Time to study, I suppose.


But first, for the final cultural difference, I figured I'd post some words the British say differently - but not the obvious ones, like "lift" or "bloody." The British version is first, followed by the American equivalent in parentheses.

Hob (Grill)
Uni, short for University (College)
College (High School)
Return Ticket (Round Trip Ticket)
Trainers (Sneakers)
Jumpers (Sweaters/Sweatshirts)
Pants (Underwear)
Aubergine (Eggplant)
Coriander (Cilantro)
Courgette (Zucchini)
Ginger (Red-head... used in the States, but MUCH more common here in a non-joking way)
Inverted Commas (Quotation Marks)
Mains (Electricity)
Petrol (Gas)