Glasgow

May 15-17

So yeah, I got to Glasgow Thursday afternoon. Best thing about Glasgow: I had a hotel room!! It was quite a nice change from the hostels, and actually a pretty nice and big room, considering it was only 25 pounds per night. Bad thing about Glasgow: there are a ton of steep hills, atop one of which my hotel sat. Good thing: makes for great views.

Glasgow was very different from what I'd expected. Actually, I'm not really sure what I expected, but I think maybe a mini London? One thing I did not expect was that I would not be able to understand ANYONE. I mean, in England and Northern Ireland it was kind of like, oh teehee, they talk funny, but at least I could understand what they were saying. In Scotland I felt like an idiot pretty much every time I had to talk to anyone, because I almost always would have to ask them to repeat themselves, usually twice. When walking in large crowds I would try to listen to what other people were saying, but I honestly couldn't understand it. I was torn between thinking they were speaking other languages, and thinking that I just can't understand the accent. I think it was the latter. Made me wonder though: did all the Scottish people have trouble understanding me? Or is the American accent so prolific (through TV and stuff) that they don't have trouble with it?

Anyway, Glasgow. The first day I went on a (free!) tour of the Glasgow City Hall, which is pretty amazing. It's nicer than the State House in Columbia, and that's saying something--not only because the State House is nice, but also, it's for a state! Glasgow's is just for a city. The tour guide was talking about St. Mungo (apparently the patron saint of Glasgow) and the "medicals" he had performed, and I stood there thinking, "Medicals? Huh? I guess that's some kind of Scottish thing. Maybe St. Mungo is a patron saint of hospitals" (where did I get this thought? That's right, from Harry Potter and the Mungo's hospital). Um yeah. Took me about 10 minutes to finally realize that she was saying "miracles". She also pronounced "worldwide" with three syllables.

After the tour I walked around Glasgow a little bit to just look at some of the buildings. I went to Glasgow Cathedral, where St. Mungo's tomb is. That was pretty confusing too. My map showed the cathedral as being in a place where it actually isn't, but that was hard to figure out, because there was a church there, plus a hotel called the Cathedral Hotel. Fortunately I found the cathedral (and the oldest house in Glasgow) and also the St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art. Another good thing about Glasgow: all the public museums are free! Bad thing: the museums aren't that great. The religious museum was mildly cool, but not that exciting. I walked around it for about half an hour, and that was enough. Afterwards I made my way down to Glasgow Green, but the road I walked down looked kind of shady so I opted not to continue. Instead I walked along the River Clyde (most Scottish name ever) and just looked around. All the buildings in Glasgow are so cool! They're all old and stuff, but they're all really different. It's probably the only city I've been to where walking around and looking at buildings could be an actual activity.

See? Cathedral House Hotel!

River Clyde

The next day I managed to find the metro (there's only one line and it has, like, 10 stops) so I could go to some other museums. I went to the Hunterian Art Gallery at the University of Glasgow, which was cool, but I was able to see the entire thing in about an hour (like I said, the museums are kind of lame). The coolest part was the attached recreation of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's house. Mackintosh was an architect who designed a few famous buildings in Glasgow, as well as several interiors. The house was awesome. Of course it was forbidden to take pictures, and there were guards hovering everywhere so I couldn't sneak any. After the Hunterian I went to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Again, disappointing. It was pretty much aimed at people between the ages of 10 and 12, although there were a few paintings by actual well-known people. I was able to breeze through that museum pretty fast. In the afternoon I went to the Tenement House, which is a flat inside a former tenement that was occupied by a woman who saved pretty much everything. They've set it up the way she most likely had it, and had an interesting exhibition about what life was probably like for her, complete with pictures, ticket stubs, concert programs, etc. (she really did save everything). That was probably the coolest part of my Glasgow visit. Later on I went back down to Glasgow Green to look around a little bit more, since I found a brochure showing some of the cool stuff there. Luckily I discovered that it's actually quite nice--and no one else goes there! Much better than in London where in the big parks every square inch of space is taken.

University of Glasgow

Forbidden picture inside the Tenement House

So, did I mention that Glaswegians apparently LOVE to shop? There is a huuuge pedestrian mall there, probably the biggest one I've ever seen, complete with at least two malls. I think there were more, but I'm positive there were two. And, of course, since it's Glasgow, the buildings were all amazing. I can't even really remember what stores were there, but I can picture the buildings! Oh, and there was a Nelson Mandela Square?!

Saturday I woke up early and took the train from Glasgow to Edinburgh, then Edinburgh back down to London. I didn't see much in Edinburgh, but I did see the castle from the train. It looked pretty cool. In London I pretty much had time to go to my hostel, poke around the Portobello Road market for a while (my hostel was in Notting Hill), then go see a ballet at the Royal Opera House. Then I came back and went to bed around 9:15 so I could wake up at 3:15 AM to get my plane back to Germany. I think my roommates just loooved that.

And then I came back. And while waiting for the bus, I ran into Eveline and Tobias. I seem to always run into them when I'm coming back from some long trip. All in all, it was a really good trip, I think my favorite one so far. I liked Northern Ireland and Scotland a lot more than I thought I would. Also, it was REALLY REALLY nice to finally go somewhere where I KNOW they speak English. That makes things a lot less intimidating.

OK, finally done with my UK trip summary! Stay tuned for Paris, hopefully coming soon.

Belfast and Northern Ireland

May 12-15

No, I didn't get killed. Or maimed. Or anything. Belfast was a lot nicer than I expected, plus it seemed really cheap compared to London. My hostel was about 83 times better for about 2/3 the price. It wasn't in the city center, but luckily, Belfast is so small that I could walk to the city center in about 10 minutes. I only had to use the bus once the entire time, and that's because Belfast Castle is on the side of a mountain.

The first day I wandered around Belfast looking at the random sites. Unfortunately, there isn't really THAT much to see there, and both the city hall and the Ulster Museum were closed for renovation. The bonus: almost everything is free! I saw the city hall, St. Anne's Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral (Church?), the Prince Albert clock tower (which apparently leans to one side, but I didn't really notice it), and the river. I also saw a bus on fire. I wasn't sure if that was really what I was seeing, but everyone who was walking stopped to watch it, so it definitely was. I also saw the fire trucks come to put out. Luckily it looked like all the passengers had safely gotten out. Didn't make me too eager to ride a city bus, though.

After lunch I went to Belfast Castle which I incidentally did have to take a bus to get to. Fortunately it did not catch fire. I walked around the castle for a little bit, but it wasn't really a castle, more like a very large house. It's pretty much just a place where they have weddings and stuff now, but on the top floor was a visitors' center with a history of the castle and the area. Afterwards I hiked up to the top of Cavehill, also called Napoleon's Nose (if you look at it from far away, it really does look like a face with a nose). It was a lot harder of a hike than I thought it would be. I had been planning to do the whole route, but I was assuming that the times they told you for the routes weren't accurate, since a lot of times they say it takes a lot longer for the out-of-shape tourists. I guess they don't get too many tourists there though. It was a good hike though, and the view from the top was amazing! There were some serious cliffs up there too, so I tried not to get too close to the edge. Later, in the evening, I walked down to the Queen's University Belfast campus and the botanic gardens. Nothing too interesting, but it was nice. Would have been nicer if it had been warmer out.

The second day I went on a tour up to the Giant's Causeway in the very northern part of Northern Ireland. We also made stops at Carrickfergus Castle (kind of ugly), Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge (fishermen originally built the rope bridge so that they could get to a small island which had better access to salmon), and Bushmills brewery (honestly, why did we stop there?). Carrick-a-Rede and the Giant's Causeway were really awesome. There's not much I can say about them. I'll just upload a bunch of pictures, but of course they won't do them justice. The day was really really good, with perfect weather. The only downer was the bus driver/tour guide, who was without a doubt the worst tour guide I have ever had in my life. He did not shut up the ENTIRE ride up to Giant's Causeway. And that includes several stops. I would highly recommend going to Giant's Causeway, but I do NOT recommend taking the Mini Coach tour from Belfast. I would have rather had no info from him than his constant yammering.

The next day I left early in the morning to go to Glasgow. I took a boat from Belfast to Stranraer, and the boat was soo awesome. It was pretty much like a mall. It had an arcade, mini movie theaters, restaurants, coffee shops. I couldn't believe it, mostly because it was so cheap (23 pounds for the boat ride and my rail ticket from Stranraer to Glasgow). I guess booking ahead of time really is a good idea! The boat ride was pretty cool, and I ended up in Glasgow by 12:30. But that's for the next post...

Carrick-a-Rede:

Giant's Causeway:

London!

May 9-12

What a great trip! We were so lucky--the whole time the weather was amazing. It didn't rain at all the entire three days we were there. In fact, the sun shined the whole time. The only bad thing about it being warm out was that our hostel was SO. HOT. Obviously it didn't have air conditioning (since it seems like nowhere in Europe does), but that would have been ok if the room we were in had a window larger than a doggie door. It was actually cool at night outside, probably around 60, but it was at least 20 degrees hotter inside the room. Not exactly the most comfortable sleeping conditions.

We got to London super late on Friday night, then the next day we had to wake up kind of early so Jonathan could check out of the hostel (it was complicated--because he booked later, he wasn't able to get a room there the second night and had to move to a different hostel, so he had to check out and check back in the next day, but then the third night we weren't in a room together...like I said, complicated). After getting some pounds, we walked to Buckingham Palace and saw the changing of the guard. Boring. (Yes, I said it.)
Then we saw Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey (which we didn't go in because the line was long), the London Eye, all that good stuff. Then we ate lunch at Borough Market and walked across the London Bridge. After discovering that the London Bridge isn't the cool one, we went to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge (indeed the cool one). We passed on the Tower of London because it was way too expensive. Then we rode the tube to Regent's Park and walked around there for a little bit, which wasn't that exciting. We wanted to do the paddle boats, but it was 7 pounds per person for a half hour! After sitting down for a little bit and a brief rain scare (it almost started drizzling), we went to Chinatown and ate some dinner, then walked to Piccadilly Circus, then to Trafalgar Square and Nelson's Column. Then we went back and went to sleep.

The next day was the British Museum (cool, but we just weren't that into it), Covent Garden, and of course lots of walking. We ate lunch at Subway because it was the cheapest thing we could find (two people having lunch for 6 pounds? Sounds good to me!). After lunch it was more walking and then the Tower Bridge Experience (I think it's actually called that). It showed how the bridge was designed, built, etc., plus we got to go up to the two walkways above it.
After that we went to St. Paul's Cathedral, where we got lucky and since it was Sunday it was "no visitors allowed" aka we didn't have to pay 10 pounds to get in. We just weren't allowed to take pictures. After that we went to Regent's Park and walked around a little bit, then ate dinner in Covent Garden.

Monday, our last day. We didn't have the entire day since I had to leave for the airport from our hostel by 4:30. We went to the British Library, where we saw the Magna Carta and some other famous stuff. There was also a video about the Magna Carta starring a woman with the worst teeth I have ever seen. Very British. Then we sweatily rode a double-decker bus part of the way back to the hostel (It was just way too hot to go the whole way. We gave up and rode the tube). Hence the sweaty, unfortunate picture of the two of us:
Jonathan rode with me to the airport, and then I headed off to Belfast. He went back to the US the next morning. It was sad to leave him, but we'll see each other again in two months, and then it'll be all the time!

My birthday

May 8

Let's start there. My birthday was really good. Jonathan, of course, was here, so that was nice. The day before my birthday the family took me out to dinner. It's crazy how going anywhere with small children is such a process! We played Go Fish in English and German (difficult for Jonathan, since he doesn't speak German) while waiting for our food. I think Johanna won. After we'd eaten, Dominik threw a mini fit and ended up changing his entire outfit because of a tiny bit of tomato sauce spilled on his shirt. Once he'd calmed down, he decided he wanted to figure out how much the bill would be. He and Johanna went up to the waitress and asked for a pencil and paper (Johanna almost threw a tantrum over being allowed to walk the three feet with Dominik). Dominik then added up the entire bill, then when the real bill came, he discovered that they had accidentally not included the waters Jonathan and I had ordered, and wanted to rush up and tell them to add it in. Luckily every adult at the table stopped him.

The weather was sooo nice on my actual birthday. Jonathan and I walked around for a while after I was done working, and then after dinner Judith picked us up and we went into Heidenheim to meet up with some other people from Gegenwind. Ingrid, the nicest woman ever, had organized everything last-minute (I hadn't been sure if I'd have to work or not that night) and gotten together a good-sized group of people. We ate ice cream and then walked up to the castle. It made me really happy that all the Gegenwind people tried really hard not only to include Jonathan, but to speak English to him. I know that a lot of them don't speak it very well and have trouble understanding, but they all made the effort. All in all, a really good day.

I know

I know, I know. It's been forever since I've written anything. BUT I have a good reason. Well, several. Jonathan was here in Heuchlingen for a couple days (including my birthday!) and then we went together to London for three days. After that, he went back to the US and I continued on to Belfast, then Glasgow, then back to London shortly, then back to Germany. I was back here for three days, then I went to Paris for four days and got back yesterday morning. Cleary I have a poo ton of stuff I need to write about, so I'll break it up into smaller blog entries. That way you (my rapt, often-commenting audience) won't have to deal with a massive, unmanageable post. I'm sure it'll take me a while until I actually get to all of it, so at least it'll give you something to look forward to?

Looks like I'm way behind on the posting.

Last week was nuts. I was alone with the kids from Wednesday afternoon until Saturday morning, while S&S were in Barcelona. Luckily the weather was really nice (excluding several heavy rain showers), they went to friends' houses, and friends came to us. We had a good time all around, although I wouldn't say that my favorite part was the getting woken up at 6:30 every morning.

On Saturday and Sunday I was completely alone...which was niiice. I baked a cake Sat. afternoon to take to Gegenwind with me. I found a recipe online, because I wanted to make something typically "American" (I've never seen any cakes here that are like the ones people typically have at home). It came out well and everyone seemed to like it. I'm pretty proud of myself for actually making a cake from scratch. I think the last (and first) time I did that was 7th grade.

In other news: I have done a ton of trampoline-jumping. Johanna is a bouncing machine. Every time I'm alone with her, or even just have her in the afternoon, we jump on the trampoline. I'm getting a lot better too; I can actually jump for more than 10 minutes without getting tired! The downside: jumping always makes me have to pee, even if I went just before going outside.

Jonathan's coming tomorrow! I'm really excited! Hopefully he'll make it to Heidenheim by 11 so that we can take the bus back together. If not...he'll somehow have to make his way to Heuchlingen on the bus and then to my house, on his own. This really is quite a challenge. The stops are only listed in German (obviously), and I would say about 50% of the time does the bus driver actually press the button to move the stops along showing what the next stop will be. It was hard enough the first time for me, and I speak German and know what Heuchlingen looks like!

Then Friday, we're going to London together, where we'll be until Monday night. I then go on to Belfast, and Jonathan goes back to the US. After I get back from London, I'm going to Paris a few days after that, then the week after that I'm going to Prague. I still have several trips to get in, including one to Wittenberg for Luthers Hochzeit. Hopefully I'll be able to fit everything in.

Oh yeah, and my birthday's on Thursday! Send me potato chips!