London Day 1...

So I made it the whole night without bumping my head into the thing hanging out of the wall right over my bed a few inches away from me. Breakfast was good. My roomie even took a few muffins to feed ourselves on the go...So after a little lecture from David on "London underground 101", with our maps and buddies, we headed towards the Excel Train station. Our hotel could not be any closer to a train station, I mean literally 2 mins walk. So our walking tour in London began with a walk on Hungerfort Footbridge crossing over Thames River. Oh, sorry Cait, I didn't know you also had one in Akansha's bag, but I can testify it tasted great.
From the Bridge, a very nice view of london including the London Eye could be seen. David explained to us the buildings right and left of Thames River. Of course, I don't remember the names of all of them. The BFI (British Film Institute), Tate Nuseum, and the Globe theater were in very close proximity. We stopped by each place before crossing the bridge over to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the way, we took some nice group pictures for our everlasting memories.







After stopping for lunch, we headed towards the train station where we were going to take a bus tour with a local tour guide. Going through the city, the guide explained us about the historical landmarks and other tourist attractions, including the Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, The london Bridge, and Buckingham Palace. Of course during our bus tour, Neil and I started a weird short discussion which ended at me getting in the over-head compartment of the bus. I still have no idea what I was thinking at that time, but I know we all laughed, which is always good. The bus finally dropped us off at Piccadilly Circus where we had about an hour of free time. That was the first time we had the first hand experience of london's weather. It started hailing out of the blue and everyone was stunned for one second. Then managed to get some umbrellas and made a huddle in the middle of the road. The hailing stopped after a few minutes literally and it was like it never happened. But what it did bring back was the cold that I almost forgot in the excitement of being in london. The dinner was good. The speical london fiest Fish n' chips was amazing. The best Fish n' chip I've ever had. They really know how to make good Fish n' chips.






After the dinner, majority of us went for Jack the Ripper Tour with David. It was a great tour if I could minus the cold factor. Ken, the tour guide, was very expressive, animated, and funny, someone who knows how to get a crowd's attention. During the tour, he took us into the city at the places where some of the murders actually took place. After that, we went back to the hotel, where some of our friends lost us at the train station becasue they took the wrong train. After about 15 mins after reaching at hotel, when our friends finally made it back to the hotel, a bunch of us just hung out at one of our friend's room for a couple of hours and called it a night. After all, tomorrow is our last day in london, which also happens to be our free day in london.

On the way to London....

So 8:30 am after breakfast, we all load up our stuff in the bus and leave for our next destination. Thankfully, no one was late this time, but oh boy, the bus ride was about three hours long...u know by this time, I did not really care about being cold...my biggest turnoff was becoming the long bus rides, just coz I don't have the patience in me to sit down almost motionless for more than about 5 mins...
anyways, Warwick was definitely an attraction worth waiting for...the way this place was preserved and restored was amazing...Wax manikins were placed to portray the original castle environment. Me, Gina, Akansha, Kyle, Cait, Art, and Neil even went for the "530 stairs" to get a better view of the place from the top of the castle...(Probably the best work of spiral stairs I've ever seen).




90 mins to visit a place like Warwick, you've gotta be kidding me....well, unfortunately, this was all the time we had....AND ANOTHER BUS RIDE into Stratford, Shakespeare's birth place. It was definitely worth going there....After visiting the exhibition and some sovenier shops, we had lunch and headed to our bus one more time finally for London. (I finally slept on the bus for a good 15 mins) The bus ride was about 4 hours long....The traffic in london city was not very different than traffic in Manhattan. Mike finally dropped us off at the Ibis Excel Hotel around 7 pm. The room was good, except that my single bed was a built in thing in the wall and when it was open, half of it had a shlef type thing over it in which it was supposed to be closed, very confusing...I know...I'll try to find a picture of it. So, after getting my senses together from all the travelling today, we decided to have dinner at the hotel's restaurant. So, Me, Gina, Akansha, Kyle, Cait, Art, and Neil went down to the restaurant and everyone was happy to see Pizza on the menu. Without any hesitation, everyone ordered pizza. It took a little while to get our food but it was pretty good. Newyork style cheesecake for desert was like heaven on earth at the first glance. But wait a min!....what is this?....Did the decorate the cheesecake with plastic....Oh no...these are actually broken pieces of plastic in my cheesecake...Not something I was expecting in newyork style cheesecake. Anyways, the waitress replaced it for another one. But wait a min!....now this tastes like lemon tart cheesecake...Oh my Lord, what is going on here....Anyways, I was planning to use internet after dinner to catch up on my life...but we had to pay for it, and the only computer available in the lobby was broken...so I guess that was out of question. So, I called it a night after a nice shower and a rerun of Grey's Anatomy.
By the way, calling it a night doesn't mean I actually slept at that time....Of course it was time for me to get cozy in my bed and talk with my roommate until she falls asleep or I do.

Good bye Dublin, Hello Wales...

So Day 4 is here....I can't believe it's going this fast....
6 am and almost everyone is in the bus, except for 2 people who did not get a wake up call so they were still sleeping after stayinh up all night. After about 15 mins, they finally came and we headed towards Dublin Port for our ferry ride. I was expecting a little boat type thing that may carry upto 75 people but what I saw at the port was giagantic cruise ship with 11 floors that was just amazing.
As soon as the cruise began, everybody fell asleep on the firt seat they found, literaly, due to exaustion from the night before. Since I can't sleep while travelling, I stayed up the whole time, staring at the open water (I love staring at open water) and talking to Cate and Kyle until we docked at the Wales port. I long bus ride awaited us. Mike (the best bus driver I've ever met) loaded our luggage in the bus and our journey began in Wales. The sights were breathtaking, and I love countryside. Our first stop was this little town with the longest name ever. Grabbed lunch on the go since we only had an hour there and the line at the restaurant was crazy. Then we headed to our first castle Beaumaris. It was just beautiful. The view of the castle as well as the view from the castle was amazing.


Then after a three hour long ride we finally made it to our hotel. The Hand hotel, which was supposedly haunted. Oh, and get this, there was no elevator in the building, that was fun. The creepy thing was the fact that I knew the place inside out only a few minutes after we got there. Everybody was a little dissapointed because there was nothing much to do. I, on the other hand, was pretty happy because I loved it there. After resting for about half an hour, we had dinner was then we decided to go climb a mountain to visit this other castle when it was pitch dark. When David (our tour guide) said castle, I thought he really meant castle. But after a good hour of mountain climbing, when I thought I am about to die, we got there, and all I saw was the ruins of this castle names Dinas Bran. We had to take a group picture to show it to those who decided not to come.
After coming back to the hotel, since I was exausted from today's long bus rides, I decided to call it a night after a couple hours. After all, tomorrow we will be going to London.

Day 3 in Ireland...

Today was an optional tour to Wicklow Mountains and I chose the option of not to go and partially catch up on my sleep as well as explore the city on my own. Exploring new places by myself is one of my hobbies so I took this opportunity to do so. The day started with breakfast and after the bus left for the tour, I was back in my room. I started out by laying the map of city on the bed and planning where to go today while sipping coffee but ended up sleeping for a good two hours. Anyways, woke up and left for the city around noon. Took the dart into the city and ended up going to a whole series of museums and galleries... First I went to the National Museum, where the gold collection was phenomenal...then I went to the National Library, and later the National Gallery where the pictures and paintings from different early eras such as the Baroque era and the Renaissance era were on display. Counting every gallery, there were a total of 53 galleries which was impossible for me to go through in one day so I decided to just take a peak at some of my favorite topics. After that, I stopped at the Huguenot Cemetery and then headed to the Natural History Museum. I couldn't find the entrance so when I asked a local about the entrance, he told me that there was an accident recently in the museum where a whole staircase fell down and four people were killed and several injured, due to which the museum was closed until renovation. I walk down the Grafton Street for some snack and coffee and then later some pictures of the Dublin Castle, and finally went to the Chester Beatty Library where I met with the professors and a couple of my friends. The Beatty Library had a very nice collection of the manuscripts and other info on religions of the world. Then my friend and I decided to walk towards the restaurant where we were going to meet the group for dinner. On the way, we stopped at the St. Kevin's Church where the sound of organ was very appealing. We talked with the organist for some time and my friend Anjuli sang a song for which he played. Here is a little clip.

The dinner was okay and after that we took a long walk down the Grand Canal to catch the bus back to our hotel. Since this was our last night in Dublin, we decided to just hang out at the hotel rather than going out since we needed to be in the bus at 6 am for the ferry ride into the Wales. While some of my friends were hanging out chilling and playing card games, I decided to give Macintosh and internet a chance (I HATE Mac, don't know how to use it and we had to pay for internet). After spending a good hour or two, I finally got a hold of internet and barely learned how to open "internet explorer" in Mac. That 30 mins of internet went very fast. Anyways, so my roommate and I stayed up until 4:15 just talking when I finally called it a night and went to sleep. Not to mention, I still had to pack my suitcase.

Day 2 in Dublin

Day 2 in Dublin is going great so far. St. Patrick's day parade was awsome. Since everything else was close due to parade, we ended up having a pretty Americanized day. Ate at burger king and watched an American movie after that. Pictures are on their way to this blog. Since nobody brought USB cable to the net cafe, pics will be posted in a day or two. Everything here is great. A little cold for me, but I can deal with it. We also visited Trinity college and the Book of Kells, which was fun. Many great stories to tell once I get free time. Time for dinner now so gotta go...

The Pre-Trip Stress

I know it sounds weird but the pre-trip preparation is no fun....especially for me. I still have to get my VISAS and for any of you who have ever gone through this process...well Bless you....and those of you who haven't been through it, all I can say is that you are lucky. I just went to Irish consulate in NY after driving for about 2 hrs and spent $23 for parking for 45 mins...:(...(and I got Kean's parking permit for only $35 for whole year)...anyways, hoping that my visa comes by next week. UK visa is another story. I am too mad and angry to write any non-negative words about them right now so that will be my next post. For now, I gotta go and try to do my homework which I had to put off til now because of this whole craziness.