DAY 125: CHRISTMAS!!!

Back in November when I was planning our entire London trip, I had a brilliant idea.

I said to myself, "Self, wouldn't it be cool to go to Christmas Mass at Westminster Abbey?"

"Why yes self, it most certainly would."

So I started looking up how to make that happen. What I found in my research was that you can get tickets online for free, but you need to buy them on a certain date at a certain time in the morning.

My past 8 semesters of class selections at UVM had prepared me for this exact moment. I woke up early to make sure the wifi connection was working and refreshed the page over and over and over again until 7:00 AM hit. That is, until I realized the United Kingdom  is an hour behind Spanish time. Great.... So I stayed up for an extra hour. Finally I got them- with a little help from Lizzy.

We all dressed up a bit fancy and luckily had ordered a cab the night before. The streets were dead except for the long long line outside of the Abbey. It was about 35 degrees fahrenheit, so not too bad, but the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. The line didn't take too long and we were able to sit in a great location. Unfortunately, our seats were outside of the main section of the Cathedral, but we still were able to hear everything perfectly. As it was Christmas of 2014, the priest did a great sermon to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the First World War's Christmas. Even at church, I learned something about British history. Gotta love it.

FUN FACT #84: The Westminster Abbey Choir School educates 30 boys between ages 8-13 to sing in the Abbey Choir.










The music was absolutely excellent. Although we were unable to see them, the voices of the boys and older men singing in Latin was beautiful. Following the service, we went outside to the main green to take photos in front of Big Ben. We continued to walk through London past the London Eye and many red phone booths back to our hotel. Joe Lizzy and I bought a few bottles of wine for the five of us and we ordered pizza to our hotel room for Christmas dinner. Not your typical Christmas, but it was nonetheless a very nice day

DAY 124: Windsor Castle

Today was Christmas Eve! We got up early and headed out of London on the train to go see Windsor Castle.

FUN FACT #81: Windsor Castle was first built after the Norman Invasion of William the Conqueror in the 11th century. Since then, it has been used by the monarchs of England and is the longest standing royal residence in Europe.


It was about an hour train ride to the county of Berkshire. There is a cute town right outside its walls which was walked around in until we found the ticket counter. As usual, we were given audio guides to learn more about the palace as we walked around.

FUN FACT #82: When the British Flag is waving from the round tower, it means that the castle is being used by the royal family. The castle is the preferred weekend home of Queen Elizabeth II.

St. George's Hall after the Fire of '92

I won't go into too much detail because there was quite a bit to learn about while we were here. What was very interesting was that Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were kept here during World War II. Their parents traveled to Buckingham Palace for the days and returned at night to the castle. The castle had most of its precious art removed and its chandeliers lowered to the floor in case of a bombing.

The castle was fascinating as it moved you through British history. Its great display of art was really incredible. My favorite room was the St. George's Hall which commemorated the Knights of the Garter. Every knight's shield was mounted on the ceiling overhead.

St. George's Hall restored

FUN FAT #83: The Knights of the Garter is the third most prestigious award given out by the English Crown after the Victoria Cross and George Cross.

Unfortunately, there was a huge fire in 1992 that destroyed quite a bit of the castle, including this Hall. It was rebuilt, of course, but I'm sure it must of have been much more beautiful before.

Gotta love Audio Guides

Joe, Me, and Lizzy

We spent most of the day at Windsor Castle as it was so huge there was so much to see! We got to take our pictures with the royal guards out front which of course was very fun. After walking around the town of Windsor a bit, we returned on the Train to London to go out for Christmas Eve dinner.

My family has a tradition of eating my mother's famous lasagna for our Christmas Eve dinner, after which we decorate sugar cookies. We knew we wouldn't be able to celebrate the same way as we do at home, but we decided that we could at least go get Italian food for dinner to keep the tradition going. So I reserved us a table at this fancy Italian place. We had a remarkable dinner. Although they only gave me like 4 pieces of tortellini, those 4 pieces did taste amazing!

DAY 123: Buckingham Palace, Imperial War Museum, Kensington Palace

Buckingham Palace

After we hit up our local Indian man's hole-in-the-wall breakfast place, we scurried off to Buckingham Palace. Every morning at 10:00 AM is the changing of the guard, which is supposed to be a really cool thing to watch. We got there around 9:30 and fought for a spot near the gate and waited. And waited. There was a giant crowd of people in front of the palace all waiting for the guard to change too. And all 500 of us continued to wait. And wait. Eventually some guys on horses rode by, and there were whispers that the guard change was not happening today. Why you ask? We never found out. Tired of waiting and fairly sure by this time the show would not begin, we left Buckingham Palace to find the Imperial War Museum.

Us waiting at Buckingham Palace

FUN FACT #79: Buckingham Palace was originally a large townhouse built for the Duke of Buckingham in 1703. It was acquired by King George III in 1761 for his wife Queen Charlotte which began its use by the monarchy. It became the official royal palace when Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837.

The Imperial War Museum was a pretty cool place. It had two 15 inch cannons out front to make it look incredibly intimidating. Inside, the museum had a special exhibit on World War I. We spent the better part of 2 hours just going through and reading everything in this place. It was very fascinating stuff! But myself and my family couldn't help but wonder where anything was written about the American involvement. Finally, in the last 10 minutes of the exhibit, we finally read some short paragraphs of the U.S. Army landing in Europe. It truly read as if we arrived to provide the British with backup and didn't really help at all. Classic.

Following that exhibit, we continued to peruse around the Museum. The rest of the place was mostly old objects- from hand guns to tanks to planes. We walked around a bit until we felt our brains were stuffed as much as could be and headed off to Kensington Palace.

The entrance to the Imperial War Museum

FUN FACT #80: Kensington Palace was built in 1619, but was not bought by Monarchs William and Mary until 1689. This began royal residency here. Victoria grew up in this house until her uncle died and she became Queen at the age of 18. Today, this is the London residence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, William and Kate and their son George.

Kensington Palace is right on the border of a park with beautiful gardens and ponds. In front is a large statue of Queen Victoria which makes the outer appearance of the palace very impressive. Inside are some beautiful staterooms with relics from Queen Anne and Queen Victoria's time, but truthfully these were rather boring. If I'm being honest, I really don't care that much about the toy doll Queen Anne used to play with as a kid....

Queen Victoria's statue in front of Kensington Palace

The best part in my opinion was the royal dress room! Although my dad and brother weren't huge fans, I really enjoyed seeing Queen Elizabeth II's and her sister Princess Margaret's old fancy dresses from the fifties. We also saw some of Princess Diana's clothes- which were very eighties I might add. When sort of ran through these rooms as we were being ushered out while the palace closed for visitors.

Following Kensington Palace, we walked to find a restaurant to eat at. After some squabbling and extra walking, we ended up at a really great Chinese place. We skipped lunch again so we were starving as we scarfed down lo mein. It was another fun day.

DAY 122: Tower of London, Churchill War Rooms, Harry Potter Studio Tour

Dad, Me, Mom and Joe at the Tower of London

Lizzy, Joe and I woke up relatively early and got ready for the day. We met my parents at the elevator and set out to find breakfast. We knew today would be a long one, so we wanted to find something sustaining. What we ended up finding was a tiny hole-in-the-wall breakfast joint that became our place for the rest of the week. Lizzy and I were extraordinarily pleased to be eating eggs that we didn't have to collect that morning. Sweet freedom.

My parents looking adorable with the London Tower Bridge

Lizzy and I had done quite the extensive research of the best sights to see in London before my family's arrival. But because this was Christmas week, many things were closed on certain days. So in order to hit every attraction, we kind of had to hop around the city, and the best and cheapest way was to take the tube. I got an app on my phone of the London Tube, and all the sudden I became the subway guru. I led the way to our first stop: The Tower of London.


FUN FACT #75: The Tower of London was built in 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest of England. It has always been used as a prison, but this was not it's primary function throughout history. It was the Royal Palace until around the 14th century when the monarchy started using it less and less. During its heyday, the Tower of London executed 112 people in 400 years.

I knew much about the Tower of London and it's significance in English history, but in my mind I always imagined it as just a tower. Boy, was I wrong. There were so many walls and gates and a moat in addition to multiple buildings and towers. The Tower of London isn't just a tower- its almost like a tiny town inside. So many people had to live there to keep it running. It's location is rather cool as well- you can see the London Tower Bridge perfectly from the ramparts.

FUN FACT #76: The Tower of London used to have a menagerie. It also has been the home to the crown jewels since the late 1200s.

Listening to the Audio Guides!

The Tower was a pretty cool place to peruse around; especially if you are a history geek like me, and even more so if you are a history fanatic like my dad. We explored for quite a while and saw everything from the crown jewels to the jail cells to the throne room. The jail cells were quite interesting as most of the prisoners had carved their names and other things into the stone walls.

Some prisoners you might recognize:

William Wallace - 1305 - executed
Sir Thomas More - 1535 - executed
Anne Boleyn - 1536 - executed
Queen Elizabeth 1- 1554- obviously not executed but held for alleged involvement in a rebellion.
Sir Walter Raleigh - 1603-1616- not executed
Guy Fawkes - 1605 - sentenced to die but jumped off the scaffolding of the gallows and died anyway.
William Penn - 1668 - held for 7 months for pamphleteering. Later founded Pennsylvania.
Lord Lovat Simon Fraser - 1747 - executed for the Scottish Rebellion to return the Stewart kings and was the last man to be beheaded in England.


We had fun reading about all of the different captives held in the Tower and some of the elaborate escape attempts. There were quite a few stories of ghosts haunting the Tower as well. My favorite part was the WWI and WWII parts of the tower that displayed the most important medals given to soldiers of the British Army. My dad and I stood there clicking on every Victoria Cross to read about the lives of the men whom they were given to.

Following The Tower of London, we got back on the tube and headed to the Churchill War Rooms. The Churchill War Rooms are a branch of the Imperial War Museum and houses the Cabinet War Rooms and the Churchill Museum.

FUN FACT #77: The Cabinet War Rooms were built in 1938 beneath the Treasury Building near Westminster. The War Rooms were an underground complex that housed the British Government Command centre during the Second World War.

The Cabinet War Rooms were SO COOL! Apparently, following the surrender of Japan in 1945, the War Rooms were abandoned. Since they were no longer needed, everyone left and the door was locked. 30 years later, they were reopened to take a look inside. What they found were the War Rooms in the exact same condition in which they were left. War maps and military strategy plans were still pasted on the walls, sheets still on the beds, cigarettes still in the ash trays. The rooms were kept this way and turned into a museum.

Lizzy at Olivander's Wand Shop

The Door to Gringott's

The museum gives you an audio guide so you can walk through the hallways and see each of the rooms- from Churchill's sleeping quarters to the main kitchen to the map room to the telegraph room. They put in some wax people to make you really see what it looked like and the audio guide would play some of the interactions that happened here.

Half way through the War Rooms, we came to the Churchill Museum created to explore and commemorate the history of Winston Churchill's life and accomplishments. I won't go into too much detail here, after all, you can always read about Winnie anywhere, but it was a very detail museum. Apparently Churchill was quite the letter writer. There are hundreds of his letters all over the museum- some from long before he was a Prime Minister or even a Statesman.

This was, and is, by far my favorite museum. It was so cool to walk around in the rooms where the biggest decisions in WWII were made from Britain and it was also fascinating to learn so much about Winston Churchill's life. I had such a good time reading everything.

After the Churchill War Rooms, we headed back to the hotel. We all took a brief rest and then headed off to our next attraction: The Harry Potter Studio Tour.

Diagon Alley

WANDS!

As I have said before, Lizzy and I really enjoyed the Harry Potter series. And we weren't the only ones. My father, mother, and brother all read and watched the movies as well. So we took the train out to see the Warner Brother's Studio Harry Potter Tour. It was really cool to see every room in Hogwarts and see how the movies were made. Everything was so unbelievably detailed- and most things weren't actually computer generated! They actually built most things as machines that really worked. Like Buckbeak, the Hippogriff. He was sitting pruning his feathers as we walked by him. Pretty neat.

FUN FACT #78: All views of Hogwarts itself were done using a miniature model. I mean, it's not that miniature- it's still probably 10 yards by 10 yards, but it's still fairly small!

We were able to see the model of Hogwarts and take pictures in front of it as well as go to Number 4 Privet Drive, sit in Ron's Dad's flying car, ride in the Night Bus and walk along Diagon Alley. It was a really fun night and day! Our feet were hurting by the time we made it back, so we quickly grabbed some grub at a pub around the corner and hit the hay.

DAY 119-121: Galway to Dublin to London

Me at the docks in Galway

When we arrived in Galway, we set about finding our hostel. As it turned out, it was less than a block from the main square and a stones throw from the bus station. When we brought our things to our room, we were surprised to find this to be one of the best hostels we had ever stayed in. There were outlets at each bed and even curtains around each bed to block the light in the morning! Oh, it's the little things these days that make us happy...

After we dropped off our things, we walked around and explored Galway city.

FUN FACT #74: Galway is the fourth largest city in Ireland with about 75,000 people and is pronounced as "Gaulleway"like Charles de Gaulle.

The city was so pretty! As Christmas was in only one week, there was a cute little Christmas market/festival in the center square. We walked around for quite a while and explored the city's side streets and bars. That night we picked up some pizza and ate at the hostel (we were pretty sick of Irish food at this point.)

We met some people at our hostel and decided to hit the bars! We went to a place called "The King's Head" and enjoyed a live band and danced the night away. Galway was truly a very fun city and we enjoyed every minute we were there.

The following morning, we took another 5 hour bus ride from Galway to Dublin. It was a long ride, but of course very beautiful. When we arrived in Dublin, we found our hostel and made our way to the local falafel restaurant. Never have I ever had a better falafel wrap than at "Umi" in Dublin. Like, holy crap amazing falafel.

The next morning was our flight to LONDON!!! Now I know what you are thinking- How can we go to London if we have been deported from Scotland previously? Well, the immigration officers at Edinburgh Airport told us that if we can provide proof that we were not going to be WWOOFing in England, we would "probably" be allowed entry. Now, "probably" didn't exactly inspire much confidence, but we knew we needed to try as my parents and brother were supposed to meet us in London for Christmas!

Lizzy and I arrived in London armed with the confirmation itinerary for our flights leaving London in one week, our hotel stay reserved by my parents, and our deportation papers detailing what happened. We were prepared to have a long sit down with immigration to discuss what we would be doing in London and possibly be escorted onto another plane to be deported. We were fully prepared.

When Lizzy and I got off the plane at Heathrow Airport, we followed the other people off the plane, through baggage claim, and out into the International Arrivals Terminal. That's right- we didn't go through Customs. We skipped Immigration. Not on purpose- It simply wasn't there! No one looked at our passports, no one asked for our names, we simply walked into the U.K. without so much as a glance.

We were so shocked we kept looking around to see if we accidentally went through a side door or something. Nope! We chalked it up to a Christmas Miracle. Thanks Santa!

We sat down and waited for a few hours and played cards until... MY FAMILY ARRIVED!!!

I was so excited to see them I think I attacked them with my hugs. Although I skype my family pretty regularly, it is something quite different to have them in your arms. It made me so happy.

My parents had bought us these things called "London Passes" which would get us free transportation on the London Tube, free entry into some museums, and discounts on certain restaurants. So we hopped on the tube for about an hour to get from Heathrow to the DoubleTree Hotel in Islington (which is a section of London). Once we arrived, we relaxed for a few minutes before going out and exploring the neighborhood. We ended up at this pretty cool bar for a few drinks before we went out for dinner.

Now, when I was a kid, I was a very picky eater. My mom and I used to play "food police" and we would barter and make deals about how much vegetables or other things I had to eat on my plate. Even in college, I never ate anything that I hadn't eaten before. My friend Kief really hates that about me.

But since I left in August, I decided that I needed to be more like my friend Kief. She always says that she refuses to limit herself in other countries. She tries everything once. Since August, this is what I have done.

So when my brother Joe said, "Let's get Indian for dinner." My mother replied, "Dee doesn't like Indian."

I responded with, "I can't really say that... I've actually never tried it. Let's get Indian." I think my mom's jaw dropped.

We walked about 15 minutes from our hotel and found an Indian place that was part of the London Pass deal. We designated Mom and Joe to pick out things from the menu- seeing as no one knew what it said anyways. The funniest part was when we all tried one particularly spicy dish. My dad started hiccuping, then Joe started hiccuping and then I started hiccuping. My mom and Lizzy were dying with laughter. All the Indian waiters were eyeing us a bit, but we enjoyed the hell out of our meal. Afterwards, we hit the hay early to get a head start the next day.

DAYS 115-119: Chicken Farming is not all its cracked up to be....

Week two at the chicken farm really started to wear us down, and Lizzy and I got into our first fight.

That's right. Our first legitimate fight since we left home in August. Can you take a gander as to what it was about?

We fought about the most efficient method in which to reallocate chicken feces as fertilizer among the green house gardens we had weeded. Yup. We fought over how to spread chicken $hit. We had lost our minds.

The days sort of blended together at that point. It was pretty disgusting as we were shoveling chicken poop every day but we were only allowed to shower every other day and do laundry once a week. Not exactly ideal cleanliness if you ask me.

One day, Hans took us with him and the dogs up to his cow and donkey pasture about a mile up the road. He would bring his big giant tractor with a large hay bale on the back. Lizzy and I hopped on with him and enjoyed the ride up to meet the cows.

Now, Lizzy was bitten by a horse once when she was at summer camp as a kid. And I don't mean like she put her hand too close to its mouth or anything. Her instructor tightened the saddle belt too tight and the horse whipped its head around and bit Lizzy in the stomach. So Liz now has a healthy fear of large animals.

I, however, do not.

So I had a grand old time petting the donkeys and leading them around the pasture and admiring the cute little calfs and big momma cows. Lizzy stood a nice 10 yards away from them

just to be sure.

The week was rather unexciting as we continued to work with the chickens. That is, until one of the last days we were there.

WARNING: The next bit is a bit gross.

The week before, Lizzy and I had notice a chicken with blood coming out of its butt. I mentioned it to Ute and she immediately got up from the lunch table to go get the chicken. She brought it back to the main barn and put it in a small cage to deal with later. When I asked her about it, she explained what had happened.

FUN FACT #73: Apparently sometimes chicken's eggs do not fully develop and can crack on their way out of the chicken. This can cause the chicken to receive a cut and therefore start to bleed. But this isn't the nasty part. What is truly disgusting is that when chickens smell blood, they peck at it. So this chicken who is bleeding from it's a$$ is now being attacked by other chickens because it is bleeding. That's right- chickens are cannibals. If you do not remove the hurt chicken, the other chickens will peck it to death. YUCK!

As I said, this incident had happened the week before. On our last Thursday, Lizzy and I were refilling the chicken feeders and water jugs when we noticed a bloody chicken. Ute was out running errands and we had no idea where Hans was. This meant that we needed to remove the chicken ourselves. I looked at Lizzy and could see in her eyes that she would rather cut off her own hand than touch this bird. So I chased it around the yard and carried the disgusting pecking bloody chicken over the fence, through the gate and into the bard where Lizzy got out a cage and I put her inside.

But wait! It gets better. When we returned to our task, we noticed another chicken. So I chased it around the yard, caught it, and carried it over the fence, through the gate to the barn into a cage.

THIS HAPPENED 4 MORE TIMES. I carried around bloody chickens all afternoon while Lizzy laughed at me holding the gate open and continuously getting cages. I was not pleased.

When Friday came, we thanked Hans and Ute for having us and caught a bus to Galway, happy to never hear the obnoxious clucking of chickens ever again.

DAY 113: The Cliffs of Moher

Hans and Ute were kind enough to contact a tour company that would meet us in Kinvara (a nearby town) and take us around The Burren and The Cliffs of Moher.

The tour company picked us up near a local castle and brought us into Kinvarra. We walked around the cute little fishing village and hit up a small craft fair. The weather didn't look too good as it sprinkled rain on us and we crossed our fingers for sunny skies by the time we reached the cliffs.

Our first stop was at a beautiful abbey. Truthfully, I can't remember the name of it, there are so many stinkin' run down abbeys in this place!! But what was cool about this one was the congregation had paid to have some of the roof rebuilt so it is still used on Christmas and Easter Sunday masses.

We continued on to Poulnabrone Dolmen.

FUN FACT #71: Poulnabrone Dolmen is a portal tomb dating back to the Neolithic Period, probably between 4200 BC and 2900 BC. It is essentially five or six 12 foot slap rocks that are built into the shape of a shelter. During excavations, 22 adult and 6 children were found to have been buried underneath it. It is thought to have been the center for a ceremony or ritual.

This place was actually pretty cool looking. Unfortunately, a few years back, one of the slabs fell off and split. So they don't let people get too close to it anymore. But it was still really pretty to see this structure that is literally thousands of years old standing on top of the limestone floor of The Burren.

After taking our pictures, we went to a buffet restaurant to have some crappy Irish food before continuing onto THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY!

When I was a kid, I used to get movies in my Easter Egg basket. Usually, they were movies that my brother and I had never even heard of. The Mask of Zorro, Airplane!, The Naked Gun, and The Three Musketeers just to name a few.  My brother and I were a bit confused why the Easter Bunny would give us such strange movies, but my parents would just say, "The Easter Bunny must have thought you would like them. Watch it and see. Maybe you will!"

Unsurprisingly, the Easter Bunny was always correct in his assumptions. Also unsurprisingly, our parents became just as big of fans of these movies as we did. Coincidence? All of those movies became our favorites on our long car rides to South Carolina. But perhaps what was the biggest hit with my brother and I was The Princess Bride.

Now if you haven't seen this movie, go watch it right now, because it is a serious classic. In any case, when Vizzini, Fezzik, and Inigo Montoya have kidnapped Princess Buttercup, they abscond with her to The Cliffs of Insanity in order to evade a mysterious ship that is following them. The mysterious pirate ends up being Buttercup's long lost love, Wesley, who then climbs up the Cliffs to chase down her kidnappers. Wesley and Inigo then have an awesome sword fight at the top where they "Are not left handed!" and hopefully you know the rest. (Sorry, I just geeked out again...)

But one of my favorite parts of this movie is when they finally arrive at the Cliffs and Vizzini shouts, "The Cliffs of Insanity!! HAHAHA!!!" So when I finally got to go to the Cliffs of Moher, which is what the Cliffs of Insanity scenes are shot at and based upon, I got really excited.

FUN FACT #72: The Cliffs are 390 feet tall at their shortest point, and 702 feet tall at their tallest.

Our prayers were answered and the skies cleared a bit as we arrived at The Cliffs. We were given a couple hours to walk along their edge and take pictures. They were unbelievably beautiful. It was a little bit scary walking around on muddy paths along 700 foot drops, and I know my mom and grandma would not have approved, but I had so much fun running along the top of the cliffs!

When we returned to Kinvara, we grabbed a pint at the local bar while we waited for Ute to pick us up. Our bartender happened to be the owner (and a wee bit drunk) so he gave us our drinks for free! What a nice man. The next day we relaxed on the farm to prepare for another long week of chicken farming.