Saturday, February 20, 2010

My Plans for Spring Break!

Here are my official plans for Spring Break! I have booked all of the possible travelling options, minus a few trains and begun to book hostels. I am really excited and cannot wait to get travelling! I included pictures of each site so you know what exactly I'm going to be seeing!

Sunday, March 14 - Catch the 1am bus from Gloucester Green, Oxford to Stansted Airport. Arrive at 4:10, then board plane for Prague at 7:15am. Arrive in Prague at 10:10am and go to our hostel. Melody and I will be staying at the Old Prague Hostel. Stay and tour Prague until Tuesday, March 16.



Wednesday, March 17 - Catch a train with Melody to Salzburg, Austria. It should be about a 7 hour train ride. We will tour the city and go on the tour of Hitler's Eagles Nest and the Sound of Music tour. We will be staying at Gasthaus Stadtalm hostel until the 18th.



Friday, March 19 - Melody leaves to go back to London and I catch a train to meet up with Sam Hill in Vienna. We will be staying at a friend's house in the city and sometime during the weekend make the journey to Auschwitz. We will leave on the 22nd.



Monday, March 22 - Tour Vienna for one last time before Sam and I catch a flight to Athens. We will be using Aegean Airlines and leave at 8:30pm and arrive in Athens at 11:45. For the next several days we will tour Athens and visit a beach. We will be staying at Athens Easy Access hostel for 4 nights.



Friday, March 26 - I will leave Sam in Athens and fly to Amsterdam to meet up with Anna, Josh, Deirdre, and Alvin. My flight leaves at 10:55am and arrives in Amsterdam at 1:30pm. We will tour the city, see Anne Frank's house, visit the Van Gogh Museum, and see the tulip gardens at Keukenhof, about an hour outside of Amsterdam. We will most likely stay at the Flying Pig Uptown hostel and leave on the 29th.



Monday, March 29 - We will catch a train from Amsterdam to Paris sometime in the afternoon, just in time to meet up with Melody again. We will go see the city, go up in the Eiffel Tower, tour the Catacombs, and meet up with Jerome. We will most likely stay at the Blue Planet Hostel. I will leave on the 2nd.



Friday, April 2 - I leave Paris on the EuroStar at 2:13pm and get into Oxford at 5:23pm. This will allow me plenty of time to rest before my parents arrive the next day.

Saturday, April 3 - My mom and dad arrive to Heathrow at 11:25am, meaning they will get to Oxford around  2pm. We will hang out in Oxford for 2 days.



Monday, April 5 - We will get a rental car to drive up to Chipping Campden and stay at a B&B. We will tour the Cotswolds and Lake District until the 9th.



Friday, April 9 - We will drive to Liverpool and fly to Dublin at 4pm and arrive at 4:50. There we will tour Dublin for the next day.

Sunday, April 11 - We will drive a rental car to the Cliff of Moher and tour the area. We will stay at Ballinsheen House



Monday, April 12 - We will go to the Dingle Peninsula and stay at the Ballyseede Castle.



Tuesday, April 13 - We will drive to the Rock of Cashel and stay at Joy's Rockside House.



Wednesday, April 14 - We will return to Dublin and tour for the day.

Thursday, April 15 - We will return the car at 6am and catch a 8:15am flight to Liverpool. Then we will get on the 10:50am bus to Oxford. There we will stay for the next day.

Saturday, April 17 - My mom and dad leave on a flight back to Wichita at 12:50pm. For the rest of the weekend I will relax and prepare for Nought Week.

So there are all my plans! I am very excited and cannot wait to be able to see all of these places!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

My Ramblings

So, I've been pondering recently after seeing people get engaged, married, and have children who are my age. This especially comes after hearing the exciting news that my best friend from home, Kala, is engaged! He really is a great guy and suits her perfectly. I am honored because I am one of her bridesmaids! It really is a joyous occasion.

But yes, my ponderings. I guess all these thoughts come about because I see people my age who are experiencing this and I realize that I am not even at the point in my life where there is a guy I am dating, let alone seriously, or even nearly engaged to. I guess I am sort of jealous of those people. Those who have found that love and security within their lives from finding that one person they want to share their life with. Being single is accepting a lack of security. I mean, you are secure with yourself but it does get rather lonely after a while. I suppose I am just tired of dating. I mean, dating is fun and all, but it's when it gets serious and I'm not so into it that it becomes problematic. I hate dramatic relationships. I guess I'm also afraid of commitment now. I just don't want to get hurt. Although, I know that eventually I will have to take that risk, but I haven't needed to yet.

However, I am also thankful that I do not have someone I'm that serious with at this point. I'm being selfish but that would drastically restrict my travel itineraries, my future plans, and my social life. I know I'm not ready to settle down. I've accepted that. Hopefully by 27 I will be married, which means I've got at the most 5 years to find that man. But 5 years is a long time and I really hate waiting. This is why I just wish I could glimpse into the future to see myself with my husband and find solace. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen. I just hope that I will find someone who suits me incredibly well like Kala has. If not, I've determined that I will be a cat lady forever. Or go on the Bachelorette at age 30.

Anyways! Those are my lovely ramblings. Please make sure you check out the post below bc I just wrote it also!

Liverpool, Dublin, and Oxford

Well, I thought it was about time that I wrote again. I know I have neglected this yet again. But I suppose everyone has survived.

I am only going to give a brief overview of what happened for the week before Hilary Term started: I went with Claire and her sister, Cate, to London and watched the fireworks exploding off of the London Eye while freezing our butts off on Westminster Bridge. Seriously, it was so cold that my feet went completely numb and I think if you had stepped on them they would have just shattered. From there we went on to Liverpool where we did the Beatles tour and had a jolly ol' time. Unfortunately, we overslept and missed our flight to Dublin. That was a huge bummer. We managed to get to Dublin by way of ferry, which was pretty awesome. Dublin was great, but cold. We went to the Guinness Factory, a neighboring town, the Jameson Factory, on a tour of the city, and generally walked around everywhere. It was lots of fun. Unfortunately, our ferry was cancelled and rescheduled for the next day due to the heavy snows across Britain. Somehow we did manage to get back.

The term is going great so far. My housemates are really fabulous. Anna is very much like me and she is OCD about the house being clean, which is so lovely. Also, on Tuesdays we watch the Bachelor together, which is super fun. Deirdre is super cute and sweet but my goal is to get her to come out of her room more often. Charles is a soccer player and super sweet. He made us one large cookie once (along with cookie dough!) and always is very pleasant. Carl is a good guy who reminds me of my father. He always greets me with "Hey Annie! How ya doin'?" For that he gets teased a lot. He's finally learned to tell me "shut up" so that is pretty great! :) Kyle is still here and is still Kyle. We always have interesting times together.

I've met one of the greatest guys here too. His name is Josh and he and I are already attached at the hip. He's super sweet, funny, enthusiastic, encouraging, and smart. Too bad he isn't my type! Haha. But yes he is really great. Love him to death already, which is really nice. Everyone else here is very fun as well. We all have a good time together, but this group seems much more low key than the last one. That's nice though in its own way.

The tutorials I am taking this term are WWI with Dr. Lesley Brads, which meets every week. She is really nice and quiet, although she is a much more serious tutor. I am also taking the Crusades with Dr. John Jackson so that is fun to have him again. However, we only meet biweekly. Sad day. I am also working on my proposal for a summer research grant. Here is a basic overview of it: "In my essay I mean to discuss the old line of historical thought on the widespread corruption in the Catholic Church and the new argument proposed by Eamon Duffy that this corruption was really not that widespread at all. I will discuss the merits of each argument and come to a conclusion about anti-Catholicism and its true nature in the Tudor reigns." Hopefully I get it!!

Anyways that is my overview of the term and pre-term so far! I shall write in a new post about my thoughts recently.