"I'm giving props to Mary on this one..."

Well London was awesome and the title has to do with London, but more on that later.

Monday, February 1:
The first day of classes! I had two: Irish Studies (English) and Ireland since the 1800s (History). My English class, in a word, is HUGE. Like 100+ kids. Definitely something knew for this SMC girl. It wasn't that interesting because we went over the usual first day of class stuff like how much the exam is worth, etc. My history class was pretty interesting and it's basically all international students which is cool.

Tuesday, February 2:
I have no classes on Tuesdays! So awesome. I think I just stayed in my room, watched the Bachelor and ate peanut butter. Seriously.

Wednesday, February 3:
I had my first Theology class at 9 am. Bleh. My earliest class, thank God I only have one class that early. It's basically a class of SMC vs. Irish men becoming priests. Rather interesting...My next class was Victorianism to Modernism (English) which was again a HUGE class and it was all right. The teacher seems pretty awesome. After that, I had my first frisbee practice! Because I joined the team! It was awesome. It'll be tons of fun.

Thursday, February 4:
I had the same theology and english classes as Wednesday, but at different times. The big news is that Thursday night was my first Roost night. One SMC girl said The Roost would "become our church." I'm starting to think she is right because it was awesome and so much fun. I had a pint of Guinness and then danced the night away. For all those worrying out there, I wasn't drunk. If pictures go up at some point, know that I was NOT drunk I was just having fun. I'm also a sporadic dancer so there's another explanation for any crazy/unattractive pictures.


Note: Before I talk about London, I would like everyone to know that I was sick with a stuffy nose and a really bad sore throat. The lack of sleep probably didn't help me much. It's safe to say I was pretty cranky the whole time, but I tried to enjoy myself as much as I could and not be a Debbie Downer. I think I was half-successful. Anyway...


Friday, February 5:
I didn't have class until 2pm! This was also the day I left for London! Kelly and I went to our 2pm class which we didn't even have! We were so angry because then we could've left earlier! Ugh, so lame. Anyway, we packed (I packed my Blessed Virgin Mary statue so she would help us in our travels. This is important later.) and got a cab to the Dublin airport and we were in London by 9 or 10. We had a heartrending reunion with Laura and Natalie. We all tackled each other pretty much. People thought we were nuts. Then, we met up with Kelly's awesome friend Sabina and her boyfriend Adam. We took the tube to West Kensington, where Sabina and Adam live for the semester, and went to sleep after an exhausting day of traveling.

Saturday, February 6:
The four of us got up early and took the tube from West Kensington to...some other street...South Kensington, perhaps? Anyway, we boarded a bus that took us to Stonehenge and Bath. Both places were very old and historic, go figure. Stonehenge was kind of disappointing because you couldn't really get near it at all. I would say we were about 20 yards away from it or something like that. I wanted to get up close and personal with it. After Stonehenge we toured the Roman Baths and they were awesome. Quite the sight. It was so weird to see so much Roman architecture in England. Afterwards, we ate at a little restaurant and then boarded our bus to head back to South Kensington. I slept on the way back and it was awesome. After a quick stop at a pastry shop, we headed for the London Eye. Although it was kind of expensive, it was totally worth it. The view of the city was awesome and something I will never forget (mostly because I took a ton of pictures). After the Eye, we went to Picadilly Circus. Think Times Square but in London. Here we met up with Sabina and Adam and had some dinner at a place called Apogee. Aside from the fact that our waitress was bi-polar and the service stunk overall, it was a good meal. After Apogee we walked through China town a bit and then split from Sabina and Adam and Kelly, Laura, Natalie, and I went to King's Cross station to find Platform 9 3/4 (Harry Potter). There's a big London FAIL here because it's actually located between 8 & 9 not 9 & 10. Also, the cart is broken! Ugh. Anyway, after we were finished being tourists we got on the tube to head back to Sabina's. It was during this tube ride where my first use of Mary came in handy. You see, I brought my little statue of Mary with me to Ireland so she would watch over me and help keep me safe and all that good stuff. Well, I also brought her to London. She stayed in my purse all weekend and by association with me all weekend. While on the tube a scary looking man with a pizza box got on and proceeded to openly stare at us the whole time. We all proceeded to make ourselves look as angry and "not up for any funny stuff" as we could. I also prayed the Hail Mary until he got off. Which he did and he didn't say or do anything to us. (I'm sure he was a nice guy. Even with my little knowledge of horror movies, I know how stuff like that ends so I (we) were a tad paranoid) We finally got back to Sabina's and basically crashed.

Sunday, February 7:
Laura and Natalie had to catch an early flight back to Rome so Kelly and I woke up to quietly say goodbye to them and then we proceeded to fall back asleep until about 9ish. It felt awesome to sleep in a bit. Kelly and I got dressed and went to see the changing of the guards. It was so cool! The guard band played Barry Mannilow (Copacabana) and a Mama Mia! medley. So awesome. While there, we most definitely saw a mob boss/important person of some sort. There were two body guards (in plain view at least...) with ear pieces and they were talking into their sleeves like the secret service. They were standing right next to us. It was insane. I wanted to capture the moment but I thought they would put a hit on me or take my camera so I decided against it. Of all things, that is something a person can never forget...After the guards changed, we went and ate at a restaurant named Shakespeare's where I got myself some soup and tea. It was bliss. After lunch, we went to the London Tower. It was, in a word, AWESOME. So much history there. I could've stayed there for another few hours easily. We had an awesome view of the Tower Bridge, too. By the time we were done at the Tower it was starting to get dark (and rainy) so we quickly ran over to Kensington Gardens to get a picture with the Peter Pan statue and then ran over to Westminster. We come out of the Westminster tube stop and Big Ben is LITERALLY right there. It was magnificent. We walked around a little and sadly, it was closed to the public. We decided it was time to eat so we went to a restaurant called the Canteen. It was okay. I was able to order mac n' cheese so that was awesome. After that, we decided to head back to Sabina's so we could go to bed somewhat early since we had a 6:30am flight back to Dublin. Before we went to sleep we ordered a taxi to pick us up at the West Kensington tube stop which was about 3ish blocks from Sabina's apartment. It was supposed to pick us up at 345am so we could catch our train.

Before you read about Monday, it is important to know that the whole day was the second instance Mary came to the rescue. Read on to find out why.

Monday, February 8:
We woke up at 3:46am. I've never gotten ready so fast in my life. We ran to the tube stop and thankfully our cab driver waited for us. We arrived at the train station and had missed the 410am that we were planning on taking so the 440 was our next option. After a, thankfully, uneventful ride to Stansted we arrived at about 545am. Our gate was closing at 6am. We hurried through check-in, sprinted to security, and sprinted to our gate. Thankfully, there was a large line so we were able to buy some water to douse the fire in our throats and wait to board the plane. I've never been more happy in my life to be in Dublin. When we touched down, relief washed over me. After a stressful 4-hour morning, I was finally somewhere semi-familiar. It was very comforting. We strolled through the Dublin airport and got ourselves a taxi. I'm pretty sure Kelly and I were both dead asleep after about 2 minutes. By the time we got back to Maynooth it was 9am-ish. We both quickly showered and relaxed for about 10 seconds and went to our 11am class (since we're both so studious). I think it's obvious that I slept well Monday night.

The whole weekend was definitely an adventure. There were several times where I just thought "I just want to be back in my bed." or "Traveling sucks." but looking back less than a week later, I can laugh about it and realize how much I truly enjoyed the trip. I saw a multitude of things I thought I would never see in my lifetime. After all the expenses (and I mean expenses...London ain't cheap, my friend.) and stress, I had a great time. It was a truly worthwhile trip.


**I apologize for the lack of pictures, but the image uploader was not working. I will have a post of London pictures as soon as possible!**




Stay tuned for more fun in the form of Sundays wrap-up of the rest of this week!