Varsity

Yesterday was Varsity, a huge sports competition between Cardiff and Swansea that culminates in a rugby match between the two universities.  This year the rugby match was at Millennium Stadium, so I donned my green and white and headed to Cardiff!  I enjoyed the game even though I know very little about rugby.  I could tell when we scored, so I was excited about that!  Of course, the screaming of my fellow Swansea students served as a pretty good indicator.  :) The final score was 28-18, Swansea.  Victory!  It was a fun night, and since I had my AM231 paper all ready to hand in the next day, I was able to relax and enjoy it!

Victory!!!

Stephanie and me excited about Swansea winning

Millennium Stadium after the game

Manchester and Liverpool

Hi, all!  I'm just days away from my long Easter vacation, but I wanted to blog about my weekend in Liverpool and Manchester.  Manchester was perhaps the least favorite of all the places I've visited here, but I really enjoyed the Manchester Art Gallery.

Manchester City Hall

Nuclear Free Zone

Art Gallery- you could write a tag of somewhere you wanted to be/visit

A painting I thought was neat

Liverpool was simply about an hour-long train ride from Manchester.  I liked Liverpool much better!  We headed to our hostel to drop off our bags before heading to find food for dinner.  We decided to cook pasta at the hostel to save on money (and get ready for the half-marathon the following morning).  After dinner, we decided to check out Albert Dock and the Wheel of Liverpool.  This was so neat to see; it was practically a mini-version of the London Eye.  We decided to ride it to get a birds-eye view of the city.  We played a few games of Scrabble before calling it a night to get well-rested for the race.

That's us... along with 7,498 other runners :)

Beatles (at the hostel)

Wheel of Liverpool

Riding the Wheel

Wheel with reflection

Sunday was race day!  7,500 people were running the half-marathon; it was crazy!  At the hostel, Curtis and I met Katherine, a student from University of Maryland studying at Bristol, so the three of us ran the half-marathon together.  I loved getting to see the city as we ran through it.  It was such a great day for the race.  I did much better than I expected, finishing in 1.49.00 and beating my time from the Des Moines half-marathon.  I really enjoyed running!  :)

Me with my number, t-shirt, and finisher's medal

I was happy with my time :)

After the race, Curtis and I had time to relax before going on the Magical Mystery Tour to see places associated with the Beatles.  I loved the tour; we got to visit iconic places like Penny Lane and Strawberry Field and see the homes of the various Beatles.  I also enjoyed singing along to the Beatles tunes I knew during the breaks in the tour.  :)

The bus!

Birthplace of Ringo Starr

Penny Lane

Strawberry Field

At the Cavern Club

Thanks to everyone for reading my blog!  I'm almost to 1,000 views, so I appreciate you visiting this site!  To close, here's a video of my favorite Beatles song:

Dublin for St. Patrick's Day

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend.  I had a wonderful time in Dublin on the Student Union trip.  It was my first time to visit Ireland, and I absolutely loved it!  The coach left from campus at 23:30 on Tuesday.  I slept a bit on the bus until we reached the dock.  On the ferry, I talked with my friends for a bit before we set off in search of a good place to sleep.  I got a few hours of sleep in on the ferry and even more once we were back on the bus.  We got to Dublin around 9am on Wednesday.  I woke up just as we were passing St. Stephen's Green (which I later decided was my favorite part of Dublin) which definitely gave me a good impression of the city!  We dropped off our luggage at our hostel before setting out to explore the city.  After a quick stop at Starbucks (we were in desperate need of caffeine and wanted a chance to check out the map), we trekked across the city to the Guinness Storehouse.  It was really neat to walk through the Storehouse; it is the world's largest pint glass and would hold 14.3 million pints of Guinness!  We got to see the 9000-year lease signed by Arthur Guinness (the founder of Guinness).  As we walked through the Storehouse, we got to see how Guinness is made, as well as different advertisements and types of transportation used by the company.  We learned how to pour the "perfect pint" (I'm now a certified Guinness pourer), but I hated the taste so I took about 1 sip of my pint.  The view from the top of the building was amazing!  Dublin is such a pretty city.

Jayne, me, Stephanie, Zach, Cory, and Jessica outside the brewery

"World's Largest Pint Glass"

9000-year lease- the tour guide said they are in year 200-and-something!

Pouring the "perfect pint"

Not really a fan...

View of Dublin

After the Guinness tour, we grabbed a bite to eat before heading to St. Patrick's Cathedral.  It was absolutely gorgeous!  Because the weather was so nice, we sat outside and enjoyed the sun a bit before going into the church.  

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Jess and me enjoying the sun

I loved the music- it was hand written!

Stained glass windows

 We walked around even more before heading back towards the hostel in search of somewhere to eat dinner.  Our hostel was really close to the River Liffey and was in a great location for sightseeing!

Lampposts like this were everywhere

River Liffey

The following day was St. Patrick's Day!  We ate breakfast at the hostel before heading towards the parade route in search of a good spot.  We found a great place to watch, mostly because we got there about 2 hours before the parade started.  I enjoyed wearing all the green clothes I had plus my fun headband!  There were so many people at the parade!  We were quite packed in there by the time the parade finished. It was a lot different than the parades I'm used to, but I really enjoyed watching it!

The group with our festive clothes/hats :)

Me at the parade route

People were even climbing on the statue to see

Sad lampposts

We bought sandwiches for lunch and took them back to our hostel to plan out our next excursion.  We decided to walk to St. Stephen's Green, which was pretty but so crowded!  The streets of Dublin were packed with people.  This was probably my least favorite part, simply because a lot of people were so drunk/loud/rude.  Still, the park was really pretty (I enjoyed it even more when we went back the next day!).  We all had Shamrock Shakes at McDonald's in the evening before walking back towards our hostel.  We walked along the river and enjoyed seeing Dublin at night.  We went to a pub on the same block as our hostel to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.  The pub was quite uncrowded, and the atmosphere was really nice.  I enjoyed talking with the group for a long time.  It was a fantastic way to celebrate!

Butt Bridge- we couldn't resist :)

Me at St. Stephen's Green

Dublin at night

My friends and I celebrating St. Patrick's Day

 We decided to do the Viking Splash Tour the next day.  We got to ride in the Ducks, wear Viking hats, AND roar at people.  It doesn't get much better than that! :) We were blessed with a great day, so while waiting for our tour we sat in St. Stephen's Green and enjoyed the fantastic weather!  The Viking tour was amazing!  The guide was funny, we got to see a lot of sights of Dublin, and we scared quite a few innocent bystanders/tourists.  After the tour, we set off in search of Leo Burdock's (apparently the best fish and chips in Dublin).  We took the food to the park near St. Patrick's Cathedral.  Our picnic was so much fun, and the fish and chips were honestly the best I've ever had.  That evening, we played cards at the hostel, which was so much fun (though Jess dominated all of us at Egyptian Rat Screw!).

St. Stephen's Green

Jess and me :)

On the tour

Practicing our Viking roar :)

The "Splash" part of the tour

Best fish and chips EVER!

For our final day in Dublin :( my friends and I decided to check out some of the museums.  We checked out Trinity College on our way to the museums.  We first hit up the Archeological Museum then had another picnic (see a theme here?).   Our next stop was the Natural History Museum, which our Viking tour guide described as a "dead zoo."  Our joke throughout the museum visit was "the hugest deer there ever was," and the joke never got old! :)  We also found the Oscar Wilde memorial, which was neat.  The trip home was fun, too!  We had time to "go crazy" on the deck of the ferry before playing cards inside.

We managed to fit all our stuff in one locker

Trinity College

Giraffe (for LB)

Oscar Wilde quote

Fun times on the ferry (sorry Jessica, about my scarf/hair being in your face!) :)

Viking pose!

I had a fantastic time on the trip; I love Ireland!  My travel buddies were absolutely amazing.  This was definitely my favorite trip so far! :)