Carrie's Travels

Good evening! Well I'm finishing up my last day in Belfast, tomorrow I drive back to Dublin for a very short night before I fly to Paris! Back to the story. So Galway was a bit of a bust. Most of what I saw were Stag and Hen parties! I ran in to 4 of them! Apparently Galway is the Vegas of the British Isles. I left Galway quite early because I had a long day of driving ahead of me. My first stop was the beautiful Estate of Kylemore Abbey, but first I had to get there. Now my GPS has taken me down some questionable roads before, and today was no exception. This was Ireland's equivalent of a gravel road, quite bumpy and with random sheep standing in the middle of the road. And let me tell you, sheep are not bothered by anything. You drive up to them, they look at you, you honk, they look at you like "What? You need something?" Eventually in their own time, they wander off the road and you can continue on. This happened at least 3 times. Eventually I made it to...

Quick post! The Cliffs of Moher (pronounced more) was....ok, it was really foggy so I couldn't see much, but in the visitors center they have some fun activities, like this one...check it out! That's me! http://media.cliffsofmoher.ie/img/postcard/vid_20140711113138.mp4 I'll post more later. I'm off to see the Derry murals!

Greetings all! I'm still alive! I've been driving in Ireland now for 4 days. It's been an adventure. Sunday morning was a beautiful morning. I woke-up quite early and left my hotel in Dublin, to go stand at a bus stop for almost half an hour...but eventually the airport transfer bus came and brought me to the airport and eventually my rental agency. After waiting in line for again almost half an hour I got my car and was on the road. Well...almost. First thing I did was open the drivers side door to get in...and realized it was the passenger side...that's right they drive on the right over here...But I played it cool like i was just dropping my purse on the passenger seat. I waited for my GPS to load and  then made my way out of my parking space. On the first roundabout I came to, I took the wrong exit, this was still in the car rental area of the airport! Since then though I have successfully navigated all of the roundabouts I have encountered. My first stop ...

Ireland, The Emerald Isle....I'm finally here! Wednesday morning I arrived on the island that is Ireland. The very first thing I did was spend almost 45 minutes in the customs line, waiting to get my passport stamped. One of the guys behind me said he felt like he was at Wal-Mart, all these people in line and 2 lanes open. I wanted to disagree and comment snarkily in my head about the uncouth Amrerican, but I saw his point. The line had to be over 150 people and there were only 2 lanes open for checking passports. Ugh! But eventually I made it out of the airport and in to Dublin. My first order of business was to get rid of my bags, so I checked in to my hotel. O'Donoghue's is a pub with rooms above it. The two older men who run the place couldn't be sweeter, and even carried my bag up to my room. I went from London with 1 bed and barely any space, to Cardiff with 1 bed and lots of space to Dublin where I have a decent amount of space and 2! beds! There's a doub...

So far the #1 thing on my list of things I've done, is the Harry Potter Tour. This is a MUST DO for any real potter fan. This was my experience. The day begins with a train ride out of London to the Suburb of Watford. At Watford Station, you catch a bus to the studio tour, but not just any bus...                                                                    THIS bus! And finally you're there! When you walk inside it just hits you from every angle. Boom, boom, pow! There's huge pictures of on the walls of all the characters, both young and old. There's even the blue Ford Anglia that Harry and Ron flew to Hogwarts in Year 2! Then you get in the...

I'm back! So...back to my story. Oxford. Oxford is one of the 2 big University towns in England, the other being Cambridge. Stiff rivalry between the two. I chose Oxford primarily because of a book series I had read/am reading called A Discovery of Witches. It's a great trilogy, if you haven't read it, do so, it's amazing, the third book comes out on July 15th...can't wait! So anyway the book starts out in Oxford. Diana, the main character is researching in the Bodliean Library at Oxford. So naturally I wanted to see this place to get a picture of it, so when I read the book again, I can REALLY picture it. I took the guided tour which is the only way to go in to the Library. It's AMAZING. This library is so old and has so many books, it's hard to describe. They shot part of Harry Potter here, its the restricted section of the library that Harry sneaks into in the first movie, so...extra cool. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take any pictures, but I ...

Sorry It's been so long since my last update post. I'm having such a good time its hard to find time to write and reflect. Now...where did I leave off... Greenwich. Now Greenwich is kind of off the beaten path a bit, there are a couple of ways to get there. I chose the river, seeing as London is on the river and so is Greenwich. It takes about an hour to get from The London Eye to Greenwich. I love being on the water. But eventually we came to Greenwich pier. Greenwich is a cute little hamlet, with a gigantic hill. My first order of business was to find lunch. It was Sunday so many restaurants have a Sunday roast on their menu. I love roast beef so I thought hey why not. This is what arrived.... What you see there is a huge slab of roast beef, roasted potatoes, roasted parsnips, Yorkshire pudding, green beans and horseradish sauce. It was delicious, and for the record I love Yorkshire pudding! After lunch I walked over to the fan museum, which is exactly what it sound...

Had some time this afternoon after returning from Canterbury. Thought I'd bring you all on a tour of my hotel room all 89sq feet of it. Getting some feedback that you can't see the video I uploaded. If the video doesn't load, here's the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMs1uL05w7w  Cheerrio!

Monday I had planed to go to Hampton Court Palace in the morning, then Kensington Palace in the afternoon and have afternoon tea in the Orangery at Kensington Palace. I made this decision ages ago when I first read about the Orangery. Apparently it was Princess Diana's favorite place to take tea (the fact that it's less than 100 yds from her house could have been part of that as well) Well....I had a bit of a problem at Hampton Court Palace, something to do with forgetting a camera... Anyway I made it to Kensington Palace at about 3:00 which is right in the middle of tea time. I walk up to the Orangery and there's a sign saying it's closed early for a private event. :( I walk up to the host podium and ask if there's any chance I could have tea. The manager told me they were closed (even though there were more than a dozen people at tables). I made a sad face and walked away after getting an assurance that they would be open tomorrow. Fast forward to Tuesday. I g...

Ahhhhhh England. Here I am in the land of the Queen, and William and Kate, and tea and crumpets. I flew in to London City airport on Thursday. I took a black cab from the airport to my hotel. Those black cabs are spectacular, it's so roomy inside and the driver helped me with my bags both in and out. My hotel room.....I knew it would be small, I've read the reviews, but this is small! The bed is against one wall. The other wall is 3 maybe 4 feet from the other side of the bed. The end of the bed is maybe 2 feet from the wall. The bathroom is so small to properly turn around, you need to step out of it, and the door won't open all the way because it hits the end of the bed...so yeah. After checking in to my ridiculously small hotel room, I decided to take a bus tour around London. After navigating myself via the tube to Piccadilly Circus, I found my way (eventually) to the bus stop. My tour guide was Rosie, she was quite funny and had so many great stories. My favori...

Hello! Sorry I haven't posted in quite a while, I've been busy exploring Europe. So... where did I leave off? Oh yes! I was still in Holland. Sarah and I went to this cute little village called Volendam. It's right on the sea and it's just a cute little tourist village. After some shopping, we stopped at a little cafe for a drink. We had proffertjes, which are little mini pancakes that are puffed a little bit, and then served with butter and powdered sugar, but these are also served with chocolate ice cream and whipped cream, OMG, SO delicious! I'm not normally a pancake person, but these were amazing! After Volendam, we went to Zuider Zee, which is an open air museum. It felt a lot like Iron World back home. It was set-up as a whole village with several different areas including a harbor. But the really cool thing is that in order to get there you have to take a ferry. I liked being on the water. After Zuider Zee we ate dinner at a cute little restaurant, I...

Hallo allemaal! I write to you this morning from Sarah's back yard. It's a bit of an overcast, cool day, which is fine by me! I am SO sunburned it's not even funny! So I made it! I'm in Holland, the Netherlands, Nederland. After a flight where I barely got any sleep, I made it to Holland to an ecstatic Sarah, not that I wasn't ecstatic too... After a bit of car trouble, we made it back to Heemskerk. Sarah's house is great, with the windiest steepest stairs ever! I hang on to anything I can when I go up or down! When we got to Sarah's house her darling Nico was there and his friend Rick. Rick came over for the wedding 2 years ago, so it was nice to see him too. Nico made me a Tortilla Espanola, which I love, then Sarah and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. After a quick trip to the store to pick-up some essential items I needed a nap. Normally I don't like to nap because it makes me not be able to sleep, but I was so tired, I set my timer f...

This summer, I (finally) get to take the trip of a lifetime, though I hope not my only trip of a lifetime. After finishing my Master's in Education this past December, I will be venturing to Europe, to see, explore, touch, and taste The Netherlands, England, Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Paris. If you know me, you know I'm a planner. You also know a lot of my "plans" never see fruition. Which is what makes this trip that much more exciting. My first "plan" started way back last school year, while I was in the thick of Master's degree work. See last summer I was supposed to lead a student trip to Costa Rica. No one wanted to come on that trip, so it didn't happen, which made my travel bug bite me HARD. It's hard to stay home when, in the past 10 years, I've been to Spain 3 times. So I decided that since I would be finishing my degree this school year, I should celebrate by taking a trip. I knew that I had to go visit Sarah in Hol...