Hmm, let's see...RIGHT! My day of fun filled traveling! From Dublin I was to take a ferry across the channel then hop on a few trains to Leeds for another sword fighting lesson and one last train down to London. In order to make that work, I needed to catch the ferry that left at 8am. I got up at about 6 because of snoring and my brain not wanting to sleep and end up sleeping in. So took and shower, got ready and headed out. I started to try to find a place to get a quick breakfast and walked for a while, then when i realized it was 730, I needed to get to the ferry! Unfortunately, I had been walking the wrong way the entire time! So I caught a cab and got there with a few minutes to spare. Close one! And they had food on the boat so I got a full breakfast and had my first black and white pudding. It's not really pudding is it. I guess it's just another one of those "jelly isn't jelly" things isn't it? It wasn't too bad, but I am getting sick of English breakfasts.
It was a very nice ferry. They offer 2 types of ships, a cruise and a fast one. The Cruise boat takes about 3 hours and the fast one, about an hour and a half. Well, it was really windy so only the cruise was available. But I was ok with that. I took a nice nap along the way. Rocked to sleep by the waves. A nice ride. When we got to Holyhead, I got my train directions and started off on that. It was a 4 hour itinerary to Leeds so I arrived in Leeds at about 6. From the train station, I walked to the Royal Armouries museum and timed myself so I knew I would make my train to London. That train left at 840pm and the class didn't end till 9 so I would have to leave a little early. It took me a little less than 15 mins to walk there, so I would give myself 20 to get back. Then I had a light dinner from Tesco and off to the lesson. It was a good one, very technical which is what I wanted, but I won't bore you with the details, if you want, you can read my paper at the end of all this.
So I split class early and again, made it to my train with a few minutes to spare. It is hard to run with a 20 pound backpack on... The ride back was nice, I was pretty tired from travel so I read and zoned out for most of the time. I got into London Kings Cross at 1140pm. That made a total of about 11 hours travel time for me. Yeah, I was pretty worn out... From Kings Cross I took the tube to a station a couple blocks from the hostel, checked in and checked out.
The next day I pretty much spent in the hostel and pub chilling because I was tired. I ended up talking to a guy at the bar who was from Rhode Island for about 3 or 4 hours. Nice to have some friendly conversations. Then Carly showed up and we went out to eat and caught up on our adventures. Definitely and laid back day but hey, after 11 hours of travel, I think I deserved it.
Wednesday I went back to the Wallace Collection to try to do more research but after a week and a half of nothing, and a really dry book, not much good came from it...But I tried. So then I wandered around again for most of the day. Then I went back and hung out in the pub again. We met some Dutch boys and hung out and played pool with them. That was fun. Always nice to meet new people!
I did not want to spend all day in the pub again so I tried to think of something that I could do. It then occurred to me that I wanted to go to the natural history museum on my birthday but didn't because I was at the science museum all day. So I went there. I liked it. They had a lot of cool rocks, stuffed animals and DINOSAUR BONES RAR! So that was fun. I have been spending a lot of time in the pub during the evening, but that's where I know people and I wouldn't know where to go out if I wanted to.
Most of today was spent running errands and the like. First, I tried to mail my absentee ballot at a fedex but they said I needed to go online and fill out some form and that was the only way to send it back to the states. It's not a bad thing though because it is cheaper than sending a normal envelope to the states ($20 compared to £33) and it is supposed to arrive the next day. Cool. Then I got on the internet to try to plan my next travels. I am planning on visiting a friend who is in Nancy France and from there, head to Paris for a few days (well, a suburb, Lisses) and then from Paris to Levanto for our group meeting. I also made a phone call to a sword smith and will have a meeting with him on the 30th which is great. That is the last thing I feel I need to do here for research. Sweet. Then I will be free to travel! I am very excited about that, I would very much like to leave London. It is just not the city for me. I also looked in a newspaper a few days ago and saw that a new Mexican place was opening and they were going to give away free burritos on their grand opening. So I went there are got a free burrito. The line wasn't that bad either. I just pulled out my book and read until I was at the door. Maybe 20 mins. It was pretty good by England's standards but nothing against Chipotle. While walking back I remember another Mexican place and thought I'd compare burritos in case I needed to go back and get another one. That one wasn't free, it was £5. But hey, that's 2 burritos for under $5, not bad right? The 2nd one wasn't as good as the first therefore a mile off Chipotle. But you can't really get any good Mexican here. Just have to wait till I get home I guess.
That night, Carly and I decided that we would try to go to a club so we asked a few people and we recommended to go to the Fabric. So that's what we were gonna do. But we were told not to go too early because no one would be there. Being not very experienced clubbers we took this advice and didn't leave until a little past 10. But when we got there, the line was half way around the block. WHAT!? A 3+ hour wait to pay £10 to get into a crowded room? Yeah, not gonna happen now. So we wandered around looking for some other place we could go but didn't find anything so we ended up getting a pizza and heading back to the hostel.
Yesterday was another round of karaoke at the pub so we did that and it was fun. I sang 3 different songs. Sat with a bunch of people and talked and sang all night. Then after karaoke was over, we went a got another pizza and ate that in the pub. Now, I was expecting people to stay up and have something to do in the pub that night, but no one was there. So instead of staying up all night with people, I went to bed.
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