Back from Spring Tour!

Hello friends!  I have been back to the Celtic from spring tour since Saturday night. I finally have the time to do a quick update on how tour went and what’s going on now. Almost every second of the nine days of spring tour were been filled with sightseeing, riding the coach while reading Harry Potter, or playing Mafia with the group. While I am very glad to be back “home” in London, getting away and seeing other new areas was a fantastic experience. Here is a little bit of what we got to do:

Friday:  We told our home stay family goodbye and somehow got our luggage from Muswell Hill to the Celtic.  Our first stop was in Coventry to see the ruins of the old cathedral bombed during the war.  After a few more hours on the coach, we stopped to see the Bronte parsonage (home of literature geniuses, the Bronte sisters) and walked around the Moors which inspired the setting for one of my favorite novels, Wuthering Heights. That night, we stopped in York to sleep in our really cool suite.

Saturday:  We had a full day in York!  Highlights include touring York Minster, walking around the walls, and just getting to relax and watch a bit of TV (in fact, I watched more American TV that night than I probably have since high school)

Sunday: We left York that morning headed to Scotland!   We stopped that afternoon and went across to Holy Island where we saw the ruins of an old church and played a bit on the beach. After stopping in a few places, we finally reached Edinburgh and had a nice meal at the hotel.  

Monday: The next morning, I woke up early because CentriKid announced team locations!  I am so pumped about serving on CK1 this summer! That morning, our tour guide (complete with a kilt) picked us up and took us around Edinburgh.  We saw the Queen’s Palace, Edinburgh Castle, and got to see where JK Rowling wrote some of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. That afternoon, Dr. Parks led us on a hike up a hill (that felt like a mountain) to Arthur’s Seat to get a good view of the city.

Tuesday: We packed up in Edinburgh and loaded the coach headed to the Scottish Highlands. Our first stop was at St. Andrew’s golf course, which is next to the beach where a famous scene from Chariots of Fire was filmed.  That afternoon, the highlight of the day was stopping at Lock Ness to try to spot Nessie...sadly...no luck.

Wednesday:  We arrived at the Lake District. We stayed at the sketchiest place I’ve ever been to, but it was right on a huge lake with mountains in the background, which made the sketchiness totally worth it.  

Thursday: Still in the Lake District, we toured Dove Cottage (where William Wordsworth lived and wrote) and did a bit more hiking. Trying to show off, I decided to jump on rocks across the river, but ended up falling in.

Friday:  We sadly said goodbye to our lake home, and loaded the coach once again in the direction of Caernafron, Wales, but not before stopping in Liverpool to see the Beatles museum and some of the “football” (soccer) stadiums and seeing the town with the largest name in the world. That night, we stayed in a charming bed and breakfast with a night full of karaoke and a nice meal. 

Saturday:  Our tour guide picked us up that morning and showed us Caernafon castle before we said goodbye to Wales.     Then, back to London.  Walking into the Celtic felt like walking back into our home.  It was a fun, exciting week, but it’s good to be back to the normal routine and life of London.

This has been quite a standard and boring blog post!  There was just so much that happened on spring tour that I couldn’t possibly go into detail or do it justice!  We started classes back on Monday and are now back in the full swing of finishing up the semester. It’s hard to believe I have been out of America for over two months, and that I will be leaving London in less than a month! The longer I’m here, the more I love it, but also, the more I miss home.  It’s really a feeling that’s unexplainable. But, I am going full-speed ahead taking advantage of every second of the time I have left here! 
 Today is our last open day, so it's pretty great! Most of us are finishing up a paper for one of our classes, then going to explore some more of the city and check out some museums today. I'm getting to see my favorite musical ever, Sweeney Todd, tonight, so this is one of the major highlights of my trip!
 I promise I’ll try to do a more interesting and meaningful update in the near future, and possibly a blog re-design soon.