The Rest of Europe 2008

Hi!  I realized that I havent posted since the "I'm not dead in Paris post" and I wanted to say that I'm fine.  Just really busy.  New Castle was fun, we went to Pizza Hut to eat and interestingly enough our hostle room was a co-ed one (a little strange - one of our roomates was a guy).  Castle Alnwick was good (the castle was super and there was a lame magic show by "Hagrid" and "Dumbledore" and a very cool bird show (I LOVE birds of prey!)).  The bus ride back to New Castle was long and we missed our train; however, I got some really goodpicturesof the english countryside.  We hopped on another train and made it to Eidenbugh (which I can't spell or pronounce apparently).  Our hostle there was pretty good (reminded me of a youth center actually).  The nest day we went on a tour of scotland (all the way up to Loch Ness).  That was cool.  I got some AMAZING pictures of Scotland!  The next day things went down hill.  We hopped onto the train that would take us to Holyhead to catch our ferry to Dublin.  The train worked out but the ferry was cancelled because of weather.  We signedup to take the next ferry (at 2:40am) and phoned our hostle to ok with them our late arrival.  The hostle wouldn't let us check in.  We then tried to find a place to stay in Holyhead (a no go).  We stayed in the station/port in a nice lounge area until 2:00 when it closed and then waited for the ferry.  I was so tired that I slept most of the 3hr ferry ride.  After that neither of us reallywantedto try andsightsee so se took a bus toth airport and hung out there all day.  We caught our plane at 6:00pm to Paris and attempted to navigate the Metro and find our hotel with little to no sleep.  Also I discovered tht my friend had forgotten to print off the page with the address of the hotel... she didn't even have the name!  I nearly collapsed.  However, we found it and checked in and SLEPT! YAY!!!  The next day we took it easy and signed up to stay at the hotel another night.  We visited the Louvre that day.  WOW it was AMAZING!!! I say all sorts of really cool stuff!!! I've discovered that I have a love of sculpture and a love of ceiling design.  We also went shopping for shoes and I bought an awesome pair of highheels.  The next day we saw the sites!  We went to the Arc de Triomphe first (what they do not tell you is that to get to the top you must climb 3-4 stories of spiral staircase and then descend the same way... UGH).  We then walked to the Eiffle Tower and did not do up because there was SUPER long lines and I'm not fond of glass elivators anyway - took some good pictures though.  Then we walked to the Champs Elise which is the main shopping street in Paris and window shopped a little and then walked back toour hotel.  We picked up our bags and headed to the Eurostar station to be told that we got there 3 hours to early.  >.<  The EuroStar was very cool but I don't think it compares to the Japanese bulet trains.  Back in London we took a taxi to our hostel (very cool - London takis are all made from vehicles that are meant to bo taxis.  They are not sketchy at all!)  The next morning we again took a taxi (at 6:00 in the morning!!! UGH) to the trainstation so we could take a train to the airport which was fun!  Then the plane ride home.  By the time we got to the Toronto airport I had again gone likely over 24hrs without sleep and I forced myself to stay awake until I got home.  We made it home safely.  At 9:00 the next morning I had to get up (less than 9hrs of sleep) and begin my first day at school of the semester.  The day after that I had my pool test - not my most brilliant one.  I am fine but busy and t was a super fun trip.