Thanksgiving: Several Hours in a Lobby Eating Fruit Rollups (aka Winning)

Okay, no more teapot posts, however, as a quick preface...  I'd like to inform my dear readers that I just made the purchase of black currant, ginseng and vanilla tea.  Not that you all care.

I pick Boyfriend up from our wee Lancaster train station midday, just in time to drop him off at my flat so I could go to my British Romanticism class, where my old British professor challenged my third-wave feminist attitudes on writing. HAH, picked the wrong girl for that!

I race back to the flat, Boyfriend had insisted we fly to Ireland the same day he arrived ("Oh, might as well get all the flying out of the way, even though you are probably one hundred percent right about flying the next day, but whatever!"  Okay, fine he didn't say the last part), so we had a small window of time to catch a train in order to check in for the flight.

Needless to say, there was a lot of running through the airport, and me saying, "Hey, we should totally sign up for the Amazing Race!" and immediately retracting that statement after sprinting up a flight of stairs.
As you can imagine, because it is my life, we missed the flight.  And all the hotels were booked... Except Travel Lodge: the cheapest, ugliest looking accommodation we've ever seen.

At the crack of dawn on Wednesday, we awake, and get on the 8 AM flight to Ireland!

"You both look so happy!" Happy, mom, yes, we are happy.  Also delirious from sleep exhaustion and just relieved we managed to not screw up this flight

Dublin Town Center: you can also see the Spire Monument in this picture (the giant spike)

Dublin was a pretty cool city.  We did a lot of shopping and I even got to author-stalk James Joyce!  Boyfriend humored me and got me a few trinkets from the James Joyce Center!  I think Larry Stewart and Mazen Naous from the COW would applaud me.

That night, we walked to the Guinness Factory, where Boyfriend took some excellent pictures from the Gravity bar after we had our free pints of Ireland's greatest beer.  Afterwards, we stayed out fairly late (I know his post says 3 AM, but we were definitely in bed by eleven...latest) taking pictures of the lit up city and eating Irish McDonald's chicken nuggets on the bench overlooking River Liffey.

Boyfriend in Merchant's Arch

Photographer in action

And what good would one of my stories be if yet another thing didn't go wrong?

Stupid Dublin ATMs ate my money and left me with 20 worthless American dollars.  So the next morning, I had to call AAA back in America to sort it all out (I was surprised Mom hadn't all made them want to quit their jobs by then).  Boyfriend and I, completely exhausted from running around Dublin, decided to head back to Lancaster.  But first, we needed to get to the ferry.

Boyfriend: "Oh, it's no problem, my super awesome iPhone says that it's just past the river by the Dublin Docks.  We can walk that.  My iPhone hasn't been wrong about anything either."

So I prepared myself for a very long journey:

Yes, I am a dork, thanks for noticing.  And yes, water does come in that ridiculously sized bottle here.

US TWO HOURS LATER

"Boyfriend, we're idiots."

"Yup."

 Oh, and our backpacks weighed like thirty pounds from our Christmas shopping (yes, families, we love you just that much).  We finally made it and then proceeded to spend approximately six hours in the lobby of the ferry waiting room, and mind you, this was on Real Thanksgiving.  But that's okay, because it was pretty hysterical and we were too thrilled to have found the ferry to care.  Also, I made him play ISpy with me as well as micro-manage his game of Solitaire.

But we made it onto the ferry, and the stormy sea made us both a bit motion sick.

Spirits still high despite wanting to throw up

At midnight, we were in Holyhead, Northern Wales!  I've never been to Wales, and even at night it was absolutely beautiful.  I'd live there if it had a Chipotle and didn't have such chilled winds.

I believe this was our favorite part: Holyhead.  It was beyond any beautiful words:

Boyfriend photobombing my lovely picture

Sooner or later, we found ourselves back in Lancaster!  Which everyone will have to wait for that post, so there.

Cheers!

This is the Part of a TV Show Where it's Simply a Filler Episode to Toy with the Audience

You guys.  Check out my new teapot:

It was seven pounds

At a thrift store

How.  Cool.

And, yeah, I've got Tina Fey glasses.  They're more awesome than my sister's librarian glasses that she got to copy off of me.  Oh, I went there (love you sis).

Cheers!

Remember, Remember This Fifth of November

Ranking of cities from coolest to lamest:
1. Edinburgh
2. London
3. Liverpool
4. Oxford
5. Lancaster
6. Windermere
7. York
8. Leeds

(Not including the small towns in Scotland that would probably rank under London anyway, I just didn't want to make England look THAT bad)

So, I hope now everyone can understand why this entry really won't be that enthused about York.

Ugh, okay, York, let's be done with you:

Clifford's Tower

York Minster: Full of itself since the mid 600s

Queen Vicky's Royal Train

And then it started raining before I could hit York Minster, the only thing the city really has to offer.  And I was wearing my new Pumas so I cursed the stupid England weather, "Really?  REALLY?  We're going to do this now?  FINE, York, two can play at this game.  Rain all you want, I'm seeing York Minster, and it BEST be worth this."

After York, I went to go see Rachel at Oxford!  Teddy Hall's beautiful despite it's ongoing construction:

"Whatever you do, DON'T step on the grass."  "Why not?"  "Because.  No one steps on the grass."

We went to Teddy Hall's formal dinner and it was like being in a different world.  Everyone dresses up and wears gowns to this thing, it was so cool to feel that sophisticated.  The students fall quiet when the professors enter the hall and stand, only sitting after one of the professors mumbles the Latin motto.  They even served Teddy Hall wine.  And I think I ate duck, and I think I actually liked it, but I'm trying not to think about that.  Oh, and the dinner conversation?  "What gives people value?"  Yep, Oxford moment.

Saturday, Rachel came home abused but extremely happy from rugby fitness training.  I'd post the picture but I think she'd kill me.  I discovered the wonderful cheapness of Primark (as well as wondering how one wears half that stuff in the store) and my favorite event, cream tea.

Some dude passing by the window actually started laughing at us when Rachel took the picture.  Whatever, he's missing out.

It's actually simply English breakfast tea but you spread the clotted cream on the scone as well as jam.  SO GOOD.

Then, Bonfire Night!!  It was so funny to see the English try to do a fair, they just aren't trashy enough.  It was also amusing to see these traditional, proper people burn Guy Fawkes.  I was told that it really wasn't out of hate anymore, but just tradition, which made more sense.  I'm actually surprised Americans don't have something like this, since we are a country of pyros.

There were fireworks stuffed inside of Guy Fawkes too!

 Then we hit the pub for a cider and finally returned back to the room.  Needless to say, this weekend was blast, right up there with my Scotland adventure.  Because really, it's not about where you go, but the people you are with.

"This wall's probably been touched by CS Lewis... Or Tolkien.  You should probably hug it."

Cheers!