Since it’s been some time since I’ve last posted I’m going to post two separate posts;  one highlighting my travels since I last wrote, and another discussing my life in Leeds. This is my travel post:

Dublin, Ireland (Feb. 15 – 17): As all of my friends are flying to Dublin this current weekend, I opted out seeing as I went this weekend – the weekend of my birthday, to celebrate and visit a friend from home. Dublin was certainly not what I expected. I knew it was town of drinking, but to be honest I thought there would be more tourist attractions. We did the Guinness Tour (which included a free pint, overlooked Dublin, and was really interesting), as well as some of the other major attractions like Trinity College, but mostly we spent time in pubs. 

I rang my birthday in at the Temple Bar, one of Dublin’s most well-known pubs, and it was really fun. The live band that was there played all of my favorite songs and everyone was so nice. The only problem I faced was flying back to Leeds the morning after. When I returned, however, my birthday was just as great. We went to our first afternoon tea since coming to England and then went out at night to a club we hadn’t been to before. All in all, turning 21 in Dublin (and also Leeds) was an experience I’ll remember forever. 

York and Ilkley, England (Feb. 22 – 23): The following weekend was our attempt at staying in Leeds for a weekend the first time since arriving in January, but that didn’t really happen. Saturday, two friends and I went to York, which is under an hour away by bus and train. It’s a pretty town that has a man-made wall surrounding it. We walked the wall and visited some really interesting places. The Shambles is an area of York that still maintains its Old English buildings. So, when you’re shopping in the area it honestly feels like you’ve gone back in time. We also saw the birthplace of Guy Fawkes, which as a fan of history (and “V for Vendetta”) I found really interesting. The highlight of the day however came when we climbed to the top of the York Minster. It’s a beautiful building, but the stairs we climbed were treacherous. I think each of us at some point thought we were going to fall, especially since they were spiral, vertigo-inducing stairs. They warn you at the beginning it’s an intense hike upward, but we played it off until, of course, we were grasping the railing asking the person in front, “How much further?” Yet, reaching the top was really cool. You could see all of York, from a birds-eye-view. If only, they had an elevator to go back down.

After spending the night in Leeds, we travelled, also locally, to the Ilkley Moor. Ilkley is a spa town that highlights the English hillside. We hiked the moor for about an hour, stopping to enjoy the view and appreciate just how beautiful the English countryside truly is. Leeds is definitely beautiful and has its fair share of lush countryside, but when selecting to study here, the moor and its sheep were what I imagined England to be like. 

Bath, England (Feb. 28 – March 2):  This was a bit of brutal travel experience. We left Friday night around midnight after going to the Canal Mills night market in Leeds. We took a bus from Leeds to London, and then from London to Bath. But because it was a bus, I found it difficult to sleep, so when we got to Bath in the morning around 10 a.m., I was exhausted. But we had plans to attend to and no time for sleep. We checked into our hostel and explored a bit, before catching our tour bus to Stonehenge. The guide we had was great, he told really interesting stories about Jane Austen in Bath, as well as the history of Stonehenge (he was also really understanding when we passed out from lack of sleep on the bus ride to and from Stonehenge). 

Stonehenge, itself, was really cool. We, of course, took a great deal of photos and marveled in its beauty. I also marveled in the immense amount of English sheep that were just grazing next to the rocks. It was surreal to me to see how Stonehenge is fairly close to a roadway. The juxtaposition of this ancient and historic landmark, next to a modern invention really brought things full circle for me. After that, our guide took us to Lacock, which was one of those trips we thought we’d do because it was included in our tour, but had no idea what it was. We were pleasantly surprised. 

Lacock is this old-English town, where most of the residents are related to someone who lived there in the medieval days. In fact, in order to rent a home there, which everyone does (the trust of England owns the houses), you must be able to prove a blood-line and those who can get priority in living in the area. Lacock was also really cool because it is home to many filming locations for many movies.  Because the town maintains it’s old English charm, it’s cheaper to film there than build a set. The most interesting film, in my opinion, was Harry Potter. The Lacock Abbey was home to many scenes from the film, including the scene with the Mirror of Erised and the classroom’s of Snape & Quirrell. Not to mention we saw Professor Slughorn’s home and the home of Lily and James Potter. As an HP fan, this was all very unexpected and exciting for me. Lacock was also a filming home to the BBC’s productions of “Cranford” and “Pride and Prejudice.” A church in Lacock was also where the royal wedding of Laura Parker Bowles and Harry Lopes occurred. So, basically the town is ripe with history.

Once, we returned to Bath we ate a fantastic dinner at Sally Lunn’s, the oldest house in Bath, which is famous for these buns. Naturally, they were incredibly good. After that we explored and had another excellent meal: a platter of desserts at a local pub. It was our intention to go out and explore the nightlife a bit more, but Bath isn’t really known for its great nightlife scene and we were extremely tired, so we ending up going back to the hostel fairly early that night. The following day we explored Bath, seeing the Roman Baths and taking a walking tour of the area. The Roman Baths were really cool and the museum that precedes entering it was enlightening. We got to taste the bath water too, which was not refreshing…at all. After the walking tour around Bath, which highlighted a lot of the area’s history, we went the Jane Austen museum, where we learned about how she used Bath to draw inspiration in her writing and we also went to the tea room there to have afternoon tea and taste the other popular bun of Bath: the Bath bun. 

I personally believe Bath is a beautiful city that everyone should visit it once. All of the buildings have the same architecture and color-scheme, so it’s really unlike any city I’ve ever seen before. The architect also tried to mimic Rome, so there’s an area that is meant to look like the Coliseum.

Stratford-upon-Avon (March 8):  The last of my excursions: a friend and I did a day-trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, or the birthplace of Shakespeare. As an English major and self-proclaimed Shakespeare fanatic, this was a trip I was looking forward to. The town itself was not what I expected, but I still enjoyed the day. We saw Shakespeare’s birthplace, his grave and the home of his daughter and her husband, as well as the site where Shakespeare lived before he died. All of it was really interesting and full of facts about the writer. His grave however, I thought would be tombstone outside…it was not. It was inside the Holy Trinity Church, the place he was baptized, and he was placed next to his wife, Anne. The New Place, or where Shakespeare lived before he died, had this really gorgeous garden, with sculptural representations of Shakespeare’s works. I could have honestly spent all day walking around it.

I ended up spending too much money on souvenirs and eating lunch in a place called “Othello’s,” but we also walked around and experienced the area’s beauty. It was certainly obvious that Shakespeare could find inspiration in an area such as Stratford.