This past week has been a fun and a busy one. On
Monday, we celebrated Thanksgiving at the Centre. We had classes as normal, but
then at 3 all those who wanted to play a game of Turkey Bowl met in the main
room, and we walked over to the park to play! I am really glad I decided to
play because it was super fun! Our teams were kind of big and crazy, but it was
just fun to run around and play football, even though I haven’t really played
football since gym class in middle school. But it was fun, and my team won! It was
a good afternoon! There were even some cops who drove past on their routes who
asked what we were playing, because a group of mostly girls playing American
football in the park is a different thing to see. We had Thanksgiving dinner,
and it was all yummy!! It was a good day!
After classes on Tuesday, I went to Marble Arch, saw
Speaker’s Corner, walked a bit in Hyde Park, went to Mark and Spencer’s, found
the American Embassy (and yes there is a giant Eagle on the building) and went
to the Victoria and Albert Museum. These were all fun to explore. The Corner
was literally just a corner of the park and nothing else was there, and the
V&A museum had a ton of fun statues and stained glass to see! Visiting
these places also helped me finish up an assignment, seeing 50 different sites
in London! It was quite exciting to be able to check off that assignment! That night
I packed for my trip! My little brother also got his Eagle Tuesday night, which is so exciting for him!
Wednesday morning my friend and I left bright and
early to get to the airport to catch our flight to Dublin! I absolutely loved
Ireland, and I just felt so happy there! It is so pretty, and green, and just
felt very friendly! We explored the Dublin Castle grounds, went into a library,
walked through a gorgeous park where there were tons of birds flocking around a
man, found Oscar Wilde’s House and his corresponding statue (where he looks
very smug and uppity). As a result, we naturally had to take pictures in a
similar pose as him. We also went into the National History Museum, an
archeological museum, and the library where they had an exhibit on William
Butler Yeats. So even when we weren’t trying to be literary tourists we were
literary tourists. It was just so fun seeing and exploring the city, and I loved
it! I loved the culture, and just how pretty the city is! The streetlights were
really cool, as there were shamrocks around the top of them! After a full day,
we eventually made it to our hotel, and had a relaxing night.
Thursday we got up and went back to the city center,
and explored Trinity College, some Christmas markets, and got food from a
bakery! We then had to make our way back to the airport where we found even
more Christmas decorations and fun, and we flew to Copenhagen. When we arrived
that night, our hotel was luckily pretty easy to find, and we crashed after
getting dinner.
On Friday, we headed to the mall near the hotel and
got some bakery food for breakfast. We shared a Christmas star, and it was
delicious! We then went into the city center and made our way to the Little
Mermaid statue in the harbor. It was so pretty, and based off the story by Hans
Christian Andersen. You could see the longing in her face, and it was a
stunning statue. We walked along the Citadel nearby, and found a Danish
Windmill! It was super cute and fun! We found a cute church as well, and a
statue to Churchill there. We made our way back to a Cathedral we had driven by
earlier, and were able to go inside. It was gorgeous! Simple and beautiful, and
it was nice to just be able to sit and relax. Afterwards we went back to the
city center, got hot dogs because they were supposedly really good, and then
walked along the shops and such in the area. We found another Christmas market,
and it was just really fun to see the decorations everywhere. We then decided
we needed to get inside, so we went to the Thorvaldsen Museum. It is a museum
housing Thorvaldsen’s sculptures, and they are all gorgeous. Super detailed,
and a talented man. It was fun to see them! We even saw the original Christus
statue, which he created! It was incredible!! After we went to Tivoli Gardens,
an amusement park all set up for Christmas, with everything decorated as part
of a Christmas village. It was so cute and fun to see everything lit up! It was
an enjoyable day, though cold!
Saturday we went to the airport and flew back to
London, arriving about 4 back at the Centre. It was a really fun Thanksgiving
break, and even though I was not with my family, I enjoyed being able to
explore Dublin and Copenhagen! I absolutely loved the cities, especially Dublin
which I have wanted to visit for years! It was a good week! This week is our
last full week in London, and I cannot believe how quickly the time has gone
by! It’ll be weird to leave, but I am excited to go home and see my family!
