oh my god! i'm so sorry. hehe. it has literally been almost a month, and about 60-70 more pages in my journal since i have written to you all. i was doing so well at it, too. so...so you're ready: there will probably be a lot of reading in this e-mail, if you choose to read it. so no complaining - you have been warned.

Ireland from the air

Trinity College

Road to Bray from Dublin

Guinness Factory

Pheonix Park

•  flying in was beautiful. ireland looks like a giant quilt when you fly over it. i went to the hostel first and checked in. then i went out on the town! i took off for trinity college and saw the book of kells and even found the theater classroom where they were rehearsing. it was a very pretty campus and reminded me a lot of harvard. i was also giving lots of directions to people - or at least being asked. being on a college campus and being a college student, it's almost as if i went to school there.
• so then, i took off to the dublin castle, and then st. patrick's cathedral (also the burial site of jonathan swift and his wife). the best fish and chips of my life, too! i went to a place called gogarty's and watched some live traditional irish music, too. that was a real treat. gogarty street was especially entertaining - lots of shopping, but the street performers were the best i have ever seen.
• another day i went to the national history museum, the national gallery, the national museum of history, st. stephen's park (beautiful), iveagh gardens (beautiful), and then concluded it with an evening at a cafe theater where they had a musical theater cabaret. the museums were just awesome, too!
• then next day, i went on a 'celtic experience'. an amazing drive thru the scenery that is ireland and seeing structures that are 5000 years old - 1500 years earlier than the egyptians. it was amazing, interesting, and really something to actually see the countryside. and for those of you interested in shamrocks, they literally grow in these huge patches. they grow everywhere. back to dublin
• i left dublin the next day - and went to a city south of dublin called bray. it was on the shore, which is something else i wanted to see in ireland - and i ended up climbing up this huge mountain that stood high enough for me to stare off into the distance over other mountains, the ocean, and the city of bray. it was time much well spent.
• so, after eating a second mre ['Meals Ready to Eat'] on the trip, i headed back to dublin for the guiness factory (amazing guiness, p.s.), pheonix park, and then i went to go see a concert. yes, you'll think me strange - keith urban. i know i know! but i couldn't help it. country in ireland! how much better could it get. well, anyway, he was amazing, and you all missed out, so nah!
• by the last day, i had fallen in love with ireland. so, i spent the last day mostly shopping for people, visiting a couple more random places like temple bar, harry's, pheonix park, and a few more. finally, i ended my time in the city with an irish coffee and a long date with my journal. a fantastic ending. so that was dublin. (and by the by, i cheated the system and got my passport stamped! i'm such a rebel.)

back home in london, the ordinary pretty much going on. i finished another book, the prophet - great book. i also went to hyde park and journaled.

in terms of shows, i can't even remember all of the shows we have seen. some have just been amazing. some of the shows i have seen are, sheharezade, blood brothers, woman in white (simon callow and ruthie henshall), my name is rachel courie, ducktastic, billy elliot, and death of a salesman (brian dennehey and claire higgins) - (those are literally all i can recall). so far, woman in white has been my absolute favorite show here! it was so good, and the music was amazing.

brandon and i had a lot of rehearsing to do as our scene went up on the 1st of this month (november). we also had a nice little party for arika and her birthday. i was a rugby player, but my costume was most definitely surpassed by arika and her 'satine' from moulin rouge! go arika! then, something else to make everything fall into place, i lost my wallet that night. we were on the bus home, and it definitely fell out - so all the cancelling of the credit cards and atm card happened, leaving me with not much. but then a couple days later, after all the credit cards had been resent, and my oyster card (tube pass) had been re-mailed, and i had another isic (international student id) card sent to me, david hillman e-mails me saying he had my wallet. he literally sat down right after we moved up and out. pretty amazing he found me, but he did. i thought it was neat that the domain name for his e-mail address was stampoutpoverty.org. ironic!

in addition to everything else in my journal, i wrote about some things i missed. some of the big ones: wal-mart (i don't have to buy anything, just walk inside), taco bell, mountain dew, steak n' shake. i do also miss spending real money (us dollars). this pound thing is driving me mad. actually the more i think of it, a steak from the roadhouse sounds good. that's one thing the uk isn't particularly good at, cooking a good steak.

Dover Castle

Canterbury Cathedral

King's College, Cambridge

Liverpool Cathedral

i also began using my britrail pass. the first place i went to was cambridge. definitely a city of colleges. they are all colleges that make up the big 'cambridge university' and literally there are soooo many of them. we saw king's college, trinity college, and st. john's college. the chapel at trinity was pretty, and we also saw the bridge of sighs at st. john's. other than that, our trip was pretty much over in cambridge.

the next trip was to liverpool, home of the beatles and the home port of the titanic. a dirty city, but there were fun things to do. the maritime museum exhibit about the titanic was really neat - eerie seeing a lifevest, garments, and artifacts from the ship...breathtaking. we also saw the cavern which is where the beatles performed all the time, and we ate at the grapes' which is where they always ate before and after their shows. there were also two cathedrals there that were amazing. one was built in the 60's but really modern looking - almost looked like an oversized space mountain from the outside, but the really neat one was the liverpool cathedral. only 101 years old, it was built like some of the things i've seen that are 1000 years old. i believe it's the 5th largest in the world. (i think - i heard that). there was also the park right next door that was bombed in wwii. all the tombstones were moved, and they did not know where they belonged, so they had to line them all up against the walls of the park - so there is just this line of tombstones encompassing the entire park.

then, something else happened that i did not foresee: the harry potter world premier. i definitely went to that, and we were there for a total of 16 hours. but it all paid off. i was literally only a couple feet from all the big stars - harry, ron, hermione, malfoy - you get the picture. madonna, rob lowe, and claudia shiffer where among the other guests there, but they were wisked inside fairly quickly and we weren't able to get a look at them. it's fun to say that i did it, though. and i'm glad i did.

then, yesterday, i went to cardiff and swansea which are two big cities in wales. they aren't the most exciting cities, but interesting. the cardiff castle was very interesting, and swansea was neat because they are known for being the birthplace of dylan thomas (he's a famous poet). so that was neat. between the train ride to swansea from cardiff, the scenery was beautiful. the grass is so green. so then, that concluded my long long weekend.

but that wasn't it - oh no. i had to wake up early this morning to go to the house of parliament building for a tour. but, it turned out to be a very interesting tour, and i'm glad we went. we also spoke to brian haw outside of the building after our tour and talked to him - he is protesting the war and has been campaigning since 2001. an interesting fellow.

okay, so i think that's it. i tried to make this as brief as i possibly could. there was just too much to talk about. berlin/prague happens next weekend - eeks! yesterday was our one month mark. it's going by so quickly, i can't believe it. i feel if i close my eyes or blink, i'll be home. it's just been an amazing experience, and i wouldn't change it for anything. i'm so thankful to be here. okay, i'll let you all rest your eyes. i wish you all the best!