Wednesday 7/28: London

Not too much to say about today… we had presentations and then a couple of us went to the London Zoo. It was all right, but the giraffes and monkeys were really cool! One of the monkeys even came out of the cage and was just hanging out with us in the hall!Tonight we are having one last group dinner. Tomorrow morning I have my thesis presentation at 7, and then we are going to see Wimbledon at 10. After that I come back, finish backing, and check out to go to the airport to head to Rome, Italy! We are spending 3 days there and also going to Cortona, Florence and Venice! I will probably not have Internet… so you probably will not hear from me! I will be back in London very late Aug. 5^th and then I fly back to the U.S. Aug. 7^th. This trip has gone by waaay too fast!

Tuesday 7/27: London

We started our thesis presentations today. Four people present each morning, and I got the unlucky draw of going at 7am on the last day, but oh well, I guess more time to prepare! I have put so much work into my project, I am sooo ready to be done.

We met back up as a group at 10am and then went to see Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guards. It was swarming with tourists though, making it not as much fun. Then we walked through Kensington Gardens up to the Palace to eat at the Orangery. We were going to order tea (which I STILL haven’t done) but the food looked better so I got the soup of the day and a cheese scone instead. I was a little disappointed in the palace and garden because I heard that they are really pretty, but I didn’t find it that great.Afterwards we went on a river cruise and then at night went and saw the play “39 Steps”. It was funny, but not as good as “Charlie’s Aunt”, which we saw in Manchester. The area we were in was really neat and makes me wish we were able to see other parts of the city more. When I get back from Italy and have one last day in London, I am definitely going to see Notting Hill, Kensington, and walk through Hyde Park as well as ride the London Eye. After the play, Clinton and I went to see Big Ben and Parliament at night, because we heard it was a must-see.

Monday 7/26: Dublin to London

We got up at 5am this morning (Very early because this whole weekend we slept in… my first time to do so all summer) and headed to the airport to go back to London. Of course when we got to the airport we had to shuffle luggage around from bag to bag to lighten everyone’s weight limit.

When we got back to London, we checked back into our dorm rooms and then took the tube to West Minster where we saw West Minster Abbey, Parliament and Big Ben. After looking around for a while we went and listened to a presentation by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, which is similar to our Associated General Contractors. I have to say that it was the most interesting presentation we have listened to yet. They kept it short and sweet and didn’t ramble on for hours, which I think helped. We then went and toured the Winston Churchill Museum. It would have been cool, but I am “Museumed out.“

For dinner, we all went to a Thai restaurant, and I can now officially say that I do not like Thai food. But I did at least try everything… it just wasn’t my favorite. We got more food if we shared a special with two people, so I shared with Clinton. It turned out good for him, because he got to pretty much eat for two. While walking home we stopped to get ice cream, so I got a large and that was my dinner :-)

Dublin

First time I have internet in over a week, so here it goes...

We arrived in Dublin late Thursday night. We flew on RyanAir, and boy it was an experience. You are not assigned seats, and you have to wait by a screen until your gate is displayed about 40 minutes before departure. When the gate is displayed, everyone rushes to the gate to get in line to get a better seat. We were lucky and were one of the first in line. A few guys had luckily already flown RyanAir earlier, so they gave us the low down on how it all works. They also informed us that you have to print off your boarding pass before you get there, because if you do not, they will charge you 15 pounds. That would have been really easy and we would have done it when we bought our tickets, but you can only print them off from 15 days before the flight and up to 48 hours before the flight. Your checked bag can only be 15kg, and you one carry-on (you have to put everything in that one carry-on, purses and everything) can only be 10kg. The charge for over 10kg is 40 pounds. The charge for being over you checked bag depends on how much you are over. We were able to escape all these charges though since we were informed by our friends….but then again our plan ticket only cost 18 pounds, so they have to get you somewhere! We did have to pay 20 pounds to check the first bag, so it cost more to check our bag then it did our ticket!

Then when we got our flat… it was in the middle of Dublin’s ghetto! We had gotten an email earlier in the week saying we were “upgraded” to a luxury apartment…they forgot to mention the location change. The cab driver said in all 15 years he had been driving people from the airport, he had never once taken anyone there. He also told us to not walk around and definitely do not carry our purses. We slept there the first night and then called the reality agent first thing in the morning saying we wanted out. So we got a 100% full refund and moved to a nicer part to town into the Holiday Inn. So I guess it is good we got a free night out it??

So after we got done moving into the Holiday Inn, we walked around the city of Dublin, which I decided was by far my favorite place I have been. Irish people are so nice, and the pub experience is a whole new world. How they are depicted on TV is not misleading… it is real.

Saturday we walked around some more, went on one of the red sightseeing buses and visited both the Jameson Distillery and the Guinness Storehouse. Of course I tired an Irish coffee, but seeing as I don’t like whiskey, I also did not like the Irish coffee. We all went to dinner as a big group and then hung out and listened to Irish music in pubs the rest of the night. Clinton and I also randomly ran into Bob Riley on the street in the middle of Dublin early that morning and talked to him for a bit!

Random Story: Of course there are homeless people everywhere on the streets, which is very sad, but I never give them money because I do not want them to spend it on drugs and alcohol...I have heard too many stories. I always said I would give them food instead. But we were walking along and I saw a crippled girl, about our age, begging for money. This is the first person that got to me… I felt really bad for her. I wanted to give her money but we were walking to fast to have time…. And it is a good thing! While walking down a pedestrian street later that night, I looked to my left at a little “Jut-in” at the street where a door was….and we saw her standing up perfectly straight and sticking a needle into her arm! I was shocked…she put on such a good show earlier! So I just stared and said kind of loud (accidently) “hey it’s the crippled girl from earlier, and she is not crippled… she is doing drugs!” Everyone turned to look and she definitely saw us. When we walked back by later, the overhead door was pulled down so she could have privacy, but not all the way so you could still see her feet. Good thing I didn’t give her money!

On Sunday, Clinton, Jeff, Beau and I took a day tour to Wicklow, which is the county/countryside right outside of Dublin, and of course it was beautiful. There is not one thing about Ireland I do not like. We were able to see the beautiful countryside…and I know I have talked about the countryside being pretty in other places such as France, England and Scotland… but Ireland’s countryside blows them all out of the water! We were able to see some film locations of “P.S. I Love you,” “Leap Year,” and “Braveheart.” We also actually saw Sean Penn filming his new movie called “Camelot.”

Day 23-25 Manchester

Day 23 - On Tuesday we went to the Thinklab at Salford University outside of Manchester. The construction school there, as with everywhere else in the U.K., is referred to as the School of Built Environment, and Salford University is well known for the school. That night, we went to Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre to see the comedy “Charlie’s Aunt.” It was absolutely hilarious, even all the boys were laughing hard. It would take a while to tell about the synopsis...but check it out on google. The theatre itself was really cool but hard to explain…I’ll post a picture soon.

Day 24 - On Wednesday we visited the Media City project being built by Bovis Lend Lease. It is a large project being built in Salford by the BBC. It was cool to see and hear about the controversy of the BBC moving north, but it was not too exciting. We didn’t even get to walk on site…After that, we went and worked on thesis for the rest of the night.

Day 25: TURNED IN MY THESIS :-) I stayed up till about 12 Wednesday night just putting finishing touches on my thesis, and after copying and pasting documents realized the links did not copy. So I worked on the bus on the way out to the wildlife refuge project we visited (not too exciting either) and on the way back to re-update the links. I got it done, though, and turned it in at 5:30pm then headed to the airport where I am now waiting to board my plane to Dublin!!!!!! So I am sitting in the Manchester airport waiting on my flight and decided to take out my computer and update my blog. It is really hard to do, though, because I have worked so hard on thesis and this was supposed to be my fun weekend after I turned it in. I didn’t have internet all week and I was really busy completing and putting the finishing touches on my thesis, so I was not able to focus on the blog that much. I went ahead and wrote Monday’s in a word document on Monday night, so that is day 22. The rest are combined below because it was a really uneventful week with a lot of schoolwork, so there really isn’t that much to tell.

It is crazy to think we have been here for four weeks. It does not feel like it at all. I am glad Mallory, Clinton and I decided to stay an extra week and go to Italy, because I would be really sad if I had to leave next week. I really hope we get to do what we want to do our last week in London. This will probably be the only time I am in London and want to do a few other things besides go visit more companies, jobsites and museums!

As I said earlier, I turned in my thesis today, now all I have left is to make a flash presentation for my presentation next week!

Day 22: Manchester to Ireland

This morning we got on the train to go from Edinburgh to Manchester, and the train ride was gorgeous. I brought my computer to work on the train but found myself continually looking outside. .

When we arrived in Manchester, we checked in at our dorms and then headed to the Manchester United stadium for a tour. I was really excited for this because it is the one thing I wanted to do in Manchester, and it was first on our list. It was kind of surreal being at the stadium, one that I have watched so many games at from my T.V. at home, on another continent. We got to go into the stands, walk around the stadium, hang out in the players lounge where they get ready for games and hang out afterwards, and we even got to go into the locker room where I got a picture next to Rooney’s locker.

For dinner we went to an Indian restaurant where I got my first Indian food experience, and it definitely did not disappoint. I was skeptic at first, and besides the food being a little spicy, it was great. I am so full I can hardly move now.

Day 21: Hike south of Edinburgh - Burwick-upon-Tweedy

Today we headed south of Edinburgh to go on another coastal walk. We looked up lots of hikes online last night and even contemplated going north to the highlands, but we loved our first coastal walk in Weymouth so much, we decided to head back somewhere on the coast. Plus the coast here is unlike anywhere in the U.S., so I will probably not be able to see anything like it again, and if I do, it won’t be for a long, long time. This time we started in Eyemouth and ended at St. Abby’s Head. Clinton and I took the train from Edinburgh to Burwick-upon-Tweedy, where my parents picked us up and drove us to Eyemouth for the start of the hike. It was a very cool hike and I am glad we did it, but I don’t think anything can compare to the hike we did in Weymouth.

This hike had lots of cliffs, which were awesome, but what I loved most about it was the countryside along the coast. I felt like I was in a movie… It is exactly what I think of when I think of Scotland or England. We even got lucky and it did not rain on us once (It has rained literally every other day). We are now headed back and I am going to work on thesis the rest of the night!