I have less then a week left in this country and I can’t wait to go home. Don’t get me wrong, I more than enjoyed my time here in the United Kingdom, but I miss the United States, with the exception of the politics. I miss my pets, my family, my friends, Rollins, my job at Rollins, the food, the ability to use my data everywhere without worrying about Wi-Fi, and the sun. My last few weeks here have been jammed packed. I went to Ireland, Barcelona, Paris, and my family even came over and visited me for a week, which was an interesting experience.
Ireland has been numbe
r one on my list of places to visit since I found out I am Irish. We took a ferry to Dublin, which is a busy port town filled with so many pubs and Starbucks it’s disorienting, but wonderful. It is pretty easy for me to be identified as being Irish because of my last name (Sheehan) is a really common Irish last name, and there were three natives of Ireland who commented on my last name which made me really happy. Apart from exploring Dublin, we went to the Cliffs of Moher, but unfortunately it was really foggy, rainy, and cold, but was still a unique experience. Barcelona was one of the only places we visited where it was sunny the entire trip and is also in my top three places I have been during this semester. The whole city is full of amazing architecture and it seems that when I went it was in the middle of a Catalonian independence movement which was fascinating to witness.
Unfortunately for us, we decided to go to Paris in the beginning of December. Which in hindsight was a bad idea. The night we arrived it was snowing and it was freezing all of the other days. In addition to being freezing there was a fog which descended on the city, which was both eerie and a beautiful sight. Here we saw the basic sights like the Eifel Tower, the Louvre, and the Notre Dame (we saw more as well I just can’t remember). Oh, we also mastered the Metro and saw the Catacombs which was, for lack of a better word, amazing. We also spent a day at the Palace of Versailles which was a dream come true for me because I am a history nerd and so much has happened in this place, it felt like I was drowning in history. The Palace was astonishing. It is huge, we got lost in the gardens, which was not the best mistake because it was like 25 degrees out, but it really helped to put the scale of the place in our heads and we saw a cat.
Lastly, my parents and grandmother flew over the week of Thanksgiving. I did so much more touristy things with them in London in one week than I did over the course of three months. For example, we went in the London Eye, which was really cool, we went in the Tower and saw the Crown Jewels (wow!), and we took a tour on Thanksgiving Day (which they don’t celebrate over here) which consisted of stops at Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and the town of Bath (where we drank blood flavored water). My favorite place out of these has to be Stonehenge just because of the mystery surrounding the rocks (aliens) and the history or pre history for that matter.
Overall I had an amazing last month and I saw so many things and took so many pictures my phone is running out of space. But with this said I am ready to go home and ready to be back on a normal academic schedule at Rollins and to see my cats. Now I just have to pack.