This was actually intended to be for my schools newspaper, but it never got published so i wanted to share it somewhere :]

Many things happen over spring break. Some people go to the beach, some go to the lake, others stay around home. Still, some people take the trips of a lifetime. Each year, a group of students go to Europe during spring break. This year, the trip was to Dublin, Wales and London and was organized by Mr. Hodge, a teacher here at Benjamin Russell High School. The group that went from Benjamin Russell consisted of a little less than 20 people, including myself.

The overseas adventure was definately something I will never forget, and I am sure the rest of the group would agree with me in saying that. The rest of our tour group included a group of about the same size as ours, from the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham, and about a handful of Oklahoma students.

There were many firsts for me on this trip, including my first airplane flight(s), new foods and culture and being so far away from home and from friends, with completely new people who soon became friends of mine. The flight was definately fun, even though the guys that knew it was my first time on a plane tried to (jokingly) scare me. "Uh oh, what's happening? I don't think it's supposed to feel shaky like this. . . There goes a tire!" were some of things I began to hear.

We arrived in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day, which is also something not to forget. While I was in a coffee shop called Insomnia Coffee, it actually began snowing! So we started taking pictures and then went outside to experience the snow, since it is something we never see in the south. While in Dublin, our group went to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells, and then we had a guided tour. Something interesting we learned after talking about all of the doors in apartments (or flats, as the Europeans call them) were different colors, is that long ago, people would incidentally walk into someone elses' room, because everything looked exactly the same. The answer to that problem was to paint each door a different color, including the normal white, to bright yellow, lime green and purple.

While in Wales, we toured Beaumeris Castle, which is basically a ruin. In order to get to Wales from Dublin, we had to take a four hour ferry ride, which was another first for me. We rode the ferry named Ulysses, which was said to be the largest ferry in the world. Before this trip, I have never really heard much about Wales. There really is not that much to it, it's just a lot of farming/sheep raising communities (as far as I saw), but it is beautiful. A lot of the scenery and the Snowdonia mountains always looked to be straight from a postcards picture.

Finally, we were getting to go to London. We had a five hour bus ride there from Wales, which was broken up into smaller times because we stopped at another castle, as well as Stratford-Upon-Avon, where Shakespeare was born and grew up. I'll never forget the way I felt when we finally arrived in London and I saw all of the sights that meant we were definately there (including Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament), because it is one of the places I have always wanted to visit.

The first night in London, we had the opportunity to ride the London Eye, which is the largest ferris wheel in the world. At the very top, they say you can see up to 60 miles all around you. I'm not sure how it is during the day, but at night it was beautiful, because the city was completely lit up.

While there were a few things during the trip that happened that made some spirits lower, including lost shoes on the Tube (underground subway in London), delayed luggage and for our Birmingham friends, a seven hour flight delay at the Birmingham airport and a two day layover in Chicago, this trip has been one of the best experiences some of us will ever have.