Two weeks ago my school had a field trip to the Peloponnese. The first day we drove to Olympia stopping on the way to see the palace at Mycenae. We spent the night in Olympia, which was a small town but very pretty, and the next day we went to see the actual site of Olympia. The site had a lot of ancient temples and ruins and also the very first Olympic stadium. The day we were in Olympia was the day before the lighting of the Olympic torch for the Vancouver games so I was able to see the practice ceremony and lighting of the torch. The next day we went to Pylos where we saw another Mycenaean palace. I don't really remember much about this place other than it was small and boring and everyone complained. Thursday we went to the modern day city of Sparta. There isn't anything left from the ancient city of Sparta so the town was kind of boring. Near Sparta there was an ancient city, Mystra, that we visited. It was a really pretty city with a monastery and was up in the mountains. The next day we went to Nafplion, which was the former capital of Greece. Nafplion was really pretty but by that time I was really tired and just wanted to go back to Athens. We all heard that Nafplion had the best gelato place in Greece but we weren't really sure what it was called. So after going to the wrong place and having gelato we had to force ourselves to eat more gelato once we found the right place. I would say that it was good gelato but it probably wasn't the best in Greece.

We got back to Athens Saturday and I left for fall break on Sunday. The first part of my fall break was Dublin and after some problems at the airport and a night spent on the floor of Heathrow, I finally got there Monday morning. Monday, my friend Nicole who is studying there, showed me around Dublin. She took me to St. Stephen's Green, Grafton Street, and some other places that I can't remember the names of. I went to sleep around 6:30PM Monday because I was so tired. Tuesday was my birthday and the first place that we went was the Guinness Storehouse. After that I met up with Nicole and we had lunch and birthday cake in the park. After lunch I went to Kilmanhaim Gaol, which is a really famous jail in Ireland. The jail was cool but the tour guide's stories were really boring. Tuesday night Nicole took me to a traditional Irish pub for my birthday, where she bought me cider and whiskey. It was an enjoyable night.

Wednesday morning we had to get up really early to catch our flight to Edinburgh. Edinburgh is so pretty. It was so green and all the buildings were really old and cool looking. The first day in Edinburgh we went to Edinburgh Castle. Wednesday night we met up with my roommate Alex's friend who is studying at the University of Edinburgh and she took us to the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter. Thursday we took a bus tour of Edinburgh and visited the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen's residence when she visits Scotland. Although the Queen lives there, a surprising amount of the palace is open. I think this was my favorite thing that I saw in Edinburgh.

Friday, after another early morning flight, we arrived in London. That morning we met up with my friends Alyssa and Nicole and Alyssa took us to have a traditional English breakfast. After that Alyssa took us to Notre Dame in London which is right off Trafalgar Square. That afternoon we went to Camden Market, where we looked at vintage stuff and ate "Mexican" food. Friday night we went to a pub near the Notre Dame flats and I tried strawberry cider, which was delicious. Saturday involved a lot of shopping and eating. We went to Harrods, Primark (which is a really cheap store in London), and had muffins and milkshakes at this cute little store called CandyCakes. Fall break was fun but also tiring and I was glad to get back to Athens.