Gorgeous Geneva

This is the beginning of our last travel week :(  It is really sad.  We decided to drop by Switzerland for a few days.

Friday June 27

We are actually getting the hang of this booking flights thing. We were smart and booked out flight for later. We got to sleep in and enjoy free breakfast from the school. So nice. 

What is not nice, we had to pack all of our things up again and move them to a different room! Already stressed out before a week long trip and now we have to clear out or room on top of it! NOT COOL ROBERT FROST!!! 

Breakfast and then off to the library for printing.

Back in my room, I scramble packed and made lunch. I gathered my things and prepared myself for the spiral descent with 4 bags this time (1 50 lb suitcase, 1 25 lb suitcase, 1 backpack, and 1 purse).  I successfully got everything down in 2 trips. Lindsey still had a lot of packing to do at that time, and it was almost time to go. Karli went and retrieved the key for the security office and took one load. I helped Lindsey with her loads down the stairs. By that time, Karli was back. I convinced them that we could take everything in 1 trip. They weren't so sure. There wasn't time to argue. We mad it in 1 trip. Slowly, but we made it. Apparently, there was a conference in the place we were taking our bags. Even though it was only 200 yards away, we were all sweaty and disheveled. It was sad. With our bags safe, we went back to the security office and called a cab. 

This airport thing is old hat to is now. We knew exactly where to go, what documents to show at what time, and the best places to sit. Check in and security proved to be no problem for us master travelers. We moved to Boots for some water. 

We got food and shifted to Starbucks to eat. We scarfed our food and waited to board. 

The plane ride was 1.5 hours. I read and then got sleepy, so I fought my droopy eyelids. I didn't get much sleep. It was fine. 

Landed in Geneva. We had a list of things we needed to do. Customs, collect bag, get money, and find a way to our hostel. The info booth told us to take the train that was attached to the airport. That was nice. We followed the path and ended up on a train. First stop, next to our hostel. We stepped out of the station and got our barings. It was a short walk. We made it in no time. 

It looked like an office building from the outside. Interesting. It was very modern inside. We checked in and got our bed rolls. We are on the 5th floor, so 6 flights of stairs. We make it to our 6 bed female dorm and crash. We were so tired. Karli and Lindsey dozed off for a little bit. The view from our room is amazing. 

The view from our room

Food time. We backtracked and went to a small shop. We all got paninis. They were delicious. Then we say that they had Nutella crepes. We HAD to get one. Since it was $8 we decided to split it. Good life choice. That thing was amazing! So delicious. We waited forever and we didn't get a check. We headed inside. The worker didn't speak much English, the guy that took our order did, but not this new guy. We knew Lindsey's total was $16. He told her $21. We argued for about 10 minutes. We pointed to the menu to here the prices were. He was not understanding. It sucked. We eventually got it all settled. 

Nutella crepe 

Since we were close to the lake, we walked over to it. It was breathtaking. So beautiful. Lake and mountains in the background. It was so clear. We sat for a long time. Just soaking it all in. 

Around 8 we headed back to our hostel. We arrived in our room and discovered 2 new bedrolls. NOOOOO!!!! We had to share the room. Soon after the two girls walk in. Americas. At least they spoke the same language. They were both from California. And they had just graduated. 

While getting ready for bed, our 3rd roommate moves in. Florida. She seemed nice. 

Saturday June 28

The alarm went off at 8:20 so we could make it to breakfast. Free breakfast! It was pretty good. Yogurt, cereal, toast, and fruit. We had to sit in a huge dining area with others but it wast too bad. The. We went upstairs to finish getting ready. 

We wanted to go to Chillon Castle. There were several ways to get there. We decided to try boat. We walk up to the boat taxis. I ask a man which one we got on since there were 4. He gave me a deer in the headlights look and started speaking French. He pointed  so we followed his point. We reached a big boat. It was really cute. We get in line to get on. Before getting on, we asked some of the crew members if we were on the right boat. Yet again met with no English. This was becoming a big problem. Eventually we figured out that this was a good boat. We board and marvel at its adorable charm. While looking for a seat, we were approaches by a person who looked like the captain. He asked for our tickets. We showed him the tickets we got from the hostel. He told us those wouldn't work. Awesome!

We leave the adorable boat and head for a train. We had no clue what train we needed to be on. The info desk was our first stop. She told us that we needed to but tickets because the ones that we receives from our hostel didn't work. We go in and buy our round trip tickets and enter acne into the castle at 57.60! Holy moly! That was expensive. 

We boarded the train and switched stations no problem. Soon we were in a very small town which consisted of beautiful views and the castle. That was about it. We were starving so we hit up the little shop thing outside the castle. We all got sandwiches. It was so stinking expensive. While eating outside, it started raining. We ran for cover in the castle. 

Chillon Castle

It was huge! And had so many different rooms. It was very confusing. We wandered about winding through the rooms for a while. It was pretty neat. Build out of stone and overlooking the lake. Beautiful! 

After the castle, we snapped many pictures around the area. Then headed back to the train. Vevey was our destination. Why? We wanted to see a giant fork. Honestly, that is the only thing we really planned to see in Switzerland at all...I know, we are strange...

We arrived in the adorable town and went straight for the water. Where else would you put a giant fork?! We couldn't see it from our position as we walked up, we decided to head right. There were so many curves in the shore that we had to keep following it to see  we were going the right way. Eventually, we reached a little park area with a pool and playground. It is there we asked for directions. We approaches an older couple. They saw that we were holding out a phone. So they said no pictures. Pictures?! We weren't going to take your fricken picture. We showed them the destination. The pointed back the way we came, but named a different own. I think they were confused. 

I found free wifi and got a rough address. It was back the opposite way. Go figure! The rain started coming again. Not fun. We still trudged on. We wanted to see that fork. We literally passed the place we came in at and saw it. The 26 foot fork. We were so happy. They even had complimentary seats stuck in the rocks for people to sit on. How nice. We sat there for a long time. I liked it. The sun was beating on us. Until it started raining again cit was just in and off. Continuously. 

The fork wasn't just randomly placed in the lake. It was across from the food museum. The only one in the world. Well I is museum. Don't mind if I do. We walk up wondering what it was all about. We found a lady ad asked her f we got to sample food there. Sadly no, you learn about how food is made, changed over the years, and how it is digested. Cool... We left there in search of chocolate. Sadly, we got lost on our way, but found ourselves back on the main road. 

We walked to the mall for some food. Nothing. We went back on the streets for food. Too expensive. Starbucks. They never fail us. Well they had food, still somewhat expensive. Water was 4.50 and a frap cost 7.60, more than the sandwich. We ate them while heading back to the train. 

We had to wait a little bit, but we eventually got on the train headed back to Geneva.  As soon as we got off the train, we were starving.  We wanted dessert.  But we didn't know where.  We started winding down the streets.  We finally found an ice cream shop.  Hallalujia!  I got a chocolate truffle scoop.  Holy cow was it rich!  It was worth it!

We walked back to our hostel.  Upon arrival, we discovered all of our roommates were in there.  We got out as fast as we could.  We headed to the fountain in Lake Geneva.  We sat there for 2 hours.  Talking, creeping on people, and taking pictures.  It was nice.  Very relaxing.  We moved back to the hostel and used the free wifi. 

Sunday June 29

Breakfast again at 8:20.  Really good free breakfast.  We went back up stairs to our sleeping roommates.  We packed everything up and headed out for the day.  In the rain…  We just wanted some shopping.  We bought a locker for 2 Franks and left all of our stuff in there.  We then asked the people at the front desk how to get to shopping.  We were crushed when they told us that everything in Geneva was closed on Sundays…. You're killing me smalls!!!!  Not cool Robert Frost!!! GRRRR.

Still, we headed out in the rain, to the only shops open, in the train station.  Yes, we shopped in the train station for over an hour.  We didn't buy much, we just wanted to be out of the rain and find some souvenirs.  

Soon we grew restless and we still had 7 hours in Geneva left.  What to do.  We decided to take the boat taxi across the lake to see what was over there.  The ride was very short.  Soon we were at the other side, with nothing to do.  

We stopped and checked our map.  There was a giant flower clock near by.  Why not!  We had time to kill, so we might as well kill time by watching a giant clock.  That held our attention for 10 seconds.  Soon we were bored again and needed something else to do.  Yet again, we looked at the map and saw a church was near.  We weaved through the cobblestone streets of Geneva.  Then we heard singing.  Church singing.  We headed toward it.  It was coming from a Lutheran church! Of course!  We stood outside and listened for a while.  It was nice.  Then we decided to look for the church we came to see.  St. Peter's.  You could see the steeple from a long ways away, but we took the long way round to get to it.  It was pretty and free to get in.  We went in and just sat there for the longest time.  It was nice.

Food was on our minds next.  We passed several cafes with overpriced sandwiches.  We decided to stop at a cheaper cafe.  We walked in and saw 7 frank sandwiches.  That was actually cheap.  I got a ham and cheese quiche.  It was delicious.  Then we headed back toward the boat to the other side of the lake. 

We made it back to our hostel with a few hours to spare.  We grabbed the laptop and got on youtube and watched Mary Kate and Ashley: When in Rome.  We thought it was fitting.  

To the train we trudged.  Not a long train ride before we were at the airport.  We then made it through security and we were hungry.  I decided to pay 7 franks for a ham and butter sandwich.  That was the cheapest thing they had.  And 5 franks for a water.

Goodbye Geneva-Hello Venice!  Ta and Cheers! 

Goodbye My Cherubs

This was the last week with my cherubs. It was a long week with 2 lessons, 2 field trips, and 1 hoedown. I would call it a pretty successful week.

Monday June 23

We started out with morning assembly. It wasn't head teacher talking this time. They talked about courage and faith. She threw it together last minute so it wasn't very good.

We got back to class and started maths. We started reading a 24 hour clock. I was really confused because they use a 24 hour clock when reading digital and 12 hour clock when using analog. I helped the lower group again. They were really confused. I felt bad for them. I tried to help as much as I could.

Play time. I used this time to set up for my lesson.

My lesson. This was American fun facts. I started off a game of fact or faked. They got really into it. They had some troubles with certain ones. I asked "Fact or Faked: Americans write their date day/month/year" After that I moved onto talking about the flag. We discussed the stars, stripes, and colors. Then the national anthem and pledge. One student could sing the American national anthem but not his own. It was really funny. During my lesson, I had students write down facts. After the lesson they had to turn those facts into trivia questions. We played the castle game. The person trying to get into the castle said "sir oh sir, please let me in. I must get in or I'll be late". The castle responded "give us the code, give us the code. Or we will leave you on the road". They then asked te trivia question. If they got it right they got to go into the castle. Wrong answers sent the back in the line. They got really loud and rambunctious during this. Three children even started shoving each other. My cherubs did not work well together. It was bad. I think they liked the game though. I guess that was good.

Lunch time.

After lunch, my students went into class 10 for a science lesson. I was told to stay back and help in class 9 with the other Year 4 teacher and Abby. This was good. I got to help them work on their maths. The same my class worked on earlier in the day. They were struggling as much as my class. It really is hard to understand when they have to know two different clock systems. That is not easy for me, let alone children. Some of their questions were like "Write how this would be written on a 24 hour clock- 17 to 10 in the afternoon" They actually talk like that too. I have had to pause wen teachers have told me that lessons would be "20 from 9 until 10 to 10." It really keeps you thinking.

Play time.  I went out and walked around

We came back in from play and read the world cup story

Tuesday June 24

Today was the day of the dreaded Dr. P observation. We started off the day with Maths. We continued with time. My students still did not understand it. I tried really hard to explain it to them. It did not work well.

Then they switched to the world cup story.

Play time.

They came back in and worked on their Egypt booklets. I had to help multiple people find their papers because they misplaced them.

Lunch time.

My lesson was after lunch time. Yay! It was about US history. Started with Pilgrims went through the Revolutionary War. All of my children kept talking during my lesson and not playing attention. Dang it. Then we used what they learned and another summary paper to create a skit of an event. We had 4 different groups. Pilgrims, Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere and the Shot Heard Round the World, and the Declaration of Independence. These skits didn't turn out very good. Whatever. They got done and I am done teaching my lessons.

The lesson had to continue after play time. They got all of their skits done.

Wednesday June 25 

Today was field trip day! Whoot whoot! All of my cherubs came into the room with their packed lunches and put on their reflective vests.  Haha.  They were so darn cute.  Lindsey was recruited to help with my class on the field trip.  

Lindsey and I were assigned 8 students. We got a pretty good group.  Thank goodness.  After a few minutes we headed out to the double decker bus.  We got on the top level.  We took off and my class started scream singing happy birthday to one of my girls.  It was cute.  My teacher yelled at them to stop.  Rude!  We got to the museum and we were ushered into a room to put our lunches.  All of the cherubs dropped off their lunches, jumpers, and cardigans.  We were off.  

First thing on the schedule, hands on activity.  We got to go and handle real Egyptian artifacts.  I was intrigued.  They had little activities for the children to partake in.  I worked at the hieroglyphics table.  It was really fun.  We all had to wear white gloves.  

After that we headed to the Egypt trail.  This took us through an exhibit.  The children had to find the trail and answer the questions on their sheet.  My cherubs worked pretty fast.  They had really mummies on display.  One even had its head unwrapped.  It was fascinating.  I liked looking around, but I couldn't stay long because my cherubs were all over the place.  We were the first group in and the first group done.  After we finished, we took them to the toilets.  As soon as we all got back from the toilets, the fire alarm went off.

You have got to be kidding me!  I ushered my cherubs down the stairs, making sure all 8 were accounted for.  Of course, we were on the 5th floor (6 floors in America).  We raced down the stairs.  As we reached the lower level, we could actually smell smoke.  Our group was the first ones from our class outside.  I gathered them and we headed across the street.  Everyone else caught up.  My kids kept asking what was going on.  I told them we didn't know.  Some were mad because their lunches were in the building.  We were outside for 15 minutes.  They called the all clear and we went back in.

We headed to the Aquarium to kill some time before lunch.  It wasn't the best aquarium I have seen, but the cherubs seemed to enjoy it.  After browsing at the fish, it was time to go to lunch.  The room was packed with cherubs from other schools.  There were probably 100 children in that room.  My class sat on the floor and ate.  Lindsey and I waited for a table to sit at.  

With a little more time to kill, we went to the bugs section.  They had creepy crawlies all over...

Meet the mummy was next.  It was in the theater.  An 'egyptian' was going to prepare a body for burial.  He choose three students from the audience to help him.  It was a good show.  It was factual and entertaining.  

After the show, we went to the dinosaur/extinct animals exhibit.  This had many stuffed critters.  They ran around looking at all of the animals.  

It was a long day, but really fun.  We went down stairs, gathered their jumpers and cardigans and loaded back on the bus.  We were on the bottom this time.  My little cherubs decided to sing some real songs this time.  They belted out some songs.  I recorded their voices because it was too cute to pass up.  

Thursday June 26

Today was my last day in the classroom.  I was attacked my hugs upon my arrival in the classroom.  They were all exclaiming 

"Why is today your last day?"  

"Do you really have to leave?" 

"Cant you stay?"  

"I don't want you to leave!"

My last day was at least going to be a great one.  I started off my going to the local high school with my girls for a dance and theater workshop based on the musical Matilda.  They were so darn cute.  I was having a great time watching them.  They learned a 2 minute sequence in just an hour.  They performed it.  Abby, the assistant teacher, and I were the X-Factor judges and got to judge how they did.  I video taped their adorable dance.  It was actually a somewhat complicated dance.  I was surprised.  We only had one accident.  Not to bad.  After the dance, we got to do theater.  They acted out the Bruce cake scene.  How ironic…  

I had a great morning watching them dance and act.  It was amazing. 

We returned back to school in time for lunch.  I ate, went back to the classroom and set up some things for my students, and went out to play time.  

At play time, my children attacked me.  I had 5 kids hanging on to me the entire time.  Holding my hands, hugging me, jumping on me.  They would not let me go.  

After play time, it was time for the surprise Abby and I had planned.  We started off with a mini review quiz of everything we covered in our lessons.  With each correct question, the students got to move their piece to a new state.  We ended in Tennessee, so we could have a hoedown.  

After the quiz, the cherubs were rounded up in the hall (gym) and we put them into lines.  We proceeded to line dance.  It was such a great time.  Even the teachers got into it.  my normally stern and angry teacher was dancing, singing, and acting like she has a a lasso.  I was really surprised.  

Play time.  I went back outside.  More cherubs clinging one me.  I took out my phone and started snapping pictures of the cherubs.  All of them started screaming take a selfie with me.  

Back inside, my students gave me gifts and cards and I gave my gifts to them.  The were really happy.  It was a great day.  

Being in the classroom has been a great learning experience.  I had some good times and other not so good times, but my students were great.  I loved being with them and teaching them a little about America while learning how the British school system worked.  

Check back here regularly the next week, I will be traveling the whole week and posting more frequently until I come back to America.  Ta and Cheers!

Frivolous Bath, What the heck Wales: Day Trips

Karli, Lindsey, and I made the executive decision to do day trips this weekend to Bath and Wales in the UK.  We had a lot of things to get done for our last week of teaching and our last week of travel, so day trips seemed like our best bet.

Friday June 20

We awoke at 5:30 to make our train at 6:46. We all met up and headed to the security lodge. We asked them to call a cab. A few minutes later the can arrived. 

The ride took about 15 minutes. Our cabbie was actually really nice. He was asking us where we were going and seeing. He also gave us some suggestions on where to go around Liverpool. He drove us past Liverpool's smallest house and the tunnels under Liverpool. I enjoyed the ride. We wasn't a crazy driver either. We made it to the station in good time.

We had to wait a few minutes for the train, but when it came we were able to board and get really good seats. We got a 4 person table. I life those. It makes everything so nice and roomy. This ride was 1.75 hours long. I read and tried to keep myself awake. Then we had I get off the train and board a different one. We had to wait a little longer for this one. I was fine with that. The second train was more crowded we had to sit 2 and 1. This was also about 1.5 hours. I tried to read. But then gravity for the best of my eyelids and I bobbed in and out of sleep. I awoke to Karli sleeping on my shoulder. Ha. We transferred trains again. This one was only 11 minutes long. Then we arrived in Bath. 

We got off the train and looked for a tourist office so we could get a map of the city. We had to pay for maps, so we left and tried to navigate on our own. 

It actually didn't go too bad. We first spied the river and then the steeple of Bath Abbey. I knew everything was centrally located around the abbey so we headed in that general direction. In 5 minutes we were in the heart of bath, surrounded by roman buildings and architecture. It was beautiful. It was a cute little town. We first went into the Roman Baths. This held many old roman bathing areas. There were several different pools. The main pool still held its full water and lead lining. It was 1.2 meters deep. Perfect for swimming. I absolutely would have jumpped into the hot spring, except it was considered "bad water" and we were told "not to touch it". Really telling me not to touch water is like telling me not to eat. It's just not done. Algae floated on the surface if the water, but it still looked more inviting than the lakes in Indiana. We spent about 1 hour exploring the baths. 

Then we walked about the town and found some cute shops. Expensive, but cute. We spied an ice cream cart and joyfully skipped to it. We like our ice cream. Vanilla with the chocolate stick thing. Yummy! We still had a few things we wanted to see, like the circus and the Royal Crescent. Our navigation skills have greatly improved and we found the circus in no time. When we arrived, Lindsey asked where it was and when we were getting there. I pointed to the circle area around us and told her we were there. It was not that impressive. I thought it was going to be bigger or more important or something. We walked to the Royal Crescent next, again, a little let down. Not much to see. There was some construction and what looked like a wedding reception. We were really tired by this point, so we sat in the street. 

Royal Crescent

Plutony bridge was next. I knew what streets we needed to be on. It was Bridge Street and then changed to Argyle Street once we crosses the bridge. I kept a look out. Then I saw it Argyle. Dang flabbit. How in the heck did we miss walking over a bridge. We started backtracking. That's when we saw a building sticking a little further out than the others in the row. It has the marking Pulteney Bridge and has stair steps walking down. We descended the swirly staircase and hit water. We looked back where we came and that's when we saw the bridge. It was not a bridge that you could view the water from. Buildings lined the edge of the bridge, virtually making it invisible. The bridge and water was pretty.  

Pulteney Bridge 

We hit a few more shops. Nothing that great. Then we decided it was time for food. We had been seeing these calzone looking things in the shop windows so we decided that we should try it. I got a chicken, cheese, and ch... Something. It meant spicy sausage. It was actually really good. Food finished, and shopping finished, we found our way back to the train station. 

We got there in great time. We budged our way to the front of the line so we could get on fast and secure an awesome seat. Karli got on and went to sit down in a row. I screamed table table! And she rushed to grab it for us. Luckily we got it, because the train was pretty packed. A stranger sat next to Karli. The 1,5 hours went really fast. We approached the station ever so slowly, and were even at a stand still for a while. This ate up our 13 minutes we had to make it to our next train. We ran off the train and looked at a monitor. The train haven't left yet, but was due to in 1 minute. We bolted up the stairs, following the signs to platform 5B, except there was no 5B. We were sprinting up and down the corridor. We saw 5A and decided to try it. We basically trampled an old man as our flip flops quickly hit each step descending toward the platform. We arrived at the bottom, a train staring at us. We didn't know if it was our train or not. Then all the sudden, we hear that dreaded sound of the doors closing. I quickly asked a worker lady if that train was bound for Liverpool. She confirmed it. We started frantically pushing the open door button trying to get on. At last the door spring to life and let us in. It was absolutely crowded, but we had made it. Sitting in three different rows, but bound for glory... And Liverpool. 

Bath was too easy, I could not say the same for Wales.

Saturday June 21

We slept in a little and headed to catch the bus at 8. The bus took 15 minutes to show up and it was a 20 minute ride. That ate up our time. By the time we walked to the station, we has 15 minutes to find and board our train.

We went to a monitor that had the train platforms. We didn't see our train or correct time. We were a little worried. Lindsey went and asked the ticket office where we would go to get the train. He told us down. Da heck! Down?! There is a down? She went back up and asked where down was. Luckily a girl was standing there and overheard Lindsey. She said that she would take us there. We followed her down the stairs, through the cooridoor, and to the platform for the metro. So now we are taking a metro to the train station. While waiting for our train to pull up, an announcement came on and said that the train would not go all the way to Chester, which is what we needed. The girl told us she was headed to Chester too. We followed her.

The ride was 40 minutes long to Hooten, the place we would change for Chester. We start getting off and are yelled at to get back on because everything was fixed. We finished the ride to Chester.
There, we scrambled toward the platform and was greeted with a delayed and cancelled train. We asked workers. They so as that we could chance it and stay at the station to see f a train came in, or take a bus to Ryel. We decided to stop in the cafe and get in line for the bus. We were last in line for the bus. We waited for 10 minutes before a bus even pulled up. It was nice that it pulled up at the end of the line, meaning we were first. The bus unloaded and we attempted to board. We were then told we couldn't board because they needed work from the top dogs before we could do anything. A worker was trying to calm the queue. The crowd was yelling at him and asking him questions. He didn't know the answer. He told us he had 0 busses to let us get on. He had some humor in this situation.
We were finally allowed to board the bus, and we were first. We went to the top and in the front row. Beat seats on the bus. We settled in for what we thought was a short ride. Lies! I was singing softly to myself for an hour! I burned through my arsenal of Disney, musicals, and other genres of songs. Getting mad and fed up, we finally arrived at Ryel. We followed the masses toward the platform and, yet again, met with a delay. It said the train would arrive at 12:31. It was 11:58. We had roughly 30 minutes. We pulled out our packed sandwiches and waited. At 12:23, the screen updated and said the train would come at 12:55. A worker came and talked to the crowd, the train hadn't even left Chester yet. He then proceeded to tell us to take a coach to Llandudno Junction.

We ran out if the station to whatever a coach was. We saw a bus with Llandudno on it, wrong bus. Then we saw the charter bus with a queue of people we recognized. Those were the other people who wanted to go to Llandudno. We were in the back of the line once again, but we made it on, with 7 seats left.
1 metro
1 train
2 busses
And still not there. We were just done with the whole thing. It was 1 and we were supposed to arrive at 11. Not cool Robert Frost! We got off the coach at Llandudno Junction, not where we wanted to be, but in Llandudno. Some old ladies weren't happy that we got dropped off there, so they made the driver drive to Llandudno.

Finally in Llandudno. We had no clue where to go. We walked around trying to find a map, but to no avail. We headed down the street. We eventually stumbled upon a tourism office. We asked where the ski resort was. They pointed us past the coast and up a mountain. They said it would be a .75-1 hour journey. We were ready.

We past the coast and garden area and then were faced with a steep hill. We knew this all too well. We took a deep breath and began our ascent. I was huffing and puffing my way to the top. By the time we reached the ticket booth, we were all pouring sweat and breathing heavy. We bought the ski tubes and toboggan rides. We had to wait 20 minutes for our tube time. We didn't mind. We had been waiting all day and we still needed to cool off a bit.

Our instructor came to us a few minutes late saying we were still waiting on 2 people. While waiting, we saw a guy completely wipe out in the toboggan. He took the curve too fast and felt off his sled, off the track, and onto the grassy area. We waited another 15 minutes, they never showed up. We got private tube time. We could see the hill in the distance. It was white. We weren't quite sure what it was made of. Ice? Whiteboard? Snow? It was 66 degrees. We doubted snow or ice. Once standing on the hill, we knew could tell all of our guesses were wrong. It was like spongy with water misters spritsing the sponge like material.

We put our purses down and all grabbed a tube. Lindsey went first. He gave her instructions and shoved her down. She screamed. We all went through the easy, fast, and super fast spins. When he got to me, he said "Ah yes jeans" then proceeded to roll up the cuffs of my pants.  He grabbed onto the cuffs of my pants and that is how he flung me down the hill.  He said he gets more leverage that way.  The super fast spin made us all extremely dizzy. We then had to tow our tubes to a flat area and wait for everyone before we could climb the hill. I think I got whiplash, but it was worth it. Then we had races. We had to lay on our backs, head first peddling ourselves down the hill. That took up 4 turns. Next, Karli and I went together. I held onto her rope and was told to pull and push her. He demonstrated while we were sitting there and he broke the rope. A new tube was issues and we were off. It was hard maneuvering Karli while trying to stay in mine. My arm was stretched and pulled, but it was awesome. We were spinning and bumping into each other. Our last spin down the slope, we were ties together. It was a great human chain. We had so much fun doing it. We got our money's worth. He said people normally only got 3 runs down the hill. We got 9! Whoot whoot!

We relaxed a little and then went to the taboggan area. We waited in line for an hour and then we were up. We mounted a piece of plastic with wheels and a stick to steer. We hooked on a chain that pulled us upward. The view was great. Then we were released steer our way down the windy metal path. I went a little slow the first time because I didn't know what I was doing. The second time around I went a lot faster. Flew around the curves. Careful not to fly off.

After our two runs were up, we decided we should climb the rest of the mountain to get a good view of the city. It was beautiful. We could see the coast and mountains and city. We could have stayed there for hours. But we had limited time and were getting hungry.

We approached te city only to find everything was closed. It was a Saturday night and all of the shops and cafés closed at 5. We were just 30 minutes late. We eventually found one store selling post cards. We bought some and got some take away fish and chips from a restaurant. We ate in the park.
We decided to head toward the train station to try to make sure we didn't end up like we did this morning. We arrived and found all of the doors were locked. Awesome. A taxi driver then told us to go around the side and enter that way. We got in and discovered our train was on time! Hurray!
We talked the entire ride to Chester. We found our second train in no time and had a lovely ride back to Liverpool.

Even though our morning was rough, we had a great afternoon and made it safely back to Liverpool.  It was a good relaxing weekend.  Bring on the busy week!  Ta and Cheers!