Sent to Coventry

After a wonderful two weeks Samantha has gone back home. She left bright and early this morning. Seeing that I can't go back to sleep I have decided to take this time to reflect on our fun time.

Sam arrived to England to a shocking seen. Her cab was unable to pull down my street because it happened to be blocked off by police tape. Yes, you read this right- police tape. I assure you, as I did Samantha, that this was the first time this has happened since I have lived here. Apparently a lady that lived two flats down from me went missing last November and the police had a lead on her disappearance. It just so happened that the police decided that day was the perfect time to get the investigators in. Not only where there investigators but there were loads of police, police vans and police dogs. To top this situation off I was at work and Sam was left to take in all the action on her own. I would say this is a pretty crazy first impression of England much less Coventry. After I got off work and the police tape was rolled up we went out for dinner at a local pub. Sam was able to meet some of my friends and experience her first of many English pubs. Once dinner was over we headed home to catch the evening news-which Sam was on!! That is right- Sam was on the evening news her first day in England. I guess it doesn't get much better than that.

Weekend 1:
Weekend one was jet lag free so we took a day trip to Leamington Spa and Stratford-Upon-Avon. We had lunch at Leamington Spa and did a little shopping. At Stratford we visited Shakespeare's birth place and where he is buried.

Sunday: We went around Coventry to see the cathedral and all the other fun Coventry attractions.

Week 1:
Samantha explored Coventry on her own and did a bit of shopping. Wednesday: Samantha went to London while I was at work. She wanted to take a Double Decker tour bus to see the sights. Since I have already seen the sights plenty of times this was a perfect opportunity for Sam to see them without me.

Friday: Sam and I went back to London for lunch and shopping. While we were in London we road bikes around Hyde Park. The flowers were in full bloom and it was picture perfect. I highly recommend doing that too. The bike rental inside Hyde park was a bit of trouble. Hopefully they got that fixed since I did call and complain.

Saturday: Off to Ireland we go!! Saturday we left for Dublin. We left from the Birmingham airport and our total flying time was about 50 mins. The flight wasn't bad at all and for the cheap price it made it even better. Once we landed in Dublin we took a bus to Temple Bar (main street in Dublin). I would compare Temple Bar to a clean Bourbon Street. Our hostel happened to be on this street which worked out perfectly. We stayed at Barnacles which was Sam's first hostel experience. http://www.barnacles.ie/ I would highly recommend staying there! Y'all should check it out!!

Sunday: Sunday FUNDAY!! We started our hop-on-hop-off tour which took us to the GUINNESS STOREHOUSE for our first tour. The tour itself wasn't anything to write home about however, the end of the tour was well worth it. After seeing where and how Guinness is made you go to the very top of the building (which over looks Dublin) to drink a free pint of Guinness. The view was amazing and totally worth it. After the Guinness tour we hopped back on the bus to see the rest of the city and head to a football match. We completely lucked out and our trip happened to be during the IRELAND V. SCOTLAND football (soccer) match.

Later that day we went by the store to get some Ireland gear to wear to the game. We figured we would root for Ireland since we were in Dublin. It seems like a simple decision but we were actually torn. We wanted to root for Scotland because we met the nicest Scotsmen! The only problem was- the store didn't sell Scotland t-shirts or flags (go figure)!

The game wasn't very crowed but it was still a lot of fun. Ireland ended up winning 1-0. All-in-all we had an amazing time. It was fun even though it was kinda cold!

The next day we finished out tour around Dublin and went shopping. We also eat a lot! We stopped at a couple cute places to have tea and treats. It made for a perfect day in Dublin since it was raining a bit.

We ended the trip at an Italian restaurant on Temple Bar. The next morning we fly out very early so our night was cut short.

Wonderful trip with an amazing friend. Very thankful for such a great experience.