Day 20 - Cambridge to London.

No problem checking out of the hotel and finding a train to London from Cambridge.  We ended up on a non-stop train to London and got in before noon.  We took the tube to the hostel.  Most of the rooms were ready for us, so we were able to drop our bags, pay for the hostel and the key deposit, and get some lunch.  We then took the tube to the Museums - specifically the Science Museum.  The museum closed at 6 and I spent the whole time there.  I was pretty tired after 2.5 hours, so Jeri and I stopped for tea and then I went back at it.  The museum is truly fascinating, but 4-5 hours really isn't enough time.  We found each other after they kicked us out of the museum and we walked a while, then found a Italian restaurant that could sit us all.  We are finding Pubs to be a bit of a problem with a party of 12.  Great dinner and then we tubed back to the hostel.  There is no breakfast at the hostel and the Tesco market closes early on Sunday, so I will get up early and get food for breakfast when they open at 6 AM.

Mussels for Dinner

Day 19 and 20 - Cambridge

We had a pretty easy train ride from Manchester to Cambridge.  We got off, found the hotel easily (in the same parking lot as the station) and headed off to the Cavendish Laboratory.  Unfortunately, we had mis-judged the scale of the map and it was an hour + swift hike to the Lab.  Fortunately, I had given us an hour to make it to the lab, so we were only a few minutes late.  We had a nice explanation of all the exhibits by a lecturer from the Lab (like a Junior Professor) who then had to leave to work with her undergraduate students.  We went back and took lots of great pictures.  Since we were all pretty foot-sore, I got everyone on the bus back to City Centre.  It was still about a 20 minute walk from there to the hostel where we checked in.  If I had known, I would have taken everyone to the History of Science Museum instead because it isn't open on Saturdays.  Oh well, live and learn.  We asked the host a the hotel where to find an inexpensive meal and he did not lead us astray.  We had an early pub meal at the Witherspoon Royale and turned in early.

The next morning right after breakfast I took a swift hike near the train tracks and found my Cambridge Geocache.

  Then, I had students give their presentations of Newton and Babbage while I talked about what I had learned about Trinity College.  Again, graduation weekend, so we were only able to wander into the Trinity Chapel and not the Library, but it was still pretty great.  After this, lunch, a bookstore, some geocaching (unsuccessful), and a wonderful Museum of Natural History that had an excellent Darwin exhibit I would go back to.  Jeri and I then had tea because we would be going to Mass at 6 PM.  Mass was uneventful and then Dim Sum for dinner afterwards.

Day 18 - Dublin to Manchester

This is about the time where I wish I had had a better understanding of rail geography when I was planning this trip.  Today I had to get everyone out of the hostel and off to the bus station at 7 AM to take the bus to the ferry to the train.  The hostel generously opened the kitchen early for us and we had our continental breakfast, packed and off we went.  The whole trip went pretty smoothly and we had over an hour in Holyhead to get some lunch and do a little geocaching.  After being successful with two caches and dropping off another knight, Jeri and I found a bakery where she got a kids lunch and I got a Cornish beef pasty.
We then wandered up to see the church/castle at the top of the hill and then back over the tracks to the train station.  Again, there was little trouble with the train, except that they wanted us to transfer earlier than our reservations suggested.  Since I knew that it was the same train and the reservations for our seats would already be up, I wasn't a bit concerned and all went as planned.  After the first trip from Oxford, I always worry when we can't get reservations, but so far we really only have had one other bad trip.

We got into Manchester about 4 PM and walked to the hostel.  We walked right by the Museum of Science and Industry which I really had wanted to go to, but it closed at 5.  As it was, I sent off any students who wanted a quick look while I checked us into the hostel.  They were very sweet and didn't charge us the extra fee for not having our YHA card that I left at home.  I suspect it was partly because I was apologetic and admitted to being at fault and was willing to pay if necessary.
After missing a few telephone calls, I caught up with Eleanor, my college roommate.  Since we would be eating together, I passed the students some cash for food and told them to save the receipt and my change.  They also were put in charge of getting breakfast food since there was no breakfast included with this hostel.  El, Jeri and I went out for Indian food and lots of catching up.  Her mother has purchased a canal boat and spends her time exploring Europe in it.  We walked El to her train station and then hiked back through Manchester.  I would have liked to see more of the city, but we have an 8:39 train to catch to Cambridge tomorrow and I am very excited about Cambridge.

Day 17 - Dublin

Woke up to a lovely day in Dublin.  No rain!  I wrote yesterday about how I liked this hostel because it had internet and hot showers.  The plan for the day was Trinity College, lunch with Adam Petersen, and then the Guinness Storehouse and, for once we followed the plan pretty closely.
Trinity College is right across the street from the hostel.  We walked in the gates with chopped off maps, sat in the sunshine and got to hear a lovely presentation on Hamilton from Jamie.  From there, we went to the museum building which houses the Geology department.  Once again, it is exam time, so most of the buildings are closed, but we checked out the exhibits.  We also got to see a copy of the curve which looked very familiar to me (apart from the possibility of earning an A++), but the students said they only saw in Birgen courses.  From there, we asked where the Hamilton Building was.  We sneaked our way in and the secretary gave us copies of what a first year student who was studying maths would be taking.  The students only take maths courses in what are called modules.

From the Hamilton building, we walked over to the Old Library which holds the Book of Kells and the long room which has busts of famous scientists and other thinkers.  Because time was starting to get short, I offered to purchase admission to anyone who wanted to come, but wasn't going to insist on anything.  Most students took me up on the offer and toured the Book of Kells.  From there, we gathered to go find the Pub where we were meeting Adam.  I had to leave a few behind with directions to the pub because I had stragglers and needed to get moving.
It took a bit longer than I had anticipated, but we found the Pub and the boys and had a nice soup and sandwich lunch.  Tales were swapped between the Germany trip and this one and then we all headed off to the Guiness Storehouse.  Now, I am not saying anything against anyone in particular, but there are a lot of students who aren't very good at map reading.  I am starting to think of an ID course where you take students to a strange city with a map and instructions on where to go and what to find out and grade them on how well they can follow instructions by the end of the day.  It could be called "Life."

Anyway, while we were about 2/3 done with the Guinness tour, the fire alarm went off and we all evacuated the building.  I am definitely beginning to parse the accents pretty well because I thought the announcment was clear, while some of the students were saying they couldn't understand any of it.  We evacuated calmly and I thought, hey, there is a geocache nearby and this will take 15 minutes to sort out.  I looked and looked, but couldn't find it.  Since someone else found it the day before, I just must not have been on my game.  We returned to the top floor for our pint of Guinness Stout (and soda for Jeri) and we were off to home.

On the way, we looked for another geocache at the Castle.  The location was beautiful, but the cache was not found.  A bit deflated with two DNF's, we returned to the hostel and Jeri decided to take a nap, while I went off to find some Irish geocaches.  I wandered off for some distance, but the only two caches I found were quite close to the hostel.  I returned for Jeri and we found some snacks for tomorrow and then we split a bangers and mash at the Pub under the hostel and returned to the room for an early bed.  We have a 5:30 AM alarm for a 6:30 breakfast and a 7:00 leaving of the hostel.  Since I am on the 8:45 AM ferry as I type, I can say it all went smoothly.

Day 16 - Glasgow to Dublin

Today is listed as a travel day as it will take us approximately 8 hours to travel to Dublin today.  We have a 10:40 train, so we checked out of the hostel in Glasgow in the sunshine.  Again.  I paid for some wireless on the train because I realized I didn't have geocaches for Holyhead for that Welsh cache before I leave for Ireland and the land of the euro.  Because of the length of the ride, I suggested to all students that they pack something for lunch today.  I had a lovely salmon and cucumber sandwich with some milk.

We were late to the station on the first train and I was a bit worried because we arrived after the train we were supposed to get on had left.  Fortunately, it was on the same tracks behind us and was just as late.  From the second train on we were traveling through the gorgeous countryside of Wales.  I would love to come back and explore here for weeks.  Easy transition to the third train, but unfortunately there wasn't enough time to find my geocache in Wales.  Hopefully I will have a better chance in two days when we will be boarding a train and not a ferry.

The students are finding riding on a ferry interesting.  They weren't expecting to feel the motion of the sea quite so much.  I have been on the water quite a bit, I forget that it bothers some people quite a lot.  However, we have fair skies and relatively calm seas, only a bit  of a swell as we race along over the water.
The connection from the Ferry to the city is pretty easy, but I am very glad for my German Euros since the bus is 3 Euros each.  The walk to the hostel is a lot easier since I added the GPS coordinates and knew we only had about 500 m to walk. Check in was painless, but it was late when we went to search for food.  Most of the Pubs were full at this time (after 8), so we ended up at a Chineese restaurant with good food and prety high prices.  We walked back to the hostel and Jeri and I fell into bed, glad to be quiet.

What makes a good hostel?  Having now experienced a few on this trip, I am beginning to be an expert.  Hot water is pretty much number one and, remembering Olson's last trip to Dublin, I am grateful that we have not had that issue in the shower.  I did miss it in the sinks in Edinburgh.  Free wifi.  I know I should just pay the extra money, but is a couple of pounds a day really worth it against the good will of your customers?  I know I will consider not returning to hostels that did not have any wifi.  Oh, and breakfast.  I guess if I were on my own it wouldn't be a big deal, but I get annoyed with the students not cleaning up after themselves when we have to cook on our own.  As I am typing this from the floor, I would say a chair or two in the room is really nice.  Last, having my room at least away from the bar.  There is a pub in the hostel in Dublin, but I didn't even notice it last night.  On the other hand, the bar in London was really loud until all hours and I really missed my sleep.  So, except for missing a chair and only instant coffee, the hostel in Dublin is pretty good.

Day 15 - Glasgow

Okay, so we wake up to beautifully blue skies.  The plan is to get all day subway passes and travel to Glasgow University Library to view their Thompson archives and then from there visit the Hunterian Museum and then the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.  Breakfast was continental, but filling with unlimited hot teas and other beverages.
The first indication that not everything was going to plan was that one of the ladies stomach was very tender and painful, and had been for several days.  This is a problem she had had before (gall bladder) and, in fact, was going to have surgery to fix the problem after school got out.  Given that we were to travel for 8 hours tomorrow, I decided we would need to take her to the doctor.  The hostel told us to take her to the Royal Infirmary, the closest Emergency room.  We could have taken a cab, but she said she could walk the 20 minutes as she had been walking the last several days with the pain.  I organized the rest of the students and gave them instructions.  As we walked out of the hostel that lovely blue sky that we had seen started raining on us.  The subway wasn't far, so I got them subway passes, and then came back for the trip to the ER with the student, Jeri and myself.  She got in pretty quickly (about an hour), but we waited for about four hours in total before she was sent home with some medicine and told to go back to the doctors if she got worse.
We did take a cab back to the hostel and I got the student a juice drink to help with energy without troubling her stomach too much.  When returning to the hostel I found out that one of the museums that the students were supposed to go to was closed because of exams at the University.  Oh well.  I settled everyone down and decided to go geocaching and find something to eat for lunch (tea) at 3 PM.  The first two geocaches I looked for were too busy for searching for, but I did manage to find the hardest 1-1 I have seen in a while.  The GPS signals just would not settle down.  I would never have found the little bugger without the logs.  I also found I was on the same street that James Watt lived on and worked on when he invented the steam engine.

  After that I had a nice tea and returned for a brief laydown in the hostel.

Dinner was at the hostel bar that was serving two dinners for ten pounds.  The students went off to the market to buy lunch food since we will be on the train all day tomorrow.