Playing Catch Up

We're leaving for Coolmore Stud in a few minutes but I've finally found a place where I can get on the Internet for a few minutes.

We had an awesome time at the Royal Agricultural College. Everyone agreed it was just as good as staying in the castle. The buildings are generally really old (the college is 160 years old) and everyone got their own room. The first night, twelve out of the thirteen of us students crowded into one room and watched a movie on Lindsey's laptop. We were squeezed into every space available, but it was definitely a fun time.

We toured a local Hereford farm (they pronounce it "herry-ferd" over here, instead of "her-ferd") and the cattle people really enjoyed talking to the man who ran it about the differences in types of beef cattle. We also toured the college's horse farm, where they do a lot of boarding for polo ponies; polo is a big thing in the region. As a side note, they pronounced "equine" "eh-quine" instead of "e-quine."

Then we were taken on a tour of the college by Peter Morris, our contact over there. He was very gracious and told us a lot about the college, such as it was given a charter by Queen Victoria shortly after its founding, and Prince Charles is the current chairman of the board of directors, hence "Royal" Agricultural College. If you're ever in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, I highly recommend visiting, and I think everyone else agrees. We had a really great time.

Thursday, we got up early and drove to Holyhead, Wales, via Stratford-upon-Avon, which may ring a bell as the home of Shakespeare. Several students went through the museum, and I think the most startling/interesting fact for most was that when Shakespeare was married, he was 18 and his wife was 26 - and already three months pregnant! That sent a few eyebrows up.

We temporarily lost Stephanie again at Shakespeare's house, but we found her. Didn't take as long this time, either she's getting worse at getting lost or we're getting better at finding her!

We enjoyed going through Wales, there was a lot of really beautiful scenery, and sheep EVERYWHERE. Most of the ewes have already lambed, so you'd see the tiny, bright-white lambs playing in the pastures. There are snow-capped mountains and sheer cliffs that we also got to see. I think most of us considered it one of the prettier areas we'd had the chance of seeing.

The ferry ride to Ireland was quite interesting. The whole ferry tipped back and forth, which made walking a bit more of an exercise than usual. Most of the students stayed in the seats, but the few who ventured up on the main deck were rewarded by wind hard enough to nearly knock a person over. If you put your head over the rail, you got a faceful of salty Irish Sea spray. It was also very cold, but there were several who really enjoyed it. We were on one of the fast ferries, so we were moving at a pretty good rate, above 30 knots according to Paul, our driver.

We didn't get to Ireland until night had already fallen, so what little we saw of Dublin was mostly in the dark. We did see a famine ship replica and a memorial to the famine (and victims of it!). For those of you interested in movie stars, we also saw the apartment building where Colin Firth has a penthouse. Mr. Firth did not appear to be home.

There will be further updates later, now that I have access to a computer and the Internet, but we're currently about to leave for Coolmore Stud. We'll tell you how that goes.