Accounts of a Semi-Experienced Traveler

The End

Well gang, here it is; the home stretch! I give you the low down of my last few days in the Kasteel Well program!!

Sun 14- nothing really eventful happened other than me finding out I was one of the last two people alive in the assassins game going on. Cara was the other and, since she (or rather her roommates) were more into the game than I was/mine were, I let her have the win. But we did capture the “kill” on video via digital camera and I plan to turn it into an epic video. XD that night, we had our last Disney film viewing in our room, watching Hercules with Gabe, Taylor and Lindsay.

Mon 15- took my last final for Chester Lee’s class and spent most of the rest of the day doing primary packing. but the highlight of the day was the REAL last American night, when the bar was open just for us! (It’s usually closed Mondays) we were promised a special guest, who turned out to be Jack the bartender in a Santa suit! XD he had us all sing Jingle Bells (inspired by our visit to his house when we were caroling, he said. :D) and then handed out little bottles of drink so we could have a toast. (The drink was called Flugel and it was in tiny bottles that came in a cardboard display box like candy would in the US. I looked it up later and it’s apparently a vodka based energy drink with cranberry flavor. Very tasty, in a cough-syrupy way. Haha!) Anyway, Jack was really sweet; he says that he hopes in 40 or 50 years we all still remember the little bar in the little town called Well. AW! The night was also pretty fun in general; we had some epic sing-alongs when they played “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Don’t Stop Believing”!

Tue 16- the next morning, the girls and I just barely woke up with enough time to go to the bakery for brunch one last time before it closed for the day. (Damn everything closing at 12:30 on Tuesdays!) But we did manage to get there and enjoyed tea and pie with Ciera and Gabe while we watched people “sneaking” their alcohol bottles from the night before in the dumpster outside. XD haha! Then we headed back to get ready for the room inventory, packing everything other than our sheets so they could see if we destroyed anything. :P at 5, it was time for the farewell activities to begin! First, we had a “tree” planting ceremony, where we all threw a handful of dirt to help plant a red rhododendron on the grounds. :D Then we walked to Grote Way, which is the restaurant that Nellie and the castle cooking staff own, for our farewell dinner. Despite the assigned seating, it was still really nice; much better food than at the castle, especially the dessert. :D the we walked back to the castle and Dulcia hung our group photo on the wall with the past semesters. Then we headed into the barn for the farewell activities to begin. After Dulcia gave a short speech and we have a toast, the first act came on; four faculty members, including Chester Lee, dressed in drag, performing “Dancing Queen”!!! This was almost topped by their encore of the YMCA, with Chester as the Indian, which came next!! HAHAHAHA! HILARIOUS!!! Then there were a lot more acts, mostly songs, including the musical theater majors singing their final songs and Theresa, Alysia, Taylor, Monty, Gabe and I singing “I Wish I Could Stay at the Castle”, the parody I wrote of an Avenue Q song. (Considering we only practiced it twice, it came out pretty good. :D) Some people did parody’s too, but most of the songs people sang were more sentimental and I was shocked I didn’t start bawling! Not a lot of people did; we all figured it was because it hasn’t completely set in that we’re actually LEAVING the castle yet. :( Anyway, at the end of the night we got castle themed t-shirts, a copy of the group photo and a photo CD the writing class had put together with pictures we all submitted. :D finally, to round the night off, we had a commemorative photo shoot for our last night in our room!

Wed 17- OUR LAST DAY AT THE CASTLE!!! Though we are still all in complete denial! Even through packing our room to it’s original barren state, hauling the bags outside and into a truck and driving away from the castle and out of Well for the last time, none of us shed a tear! EPIC DENIAL!! We’re all sure it’s because we’re going to London, so it seems like we’re just going on another excursion! Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait it out. Anyway, after waiting in the Düsseldorf airport for about 3 hours, a freezing shuttle to the plane, an hour plane ride, a million hours getting bags and getting to the coaches, 2 hours on said coaches and a vastly unorganized doling out of room assignments, we were finally back at the London County Hotel! Needless to say, everybody was a bit on edge and tired at this point. :P So, after dropping our shit off in the rooms, me, Theresa, and Alysia went to dinner at a place we’d send last time called King George’s, where we were later joined by a wandering Taylor. (Got some tasty Shepard’s pie! :D) Then I went to Theresa and Alysia’s room where we looked at each other’s pictures and watched Ratatouille. :D

Thu 18- staying up until 1:30 was a bad idea because I had to get up early to get my tube pass because we missed them last night. :P Alysia had a required art tour and Theresa was sleeping in, so I was planning to see a movie and meeting them for lunch at 2. Unfortunately, when I went to Leister Square, I found out that movies don’t start until noon and it was only 10. :P So I decided to go to a show after lunch instead and went back to the hotel and chilled out until Alysia came back with Monty and Lindsay and we got Theresa and Taylor and went to lunch at the sit down Pizza Hut. From there we went our separate ways, everyone else went to Abby Road and I went to see the movie Easy Virtue, which is a British movie I really wanted to see that isn’t being released in the US until May. It was really good; I recommend looking it up. :D At 6, we all met in the hotel and found out that Gabe and his parents, who had flown in to stay with him in London over Christmas, had invited all of us and Kara to dinner with them at 7:15! YAY! Before that, however, we made a quick stop at King’s Cross to see Platform 9 3/4. :D Gabe took us to meet them at their hotel and we decided to go to a Thai restaurant from Gabe’s guidebook. Gabe’s parents were both really nice and talked to each of us on the way to Oxford Street. :D Unfortunately, after finally finding it, the Thai restaurant was too crowded to fit all nine of us. Luckily, after looking in a few more places, we managed to find an Italian place that could seat all of us at two tables. :D I ended up sitting with Gabe, his parents, and Theresa, which made for some great conversations. After dinner, we headed back to their hotel to say good-bye and then back to our hotel. The rest of the group was going to the pub Rockets, but I was too tired and they were only going for an hour anyway, so I decided to stay in Theresa and Alysia’s room, where we planned to just stay up until 4 AM, when it was time to leave for the airport!

Fri 19- After attempting to nap, Theresa Alysia, Gabe and, eventually, Monty came back and we watched “Labyrinth”. After attempting to nap again, it was time to go to the lobby. :P After saying good-bye to Gabe (*sob*) we got on the bus and got to the airport around 5. After saying good-bye to Taylor and everyone else on the bigger flight at 8:30 everything’s kind of a blur. There was a lot of waiting around for Chester, two trams to get to a different terminal, and somehow we got to the check in desk. We used the machine to get our boarding passes, but found out we had to wait until 7:45, an hour, until we could check our bags. :P so we said good-bye to Chester, Johnny and Rene, who left us that this point, and then chilled out and I watched the Rugrats Christmas Special with Monty on my iPod. FINALLY we checked our bags, I changed the last of my pounds into dollars, and we went through airport security, which was being run by a woman with a mustache. (Like, an authentic mustache; you could see this thing from a good distance! AWKWARD! XD) anyway, after that, we got some lunch and ate it while we waited for our gate to come up. At 9:15 it did, and we had to take a tram to a different section to our terminal. So we finally got to our gate with less than an hour to wait to board at 10:30! YAY! 8 hours, 2 movies, and some sporadic sleep later, we landed in Boston JUST as the snowstorm started!!!! After a happy family reunion, we headed home and got there in just three hours, even with the torrential snow!!

Well, that’s the end of my epic adventure in Europe! I can’t begin to describe how wonderful a time I had and how grateful for my new friends and experiences I am! Thank you all so much for sharing the journey for me.

Have a great Christmas and a happy  New Year!! I hope I get to see you all soon!

LOVE LOVE LOVE!!

Kelsey