7/4-7/8

Sorry if it seems like we've forgotten about our travel blog; we've just been having too much fun!

July 4: American Independence Day! We dressed the part to look festive. Sadly, this was also our farewell day in Dublin so we spend the morning taking pictures and buying some souvenirs. We stumbled upon a posh region of Dublin we hadn't explored yet and ate at the cute and delicious Gotham Cafe. After wandering and taking more random pictures (Brie isn't used to having a camera yet) we went back to our hostel to repack. We spend the afternoon fuming about RyanAir's ridiculous weight limit, squeezing hair mousse into a 3 oz. bottle, and putting pants into pillow cases. We left Dublin with at least 30 lbs. of carry-on items and 45 less euros... no big. On our plane to England, we met a boy named Tom who lifted our broken spirits by telling us terrible tales of RyanAir. He knew of Tennessee because his father is a big country music fan. This made us laugh.

The Horsham Experience: Karen picked us up at the airport on the night of the 4th. Unfortunately, we were so pooped from carrying all our possessions in our pillowcases that we tumbled into our "cozy" bedroom for a goodnight's sleep. The next morning we experienced our first real hot shower. Oh the joy! To our amazement, Horsham is much bigger than we expected but no less quaint. Over the next three days we went to a French Market and a carnival, played a little tennis in the park, baked a cake, and watched Bride & Prejudice and the entirety of the men's single Wimbledon match... the outcome is still upsetting us. We are one deck of cards short to play hand and foot. We've decided they don't play cards in England because we couldn't find any cards.

Today we went to Bath and it was incredible. The skies were bright blue all day long. It was about a 3 hour train ride, but the journey was scenic and cute so we dealt with it. We arrived around lunch time and ate at a very good (and cheap!) Thai restaurant. The only bad thing we've started to notice is that everything here is very, very sweet. The waitress looked at us like we was crazy when we asked for soy sauce, although that could have been due to the language barrier. After that we took a free walking tour with Alan! He was the happiest little old man and he showed us the greatest parts of Bath. We also took a tour of the Roman Baths, which of course was mind boggling and astounding all at once. After eating dinner, we got back on our train. Unfortunately, one of our connections was late and we missed the train to Horsham! But, being the resourceful girls that we are, we managed to hop on another train and make it home... late, but all in one piece.

Tomorrow we're headed off to Canterbury and Dover Beach! We hope everyone is doing well over there!