Opening Day!!!

Finally opening day is here. I was so excited to see that most everyone else on the trip is nearly as fanatical about baseball as I am. Luckily with Mlb.tv I won't miss a BoSox or Brewer game while I'm here. But, I have to first rewind here and tell you all about the past week. It has definitely been eventful so I'll backtrack a bit and start with last week. On Tuesday night I went to see the musical Jersey Boys. It was the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. I knew the band before I went in, but had no idea that all those songs that I knew were theres. I have been singing "Oh What A Night" and "Walk Like a Man" for over a week now, and I still can't get them out of my head.

The next night was one of the coolest experiences that I have had here. A few guys and I headed to Wembly Stadium to see the English National Team play Ukraine in a World Cup qualifier. Our seats were in the upper upper deck where the players would look like ants, but to get a chance to see a game like that, a game that important, we were just excited to get in the sold out stadium. As we walked in to pick up our tickets there was a problem however and we didn't have our seats. Instead, because of the screw up they gave us new seats and we ended up in the 18th row, right by the English bench. The game was great. England won 2-1 on a goal by John Terry with 4 minutes left in the game. It was crazy hearing 90,000 people sing God Save the Queen in unison. For me the most exciting part was that David Beckham warmed up and played right in front of me. I took about 15 pictures at the game and 12 of them were of him. I felt like a 16 year old girl, but who cares.

That next night I was off to another musical (Don't really get too many musicals in Appleton, so I figure I gotta do it while I can). This time I went to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. Um, I had seen Joseph before, but I don't remember it being like that. I was definitely entertained, but still it was weird. There was an Elvis, and a country song, and talking snakes, and it was just weird.

Friday morning meant that I was off to Edinburgh. I loved that place. The city, the people, the architecture, and the natural beauty of the rolling hills and ocean were amazing. Kelly and I got into the city at noonish and headed right out to Arthur's Seat. It is huge hill/mountain that over looks the entire city. After the climb up there we relaxed in the beautiful weather, and took in the views. We made the trek back down and I of course fell down and hurt my ankle. When we got down to the bottom of the hill we toured the Scottish Parliament building. The people inside were so nice and they let us go into the actual debating and voting chamber. After a quick nap and dinner I made our plans for the evening. I saw in a tour book about the famous Mackenzie Poltergeist. Apparently there is this ghost that is the most studied and famous in the world that is in Edinburgh. Of course, that meant that we had to go check it out. So, we show up for the tour and they take us into this cemetery and then things got a bit scary. They ushered us into this row of tombs and then locked the door behind us. They then brought us into this one crypts and proceeded to tell us stories about how this ghost has literally injured people by burning them and giving them bruises and after getting is scared to death they had a guy jump out and scream. Kelly and I jumped so high...I thought I was going to die. On that note we headed to the pub to unwind where strangely enough we were the oldest people in the entire bar. It felt really weird drinking with 14 and 15 year olds.

The next day we headed up to the coast and toured the Royal Yacht. It was basically just a huge ship that was Queen Elizabeth's. We saw her bedroom, her car, and the honeymoon sweet where Prince Charles and Princess Diana had their honeymoon. I would say more but, like with all things concerning royalty, it is just easier to show you the pictures. After that, the weather turned bad for a while, so after dinner we went to a movie. We saw Slumdog Millionaire and then headed to the bar again for a couple drinks and to watch the Final Four. When we got up to our room we found that our room was given away. We went down to the lobby to find that they gave our room away. Since there was no where else to stay we crashed in the lounge room for the night. The next morning we complained some more and got a full refund on our trip. It actually worked out well and saved us a bunch of money.

On Sunday we headed up to Edinburgh Castle and toured all the museums in there. We also toured a couple other museums. Again we saw some more amazing sights that only pictures can describe. At around 4 it was time to get back on the train to head to London. Overall the weekend was a blast. The city was amazing, and I had a great time with Kelly. I love traveling, but a lot of times in huge groups there are just so many things people want to do and it becomes stressful trying to make everyone happy. It was great to not have to deal with that aspect and just go with the flow.