Northern Ireland & A Ball!

The last few weeks have definitely been a whirlwind. After Dustin left, I moved into my new dorm, which has been really nice. The people here are a lot more normal :) and although I haven't made any new best friends, it's fun to keep running into the same people. I am in an amazingly central location and have been trying to soak up London while working and still keeping my sanity!!


Just over a week ago, I went to visit my friend Naomi in Northern Ireland. Naomi is originally from outside Belfast, and we met while we were both in Santiago!


Northern Ireland is absolutely beautiful. Naomi took me to the coast. Here we are on a rope bridge, going from the main island to a tiny little island in the North Channel between Ireland and Scotland.





















Here we are again in the rope bridge.... It was actually kinda scary....









Here we are on the little island (on the other side of the rope bridge), enjoying the beautiful day!












One of the most amazing features of the Northern Irish coast: the Giant's Causeway, an unusual rock formation along the coast facing Scotland. Legend has it that the ancient giants built the rock formation as a road to cross the channel between Ireland and Scotland!









Around the same time (just before I went to Ireland, actually), my friend Jung-Min was visiting London and we got to see the Sound of Music on stage! It was my first West End musical and it was really amazing!








And then, in case things were in danger of getting boring, one of Dustin's best friends from Stanford, Lewis, invited me to go to a ball with him! Lewis is finishing up an MBA program at Oxford and he and his MBA friends decided to go to the fancy Trinity College Ball, an annual event put on by one of the Oxford "colleges," and Lewis invited me to go along!

...Recognize the dress from Lisa's wedding? :)












....We were expecting a formal dance, but although the attire was "white tie recommended," it turned out to be more of a fancy, all-night carnival! This is us in a hot air balloon (we only got to go up about ten feet, but it was still really cool) with one of Lewis's classmates, Verona.

They also had bumper cars, laser tag, a live concert of the Sugar Babes (apparently a really famous group here in England, although we weren't that impressed), as well as made-to-order milkshakes, donuts, and other delicacies. It was definitely an event to remember!


I knew that my law school classmate Jordan was going to be arriving on Saturday to intern in London for six weeks, but when I got back from the ball, I was so surprised to get an email from him saying that he was going to be staying in... none other than my very own Goodenough College! He didn't realize that it was the same place I was living, so it was quite a happy reunion when he arrived to find me here! We explored London a little bit on Sunday with his Blackstone Fellowship buddies, but they haven't given me the pictures yet! Dustin will be sad to know we visited his beloved Trafalgar Square and even took a picture with a lion!


Mom is visiting from Thursday to Sunday of this week after her conference in the Netherlands, so the fun continues!...