catching up

<-- Me at the Cliffs of Mohar (I pronounced it Mo-hair, but what do I know)
A bridge that I made a wish to like I always do, Dublin Ireland --->



4 days of school and enough work for 6, wonderful. Don't panic, it's really not that bad, the 4 days of school is right, but the workload is not that much, well, except last week, that was pretty stressful. So this week is pretty full of events, tomorrow I turn in my British Studies outline over William Wallace! and also have a physics test! Tuesday, I have a promotions marketing test, but I think I have figured his tests out so I should be good to go. Wednesday, we, as an entire student body, go to Belvior Castle, it's pronounced "beaver", go figure. Monday night, after my outline and test are through, I have basketball practice and then I need to study for that Marketing Test.

Check out this story of William Wallace, could be true, could be false, no one knows because only the last 9 years of his questionable length of life was documented.
In the estimated year of 1296, young William Wallace, estimated 18 years old, was fishing for trout on a sunny Sunday afternoon on the 23rd of the month which was usually a feasting day. 5 Englishman (soldiers) were on horseback and decided deviate their usual path and demand that Wallace give them all his trout. Wallace civilly agreed to give them half. The Lord of the place he was at, and soon to be King of Scotland, decided that this deed of Wallace's deserved permission to allow Wallace to continue fishing, so he said it. Wallace on the other hand, did not appreciate being told what he is allowed to do, so he said so to the English Lord. The English Lord did not like the fact that this mere Scot was talking to an Englishman, especially royalty with such equalizing attitude, and dismounted his horse and lunged at Wallace after desheathing his sword. Wallace, parried the attack with his fishing pole! and then smacked the Lord across the face which sent the English Lord's sword flying into the air in which landed right into Wallace's hand, sounding a little more like me huh, Wallace proceeded to cut the English Lord's head off in a single swipe. Two Englishman thought it wise to then proceed to attack Wallace, which resulted in a thundering swipe through the chest starting with the collar bone, and a dismembered sword hand. losers. The other two ran like Bert from his Camera and booked it home. Wallace took the extra horses, his catch for the day, and the loot from the soldiers, and proceeded to bring home his feast to his family, all in a days work.

Cool, huh?

Well, that story will find its way into my paper somehow. Cadbury world is where I left off. WOW A.D.D. The tour of the factory was cool and we got chocolate, pretty much the whole story...haha. Anyways, on to my week, and then I can tell you about this past weekend!!! So after Belvior Castle, we have, nothing! yes! Thursday is a crazy day in ways you wouldn't believe! O.k so not really, it's believable, but check it out...Thursday, we have a volleyball versus a prison team. Our coach says that when he takes teams in there in previous years they are always intimidated. Sorry, but that doesn't run in the family. Sometimes, you got to kick a little. After my game, we are headed to the airport to sleep for the night so that we can leave for GREECE in the morning!!! SWEEEEET.

O.K. rewind time. This past weekend I went skiing in Switzerland. yes. This past weekend I went skiing in Switzerland. I took some videos, and some sweet pictures, wow it was simply beautiful. At my hostel in Geneva, my roommate was from Spain. I was in heaven. Traveling with 6 girls is different, so Friday when we got there we walked around and just soaked in the city and the 6 girls walked ahead of me and Danile while we conversed in Spanish (he barely spoke english, awesome!!) I was inspired and impressed with myself of how much one can do when they are pushed to the limit (language barrier, haha) During my trip to Spain, I might go visit Daniel at his house. Back to skiing, we left at 8:30 am on Saturday to drive a little less than 2 hours to go Ski. We arrived, immediately rented Skies and sitcks and boots and were off. The runs were tough but I had the time of my life. Reds and blacks and some blues were good. I enjoyed the challange of Blacks and was not really surprised of how it just came natural to ski again. Anyways, hope you enjoyed the show.


-brad the barrier breaker
aka William Wallace

Happy Valentines Day!!!!

I'm in Dublin, Ireland right now wishing everyone a Happy Valentines Day!!
I'll tell yall all about it when I get back...

Miss yall, and love you all!!!!!


-brad the beLOVEd

The Scottish highlands: The Real Deal.

On the Right ----> is some of the Baker ladies with me and Aaron, the wind was outrageous!!
<-----On the left is Aaron and I somewhere near the same place, the sheer size of everything was unreal.


Finally, the good part. I came to England to do a couple main things. I came to see some Greek and Roman history, I came to see the cultures of the European world as we know it, and also, to see the green and awesome landscapes of Scotland and Ireland. The Tour started at 8am Saturday morning and planned to have us back by 7:30 that night. Our tour guide was a well educated Scot who had flown in the Scottish air force as well as toured Europe and climbed many a mountains. He knew everything, or so it seemed. He told us the tales of William Wallace and we got to see the castle and the battlegrounds of some of the places where William Wallace actually was!!!! We all took turns taking pictures and listening to the stories while some slept and some ate what food they brought (me). **Orange Fanta takes like orange juice, but worse over here, by the way. We would stop every 30-45 minutes or so and get out to take pictures of the amazing landscapes. We learned all about the clans of Scotland and some brutal stories to go with them. We had a couple of long stops on the way to eat lunch and such, but we finally made it to Loch Ness, the largest freshwater body of water in the entire UK! We took pictures, trying to spot Nessie so we could collect our 1,000,000 pound paycheck so we all wouldn't have to keep asking money from the generous folks back home, but no such luck. I made a wish into Loch Ness, have you? The trip back seemed shorter but it was still awesome!

The Scottish Highlands are number 1 on my experiences here. The world famous Cadbury world was next...

brad the bird-watcher

Scotland, the fake side

On the Right ---> is the view on our way to our hostel which was app. 8 minutes outside of town.
<----On the Left here, is one of 300 or so pictures of the Scottish Highlands, b.e.a.utiful.


Friday morning, when we got to Edinburgh, we got dropped off about 2 miles away from our hostel (since the road was conveniently shutdown due to construction, hah!) The hostel we stayed at costs around 7.50 pounds a night haha and it was sweet. 4 of us were in one room with a random guy from Malaysia who studies medicine in Moscow who is vacationing in Scotland who has a child in China, ok, the child was false but everything else was real. Eudis was a cool guy and we ended up seeing him around town quite a bit. We all decided a nap was necessary since sleeping like Popsicles doesn't revitalize you. After a good three hour nap, we started our tour of Edinburgh.

People in Scotland, along with the stores they own and well as the restaurants they manage close at 5:30, dumb. We walked around until 8:30 or so, and decided that 7 hours of walking around the town of Edinburgh is enough to know the city and the people that inhibit it. Anyways, after a long shower and a couple of brewkis later, we went to sleep, for tomorrow, we were signed up for the LOCH NESS TOUR of the SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS!!!!!!! FREEEEEEEDOM!!!!!


-brad the bandit (and no.......I didn't steal anything)

It's been so long!

Sorry it has been so long. Scotland however, is where I left off! This is on top of King Arthur's seat, which is a hill we climbed, pretty sweet. The adventures of Scotland were amazing!! Let's start with the amazing overnight trip to Edinburgh.

There was nothing awesome about this trip. We left at 11:30 at night, changed trains about 45 minutes later, and then another 45 minutes after that we were in the forsaken town of Newcastle at approximately 2am, ugh. We heard there was a 24 hour McDonalds right across the street and since we were all starving, the Baker squad and my roommate, we decided to go! Turns out, that across the street meant 2 miles away, awesome -__- . Anyways, we got the McDonalds to go, since there were no chairs in it, and headed back to the train station. Lo and behold!!!!! Lady luck was with us and the train station was closed until 4! awesome! We now had an hour and a half to kill on the streets of Newcastle , yay. Well we ended up walking around, finding at least 5 closed coffee shops and other snack places but ended up in a pizzaria and stayed there for about 45 minutes and talked with a local who was making fun of Newcastle so that was funny. After we got in the train station, after pulling a "huddle in front of the hotel" because the architecture blocked the wind trick, we finally got in the train station. At previous train stations, there was a "waiting room" in which heat was supplied and it was nice and cozy! hah! not us! If I forgot to tell you, it was about 30 degrees! Anyways, the waiting room was a class enclosed room with zero heat and zero coziness. We were absolutely freezing! I got a 20 minute nap in on the cold tile, and woke up with my bone marrow frozen...im not kidding. I got up and walked around but it didn't seem to help. You could relate me to those gummy bears that you accidentily pushed at the bottom of your ice cream and forgot about and go to eat them and break your teeth. Nearing 6:15, our departure time, they finally opened the day bathrooms and I retreated in there to turning on the heaters and scaulding myself, which felt great. That night I wished I was a cold-blooded animal, o well, adapt and overcome.

The train came, and we got to Edinburgh around 8:15, and thats where our Scottish adventure began......



-brad the...well...

-WILLIAM WALLACE

another day in the neighborhood

I'll probably be roaming around Spain for a good 10 days if not 12, depending on the teachers decision to let me skip an extra class. I have Ireland, lake district, and Switzerland all booked, that and also Italy at the end!!! I'm so excited, Tomorrow I'm going to book Amsterdam and Greece, cool huh? Hopefully I can roam Spain and speak spanish for over a week, and even hit Tangier (where Jason Bourne went, yes!!).

We went exploring today and hiking all around the outskirts of the Harlaxton Grounds, it was pretty awesome. In the picture on the left are my brothers. From left to right: Marques, Aaron, me JT and then Travis. On the right: JT is on the left and Aaron is in the middle. We're on top of a building we found. Got ahead with some homework today and now am going to sleeeeeeeeeep.

brad the builder

The Harlaxton Lions: Sports Edition

There's our basketball team for this semester. The picture is missing 4 other girls so its close to being even.

Our first basketball practice was Monday as it was awesome. Getting back in the mix of sports was pretty sweet. We had our first volleyball practice the following day and it was even better. It's going to be interesting playing on a real team. Wednesday, we had our first basketball team. We had 2 students coaching us and it was pretty sweet. We were supposed to play a 16-18 year old team, however we ended up playing giant old guys, wonderful.

We have two big men and one the refs seemed to call a foul on EVERY single time he got in a defensive stance. As a direct effect of foul trouble, small people had to guard big people and their big men scored most of their points. Everyone got in and it was a lot of fun. The crowd was big and loud and cheered every time someone scored a point no matter how it went in. It was awesome. We ended up losing 74-56 but made a good 20-4 run in the 4th quarter. We'll pull it together here in the next couple of games and we'll be good to go.

I cannot wait for volleyball practice tonight, nor our first game, here.we.come.

-brad the baller