On the small town of Chester

It just so worked out that Kelsey and I had to leave at the same time (me for a train to Chester and her for the US). So I heaved my backpack on my shoulders and she lugged her luggage out the door and we were on our way. She got to the airport no problem, and I had no issues with my train. It was a three hour train ride, so I had a whole plan of how I was going to use my time super wisely... but I was tired, so I slept. I was meeting up with my Norwegian friend, Christopher (I met him in Budapest this past summer), and I asked him how we would find each other when I got to Chester. He said that he would just see me at the train station. (He goes to school in Manchester, so he just took a bus over to Chester!) I was skeptical of this plan, but it worked! And now I understand why: the Chester train station is tiny and there is only one place for every one to come out of, and there he was waiting for me! 

I had the address for my hostel, but that was it. Julia and Christopher's friends that he was traveling with this past summer laughed, I'm sure, when they thought of Christopher and I meeting up and trying to find anything. We were definitely the two least helpful people in Budapest when it came to directions. But we found our way, he with his google maps and me with my actual map. Google maps was more helpful.

After I got my huge backpack dropped off, we headed to the humongous Chester Zoo. (We took a taxi, of course, because he is too high maintenance to take bus...) At like 2pm, I finally had my first food since the fish and chips the day before... and by food I mean a "flap jack" aka a granola bar. My stomach was still not ready for a full meal. Christopher scared me when we were searching for the lions. The bats scared him when we walked through the bat house. Like literally, he made us leave because he was terrified. So funny.

We then had a taxi, of course, take us to a castle... that was closed, so then we wandered about town and found all sorts of cool things!

Ruined Roman Amphitheater

Chapel ruins

It's one of those days where there is not much to tell because everything went so well! We made our way to dinner so that I could finally have a real meal!

After dinner, we checked out the Cathedral and wall walks before he had to head back to his megabus - which was so much easier than the one that I took to Paris!

I got back to the hostel only to remember that I had absolutely nothing planned for the rest of my trip, including the next morning. Like, I knew I wanted to head towards Wales, but that was about it. My plan was to stay in Wales the following night, but as I did research, I realized that the town that I was going to was even smaller than I realized and it only had one hostel that was completely booked. I looked at hotels, but there was absolutely nothing that was close to the town that was even close to worth paying for.

Let's just say I did research from 9:30pm until 1:30am and I had only actually accomplished one thing. I had decided I was just ready to get to Ireland, so I booked the following night for Dublin. I didn't give up on Wales, though. I had a plan. Buy a train ticket to Conwy, Wales at the station in the morning, and then after a few hours there, go to Holyhead, and from Holyhead take a ferry to Ireland. It sounds like it's not really a plan, but I did have all of the times and everything I wanted planned out... so the next post will tell ya if ANY of this worked :)