The Site-Seeing Softball Player: Cadbury World-Chocolatey Chaos

Whew! I have finally survived my first self-planned road trip in Europe. Wow does that feel nice to say/hear/read/type. Birmingham, UK was definitely not somewhere I will pin on the map to return...EVER. We left Friday morning from the Victoria Coah Station, a bus station, to head two and a half hours out of town to Birmingham for some chocolately goodness of a weekend. Now when I say we I mean myself and ten other girls who are in my program. Yes I was dumb enough to not only agree to go on a trip with eleven girls included but to PLAN the trip for us girls. Why did I ever think this trip was going to run smoothly? That is a great question! But we all survived...I am still trying to figure out how though. So about the trip? Yes, we got to Birmingham Station around 11:30 on Friday morning and headed to our hostel which was about a thirty minute walk from the station, not so bad after all. (I have already accomplished my goal of going on a trip taking ONLY my backpack. YAY!) Checked into the hostel around 12:15 and began our mad dash to Cadbury World for our tour at 1:30. Cadbury World is located in a neighboring area named Bournville so we hopped onto the train and off to the chocolate heaven we were. Once arriving at the Cadbury World we did a virtual tour of how the company got started and the history behind the "Dairy Milk" chocolate. This tour ended with each of us able to create our very own chocolate creation and then EAT IT!

Yes, this is me with my "creation" of Cadbury chocolate and rice krispies...not too bad actually! The chocolate was unlike anything you could ever dream of tasting, so rich and creamy and warm and tasty and definitely not something that you should eat more than once a year. But I had it twice in one day...OOPS. No worries, the tour was so long that I definitely walked off all of the free samples I had during it, which was quite a few! The tour was three hours of chocolate perfumed rooms filled with Cadbury history and goodness, we even got to go on a little ride/tour of some more history about how the chocolate beans were and still are made.

That is myself, Karlee and Jess on our ride through the chocolate bean world. After the ride, chocolate drawing, picture rooms and more tasting we made our way to the souvenir/chocolate shop. BAD IDEA. As the guy at the register said when we were checking out, "Yeah. Chocolate is cheap here." Well if chocolate is cheap why not buy some?! I got three different kinds to take back with me which were Whole Nut, Nutty Caramel and Toffee Popcorn. I may have nibbled a bite out of each already, just to test whether or not they were worth the 1.50 pounds I paid for each! But surprisingly chocolate alone was not enough to fill our empty bellies up for the day, so back to Birmingham we went for some real food. There we ate at the Handmade Burger place that had all organic and fresh ingredients for any item on their menu. It was so delicious and just what each of us needed after a long day of travel and chocolate binging. When we finally made it back to our hostel we joined in on a free pub crawl to a few local pubs and had a marvelous night sleep in beds that were arguably more comfortable than our own back at Woburn.

We had two rooms with six beds each and a HUGE bathroom per room, it felt like paradise for a night. The next day was awfully different for me to say the least. I woke up and showered for the day. After eating breakfast at the hostel and checking out for a day of touring backpackers style we were off to explore Birmingham first hand. A few hours into our day I was suddenly feeling very under the weather, deciding to sit out in a coffee shop to sip on some water and relax. I still have no clue what I ate that made my body this upset, but I was down for the count. My body was not willing to cooperate whatsoever, so I ended up catching a much earlier bus ride back to London alone to get home and sleep this bug off. The funny thing about the bus ride? I was literally the only white person on the bus and couldn't tell you the ethnicities of some of these people...lets just say when I fell asleep on that ride I was clenching my purse hard in my arms! I arrived back to Woburn at about 5:45 Saturday night, took a hot shower and slept straight until 9:30 this morning. Birmingham wanted to make sure I never came back and they succeeded.

After sleeping "it" off for 15 hours I felt great and ready to go! Today I have made it to a nice market in Camden Town and am off to buy some groceries for the week. This week I have a lot on the schedule and can't wait to tell you all about it, detail for detail. Until then, stay American and enjoy your week! Love you all and can't wait to see your beautiful faces when I do!

The Site-Seeing Softball Player

P.S. Here are a few more pictures from the weekend, mainly for Dad and Kelsey since they don't have the luxury of facebook creeping!