Anyway. I left off with the Saturday we went to Edinburgh. Sunday our group sort of split up and went separate ways, because we all had different school responsibilities and such and just wanted to do different things that day. So some of the group left Edinburgh really early that morning, some stayed about half the day in Edinburgh and then went back to Oxford. I, however, wanted to go to Stirling. That's where the Battle of Stirling happened, aka where William Wallace kicked the English's butts. Stirling castle is also there, which I really wanted to see, as well as the National William Wallace Monument, which has William Wallace's actual sword, as in the sword he actually used, on display inside. So I really wanted to see that. It was only an hour north of Edinburgh by train, and with my Britrail pass that meant it was basically free to travel up there, so I was gonna do it no matter what, even if I had to go by myself. I'm sort of obsessed with William Wallace. No one else really wanted to go, because that added 2 hours of travel (one hour there one back) to a day already filled with travel (6 hour train ride from Edinburgh to Oxford). A lot of people also didn't have BritRail so it wasn't a free ride for them. Chelsea did want to go though, because apparently she's as obsessed with William Wallace as I am, and she had a BritRail too. So unfortunately we were the only ones that wanted to go, but at least I didn't have to go by myself.
So, we took the first train from Edinburgh to Stirling that morning. We were gonna be pressed for time, because we had 8 hours of travel to do that day. That will take up a lot of your day, and we still wanted to get back to Oxford at a reasonable time because we had papers due Monday and Tuesday. So basically, we had to set a world record for touring the city of Stirling. We took turns taking pictures of the city as we walked through it, and then running to catch up with each other, because we weren't waiting on each other for pictures. No time. As a result, I also don't know what most of this stuff is. Just cool old buildings in Stirling.
We had no idea where the castle was either. So we finally found a tourist information center and got it all figured out and got a map. Then we got to go down this cool footpath through the woods to get to the castle.
Then the path opened up into some sweet countryside off to our left, with the castle up a hill to our right.
The we accidentally passed the castle because the footpath wasn't clearly marked out or anything and we weren't sure how to get up the cliff to the castle. So we ended up walking in a circle around behind the back of the castle and approaching it from the other side. But that was ok, because that let us see the outside from every side, so it was still cool.
And we saw this cool graveyard beside the castle we wouldn't have seen otherwise. I like graveyards for some reason. They're peaceful to me.
Can you imagine trying to breach that?
Then we start walking up towards the main gate, and start getting some sweet views above the city.
In front of the main gate.
Statue of Robert the Bruce. He's the man. He helped defeat the English and gain Scottish independence alongside William Wallace, and eventually became king of Scotland.
Inside Stirling Castle. This was my favorite castle we visited. All the ones prior to this one were too modernized. They were all set up like museums, and I felt like the essence of the castle was lost in all of them. This one, although it still had some museum qualities to it, seemed much less tainted by modern hands, like it was much closer to how it would have been while still in use. It was really awesome.
I have no idea what that is. Looks cool though.
There were a lot of sweet views from the castle walls.
The great hall was weird. It didn't match the architecture of the rest of the castle at all. Oh well, it was still cool.
The inside.
I am sooo the King of Scotland.
Cool courtyard.
Sweet views.
You can see the National William Wallace Monument there at the top of that smaller hill. It's a big tower. We went there later.
Cool windmill farm.
Straight down. The castle is pretty high up there.
A slit for arrows.
The bowels of the castle. It was really cool. It was like completely untouched with modernity. I'm not even sure if we were supposed to be down there.
From the outer walls looking back into the castle.
Random rocky out-crop inside the outer walls. We totally climbed up it too.
The main garden.
That was it for Stirling Castle. We had to hurry and get over to the bus station in order to ride over to the Wallace monument. There was this really crazy guy at the bus stop too, yelling at the birds nearby in a really really thick Scottish accent. It was pretty funny, but we were kind of scared of him too. Then we got on one of those double decker red tour buses to get up to the monument. That was kind of a bad idea I think, because it took us like 10 minutes out of the way from the monument, as part of the "tour". We were like...hey where are we going? The monument is back that way...Plus we were the only ones on the bus, so I was scared the driver was gonna take us out in the middle of nowhere and be like, ok now give me 50 pounds and I'll take you back to where you need to go. But that didn't happen, he just took the roundabout way to get to the monument. So we wasted some time there, which freaked us out a little because we got worried we might miss out train, so we practically ran up the mountain to get to the monument. But when we got there, it was sweet.
They had a cool guy in costume too.
We got a pretty good view of the castle from the top of the hill the monument sits on.
Then we started the loonggg climb up the tiny cramped spiral stairway to the top. It was like climbing up St. Mary's Cathedral in Oxford, except times a billion. Then there were little rooms coming off the stairway on the way up, like 2 or 3 of them separated by a few floors of stairs each. One had William Wallace's actual sword on display. AHHH. In. Sane. So cool. The thing was huge. It must have been 5 or 6 feet long.
That one crossguard on the left is bent. I can just imagine Wallace bashing someone over the head with it.
Another room higher up had a bunch of busts of famous Scots. Robert the Bruce again.
And Robert Burns, one of my favorite poets.
Then we got to the top, and it was one of the coolest views ever. It was pretty scary too. There's something about old stone towers that makes heights way more scary than when you're in a safe, modern, metal building.
Then we had to run back down the stairs, which itself is an intense experience, and I had quite a mind freak going down through them. Then at the bottom this random old Scottish guy stopped me and asked me if I knew why the stairs spiraled in a clockwise direction. No, I certainly did not know. Well, it's so if the tower came under attack, any defenders could come down the stairs from the top and fight attackers coming up. Since they were coming down counter-clockwise, their right arm has more room in the stairs for sword fighting, while the attacker was coming up clockwise and had his right arm, typically the fighting arm, cramped up against the tight inner spiral. Wow, very interesting, thank you. I'm in a hurry to catch my bus though, so I'll be on my way.So we sat on the top on the way back. There was a baby on the top of the bus too that would not shut up. It was opera baby. Seriously that thing had a set of lungs. Why do parents not realize that babies hate to ride on the tops of double decker buses? There was another kid too, sticking his hands off the side of the bus. We were just watching him, because we knew something was gonna happen to him. Then a tree branch flew by and smacked his hands. The kid jerked his hands back in and looked at us, and we saw this really awesome moment of realization in this kid's face, like one of those life changing moments in a young kid's life. We were like, wow we just watched that kid's life change forever. He will never stick his hands out the side of a vehicle again. We were wrong though. He did.
Then we crossed back over the river Forth, and got to see new Stirling Bridge off to our right. The battle of Stirling took place at the old Stirling Bridge. It was made of wood though, so it's long gone. The new one is still cool though.
Then we got one last look at the epicness of Stirling Castle.
Then we took a train back to Edinburgh, and from there we took the long journey back to Oxford. We had some layover in the train station at Edinburgh though, so we stopped by the grocery store to get some food for the train. Our minds were then subsequently blown. They had Belgian chocolate milk. Yes, I am for real. It is even better than it sounds. It is the most amazing drink in the world. Nothing can compare to Belgian chocolate milk. It is made of pure win. We each had a bottle of that and a chocolate chocolate chip muffin, and accordingly passed out into a minor coma. A coma of PURE JOY.
So that was it for that weekend. The most epic of weekends. Monday not much happened. We had high table like always. Here's the gang all dressed up.
During the week I was really busy with papers. It wasn't that interesting, and I have pictures of me locked in my room typing, so there's not much to say about that. The next interesting thing happened I think was we went to Windsor Castle for a day trip. I can't quite remember for sure if we went there before or after we went to the Lake District, but yea. That was the day I didn't bring my camera, so I'm not sure. Windsor was pretty cool though. We saw the changing of the guards (which is way more of a big deal than every where else...they like had a parade.) And we went inside the huge chapel-abbey-cathedral-church-thing (upon further research, I think it was St. George's Chapel) there which was pretty awesome. Lots of famous dead people buried in there. Most of the royalty anyway. But yea, I'll put pictures of that up after we have picture swap.--Ok I did some research and we did in fact do Windsor on the Friday before the we did the Lake District, which was on Saturday and Sunday.
The next thing (or the thing before Windsor, I'm not sure) is the Lake District. The Lake District is basically like just an area of England with some of the most beautiful countryside in the world. That's where Wordsworth and Coleridge and many other of the first generation Romantic poets lived (which is why they're known as the Lake Poets) and where they drew much of their inspiration.
Actually getting to the Lake District was quite complicated. First we had to take a train to the city of Penrith. However, the rail line was under construction, so the train wouldn't go all of the way there, so we had to take the train halfway (itself including one change over) and then get off and take a bus the rest of the way (which thankfully our rail passes paid for.) Our hostel was in the city of Keswick however, so we had to then take a bus from Penrith to Keswick (not paid for by the rail pass, since there is no train station in Keswick). However, since we were already in Penrith, we decided to check with the tourist information center and see if there was anything good to do in Penrith. The guy there suggested we head up to Beacon Hill and check out the old...well...beacon. So we did. First we had to climb up a few miles of streets uphill.
Saw a cool graveyard.
Then we got to a little nature path which goes up the rest of the way to the beacon.
Some old stone wall. Ruins are cool.
It was inside a dell.
We climbed to the top of it. Of course.
We also realized that by climbing up through random stuff we could avoid having to follow the lame roundabout path that would take forever to get to the top. So we just went straight up from there so we could get to the top quicker. Also saw this random, weird looking cave thingy.
The top! The beacon! Yay! There was this insane little Jack Russel Terrier puppy running around up there when we got up there. It was awesome, but I didn't get any pictures of it and its owners took him away a few minutes later.
Would have been a great view I think except it was really really smoggy that day.
I tried to climb the beacon. I didn't get much further than that.
We stayed up there for a while goofing around and just hanging out. We needed a break to just relax and do nothing I think. Then we headed down. The whole path smelled like dead animals, so we made it down pretty quick.
Wordsworth Street. Coolness.
Then we took a bus to Keswick (pronounced Kesz-ick.) It was pretty late when we got there so we just checked into our hostel and got some dinner at a pub. Then we just walked around for a little while. I wanted to go ahead and climb a mountain. No one else did though. We ended up just looking around the city and playing on a playground for a little while.
And we saw the lingerie tree. Epic.
The next morning kind of sucked. No one could agree on or decide what to do. So we did a lot of walking around again like the night before, and just doing nothing. We still saw some pretty landscapes, but we were expecting a lot more out of it, and we needed to actually go do stuff to see the truly amazing stuff.
Sheps. I'm not sure if I explained this already, but basically, the word sheep is now obsolete. I decided that the singular of sheep should be shep. Everyone agreed. Then I decided that the plural of shep should then become sheps. That decision was slightly more controversial, but eventually everyone agreed to that as well. So we no longer use the word sheep. Shep or sheps. There are lots of sheps in England, by the way.
Sheps up close.
Ahh. Nature at its finest.
Then Derwentwater. We finally got to see one of those famous eponymous lakes.
Then we got frustrated from not doing anything and seeing anything cool, so there was kind of a little inter-group blow-up. It was kind of what we needed though, and we finally got to moving and climbed up a big hill to see the Castlerigg stone circle. Think of it as a baby Stonehenge. There were cool views on the way up though.
We really had no idea how far it was, and we had a ferry to catch at 10:30, so I went on ahead to see if it was actually possible to make it there and back in time. So I got up there first and took it all in. Pretty amazing.
It was weird how it was just out there in the middle of a shep pasture.
Then we had to go back down. It was kinda lame, we only got to spend about 10 minutes at the stone circle. But we really couldn't miss our ferry, or we would end up having done nothing else at all in the Lake District. Because we had wasted so much time that morning, we really didn't have time to really enjoy the stone circle as much as we could have. Some people didn't really understand how much of a hurry we were in to get to the ferry. It was like 10 by this point, so we had 30 minutes to get to the ferry, when it had taken us 45 minutes to get up there, which was an even shorter walk. So I kind of had to force everyone down, and they weren't really happy about that, but if they had had it their way, just moseying down the mountain, well we would have been out of luck.Then we finally made it back down into the city, and speedwalked it back across the city to the lake 10 minutes late for our ferry. Somehow will still managed to get on right as it was pushing off. The ferry took us across the lake to Hawes End, from which we began our ascent up the fell of mountains call Catbells. I don't know why it's called that.
On the way up!
Our final destination. Separated by a long way. And a whole nother mountain.
A quarter of the way up.
I have a lot of pictures of this journey because it was a looonnggg journey.
The top of the first peak! We're aiming for that one in the background.
The first peak.
Right before the final ascent!
Apparently I forgot to take pictures from the very top though, which kind of sucks. It was pretty amazing up there. There was a little pile of rocks at the top and we all put more rocks on it, so we officially made the mountain taller, and we had packed sandwiches and lunch up there and everything, so that was really awesome. But yea, I think I forgot to take pictures up there, because the next pictures were on the way down:
I think it may have been because we were experiencing yet another freak out about time concerns. It had taken us 2 and a half hours to climb up there. It was 12:45 at this point, and our ferry back left at 1:30. If we missed our ferry, then we'd miss our bus, and then our train, etc., and wouldn't get back to Oxford till about 4 am or something insane like that. So we REALLY had to make our ferry. Plus Brian and Linsey had to turn back halfway up the mountain because they both had bad knees, so they were waiting for us at the bottom. PLUS we had no idea where the pathway down was, because we were getting back on the ferry in a different place than we got off. So, I ran ahead like half a mile to see if we were going the right direction. It kind of sucked. My backpack was pretty heavy, and I was already tired from climbing basically 2 and a half mountains in one day. But it turned out we were going the right way, so I ran back and got the rest of us to go faster so we could make the ferry. We just kept winding down and down the mountain. At one point it looked like the main path would just head away from the dock forever, so we cut through what kind of looked like a path. Looking back, I think it was just a drainage ditch or something. It was really steep...we were literally climbing down with our hands, and Brittany and Chelsea both fell a couple times. Then we got to the bottom of the little shortcut and there was a fence between us and the main path. So I don't think we were supposed to go that way. But really I think it saved us about 15 minutes so it was good we did.
So we just kept climbing down, and we were basically on a road at this point, weaving back and forth down the mountain. We crossed a little mountain stream cascading down a little cliff into this awesome crystal clear pool just a few feet off the road. There were some people around drinking out of it, and I was dying of thirst from all that running, so I stopped to try it while the others went ahead. It was pretty much bottled water, and I can't believe we pay money for it when it just comes out of the ground like that. Insane. But yea, it was really good, and I dunked my head in there to cool off and filled up an empty water bottle. I let the others try it too, so we all got to drink straight from a real mountain spring that we found ourselves. It was pretty sweet. But yea we kept going down and down and down, and it really looked like we were gonna miss our ferry. We got probably 200 yards from the bottom and it looked like the road we were on was just going to continue on forever away from the part of the beach we needed to get to. Looking down, we couldn't see anywhere where it curled back under us to a lower point. So it was at this point that I realized we were going to have to just climb down the rest of the way through the woods off the beaten path. Luckily by this point we were basically at the foot of the mountain so it wasn't steep at all. We found a little stone wall that cut through the woods back away from the road and towards our dock through a little clearing, so we decided to follow it. It kind of looked like there was a path there. So I was leading the way, and everything seemed fine, when apparently we got to the point where we crossed back over our little mountain stream, and all of the sudden my right leg is knee deep in mud, literally. It seriously came out of nowhere, so I lost my balance stepping into the mud. So I stuck out my other leg, which also went knee deep in mud, and I was still of balance. So I try to yank my first leg out of the mud to regain my balance, and I do, but my shoe stayed behind in the mud. So now just my socked foot is knee deep in the mud. I have a minor freak out, grab my shoe, and Spiderman it up about 10 feet up the mountain. It was drier up there, and I could see the stream isolated in a single flow. Apparently it just forms this muddy bog at the very bottom. But then they're freaking out behind me and are like, we can't go that way! We have to turn back! While I'm trying to explain to them that if they just come up 10 feet up the mountain they'll be fine, and they can just step over the little stream. Finally I convince them all, and we make it down to the lake, and go around a little cliff to the dock. We were basically right on time, but apparently the ferry was late. So I'm still covered in mud at this point, so I just trudge around in the lake up to my knees for a little bit. The mud pretty much comes right out, but then I'm soaking wet. The ferry finally gets there about 10 minutes late though, and we head back to Keswick. Our bus from Keswick to Penrith left at 2:15. The ferry was supposed to be back at 2. But it was late, so it got back to the dock around 2:10ish. Then this stupid woman in front of us let the entire front half of the ferry, about 100 people, get off before her. No one is that polite you crazy lady! So it was 2:15 as we got off the ferry. For some reason we decide we can still make it to the bus in time, about a mile away on the other side of the city. So I take off sprinting as fast as I can. But then I have no idea where the bus station is, so I would go a block, turn around and look for Linsey who'd point the way, and then continue. Then I see the bus. We weren't even at the bus station, it was just stopped at a stop sign; it had totally already left. I don't even know how I knew, because it didn't have a sign, but I knew it was our bus. So I just ran up to it like a mad man and the bus driver opened the door. I asked him if the bus was going to Penrith, he said yes. I was like, well can we still get on? He said yes. Chelsea and Linsey had been running the whole way with me, so they were standing outside the bus with me at that point. So I was like, what about our other 3 friends? They're just behind us, can you wait like 1 minute for them? And he was like, ok 1 minute, that's it. They were all dead tired (so were we but whatever) so they had all been walking. So they were, well, more than a minute behind us. So Linsey called them and told them they had no choice to run. I went back down to the street we had come from, where the bust driver could see me, but he couldn't see down that street. I started waving my hands and being like, "Come on guys, hurry up!" They were nowhere in sight though. I just wanted the bus driver to think they were almost there. Then Linsey and Chelsea started buying their tickets to delay a little more, and I think they payed in all change or something to buy us a few seconds. Then I went back over to where we had come from and waved my arms all over again, but this time I really could see them so they were almost there. I could tell the bus driver was kind of mad, but we managed to delay him enough to get us all on the bus. I though I was gonna pass out from all that running. And I was still soaking wet. So that day was intense. Like the circus.Then Monday we had high table dinner like always. I was rocking the crazy tie.
Another day that week we went to Jamie's Italian Restaurant. Jamie Oliver's restaurant. He's on the Food Network or something, I don't know. I knew it was going to be a rip off but all my friends wanted to go so I figured I might as well. It was decorated weirdly.
Everything there was expensive, like I knew it would be. So I got a buffalo burger, like they have at Ted's for 8 or 9 bucks. Except I paid 11 pounds, so $22. I bought a $22 burger. I never thought that would happen. It didn't even come with any sides, like chips or something. Just the burger, $22. Insane. I could have gotten 22 double cheeseburgers from McDonalds. One burger, or 22 burgers...sorry Jamie. It was pretty good I'll admit, but I've had better and paid less.
Then Friday we went to see Stonehenge. We saw this cool hillfort on the bus ride there.
There were lots of burial mounds around there too.
Then, Stonehenge itself. The mother of all really cool rocks. Those rocks are oollddddd.
The zoom on my camera is deceiving. Sadly, this is how far away we really had to stay:
And there were a bunch more burial mounds on the way back.
Then we took a train straight from Salsbury to London, our last trip of the...well...trip. We walked around London a little, saw Big Ben again.
And Trafalgar square.
Then we went to ride this:
The London Eye. The biggest ferris wheel I've ever seen. Tallest one in Europe for that matter, and until 2 years ago was the tallest in the world. Still the tallest in the Western world though. 443 feet. Over twice as tall as Acrophobia at Six Flags.
Apprehensive smiles; we're all slightly terrified of heights.
Once it going though it really wasn't that bad. It felt more like watching a movie than actually being suspended way up in the air. And the views were again really sweet.
Then we walked down the boardwalk alongside the Thames. We went a long way. Shakespeare's Globe Theater. It's a replica of a reconstruction of the actual thing. And we just saw a little bit of the outside. So we got like 3% of the essence of Shakepeare's actual theatre.
Sweet sunset over the Thames.
That was pretty much it for that night. We all stayed in a hotel in London that night. It had like a double bed and there were 8 of us I think, so 4 of us slept on the floor. But it was way cheaper. I didn't do a whole lot in London the next day. We just walked around and sat around some more. It was kind of lame and kind of a waste of time, but I still got to spend time with my friends so no worries. Then Monday of course is High Table dinner all over again. We also had group pictures before dinner for the whole program, so everyone dressed up extra nice.
I am so the man, all over again.
Then I found out I had to actually sit at High Table. With like all the professors and stuff. They pick random students every week to be the next victim, and I thought I had made it through as one of the lucky ones that didn't have to go to high table. Just my luck though, I got called to the very last one. I sat next to my Shakespeare professor, Dr. Dutton, and some random person I don't know. So I talked to Dr. Dutton the whole time. It wasn't too bad. I like Dr. Dutton and she's really smart, so we has some really good conversation. I still would have rather sat with my friends, but I guess all in all it was a good experience, and it could have been worse.
So that was the last high table. The next couple days were spent finishing up my last Shakespeare paper, so not much interesting happened. Then we had one last night, Thursday before we left, free, so we all hung out for one last hoorah. Here's almost everyone in Brittany's room hanging out:Lauren, Brian, and Hillary
Linsey
Brittany
and Chelsea
Not pictured is Sarah, JT, and Mary Beth. Sara just hadn't gotten there yet. JT and Mary Beth both still had more papers to write, because they were in evil Dr. Trivedi's class, so they were absent most of the night till later. But we went out for a night on the town, and about 50 UGA students all went together to this club called The Bridge and had one last dance.
And that was pretty much it. We packed up the next morning and got on the bus and got on the plane and went home. Sad times.I miss it already, but it's also good to be home. I missed my friends and family, and my dog, and American food. Hopefully one day I'll be able to go back, and now I'm reconsidering grad school in hopes that maybe I could study at Oxford.
And I'm happy to say I'm now finished with this blog. It was important, because I needed to keep track of everything that happened over there, and I'm sure a lot of other people want to know what all went down, but it was a pain in the butt to update this thing. So now I end with the blog post to end all blog posts. Except maybe one more after we have picture swap, but I'm not putting words in that one, just pictures.
I leave you with one final picture. The most epic picture of all. So epic, it's...
SHEPIC
(Photo credit: Brian Miller)
