Taking a Break

I've got a ton of stuff to do with school right now as the last 2 weeks wind down, so I probably won't be able to post any more blogs while I'm in England. It just takes me too much time to get it all up, and I'm worried it may hurt my grades if I don't have enough time to focus on my papers. So far the grades are ok, so no worries, but these last 2 weeks are going to be really intense and I just don't think I'll have the time to spare. But fret not, as soon as I get back in the States I'll get everything up and let you all know what all else I've been up to. So this will probably be it until then, although perhaps I may get the chance to do one or two more posts before then.

Day 21

Saturday we walked around Edinburgh some more and did some shopping and just looking around.




One thing I loved about Edinburgh were the buskers (street musicians). There were a lot more of them in Edinburgh, and they were certainly the most talented there. There were a ton of bagpipe players in kilts (although there were many buskers playing other instruments as well) and they were really awesome. This guy in particular was really good. People kept going up to take pictures with him while he was playing.

I of course waited until he was finished playing to get my picture with him, because I'm not an inconsiderate tard.
Then there was one of those living statue street performers. He wasn't cool though. Just creepy.

Then we went to Edinburgh Castle itself, which was amazing. It was so huge, and there was a ton to see inside.

The main gate.

Through a peep whole in the wall.

A miniature of the castle.

The Naval War Memorial

Pet cemetery for officers' dogs.

There were a few museums and stuff inside the castle too.

They had an example helmet/chainmail neck piece. Of course I had to try it on.

So the castle pretty much took all day, but it was totally amazing and totally worth it. Then we wondered around for a while trying to find some place to eat.

After a while we gave up because we couldn't find anything, and started heading back to the other side of the city where Doctors is, because we knew that was good and not too expensive. About a block away however, we found Greyfriar Bobbys, and ate there instead. It had pretty much the exact same menu as The Eagle and Child back in Oxford. I think they must be owned by the same company. It was really good though, and there was a good atmosphere, and it wasn't overwhelmingly expensive. I had steak and ale pie again.

Then a few of us decided to head back to the hostel a little early, while the other half of the group went to go check out some pubs. I had 2 essays to write that were due Monday, so I definitely had to go back and get to work. We ended up going back to the same hostel we had stayed at the night before. We had reservations at a different one, but it was more expensive, and someone we knew had stayed there the night before and we found out it was even worse than the one we were already at. We had originally booked it simply because it was the only vacancy. But when I found out how bad it was, even being more expensive, I decided to go ask the guy at our hostel if there was any possible way there was room for us the next night as well. He said there was, but that it'd be complicated. So we ended up doing that, but most of us had to sleep in rooms by ourselves with 7 strangers, which was kinda scary. I had 2 others of our group in my room, but there were still 5 other strangers in there. But I think even though we got to stay together, us 3 had it the worst because we had the worst roommates. We got in at around 8 pm, and they were all already asleep. There was water all over the floor, and they had their wet clothes draped all over the place to dry. Two of them snored like grizzly bears, and one of them had an air pump running sitting outside his bed, with a tube going in (the beds have curtains around them, so we don't really know what that tube was attached to.) So it was pretty dodgy. Plus, you're sheets are supposed to come in a bag, which the laundry people put them in. My sheets were already on the bed, which meant they hadn't been washed since the last person. So I slept in my clothes. Again.

But before we went to the cafeteria to do homework till bed time, we went out to the water behind our hostel. We hadn't even noticed it the first night because we didn't get to the hostel till after dark, but the second night we realized our hostel was right on the Firth of Forth. So we went down to the rocks going up to the water.

So that was a pretty sweet little freebie we didn't know we'd get to see. Apparently the tide comes all the way up that at some point, because there was all kinds of sea creatures still alive on the rocks. The barnacles on this rock were like making noise and stuff...it was kinda crazy.
We tried to stay till sunset, but the sun stays out until like 10pm here, and it was getting really cold and windy, and we all had homework to do. So we had to go in, and after some hard work on the essays we went to bed with our creepy roommates. That was it for Saturday.

Oxford Days 17-20

So it has been a really long time since I've updated because I've been really busy, and then we went to Scotland for the weekend so I was without a computer for 3 days. Then I had two papers due yesterday which has delayed me further. But I've got some free time now, so I'll relate the happenings of last week up to Friday, since I last left off with high table dinner last Monday.

Tuesday, nothing really happened. I had my romanticism class, and that was about it. Did a lot of homework and just hanging around.

Wednesday my friend Ashley from back home came to visit us in Oxford. She had studied abroad in London for an entire semester while she was at Berry College. Now she has graduated and moved on into the real world, so for her first vacation she went to London for a week to catch up with all the friends she made while studying abroad there. So since I was over here too, she took a day trip to Oxford to see the sites. I showed her pretty much all the same stuff that our tour guide showed wayyyyyyy back at the beginning of the trip, but it was pretty cool. We went and saw the Ashmolean Museum, the oldest museum in Great Britain. I hadn't seen it yet even though it's right here in Oxford and has free admission, so that was really cool. We also went to the Eagle and Child for lunch, which Ashley had obviously never experienced before. She got the magic fish and chips and I got the steak and ale pie (which I have since decided is my favorite English meal). Then when we were leaving there was this film crew right outside the Eagle and Child filming some movie or something. We stood and watched for a while, and it was pretty cool, but we didn't see any famous people, so we think it may have just been a BBC tv show or something. We had heard that they film a lot of stuff in Oxford though (like a lot of scenes from the Harry Potter movies, although personally I can't stand those movies so that means nothing to me), but we had never seen any before. So that was pretty sweet. We also went to the science museum in Oxford, also free, where Albert Einstein supposedly once gave a lecture. There were like 8 million microscopes in there, so for the most part it was kind of boring and repetitive, but there were a few really cool things worth seeing. Then we mostly chilled till time for another disappointing dinner at the Trinity dining hall, and then went out to the King's Arms so Ashley could have a real Oxford pub experience. Then Ashley went back to London to hang out with her native friends some more.

Thursday was uneventful for the most part. Had my Shakespeare class, hung out, studied. It was still a really good day though.

Friday, we got up at 5 am to get ready and catch our 6:30 train to Edinburgh! It was so early, and I was so tired, but I was so pumped for Scotland I only got about 45 minutes of sleep on the 6 hour train ride up there. So I struggled a little on that train ride, it was kind of rough. Plus I am too tall for this country. Apparently Brits do not normally reach 6 feet tall or something, because I'm always having to duck under low hanging tree limbs and through doors. The worst is on trains and buses though, because I have nowhere to put my legs. Its not that it's just cramped, it's that I physically cannot fit my legs in my seat. So I usually end up sprawled uncomfortably in some weird way. Not fun.

But then we got to Edinburgh, and it is AMAZING! It's by far my favorite thing we've done since we got here. The city itself is just amazing, and it seems like there are way more really old buildings that just haven't even been touched than in any other city we've been in.




Then there's this crazy William Wallace street performer guy. He donates all the money he gets on the street to charity, and lives off of royalties from all these souvenirs with a picture of his butt hanging out of a kilt.
So after just wandering around a bit, we went to the National Museum of Scotland.

There are all these goofy little green signs all over the UK with different little pictures on them for different stuff. I just find the picture of the old people all hunched over on here amusing.

I wish they still made shirts like this, it would be awesome.

Old curling stuff...the coolest sport ever.

The weirdest candle of all time.

The group at the museum. We also met Jake, as you can see in the picture here, mullet and all. He is 4, but soon he will be 5, and then he will go to school. Who knows where his parents are...

Chelsea if she were a shipbuilder...

Then we went up on top of the museum for a nice view of the city.





Edinburgh Castle.



Keep this picture in mind...we'll get back to it later.
Then back inside the museum.

After the museum we went to Doctors Pub for dinner. I got a steak and ale pie and it was amazing. We were there for like 2 and a half hours because that's how long it took us to eat all the food they gave us. Then, after we were practically pregnant on pub food, we decided it would be a good idea to climb a mountain. Arthur's Seat is the highest peak of the hills in Holyrood Park, right in the middle of the city of Edinburgh. It's pretty insane to see all these buildings and streets and city life and then this mountain just jump out in front of you.

This is just the first little ridge we had to walk around to get to Arthur's Seat.


A view of the Scotland Monument from the path up the hill.

Climbing down into the valley to reach the way up. Brittany fell. She falls a lot. Outside the Danson Room, outside Blackwell's, outside the train station...you get the picture.

The peak itself. A loonngg way from the top.

A sweet view of the lake as we enter the valley that we climb up through to the top.
Ruins of St. Anthony's Chapel. I'll get back to that later, because we stopped and explored it on the way back down.
Had to take a break before we even started climbing...it was a long walk from the pub to the bottom of the mountain, and all that food was getting to us.
On the way up the views just jump out at you, and it's kind of mind blowing. Unfortunately pictures do not even come close to doing it justice, and words even less so. Anyone that really wants to understand will have to travel to Edinburgh to see it for themselves.
About a quarter of the way up. The bottom is around that bend and to the left a pretty good ways.

Then we came up to a little plataeu and could see out between the two peaks to our left over the Firth of Forth. It just jumps out at you from behind the mountain out of nowhere, so amazing. And then there's this huge rainbow spewing out of what appears to be a pyramid in the distance...kind of mind blowing.

Still climbing though.
More rainbow-pyramid from higher up.
Looking out in the other direction over the countryside.

Then finally, we're at the top of the world.

It was with out a doubt the most amazing thing I've ever experienced in my entire life. Nothing else even comes close. I could have stayed up there forever. I won't even try to describe what it was like, because I'm not that good of a poet yet. Maybe in a few years I'll know what words to use.

The wind was blowing about a thousand miles an hour. I was scared if I took my bookbag off I would be blown off the peak.Then here of course is the most epic picture in the world. It should be a poster for a movie or something. This is the closest thing I've found to conveying the awesomeness of being up there, although still insufficient.
The ground is like solid rock, and it's an extinct volcano. So I guess every time it rains, the water has nowhere to go and it just forms these little pools.
The very tip top peak. Holding on for dear life. It seriously felt like the wind could blow you off, and behind us there is a pretty sheer cliff.

Then finally we started heading down.
Forget walking though. I'm rolling.
I was kind of afraid I wouldn't be able to stop though.

-Hey it's Easter! The day Jesus rose from the dead! What should we do?
-How 'bout eggs?
-What? What does that have to do with Jesus?
-Alright, we'll hide 'em.
-I don't follow your logic...
-Don't worry, there's a bunny.

That was Jim Gaffigan by the way, the patron saint of UGA at Oxford summer '08.
Then we went back and checked out St. Anthony's Chapel ruins.

Then we saw this cave I was climbing down there to check it out and I saw a guy's arm hanging out of it so I ran away because I was not expecting that. From another hill we could see him in his blue sleeping bag though. The homeless man in the cave. Insane.

We conquered it.

So that was it. We were dead tired, so we headed back to the hostel to pass out. It was pretty gross, but from what I understand it was really clean by hostel standards. We had a whole room to ourselves since we had enough people, so we didn't have to meet any random crack heads, so that was nice. The sheets came in a little plastic bag, and when I opened mine there was a blood stain on it. So I put my sheets on inside out. And slept in my clothes. Also, hostel bathrooms=bad news. I'll update Saturday, Sunday, and Monday later.