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.