A Scottish Weekend

I still have yet to catch up on sleep from this weekend, but Scotland was awesome! As our first trip to be planned and travelled on our own out of England it was a big success (the next step is getting out of the UK).

Lisa, Katie, Lexie and I left for the Victoria Bus Station after class late Thursday afternoon, eager to start our trip, especially after some major tube delays had us taking longer to get there than we originally hoped. However, thanks to foresight, we left early and arrived at the bus station with plenty of time to spare. Our bus was scheduled to leave at 4:30pm and arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland at 1:30am. Yes, you did the math right--that is 9 hour bus ride. Let me just pause to say that the bus route was not my idea. Interestingly enough, a 9-hour bus ride is not my idea of a good time. I was fully supportive of paying the extra money to take a train which gets you there in 4 1/2 hours, but I was out-voted. Politics suck. And in the ultimate cliche of really long trips via public transportation, there was a baby at the back of the bus who cried for an impressive five-hours straight while it's mother looked on without doing much to alleviate whatever was causing it discomfort. Star-parent award right there. Ranting aside though, the bus ride honestly wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Perhaps my expectations of it were just so low initially anything could've surpassed them. And it helps when you have an I-pod and friends.

We got into Edinburgh around 2 in the morning and took a taxi to our hostel which was on a side street just off The Royal Mile. The taxi driver was really nice, naming a bunch of places we should see and things we should do, but as soon as he started talking, I realized exactly what it was about Scottish accents that people warn you about--It might as well be another language for all that you understand the first time around. We had to ask him to repeat things several times, though we eventually got what he was saying. Soon after, we checked into our hotel, bleary-eyed and tired, and made our way to our room. The hostel itself wasn't too bad (even so it made our flats look like 5 star-hotels), though we didn't realize we were in a mixed dorm and spent much of the night being kept awake by the monstrous snoring of the old guy already asleep in one of the beds on the far side of the room. (Don't freak out mom, it was completely fine). For those of you who know Maggie and the snoring she is capable of--let me just say that this man's snoring made her's seem like normal breathing. It was that loud. And all I could think to myself as I lay in my bed with my pillow pressed over my ears was at least I can poke Maggie and tell her to be quiet. Needless to say, we were up and ready to leave at 8:30 in the morning.

Our first stop, or stops I should say, were made as we walked along the Royal Mile where we got our first look at Scotland in the daylight. The Royal Mile was like no other place I've been before. Built on the tail of an old volcano, the area that makes up the Royal Mile is a beautiful blend of Gothic and Renassiance architecture with an eclectic mix of pubs, shops, market stalls, and people. The whole place has such an aura of the history that surrounds it, it's impossible not to be captivated by it. We wandered slowly up the hill trying to take it all in as we headed towards Edinburgh Castle, even passing a bag-piper whose music added to the ambiance of the whole place.

Once we got to the Castle, we naturally took a couple of pictures, expecially at the edge where you got a great view of the city and outlying mountains. We walked as far into the castle as we could though we ended up not taking the tour as it was a bit on the pricey side. After getting our fill of the castle, we walked to the other end of the Royal Mile that opens up into Holyrood Park. At the end of the road, the hills rise up, including Arthur's Seat which we set our sights on to climb. It was definitely a hike, and a steep one at that, but for me it was great. The hills were beautiful, even in the gray, misty morning, veined with random little foot-paths that criss-crossed all over the valleys and peaks to offer you the best views of the city.

 

 

 Once we reached the plateau-like peak of the first hill, a shorter, though much steeper and rocker climb, led to the top of Arthur's Seat. Due to a mutual fear of heights, none of the other girls wanted to go further, so adventurer that I am, I decided to take on the last part myself. And boy was it worth it! The view from the very top was incredible. Even with the clouds you could see for miles with the city spread out far below.

 

I easily could've spent all day hiking to the various look-outs in the hills, but after our hike everyone, including myself, decided it was time to start seeking out lunch. We grabbed lunch at a cute little pub near the Royal Mile and then spent more time wandering around through the many streets and closes of Edinburgh to see what we could see. (We also paused at a home-made short-bread and toffee store where the owner and baker bakes everything in a little oven along the back wall fresh everyday. Everyone bought something different so we could try everything and it was delicious!) After all of the walking we decided to stop at a little cafe called Patisserie Valerie for some tea and dessert. I got my first real cup of English Breakfast Tea, which I am now addicted to, and a small slice of chocolate mousse. Yum! That night consisted of more walking around and hanging at a couple of pubs and bars to get an experience of the nightlife though we headed back around midnight as all of us were exhausted.

Luckily, the old guy was gone and replaced with a very nice girl from Italy who did not snore, so we all got a bit more sleep that night. (Needless to say from now on we will be quadruple-checking that we have selected an all-female room.) The next morning Lisa's two friends left to head back to England while Lisa and I continued on to meet up with a girl from her sorority who also happened to be in Edinburgh.

Along with her two friends, we made our way to the Scott Monument, set in Princes Street Gardens, that you can climb to the top of to see a 360 panoramic view of the city. (Much of this trip seemed to consist of climbing things.) The Scott Monument for those who do not know is a Victorian Gothic momument to Scottish author Sir Walter Scott. It's 200 feet tall with a series of viewing platforms, the tallest of which requires the person to climbed 287 steps on the narrowest spiral staircase you can imagine. (You actually get a certificate verifying you climbed to the top). After what seemed like an endless, dizzying spiral, we all reached the top. Just like the view from the mountains, this view too was breath-taking, with a fantastic picture of Edinburgh Castle.

We then had lunch in the Princes Street Garden, where Lisa and I met up with our friend from high school, Laura, who is studying this semester at the University of Glasgow. It was actually kind of funny to all be together in Edinburgh, Scotland, like finding a little piece of home unexpectedly. We spent the rest of the day with Laura and her friends, walking around more of the city and pausing to buy little souvenirs. (I got a unique, little hand-made clockwork necklace from a street vendor if anyone is curious.) Later on in the evening, after Laura got on a bus to go home, Lisa and I headed to have dinner before our own bus left.

And this might have been one of my favorite parts of the trip too. Why you ask? What's so special about dinner? Well, we got to have dinner at the very cafe where J.K. Rowling first wrote Harry Potter! This was a very big deal for me as though of you who understand my love for Harry Potter know. It was beyond cool to eat and sit where one of the biggest literary phenomenons of all time first began. Though for the most part, the cafe looked like a normal little cozy cafe with an abnormally large collection of elephants (It's called The Elephant House), there was a board where there were pictures and articles from when she was writing and the bathrooms were all graffitied with Harry Potter quotes. And the food was great too!!

And so with our dinner finished and another item checked off my bucket list, Lisa and I headed back to the bus station to go home.

Buckingham Palace

Today was me and Lisa's first Adventure Wednesday. (Adventure Wednesdays have been so named since Lisa and I both have them off from classes and have decided to use them to have an adventure around London each week.) And what better way to start than by taking a tour of Buckingham Palace?! Especially since it's been exactly 60 years since the Queen's Coronation. Because a bunch of our other friends finished classes at 1:00, our whole group booked a tour for 3:00pm, stopping to grab lunch on the way. (Lisa and I both had very delicious prosciutto and mozzerella cheese paninis on fresh focaccia bread from a great cafe across the street from school that we will most definitely be returning to.)

In any case, we made our way on the tube to the Palace. To be quite honest, from the outside that we could see, the Palace looks like a lot of other grand buildings. (I know what you're thinking--don't grand buildings look, well, grand?) But it's the inside that's truly spectacular. Prior to entering the Palace we had to go through "airport security" and recieve little audio tour packs that we could listen to as we walked through the 19 State rooms that make up the tour. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed to be taken inside, so I will do my very best to describe the highlights of the tour.

As we walked down the first hallway, our little audio tour guide narrated some astonishing facts about the Palace--like the fact that it has 775 rooms which include 19 State rooms, 52 Royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices and 78 bathrooms! I still can't comprehend the true size of this place considering the measly 19 rooms we saw were absolutely huge! The hallway led to an outdoor view of the quadrangle where we we listened to the description of the procession of carriages on the Queen's Coronation Day in 1953 and how the Palace and quadrangle area has changed over the last 250 years or so.

Once we returned inside, we were able to look into the Grand Hall, which was incredible, though all of the rooms we saw were. It was a huge space, the main area sunk slightly into the ground, with large bouquets of flowers everywhere, big marble coloumns, rich, elaborate funishings, bright windows and a big fireplace on the far side. After trying to take in this magnificent room, we turned to walk up the Grand Staircase which split into two as it curved upwards. The hallway of the staircase was adorned with these massive and beautiful old paintings. From there we walked a bit farther until we reached the Throne Room. Yet another gorgeous room, this one had a huge domed cieling that was decorated with a repeating pattern of shields that represented the three main parts of the United Kingdom: Great Britain, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Huge windows with silk curtains lined the right side of the room and at the far side, on a raised dias, were the two thrones made specifically for the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. Along the hall were also pictures and video footage from the actual Coronation Day that we paused to look at.

Next, we entered the Art Gallery, a extensive hallway completely covered in beautiful, original Old Master's paintings that make up an important part of the Royal Collection. We spent some time admiring the paintings before moving on to a room where a screen projection allowed us to watch select parts of the Coronation at Westminster Abbey. Watching it, it was hard for us to imagine what it must have been like to be a part of something like that, or to even have been alive to see it on television or hear about it on the radio. Seeing this black and white film of the young Queen, the Archbishop, and all of the other nobility dressed in specially designed royal attire and to think it began and ended in the very Palace, in some of the very rooms we were walking through, didn't seem quite real. And in the next room, we were able to view the actual dress and Coronation Robe that the Queen wore that day 60 years ago. According to one sign, the robe was hand woven and took 18 seamstresses 3,500 hours to make! I'd personally like to tell them that they did an amazing job, because to this day it still looks magnificent. But still, even looking at the Robe, as well as her tiara, dress, and other artifacts from that day, it didn't seem it was real. It was a bit like looking at very unique props from a movie. And not in a bad way necessarily, but it was difficult for the whole experience to really sink in since something such as that is truly so removed from our lives that we've only experienced it through movies and storybooks.

In any case, it was still amazing! The next room we entered was the Dining Hall which housed a few tables that were set the way they had been on the Coronation Day. All I could think was that if I sat there I wouldn't know which glass was for what and which fork or knife I was supposed to use first. Next was the Music Room where four Royal babies - The Prince of Wales, The Princess Royal, The Duke of York and Prince William - were all christened by the Archbishop of Canterbury. There were a couple more rooms we passed through, to be honest I can't remember the names of all of them, but I can tell you that literally every room is decorated and crafted to the first degree from floor to cieling to furnishing. It was unbelievable to imagine this place actually being someone's home. One of the last rooms we went through was the White Drawing Room, which was especialy pretty and which housed a secret door behind a huge mirror/fireplace that leads back to the Queen's private rooms of the Palace. (Yes everyone wanted to go see, but no one actually tried.) Like many of the rooms there was also a number of chandeliers, but one of them was so low Lisa suggested I try and touch it. I probably could've, but strangely enough British prison was not on my to-do list.

Finally, we walked the Marble Room which was lined with original marble scultpures before we came back outside. We were allowed to take pictures here, so we snapped a couple of group pics before walking a path through the south side of the gardens that led back outside the palace gates. Since I had yet to see the "tourist" view of Buckingham Palace, Lisa, Katie, Megan, and I walked around to the front where the Victoria Memorial stands to take more pictures.

I'm still reeling from the fact that we were able to take a tour, especially since it's only open for a limited time. It was so cool to be able to not only see the State rooms, but to also hear about how Buckingham Palace came to be how it now from rather sporadic additions since 1703 when it was originally Buckhingham House. And it's even crazier to imagine that it's actually a working building that is essentially the centerpiece of the monarchy when it so easy to think it of it as a musuem. Completely worth the trip and an excellent Adenture Wednesday!

So did you feel like you were there? Did I include enough? I apologize for the long-post, but I myself didn't want to forget anything haha. This is where I end for the day! Oh, and if anyone is curious I was able to switch my horrifying Psych class for a much more interesting (hopefully) Culturalism class that my friend Lisa is also taking. The other two classes I have attended so far (Media Transformations and Women, Gender, and Power) seem like they will be a good fit, and I'm looking forward to Creative Writing About London tomorrow! (I also did laundry for the first time today at the laundromat down the street, but that is a story for another time.) Goodnight!

Oh Right, We're Here to Study

So today began the first day of classes. It's been so long since I've gone to school, I nearly forgot we were here to study as well as travel and have the time of our lives. Luckily for me, I only had one class today (did I also mention I have Wednedays and Fridays off?) which was my Introduction to Cognition, Learning, and Personality class. Unluckily for me, I believe I will be dropping this class and attempting to swap it for a different one. Having taken psychology classes before at Stonehill and enjoying them, I thought I would like taking a psych elective abroad. Bad idea. The first 1/3 of the teaching material is neuroscience which is most definitely not my forte. Even Maddie, who is in my class and actually a Psychology Major, shot me a look of disblief and confusion halfway through the lecture. She too is attempting to drop the class. So begins a week of trying to get Stonehill to approve my back-up courses so I do not have to suffer through this one--this is an adventure in itself and should be quite interesting. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Other than that, today was quite uneventful. Nothing much to write about. However, me, Lisa, and two of Lisa's friends did book a trip to Scotland this weekend!!! Now I have something to look forward to, and I can't wait for Thursday!

Borough Market and Hyde Park

So this blog will mostly be about yesterday since I didn’t have time to write yesterday and we didn’t do all that much today. Yesterday was actually a really nice day here, sunny and warm, so we thought we would take advantage of the nice weather and go to one of London’s famous markets: Borough Market. The Borough Market lies near the bank of the Thames and is massive—much bigger than any of us thought it was going to be.

Borough Market

There were dozens of stalls selling everything from desserts to fruit and fish and beef to jarred preserves. We did a walk through once trying to take it all in, exclaiming over nearly every stall selling all kinds of delicious looking food. My friend Megan and I stopped by a stall selling fresh-pressed fruit juices and got a bottle each. Mine was apple and raspberry and it was great! I want to go back just so I can get more. 

First Bratwurst!

After we had walked through the whole market, we thought we might as well get lunch since this would be a perfect place for it. Megan and I were on the same wave-length again and stopped at a German stall selling these massive bratwursts—another great decision since they were delicious.  We ate in the courtyard of the nearby cathedral, Southwark Cathedral—one of the oldest cathedrals in London which was a perfect setting for lunch by the market-side. And after lunch we all thought we might as well make the experience and meal complete and grabbed some dessert from another one of the stalls. 

Southwark Cathedral

Dessert stall!

Though we stayed at the market late into the afternoon it was too early and too nice to go back so Emma, me, Lisa, and Lisa’s friends headed to Hyde Park. I need to find other words besides beautiful to describe things, but that’s what Hyde Park was. We walked through the Rose Garden first and with all of the flowers in full bloom and the sun shining down with barely a cloud in the sky; it could not have been a more perfect for it. 

We sat near a fountain for a while before continuing to walk and happening on the giant pond where you can rent paddle boats and canoes. There were also a ton of birds—pigeons, swans, geese, ducks, and a bunch of other water fowl that I couldn’t name—and they are fearless. You can literally walking within six inches of them and they won’t move. And pigeons here have no sympathy for your personal space—they will fly within centimeters of your head. But we took the path that runs along the side of the pond and walked all the way around before taking a different branch and making our way back to Oxford Circus as the sun began to set. Emma and I want to go back to Hyde Park to ride bikes soon—or on the next nice day, whichever comes first. 

Hyde Park with Lisa!

Today wasn’t as exciting or nice. It was cloudy and a little misty again. This weekend is London’s Open House weekend where a bunch of places that aren’t usually open to the public are open for free tours so Emma, Megan, and I tried to hit as many places as we could. Unfortunately, every place we went to had lines that were miles long and not moving. We tried St. Paul’s Cathedral, The Gherkin, and Tower 42, but we weren’t successful at any of them and after hours of walking around we decided to cut our losses and go back to the dorms to hang out instead, which turned out to be fine as everyone was tired and was content to just sit and talk anyway.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Today was another rainy day in London so my friend Emma and I decided it would be a good day to  explore some of the free art galleries and museums that London has to offer. Our first destination was the Kenwood House which dates from the early 17th Century and boasts a small but very unique collection of Old Master paintings. Unfortunately, after the trek that it takes to actually reach the house, we discovered that it was closed for major renovations. Not only was this disappointing because of the time it took to get there, but the outside of the house, or mansion might be a more appropriate word, was beautiful and looked like it would have been awesome to walk around.

Part of the grounds at Kenwood House

Had it been nicer, we would have spent some time walking the grounds as the house sits atop a hill that overlooks some beautiful paths and ponds, and the surrounding area had some cool trails through the woods, but as it was rainy and cold with the wind spitting water in our faces under our hoods, we decided that we might have to count this little adventure as a loss.

We began the journey back to Central London, turning our hopes on the next place on our list: The Wallace Collection. The Wallace Collection, which is held in an beautiful old house, sits across from Manchester Square and has a world-famous range of arts and furniture from the 15-19th centuries. Luckily, once we got there we were delighted to see that it was in fact open, so we took our time walking through the 25 different art galleries. 

 

Emma and I at the Wallace Collection

My favorite room

To say the place was beautiful is an understatement. I'm not sure I could accurately or fairly describe all of the unique pieces of furniture, everything from chandeliers to couches and pianos to clocks, or magnificent old paintings that took up nearly every inch of available wall space. It's no wonder that Richard Wallace's widow requested that no piece ever leave the collection. We walked slowly through the rooms and the strange respectful hush that usually comes with walking through museums and art galleries, admiring all of the pieces and taking pictures of our favorites. As I said before, I don't think I could truly describe everything we saw so I will let my pictures do my  talking for me. 

 

The first art gallery collection

Painting paintings everywhere

I loved this clock

After we had finished walking through the house, we headed back to our dorm, happy that at least one of the places had not only worked out but was totally worth going to see. We quickly stopped by the grocery store to pick up ingredients for the first dinner we could actually cook because we finally got actual pots and pans. Dinner this evening was chicken, mangoes, and broccoli over a bed of brown rice (shout-out to Aunt Re for introducing this to me) with a side of lightly seasoned zucchini and green beans. Yes, abroad-life dinners are classy. Afterwards, because we were feeling so accomplished (and still hungry...) Emma and I decided to run back to the grocery store across the street and pick up a mini Belgian chocolate cake that we topped with some raspberries. To say that this was the highlight of the night was an understatement--it was probably the best decision we made all day. And if you're not jealous of just the thought of it, I will end this post with a nice picture of said cake: