London Calling...

As most of you know, I fly in 9.5 hours, so I thought it was time to write one last blog. Maybe there will be a post-trip entry, but who knows?

You may have heard that my trip to Paris, Berlin, Rome, and Munich was canceled due to a forgotten passport and miscommunication, but all was not lost. Instead, I went on a trip to London and Dublin by myself. While we are still somewhat on the topic of bad news, I'll get this tidbit out of the way. Dublin did  not go so well. I was sick the entire time and never made it past TESCO (grocery store) which was about a 2 minutes walk from the hostel I was staying in. But that was the end of the trip. Here is the good stuff: the beginning.

I fell in love with London.

Before this trip, I never understood how someone could be "in love" with a city. I now understand. For me, it was a combination of circumstances which will be explained in due course. Tuesday afternoon, I officially decided to leave for London Wednesday morning. 2 of my Spanish friends have been to London and also really, really like it so they were telling me stuff to do and see and how to work the Tube (underground rail system). I was given a little Spanish guide book with a map of the city with some tourist attractions and a map of the underground, and I was off on my own.

The 7ish hour train ride was beautiful. The sun was shining and there was blue sky the whole way. I had a window seat and my journal to write in, and I was set for the journey. Important to note, I boarded the train to King's Cross Station in Edinburgh on Platform 9! I knew within an hour of my journey that this trip was going to be amazing!!

I arrived at King's X, found some food, and then figured out how to work the Tube which isn't too complicated. I have been known to get lost once or twice before but never once during my stay in London was I lost. The Tube is very easy to figure out; you just follow the flow of people :) On my third day in London, a lady asked me a question about the Tube and I was able to answer her question. I felt like so good about myself!

After I found my way down to the Tube, I made my way to my hostel which is one of the factors that made my stay so great in London. There were quite a few people who were staying there long term. People had been at the hostel anywhere from 6 months to a couple weeks. They were very welcoming and even invited me to dinner that night! It was great spending my nights in the basement playing pool and listening to everyone talk. People were there for a variety of reasons, some for school, but many to work and improve their English.

On Thursday, I went to Bath and met my friend Nick who is from UNI and studied in Wales this semester. Even though it was raining, it was beautiful. I was so glad that I was able to go. Bath is where Jane Austen spent time and many of her novels have her characters going to Bath to socialize. It is also where the Roman Baths are located.

Friday, I started my tour of London. I started in Kensington Garden which is where the palace is that Princess Diane lived in, then Albert Memorial, Royal Albert Hall, Princess Di Memorial, Royal College of Music, and the Natural History Museum. Then I made my way to the Houses of Parliment, Big Ben, and West Minister Abbey. All of these places are gorgeous, but if I were to write about each one, this will turn into a novel instead of a blog post. By the time I was done in the abbey, it was midafternoon and I wanted to head to the Globe Theatre before it became dark, so even though I hadn't seen everything on this side of the river, I started walking towards the Globe Theatre and London Bridge. I took a tour through the Globe which is actually the third time its been built and in a slightly different location. I saw the London Bridge at night and it was gorgeous. Oh, I also walked across the Millennium Bridge and I had a very picturesque view of London and night.

Saturday, I walked through St. James Park, Traflagar and Leicester Square. All day I had been seeing people walking around wearing Santa costumes. I never really thought anything about it, though I did think it was an abnormal amount of people wearing the costume, I just thought maybe there was a Santa run going on somewhere in the city. Not quite. Around 1pm, Santas started congregating in Traflagar Square and climbing on the monument. They were there because they were ready to start celebrating Christmas and wanted to share with everyone else. They had a few chants, one of them being: "What do we want?" "Christmas!" When do we want it?" "NOW!" People may or may not have had beer in hand, too ;)

Then I headed to Apollo Vicotria Theatre where I saw Wicked. Again, the only word I have to describe it is AMAZING!! It was the cherry on top of my trip to London.

I headed back to the hostel after this to spend one last evening with the friends I had made there and had a great night, too.

I know many would like to see pictures. They will come at a later time because I have already packed my camera. I figured I had the time kill before I get picked up at 3:15am so I blogged.

I've had a wonderful time here in Scotland and while I didn't do quite as much traveling of the rest of Europe as I would have liked to, I did see a LOT of Scotland and am pleased with that. I've made some wonderful friends here and great memories, too. It is sad saying goodbye to a place that has taught me so much and brought such joy to my life, but it is good to be going home.

See you soon!!

Thanksgiving

Hello all,

It has been some time since I last posted, so I thought I'd give an update.

The past week I had a really bad virus that took me out for the whole week. We have no idea what the virus was, but after a trip to the ER, 2 trips to the doctor, multiple Skype calls home, a few calls to 'ask a nurse' (state side) and time, I can finally say that I am on the mend and able to celebrate Thanksgiving this evening with my flatmates and friends.

Today, was the first day that I tried to go to class in a week. I say tried because I showed up and so did 2 other people for the lecture and then I left. I figured if the prof can't be bothered to show up on time, I didn't need to stick around. But I have spent some time in the library attempting to catch up on reading. There really isn't much to catch up on, though. What I really need to start working on are my 3 essays that are due by December 5 and then I am off to Germany, Rome, and Paris!!!

I must give a shout out to my amazing flatmates who nursed me back to health and talked/harassed the nurses, doctors and who ever it was they kept calling (I think it was our version of 'ask a nurse' but I was in my own little world, so I'm not sure). Thank you so so so much for going to TESCO, and changing my rubbish bin, going to my doctor appointments and keeping me from going insane from being cooped up and sick for so long. I have the best flatmates in the world!!! :)

Well, I don't really have anything else to report.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Sheep's Kingdom

Last weekend, three of my flatmates and I rented a car and drove to the Isle of Skye. The scary thing about being here so long and now going on my second road trip is that I am starting to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road! It no longer uncanny that I sit in the driver's seat and don't drive.

Moving on.

Along the way we stopped at Eioleen Dunan Castle and it was a nice, beautiful evening unlike the last time we went on our 6 day road trip. But before we arrived at this castle, we stopped at a more magical site. A site where so many infamous scenes were filmed. The Glenfinnan Viaduct a.k.a the Harry Potter Bridge!!! We were able to walk right up to the bridge even. Try not to become too jealous, but we also ate our lunch within 15 yards of the viaduct!!

From far away

Eating lunch next to the viaduct! :)

We made it to Portree that night and got up early the next morning to make the most of our limited daylight. The sun sets around 4:30 and is dark by 5. (This is the one familiar thing about home that I do NOT miss). We saw Kilt Rock which has a pretty neat waterfall and the highlight of the day, and I might say trip, was Old Man of Storr. There is nothing particularly special about this rock other than it's ginormous and stands apart from the other ginormous rocks, but the view was breath-taking! It took us a little over an hour to climb up and about a half an hour to get down. This was all on the east side of the isle. On the west was Neist Point which is where the oldest lighthouse on the Isle of Skye is located.

Waterfall at Kilt Rock

View from Old Man of Storr

Old Man of Storr is on the left

The girls I traveled with :)

That night we spent in Kyleakin Backpackers. Even though it was 6 pm, we weren't hungry yet and the lounge/living room had a fireplace. We played a game or two of Jenga then 3 girls from Thailand and one from China (who also were studying in Scotland) asked me if I knew the rules for UNO. I said of course and we played 2 games with them. By this time it was 8, and we were ready to go eat, so we headed over to the towns only pub (I think) Saucy Mary's. When we walked, a guy who had poked his head into the lounge at the Backpackers said to try the haggis; it was the best that he'd had since being in Scotland. So I took his advice and tried it. I quite like it. It is slightly spicy but not hot spicy. It came with neets and tatties. Not sure what the neets are but tatties are potatoes. While we were sitting there, the same guy gestured to us asking if we wanted to join him and his friends. We had nothing else to do, so we joined and made some new friends: Bjorn from Germany and Pascal from Switzerland!!

Haggis. Yum :)

I should maybe mention why I titled this post what I did. While we were driving around the isle, we had to constantly slow down for the sheep that were in the road. Sometimes a sheep would start walking down the road in the direction we wanted to go and we could nothing but follow slowly. After about the 20th time slowing down, and that is not an exaggeration, Anouk, our driver for the weekend, exlaimed, "Wow! This really is the sheep's kingdom."

Sheep rule the road

So, on Sunday we headed to Loch Ness and Inverness. We visited a couple other towns, but nothing worth telling. They were just your typical fisherman's village. We had again another beautiful day for traveling and wandering around despite my getting car sick. But seeing as there was no sighting of Nessie, I will not bore you with how nice the loch looked. There is a castle, however, on this loch and we spent about an hour and a half exploring the ruin and taking pictures.

Urquhart Castle and Loch Ness

We then drove to Inverness where the most important thing we did was eat at Pizza Express. It was our first meal since breakfast and it was evening time. We headed home, and I didn't have to worry about any car sickness because it was like being on the Interstate back home. However, unlike at home, there is not a gas station every 20-30 miles nor are they put in convenient locations such as the first town off the interstate instead of the second. We were filling up with petrol when we looked over at the other car and one of the guys looked familiar. Then Bjorn and Pascal walked out of the store! What a crazy random happenstance!! (Only a couple will understand this reference, but it sums up the experience the best).

And that was our trip to Isle of Skye and the Highlands.

Highland Cows

Plan? What plan?

Alright. 600 pages read and 4,000 words written. Now I have a moment to write quick blog before I need to read my other book for tomorrows seminar.

The road trip went really well. Only once did the driver drive on the "wrong" side of the road. It is only in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand that they drive on the left side of the road. The rest of the world does it right. It rained the first day, but we were driving most of it, so it was okay. We made it to Ullapool and had some whiskey and seafood. It was a fun night.

We drove up the west coast the next day. We stopped whenever something seemed interesting. There were a lot of, I don't know if I would even call them towns, establishments maybe? Anyway, there were many clusters of houses and along the road there always seemed to be one, and I must emphasis one, red telephone. Occasionly, there would be a house by itself and it would have a red telephone booth on the other side of the road, and once, we saw a bus stop with a red telephone booth. It became the running joke in the car that it was the main phone line for the town. Then it came up that it would suck if your house was burning and you had to run all the way across town because there was only one telephone. While we were driving I think it was around Tongue or a little bit after, there was a house that had the fire place going. I said, "They must be sending a mass invite to the town letting everyone know the party is at their place tonight." Marc replied, "And what to bring for food. It was a long stream of smoke." Don't judge. It was a long drive.

We left for our trip Saturday morning and by Sunday evening we were on the ferry to the Isle of Orkney. It was extremely windy that day. I would say it was a sustained wind of 40mph with gusts up to 60. (Look at me, my weather class is paying off). We were surprised that we were able to drive around the island in 45 minutes. However, we took a little longer than that seeing as we made a few stops. We headed back to the mainland that night, and we were happy to escape the wind.

That night back on the mainland, we met Craig. (Obviously we found a place to sleep and ate some food, but why bore you with the mundane?) He invited us to join him for a drink, so we did. We had been wondering what people do around this area in terms of careers, so Anna asked. His response? "Being alcoholics." This was also the night that the Clone walked into the bar. I'll let you imagine the rest. I promise nothing bad happened.

We continued on our journey and as we went further east and south the weather became much nicer. The wind died down and the sun came out. We saw some more sites. We made it to the "end of Scotland," the northern most point of Scotland. There was no light.

We continued heading south. We passed Inverness and continued on to Elgin. However, in Elgin all the hostels and cheap places to stay were full. Luckily, one of the places gave us a few numbers for places in surrounding towns. This is how we ended up in Lossiemouth, and this I'll venture to say, was the highlight of the trip. We walked in and saw this.

And the view out the front was was this.

We decided to stay for two nights.

Before we found this wonderful, though, we experienced our first sunset of the trip on top of a hill overlooking the sea and this small fishermen's town. It was gorgeous!!

While on our way to this heavenly sight, we saw a triple rainbow. But more importantly, we saw the beginning and end of the rainbow. I can now saw that I know what is at the end of the rainbow, and it's not a pot of gold. But an oil rig. Black gold.

Beginning

End

I almost forgot. Between the Northern most point of Scotland and the triple rainbow, we were in the heart of whiskey land. We went to two distilleries. Macallan and Glenfiddich. Scotland makes good whiskey. And these distilleries were located in a beautiful landscape. I'll have to refer to Facebook for photos though, this post is getting long. And for anything else that I mentioned, but didn't post photos for on here (which is a lot of things). I tried to do a better job at explaining the photos on Facebook.

We arrived home Thursday night at 10:30. We stopped in Aberdeen for long enough to have a coffee and tea break and lunch, then we headed out because one of the boys wanted to take a picture of this castle which is a ruin but the most complete ruin (if that makes any sense whatsoever). This is was the amazing picture we were able to get of it.

An amazing dinner of lamb and an hour and a half drive later, we were back in Stirling.

All in all, it was a great trip despite the weather and all the driving. I'm sure there are some things that I forgot to mention, but if you go on my Facebook, you can see the journey through pictures; they're worth more than my words, or so I'm told. But it's time for me to read my book for class tomorrow. Until next time :)

Almost Midterm

I know it's been awhile since I last posted, and I don't really have any good excuses. I would say that I've been too busy, but I've watched a few too many movies in the past two weeks to claim that. I haven't really known what to write, and I haven't taken the time to figure it out. But I have a few moments now before eating with my flat mates and their boyfriends to do my best.

Two weekends ago, I went to the west coast of Scotland with three of my flatmates. We traveled by bus, ferry and train during this trip. We took the bus to Oban and that is where we stayed for two nights in a Backpackers (which is a hostel but cheaper). Saturday we took the ferry to the Isle of Mull and went to its capital, Tobermory. It was raining when we awoke in the morning, and it did not stop for the rest of the day. But we were willing to make the most of it. We took the ferry over in the morning to the Isle of Mull and then the bus to Tobermory. However, when we arrived we found out that everything had just switched over to winter hours and was closed on Saturdays which made no sense whatsoever to us that they would cut hours on the weekend, but I digress. So our plans of going to the distillery, museum and visitor center were ruined. But the chocolate shop was still open! We went on what was supposed to be a half hour walk to find a lighthouse and it turned into an hour walk through a very, very muddy trail. We had not planned on going on any hikes and especially not one as muddy as this. I'll let the pictures speak for this one.

On Tobermory: walk to lighthouse

It was a little muddy...

The lighthouse we didn't get to :(

The next day we spent in Oban. It was overcast but it didn't rain, so we were happy. The distillery was closed on Sundays in Oban, so again we were not able to warm our spirits. We did see the sun for about 10 minutes though which helped a little bit. Again, I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Our reflection in the Whiskey Shop window

Outside the McCaig's Tower overlooking the bay

McCaig's Tower

We got a little dirty but we still had fun!

SUN!!

Dunollie Castle (ruin)

But you could still climb a staircase!

Other than that there isn't much to report. Right now, we are in midterms week, so a lot of students have papers due this week which means the library has been extra busy. I have my first paper due Friday, but I finished Tuesday, so I'm ahead of the game. Kindof. After this Friday, we are on our autumn break. We have an entire week off of school. To me and my flatmates this seems a little ridiculous because we have only been in school for a few weeks and we get a whole week off. However, it is a nice break for those of us who are on exchange because it gives us some time to travel. I will be going to the very north of Scotland on a road trip with four other people. Not much is planned other than we leave Saturday morning at half 9 (9:30am), drive to Ullapool, Isle of Orkney by Tuesday and home Thursday sometime. I'll let you know more about that when I get back, but I'll need some time seeing as I have two papers due shortly after we get back. So I beg for some patience :)

Dinner I made for two of my flat mates :)

Myths

As many of you are aware of, Scotland is a place known for its myths and legends. One of the myths is that swans are enchanted princesses. If that's the case, than the University of Stirling has a lot of drama going on in the loch with the multitude of swans that reside there. 

But my flat mates and I have had more than just sightings of swans on the loch. We decided to go on our own little excursion to the forest behind campus. While we were there, we were shrouded in fog. At times, we couldn't see five feet in front of us. On top of the mist, it was raining. Of course when we left the flat, it wasn't doing anything in town, so I decided that I didn't need a rain jacket. Boy was I wrong and did I ever pay for it. Lucky for me though, my flat mates had my back. Literally. Lauren brought an extra jacket which I donned.

While we wandered through the forest trying to avoid stepping in the puddles that had pooled in the paths, I looked to the left and saw a stone wall higher than my head covered in moss. I turned to the right and saw the same. I could hear the people in front and behind me, but I could not see them. The mist was heaviest here and it was almost like breathing water. It would not have surprised me if a fairy or some other mythical creature popped out from behind a tree.

But alas, no such thing happened.

I did, however, turn to Carin  and say that I felt like I was in a scene from LOTR or on a quest or something fantastical like that. She agreed.

I should probably mention it wasn't just the six of us wandering through the forest behind campus on our own. We were with the Nature Society. So at least 10 other people were there besides us and of those a couple had walked the trails before and knew where they were going. So not as mysterious or adventurous as I would like to imagine. But it was fun nonetheless. And Scotland is just as beautiful if not more so in the rain as it is when it's a beautiful, sunny day.

My flat mates!!

  

Week Two: I found Nessie!!

I found Nessie!!!!!!

Okay, so maybe I found an Olde Sweet Shop with a Nessie made of candy. But here it is; week two!

Nothing of real significance has happened that is blog worthy. I have now attended all of my classes. I have one lecture and three seminars. Lecture is when the prof stands in front of the room and talks at you and seminar is smaller groups and the readings for the class are discussed. I have two seminars on Tuesday, a lecture Thursday, and a seminar Friday morning. So compared to back home, I have a lot of free time on my hands which is perfect for doing my readings :P

The big excitement for week two was going to the football (soccer) game in Glasgow with a bunch of people from my building. It was Glasgow Celtics vs Inverness. A bunch of us went early and did some sight seeing of the city and then a few went of to shop and we met up with the rest of the group for the game. I don't know if I can even begin to describe what it was like. For one, I payed attention almost the entire game which is a big accomplishment for me! But more interesting than me paying attention to the game and perhaps the game itself was the crowd. The atmosphere was...I can't find an accurate enough word to use. Foolishly, we did not look up any of the cheers or chants beforehand, so it was difficult to partake. However, there were a few tunes that we recognized such as "This Land is Your Land" and we were able to make the words out to another one: "Lets go boys in green. Lets go green and white." During the second half of the game everyone in the stands, minus the tiny section that supported Inverness, turned around, linked arms, and jumped up and down. This occurred when Inverness was attempting to score. We didn't know what was going on, but we joined in anyway. The end score was 2-0. Celtics win!

Afterwards, we ate an Italian Pizzeria and had a glass of Tennet's which is the ale that is brewed in Scotland. Then a few more people went home and six of stayed behind and went to a few local pubs. In one of the pubs, I saw the weird, drunk Irish guy that I met on the train ride to Glasgow. We did not stay long.

We finally settled in a pub that had karaoke and we brought our youthful energy with us. It was interesting to note that most of the songs they sang (which all the singers could carry a tune) were old American songs. At the end of the night, a remixed version of "Country Road" by John Denver come on and everyone and I mean EVERYONE sang every single word and danced along. And by dancing, I mean linking arms and jumping in time to the song. If I knew how to jig, that's what I would have done.

But now this post is quite long enough and I must go to class soon. So until next week!

Outside the Tennet's Brewery.

The game as started!

In front of the Museum of Art. Every time they remove the the cone, someone puts it back.