Okay, so onto day 3 in Scotland. I split this into two because it is ridiculously long and I didn't want to somehow lose what I had written and have to start all over. So we got up around 8 and had breakfast. Then we called a cab and went straight to Edinburgh castle. There weren't too many people yet as it had just opened. It is a beautiful castle that was built on top of an extinct volcano and incorporates the rock into the structure. It kind of reminded me of the Andes and how the Inka built things. They do guided tours so we decided to do one. We were the only ones that showed up so we got a private tour, which was very cool. The girl showing us around was from Greece and was doing a museum studies course in Edinburgh. It was very interesting because you could see that different parts of the castle had been built at different time just by the colors of the stone and the masonry work. One of the oldest parts was St. Margret's chapel. The newest is the war memorial, which I would swear from the inside is brand new, and from the outside is very old. The war memorial has lists of all the Scots killed in every war and conflict that they have fought since like WW1 or something. You couldn't take pictures inside though. In the hall you could see a small window high in the wall that the king would have used to spy on people in the hall after feasts when they would be drunk.
Then we got to see the Scottish crown jewels. They had been locked away when they dissolved their parliament to join the UK but were "discovered" in the 1800's I think by Walter Scott (of the tall monument fame). They were still in the box that they had originally been locked in in the castle. There is a sword that some pope gave the kind, a scepter and a crown. There is the coronation stone. This is the stone that generations of Scottish royalty sat on to to crowned king. In the 1200's the English took it and brought it to Westminster Abbey and had a special coronation chair built for it so English kings would be coronated on it. It was there for around 500 years when in the 1950s 3 Scots went down to England and stole it back. I don't know exactly how they did it, but they got it back to Scotland and to the castle in Edinburgh. They broke it along the way, but it's been patched up. The kicker is that they weren't arrested for it. Because they didn't want to stir up a Scottish nationalist movement they let the people go and let the stone stay in Scotland. So now the deal is that if there is a coronation the stone can go to England, but only for 5 days and then it has to be returned to Scotland. Apparently there is a movie about this.
After the crown jewels we saw the dungeons where American prisoners of war were kept during the Revolutionary War (although that isn't what they call it here, but I can't think what it is offhand (American War of Independence, possibly)). They actually had it pretty nice and could sell stuff that they made to the townspeople. It seems a bit silly that they shipped them all the way to Scotland though. Seems like the waste of a ship, but what do I know. Anyway it was kind of cool to see. They kept many other POWs there too from many other wars. After that we looked in a bunch of the other buildings and saw the dog cemetery where soldier could bury their personal dogs or the dogs that were the mascots of regiments. The castle is still a military base so some of the buildings were closed as soldiers and government people use them. Anyway, the pictures are way better than the description so check those out.
From the castle we walked down through the park to Prince's street to do some shopping. We looked around in a few stores and then stopped for lunch at Pizza Hut, lame I know, but I really wanted pizza. Then we continued our shopping walk until we got to a big hill with an observatory on top. I can't think what it was called but we walked up to look around. It was a very high hill so we got an excellent view of the city. There were also some monuments to different people up there. There was also a war memorial that had been started but never finish because they ran out of money. The main structure was the observatory though. It is still in use, but there is another one outside the city that is used more due to light pollution at this one. We spent quite a bit of time up on the hill because it was very nice and grassy and quiet up there. We were meeting Danielle's friend for dinner at 5:30 so we went to the mall for awhile and then went to all the souvenir shops on the Royal mile. We got I <3 Scotland sweatshirts and I got a really pretty thistle necklace (the thistle is the symbol of Scotland, I don't know why). Then we found tartan bowties. I thought it might be funny to get one for my dad since he wears bowties to work, but I wasn't sure. So I called him and he said he wanted 3. They are now in the mail on their way to him. But first me and Danielle had to model them :)
We met Danielle's friend and she took us to the pub where she first had haggis. I'm not sure what haggis is and I don't care to find out. We all got haggis stuffed chicken breasts so that if we didn't like the haggis we'd still have something to eat. And it was delicious. It was like spicy stuffing. I know it is made out of gross stuff, but I don't know what and decided to keep it that way since I enjoyed it so much. After dinner we went to Greyfriar's cemetery. On the way we passed the cafe where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter. In the cemetery, which is just up the street, we were told there is a gravestone for Tom Riddle. And through the cemetery gates there is a school for geniuses. The legend is that people used to think that the kids that attended that school were taught magic. They also used to play a game in the school yard involving brooms and balls. So....yeah. The cemetery itself was very cool with some neat gravestones. We didn't see the Tom Riddle one, but didn't look very hard. One section of the cemetery is gated due to a poltergeist living in one of the tombs. Although the alternate theory is that plague victims were buried back there so they don't want anyone to break through the bottom of one of the tombs and get infected or something. The churchyard is also much higher than the street because so many levels of burials are contained in it. Sometimes they would just remove headstones and buried new people on top of the old ones due to lack of space.
After touring the cemetery we went to a pub called the World's End. It is named that because it is where the Edinburgh city walls were located. You had to pay a fee to pass in or out of the city and because most people were poor they couldn't afford to go through the gates, so the city wall was the end of their world. It was a cute pub and they sold t-shirts so I had to get one. They were sold out of most of them, but I ended up with a pretty nice one. After being at the pub for a couple of hours we headed home because we had to be up early to catch our train in the morning. Before we went to bed we put on all our Scotland gear and took a photo for posterity :)
The next morning I was worried about having to sit on the floor of the train again, but I actually got a seat despite most air traffic still not running. So I got a bunch of work done on the trip and got to see the country. We ran along the coast for awhile so I got to see the North Sea. We also passed through some very cool looking cities that I'd like to visit sometime. In London I had to find Danielle because she was in first class and then we had to get to another train station. We had plenty of time once again so I got some food and then we eventually got on our train back to Poole. This train was much more crowded, but I had a seat once again. Finally we were back in Poole around 5:30 so I could just relax and do nothing.
Wednesday I attempted to work on my skeletal report and then went to lab on Thursday to take a few more pics of things that I had missed. Then Friday I worked on the report most of the day. I have also been determined to make iced coffee, but have been unable to find caramel coffee syrup. I found vanilla and bought it so that I would at least have something, but I've been to almost every store and I don't know why they don't have it. There is one more store I can try, but I have to take the bus there so I won't be doing that until next weekend probably. So I guess that's about it. I order Chinese food with some friends last night and watched Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Which was more bizarre than good. I don't recommend it. So I suppose that's all I have. Next week will be completely boring as I have to be in lab from 9-5 every day to record my animal bone assemblage. So here are the pics. There are a ton, but I took even more than what I put up. Have a nice week.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Scotland!! Part 1
Well, it's been awhile. I went to Scotland last weekend and it was AWESOME so this will be mostly about that trip with lots of pics. Anyway, the beginning of last week I was trying to finish my skeletal report so that I wouldn't have to worry about it while I was away. I spend a few days in the human bone lab and time at school trying to write and just ended up mad that I couldn't find the info I needed about my skeleton. I only know that he died sometime between the 11th and 20th centuries. That is a ridiculously huge range and I'm sure there is a better record of when he is from but the school is not making that info available, so the report is a bit sketchy. Okay, rant over.
On Friday I left for Edinburgh, Scotland. I was taking the train, which was lucky because Friday was the day that all air traffic across the UK was stopped. So I headed to the train station around 10 to catch my train into London. Then I had to take the underground to a different station to catch my train up north. Getting to the other station was fine, and I had plenty of time. Then I went to the public restroom and had to pay 30 pence to go in! I was a bit scandalized, but I did it. When they announced what platform my train was on a huge crowd went surging toward it. I wasn't too worried as I figured this was normal. However, when I got on the train almost every seat had a "reserved" ticket on it. I wasn't really sure what this meant as I had never seen them before. Apparently you can reserve a specific seat on trains, but I didn't know this. So what this meant is that because of the planes stopping everyone in London was going by train. And that meant that those of us without a seat number ended up sitting on the floor between train cars. It was a most uncomfortable 4.5 hours. And I couldn't even see anything that we were passing because there were no windows :( We thought maybe we would get seats eventually, but everytime people got off more people got on, so it didn't happen. There were about 25-30 of us where I was standing and more between other cars. Completely ridiculous.
So when I finally got to Edinburgh I took a taxi to the bed and breakfast that we were staying at. The taxi ride was amazing because the city is so beautiful. Just driving down random roads there was amazing architecture and a view of the castle up on the cliff. The woman at the b&b was really nice and the room was pretty good as well, except for the single beds, which are ridiculously small, but it is what we had ordered, so oh well. Danielle got into town later as she had to come from where she was doing her museum placement and hadn't come up with me. When she got in it was about 8:30 so we just headed out looking for something to eat. We ended up a a chinese restaurant and got the crispy duck. It was awesome because they brought half a duck to our table and shredded the meat right there. We thought about going to a pub after, but were both really tired so we just went back to the b&b and went to bed.
The next morning we got up around 9 for breakfast. We had the full Scottish breakfast consisting of eggs, toast, bacon, sausage, some sort of beef thing (which was quite good) baked beans and a fried tomato. It also came with black pudding, but I couldn't convince myself to eat it. Then we set out to explore Edinburgh. We thought the walk to downtown wouldn't be too bad, but actually it kind of was. It took about 30-45 minutes. We did get to see a lot of the city though. Anyway, we stopped in some souvenir shops and then saw a tower. It was the Walter Scott monument and for just 3 pounds you could climb to the top of it. So we did! But it was a windy day and high up it was even windier. That didn't make for the funnest climb. And the top sets of stairs just got narrower an narrower. The last one was barely wide enough to get through. It did have some excellent views of the city though, which you can see in the pics.
Climbing down was harder than going up, but we made it and then headed over to the national gallery. We saw a whole bunch of paintings by Scottish artists and others. And the building itself was very beautiful inside. After the museum we headed up the street and saw a bar that we had seen in a broucher so we decided to stop in for a fancy cocktail. We weren't hungry for lunch after our ridiculous breakfast so that was a good alternative and they were both fancy and delicious :)
After the drink we headed up to the castle. This was a trek because the castle was built on the top of an extinct volcano and we were at the bottom. So there were a lot of steps to get to the top. It was a bit late in the day so we decided to do that castle another day. We started walking down the Royal Mile (the high street of the town leading down from the castle). A little way down we found the Scotch Whiskey Experience and decided we should do it despite my hatred of whiskey. The tour started by riding in a motorized car and seeing how whiskey is made. Then we got out of the car and the guide gave a talk about the different whiskey regions in Scotland. There are 4 and the whiskey tastes differently in each of them. Then we got to smell smells that each region is suppose to taste like. There was fruit, flowers, cookies and smoke. I picked the fruit one. Then we each got a sample of whiskey from the region that we picked. Then we went into a different room to have a tasting. We had to smell it a lot and that about made me sick. And it didn't smell fruity at all. Then we had to swirl it around and watch it drip down the sides of the glass. It was a lot like a wine tasting, actually. Then we had to taste it. I did, but didn't like it so I dumped the rest out. Then we got to keep the glass, so that was exciting, although what I'm going to do with it I don't know... At the place they have the world's largest collection of whiskey, so that was kind of cool to see. Some guy from South America collected it and this place bought it, but won't disclose how much they paid. I'm not sure why, but whatever. Some of the bottles were really neat and decorated crazily. The most expensive was 10,000 pounds I think. Which is crazy!
We headed down the road after the whiskey experience and found St. Giles cathedral. It was really pretty. Admission was free, but you had to pay 1 pound to take photos in the church. So we paid and took a ton of photos. The ceiling in the church was really cool and had been painted bright blue. There were also some really pretty tombs and statues inside.
From there we headed down the road further to Mary King's close, which is an underground area where people used to live. It had been above ground, but then they built the city hall building over it so it became enclosed and people were still living and working there. Edinburgh is weird in that it has a lot of buildings built many stories and very close together. The small alleys between then are called closes and there are doorways to shops and houses down them. I thought this was creep and felt like I would get mugged going down them, but people there use them like normal streets. But they have always been there and got built over is some places. So because the close is a guided tour we couldn't go right away and had to wait until 8pm, or about 3 hours. So we went to find some dinner even though it was pretty early. We ended up at a little pub where I had steak and mushroom pie. It was very good. After dinner we did some souvenir shopping and then still had time to kill so we decided to have dessert. Nothing fancy, but I had apple and blackberry crisp and it was tasty.
It was about time to go on our tour so we headed back to the close. We looked around the gift shop for awhile and then sat down to wait. We got talking to a coupe from Wales who told us that we should go to Cardiff. We've been wanting to go but people here tell us that we shouldn't. The lady said she didn't know why anyone would tell us that and that it is a nice city. So we plan to get there at some point. Finally our tour was called and we got to go down into the close. Our tour guide was suppose to be someone who lived in the close. We saw the rooms of some of the more well off people in the close and then the rooms in which more than one family would have lived. Then we saw where they would have kept animals and where they slaughtered them. The plague was a big problem in these areas and we saw some examples of what the plague looked like and what would have happened to you if your family came down with it. One family's little girl came down with plague and they locked her in her room, where she died. Then they said that the plaster on the walls of many of the rooms contains human ash. Perhaps from the plague victims that were burned to try to stop the spread of plague. Lastly we saw the workshop of the last man to live in the close. They wanted to expand the city hall building above and had to pay him a lot of money to get him to leave his house so they could build over it, but they agreed to let him keep his workshop under the building. It's very weird to think that people would live under another building like that, but they did because they were too poor to do anything else. Eventually the closes were shut up due to crime and disease and this one was just recently opened to tourists.
After that we went to a bar for a bit. It was pretty crowded and there we no seats so we just got one drink and then discovered that they had a ton of shots. We found one called USA and then a French Canadian so we decided we had to have them. They weren't that tasty, but we felt patriotic ;) Then we grabbed a cab home, having learned our lesson about trying to walk. We tried to watch Doctor Who when we got back, but the internet was too slow, so we went to bed.
Sunday we decided to go to Glasgow since we were only an hour away by train. So we got a cab to the train station and caught a train. It had been raining when we left Edinburgh, but by the time we got to Glasgow it had stopped. So we got a ticket to the tour bus that would take us around town and jumped on. We took it to the Kelvin museum (named for the guy who invented the temperature scale) by the University of Glasgow. It was a nice museum, but the labels for the pictures seemed like they were written for children, so that was a bit disappointing. The actual displays were nice though. Then we got back on the bus to go to the Cathedral across town. Behind the cathedral is a Necropolis, so we were pretty excited about that. We missed our stop by the church, but got off at the next stop where we found a tapas restaurant. So we walked back to the church with plans of going back for tapas for dinner. The church was very cool and because it was built into a hill it was multiple layers. And this is when my doubts of JK Rowling creativity started. Actually they had started earlier this year when I went by a pub called the Hogshead in Poole. But in the church was St. Mungo's tomb and his well. So I was a bit disappointed, but more on that when we get back to Edinburgh... The church was really cool inside and had a lot of rooms and chapels that you could go in and look at. Then we headed back to the necropolis, which is a big cemetery basically. There were some beautiful tombs and mausoleums in there. Most of them were in pretty bad shape though, which was sad. People had been in them partying and breaking things. Even the ones that people hadn't destroyed trees and ivy had. It was really sad to see that kind of thing. Especially when I later learned that people have given huge sums of money to have these things built and taken care of.
We spent quite a bit of time touring the necropolis and could have spent longer as it just kept going and going, but we got hungry so we headed back to the tapas place. We had a jug of Sangria and some food. We got there just before 5 so we got the lunch menu, which was awesome because it was much cheaper. The food was good, but not spectacular. The sangria was good though. After dinner we headed back to the train station so that we could catch a train back to Edinburgh before dark. Glasgow is apparently not the place to be at night.
When we got back we got a taxi home and then went and got some take-away indian food a bit later. We then ate it while we watched the Doctor Who that we had downloaded during the day. So nerdy, I know. And it was kind of a crappy episode, but oh well. So I think I'll stop here and get this one posted and finish in a second post. Just to make sure I don't lose all this somehow. So the next post should be up shortly if you're reading this on Sunday morning.
On Friday I left for Edinburgh, Scotland. I was taking the train, which was lucky because Friday was the day that all air traffic across the UK was stopped. So I headed to the train station around 10 to catch my train into London. Then I had to take the underground to a different station to catch my train up north. Getting to the other station was fine, and I had plenty of time. Then I went to the public restroom and had to pay 30 pence to go in! I was a bit scandalized, but I did it. When they announced what platform my train was on a huge crowd went surging toward it. I wasn't too worried as I figured this was normal. However, when I got on the train almost every seat had a "reserved" ticket on it. I wasn't really sure what this meant as I had never seen them before. Apparently you can reserve a specific seat on trains, but I didn't know this. So what this meant is that because of the planes stopping everyone in London was going by train. And that meant that those of us without a seat number ended up sitting on the floor between train cars. It was a most uncomfortable 4.5 hours. And I couldn't even see anything that we were passing because there were no windows :( We thought maybe we would get seats eventually, but everytime people got off more people got on, so it didn't happen. There were about 25-30 of us where I was standing and more between other cars. Completely ridiculous.
So when I finally got to Edinburgh I took a taxi to the bed and breakfast that we were staying at. The taxi ride was amazing because the city is so beautiful. Just driving down random roads there was amazing architecture and a view of the castle up on the cliff. The woman at the b&b was really nice and the room was pretty good as well, except for the single beds, which are ridiculously small, but it is what we had ordered, so oh well. Danielle got into town later as she had to come from where she was doing her museum placement and hadn't come up with me. When she got in it was about 8:30 so we just headed out looking for something to eat. We ended up a a chinese restaurant and got the crispy duck. It was awesome because they brought half a duck to our table and shredded the meat right there. We thought about going to a pub after, but were both really tired so we just went back to the b&b and went to bed.
The next morning we got up around 9 for breakfast. We had the full Scottish breakfast consisting of eggs, toast, bacon, sausage, some sort of beef thing (which was quite good) baked beans and a fried tomato. It also came with black pudding, but I couldn't convince myself to eat it. Then we set out to explore Edinburgh. We thought the walk to downtown wouldn't be too bad, but actually it kind of was. It took about 30-45 minutes. We did get to see a lot of the city though. Anyway, we stopped in some souvenir shops and then saw a tower. It was the Walter Scott monument and for just 3 pounds you could climb to the top of it. So we did! But it was a windy day and high up it was even windier. That didn't make for the funnest climb. And the top sets of stairs just got narrower an narrower. The last one was barely wide enough to get through. It did have some excellent views of the city though, which you can see in the pics.
Climbing down was harder than going up, but we made it and then headed over to the national gallery. We saw a whole bunch of paintings by Scottish artists and others. And the building itself was very beautiful inside. After the museum we headed up the street and saw a bar that we had seen in a broucher so we decided to stop in for a fancy cocktail. We weren't hungry for lunch after our ridiculous breakfast so that was a good alternative and they were both fancy and delicious :)
After the drink we headed up to the castle. This was a trek because the castle was built on the top of an extinct volcano and we were at the bottom. So there were a lot of steps to get to the top. It was a bit late in the day so we decided to do that castle another day. We started walking down the Royal Mile (the high street of the town leading down from the castle). A little way down we found the Scotch Whiskey Experience and decided we should do it despite my hatred of whiskey. The tour started by riding in a motorized car and seeing how whiskey is made. Then we got out of the car and the guide gave a talk about the different whiskey regions in Scotland. There are 4 and the whiskey tastes differently in each of them. Then we got to smell smells that each region is suppose to taste like. There was fruit, flowers, cookies and smoke. I picked the fruit one. Then we each got a sample of whiskey from the region that we picked. Then we went into a different room to have a tasting. We had to smell it a lot and that about made me sick. And it didn't smell fruity at all. Then we had to swirl it around and watch it drip down the sides of the glass. It was a lot like a wine tasting, actually. Then we had to taste it. I did, but didn't like it so I dumped the rest out. Then we got to keep the glass, so that was exciting, although what I'm going to do with it I don't know... At the place they have the world's largest collection of whiskey, so that was kind of cool to see. Some guy from South America collected it and this place bought it, but won't disclose how much they paid. I'm not sure why, but whatever. Some of the bottles were really neat and decorated crazily. The most expensive was 10,000 pounds I think. Which is crazy!
We headed down the road after the whiskey experience and found St. Giles cathedral. It was really pretty. Admission was free, but you had to pay 1 pound to take photos in the church. So we paid and took a ton of photos. The ceiling in the church was really cool and had been painted bright blue. There were also some really pretty tombs and statues inside.
From there we headed down the road further to Mary King's close, which is an underground area where people used to live. It had been above ground, but then they built the city hall building over it so it became enclosed and people were still living and working there. Edinburgh is weird in that it has a lot of buildings built many stories and very close together. The small alleys between then are called closes and there are doorways to shops and houses down them. I thought this was creep and felt like I would get mugged going down them, but people there use them like normal streets. But they have always been there and got built over is some places. So because the close is a guided tour we couldn't go right away and had to wait until 8pm, or about 3 hours. So we went to find some dinner even though it was pretty early. We ended up at a little pub where I had steak and mushroom pie. It was very good. After dinner we did some souvenir shopping and then still had time to kill so we decided to have dessert. Nothing fancy, but I had apple and blackberry crisp and it was tasty.
It was about time to go on our tour so we headed back to the close. We looked around the gift shop for awhile and then sat down to wait. We got talking to a coupe from Wales who told us that we should go to Cardiff. We've been wanting to go but people here tell us that we shouldn't. The lady said she didn't know why anyone would tell us that and that it is a nice city. So we plan to get there at some point. Finally our tour was called and we got to go down into the close. Our tour guide was suppose to be someone who lived in the close. We saw the rooms of some of the more well off people in the close and then the rooms in which more than one family would have lived. Then we saw where they would have kept animals and where they slaughtered them. The plague was a big problem in these areas and we saw some examples of what the plague looked like and what would have happened to you if your family came down with it. One family's little girl came down with plague and they locked her in her room, where she died. Then they said that the plaster on the walls of many of the rooms contains human ash. Perhaps from the plague victims that were burned to try to stop the spread of plague. Lastly we saw the workshop of the last man to live in the close. They wanted to expand the city hall building above and had to pay him a lot of money to get him to leave his house so they could build over it, but they agreed to let him keep his workshop under the building. It's very weird to think that people would live under another building like that, but they did because they were too poor to do anything else. Eventually the closes were shut up due to crime and disease and this one was just recently opened to tourists.
After that we went to a bar for a bit. It was pretty crowded and there we no seats so we just got one drink and then discovered that they had a ton of shots. We found one called USA and then a French Canadian so we decided we had to have them. They weren't that tasty, but we felt patriotic ;) Then we grabbed a cab home, having learned our lesson about trying to walk. We tried to watch Doctor Who when we got back, but the internet was too slow, so we went to bed.
Sunday we decided to go to Glasgow since we were only an hour away by train. So we got a cab to the train station and caught a train. It had been raining when we left Edinburgh, but by the time we got to Glasgow it had stopped. So we got a ticket to the tour bus that would take us around town and jumped on. We took it to the Kelvin museum (named for the guy who invented the temperature scale) by the University of Glasgow. It was a nice museum, but the labels for the pictures seemed like they were written for children, so that was a bit disappointing. The actual displays were nice though. Then we got back on the bus to go to the Cathedral across town. Behind the cathedral is a Necropolis, so we were pretty excited about that. We missed our stop by the church, but got off at the next stop where we found a tapas restaurant. So we walked back to the church with plans of going back for tapas for dinner. The church was very cool and because it was built into a hill it was multiple layers. And this is when my doubts of JK Rowling creativity started. Actually they had started earlier this year when I went by a pub called the Hogshead in Poole. But in the church was St. Mungo's tomb and his well. So I was a bit disappointed, but more on that when we get back to Edinburgh... The church was really cool inside and had a lot of rooms and chapels that you could go in and look at. Then we headed back to the necropolis, which is a big cemetery basically. There were some beautiful tombs and mausoleums in there. Most of them were in pretty bad shape though, which was sad. People had been in them partying and breaking things. Even the ones that people hadn't destroyed trees and ivy had. It was really sad to see that kind of thing. Especially when I later learned that people have given huge sums of money to have these things built and taken care of.
We spent quite a bit of time touring the necropolis and could have spent longer as it just kept going and going, but we got hungry so we headed back to the tapas place. We had a jug of Sangria and some food. We got there just before 5 so we got the lunch menu, which was awesome because it was much cheaper. The food was good, but not spectacular. The sangria was good though. After dinner we headed back to the train station so that we could catch a train back to Edinburgh before dark. Glasgow is apparently not the place to be at night.
When we got back we got a taxi home and then went and got some take-away indian food a bit later. We then ate it while we watched the Doctor Who that we had downloaded during the day. So nerdy, I know. And it was kind of a crappy episode, but oh well. So I think I'll stop here and get this one posted and finish in a second post. Just to make sure I don't lose all this somehow. So the next post should be up shortly if you're reading this on Sunday morning.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
No Blog
Just a reminder that I won't be updating this week. I'm in Edinburgh, Scotland and won't be back until Tuesday night so I'll catch you up on everything next Sunday, 4/25. Talk to you then!
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Spring Break!
Good morning! This week has been a pretty good one. I did some exciting and fun stuff and I got some work done. The best of all worlds. On Sunday our Easter dinner turned out really great. We made ham by boiling it in coca cola and then smothering it in molassas and baking it in the oven for a half hour. It was really good. Monday I didn't have any plans because it was a bank holiday. I'm never sure what will be open or what buses will be running on bank holidays so I try not to have anything to do. I did do some work on my dissertation prep and figured out what I needed to do to analyze my skeleton.
Then on Tuesday I went to the train station with Danielle in the morning to book our tickets to Edinburgh! We're going next Friday and coming back on the following Tuesday. It should be super fun! Then I had to take a bus to school so that I could look at the skeleton that I have to write up a report about. The university buses aren't running during break so I had to take a different one and had to pay the normal price for it, which sucks all the more because the university bus that goes into Bournemouth is running, just not the one to Poole. Boo! But I made it to school and got copies of the forms I needed and then got to work analyzing the skeleton. I have a pretty interesting box. One almost completely whole skeleton, some extra bones from another human, a rib from a cow and a piece of ceramic. Whoever did the sorting wasn't very good. I got through counts of all the bones and did a little bit of analysis of them.
Wednesday I went back to the lab again. This time I measured all the bones so that I could figure out the stature of the guy during life. I also tried to determine his age and racial background. Then I laid out all of the bones and took some photos of him. I'd show you, but we're suppose to use the pictures for "academic purposes only" so they might get mad if they found out. He is pretty awesome looking though.
Thursday I went shopping and got some new jeans. Nothing too exciting there. I also finally got back to the gym. I don't know how long it's been since I was there, but it was nice to get back. Then for dinner I made lasagna. I had to make half vegetarian because my flatmate doesn't eat beef, but it turned out pretty good. I added carrots, parsnips and broccoli and then only put beef in half of it. It was going really well until it started bubbling over the pan and making the over smoke. Then I thought I was going to set off the fire alarm, but I didn't.
Friday me and my flatmate, Baitalikee, went to Christchurch. That's a town about a half hour away by bus. They have a priory there that was Catholic until the reformation under Henry VIII when it changed to Anglican. And apparently Jesus helped to build this church. The story goes that when they were building there was one carpenter that worked but never showed up for pay or during meal times. Then one day they were going to move a big wooden beam into place and they realized that it had been cut too short. They were pretty upset because big pieces of wood were hard to get and had to be shipped in from far away. So at the end of the day they all went home very upset. The next morning they came back and the beam was in place in the roof and it was too long! They never saw the other carpenter again after that. So that meant it was Jesus (and that he isn't very good at measuring, apparently). You can see the beam sticking out of one of the walls in the church. I guess they never cut it down to size since it was a miracle beam, and all. Anyway, that's why the town is called Christchurch. We couldn't take pictures inside the church, but I have a lot of the outside. It was a pretty standard church though, nothing too exciting beyond a random beam sticking out of a wall.
After going around the church we walked along the river to the ruins of the castle that had been the town center. This is best seem through the pictures that I'll put up the link to at the end. It was pretty ruined, so there wasn't a whole lot left to see, but part of the moat that they had built around it was still there, so that was pretty cool. Then we had Thai food for lunch, shopped for awhile and headed home. Then, because it was so beautiful out, we wandered around Poole for awhile in the afternoon.
Saturday I had a haircut in the morning. Just a trim, nothing major. Then I came home and read a book for awhile. Then in the afternoon we walked around Poole again. It has been so nice the last few days we all just feel like we have to spend time outside. Then me and Baitalikee cooked a chicken for dinner. It turned out pretty good.
Today I have to work on my skeletal report. I have another lab session tomorrow morning and I need to know what I still have to do, so I have to write as much as I can today. I'm hoping to get outside for awhile though, because its beautiful and sunny out again. Well, I suppose that's pretty much all I've got. There will be no blog next Sunday because I will be in Edinburgh and won't be back until Tuesday night so I'll just do a two week one the next Sunday. So here are the pictures from this week. Enjoy and I'll talk to you soon. Have a great week!
Then on Tuesday I went to the train station with Danielle in the morning to book our tickets to Edinburgh! We're going next Friday and coming back on the following Tuesday. It should be super fun! Then I had to take a bus to school so that I could look at the skeleton that I have to write up a report about. The university buses aren't running during break so I had to take a different one and had to pay the normal price for it, which sucks all the more because the university bus that goes into Bournemouth is running, just not the one to Poole. Boo! But I made it to school and got copies of the forms I needed and then got to work analyzing the skeleton. I have a pretty interesting box. One almost completely whole skeleton, some extra bones from another human, a rib from a cow and a piece of ceramic. Whoever did the sorting wasn't very good. I got through counts of all the bones and did a little bit of analysis of them.
Wednesday I went back to the lab again. This time I measured all the bones so that I could figure out the stature of the guy during life. I also tried to determine his age and racial background. Then I laid out all of the bones and took some photos of him. I'd show you, but we're suppose to use the pictures for "academic purposes only" so they might get mad if they found out. He is pretty awesome looking though.
Thursday I went shopping and got some new jeans. Nothing too exciting there. I also finally got back to the gym. I don't know how long it's been since I was there, but it was nice to get back. Then for dinner I made lasagna. I had to make half vegetarian because my flatmate doesn't eat beef, but it turned out pretty good. I added carrots, parsnips and broccoli and then only put beef in half of it. It was going really well until it started bubbling over the pan and making the over smoke. Then I thought I was going to set off the fire alarm, but I didn't.
Friday me and my flatmate, Baitalikee, went to Christchurch. That's a town about a half hour away by bus. They have a priory there that was Catholic until the reformation under Henry VIII when it changed to Anglican. And apparently Jesus helped to build this church. The story goes that when they were building there was one carpenter that worked but never showed up for pay or during meal times. Then one day they were going to move a big wooden beam into place and they realized that it had been cut too short. They were pretty upset because big pieces of wood were hard to get and had to be shipped in from far away. So at the end of the day they all went home very upset. The next morning they came back and the beam was in place in the roof and it was too long! They never saw the other carpenter again after that. So that meant it was Jesus (and that he isn't very good at measuring, apparently). You can see the beam sticking out of one of the walls in the church. I guess they never cut it down to size since it was a miracle beam, and all. Anyway, that's why the town is called Christchurch. We couldn't take pictures inside the church, but I have a lot of the outside. It was a pretty standard church though, nothing too exciting beyond a random beam sticking out of a wall.
After going around the church we walked along the river to the ruins of the castle that had been the town center. This is best seem through the pictures that I'll put up the link to at the end. It was pretty ruined, so there wasn't a whole lot left to see, but part of the moat that they had built around it was still there, so that was pretty cool. Then we had Thai food for lunch, shopped for awhile and headed home. Then, because it was so beautiful out, we wandered around Poole for awhile in the afternoon.
Saturday I had a haircut in the morning. Just a trim, nothing major. Then I came home and read a book for awhile. Then in the afternoon we walked around Poole again. It has been so nice the last few days we all just feel like we have to spend time outside. Then me and Baitalikee cooked a chicken for dinner. It turned out pretty good.
Today I have to work on my skeletal report. I have another lab session tomorrow morning and I need to know what I still have to do, so I have to write as much as I can today. I'm hoping to get outside for awhile though, because its beautiful and sunny out again. Well, I suppose that's pretty much all I've got. There will be no blog next Sunday because I will be in Edinburgh and won't be back until Tuesday night so I'll just do a two week one the next Sunday. So here are the pictures from this week. Enjoy and I'll talk to you soon. Have a great week!
Sunday, April 4, 2010
End of Classes and London
This was a really fun week. It started off a bit stressful with an exam, but ended really well. Monday we had our human pathology spotter test. We didn't really know what to expect, but we did expect more description of actual bones and less knowledge of what organisms cause diseases. So I think I passed, but I don't think it will be me best test ever. It is over though, and that's what is great! Then Monday night my friend made us apple pie. She makes pretty much the greatest apple pie ever and was suppose to make it for Easter dinner, but decided to go home, so she made it on Monday instead and it was delicious as usual. And it gave us a chance to all hang out without stress before everyone started leaving for home.
Tuesday we had our very last class for our master's degree. That seems ridiculous as I don't feel like I know nearly enough to be half done. After class I came home and me and Danielle went looking for hams to cook for Easter dinner. They have stuff called gammon here, which looks kind of like ham, but isn't exactly right. We really wanted the bone-in ham that you find in the US, but couldn't find it in two different stores, so we finally ended up with some gammons with less fat around the outside. And we found a cool recipe where you boil them in Coca Cola so we're going to try that. The recipe also told us that gammon is uncooked meat and ham is what it becomes after you cook it. Interesting I guess... For dinner on Tuesday most of my classmates and I went out for dinner to celebrate being finished. We went to an Indian place that one of my classmates always raves about. It was good, but not as mind-blowing as he always describes it. Then me and Stine got a ride home, which was nice because the bus there didn't run after 7 so we would have had to get a cab.
Wednesday I did pretty much nothing of use. I went to McDonald's for lunch with some friends because I had been craving it. Then I attempted to get some work done for my dissertation, but didn't get very far. Then I met some friends for dinner at KFC and then we went to see How to Train Your Dragon. It was AWESOME!! I recommend that you see it. After that we came home and I had to pack for our trip to London the next day.
Thursday I had to get up really early because we had to catch a bus to school at 6:15 to get to school for 6:45 which was when the buses were suppose to leave for our field trip to London. Of course they didn't leave anywhere near on time, but we got there in plenty of time. We were going on a field trip for our human anatomy class to the Hunterian and Wellcome anatomy museums at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. The Hunterian museum is made up of the comparative collection of John Hunter, who was a surgeon in the late 1700s. He collected human and animal specimens and preserved them in jars or kept there bones. It was a huge collection and was apparently bigger until part of it was destroyed in the bombings during WWII. I always find it weird to think about how scary WWII must have been here with the actual threat of being killed hanging over your head all the time. You see little signs of that everywhere and when you read descriptions of things it sometimes mentions it. Very different from the US where it's just there in history, but you don't really feel it in your day to day life. Anyway, it was cool to see the animal specimens with the human specimens so you could see how they were alike and different. There was also a giant human skeleton that was 7'7" I believe. Crazy. The Wellcome museum was less cool as it was only human stuff and a lot of it was soft tissue. Some of it was very neat to look at, but it wasn't particularly relevant to me, so it was more just browsing around. For lunch we walked down the street to a Dutch pancake place. (crepes, basically) I figured it wouldn't be anywhere near filling, but I couldn't even finish the whole thing. It was really good though. I had pepperoni, chorizo and cheese. It was kind of like a thin pizza.
After we were finished at the museums me, Stine and Melissa stayed behind. We got a cab and headed to me and Stine's hotel. We were suppose to be sharing a room, but they had had some sort of mix up so we each got our own rooms. That was nice, but they were the smallest rooms in the history of the world :) They were pretty comfy though. We hung out there for awhile and then headed out for dinner. We had a reservation at a Brazilian BBQ place for 7, but we were pretty early. They gave us a table though and we got drinks. Melissa's friend was meeting us for dinner but wasn't going to get there until after 7 because he was at work. So we vowed just to get some salad and eat slowly, but it's an all you can eat place where they bring different cuts of mean on skewers to your table and cut pieces off for you. So at first we turned them away, but eventually we couldn't resist and just started eating. So by the time he got there, we had eaten quite a bit. But he caught up. It was delicious. We were there for probably about 4 hours and then headed down the street to a bar. We got some drinks there and then finally headed back to the hotel about midnight. It was a really fun night out.
Friday me and Stine got up around 8 and then got breakfast in the hotel. Just rolls with butter and jelly and coffee, but it was free, so it was fine. We decided to head to Camden to look around the market there since it wasn't raining. We got tube tickets and headed out. We weren't super early, but early enough that not everyone had all of their stuff set up yet. Stine wanted a dress at one booth and the guy was talking to us about it. Then he asked where we were from and when I said the US he said that he always wanted to marry an American girl, so he would give Stine the dress and he would keep me. Not bad, 10am and already a marriage proposal :) We kept wandering and I tried on a coat, but didn't love it so I didn't get it. The market was really cool though because it is built in old horse stables and an old train station I think. It is a very cool area. When we were on our way out of the market and heading for lunch we had to cross a bridge over a river. We'd crossed it on the way in and saw some old locks. I had figured they were no longer used, but on the way back there were boats in them being raised. I made Stine stand in the rain with me and watch them work. They were old, so people had to push the gates open and shut and then turn a level to let water into the lock to raise the boats. Then they had to open the gates again to let the boats out. It took a long time for as small as the locks were, but it was so cool to see them in action in real life! I took a whole bunch of pictures of it.
For lunch we went to a Sushi restaurant. It was cool because they had raised the floor so you sat on the floor on a cushion, but your feet hung down under the table as if you were sitting on a chair. But it looked like you were just sitting on the floor eating. Now, I am not a fan of fish so I got a Bento of chicken teryaki and tempura shrimp. But it came with some salmon sushi rolls. So I tried them and they weren't too bad. I think it's more the idea of sushi that I don't like because I would eat one and think, "that isn't too bad" but when it came to putting the next one in my mouth, I would hesitate and think, "I don't know, I don't really like fish..." So yeah, it was interesting and I'm glad I tried it. After lunch we headed down to the Thames to sight see. We thought about going on the London Eye, a giant ferris wheel that lets you see the whole city, but it was expensive, Stine doesn't like heights and the line was really long. So we wandered around the city instead. As we were walking the strap of my purse broke. Luckily I felt it fall and caught it. But that sucked. So I had to just carry it around the rest of the day.
We were pretty beat after all the walking so we headed back to our hotel to rest for a bit before dinner and going out. I actually fell asleep and didn't wake up until about 8:30 or 9. So we decided to go find some food and have an early night. Stine had a flight the next morning at 9, so she was going to have to be up early to get to the airport. We found a Lebanese restaurant that was delicious. The only problem was that their door didn't close properly so every time someone went in or out the door wouldn't shut and a breeze would come in and we would freeze. We stayed there for a long time though and didn't get home until about 12.
Saturday I had a coach booked for 1 so I got breakfast at the hotel, checked out and then went to the mall down the road for awhile. Then I had to find my way by tube to the bus station. This would have been easy, but one of the lines wasn't running so I had to take a different one that required changing trains partway through my journey. I got there with plenty of time though. When I got back to Poole I went to the store with Danielle to get the last of our ingredients for Easter dinner since the stores aren't open today. Then we had Thai food for dinner. We also watched the new Doctor Who!! It was so great. I love that show. We also started looking for a hotel to stay in when we go to Edinburgh at the end of break.
Today we are having Easter dinner for all the people who didn't go home. Me and Danielle are cooking two hams and I'm making green bean casserole. Everyone else is suppose to bring a dish as well. So it should be good. So I suppose that's all. Here is the link to the pics. Talk to you soon and Happy Easter!!
Tuesday we had our very last class for our master's degree. That seems ridiculous as I don't feel like I know nearly enough to be half done. After class I came home and me and Danielle went looking for hams to cook for Easter dinner. They have stuff called gammon here, which looks kind of like ham, but isn't exactly right. We really wanted the bone-in ham that you find in the US, but couldn't find it in two different stores, so we finally ended up with some gammons with less fat around the outside. And we found a cool recipe where you boil them in Coca Cola so we're going to try that. The recipe also told us that gammon is uncooked meat and ham is what it becomes after you cook it. Interesting I guess... For dinner on Tuesday most of my classmates and I went out for dinner to celebrate being finished. We went to an Indian place that one of my classmates always raves about. It was good, but not as mind-blowing as he always describes it. Then me and Stine got a ride home, which was nice because the bus there didn't run after 7 so we would have had to get a cab.
Wednesday I did pretty much nothing of use. I went to McDonald's for lunch with some friends because I had been craving it. Then I attempted to get some work done for my dissertation, but didn't get very far. Then I met some friends for dinner at KFC and then we went to see How to Train Your Dragon. It was AWESOME!! I recommend that you see it. After that we came home and I had to pack for our trip to London the next day.
Thursday I had to get up really early because we had to catch a bus to school at 6:15 to get to school for 6:45 which was when the buses were suppose to leave for our field trip to London. Of course they didn't leave anywhere near on time, but we got there in plenty of time. We were going on a field trip for our human anatomy class to the Hunterian and Wellcome anatomy museums at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. The Hunterian museum is made up of the comparative collection of John Hunter, who was a surgeon in the late 1700s. He collected human and animal specimens and preserved them in jars or kept there bones. It was a huge collection and was apparently bigger until part of it was destroyed in the bombings during WWII. I always find it weird to think about how scary WWII must have been here with the actual threat of being killed hanging over your head all the time. You see little signs of that everywhere and when you read descriptions of things it sometimes mentions it. Very different from the US where it's just there in history, but you don't really feel it in your day to day life. Anyway, it was cool to see the animal specimens with the human specimens so you could see how they were alike and different. There was also a giant human skeleton that was 7'7" I believe. Crazy. The Wellcome museum was less cool as it was only human stuff and a lot of it was soft tissue. Some of it was very neat to look at, but it wasn't particularly relevant to me, so it was more just browsing around. For lunch we walked down the street to a Dutch pancake place. (crepes, basically) I figured it wouldn't be anywhere near filling, but I couldn't even finish the whole thing. It was really good though. I had pepperoni, chorizo and cheese. It was kind of like a thin pizza.
After we were finished at the museums me, Stine and Melissa stayed behind. We got a cab and headed to me and Stine's hotel. We were suppose to be sharing a room, but they had had some sort of mix up so we each got our own rooms. That was nice, but they were the smallest rooms in the history of the world :) They were pretty comfy though. We hung out there for awhile and then headed out for dinner. We had a reservation at a Brazilian BBQ place for 7, but we were pretty early. They gave us a table though and we got drinks. Melissa's friend was meeting us for dinner but wasn't going to get there until after 7 because he was at work. So we vowed just to get some salad and eat slowly, but it's an all you can eat place where they bring different cuts of mean on skewers to your table and cut pieces off for you. So at first we turned them away, but eventually we couldn't resist and just started eating. So by the time he got there, we had eaten quite a bit. But he caught up. It was delicious. We were there for probably about 4 hours and then headed down the street to a bar. We got some drinks there and then finally headed back to the hotel about midnight. It was a really fun night out.
Friday me and Stine got up around 8 and then got breakfast in the hotel. Just rolls with butter and jelly and coffee, but it was free, so it was fine. We decided to head to Camden to look around the market there since it wasn't raining. We got tube tickets and headed out. We weren't super early, but early enough that not everyone had all of their stuff set up yet. Stine wanted a dress at one booth and the guy was talking to us about it. Then he asked where we were from and when I said the US he said that he always wanted to marry an American girl, so he would give Stine the dress and he would keep me. Not bad, 10am and already a marriage proposal :) We kept wandering and I tried on a coat, but didn't love it so I didn't get it. The market was really cool though because it is built in old horse stables and an old train station I think. It is a very cool area. When we were on our way out of the market and heading for lunch we had to cross a bridge over a river. We'd crossed it on the way in and saw some old locks. I had figured they were no longer used, but on the way back there were boats in them being raised. I made Stine stand in the rain with me and watch them work. They were old, so people had to push the gates open and shut and then turn a level to let water into the lock to raise the boats. Then they had to open the gates again to let the boats out. It took a long time for as small as the locks were, but it was so cool to see them in action in real life! I took a whole bunch of pictures of it.
For lunch we went to a Sushi restaurant. It was cool because they had raised the floor so you sat on the floor on a cushion, but your feet hung down under the table as if you were sitting on a chair. But it looked like you were just sitting on the floor eating. Now, I am not a fan of fish so I got a Bento of chicken teryaki and tempura shrimp. But it came with some salmon sushi rolls. So I tried them and they weren't too bad. I think it's more the idea of sushi that I don't like because I would eat one and think, "that isn't too bad" but when it came to putting the next one in my mouth, I would hesitate and think, "I don't know, I don't really like fish..." So yeah, it was interesting and I'm glad I tried it. After lunch we headed down to the Thames to sight see. We thought about going on the London Eye, a giant ferris wheel that lets you see the whole city, but it was expensive, Stine doesn't like heights and the line was really long. So we wandered around the city instead. As we were walking the strap of my purse broke. Luckily I felt it fall and caught it. But that sucked. So I had to just carry it around the rest of the day.
We were pretty beat after all the walking so we headed back to our hotel to rest for a bit before dinner and going out. I actually fell asleep and didn't wake up until about 8:30 or 9. So we decided to go find some food and have an early night. Stine had a flight the next morning at 9, so she was going to have to be up early to get to the airport. We found a Lebanese restaurant that was delicious. The only problem was that their door didn't close properly so every time someone went in or out the door wouldn't shut and a breeze would come in and we would freeze. We stayed there for a long time though and didn't get home until about 12.
Saturday I had a coach booked for 1 so I got breakfast at the hotel, checked out and then went to the mall down the road for awhile. Then I had to find my way by tube to the bus station. This would have been easy, but one of the lines wasn't running so I had to take a different one that required changing trains partway through my journey. I got there with plenty of time though. When I got back to Poole I went to the store with Danielle to get the last of our ingredients for Easter dinner since the stores aren't open today. Then we had Thai food for dinner. We also watched the new Doctor Who!! It was so great. I love that show. We also started looking for a hotel to stay in when we go to Edinburgh at the end of break.
Today we are having Easter dinner for all the people who didn't go home. Me and Danielle are cooking two hams and I'm making green bean casserole. Everyone else is suppose to bring a dish as well. So it should be good. So I suppose that's all. Here is the link to the pics. Talk to you soon and Happy Easter!!
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