My life and adventures as I pretend to be a good student in England ;)
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Late
I may be late getting this up tomorrow as tonight is the Emo/Goth party. So here is a link to the pics from cocktail night and I'll get the goth pics and the blog entry up as soon as I can. Later! Link
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Planning week
Well, this was a very exciting week for me, but won't make for a very exciting blog entry, really. On Monday I handed in my second to last assignment for the taught part of my course. It was one of the hardest ever to write papers, but it's done now, so I don't care. Now I just have my assemblage report to write and I will be done! Just the dissertation to work on. After the hand-in Stine, Melissa and I went to a coffee/juice bar called The Dancing Goat to get juice. We'd found the place a long time ago, but hadn't had time to get back there to actually buy anything. The juice was really good and the mini blueberry muffin was also delicious. We walked home from the juice bar and then I went shopping with my flatmate, Baitalikee, because we needed pizza making ingredients. Monday was her birthday and she wanted to make home-made pizzas. Later that afternoon I made her chocolate muffins with peanut butter cups in them for her cake. Then around 7 we started the pizza. Gareth, my other flatmate, got really into it and tried throwing the crust. He wasn't very good at it though. B really liked making the pizza dough, but wasn't such a fan of rolling it out, so I ended up doing a lot of rolling. But they turned out pretty good and I think she had a nice birthday.
Tuesday I didn't do a whole lot. I did plan a goth/emo going away party for Stine, who is going to Norway to excavate for 2 months. That is happening next Saturday and should be very fun. I also hosted Taco Tuesday because I really wanted Mexican food. The taco seasoning here isn't quite right, but it was better than nothing.
Then on Wednesday night I got a text from Sara saying that she had bought her ticket to London for our trip to Italy in July. So that was super exciting!!
Thursday I bought the tickets from Bournemouth to Pisa so our trip is a go! I'm so excited! Then after lunch I went to Bournemouth with Stine to go to the costume shop to look for costumes for the party. I got a red corset with black lace. It is amazingly hard to breathe in, but Stine assures me it will get easier if I wear it around my room a few times before the part to get used to it. We'll see. If I pass out at the party, we'll know that didn't work :) Then Thursday late afternoon I went to the train station with Danielle to book our train tickets to Cardiff, Wales. We're going in early July for a few days while her friend from Canada is here. After we got the tickets we came back and booked the hotel. Then we looked at train tickets to Paris and found a good deal, so we booked those as well. We'll book the hotel next week. So that was really exciting. I'm going to Italy, France and Wales!
Friday I went to school to attempt to get some work done. I did get some done and have a much better idea of what I'm suppose to do for this assignment. So that's good. I just need to make a lot of tables so that I can do the comparisons and get the writing done. It shouldn't be too bad and I can hopefully get it done by Friday so that I don't have to worry about it over the weekend.
Saturday I went to the gym in the morning and then went to another grocery store looking for coffee flavouring syrup. They didn't have it, but another store had a really cute pair of shoes that I got. Then I came home and got a bit of dissertation preliminary work done for my meeting with Mark on Tuesday.
This morning I had an email from Mom that she and Dad got their tickets to come and visit last night, so they'll be coming at the end of July. So all in all it was a very exciting week for me, but the weeks that I actually take these trips will be much more exciting blog entries. Well, take care and I hope to hear from you soon.
Tuesday I didn't do a whole lot. I did plan a goth/emo going away party for Stine, who is going to Norway to excavate for 2 months. That is happening next Saturday and should be very fun. I also hosted Taco Tuesday because I really wanted Mexican food. The taco seasoning here isn't quite right, but it was better than nothing.
Then on Wednesday night I got a text from Sara saying that she had bought her ticket to London for our trip to Italy in July. So that was super exciting!!
Thursday I bought the tickets from Bournemouth to Pisa so our trip is a go! I'm so excited! Then after lunch I went to Bournemouth with Stine to go to the costume shop to look for costumes for the party. I got a red corset with black lace. It is amazingly hard to breathe in, but Stine assures me it will get easier if I wear it around my room a few times before the part to get used to it. We'll see. If I pass out at the party, we'll know that didn't work :) Then Thursday late afternoon I went to the train station with Danielle to book our train tickets to Cardiff, Wales. We're going in early July for a few days while her friend from Canada is here. After we got the tickets we came back and booked the hotel. Then we looked at train tickets to Paris and found a good deal, so we booked those as well. We'll book the hotel next week. So that was really exciting. I'm going to Italy, France and Wales!
Friday I went to school to attempt to get some work done. I did get some done and have a much better idea of what I'm suppose to do for this assignment. So that's good. I just need to make a lot of tables so that I can do the comparisons and get the writing done. It shouldn't be too bad and I can hopefully get it done by Friday so that I don't have to worry about it over the weekend.
Saturday I went to the gym in the morning and then went to another grocery store looking for coffee flavouring syrup. They didn't have it, but another store had a really cute pair of shoes that I got. Then I came home and got a bit of dissertation preliminary work done for my meeting with Mark on Tuesday.
This morning I had an email from Mom that she and Dad got their tickets to come and visit last night, so they'll be coming at the end of July. So all in all it was a very exciting week for me, but the weeks that I actually take these trips will be much more exciting blog entries. Well, take care and I hope to hear from you soon.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Park and Food Fest
Hello! Well, this week was a bit more interesting than last. I have some fun pictures, anyway. I have a paper due on Monday so I was pretending to work on that for most of the week, but Monday was a bank holiday here. I'm not exactly sure what bank holidays are, but most people get the day off and banks and lots of stores are closed. So me and a few friends decided to go down to Bournemouth to hang out. We had originally planned on going to the beach, but it was cold and windy so we couldn't do that :( We did walk down by the beach though to get lunch. On our way we went through the park where we got to take some cool pictures. Then we ate at a restaurant with a beach view, so that was nice. After lunch we wandered down along the beach and then Melissa made us stand in the sand to take a picture. I didn't want to because I don't like having sand in my shoes, but then I caved. Then when we were just sitting along the edge of the sidewalk by the beach Sytske decided to be mean and put sand on me, which then fell down into my shoe. I was very upset, but she got herself back by throwing sand in the air and having it blow back into her hair. When we turned around from the beach we saw a dark black cloud coming in so we decided to head away from the beach. We didn't make it all the way to the store we were heading for when it started raining, so we ducked into a pub for some coffee. I got a mug with the queen on it!
It stopped raining after about a half hour or so so we headed for the square. They were having a bazaar of some sort and were selling crepes, so we had to get some. They sell them at every festival here. These were especially good ones as the actual crepe had vanilla or almond or something in it. Then it was filled with banana and chocolate. Mmmmm.... When we were finished we went to a store to look at jewelry as they were having a sale. Nothing caught our fancy, but there was a really cool pair of shoes that I loved. I tried them on and had to take off my sandy socks to do so, so I'm sure I left sand in the shoes... I wasn't sure when I would ever wear them though, so I didn't get them. After shopping we walked around in another smaller park and then headed home as it was looking like it might rain again.
Tuesday I didn't do much, but Wednesday I went to the Slug and Lettuce to study with Stine. They have an 80s menu on because they are celebrating their 25th anniversary. So we got club sandwiches for lunch. They didn't come with fries so we ordered those as well. When we got the sandwich we realized why it didn't come with fries. It was HUGE! Chicken, bacon, lettuce, tomato and tons of mayo between 3 layers of toasted white bread. And coleslaw on the side. It was delicious though. They also have banana splits on the menu, so I'll be going back for one of those.
Thursday and Friday I spent reading for and writing my paper. Then yesterday I went to an International Food Festival in Christchurch. Danielle and I took the train to Christchurch and then just wandered through the stalls all afternoon. We got some Spanish food and then Italian stuff. Then we saw a beer festival at a pub so we stopped in there for awhile. After that we got pork sandwiches from a hog roast booth. They were amazing.
Then that evening I had people over to my flat just to hang out. We just chatted and caught up since we don't see each other as often anymore now that we don't have classes. Monday is my flatmate's birthday, so I have to go and find a present for her today. Then I'm making her chocolate muffins for a cake, as that is what she requested. Well, here are the pics from the week. They are at the end of the album. I also ran out of bbq sauce this week, so if anyone felt the need to send me some (the Aldi's kind) I would love them forever ;)
It stopped raining after about a half hour or so so we headed for the square. They were having a bazaar of some sort and were selling crepes, so we had to get some. They sell them at every festival here. These were especially good ones as the actual crepe had vanilla or almond or something in it. Then it was filled with banana and chocolate. Mmmmm.... When we were finished we went to a store to look at jewelry as they were having a sale. Nothing caught our fancy, but there was a really cool pair of shoes that I loved. I tried them on and had to take off my sandy socks to do so, so I'm sure I left sand in the shoes... I wasn't sure when I would ever wear them though, so I didn't get them. After shopping we walked around in another smaller park and then headed home as it was looking like it might rain again.
Tuesday I didn't do much, but Wednesday I went to the Slug and Lettuce to study with Stine. They have an 80s menu on because they are celebrating their 25th anniversary. So we got club sandwiches for lunch. They didn't come with fries so we ordered those as well. When we got the sandwich we realized why it didn't come with fries. It was HUGE! Chicken, bacon, lettuce, tomato and tons of mayo between 3 layers of toasted white bread. And coleslaw on the side. It was delicious though. They also have banana splits on the menu, so I'll be going back for one of those.
Thursday and Friday I spent reading for and writing my paper. Then yesterday I went to an International Food Festival in Christchurch. Danielle and I took the train to Christchurch and then just wandered through the stalls all afternoon. We got some Spanish food and then Italian stuff. Then we saw a beer festival at a pub so we stopped in there for awhile. After that we got pork sandwiches from a hog roast booth. They were amazing.
Then that evening I had people over to my flat just to hang out. We just chatted and caught up since we don't see each other as often anymore now that we don't have classes. Monday is my flatmate's birthday, so I have to go and find a present for her today. Then I'm making her chocolate muffins for a cake, as that is what she requested. Well, here are the pics from the week. They are at the end of the album. I also ran out of bbq sauce this week, so if anyone felt the need to send me some (the Aldi's kind) I would love them forever ;)
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Boring
Hello!! I'm sorry to say that this week's post is going to be quite boring. And all the more so because last week's was so long and picture filled. So I apologize in advance.
This week we had to do a full week of 9-5 lab analysis. We had assessed our faunal (animal bone) assemblage early this term and now we had to do a full analysis of it. That meant going through every bag of bone and identifying what bone it was and what animal it came from. This wasn't so bad for the cows, sheep, and pigs, but when it came to birds it was pretty bad. I put birds off until Thursday, but they still took their toll. They are very small with very tiny differences that mean the difference between one species and another. I hated this because I already hate birds and it turns out I'm really bad at telling the difference between their bones. But I finally finished after about 6 or 7 hours work. Then it was back to normal animals again. But I managed to finish by about 2:30 on Friday, which was awesome because I figured I'd be there all night.
Anyway, this whole experience just showed me that I don't want to have a job. I would leave my flat at 8 in the morning and not get back until about 6:30 or 7 and everything would be closed so I'd make myself some dinner, watch a movie and go to bed. What a boring life :(
On Thursday night we decided we should treat ourselves to dinner and a movie. We went to Wagamama, a Japanese noodle bar. When we ordered the waiter told us that they serve the dishes as soon as they are done so they don't always come out at the same time. Stine's dish came first and she started eating it. About 10 minutes later I still didn't have mine but wasn't sure how long it would take to cook or anything. Finally the waiter came over and said that he had forgotten to send my order in so he had talked to the chef and he was going to cook it really quickly. By the time I got it Stine was finished so then she had to watch me eat. It was a very bizarre experience and the food wasn't all that good. We did wonder later how long we would have sat there before asking about my food. They just really threw us with the pointing out that they didn't come at the same time. Weird. So then we headed over to the movie theater. I got a giant Ben and Jerry's sundae. It was delicious. And we saw Iron Man 2, which was pretty good.
Friday I finished early and came home and did nothing. I went for a walk with my flatmate and was asleep by about 10 :( Then Saturday I went to Bournemouth to meet my friend after work. We went shopping and I got the most awesome dress ever. It's white with black polka dots and is 50s inspired. So cute. Then we went to dinner and got mac and cheese. It was really delicious.
Today we were suppose to go to the beach, but it is rainy and cold so we're postponing. I may make paella tonight. I'm making it with a friend though, so we have to see what's going on with both of us. Otherwise we'll do it tomorrow. But we bought all the ingredients this morning, so I'm excited for it.
Well, sorry that this was such a boring post. Hopefully next week will be better. If it's nice we plan to do a lot of outdoor activities so that should be fun. Have a great week and I hope to hear from you soon.
This week we had to do a full week of 9-5 lab analysis. We had assessed our faunal (animal bone) assemblage early this term and now we had to do a full analysis of it. That meant going through every bag of bone and identifying what bone it was and what animal it came from. This wasn't so bad for the cows, sheep, and pigs, but when it came to birds it was pretty bad. I put birds off until Thursday, but they still took their toll. They are very small with very tiny differences that mean the difference between one species and another. I hated this because I already hate birds and it turns out I'm really bad at telling the difference between their bones. But I finally finished after about 6 or 7 hours work. Then it was back to normal animals again. But I managed to finish by about 2:30 on Friday, which was awesome because I figured I'd be there all night.
Anyway, this whole experience just showed me that I don't want to have a job. I would leave my flat at 8 in the morning and not get back until about 6:30 or 7 and everything would be closed so I'd make myself some dinner, watch a movie and go to bed. What a boring life :(
On Thursday night we decided we should treat ourselves to dinner and a movie. We went to Wagamama, a Japanese noodle bar. When we ordered the waiter told us that they serve the dishes as soon as they are done so they don't always come out at the same time. Stine's dish came first and she started eating it. About 10 minutes later I still didn't have mine but wasn't sure how long it would take to cook or anything. Finally the waiter came over and said that he had forgotten to send my order in so he had talked to the chef and he was going to cook it really quickly. By the time I got it Stine was finished so then she had to watch me eat. It was a very bizarre experience and the food wasn't all that good. We did wonder later how long we would have sat there before asking about my food. They just really threw us with the pointing out that they didn't come at the same time. Weird. So then we headed over to the movie theater. I got a giant Ben and Jerry's sundae. It was delicious. And we saw Iron Man 2, which was pretty good.
Friday I finished early and came home and did nothing. I went for a walk with my flatmate and was asleep by about 10 :( Then Saturday I went to Bournemouth to meet my friend after work. We went shopping and I got the most awesome dress ever. It's white with black polka dots and is 50s inspired. So cute. Then we went to dinner and got mac and cheese. It was really delicious.
Today we were suppose to go to the beach, but it is rainy and cold so we're postponing. I may make paella tonight. I'm making it with a friend though, so we have to see what's going on with both of us. Otherwise we'll do it tomorrow. But we bought all the ingredients this morning, so I'm excited for it.
Well, sorry that this was such a boring post. Hopefully next week will be better. If it's nice we plan to do a lot of outdoor activities so that should be fun. Have a great week and I hope to hear from you soon.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Scotland!! Part 2
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.
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.
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!
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