Edinburgh: Birthday Goodies, Illusions, and Castles

Hello everyone!

So, this past week, I was busy with Birthday and Scotland preparations.  Monday was Lauren's birthday, and Friday was mine. On Wednesday, we met with our British family, and they took us out for an Italian meal in their hometown of Sleaford, which is about twenty to thirty minutes away from Grantham. It was so nice to see them again and make plans for the next visit, which is when Lauren's mom is coming next week!

On Thursday, I only had my two classes, so it wasn't super busy.  Before I went to my class, however, I got a box in the mail.  I wasn't expecting a package, so it made me very happy.  My family had put together and Birthday and Halloween present for me, which included Danish wedding cookies.  Oh, how I missed them!  That was so exciting for me to get that package!

Thursday, Rachel and I packed, listened to music, and drank Yorkshire tea that I had bought at Morrison's that afternoon.

Friday morning, it was time to depart for Edinburgh, Scotland.  Before we went to breakfast, Rachel told me that she had bought me a birthday present as well (which she did not have to do).  She got me a Harry Styles poster (we're currently trying to find a place to hang it), a four disk Christmas music cd, and the Michael Jackson Thriller vinyl.  I'm super excited to get a record player and listen to the vinyl when I get home!

At eight o'clock that morning, we left Harlaxton for another adventure.  Around 9:30, we stopped just north of Doncaster and Leeds at a service station.  I found the Leona Lewis album I've been looking for and some tea and shortbread from Costa.  We got back on the road at 10:30 and drove until we reached Hadrian's Wall, which the Romans built in the first few centuries AD.  From up on top of the hill where the wall was, I felt like I could see all of North England.  It was such a sight to see.

After Hadrian's wall, we go back on the road.  Soon, we stopped at the English-Scottish border for a photo.  There was a bagpipe player there, so it really was a nice welcome to Scotland.

We finally got to Edinburgh (at almost 5:00) after several hours of sitting on the bus and checked into our hostel.  Our room had four bunk beds.  I knew four of the girls (Rachel, Brittney, Lauren, and Leah), but I hadn't met the other three girls.  Staying in a hostel was definitely a new experience for me.  I'm not sure that I prefer it to a hotel.  Haha!

After we got our things settled, me and four girls I do know went out for my birthday.  First, we went to The Elephant House.  This is the cafe that J.K. Rowling was sitting in when she began to write the Harry Potter series.  I got a cappuccino, and it was pretty and delicious.

Next, we went to dinner at Nando's (the best restaurant on Earth).  It is really good.  I wasn't very adventurous and got the same thing I did when we went in London.  It never disappoints.

By that time, it was dark out, and we wanted to explore and find the Edinburgh castle.  We walked up some creepy streets and alleyways, and I decided that I don't like Edinburgh at night. Nevertheless, we finally found the castle, and it looked so pretty at night.  They had it lit up, and behind it, you could see the Edinburgh skyline.  We walked some more and found ourselves by the Scottish National Gallery.  Beside the gallery, there is a park that is surrounded by tall, old buildings.  We decided to come back the next day, so we could actually go in the park.

The next morning, we woke up and went to the National Gallery.  It was very cool to see art from so long ago, and the detail that artist puts in to the work is incredible.  After that, we walked down to the park.  Upon walking into the park, I heard a jazz band, and I had to go and find it.  They were across the street, so we just watched from the other side.  They were so good!

Next, Rachel and I got invited to this Chinese Festival they were having.  They served us green tea, Chinese cookies, and taught us some Chinese.  I also got a pretty cool temporary tattoo and took pictures with pandas.

We finally got to walk in the park after that, and then we decided to go to Starbucks.  I, of course, had my favorite autumnal drink, a Pumpkin Spice Latte.

After Starbucks, we went back to the hostel to decide what to do for lunch.  We decided on, you guessed it, Nando's!  It was just as good as the night before, but I got the grilled chicken wrap this time, and it is now my favorite.

After Lunch, we went to the National Museum of Scotland. There, we saw the first mammal ever successfully cloned, Dolly the Sheep.

We did some shopping, and I bought a plaid, Scottish scarf.  We walked up to the castle in the daytime, and we were able to get such a pretty view from it. You could see all of Edinburgh and the sea in the distance!

Next on our list, was to to go to The World of Illusions. That place was so much fun, and we all had a blast doing the five floors of illusions.  There was a mirror maze, and a bridge that stayed still, but everything around was moving, so you felt like the bridge was moving.  That was fun trying to get across it without falling. At the top of the building, was a rooftop terrace where you could see the whole city and the sea once again.

We ate dinner ate a place called Garfunkel's, and it was also delicious! The reason being that they had pink lemonade.

The next morning, we got up and loaded onto the bus around 11.  There was beautiful scenery of the coast and the countryside once we got back into England.

We stopped in a town called Durham for lunch and had Mexican food at a place called Chiquito. I had chicken enchiladas (good, but not as good as dad's) and strawberry cheesecake, which was so good!

We arrived back at Harlaxton around 7:00.  I was so exhausted from the weekend, so I studied for a quiz we had the next day, and went striaght to sleep.

This weekend was very busy and exhausting, but I overall liked the city of Edinburgh.  I would have loved to see more of Scotland as well.  Right now, London is still my favorite city I've been to.  This weekend, we're heading off to Ireland for a really fun tour of the country.

Watch my vlog for Edinburgh here!

You can follow me in real time on my travels by following my tumblr blog here.  Also, make sure and subscribe to my YouTube channel for weekly vlogs.  Thank you!

Love always,

Alexandria

Old Buildings & Pretty Rivers

It's Monday again, which means it's time for me to reminisce about the past weekend.  This past weekend felt busier than the last, probably because I was in a different city everyday.  I'm looking forward to the upcoming weekend because I have no travel plans.  Hopefully, I can catch up on my sleep and maybe do some homework for my classes.  Okay, back to this weekend

On Friday, we were up early to eat breakfast and travel to a place called Lincoln for a British Studies Field Trip.  Lincoln is a really historic town that holds a lot of the real life examples for things that we discuss in our lectures (which is why British studies is kind of cool, besides all the reading).

When we first walked into Lincoln, we passed the Lincoln Cathedral, which was built around 1072.  For an American, that is a really old building (we're lucky if we see a building from the 1700s). 

We then walked under an archway to a cute little cobblestone street with little shops that was situated in front of a Norman castle from around 1068. 

We organized ourselves in our tour groups that we had been given.  My honors British studies professor, Dr. Green, was the leader of my group that day.  First, we walked around Lincoln and discussed the outside of the cathedral, saw how high up the town was from the other towns in that area, and saw some old Roman things that were still there.

This included an archway that was pretty cool.  The Romans came to Lincoln in the year 43 AD, which is crazy to me, so that archway was somewhere from that time period, and it's still standing!

After the walking tour, me and my friends sat in the grass in front of the cathedral to eat a packed lunch that the cafeteria had provided us with.  We walked around to the shops after. I also met a horse there on the street,.and Rachel and I found an ice cream parlor.  I had the raspberry pavlova flavor, which was delicious.

 Around one, I had to meet the group back at the cathedral to go inside.  The inside was beautiful, and we also saw a lot of creepy tombs.  They were playing organ music as well, so it made it really authentic.

After the cathedral tour, we were free to walk around in the castle built by the Normans.  We walked up a narrow staircase in a tower to go up to the top.  Once at the top, if you stood a certain way, you felt like you were on the Great Wall of China.

 After we did that, we met a friend and walked down to the Primark store.  We did not know, however that Primark was at the very bottom of a road called Steep Hill.  The were not lying when they named the road this.  On the way back to the top, I swear we were walking on a vertical incline.  It was really bad.

We made it back to the manor that night, and I got to sleep so I could get up even earlier for the Cambridge trip on Saturday.

That morning, before stopping in Cambridge, we stopped at the American WWII Cemetery just outside the city.  There were over three thousand service members buried there, and they had over five thousand on the wall of the missing.  I can't express the feeling of appreciation and gratitude I feel along with sadness.  When your in a place like this, listening to the tour guide tell stories of select people, you get an almost overwhelming feeling that you can't describe.  They also had a museum there with a nice eight minute film about some of the people buried there and what they did for the war.  I remembered one quote from that film that sums up how I felt while there: "Each one paid their price; each one earned our freedom."

When we arrived in Cambridge, we had the whole day free to ourselves.  We went and sat by the river that runs though the town and ate our packed lunch.  It was really pretty and serene out there.

We walked around and explored the city a little bit after that and found a tea shop.  Sara and I split a traditional English Afternoon Tea.  It was delicious!

We went into one of the colleges at Cambridge University because the others were closed, and the grounds were so gorgeous.

Since Cambridge has the river that runs through it, a popular activity is punting.  This means that a person stands on the back of boat and pushes you along the river with a stick.  We just watched the people do it.  It reminded me of the gondolas in pictures that I've seen in Venice (which I'm definitely doing when I go there). 

Saturday, when we got back to the manor, we ate dinner, and a few of us went outside to the front of the manor. We danced, listened to music, and sang obnoxiously loud.  It was probably the most fun I've had since I've been at Harlaxton (not counting Hampstead of course).  We stayed out there until about 9:30, and then we heard a rustling in the woods near where we were and ran inside baecause we got freaked out.  Most of the lights in the manor were out at this time because after nine is quiet hours, so it was kind of creepy.  We went back to Lauren and her roommate's, Sarah, room.  We ate snacks and talked until about 11:30, and it was really relaxing to chat and not worrying about anything else.

On Sunday, Lauren and I went to our Meet-A-Family's house around 11 am.  They picked us up and drove us to their house.  Their one month old granddaughter was there, and she was so cute.  I got to hold her for quite a while.  Then we walked her to her parents house and walked back to have lunch.  We had rolls with ham, British mustard (which is a little spicier), chicken and ham pie, and sausage rolls.  Everything was really good, and I liked it a lot.  We met their two yellow labs after that, and they were sweet.  We decided to watch the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou after that.  While we were watching the movie, we had a slice of cake and this amazing iced peach tea.  We sat and talked while dinner was finishing and had a traditional British Sunday roast dinner, which so delicious, and I was so full (I also had more of the peach tea). 

I'd say that this weekend has been really enjoyable, but very busy, and I'm excited to realx this upcoming weekend.  My next big adventure is the Scotland trip coming up week after next on my birthday! See you soon!

Love always,

Alexandria