Tartan Spandex and the like

Oh goodness, where to begin! This past week was crazy, fun, insane, wild, frustrating, and emotional to say the least. I had a minor breakdown while packing but after a blessing I was ready to embark on my Scottish adventure!

The first day was quite long. We began our day at 6am on the bus. We drove all the way to York, only making one stop on the way. In York we visited a Viking museum. To be perfectly honest it was a bit of a let-down, but hilarious nonetheless. The whole tour was given on a disneyland type ride through a recreated viking town complete with robotic vikings. The most interesting part was the constipated Viking making grunting noises in the Viking version of the toilet. And if you think that's mildly vulgar, you should've seen the "perfectly preserved feces" in the other part of the museum! Vikings are gross.

After the museum, we had the opportunity to climb to the top of Yorkminster - the cathedral in York. It was really, really high! Becca is terrified of heights and I was so proud of her for climbing all the way to the top. Let me tell you, 275 stairs to the top is quite the calf workout! Upon leaving York, we went to Fountains Abbey. Fountains abbey was ransaked and torn down during the reign of Henry VIII. Touring the ruins was amazing. I have pictures, but they don't do them justice at all. Seriously, it's very hard to show how peaceful and majestic they ruins are through words or pictures. It's just something you have to experience.

FINALLY, after they abbey we made our way to Durham - where we stayed the first night. The picture at the top shows the castle where we stayed. I stayed on the 6th floor. I'm going to be so buff when I get home - I hauled my suitcase all the way up those 6 flights of stairs! The best part of staying at Durham castle was that we met a young man that just graduated from the University there and gave us a private tour in the middle of the night! About 5 of us went with him into a basement chapel around midnight! It was just about, if not more fun than my tour of Cambridge.

The second day we rolled out of Durham to make our way to SCOTLAND! On our way we stopped at the city of Wall - yes, that's right Wall. As in Stardust. I've been there. Well kinda. We stopped at some Roman Ruins near Hadrian's Wall in Wall. That was cool - kinda. It was cold, rainy, and we had already seen Roman ruins in Bath so we walked over to the ruins, looked at them, then got back on the bus because it was cold. Anyway, a few hours later we passed the border into Scotland. Let me tell you, it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! Our first stop was Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott. It was amazing and the gardens were gorgeous. We toured the house and grounds before making our way to our hostel in Edinburgh.

We got to Edinburgh and Diana, Koryl, Becca and I found a nice place to eat on the Royal Mile. I think it was called the Filling Station, or something like that. Anyway, we ate dinner and then bought tickets for a ghost tour for that night. It was thundering and lightening but thankfully it stopped as we started the ghost tour along with about 10 others from our group. The tour was pretty freaky, mostly beacuse the lady's face looked creepy with a flashlight held up to it. However, I wasn't as jumpy as I usually am. In fact, Becca and Sammie (one of the Professors daughters) were holding on to ME for comfort!

The next morning we had a million things to do for our classes so we (Diana, Koryl, Becca - hereafter reffered to as "the girls") decided to book it through everything so that we would have time to shop and enjoy Edinburgh. First stop - Edinburgh Castle. I've wanted to see the castle since I read my first book on Mary Queen of Scots. The picture above was taken at the castle. After finishing our tour of the castle, we went to Lady Stair's Writer's Museum. That was rather boring and the girls and I blew through that in about 30 minutes. We got everything we needed for our class and then got out of there. Last stop - the Museum of Scottish History. We took all the notes we needed for History, saw Dolly the sheep, climbed up to the roof, and left. Oh, I should mention that while walking to the museum we passed the Elephant House - the pub that is "the birthplace of Harry Potter". That was pretty awesome.

Finally we had finished our mandatory assignments! We then made our way up to Arthur's Seat. Well, I should say that we TRIED to make our way up to Arthur's Seat. On our first attempt we got caught in a lovely rainstorm with some pretty strong wind. Nothing like being wet, cold, and miserable. We took a wrong turn and ended up walking all the way around Arthur's Seat instead of to the top of it. We gave up and went back down, changed, and decided to go shopping.

I LOVED shopping in Edinburgh. I spent way too much money, and bought way too much. However, I figured because of certain circumstances I'll most likely never be in Edinburgh again so why not throw caution to the wind and live it up! I am now the proud owner of scottish boxers, a very cute scottish sweatshirt, a thistle ring, and tartan tights. Seriously, I don't know why a certain person told me that Scots don't run around in Tartan Spandex because they sell them in Edinburgh. I should know, I bought 2 pairs. Just add in some tap dancing and you've got a Brigadoon remake.

Once we got tired of shopping, we went back to the hostel, made ourselves a bit more presentable, and got lunch at chocolate soup. For lunch I had a chocolate muffin and a large mug of hot chocolate. Two words: LIFE CHANGING.

Anyway, later that night we went to an organ concert at St. Giles Cathedral. I sat across from an old man in a kilt and he did NOT cross his legs. Were it not for a very conveniently placed pole, I would've seen WAY too much. Talk about awkward.

That night, after dinner, I went to bed early-ish because some girls and I had decided that we would like to successfully climb Arthur's Seat. Now, my dear friend Rachel told me to enjoy my experience in the UK and reminded me that I can sleep when I get home. I took her advice and planned to climb Arthur's Seat super early so that I could watch the sunrise.

Arthur's Seat at sunrise was GLORIOUS! I got to watch the first beams of light hit the city. It was an awe-inspiring experience. I can't even describe it. The hilarious thing is, I wore my "Greatest Gift" t-shirt completely by accident. Now, all I'm going to say is, that t-shirt is from EFY 2006 and if you know me well enough, you'll understand why I find this ironic and extremely funny.

While on Arthur's Seat I said goodbye to beautiful Edinburgh and climbed back down, got ready for the day, and hopped back on the bus.

This day was kinda boring actually. We spent most of the day on the bus. We were driving pretty much the whole day to the Lake District. The scenery was beautiful. However, every time we were almost asleep, one of the professors would take the opportunity to get on the loudspeaker and hold a mini-class. It was painful.

Once in the Lake District, we toured the home of Wentworth, the famous poet. The tour was short and sweet and we had the opportunity to get lunch in the little town. I ordered a baked potato and sarsparilla. Ok, British sarsparilla is HORRIBLE. It tasted like disgusting cough medicine. I poured it out and saved the bottle. The bottle was really cool looking.

Another half hour on the bus brought us to Ambleside where our hostel was for that night. EW, it was disgusting. Seriously, my mother would've died had she seen it. Oh well. Our hostel had a beautiful view of the lake. The girls, Danny, Dylan, and I took a boat tour of the lake. It was gorgeous. Later on, after dinner, the girls and I decided that there was nothing much to do, so we walked in to town and saw Harry Potter, for the second time. We walked back to the hostel around 11:30 pm, psyched ourselves out and made our way VERY quickly back to the hostel.

The next morning we were all exhausted from the constant travelling and touring and were not very excited to get back on the bus. However, we went to Preston that day which was exciting. We got to see all the church history sites there. We even got to see the Preston Temple.

The Preston Temple is beautiful. It was wonderful to go there. We all felt the peace and love that we needed to feel at that time. I felt so peaceful and calm and had less of a desire to hit people on the bus after visiting Preston.

Unfortunately, those warm fuzzy feelings didn't last long. They made ANOTHER stop on our way back to London at an old COTTON MILL. That's right people, a COTTON MILL. At first I was just annoyed that we'd be spending 2 hours touring this mill that would probably take me 20 minutes to see. Plus I was tired from travelling. But it got WORSE. We realized that this was the trip that they told us we'd tour the house used as Pemberley in the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. Through a little investigating, it was discovered that this stupid mill REPLACED PEMBERLEY!

Ok, now you do not take a bus full of 30 exhausted, PMSing young women, ages 18-21, promise them a trip to the house that would complete their Jane Austen-obsessed existence, and then take them to a STUPID COTTON MILL instead!!!!!! I cannot describe to you how insensed all the girls (including myself) were. Some girls were furious, others were near the point of tears. (Thank you hormones) It was not pretty. I was seriously angry. I mean, for heavens sakes. If I wanted to see a freakin cotton mill I could at any point. I'm from Virginia! I can drive a few miles south and see where the cotton was picked, then drive a few miles north and see the same stupid cotton mill! I wanted to see Pemberley! If they weren't going to take us to Pemberley they should've ended the day with the temple! At least then we would've been calm about it!

On the bus on the way home we watched North and South. This movie's last 10 minutes are the most romantic and amazing 10 minutes that make up for the 3 hours and 50 minutes of depressing angst before it. I LOVED it! It was hard to be angry after watching the most perfect kiss ever. However, the next day I was just as angry as before.

Once we got back to London, I was so excited to see the London Centre. It is wonderful to not be scared of the bed I'm sleeping in.

Throughout my trip I had many moments similar to those of Elizabeth Bennet's while at Pemberley (which I never got to see!!!! I'm not bitter at all) where she said "of all this I might've been mistress". But then I realized how cold and rainy it is and let it go. I like seasons. As beautiful as it was, I'll stick with what I've got.