Last night I returned from a fantastic journey around England, Scotland, and Wales! I am very glad to be back in London, not living out of a suitcase, out of that bus, and all moved in to my new studio flat with my fabulous roommate Emma. I put together a few little collages of pictures from the trip for your viewing enjoyment.
Disclaimer: I didn't really keep a journal on this trip, so some things may not be a complete hundred percent accurate and full of detail. But you'll get the gist.
We began our adventure by piling on to the bus and meeting our bus driver, Vince. He entertained us with jokes and interesting facts throughout the drive to Stratford-upon-Avon. We stopped at Trinity Church to see Shakespeare's grave. There, we enjoyed a tour of Anne Hathaway's cottage (she was Shakespeare's wife) there in Shakespeare's hometown before savoring a relaxing afternoon before heading over to the Royal Shakespeare Company theatre to see Galileo. The show was very well done and the man acting as Galileo was Ian McDiarmid (who was Emporer Palpatine from the recent Star Wars!), so that was awesome. Afterward we ate at a pub which the actors frequent, and a few girls got to talk with some of the cast members! The next day we headed off to York (at the same time as Zeb was in New York, which I think is just the coolest thing). Our group toured the York Minster after splitting up to find some lunch. Caitlyn, Taylor and I grabbed a couple sandwiches from Sainsbury's, but since it was raining we couldn't eat outside. We wandered around for a bit, and ended up sitting in the doorway of a church on the steps munching and watching people walk by. That night, we enjoyed some rugby on TV and a freezing and fun ghost tour around town.
The next day we crossed the Scotland border (pictures are on facebook; there was a big rock with the word Scotland on it) and went to Edinburgh. We only had a couple hours of sunlight left when we arrived, so as soon as we dumped our things in the rooms a group of us girls (we dubbed ourselves the Independent Women) set off for a quick adventure to some crags right outside of town. We arrived much quicker than anticipated and proceeded to book it up there as quick as possible. Although we didn't go all the way to the top (that would have taken at least another twenty-five minutes), we did go what we considered to be an impressive percentage of the way up before watching the beginning of the sunset. It began to do some strange rain/snow/hail/light sprinkling combo, so we quickly made our way down and back into the hub of the town. All of us were starving at this point, and accidentally ran into a sports pub with a Manchester United soccer game on, but we wanted to eat so we relocated. The pub we ended up at had some very nice staff, and we all enjoyed a hearty meal and split some haggis! Y'all can go ahead and google what haggis is; I thought it was quite delicious.
The following morning we woke up to some serious snowfall, which luckily took a bit of a break while we did a coach tour around the city before touring the castle. The Edinburgh Castle was fascinating, very cool, and filled with lots of interesting history, but we were met with snow blown into our faces by ferocious winds on the way down to shop around and get lunch.
That afternoon we stopped by Loch Lomond for a bit. I loved just looking out past the water at the beautiful Scottish Highlands, it was simply gorgeous.
We stayed out in the middle of nowhere at a lovely place called Glencoe (dubbed "Glencoe co" for any of you Mean Girls fans). The views out our door: stunning. A group of us went on a hike up the Devil's Staircase, and we made it up to the summit in pretty good time. We enjoyed tasting some mountain ice, sliding down on the snow, and overall just enjoying the grandeur all around us. The pictures don't even capture half of the beauty.
After that, we spent the next couple of days back in England in the Lake District, which had nice views but not terribly much to do. Our professors were brilliant, however, and we all had a wonderful time with a murder mystery game/party/thing the second night of our stay. We headed off to Wales next, and stopped at the Beatles museum in Liverpool. I enjoy the Beatles possibly slightly more than the average person, but much less than a true fan probably does, but the exhibits were all very well done. It may even have been too well done, because I couldn't even comprehend all of the mass of information before me. Most of us had an excellent time and even took a little longer than the allotted time to make it through.
We stayed at the cutest little B&B in Wales. The Welsh flag has a dragon on it, which I think is way cool, and they have their own language so that's doubly awesome. I really would love to learn another language. The staff were all super sweet, and Wales itself was lovely. We toured a bit of the city and enjoyed tromping about Caernafon Castle. Taylor and I explored a bit of the city, and found some inexpensive Iron Bru (a soft drink we were told is only a Scottish thing, but apparently is also available in Wales) before hopping on the bus and heading for London.
Here's a miscellaneous collage just for fun. Feel free to ask what the pictures mean if you're curious.
Well, all of that seems a lot shorter than a week of my life, it just flew by so I hope I didn't leave out a whole day or anything! Once we arrived back in London, Emma and I got all settled into our flat, which we are thoroughly enjoying! It's so so nice (especially after the coach tour) to have some of our own space!
Just in case you weren't aware: coach means bus in British
Also, if anyone is actually still reading at this point, I have a minor problem. I'd love to dominate the March Madness bracket tournament my family has, but haven't been paying much attention to college basketball in the US lately. Any tips are welcome, just shoot me a message!
Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!
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