Scotland the Brave!

So when we get off the plane in Scotland, the first thing we see are little sample shots of whiskey being given away. EVERY vacation should start like this. Other than that, since we got in so late (8pm), we didn't really do anything in Edinburgh Wednesday night.

Thursday was our Loch Ness adventure. We drove 4 1/2 hours through the Scottish Highlands. Words cannot describe their beauty, and pictures cannot do them justice. I fell in love with Scotland you guys.

Bridge used for Harry Potter--awwww yeah!

Me with the highlands in the background at one of our bathroom stops.

After a drive through the highlands, we arrived at Fort Augustus--home of Loch Ness. We had about an hour to walk around (it was a tiny town so I spent most of that hour in a gift shop getting my mom some spoons). Then we boarded a little ship that took us out onto Loch Ness. It was really neat. There was a guy there who was really knowledgeable about Loch Ness and showed us pictures of weird things he'd seen on the Loch.

Nessie's real. Found her.

Officially at the banks of Loch Ness.

I tripped and fell on my butt trying to get this shot. This is why I am not a photographer.

Loch Ness is MUCH bigger than I thought it would be.

View from inside the boat on our boat tour.

Then Nessie showed up. :)

After Loch Ness, it was a long drive home, but still beautiful scenery to look at.

The next day we got up and did a free walking tour of the city through Sandeman's New Europe Tours. Our tour guide was amazing--really funny and knew his stuff. He was Australian, actually. Moved to Edinburgh after falling in love with it almost 2 1/2 years ago. We got to see lots of cool things, and he told us many cool stories about the city. I cannot recommend these tours enough. It was absolutely amazing.

That middle window is where JK Rowling once sat to write Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

This cute little dog sat next to his master's grave for 14 years. He's now a legend.

The café where JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter novel.

After the tour, we went to get lunch with our tour guide. I tried haggis. It was surprisingly delicious. Maddie and Angela decided that they wanted to do a pub crawl later that night. Needless to say, paying someone else to get wasted is not exactly my idea of a good time. Besides, pub crawls can be done anywhere in the world. So, I decided to take a haunted ghost tour instead. It was so worth it. The views of the city were absolutely spectacular at night, and it was fun hearing all the different myths and legends.

On my way to the ghost tour, I saw this statue--with a traffic cone on its head.

Beautiful view from a cemetery in New Town (looking toward Old Town).

Another view from the cemetery.

This was the view from the top of Calton Hill (the entrance to the realm of the faeries).

The next day was time for Edinburgh Castle. We were all pretty tired, though. So we really didn't get our money's worth out of the castle visit. It was pretty spectacular, though. The position of it up on castle rock is incredible, and it's really a sight to see.

At the entrance to the castle.

Don't make me angry; I have a cannon.

Every day at 8 seconds to 1pm, they fire this cannon off. It's not as loud as I was expecting it to be.

After the castle, we went to Greyfriar's Cemetery where JK Rowling used to walk to get inspiration. 

The inspiration for a certain beloved Hogwarts professor.

This school is really close to the cemetery and was supposedly part of the inspiration for Hogwarts (the other part being Edinburgh Castle itself).

He Who Shall Not Be Named.

Mad Eye Moody

After Greyfriar's, we hit up The Elephant House cafe for a bite to eat. In the bathroom to this magical café is a whole bunch of Harry Potter themed graffiti. I like it.

(Weasley) is our king.

Once we were properly fed and watered at the Elephant House, we headed over to St. Giles' Cathedral to find the wooden carving of an angel playing a bagpipe.

This carving is only one of TWO in the world of angels with bagpipes.

Next we made our way toward Hollyrood House (all in being silly-ful).

My imitation of some writer or another.

Holyrood House itself. The queen's official residence in Scotland.

In front of the gates of Holyrood House.

 Over to the side of Holyrood House is a lovely huge hill that one of the other guys staying in our hostel suggested we climb. So we decide that we're going to climb all 251 meters of Arthur's Seat. The climb itself was absolutely gorgeous and rewarding (even if I am deathly afraid of heights).

Giant rock/hill overlooking the city.

Finally made it to the top of Arthur's Seat.

Climbing to the top of Arthur's Seat was probably one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. 1. I am terrified of heights. There was one part where there was only a tiny narrow little path *right* next to a pretty sheer cliff drop. I took about 5 minutes mentally preparing myself for that one. And 2. I am freaking lazy (not to mention that I picked up someone's illness in London, and was then sick from Edinburgh on). To climb all the way up without giving up is a pretty big accomplishment. Plus the view was spectacular. Here's some video of the view.

Early the next day, we headed to the airport for our final stop of the trip--Dublin!

London Calling! Part Two

After our tour of the south of England, we decided to explore London. First thing Monday morning we headed out to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard. On our way, however, we got a little sidetracked--first by musical tickets and then by some silly hats. When we passed by the little theatre district near Victoria Station we decided to see if we could get cheap tickets to any of the shows that were playing. As luck would have it, we only spent 20 quid to see Billy Elliot. We even met a student from Switzerland (Anna) who also got tickets to go to the show. Eventually we made our way to the Palace and had plenty of time to spare. 5 minutes later we got split up, but used our hats to locate each other.

Silly hat in front of the Buckingham Palace gates.

Angela, Maddie, and I with our silly hats after the changing of the guard.

Buckingham Palace-like a boss.

After Buckingham Palace, we got a quick bite to eat at a small café then headed over toward Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and Parliament for some photo ops! I wanted to go into Westminster, but Maddie and Angela thought it would be boring. On my list for next time, though!

Red phone booth + bobby hat + Big Ben = It doesn't get more London than this.

I am terrified of heights, so climbing onto whatever you would call that tall death trap was pretty scary.

More Big Ben with the silly hat!

Westminster Abbey and Parliament--so beautiful.

After Big Ben, we went over to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone, then went to King's Cross Station. Three guesses why! If your first guess was "Because Katie finally got her Hogwarts letter and the study abroad in France is actually a cover for her leaving the USA to study magic with Harry Potter" you are correct! If that wasn't your first guess, you are most definitely a muggle.

Look, Ma! Platform 9 and 3/4!!

Look at me, all cute pushing my cart through a wall.

BRB GOING TO HOGWARTS

After Platform 9 and 3/4 we headed back to the hostel to freshen up a bit before heading over to Billy Elliot. Seeing Billy Elliot was actually pretty special for me because I used to watch the movie with my grandma. It seems like everywhere I go, I find a little piece of her to remind me that she must be watching me from somewhere.

The next day we headed over to the Tower of London (NOT an actual tower, guys!). We walked around and took some photos while Maddie and Angela mulled over whether they wanted to take the tour or not. Eventually they decided against it and we headed over toward Millenium Bridge and The Globe Theater.

In front of the Tower of London

Millennium Bridge--wrecked by Death Eaters in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Inside the one and only (or maybe 3rd...) Shakespeare's Globe Theater.

When we got to the Globe and bought our tickets for the tour/exposition, we also got free tickets to see a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream that afternoon. That was pretty awesome, actually. We had to stand the entire time, and the audience was all middle and high school aged children (who were a bit loud and obnoxious, actually), but the performance was amazing. And it's not a performance that they do publicly--they put it on specifically for school children, so it's something not many tourists get to see.

Later that night, we headed over to The Rocket bar/pub for a drink in honor of Diya--one of my best friends who studied abroad in London last year. The Rocket was her and her friends' favorite haunt while they were there. So holla! It was pretty chill--no one there since it was about 7pm on a Tuesday.

In front of The Rocket, giving props to my best friend that I've known since I was 6 years old.

Maddie was pretty beat, so we headed back to the hostel pretty early and just chilled. The next morning, we went to Camden Market and Abbey Road before heading off to the airport for our flight to Edinburgh. 

I don't even like the Beatles...

London Calling! Part One

The first stop on our trip was London. A little backstory--we bought all of our tickets together, save the one from Paris to London. Well, tickets all bought, we thought we were doing well. I started to put together an itinerary to give to our families (back home and host) and almost had a heart attack. When looking at flights to London, we decided to leave later in the evening (rather than taking a 9am flight) because we weren't sure just how long it would take us to get to Paris and how early trains ran. So we all bought tickets for a flight closer to 6pm... Or so we thought. In putting together the itinerary, I realized that I had booked the 9am flight.

Cue the freak out.

I immediately emailed Maddie asking her to confirm what time her flight was at. Of course it was at 6pm. Same with Angela.

Cue an even bigger freak out.

I immediately get on the phone with the travel company that I had booked the ticket through. They said they would check into changing the flight and call me back when they knew how much it would cost. Slightly calmer, I descended for dinner with my host family. I told my host mom of my plight and she was actually really awesome. She immediately got on the computer with me to look at the fine print and company policies. We determined that even if I wasn't charged any penalty fees for changing the flight (under French law, you have the right to cancel your flight within 7 days with no charge), the flight itself had more than doubled in price, and there was no way to avoid paying the difference. So my host mom told me that I should just go by myself--I was already slightly familiar with London, and Maddie & Angela would be joining me no more than 8 hours later.

So, that's just what I did. I phoned the company back and told them I wouldn't be needing to change my ticket and I got a train out of Orléans at 4:58 am Saturday morning (the 25th of February). I'll spare you all the travel details as everything went smoothly.

In the London airport I get stuck waiting almost 2 hours for a bus into the city. This was less than ideal, but it did allow me to meet a couple kids doing something called a Jail Break. Essentially--they were college students raising money for some cause or another. I think they said that they had already raised 12,000 pounds and now had 36 hours to get as far away from London as possible without using ANY money. Similar to a road rally, they also had a list of challenges to complete. While I was buying myself a sandwich for lunch, they approached me and asked if I'd be willing to buy them something to drink (soda, water, juice, etc) to complete one of the challenges. I did, they took a picture with me. I should've had them take a picture with my camera as well, but I gave them my email address to email me the picture and haven't gotten anything yet. Oh well, I do hope that they got far away from London (they were trying to get one of the airlines to give them a free flight out of the city).

When I made it into the city I just kind of wandered around for a while. I found a couple of poets performing on a street corner and stopped to watch and talk to them for about a half an hour. Then I wanted to find my way to the Thames riverbank (to find some street artists), but ended up turned around and at Hyde Park. I grabbed a hot dog at the entrance--watched a minor fender bender unravel. One man, rear ended by another, got out of his car and was positively SCREAMING at the guy behind him. The guy who hit him was actually trying to just leave the scene, but there were too many people watching at this point, so the angry man finally succeeded at getting a pen and getting his information.


Once in Hyde Park, I sat down and rearranged my luggage a bit while I ate. Then I just wandered. I found a group of guys roller-dancing which was actually quite amusing. I sat and watched them for quite some time just enjoying the sunshine and warm weather (that's right--sunshine in London!). There's some video I took of the roller-dancing here.

After Hyde Park, I decided to brave the metro to head up to Camden Market. I wandered around there for about an hour before deciding to head back toward Victoria Station (where I'd be meeting the girls) to grab some food. Well, the Camden metro stop was an absolute MESS. There were so many people that I decided to hoof it to another metro stop. The only problem was that the map I had purchased did not actually have Camden area on it. So I wandered around aimlessly, getting pretty lost, until I got directions from some nice woman and ended up back where I started.

While waiting for Maddie and Angela, some Russian guy came over and started talking to me. He was very strange. He said he tutored kids for free, so to earn money he would resell Underground tickets. Highly illegal, and I'm just glad he eventually left. Maddie and Angela finally showed up, we got lost on the way to the hostel, but finally made it (exhausted and hungry). Luckily the hostel was also a bar that served cheap pizza.

Our hostel -- The White Ferry Inn near Victoria Station. Definitely recommend

Sunday morning we were up bright and early to head out to our tour of Windsor, Stonehenge and Bath. The queen was actually in residence at Windsor, so I suppose I can say that I was once in the same building as the Queen of England. The castle was absolutely beautiful, but the most impressive thing was Queen Mary's dollhouse. It is absolutely HUGE and exquisite.

We weren't allowed to take pictures, but here's one from Google to give you an idea of the size of the doll house.

 

Windsor Castle

This is where guests come to visit the queen--like at Will & Kate's wedding reception.

They had this gorgeous garden moat thing.

Quick picture with the guard before heading back to the bus!

After Windsor Castle we went to Stonehenge. It's pretty incredible. We had absolutely beautiful weather, so I'll let the pictures do the talking.

The heel stone--it looks like it's got a sock puppet face.

After Stonehenge, we headed out to the little village of Lacock (pronounced "lay-cock"). First, lunch was AMAZING. We had beef wellington (for free--I don't think it was supposed to be included with our tour, but it was). Then we explored this cute little medieval town for a bit and saw where they filmed parts of Harry Potter.

Various pictures of the Harry Potter filming activity in Lacock.

The restaurant where I had the most amazing beef wellington ever.

Professor Slughorn's house from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

Professor Slughorn's house again.

After Lacock we headed off to the city of Bath, where we got to go into the Roman Baths. The Roman Baths were built around a hot spring, and it's said that the water has the power to cure any ailment (a result of it containing no less than 23 different minerals).

Looking down on the Roman Bath.

Pretty colors! :)

Sitting next to the Roman Bath.

Drinking water from the hot spring. It had a bit of a funky aftertaste, but was otherwise pretty good.

After Bath we headed home to London where we had fish and chips for dinner (in true English style). And so concluded our first day together in London. More to come. :)

A little teaser.

HELLO! Okay, I know I kind of disappeared off the face of the planet the last two weeks. Sorry about that. I was traveling with Maddie and Angela during our winter vacation and all I had was my iPhone, and I just can't format blog posts from there (nor did I have time to). So let me catch you up on what's been happening.

The week before we left on vacation was rather uneventful. Seriously, I don't even remember what happened. I'm sure we did something, but it's all blotted from my memory now. The only thing I do remember is theater on Friday before we left--we finally got the full script and got assigned our parts. I am (dun dun dun) the evil sorceress. I was kind of hoping to get the romantic lead (yeah, right-- a girl can dream), but the sorceress should actually be a really fun role to play. I'm excited to really get into the role.

Other than that, I had classes. I got a couple tests back from my writing class. I didn't actually do too bad (at least on the French grading scale). On the written comprehension I think I got a 17/20 and on my written production a 15/20. That sounds pretty low, but according to my host family and other students, 10 is actually average. If you get a 13, you're doing well; 15, even better; and 17 is pretty spectacular (and almost no one gets a 20). I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that a 75% is a good score (feels like failing to me, but I'll take everyone's word on it).

Now, it's going to take me a while to sort through and upload all my pictures, not to mention that it's hard to cram two weeks of travel into one blog post. So I'm going to do three blog posts today (possibly tomorrow depending on when my host family gets home)--one for each city. I promise they'll be crammed with pictures and worth the wait. For those of you who are also on Facebook, I'll be uploading even more pictures there within the next couple days as well.

À bientôt!