Top Ten Things I Miss from London
1. The West End and discount tickets
2. Markets
3. Clubs that are cool and fun
4. Seeing ridiculously famous people all the time
5. Steak and ale pies with chips and mayo
6. Working at The Space
7. Public Transportation
8. Being able to see Phantom ANYTIME I WANTED TO
9. The huge diversity of people you'd see everyday, and their accents
10. Bacon sandwiches

Top Ten Things I Do NOT Miss about London
1. My ridiculously tiny dorm room
2. The "mattress" they gave us that was more like a box spring in disguise.
3. Canary Wharf/The Jubilee Line at rush hour
4. The exchange rate
5. The tube shutting down at 12:30
6. Creepers at clubs
7. Everything closing early
8. The lack of fast food restaurants
9. Food being really expensive
10. Did I say the exchange rate?

So, because so much happened in the final week or so of being in London, I've decided to just narrate my pictures. This is making me so nostalgic!

( There's no place like London )

So on one of our last Sundays we decided to do one final day trip and went to Bath. It was me, Shoshana, Megan, Mary, and Mary's sister Jen, who had come to visit Mary for the last week. We got up at some God-awful early hour, hauled our butts to the train station and were on our way!

It's only about an hour train ride to Bath, so just time for a quick nap (definitely not time though for any of the homework we'd brought along to do on the ride. Definitely not). Now the best part of this little getting there story is that we all get off the train and out of the station and we realize...we don't actually know where anything is. We know what we want to do in Bath - the Roman baths and the Jane Austen Center, but no one had looked up where those things were. Go us!

So we decide that the best thing to do is to get on the hop-on-hop-off Bus tour of Bath. It's a really cool thing where the bus takes you to all the historic things, you can get off and take as much time as you want looking at them, and then you get back on the next bus. We even got two tours for the price of one - the historic Bath tour, and the Bath countryside tour. Now, I had a lot of fun on these, and I liked getting to see Bath, but they later contributed to what I like to call our colossal lack of time management (by this time I had stopped giving time planning advice, since they didn't listen to me most often. I just enjoyed whatever we did end up seeing).

We got on the countryside tour first, since that is the first bus we saw. It was really pretty! It took us out from the downtown area to the outer edges of towns - they would have been the fields that Jane Austen had loved walking. We went through the Bath University, a couple of really big homes, and lots of really pretty countryside. We didn't get off anywhere though, since we had other stuff we wanted to do. Then we got on the city tour, but we didn't get off anywhere on that either (in retrospect, we should have, but whatever, it was a fun day).

After that was done, we had a delicious lunch at a pub. I do love pub food. It's so greasy and tasty and nummy and I would like some right now. I debated whether to get fish and chips or a steak and ale pie, but the craving for red meat was too strong, plus we had just watched Sweeney Todd the night before and I wanted to say I had eaten a meat pie after watching it. It was very delicious. It's kind of like a chicken pot pie, only with beef in gravy instead of chicken, although this is the first one I'd had that was entirely encased in pastry. The other ones just had pastry tops. Can you say mmmmmmmmmmmmm?

Our next stop was the Roman spa, which it turned out was right next to our pub. It was pretty darn cool. They give you these audio guides, and I listened to the kid version, because the adult version talked for too long. The short of it is is that there is a natural hot spring there, and it's always been a gathering place. The Romans built a temple here, and in the Victorian era it was a popular health resort. It was considered healing to take the waters at Bath, both drinking and swimming in it. So there's all these elaborate ruins around, and it's really really cool. And I really wish I could swim in a natural hot spring. It looked very nice. So we wandered around there for a while (a long while because my friends liked to listen to alllll the audio tour stops).

Then we went to the tea room attached to the spa. It was very fancy and they had a live string duo and piano player. I had scones and hot chocolate. They were delicious, especially smothered in clotted cream and jam. It was delicious and tons of fun. I wish I had some now.

Then we discovered that we were too late to go to the Jane Austen Center, which was very sad. But we walked over to take pictures of it, and then walked around trying to find a park, which we frolicked in. Or I frolicked in. It was fun and really really pretty. And then it started raining, but it didn't matter much since we had to go get on the train anyway.

Overall, it was a super relaxing and super fun day. It was great just to hang out and see some cool stuff with little to no stress.

( Frolicking in this park was mandatory )

No, I haven't abandoned this even though I'm back in the States - I still have a couple weeks of London to journal!

The reason that I stopped writing entries is that I had my hair done, and I wanted to surprise everyone at home, so I couldn't post pictures. I'm extremely happy with it, and I think it's a good representation of my personality.

( London calling, yeah, I was there, too )

So I got this done on a Saturday when my roomie and Megan and Sho were in Wales. I stayed behind so I wouldn't feel so bad about going on my last week show binge of DOOM. Instead I went to a walk in hair salon on Charing Cross Road and had my hair done by a very fabulous Italian man, who seemed to be having as much fun as I was, possibly because I was grinning like a loon almost the entire time he was cutting and dying it. Oh my goodness, I love it so much! It's so spunky and bright and fun and easy to take care of!

On that Sunday I went to the Imperial War Museum, which was really amazing. I'm glad I went by myself too, because I could roam at my own pace. They had so many cool exhibits there! The entrance foyer is full of tanks and planes and guns and rockets and all the big equipment that a war generates, and you can climb on some of it, which is cool. Then I went through the Children's War exhibit, which is about all the children that were evacuated from London during the Blitz (like in Narnia, only more sad). They had little uniforms there, and the tags they put on the kids to say where tehy were going, and so many sad stories! Like a lot of the kids, like in Narnia, got sent to ridiculous mansions or nice homes with nice people, but there was a lot of town bred kids that ended up in shacks in the north of Scotland or wherever, or with people that didn't really want them. Some of them were sent away on boats, which were then sunk by German Uboats.

From there I went to the Holocaust exhibit, which I really liked because, unlike a lot of Holocaust exhibits, this one had displays on the other people the Nazis targets, such as the mentally handicapped, the disabled, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and gypsies. It also had a very sad display on their enforeced sterilization and euthenasia programs for those young people deemed unfit to continue on the German race. Plus it had all the usual horrific Holocaust facts, liberation videos, and artifacts. Very well put together.

Some other interesting exhibits I wandered through - the Secret Service exhibit, which told me about the history of MI5 and MI6 (no, they didn't talk much about James Bond). They did not have a shoe phone, which made me sad, but they did have lots of nifty little cameras, which I now covet. I also wandered through the war poster exhibit which had some both hilarious and chillling examples of war propaganda. All in all one of the most interesting museums I've been in for a while!

( When you drive alone you drive with HITLER )

Fast forward to the next friday, when it was our last day of work at The Space. I was so sad to go - it was so much fun working there, and I learned a lot. I also gained a lot of self confidence in my ability to handle things. And I met a lot of really really cool people! My supervisors, Adam and Mari, were both amazing - they were both so nice and helpful and in general fun to be around. I'm going to miss going there and hanging out and helping with things.

( So what happens now, where am I going to? )

I'll get around to posting more later! It takes so long to upload pictures at home... boo

So I'm going to see Joseph tonight, but that is the end of my theatre adventures in London. I think I might cry, seriously. I cannot describe how much I will miss being able to go see any show I want, anytime I want. Or being where there's always new shows opening. Or where you can see big name celebs in shows. Or where there's always student tickets or discount tickets to be had. In conclusion: DO NOT WANT TO LEAVE THE WEST END. AT ALL.

But I have hit it up pretty thoroughly, if I do say so myself... Final count ends at:

Phantom x2
Wicked
Cabaret x2 (with Julian Clary)
Les Miserables x2 (with Drew Sarich)
Joseph x2 (with Lee Mead)
Avenue Q
Spamalot
Hairspray (with Michael Ball)
Lord of the Rings
The Woman in Black
God of Carnage (with Ralph Fiennes)
Happy Now?
Metamorphosis
Othello (with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ewan McGregor)
The Vertical Hour
Helter Skelter/Land of the Dead
The Homecoming
Speed the Plow (with Jeff Goldblum and Kevin Spacey)
Days of Significance
Dealer's Choice (with the kid from the History Boys)

Yes, I am going to go through withdrawal shortly after coming home. It will be tragic. It's probably a good thing I'll have no money, because crazy road trips might have happened.

So I am done with classes here in London - I only have my finals to get through, although they look to be quite tough. I'm mostly sad to be done with these classes, because I really enjoyed them as far as classes go. And my teachers were some of the best teachers I've ever had - they're all really interesting and sometimes crazy people! And they treat us like real people, not just students, so we get to have some really interesting conversations with them.

Here's what I turned in for my Creative Writing final. I'm really sad this class is over - it was one of the best classes for writing that I've ever had, and I feel like it helped me grow as a writer. :D

Title: The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes
Summary: Mandy sees more than people credit her for.

( I know that I’m a lot younger than Stephen, and I know that I ran with a different crowd than him, but really, does he think I’m stupid? )

Time for the third and final daytrip of the weekend of doom. Leeds Castle! It was basically just a castle - a really cool castle, but a castle nonetheless. So I'm going to just narrate my pictures, because that will be more interesting.

( Oh no! They're trying to drown that other duck! )

And that's my trip to Leeds Castle - there's not really much to tell except that it is an absolutely gorgeous castle with even prettier grounds. As you can kind of tell from my pictures. :D

Also, I and some other students had lunch with the IES Dean of Students from Chicago so we could tell him what we liked and didn't like about teh program. I think he was surprised that our main complaints were about the res hall and the internship tutorial thing, and not about like...2 1/2 hour classes. But they're only once a week, which makes up for it in my book. Woot free food though! We went to this pancake place, where tehy have both sweet and savory pancakes. I had an asparagus, tomato, and cheese one. It was delicious.

And then I came to the Space again and worked box office again. Only this time Mari took off once the show started, leaving me and another volunteer to run the place. Everythign was fine...until the fire alarm went off. Minor panicking,a nd then that was resolved without the fire brigade turning up (good, since it was caused just by the show burnign paper. Oy...). And hten the second show went up...and we ran out of chairs. And I couldn't find more. And people kept coming. It was very stressful, but Mari said I handled it all very well, and no one complained anyway.

Okay, back to trying to get everything recorded here... I'm getting bad at keeping this up! This week has been a bit hectic - I had a major paper due, and I've been in to the Space 3 times this week, AND I went to see Cabaret yesterday (Row H tickets - close up view of hot boys in leather for the WIN. I also bought the memoirs of the lead actor, who is apparently a famous drag queen comedian. It's call "A Young Man's Passage", which I think is both the best title for a book ever and quite inspired. Bwahaha)

Okay, so Daytrip 2 of 3 was to Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare, with my Shakespeare class. We had the honor of being led around by our 82yearold prof, who quite possible knew Shakespeare personally, or at least be channelling his ghost. We had quite a nice bus ride there- I even managed to stay awake for some of it!

The first thing we did upon arrival was go to see Shakespeare's Birthplace. And yes, they capitalize it. If you ask someone in Stratford where to find "The Birthplace" they'll know what you're talking about, which I think is hilarious. They had a small exhibition with the usual Shakespeare trivia, and then you can walk through the house. It's pretty cool, and it has some really pretty gardens.

From there we walked up, Raymond (our prof) pointing out random things to us along the way. We saw the site where teh last house he lived in used to be, one of his daughter's houses (which used to be a jail haha), Harvard House (yes, the Harvard that started the university in Stateside), and finally ended up in the house that his oldest daughter ended up in with her doctor husband. After a short introduction (in which we learned that their house is in fact nicer than the Birthplace), we got to wander around there as well.

From their we were led to the church where he is buried and left to see that and get lunch, whatever. Mary and I went in to see the grave. It's pretty funny, they have a big sign pointing it out, just in case you can't find it. Then we went to lunch in a charming little cafe where I had some amazing lentil soup. Mmmm good soup.

From there we got back on the bus and drove to Anne Hatheway's cottage. That would be Shakespeare's Anne, not the actress ;). It's the cutest thatched roof cottage, and it has some gorgeous gardens. I bet they're even prettier in summer when everything is blooming.

The best part of the day? For the entire day, since it was part of my class, I spent at total of 3 pounds. Woot. Go me!

( My day with Billy Shakespeare )

It's been quite the draining week here - despite that, I managed to not get any work done. Go figure. I did, however, get to see a lovely play - Dealer's Choice. It's by the man that wrote both the play and the screenplay for Closer if you're familiar with that. I loved it. As the name suggests, it's all about poker, and it offers some very interesting psychological insights to people in general and gamblers in particular. The acting was fantastic, and it was a hilarious show. The boy who's in the History Boys movie was in it - the blond one that has a crush on Diccon. Very very good. I'm sad though, because it was the last play for my theatre class. *tear*

So this was the Marathon Weekend of Day Trips. I had two class field trips - one to Brighton for British Youth Culture and one to Stratford upon Avon for Shakespeare- and one to Leeds Castle just for fun. Let me tell you, day trips are fun, but 3 in a row is a little wearing, especially when the weather is mostly cold and rainy, but still, I had loads of fun. :D

Started the day off by waking up ungodly early for the first day of three. Eesh, not fun. But I just had to haul myself downstairs and onto the bus, and I promptly fell asleep again. Woke up in Brighton. Magical!

The first thing we did was walk over to the Brighton Museum via the Royal Pavillion - which looks like it should be in India, not southern England. I wish we could have gone inside of it. But the museum was pretty cool - we were only there for a bit, but I got to see the exhibition they had on the Little Black Dress. Yay pretty dresses. :D

From there we walked around the Lanes a bit - which are a bunch of really neat little shops. It was really cute, and we went into a mod shop - lots of trendy shirts and sweaters and RAF symbols. And then we had lunch in a little cafe, which was really cute. I had a cheese and ham baked potato. Mmmmmmmm

After that we went down to the beach to meet our guide for our guided tour. Sadly it was really windy and rainy that day, or it would have been more fun. The beach was really pretty anyway, and I liked looking at the big waves. Really though, it was less a Brighton walking tour and more a Quadrophenia walking tour. Quadrophenia is a cult British movie about the Brighton riots, where members of the Mod youth group fought with members of the Rocker youth group. All up and down the beach. yeah, fun. It has Sting in it, which makes it all the better. An interesting movie, but I really didn't need a whole walking tour about it. Still, the scenery was pretty. Then back on the bus and back to London!

The best part of the day had to be my teacher though. He's really into the youth culture topic, does all kinds of research and documentaries for teh BBC on various aspects of it. And he's interviewed all kinds of famous people too, so he always has lots of interesting stories - like meeting the guy who plays Borat. But he had his girlfriend along with him, and he'd get going off on a subject, and she would just give him this look, like "I love you, but you are a crazy person." Like when he said he wanted little mod babies. Or when he really wanted this couch in a window we passed. REally, it was a fabulous couch - I want it. But it was like...purple and teal and white striped velvet. LOL Oh Richard Weight, you make things so much better.

( Oh a Mod Baby! I'm gonna have one of those someday! )

So we went to Ireland over Easter weekend. The countryside is very pretty, but I didn't like Dublin very much. It was basically a more expensive, less fun version of London. Still, we mostly had a good time. It was no Scotland though - I miss Scotland.

We flew there, and the flight was only an hour. Grabbed our bags, took a bus to the city center. The first thing we did was stop for a lunch of fish and chips. It was pretty tasty. I'm acquiring quite the taste for fish and chips. Mmmm batter. Then we went to our hostel so we could dump our bags.

Our hostel was smack dab in the middle of the Temple Bar district, which is where all the bars are, so that was pretty fun wandering around through there. It was a nice hostel too. Ten beds to a room, and the rooms had their own bathrooms. Plus the beds were really nice. Mmmm beds. The people in our room were made of awesome too. We had an Irish guy named David, a Scottish guy named Chris, two English girls from Brighton, and two American girsl studying in Florence. They were all really nice people about our age. David and Chris came in while we were settling in and freshening up, so we talked to them a bit before heading out.

Our first stop was Trinity College, because Megan really wanted to see the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is one of the best examples of an illuminated text that there is (You know, the ones the monks did, with the crazy fancy letters and shit). We decided to take a guided tour, which was a good thing. Our guide was a grad student, and boy, talk about living up to stereotypes. Long black coat, scarf, swinging around his long umbrella, knowlege of so much random history, and the ever present dry British sense of humor. And he was hot. I wanted to steal him. But then I figured I couldn't keep him in our hostel, so sadly I didn't. But the book of Kells was really cool, as was the really old library that it's housed in.

After that we pretty much just walked around a bit before heading back to the hostel to get ready for dinner. Met up with David, and he decided to go out to dinner with us. We went to a pub near us and found, to our dismay, that as it was good friday NO ONE IN DUBLIN COULD SELL ALCOHOL. We are good trip planners, let me tell you. But dinner was amazing anyway. I had this delicous beef and guiness stew that I'm still dreaming about. Mmmmm beef. It was so tender and tasty and I just want more of it. And it was really interesting talking to David too - it's weird to me how much national pride a lot of people over here have. I mean, the quips about other countries never stop, in a "Well of course Ireland is better" type of way. That I didn't realize how much violence was still going on over here in Ireland until very recently. It was highly informative.

Then we walked around Dublin some more, just taking in the sunset and some of the pretty buildings - we got coffee and cookies for a while. Then we went back to the hostel. Because there was nothing else to do, and because we had to get up by six the next morning to go pick up our car.

Let me tell you, I never expected to spend my good friday night playing the movie game in a hostel in dublin with a scottish man from australia (he moved there when he was 8). Chris was kind of sick, so he stayed in with us, rahter than go out trolling for random shit to do. It was the most random fun I've had in a while. The best was when he was getting ready for bed (David was back in by that time), and he was like "If I canna find me shorts, I'm sleeping in teh buff" because his shorts were apparently in the bottom of his bag. At the same time, Megan, speaking to Mary, goes "Don't make me come down there!" because Mary was kickig her mattress, but Chris though she was talking to him, and it was really funny. On a side note, I should have stolen his shorts, because he was pretty good looking (why did he have to give me his cold? If he was going to make me sick, he could have at least given us a show for it ;) )

Saturday morning we woke up at 6 and hiked it out to the airport to pick up our car, because we were going to drive around the countryside! Megan had to drive, since you have to be 21 to drive, and after a few hair raising moments getting out of the airport, we were on our way! It was weird driving on the other side of the road, but not as weird as you'd think. The worst was the roundabouts. But we didn't die! We nearly did a few times, but in the end we triumphed over the Irish roadways!

First stop was Limerick. It took like 2 1/2 hours to get there, through some really really pretty countryside. It really is ridiculously green there. We didn't have time to stop at Limerick Castle, since we wanted to make it up to the Cliffs of Moher and the town where Mary's grandparetns came from, but we took pictures of the outside and had some lunch.

From there we drove until we got to the cliffs. It was the best car ride in the history of ever, because A)they drive really fast there, and the roads are small and windy and B)we were listening to this radio station of classical music. So we come blasting over this hill with this brass band blazing from the radio and all of a sudden the sea is...there. And we're driving over the most picturesque countryside, and the music just fits, and we were all laughing very very hard. The cliffs were really cool. They have all of these nice walkways up to them, so you can see them from all angles. I loved it.

From there we drove up to Mayo county, because that's where Mary's family comes from. There's still Sweeney's there that her grandma keeps in contact with, I guess. We didn't actually know any of them, and we couldn't stay long since we had to get back to Dublin to turn the car in, but we did see the town. And we had a very tasty pizza made by this reallly sweet old lady. Then we hightailed it back to Dublin and turned the car in at like 10. Roadtrippin from like 7:45-10 around Ireland, pretty good if I do say so myself.

Once we got back, we hit up a pub. It was so expensive though! 5.20 euros for a hard cider! Eeesh. But it was fun. Went back and basically passed out and slept in the next morning.

Sunday was a bit of a disappointment. Dublin Castle was all booked for the day, and, being Easter Sunday, we couldn't get into any of the churches. We did go to the National Gallery of Ireland though, which was pretty cool. And then we took a tour of the Jameson Whiskey distillery. It was really neat, and now I know more about whiskey than I really needed to know. Mary got picked as a whiskey sampler, and they had her try 5 types of whiskey, to see the differences.

*Shows off her whiskey knowledge* American whiskey, like Jack Daniels, is only distilled once, and it's aged in new oak barrels (we're not allowed to use old ones, apparently). So it's not as smooth. Scottish whiskey is made using peat for fuel, and it's distilled twice. So it's a bit smoother, but it has this really smokey taste (and believe me, after trying the Irish whiskey, even I could taste the difference). Jameson wiskey is distilled three times, made using a smokeless fuel, and aged in old oak barrels, so it's very smooth. Or as smooth as whiskey can be anyway. It still makes me cough and make terrible faces. Btu I can def taste the difference between whiskey types now.

From there we bought some last minute souvenirs and hightailed it back to the airport and home.

( If I canna find me shorts, I'm sleeping in the buff )

Aka Belgium Trip 2008: WWI, Chocolate, Cherry Beer, and Jesus

So last weekend I went to the wonderful country of Belgium, specifically to the towns of Ieper and Poperinge. Those of you interesting in WWI will certainly recognize those names. Those of you who don't, I'll get to the signifigance in a moment. Suffice to say they're in the northern part of Belgium, in the Flemish part. Belgium really has two parts, the French speaking bit and the Flemish speaking bit, and they really don't like each other much. Flemish is a derivative of Dutch, by the way. Luckily, since I know no Flemish, they speak very good english there. Wooot

But I feel I must preface the actual trip by the tale of the night before the trip, since it has a pretty big influence, hehe. So Mary and I had to work box office on Friday night, and Emily had come to see the show and had brought some of her friends. So after teh show we all stayed at the bar for a few drinks, since Andy was working and being very spastic and such. Only, it's hard to get a group of people moving again, especially when most of them are girls who get very silly when they get a bit drunk. So, we end up missing the last tube (I told them we needed to get moving, but they said we had plenty of time! Gits forgot that the bus ride there is indeed short, but there's usually a long gap between buses, I think, gah). So then we had to catch a bus to Trafalgar Square, and from there to the res hall. We didn't get back till 2am, and we had to get up at 5 since we were leaving at 6. Oh yay us.

Actually I was okay, since I slept on the bus and am usually good the next day if it's just one night of no sleep and there's something I can get excited about. But still. I hate people who can't plan to save their lives. But I was already packed, so yay for me. I made it down to the bus and promptly fell asleep and stayed that way until we hit Dover. From there we took the ferry to Calais. It was pretty cool - we went out on the deck and it was really pretty and calm. The cliffs of Dover are really cool looking. Plus the teacher who went with us knows like everything about London, so he gave us some really good tips, plus some really good background on where we were going. Back onto the bus for the hour drive through France, into Belgium, and finally arriving in Ieper.

( Lots of WWI talk )

( Wooooo more pictures )

I don't *think* I've posted this here yet, and I thought I would now. It's a story I wrote for midterm for my creative writing class, and I'm really excited because it just got accepted into the literary magazine at IU! Wooooooooooo me. Sorry if you've already seen this:

Title: How a Wall Stands
Author: Me
Rating/Warning: PG-13 for a Twilight Zone effect
Summary: Sometimes the barrier ropes are there for a reason...

( Ellen Parker always thought it was funny that people spent all the time and effort to go and see historical sights and then spent the entire time there just listening to their guide. )

Sad, yes, I know. I wish I could have gone on one of the longer tours, even though that would require more hiking and outdoor extertion. But I would have liked to see more, especially the far northern islands and such. Because how many people do you know that have done that?

Day Four - Glen Coe,Monty Python, and the Horniest Highlander in Scotland

Bet you can guess by now what time we left the hostel? That right - 8:30! God, I haven't gotten up so early for so many days in a row since...ummm...high school? Suffice to say, I do not miss that aspect of the trip at all. We spent the early part of the day retracing a lot of stuff, so I fell asleep and didn't feel bad about it, hahaha. But then we got to Glen Coe, which is one of the most beautiful areas of the highlands.

It's the huge valley, surrounded by mountains, and they're just absolutely covered with little tiny streams and huge rocky cliffs, and in general it's just gorgeous. It's also the site of one of the most horrible massacres in Highlander history. The treacherous Campbells claimed hospitality rights from the McGregors, and then murdered them all in their beds, down to the last child. Even the ones that escaped the Campbells..well, it was the middle of winter, and the only place they could have run was the high passes, with no food, blankets or clothing... So sad, and yet so pretty. The streams are supposed to be the tears for the murdered, which I think is poetic. But I wondered what they thought about the streams before the massacre...

Also drove past a lot of battle sites. My favorite was the island where the Battle of the Shirts was fought. So these two clans (I don't remember which now, look it up yourself if you care) were fighting on this island. Only it was in the middle of summer, and it was like, teh hottest summer ever. So they all just took a break in the middle of fighting and started swimming. Only you know big, strapping highlanders. They swim nude, or in shirts and nothing else. So when they started fighting again, no one put their clothes back on. So it was a bunch of nekkid highlanders with big swords fighting it out on an island. I giggle inappropriately whenever I think about it.

Then we drove past this huge moorland. I think it's the largest uninhabited wastland in Europe. It's just...bog. The army actually uses it for survival training. They just dump troops out there and they have to survive. Apparently our guide Debs almost took a piss on one of them while she was hiking with some friends. Talk about embarrassing. But the guy was obviously good at the camoflage.

And then we went to meet the horniest highlander in Scotland. He was big. He was indeed horny. And he had an undeniable fondness for carrots. Yes, I am talking about Hamish, the hairy cow. Or "hairy coo" as they say in Scotland. They have a different breed of cows up here, I supposed because it gets so cold. And at this particular tourist stop, you could buy chunks of veggies to feed him while you petted him. It was fun.

From there, back on the bus, with a quick stop at the castle used to film Monty Python, and then back to the Edinburgh train station and the 5 hour train home!

( Wooooooo Hamish )

Day Three Part 2

Whew, so this week has been super busy- busier than midterms! But now I shall endeavor to finish chronicling Scotland before I head off to Belgium this weekend (lots of WWI stuff ahoy! And chocolate, and waffles!)

So after lunch we drove past some more spectacular scenery until we got to this really nifty waterfall. So this waterfall was the favorite waterfall of the Wee Folk, until there got to be too many people around and they found another one. But evidently they left in a good mood, because the King of the Wee Folk blessed the waterfall before he left. So if you climb up to the top of the waterfall, use your hands to dip up some water, and then walk all the way down holding the water in your mouth without swallowing it, you will get a wish come true. But every person only gets one wish in their entire lives, so you have to use it carefully! Naturally, I had to try this, and I made it all the way down! It was hard though - because it was February and muddy out anyway, and lots of people probably walk up this hill, it was basically a big muddly slip-n-slide. I almost went face first down the hill about 5 times, but thanks to my trusty boots, I made it down intact and mostly unmuddy. Wooot.

After that we drove just a wee bit to this mountain called the Old Man of Storr. There is of course a story attached to this mountain, but it's really long, so google it if you're interested, haha. Suffice to say, we climbed up to just below the Old Man, and it was quite a hike, let me tell you. Very steep and muddy, but lots of pretty stuff. Trees with moss growing up all the way to the top, lots of tiny cliffy bits, some tiny streams just waiting to make you fall into them. But no handy elves to carry you to the top. Bugger. Eventually though, after much wheezing and swearing and near death by falling off of rocks, I made it to the top, probably like 5 minutes after everyone else, hahaha. But I did it, dang it! And you could see all the way down to the sea, and it was sooo gorgeous. Also extremely windy. As I was getting megan to take my picture, I literally almost got blown off the top of the mountain and rolled down the hill. It was a very near thing. And on the way down it was in turns, hailing, snowing, sleeting, windy, and finally sunny. How dyslexic.

Then we drove around to the top of the ilse, and saw this really nifty waterfall and cliff area that I don't know the name of. It was exactly what I'd imagine as the setting of Wuthering Heights though. Once again, tooooo much wind. I didn't want to get too near the cliff sides, because I might have fallen off! But I got some lovely pictures and fell in a lot of little hidden dips in the land (dang heather is deceiving in what it's covering). Some of the guys climbed to the top of the cliffs, but I had had enough of the windy mountain climbing for the day.

From there, we drove back down the other side of the ilse and ended up in the town that leads to the bridge off the isle, and that's where we spent the night - at Saucy Mary's Inn. Saucy Mary was a viking princess who decided she wanted to make some money. So she got a bunch of boats and tied them together across the channel to the ilse, and then she charged sailors a toll to move them so they could get through. But they were not too happy about that, so she would flash them as they left to keep them happy. Hence Saucy Mary. Hehe. And boy did we live up to that name - our tour guide took us out to the bars, and just about everyone got trashed. It was soooo funny, because there was just a lot of jumping up and down and screaming to the music, and Mary kept trying to get me to try whatever she was drinking at the moment, but I mostly resisted. I did take a sour apple shot that was nice, and after that I stuck to hard cider with blackcurrant syrup in it. Had tons of fun watching our tiny tour guide and tinier Mary pretty much outdrink everyone else. Oh Scottish and Irish people...

( And I would walk 500 miles )

Making a quick second post tonight, because I saw Les Miserables and got my Kevin Space pic uploaded.

Overall it was a good show, but I did miss my tour cast, especially the Javert and Enjolras. The cast here was good though. I did love Drew Sarich as Valjean, and Eponine was pretty kick butt. Plus, British barricade boys have to pretty much be amazing. And the set was huge and so much more elaborate than the touring one was, for obvious reasons. I had forgotten how much I love this show, but now I find myself wondering if I can somehow fit in seeing it again. Because Les Mis is such an emotional show to watch, and even if someone is lackluster in tehir role, you're still overwhelmed by teh sheer presence of the show.

The stagedoor was fun too. Everyone we stopped was really chatty, especially Drew. He's american, so he was really excited when we started talking. He wanted to know how long we were in London for, and where we were from, etc. In general a really sweet (and cute) guy. His greeting was the best though.

Me: Can you sign these please?
Drew: Yeah, of course. Hey, are you AMERICAN?
Me: ...yes!





LOL Kevin Spacey in a hoodie and crazy hat





Me and Drew. Awww, isn't he cute?

So I have been so tardy in working on these, but things have been crazy! So I"m going to try speed work on them before I forget everything.

Day Three - Sexy Castles and the Isle of Skye

Our day again began at the bright and early hour of 8:30. Blah, we peeled ourselves out of bed and down to breakfast. This time I had a nice hearty bowl of porridge with sugar to sustain myself during the day, since I knew we were going to be doing a lot of outdoor stuff that day. Fun when you're in the Highlands, but not so much elsewhere, so don't get any ideas, you lot back in Btown. Got on the bus and everyone promptly fell asleep, despite my best intentions. I did wake up every once in a while to look at the scenery, but buses put me to sleep, especially at 8:30 in the morning.

First stop of the day, Debs made us get off the bus to look at the Loch of Scotland, called that because it is shaped like Scotland. My, how original. It was really really pretty though, and there were a lot of gorgeous mountains surrounding it. The further you get into the Highlands the more surreal the landscape gets. I'm not used to seeing stuff that amazing outside of movie sets, you know?

Back on the bus a little ways, and then we stopped at the Sexiest Castle in alllllll of Scotland. Fact. Probably all the world. I mean, it was a dead sexy castle. I would tap that. I'm speaking of course of Castle Eilean Donana, aka the castle they shot Highlander at. It's pretty damn sexy, let me tell you. People apparently still live in it too! Which is beyond awesome. It's out over the water, for defensive reasons, and just looks like it's out of a medieval romance novel. I promptly decided to take it over. Due to the inferiority of my invading force, I failed, but I will return and be victorious in the future, I assure you.

After that we drove a bit and then stopped for some random views of a waterfall and some mountains. Seriously, the landscape is beyond amazing. I'm not even going to talk about it much, because my pictures show it better, and my pictures can't even capture half of how amazingly beautiful it was there.

From there we crossed over the bridge to the Ilse of Skye. Now the Isle of Skye is a very remote place, there's only one bridge to get there, I think, otherwise you have to take a ferry. And at one point there was a toll on the bridge, and this pissed the residents off, because they had to use it to get to work. But it was free if you were transporting livestock. So people would literally just pick up sheep and stuff them in their cars so they could get across for free. Talk about a hilarious way to stick it to the man. I love it. There's no cities on Skye, just villages, and there's only one high school. Which is just crazy.

So we drove through all these little villages until we got to this little river where we got out. It wasn't a particularly pretty river, I mean, it was pretty, but not spectacular, if you know what I mean. But apparently this river has a legend attached to it. To make a long story short, this bride was crossing it to her wedding and fell and bashed her head and popped out her eyeball. She was so upset about ruining her wedding (which was an important alliance between two warring clans, so peace depended on her), that the King of the Wee Folk came out and told her to stick her face in the water. So she did, and lo and behold, she was beautiful again! So you have to stick your face in the water to receive youth and beauty and good luck! I did, of course, and it was a lot of fun. I mean, how often do you stick your face in a river? I thougth so.

From there we stopped in the capital of Skye (which was another village) to have lunch. We ate at a restaurant called the Granary. I had a steak pie and the local drink, called Irn Bru. YOu have to love Irn Bru, it tastes kind of like orange fizzy cotton candy, and it has about 6 spooonfuls of sugar per can. And Scotland is the only place in the world where Coke isn't the number one selling beverage - it's Irn Bru. Mmmmm. And the steak pie was amazing. Kind of liek beef stew, only in a pie. First bit of beef I'd had in far far too long, and it was just really good, homecooked food. And these old people started talking to us, hahaha. They liked my hat (my purple tam). I think they were making fun of me, but in an old person "Haha, oh kids are so funny" and not in a mean way.

And I'm going to end this entry here, so I at least get this much posted tonight, and put up the outdoor stories and pics later, because there's a lot of stories that go with those, and I want to do them justice. Here's my pictures!

( The Sexiest Castle ever. FACT. )

Day Two - We set off into the Highlands

Our day started bright and early at 7:45 when we all went down to have breakfast before getting on our tour bus. They are weird about breakfast, let me tell you. I mean, if it's a light breakfast it's normal, just toast and cereal and whatever, but if it's a full english hot breakfast it includes things like their version of bacon (which is basically ham), baked beans, thick porridge, and haggis. Yes, they eat haggis for breakfast. Actually I think they eat it all day every day. If you don't know what haggis is, look it up on wikipedia. Suffice to say it involves sheep intestines. Ick.

Our bus for the next three days was this little baby bus that exactly seated our group of 29 (plus our tour guide who also was the driver). So it was a really good size of tour group. And our guide was AMAZING. Her name was Debs, and she was mid20s and very enthusiastic. So it was really easy to get into her stories and talk to her, since she was our age.

We drove out of Edinburgh and through some very pretty countryside until we got to Dunkeld, this really pretty little town that is, I think, the border to the Highlands. Up till that you're still in Scotland, but it's lowland Scotland. Fewer mountains, a little more inhabitable and such. And they actually did not wear kilts in teh lowlands back when people wore kilts for everyday wear (nowadays it's both more of a scottish pride thing and people have moved around some, so people who can trace back to a particular highland clan and such actually reside in teh lowlands). Anyway, we saw this cathedral, which was really cool because half of it was this amazing ruined churchyard, all gorgoeus stone arches and tiny crumbling graves. It felt like it should be a movie set. And of course it was wet and raining. But that's what you get for going to Scotland in February... We stopped to pick up some munchies before boarding the bus. I got a hot scone with butter, and had a nice bit of a chat with the lady behind the counter. The peopel for the most part were so much nicer up there, they'd just come up and chat to you, especially the older people. It was fun, unless it took a bit to understand them. Then it was just a bit embarrassing.

From there we made our way up through much random countryside up towards Culloden field and Inverness. Culloden was...desolate. Like the worst possible place to fight a battle. It's a flat field, and it's all full of kind of boggy heather and moss and such. If you're not familar with heather, it kind of grows in clumps, so it's really easy to trip over. And the highland specialty was charging down hills, so why the hell would they pick to fight there? If you don't know the history of Culloden, it was the spot of the final battle in the Jacobite Rebellion. They wanted to put the Stewart line back on the throne of England and didn't like the English one tiny bit. So they were trying to put Bonny Prince Charlie on the throne of England, and things didn't exactly go as planned (aka, Charlie didn't bring any men with him and they ran out of money). But HIghlanders being highlanders, the clans still went into this battle, even though it was pretty much hopeless and just got...slaughtered. It was pretty much the end of the Clans. The ones that survived the battle got basically sat on by the English. Plaid was banned, as were all weapons, so the Highland way of life was effectively dead. So we walked around the field for a while, saw the stones that commemorated where each clan was buried. Found clan Fraser (Yay JAMIE IS NOT THERE).

From there we went around Inverness, which was really a dreary city. Down around there to come down the far side of Loch Ness. YAY. Didn't see any monsters though, but I think that's because there was lots of wind and waves. Our guide was telling us about going on the boat tours, and they have like, sonar or something, and they've found things on the screen that are much much bigger than any known things living in the Loch. Like, they have pictures of the sonar screens! Seeing it, I totally believe. There is totally something(s) down there that is much much bigger than just a normal fish. We stopped at the biggest Nessie store ever and bought ridiculous amounts of souvenirs (I got a plaid hat and scarf! And a Nessie pin!) And then we went down to the shore and did the Nessie Dance to summon Nessie (just as the coast guard motored by, I'd like to add). Then it started to rain, so we got back on the bus and drove down to our first hostel of the highlands - Lady Morags.

Once again, six to a room, so we had the same group of us. The room was once again very nice, with our own bathroom. Dinner was a potato bar, and they had everything you could possibly want to put on a potato. Butter, sour cream, cheese, chili, lettuce, beans, haggis (yes, haggis), pasta (again, WTF?), and there was mousse for dessert. YUM. They were huge potatos too. It was tons of fun. And then we all trooped over to the Highlander Center, where a guy told us about the traditional highlander way of life. Including how to wrap an old-school kilt (not the modern ones with buckles and such). It involved lots of pleats, and laying down on the ground. And if you want to take it off you just pull one string and it's around your ankles (I liked that a lot, I need to find some hot highlanders wearingn old school kilts, and get me a tiny knife to cut the string with). And weapons - traditional claymores (Long swords) come up to your chin. So a tall man's claymore could be much bigger than me! Mmmm, I do like men with big swords... He also had this HUGE dog, which is like a deer hunting dog, I think he called it an Gordon setter, but I'm not sure. Never seen anything like it before, but I want it. It could pull me around in a cart.

From there we headed back to our hostel bar where they had a guy playing guitar and the mandolin. It was really really fun. And they had double whiskeys for 2 pounds, so everyone got really drunk (except me, cause I do NOT drink whiskey, EW, I just had some vodka cranberries, which are much nicer). He sang a mix of cover songs such as Wonderwall and Ring of Fire, and old Scottish ballads (for Wallace is with us today! Aye Wallace is with us today!). There's nothingl ike listening to traditional scottish songs, with a bunch of whiskey drinking people who are clapping and banging their glasses on the table. Hahaha. Suffice to say our group rocked that bar last night, and many amusing pictures resulted.

( They murdered the Wallace for treason, his body is long since decayed! )

Stay Tuned for Day Two: The Isle of Skye

I now interrupt your regularly scheduled Scottish update so that I can tell you that I saw Speed the Plow tonight. It was very very well done, even if it was a bit of a crazy play. The acting was phenominal though, even if the script lagged a bit in the middle.

But the most important part? It starred Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum. And I met them at the stagedoor. Oh yeah. And I got a picture with Kevin Spacey, which I will upload later. And Jeff Goldblum, in a semi-creepy conversation, both seemed surprised/interested at where I was from, and hten asked me how old I was (he thought 18. *sigh* At least I look legal now?). But still, really freaking cool. eeeeeeeeeeeeeee

And I bought my ticket for God of Carnage, SO I'M SEEING RALPH FIENNES IN A PLAY ON MONDAY. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. I'm going to be like, "Can I have a picture? Good, now speak German and do Voldie hands!" *halo*

Hello all - I'm finaly going to try to get a start on blogging about Scotland. So much happened, so bear with me. Also, I've updated the Quote list, so click quote list in the tags on the right side of the screen if you want to see some of the funny things we've said so far this trip.

Also, random note - guys are apparently utterly clueless as to the sexiness of kilts. I was describing our Scottish adventures to our kitchenmates back here, and one of them mentioned he has to wear a kilt in his friend's wedding this summer, and the other guy proceeded to laugh at him. I corrected them by predicing that he would have girls all over him, because chicks dig kilts. They were both completely surprised and didn't really believe me that girls think kilts are hot. *sigh* Oh boys.

Day One - Edinburgh

So our day started bright and early in London - we had to meet at the train station at 8:30. Which meant leaving at 7:30. Booooooo, but hey, Scotland is worth it. The train was pretty uneventful. It was four hours long, went through some pretty countryside, and had a trolley a la Harry Potter (no chocolate frogs though). I read my Diana Gabaldon book to get in a Scottish mood.

Upon arrival we walked to our hostel. Six of us shared a room - Me, Mary, Megan, Shoshana, Laura, and Emily were in ours. It was a niiiice hostel. Our room was huge, and it had it's own bathroom and shower! And the beds were soooo comfy compared to our beds in London. So we kind of freshened up and such, and then headed out to hit the town!

Our first stop was Edinburgh Castle. It's up on this huuuuuge hill, and is just really cool. YOu can pretty much just wander around it at will, but I took this mini tour that explained which buildings were what. We saw the crown jewels of Scotland, the Stone of Scone, and the vaults which served as a dungeon! There's also a room where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to her son James, which is kind of neat.

( Mini Scottish history lesson and the Stone of Scone )

After that we went and got some dinner at a pub. I had fish and chips. I'm getting kind of addicted to fish and chips, I'll admit. They're quite good, especially when the batter is all greasy and amazing.

Following that, we decided to do one of the approximately 5000 ghost walks in Edinburgh. It was super cool. Our guide was so into it, and she was a marvelous storyteller, so we got really into it too. In Edinburgh, they have all these little alleys called closes - only they can go down as much as 13 stories, and were capable of housing hundreds of people. Only they're still teh size of alleys, so they're majorly creepy. So our tour took us down some of hte most haunted of these and told us some scary stories.

( Scary Stories )

From there we hit the bars, because that's what you do in Scotland. First we went to the Sandy Bells, which is a folk music gather point. It was really cool in there, and I think if I lived in Edinburgh I would hang out there, but it was kind of crowded and small, so we didn't stay all that long, plus we were really tired. We did try some local drinks though. Well, I didn't get anything because I'm cheap and don't like alcohol that much, but I stole tastes of my friends. Mary did make me try whiskey, and Dear LORD was that disgusting. I'm not sure how people drink it. And they drink it straight, no water or anything, in Scotland, so it was double disgusting! Ewwwww. But I do like the hard cider they drink a lot as a beer alternative there. I wish it was back in the States, because I can drink that stuff. We found another pub on the way back that had like 15 people all playing fiddles in it, so that was fun too. For some reason I had a vodka and sprite there, so that really put me to sleep. Went back to the room and pretty much passed out (from tiredness not drunkeness I'll have you know!).

( Lots of pretty pictures )

Hey everyone! I am officially back from Scotland and officially very tired. But it was seriously the best holiday in the history of ever, so it's a good tired.

I took something like 125 pictures there, so I'll be posting them with the related stories over the next few days (there is much too much to be constrained to one or even two entries). We saw so much! I didn't know you could see so much in 4 days...

So keep checking back for some wild and sexy Scotland pictures!