A Sunny Sunday in Scotland

I signed up for the Edinburgh half-marathon a couple of months back, but had to stop training due to shin splints.  Jess was still running it, though, so I decided to tag along anyway and just enjoy a day in Edinburgh.
There was some major construction on the rail, so we had to take a very roundabout way of getting there.  A usual train ride to Edinburgh will take about 2 and a half hours, but ours took about 6 from start to finish.  One of our connecting trains got cancelled because it had collided with cattle earlier in the day and needed some repairs done.  Once we finally arrived, we checked into our hostel, Royal Mile Backpackers (located on, you guessed it: The Royal Mile).  Usually the rooms and beds in hostels are denoted from letters and numbers (room C, bed 4...) but ours were all given names.  Our room was "Little Miss", and each of the beds had a specific personality trait as a name.  Jess got "fun", another friend of mine got "wise", and I got "stubborn".  ....Great.  Jess and I just spent the evening walking around town, stopping in a pub for a meal.  It was a Saturday night, so everyone was out in town looking their very best, but Jess and I headed back to the hostel pretty early since she was running in the morning.











The next day, I took advantage of the beautiful sunny weather to do some of the outdoor stuff that Mom and I didn't have a chance to see.  First stop was Calton Hill, which is a destination for photographers for its great panoramic views.  It also holds a few notable monuments and a City Observatory. 

 

 Next up were the Royal Botanical Gardens of Edinburgh, a renowned center for plant research, conservation, and education.  There are technically four areas that make up the Royal Gardens; the "botanics" in Edinburgh, the mountain-side Benmore in Argyll, Dawyck in the wooden hills of the Scottish borders, and Logan on a Gulf Stream peninsula in Galloway.  All of these places differ drastically in topography and soil quality, enabling the Royal Gardens to have a wide range of plants.  All together, they constitute one of the richest plant collections on earth with over 15,000 species.
I spent nearly three hours in the garden, which shows how large it really is.  One part that stuck out to me was the man-made mountain wall, with regulated pressure and temperature of the area to best replicate the environment that mountain plants grow in.  It's been really successful, with dozens of mountain species flourishing inside this room.
I took a ton of pictures, but don't have much to say about them, so I'll just include some of my favorites:

 

 

 

  


The gardens were about a mile and half out of town, so by the time I walked back to the Royal Mile, I was ready to finally sit down.  I decided to go to the Elephant Cafe, the coffee shop that JK Rowling jotted down some of her first Harry Potter ideas on a napkin.  I got a cappuccino and an elephant-shaped cookie which I enjoyed while reading a book.  Hoping that I could channel some of Rowling's writing genius, I decided to write something on a napkin myself.  I didn't have time to start a novel, so I opted for a poem instead.
  This was all I came up with:

I don't think I'm ready to be published, but it's a start.

 

The "Mother" of All Travels

 Scotland, England, Northern Wales

Mom had never properly traveled in Europe, so she used my study abroad as an opportunity to see the UK with her lovely daughter!  It had been about 5 months since I'd seen her last, which was the longest time we've ever had apart.  Of course, she did a huge amount of planning and had a fairly detailed itinerary for the trip, and it all turned out perfectly.  From being on exchange I've realized just how much of a headache planning trips can be, so I was really grateful for all the planning ahead that she did.  Thanks, Mom!

Edinburgh, Scotland

I met Mom at the Edinburgh train station after sitting next to an adorable dog on a 3-hour train.  I had forgotten how much I missed animals... I spent most of the trip petting her.  Mom's plane ride and whatnot weren't too bad, and she dealt with her jet lag really well, much better than I had in London.

My immediate impression of Edinburgh was how beautiful all of the architecture was.  Everyone that I know who has been to the UK has been quick to recommend Edinburgh.  I think Eileen said something along the lines of "it's so pretty and castley!"  The weather wasn't the best (just a bit cold and windy) and I made the terrible mistake of not packing a coat for the trip.

We checked into the hotel and then set off toward the Royal Mile, a shopping strip in the center of town.  Many of the shops sell kilts and cashmere, which I was pretty tempted to buy after being out in the cold, but they were all pretty pricey.  We had dinner at an amazing vegan/vegetarian restaurant, "David Mann".  I started off with a Seaweed ale which had very rich chocolately flavors, and Mom got an IPA.  I ate koftas (basically falafel with eggplant and cashews) served in a spicy roasted coconut sauce with coriander rice and pineapple chutney.  Mom had beetroot, apple, and dunsyre blue pudding.  It was "a light sofflue, served with roasted baby potatoes, spinach, rhubarb and honey chutney in a green pea sauce".  The souffle was so flavorful, probably due to the prominent dunsyer cheese in it.

With our bellies full, we went back out into the cold and then immediately into the warmth of WhistleBinkies, a local pub that had a blues band playing.  We stood right up by the band and listened to about 5 or 6 songs... they were quite good!  Dad, you would have really liked it.  It started to get really smokey and crowded, so we left and wandered back toward the hostel.

I awoke with the promise of a nice long run to start the day, but immediately hit snooze and fell back asleep for a few hours.  Apparently mom had been up since around 6:30 and went to Starbucks for some coffee.  I headed to Starbucks to use the internet and get a caffeine boost, and then we headed to the Edinburgh Castle.

    The Castle definitely lived up to everything I’ve heard about it.  After a pretty long wait for tickets, we got a 25 minute free tour, which was basically an introduction and overview of all the sites in the castle.  She pointed out each point of interest along the way so that we could go back and explore what seemed interesting to us. 

building of crown jewels

 After the tour, we went straight to see the crown jewels (no photos allowed), as we heard that it gets busier as the day went along.  It was much, MUCH smaller than the crown jewels exhibit in London; all that was shown was the crown itself and a few swords.  However, that’s not to say that it wasn’t really impressive.  I got the same feeling as I did at the jewels in London; they almost seem fake.  It’s hard to wrap your head around the amount of wealth put into the jewels.

            After lunch at the castle café, we hit all the main spots that caught our eye in the introductory tour; the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Regimental Museum, The Great Hall, and the oldest building in the castle; St. Margeret’s Chapel.  The chapel was so tiny!  We would have loved to hear the one o’clock gun, but it doesn’t go off on Sundays.  We also saw David’s Tower, a dungeon-type area in which the crown jewels were once buried and hidden.  The various buildings within the castle were built at many different times; from the 14^th century up until the 17^th, as well as many reconstructions to this day.

Arthur's seat

 

            After we felt like we got our fix of the castle, we moved on back through the Royal Mile on our way to Arthur's Seat, the highest peak of Edinburgh.  It took us about 40 minutes to finally get to the top of the 822-foot hill.  The views were unbelievable, but it was so incredibly windy... I literally got blown over multiple times at the top, which felt a bit scary since there was uneven ground and steep drops all around.  We ended up on the wrong side of the hill after our descent and took a long walk back to town.

One of my favorite parts of our time in Edinburgh was taking a bus out to a nearby town to see Rosslyn Chapel.  I could have done without the bus breaking down, but it was all well worth it once we arrived.  Unfortunately, there was no photography allowed inside, but I'll include some photos from the internet.  The chapel, which is considered one of the finest in Scotland, was founded by William Sinclair of the noble Sinclair family.  The carvings within the architecture of the chapel were really intricate and beautiful, definitely the
most impressive that I've seen so far in Europe.
  Immediately upon entering the chapel, you can grab a "road map" of the different points of interest in the chapel.  These were mostly carvings, tombs, and paintings of religious significance, but Rosslyn is mostly well-known for its mysteries and hidden vaults (it's even been suggested that the final resting place of the Holy Grail is found here).  I'll just list a few of my favorite carvings:

Green Man

Apprentice Pillar

-The Green Man: Over 100 carvings of this guy are found in the chapel, thought to be reflective of Sinclair's love for nature and his desire to find a balance between the natural and supernatural world.

maize carvings

-carvings of maize: These are particularly mysterious because maize originated in North America, which was traditionally thought to have been discovered in 1492, 50 years after the chapel had been completed.
-The Apprentice Pillar: This pillar contains one of the most famous and fascinating riddles of the building. An apprentice mason is said to have carved the pillar, inspired by a dream, in his master's absence. On seeing the magnificent achievement on his return, the master mason flew into a jealous rage and killed the apprentice.
-seven sins/virtues: Each of the seven deadly sins are depicted on one side of a pillar, contrasted by the virtues on the other.  Strangely, one of the sins/virtues are swapped.  Nobody really knows why, but it is guessed that either it was a mistake or the sculpture's way of showing that not everything is so clearly black and white, good or bad, etc.

Mom and I had a lovely last meal in Edinburgh at Henderson's vegetarian restaurant.  I ate my vegetable curry and sipped on Chianti while listening to an adorable little old man play piano in the corner.  Mom's lentil lasagna and mushroom soup were both really tasty, too.  We stopped into the Rose and Crown Pub for some more wine and listened to a guitar player.

Glasgow, Scotland

Glasgow School of Art

Mackintosh

Mom figured out our route back to Lancaster so that we could spend a few hours in another famous Scottish city, Glasgow.  The main point of interest that we wanted to see was the Mackintosh building tours of the Glasgow School of Art.  Charles Mackintosh attended evening classes at the school, slowly gaining attention for his innovative architectural designs and furniture.  Eventually his work became well-known in Scotland and became the father of "Glasgow Style" architecture. He undertook the huge project of building a brand-new art school for Glasgow, which now holds tours to the public.
Most other art exhibits that I've seen have gone somewhat unappreciated by me, not because I lack respect for the artists, but because I'm simply not educated enough to understand how to distinguish art from complete rubbish.  However, this tour was different; it was quite a learning experience in itself, and I definitely appreciated what I was seeing.  Mackintosh had some wonky concepts, my favorite being the inversion of upstairs and basement.  He did this by creating really large, open, light spaces in the underground floors and more dark, close, and "dungeony" spaces in the upper floors.  He drew a lot of his inspiration from Japanese architecture, which was apparent in the stylings of many of the rooms.  The library was arguably the most beautiful part, with beautifully stained furniture and interesting light fixtures.  His original chairs are still in the library, but ironically, you're not allowed to sit on them.

library

We really didn't do much else in Glasgow, other than wander around the main streets and stop in Willow's Tea Room for a bite to eat.  A great view on the city was found once we took an elevator up to the top of the "Lighthouse", a shopping center in the shape of a lighthouse.  We ended our time in Scotland at The Horseshoe Pub where Mom finally got the Brits' famous fish and chips.  We spent the night back at my flat at Lancaster, where we were able to do some laundry and prepare for the rest of our trip.

London, England

We got a train to Euston, and after quickly dropping our luggage, took the tube to Kensington (really nice area in London) specifically to go to the Natural History Museum.  London was the first place I came for study abroad (see "Bridging Cultures Program"), but this museum wasn't something that I had time to do.  I've heard from some friends that this one is top-notch, and being a huge biology nerd, I was quite eager to go.  

birds of paradise

Their Darwin exhibition was a little underwhelming and elementary, just being a sort of overview of classification/ field work/ conservation projects, but it gave good insight into the current research going on through the museum. 

 We walked through most of the exhibitions, including "creepy crawlies", marine fossils, and mammals.  But what made it all completely worth it to me was seeing their bird exhibit.  As I'm sure you are all mostly aware, I'm a big fan of ornithology and get really excited about anything to do with birds.  

hummingbird display

But this exhibit was particularly exciting simply due how extensive the collection of bird skins were.  Most natural history museums have solely native species, but the London museum had birds from all over the world.  My favorite part was the "birds of paradise" display; I had never seen a bird of paradise until then.  It was particularly cool to see the Lyrebird, as I just showed Mom a video of this amazing creature the night before (watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y).  There was also a really impressive hummingbird display, with maybe a hundred of them perched on branches.

Once I was sufficiently nerded out, we moved on to Harrod's, a very famous and very outlandish shopping center.  Mom's decidedly "big splurge" for us was to have a traditional British afternoon tea at a fancy restaurant in Harrod's.  Afternoon tea consists of little finger sandwiches, croissants with clotted cream and jam, and an assortment of sweets, all placed nice and pretty on a multi-level serving dish.  And, of course, endless amounts of tea.  We lingered over the food for the better part of an hour or so, doing some people-watching.  I couldn't help but be amused by a group of businessmen eating their delicate finger foods and sipping on feminine tea cups.  The sandwich slices were so yummy: red pepper hummus, pesto sun-dried tomato, cucumber dill, carmelized onion, and egg salad.  I really enjoyed the clotted cream on the croissants (no calories there...), and my sweet tooth was satisfied after 4 or 5 different tastes of dessert. 

Westminster Abbey

Parliament

Later on in the evening, we took a "see London by night" bus tour, where we sat at the open-aired top deck for 90 minutes while seeing all the major areas in London.  Although I had seen much of the sites in January, I enjoyed this tour because it helped solidify my bearing in London, and I started to get a really good sense of where everything is located.  Hopefully that will come in handy when I go back in June.

London Eye

Tower Bridge

Buckinham Palace gates

palace fountain

The next day we headed straight to the Tower of London to try to beat the crowds.  I had done this tour with the Bridging Cultures Program, but there was no way that Mom could come to London without seeing it.  It was just as epic as I remember it, and the beefeater tour guide was just as crude and bloody as last time.  They really focus on executions on the tours since so many occurred at the tower, and I guess that's what people love to hear about.  Right after the tour was done, we hurried over to the crown jewels.  Again, I had seen this before, but I was still amazed by just how much wealth the royalty has accumulated over the years.  It seems so unnecessary, but beautiful nonetheless.

 

 

 

Tower of London

We headed to Borough Markets, a very expansive outdoor market, for lunch.  It took us a good half hour or so to walk through the entire thing.  Vendors sold all kinds of goods; cheese, meat, jams, produce, alcohol, homemade crafts, tea, and ice cream.  We picked out what looked best to us (for me, it was some zucchini hummus and artichoke salad) and sat on some stairs overlooking the marketplace.  After the rain cleared up a bit, we took a walk back toward the hotel along the Jubilee Walkway (the official walking route in London) to pick up our luggage and catch a train to Bath.

Bath, England
Bath has a reputation for being one of the prettiest cities in England, and I'd have to agree.  Although the weather wasn't too pretty when we arrived.  We stayed at the White Hart Hostel, which is actually a pretty popular pub that has rooms for rent upstairs.  The staff was super friendly and there was a lovely garden in the back with free wifi, which was a nice change for us.  The hostel was a bit out of the main part of town and it took us awhile to find it and get our bearings straight.  

 



For dinner we went to yet another vegetarian restaurant, DeMuths.  The dishes here were very creative and tasty.  Mom got an onion tart with blue cheese mousse, and I got the ricotta fritters in a thyme pesto sauce.  We split a carrot cake with mascarpone icing and candied walnuts for dessert.

On our way home later, a guy stopped us on the street and gave us a voucher for a free cocktail at a nearby martini bar that just opened up.  We decided "why not?" and headed to this hip little joint, where Mom felt too old and I felt too young.  But we did get two tasty cocktails out of it for free; a blackberry float for me and a pomegranate mojito for Mom.

One of the main reasons why we went to Bath was because it was a good jump-off point to see Stonehedge.  Mom found a really good all-day tour called MadMax Bus Tours, which is a 10-person coach that starts in Bath and stops in three smaller towns on the way to Stonehedge.  This was probably my favorite part of the entire trip with Mom.  First of all, the tour guide was fantastic.  He's lived in the area his whole life, so his depth of knowledge was quite impressive.  As he put it, we learned things on the tour that we couldn't have gotten from websites of tour-guide books.


Castle Comb

The first stop on the tour was Castle Comb, which was declared "the prettiest town in England" a few decades back.  After the press released this statement, the town became flooded with tourists, which ironically took away from the whole quaint vibe that it had going for it.  But we got there nice and early, and the town was void of tourists (other than ourselves, of course).  This area was the shooting place of some famous movies, most notably "Warhorse" and "Dr. Dolittle".  We got to meet a friend of the tour guide's, Pat, who has a house in the town and we got a little tour of her backyard garden.  There was a major flood a few years back that destroyed the inside workings of her house, though, and she still hasn't been able to move back in.  We then headed toward the town church, which showed off pictures of a wedding that took place there at which Princess Kate attended 6 or 7 years ago.
 

Avebury


 







 
This town is similar to Stonehedge in that it contains mysterious upright stones, but these ones stand erect in fields of sheep, all seemingly equidistant from one another.  Our guide walked us along the lines of stones, telling us various stories and possible explanations for their presence.  He told that the remains of one man were found underneath a rock which supposedly fell on his ankle and trapped him as he was digging for treasure.  A nearby metal pipe matched up with wounds to his head, and it is thought that someone put him out of his misery once they realized they wouldn't be able to lift the rock back off of him.  The tour guide let us off on our own to wander around and explore the area for a bit before we reconvened at the bus.  We were told that some believe the rocks have healing power, so Mom took advantage of the situation by doing some Tai Chi in one of the rock circles.

Lacock

The main draw for this village is simply the amount of movies that have been filmed in the area, most notably "Pride and Prejudice" and "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone".  Some of the scenes in Hogwarts, such as when McGonagall takes Harry to see Wood in order to discuss Harry joining the Quidditch team, were filmed in the Abbey in Lacock.  We didn't actually go into the Abbey, but we got a good view of it on the drive in.  What I did get to see, though, was Lily and James Potter's house.  Think of the scene where Hagrid is telling Harry about Voldemort and how his parents died.  A flashback is shown where Voldemort (at that point just a hooded figure) opens a gate and walks towards the Potter household.  That's this house!
 For lunch we ate at the oldest pub in town, The George Inn.




Stonehedge

We got an audioguide for Stonehedge, which guided us in one big circle around the stones.  There are many theories about why the stones exist and how they were constructed, but the most convincing is that it was used for astronomical purposes and somewhat of a calendar.  Radiocarbon dating tells us that the site began construction at around 3000 BC and finished around 1500 BC... it's pretty incredible that it's all still standing.

Overall, the MadMax tour was an amazing highlight of my study abroad experience so far.  Seeing the small towns in between Bath and Stonehedge was a nice break from the main touristy big cities that I've experienced so far.  Not to mention how beautifully scenic the drives were the entire time... the blooming magnolia trees and bluebells added to the gorgeous British countryside.

The Great Bath

We didn't make it back to Bath in time for the Roman Bath tour, so we decided to stay a bit longer the next day and cut our time in Wales just a few hours short so that we could see the baths.  We locked ourselves out of our hotel room the next morning, and of course, our room was the only one that the staff didn't have a spare key to.  One of the workers ended up breaking our door open... oops.  After we gave many apologies and thanks, we headed to the Bath tour.  With yet another audioguide, we followed along in the Roman museum, learning about hot springs, the construction of the baths, and what going to a bath was really like.  Baths are situated right on top of a hot spring, and to this day you can see the air bubbles and steam coming from below.  The earliest artifact in the baths dates back to 76 AD, so we know that it was at least partially standing by then.  The baths were used for hundreds of years as not only a place of bathing, but for worship and for socializing.  The routine of taking a bath includes becoming undressed in the first room, moving along to the first "hot room" to help adjust to warmer temperatures, and then yet another "hot room" if they dared.  This second hot room was absolutely scalding, and they had to wear wooden shoes to keep their feet from burning.  Then, they finally moved on to a relaxing bath.  Afterwards, they got massaged with oil and were then "scraped clean" (ew).  We were able to see the remains of all of these rooms, but the Great Bath was definitely the most impressive bit.



Conwy, Wales
After 5 hours of train travel, we arrived in Conwy.  We both really wanted to see Northern Wales, and Conwy and Caernarfon were the two most recommended destinations.  Caernarfon is known for its epic castle, and Conwy is known for its medieval town walls and somewhat more modest castle.  Our original plan was to take a day trip to see the Caernarfon castle, but our extra time in Bath kept us from doing that.  Not to worry, though; I plan to go back and see it at the end of June.  Also, it was "pirates weekend" in Conwy, so we couldn't pass that up.
We stayed at Castlebank Hotel, which was our favorite accommodation.  They only have a few rooms, so the staff gets to know you pretty well and are extremely friendly.  Our room was on the top floor, which had an amazing view of the city, castle, and water.
We headed to a pub in the hopes of getting something to eat, but it seemed like all of the pubs stopped serving food at around 7.  After having a drink and watching some drunken pirates, we went to an Italian restaurant for some wine, pasta, and salad.  We heard there was supposed to be a pirates parade at 9:30, so we wandered down to the quay (area along the water, pronounced "key") to see it, but apparently we had missed it.  However, we did get to see a big pirate scene on the water with cannons shooting off.

We got our first real English breakfast at the hotel the next morning, which is traditionally toast, sausage/bacon, eggs, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, and black pudding.  Mom tried the black pudding and didn't know what it was, but I've just recently found out: it's a type of sausage that is made by cooking blood until it is congealed when cooled.  How appetizing!

highest turret of city walls

 
With the help of a self-guided walking tour, we explored the town of Conwy.  The coolest part of this was walking along the city walls, once used to protect the town.  Conwy has the most complete set of medieval walls in the UK, and you can really only enter the town from a couple of spots.  Back at the quay, the pirate scene was still huge.  It was like any other festival; food, goods for sale, drinking, and games, but all with a pirate flare and lots of cannon shots.  We even saw a "magic" show and some belly dancers.  The smallest house in Britain is found on the quay in Conwy, and for a pound you can do a "tour", which really isn't so much of a tour considering how little room there is to move around.

Peregrine Falcon

European Eagle Owl

On our way out of the quay, we stopped at a "Raptors and Raiders" live exhibit through the Coastal Hawks Project.  There were maybe a dozen live birds out in the open for spectators to pet and hold.  Raptors are my favorite type of bird, so this was really awesome for me.

 

 We then did a tour through Plas Mawr, the oldest house in town.  It was a bit gimmicky, but still gave a good idea of what traditional life in Wales was like.  From there we headed to Conwy Castle, which was really epic.  Much smaller than Edinburgh castle, but it was still very impressive and gave great views of the town.


 We had one last dinner at the Castle Hotel and then parted ways the next day.  I headed back to Lancaster to take an exam the next day, and Mom continued on her adventure in Liverpool.