More photos!
These are the pictures from my tourist day with Jessie (yes, I know it was awhile ago)-- specifically, pictures of Edinburgh Castle. (They've uploaded in reverse order, so you start at the end of our adventures and move backwards through time until you find yourself outside the castle.)
A Pilgrimage to My Own Personal Mecca-- Cadbury World!
So the Chocolate Society has a yearly trip to Cadbury World, in Birmingham. Initially, of course I was planning to go, but then Natalie (flatmate, the only other girl I knew in the society) ended up not going, and, not wanting to go alone with a bunch of strangers, as well as having the price rise with every week that I was unsure, I opted out. What was even more disappointing was that soon after, I befriended Jasmine, an American girl in one of my classes, who was going on the trip, and she kept telling me that I should have signed up to go.
Then heaven intervened: last minute, the President of the society was unable to go, and then were selling her ticket for cheap-- Jasmine told Alan I wanted to go, and I found myself suddenly with a weekend trip on my hands.
This had an unfortunate collision with Erin being in town for the weekend-- so I hooked up with her Friday night, and we went to the 3 Sisters for a drink. We ended up hanging out for awhile, much to the detriment of my sleep schedule, but it was nice to see her. Hopefully I'll make it down to London to see her soon.
Less than four hours of sleep later, I dragged myself out of bed, packed my things, and stumbled to the train station, ending up there about half an hour early, though Jasmine and Erica were already there. So we waited-- Peter and Becky (keep in mind that I really only knew Jasmine at the time) showed up as well. 6.30, the meeting time, comes and goes, and Alan, the organizer, is still not there with our tickets. Finally, five minutes before the train leaves, he shows up and we get up, very relieved.
The train ride down was uneventful-- we got a table, read, napped, or listened to music/Billy Connolly standup. So we arrived in Birmingham, and grabbed a quick lunch, which was fairly uneventful, though it was nice that we all hit it off right off the bat. In fact, while I was expecting more than six of us, it was nice it turned out that way.
The first part of Cadbury World is a series of educational bits-- you walk through what seems to be the Rainforest Cafe (with Aztecs, of course), that has little signs telling you about chocolate's history. Then you stand in a theater bit and watch four video puppet scenes about chocolate going to Europe. Then they keep us corralled in a waiting area designed like a Victorian street. Then another video-projected-onto-a-set dealie about the Cadbury history. Then it gets more fun: another seemingly-innocuous theater, to explain how to make chocolate-- except someone along the line decided that it would be a good idea for the actual theater to mimic the process that the video explained-- including red heat lamps, shaking benches, ominous giant rollers, puffs of air, and so on.
Finally the part we were there for-- walking through the packaging plant! Conveyor belts of chocolate bars zipped tantalizingly by, safely behind large sheets of plexiglass. We tried to butter up the workers to bring us chocolate, but they would have none of it, sadly. But oh, did it smell good there! After that, we rode Cadabra (think of a poor man's "It's A Small World After All," but with cocoa beans inhabiting it. Also minus the music)-- which was more fun than it should have been, perhaps simply because we were all getting along so well. Then the demonstration area-- we got to pour chocolate into molds, and watch them do all the fancy stuff, though mostly we just queued for the station where you could drop your own nougat filling into a small vat of melted chocolate and then fish it out again-- this time it was worth the wait, as the guy in charge let us take a few at a time since we were so excited about it. Chocolate war paint was put into effect (and kept until after dinner). We ended up in "Purple Planet"-- silly games, basically. The most fun was had on the pressure-sensitive video floor, which cycled through things like squares of chocolate you could jump on to break, or puddles of melted chocolate to jump in. Finally, we watched a montage of all the Cadbury commercials, through the decades-- including the one that was once banned for being too sexual. And finally we ran through the Cadbury shop, buying misshapes in large amounts for super cheap.
Once they kicked us out (to close, not because we were troublemakers!), we sought dinner, which came in the form of a giant Chinese buffet. After, we stopped by Hard Rock for the "traditional" margaritas, and decided to go back to the hotel fairly early since we weren't really up for staying out too late, though we did all hang out in our hotel room pretty late, talking and getting to know each other, which was pretty fun.
Sunday we were up, and had a nice breakfast and then somehow someone thought it was a good idea, when all of us were riding up in the elevator, to all jump at the same time-- so it decided to stop and return us to the ground floor, which was interesting. Finally we were checked out, with most of a day to waste in Birmingham. First stop was Borders, then a delicious Japanese noodle restaurant-- during which Alan introduced us all to Top Trumps, a most addicting card game-- so after lunch, we all had to go back to Borders to buy our own decks. Then we wasted some time in the mall and the Apple store. Then we packed off to the train station-- played more Top Trumps waiting for the train (I told you, addictive). Then, a snag: when we tried to board our train, it was full. I mean FULL. Apparently it's a law here that they can't NOT sell you a ticket for any one train (plus so many open tickets), so despite our seat reservations, we didn't fit on the train, and they had to give us tickets for the next train. Unfortunately, this meant that once we ended up in Newcastle, we had missed the last bus to Edinburgh. Well, the company was required to get us where were going, so they got us a taxi-- and it's about two to three hours home. (The final fare was around 280 pounds!) But it was OK-- we all fit into a seven-seater, and the driver took us to a chippy shop so we could get food (with the meter running, of course)-- we all ate horribly smelly food (curry and chips, garlic bread, chips and cheese) and fell asleep until finally we were dumped unceremoniously in front of Waverly station-- thank god it's a two minute walk from my flat.
And that was the weekend. I've come out of it with a baby-sized bag of chocolate, a new favorite game, and a few more friends. Overall, rather good, I say.
Fresher's Weekend with New Scotland, aka a weekend retreat with the Scottish dancers
Friday:
The bus leaves at 6 in the evening. I sit with Janni (cute Swedish girl, sister of Sanne, a girl I already knew from previous classes), and we chat a bunch. The middle of the bus starts singing folk songs. We stopped at Dunkirk for dinner (fish and chips, how traditional), or, for the back of the bus, drinks. Then the back of the bus starts singing. Much hilarity ensues, and after getting slightly lost, we pull into the resort place. Immediately everyone piles off the bus in an attempt to race to the best room to claim it. This fails because it's pitch black outside, and no one knows how to get to the different cabins, let alone which are ours. Also, we have to take care to avoid the pond in the center of the place. Finally, beds are claimed (about ten people in our room alone-- forty-ish total on the trip), and within ten minutes, a pillow fight has broken out in our room. Much giggling occurs, and only minor injuries.
Then, right off the bat, we have a ceilidh. We have hours of folk dancing and skipping around the room and in general getting sweaty and tired and having loads of fun. There was the usual amount of people running into each other, etc. Then they ended the ceilidh and started the disco bit-- let me just say that there was a whole room full of people doing the macarena. EVERYONE. It was fabulous. This was all punctuated by "getting to know you" games-- nothing like sitting on a person's lap to get to know them better.
The night petered out, with about six of us-- mostly people I had known before the retreat-- lying on the floor hanging out and talking. Finally we get to bed around 4.30.
Saturday:
I woke up around 7, as the first people began to stir. Thanks to my ability to just get the heck up (that and I was too cold in bed), I was spared the early-morning wakeup from Yoshimi bursting into the room playing the bagpipes. Breakfast was uneventful, and then we had a ceilidh class/dance. Much fun (and a great was to wake up!) Then we had tea, round 1. After this was, I believe, more ceilidh dancing. Then tea, round 2 (during which they played some tango. Amber said something along the lines of, "somebody tango!" and since Toby was fortunately nearby, we had the floor to ourselves. It was rather awesome). Then there was a Step Dancing class (think Scottish tap), which was fun (yay for noisy dancing!), and lunch. After lunch we broke into our pre-decided teams to a "mystery challenge"-- making a kite! Fun with garbage bags and tape ensued, and then everyone trooped off to go fly them at the loch. We hadn't realized that it was actually two miles there-- but we had the most gorgeous march there, which included vistas of the mountains and blueberries growing alone the road.
There was, of course, no wind at the loch. So we bummed around awhile-- some of us waded a little bit (holy mackerel, was that cold!), splashed around. Then the wind picked up and we ran around like idiots for awhile-- one kite got stuck in a tree, one spiraled madly out of control, ours stayed aloft but merely hovered close to the ground, occasionally attacking people. Finally we headed back.
For the afternoon, we had signed up for either Greek dancing or Improv, though a lot of people just took naps. Since Greek dancing was so full, I magnanimously went to the improv workshop. Let's just say that there was silliness-- some weird obsession with monkeys and people rolling around on the floor, sometimes combined. It was a blast. But we had to cut it short to go get all costumed-up for dinner. ::insert usual montage of readiness:: My costume-- "Dead Heiress" (the theme was "Mystery and Magic)-- didn't require much anyway. Dress, tiara, cake gel icing applied to fake bullet wound on forehead (which caused a disturbing number of people to attempt to lick my face). Dinner was exceedingly amusing, thanks to incredible lasagna (one of the girls cooked ALL of our meals, and was in general amazing), and attempts to discuss etiquette with spoons on our noses. Also there was massive amounts of berry crumble, and my ongoing struggle to finish it, which became a matter of utmost importance for my entire table.
After dinner was cleared, we (big surprise) had a ceilidh! Folk dancing in silly costumes is the best thing ever. Also more silly bonding games (balloons, dancing, and apple-bobbing, which I managed to avoid). Then-- chocolate fountains! (One dark, one milk. Amazing.) Finally, at midnight, the dancing was called to an end, for the bonfire. The bonfire was had in a stone structure with a fireplace, so we all crammed onto the benches, and sang a raucous mix of childhood and folk songs. By 2am, the weak were again weeded out, and the remainder had a nice mellow sing along with guitar and quiet folk songs as the fire died. I was in bed by 4.30 again, though this time not the last.
Sunday:
Up to the sounds of bagpipes and pots and pans! Took a cold shower and hung out waiting for breakfast. We enjoyed leftover berry crumble with cream (so good!), and more random singing, of the perky morning type. Finished waking up to the Highland dancing class (quite the workout!), and then packed our things together. Wandered off to the woods with Anna and Ru-Huey, where we frolicked among the pine trees and moss, explored a strange little lean-to cut into the stream bank, looking for four leaf clovers, and jumped up and down in what could have possibly been a fairy ring.
The bus ride home was uneventful, with one stop again in Dunkirk for more tea (caffeine!), and then home.
It was a really incredible trip, I can't say that enough. There was just so much that we did, so many people that I got to know, it's surreal. No sense of time about it, that's for sure. I am exceedingly happy I did that.
Back to Friday:
I had haggis! It is tasty and doesn't taste at all like stomach. That is all. :)
Finally--
Pictures are up!
Go to
here, and I've put up pictures of (both of) my climbs to Arthur's Seat, St. Giles Cathedral, some random leftover pictures from my tourist day, and a couple others that I just have. There will be more coming-- of the castle and my coastal adventure-- hopefully.
Also, photobucket wouldn't let me put them in any particular order, so know that they're all jumbled.
Enjoy!
(Part of) the West Coast of Scotland-- a couple towns
1. Out, and Oban
There's nothing like sitting on a train, heading West and watching the sun rise over Glasgow. That said, I hope I never see it again, though I saw I believe every sunrise this weekend. So yes, it was quite lovely on the way out, and I slept through most of it.
I arrived in Oban, a coastal town (pretty small, kinda like one of those Oregon beach cities), and of course it was raining. I mean RAINING. All afternoon. I still explored a bit, found the hostel, climbed up to McCaig's Tower (this big round dark granite structure, based off the colliseum, on the top of a hill). It was rather lovely, and the rain managed to let up long enough for me to enjoy it some. I sought refuge in a pub for dinner (goal accomplished: having bangers and mash, and eating 2 sausages. Woo, gluttony!), then went back, intending to crash at the hostel.
Of course, that didn't happen-- once it got to be night (and I mean pitch-black-sky night), the rain stopped. So I decided to walk around more-- hanging out by the docks, walking through town. I stopped by a local pub by chance, where I met Shauna the waitress and Boyd the teacher. They were really nice-- Shauna kept telling me not to go to the other pub, because it was a rought place-- and introduced me to some of their friends as well. It was a rather nice meeting people sort of night.
2. Isle of Mull
The next morning, I'm up bright and early, and head over to catch the ferry to Mull. It's a nice 45-minute ride, lots of sights to see. This time I stayed mostly awake for it. We land at the ferry port, which of course has nothing to do-- the plan was to get a bus to the Southern port so I could spend the day at Iona. I spot a bus, and say, "I need to get to Iona." The driver replies, "Seven pounds." (Pay attention to the dialogue, this is important.) I get on the bus, and we drive out. About five minutes in, he goes, "So, we're heading North to Tobermory" (the main city of the island). Hm, this isn't right. Then he goes on to mention that all trips to Iona were cancelled due to weather problems. Better, but still like a surprise trip-- yay, the complete wrong direction! Oh well. So no Iona, which was sad. The bus ride was rather exciting-- we saw seals. From the bus! Also lots of rainbows. I walked around Tobermory-- setting of the BBC children's show Balamory (famous for the brightly-colored buildings on the waterfront). At the edge of town, there was a path going up into some woods, so of course I follow it. It was really gorgeous, following the coast. At one point, I took a really overgrown path down to the beach, which, despite all the thorns, was worth it. The beach was all rocks, and I even got a little bit of sun as I sat there. Then I explored the creepy shed nearby (an old sleeping bag in a corner, and a magazine with the "missing persons" page ripped out, I kid you not). After the shed, I scrambled back up with as much dignity as I could muster, and ran into a girl who had been on the bus up with me.
We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring more, taking trails up to the suburbs, through some more woods, into the center of a gold course, and to a farm, munching on the wild blackberries growing everywhere. Finally she had to go catch the bus back, so I went to hang out at the hostel until they'd let me check in (not until 5, how strange is that?) I basically stayed in that night-- Tobermory is even smaller than Oban, minus the pubs. Oh well, seeing as I had to get up early to catch the first bus and ferry back.
3. Oban. Again.
Ah, nothing like waking up ridiculously early, catching a half hour bus ride, a 45-minute ferry ride, and then finding out that the train won't leave until hours later, since you've just barely missed the first one. So I had an opportunity to explore Oban some more. Fortunately, there was this old old castle a bit out of town that I hiked to-- now, let me say this as a separate sentence, so you see how cool it was. I sheltered from the rain in an abandoned castle. Eh? It was pretty awesome. Nothing like ivy-covered ruins (with a second story that you could still climb to) to stop the rain, and to watch rainbows from.
So I slowly slowly headed back to the train station, stopping along the way to sit at about every bench I see, and then get a chippy roll (I would like to marry the man who invented french fries on a bun with brown sauce-- it's perfect). Finally, the train took me back home.
So that was the long long weekend. Only one missed class (though I'll be skipping my afternoon one today because I'm just tired and don't want to deal with a boring lecture), some slightly muddy boots, and a big rip in my favorite jeans were the cost (non-monetary, that is). Also, being damp for about twenty-four solid hours in Oban. Time to do laundry and get back into the swing of things.
An uneventful week, supplemented by comments on the food here
Like the title says-- I went to classes, ran errands, the usual. I skipped out on some society meetings, but replaced them with fun things like going clubbing with the flatmates (never have I been so conscious of my age, but I make an excellent "Designated Walker"). On Wednesday I attempted to go for the traditional study at a coffeehouse-- first choice being Elephant House (of the Harry Potter fame), of course. But I arrived, only to discover that they close at 7! The girl pointed me in the direction of a different place-- the Forest Cafe, which turns out to be possibly the best coffeehouse I've been to. Cheap coffee, the required pasticcio of second-hand couches and tables. For the first half of the night, there was a guy playing vintage blues records, and then they had live blues music. It was rather nice, though perhaps a tiny bit too contrived. Still a very good place to study, though.
To update the Study-Group-of-Evil-transformed-to-Study-Group-of-Wonder situation, the new study group continues to be wonderful. Any time you spend an hour discussing stories about getting curry thrown in people's faces, and state that the poet is "playing us like a cheap fiddle," you know it's a good group. I also had Ceilidh class last night, where I was able to sign up for the Fresher's Weekend in the highlands-- thank god, because 1) it sounds like lots of fun, and 2) there were a few threats about dire consequences if I didn't go.
And that was my week. Perhaps boring, but now I will commence to ramble on about the culinary delights of this fair city. Of course, the big one that I had forgotten to mention when I went weeks ago was the chippy shop! Baskets of steak fries with brown sauce, eaten with tiny wooden forks. You just can't go wrong. I was also introduced to kebab pizza (pretty big here, apparently-- there are some blocks with two or three kebab places on them). It's decent-- but nothing special or exciting. My new personal favorite is bangers and mash (sausage and mashed potatoes). Monster Mash has a beautiful system-- chose one of each (also gravy) out of maybe three to five choices of each. It's just wonderful.
As an afterthought: Did I mention that our flat has a cleaner? How kind of the Uni, you may think, to provide this for us. However, it has just gotten to the point of silliness-- we've had problems (well, Natalie has) with running into him in pajamas or a towel, and at this particular moment I would really like to get some lunch, but he's mopping the floor. So not only is the floor wet, but now I just feel silly.
Right, well, off to plan this weekend (nothing's set yet, so I won't go into what I plan on doing, but let's say that all the flatmates will be gone, so I will be taking a weekend trip away somewhere)--
Over and out.
In which everything magically works out!
First of all, I would like to point out the fact that I am writing this on Firefox (instead of Safari)-- an experiment I tried for kicks, but then soon discovered that for some unfathomable reason, my internet runs about ten times faster! So I am infinitely relieved that it no longer takes ten minutes to open a single page (though now I have to watch out and not waste all my time online).
Secondly, I had my wonderful/terrible Scottish Poetry class on Tuesday. You're allowed to change your classes until the end of the second week, so we had maybe four new kids in the class. The teachers looks at us, and says, "Well, now our system is messed up. We'll just have to re-do the groups." And fortunately, I was sitting by different people in the room, so I was given a brand-new group! And this group is infinitely better-- directly after class, I went to the library to pick up the complete works by the authors for the week, and ran into a guy from my group doing the same thing! At our discussion, we ended up discussing the material for an extra hour. And they were nice as well. So that's problem number two that has been sucessfully overcome.
Other than that, I've settled into more of a routine-- there's lots of reading for my classes, so I've started reading in the random minutes of the day (while cooking dinner, which I not only have to do about every night, but am also getting better at; grabbing a coffee at the Elephant House-- where JK Rowling wrote part of Harry Potter). I've got the ceilidh class and gaming society, which are always good, and we went bowling with chocsoc this week.
One last highlight: I had finally reconnected with the girl from my plane ride over, and we went on a "Tourist Day" of the city yesterday. Started at Arthur's Seat (with a mini picnic this time, and some celebratory cider), walked the Royal Mile (including St. Giles' Cathedral), and ended up at the Edinburgh Castle. Lost of beautiful views, archetecture, and history. The castle is very impressive-- I had forgetten that it's almost more of a miniature city than just a big fortress. There was even a wedding going on in the chapel! Also we got to see the crown jewels (the second-oldest set in Europe, and rather impressive) and the Stone of Destiny, on which almost all the kings of Scotland have been crowned. As a side note, despite our desire to skip the long story and go ogle the shiny things, they had a remarkably well-made exhibit leading up to the goods. Hopefully more tourist days will follow, and pictures will certainly be posted.
That's all for now-- I've got to type up some poetry notes before I head off to gaming for the day!
