Massive Scotland Post!
Dec. 24th, 2004 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieOkay, there's no easy way to break this up in sections, so I'll just put the whole thing under on LJ cut. Pictures to follow in the next post!
Our trip started at 10 in the morning at the train station on Sunday. Three hours later, we arrive at Paddington, late enough to miss our connection (thanks, British public transportation). Luckily, there was another train going our way just a half-hour after the one we were supposed to catch, so we had just enough time for a lunch from the pasty stand in King's Cross before starting the four and a half-hour odyssey to Edinburgh. We didn't get to see as much of the landscape on the way up as I'd hoped, because of course the sun sets at 3:30 or 4 around this time of year, but we did on the way back, so it was okay. The northeastern part of England looks a lot more like the eastern half of the US than the area around Exeter does. There are a lot more trees, for one, especially evergreens, so it didn't look unnaturally bare like Exeter can at times. Especially on the way back, there were some flat fields interspersed among the forests, and at times, I would almost swear we were in central Ohio. And there were a few places where they blasted through rock that either was or looked a lot like the gray limestone they blast through here in TN to make interstates, and it was almost like being home. Except, y'know, not.
Anyway, we arrived in Edinburgh around 6:30 at night, and after a minor mishap in finding our hostel, we checked in and went to our room, which was fabulous. It was massive, with four beds, two of which were bunked, a little table and four chairs, and an enormous amount of floor space, along with a high ceiling, not to mention a nice warm comforter (necessary in Edinburgh in winter, oh yes) and rental towels for 50p. Plus, the door locked, which is more than I can say for the hostel in St. Ives, and there was good security at the front desk (you had to show the receptionist on duty a card they gave you before they'd let you past the entrance hall). There was nobody else on our hall, so we had the toilets all to ourselves, and the showers nearly that way. Also, they had free cereal, toast and orange juice in the mornings. And all for less than £ per person per night. If you're ever going to Edinburgh and need a hostel, go for Caledonian Backpackers.
Okay, now that my PSA is over...Edinburgh. One of the best things about this city, at least for tourists, is that most of the attractions are along the "Royal Mile," or High Street, which is bounded by Edinburgh Castle on one end and Holyrood Palace on the other. (It was totally like Middle Path at Kenyon! Except not really straight, and with five million huge hills, because except for possibly parts of Princes Street, I don't think there's a level street or sidewalk in the entire city.) Monday, we went to the castle (practically across the street from the hostel, very cool), which was rather a lot like the Tower of London, complete with crown jewels (Scottish ones this time, but anyway). Still, we definitely spent all day there, and it was a lot of fun. The castle is one of the highest points in the city--it's built on top of an extinct volcano--and the views were spectacular, especially the one west over to the Firth of Forth. All the various war museums were interesting for a while, but quickly got overwhelming. There's only so much Highland soldier-ness I can take. We somehow managed to miss the one o'clock cannon, how, I don't know--I guess we were inside eating lunch at the time.
Tuesday was the Museum of Scotland, which was huge and fascinating. I managed to make it to all five floors in the 2.5 hours we spent there, although I did skip large sections. I did have fun with the Maiden (essentially a guillotine, only slightly more Goldbergesque) and the steam engines, not to mention staring up in awe at the ceremonial sword from the Middle Ages that was quite a bit taller than I am. Seriously, seven feet long. Possibly more. After a tasty lunch in the giant atrium that divides the MoS from the Royal Museum (which we didn't even attempt, although it did look interesting), we went off to look for the "ruins of Holyrood Abbey." as Ellen wanted to see them.
That particular abbey doesn't exist, but we did end up in Holyrood Park and climbed a bit up Arthur's seat to see the ruins of another little church. Pretty neat, although Dartmoor apparently followed us there. Actually, the winds might've been worse than Dartmoor, or perhaps that was just the fact that I was clinging to the side of a mountain as they tried to blow me off of it. The others climbed a ways up the mountain as darkness fell, and I followed for a few feet until I realized that dusk and mountains and high-speed winds and me equal a recipe for a broken leg or worse, so I came back down--mostly by crouching and sliding down on the soles of my feet, holding onto everything I could on the way..."everything" being almost exclusively nettles. Argh. There was much moaning, whimpering and expectation of dying. And then I twisted my ankle on the last leap down to level ground. Bah.
We saw The Incredibles that night, which was sort of fun, but not as good as Pixar usually puts out. Elastimom's scene with the doors and the elevator and feeling around the guard's face before punching him was classic, as was Edna in general, but the rest unfortunately wasn't. Still not too bad, though, and at least the tickets were relatively cheap with our student discounts. :)
Wednesday, I left at nine on a train for St. Andrews to see my twin,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spockette!! The universe ought to have imploded around 10 AM BST that day, but apparently not. Or else we blew up a parallel universe, or got spit out into one, or... Anyway. We saw the attractions St. A's has to offer, namely the castle, the beach, and the cathedral, not to mention Kim's room, which is huuuuge. I am quite jealous. And Thor is SO CUTE! So tiny and cute and fuzzy! Awwww!
We ended up in the Tudor(?) pub for lunch, where I metedithmatilda and where we stayed for, like, three hours just chatting. We wandered around a bit, and convinced Miriam that she needed a guinea pig, who I inadvertently suggested a name for when I commented on his resemblance to her stuffed black plague germ. Hee. Monty is almost as adorable as Thor, as are those winter white dwarf hamsters.
After that excitement, I had to get on the train back to Edinburgh, for that night, we went to hear a Scottish folk/Celtic band called the Whistlebinkies (I'd never heard of them either) at a pub near the university. We made the discovery that student pubs in large cities, or at least this one, are VERY, VERY cheap for decent-quality food. I got a really good chicken/bacon/cheese wrap, a mound of fries, and a cup of tea for under £. We will definitely be investigating that on future trips. The music the band played was nice, although it got difficult to tell a lot of it apart by the end of the night, but pretty nonetheless. We all had Shirley Temples...of a sort. Whitney went up to the bartender and asked if he made them, and he apparently said sure...if she could tell him what they were. Ooops. So it wasn't quite the same...blackcurrant syrup instead of grenadine, for one, but the Sprite was the same. It was still pretty good, although I think I like cherry a bit more than blackcurrant. Ah, well.
Thursday was our last day, and we started with what may have been my favorite part of the week, the Museum of Childhood. (Yes, I know. I can't stand children themselves, but I love their toys, which is what this museum was all about.) It was five levels of toys from the last 200 years, possibly longer, from dolls in all kinds of intricate costume to teddy bears to model trains to dollhouses to bicycles and sports equipment. There was one dollhouse that some aristocratic little girl in the early part of last century owned, and it was incredible--it was three regular dollhouses attached to each other to make a mansion, basically. And just filled with tiny little furniture pieces, as were the other examples they had on display. I have a deep and abiding love for dollhouses and all the tiny things that go in them, so I was happy on that floor for a long time. They had a hurdy-gurdy organ you could deposit 50p in and have play, so of course we did. The whole thing was wonderful. Although I have to admit, it was somewhat disturbing to see an Asteroids arcade console in a museum. Eeep! At least they didn't have Care Bears of My Little Pony, or I would've felt really old.
We did some shopping that afternoon. I got a fabulous, fabulous wool blanket in a purple and blue tartan pattern that is really warm and was marked down to £. Woo-hoo! We also went to the Christmas shop, and I got some adorable Christmas ornaments, namely a soft ballerina bear and one of a dog that looks remarkably like Cricket lying on some bagpipes. Hee. We stopped by the Hogmanay carnival on the way back to the hostel and visited the German Christmas market. Lots of luscious-smelling candies and cakes, and a few free samples. Yum.
After dark, we decided to go on a "ghosthunters" tour, 'cause we'd heard that the underground vaults were something to be seen, and this one took you down there. Our tour guide was very nice and personable, possibly because we were the only ones there. (It was quite, quite cold. Definitely a long underwear day, as was most of the week.) I was less scared of any of the ghosties she told us about than of the idea that they might have costumed spooks pop out at us in the underground rooms. There was one point when the guide shone a flashlight out through the space between me and Chandra, and I was sure it had to be a signal to someone ready to jump out at us, so I steeled myself for a good fifteen minutes waiting for the spook that never came, thankfully. The underground rooms were vaguely interesting--it's hard to imagine anyone living crammed together in the tenements down there. The whole bit about Burke & Hare and them selling bodies to the medical school was interesting; I think I would've liked one of the daytime history tours a bit better, although this was still £ well-spent.
We had the four-hour train ride to London the next day, around lunchtime, so we got to see all the countryside we had missed on Sunday. We went by the ocean for a fair bit, and right by the edge of the cliffs falling down to it for a few miles here and there, which was very cool. We checked into our hostel for London, and it was a world of difference between that one and the one in Edinburgh. Stay far, far away from the sketchy Astor Quest. Argh. The next time we have to spend a night in London that's not on a program trip, I think we may look into budge hotels rather than hostels, because we have yet to have a good experience with a hostel in London.
Hostel aside, London for the fifth weekend this semester still held interest. Ellen and I went to the V&A again on Saturday, and I did Europe and America 1600-1800. Then I wandered into Europe 1500-1700 and played with the dress-up clothes. They had an Elizabethan-style neck ruff that was fun, as well as a gauntlet that was awesome. I couldn't really conceptualize how heavy armor was, but that certainly helped. I can see why people ended up with broken check and jawbones after getting punched in the face by someone wearing one of those things. Ouch. In less a less painful area, they had an eighteenth-century style hoop skirt, one where it's like a rectangle with the long sides extending out from each hip, so you have to go through doors sideways. All in all, I think prefer their nineteenth-century skirt (and corset!), which I went and tried on again. Back support, yay!
We went to the Eye again that night, as Ellen hadn't been on it yet and Whitney was with a friend who wanted to go on it. Chandra and I stayed on the ground for this one, as we'd take a ride in it already. I took a bunch of pictures of Big Ben at that didn't come out and a couple that almost did. We had planned to go open-air ice skating after that, but of course it started raining. It is England, after all. *sigh* It was probably for the best, though, as Chandra and Whitney had to get up very early the next morning to catch their plane.
Ellen and I had another day in London, so we went to the Natural History Museum, which is one of the most gorgeous buildings I've ever seen. Most of the pictures I took were just of the architecture of the outside and the main hall. Truly lovely. I was silly and went to the dinosaur bones first thing after the museum opened for the morning, along with 59,725,319 small children. Still, dinosaur bones are pretty cool, even with lots of little kids. The other exhibits I saw were okay--the sequoia trunk in particular is quite cool--but there's only so much biology and earth science I can take in one day, so I let Ellen go back in the afternoon by herself and hung out playing on my laptop in our room.
And then it was back to the room for some sleep, as we got up at 7 the next morning in order to get on the tube out to Heathrow to catch our noon o'clock flight. We got to Heathrow at 9:30, needed all but about thirty minutes of that time, too; the lines to check in were incredible. And of course 747s start boarding twenty minutes earlier than other planes...not that we were in any of the first groups, of course, but still. I was surprised at how long it took, even though security was comparatively easier; I didn't have to take my shoes off or take any of my various electronic equipment out of my backpack like I do at airports in the US.
And then twelve hours, two planes, and three airports after I left, I made it home, where I appear to still be feeling the effects of jet-lag. Still, it's good to be home, even if it did snow on me. ;)
Our trip started at 10 in the morning at the train station on Sunday. Three hours later, we arrive at Paddington, late enough to miss our connection (thanks, British public transportation). Luckily, there was another train going our way just a half-hour after the one we were supposed to catch, so we had just enough time for a lunch from the pasty stand in King's Cross before starting the four and a half-hour odyssey to Edinburgh. We didn't get to see as much of the landscape on the way up as I'd hoped, because of course the sun sets at 3:30 or 4 around this time of year, but we did on the way back, so it was okay. The northeastern part of England looks a lot more like the eastern half of the US than the area around Exeter does. There are a lot more trees, for one, especially evergreens, so it didn't look unnaturally bare like Exeter can at times. Especially on the way back, there were some flat fields interspersed among the forests, and at times, I would almost swear we were in central Ohio. And there were a few places where they blasted through rock that either was or looked a lot like the gray limestone they blast through here in TN to make interstates, and it was almost like being home. Except, y'know, not.
Anyway, we arrived in Edinburgh around 6:30 at night, and after a minor mishap in finding our hostel, we checked in and went to our room, which was fabulous. It was massive, with four beds, two of which were bunked, a little table and four chairs, and an enormous amount of floor space, along with a high ceiling, not to mention a nice warm comforter (necessary in Edinburgh in winter, oh yes) and rental towels for 50p. Plus, the door locked, which is more than I can say for the hostel in St. Ives, and there was good security at the front desk (you had to show the receptionist on duty a card they gave you before they'd let you past the entrance hall). There was nobody else on our hall, so we had the toilets all to ourselves, and the showers nearly that way. Also, they had free cereal, toast and orange juice in the mornings. And all for less than £ per person per night. If you're ever going to Edinburgh and need a hostel, go for Caledonian Backpackers.
Okay, now that my PSA is over...Edinburgh. One of the best things about this city, at least for tourists, is that most of the attractions are along the "Royal Mile," or High Street, which is bounded by Edinburgh Castle on one end and Holyrood Palace on the other. (It was totally like Middle Path at Kenyon! Except not really straight, and with five million huge hills, because except for possibly parts of Princes Street, I don't think there's a level street or sidewalk in the entire city.) Monday, we went to the castle (practically across the street from the hostel, very cool), which was rather a lot like the Tower of London, complete with crown jewels (Scottish ones this time, but anyway). Still, we definitely spent all day there, and it was a lot of fun. The castle is one of the highest points in the city--it's built on top of an extinct volcano--and the views were spectacular, especially the one west over to the Firth of Forth. All the various war museums were interesting for a while, but quickly got overwhelming. There's only so much Highland soldier-ness I can take. We somehow managed to miss the one o'clock cannon, how, I don't know--I guess we were inside eating lunch at the time.
Tuesday was the Museum of Scotland, which was huge and fascinating. I managed to make it to all five floors in the 2.5 hours we spent there, although I did skip large sections. I did have fun with the Maiden (essentially a guillotine, only slightly more Goldbergesque) and the steam engines, not to mention staring up in awe at the ceremonial sword from the Middle Ages that was quite a bit taller than I am. Seriously, seven feet long. Possibly more. After a tasty lunch in the giant atrium that divides the MoS from the Royal Museum (which we didn't even attempt, although it did look interesting), we went off to look for the "ruins of Holyrood Abbey." as Ellen wanted to see them.
That particular abbey doesn't exist, but we did end up in Holyrood Park and climbed a bit up Arthur's seat to see the ruins of another little church. Pretty neat, although Dartmoor apparently followed us there. Actually, the winds might've been worse than Dartmoor, or perhaps that was just the fact that I was clinging to the side of a mountain as they tried to blow me off of it. The others climbed a ways up the mountain as darkness fell, and I followed for a few feet until I realized that dusk and mountains and high-speed winds and me equal a recipe for a broken leg or worse, so I came back down--mostly by crouching and sliding down on the soles of my feet, holding onto everything I could on the way..."everything" being almost exclusively nettles. Argh. There was much moaning, whimpering and expectation of dying. And then I twisted my ankle on the last leap down to level ground. Bah.
We saw The Incredibles that night, which was sort of fun, but not as good as Pixar usually puts out. Elastimom's scene with the doors and the elevator and feeling around the guard's face before punching him was classic, as was Edna in general, but the rest unfortunately wasn't. Still not too bad, though, and at least the tickets were relatively cheap with our student discounts. :)
Wednesday, I left at nine on a train for St. Andrews to see my twin,
spockette!! The universe ought to have imploded around 10 AM BST that day, but apparently not. Or else we blew up a parallel universe, or got spit out into one, or... Anyway. We saw the attractions St. A's has to offer, namely the castle, the beach, and the cathedral, not to mention Kim's room, which is huuuuge. I am quite jealous. And Thor is SO CUTE! So tiny and cute and fuzzy! Awwww!We ended up in the Tudor(?) pub for lunch, where I met
edithmatilda and where we stayed for, like, three hours just chatting. We wandered around a bit, and convinced Miriam that she needed a guinea pig, who I inadvertently suggested a name for when I commented on his resemblance to her stuffed black plague germ. Hee. Monty is almost as adorable as Thor, as are those winter white dwarf hamsters.After that excitement, I had to get on the train back to Edinburgh, for that night, we went to hear a Scottish folk/Celtic band called the Whistlebinkies (I'd never heard of them either) at a pub near the university. We made the discovery that student pubs in large cities, or at least this one, are VERY, VERY cheap for decent-quality food. I got a really good chicken/bacon/cheese wrap, a mound of fries, and a cup of tea for under £. We will definitely be investigating that on future trips. The music the band played was nice, although it got difficult to tell a lot of it apart by the end of the night, but pretty nonetheless. We all had Shirley Temples...of a sort. Whitney went up to the bartender and asked if he made them, and he apparently said sure...if she could tell him what they were. Ooops. So it wasn't quite the same...blackcurrant syrup instead of grenadine, for one, but the Sprite was the same. It was still pretty good, although I think I like cherry a bit more than blackcurrant. Ah, well.
Thursday was our last day, and we started with what may have been my favorite part of the week, the Museum of Childhood. (Yes, I know. I can't stand children themselves, but I love their toys, which is what this museum was all about.) It was five levels of toys from the last 200 years, possibly longer, from dolls in all kinds of intricate costume to teddy bears to model trains to dollhouses to bicycles and sports equipment. There was one dollhouse that some aristocratic little girl in the early part of last century owned, and it was incredible--it was three regular dollhouses attached to each other to make a mansion, basically. And just filled with tiny little furniture pieces, as were the other examples they had on display. I have a deep and abiding love for dollhouses and all the tiny things that go in them, so I was happy on that floor for a long time. They had a hurdy-gurdy organ you could deposit 50p in and have play, so of course we did. The whole thing was wonderful. Although I have to admit, it was somewhat disturbing to see an Asteroids arcade console in a museum. Eeep! At least they didn't have Care Bears of My Little Pony, or I would've felt really old.
We did some shopping that afternoon. I got a fabulous, fabulous wool blanket in a purple and blue tartan pattern that is really warm and was marked down to £. Woo-hoo! We also went to the Christmas shop, and I got some adorable Christmas ornaments, namely a soft ballerina bear and one of a dog that looks remarkably like Cricket lying on some bagpipes. Hee. We stopped by the Hogmanay carnival on the way back to the hostel and visited the German Christmas market. Lots of luscious-smelling candies and cakes, and a few free samples. Yum.
After dark, we decided to go on a "ghosthunters" tour, 'cause we'd heard that the underground vaults were something to be seen, and this one took you down there. Our tour guide was very nice and personable, possibly because we were the only ones there. (It was quite, quite cold. Definitely a long underwear day, as was most of the week.) I was less scared of any of the ghosties she told us about than of the idea that they might have costumed spooks pop out at us in the underground rooms. There was one point when the guide shone a flashlight out through the space between me and Chandra, and I was sure it had to be a signal to someone ready to jump out at us, so I steeled myself for a good fifteen minutes waiting for the spook that never came, thankfully. The underground rooms were vaguely interesting--it's hard to imagine anyone living crammed together in the tenements down there. The whole bit about Burke & Hare and them selling bodies to the medical school was interesting; I think I would've liked one of the daytime history tours a bit better, although this was still £ well-spent.
We had the four-hour train ride to London the next day, around lunchtime, so we got to see all the countryside we had missed on Sunday. We went by the ocean for a fair bit, and right by the edge of the cliffs falling down to it for a few miles here and there, which was very cool. We checked into our hostel for London, and it was a world of difference between that one and the one in Edinburgh. Stay far, far away from the sketchy Astor Quest. Argh. The next time we have to spend a night in London that's not on a program trip, I think we may look into budge hotels rather than hostels, because we have yet to have a good experience with a hostel in London.
Hostel aside, London for the fifth weekend this semester still held interest. Ellen and I went to the V&A again on Saturday, and I did Europe and America 1600-1800. Then I wandered into Europe 1500-1700 and played with the dress-up clothes. They had an Elizabethan-style neck ruff that was fun, as well as a gauntlet that was awesome. I couldn't really conceptualize how heavy armor was, but that certainly helped. I can see why people ended up with broken check and jawbones after getting punched in the face by someone wearing one of those things. Ouch. In less a less painful area, they had an eighteenth-century style hoop skirt, one where it's like a rectangle with the long sides extending out from each hip, so you have to go through doors sideways. All in all, I think prefer their nineteenth-century skirt (and corset!), which I went and tried on again. Back support, yay!
We went to the Eye again that night, as Ellen hadn't been on it yet and Whitney was with a friend who wanted to go on it. Chandra and I stayed on the ground for this one, as we'd take a ride in it already. I took a bunch of pictures of Big Ben at that didn't come out and a couple that almost did. We had planned to go open-air ice skating after that, but of course it started raining. It is England, after all. *sigh* It was probably for the best, though, as Chandra and Whitney had to get up very early the next morning to catch their plane.
Ellen and I had another day in London, so we went to the Natural History Museum, which is one of the most gorgeous buildings I've ever seen. Most of the pictures I took were just of the architecture of the outside and the main hall. Truly lovely. I was silly and went to the dinosaur bones first thing after the museum opened for the morning, along with 59,725,319 small children. Still, dinosaur bones are pretty cool, even with lots of little kids. The other exhibits I saw were okay--the sequoia trunk in particular is quite cool--but there's only so much biology and earth science I can take in one day, so I let Ellen go back in the afternoon by herself and hung out playing on my laptop in our room.
And then it was back to the room for some sleep, as we got up at 7 the next morning in order to get on the tube out to Heathrow to catch our noon o'clock flight. We got to Heathrow at 9:30, needed all but about thirty minutes of that time, too; the lines to check in were incredible. And of course 747s start boarding twenty minutes earlier than other planes...not that we were in any of the first groups, of course, but still. I was surprised at how long it took, even though security was comparatively easier; I didn't have to take my shoes off or take any of my various electronic equipment out of my backpack like I do at airports in the US.
And then twelve hours, two planes, and three airports after I left, I made it home, where I appear to still be feeling the effects of jet-lag. Still, it's good to be home, even if it did snow on me. ;)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-12-25 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-25 07:31 pm (UTC)It's also nice to know the train ride to London is only four hours, as my family and I will be going there as well.
Yeah, it's not too bad. It still wears you out, although the GNER trains that usually do the route between London and Edinburgh are the nicest I've been on so far--the largest seats and most leg room, plus power sockets to plug things like computers into. ;) Just stay away from the smoking car. Bleh.
(P.S. Bring long underwear. Seriously. Wow, that wind is sharp.)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-26 03:40 am (UTC)Merry Christmas!