Scotland and York

Since I have been going from hostel to hostel each night it has been hard to get good, legit internet and so I haven’t been able to post as much as I would like to. We arrived in Scotland on Thursday night and our hostel wasn’t too shabby. Our hostel in Wales was great and they have slowly been decreasing in greatness with each night, but it wasn’t too bad last night. I got put in a room with 12 other girls from group, but it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Our hostel provided breakfast, which is always nice so we don’t have to pay for it, but they usually don’t have the best food. In this hostel they had haggis as a part of their breakfast. Since I was in Scotland I figured that I needed to try it while I was there but I told Lillie not to tell me what is in it until after it had set in my stomach for awhile. It was really good! I almost wanted to go back from more, she ended up telling me what is in it last night, and im glad I didn’t know what it was while I was eating it. (its basically every organ of a lamb mushed together and then baked inside the stomach.)
I was being such a clutz today too! I slept on the top bunk and for some reason I had the hardest time getting on and off my bed, it was a serious struggle. At one point I almost fell backwards off the ladder. Then as we were taking our suitcases down the stairs I rolled over some guys foot, then almost knocked my suitcase on top of some lady. Then at a store I almost broke a glass plate. It just wasn’t my day.
Our first stop was the Castle of Scotland, we (Cathy, Lillie, M’kynzi and Hannah) walked up the Royal Mile to the top of the hill where the castle is at the top. Hannah thought it was on top of a hill and I didn’t believe her, but alas, it was. It wasn’t really a castle, but more of a fort that has been used for different reasons throughout the years. It was a little bit of a strange place—in some of the exhibits I felt like I was in Disneyland. We went and saw the Scottish crown jewels that were buried during the 1700s and then rediscovered exactly how they were left in the 1800s. They had the chest on display that they were buried in. We also saw the stone of destiny, which is basically an ordinary stone that is placed under the coronation chair (which we saw in Westminster Abbey) when new Kings or Queens are coroneted. My favorite exhibit that we saw was the Prisoners of War. It is basically a dungeon that was used to keep POWs throughout multiple wars that England and Scotland were involved in. Americans, French, Spanish and Dutch POWs have been kept there. Prison doors were on display because some of the POWs have carved names or inscriptions onto the door. It was so freaking cool! There was one door in particular that enclosed Americans during the Revolution and so there were carvings of the American stars and stripes and my favorite which was a the hanging of Lord North (Prime Minister during the war who was in charge of imposing the tea tax). At the Castle they fire a cannon each day at 1.00, so we were able to see that. I jumped really big and it reminded me of the fourth of july, back in the day. After we walked down the Royal Mile towards the Palace of Edinburgh, but we had a hard time getting there because of the Festival that was going on. Right now there are about nine different festivals going on that that attract a lot of tourist. So one of the festivals was on the Royal Mile street and there were the craziest people out there passing out flyers trying to get us to come to their show. Our favorite one was 5 guys that had their shirts off and were “frozen” and when you took their flyer they started dancing and then would freeze again. We took like 5 flyers just to watch them starting dancing funny. By the time we got down the Royal Mile we had like thirty mins to go to the Palace and then get back to the hostel. Since we got in free we decided to go through anyways. We didn’t even know what the palace was until I actually read the brochure and found out that this palace is where the Queen and her husband (who is the Duke of Edinburgh) live when they come to Scotland. She was there a month ago for about 10 days. So it was cool being there and knowing she was just there, but I doubt she ever goes to the rooms that we actually get to see. Since we didn’t have much time we literally walked through the palace in about 15 mins—really short, but we actually didn’t even need that much more time there. We met back at the hostel by 3 to depart Edinburgh. We were barely even there, but at least we were able to spend more time there than we have in any other city.

We had a 6 hour drive to York. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, its nice being able to hang out with a bunch of friends and talk to other people as we drive, so it makes it go by faster. We also had an hour stop in Durham for dinner and we were able to go online. We pulled into York at about 9ish and our hostel sucks! Definitely the worst one we have stayed in this week, which sucks since we are here for two nights unlike the other nights. For the first time Im not in a room with my regular roomies, which was nice to have things changed up a bit. Im with Hannah, Rachel and Dena which is so much fun, I really like hanging out with them and becoming better friends. Last night we actually did not go online and decided to study for our final that we had to take this morning. We studied pretty good last night, but everything we studied wasn’t on the test! But luckily the test is only 10% of our grade, so im not stressing over it. But I think I did decent. After the test and getting ready we headed out to York Minster Abbey, a place that we were required to go to for class. We got there and it looked like every other cathedral we have visited. It was beautiful, but we are all kinda sick of doing the same tourist things each day. We have all gotten to the point that we are sick of traveling around each day. And it has been raining all day too, which hasn’t made it easier to get around. The one thing I really like about York is that it really reminds me of Boston, I feel like the architecture looks very similar, so of course I really like it. We also all just hate being in a different city each day and don’t really know where to go since we aren’t familiar with the places that we are at. After the cathedral we went and got lunch—I tried Shepard’s pie, and really liked it!—and then decided to just come back to the hostel. We are tired and wanted to watch some of the Olympics. Tonight we have a group dinner at an Italian restaurant. Its kind of a goodbye dinner even though we have a few more days together. But it will be fun to do something as a group since we never have. I really want to get a group picture since I have none, but we will see.

Tomorrow we are still in York and will go to church here. Hopefully it wont be raining since we have to walk there. Then we leave for Stratford upon Avon for the rest of the day.



sorry no pics yet, my camera battery died, so im waiting for it to charge. and kel, sorry if i complained too much, but if i did, i dont want to hear it from you.