My Scottish Adventures

I'm studying for a semester at the University of Aberdeen, and this is what I'm getting up to =)

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Final Days...

SO SAD I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE.

Most of my friends of gone already. It's just me and May left in the flat until Graham comes back from Ireland on Thursday. It's incredibly quiet, and having to say goodbye to the friends I've made here has been so hard. 

I have no doubt I'll come back some day to see these people again, and those that are from the US I will hopefully see in the nearer future.

It's Tuesday now, I was going to make a day trip to Stonehaven to see Dunnottar castle, but I'm finding spending my last few days on this campus and in this room is more worth it. And it just gives me another excuse to come back to Scotland some day =)

I'll start packing up everything on Thursday and Friday, so I'm all ready to catch my flight on Saturday afternoon. Gonna miss Scotland and all my friends terribly, but I look forward to seeing everyone at home again =)

See below for pictures of my friends and I on our last night all together =)

(note: some people not shown because they left early... jerks =P )

Me and Graham

Amandine and Zoe

Me, Catherine, and Charlotte

Shep (short for Cameron Shepherd), Evelyn, and Tony 

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Less than two weeks...

I cannot believe that in two weeks time I'll be home. In my own bed. In America. I cannot actually fathom this.

Time has flown by so quickly and I'm already having to say goodbye to some of the most amazing people. Most of my friends will be leaving this weekend, but some will be around until I leave. I'm not looking forward to saying goodbye. Who knows when I'll see some of them again. For some of them it will probably be years which is incredibly sad.

Not really ready to come home...

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Aaaaah Exam Time.......

Exams start this week! SO NOT READY FOR THEM. Even though I've had all this last week to study...... NETFLIX WAS CALLING TO ME. The siren songs of all those TV shows I'd never seen. The need to watch old movie favorites. It was overwhelming. Luckily, I just need to know enough to blurt out a couple of essays per exam, and I took decent notes all semester.

First Exam 3/22: Rome

1 Essay

Choose 3 out of 6 sources given and analyze them giving author, date, context, historical significance, 

In 2 hours

Second Exam 3/24: Celtic Scotland

2 essays in 2 hours

Third Exam 3/30: Introduction to Scottish History

3 essays in 2 hours

Fourth Exam 3/31: Renaissance and Reformations

2 essays in 2 hours

So. Many. Essays.

The Rome exam is the one I'm most worried about since I can never remember the authors or context for any of the sources. Kinda glad it's my first one so I'm not worrying about it fo all of exam leave.

There's also TONS to cover in Scottish History and Renaissance and I'm only getting a selection of maybe 10-12 essays per exam. 

On the upside, a friend of mine from my Celtic Scotland class wants to accompany me to Stonehaven at some point during our last week here. Just a quick day trip to see the Castle and walk around the town a bit since it's only like a 30 minute bus ride away. I might get to see a bit more of Scotland before I leave after all =)

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WOW it's been a while

This wee has been seriously hectic since I had two different papers due, and I didn't get any work done on them over break. Procrastination is bad and I need to stop.

That being said I do have some news, but it's not of a very happy nature. I, once again, will be missing out on a trip to see a bit more of Scotland. The ticket sale was during my tutorial time again, and the international society wouldn't let another girl sign me up for the trip. Even if she had been able to, her name is so far down on the waiting list she's probably not going to get to go either.

This has seriously bummed me out, since I have hardly seen any of Scotland beyond Aberdeen and the few days I was in Edinburgh. I might plan a day trip or two on my own to a couple of places, but that's all up in the air right now. I have another essay due in a week or so, a presentation just a couple days after that, then I have exams.

We'll see I guess.

And of course on top of all that I lost my iPhone on Wednesday. I'm more bummed about all the pictures I'll have lost than I am about the phone itself though =/

Oh well. At least it was insured so getting a new one won't be an issue. 

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Germany and Austria!

So so far, mom, auntie, and I have seen many a town in these lovely countries. Not doing a whole lot of sight seeing, but lots of shopping =)

Included in this shopping was the purchase of a dirndl =)

Pretty isn't it!

I'm sure there will be a picture of me in it at some point, but there it is anyway.

I'll have a much longer post about this trip in a couple of days!

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Hampton Court Palace and Covent Garden!

Okay so I’m a couple of days late on posting about Hampton Court, but I was there for about 5 hours and it was a half hour by train there and back. Needless to say, it was a long day.

I get off the train at Hampton Court, and as you’re walking across the bridge over the Thames you can see the huge red brick palace walls. With the river in the foreground and the sun miraculously shining for once, it was an amazing sight.

Now, inside there were three tours involving Henry VIII. Because my love for the Tudor dynasty is so immense, I took my good sweet times going through the tours.

Te first was the Tudor kitchens, which at the time of Henry’s reign would have never been seen by any members of the nobility, only servants and the cooks. One weekend a month the palace has food historians cooking away the Tudor way! The cooks were using old style cooking utensils, coal ovens, and there was a massive fire used for roasting meat on a spit. Very cool.

Henry’s apartments were lavishly decorated as one would believe, and you can see evidence of each of his wives in some of the decoration and style, whether it was their sigil carved into a mantlepiece, or their initials intertwined with Henry’s in the decor.

Warning: Tudor history lesson ahead.

There was also a tour all about young Henry, before he became the angry, bitter, fat old man history remembers him as. Prior to his break with the Catholic Church Henry was actually a very handsome, charismatic, athletic young man. As he grew older and more desperate for a male heir, Henry got angrier. Then after the loss of his favorite wife Jane Seymour, and eventual execution of his next wife Catherine howard, it’s no wonder the man went a bit mad.

ANYWAY, the palace was gorgeous and I had an amazing time, and I bought pretty jewelry.

The day after that I spent traipsing around Covent Garden in central London. Just doing a bit of souvenir shopping, and watch a couple of street performances =)

Now I’m sitting in a hotel room with my mom and auntie in Germany!!! Can’t wait for the rest of break! Pictures of the palace to come soo =)

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London called... she wanted me back =)

First day in London... again! 

Despite having been gone for most of the day, I actually didn't do a whole lot.

I spent most of my time in the Tower of London. Last time I visited the Tower with Girl Scouts many moons ago, we were on a fairly tight schedule so we couldn't explore a whole lot. Upside to traveling alone? Being able to do what you want, when you want, for as long as you want. 

For any who are unaware, I have a sort of obsessive love for the Tudor dynasty. The dominant part of this dynasty involving Henry VIII, his separation from the Catholic Church, and his six wives. Don't ask me why, cause I'm not entirely sure myself, but Queen Anne Boleyn has always fascinated me, and so seeing her tomb and where she was actually executed was very cool for me.

As a direct result of my obsessive love for this mad king and all the history that goes with him, I will be spending my day tomorrow at Hampton Court Palace. My excitement for this is a bit extreme.

Off the topic of the Tudors, the rest of my day today was spent walking around Leister Square and Charing Cross. Just people watching and a little tourist shopping.

Pictures will be up tomorrow since I can't be bothered to find my camera cord and upload them now!

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Edinburgh!

Greetings from Scotland's beautiful capital!

I've now been here two full days and have managed to see quite a lot!

Saturday I went on a 3.5 hour long walking tour of the old town, which is more or less central Edinburgh, and despite the cold and freezing wind, it was actually a lot of fun.

My hostel is literally right below the castle ramparts, and the view from the internet lounge is gorgeous. The castle itself is also quite lovely, and the view from the battlements is spectacular. Also just down the road is the Royal Mile which is a lot of shopping, pubs, and cafes. Needless to say this is where I've spent a good chunk of my downtime. The Elephant house is just down a side road from the Royal Mile and this cafe is where JK Rowling first started writing the Harry Potter series. Naturall I've had coffee there a couple of times now.

Today (Sunday) I spent a good few hours in the National Museum of Scotland. Given its size and the number of different exhibits this took up a decent amount of my day. My time there also proved that I've spent too much time working at Art n Soul because the exhibit full of stones and fossils is where I spent most of my time.

After the museum I went a historic tour of the Edinburgh vaults which was both dark and illuminating. Dark because there was really no light since it was underground, and illuminating because it was just really cool.

Not sure what I'm going to do for the next two days I'm here. There's an old volcano called Arthur's Seat at the far end of the Royal Mile I'd like to walk up, but if this wind and cold keeps up I might scratch it off the list. Otherwise I might have to do a little more shopping. Darn it.

;)

Few pictures from the last couple of days below =)

Edinburgh castle!

That building is my hostel. I wasn't kidding it's right below the castle.

Look how pretty! The view is nice too I guess. =)

This gem (pun intended) was at the National Museum of Scotland and (as you can tell by me standing beside it) it was HUGE. And in two halves. Very very big amethyst geode.

No photos from the vault tour at the moment since I forgot my camera in my room. I leave for London Wednesday morning, but I'll try and have something blog-worthy before then =)

TOODLES.

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Found a couple more London photos that got lost in my many files!

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So there was Harry Potter, now here's a taste of London.

I didn't take loads of pictures since I'll be back in a little over a week, but here's some photos I took!

Me at Buckingham Palace!

Basically the coolest taxi ever

Queen Victoria Monument

Tower of London

Didn't get to go inside since we just missed the last entry, but that's on my list for next week =)

Crossed the Millennium Bridge over the thames =)

The Globe Theater! This is another tour on my list for next time =)

For those who don't know, that lovely girl smiling at the camera is my friend Ashley =)

View from the London Eye of Big Ben and Parliament all lit up.

The London Eye!

Yup, went all the way up in the massive ferris wheel. Very cool at night because London is all lit up and looks amazing.

The moral of the story is, I need to live in London.

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Okay, so in the second warehouse you get the creature shop, Diagon Alley, concept art, and the AMAZING scale model.

The creature shop has loads of stuff in it. Fawkes, Dobby, Aragog, thestrals, dementors, Lupin's furrier side, goblins, and loads more. They even have what I've begun calling fetus Voldemort because well he looks like a fetus. They also have the Monster Book of Monsters and it MOVES. Super awesome.

The Diagon Alley set. SO pretty. The light changed from day to night, and the shop windows were full of wizarding supplies. The arm on WWW actually moved up and down, and there's a puking pastilles model of sorts that looks like it's puking. But not in a super gross way...

The concept art. OH MY GOD the concept art. The paintings looked like movie stills, the paper models looked exactly like the sets the eventually became, the SKETCHES OF THE CREATURES AND SETS HOW DO YOU DRAW. Absolutely drool worthy. I wanted to take the paintings home with me but I think that would have ended badly... oh well.

Now the model. Ashley and I spent a good 20 minutes in that room. The lighting also changed from night to day, and if seeing it didn't cause enough feelings, the score playing in the background made them stronger. Every detail, down to the numbers on the clack are to scale (1:24). More that 300 fibre optic lights, and shadows of students moving about the castle. This model was used to shoot aerial scenes for the films, which is part of the reason for SO MUCH DETAIL. It was beautiful and amazing and I cried a little (read: Niagara Falls)

Basically, this tour was epic, and worth every pence spent.

Any questions about it feel free to inbox me and I'll respond on my personal blog!

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Okay so I can only do photosets of ten, so I'm gonna be choosy with my 250 photos.

The Harry Potter tour was epic. The workers were incredible and had so much Harry Potter knowledge of behind-the-scenes secrets I wanted to cry (and I might have... just a little). ANYWAY, the sets were gorgeous, the costumes are authentic and were actually worn by the cast. You are encouraged to take as many pictures as you want of whatever ou want. If you can't get close enough to something on a set, as an employee and they'll go up and take it for you. The only place you can't take photos is in the green screen room where you can drive the Ford Anglia and don a robe to fly a broom! Pictures are taken for you and the prices to get them aren't bad either.

The outdoor lot is supermegaawesome. You get to taste actual Butterbeer, which is only sold at the studio and in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (mom if you're reading this, keep the latter in mind for my 22nd birthday present ;] ). I LOVED it. Super tasty. It was a bit like vanilla cake and butterscotch. Also on the lot, are Tom Riddle's Grave, Privet Drive, The Knight Bus, part of the covered bridge, the Ford Anglia, the motorbike, and the ruins of James and Lilly's cottage in Godric's Hollow. There are also a few of the chess pieces from Sorcerer's Stone!

More on the other warehouse on the next photoset!

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London with Ashley Part 2!

WOW MY FEET ARE KILLING ME.

Today was a jam packed day full of London-y goodness and of course my dearest friend Ashley.

We woke up, got some breakfast, and started our day with a visit to Buckingham Palace! Along the way we got sidetracked by the lovely gift shops where I bought a Buckingham guard ornament, and a lovely mug. now this mug was part of a two for the price of one deal, which is awesome since it's bone china and gorgeous and the woman said that the gold decoration is 24 karat gold but as there is nothing on the mug I can see that says so, I'm inclined to believe she's just a good saleswoman. BUT, they're typically £30 each, Ashley and I both wanted one, and it was a two for one deal. Therefore, it was practically begging me to buy it.

After Buckingham Palace we walked to Hyde Park, just so Ashley could say she'd been there, and we took the underground (our primary form of transportation) to Piccadilly Circus for a late lunch.

We then made a quick jaunt to King's Cross station, where we had our pictures taken at Platform 9 3/4 proudly wearing the colors of Slytherin house! My love for Harry Potter has grown exponentially since coming here.

THEN we made our way to the Tower of London, but do to the lateness of our lunch and the long underground ride, we missed the last entry to the Tower by 20 minutes. Major bummer for Ashley, but I can see it again when I'm back in a week and a half. So with that let down, we took the Underground to the Millennium Bridge, crossed it, and took many pictures of the Globe theater, which was also closed.

THEN (see I said it was a packed day) we got a couple coffees and walked a good 20-30 minutes along the south bank of the River Thames to the London Eye. Riding it all the way to the top, we saw all of l=London lit up at night and it was BEAUTIFUL.

That ended our day and now we're just sitting in the hostel before getting minimal sleep to be up very early to catch our flights back to school.

Pictures from my phone below, more from my camera will be up tomorrow!

This is the mug I wrote about up above. Tis quite lovely =) Ashley got the blue one... or it might have been the purple one.........

Off to Hogwarts!

Took this on our walk from the London Eye to the underground station. Big Ben all lit up at night =)

Additional note: I had barely enough room in the two small bags I brought with me to hold all of my stuff. I have now made several purchases, some of which (ahem... mug that comes in a rather sizable box) take up a decent amount of room. As a result of getting as much together tonight as I can, I have now surprised even myself with my packing abilities. Cause I made it all fit.

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Weeks 5-7, and London with Ashley Part 1!

GAH for anyone actually reading this, sorry I haven't posted anything the last couple of weeks, it's just been kinda slow around campus, so there really wasn't anything to report.

As of this moment, I'm sitting in a hostel on the outskirts of London with one of my very best friends from back home =)

Today, Ashley and I went to Westminster Abbey and saw the houses of Parliament and Big Ben! We then took a train a little ways outside of London to Warner Brother's Leavesden Studios for "The Making of Harry Potter" tour!!!

The amount of detail that went into building these sets, and costumes, and all the hundreds of thousands of props is absolutely astounding. Pictures 71-344 on my camera are from the tour.

Ashely and I spent 3 hours going through the whole place (which they said is about average) and we got to go into the green screen sets and ride a broom and drive the flying Ford Anglia!

There was a 1:24 scale model of Hogwarts castle at the very end of the tour, and it was absolutely gorgeous. They used the castle in the movie for a lot of aerial shots, and it was super detailed. Little lights inside, shadows of students walking the halls, trees and bushes and grass. Gorgeous. And the lighting changed from night to day and some of the songs from the soundtrack were playing as well.

Basically, I was crying a lot because I was overloaded with feelings.

We tasted legit Butterbeer and it was SO TASTY. I completely loved it, Ashley was not so keen on it. And I paid the extra £2 for a cup that says "Butterbeer" on it.

Souvenir-wise, I got a Slytherin t-shirt (represent the House pride), the British version of the first Harry Potter book (Philosopher's Stone, not Sorcerer's Stone), a bag of Fizzing Whizbees candy which I have yet to taste, and a guide book I paid for along with my ticket.

I'll probably have more to talk about this trip when I get back tomorrow, cause we have a lot more planned to see. I can post a couple pictures from my phone down below, but I'll upload more from my camera on Sunday =)

Castle model at night!

Souvenirs!!! The candy I got are called Fizzing Whizzbees. Chocolate and fizzy fruit... should be interesting.

More pictures to come!!!

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Week 4!

Have I seriously been a here a month? I feels like it was only 2 weeks ago I said bye to auntie and mom in the airport!

While nothing very exciting has happened (I know this blog has been kind of snore-worthy) I did just finish booking all my travel plans for my Easter break!

I'll take a train from Aberdeen to Edinburgh on March 22nd and spend 5 nights in a hostel right beside the famous Edinburgh castle! I don't have a specific itinerary planned out, but I do have a list of some things I want to do and see while I'm there! And of course, visiting the cafe where Harry Potter was created is a must =)

After that I'll take a train from Edinburgh to London and spend 4 nights there. My hostel is very near the center of the city, and is only about a 15 minute walk from Buckingham Palace! Again, no itinerary or anything, I plan on mapping out what I want to do from day to day after I arrive. There are a couple underground stations near the hostel so I'm just a train ride away from wherever I choose to be! Including a possible tour of WB Studios to see where Harry Potter was filmed. 

I feel your judgement for my Potter obsession and I welcome it.

Then on March 31st, I will make my way to Heathrow airport by 5am (yikes) to make my 7:45 flight to Munich where I'll spend the next 10 days traipsing around Europe with mom and auntie Linda!

Only a month and 4 papers away!

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Week 3!

Sadly there is nothing very exciting to report from the last week.

I did go see a football (soccer) match the other night which was a lot of fun. And aberdeen won which made it even better =)

Unfortunately I won't be able to join the rest of the American students I've met on the trip to Loch Ness next weekend. I had class during the ticket sale so I couldn't go, and since there wasn't enough interest shown from others, the International Society said they can't justify having another ticket sale and renting a second bus.

Am I bummed? Incredibly. Hopefully I'll be able to plan a trip up there on my own sometime.

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Since I finally got around to cleaning my room, here's what my dorm looks like!