Edinburgh

Over the weekend I went to a far off place called Edinburgh. Now for all of you Minnesotans reading this, that is Ed-in-burrow not Ed-in-burg. Kind of like how it is Wuster, not Wor-chest-er. Don't worry, I have made the same mistake many a time. Edinburgh was amazing, though. It was, in my opinion, far superior to London. It was  smaller, less crowded, and had an old time feel about it (that is, of course, ignoring all of the Starbucks). Friday night, after a 7 or 8 hour long bus ride (ouch), we took a cursory walk around Edinburgh to get a feel for it. Right away we turned a corner and I saw one of the most beautiful monuments I have ever seen. I won't even try to describe it, but it looked like something out of a fairy tale. We didn't really go very far on Friday, but we did manage to make a pit stop in H & M as per usual. I swear after this year I will have been to that store in every country in Europe.

Saturday was awesome. We all were up and ready to go by 9. We walked to the National Gallery Complex and had to write a one page paper about our favorite paintings. I have to admit that I had to chuckle just a little bit when our program director (who is absolutely wonderful) got all excited about seeing her favorite Van Gogh painting, which was actually a fairly well known Monet. She was just so excited I couldn't tell her that it wasn't what she thought it was. After that I walked up (and I do mean UP) to the Edinburgh Castle. I think it was probably the most impressive castle I have ever seen, up there on the side of a cliff, overlooking the city. If I was not so incredibly cheap I would have jumped on the chance to take a tour of it, but seeing as how I am incredibly cheap and didn't want to pay 9 pounds to do this... I didn't.

Right after that we took a tour of the Scottish Parliament. Not to offend the Scots or anything, I mean after all I am mostly Scottish, but that building is very strange. It is one of the most modern examples of modern architecture I have ever seen, and I don't know if that is a good thing. There was just a lot going on up in that building. All over the sides of the buildings the designer had put these black shapes which were supposed to symbolize curtains being drawn aside, because their parliament is supposed to be transparent. All I saw were hairdryers. For realsies.

Later that night we all went on a ghost tour of Mary King's Close. Our tour guide was excellent. She was one of the best story tellers I have ever come across, and the Close (which is like an underground street that used to be open to the air) was fantastic and creepy. I wouldn't say that the tour was scary, but it was amazing to literally be under the official buildings on high street (literally they wouldn't even let you take pictures underneath the official buildings, like you were inside them or something) where people used to live and work. That was probably my favorite thing that we did all day. Basically, Edinburgh was really cool. I would, and hopefully will, go back in a heartbeat.

Random giraffe statues...

 Random foot statue...

 Monument of fairy tale proportions...

 Edinburgh Castle

 Hairdryers. For realsies.

London

On a whim, myself and ten other UMD students decided to spend two days and one night in London this past weekend. We all got up disgustingly early (4:30 in the morning) so that we could catch a train to London by 6. And I say, "got up" very loosely, because if you never actually fell asleep I hardly think it counts. I did, however, sleep for most of the train ride over which really just means I missed a lot of pretty countryside.

We got into Paddington station at about 8:30, and since we couldn't check into our hostel until 2 we started sight seeing right away. London is beautiful, it really is, but I was a huge dumbass and wore "comfy boots." Of course after they turned my feet into huge blisters I decided they really were not that comfy. So while, yes, I did see all of the main attractions (and I really do just mean see, because it was way to expensive to go into anything) I mostly just limped through that first day. Although to be fair, I limped past some really cool stuff. Unfortunately my camera died halfway through the first day, but here are some of the things that I saw: Big Ben, Westminster Abbey (GORGEOUS), Buckingham Palace, and Green Park.

Eventually my feet couldn't bear the comfy boots anymore and I had to stop at H and M and buy some better walking shoes (only 8 pounds!). After that I could still barely walk, but at least I was no longer walking in agonizing style. We went out that night to see the local nightlife, but since everyone was pretty tired we didn't stay very long. Pretty much as soon as we all saw that a single shot was 5 pounds we hightailed it out of there. Because holy crap, I do not have 5 pounds to spend on a shot. I think the only people that do must be billionaire alcoholics.

The next day was slightly less painful and a lot more relaxed. We walked over and saw the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, which is a very large building but a very short tower. At the Tower of London I had one of the best ice cream cones of my life. It was like if they turned marshmallow fluff into ice cream. I could have stolen that ice cream truck. Then we made our way over to Harrods, which is like this big, terrifying, museum-like department store where they have things like luxury rooms and Egyptian halls, and where everything costs an arm, a leg, and your soul...

I didn't buy anything.

Then, and this was the absolute best part of my day, we took the rail  to Hyde Park and took a nap. I know it sounds a little sketchy to be sleeping in a public place like that, but we were in a group, it was a beautiful day, and I held onto my purse really tightly the whole time. It was by far the best nap of my entire life. After that we caught an early train back to Worcester (which after seeing how big London is, I am so happy to be living in) and I went back to sleep while pretending I was still in Hyde Park.


I got my Starbucks!

Street artists were drawing the flags of different countries and then you threw money on yours.

 A memorial to the women of World War II that to me looks a bit like a lynching.

 Big Ben

 Westminster Abbey