6.01-06 Mom Arrives

My mom got in a few days after my last final. I was busy cleaning my room, saying bye to people, and getting rid of stuff that I knew I wasn't taking home. It was amazingly hot the days before my mom came, and the actual day she arrived. I met her at the airport. We took a 2 hour bus which wound around corners a lot and was far too hot for two girls that get car-sick. My mom was not feeling so great. We unpacked, and I showed her around a bit before we headed to Kashu (the place with the good garlic/mozzarella bread). Paul, the waiter that knows us students by name now was like you dragged your mom here the first few hours she's in England!?

She was a champ and adjusted to the time change immediately. Actually, we both woke up with the sun (which is at about 5:30 am). The first full day she was there, we went into London. We took the bus. As I haven't been to London very many times, I didn't exactly know if it was better to take the bus, which is cheaper and has more stops, or take the train which is quicker by about 40 minutes and gives you access to the Underground trains all day. We arrived late because some street was shut off. We had agreed to take the walking tour the first day because I told my mom that it's better to see the sites with a guide then see them by yourself or see them by yourself and then with a guide. Since we missed the tour, we walked around by ourselves everywhere. We did some shopping. We went to Harrod's, walked around by Big Ben, shopped on Oxford street, and lunched in a park. We went back to where the bus was, exhausted, and realized that the bus comes less often at night and wouldn't be coming for two more hours! At this point, even though we had purchased a round-trip bus ticket, that we would take the train home. This would be the first of three or four days we missed the walking tour. We finally caught it on our last day in town and we were so happy we had.

Now is where I get the days mixed up. So I'll just describe the fun activities we did in the week before we went to Spain. We ate at Nando's, which is amazing. They only serve chicken and they marinate it in Peri-Peri sauce at different levels of spicy. It's right by my school and students have been telling me to go there forever. We went shopping in Watford and checked out the Galleria which is near my school as well. I showed her around my campus. She met one of my flatmates, Patrick and his friend Fabio who was Italian and spoke little English. That was a hilarious dinner! My mom and I cooked at my dorm as much as possible and tried to pack a lunch.

Once again, we meant to get to London earlier, but by the time we got there, we went to the British Museum and then we had to go. I could go on for hours about the British Museum. I thought it was British history, but since basically everywhere has been a British colony at some time, it was everyone's history. Highlights:
Cleopatra and about 10 other mummies
From Egypt, a list of all those that had died and survived a war, on a pebble the size of a silver dollar
All kinds of artwork, from African headdresses and swords, Greek terra cotta pots, to batiks, to metal figurines from Asian countries
In the African art section, the Tree of Life *http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aoa/t/tree_of_life.aspx), formed from old gun parts. It was my second favorite thing, next to the Egyptians keeping records on tiny rocks

Later that day, we went to the Globe Theatre and saw Romeo and Juliette. I didn't know that was something my mom wanted to do, but bought tickets just because. I really wanted to go to Phantom of the Opera. It turned out R&J was something on her to do list. I got us the $7 USD tickets which were standing. There is a big pit down from that stands at least 400 people. By intermission, I was ready to go. After walking around London all day, my feet were tired, but my mom was really really enjoying it. The play got out at about 11pm and it was somewhat scary walking through London at night. We got home at about 1am. Needless to say, the next day we slept in.

We also went to the market in St. Albans. They had everything from fruit, clothing, and jewelry, to rugs. That was a really fun and relaxing day. I love perusing farmers markets, it's one of my new favorite things.

After the first few days of good weather, my mom was like why do you complain all the time? This weather isn't bad. From then on, even the few days we spent in London after Barcelona, it was dreary. So after the first few days, we stayed inside more and read our books. We had a few "down" days where we just relaxed. We also went to Windsor Castle. By the time we left, we were both pros and figuring out train maps.

Windsor Castle was amazing. Everything was crushed velvet. Inside the walls, but still outside the buildings was gorgeous. I'll put those photos up on Picasa (we took a lot). It was perfect scenery for senior pictures or something like that. When we were there, the Queen was in. She is there most weekends. We learned a ton about the history of the castle. It is like its own little city. There is such beautiful artwork and you could see how each monarch had added their own little touch. Also, the royal art collection has some works by some very famous artists. Once again, it started pouring rain and we cut our trip short and hopped on the train.

We were off to Barcelona on the 7th!

Scotland

Sorry I haven't written in so long. I've been so busy! I'm in NH right now and loving it. I'm going to try to write in sequence with a series of blogs about what I've been up to.



I had my second final on May 18th and then my last final was May 27th. In that gap we decided to go to Edinburg, Scotland with a group of about eight. It was somewhat more expensive to get there considering that it's part of the United Kingdom. We took an overnight bus from London on Saturday. We didn't get very far before the trouble started. After driving for twenty minutes, there was a comotion on the bus, and the bus driver stopped. Turned out that a child on the bus had a fever and the ambulance had been called to meet us. Grrrr. We sat there for at least an hour before completing the 12 hour drive where I slept a total of 2 hours. Sunday morning we met the other half of our group that had come from Liverpool. We were exhausted but wanted to catch the walking tour at 11 am. We checked into our hostel and found that split between 4-5 people, cabs were the cheapest way to get around.

The walking tour was amazing. It took us up to the old castle. There were many (unprovable) folk tales that the tour guide told about each little landmark that made them more memorable.

Greyfriar's Bobby was a dog so loyal to his master, that after his master died, Bobby sat on his grave 24/7, through good and bad weather, until he, himself, died 14years later.

Deacon Brodie was who Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde book was based on.

Maggie Dickson, a widow, was accused of hiding a pregnancy resulting from an affair and hanged. Five minutes later, she knocked from inside her coffin demanding to be let out. Seeing as she had died, then she was nolonger married and remarried and opened up a bar.

I ate HAGGIS. Yes haggis (pronounced hog-gis most of the time), esentially the national dish of the Scots. The ingredients vary but it's basically sheep's brain, heart, liver, kidney, and bladder cooked in the stomach and then ground up with oats and seasonings. It tasted a lot like game meat, just a really meaty meaty taste mixed with way too much salt to be healthy. I'm glad I tried it but I will not be eating it again.

Everyone is Scotland is very supersticious. They also had a huge problem with grave snatching, as they burried people at six, four, and two feet below, stacked on top of eachother and a huge medical college opened in Edinburg which began paying out large amounts for each corp brought in. It was interesting to see all the methods people had come up with the protect their loved ones' corpses. William Burke and William Hare are famous serial killers. Besides grave robbing, they decided they could make more money by just killing people, so they did. Only people that wouldn't be missed. Well they messed with the wrong person when the lady they killed was missed. Hare turned on Burke and he was hung... and ironically, donated to the Univesity Medical School.

On the main bridge in town, apparently many people try to commit suicide. The bridge is over the railways and it is a crime to try to drag someone down. Originally, the town got so fed up with dead bodies going splat on the trains that they put up a net over the tracts. Eventually the firemen got so tired of dragging drunk guys out of the net, they took it down. I'd hate to be the first drunk guy to jump after the net came down. So now, there are just advertisements for call-in counceling. However, suuicide is legal in Scotland, so if you stand up there for a long time but don't ever bite the bullet, you may be charged with obstructing traffic. We learned this on the Ghost Tour that we took later in the night and learned about the gory past of Scotland. And trust me... there was a lot of gore.


Scotland is the only country where a Coke or Pepsi product is not the leading soda. Irn Bru is and it tastes like cream soda and Tang on crack. Unfortunately... it is not available for sale in the US as one of its dyes is banned. What do you want to bet that the FDA had monetary encouragement by both Coke and Pepsi to come to that ban. Scotland is part of the United Kingdom, and therefore has the same Queen, but, fairly recently too, they do have their own Parliament now to make local laws. It's basically a federal government/state government relationship. They also mint their own money, it's the same as "English" pounds, the Scottish pounds just have a slightly different coloring to them and a different picture. Also, the Queen's palace, the Hollyrood House is in Edinburg. She occasionally travels there. We tried to tour it but the Duke of something-rather was staying there. My respone- "Oh, we don't mind if he's there." Surprise, surprise, they still didn't let us in.

I feel like I got the ultimate Harry Potter tour after seeing platform 9 3/4 in King's Cross Station, which is an actual place and seeing the dining hall in Oxsford where the "Great Hall" scenes in the movies were filmed. In Scotland, we saw the graveyard where J.K. Rowling spent time and she herself has stated that she took the "four towers" idea from this private school there that has four towers as the four corners of the school. Also, right next to it is a graveyard where one of the headstones says "... McGonagal" and "Thomas Riddle" like Tom Riddle. Later we went to the Elephant Bar which is the place where she said she was so poor that it cost her less to write there and order a cup of coffee there every few hours than to write at her house and have to pay to heat it. So that was pretty cool. Besides that, the entire coffee shop has elephant everything. The chairs are African relics. There are wall-hangings of elephants.

We also took a day trip all around the countryside in a bus. It took us to Loch Nest, where we didn't see Nessie- the Loch Nest Monster, but it must exist because it's protected by the Scottish government and you are not aloud to touch it. Highlights:............... and Hamish McKay Donovan, the yak (or Highland Cow as they call them). It was pretty boring driving around in the bus and looking at open fields and more open fields for 10 hours. The next day we visited the Scottish Museum as well, which was amazing to see how Scotland united from a bunch of individual tribes into a country. We also went to the new part of town, with the Parliament buidling and climbed this amazinly high mountain. It overlooked the entire town and it was so gorgeous. That a photo of me on the top of the mountain at the beginning of this post.



Did I mention Edinburg was BEAUTIFUL! See more photos on Picasa. I think Edinburg is one of my favorite European cities

Oh and last thought, they really, truly wear kilts there.