London Calling

Part 2 of Blog 6!

However, before I move on - I would like to note that, in case anyone has noticed, there is a lightly consistent theme in my blogs. Can anyone guess what it is? There is no prize, I was just curious if anyone has noticed it or not. Moving on to Part 2 of the madre's stay.

The day before my mother and I left to head back down to London (First time!!) we wandered over to a town called Dollar to do some hiking by Dollar Glen. First of all - I think I forgot to mention this before, my mother decided to rent a car. Brave move. I am glad I am alive. Apparently roundabouts are much more difficult than they seem. Not only was she driving on the other side of the road, using roundabouts she didn't quite understand, but the car itself was also stickshift.... which she hasn't driven in 15 years. So I felt plenty safe, of course.... The car itself did NOT like hills, especially stopping at the top of them, and my mother did not know how exactly to make it like hills more. This became quite an issue on our way to Dollar Glen, as Dollar is up in the hills of Scotland, and the Glen itself even higher. Needless to say, that was an adventurous drive. But we made it safely, thank the lord.

As what generally happens when my mother and I go hiking, it rained. Actually, when we were high enough in the hills, it started to hail. Regardless of our inadequate clothing and shoe choices, we decided to continue on - and we're quite glad we did, as the glen was quite beautiful.

Part of the Path

The rain, though cold to us, made the colors of the glen rather vibrant and the water of the stream flow nicely. The path led up to Castle Cambell, which would have been lovely to go and visit, were it not past 5pm (i.e. when EVERYTHING closes - except pubs... go figure) and the castle were not under construction. So, unfortunately, we were only able to see a large stone wall with a door in it. Nothing too excited. So we moved on. Instead of continue on the path through the glen, as the rain was turning into hail, we chose to move along the road back to the parking lot. This brought us to even more hills and streams. I particularly enjoyed this one :

Stream by the road

Upon walking farther, I decided I needed to venture up onto one of the slopes to see the other side - the view that greeted me was amazing. Unfortunately, this picture hardly does it justice.

Hills in Dollar

We finally arrived back at the parking lot and made our way back to Stirling, for we had tickets to go and see a friend of mine in a student production of The 39 Steps, which was quite hilarious. The most notable part was when my friend, who played Richard Hanney, was pretending to be on top of a train in a chase scene and started hitting the back flaps of his jacket to try and symbolize the wind. My mother and I enjoyed it immensely.

The next day was the big day - our day down to London! This will have been my first time there, and I was quite excited. After a long, crowded and cramped train ride, we arrived at London's King Cross station. Upon exiting the station, a very strong feeling of "Oh damn.... we're in London!!" washed over me. We made our way to the hotel nearby and went and met my good friend from Redlands, Marta Lawrence, for dinner. After a long day, it was back to bed to prepare for a very exciting Friday.

Friday. The day of tourism. My mother and I did as many tourist-y things in London that we could, starting with the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace. We leisurely made our way there from the hotel (a good 3 miles away), and arrived about an hour early. However, that appears to have not been early enough, as there were already hundreds of people lining the gates and fence of Buckingham. Realizing we would not be able to see a thing, my mother and I decided to leave, seeing a brief portion of the parade into the grounds for the changing of the guards. Oh well. Perhaps another time. Here is a picture of Buckingham. Quite a lovely palace.

After that, we decided to try and make our way over to the London Eye and Big Ben, wandering around St. James park on our way. Past the park, we ran into some more guards, and my mother got her picture with one on a horse.

The sign to the right of her says "Beware: horses may kick or bite you!" That, however, did not deter people from getting their pictures taken, as signs such as that often won't. Continuing on our way, we ran into a small group of people gathered around some very fancy looking cameras. Not knowing what or who may be coming out of the building they were surrounding, we decided to stop and wait. According to my sources (cough, Emi Carmichael, cough), the man who came out to make some sort of statement was Foreign Secretary William Hague. Apparently, he is also known as "Hague the Vague." Hah. Good to know.

After deciding that Hague the Vague was not anyone important enough for us to really care about, we continued on, as we were nearing Big Ben. We could see him off in the distance, behind some buildings. Upon rounding a corner, this was our view!

Big Ben

And right across the Thames river from Big Ben - The London Eye!

So we had pretty much hit the jackpot at that point - 3 major sights in one!! Though we didn't really get too close to Big Ben, he kind of dominated the sight for most of the time. So my mom and I wandered over to the Eye, and decided it would be a great idea to take a ride! That's right. We went up in the Eye. It was amazing. One could see all of London, sprawled out around you.

At the top of the Eye

The view was amazing, as you can see. Definitely worth it. After that, we decided, hey, ya know what else is down the Thames river? Shakespeare's Globe Theater. So we went. My desire to see a show here has increased 10 fold. Obviously this is not the ORIGINAL Globe theater, as that one burned down. Or the second one. As that one burned down, too. You know what they say - Third times a charm, right?

Shakespeare's Globe

We went on the tour of the globe and learned little facts about it. They hold performances there in the summer, usually during the afternoon and in the evening. They do not use any sort of lighting, such as spotlights, or really any props or scenery, in an attempt to make the shows as authentically Shakespearean as possible. As Shakespeare did in his day, they fly a flag on the days that there is going to be a show, to let the public know. Very exciting. I will definitely come back to London to see a show here when the season starts.

After that, we went to go and see a show at Fortune Theater, called The Woman in Black, which I'm sure many of you Center Stage folk will recognize. They did an excellent job and definitely made a very creepy show.

The next day, my mother was on her way back to the states, and I to visit Marta for a nice, relaxing evening. Then it was back to Stirling.

Things that I learned on my train ride back to Edinburgh from London: Apparently there are no trash bins in Edinburgh Waverly train station because it is a security hazard. Can someone please explain this to me, as I am quite baffled by it....

Well, that is all for now! These next two weeks will be pretty quite, as I will mostly be working on essays, trying to finish everything up before spring break. It's off to the grocery store for me, now!

The ocean from the train ride from London to Edinburgh

The Farmer and the Cooman

It's that time again! Blog #6! I'm doing better than I thought I would...

Since my homestay, life at Stirling has continued on - classes, adventures, reading, getting sick, deep fried pizza.... Yes, that's right. I said it. Deep. Fried. Pizza. Looks appetizing, doesn't it?


Little known fact - apparently Scotland loves to deep fry pretty much anything and everything. Including Pizza. And Mar's Bars. Have yet to try that one, though. I'll let you know when it happens.

Moving on - So Stirling, like most places, has ice cream trucks. Normally, this wouldn't be something I'd need to comment on, as everyone loves ice cream, so it is only natural that there should be a truck that drives about, handing it out to children in need. Even on campus. The strange thing about it, however, is that it plays Yankee Doodle....
That's right. The Scottish ice cream truck plays a very American Patriotic song. Confused? So am I....

My mom has visited!! Yay! It was lovely seeing her (<- note my use of 'lovely'... it is used everywhere here. I am also attempting to work 'Cheers' into my instead of thank you.). She flew into Heathrow airport in London and took the train from Kings Cross up to Edinburgh, where I met her. However, her arrival to Edinburgh was not, as I believed it to be, 1 or 2 pm. It was 6. This was due to some misunderstanding. So, at 2 pm, at the bed and breakfast that we were to stay at (called Ard Na Said - very cute place right by Arthur's Seat), I sat quite confused and quite worried, wondering if her plane had crashed into the ocean on the way over, with no way of communicating her. However, as I was also getting sick, I ended up passing out for 2 hours. Upon waking up and realizing that my mother was STILL not there, I gave in and chose to call her, regardless of the international fee it would call me. Thankfully, she was fine and had just taken a later train out of London and would be there by 6. Well. Thank goodness.

Upon her arrival, my mother immediately desires Fish and Chips. And she already has a place picked out. But no directions. Adventure time? Yes. First things first - finding our way out of Edinburgh Waverly Railway Station.

Sidenote: Streets in Edinburgh (well, I guess all of the UK for that matter) change names. A lot. Which makes finding streets and restaurants confusing.

So, after finally making it to the fish and chips (which were delicious), we were ready to head back to the Ard Na Said and get to bed. So we get on the bus. Funny story - Right bus, wrong direction. Well, we certainly got to see a part of Edinburgh we never would have seen otherwise!! We spent about an hour riding the bus around the city. Which would have been fine and all if two pre-teen girls obsessed with Justin Bieber did not come on. And sang. Almost the entire time. All Justin Bieber songs. I thought I hated "Baby" before, but 'oh baby baby baby oh' do I hate it now.

As you can imagine, we did finally get back to the Ard Na Said after our little detour and quickly climbed into bed, setting the clocks so as not to miss the breakfast that awaited us in the morning.

Next morning - A much more successful day in Edinburgh, my mother and I walked down to Haymarket and wandered around the Royal Mile. Though we did not do the Edinburgh Castle, my mother did, however, want to do the Scotch Whisky Experience. So, as before, here is a picture of the largest whisky collection in the world (3,384 bottles - all unopened)
After Edinburgh, my mother and I headed back into Stirling, as I had to attend class. Unfortunately, we could not do as many fun Scottish Sight Seeing as I'm sure we both would have liked, as I had to go to class during the week, but we did, however, get to see some HIGHLAND CATTLE (AKA COOS!)!!

This is Hamish, the highland coo. His mate is Heather. She is/was pregnant, and was to have her baby coo on Wednesday :-) I definitely need to go back and see it!

As I had already started this post, I am splitting it in two. So this is the end of the first part of the post.