This past week has been the summer half term, the time when all the teachers breath a sigh of relief because the end is near. SATS (stupid tests that year 6 MUST take for their placements into secondary school, kinda like our SATs) are over and the kids are all getting hyper.
Monday
For my break, Kevin and I went to Scotland. I’ve already been there but since Kevin hasn’t and he’s slightly in love with his “Scottish roots”, we had to go. We left BC at 8:30 on Sunday night in order to catch our overnight bus that left at 11:00pm. Yuck. I don’t mind sleeping on buses, but Kevin does. Oh well, it was the cheaper choice.
Once we made it through the maze of getting from Victoria Tube Station to Victoria Coach Station, we found our bus terminal. We were a little worried about the fact that our bus wasn’t displayed on the screen it turned out to be the right one. We had to switch bus drivers three times, I think it’s a British night driving safety thing which I’m totally fine with. However, our second bus driver, who was at the wheel from 2-4 am, could NOT figure out how to turn off the lights that went down the central aisle, you know, the BRIGHT ones they leave on when people are boarding and exiting the bus, it was annoying. When they switched again, the girl bus driver got on and flipped off the lights within two seconds. The dude was like, “Oh yeah, I tried that and it didn’t work”….liar!
Anyways, Kevin and I got into Edinburgh at a nice and early time of 7:40. We went to our hotel and tried to leave our luggage there and were told we couldn’t since they didn’t have room. We were depressed since our stuff was a bit heavy and we couldn’t check in till 4pm. Luckily, the guy was nice and told us to come back at 11:30 and for ten pounds, we could check in early. We went to Prince’s Garden and hung out for a bit.
The view of Edinburgh Castle from the gardens.
Fail.
A bit better. We were a little tired.
I liked this! I want one!
I totally don’t like cats or anything…at all.
Love
Little known secret: I am a Doctor Who fan! So this is Davros, a baddie on the show, listening to an mp3 player. Awesome! I laughed so hard when I saw this in a shop. Also, side note, I got 5 movies here for 5.50! I got all the X-men movies, Pirates 1 and Zoolander. Region 2 but whatevs!
At 11:30, Kevin and I checked into our hotel, I was feeling grimy after our bus trip and I have never been so glad to see a shower! See if you can find our hotel.
After we fed ourselves, we went on a THREE HOUR walking tour. It was pretty awesome. Friends, if you ever go anywhere and want to take a walking tour of the city, may I recommend Sandman tours. Great free tours! They operate free tours on the premise that at the end, if you’ve enjoyed the tour, you will tip the guide whatever you felt the tour was worth. We ended up tipping our wonderful tour guide 6 pounds.
Speaking of, here’s our tour guide Jonny:
He was very energetic and knowledgeable, I had a great time on the tour with him.
Side view of St. Giles “Cathedral.”
Front of St. Giles’ “Cathedral” It’s in quotes because it has no bishop and only cathedrals have bishops. So this should really be St. Giles Kirk.
I love old buildings! Can you imagine living in this? Although if you lived back then, you would want to make sure you were inside at 10pm because that’s when people tossed their buckets of filth outside the window. Most people would be getting ready for bed, however the drunks were not as lucky. 10pm is when the pubs closed, which is usually when I’m just getting to them! So the drunk people are out wandering the streets, and they hear someone call out Garde Loo and what do they do? They look up! Of course. And get a face full of shit… Shit faced sound like a common expression to anyone? That’s where it came from.
This is our lovely tour guide Jonny showing us a 15th century house alarm. There were apparently stairs here leading up to a door. But as you can see, one step is shorted than the other which means that if you try to walk up in the dark and you don’t know about it, you will fall down the stairs. Opposite this building is the Writer’s Museum which has a trick step on the 11th stair. There are signs up warning people and it’s even painted white. People still trip and slip down the stairs. Oops!
This was a school that was turned into a Whisky Shop.
This is an even cooler school, it’s what J. K. Rowling looked at as she wrote Harry Potter and imagined Hogwarts.
Royal Mile shops
Kevin and I with the castle in the background,
Ew. We went to this graveyard and it was gross! There were literally dead bodies everywhere! Well, okay, they were underground but it’s still gross! Jonny said that when they drained the loch to make the Prince’s Gardens, they found all these dead bodies, most of whom were women. There were a lot of women because of the witch hunts that went on in Edinburgh. Anyway, they needed a place to put them, so they threw them all in here. Without headstones, just kind of wily nilly. Gross! I did not like this place.
This is John Gray’s grave. He was a night watchman in this area. Everyone got a dog to help protect them a bit more. He got a dog named Bobby. Scroll down to see how tough Bobby looked.
Here’s Bobby!
Anyways, the story goes that John Gray died two years after getting Bobby. But that didn’t mean that Bobby didn’t stop hanging out with his master. Oh no, for fourteen years! FOURTEEN YEARS! He’d come and sit by his master’s grave every night protecting him. How cute. He died and they buried him right outside the graveyard, since he couldn’t be buried inside as he wasn’t a Christian. :)
In the 80’s, the Dog Aid Society had this stone erected in the graveyard in honour of Greyfriar’s Bobby who was such a good dog. People leave him sticks and apparently a the end of each year, you could have a proper bonfire with all the kindl-I mean fetching sticks people leave him. Johnny said the strangest thing he’s ever seen were 26 bus tickets to Germany with a letter that said, “Please come to Oktoberfest Bobby.”
Here’s his bar. :) He was a bit of a drinker you know.
This is a bar that has a Frankenstein come down from the ceiling every night at midnight.
Place where J K Rowling sat and wrote Harry Potter. There’s a sign in the window that says, “Birth place of Harry Potter.” There is also a sign in a restaurant in Glasgow that has a sign that says, “ J K ROWLING was never here but come in anyway!” Tricky bit of marketing.
Our tour ended in the Prince’s Gardens and it was Memorial Day so there was a celebration. We caught the aftermath but it was still nice to see that service men were remembered since it didn’t seem to be Memorial Day in Europe.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, we went on a Haggis Adventures Highland tour. Haggis and Radical tours are great people, if you ever go to Scotland or Ireland, I recommend taking them. We met a their office at 8:30 and got on our beautiful big yellow bus. Which then broke down within five minutes of us being on it. But ten minutes later, we were on another big yellow bus and off on our adventure!
This isn’t my bus, or my tour, I just wanted to show you the big yellow bus.
The first place we went to was William Wallace Memorial. Now let me tell you, don’t ever walk up to a Scotsman and say, “WOW! I really loved the Mel Gibson movie, I learned so much about your country.” They hate Mel Gibson because his movie is so wrong it’s not funny. William Wallace as okay, but he really failed at what he tried to do. And the movie made a villain out of Robert the Bruce who really united Scotland and got rid of English rule. But whatevs, small details.
Most of the statues in Scotland that are of William Wallace look suspiciously like Mel Gibson.
Next we went to Doune Castle! This is the ONLY castle used in Monty Python so it was very cool to explore it. It was never used as a royal residence, just as a hunting lodge after it was taken over by the crown.
The inside of the courtyard, where the scene of the wedding happened.
French taunting wall :)
Me on top of the castle!
Kevin on top of the castle!
Leo, our new tour guide, was talking up this guy named Hamish and how we were so lucky to meet him and how great looking he was. When we got to Hamish’s house, we discovered he was a Highlan Coo. Or a highland cow. We got off the bus with the warning to wash our hands after touching him. The reason for this being that a tour guide who worked with Leo had been “kissing” (he would discreetly stick a carrot in his mouth and let H take the other end to impress his tour group) Hamish and had gotten bovine herpes! YIKES! Needless to say, I did not touch Hamish. But Kevin did! YAY HERPES!
Then we went to a random town to grab lunch. It had this cool clock in the shop window made out of candy! YUM!
This creepy thing was also in Callander. It was a cow that was eating ice c ream…weirdo!
Then we stopped at a loch to eat our lunches. It was so pretty!
I think Kevin picked this tour because we got to go to Whisky Distillery. It was the Famous Grouse. It was very interesting to see how it was made and I liked the Snow Grouse. We also stole the little shot glasses they gave to us for us to try the whisky in. :)
When we got back, we had dinner and then went on our ghost tour! I was excited. However, we just got a brief walk around the above ground part of Edinburgh hearing what we had already learned on our free walking tour the day before. Then, our creepy tour guide took us into a “torture museum” that his boss owned. It was really weird because his boss owned most of the pieces in the place. Then, we went to the really creepy part. The VAULTS!
The vaults were built so that merchants could house their wares but because it rains a lot in Scotland and the vaults were made of limestone, it leaked too much for them to keep their wares in good conditions. So the poor of Edinburgh took over. The poor, and the bad guys, and the crazies. It was just generally a bad time down there. No running water, no lights, no fresh air. Yuck.
We went into this vault after looking at a vault where witches practiced. This was where they had started off having their meetings but something was too creepy there for them. The guy would leave the gates locked and come back and stuff would be moved, walls would be written on and candles would be twisted in weird ways. So they moved down the hall nearer to the exit and apparently feel safer.
Before he left this vault though, the head witch built this circle of stones to trap the evil. Our tour guide said if you were really brave you could step in the circle but strange things had happened to those who did. His example was of girls on a hen night who pushed the bride in. She was dancing around in the circle and then ten minutes later, asked if she could leave the tour because she said she had just gotten her period. Her white pants were soaked with blood.
We then were taken to a third vault where he separated us into guys and gals. I of course had to lead the girls group in. YIKES! He told us that the vaults were limestone, were three stories high and we were in the middle one. At one point in time, there was a fire above ground and all this rubble fell in front of the doors to get out of the vaults. The men kept the women and children in the actual rooms of the vaults while they tried to move the rubble.
Well, keep in mind, these people were in a room that was made out of stone which doesn’t burn, but it heats up. Pizza oven anyone? Unfortunately, all the men, women and children were basically cooked alive. This is when our tour guide turned off his flashlight and started telling us to think about how we would feel if we were in here with our children. What we would be thinking right now. I started to feel really sick and light headed like I was going to pass out. Then, a cloaked worker jumped past the door to the vault and screamed boo. Cheap trick. Finally our tour was over!
Kevin and I went to a pub for a few drinks then went back to the hotel to pack for Glasgow the next day.
Sir Walter Scott memorial on our way back to the hotel.
Wednesday
On Wednesday, at 11am, we got on a bus that took us to Glasgow which was two hours away. We had the best room ever in our hotel, it was on the 7th floor and had a BLACK OUT pull down shade thing. We woke up on Thursday thinking it was 4am when it was really 11.
This greeted us as we walked around Glasgow trying to find our hotel…
After we found our hotel and checked in early, again, I mean who has a check in time of 4 pm people!? We went to the Cathedral in Glasgow. It was pretty.
We also went to St. Mungo’s Religious and Life Museum which was interesting. It dealt with world religions and a bit about the afterlife and death.
Then, because Kevin absolutely hates me, we went here. The necropolis of Glasgow.
Nothing but graves on a hill.
For miles.
Kevin made up for torturing me with the graveyard, we went to see X-Men First Class and he took me out to dinner at a pub. :)
Thursday
Thursday we went to the Glasgow Museum of Art. It had an exhibit on expression and I liked the hanging heads. Be prepared for lots of hanging heads.
Pretty nifty huh?
This was Kevin’s favourite thing. Salvador Dali’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross is a very cool artwork.
I tried to be as cool as Elvis but I failed miserably. :(
Funny thing, Glaswegians are enthralled with the Wild West which made me laugh a lot.
Kevin and I hung out in the park and enjoyed some raspberry sauce covered ice cream. Yum!
We also walked around the city’s shopping areas. Please look at this picture and see if you can spot THE HUGE ERROR!
Did you see it? It says “Your'” as in the possessive, you own something. It should be “You’re” as in you ARE all invited. Fail.
Friday
We took a nine hour bus ride back to London which wasn’t horrible except for a mother who was with her two of her friends and could not control her little girl. They didn’t bring ANYTHING for her to play with or read on the 9 hour bus ride! And at one point, she was throwing a temper tantrum and they dumped water over her head! This was only like two hours in!
Saturday
On Saturday, we went to see the Lion King courtesy of Kevin’s parents! YAY! It was AMAZING! We loved it. After the show, Kevin and I spent hours just walking around London. We went to Convent Garden, Piccadilly Circus, and Regents Park.
Lyceum Theatre where we watched the Lion King from the centre front row seats in the balcony. Best seats ever really!
We had to pick up our real tickets and this was the great sign that greeted us.
The curtain on the stage.
Kevin and I eagerly awaiting the start of the show!
After the show and Covent Garden, we then went to Piccadilly Circus and wandered into a few tourist shops. I took him to Britannia which literally looks like England THREW UP in it.
We wandered around and came across a protest of the Zimbabwean government. It’s been going on since October 2002. Rock on guys. Good luck!
We got a bit lost trying to get to Regent’s Park, but we got there eventually! This is a picture of me that looks like I’m standing at a weird angle.
Us in the rose garden!
Kevin and I with more roses behind us.
We wandered a bit more after this but I was getting cold and we wanted to go home because we had been walking for the greater part of a day. We had a great time exploring. And even if Kevin didn’t to go see the Tower of London at night like I wanted him to, we saw lots of London.
Hope I haven’t bored you guys, and if I have, oh well! Your own fault! :P
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