Song of the Week!

I know that my blog has been a little bit lacking this week, but I haven't been feeling all that good. I now understand why people in Great Britain complain about their weather! While it's about 81 degrees at home it's like 46 here!! (25 C and 7 C) Yuck!! What's worse is that it's been overcast and raining out. So it's cold and dreary. Julia made a comment on her Facebook yesterday that I thought was pretty funny. At home when it says % chance of rain that means whether or not it's going to rain that day... here it just means the percentage of the day that it's going to rain for, but I digress... onto the song of the week! There wasn't really a clear winner this week, I had a few contenders but after some consideration I picked the song "Come on Get Higher" by Matt Nathanson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHx4BlF6V2o

Unlike the other songs there wasn't any real meaning as to why this song won. I picked it because I think it's a pretty song, and I've been listening to it a lot this week. :) I'm hoping to get my Ireland update up tomorrow!! Enjoy!

Traveling Drama!

The past couple of days have been really interesting to say the least! I got to stay in Dublin, and then go around the southern part of Ireland (which I'll blog more about either tomorrow or Wednesday). I went on a 3 day tour. I arrived in Ireland Thursday night and I stayed at the Times Hostel, and then Friday morning I woke up and went on my tour. We ended up getting back around 5 pm and my flight was at 6:30 the next morning so I decided to get a hostel for the night. Now when I decided that I was going to stay in Dublin an extra night and was booking my hostels I decided that I wasn't going to stay in the same hostel as the first night, because the weekend rates for that hostel went up, and there was another hostel that was rated pretty decently that was a little bit cheaper... Oh boy! Never... ever... ever... will I do that again.

When you are in a strange town traveling alone you should always book the same place for accommodations for the second night. When I got off my tour my tour guide told me the way to get my hostel. In Dublin there is a GIANTIC spike in the middle of the street... I'm talking like 300 ft tall! Or 100 meters. Well he told me to walk to the spike and turn the the right and that would take me right to my hostel... So I'm walking along and I directly pass the hostel that I had stayed in the first night, and I'm walking along... happy as a peacock down the road, and I come up to the spike, and I look to the right. It's just a really small alley type of road, and it doesn't look like it has any hostels on it. So I was starting to question whether or not I got the right directions from my guide so I asked a guy standing next to me if I was heading in the right direction. And he was like "Ohhh actually it's not down that road you have to go to the top of this road to the next light then veer to the right, and take a left and you'll be right there." So of course I was like "Ohhh thank you sooo much!!" So off I went on my way... I ended up walking around Dublin for over an hour and half lost with my book bag on. See the thing is "Veer to the right" isn't very good directions, and the streets in Ireland aren't marked as clearly as our streets. There will be an intersection without any street signs... so you don't know if you're on the right street or not! Half the time you have to walk to the next intersection for a sign... so you can walk and walk and walk and then realize you aren't even on the right road! Which did happen to me a couple times! I had to keep stopping for directions. I FINALLY think that I'm on the right road, and I realize that the house numbers are going in the wrong direction... but there was a big intersection that crossed the street... So I was like... well maybe the numbers on those are going to go up instead of down... So I cross the street and wouldn't you know there wasn't any street sign, and the house DIDN'T have numbers on them! At this point I've already been walking lost for an hour and half truly regretting my decision to come to this hostel instead of the one that I'd stayed in the first night... which if you remember I passed within 5 minutes of my journey... My backpack felt like it weighed 50 pounds and I was so stressed that I was lost, and I was worried that it was going to get dark soon and that I'd still be wandering around, and I didn't even have a clue as to where I was in the city. So I just kept on walking and praise the lord my hostel FINALLY came into view! Phew! So I got settled in and I wanted to run to a grocery store to make a quick bite to eat for the night... I asked the guy where a store was and he was like "Oh it's real close by just go up to the light right there and turn right... you'll run right into it" And I was like grumble grumble more directions... these better be right... grr... So I walk up there and turn onto my right and to my ABSOLUTE horror... what do I see staring at me?? If you said the giant spike you're right! I'd finally made it back to the ORIGINAL road I was supposed to turn down!! I guess the guy on the street gave my the scenic route or something... because my hostel was literally a 5 minute walk from where I originally asked directions from!!!! Bah! I was sooo down hearted when I saw that. So I walked into the grocery store and bought some food... I came back to this hostel which was a dump by the way, and they didn't have an oven at it. :( So I couldn't even make the food I'd just bought. Yeah. So that was an experience. 2 euro well saved on that one... won't be doing that again! Next time I'll just pay the difference and go the hostel in the area that I'm familiar with...

And if you thought that was the end of my troubles... I have another lovely story for you. I caught my plane out of Dublin just fine. I got back into the UK with no issues... I didn't even have to through customs which surprised me... Originally Jessie was supposed to come on this Dublin trip with me, but she ended up not being able to come for various reasons. When we booked our bus tickets it was before I'd ever been to Edinburgh... so while we were booking Jessie wanted an early bus, because she had to get back for a class on Monday... but there was a ticket at 4 pm for a pound left, so I decided to save the money and spend the day in Edinburgh. Consequently, Jessie booked a 9:20 am bus and I booked a 4 pm bus. However, when I got out of the airport from Dublin I was so tired and sick of traveling (especially after what happened the last night in Dublin) so I decided that I wasn't going to stay the extra time in Edinburgh and since Jessie didn't come I'd just jump on her seat on the bus. So I caught a shuttle bus from the airport to the city center, and I had plenty of time before my bus left... so I got breakfast at McDonald's and piddled around for a bit. Then I got to the bus station about an hour early and I'm sitting there... and sitting there... and it was 20 minutes before my bus was supposed to take off and I realized that it wasn't there yet... so I went over to the man at the help desk and I asked him where the bus was... And he was like "Well isn't that funny there isn't anything about this on our board. Strange." He called his buddy over and asked him what was wrong with the board and where was my bus... so that guy looks at my ticket, and that's when I noticed something funny about it... it said EDA to ABE when last week it said EDI to ABE and I was like uh oh... turns out I was supposed to catch that bus at the airport! I never had to make my way into the city center, and it was too late to get back to the airport to catch my bus. The second guy kind of wandered off, and I was talking to the first guy... and I was like "Well it's ok because I actually have another ticket booked for later on today. I guess I'm going to be hanging around the city for a while." And then of course he asked me why I booked an extra ticket and where I was from and what not... so I spent a few minutes talking to him, and then the second guy comes back with his manager... and the man comes up to me and goes " There's another bus leaving about 15 minutes after your bus was going to leave and it's heading to the same spot and has some open seats. So at 9:35 hop onto the M 90 bus and it'll take you into Aberdeen." I was completely shocked I wasn't expecting them to get me onto another bus or anything like that, but I was very grateful, because I really didn't feel like sticking around the city was an extra 7 hrs...

So the man tells the bus driver that I'm to be let onto the bus, and I hop on and all was well... UNTIL... we had to change buses at another station. They were loading up there, and the guy goes "Where's your ticket?" And I was like... umm... well... and I go into my whole story about how I went to the bus station instead of staying in the airport and how the manager put me onto this bus, and yadda yadda... And the guy goes "Well I can get you to Dundee but you'll have to get off there because this is a bank holiday long weekend and that bus could be full and there probably won't be a seat for you." And of course I was like gaaaasp! I was like ohhh no what am I going to do... I'm going to be stranded at this bus station, and I was like oh crap how am I going get back up to Aberdeen... So I'm stressing out the whole way up there... I was hoping that maybe someone wouldn't show up for the bus and that they'd just let me hop back on... or worst case scenario was thinking that I'd have to stay at the bus station all day until my other bus got there... which it would eventually... and then I'd have to explain to them why I was getting onto it there instead of Edinburgh and hope that I could get on it... Yes all this was running through my mind, so we get there and as it turns out the bus wasn't full AT ALL! We picked up about 10 people at that last stop, and just about everyone on the bus had their own seat... so there was plenty of room for me to get on ... I don't know what that guy was talking about. The bus driver was really nice to me though. We were talking while the other bus loaded up, and he was like "Don't you worry I'll figure out a way for you to get on this bus somehow... I'm sure there will be a seat." It was really nice. :)

People in Scotland seem to be really nice as a whole. Even the guy that told me there might not be a seat for me at the next pick up location was pretty nice about it. They say that one these holiday weekends it's hit and miss what the traffic could be like on the buses... because senior citizens get to use the buses in Scotland for free. Any bus going anywhere in the country they can go on for no fee... So a lot of them travel to see family along with other people going home for a long weekend and what not... so it was touch and go... Luckily it worked out! I was worried for that hour or so though!!

But yes, I know after those stories it probably sounds like my trip to Ireland was awful.. but really it was really nice and I had a lot of fun. I'm really glad that I got to go and see it. I'll post a blog on it later on!

Song of the Week!

Has it already been a week since I posted my last song of the week?? Wow... the days just fly by! I can't believe I'll be home in a little over a month! I know I say that every week but it's true!! Anyways... this week's song of the week is "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus. And yes I admitt that I am a Miley fan. I used to love watching her Hannah Montana show on Disney, and I have about 20 of her songs on my ipod... I have also ALWAYS been a huge Billy Ray Cyrus fan, and I'm pretty sure that his song "Achy Breaky Heart" is the first song that I remember dancing to... besides maybe some of my mom's disco music hehe. Anyways! Back to the climb!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_khKYx5QCY&feature=fvst

I really think that The Climb has a good message. It talks about how life isn't where you get to but it's the climb to get there... and if you listen to the song I think the lyrics give a really good message. Also I am in the UK and Nicholas Spark's new movie The Last Song is coming out on Friday and I am really pumped up to see it!! The movie actually stars Miley Cyrus. I watched an interview by Nicholas Sparks the other day and it turns out that he actually wrote the book with Miley in mind. Disney gave Miley Cyrus a two movie contract the first movie was Hannah Montana and the second movie was up in the air... Apparently Miley is a huge Nicholas Sparks fan and her agent called him and asked him if he had any stories laying around that could fit into a movie that Miley could play, and Nicholas Sparks had actually just decided that he wanted to write a story about a teenage girl so he jumped on board and actually wrote the screenplay for the movie BEFORE he wrote the book. So lies commercials that say "Based off the best selling book by Nicholas Sparks" haha... The book is based off the movie! Anyways, as soon as I get back from Dublin on Monday I'm heading into town to watch it. :D

Luckiest Day Ever!!

Today was a wonderful day!! It was actually warm out and the sun was shining!! It was a nice change from the past couple of cold/rainy days. So I walked into town. I went to the Pound Store which is like the Dollar Store, because I needed to get batteries!! I'm proud to say that I got 12 AA Kodak batteries for free...?? I think. I'm not 100% sure on this one. I went to the counter to pay, and the girl at the counter was talking to another girl. I believe that I handed her a pound, and I was waiting for her to give me my bag back. And she goes, a pounds your change... here's your batteries. And I just kinda stood there for a second confused... but in the end I was like well... alright. Haha so I took the pound and off I went!

I then proceeded to make my way to the library, and I WISH that I would have had my camera on me, because I walked past a park and there was an arraignment of flowers that I swear were arraigned into a smiley face. I stopped there for a while too looking at it a bit perplexed. It was pretty sweet!! I'm going to have to walk back out there in a few days and take a picture of it so that you guys can see it!!

After that I walked to Morrison's to buy some baking paper, and when I walked into the store they had a display of 4 Blueberry Muffins for a pound! SCORE! You know how I spent that extra pound that I got today!! Yippee!! Then when I was in line at the counter I decided that I actually would like some fruit as well... so I got out of line and got some fruit. Got back into line, and paid. I then proceeded to walk out side and watch the bus go driving away from the stop I was planning on catching it at. So I sat down, and happily consumed one of my muffins!! Yum! I was really hungry, and it was really good. I thought that was fare for the bus was 1.60 for one way... and here they don't have .25 they have .20 pence instead so I had a pound and three 20 pence pieces out ready for the bus. Well when I hopped onto the bus the bus driver told me that it was actually 1.50. So I put the pound in and then I went to dig in my purse for either a 50 pence or a 10 pence... and the guy just waved me off and was like ehhh that's good enough... go ahead and sit down. And again for the third time that day I had that surprised feeling, and was like really?? Ohhhhh... okay... thanks! And he was like yep... have a good day. Why thank you Mr. Bus Driver... I did have a good day.

BUT the best part of my day is yet to come. I have been raiding today on Castle Age, which probably won't mean a lot to most people. But I fight a person one click at a time, and usually it takes a while to load. So instead of watching it impatiently and getting frustrated while it loads I click over to MLIA, or My Life is Average and read stories that people post about things that have happened to them. I read one of the entries then I flip back to my game. I click, then I flip back to MLIA... it's a great system. Takes forever... but it's a great system haha. ANYWAYS! As I was casually flipping through the MLIA pages I came across this one and I just BUSTED out laughing. I thought it was hilarious!


"Today, I was hiking with my dad when we came to a stop, where a sign was hanging with instructions “WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE BEING ATTACKED BY A WILD TURKEY” I then proceeded to read the instructions out loud, when my dad started calling my name. I ignored him, until he yelled it. I looked at him, only to see a large, ruffled turkey charging right at me. Forget the instructions, I have never run so fast in my life. -MLIA"

Bahahhahahaa!!! Just picture it. I see the whole scene playing out in my mind, and I can't help just cracking up every time I read it! Hahaha!! Way to make my good day complete MLIA... way to make my day. Haha!!

Edinburgh

Welcome to Edinburgh!! I'm sorry for how long this took to post!! I've been side tracked setting up my trip to Ireland this weekend :)

Here is the famous Edinburgh Castle!! I don't feel like I got a proper picture of it, because the pictures that I have don't truely do it justice. The castle is on top of a HUGE volcanic rock! Keep in mind I was in Edinburgh at the same time that the volcano had gone off in Iceland... so I was like ohh huge volcanic rock... exactly what I want to see... haha. But don't worry they assured me that it hasn't gone off 350 million years!! And don't worry you haven't missed any headlines... my luck held and it didn't go off while I was there haha.

Here is another view of the main city area with the castle in the background.

In Edinburgh they had a bus ticket deal. For 25 pounds I could ride 4 bus tours around the city for two days!! So I went on the busses a bunch of times!! I got a new guide almost every time, and I feel like I should know the city like the back of my hand... Towards the end I felt like I could give the commentary!!

This is the entrance to the castle. If you look on the right hand side you will see a statue of William Wallace aka Braveheart. This was another person that I was extremely excited to hear about, because I remembered his name from my days of playing Age of Empire!! I love how Age of Empire puts actual heroes of the past into the game... it made it fasinating to see the statues and to hear the stories behind them.

This is on the main street in Edinburgh called Princes's street. When I first arrived in Edinburgh I thought that it was Princess street, and I was refering to it as such... I guess the locals couldn't tell that I was asking directions to the wrong princess street instead of princes's street! Woohoo thank you foreign accent for saving me from feeling like a fool! Anyways!! This picture is a watch tower that guards the grave yard behind it. Apparently when you had a loved one that passed away and you buried them you hired a guard to stay in the watch tower during the night to protect the body from the body snatchers! People used to dig up bodies from their graves and sell them to the University in town to make extra money! And that made guard neccesary to keep the bodies in the grave! Apparently, if you didn't hire one... you didn't have a body for long!

I passed this statue on every single tour that I went on. It is a largest monument ever made for a writer. It is dedicated to Sir Walter Scott who wrote a novel called Waverly. There is a lot of things dedicated to Sir Walter Scott throughout Edinburgh. The Waverly Bridge (Where all of the busses started and ended for one) and they used to have a fruit market dedicated to him as well.


Now this might not be as obvious in the picture, and trust me... had it not been pointed out to me I would have never noticed the difference either... BUT if you look at the four older windows on the right hand side you will notice that it is black behind him. Well years ago there was a king that taxed the people of Edinburgh on just about everything... including windows. People had to pay a tax for each window that they had in their house. So people began to brick their windows over with black bricks so they wouldn't have to pay the extra tax. You can see in this window how half of the windows are bricked up. You see houses like this all over Edinburgh. People used to say that by having to brick up their windows they were losing light into their house... so it was "Daylight robbery" I've heard this saying before, and it was cool to hear how it came about.


I know that the quality of this picture is pretty bad, because I was inside of the bus when I quickly tried to snap this picture (it was cold and raining out!!) but there is a cool story behind this picture! Years ago a huge wall with a gate was built around the city. You were allowed to leave the city without paying any feels, but if you wanted to come back into the city you had to pay a fee to get back through the gate. This made it so that the poor people of the town could never leave the city. They lived their whole lives in the city, because they couldn't afford to pay the toll. This pub was right before the gate, and to the people of the city it was the end of the world, because it was as far as they could get in the world.

They say in Scotland the best way to be immortalized is to get a pub named after you...

If you scrolled in on this picture you would be able to read the story of Deacon Brodie. He was a respectable business man by day (as shown on the left) and then he was robber by night (on right). He would go into his clients homes and when they were looking he would get an imprint of their key, and make a copy. Then when they went out of town, or weren't in their home he would sneak in and rob them blind! Robert Stevenson grew up and lived in Edinburgh. He heard this story of Deacon Brodie and it inspired him to write Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde. Also, we drove past the place that Robert Stevenson grew up in as a child, and I saw the park that he used to play in. This park was his inspiration to eventually write Treasure Island. I would have taken pictures, but it's a private park... and they have trees and shrubs all around the border so that people can't really get a good look inside of the park.

Remember how I said that in order to get immortalized in Scotland you had to get a pub named after you?? Well... You'll never guess who Bobby is...

Meet Bobby!! Yes... he is a dog! He is famous because when Bobby was two years old his master died. Every single day until the dog died (12 years later) the dog would lie on his masters grave. People loved how faithful and sweet the dog was... years later a new law was passed in Edinburgh that every dog had to have a license. Any dog that didn't have a license was to be put down. The public was outraged by the fact that the city was considered putting this faithful dog down, and so much pressure was put on the mayor by the public that the mayor himself bought the dog it's license, and decreed that no one was to harm the dog, and that the dog was allowed full access to the city. Today, their is a grave with a tombstone near Bobby's bar where the dog is buried. They wanted to bury him next to his master, but the church wouldn't allow it. It's said that more people visit the dog's graveyard than the dog's masters, and every time we passed the grave on our tour I saw someone standing at this dogs grave.

And now... for the BEST part of Edinburgh :) Harry Potter! I know that this is a horrible picture. 1. I was sitting inside of the cabin 2. I was totally not expecting it. Ever so casually we were riding down the road, and we got stopped at a red light. So my tour guide pointed behind us, and says "Oh and behind us is Edinburgh University... most famous for graduating J. K. Rowling" And of course I was like... Gaaaasp! And I hurriedly tried to snap a picture of the building before we moved on. I have always heard that J.K. Rowling was actually on welfare when she wrote Harry Potter, and that the first verison of the Socerer's Stone was actually written on parts of napkins at a cafe in Edinburgh. Well at this point in the tour I was on it was just about over, so I asked the tour guide if he knew where the cafe was... And he told me that we'd actually passed it, and that if I went on his next bus tour he'd point it out to me! Well he ended up pointing out a lot more than that to me! :) SCORE!

This is an all boy's boarding school in Edinburgh that was supposively the inspiration for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy in the books. J.K. Rowling walked past it everyday, and when she was writing the first book it was this building she described.

This is the hotel that J.K. Rowling stays in when she visits the city. The top suite is also the room that she finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (6th book) inside of. :) If you walk into the hotel they have a signed manuscript on their front desk.

And here it is!! The cafe that J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book inside of!! The cafe is actually not run by the original owners of the cafe that J.K.R. went to. It used to be called Nicholson's, and JKR went there because they gave her free coffee and let her sit inside. Before she published the first book it went out of business and was actually turned into a chinese restaraunt. Now it's been turned back into a cafe, but it isn't owned by the same people which is a same, because I feel like they might have done really well if they would have stayed in business until the books took off... because I have a feeling a lot of Harry Potter fans would love to go there... Even though it isn't the exact cafe it was still amazing to sit inside of it. I felt like I was in the footsteps of greatness. I was just imagining that she walked around this area and came here everyday. It was really cool.

This is the plaque outside of the cafe. This was the only indication that JKR had ever been inside the cafe... which surprised me. I was expecting them to advertise it more, but I guess it's mostly for locals not tourist. Just a warning for anyone that might want to go to this cafe... there is a FAKE cafe in Edinburgh that advertises in HUGE writing across it's front window that it is the birth place of Harry Potter. JKR has said that that was NOT the place that she wrote the book, and the city is actually in the process of trying to make the cafe take down the claim. I saw a LOT of people posing outside of the cafe and taking pictures and going inside of it. So don't be taken in! The real place is on Chambers and Infirmary St. past Subway and Blackwells... if you walk down South Bridge you'll walk right into it!

Mmm... this was the delicous hot chocolate that I had i

n the building. It was a cold rainy day when I walked through town to find this cafe. Had it not been the cafe that JKR wrote HP in... I might not have gone, but I was determined to see it! Anyways... this hot chocolate was very well received by me. I was really happy to sip it and look around the place.

Not gonna lie... it was a little bit of a strange place. The decor really through me off. It wasn't the atmosphere I was expecting, but I'm sure that it's changed a lot since JKR wrote the first HP book. And I guess I had all kinds of preceived notions about what this place was going to be like in my mind. Trust me I have thought long and hard about this place before I ever even considered going to Edinburgh. In 10th grade I wrote a paper on JKR and how impressive she was, because she came from so little and did so well. I've thought about a young poor girl with a young child sitting in a cafe writing a story that she had no idea would be so successful. I always pictured that cafe, and when I was here I knew I had to see it. I wasn't sure what to expect I thought that they would surely advertise and try to capalize off the the HP connection... I even half expected them to have Harry Potter named drinks and food... I was slightly disappointed when the only reference they made to it was that small plaque outside. It had regular named drinks, and it was just a strange building over... Despite it all though I still felt a Harry Potter connection. Like I said before I felt like I was in the foot steps of greatness, and even though the cafe wasn't what I expected I could still picture it all... and that was awesome.

Moving on from Harry Potter (Yes I know it doesn't seem possible does it??) there is another famous lady that is from Edinburgh. St. Maragret. I never knew anything about her until I came to Scotland, and I had to write a paper on how she influenced Scotland for my Celtic Scotland class. I decided to write my paper on St. Maragret before I left for my trip. St. Maragret was also a Queen of Scotland, and she was one of the most treasured queen's in Scotland's history. Her era was known as the Golden Times in Scotland, and I had just gotten done writing a paper on why she was influential and amazing basically... so when I heard that Edinburgh Castle had a chapel dedicated to St. Maragret I knew that I had to go to the castle and see it. My tour guide pointed at the chapel from the bottom of the hill, and when he pointed I thought that he was referencing this building behind me. Well... that was actually the Scottish War Memorial...

This was St. Maragret's Chapel. I was so confused, and shocked. You have to realize that I have been traveling Europe and I've been seeing a lot Saints churches. Some like St. Peter's and St. Mark's have been glorious... others more modest. St. Maragrets? I was shocked. It was tiny. It could only fit about 15 people inside. I saw the sign out in front of it, and then I asked a worker to confirm that this was actually her chapel.... and yes it was.

This is the main decoration in the chapel. And then there were about 5 small windows around the chapel just like the one in the picture with stained glass. This chapel pretty much set the tone for the rest of my visit to Edinburgh Castle. I went to visit the Scottish Crown Jewels afterwards, and after having seen the English Crown Jewels in London... the Scottish ones were pretty disappointing. There were only three pieces compared to the massive collection in London. I wouldn't recommend going to Edinburgh Castle. There are a lot of other castles that are far more interesting, and a lot more beautiful. I had been to the Sun Palace in France a few days before, and after having seen the magificance of that palace Edinburgh Castle seemed very plain to me. There were very few decorations, and I felt like I was in a less grand verison of the Tower of London. If someone is heading to Edinburgh I would not commend seeing the castle they don't have student discounts and I personally don't think it's worth the money.

The Radison Hotel chain choose this spot to build a new hotel on in 1990. It's a great location in Edinburgh, and I'm sure they they would be able to charge top dollar for a room inside of it. They even give you complimentary ropes to use incase a fire breaks out... Yes. Since it has been built in 1990 the fire station has been called to the site 363 times. Apparently, in 1671 a man was burned at the stake on this ground, and since then every building on the site has burnt to the ground. Fires just randomly start, and they think that it is haunted.

Hard Rock!! Woohoo!! I ate at this one. :) I'll be making my impressive Hard Rock Cafe blog with my pictures of Hard Rock's throughout the world after I visit the one in Dublin!! :)

Now what is the cooky building you ask? Scottish Parliment? Why yes.. .it is... Intersting design isn't it?? Originally it was supposed to cost 40 million pounds. In the end it ended up costing 450 million pounds! When the government was halfway through with the project 9/11 occured, and the Scottish government decided that the building they were working on was not secure enough from attacks. So they began tearing down parts, reinforcing others... and it ended up getting expensive! They made put up all kinds of blockades so that a terrorist couldn't drive into the building with explosives. If someone crashed through the concrete posts on the outside that flips a trigger and spikes will shoot up out of the ground and impale the car. Yep. They aren't messing around here! My Harry Potter friend tour guide commented that he thought this building was worth every penny they had to pay for it, because if you and your family was inside of it while there was an attack you would be perfectly fine inside of it. Another tour guide that I had was very bitter about it, and it was obvious that he didn't approve of how much the government spent on the building. He also didn't like the fact that they used a Spanish architect to build it... even though apparently every part of the building represents something Scottish. Do you notice the black things next to the windows? My tour guide asked us what we thought it was... he said that most women think that it looks like a hair dryer or upside down shoe, and that most men thinks that it looks like a hammer or a tool. In reality it's a symbol that the Scottish government has it's curtains open for the Scottish people to look inside the building. I thought it was a really strange funny looking building, but I'm sure they have their reasons... :) Hope that you enjoyed the tour of Edinburgh!

Beware!

So two things have happened to me in the past couple of days that I feel that I must share with you. First of all, I have been drinking A LOT of water lately, and I was just getting sick and tired of not drinking anything with flavor. I'm not a huge pop drinker as it is, and I really don't like the pop that they have here so I don't drink it often... So what else is there to buy?? It was a hard decision, because there weren't any brand names of stuff... so I wasn't sure what the good drinks were. I decided to just get a cheap Morrison brand. I was looking through the names of all of the drinks and there was one called Apple Squash. And I was like what kind of flavor is Apple Squash?? Well it looked like just regular apple juice so I decided that it would be a good option to try. BLEH! I took a sip of it, and it tasted almost like it was carbonated! It was GROSS!! I almost threw it away, but I carried it home. And my roommate Kris told me that it was syrup! Apparently squash means syrup here and I didn't know it! You're supposed to get a glass of water and pour a little bit of it in to flavor it. I tried it and with the water in it it wasn't too bad! Go figure!! I would have never known... I've never heard of such a thing, and it looked like it was ready to be drunk. It's not like thick syrup or anything. It looks identical to apple juice... But boy don't let that trick ya!!

Also Scotland's weather is very interesting! One second it will be bright blue and the sun will be shining the next moment it will start raining with hail included! I was just walking along enjoying the bright blue sky looking at the flowers, and then I started to get pelted with hail! I was like... where the heck did that come from! Instead of the clouds being completely white here they'll be a little bit gray. So there will be blue skies complete with tons of sunshine, but then the clouds will loom over you, and you won't even notice that they are gray at all until it starts raining/hailing on you!!

When it happened everyone was looking around in shock, because it was probably THE most random hail storm I have ever been apart of... especially since I wasn't expecting it at all! Beware of the sneaky Scotland weather!!

On a happy note I just found out that I am officially catching a plane to come home on June 2nd instead of the originally scheduled June 12th flight home! Since my exams ended early there wasn't any reason to not come home earlier, and it wasn't a problem to change my flight! Yay!! Not that I don't love it here, but I've seen just about everything that I want, and I know by then I'll be ready to go home! :)

Stone Henge

Stone Henge dates to around 3,000 BC!! That means that it is over 5,000 years old!! That is pretty impressive when you consider how it was constructed all of those years ago... I was extremely excited to see Stone Henge.... I was like a little kid bouncing up and down in my seat! I couldn't wait to see it...

Then our tour bus had a little bit of mechanical problems. Ok not a little bit of problems... the bus actually died on the side of the road and wouldn't start back up!! Luckily this happened during our lunch stop so we were kind of in the middle of no where with this one little family run restaurant in the whole area. We had to wait three hours for another bus to come!!! This is because it was two days after the volcano had erupted and all extra buses were being used to get people to other places.... so there wasn't an extra one for us when we broke down. Nyree was laughing at me, because I was pointing at this sign going nooooo we were sooo close!! We ended up getting to go to Stone Henge in the end! Yippee!! But unfortunately we didn't get to go to the other section of our tour which was Roman baths... which I really wanted to see. They ended up refunding 1/3 of our tour... which I guess was alright.

Here is Nyree walking onto our rescue bus!

Surrounding the Stone Henge area are large man made mounds. These mounds are ancient burial grounds. It is thought that it might be a royal burial ground, because upon further inspection it was found that all of the people buried there were from the same family line, but they weren't buried there at the same time. So it would be like someone going to West Minister Abbey in London and comparing all of the graves there. They would all come from different time frames, but they would all share the same bloodline, because they are from the same family and have similar DNA. Researchers believe that the graves surrounding Stone Henge might have a similar story that we just aren't aware of.

Here is a better view of all of the mounds. You can see some in the distance by the trees.

And that leads us to.... STONE HENGE! Henge means hanging... so Stone Henge literally means hanging stone, and you can see how the top stones are just placed right on top of the larger stones, and are basically hanging inbetween the two pillars.

You might ask what is so special about Stone Henge... Stone Henge is not the largest arraignments of circular stones in Great Britain, but it is the most decorated. There are two different types of stones used to create Stone Henge. The stones that adorn the top are the smaller stones called Blue stones... even though I couldn't detect any blue color in them... I guess when it rains they change color so you can't tell in these pictures. Anyways, these stones weigh approximately 4 to 5 TONS each!! And they come from Wales with is over 150 miles away from the site that Stone Henge is built!!!! The larger stones that you can see on the bottom weigh 40 tons each, are about 18 feet tall, and are from a place about 20 miles away from the site. How impressive is that?? You can tell that Stone Henge had a lot of significance because of all of the effort it most have taken to create it! Imagine people 5,000 years ago moving those stones to this location! I can't even imagine how back breaking, and how much effort must have gone into getting the stones to the place, and then in shape. Imagine lifting the "small" 4 to 5 ton stones on top of the larger one!!

Despite the effort that went into making it Stone Henge's claim to fame is really what happens there on the summer solace. Now I'm not to sure how familiar everyone is with myth and magic knowledge so I'll give you a brief background so that you can understand why this is significant. They say that summer and winter solace are extremely powerful days to Wiccan/magical people. To us these are the longest and shortest days of the year respectively. The summer solace being the longest day of sunlight is supposed to be the most powerful day of the year. This middle section of Stone Henge that you can see in this picture is illuminated by the sun on the summer solace. It is the first place on Earth that the light touches as it rises on the summer solace. Therefore, possibly the most powerful place on Earth during this time. Still to this day on the summer solace over 100,000 Wiccans/Pagans meet at Stone Henge to celebrate and do rituals.

The exact purpose of Stone Henge has long been debated. Since it has been found people have been fasinated with it, and have wanted to know about it's origins and purpose. Obviously a great deal of effort and care went into building it, and I have a feeling that it's location is not a concidence. The most popular theory as to why Stone Henge was built was that it was a temple to worship the sun and the moon. Others say that is a giant calendar, and that people used the shadows that it cast as a marker as to what time of the year it was. Some say that is was built by Merlin, or the devil, or even aliens... Others think that it has healing powers. Personally, I think it has something to do with religion, and most likely Paganism. And along that line of thinking I also think that it has some kind of power aspect to it. Pagans celebrated life and nature and the sun... so to me it seems likely.

Here is a picture of the trail that you walk on to see Stone Henge.

It is roped off so that you can't actually go inside of it, and walk around the stones... You have to stay from a distance. Only once a year are the boundaries lifted... Yes you guessed it on the summer solace it is reclaimed and used for rituals.

In the 19th century people WERE allowed to walk amongst the stones. They could also buy a chisel for a small price, and get to take a part of the stone away with them as a souviner. Now a days we are given audio guides!! As you can see in this picture.

When we were on the bus on our way to Stone Henge, Nyree had fallen asleep, and our guide was telling us some facts about Stone Henge. He mentioned that there was a military base near by, and that if we saw any plans not to be alarmed... and that a war or terrorist attack hadn't started/occured. Well... we get there and are walking around for a while and five fighter jets fly over us (you can see one in this picture) and I'm pretty sure they alarmed poor Nyree!! So I had to tell her that no it's alright... just a base near by. :)

Here is a distance shot of Stone Henge. :)

Here is Nyree and I. The sun was sooo bright while we were there!! It cast shadows all over my pictures. But overall I enjoyed seeing Stone Henge. It's not a place that you go to for all day long. An hour or so there is a good amount of time. The audio guides were interesting to listen to, and it was very peaceful there. I found it pretty fascinating, and I'm glad that I had the chance to go there. :)