Home again

7/8 (cont)

Friday night to end our adventures we all went to the William Wallace pub, for a relaxing night jsut sitting and talking (and maybe doing a little ceilidh dancing from what we remember the night before.

7/9

Woke up finished packing and getting our of my room while that cleaning ladies prepared for block two. On my way out I ran into a girl who was going to be staying at the same hostel I was and so her (Laura), Rebecca and I decided to bomb around for the day together. They went to the Wallace Monument while I got breakfast, and then we just wandered around Stirling. We went to this cute kinda hidden away cafe for lunch. We tried to go to the church of the Holy Rude but it was closed. Then we decided to go see a movie, so we saw Green Lantern which was really good. Then Laura and I went back to the hostel, had dinner and got settled in. Later I went downstairs to sit in the common area and read or do a crossword, but everyone was watching Braveheart so I have now seen half of that movie.

7/10

Laura and i met up with a bunch of people from school and went to the Stirling Highland games. It was a bit of an adventure getting there but it was a lot of fun. We saw some of the same things I saw at the Aberdeen higland Games, but they also had two border collies that herded ducks, and Scottish Terrier Racing. (not scottish terrier like my dog, but Terriers (Jack Russell?) from Scotland. Then I headed back to meet up with Karlita at the Med for one last meal, but unfortunately it was packed and we got cut so they couldn't make my nachos in time, so I left and ran to McDonalds to get food fast and get on the train to Glasgow. In Glasgow I eventually made it to my hostel and stayed there for six hours. This hostel was nice and I was in a room with about 10 other girls who were all very friendly and we all talked a bit about different things before falling asleep.

7/11

Woke up at 4:30 left the hostel, got lost, eventually made it to the bus stop to take a shuttle to the air port. I had my last Irn Bru before I got on the plane. =( The Flight to Newark was uneventful, watched Enchanted and tried to sleep- didn't work. My plane out of Newark got delayed by two hours, so i sat in the airport playing solitaire and doing crosswords. But our captain on the way home sped a little bit so we got home only and hour and a half late. Finally got home around seven to find out we didn't have power, and that it was really hot and humid (as i had been used to 50-60 degree weather) and I went to sleep when the sun went down then as I was utterly exhausted.

Anyways it was a really great trip and a great experience. I loved Studying at the School and being able to explore the country at the same time.

Last days of School

7/5 (cont)

Tuesday evening we went on a walk behind Bridge of Allan called the Darn walk. It was a really pretty and relaxing hike minus it being slightly wet. We finished up at the Alanwater Cafe (a cute little fish and chips shop) and the ISS bought us all two scoops of ice cream. Then we went back in side to get fish and chips for dinner. It was a wonderful evening! We came back to my flat and watched a movie called the Water Horse before staying up till one talking.

7/6

Woke up early to finish my final reflection and then had my last day of class. =( I really enjoyed both my classes. I got to learn a lot about Scottish History and got a sampling of information on religion and conflict. After class I made one last run to Tesco for food and snacks to bring home. Then Julia came over and we made pizza and watched Battlefield (an episode of the 7th doctor) afterwards she went back to her room and I hung around my flat till all the girls came over to get ready to go to our last karaoke night. Two of the girls dressed up in slightly odd LMFAO-ish outfits. We all headed over to the Med for Karaoke Night and then to Red Room for dancing. It was a really fun evening just hanging out with everyone.

7/7

In the morning Julia and I went into edinburgh to do some last minute shopping and to eat haggis. We went to a restaurant called the toll booth that a friend had recommended. It was a really nice place, felt very old style inside. Haggis was good it tasted like hash. We go back in time to relax for a bit and get ready for our farewell dinner and ceilidh. But first we all had to go and talk about our time at ISS with some of the heads for a bit.

The farewell dinner and ceilidh were held at the Golden Lion hotel and it was so much fun! We had a pretty good dinner together and then got to learn and to Scottish Ceilidh dances with the help from the fiddle group that was playing. The dancing was crazy fun and a little violent and just a great experience. I really hope I can remember some of the dances for when I come back. Afterwards it was one of our friends last night with us so a couple of us went to listen to live music at no 2 baker street before coming back and hanging out in our flat one last time.

7/8

Today Julia and I took a Trip to Oban, which is a seafaring village(?) on the west coast. It was a really nice little place that we explored for three hours. We wandered through a chocolate shop and up to a tower on a hill. We also took and hour boat ride to see a small seal colony and to just see the sites along the coast. It was a really pretty and relaxing day. Then we got on the bus to got back to school where I packed and got ready to leave tomorrow. And now we are planning to go out for one final hurrah before we all go our separate ways.

there's no place like london

7/2

I woke up at 4:30 to leave my flat by 5:30 to walk to the bus station for a bus to edinburgh at 6:50 and then a train from there to London around nine. The walk into town was beautiful at 5 in the morning going over the old bridges and such.

The train ride was pretty uneventful because i slept for most of it. Around 2 we finally pulled into Kings Cross, where I waited for a bit for my friends to show up so we could find platform 9 and 3/4. unfortunately they are doing construction for the games right now and the actual place was covered so we had to take pictures with the replica. Then we headed out into London to go to our hostel so I could put my stuff down and Julia could get ready for the theatre.

Our Hostel was in a really nice part of London. It was a residential area that had a little pond running through it. The hostel itself was also nice, we had booked a private six person room and the beds were really comfy.

We headed back out into london- Julia to th

e Theatre and Kim and I went to the National Gallerey and on the way there we happened to stumble through the pride parade at Trafalgar square. Then we went to find Kensington garden and the Peter Pan statue. We ended up wandering around there for awhile before heading to the West End to find food (we ended up splitting fish and chips.) Then we decided to wait for Julia and Jen to get out of Much Ado about Nothing with Catherine Tate and David Tennant. We waited outside a cute little pub around the back end of the theatre near the stage door. Sadly David and Catherine were only allowed to sign things pertaining to the show, so we stayed a bit back, but towards the end of their very short stage dooring, I got within about 6 feet of David.

We finally met up with our friends and were standing around talking and being hyper when we noticed Catherine Tate was standing really close to us, so we sort of nudged over, but then she had to leave.=( After that we headed back to the hostel for bed.

7/3

Woke up got all our stuff out of our room and into a locker to head to the Doctor Who Experience. This was absolutely amazing!!! The experience part was a little more aimed for 12 year old boys (as Julia termed it) but it was fun because in some ways i am a 12 year old boy at heart. And it was fun to have friends to geek with. After that was the exhibition which was amazing. I was literally a little kid in a candy shop. Especially at this one point: I had been taking picture with the inside of the tardis and was geeking about a sign that showed all the insides of the Tardises, when Julia tells me to turn around. And there across the room was the old inside of the Tardis!! It was so awesome just looking at all the costumes and monsters and the gift shop....

Then we had an adventure trying to get to the Globe from there, we made it to the show just on time. Dr. Faustus was amazing, the costumes were so well done. Lucifer's looked like the angel's costume only dingier (sp?). And Arthur Darvill? he was so good and at one point after intermission we were in the second row of people from the stage and so he was literally right above us.

After the show we wandered around the Thames a bit before heading to Westminister and saw Big Ben. Then we sat along the Thames while Julia got ahold of her friend so that we could meet up for dinner. We went to a pizza express which was really good (if slightly pricey) We all split two desserts between the four of us. We had a delicious ice cream sundae like thing and also a plate of dough balls with nutella. best decision ever!

Then julia and I headed off to the hostel to get all our stuff and get to the train station. We took a sleeper train back, but we bought cheap seats so we actually got large seats instead of cabins. But it was still okay I slept fairly well.

7/4

We got into edinburgh at 7:30 and back home to Stirling around 10, where I had to finish 500 words of my paper before two...oops. But I finished it and went to class where my professor had a fourth of july party for us!!! He gave us a whole bunch of sweets to munch on during class and had sparkling grape juice for us to drink! It was really wonderful!

After class there was a fourth of july party going on in the grass next to our building so we went to that for a bit before deciding to go out to eat. We ended up going to a sports bar called sportsers and for the sake of it being the fourth of July got something semi american. Julia and I split an appetizer platter with mozzarella sticks, potatoes and cheese, onion rings, garlic bread, curly fries and pieces of chicken. Then we all went and got gelato at this really good place in town before heading back to school. I stayed for a bit after that but was absolutely exhausted and so went to bed a bit after eleven.

7/5

Not much has happened yet today, just class and laundry and some small chores. We are going on the Darn Walk tonight and get icecream afterwards courtesy of the ISS.

In which Emily falls in a river

6/27 (cont.)

We went to the Med for the Pub Quiz and got third this time, so we got a feather boa and a box of oreos. =) Then it was bed time for all of us.

6/28

Tuesday was not very eventful, Julia had several papers due so we didn't go on what has been becoming our normal Tuesday morning adventure. I was going to attempt to work on my paper, but that didn't end up happening because for dinner my flatmates decided to go to a Chinese buffet (in case you haven't noticed we do Chinese a lot, because it is really good here) and we didn't end up getting back until quite late.

6/29

Had both my classes today, turned in my history paper and got my religion reflection back. Then Julia and I headed out to Doune Castle

. This castle was used for several different castles in Monty Python. So I got the audio tour only because there were some Monty Python bits at the end of different segments. We had fun exploring the castle and then explored the grounds out back, ending up down by the River Tieth ( where the phrase armed to the teeth comes from).

Unfortunately, I was a little silly and ended up falling into the river. (did you know that rocks are slippery when wet?)=] We finally made it back to school and finally started to work on my paper...sort of I got a fourth of it done. Its a rather long paper on an ambiguous topic and it is not going well for me.

6/30

Thursday was our final all ISS trip for the block and we went to Edinburgh. Edinburgh is gorgeous, it is a very bright and charming city and in some ways doesn't feel like a city. We went to the Edinburgh Zoo for the morning and to the Castle for a good chunk of the afternoon. The Castle kinda felt like a small town it was that big, but also because of that there were a lot of tourists so we went through it kinda hurriedly. But we did get to see the Crown Jewels (alas no pictures allowed) and they had a rather large cannon that has some significance but I can't remember what. When we were done we went and explored the Royal mile where they have a bunch of tourist shops but also a bunch of restaurants and side streets. Then Julia and I sat under the Scott Monument to rest up abit before we headed home. I then went to Tesco to stock up on stuff for my trip to London this weekend. Btw, I fully intended to go back to Edinburgh again on this trip, there is so much more that I didn't get to explore

7/1

Rabbit Rabbit!

Today I had my excursion for my Scottish history Class. We went to St. Giles Cathedral where the Prayer Book Riots were held and on our way there we witnesses a parade of sorts as the the crown was driven down the royal mile, because the Queen is currently in Edinburgh (i believe).

We also visited Greyfriars Krikyard where the National Covenant was signed and the Museum of Scotland to see some pieces from the Covenanters history. Afterwards a couple of girls and I stumbled upon the Elephant house, which is where JK Rowling wrote a lot of the early Harry Potter novels. They had a really delicious Chocolate cake there! Then we headed back to school, where I am currently packing, writing this blog, oh and I have to finish my paper.

London tomorrow!!!!