United Kingdom
On the first week of my midterm break my tour group went from Brussels to London. After a few days in London I flew to Ireland for the weekend before spending another weak in the UK in Scotland.
London
Glasgow
Edinburgh
London
Wednesday
We arrived in the afternoon by train, and that night we had tickets to Spamalot, which was a Monty Python and the Holy Grail-themed play with Tim Curry. It was pretty funny, I’m not a huge Monty Python fan but I enjoyed it. Nice to see a play rather than just a movie too.
Thursday
Did the usual sightseeing activities around London. Saw Westminster Abbey, walked around the Parliament(and Big Ben) and went into St Paul’s Cathedral, but I was too poor to pay the 8 pounds to get in.
Luckily for me the British Museum was open until 8pm tonight! So I went there after dinner. A lot of things were closed, and I was really strapped for time, but it was defiantly huge and interesting. The Egyptians government must hate the British, hah.
Pretty sweet to actually see something I’ve read about since elementary school. The British stole this from Napoleon. Bastards.
DIS (my program) paid for us to go to the Ice Bar, which is a really unique experience. Shitty drinks, but it was worth saying I did it. Outside we saw Derek Jeter although he was heavily guarded, and I couldn’t snap a decent picture. No Europeans around noticed anything, haha, they didn’t know who he was, go figure.
Friday
One last hurrah with DIS at the London Eye. Was kindof cool, but now I’m excited to be away from the DIS business group and off to Dublin!
Monday
Naturally it was raining when I got to Glasgow, and as expected its not exactly as picturesque as many of the cities I had visited.
Tuesday
Woke up early to take the day trip to Sterling. definitely glad I made it. Beautiful city and a great castle. Very historically important as well, in fact two pivotal battles of Scottish history (err…and from Braveheart) took place around the castle. This is me overlooking the Scottish countryside at Sterling, beautiful right?
This castle served as a military barracks until very recently. This in addition to its remote location from Edinburgh makes it an amazing castle to visit. The countryside is so much like it might have been years ago, which is pretty astounding compared to most of the other sites I’ve been to. Most are located amidst a modern city, which makes Sterling Castle pretty special in my opinion. Plus, Braveheart rocks.
As my final stop I had to walk on Sterling bridge, it wasn’t enough to see it from afar. Unfortunately it was quite a task trying to figure out which bridge was the famous bridge! I later found out why, the nameplate had been stolen. By this time it was pouring, really glad Anna lent me her umbrella.
Wednesday
Met up with Debi and Louise before I headed off to Edinburgh. It’s a shame I never saw them much (the two of them and Anna, whose apartment I was staying in). They thought I was coming in November, and the week I was there was midterm week for them, so bad timing. Monday-Wednesday isn’t exactly going out on the town time either, oh well!
The last thing I did in Glasgow was check out the University there. Man, if there was a Hogwarts in real life, this would be it! I love the architecture and stonework. This is the place Debi and Louise go(or was it Debi and Anna…I forgot), and I’m pretty jealous. Time to transfer! I could be a tour guide at Sterling and go here, it would be excellent….
Wednesday
Ideally I would have liked to have taken the Highlands tour from Glasgow, but given the time or year and the days I had available it was only available from Edinburgh, so I had to head over there. I got in late and didn’t feel like trying to go out. Terrible weather, no thanks.
Thursday
Had to wake up terribly early(for me) to go on the tour, but I made it!
I had no idea what the story is on this…cow…thing, but apparently its something famous? It’s named Hamish(apparently a common Scottish name), and it had a tourist shop inside devoted to the guy, no idea why. Of course the Chinese girl on the bus went in and bought a kilt and scarf. Cliché? nah.
Me looking over Loch Ness! Not good enough with the photo-shoping to add in a little monster in the background…sorry
Took a bit of time exploring this mostly destroyed castle. Not a lot historic about it, but it was interesting.
Friday
Already had a ticket to Edinburgh castle so I figured I had time to stop by and see it before my flight. Having seen it, I wish I had left it to my imagination… In two words, tourist trap. The castle was mostly cheesy museum rooms designed to appeal to families with kids. Nothing historic. The cannons were not even real. There were at least 4 gift shops within the castle walls. Absolutely ridiculous.
At the airport I ran into the DIS group that had taken the tour of Scotland, which was kind of random. Our flight to Copenhagen was delayed by 2 hours, which is one of the many reasons why I HATE Sterling.
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