No, I have absolutely no idea where that is. Jess and I are currently on a train from Edinburgh to London and that was just the last station we passed through. Yes, there is free WiFi on the trains here! It's quite wonderful :-) The two of us are sitting here with our iPods on, both listening to Christina Aguilera (thank you Richard). I'm sure Jess will chime in here and there, but she's half asleep at the moment despite coffee fix number two of the day. We're thinking we might have to cut back on the coffee a bit considering we haven't had less than 2 cups a day since we've been here, and yesterday we didn't have any and both felt sleepier than we should have...
Anyway, on to the things you all actually care about. I believe the last time we wrote we left off telling you we were heading to Camden the next day. Camden was awesome!! Just completely filled with market after market, all selling crazy clothing, jewelry, and a ton of vintage stuff. There's a huge punk/goth/fashion movement going on there, and it was so much fun to shop. Nothing too expensive either which was really nice. Best part of the experience though had to be the Rasterfarian at the back of one the markets who was just standing outside smoking a joint. As Jess said, we saw it and smelt it, so were pretty sure that it was there. I also saw a cop walk by a few minutes later, but as far as we could tell, he didn't seem to care!
Don't think much else happened that day. Tuesday was classes. Our theatre class was a lot of fun. We gave short presentations on different aspects of the history of theatre, and then learned about speaking as a chorus. British Experience was next. Bernie let the entire class go an hour into the class period so that we could all get back to our flats to watch the inauguration. Watching Barack Obama bring sworn in on BBC was pretty cool. It's really amazing how politically aware and involved everyone is here. We've seen Obama's face on more newspapers and magazines here than in America. Jess and I are both doing our best to stay informed about what's going on at home, mostly so that we don't feel like idiots attempting to discuss our own politics in a country full of people who seem to know more about our current state than we do. We've realized that Americans don't always understand how much what we do affects the rest of the world. Or how much people across the ocean look down on us sometimes. It's hard sometimes hearing the animosity that has developed towards our country. We took the position of leader of the free world, and then we don't really lead it. Hopefully with the election of a leader who has actual plans to lead will help change some of that. People over here are just as excited, if not more so, than we are about the coming of Obama. Watching him being sworn in brought tears to my eyes, and it's a nice joining factor knowing that we are all so excited to see what he brings to our country and to our world.
On to wednesday. Wilson Briscoe, our wonderful architecture professor, took us on a 3 hour walking tour of the south side of the Thames. He was really amazing; he must be in his 80s and the class was keeping up with him as he rattled off fact after fact about every building we passed. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and we both got some great pictures of the city. Check them out on facebook, there are wonderful ones of St. Paul's and Parliament.
On thursday, Jess and I found our happy place; HARRODS! Let's just say, it actually topped Disney for where I would like to spend eternity! We went to the food department to start (we would) and sat down for the most amazing ice cream sundae ever!!! It was roughly $15 converted and came in a huge martini glass!! Again, check facebook for a picture of this marvel! After the ice cream, we ventured through a room full of diamonds, and then into the bag department. Three rooms full of Gucci, Prada, Hermes, Chloe, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Dolce and Gabbana, Chanel, Dior, Valentino, Ferregamo, the works! We almost cried. I'm serious, teared up just as much as I did at the inauguration! Upstairs then was each of the above mentioned brands' clothing!! Private sections for each, we were waited on hand and foot (thanks to my Burberry scarf and bag I had with me that day) as we tried on thousands of dollars worth of dresses. Then went to the shoe department to try on some Jimmy Choos, Ferregamo, and other ridiculously overpriced footwear. Felt a little bad for the guy who waited on us the whole time though, since we knew we weren't actually buying anything and he ran around to get us all of the shoes! At one point, Jess had a pair of $500 shoes on her feet which were BEAUTIFUL and when she said aloud that it was either the shoes or a trip to Paris, a woman turned around and went "Oh honey, get the shoes!" It was wonderful! We found our heaven :-)
Ok, now for our trip to Scotland. We woke up on Friday morning at 4am. We left the flat at 4:40, walked to the bus stop, caught a bus to Victoria station, caught another bus to Stansted airport, got on a plane for a whopping 45 minutes, then got a bus from the airport to our hotel in Edinburgh, all by 10am! Castle Rock Hostel was just what it said it was, really nice and sitting right beneath the castle! Very clean, very friendly, and great views!! Everyone should be extremely proud of your two little Long Island Japs staying at a hostel decorated like a medieval castle full of piercings and tattoos! Everyone was so nice though, and we actually had some really great conversations with people in the bathroom!
Edinburgh is absolutely beautiful!!! It was a gorgeous day out and so we spent a lot of time just walking around, and then headed to the National Gallery of Scotland. The gallery had so many amazing pieces of work! Titian, Degas, Monet, Van Gogh, Bernini, Suerat. I have an entire list of paintings I couldn't believe I saw! We then met up with Naomi and Lauren and they took us to lunch at the Elephant House, ie. where JK Rowling used to do a lot of her writing. The food, desert, and coffee were all amazing. The best moment though was when I came back from the bathroom to proclaim that "my ass shared a toilet seat with JK Rowling's ass!" Come on, that's pretty cool!
After walking around a bit more, Naomi and Lauren showed us the Edinburgh University Student Center, which thanks to the 18 drinking age has a really nice bar in it. They then took us to their respectable flats so they could change, and then we went to dinner. Really great Italian place that cost us about $6 each for a really good dinner! Then went back to the hostel to change and head out for the night. We went to a bar called Revolution and had a lot of fun dancing until about 1am. Had a few sketchy boys hit on us, but overall it was a blast! Best part was when "Just Can't Get Enough" came on in the club. For those of you who weren't a 10 year old girl in the 90s, this song is featured in the Mary Kate and Ashley movie, Winning London, and so of course Jess and I went crazy!! Yes, we were those girls, and we didn't care! We finally got to bed at around 2am after being awake for 22 hours straight!
The next day, Jess and I got up and checked out of the Hostel by 1030. We then made our way down to grab breakfast at a great cafe and then checked out the Farmer's Market. The Market is only there on Saturdays and they had the most amazing hot chocolate you will ever taste!!! That, and being situated right under the castle on a beautiful, sunny day made it really nice to see. We continued to wander around the city until we came to the Meadows. Basically, the Meadows are a park in the middle of the city and really beautiful. There were a lot of people out there playing football and rugby, and even more cycling along the paths or walking their dogs. We sat down on a bench to rest for a bit in the sun when a dog went running by us. The dog's owner walked by and told Jess and I that the dog was eating mud! She then called her dog over to have it say hi, and we found out her name was Daisy! Of course, the first dog we're formally introduced to thousands of miles from home has the same name as my puppy. The owner also told us that she was usually really aloof, and since she was a Tibetan Terrior and we got to pet her that we would have good luck for the day! Everyone in the city was just as nice as this woman by the way. Seriously, wonderful conversations with complete strangers who genuinely wanted to know where we were from and how we liked the city.
After sitting in the Meadows, we met up with Naomi again and she took us shopping. There are so many wonderful thrift stores in the city! I bought a great bag for 4 pounds in a Cancer Research UK shop that uses its profits to give shoes to homeless people. Yes, I'm kidding, just didn't want to sound redundant! We then went for coffee before heading back to the hostel to hang out in the common room while we waited for Richard to arrive. When Richard got there, he took us back to his sister's beautiful apartment to put our stuff down before heading out to dinner. We went to another really nice Italian restaurant with really good food and wine. It's been nice being able to just have a drink with dinner here. After dinner, he took us to two different bars. They were mostly older crowds, but played great music and we had fun just hanging out and talking the three of us.
Sunday morning we slept in, and then headed out to Richard's parent's house which is in Fife, about 45 minutes out of Edinburgh. We stopped on the way at a great little cafe on the water right by two famous bridges, one is a car bridge and the other a railbridge. There will be pictures of these up shortly. After lunch, we headed into Fife to his town of Windygates. It was a wonderful car ride as we rocked out to Christina Aguilera the whole way (hence the current addiction) and the landscape was all really nice! We got to his house and met his parents, who were completely wonderful, so lovely to talk to and took impecable care of us! Their house is beautiful as well, over a hundred years old and has wonderful views of town! Richard then took us into a town called St. Andrews a little while over to show us around. We walked on the first golf course in the world, and saw the ruins of a cathedral and a castle!! Richard then took us to the number one fish and chips in Scotland! The food was delicious!! And following it with ice cream made it perfect! We then drove a little bit more to see the ruins of MacDuff castle (yes, as in Macbeth). Everything was beautiful, even in the dark at that point!!
When we came back to his house, his parents had some friends over and we had a really great discussion with them about the world, politics, Scotland's view of America and vice versa. Not going to go into too many details at the moment, but feel free to ask about it.
This morning, we slept in a little bit and when we woke up Richard had already left for work and his mom had left a whole spread of food for us for breakfast! It was really sweet, and good fresh fruit! We called his mom and she came back to give us a ride to the train station to get back to Edinburgh. We killed a few hours back in the city before getting on the train we're on now. Speaking of, we're about to arrive back in London, so I'm signing off. Sorry for the big delay in posting, but as you can see, we've been really busy!! More to come soon, we're going to The Globe tomorrow, so they'll be plenty to write about we're sure.
Miss and Love you all!!!
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