Jasper Slapped

August 07, 2010

Day 30-31: Scotland!

Friday morning we hopped on a 10am train to Edinburgh Scotland for the night. When we got into town we checked in at Pollock Halls and went into town to eat and explore. We are Italian and wandered the Royal Mile watching street performers for awhile. We also visited The Elephant House where J.K Rowling started writing Harry Potter! We saw the field that inspired quidditch and a grave yard where a few of the characters came from. There was a McGonagall grave and even Tom Riddle!
That night we ate dinner at the Candy Bar, where you can get candy flavored drinks. It was good and we all had a jammy doughnut which was really good. We also had tickets to the Military Tattoo at Edinburgh Castle which was amazing! It's military bands from all over the world performing, there was even a motorcycle team and the army physical training corps doing gymnastics! It was really cold but the rain held out which was nice.
This morning we were going to go hiking but it was raining so we went into town instead and I climbed up Calton hill which had an amazing view all over Edinburgh.

View outside of our dorms

The Royal Mile of insanity. There are street performers everywhere

Outside St. Giles church

St. Giles

A cool performer who painted upside down!

The birthplace of Harry Potter

The cemetery J.K Rowling got inspiration from

List of important graves

Quidditch field

Tom Riddle's grave!

The Castle

Me with the castle in the rain

At Candy Bar

Walking up to the Tattoo

Me with Edinburgh Castle

Girl Guides flowers

Heading up the royal mile

The flags

Military Tattoo!

The Castle from our seats

Opening of the Tattoo

Drummers

Trumpets

The big bagpipe band, it was a mixture of people from all the groups

Bagpipes and drumlines

Poland, they had traditional instruments in their group

Axe fighting

The motorbike crew, these kids were like 16

Citadel from South Carolina

Highland Dancers from New Zealand

Jordanian rifle group

The army physical training group

British military band

Scotland at night

The cemetery near the Governors house

More gravestones, the cemeteries here are very different, lots of big above grounds plots

The governor's house in the background

Scottish-American soldier memorial and David Hume memorial behind it

Up on Calton Hill

View of Edinburgh

Looking out to the sea, it started raining here

Another building on the hill

View from the train. The ride was very pretty when it wasn't raining.

Day 29

I know this post is a few days late, but I've been in Scotland (more about that in the next blog) and didn't have internet access. Well anyway today was the last day of class here in London! After class we headed to the Imperial War Museum which is located in the old Bedlam Psychiatric Hospital. The museum is very cool, lots of interactive stuff, real weapons, tanks, uniforms and all sorts of cool historical stuff. There is even a simulation for being in the trenches (very smelly) and living through the blitzkrieg in WWII. We started at the bottom and worked our way up so we walked through WWI, WWII, Modern warfare, crimes against humanity (genocide), and ended up in the Holocaust museum which takes up 2 1/2 floors and has a model of Auschwitz and a lot of other really cool stuff. After the museum Michael, Ashley and I went to Elephant and Castle for lunch. It was very good, I drank a cider and we all split calamari and I ate a chicken sandwich. The pub is a really chill place with a nice outside area.
After lunch we set off for Baker street to visit the Sherlock Holmes house, which is at 221B Baker street and is set up just like a Victorian flat. You can see Holmes's study and bedroom and Watson's study and there are wax figures of the characters and weapons and other things from the books. Next door to the Sherlock Holmes house is The Beatles Store, so we went in there also. They have all sorts of autographed pictures and albums you can buy, some of which was very expensive (we saw Revolver for 800 pounds and a signed picture for 1500). From there we set of in search of Abbey Road, which is actually a pretty busy street and it's difficult to stage a photo on.
That night we all went to Ice Bar, you reserve a table for 45 min and you get a free drink and a big parka to put on. It was really fun, and everything inside is made of ice!