Laura got here on Tuesday and, since I was prepared, I had a nice blow-up mattress for her waiting. We chatted a bit and got food after I met her at the train station, and when we got back here we went to bed at around 10 PM which was pretty early for me, but I honestly can't believe Laura was able to stay awake that long. The next morning all we really did was walk about Lancaster's campus and lay out by the little pond and watch the swans and ducks all day. It was such a nice day out, probably like 80 degrees.
On Thursday, we decided to go to Manchester for the day. I haven't spent much time there and I'm glad we went because it was SO nice out again. We hopped on the train in the morning some time, it only takes about an hour and a half to get there, and arrived maybe around noon? I can't really remember to be honest. When we got there we went shopping at Primark (which is an amazing, and amazingly cheap British shop) and Laura was excited by all the British fashion haha. Eventually Laura started getting terrible blisters because the shoes she was wearing were relatively new, so we went on a quest to find her some new ones, and eventually we did (which she told me later she loved, so that's good).
We then went to a pub for dinner and a cider. Laura has never had a cider... and probably you guys haven't either unless you've been here. It's like hard apple cider but way better and way harder. Ha. I got pear cider actually and Laura got mixed fruit. I always like cider, and Laura said she liked hers too but it was a little too sweet (she had some later in Scotland that she liked better). While we were sitting there eating a football (soccer) team came in, probably 7 or 8 big guys, and sat by us. They were talking in some foreign language that we were having a hard time placing and eventually we decided it was some weird form of German. I think we decided that they were Austrian.
We got back to Lancaster early enough for Laura to Skype nick and get their plans for Dublin all sorted before we went to bed. Friday morning, we headed off to Scotland.
On the train to Scotland, I seriously felt like I was back home. I saw big stretches of forest and places where the timber had been logged. The biggest difference was that it was a lot more hilly than home, and there were sheep instead of cows. Laura also noted that some fields were completely yellow (which I think Scotland is famous for) and she said that she can imagine Grandpa saying, "That's tansy! It's gonna kill those sheep." I laughed pretty hard at that. It was weird having Laura here... not in a bad way... but just because my life over here is so disconnected from my life back home. Having Laura here was like bridging the two which was just... a weird thing. Haha.
We got to Edinburgh eventually and then took a bus to Dunfermline which was where our hotel was. The reason our hotel was a hotel and not a hostel and why it was in Dunfermline and not Edinburgh is that we waited for the last minute to find a hostel to book and EVERYTHING was booked up because it was Easter and a three-day weekend. We thought our hotel would be close enough to go to Edinburgh the next day but after the bus ride that took about an hour and a half, I suggested that we just check out the town we were in and Laura agreed.
Eventually we got there via taxi from the bus station and lo and behold they didn't have our reservation. SO, the guy working there made some calls and got us a cheap room at the Travelodge a couple miles away. He told us he'd call a taxi, but I wasn't about to pay for a taxi for a two-mile walk so we made sure we knew where we were going and set off. It didn't take too long to get there but for a minute I thought maybe we were lost because we were in the middle of nothing. Eventually we saw an old Scottish man walking his dog and when he shouted "He won't bite! He won't bite! I know that's the famous last words before you get your leg bitten off but he really doesn't," we took the opportunity to ask him for directions. He was missing quite a few teeth but he was really nice. Here is a picture of where we were walking...
The other thing about Scotland was as soon as we pulled into the Edinburgh train station we noticed the whole sky was just fog, which was bad for me, since I packed summery clothes because it had been so nice in England!
When we got to our Travelodge, we had a couple miscommunications with the front desk guy who had an Indian-Scottish accent, and then we threw down our stuff in our room and laid flat out on the bed. We sat there for a while before we decided we wanted drinks so we walked to ASDA (Britain's Wal-Mart) and I bought something called Blavod, which is black vodka (actually it's dark blue), and Laura got four little bottles of wine. We had a couple drinks in our room when we were waiting for Amy, another volunteer from Spokane whose placement is near London. Finally she got there and we all went out to a bar called the Seven Kings which is apparently super huge in Dunfermline, and met a couple hilarious Scottish people. I swear, every Scottish person I met was so friendly and helpful. That's probably why I loved Scotland so much.
The next day we spent in Dunfermline. It's where I got everyone's postcards and I got myself a Scottish necklace with my birthstone on it which I LOVE. By the way, it's pronounced "Doon-ferm-lin," 'cuz when we first got there we were saying "Dun-firm-line," and the Scots thought we were just silly. Anyway, that day we went and got coffee in the morning (no hangover, we didn't drink THAT much) and walked all through the city center. There was a bunch of booths set up and a lot of people out in the street walking around.
Eventually we spotted the Dunfermline Abbey (which is behind me and Laura in that bottom pic) and went to check that out. We walked through the graveyard and into the church and into the abbey. It was really creepy. A lot of the gravestones were from the 1700's which is insane to think about because the United States didn't exist for most of that time. I really liked it though. It showed where the monks lived and ate in the Abbey and had reeeally old stained-glass windows in the church.
After that we went into this park near the Abbey and walked around taking pictures until it started pouring down rain on us, and we ducked inside of a green house full of tropical plants until the worst of the storm was over. From there we walked back into the city and had tea and a BUNCH of sweets in this cute little pink building before getting a tour of it, because it is apparently a hugely important historical building. I think she said it was built sometime in the 1500s. It was the house of some famous clergyman or something (see how well I paid attention) and each room had stuff about Scottish history in it. It was actually really cool. The whole town was amazing to me because I honestly didn't have really high expectations for it because I'd never heard of it.
We went back to the hotel after that and I took a shower before we went out for dinner at a place called the Harvester. We talked to our waiter there for a while too and he was really nice. Oh! By the way, we had two questions that we kept asking Scottish people. 1) Do you like haggis (look it up if you don't know what it is)? 2) What do you think of Glasgow? The reason we asked about Glasgow is because it has a reputation of being really rough. We asked a guy at the Seven Kings these questions and he went on and on about how much he loves haggis and said when he left Scotland it's the only thing he missed. Then, when we asked about Glasgow, he lifted his shirt and said "I went to Glasgow and all I got was this lousy stab wound!" Which was obviously a joke, but still got the point across. All the men we asked said Glasgow is "dodgy" and the ONE Scottish girl we asked said it's "lovely." Then, her friend Sam pointed out, yeah it's because all the men are the ones who get in fights there, not the women. Which is probably true.
The next day we went to Edinburgh but honestly I'm tired of typing, so I'll finish it another day!
