The Big 100th Post

Isn’t it amazingly fitting (and completely coincidental) that my 100th post is my leaving Oxford to return home to the States? This was never my intention; I didn’t plan out all of my blog posts for my entire year to make sure that I ended on the 100th post. I can’t even really believe that I’ve had 100 posts!

In fact, this post is truly the last part of me in England at the moment. In case no one noticed, the time stamp on this one is 4:15 pm, GMT, which means that as this is being blasted into cyberspace, my plane towards Los Angeles has just taken off and I am now in the air, eleven and a half hours of a plane ride ahead of me. Let’s hope there are no screaming children!

So as this is my 100th milestone, in typical blogosphere fashion, I thought I would do a little fun listing, an almost sum-up of my incredible time abroad. Nothing is in any particular order. Enjoy!

25 Great/Funny Experiences

1. Meeting my amazing dance partner, Dan, is probably the best thing that happened to me here!
2. Being pelted with snowballs outside the Sheffield competition. First time in the snow!
3. Disneyland Paris
4. Harry Potter Studio Tours in Leavesden
5. Seeing Les Mis on the West End…twice
6. Dan running into a bollard at Blackpool. This was mostly funny because of the email his dad sent him afterwards, but it’s a favorite inside joke with the two of us now.
7. Blackpool IVDA!
8. Thinking that Iguanadons were the same thing as Iguanas (you’ll understand this one later)
9. Baking parties in the Acland kitchen
10. Dan’s birthday BBQ
11. Days spent at the Missing Bean
12. Keble Ball
13. Meeting up with Dale in Paris
14. The Port Meadow Photo Challenge
15. My family visiting!
16. Driving in Ireland
17. Finding Charles Brandon’s grave in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle
18. Becoming friends with all the people on the dance team
19. Dancing on a table in Wahoo with Ania 😉 and nearly getting kicked out
20. Flying off to Zurich alone, completely random! Sidenote: Awesome zoo
21. Seeing the town that  my family has lived in for hundreds of years (Harlech, Wales)
22. Walking through horse pastures in the Cotswolds
23. Varsity Match for OUDC
24. Going to tutorials in a room that is older than any of the original 13 colonies
25. Stonehenge in the pouring rain with my brother

25 Things I’ve Learned

1. The Rose has the best cream tea in Oxford
2. Custard, cream, and mayo might as well be their own food groups here
3. Pants=underwear, not trousers
4. Pimms is awesome. There is always an excuse to drink Pimms.
5. The instant the sun comes out, expect the streets to get very, very crowded.
6. Blackwells is the most deadly store in the world.
7. Sometimes it is cheaper to take a train to a foreign country than to Cornwall.
8. You can get to Brussels or Paris from Oxford faster than you can get from Oxford to Cambridge (they must have planned it like that!).
9. Awesome words like keen, overkeen, and knackered should be incorporated into our everyday vocabulary.
10. British people think that all Americans are gun-toting, obese rednecks.
11. Cobblestones do not mix well with high heels.
12. Punting is not just a type of kick in football.
13. At a BBQ, Brits bring their own meat. Americans bring desserts and sides. Plan accordingly.
14. Stand mixers are necessary to avoid baking catastrophes.
15. 14lbs=1 stone. This is how they measure weight. But then they use kg? Wth?
16. Fancy dress means costumes, not cocktail attire.
17. Stealing ties and bow ties makes night clubs into a game.
18. You never wait for a cross walk to cross the street.
19. Buses will run you over and they get really close to the curbs.
20. Salad means assorted vegetables that you can have put on your baguette at lunch or lettuce with delicious toppings. However, salads are rarely meals.
21. You need a television license just to stream a show online.
22. Everyone, and I mean everyone, watches and loves Downton Abbey.
23. I know more British history than a lot of British people.
24. Waffles are dessert, not breakfast. And for that matter, pancakes are basically crepes, not the fluffy goodness we get in the States.
25. If you forget an umbrella, you’ve guaranteed that it will rain. If you brought an umbrella, it will still probably rain but at least you will be dry.

25 Things I’ll Miss

1. Nightly tea parties with my dance partner
2. My friends on the dance team
3. Olives (the sandwich shop not the food item)
4. Cream teas
5. Being able to walk everywhere
6. Saying Cheers instead of Thanks
7. Spur of the moment day trips into London
8. West End shows for cheap!
9. Being surrounded by history everywhere I go
10. My bay window
11. How happy everyone is when its sunny
12. Oxfordshire Public Library
13. Free entry to museums and galleries
14. Everyone in the Keble MCR/Acland
15. The collective understanding when someone mentions Jamals or Park End
16. My scouts (aka the women who clean my room every week and empty my bins. They were the nicest people!)
17. The accents
18. Ease of travel, unless you want to go horizontally across the country. Good luck with that.
19. Baking for Dan’s friends and Keble events. Love easy taste testers
20. Laughing as Dan and I attempt to Quickstep/Waltz/Jive/Cha/Foxtrot/Viennese Waltz
21. Hearing everyone’s opinions on LA
22. Dirty Chais
23. All the literature and film links in the city
24. Feeling like I’m constantly at Hogwarts
25. My coworkers

25 Places that I Didn’t Get a Chance to Visit, But That I Definitely Will Someday

1. York
2. Cornwall
3. Dover
4. Calais
5. Norfolk
6. Budapest
7. Prague
8. Vienna
9. Pompeii/Rome/Venice/Naples/Italy
10. Warsaw/Other Places in Poland
11. Berlin/all over Germany
12. Geneva
13. Istanbul
14. Marrakech
15. North Carolina
16. Athens, basically all of Greece
17. Slovenia
18. The Netherlands
19. Northern Ireland
20. Brighton
21. Denmark
22. Russia
23. Bruges/Antwerp
24. The Caribbean
25. Portugal

Yeah, it’s a long list, but hopefully I’ll have a long life in which to fulfill it, with wonderful friends and family by my side. Now don’t think that because I’m back in the US that this blog is ending. I’m still going to be traveling and I’m working on finding my way back to England for a bit longer of a term. So stay tuned!

And thank you to everyone and everything in England that made this the most amazing year of my life.

The Last Day of Scotland (anyone get the movie reference?)

Last day in Scotland, and although it was a little hazy, the sun was still shining and it seemed like the air would be warm, but I am perpetually frozen so it wasn’t enough warmth for me.

Having done the Royal Mile two days earlier, we decided once again to leave Edinburgh, this time going to get our Braveheart on in Stirling. I donned my tour guide hat and led the way around the city to the train station, hearing every five seconds a question along the lines of if I knew where I was going (I did) and then once at the train station if I knew what I was doing (again, I did). We took a taxi from the station in Stirling up to Stirling Castle, another imposing former royal residence on a striking hilltop. The Scottish seem to love castles on rugged hills, but they afford such expansive views that you wonder if they foresaw the tourism industry and the invent of the panoramic shot. After all, they did use fortune tellers back in those days.

View from Stirling Castle

Stirling Castle ended up being more of another stately home for royals than a defensive castle exhibit, so Mom and I were content, though we feared that Dad and Kevin would be bored. Most of the history discussed on the excellent audio guide revolved around James V and transitioning into Mary, Queen of Scots before ending with her son James VI of Scotland and I of England. The really great thing in my opinion that set Stirling apart from other royal palaces of the era is that in addition to adding the furniture and tapestries from the time period, they even recreated the painting of the walls and ceilings, really giving a sense of what these rooms would have looked like in the 1540s. With the rooms coming alive like they did, you can understand why these rooms were considered luxurious. I don’t know what you would have done if you got a migraine however; all the paint was bright and colorful to the point of being overwhelming.

There was also a really cool opportunity to watch a team of weavers recreating some of the older tapestries using the same techniques from the era. Apparently each weaver can only complete 1 square inch a day and each tapestry takes between two and four years to finish. Talk about patience.

KITTY! So cute 🙂

Leaving the castle, we walked back down the hill (I got them to walk somewhere, win!) in search of a taxi to the William Wallace Monument on the hill on the opposite side of Stirling. This time I told everyone that it was such a nice day that I was walking up to the monument and would by no means be hurt or insulted if they took the courtesy shuttle. My speech of one sentence, however, seemed to inspire everyone to walk, which I was fine with having the company. The walk was as lovely as I had anticipated.

William Wallace Monument through the haze and sun

The monument was gigantic, and to get to the top we had to climb 247 spiral stairs that were cramped and dark and only allowed one person to go up or down at a time. The climb was broken up with three exhibit rooms that I found very dull and not at all improved by the terrible audio guide. I quickly decided that I would rather go straight to the top and appreciate the view for longer than drag myself through the exhibits. And what a treat it was! The saying goes that on a clear day you can see all of Scotland from this summit. Of course this is an exaggeration but you can see quite far and it was well worth the claustrophobic stairs. Even the more frightening trip down the stairs, and that was pretty terrifying.

Top of the monument

It was about 4 pm and that seemed too early to return to Edinburgh because face it, we just would have been chilling in the apartment and we certainly didn’t come all this way for that. So instead we hopped on another train to Glasgow, just to say we went there.

Glasgow

A few hours there seemed like plenty. There wasn’t really anywhere cute to walk in the city centre and Dad’s back was bothering him too much to travel to the areas that would have been nicer. Yet the buildings were enticing despite the feeling that the town never shook off the Industrial Revolution. We “meandered” until we found the Glasgow Apple Store (something you do solely because you can) and then wandered around looking for a place to eat. After dinner it was back to Edinburgh to worry about packing everything up for our 6 am exit by taxi to the airport.

Where did we fly off to this time, you ask? Well by taxi, by plane, by bus, and by foot, we arrived back in my native Oxford. Yes, I was home! Only for half a day, but it was refreshing none the less. I noticed something about each family member and how different they each were when they arrived in Oxford and I showed them around for the first time. Kevin asked me about the history and the literature references such as Tolkien and Lewis. Mom asked about what my life was like day-to-day, where I do this and that, my favorite hangouts, etc (in case a certain person reads this, yes that included The Missing Bean). Dad asked only questions of why or how certain things were built the way they were. At least I knew the answers to Kevin’s and Mom’s questions.

In order to preserve his back for the next few days in London, Dad checked into the hotel, sending the rest of us out into the Oxford world to explore, make my day, and then take Kevin to The Eagle and Child, something he missed out on last time he was in Oxford. Then we headed back to the hotel the boys were staying at to meet Partner for dinner! Dan and I agreed that Fire & Stone, that Oxford Thursday night institution, was an excellent choice, a guaranteed hit. Then we took them to G&Ds–the real Oxford institution at this point–for ice cream. It was such a breath of relief to be back with Dan. He got along easily with Kevin and my dad, and he is good at keeping me calm when I get anxious (as evidenced by our surviving dance competitions!). Kevin and Dad joined the club of people who call him Matt Damon, secretly christening him Dan Damon, though I don’t think Dan knows that yet…well he knows now. Oops.

Partner meets the parents

Next and final stop (sad isn’t it?) on my family vacation will be…wait for it…

No, Dad, Nessy Does Not Live in that Loch!

I keep wanting to say “Oh today we did x”, but as I am relaying our travels about a week after they actually occurred, beginning a post with that introduction doesn’t really work. If I was going to start with “Today I did …” I would be obliged to talk about my making it to Summertown from my apartment in 23 minutes (those of you in Oxford will understand exactly how incredible of a feat that was), my shoe shopping, my wonderful lunch with Partner, and my walking through University Parks with aforementioned Partner discussing baseball (Magic Johnson bought the Dodgers! There is hope in the world after all!) enjoying THE MOST BEAUTIFUL DAY IN ENGLAND!!! Sorry, sunlight makes me a little giddy. But alas, I am not writing about this rejuvenating spring day, I am writing about a different, though nearly as beautiful day back in Scotland last week.

On this day, we took a ten hour bus tour up to the Highlands. Honestly, it was such a relief to not have had to plan out an entire day. Instead Mom and I got to be led around and could sit back and just enjoy ourselves. Our driver, that silent Scottish man behind the wheel, was named Gus and our actual guide was Mav. One syllable names, easy enough to remember, enabled maximum mental checking out capabilities. Mav was hilarious, as well as extremely well-versed in history so I was actually able to learn a lot about the Scottish history that I didn’t know. He also made plenty of digs at the English and Scottish alike, so we were often laughing. I became a little nauseous a few times from motion sickness; the roads were much windier than even the Ring of Kerry in Ireland.

Dunkeld Cathedral

Our first stop was a one street town called Dunkeld. There was a small path through a swatch of woods that let out in front of this cathedral, tiny compared to all of the other ones I’ve seen, which was built beginning in the 1200s and is now half ruins. The weather was one of the most beautiful days I’ve ever experienced in my time here (though definitely surpassed by today’s). And the banks of the river were so calm and warm that I wanted nothing more than to lay on the grass and rest, warmed by the sun, surrounded by the Highland mountain views.

Looks fake doesn't it?

Of course the peace was shattered by a fighter plane roaring overhead. What a way to kill a moment of tranquility. The rest of the town was straight out of a postcard. The buildings all date from the Georgian era because in 1689 a battle between the Catholic Jacobites and the Protestants destroyed most of the town.

Stop number two was a bit more north, a village called Pitlochry. On the way there we kept seeing these caws that were so shaggy I would sooner call them wooly mammoths rather than Highland Cows. Pitlochry became one of those towns buoyed by tourism, and its hydroelectric dam and salmon ladder. We walked down there after grabbing lunch (Mom and I finally got our pasties and yes, they tasted like the ones my grandfather would make when my mom was a little girl), and while the dam was just another dam, the walk there was just as picturesque as the rest of the town.

It is seriously so difficult to pick out which photos to post, they are all so beautiful!

Most of Scotland is subject to preservation laws, meaning that people who buy a property must maintain the place’s original architecture and exterior design. Therefore the villages maintain their quaint facades. Yet another reason why I love the UK! They want to preserve their history and look. We also started talking to two other people on the tour, two girls named Natalie and Cat.

Typical shot of my family

Back on the bus we headed to Aberfeldy for yet another distillery tour (so boring as they all are!), but we stopped a few times along the road so we could get pictures of Loch Tummel. I have so many pictures of gorgeous lochs, but all too soon for my taste, we arrived in Aberfeldy for the Dewar Distillery tour, just as dull as I expected and triggering hours of commentary about whisky from the boys. I am never going to a distillery again. We left too late for me and my sanity, but I regained it as the rest of our stops all revolved around nature.

Loch Tay

The first of these final stops was along Lock Tay, which is an endpoint of the River Tay, the largest in terms of water volume flowing through it river in Britain. The real stop during this final leg was the Falls of Dochart. When Mav said “falls” I pictured a short hike to a Hawai’i type waterfall in the Highland crags, but the Falls of Dochart are more accurately described as rapids flowing under a bridge and over some rocks. Not what I was anticipating but just as beautiful albeit in a different way. Unfortunately that marked the end of our tour and we headed back in to Edinburgh just in time for dinner.

A bridge over mildly annoyed water

We ate at the conveniently located Pizza Express. The two girls from earlier, Natalie and Cat, joined us and I swear that Cat was the perfect girl for Kevin. Devastatingly we didn’t exchange Facebook information so I’m pretty sure we just missed out on the love of my brother’s life. A tragedy if there ever was one.

 

The Menfolk vs. The Womenfolk

Travel days are usually uneventful. We were flying from Shannon, Ireland to Edinburgh, Scotland so we had to sneak out of the B&B at 6 am as it was a 2 hour drive to the airport. Days spent in airports and on airplanes are hardly eventful. Of course given that the plane was a turboprop plane that wobbled as we were taking off, we were thanking our lucky stars for uneventful! Mom and I were both sad that we didn’t get Edinburgh stamped on our passports. That would have been really cool as I have a minor addiction to getting stamps on my passport.

In Edinburgh we stayed in an apartment. Having an apartment to ourselves, complete with a kitchen and the washer-dryer combination machine from hell, a living room, and a wonderful towel warmer was a welcome change, apart from it being smack dab in the middle of Edinburgh’s strip club district. Not exactly the best place for me to wander alone at night, as I found out when I went for a walk and came face to face with…well, this isn’t exactly a topic of conversation for polite society I suppose.

We threw a load of laundry in the washer/dryer thing and then caught one of the Hop-on-Hop-off tours. Unfortunately, as it is technically still the winter off-season, there were no live guides, only a super lame audio commentary. Such a shame because the live guides make all the difference. And that will henceforth be my first item of travel advice to anyone: if doing a bus tour WAIT FOR A LIVE GUIDE. It just isn’t worth it otherwise. Regardless the tours are a solid way to orient yourself to a city, and this one was fun for Mom and me as it cued up a lot of memories from our trip back in 2009. I was surprised at just what randomness we remember, like “here is where the pidgin almost pooped on my head” type stuff.

William McGonagall

We took the tour all the way around once and then up one or two more stops to the statue of Greyfriar’s Bobby, the dog so devoted to his owner that after his death the dog sat on his grave in the Greyfriar Church cemetery. The people of Edinburgh took care of Bobby and he is also buried in the churchyard.

Thomas Riddell

But the real draw of the cemetery was it’s Harry Potter connections (of course, right?). JK Rowling took some of the names of her characters from graves in the cemetery. I found two on this visit: a William McGonagall and a Scrymgeour.

Mary Turner Scrymgeour

Two days later I also found Thomas Riddell. After that, we walked over George IV Bridge and stumbled across The Elephant House, the cafe where Rowling wrote the first book on a bunch of napkins. I basically needed out, for good reason! This was the birthplace of Harry Potter!!!

The Elephant House

From there we just walked to Princes Street to buy the souvenirs for everyone at home. I don’t know how I did it, but I remembered my way there from three years ago. I think I have a near eidetic memory when it comes to maps and cities. Then we ate dinner at Bella Italia. Back at our apartment, Dad tried to make tea in the kettle they provided us, but never having used one like it and without me there to explain it, he just put it on the lit fire stove. Instantly the whole apartment smelled of melting rubber. I ran into the kitchen and yanked the kettle off the fire. Dad didn’t realize that it was an electric kettle!!!! Now you have to hold it in a really awkward direction and push on it in order to get it to heat up on its stand (no more kettles in the UK for Dad).

We started the next day at Edinburgh Castle. Mom and I both did the audio guide last time we were here, so nothing was particularly noteworthy or new; everything was just a repeat of what we had heard three years ago.

Edinburgh Castle

Unfortunately, one of the coolest exhibits in the castle was closed, the prisoners of war exhibit. As such, what should have taken about four hours only took two and a half including lunch in the castle cafe. I tried a sample of whatever whisky liquor was on sample, mostly for nostalgia’s sake as I hate whisky. On our last trip here, I tried whisky for the first time and was instantly sent running for water. This time I handled it a lot better, but I didn’t like it anymore than last time! The boys on the other hand are motivated to become whisky enthusiasts which meant that they boys wanted to go into every whisky shop down the Royal Mile. At least we also went into St. Giles’ Cathedral, something I really wanted to see.

I was also able to convince the boys to hold off going into every shop, instead to wait for the one recommended by the Rick Steve’s Guidebook. What made me even happier that day was that the Palace of Holyroodhouse was open! No garden parties in March! We sent the menfolk off on what we thought would be a whisky hunt but ended up being a hike up the crags while we girls got to tour the palace in peace and without being rushed by two bored men anxious to get to another whisky shop.

Palace of Hollyroodhouse

The palace tour is broken up into two parts: the current royal apartments and the historical apartments of Mary, Queen of Scots. Both were really interesting, though I am obviously partial to the historic aspect of it all rather than the celebrity-like obsession with the royal family.

We finally got to go inside!

But the palace is a stunning piece of architecture and decor; understandably you can’t take pictures inside so I will have to cherish the memory of finding a portrait of Mary Boleyn, as well as Henry VIII, Mary I, Edward VI, Elizabeth I, and everyone associated with Mary, Queen of Scots in one of her rooms. In fact it was the one in which her Italian secretary and friend David Rizzio was murdered by her second husband, Lord Darnley. I love history!

As the boys had not gone to that whisky shop, Mom and I accompanied them to Cadenhead Whisky Shop where they were like kids in an alcoholic candy store.

Cadenhead Whisky Shop, aka the store that reeks of cigarettes, cigars, and booze

Mom and I left them this time, and ended up walking past this dress shop and found my dress for the Keble Ball. It’s stunning and I can’t wait to wear it!

We all reconvened at the apartments and the guys picked out a Chinese place for dinner, but Mom and I were so exhausted that we chose to sleep and later grabbed dinner at Sainsbury down the street (I spy with my innocent eyes strippers standing around outside). After the boys returned from an apparently terrible meal, we all curled up to watch the first Harry Potter movie. Inner nerd very happy 🙂