Stuffed jackets=Baked potatoes.
Abbey and I finally gave in tonight and went on a search for mexican food. We found something close to it. A touristy restaurant called Chiquito in Leiscter Square. In addition to their strange take on mexican classics, they also had bbq ribs, french fries, and other similar items. No margaritas on their cocktail menu either...so yeah. We split an order of nachoes and a brownie sundae for 15gbp. Blah. But I got to eat what appeared to be tortilla chips and something that tasted vaguely like guacamole, so Im satisfied. I've also discovered that britain doesnt have yellow cheese. All of their cheddar is white, and while its good, its hard to get use to. Their take on service is also pretty sketchy. You have to flag the server over for everything, and its expected that you will. They also do this crazy thing at ALL restaurants where they bring a wireless credit card machine to your table so you never lose sight of your credit card. I think its excellent, but it makes for a weird tipping situation as you have to tell the server how much to add on.
Edinburgh was amazing. Period. It was really old, with tons of cobblestone streets. There were streetperformers playing bagpipes in kilts everywhere, and guys that were legitmately going out for the evening rocking their kilts and tuxedo tops. Our hostel was rad, with 12 beds per room(ours was all femmes) and shared showers. But everything was clean and nice, and it was directly across from Edinburgh castle on the Royal Mile...amazing location. There was this funny lady we talked to alot in our dorms. Sharon was 70 years old and travelling by herself to a holistic herbal college of some sort up north. She was a crazy hippy from washington, but super sweet and had lived a pretty amazing full life.
We took the bus both ways up, which was a painful ten hour ride, but dirt cheap. Our first day there we went to the Camera Obscura, which was this crazy tower museum that specialized in optical illusions. There was a floor of nothing but crazy halograms, and lots of other weird mind trippy things. We went up to the castle, but couldnt bring ourselves to shell out the 11 pounds to get in. We then went to the national gallery, which was super small but with some intense modern art. After that we stumbled upon an amazing old church graveyard. Many of the gravestones had really artistically done skulls and crossbones on them, and were from the 1800s. The skulls seemed so out of place and yet not. Later on we found this tiny vegan/vegetarian baked potato shop. I had the most amazing potato with vegan chili and cheese, for under 3 pounds. That place was so super good we went back the next day.
Day two we walked to Holyrood Palace and around the little park that surrounds it. Then we hiked up to what is known as 'Scotland's Disgrace', what was suppose to be a replica of the Pantheon on top of this gorgeous hill...but the Scots ran out of money so instead of the forty pillars or whatever it was suppose to have, it only had 12. It was still a cold but gorgeous day that provided for great views of the city. We went to New Town to a crazy little farmer's market with lots of really good looking food that we couldnt afford to get. My favorite place we went on Saturday was to the Royal Museum. They had one floor of Egyptian artifacts which was neat because I had never actually seen a mummy. Im also super down with the Egyptians because they worshipped cats...I can relate. The most amazing part of the museum though, was a HUGE wing dedicated to the animals of Great Britain. This meant there was every kind of animal ever, in all of their taxidermied glory. Polar bears, rats, walrus, sea otters, lions, and even HOUSE CATS. I'm not being facicious at all, it really was amazing and crazy to see such an extensive amount of animals in one place.
On Sunday we opted to take a coach up to the Highlands and Loch Ness. For those of you who dont know, Loch Ness is most famous for being the site of the blockbuster film, 'The Loch Ness Monster'. We were up there the whole day. It was beyond beautiful...super green with amazing hills and mountains. We unfortunately, however, did not see Nessie. Its creepy though, cause the locals totally take her to be fact. Like, oh yeah, my mom saw Nessie once. She's just something thats there and they believe it and ignore it and capitalize on it. Then monday was spent on the looong but beautiful drive back to London. Lots of sheep. Lots.
Its been a strange experience here in that I no longer have my beautiful iMac in my room, and I have to use the pc lab downstairs...which is full of Dells...nuff said. We have a tv in our room, but it only gets one channel, the BBC. As a result, I am growing a huge part of my brain back that has been killed off over the past few years. I am desperate for books and have been reading anything in front of me. I also bought a puzzle book with crosswords and code breakers in it. I love the code breakers, but the cross words are hard because the clues reference british words and media. I do not know the name of the australian on 'East Enders', and I THOUGHT cats said 'meow'. But there are only three spaces for what a cat says, and 'meow' clearly takes up four. Every country has a different word for what sound animals produce...and the vast majority think its crazy that we think a rooster says something as ridiculous as 'Cock-a-doodle-doo'. So yeah, if anyone knows what sound british cats make, let me know. I also have an EXCESSIVE amount of free time, and its hard(and pricey) to spend all of it wandering around the city.
Last week we saw STOMP!, which was amazing, and I would recommend to anyone. This week we saw an indie production called 'Rabbit' that had intense acting but was awkward cause our seats were pretty much on the stage. They keep giving us free stuff like that, and we keep taking it. Tomorrow we're going to Brick Lane, which is on the east end, so hopefully I'll hear some cockney. They're going to take us all (like 40 of us) to an Indian restaurant there also, on their dime.
So yeah, way too long, apologies for that. I need to update with more frequency, but I can only spend so much time in this room surrounded by dirty Dells. I really dont remember pcs sucking this bad...but oh, do they suck.
Love and miss everyone. I better be eating some real mexican food, made by REAL mexicans within an hour of landing on the 20th. That too! I extended my stay by a few days so Robin Brown can come out and visit. Hes getting here the 10th of Dec for my last week, then on the 16th we're going to head out to Barcelona(most likely, possibly Madrid) til the 20th. So yeah! Thats exciting too. We've also planned a 12 day trip to Italy over our thanksgiving break. Flying into Rome, then down to stay with our friends in Florence, then all of us our going to Venice where we will fly home to London from. Thats coming up on October 10th, crazy! Even crazier that our break is on October 10th, but thats something else. Hope everything in the OC is as good as it is here in the GB(oh no I didnt...)!
Edinburgh was amazing. Period. It was really old, with tons of cobblestone streets. There were streetperformers playing bagpipes in kilts everywhere, and guys that were legitmately going out for the evening rocking their kilts and tuxedo tops. Our hostel was rad, with 12 beds per room(ours was all femmes) and shared showers. But everything was clean and nice, and it was directly across from Edinburgh castle on the Royal Mile...amazing location. There was this funny lady we talked to alot in our dorms. Sharon was 70 years old and travelling by herself to a holistic herbal college of some sort up north. She was a crazy hippy from washington, but super sweet and had lived a pretty amazing full life.
We took the bus both ways up, which was a painful ten hour ride, but dirt cheap. Our first day there we went to the Camera Obscura, which was this crazy tower museum that specialized in optical illusions. There was a floor of nothing but crazy halograms, and lots of other weird mind trippy things. We went up to the castle, but couldnt bring ourselves to shell out the 11 pounds to get in. We then went to the national gallery, which was super small but with some intense modern art. After that we stumbled upon an amazing old church graveyard. Many of the gravestones had really artistically done skulls and crossbones on them, and were from the 1800s. The skulls seemed so out of place and yet not. Later on we found this tiny vegan/vegetarian baked potato shop. I had the most amazing potato with vegan chili and cheese, for under 3 pounds. That place was so super good we went back the next day.
Day two we walked to Holyrood Palace and around the little park that surrounds it. Then we hiked up to what is known as 'Scotland's Disgrace', what was suppose to be a replica of the Pantheon on top of this gorgeous hill...but the Scots ran out of money so instead of the forty pillars or whatever it was suppose to have, it only had 12. It was still a cold but gorgeous day that provided for great views of the city. We went to New Town to a crazy little farmer's market with lots of really good looking food that we couldnt afford to get. My favorite place we went on Saturday was to the Royal Museum. They had one floor of Egyptian artifacts which was neat because I had never actually seen a mummy. Im also super down with the Egyptians because they worshipped cats...I can relate. The most amazing part of the museum though, was a HUGE wing dedicated to the animals of Great Britain. This meant there was every kind of animal ever, in all of their taxidermied glory. Polar bears, rats, walrus, sea otters, lions, and even HOUSE CATS. I'm not being facicious at all, it really was amazing and crazy to see such an extensive amount of animals in one place.
On Sunday we opted to take a coach up to the Highlands and Loch Ness. For those of you who dont know, Loch Ness is most famous for being the site of the blockbuster film, 'The Loch Ness Monster'. We were up there the whole day. It was beyond beautiful...super green with amazing hills and mountains. We unfortunately, however, did not see Nessie. Its creepy though, cause the locals totally take her to be fact. Like, oh yeah, my mom saw Nessie once. She's just something thats there and they believe it and ignore it and capitalize on it. Then monday was spent on the looong but beautiful drive back to London. Lots of sheep. Lots.
Its been a strange experience here in that I no longer have my beautiful iMac in my room, and I have to use the pc lab downstairs...which is full of Dells...nuff said. We have a tv in our room, but it only gets one channel, the BBC. As a result, I am growing a huge part of my brain back that has been killed off over the past few years. I am desperate for books and have been reading anything in front of me. I also bought a puzzle book with crosswords and code breakers in it. I love the code breakers, but the cross words are hard because the clues reference british words and media. I do not know the name of the australian on 'East Enders', and I THOUGHT cats said 'meow'. But there are only three spaces for what a cat says, and 'meow' clearly takes up four. Every country has a different word for what sound animals produce...and the vast majority think its crazy that we think a rooster says something as ridiculous as 'Cock-a-doodle-doo'. So yeah, if anyone knows what sound british cats make, let me know. I also have an EXCESSIVE amount of free time, and its hard(and pricey) to spend all of it wandering around the city.
Last week we saw STOMP!, which was amazing, and I would recommend to anyone. This week we saw an indie production called 'Rabbit' that had intense acting but was awkward cause our seats were pretty much on the stage. They keep giving us free stuff like that, and we keep taking it. Tomorrow we're going to Brick Lane, which is on the east end, so hopefully I'll hear some cockney. They're going to take us all (like 40 of us) to an Indian restaurant there also, on their dime.
So yeah, way too long, apologies for that. I need to update with more frequency, but I can only spend so much time in this room surrounded by dirty Dells. I really dont remember pcs sucking this bad...but oh, do they suck.
Love and miss everyone. I better be eating some real mexican food, made by REAL mexicans within an hour of landing on the 20th. That too! I extended my stay by a few days so Robin Brown can come out and visit. Hes getting here the 10th of Dec for my last week, then on the 16th we're going to head out to Barcelona(most likely, possibly Madrid) til the 20th. So yeah! Thats exciting too. We've also planned a 12 day trip to Italy over our thanksgiving break. Flying into Rome, then down to stay with our friends in Florence, then all of us our going to Venice where we will fly home to London from. Thats coming up on October 10th, crazy! Even crazier that our break is on October 10th, but thats something else. Hope everything in the OC is as good as it is here in the GB(oh no I didnt...)!
posted by N @ 1:43 PM
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