Edinburgh

I've officially been here a month now! The lecture series is over, and tutorials begin in two weeks. This week was our alloted time for vacation before the craziness begins, and vacation we did!

Edinburgh

Janet, Anna, and I traveled up to Edinburgh for the break. We decided to stay in the UK and explore some, and we also really wanted to see Scotland. Trains are the way to travel here, I believe; we took the train from here in Oxford all the way directly to Edinburgh. Since I live right next to the train station, it is especially convenient too! We all bought the young savers rail pass, which gives us a discounted rate because we're students. So on Monday, we hopped on the train in the morning for the long ride north. Believe it or not, I had previously never traveled anywhere by train, at least that I can remember, so I was pretty stoked about this. Mostly I was excited about seeing the English countryside! I wrote down all of our stops:

Oxford - leave at 8:36 am
Banbury - 8:54
Leamington Spa - 9:15
Coventry - 9:25
Birmingham International - 9:35 (A lot of people got off the train here...it was packed when we got on at Oxford)
Birmingham New Street - 9:45 (more people got off here too)
Wolverhampton - 10:20
Crewe - 10:50
Warrington - 11:15
Wigan - 11:25
Preston - 11:40 (it began to rain around this time)
Lancaster - 12:00
Penrith - 12:40
Carlisle - 1:00
Haymarket - 2:05
Edinburgh - 2:30

While we were on the train, I was really itching for a map to see where all these places were. It turns out that we traveled up the middle-west coast of England and then east to Edinburgh.

Edinburgh is a really great city! My first impression walking out of the train station was this sense of awe; Edinburgh is very cold, dark, and grey but it had a lively and welcoming feel to it. The oldest part of the city is centered around the Castle, which is at the top of this massive hill and situation on this massive rock. From there, the Royal Mile flows down from the castle to the Firth of Forth. Really beautiful. Amazingly enough, our hostel was right in the middle of the city just in the shadow of the Castle! For a hostel, this place was great; it seemed very credible and safe. We got settled in and then went down and explored the Royal Mile.

The first thing we did was pay a visit to John Knox's house! The Father of Presbyterianism! There was a little museum inside that you could visit and read all about this great Reformer. Janet and I really loved this place, and it was cool to see where John Knox lived for a while. There is a church on the Royal Mile, St. Giles, where he also preached.

After that, we went to Mary King's Close. Long story short, sometime during the black plague, the city counsel wanted to build more government buildings, so they just built on top of these poor people's houses, and they became this web of underground closes. The place is awesome, really creepy too. It was totally worth seeing, they take you on a little tour and tell you all about the history of it.

At night we went on a ghost tour! Our guide was pretty good, but I felt bad because these drunk Kiwis (who were there from the rugby game) kept interrupting him and causing trouble. Apart from that, it was very interesting because he took us around Edinburgh at night and told us all of these historical stories about people who were punished and tortured for crimes, stories involving names like "One Armed Johnny", so you know they're good. He also took us into some vault, which was a bit creepy. It wasn't all weird stuff though; Janet carefully choose this one because it seemed less sketch and more historical.

The next day we went up into Edinburgh Castle! Once you get up into the castle, there are amazing viewpoints of the entire city. You can see the Firth of Forth, the whole Royal mile, the shore on the other side, and so on. I stood there for a while just looking out at Scotland. Later that morning, a rainbow rested over the firth that was absolutely beautiful! Of course, there were a lot of exhibits about all this historical stuff, and that was all well and good.

After that, I went to the Scotch Whiskey Experience! It was cool, I felt like I was on a History Channel show! They gave us some good Scotch Whiskey to taste, and then we learned all about how it was made. Very cool stuff. I got a free little whiskey glass.

We explored more of Edinburgh in the afternoon - walked up to the National Monument, which looks like the Parthenon. Again, another amazing vantage point from there. That night we ate a pub, had some haggis, of course, and went to another pub for some live music.

Wednesday was the big day of our vacation - Loch Ness! We booked a day trip type of bus tour up to Loch Ness, and it was well worth it. Our guide was awesome - he was from the Highlands and knew everything about Scottish history and the clans and such. They gave us a map to look at while we drove along, which was very nice of them, so we could actually see where we were going in Scotland. I, of course, took down our route:

A8
M9
Stirling - we saw the William Wallace memorial here and some other castle
A85
Doune
Callender
Killmahog - we got out and saw this highland cow named Hamish. It was cool.
A82
Tyandrum
Glencoe - by this time, we were well into the highlands! Glencoe is an amazing place. There are three mountains called the Three Sisters which are right next to each other. Stunning, stunning scenery. Took video here.
Passed Lock Linnhe
Ft. William
Nevis
Spean Bridge - stopped here for lunch
Fort Agustus
LOCH NESS!

Loch Ness was worth every effort of going to. I was expecting an ultra-cheesy tourist trap, but where we were at least, there was no such thing. It is such a pristine, beautiful lake surrounded by gigantic mountains. We took a one hour boat ride on the loch, but unfortunately I did not spot the monster at all. I was really hoping to :) Great, great experience though. One random thing: on the boat, in the middle of Loch Ness, we met a girl from George Mason! She went to Law School there! It was totally random. What are the chances?

We took a different route on the way home:

A82
A86 south to Perth (these were some sketchy mountain roads! no lines! curvy! and the guy was driving FAST!)
Strath Marshy
A889
A9
Pitlochry
M70
Edinburgh

It was wonderful seeing Scotland like this. I definitly want to go back one day to hike through the highlands.

The last day we were there, we went to a couple of museums, shopped, and just hung out for a while, enjoying the city.

While we were in Edinburgh, I was constantly looking for a good map of the whole of Great Britain. I had reached the point where I really wanted to see where all these places were on a real map. I finally found one I liked in the train station just before we left - it is a complete motorist's atlas of Great Britain. Janet and Anna can tell you, I was stoked to have finally found a map I liked (I had also bought two of Edinburgh). Map in hand, I routed our train journey home as well. It went like this:

Edinburgh - 15:05
Dunbar - 15:30 (a pretty city on the east coast - we went down the east side of Britain this time, and we got to see the sea for a while!)
Berwich-upon-Tweed - 15:55
Newcastle - 16:35 (awesome place, lots of cool bridges)
Durham - 16:55 (there was a huge castle here!)
York - 17:45
Leeds - 18:05
Wakefield - 18:20
Sheffield - 18:50
Derby - 19:25
Birmingham - 20:00 (this is the second biggest city in England)
Birmingham International - 20:15
Conventry - 20:30
Leamington Spa - 20:40
Banbury - 21:00
Oxford - 21:00

And so was our trip. On the way home from the train station, we stopped by Botley Kebab for dinner, which was really good; a lot of food for not a lot of money.

London!

Our group went to London this past weekend for an educational field trip! We left Oxford on Friday morning and took the bus into the city; it was one of those cool, double decker buses. I wrote down the directions, of course: A40, M40, back to the A40, A3220 into the city.

I ended up liking London a lot more than I thought I would. As you may know, I'm generally a low-key, suburban homebody type, and I'm not too fond of big cities. I had such a good time though, and I think I'll make an exception to this...

Day 1

We took a bus tour of the city the first day we were there. It was a great introduction to all of the major parts of London. I had my map out and circled all of the places we passed as we went along; Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Parliament, Whitehall Lane, the London Eye, Picadilly Circus, Oxford Street, the river Thames, the Millennium Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, the City of London, Tower of London, and Tower Bridge. It was so nice to simultaneously see all of these places on the map and in real time. I think that I am really getting into maps and directions. I kept my map in my back pocket the whole trip, and I was always busting it out to see where we were, where we were going, and where we needed to be. I think this was possibly my favorite part of the trip - navigation. Simple navigation, albeit, but navigation still. There is something so exciting about connecting the places on a map to places in real life, and then going to them. That's why I really enjoyed this bus ride, because it prepared me mentally for the weekend and where we would be in the city.

The bus dropped us off at the Tower of London, which isn't actually one tower, like I thought it was. It's more like a little enclosed compound of a bunch of different buildings. It's right on the Thames, and there is a lovely view of Tower Bridge from there. Tower Bridge is AWESOME - I thought it was London Bridge, but it isn't...it is, however, the classic bridge you think of when you think of London. We did the tourist thing there; saw the old torture chambers, etc. For some reason they had some crown jewels on display too, and that was really neat...big old diamonds!

We had to be back at the hotel that night for a reception with a descendant of Lord Fairfax, and it was our first time using the Underground. At this point I did not have a map, so that hindered what little navigational abilities I have...we knew what stop we needed to get off at, it was just a matter of getting there. They don't call the names of the lines by their colors, like we do at the DC Metro; yellow, blue, green, etc. Their lines actually have names, like the Circle Line or District Line. Once I got that straight, we figured out which direction we needed to go and we off.

After the reception (FREE dinner!) I watched some of the rugby world cup in my hotel room. South Africa whooped England, something like 36-0. It was terrible, absolutely terrible. I'm really getting into this rugby world cup over here! It's a lot of fun, but England is not doing too well.

Day 2

Our group began the day the the History of London Museum, which I thought was alright, nothing too exciting. It is location within the City of London, which is the original one-square-mile Roman city and is now the financial district of London. After that, we walked over the beautiful Millennium bridge to the Southwark area for lunch. We were scheduled to go into the Tate Modern Museum, which is a huge museum of modern art. Frankly, I was not looking forward to this at all. I was expecting a bunch of crazy, stupid, sad excuses for art. We went in there, however, and I had a great time! Even thought it was full of a lot of crazy, sad, and sometimes stupid excuses for art, I enjoyed it and had a very good time.

Then came the London Eye! This was awesome! We had pre-ordered tickets, which was a smart move on the part of Jen. That day was also the Thames River Festival, so there were a TON of people around. We waited in line for about 45 minutes, and then went up. It's so cool, definitely worth it. I want to go back at night now :)

After that, we took a rickshaw to the Globe Theater, where we met up with our group again. I cannot explain how awesome the Globe is! It is an exact replica of the original Shakespearian theater, and the actors are amazing, very interactive with the crowd. We saw Love's Labor's Lost, which we had previously studied and written a paper on. When the King of Navarre opened with his line, "Let fame..." I was bursting with joy, because I totally understood what was going on! They did a GREAT job and I just loved the whole play! They had these period musicians play all throughout the play, so that was cool. The actor played Longaville had recently broken his leg, so he was on crutches, but he made the most of it. It was the best running gag ever, I loved it! The guy who played Browne did a great job as well, he was Scottish. Everything about the play was great; all of the ladies did a good job too. Oh, it was magnificent. Great venue, great acting, great atmosphere. I am definitely going back.

Day 3

We went to the National Portrait Gallery in the morning, and were on our own for the rest of the day. I know that DC has a lot of great museums, what with the Smithsonian's and all, but London probably has better ones. I loved the Portrait Gallery! I spent most of my time in the Tudor and Stuart galleries, since we have been hearing so much about these crazy people in our lectures. They had the originals of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, Cromwell, and Elizabeth I. I really enjoyed seeing these original paintings of these crazy, famous people! They also had a nice Princess Diana exhibit there. It was cool.

After that, Jen and I took it easy and enjoyed the day. We hung out in Trafalgar Square for a while, and then walked down Whitehall Lane. We got caught up in the crowds from a "save Darfur" protest march, and so we ended up talking to all of these nice police men for a while. They are so friendly! And nice! We needed to cross the street, so we could go to the other side and peer down Downing Street where PM Brown hangs out, but there weren't any crosswalks near. There were like, 10 policemen standing right there, and I didn't want to jaywalk in front of them and get arrested or something. So I go up to one and ask him "can we jay-walk here?" because of the crowds and all, to which he replied "Sure. You can do whatever you want to. Just don't get hit by a car." It was the funniest thing ever. So we continued on until we hit Parliament and Westminster Abbey, which were both closed. We ate outside at a little pub that Churchill used to go to, which was lovely.

We took a 5:30 bus home back to Oxford. We were all exhausted by this point, so the bus ride was a nice time to chill and relax. The countryside surrounding Oxford is gorgeous!

It was good to get home. One thing I realized on this trip is that Oxford is now home. It was a weird feeling, but a good realization. Our tutorials will begin three weeks from today, and things will get a lot harder. Right now I guess I've sort of been in vacation mode. Everything will be a lot different once October rolls around. That's what I signed up for though, so no big surprise. I guess it's just that I don't really know what to expect, so I am waiting with a huge sense of anticipation.

In the meantime, I am enjoying Oxford and all my new friends here! It finally got cold. I think it is supposed to rain tomorrow as well. In any case, England continues to delight.

English Traffic Patterns

Since arriving in the UK, I've been inspired by others to write down all the little cultural differences that I notice. Of course, we all know that there are a plethora of cutesy nomenclature differences that amuse us all, but I figured it would be a good thing to start writing them down so I could remember them all.

We rode the bus to Hampton Court on 10 Monday. I was actually looking forward to the 1.5 hour bus ride, because 1) I would be in a motorized vehicle, and 2) by going out of the city, I would get to see some British infrastructure other than Oxford. I've been stuck within a five mile walking-radius for about two weeks now, since we landed at Heathrow, and I was looking forward to getting back on a a major highway. Maybe I'm missing I-95? Or just driving a car? Both, probably.

I sat in the first row with my friend, Jen, so that I could have a good view of the highway and road signs. It might seem a bit weird how excited I was about the actual bus ride, but there I was with my notebook and pen scribbling down all the roads we turned on and keeping track of the directions. It went like this:

Leave South Parks Road from out in front of Herford College
South on St. Cross Street
Left on High Street
Over Magdalen Bridge
Down St. Clements Road
Down Headington Road
Down London Road
Get on the A40
Get on the M40
-Diversion (there was "bad traffic" on the M40)-
Take the A404 towards Berkshire
Take the M4 East
Take the M25 South
Take the M3 SW towards Richmond
Take the A308, and you're in Hampton
Arrive at Hampton Court

The significance or purpose of this exercise is debatable, but it was important to me in my mind. I wanted to know where I was on a map if I looked. It turns out that "M" stands for Motorway, and "A" (or "B", "C", "D", etc) are just prefixes to indicate an access road. I know this because I asked the bus driver's girlfriend; she was very nice.

This lead me to take down all the other interesting traffic patterns and such that the British have. Here are some:

• They drive on the left side of the road. On a major highway, one feels as if you're in the HOV lane, but you just can't see the other highway that should be on you're left...
• The exits are on the highway are on the left. Weird.
• The RIGHT lane is the FAST lane, and the left lane is the slow lane.
  
• The driver sits on the right hand side of the car.
  
• You shift with your left hand.
• The traffic lights flash yellow before they turn green! I thought this was really cool! It's like "on your mark, get set, go!" They also turn yellow before it turns red.
• The traffic lights in Oxford are like the ones in DC; on the side of the street. But here, they are on both sides.
  
• The speed limit is denoted by a number in a red circle.
  
• "Give Way" means yield.
• I saw a road sign that said "Queues likely"
• The intersections here are confusing. I don't understand them.
  
• The street signs are very ambiguous...this is true all throughout Oxford. The names of the streets are usually posted at the bottom or middle of a building. Thus there are no actual street signs. This proves to be pretty confusing. And they are not at every intersection. So if you miss the name of the street, you're SOL.
  
• Bicycles are everywhere in Oxford! They are very good about sharing the road. Bikes MUST drive IN the road. But they do not always obey traffic rules.
  
• There is a double yellow line on the very edge of the road to denote the bike lanes. In the middle, to divide the road, is a broken up white line. Totally opposite of the US.
  
• To indicate an intersection, the white lines turn into these zig zags.
  
• For pedestrians (like ME), they have these awesome crosswalk points. You press a button, and if you are not on a major road, it actually STOPS traffic and enables you to cross! It beeps to you and the little green man flashes. If you wanted to be really mean, you could just walk down the road and mess with traffic by pressing all of those.
  
• Also, I must talk about the buses in Oxford. You have to wave them down, they don't jsut stop where they are scheduled to. They have an excellent transportation system here, if you want to ride the bus. The bikes and other motorized vehicles share the road, which can turn out to be quite frightening. It's really quite crazy; they bus rides right alongside the bike lane, inches away from them! About two months ago, I bus ran over and killed a biker.
• I do not own a bike.

I walk everywhere, which I enjoy immensely! It just takes longer. But think about it this way: it would take me 30-45 minutes to drive to Mason, park, and walk to class. It takes me about 15-20 minutes to walk to the center of town, 25-30 to walk to St. Cross (where the lectures are at) and about 30-45 minutes to walk to Jen's house down St. Clements. So it's really quite a normal commute time for me.

There is actually a lot of traffic on the main roads in Oxford, too. Particularly on High Street and St. Clements, because of the construction going on.

About cars: they have cars made by the same manufacturers we have in the States, except they are smaller and just look more European. Here is a list of what I have seen so far, or at least have bothered to write down:

• Mitsubishi
• Volvo
• Ford Fiestas
• Vauxhall
• Citron
• LOTS of VW's
• Mini Cooper (lots of these too)
• Jeep
• BMW
• Honda (only a few)
• Mercedes
• Peugeot (LOTS of these)
  
• Audi

This is certainly not an exhaustive list. In fact, I will be on the look out to add to it.

Of the few gas stations I have seen, there was a BP with gas for 94.9 pence a liter.

Now I must go do research and get my paper going. I will update my notes on traffic patterns as I continue to jot down what I notice.