So, this is my account of the Northern trip that our study abroad
class took. I've been putting this off maybe because soooo much happened that I knew I would have to write a lot to do it all justice.
So, we spent six days away from home. We took this great big red and yellow bus. The bus driver's name is Tony. In my bedroom back at the center, I sleep on the bottom bunk of a bunk-bed.
On the wooden slats above my head are notes that all the girls who have slept here before me have written. One of them says, “Tony is the bus driver from hell!” I didn't understand that until after I got back from this trip. I believe it's totally wrong, but funny, nonetheless. Tony was great; he would often get on the microphone and spurt out little facts about the area that we were driving in, and would always tell us good places to eat in the towns we stopped in for the night.
The first day, we drove for three hours, heading north (i'm assuming). We ended up in at Chatsworth. Chatsworth is a priv
ately owned estate house which was used in the new Pride and Prejudice film with Keira Knightly as “Pemberly,” Mr. Darcy's home. It was pretty exciting. Except that most of the house was under scaffolding, so it's face was covered with white cloth
and you coulnd't really see the stone work. The majesty was a little bit lost on me to say the least. But the inside was beautiful; there was a sculpture hall, full of marble sculptures (which you also see in one part of the film), and in the gift shop there is a bust of “Mr. Darcy” which was also in the movie.
It was the grounds that were really impressive. Outside there were perfectly manicured lawns and shrubberies and beautiful trees. Also, there were fountains and manufactured waterfalls and small stone domes you could walk into.
Another girl, Jessica, and me, took an adventure off into the wild, behind the house and into the bush, following a little dirt trail in the grounds until we discovered a secret green door in a dry stone wall, which was locked. We jumped the wall and climbed up even further along the hill-side, in search of a “big thing” which I had seen from a distance; a stone tower with water running off of it.
After a good forty minutes of treking, we finally found the big thing, which turned out to be an old aqueduct of some sort. It was really quite beautiful and the pictures don't quite do it justice (mostly because, after going through my pictures that I took, I have realized that either I'm a really bad photographer or my camera is just kinda old and the lens is too). It was a fantastic time, climbing the hill and going through the “secret garden” door and discovering the big thing.
That night we stayed in a youth hostel in the village of “Osmotherly.” It was a quaint, picturesque little town with a small local cemetary. The next morning I got up really early and went running to the cemetary and did so
me rubbings wi
th charcol and paper on the graves. The rubbings didn't turn out very
That day we traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland. We dropped our stuff off at our hostel and took a hike up the highest “mountain” in the city to “Arthur's Seat,” the tallest point on the hill where two little monuments stand.
Fun fact for you, this is the place where one of the early saint apostles (I don't remember who) said a prayer dedicating Scotland for the work of the church to move forth. It was really, really windy on top. I would guess the winds were upwards of 90 miles an hour; it felt like, and we were probably really close to actually being blown off the mountain top. It was crazy. We were up there screaming and yelling at each other, hooting like happy owls, as if it was an amusement park ride. It was really really fun.
As we were coming down I just felt the need to do a little Eric Liddle and run down the hills of Scotland, so I did. I felt very much like I could be on Chariots of Fire at that moment.
The second day in Edinburgh, we toured “Edinburgh Castle,” which is at the top of the Royal Mile, the main street for touristy stuff in Edinburgh. It was quite informational and really pretty, but not my favorite thing. I would have rather gone back up to Arthur's Seat to be honest. But it was cool because I did a watercolor painting of the place in school this last winter semester, so it was neat to be able to go there for real.
That afternoon we went to three different museums, the last one having a really neat sculpture exhibition by Tony Cragg, a really famous sculptor. It was a great exhibition, and really inspiring. I liked his work much better that some of the stuff I just saw in the Saatchi Gallery yesterday (a privately owned gallery of experimental artwork, mostly sculpture based, which is located here in London- our art class went together to go see it, but I was mostly just disappointed in how dark and gross the majority of the stuff was).
While in Scotland we ate at the White Hart Inn, “the oldest pub in Edinburgh” or so the sign outside the door said. We had hagis (sheep organs boiled and chopped up inside of the sheep intestines), which was actually quite good, accompanied by potatoes and meeps. Meeps, apparently, are a sort potato like yams (they are orange).
The next day we drove off to Ambleside, in the Lake District. Ambleside is a backpacking paradise; it is a little mountain village perched on the edge of the Windermere (they call lakes “meres”) in a valley of beautiful hills and coniferous trees and meadows full of sheep and cows and quaint little farms. We soon found out that these meadows also acted as marshes wether it was raining or not. The first day in Ambleside it was dry and sunny and we went on a four hour hike down Jenkyn's Craig, then up to the W. Pike (W=something that starts with a W which I can't remember), which is a really tall peak on the mountain side that you can see out over the whole valley and the Windermere, and then down to some waterfalls below. It was quite strenuous and we walked through some really marshy meadows, but we made it and it was the highlight of my week.
The next day we went to a bunch of artist/author's houses, including William Wordsworth's two homes located in the area, and the last day, Saturday we went to John Ruskin's (a famous art critic, writer, and artist) home and saw his gardens. This area, the Lake District, is also
where Beatrix Potter lived, the lady who did Peter Rabbit.
Friday night, I forgot to mention, we stayed in a really nice hotel and I had my own room with my own bathroom with a bathtub. I was sooo excited. It was really nice and we had a three course meal that night at the hotel. It was fun cus we all dressed up nice, and we had all showered and washed off the nasty grit and dirt from our hiking earlier that day.
Overall, the whole trip was awesome. I loved it. I can't wait to go traveling about again, but our next trip won't be for a little bit, and it's only a day trip to Cambridge. But our next big trip is the southwestern tour which i'm really excited for!
Alright, well, that's about it! Hopefully this wasn't too boring, and the pictures hopefully help!
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