There and Back Again: A UK Tale by Cody Murrell

I'm back. I'm settled back in America again. I missed a lot: carbonated beer, salty food, and knowing where things are.

That being said, I still have some things to rattle off about my last few days.

After getting back from Scotland, I spent the day relaxing and not doing any work whatsoever. I had finished my tutorial, so I didn't have to do any of that. I did, however, have an annotated bibliography due Friday and The Winter's Tale to read for Tuesday. So I did read some of that.

The next day, a friend I met over there and I went to the King's Arms for lunch after class. I didn't know if I would ever get it again, so I got black pudding. Mostly for myself, but I wanted to gross out my mom as well. It's blood. And pretty good (it gets a bad rep for what's in it!).

 That same day, Sally and Jaime invited me to go punting with them. Punting is the activity of being on a boat and using a long metal pole to push the boat along the body of water. This particular body of water was the Thames River. It's a nice, calm river to punt on. We just had to watch out for other boats and such. It was a nice, sunny day, but the sun disappeared right when I was starting to feel kind of toasty. Perfect.

It was wonderful. A welcome respite from the work I hadn't done at all since getting back from Scotland. 

That night, Dr. Anderson treated us to a last supper of sorts at The Head of the River Pub. There, he delivered a speech modeled after Henry V's St. Crispin's Day speech in Henry V. We, the band of brothers, were all given names by Dr. Anderson. I was the Scottish liberator. I was pleased.

The rest of the week passed by without incident. Nothing crazy happened. I began to wrap things up in Oxford, visiting stores and collecting souvenirs and buying sweets and other things to taste and bring home. It was a nice, calm end to a fantastic 6 weeks. I miss Oxford. I miss Scotland. I miss the food, the beer (even though it's flat!), the sights, and the fact that everything is so old. It hails from another age, an age where we didn't have fancy interwebz or phones or anything. 

Goodbye, Oxford. I will see you again. 

Haggis Part 2

Did I say haggis? I meant Scotland.

The second day in the land of the leprechaun

The second day in the land of the dingo

The second day in the land of the uh... Highland cow?

How very majestic. We'll get to that in a couple pictures. 

And on the second day, Cody woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6:30 in the morning to make sure he was at the bus stop at 7:20, when the Highland Tour was picking him up. As we drove out of the city, I waved at my previously conquered dirt mount.

 Once we left Edinburgh, we passed by these weird statues. I can't remember what they're called, but it had something to do with seahorses and sculptures. Just 'cuz I can't remember the name of them doesn't mean they lose coolness!

 Stirling Castle. Pretty uneventful so far. Except for the fact that I'm DRIVING THROUGH SCOTLAND

 Doune Castle. This castle is where Monty Python and the Holy Grail's castle scenes were filmed. I wish we could have stopped here, but that stop is on another tour.

 COWS AGAIN! Highland cattle are very fuzzy. I wouldn't mind having one. I thought they were kinda cute.

 Ok folks... Prepare for a barrage of beautiful Scottish Highlands pictures. It was really hard choosing the best ones, but I did my best.

 These next two are the Rannoch Moors. This is apparently where the ending sequences of James Bond's Skyfall was filmed.

 Back to Highlands.

 This'll be my house one day.

 There are glens (valleys) and there are bens (mountains). I got shots of both.

 Glen Coe. "The Valley of Weeping." Some call it that, at least. It's actually the Valley of the River Coe.

 The River Coe.

We arrived at a little pit stop area shortly after Glen Coe, at which point I bought a haggis and brie panini for lunch. I didn't get a picture of the haggis this time...

 Aaaaand we've arrived at Loch Ness. Taking a cruise out on the Loch was so cool.

 This guy is a 3D sonar type deal. We were able to see what was below us. There was another sensor that showed a weird graph based on the size of fish below us. We never saw anything bigger than an arctic char, a breed of fish that is cannibalistic. That's not a great example of evolution, but hey.

 Oh mah gawd! It's the Loch Ness Monster!

 This is the only island in the Loch. Apparently it used to be a lot bigger, before the Loch filled up a bit more.

 3rd bagpiper of the trip! This guy really went to town.

 Blair Castle.

 And this is the end :( this is on my train back to Oxford. It was a straight shot, no getting on other trains. I snapped a picture of the waterside hills as a goodbye shot.

Scotland Part 1

I'm back from Scotland.

Well, I've been back from Scotland for the past couple of days. But I haven't wanted to do a new post because the amount of material I have to post about is very intimidating. I may have to cover a couple of posts in order to detail the entirety of Scotland.

Friday was a sad day. It was my last tutorial, so there were goodbyes between my tutor and me. I'll miss her. She asked good questions, and had lots of information to tell me regarding Merlin. I gave her a bottle of wine as thanks (can't go wrong with Yellowtail!), and we parted ways. She told me to keep in contact through email, though, so that's good.

I hopped on the train at the Oxford train station and started meandering my way up north. It was fairly uneventful. I've posted pictures of the English countryside before, so I won't bore you with that. The train ride went without a hitch. I was sitting in first class the entire time, so I wasn't bothered by anyone, I could get complimentary sandwiches, and it was a very nice experience overall.

The bed & breakfast I stayed at, the Swan Lake Guest House, was really nice. There was a booking mixup, though, and I was given the family room. I didn't complain; it had three warm, soft beds, and a bathroom en suite, so I didn't really care. Wi-fi sucked, but I wasn't spending much time in the place.

 I went out for a couple hours after getting to the B&B at 9, found a little Chinese restaurant, got some lamb stir fry, and was approached by a strange homeless dude in the Tesco store. He cracked an egg, sucked it dry in front of me, and offered to shake my hand.

I declined.

The Chinese place was even nice enough to give me some Styrofoam to eat with the lamb!

Also, they have this really weird soda called "Irn Bru." According to some stuff I've read, it's supposed to be Scotland's national drink.

Behind scotch, of course.

After a good night's sleep, I woke up to a wonderful English breakfast provided by the B&B. Sausages, eggs, baked beans, and toast. With orange marmalade. And tea. Naturally.

I set off for the most obvious tourist attraction: Edinburgh Castle. The Black Dinner occurred here, George R.R. Martin's inspiration for Game of Thrones' Red Wedding. On the way, I spotted my first bagpiping street performer. He was near a big monument thingy. I can't remember what the monument was for.

 The castle in the distance.

 This is the location where the Black Dinner took place: David's Tower. It has since fallen into disrepair.

 The royal treasures were, of course, awesome, but I wasn't allowed to take pictures. I did snag a shot of a replica of the royal sword, however. Looks like a big ole sucka.

 Each cardinal direction of the castle has a battery to defend it. This was the east battery.

 And this is a big guddam gun.

And THIS is the one o'clock gun. Guess what they do with it? You're such a great detective. They fire it at one o'clock. Not AM, though, just PM. I'm including a video of the firing. It's a minute or so before he actually fires, so skip from around 00:25 to about 02:40.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENPATenCIsQ&feature=youtu.be

 There's Arthur's Seat in the background, my next stop. It's a little mountain/hill thing to climb.

 After the castle, I took a journey down to the kilt makers right next to the castle and perused the wares. I wanted one so badly; I was about 2 seconds from buying one when my better judgement got a hold of me.

 On the way to Arthur's Seat (a big freakin hill in the middle of Edinburgh), I ran into a Pict. So, I got a citizen to take a... uh..

Take a... PICTure.

Sorry.

 A second bagpiper. Female this time!

 The Elephant House is known for being the place of J.R.R. Tolkien when he was first writing his story of Harry Skywalker in the fantasy series Star Trek.

And by J.R.R.Tolkien I mean J.K. Rowling. And by Harry Skywalker I mean Harry Potter. And by Star Trek I mean Harry Potter.

 On the way to the Great Freakin Mound I went to the National Museum of Scotland. Not too excited about it, but I thought I may find some cool stuff in there. I liked the natural exhibits.

 I couldn't bear this picture.

 Aaaaand here's Arthur's Seat. Doesn't look too steep, I thought!

 Hah! Just kidding. It was fairly steep.

 It was here that I realized I was not, in fact, climbing Arthur's Seat, but the Salisbury Crags. After a couple of swears, I located the ACTUAL giant mound of dirt I was aiming to climb. This is it in the distance.

 From up some of the hundreds of stairs that compose the way up Arthur's Seat.

 Here I am, almost to the top. Just a little more to go. There were several rock doodles on the side of the mountain, like "X loves Y!" and a heart made of stones with "C + B" in it. And one that I probably shouldn't post on a school blog.

 Made it to the top!

 On the way back down, I saw a little chapel ruin and went to see what it was. Nothing crazy, but it's kinda cool.

 Post-hiking-up-a-guddam-wannabe-mountain treat. It was probably one of the best tasting ice cream cones I'll ever have. It tasted of victory.

 I passed by a pub and had  to take a picture of the name. I'm a huge fan of the Simon Pegg and Nick Frost movie The World's End, so I had to get a shot of this.

 For dinner: haggis. Haggis with neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes). I had a steak pie after this (this was an appetizer). Haggis gets a bad rep for its description; it's actually reaaaaaally tasty.

 After dinner, everything was starting to close down, so I went to the local ghost tour of Edinburgh. Heard some of the chilling tales that are told in the city. Learned about Burke and Hare (two of the most successful serial killers). And also met Jeff and Roxanne. They were visiting from Canada, and extended a welcome to me. So I talked with them for the duration of the tour that our guide wasn't talking. They were really nice! They shot a photo of me when we were going down into the vaults below Edinburgh. Aaaaand at this point, I noticed the little glowing lights next to me in the photo. In the ghost world, these are called "orbs" and are the sign of ghosts? I'm not entirely sure; I never put much stock into the lore of ghosts. It's kinda cool, regardless. Maybe a ghost was chilling next to me!