Exam Time Trip

These past three weeks have been the exam period here at Glasgow University. Jacob and I were lucky enough to have an essay due the first week and now he has another essay due this last week and I have an exam. When the year started we had hoped that maybe our exams would be in the beginning of the exam period so that we could start our European adventure early, but, of course, we couldn't be that lucky. It could have been worse though. With this set up were able to take last week off and do a mini trip to Edinburgh and London. What follows is the stories and pictures from that trip.

We took a bus down to Edinburgh on Tuesday. It was only a pound per ticket, which was super nice. We were late to get on the bus that we booked (oops), but the nice man on the next bus allowed us to ride with him. We got into Edinburgh and the first order of business was to find our hostel, which we managed to do without any trouble (surprising, I know). There was still plenty of day light left after we got all settled in, so we decided to visit the National Museum of Scotland. We had been there before on one of our previous trips, but it was so huge that we weren't able to see it all the first time. We found a real rock lobster (like actually a species of lobster called a rock lobster), figured out what animal was our same weight, and saw some huge sparkly rocks. Overall, a fun visit.

See number 15 for the name of the above creature

Jacob weighed as much as a grey wolf, it's more than just his spirit animal, I guess.

I weighed almost as much as a chimpanzee, also fitting I think.

Jacob touching the sparkly rock (amethyst) that was bigger than he was.

On the way back from the Museum we found people selling tickets for the Ghost Bus tour. We had been wanting to go on this tour since we were in Edinburgh last time, but by acting only mildly interested, we got discounted tickets (Yes!!) for that night's tour.

I'm not usually one to like a tour like this, but I had high hopes because the guy said it was more of a comedy tour and it was going to have historical elements as well. Most of the tour was very good. We learned that the bus we were on used to be part of the London Necrobus company that would serve as transport for a dead person and their families from the church where the funeral was held to the grave site.

We heard a few ghost stories that centered on Edinburgh. For example, a woman name Maggie who was hanged in Edinburgh. When she was on the bus from the execution site to the cemetery she was heard scratching on the inside of her coffin. Miraculously she had survived the hanging. The sentence at the time did not say that the accused must be hanged "until dead", so technically she had served her sentence and was free to go. She lived out the rest of her long life known as "half-hanged Maggie".

We also heard the story of William Burke and William Hare. These two men lived in Edinburgh at the time when the university was very interested in human anatomy and needed lots of human bodies to dissect. Unfortunately, they were only allowed to use the bodies of criminals for their experiments. They would pay a good chunk of money to third parties who could sell them usable bodies. This led to people like Burke and Hare making a career out of "body snatching" or digging up fresh graves and  selling those bodies. Perhaps this job got to dangerous or too difficult, or maybe, not enough people were dying fast enough, but whatever the reason, Burke and Hare decided to start making fresh bodies of their own, murdering people. They killed 16 people before they were caught. Hare sold out his partner for his own freedom. He lived the rest of his life in Germany, but Burke was executed and then publicly dissected at the university (poetic justice if I saw it). They took the skin from his back to make a binding for a book that is still on display in Edinburgh.

We visited a graveyard and heard about the ghost of a little girl who wanders around there. She doesn't have any eyes in her sockets and it's said that if you look into those empty sockets then you only have three days left to live. She is said to attract your attention by tugging on the back of your coat. Of course when we heard that, Jacob couldn't help but tug on the back of my coat. What a jerk, right?

There were many other stories that we can tell you when we get back if you are really interested. It wasn't too scary until then end when they started making scary noises on the bus and showed a ghost girl coming up the stairs and screaming for someone to get out of her seat. I'm glad we did it, but I don't think I would do it again.

One of the most exciting things we did in Edinburgh was climb Arthur's Seat. There are two hills on either end of the Royal Mile (the road leading from the historic castle to Holyrood Castle that is still the Queen's residence for the first week of every summer when she visits Edinburgh). The first hill holds the historic castle, the other is Arthur's Seat, is easily climbed, and offers great views of the whole of Edinburgh. It took us two climbs to actually figure out. The first time we took a path that just brought us about halfway up and then all the way around. The next day we found that path that brought us up to the top and it was well worth it.

The castle rock from Arthur's Seat

The side of the cliff

The first path we took

The real top

King Arthur?

Jacob surveying his kingdom

on the other side of that rock face

"Everything the light touches..."

Jacob scaring the crap out of me.

"scaring the crap out of me" zoomed in

Looking back on the seat

A few more highlights of Edinburgh: seeing the tartan mill in action, finding Tom Riddle's grave, and stumbling upon some strange hippy gathering.

Tom Riddle was an actual person! Hopefully this guy was not as mean as the Tom Riddle in Harry Potter

Just making tartan

I don't know what they are doing, but the one guy looks like Aragorn.
There were also people dressed like birds, and more people with different-colored dreadlocks than I could count. 

On Friday we were on a bus to London. That is quite literally all we did Friday. The bus ride was 10 hours, but infinitely cheaper than the 7 hour train ride. Once arriving in London, it was dark and we had no idea how to get to the hostel. We walked around, found wifi, and discovered that the hostel was more than an hour's walk away. We were thinking this would be too much to walk with our heavy backpacks so we looked for a bus that would get us there. Once we found a bus, however, we learned that they don't sell tickets on the bus like they do here in Scotland, but you have to go to a subway station to get a ticket (why, I still have no idea). We ended up walking around for about an hour anyway looking for said subway station. By the time we got there we realized there was a subway that would get us pretty close so we just took that for simplicity's sake, goodness knows we needed some simplicity at that point in the night.

When we finally got to the hostel, we were not impressed. The rooms were cramped, hot, and dirty. There was an ungodly light streaming through the window, making it impossible to see and too bright for sleeping at the same time. The window was open, which would have been to counteract the heat, but it was Friday night and loud drunk people were walking around screaming and singing, and every car that passed was super loud. It a miracle we got any sleep at all.

Me being disgusted at the room situation in the hostel

The real adventure began the next day. We woke up early enough to eat breakfast (which was included -up side- but contained nothing but carbs - down side) and tried to make the free walking tour that left at 10. We didn't make the tour leaving from the hostel, but there was another one leaving from somewhere in the city an hour later that we were sure we could catch. This was our first mistake. We soon realized just how spread apart everything in London was and how far away everything was from the hostel. An hour passed and we were not even close. That's okay, we would walk around and make the tour that left at 1 right? Wrong! We got to the meeting place, a huge outdoor market and then needed to find the apple store and arrived about 5 minutes after the tour left. We consoled ourselves by watching some street performers instead.

You can't tell from here but this man is a moving statue who appears to be
levitating a few feet from the the ground. I have no idea how!

A very funny magician

After the street performers we decided to just wonder around and see some of the iconic sites.

View of Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye from the Waterloo Bridge

Jacob tried to get a closer up picture but a bus came right as he snapped it (this happened twice in a row)

A Malaysian food festival we stumbled upon

Shakespeare's Globe!!!!

Me with my head up a giant horse head's nostril in Hyde Park

Buckingham Palace

The iconic palace guard

We learned quickly that what seemed like a short distance on the map was really about an hour's walk away and ended the day with dying feet and legs and still more than an hour from our hostel. We toughed out the walk back, but it nearly killed us. We probably walked 10 miles that day. For us privileged western folk that's a huge deal.

We got the walking tour leaving from the hostel the next day. It was one the best things we ended up doing in London. We visited many of the iconic sites we had taken pictures of the day before, but got some history and some stories to go along with them.

The alley that inspired Nockturn Alley in the Harry Potter movies

Trafalgar Square 

 Here we learned about the actual battle of Trafalgar and the man on the top of that big pillar, Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson. His battle techniques are still studied today, apparently. The story of the battle is really an interesting one, but too long for this blog post. If you are interested, I can tell it when we get back.

The road leading to Buckingham Palace, all decorated with flags for the new royal baby.

Changing of the guard

Buckingham Palace again

While pointing out Buckingham palace, the guide told us a few stories of famous break-ins. There was one of a man dressed like Batman who walked around on the roof trying to find a way in. The most fascinating and successful break-in, however, was performed by a homeless artist named Michael Fagin. He broke into the palace in 1982 and is said to have visited every room in palace, taken a bottle of alcohol from Prince Charles' bedroom, eaten food from the kitchen, and made it to the Queen's bedroom, where he proceeded to have a 15 minute conversation with the Queen before being caught. The funniest part is that they couldn't charge him for anything once he got caught. He had got in through and open window so they couldn't charge him for "breaking and entering" and for him to be charged with trespassing the Queen would have to press charges, which she wasn't going to do. What a guy! Because of this, however, there is now a law against trespassing on royal property that doesn't require the affected party to press charges.

Leading to signs like these.

After the tour we meandered back to the Globe because we had tickets to see The Merchant of Venice that night. It was so incredibly cool! We got 5-pound tickets that required us to stand, but we were also right next to the stage. The actors actually interacted with us. In the beginning a man was parading a prostitute around the stage. He asked Jacob if he was interested. He didn't respond, which he attributes to a lack of hearing and understanding ;). It's okay though, because, being a good wife, I answered for him. Two people were pulled on stage for one scene. Beyond this personal interaction the play was just so good. We had never seen this play before, but we had both read it. It was a really cool experience. I would do it every weekend if I lived in London. 5 pounds a ticket? heck yes!

Waiting outside with our program

We could literally touch the stage! Only one row of people was in front of us.

The nobles and the peasants 

The last day we managed to get out again despite being pooped and sore from two whole days of non-stop walking. We visited the British Museum and saw some mummies and the Rosetta Stone. We also visited Baker's street and walked around the Sherlock Holmes shop. It was a nice slow and relatively restful day.

British Museum

A Rosetta Stone replica (we saw the real one too, but this picture was better)

Mummy!

221 B Baker Street

We got back to Glasgow on Tuesday. We have spent the last couple of days resting our feet and muscles and recovering from a little cold. We also went to another doctor's appointment and heard the baby's heartbeat! It's nice to be home, but we will have to say goodbye soon and head off for Europe. Stay posted for more adventures.

Cheers!
Jessie and Jacob