Bath, Sommerset

Headed out for a girls weekend in Bath, the sight of the only hot springs in England. We wandered through the city and visited the "circus" an amazing street of Georgian terraced buildings. Downtown is an amazing world heritage sight, the Roman baths that have been in the area for well over a thousand years. We spent a day enjoying the hot springs at Thermae Bath Spa and ate lunch in the Georgian Tea rooms. Definitely felt fancy! We ended the weekend by popping into a Medieval house to get a Sally Lunn bun, a type of bread that has been baked in Bath since the 1500s.

The Circus

                                                                        The Abbey

Newcastle Upon Tyne Girls Weekend May 2013

Headed to Newcastle Upon Tyne for a weekend with the Geordies! I absolutely loved this city. We had such a great time sight seeing and enjoying ourselves down by the river to watch the bridge blinking, check out the art gallery and have brunch. The city is built on a massive hill and with heels we definitely got our calves worked on that weekend!

Bridge "blinking"

Inside the art gallery, the old flour mill!

Up on top of the "new" castle with all the bridges in the background connecting Newcastle to Gateshead

The Angel of the North, one of the world's most viewed modern Art pieces.

Cardiff, Wales April 2013

We headed to the land of Wales and the birthplace of Roald Dahl! We checked out Cardiff Castle, a boat exhibition and the National Museum of Wales! We also sampled some local welsh dishes including cockles and brains beer! Yum!

All the little passes with tonnes of awesome shops and tea rooms!

Cardiff's national symbol...the dragon!

Interior of the Georgian addition to the castle.

Taking a little walk through Bute park (the Bute's were the richest family in Wales and occupied the Georgian House in the Castle )

Brains Pub, so nice on the outside, unfortunately the inside has been converted to a really tacky gay bar!

Scotland 2013

Scotland - April 2013

Spent a week in Edinburgh and a few days travelling through the Scottish Highlands. Definitely got my fill of Haggis and the crap scared out of me on a ghost tour. The tour brought us through the tunnels where thousands of poor people died, and back into greyfriars cemetary which is the home to a nasty poltergeist. Near the end of our absolutely terrifying tour a young girl passed out on her face on a mausoleum (with a chamber 100 ft deep underneath us). Needless to say it took a beer and a lot of laying in bed to fall asleep that night.

 The Scottish Highlands

The Lewis Chessmen... inspiration for Harry Potter! They were the massive chess pieces featured in the series and were carved from walrus ivory in the 12th century. They also feature a "beserker" biting down on his shield. The beserkers were the insane norse warriors who attacked the UK quite often....the vikings. (third in from the left hand side and second from the back row)

Holyrood House (the Scottish residence of the monarchy). Holyrood means "Holy Cross"  and this area is thought to hold a relic made from the actual Holy Cross.

Hiking up to Arthur's seat...the highest area in Edinburgh and looking down at Holyrood House.

It has been absolutely AGES since the last time I updated this thing! But I have somehow managed to lock myself out of my blog since October (go me!). I have had a very exciting and extremely busy last year in the UK.....I've been teaching Year 4 for the past few months and have absolutely been loving it! It's a big change from the secondary school I was at last year but I am really enjoying the kids.
I have had quite a few visits from friends and family this year and because of that I've been able to visit London several times and make my way through Scotland for the second time in a year....and Wales for the first time ever!
I'll try my best to keep this updated for those who have been asking about it....and will try not to slack too much this time! Updates about Scotland and Wales will be coming soon.

New School Year

It has been ages since I have updated this thing! I am slowly getting back into the swing of things in Birmingham and have just moved into a house off of Broad Street after enjoying five absolutely amazing sunny weeks in Canada (the majority being at Camp! woo hoo!). I'm really looking forward to another school year here and although I am currently back on the supply list, I am hoping that I'll soon land another LTO to get me through the rest of the school year. The year tends to fly by quickly so I am hoping that I will be able to see just as many amazing places as I did last year!

My new room in the house!

Our amazing HUGE kitchen!

Kayaking on Superior during summer break :)

The super neat looking Scottish Pound!

Even the taxis have tartans!

Greyfriar's Kirkyard.....Scariest Places on Earth

You can watch the episode of Scariest Places on Earth about Greyfriar's Kirkyard and the poltergeist haunting, it's a little bit cheesy but it does explain a lot about the Covenanter's prison from the 1600s.

Greyfriar's Kirkyard & Haggis

On our second day in Edinburgh we decided to visit Greyfriar's Kirkyard. This graveyard is really old and famous for two very different reasons. The first reason being that it was used as an open air prison in 1679 for over 1000 supporters of the National Covenant. The National Covenanters supported a document by the same name produced to help protect Scottish Churches from English influence.

The right hand side of this photo shows the old prison rooms, they were open to the elements and had simple iron gate in the doorway and no roof . They were later bought up by the Victorians and converted to burial sites. 

The second reason this graveyard is so popular is due to a Skye terrier named Bobby. The story goes that Bobby's owner Auld Jock died when Bobby was two. Bobby spent the next 14 years guarding his master's grave until his death. After his death he was buried just outside the church grounds (because he was an animal he wasn't allowed to be buried inside the walls of the Kirkyard).

Monuments to Greyfriar's Bobby

This was one of the coolest (and creepiest) graveyards I've ever been in. In one area of the yard the tombstones make up the back wall of homes while in another area all of the graves are covered by mortsafes (a contraption covering the area that stops the buried bodies from being disturbed....the biggest problem was the bodies being dug up and dissected by medical students) There are tons of stories involving the yard, it's use throughout history and famous hauntings.

Tombstones with homes built of the back

After finishing up in Greyfriar's Kirkyard we headed out to the National Gallery to view some amazing paintings and to a cute little pub for some lunch where I got to have Haggis for the first time. I actually loved it! It was a fancier version mind you, mostly ground lamb and less gut!

Edinburgh (still day one)

 The Castle on the way back down the hill

In a graveyard with the castle on the hill in the background...they don't fool around when it comes to headstones I am standing next to one of the smallest ones that we saw there!!

 Headstone of a man of the law

The Scott Monument (and in the foreground the road ripped up...they are putting in a tram system)

Edinburgh

After we were finished with Ireland we hopped a plane over to Edinburgh to see what Scotland had in store. Edinburgh is definitely one of the coolest looking cities I have ever been in! Everything is so old, dark, and slightly creepy looking. We decided to check out Edinburgh castle the first day we were in town. It was really cool but took a bit of a hike (uphill) to get to it. We did the full tour and some of our own wandering through the castle. It is still used as a military base and was never really meant to hold royalty but what it lacks in ornateness it definitely makes up for in brute strength, there are weapons or links to the military and wartime throughout the entire castle. The military museum is located here as well as various other small buildings dedicated to certain battalions (like the Dragoon Guards) and the half moon battery with the massive guns was definitely impressive.

half moon battery

Mons Meg made in 1449 as a gift to James II of Scotland, shoots cannon balls that weigh approximately 400 lbs.

The graveyard at the castle, not for soldiers but for their dogs....how sweet!

After we were finished up at the castle we wandered through a tartan manufacturer and went on the Scotch Whiskey experience both on the Royal Mile. The Scotch Whiskey Experience was so fun! I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. The tour involves information in the production of Scotch followed by a break down of the different types of Scotch from different regions and a smell test to determine what kind of Scotch suits your taste. After you are handed your Scotch in a rather fancy little glass you are led through to the world's largest collection of Scotch Whiskey. Literally thousands of bottles are in these cases.

Some things I learned during this experience:

1. Do not shoot back your Scotch like you are in high school, you are meant to hold it on your tongue to get the flavour, not trying to get drunk.

2. Adding water doesn't ruin your Scotch....but you are only supposed to add a few drops to open it up...not half a glass.

3. Swirling the Scotch around in the glass shows you the alcohol content (you can somehow tell by how slowly it drips down the side of the glass).....it also makes you look fancy (especially when you give it a little sniff afterwards).

Donegal and back to Dublin

We drove up to where Robyn's family is originally from. We stayed at a cute little hostel outside of Donegal town with sheep across the road! It was a beautiful drive up and there were such cute little towns all along the way with plenty of countryside to take pictures of.
We had breakfast in town and visited Donegal Castle before driving back to Dublin which was our most adventurous part of the trip. At one point we somehow ended up driving through Northern Ireland and after that we discovered some engine trouble. We pulled up to the car rental place in Dublin (lights flashing, barely able to hit the speed limit) but we managed to get the car back in one piece which is more then most can say about their experience driving on the wrong side of the road!

 The River Eske running through Donegal town

Donegal Castle

The recently renovated roof (done in legitimate medieval fashion - no nails used - all wood and pegs!)

Fire place in the Great Hall

The Cliffs of Moher

Well we decided it would be a fantastic idea to rent a car in Ireland, although we managed to bring it back in one piece (barely) it wasn't quite as terrifying as I thought it was going to be. We drove across the country to the Cliffs of Moher (about 3 hours of driving from Dublin). The cliffs were absolutely amazing! I've never seen or been so close to the edge of something that high from the water. The cliffs were formed on an ancient river bed. and you can see all the different layers on the sides as you move around. We decided to hike from the visitor center to Hag's Head...to do this you have to pass by a fence with a warning to move further along the trail at your own risk. I have to say it is a little scary at first knowing that you are about 15 inches from a huge drop (one of the highest points of the cliffs is 700 feet to the ocean!!!) but after wandering along the edge for a while you kind of get used to it. We did not realize when we started the hike how long it would take us on this terrifying trail. To Hag's Head (where an old lookout tower is located) and back to the visitor's center  takes around 3 hours and is roughly a ten kilometer hike. Distance can be deceiving when there are no trees and you can see so far!

 Amazing views!

 Hag's Head (supposedly resembles a woman's head looking out to sea)

Finally made it to Hag's Head

Looking back towards the visitor's center - with the Sea Arch

Dublin

We were lucky enough to have a week off in June that we managed to jam pack with travelling. We headed to Dublin first (after taking a four hour train followed by a four hour ferry ride) to spend a few days exploring the city. We stayed right downtown on Bachelor's walk and had a great time. I basically lived on Guinness for the entire time we were there (and it was amazing).
The first night we didn't do a whole lot of wandering around since we arrived in the city a bit late and it was pouring rain. We did wander into the famous (indie) Temple Bar area for dinner and did some souvenir shopping.
The next morning we woke up bright and early to head to the Guinness brewery. It was really neat, you wander through five floors of Guinness history through how it's made, advertising, merchandise through the years all the way up to the sky bar with 360 degree views of the city and a "free" pint (which turned out to be our breakfast that day)

After our beer adventure I had a little bit of a family reunion with the Swedish side! Recently we have managed to get in touch with some relatives and we found out that one (Pernilla) happened to be living in Dublin with her husband and a couple of super cute kids, we were invited to come meet for coffee and had a really nice time!

We popped around town for the rest of the afternoon checking out the sights including St.Stephen's Green, some shopping areas, and the River Liffy. Dublin is a really relaxed town and we were fairly happy to wander around and enjoy ourselves (it was slightly difficult to get around since we happened to be in town on the same weekend as the Formula 1 street races)

Temple Bar

The Stag's Head (a really cool little pub that we spent most of Sunday night in)