Reading and Recreation Week

Last week was Reading and Recreation (R&R) Week at ASE. Now I originally thought R&R week stood for rest and relaxation, but that was silly of me. Why would they allow us relaxation! Instead last week really should have been called Stress-out-because-papers-are-due-next-week-but-you-have-no-time-to-write-them-because-you-have-to-go-on-mandatory-trips-week. However, while I actually got no work done, let alone any reading, I did have a fantastic time on the trips.

Broadway Tower

On Monday headed to Broadway - yes, I'm that close to Broadway :) Broadway is a tiny village in the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds were once immensely rich villages because they had basically had all the sheep, and as a result being the center of textile industry. Our stop in Broadway was the Broadway Tower. The Tower reminded of a fairy tale tower, especially Rapunzel. However, the tower did not hold any princesses with long golden hair. Instead this tower was created in 1799 for a Lady Coventry, just so she could look outside her window of her house, see the tower, and say "that's mine." Broadway Tower is a "folly" - basically, a totally pointless structure built by rich people to show how much money they have and can spend.

After spending some time in the Tower, we headed to the village of Broadway via a 40 minute hike along the Cotswold way. The hike was awesome and the scenery was beautiful. We climbed over fences and gates, walked through muddy fields - at one point we even walked through a field of SHEEP!

View from the top of the Tower

Cotswold Way

SHEEP!

After arriving in the center of the village, we hopped back on the bus and headed to Bourton on the Water for lunch. Bourton on the Water is labeled the Venice of the Cotswolds because there is a fun river running through the center of the village. After Bourton, we hopped back on the bus and drove to the Chavenage House. The tour of this house was one of the best possible tours I have taken yet (besides the ones given by Andrew Butterworth). The tour guide was a member of the family who actually still lives in part of the house. Our tour guide was absolutely hilarious. She, and her dogs, took us around the house and told us funny stories about the house's history and the family. After the tour, she and her sister gave us an incredible tea time, complete with cucumber sandwiches, scones, cakes, and excellent tea!

Early Thursday morning, we once again hopped on the bus to debark on our last programme trip - Glastonbury and Wells. As we started forth to our first destination, Wells, Lindsay started playing Hot Fuzz --  an awesome movie staring Simon Pegg that was filmed in.... (drum roll please)... WELLS. ***By the way, Dad, I will watching this movie with you the moment I return, because you will absolutely love it*** The moment I entered Wells, I easily recognized sites from the film. Andrew Butterworth gave us a lovely tour of the town and cathedral, which was excellent. I saw a moat at the Bishop's Palace -- yes, the Bishop got a Palace.

The fountain where the "hoodlums" are hanging out at the beginning.

The Wells Cathedral -- where the fund-raising carnival was held.

We next traveled to Glastonbury and the Tor. I was aware the the Glastonbury Tor was a hill, but as the bus got closer and closer to our destination, the hill quickly became the hill of doom. It was quite a climb up -- however, totally worth it. This hill, the Glastonbury Tor, is actually the legendary Isle of Avalon. Originally, Glastonbury use to be an island, surrounded by water. King Arthur supposedly sailed here after being wounded at his last battle. (Glastonbury Village is a village of new-age magic, with shops full of crystals, herbs, magical amulets, etc.) Next, we headed to the Glastonbury Abbey, the site where King Arthur and Queen Guenevere 's graves were reportedly found.

Glastonbury Tor

I made it to the top!

The final resting spot of King Arthur and Queen Guenevere

Basically it was a lovely week, ignoring my enormous work load. And I was able to end the week by seeing HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS. IT WAS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC. The best HP film I have seen yet. (Don't worry I won't spoil anything). I thought the seven potter scene was superbly done. One of my favorite parts of the film (and I was worried about how they were going to tell the tale) was how they told the audience the Tale of the Deathly Hallows. It was so different and interesting, and absolutely excellent. I also loved that they took some lines exactly word for word from the book. Also, Alan Rickman was fantastic! In the end, I only had one complaint -- however, if I told you what that was, I would spoil a bit of the movie. Overall, 5 stars! 

Edinburgh

So, I've been really busy catching up on reading teaching in my school placement and I apologize for that because I have not blogged about the second (and possibly best) part of my mid semester break.

On Monday, Erin and I left Dublin and headed onward to Edinburgh, Scotland.After riding three different bus for two hours, we finally found the Priestville Guesthouse. Now, if you are ever going to go and visit Edinburgh, you must stay at the Priestville Guesthouse. I felt like I was spending a week at my grandparents house. The room was great and Colin (the owner) provided us with tea and biscuits in our room everyday. When we arrived, they gave us maps (which we much needed) and a map they had made with suggested restaurants to go to. The Guesthouse even had a video library, where we watched Seven and Happy Gilmore (it down poured one night). Also, since Erin and I could never finish our huge Continental breakfast, Colin turned our rolls into cheese and butter sandwiches for us to eat later on - he even did this the we left so we had a snack on the train, so sweet!

On our first day in Edinburgh, we did a New Europe Walking Tour. I would highly recommend this tour (and a huge thanks to Kelly for this recommendation). The New Europe Walking Tour is a three walking tour (free but tip based), which brings you throughout the city of Edinburgh, pointing out all the sights. I saw the Elephant House where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter, Edinburgh Castle, St. Giles Cathedral (where Sean Connery was knighted), and much more. We stopped outside this one pub called Maggie Dickson Pub, which has an interesting tale attached to it. 

Maggie Dickson was a women who was deserted by her husband in the early 18th century. As a result, Maggie  left Edinburgh and moved to the countryside where she started working at an inn. Not long after, Maggie fell in love with the Innkeeper's son and she soon became pregnant. However, Maggie concealed the pregnancy successfully, for if the innkeeper found out she would be forced to leave. Maggie concealed the pregnancy until the baby was born. Yet, sadly, the baby was stillborn, so Maggie decided to continue hiding the baby's existence by disposing the body in the nearest river. This plan would have work, except for the fact that two men saw what Maggie was doing and brought her back to Edinburgh to be arrested and tried. What was Maggie arrested for? Not adultery (since she was still married to her husband when she had the affair), not for disposing a human body down a river (for it was illegal), but for concealing the pregnancy. Maggie was found guilty and hanged. After the hanging, she was pronounced dead and her body was brought to the local cemetery. However, her body never arrived to the cemetery because during the journey, the driver heard a knock coming from the coffin. When the driver lifted the lead, out popped Maggie, quite alive. Since Maggie could not be tried for the same crime twice, she was free to live. Maggie was also freed from her marriage - since "it's till Death do us part", and Maggie was technically dead.
Our second day was spent walking around the city doing a ton of sightseeing. As we were in the National Museum of Scotland searching for Dolly the sheep (who we did eventually find), we chatted with a really nice museum man who told us the man sight we had to go and see was the Rosslyn Chapel. So, the next day, after searching the internet and finding the right bus routes, we headed to Roslin. Roslin is a beautiful village and the chapel is gorgeous. The architecture within the chapel is absolutely exquisite. The chapel was a major feature in Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code, and was used as a location in the movie. Supposedly this chapel not only holds the holy grail, but also the ark of the covenant and the real stone of destiny. The chapel was founded in 1446. Within the chapel there are many symbols connecting to the Knights Templar and the Freemasons. Also, within the chapel are so carvings of Indian corn (maize). However, the chapel was built before Columbus technically discovered America, so how did these carvings come to be?
 Overall, my trip to Edinburgh was absolutely fabulous. I would have loved to spend more time there and would love to go back. 

A Glimpse of Erin

 Erin is the romantic name poets in the nineteenth-century would  use for Ireland. Erin is also the Welsh name for Ireland. 

DAY ONE
I arrived in Dublin, Ireland with Erin late Thursday evening, after spending 6 1/2 hours traveling. The Abbot Guesthouse turned out to be on a street with just about every other B&B hotel in Dublin.Our first stop in Dublin was the James Joyce Centre. While Erin and I had fun imitating Joyce and reading one of his Children books The Cat and the Devil, the centre was not worth its fee. However, our next stop, which was also my favorite place of the day, was the Irish Writer's Museum, and that was definitely worth every penny. Within this museum I saw first editions of The Faerie Queen, Dracula, Ulysses, and works by Charles Maturin (sadly not Melmoth), Oscar Wilde, Yeats, etc. We also went to the Hugh Lane Museum since it was right next door and completely free. This museum was...interesting. Galleries two through five were closed because they were short staffed, but I was able to see two Monet paintings. After these three museums, Erin and I were museum-ed out, so we decided to test our our map skills and head down to Grafton Street & Temple Bar for some shopping. We went to Bewley's Cafe for dinner, which was an excellent dinner that finally wasn't pub food. I had chicken, spinach penne dish with tomato sauce. I got a brownie sundae for dessert and Erin got a slice of apple pie. I tried some of Erin's pie and let me tell you, British apple pie is nothing like American apple pie.

DAYS TWO & THREE:
Day two was spent wandering around some more and getting lost. The first stop was Trinity College, where we took a tour of the campus. We also went to see the Book of Kells, which is the illuminated copy of the four gospel in Latin, and held in the Old Library at Trinity College. It was written over one thousand years ago, in the early 9th century, by the monks of Iona. The book of Kells is absolutely beautiful and definitely worth seeing. Next to the Writer's Museum, this was probably one of my favorite places we visited in Dublin. For lunch, Erin and I did take-away at a bagel shop and ate in St. Stephen's Green, which is a beautiful park. I could have stayed there all day if it hadn't been so windy and cold. In order to get away from the cold, we headed over to the National Museum of Archaeology. The best exhibit there was the Kingship and Sacrifice exhibit, which held a couple of bog bodies. What are bog bodies exactly??? They are bodies found in the bogs in Ireland. These bodies, because they were in the bog, were so well preserved that one could still see their skin. Archaeologists believe that these bodies were either sacrificed or persecuted for their deaths that were neither peaceful nor pretty. The rest of the evening was spent buying presents and eating dinner.   

View from the Gravity Bar

For our last day in Dublin, we met up with two other girls from the ASE programme, Kate and Liz. We spent the day doing a ton of sightseeing. First we saw Oscar Wilde's statue, went to Dublin Castle, and the Guinness Storehouse. The Dublin Castle was much more of a palace than a castle - it even had its own throne room! We also got to go down to see the excavation site where parts of the old Dublin Castle is (from the Viking era). The Guinness Storehouse was neat. I enjoyed the advertisement exhibit with all the different slogans. At the end of the exhibits, we were able to go up to the Gravity Bar and enjoy a pint of Guinness. Points of interest I was also able to see included:

The Irish President's House

St. Patrick's Cathedral
The O'Connell Monument
Phoenix Park
The President of Ireland's House
The Hotel US owns (and the Gilmore Girls stalked while in Ireland)