Scotland Trip!

                Included in our program fees was a 4 day trip to Scotland (granted, 2 of the days were spent driving, so it was really only 2 days we spent in Edinburgh [pronounced Ed-in-bura]).  On the way there, we travelled through the city of Richmond and had a 2 hour lunch break there, so we got a chance to explore the Richmond Castle.  We stayed at the University of Edinburgh, Pollack Hills, which is just outside the city center of Edinburgh.  After arriving the first evening and settling into my room, I walked into and around town with 3 other girls, just to explore and get a feel for the city.

                On Friday I started the day with a walk/hike up to Arthur’s Seat, which is a large hill that overlooks the city and the ocean.  Thankfully it decided to start raining when we got back to the bottom.  We arrived at the Scottish Parliament and I walked around with 3 others and explored the public areas.  This was a very interesting building architecturally, because it’s very modern artsy and not what you would expect from a Parliament building in Great Britain.  In the debating chamber, the backs of the gallery chairs were in the shape of Scotland! 

                After eating lunch, we went to the National Museum of Scotland where a fellow from Cambridge specializing in Medieval Scotland showed us around and told us the meaning behind some of the medieval artifacts.  It was a neat museum, which detailed the chronology of Scotland, starting with the oldest at the bottom and the most recent at the top.  I preferred the top half of the museum to the bottom half and especially liked watching a short documentary where Scottish individuals were interviewed about various topics.  There was also a very neat glass exhibit, with beautiful works of art constructed entirely from glass! 

                We ate dinner, looked at the front of the Edinburgh castle, and walked back to Pollack Halls.  That evening, the Cambridge staff had arranged a Scottish dance for us, called a Ceilidh, which was akin to Scottish line dancing.  There was a very good band dressed in kilts, comprised of 3 people, one on drums, one on fiddle, and one on guitar.  They instructed us on how to do the dances and played some excellent music.  Although it got a little hot in the room after some epically long dances, it was really really fun and I’m so glad I got a chance to experience Scottish dancing!

                On Saturday I signed up for a hike in the Trossachs, which they called the Scottish Highlands in miniature.  This hike took a while, but was totally worth it because of the absolutely beautiful scenery!  It was definitely an adventure, as many times it seemed the only path there was was from people ahead of me in the group.  My shoes got very muddy and wet (I put them in the washer when I got home from Cambridge…I didn’t realize you could wash shoes!) and it was a very taxing experience, but I really feel like I accomplished something and had a great time getting to know people better on the hike and challenging myself physically.  They warned us heavily before the hike about bringing a waterproof top because it usually rains, but we got extremely lucky and it didn’t rain on us once! 

                After returning and showering, I went with some friends to a restaurant called The Elephant House, which is where JK Rowling wrote some of her early Harry Potter novels.  Our table had an excellent view of Edinburgh Castle and it was a fun experience, especially going into the bathroom, which was covered with Harry Potter graffiti. 

                On Sunday we drove back to Cambridge, by way of Fountain’s Abbey.  We had another 2 hour lunch break here and we got to see the ruins of Fountain’s Abbey, which were very nice.  Overall, it was a really fun trip to Scotland!   

Cambridge at Last!

7-3-11

                Last night we flew into Heathrow from Italy and finally got to the hotel around 12:30am, after the most expensive cab ride of my life.  It turned out that a glitch in the hotel’s computer system caused the hotel to overbook by 38 rooms and after much discussion with my dad and the hotel staff, we were moved to a different hotel, which they comped.  This hotel turned out to be this fabulous 5 star hotel and I wish it wasn’t 2am when I got there, so I could have enjoyed/explored it a little more. 

                After we woke up, we took a cab to the hotel my parents and brother were staying in in London near King’s Cross station.  We ate lunch and then got on the train to Cambridge to start my adventure!  My dad got tickets on the fast train to Cambridge, so the ride was only 45 (no stops!) and it went really quickly because we talked to this very nice woman from England the whole ride.  We took a cab to King’s College, where my check in was for the program.  My parents helped me bring my bags up to my room, which was great because there is no elevator in my building.

                So my dorm room is actually on the King’s College campus and I can see the River Cam from my window!  All of the rooms are singles and include a sink and have a shared bathroom and shared mini-kitchen.  My room is huge!  It also provides great exercise because it’s on the top floor of a tall and narrow spiral staircase, making it feel very medieval.  My parents and I parted ways and I went on a short city tour with one of the PA’s (Program Assistants, kind of like RA’s).  I met more people at dinner that evening and spent the remainder of the evening unpacking and settling in.

Week 1: Cambridge

                This week was definitely very busy!  I’m taking two classes this module (4 week period – there are 2 of them in my program), “Varieties of English” and “Creativity and Business Innovation.”  I like both of my classes, but the Creativity and Business Innovation fellow (what they call professors) expected us to have quite a bit of reading done those first couple days and I really just didn’t have time to do it and so I felt a little lost in some of the lectures/seminars (the equivalent of a discussion).  We had a formal hall on Monday evening which is a formal dinner where everyone sits at long tables and is kind of Harry Potterish.  Tuesday evening held a Plenary Lecture, which is a lecture by a particular person on a given topic.  The topic of this lecture was “Why is Cambridge Unique?” and it was interesting to listen to because I learned some additional history about Cambridge.  On Wednesday afternoon I went on a historical tour of Cambridge, which focused on a handful of colleges.  Cambridge University is composed of 32 (I think) colleges, such as King’s College, Trinity College, St. John’s College, etc. 

                On top of all of these evening events and class, I had laundry to do, a room to fully unpack, food to buy, articles to read, etc.  Needless to say, those first three days were very busy and a little overwhelming, especially because I was trying to meet people and make friends on top of all of this. 

More on our 4 day Scotland trip coming soon! 

Roma!

6-30-11: Roma, Italia

          We got off the cruise in the morning and took a taxi to our hotel in Rome.  It's called Hotel Emona and is in the southwest corner of Central Rome.  After putting our luggage away, we went to the mini mart and bought bus tickets and took the #3 bus to the Coliseum.  My dad bought tickets in advance, which I highly recommend if you go, because you skip the whole line.  The Coliseum was definitely a very neat place to visit and I really enjoyed soaking up the history and imagining Gladiator fights!  There was a Nero exhibit and altogether was a very neat stop.  

          We walked by the Roman Forum and observed from the street, but didn't go in.  We ended up in the Piazza Venezia, which had a very cool and huge building.  I'm still not quite sure what it's for, but it was still a cool building.  We stopped just above the piazza for some gelato and bottled water.  This was the largest and most expensive ice cream/gelato I've ever had in my life, but it taught me a valuable lesson: always ask about prices and sizes before ordering.  

          We then proceeded to the Pantheon, which is not all what I expected it to look like.  I was expecting some sort of large white building with many columns, but it's an old brown building with a giant dome.  Alex tells me that building a dome in those times is very hard and that's why it was so impressive, and I'm sure he's correct.  

          Next was the Piazza Navona, which was also huge and very impressive (are you getting the theme here?...things in Rome are huge and impressive).  There was a beautiful fountain in the middle and the whole middle walkway was lined with artists and very nice paintings.  The large domed structure is a church (not surprising - many of the large and fancy buildings here are churches, so it's generally a good guess if you don't know what something is).  It was very ornate, like most of the churches are here.  

         Finally we went to the Trevi Fountain, which is not at all what I was expecting.  I was expecting a circular fountain that was large and nice, but ordinary.  This fountain was gigantic and more rectangular.  The statues took up most of a wall and besides being crowded, it was very nice and peaceful.  I threw a penny into the fountain and made a wish so that was neat.  I saw other people standing backwards and throw the coin over their shoulders, so I just did it to.  I'm not sure if that's what you're supposed to do - it's possible that one person decided to do that and everyone else just thought that was the right thing to do, so who knows.  

          We returned to the hotel to learn that the free wifi worked (it didn't earlier in the day), so that was pretty awesome, because I hadn't really been able to do much in terms of internet usage on the cruise and I was getting pretty behind on things.  We went to dinner at a cafe and it was very yummy.  I had some pasta and a soda.  It's amazing how common pizza and gelato are here!  You'd think people would get tired of eating that all the time, but I guess not.  

          Looking back at the day, we were very impressed with how much we saw in one day!  We were worried that 3 days in Rome wouldn't be enough, but we hit a lot of the main sights in one day!

7-1-11

          Today we started out at the Spanish Steps, and they were very anticlimactic.  In pictures, they had flowers dividing the stairs into 3 sections, but there were no such flowers to be seen and they just looked like ordinary stairs to me.  We went to the top and enjoyed the nice view.  We proceeded to walk through some nice gardens.  We had lunch (pizza again...surprise!) and then went to a Leonardo Di Vinci museum that showed his inventions.  

          Next, we meandered our way to the Vatican, passing over the Tevere River.  We went into St. Peter's Basilica, which is probably the largest building I've ever seen in my life!  It was very ornate and impressive.  Make sure you wear clothing that covers your shoulders and knees (at least not shorts) so you can get in.  My dad had arranged a nighttime tour of the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel and so went over to meet up for that.  Again, this is a good place to buy tickets in advance (just for the Vatican Museums, not necessarily a tour).  The tour guide was very knowledgeable and I really enjoyed hearing commentary about the Vatican.  Because I don't know very much about religion, I think taking a tour helped me get a lot more out of what I was seeing.  The rooms of the Vatican Museums were again huge and impressive.  They just kept going and going and going....The Sistine Chapel was very nice, but started to hurt my neck a little bit from looking up at the ceiling for so long.  The guide told us the Sistine Chapel was the first painting Michelangelo had ever done and before that he was just a sculptor, so that's pretty amazing.  I'm amazed at how all the buildings are so big and grand for such a small countries (the smallest in the world).  I can now say I've been to the 2 smallest countries in the world (Vatican City and Monaco), so that's pretty neat.

7-2-11

          Today we didn't really have anything specific planned, so we did a little bit of wandering.  We took a bus from our hotel to Termini Station and went from there.  We looked around Termini Station, looked at the Piazza della Repubblica, and saw other neat things.  The neat thing about Rome is you can just wander and stumble upon something magnificent.  We saw some more churches, which were again all huge and ornate.  I feel like all of the churches were competing with each other to see who could build the biggest and grandest church.  I'm now sitting in the hotel lobby writing this and a taxi will be here at 6pm to pick us up and take us to the airport.  Our flight to London leaves around 9pm and then we'll stay there overnight and train in Cambridge tomorrow!

The Last Day of the Cruise: Naples, Italy

6-29-11: Naples (Napoli), Italy

In Naples, there was a little debate about what we were going to do.  One idea was to go to Pompeii and Sorrento and we were about to agree to a price with a taxi driver when another taxi driver we had been talking to earlier about a similar idea came over and got really angry at us and started yelling at the taxi driver we were talking to in Italian and it looked like they were about to get into a fist fight.  Needless to say, we abandoned that option and went with a different taxi driver on a panoramic drive of the coast and then he dropped us off at the Archaeological Museum.  The drive was a little bit crazy, to say the least, but beautiful nonetheless.  We saw some breathtaking views and thankfully didn't fall of the side of the cliff.  Our taxi driver drove down some pretty narrow streets and my favorite was the tiny street vendor area he drove down where there were basically people standing against both sides of the car.  

The Archaeological Museum was very nice and held ruins from Pompeii, so we still got to see a glimpse of it. I believe a lot of the ruins were reconstructions, but I'm not completely sure.  Most of these statues had their heads on, which is refreshing, as many of the ruins you see are headless statues.