Stirling and Ghost Tour!

I know I said I'd write about this ages ago. Now I'm getting around to it. I'll try to be better about posting exciting things, because it makes me sad that I don't have daily updates from all the people whose blogs I'm following.

So, Stirling! I hopped on a train on a Saturday morning, for a grand total of 7.80 pounds and about an hour of travel to arrive in Sterling. We walked around a little, heading continually up a hill on our way to the castle.

On the way, we passed super exciting things like the following:
The entrance to the Old Town Jail! A grand tourist attraction that was closed and will continue to be closed for quite some time, apparently. :(
A Church with cannons!
And this delightful sign that tells us that we're approaching a 'Heavy Plant Crossing'. :)
Then we finally got to the castle!
Unfortunately, we picked potentially the worst day to go. It was very very foggy. In theory, Stirling's got some really pretty views. It was hard to tell however. That is, in fact, a picture of the castle, by the way.

Those are some pictures of the castle and an almost not super foggy picture of one of the views.

I would say that Stirling Castle is kinda like Edinburgh Castle but even more hokey. For example, I will show you a splendid picture from the great kitchen exhibition.
Yes indeed. It was a room full of fake men and fake food in theory to tell us how the food was done in the great kitchens. It was mostly just pretty ridiculous.
That's the surgical kit in the military museum that I probably wasn't allowed to take pictures of. For whatever reason, I couldn't get it to turn on this, but oh well.

Overall it was a fun day.

The following Tuesday, I went on a ghost tour! They took us around the city a little, told us some stories, and then took us down into the Edinburgh Underground Vaults. The vaults were originally used as storage for alot of business, but given their lack of waterproofing they weren't very good for it. It ended up often being housing for the city's poor. They told us all sorts of creepy stories and then took us for a free drink afterward. It was fun.

:)

Postcards!

I have every intention on posting about my day trip to Sterling and comment on the ghost tour I went on last night very soon. This is partially to remind myself to do that.

I also wanted to note, in case you didn't see this on facebook, that if you would like to get a super exciting postcard from Scotland, you should let me know. You should also make sure I have your address, because I can't send things without it. :)

Just putting that out there.

Down on the farm...

As part of my program, I'm required to do a weekend homestay to help us fully embrace British home life, or something. On Friday I headed off on a 3 hour drive to Penrith, England in the county of Cumbria. I ended up staying on a dairy farm about a half hour from Penrith, I think in the town of Kaber, but it was a little unclear.

We got there pretty late on Friday, so we didn't do too much. There was a calf born only a few hours earlier, so we got to see him before heading off to bed.

On Saturday we got up, had some breakfast and then headed outside. Apparently, they had the most snow that they'd had in about 20 years, so my host family wanted to go out sledding. (There were three kids, aged 7, 6, and 2.) They call it sledging.

This is the view from their backyard. The scenery was just beautiful all weekend.
This is Fluffy. Fluffy was their sometimes indoor, sometimes outdoor, sometimes neighbor's cat. She was very friendly.

This is a view of the farm from the house.
Sledding! We watched the kids sled for a while before walking around the field a bit to get a look at some sheep.
Sheep!!
We got to walk up really close to the sheep. We then headed onto the farm to get a look at the whole operation.
We got to see some cows!

After seeing the farm we went in and had some lunch. Then we went out to take a long drive to see more scenery.
On Sunday, we went out and did some more driving.
Then we grabbed some lunch and headed back to the bus.

It was an interesting weekend, although I'm glad to have it overwith so I don't have the obligation hanging over my head. That's about all that's happened.

First Trip!

I officially booked tickets to go visit Fiona in Madrid today. All I have left to do is find a hostel to stay in.

I'm going the last weekend in February.

Yay travel.