Plaid Party?

This weekend I stayed at Palace Court and tried to get some R&R while I cought up on homework. On Thursday night I went to a local pub with many girls from my house + Spencer (who also lives in Palace Court), and I went home early when the pub closed to go to sleep. Friday I worked on my to-do list and went grocery shopping/H&M shopping (since H&M is right next to Marks & Spencers in Whiteley's mall). At H&M I bought some clothes for Italy/Tucson, since I realized I did not bring a lot of warm-weather clothes that I can take to Italy at the end of this month. I'm really missing my sundresses. I literally only brought two pairs of shorts to London - one of them are Soffie cotton shorts. I may be sweating a lot in Italy, we'll see.



Speaking of Italy, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this, but Derek and I are planning to tour Italy for a week after my program ends on April 24th. We had to cut out some cities in the north due to his time constraint, since he won't be done yet. But we plan on flying into Florence, then heading to Siena -> Rome -> Naples. I haven't decided or looked at my funds yet, but I might want to visit Rachel in Bologna, too, if possible. We'll have to see. I really wanted to go to Greece while I'm abroad, but it's not looking like that can work out. Also, since I won't be going to Germany or Amsterdam due to my lack of time and people to travel with, hopefully I'll be able to return to that region and hit up Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Zurich, Bern, Munich, Berlin, and Prague all in one second grand European adventure.



Anyway, Saturday morning my roommates and I woke up and went to Portobello Road market. Even though it was raining slightly, it was still PACKED with tourists. I feel more like a local than a tourist these days, so I felt really embarrassed about my American accent. My roommate Audrey and I started saying "pah-den" instead of "excuse me" in order to cover up our accents when trying to maneuver around slow walkers (a great pet peeve of mine in crowded places). Speaking of the word pet peeve, they don't call it that here. I forget what it's called but my marketing processor looked at us like we were crazy when we said that phrase. But anyway, I ended up buying a metal sign at Portobello Road that I think I'll hang up in either my bedroom at home or my room in Tucson. It is the sign for Notting Hill Gate, which is really close to my house. Also, the three of us bought cupcakes from the famous cupcake store on Portobello Road, and mine was very delicious (chocolate with chocolate frosting and silver sugar ball sprinkles).



The rest of the weekend I hung around the house with my roommates and worked on homework, etc. Nothing to report, but it was fun to be able to relax. It's so weird that I'm nearing the end of my stay in London! I'm going to miss it sooooooo much.



P.S. I'm in the market for a fringe/tassel key chain for my purse and also a pair of metallic shorts to create an outfit like this that Ashley Olsen wore in Teen Vogue several years ago:


If you know where I can purchase either item at a relatively low price, please let me know!

I Really Like Your Music

Last weekend was so much fun! My friend Carly visited me from Wales, and her friends Michelle and Dominiqe stayed with me too. Michelle is also studying in Wales and Dominique is studying in Sevilla in the same program as Derek. All three girls go to University of Iowa.

Thursday night I went to Paddington station to pick up Carly and Michelle. We went straight back to Palace Court and hung out for a bit before going to Old Swan (a pub near by). We ordered Strongbows at about 11:40 without realizing that the pub closed at midnight. As the slow and inexperienced drinker that I am, especially when it comes to carbonated beverages, I was not finished with mine by the time they kicked us out. I needed Carly to help me out.

Then we went back to Palace Court and just talked and went to sleep until Dominique came. The only flight from Sevilla to London each day gets in around midnight at Stansted airport, so anyone visiting cannot use the tube once they take the Stansted Express to Liverpool Street tube station. So I guess Dominique took a bus and then a cab...which I'm sure was pretty chaotic.

Friday morning we woke up and went out touring. They wanted to do the hop on hop off bus tour, but I convinced them that I could navigate well enough that using the tube would save a lot of money. So we went to Harrods, Buckingham Palace, Parliament, inside Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, and Tower Bridge. It was a really fun and touristy day.

Dominique, Carly, Michelle, and me at Tower Bridge

Friday night we met my friends Conor and Brian at a pub called Hayfields over on the east end of London by the Stepney Green tube station. The neighborhood was not as nice as Notting Hill (but really? what should I expect?), but the pub was awesome! It had karaoke, pool, and couches to sit on. It was a very relaxed atmosphere, and I think we were the only non-Brits there. I really wish we had a pub like that around where I live. I'd definitely go back if it wasn't a 45 minute commute to get there. We left the pub at 1am when it closed and we didn't get home until 3pm because of trying to figure out the bus system. But I'm actually really proud of us that we figured it out all on our own!

The four of us at Hayfields pub

Saturday we woke up and took a 10am train to Cambridge from Liverpool Street. Cambridge was so pretty! We decided to walk from the train station to the campus, even though we didn't know where we were going. We just started following the people in front of us, who we assumed were headed towards Cambridge. During a walk, we found Zizzi and decided to eat lunch there. Little did we know, we were able to sit next to a giant window overlooking a Cambridge athletics field. It was a really cool location to eat. Also, our waiter, Neil, was really nice. He said he was in Cambridge law at Trinity College and gave us all of these tips on what to do while we were visiting. He kinda reminded us of Kevin the bad-ass mathematician and DJ from Mean Girls.

We walked to the campus after lunch and saw a graduation ceremony taking place. There were a TON of tourists there. I bought a Cambridge sweatshirt and a Starbucks (typical...but I was tired from waking up early). I am in love with my sweatshirt, though. I'm wearing it right now.

After walking around and exploring, we stumbled upon the Cam river punting tours that Neil had told us to do. So between the four of us we paid 35 pounds to get in a boat tour that is sort of like a gondola, where a Cambridge student stands and drives the boat. Our guy was really nice and knowledgeable, I think his name was Sip. The best part of the tour was watching four people on four different occasions fall into the river because they were inexperience punters and had just decided to rent a boat. Also, there were students dressed as pirates who were punting down the river, who we tried to befriend from our boat. Overall, I definitely recommend that experience if you go to Cambridge.

The dock where all of the punters were

Our tour guide punting us through the river Cam

The pirates we tried to befriend

The four of us on in the boat

Saturday night after we took the train back from Cambridge we took a nap and then went to Redcliffe Gardens to have the girls meet my friends. Basically we all just hung out in the lounge in the basement for a long time before deciding to go to Troubadour. Unfortunately, when we got to Troubadour it was closed because of a cockroach infestation (gross!!!), which was really weird because it is one of the nicer pubs that I've been to. So Evan, me, and the girls went to McDonald's since I hadn't eaten dinner and then took the last tube home for the night.

Sunday I woke up and said goodbye to Michelle at 10 and then did some homework. Then Dominique left at about 1:15. After Dominique left, Carly and I walked around Hyde Park for a little bit and then came home and hung out/I did homework for the rest of the night. For dinner we went to Zizzi (again...this time the one by me), which was delicious yet again. All in all, it was a very fun visit from Carly and the other girls, and it let me experience what being a London tourist would be like.

He Was Getting Rather Shirty

Hello! I've been very busy this past week, hence the lack of posts. My friend Carly came to visit me this weekend from Thursday to Monday morning. I will write more about that later, because it includeds touring London and a trip to Cambridge.

Also, I had a paper due in Marketing yesterday that was worth 35% of my grade! On top of that, I took my first final exam! I can't believe I have less than a month left for my program. I'm going to miss London so much!

The final was for the required sociology class I have to take as part of my program. It was a two-hour-long written exam that lasted me almost the entire two hours. My hand was extremely cramped by the end. We had to write answers to three questions at approximately 500 words each. I felt well prepared since I had made outlines for the answers, but very rushed.

Also, yesterday I decided that Gucci's summer line is my favorite of all of the top designers. I like how casual it looks, how it involves fun colors, and how it looks classy. Here are three of my favorite "looks" in their collection:

If I Had Fallen Through The Floor I Would Have Squished A Beatle!

Literally...Paul McCartney was at the Stella McCartney store today. Of course I didn't get to meet him because I was upstairs in the office. But how cool is it that I was so close to Paul!?!

Also, I forgot to mention, last thursday Prince William was across the street from my office!!! He was attending a charity event at the art gallery. I got a picture of his Jaguar on my phone.

Additionally, Christine and I were told to make a delivery to Stella McCartney's house today. We got to go in her living room! She lives pretty close to where I live. I pet her dog. We stood in her sitting room. We talked to her nanny. We heard her kids playing. We're so freaking cool.

To finish with my awesome day at work, our boss told Christine and I to take a picture of two pairs of jeans. One didn't fit on the mannequin because it was too small, so our boss said that I would need to model them. I laughed and told her I'd probably have to grow five inches, but she told me to put on heels. So I am now the one wearing a pair of Stella jeans and Stella heels in a picture being sent to New York. I'm almost 100% certain that it will just be used internally, though.

So that ends my cool day at work.

You Brought A Guidebook To A Party?

This weekend I went to Swansea, Wales to visit my friend Carly from my hometown who is studying there through a program sponsored by the University of Iowa. She is studying at Swansea University, and lives in the university’s student village in Swansea. It takes about 2.5 hours to travel to Swansea from London via a First Great Western Train. Swansea is on the southern coast of Wales adjacent to Swansea Bay. It is the second largest city in Wales after Cardiff.

I left London at 8:25am on Friday morning, and arrived in Swansea around 11:30. Carly picked me up at the train station, and we walked about 15 minutes from the train to City Center. There, we walked through a mall that had some good shopping and went to Tesco to pick up some food (The Tesco was enormous compared to London’s grocery stores – potentially even bigger than Jewel or Kroger would be! I informed Carly about how lucky she is to have so many food options.). Then, we caught the bus to the student village, which we picked up right by Tesco. It was nice because the bus stopped directly outside of Carly’s dorm.

Once we arrived at Carly’s dorm, we decided to take a walk around her neighborhood and explore. We were told that if you walked up the hill you could see Swansea Bay. So the two of us meandered up some windy roads, making sure that we were always walking up hill. Needless to say, by the time we got back to Carly’s dorm, I was exhausted, so I took a three hour nap. When I woke up, Carly had fixed me fish and chips for dinner! She is such an awesome friend.

We both ate dinner and then began to get ready to go out. Our plan was to invite some of Carly’s American friends over and then go to the club in the basement of Swansea University’s student union. So we get dressed for the night and head out. However, we ended up getting to the club around 11:30, and the line was RIDICULOUSLY long. They were saying that the club was at capacity, and they were using a one-in-one-out policy. We knew we would never be able to get in, so we decided to leave. Then, the bus that was supposed to come to pick us up and take us to the bar district did not come. So, we ended up just going home and hanging out in Carly’s room. Although I think Carly and her friends were disappointed, I had fun because it allowed me to get to know them better.

The next morning, Carly and I woke up early and took a train to Cardiff. From Cardiff to Swansea is about an hour and fifteen minutes on the train. So we arrived in Cardiff in the late morning, and I wanted lunch. We walked around at first joking about going to McDonalds. We walked into O’Neill’s pub and they weren’t serving food yet. Then I walked around trying to find a mocha because I was feeling tired. After exhausting three coffee shops, I ended up having to buy a mocha from Starbucks (ugh…I can’t escape my addiction). However, I was much more impressed with the service at Starbucks in Cardiff than any of my London Starbucks experiences. They actually asked for my name! Good job, baristas.

Ok back to business. So Carly and I decided to hold off on lunch while we drank our Starbucks and went to Cardiff Castel. The Castel was a fairly short walk from the train station, and it was really cool because it was such a historical monument smack dab in the middle of the city. Admission for students was 7.5 pounds, and we picked up an audio tour guide. We roamed the grounds of the castle ourselves, exploring where we wanted to. It was really cool, and we were able to climb up into a big tower with very steep steps. Also, I hit up the gift shop and bought some Welsh memorabilia. Overall, it was a very fun landmark to visit.

After the castle, Carly and I went to get lunch. However, by then we had joked around so much about staying true to our American brands that we actually started craving McDonalds. So we went to McDonalds for lunch. Shame. It was pretty much just like McDonalds in London – same menu and everything.

After our McDonalds visit, we walked around the shopping district and found many quaint shops and alley ways to explore with a lot of cool shopping opportunities. I ended up buying two new tops that are for spring, since most of the tops that I brought with me to London are warm.
After our shopping, we got back on the train around 3:30 and went back to Swansea. It was a long trip home, but I felt like I had a great experience in Cardiff!

When we arrived back at Carly’s dorm, we took a short nap and then Carly fixed me dinner again (pasta, bread, and wine…yum!). She spoiled me. Then we got ready to go out for the night, since our plans were to go to Wind Street with her American friend Tom and her Welsh friend Ben.

The four of us took the bus to Wind Street and I was immediately overwhelmed. Everyone was young, as if it was a row of bars at a college campus, but everyone was dressed ridiculously! There were people dressed up in costumes for no reason. Some girls were in barely-there dresses and some in tutus. Again, just because they think it’s fun to dress up. I felt too plain in my jeans, heels, and black tank top. Carly and I joked that we were going to go back to America and think that everyone dresses conservatively after spending a night on Wind Street. Even the two guys agreed that it was nuts! We only went to two bars on the row, one was a vodka bar (where Carly and I ordered Strongbows – not vodka) and the other was a regular bar that did not seem very popular. We chose to go to the second one because we saw that we’d be able to sit down. The whole experience of the night was very over-stimulating for me, and I found myself just staring at people instead of engaged in conversation with my friends. That has never happened to me before.

One more thing – I find it very difficult to understand Welsh accents. I couldn’t understand what Ben said most of the night, and then anyone else who talked to me was a lost cause.

This morning Carly and I woke up at 10am and quickly got ready to walk to the beach. It’s about a 2 mile walk, but it was totally worth it. Swansea beach was beautiful! We went at low tide, so we found a bunch of shells. I kept one that looked shiny silver, but I may have squished it in the pocket of my North Face. We’ll see when I get home I guess. On our walk home, stopped for lunch at a restaurant with a Welsh name I couldn’t pronounce and then got some candy at a neighboring supermarket. We finally arrived back to Carly’s dorm around 2, and hung out until I had to catch the 3:10 bus to City Center in order to walk to the train station.

Everything considered, I had a terrific weekend. It was nice to be with an old friend and meet some new ones. Also, Wales is gorgeous, and a truly different experience from London. Basically, I felt I spent the weekend in a suburb. It was not a trip to the country-side, but definitely a break from city life. Also, I joked with Carly that I was actually able to see the wilderness out her window. I feel I learned a little about Welsh culture, too. Such as how they have a well-known song that sings “Always piss on the English side of the bridge.” There’s a lot of national pride in Wales, and I was able to ask Ben about his childhoold, life in Wales, and Welsh cultural traditions.

Now I’m getting excited for Carly and some of her friends to visit me next weekend!

Bonjour! - That's All I Know

Sorry it has been a while since an update. I'm working on balancing my schedule as best as I can.

This weekend I went to Paris with seven of my roommates that live with me at Palace Court. There, I was able to meet up with my boyfriend and three other IU students studying in Sevilla. Also, there were about 20 other students from my program in Paris, too. Basically, the Americans took over the city. Just kidding.

On Friday we left London via the Eurostar at 5:25 in the morning. We got to Paris around 8:45 and arrived at our hostel around 10. The hostel was extremely nice. It's called St. Christopher's, and it is one of the highest rated hostels in Paris. The facilities were very nice, and it gave us free breakfast and 15 minutes in the internet cafe (which I unfortunately did not utilize).

On Friday, Derek and I took the metro to The Louvre, and ate a cafe close by. Then, since the weather was nice, we decided to go to the Eiffel Tower instead of inside the Louvre. Although the wind was bitterly cold, the two of us went all the way to the top! It was a really cool experience, and I love being able to say that I've been to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Friday night Derek took me on a really romantic date to a restaurant half way in between the Pantheon and Notre Dame. The outside of the restaurant had ivy on the walls, and the inside was a series of dimly lit rooms (because I hear the building used to be a home). We ordered the house wine, an appetizer, and an entree. I ordered the greatest meat I have ever tasted - a duck leg. It was so good that I actually exclaimed at the table that I was going to blog about it. So I am. It was delicious. As were the potatos that came with the meal. The service was also very lovely.

After dinner we walked around Paris at night a little and took some pictures outside of the Pantheon and Notre Dame. I kept singing to Derek the song "Our Last Summer" by ABBA from Mamma Mia because the lyrics talk about walks along the Siene and being by the Notre Dame. He didn't know the song so he had no idea what I was talking about. Very typical.

Saturday we took the Metro to the Arch de Triumph and the Champs E'Lysse (I probably misspelled those because I'm not looking them up). It was very fun, even though I felt extremely poor walking down the street. We decided to walk all the way to the Louvre, which again we decided not to go in because it closed at 5:30 and we got there at 4:30. What a bummer.

Sunday morning Derek left so I carried on my tourist activities with my roommates. After we checked out of the hostel, we went to the Musee D'Orsay. I LOVED that museum because I was able to see soooooo many Claude Monet paintings! I have always been a huge Monet fan, so I took a picture of every Monet painting in the museum. There were other works of art that were very cool to see too - such as Van Gogh's self portrait.

After the Musee D'Orsay we went to Notre Dame, which was cool because we were walking through while they were having their Sunday service. The music was beautiful and everything was very ceremonial. We didn't stay for the service, though. Instead, we went to get lunch at a cafe across the street. Luckily, I had Bita there with me that time to speak French to the server.

After the restaurant we walked around the shopping district, but realized that most of the stores were closed because it was Sunday. That was a bummer, but we decided to go visit the Catacombs instead. We had to wait in line for about and hour before we were let in. It was really creepy, and it definitely freaked me out to see the bones of millions of people piled up as if they were bricks forming a wall. I couldn't get into that.

We took the Eurostar back to England on Sunday night, and did not get back to Palace Court until 11:30pm. I was so tired by then that I basically just passed out on my bed, thankful to be home. Paris was alright, but I definitely feel like I enjoy London better. Maybe it's because I speak the language, but I'm not sure. I truly feel the tube is cleaner and faster than the metro. I had a lot of fun with my friends, though, and I especially enjoyed seeing Derek. No one can deny that Paris is a fun city.

My Fashion Career

I have been feeling much happier with my internship lately. Christine and I finished organizing the archive of magazines last week, which had us both in the basement sorting boxes of hundreds of magazines. We sorted them by country, then alphabetic order, then year, then date. Now, we are very proud that the shelves are totally organized and labelled to make a magazine extremely easy to track down. It was a big project with a lot of manual labor, but it was so exciting to see the finished result.

Lately, we've been working back up in the office. Usually, we begin the day by going through all of the magazines and newspapers that our office subscribes to and tagging any page that has a mention of Stella McCartney or her family. Then, we give any tagged pages to another intern who scans them and compiles the clippings into a bound press book.

Throughout the day, we get several deliveries from different magazines and newspapers returning clothes that we have sent out. When that happens, I go meet the fed ex delivery person downstairs and take the packages up to the office. From there, Christine and I would then check in the clothes into the returns binder by highlighting the item in the send out binder and moving it over.

When we notice that an article of clothing has not been returned, we then may be asked to make a phone call to the news media in possession and remind them to return it. That is called doing a call-back. At first I felt strange that they would be hearing my American accent, but then I got used to it.

Sometimes, when a delivery needs to be made within London, I may be asked to go make it myself instead of Fed Ex. I usually like to do that in order to get out into the fresh air, even though I tend to hurry as much as possible in order to get it done quickly. This past week I made two deliveries.

Another task I worked on a lot this week was to prepare boxes to be shipped to Paris for Paris fashion week. It was kinda cool seeing all the clothes that are going to be on the runway in a few weeks time. I feel like I know a secret that others wont know for a while.

I've saved the best for last so hopefully you're still reading this. On Thursday, Stella McCartney was being interviewed for a magazine in the VIP room at our office, and I got to see her walk down the hall. It was really cool, and I'm so happy that I at least got to see her even though I'll probably never get to meet her.

Well, that about covers it for Stella! I'm really liking the other interns that I work with and getting to know them a lot better. There's probably around 10 of us. Also, my boss Imogen is really nice too, and I write about her great management style in my weekly internship reflections all the time. Overall, I'm definitely starting to enjoy my job more.

Scotland Adventures - Regretfully Without Bagpipes

I've been really busy this past week, so I am finally getting up a post about my trip to Scotland.

Last weekend I went to Scotland with my Arcadia program. To begin, we had to arrive at Kings Cross Station at the crack of 7:30am in order to make our train. The train ride to Edinburgh lasted 4.5 hours, but had beautiful scenery towards the end. There were seven other close friends from the internship program on my trip, and we all were able to sit together on the train. It was a nice ride because I also could access free wifi on my computer, which allowed us to watch some episodes of The Office as well as check email. My favorite part of the train ride was passing through some very picturesque harbor towns on the North Sea and seeing their lighthouses. (I have a secret love of lighthouses.)

A picture of the North Sea at a small harbor town called Berwick Upon Tweed. I took this from the train.

When we got to Edinburgh, our tour guide met us at the train station decked out in his kilt (which he wore the entire rest of the weekend). It was slightly raining for the entire day, but that didn't really put a damper on things. Pun. We arrived at our hostel, which was voted the best hostel in Scotland according to our tour guide, and I was thoroughly impressed with the facilities. It was right next to the Edinburgh Castle and was called the Castle Rock hostel (which I ended up calling Castle Hill hostel for the entire trip probably because I missed Alexa). After arriving at our hostel, Jess, Kristin, Haley, and Christine, and I scouted out lunch at an Italian restaurant that was DELICIOUS! I bought a panini, mocha, and a chocolate/caramel/cookie dessert, and all were incredibly delicious. Then, we had to climb up a million stairs to get back to our hostel and meet up for our tour of Edinburgh.

Our tour guide, Mike, talking in the rain.

Mike, our kilted tour guide that I already mentioned, was extremely knowledgeable about everything to do with Edinburgh and the Highlands. You could tell he really loved his job. Even though we were all standing in the rain for most of the tour of Edinburgh, he didn't seem to mind and was still extremely excited to tell us every story he memorized about every landmark. And honestly, I feel there were hundreds of stories. I was really impressed. This is what the first day looked like:

Me and Evan with a statue of Bobby, the dog beloved by Edinburgh and saved by the city's children.

Where JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books - the birthplace of Harry Potter.

Friday night, many of my friends and I decided to do a pub crawl that was advertised at Castle Rock. We got two pounds off the price of the pub crawl through staying at Castle Rock, which was nice. We ended up going to four or five local pubs, the first of which was bank bar. I even got to see a really drunk Scotsman get into a drunken fight with nobody! It was extremely funny to watch. He wasn't part of the pub crawl group, don't worry.

On Saturday, our group departed from the hostel at the crack of 8am to get on a big coach bus and drive to the Highlands. Kristin and I were the last on the bus so we sat in the front seat. I am actually glad that I was able to sit in the front seat for the first part of the trip because I had a great view of the Firth of Forth and its bridges. Then, when we got to the highlands, I had a great view of how beautiful they are as well. However, the bus ride was about 5 hours long and I started getting a little car sick after a while. The bus driver was clearly a local and drove much faster through the mountains than most people would. Needless to say, everyone on the bus admitted to feeling slightly nauseous after those 5 hours...but no one actually got sick thankfully.

My first view of the Firth of Forth!

The places that we stopped on Saturday were at the River Tay and Loch Ness. We were able to see a lot of lochs on the trip and learn all about the loch system and that boats can go through the loch system from the Atlantic to the North Sea in 4-5 hours. The lochs and surrounding mountains were stunning, and I felt like I was in central Colorado. Loch Ness was really funny because Kristin actually decided to wade in the water in order to try to pet a swan. Also, many of my friends decided to try haggis...which I skipped out on with no regrets. They said it was terrible.

Me, Matt, Kristin, Russell, Christine, Evan, and Scott in front of the River Tay (all Kelley students except Evan)

Some beautiful Scottish scenery.

Me at Loch Ness! Never found a monster.

After our trip to Loch Ness, we went to a local distillery called Ben Nevis. In all honesty, I truly disliked that trip. The whole distillery smelled terrible, was really ugly, and the free sample of whiskey at the end was not sometime tasty or calming to my car sick stomach. I'm sure some people would have enjoyed that tour, but I certainly did not.

Me, Kristin, Christine, and Haley at the distillery. I didn't like that whiskey at all.

Before I forget, I also want to add that Scotland prints its own money, so it looks different from the British pound. It still has the same value, but it does not have Queen Elizabeth on it. It's really different, and I wish I could have kept some to show off when I get home to the states.

Anyway, at night we stayed in a hostel in Obin, Scotland, which is on the Atlantic side of Scotland. We literally drove from the East Coast, to the North Coast, to the West Coast in one day. Obin was cool, and is a harbor town. I really wanted to eat fish and chips while I was there, but most of my friends wanted to go to a legitimate sit-down restaurant. We ended up at yet another Italian restaurant, where the food was very good. However, I still have not had fish and chips in Scotland.

After the Italian restaurant, we went to a local pub called the Larne where there was live music playing. It was really fun, except I still wasn't feeling well so I only drank half of a Strongbow (alcoholic cider) and had to call it quits for the night. After The Larne we went to another club/pub down the block, but only stayed there for a little while. They were playing a lot of American music, though, which was fun. Then, when I went back to the hostel, I hung out downstairs with my friends and then went up to bed.

Sunday morning we left the hostel at 9am (which didn't feel TOO early this time) and left to drive back through the highlands and to Edinburgh. We saw a gorgeous church that was built solely by one man in honor of his mother. Also, we drove through Calendar, which is a small tourist town, and Fort Augustus. These places were slightly south of the towns we went through the day before, which included Perth, Glencoe, and Inverness. Also, I got to see a cool castle and pet an old Scottish cow named Hermish. Finally, our last adventure before we caught the train back to London in Edinburgh was to climb up the hill that had a monument to William Wallace (the guy Mel Gibson plays in Braveheart). It was steep and took about 10 minutes to climb.

Hermish the cow.

Some sheep in front of the Campbell Castle.

Me, Kristin, and Christine at Loch Laggan.

The train ride home was somewhat of an adventure because our seats were double-booked so we had to find unreserved seats on a very overcrowded train. I ended up having to move several times, but was able to stay in a seat with a table after a while. That was very lucky because I was able to get some of my homework done.

Overall, the trip to Scotland was amazing and I recommend to anyone who likes beautiful landscapes to visit Scotland at least once in their lifetime.