From A to Zedd

On Friday night I took a train to Glasgow to see Zedd in concert at The Arches. The venue was really awesome. It looked like an underground train station and was big enough that there was room to take a break and breathe between dancing. I'm normally much more of a pub person, so much so that I hadn't been to a club in Scotland yet but it was so much fun. I was amazed at how different it is here compared to Canada. People were so polite! I was apologized to several times when people accidentally jostled me or had to move past. Everyone was just really into the music and having a great time.We stayed overnight in a hostel and spent the morning exploring a bit of Glasgow before heading home on the train.

Dante, Marie, Micaela, Aidan and I at the Zedd concert
Photo Credit: Dante

On Saturday afternoon my Auntie Valerie and Uncle Adrian arrived in Edinburgh. We had a cup of tea and they met some of my flatmates. We strolled around The Meadows and stopped in at The Golf Tavern for a drink before going to dinner at The Apartment, a really nice restaurant near me where we had a delicious meal. The next day we went to Princes Street and explored Jenners, an old fashioned department store and walked along Rose Street. We went up to Calton Hill and had fantastic views over the city. We stayed out of the rain in The Edinburgh Bookshop and in a lovely German cafe. It was really nice to see my aunt and uncle to have them visit me in Edinburgh. I'm looking forward to seeing my Grandma and Auntie Joanne who are coming to visit me in November.

Berwick Upon Tweed and Alnwick Castle

My latest trip with the International Student Centre was to Berwick Upon Tweed, the northernmost town in England and Alnwick Castle, where parts of the first three Harry Potter movies were filmed.

Berwick Upon Tweed was very quaint and we were only there for about an hour in the morning. I spent the day with my friends from Queen's that I've met since being here - Annie, Emily, Taylor and Taylor. Our first stop (at my request!) was a sweet shop. It was like going back to my childhood - they had all my favourite sweets from when I was younger and things like Gobstoppers that I'd completely forgotten about. I bought a small bag of Berwick Rock and managed to control myself from buying anything else. The old man at the counter asked where I was from and said he was born in Toronto. I told him I was born in England and he said "we've switched places then!". 

We wandered down the main road and went into Greggs to get coffee and a pastry to perk ourselves up. Wandering without much direction we found the medieval town walls and bridges. We also found a cat which brightened me up much better than the coffee. On the way back to the bus we went into the local library to try to find a toilet but were unsuccessful. The library was very cute though and reminded me of my mum's Neithrop days. 

Our next stop was Alnwick Castle and gardens. We wandered around by ourselves taking photos and then took a tour of the State Rooms. This is where the Duke of Northumberland and his family live when the castle is not open to the public. It was very fancy - we weren't even allowed to take photographs or have our phones out - with beautiful ornate furniture, giant mirrors and photos of the family with the Queen and Prince Charles. It was a mix of old with modern because there were normal family photos of the children and there was a TV and Foosball table. I think I should have gone to St. Andrew's to find myself a Duke's son so I could live somewhere like this some day. 

We then took the Battleaxe and Broomsticks Tour. The tour guide was very funny and interesting. He showed us 'the murder hole', a hallway between the main gates and the inside of the castle where the English would throw arrows, rocks, dead animals and excrement over any invading Scots. He made quite a few jokes at the Scots' expense. He also showed us places which had featured in Harry Potter such as where they had flying lessons, Charms class, where the whomping willow and Quidditch pitch had been and the entrance to the Forbidden Forrest. He told us that Warner Bros were not very popular at the castle because of all the damage they had done to the grounds while filming. They apparently dropped the flying car onto an ancient holly bush which had to be cut down, inserted brackets into the walls which then couldn't be taken out or the castle walls would fall down and the fake snow they used for the winter scenes took four months to clean up. He also told us that Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint had their school lessons from teachers from the area and the local schoolkids would come to Alnwick to have classes with them. They were given the opportunity to be extras in the movie but had to audition first by putting on robes and walking in front of the director. They were then told either 'yes you can be in the movie' or 'no you can't'. If they were told no, they then had to stand behind the cameras and watch all their school friends be in Harry Potter. How brutal!

The tour guide also told us about the falcon tower at Alnwick. People in the area could borrow a falcon from the Duke to go hunting but if they lost the falcon then each day they would have to go to the top of the tower and cut off a pound of their flesh and put it on a spike hoping it would attract the falcon back. For each day it didn't come back you had to cut off another pound of your own flesh until the falcon came back or you died. Apparently one man cut off five pounds of his own flesh before he died!

We saw another cat while we were on the tour. He was a big, fat black and white cat who was walking around acting like he owned the place (which he probably did!). He tried to get past our big tour group but almost got trampled so he just changed directions and walked back the other way. He seemed very unfazed by all the people. I even saw him sitting and posing for cameras. 

Forbidden Forrest - much less foreboding in person

After we exhausted the castle we went to Alnwick Gardens. There was a huge treehouse with rope bridges that was really cool. It actually looked a bit like the Weasley's house in Harry Potter. In the gardens there was a huge fountain, a bamboo labyrinth, a section of water features and a poison garden. We did a tour of the poison garden where they had lots of poisonous plants that could kill you. It was really interesting and there were some there I had no idea were poisonous. I'm terrified to ever touch any plants again! 

On the way back to Edinburgh I was talking to Taylor. She mentioned that I'd been talking in my English accent all day whereas before with the group I was always in my Canadian accent. My friend Debra said I was talking in my English accent with her last week. I think the lines are starting to blur.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just a quick one today to say Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends and family! Fall is my favourite season. I love chunky wool cardigan and boots weather, sipping hot apple cider or pumpkin spiced lattes and wading through the colourful fallen leaves. I am missing Canada but am living vicariously through everyone's photographs on Facebook. And of course I am very thankful to be in Edinburgh!

Tonight I went to a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner hosted by the International Student Centre. We had chicken instead of turkey and apple or cherry pie instead of pumpkin due to the difficulty of finding these in Scotland in October. This suited me quite well though as I've never really been a fan of turkey or pumpkin pie! We also had mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, mashed turnip, stuffing, garlic bread, a chicken and pasta dish, ribs and ice cream.

Tomorrow I'm planning on making a fall casserole of butternut squash, sweet potato, brown sugar, dried cranberries and pecans. With brussel sprouts of course!

I hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend!

P.S. I have signed up to go on a trip this Saturday to Alnwick Castle, the castle where parts of the Harry Potter movies were filmed!

Newcastle

I haven't written in ten days so I'll briefly go over the highlights of last week. On Saturday Shannon came over for a lovely night of biscuits, brie, crackers and wine. It was great to have a girly night in watching a movie and chatting. Sunday was once again spent at the library and ended with drinks at The Golf Tavern with Aidan, Sam and Emma. I skyped my mother on Monday, something I should probably do more often! On Wednesday I got a bunch of mail that had been going to a neighbouring flat. This was an awesome surprise - I got a letter from my parents, a card from my aunt, a postcard from my friend and my student discount card! My flat (plus friends) of course went to the pub quiz at The Golf Tavern on Wednesday evening. We did better than last week but I didn't contribute much since there was a sports round and a classical music round. Thursday was spent trying to get my statistics assignment finished - just in case you didn't think I was doing any work here!

My flatmates and I (minus one) at the pub quiz 

My friend Aidan is here for this semester on exchange from the US and is keen to travel a lot and so we decided to take an impromptu trip to Newcastle this weekend. 

We left early morning on Friday to catch the train at Waverley Station. The train ride was about an hour and a half and we got to see the sun rise over the coast as we hurtled along the tracks. When we arrived it was still morning so we stopped in at a pub for a full English breakfast. Seeing as this was my first thought upon arriving in London, I'm starting to sense a recurring theme here! This was also our first experience of a Geordie accent. 

Being in England definitely felt different to being in Scotland though I can't exactly explain why. It was interesting to see how things have changed since I moved to Canada 10 years ago. Even though I've obviously been back many times to visit, there are still new things I notice every time. The thing that made me think about this was seeing a man on the news who I used to watch on News Round when I was younger. It was cool to think that in the last 10 year his career had progressed and he was now on the proper news!

After the pub we went to find our hostel which was incredibly close to both the train station and the city centre. It was called The Albatross and it was really nice. I had never stayed in a hostel before and this was much nicer than I had expected it to be. We stayed in a four person mixed bedroom with two bunk beds. There was one other person staying in the room who we deduced was a business man because he was out during the day and had a suit. 

We wandered around the city getting a feel for the place and did some shopping. People we talked to about Newcastle said one of two things - either they said it was great for shopping or that it was great for a night out. I was really cold and hadn't remembered to bring my rain coat so we did some emergency coat shopping. We went in a really cute indoor market called Grainger Market where they had butcher's stalls, fish mongers, books, sweets (candy) and pastries. For lunch we discovered an amazing restaurant called Lau's 202 Buffet House which had a huge buffet of Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Italian food. The Chicken Tikka, Chicken Korma, Samosas and sushi were absolutely delicious. 

In the evening we had tickets to see some stand up comedy at a club called The Stand. There were four acts, all were incredibly funny and I really enjoyed myself. Afterwards we went for a drink at a nearby pub. Perhaps on another weekend we would have gone clubbing, maybe if there were more of us. Wandering around the city centre at night was definitely interesting to say the least. There were crowds of drunk people almost getting hit by cars, getting into fights and stumbling around. I could see why Newcastle is known for its nightlife! Some of the clubs did look really cool though and maybe I will have to check it out another time. 

The next day we got up early and checked out of the hostel and took our backpacks around town once more. We walked to the Millenium Bridge and went to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. The art definitely went a little over my head but it was fun anyway to walk around and look at what was on display. It was raining then so we had hot drinks and lunch at an Italian restaurant and ended up going to see Runner Runner at the movie theatre. It was nice to end the weekend this way as we had been walking a lot and carrying our backpacks all day. 

I spent all day today writing my essay due tomorrow for Scottish Literature. It is all finished now and is sitting printed and stapled ready for me to submit it tomorrow. My flatmates Puck and Amelia hosted a Mexican themed party for us and some friends tonight. They made us fajitas, nachos and mojitos all of which were very good, played Latino music and decorated the kitchen with colourful bunting and pictures. It was a great break from working on the essay and I enjoyed catching up with everyone.

Is It October Already?

The first blog post of October! I didn't take any of the photos included in today's post but wanted you to get a feel for the places I mentioned. 

Quite impressively I spent Sunday working in the library with Shannon from 12-8 pm. I’d like to say I was very productive during that time but I’m not sure I’d be telling the truth! The only accomplishment I did manage was to finish reading The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. We went for dinner at The Potting Shed part way through the day as a reward/pick-me-up. I really like it there and immediately thought it would be somewhere I’d like to take my sister. It is designed like a giant garden shed with bicycles, old books and plant pots as décor. I had leek and cheese macaroni with crusty bread. (Soon this blog will just be me telling you what food I eat every day!) 

On Monday Amelia, Puck, Joe, Thomas and I went to The Golf Tavern which is the pub nearest to us and is so named because it’s right beside the small, public golf course/park that our house backs onto. They have a selection of board games which was our reason for going that night. We played monopoly and it was a lot of fun, especially when we hadn’t finished at 10 minutes to closing and we invented new rules to speed the game up. The pub has a student discount card that allows you to get drinks for 2 pounds and 25% off food. They also have a weekly pub quiz on Wednesday nights which I went to this week with Amelia, Puck, Emma, Shannon, Ross, Joe, Thomas and Juraj. Needless to say, it’s become our new ‘local’!

On Tuesday I went on a miniature pub crawl with my friend Aidan. We wanted to try out the Jekyll and Hyde pub since we’d just finished reading the book for Scottish Literature but instead we ended up at a Frankenstein themed pub. They were playing the movie on a loop without sound and the pub was spookily decorated. We thought it was a bit weird that they chose to play current pop music but then again, we agreed it would be strange to play spooky music all the time. After the Frankenstein pub we went to The Three Sisters which I’ve mentioned before – the one with the large courtyard and ping pong tables.

Today I worked on my statistics assignment at the library with Debra and then spent a few hours working on the rough outline for my essay for Scottish Literature. I haven’t written an essay since my first year so I’m quite nervous about it but am interested in what I’m writing about which helps. I really enjoyed reading The Driver’s Seat and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. I especially enjoyed her descriptions of Edinburgh which were so incredibly accurate I immediately wrote them down. At the risk of sounding like a major nerd I will post them here, both from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie:

“Now they were in a great square, the grassmarket, with the castle which was in any case everywhere, rearing between a big gap in the houses where the aristocracy used to live.”

“It was then that Miss Brodie looked beautiful and fragile, just as dark heavy Edinburgh itself could suddenly be changed into a floating city when the light was a special pearly white and fell upon one of the gracefully fashioned streets.”

Scottish Literature is fast becoming my favourite class, a slight problem since I'm majoring in Psychology!

This is the first weekend since Fresher's Week that I'm not going on a trip with the International Student Centre. I've got plans to explore some more of Edinburgh and I'll let you know what I get up to.