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.