First off, the whole "hiyaa" thing is very popular here, but it's not pronounced the way hillbillies say it all, "HIya!" It's more like "hiYAA" which is said very softly. Again, I should just do an audio clip and attach it to this entry since I'm not making any sense.
Second, gosh I'm terrible at updating. I have so much to tell you all!
Let's see...well I'll start with Bonfire Night (Remember, remember the fifth of November). Since I had already gone to a bonfire on Halloween in Stockton, I pretty much already knew the drill as to what was going to happen again on the actual day. This time though, I went to Long Itchington, the town over and went to the bonfire that was being hosted by the Green Man, a local pub. What made it different was that there was actually a "Guy Fawkes" sitting on top of the bonfire. How twisted is that?! Yeah, it was made out of stuff you make scarecrows with and just sitting there, burning away. Whenever a part of its body would burn up and fall off, everyone would be all "Ohhh!! Ahhh!!" like the it was the greatest thing since sliced (gluten-free) bread. Poor Guy.
Okay now I'm going to skip to Edinburgh cause I'm sure that's what you've all been waiting for! And, seeing as I'm going to London next weekend, I should really just tell you about my last trip before I dive right into my next one.
Sooo, I got up super early to take the train to Edinburgh where I was to meet Ambz at the train station. We stayed with her cousin Rob and his wife Laura who live in the city there. They're super nice and we all got along really well so we'll definitely be going back to visit again. Plus, Edinburgh was really awesome. If I had to choose a place to go to university there (like on an exchange or something) I'd probably choose Edinburgh. Anyways, Ambz and Laura picked me up from the station and from there we went straight to Edinburgh Zoo which was tons of fun and brilliant cause it's November and it's not busy at all. Unfortunately though, since it's not summer time, the camels were not out and about so I was pretty choked. Instead Amber and I hung around the penguins for quite a while cause let's face it, they're pretty awesome and hilarious.
Here's some videos of them:
See Penguins Jumping
See The Penguins in a Parade
Oh and here's a video of a cute baby deer. It's not that exciting, but it's cute nonetheless:
See A Cute Baby Deer
Yes, there really was a penguin parade! How fetch is that?! (Like how I used the word "fetch" there? Yeah, I'm totally into this Brit thing lol)
So after our little afternoon at the zoo, we decided to to the house and just take it easy for a bit. Laura made us dinner and we then we hung out for a bit all in preparation for what was to be a very scary night. I don't know if you know this, but Edinburgh is one of the most haunted cities in Europe. It's been featured on all those Most Haunted television shows and whatnot and when you walk through it, you can definitely feel some eeriness to it. Anyway, each night a bunch of tour companies offer all sorts of ghost tours so of course Amber and I decided to go on one. Well, not "of course" cause I obviously don't like scary movies or ghosts or anything like that, but I was feeling pretty courageous and well, when in Rome...
Off we went to meet in the middle of the Royal Mile (the High Street) along with about 12 other people. Our tour guide was pretty awesome and cold really tell a story so the whole thing was well worth the 9 quid we paid. (That was the only tourist attraction we paid for cause the museums were either free or we got free entrance cause Rob and Laura are cops and get all these free passes!)
The scariest (and main) part of the tour was definitely the vaults. I think they were made in the 16 or 1700s and used as bank vaults, but after a while they were abandoned because they always leaked so much. Yeah, it rains a lot in Edinburgh. Although from the weekend we had, you'd never have guessed cause it was so beautiful! Anyway, the abandoned vaults were of course just waiting to be filled with criminals and homeless people to stay in and do all their criminal stuff in. So of course, killing went on and whatnot for many years. They said that many a time someone would go in there and they wouldn't come back out. OOOOOooooooo! (My attempt at a creepy "ooooo" sound.)
There were many different vaults and so different people stayed in different rooms back in the day. My favourite vault was also the "safest" as the tour guide explained, cause nothing bad ever happened there in terms of bad ghosts and whatnot. Apparently, if you were to ever see a ghost, the only one you'd see in that vault room was of a shoemaker who would just be sitting at his desk making shoes and smiling at you. Being a shoemaker, he's very interested in what kind of shoes you're wearing and since nowadays we've all got crazy looking shoes, he'd be quite confused. The ghost shoemaker sounded so cute! lol And apparently he's very nice.
The next day was jam packed with cool things. First off, we started off the morning at Edinburgh Castle which was absolutely beautiful. The castle overlooks the entire city so you can just see for miles wherever you are. The rest of the castle, well, was a castle, so very cool to look at but very similar to all the other castles you will see in your lifetime. It did feature the Scottish Crown Jewels though, which was pretty cool as I don't really know that much about Scottish Royal history.
After our trip to the Castle, we decided that we were in dire need of a Christmas drink from Starbucks. The closest Starbucks to me is in Leamington and that's about a 20 minute drive away, a bit unnecessary. And since it is Amber's (and Blythe's) and my tradition to go for a Starbucks Christmas drink, we headed to the closest one and ordered a Toffee Nut Latte - yum! And to follow every good Christmas drink is of course, shopping. Ambz was on the lookout for some Celtic rings and I wanted to find a Claddagh. A Claddagh is this:
It's actually an Irish ring but is very popular in Scotland as well and depending on which way and which hand you wear it on, it can symbolize either a friendship or wedding ring. The hands mean friendship, the heart love, and the crown loyalty.
Oh! Speaking of a heart, the night that we went Ghost Hunting we also spat on the Heart of the Midlothian which is basically just along the Royal Mile and it's a bunch of stones in the shape of a heart. There are many reasons one can spit there, but Rob told us that if we spit and make a wish on the heart, it will come true. So there you go!
Okay back to Saturday. After a bit of shopping, we went into the Museum of Childhood which has all sorts of toys from the past. As you may have seen in the photos, there were golly wogs, Japanese dolls and tons of other cool stuff that was a little older than my time, but easily recognizable. Oh and there was Lego and Duplo too lol.
The whole day was pretty much spent walking around here and there seeing what we'd like to do and all. Oh and eating Pizza at Pizza Hut, cause let's face it, Amber and I both miss fast food as much as we miss Japanese food. I sacrificed my gluten-intolerance for pizza for goodness sake.
We walked all along the Royal Mile and through the shopping areas, and of course, the Sir Walter Scott monument which is absolutely spectactular to look at! You really MUST see it! It's a shame that it's in the middle of such a busy area though because you can't really get a good look at it then.
It was a really good day and we were pretty exhausted, so when we headed back to the house with the intention of going out again later, we ended up falling asleep for 3 hours and waking up at 9:30pm which was too late to get ready and head out for the night. I think we were both glad of it though cause it was a little exhausting so we ended up watching X-Factor (Brit version of American Idol except waaaay better!) and playing Wii...and eating After Eights.
Sunday. Sunday morning we got up and packed my things a bit then headed out because my train wasn't until late afternoon. Rob had free passes to this science exhibition called Dyanamic Earth. It basically took us through from the Big Bang all the way up to the present day Earth, as well as potential futures for our Earth depending on what environmental actions we take. It was fascinating and quite the eye-opener, so I would also definitely recommend going to see that as well!
Finally, as Amber and I have always tried to do, we went for tea. Cream tea at a cosy little tea place for lunch and it was fantastic. A very nice way to end the weekend. We've decided to go for tea every place we go, and next stop is London next weekend so we'll be on the hunt for cream tea all over again.
Ambz and I will be going to London next weekend to see a Canadian band (yes, Canadian not British. We travelled all the way across the Atlantic to see Canadian bands!) called Wintersleep. We figured we might as well make weekend of it so we're staying at a hostel by night and going out and doing all sorts of Christmas activities and other things that are free because we are poor and saving up for our trip to Cardiff after Christmas with Cathy and Maria. So far we've got planned to go to the German Christmas Market because there's all sorts of stuff going on there. Cherry also recommended going to Somerset House because they have an outdoor skating rink there. Actually, there's like 8 places in London that have an outdoor skating rink, so we've got our pick! Other than that, I'm not sure what else we have planned, but it'll be fun! Nancy might be joining us as well which would definitely be fun.
Okay that's all for now folks! No wait, I forgot to say that I went to Coventry this weekend! Not actually, cause I didn't explore it whatsoever, I just slept over at my friend Louise's flat as she goes to the University of Coventry. Oh and I had McDonald's after a 3 month drought!! Ohh! And on Sunday I went with Aurore for sushi in Leamington and it was actually good! It might just be because I haven't had it since before I left, but it tasted pretty good and the owner was a Japanese guy so it seemed pretty authentic! Greatest.Moment.Ever.Eating.Sushi.
Ciao mein!
H-Pizzle
