Friday July 16th, 2010

Today I met my international business class at Surbiton Station. We went into the city to the Royal Albert Hall. It was huge. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside and they were setting up for the Proms. They have all kinds of events there, ice skating, concerts, tennis and even dinners. After the tour we ate lunch in South Kensington. Then we could go to the Natural History Museum, Science Museum or the Albert and Victoria Museum. I choose the science museum. It was packed with school groups. I went up to the 4th and 5th floors to were they have all the medical related exhibits. It was very interesting. They had things from Egyptian and Roman times all the way up to the 1990's.

After the science museum, I walked though Kensington gardens and Kensington Palace. I wanted to go into the palace but it was 12 GBP to visit. Then it started to pour before I could make it to the Princess Diana Memorial.

Thursday July 15th, 2010

Thursday I had my healthcare class again at St. George's Hospital. We visited the walk-in clinic at the hospital. Heard about what they offer. Went and ate lunch at the cafeteria and then went on a tour of the wards and surgery theaters.

Went back to the dorms and then went into the city and bought student discounted WICKED tickets!! We got to see the show Thursday night. I was amazing. Loved all the songs might need to get the soundtrack.

Wednesday July 14, 2010

Wednesday I had my international business class. We went to the Chelsea Football Stadium. It is owned by a Russian based in England with many other nationalities making up its team. The tour guide was a crazy fan too. They are very self promoting there is a large store in the stadium and across the street. There is a hotel expensive hotel attached with a restaurant. There is also another hotel across the street. There seats are sold out years in advance.



After the Stadium Tour we walked over the Harrods. It was so busy and expensive. I bought two packs of coffee and a spoon/tea bag rest that is a pink tea pot. I also got the most amazing gelato! It was cappuccino cheesecake and chocolate. You couldn't even eat it in the store because Harrods is so classy.

Tuesday July 13, 2010

Today I had my healthcare class. It was a completely long and unorganized day. I think they thought we would all be nursing students because we got dropped off at a stoke seminar by our professor. We sat around for about 3 hours. Then our professor finally called and said we could leave by 3:30. It still took an 1.5 hours to get home by bus. Lets just say the days wasn't very planned out.

Scotland Day 4 July 12, 2010

This morning we went to Edinburgh castle. It was nice to take some pictures of the sky line from there. I discovered that my camera takes panoramic pictures.

We got back to Kings Cross station at about 6:30 pm. Then went to the Harry Potter Platform and took pictures. I got back to my dorm at Seething Wells at about 8 pm. It was a very long day.

Scotland Day 3 July 11, 2010

We left Inverness. We went to a battlefield. Where boney Prince Charlie fought the british government. He was a Stewart which is who I guess should be the royal family of Scotland. All the road signs are in Gallic and English. Next was a graveyard that was celtic and had round mounds of stones. These domes are older then stonehenge. The stones that surrounded the mounds followed the sun and the moon. It was very green and very thing was covered with moss. The ground felt boggy it had some bounce to it.
Then we drove to the Whiskey distillery. It was suppose to be smooth and fruity. It wasn't!
After the distillery we drove to Blair castle of the clan of Murray. Queen Victoria would stay at the castle. Duke of Athol was awarded colors by the Queen which means they have their own private legal army, it is the only one in Europe.
Blair Castle was white and not as large as I had thought. We weren't allowed to take pictures. They have peacocks walking the ground.

The Birham woods on the way back to Edinburgh were the Bitrix Potter based Peter Rabbit.
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Scotland Day 2 July 10, 2010

On Saturday, we got up and it was rainy. I finally got to wear my raincoat. First we headed up to Sterling (picture below). We drove past the castle which was used in Monty Python.


Next we stopped in Sterling at the William Wallace Monument.
We drove through Callander and we are going to visit a Highland Cow!!! They are called Hairy Coos.

This is Heather! Isn't she cute!

The lazy one is Hamish.

Me on the bus with my foggy window due to the rain. We stopped for lunch at the Green Well Stop. It is along a walking/backpacking trail that goes from Glasgow to Fort William. I think it was called the West Highland Way. The train line that runs along with the mountains on the walking trail is the one used for the Hogwarts Express.

There are rivers running along the road and waterfall/streams along the valley walls. Everything was so green. The rain and fog made everything so pretty.

We drove though Glencoe and I learned that Glen = Valley. This is the three sisters. 3 mountains that sit in the valley.


We went and visited Loch Ness. There was no sign of Nessie. But the water was so black it is believable that something is in there.


we arrived to Inverness. We checked into my second hostel. We went to dinner at the weatherspoon. It is a chain that is also in Kingston. I was starving so I had Lasagna and onion rings.

Scotland Day 1 Friday July 9th

Today I got up at 5:30 am. Got ready to leave at 6:45 am for Kings Cross Station to leave for Scotland. It took an hour to get to the station. I got a Burger King breakfast meal. It was called Breakfast in Bread with Sausage. It was great! It came with hash browns and orange juice. I went and got a vitamin water and the sizes here are much smaller then the states. Its like half the 'normal' size. The train ride to Edinburgh is about 4 hours. We stopped in York and I have already pasted 2 nuclear power plants. There are 8 stops total to Edinburgh. I am so excited to go back. After this fell asleep on the train.


The above pictures are from out walking tour of Edinburgh. I went shopping on the Royal Mile. Got a lot of presents for everyone at home. Also searched for Dan's family tartans but couldn't find any of them.
I went to this Italian pizza place for dinner and turns out it was a bunch of Polish people running it. They had a whole menu on the wall in polish. The only word I recognized was pierogi. So I ordered those. They were great but not as good as Daniel's. They weren't as brown as I like them and there was no sour cream.

Thursday July 8th, 2010

Today I had class from 9 am to 4 pm. It was an incredibly hard to sit there that long. The poor women who came to speak to us at the end of the day was talking all about nursing. Too bad none of the 8 of us are nursing students. They do things very different here. There is a diploma and degree program. They pick a concentration in school of adult, child, mental health or community nurse. No RN or LPN. They also spend less time in school. They are only in a 2 or 3 year program to become a nurse. It sounds like we are much for strict in the US. Also she was more interested in how our health system works.

That night was Lyanna's birthday. We went to dinner in Kingston at Frankie and Benny's. I got steak and loaded jacket potato. It was delicious. The waitress wouldn't split the bill for us. So there I am splitting the bill with my rent a phone as a calculator. Finally I had to ask for a regular calculator. So she ended up getting more than a tip she was to get due to the service charge. I didn't even care I was so happy to get out of there. After dinner I went back to my flat and packed for Scotland!

Wednesday July 7, 2010

The pub we stopped at.

The Harvard Chapel at Southwark Cathedral

Bob our Cathedral tour guide

Southwark Cathedral

Tower Bridge from London Bridge

Market in Harry Potter

Outside of Llyods of London

Tea Set from Museum of London (isn't it amazing it is still around)

Shoes from a display at Museum of London

Pleasure Gardens exhibit, they clothing was breathtaking

I met my International Business class at Surbiton station at 9:30 am. We took the train into Waterloo station. We got onto the underground there to the Bank of England. The building is a little daunting. There are no windows on the outside until what looked like the 3rd floor. It was interesting to see how they mint all the money. It is all so colorful compared to the US. The bank had also collected all different kind of things. The man who wrote 'The Wind in the Willows" worked at the bank and they had a first edition copy of the book. It was so neat to see this because I remember reading it at my grandparents house. I also got to pick up a real gold bar! It weighted 25 or 28 lb.! They let you try to pick it up in a case with one hand. I was able to pick it up but it was very heavy.

We walked through the financial district to a Pret A Manger to stop for coffee and a snack. Well I had a snack and got a sandwich because I was starving. At the Museum of London we skipped most of the archeological things to Medieval London and the Fire of London. A huge amount of London actually burned in the fire. The museum also had tons of artifacts from all the different decades after the Great Fire of London. There was an exhibit on the pleasure gardens and all the wealth present in London at the time. There were clothing that was beautiful with all the elaborate hats that went with each dress. There was also a life size street scape designed that even had a lamp post. There was a glass maker, toy store, tailer, pub, bank, post office, general store, hat store and pawn store. They all had store fronts. We were at the museum for about 2 hours. I took alot of pictures but since you can't use the flash some are pretty blurry. We walked over to the monument to the victims of the Great Fire.

After we walked past Lloyds of London an international insurance firm. The building was designed with all the lifts (elevators) and plumbing outside of the building to maximize space. It is very modern compared to all the stone buildings surrounding it. We walked through a market place with a glass roof that was featured in Harry Potter!

We walked over London Bridge to the Southwark Cathedral. We met Bob our tour guide. The cathedral has ties to Harvard University and Nelson Mandela came to the opening of the addition of the church. It also only received minor damage in WWII compared to buildings surrounding it. It is located right in the River Thames near the docks.

We went to the Anchor an old pub with a deck and had a drink with my professor after our long day of walking all over the place. It was so nice to sit for a bit. After we walked along the river past the Tate Modern, the Wobbly Bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral on the other river bank to Waterloo station. It took what felt like an hour to get to the station due to construction. We finally got onto the train back to Surbiton on platform 10 and with in 5 minutes they announced a change in the platform. We had to run to a new platform just as I had gotten up to look for the nearest 'loo'. By the time I got back to my room it was 7:30 pm. What a day!

I made chicken and baked potatos in the oven. It tasted so good. I watched some tv on my computer while laying on my bed resting my aching feet.