I have to write about my week in Scotland and Northern England in installments because otherwise it is too daunting...and probably no one would want to read the finished product, being novel-length. Let us start at our first destination, Durham, England.
This is the castle we stayed in. Yes, you heard me correctly. We stayed in a castle. My room was that second row of windows in the tower. A lot of the girls were stuck up in that tower, sort of like a bunch of princesses, imprisoned, awaiting rescue from a knight in shining armor...except there is no dating on the trip so we are out of luck. ;)
When we got to Durham, we checked into our castle and then we wandered the town a little, first exploring the Durham cathedral. It is an amazingly beautiful cathedral which I truly cannot capture in my pictures a)because my camera isn't perfect and b)because I don't have the photographer gene...actually, I'm not sure if anyone in our family has the photographer gene. Correct me if I'm wrong. :) So after we explored the cathedral we went to get something to eat, but apparently if you aren't in London, everything in England closes at 6 pm. Unfortunate. So we found a tavern that was open, but smelled like pee and beer (unfortunately as all pubs and taverns do) and a place called Pizza Express. Definitely the better choice. After that we wandered through Durham for a while, getting semi-lost looking for ice cream (we were successful at last!) and then ending up at the cathedral at dark to tell scary stories. Unfortunately, none of us really know ghost stories, so it ended up being a "this isn't really that scary, but....it's funny" story night, which was equally enjoyable.
Then, we all retired to bed for a peaceful night's sleep in the tower. Right? WRONG-O!!!!!!!! I awoke to the piercing and penetrating sound of an alarm permeating the air throughout the castle. I had no idea what it was, having been awoken from a deep and sound sleep. My roommate frantically started packing her bags while I sat in bed with my ears plugged and tried to awaken my brain as to what could possibly be going on. Apparently it was a fire alarm, at 5 in the morning. So after convincing my roommate that she did not need her suitcase, we descended the 12 flights of stairs to the ground floor and evacuated in our pajamas. So in the shadow of the Durham cathedral, we waited for some sort of direction and also sang happy birthday to one of our crew. "Aw, guys, you didn't have to do all this for me. Pull the fire alarm just to get everyone up to sing happy birthday." oh, so classy.
Anyway, after a 30 minute wait, we were allowed to go back to our tower to sleep for another hour and a half. And you want to know the ridiculous thing? The wing of the castle where the boys were sleeping, the fire alarm went off for about 15 seconds and then turned off, so they got to sleep through the whole experience! Their loss. Not seeing us in all our morning glory heeheehee. Anyway, that is the end of this installment. Tune in next time for Tales from Scotland.
3 comments:
whoooaaaa... Beeks, you have to know that even though I don't envy the fact that a fire alarm ruined your castle experience, I am so jealous!! CASTLE! just..like, CAS.TLE! geez. I need to go to the UK. Show me around? :D
ok... you're in a castle? what what? that is so stinkin cool! also... they really pulled the fire alarm to sing happy birthday? or was that an exaggeration? how did you function without killing everyone? i would have... i guess you're mas of a dime... haha. te quiero, amor. <3
I dont often comment on peoples blogs but you really ought to write more. I'm just a random dude who peruses random blogs (I'm a sociology major so people intrigue me, I promise I'm not a creep) in my spare time and in my opnion you have much better flow than most. Now I'm no authority on the matter but your writing style is refreshing. Good Luck in all you do!
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