Fulbright Fun

As a part of the Global Leadership Scholars Program, I spent the past six weeks interning for the US-UK Fulbright Commission. I was a real workin' woman. The Fulbright Commission is a government appointed commission responsible for every single Fulbright Award that is given to any UK or US student. A Fulbright Award is a very prestigious scholarship that is given to postgraduates to work on their masters degrees overseas (Postgrad Awards) or to professors to lecture (Scholar Awards). A Fulbright Scholarship is the equivalent of a Rhodes Scholarship: very prestigious and VERY competitive. You get a Fulbright as a Postgrad and you can get into almost any grad school that you want. Being a Fulbrighter opens a lot of doors, and working with them this semester has opened a door for me because of how much I have learned. My time at the Fulbright Commission was memorable to say the least.

We worked in an office directly next to the Battersea Power Station, which is an out-of-use station that used to control all of the electricity for the city of London. The Power Station is now under construction to become an event hall and office space...but right now it is just lots of dump trucks and dust in the middle of nowhere. It is a beautiful location right on the Thames, but it is definitely in a developing part of the city. I have to take the tube about 30 minutes and then walk another 30 or so to get to the office because the tube doesn't go out that far. The walk wouldn't seem so long if there weren't construction workers lining the streets ready to whistle at a moment's notice. However, I felt so cool every day hopping on the tube, waking with a purpose, and not feeling like a tourist. I would scoff at the people that didn't know obvious things like don't stand on the left on the escalators, or my special favorite, the people that would take pictures of the tube...it's not that picturesque I promise. Unfortunately it was probably one of those "what you think you look like, what you actually look like" moments for me...

What I think I look like...

What I actually look like...

Work was a dream for me. Maybe it was the academic atmosphere that I enjoyed, or maybe it was that I am destined to work in a not-for-profit and be broke my whole life, but whatever it was the Fulbright Commission was exactly where I wanted to be. Apart from the actual commissioners, there are 6 full time staff members and anywhere from 1-3 interns at a time. This makes for a very intimate work environment and allowed me to take on projects that in a larger environment I wouldn't have touched. My coworkers were as follows:

-Michael (The Boss) is the flamboyant neat freak who speaks with a British accent even though he is from Chicago.
-Lauren (Go-To Girl) is the American recent graduate who is quick witted, has a story for everything, and orchestrates 4 o'clock dance parties to "I Like Big Butts."
-Monique (Don't Mess With Me) is the too-cool-for-school South African whose desk is a black hole but she manages to be on top of every little thing that goes on.
-Rebecca (Real Life Brit) is the young, sweet, recently married, only actual Brit in the office who is kind no matter how annoying the scholar on the other end of the phone conversation is.
-Moray (Office Manager)...we don't really know what she does.

Needless to say, it was a diverse and upbeat work environment.

Quite an intimidating building to see out the window at work...

I spent a lot of my time doing administrative tasks to help keep the office running, but most of the time I had the chance to be a part of some really interesting and "inside" jobs for the commission. I got to do some work on their website, and for any college students or teachers out there here is my shameless plug for a great opportunity: www.fulbright.co.uk check it out! I had the chance to work with the applications that were coming in for their summer programmes, which are for rising sophomores and juniors in college and are VERY competitive. We received over 800 applications for about 40 spots for the three-week exchange programmes. I got to attend a commission event where I met current and past Fulbrighters who are all very impressive people with impressive stories to tell. I had the chance to design, edit, and write flyers, acceptance letters, and other informative documents that will be going out all over the world. I truly got a taste of what the Fulbright Commission is all about.

More than anything, I had a blast and learned valuable lessons that will help me along the road. (Mostly what NOT to do in an interview or application, but useful nonetheless.) The best part of the job was that when opening up the applications that were mailed in, the rule was: you keep any treasures you find. I accumulated some jewels of photographs people sent of themselves, candy, and even a CD of a girl playing a harp. Sometimes when reading the applications got too stressful you would here one of the girls moan, "harpppp" with her head down on a growing pile of papers, and we knew it was time to take a break and listen to our new favorite CD to relax.

There are so many things that I will miss about my time with Fulbright. For example, the family lunches when the whole staff would gather and have "sanctity" time when no one was allowed to talk about work. Or the girls calling me "Queen Intern" and giving me life advice; their favorite was "take the money and drink your life away" when it came to choosing a career, but you could tell that they love what they do. But my favorite part of the day was the exchange with Michael (The Boss) when he would pop his head into my office out of the blue and yell:

"LAURA!" (prounounced "La-ra"...he was very proud that he could say it right instead of the common "Lo-ra")

"Yes, Michael?"

"Oh, nothing. I just wanted to say your name. You're a star. I'm giving you a raise!"

"Thanks!"

"Yes. Your salary just went from nothing to nothing. Would you like a cup of tea?"

"No thank you, I'm good."

"Oh good. I'll bring you one." 

Tea. So much tea. Always.
Fulbright really was my cup of tea!

Paris je t'aime - France Round One

  Paris stole my heart.

I have been looking forward to going to Paris since the last time I left probably 15 years ago and with each French class I took and every classy French movie I watched this desire to return grew. However, I was somehow surprised that the City of Lights lived up to my expectations and my own idealized memories. It was a whirlwind of a trip that was painfully short, but just long enough to remind me why this beautiful city is the object of so much romanticizing. It was perfectly lovely. 

Four of us hopped on a train on a Friday night and arrived at our hostel in time to meet Clay, the overly enthusiastic Canadian guy in our hostel room, who proceeded to tell us all about his experiences in Amsterdam. He spoke with a distinctly Canadian accent except for when he said "Amsterdam," which came out in the most New-York way possible sounding more like "Ayum-staa-dayum." I didn't know that word could be that many syllables long. The hostel served breakfast of entire baguettes with Nutella packets. It was going to be a good day.

We started making our way to the Eiffel Tower taking the most roundabout way possible in order to see as much of Paris as we could in our limited time. We saw the Louvre and the Tuileries then walked down the Champs-Élysées to L'Arc de Triomphe. We stopped in the delicious La Durée for some Macarons. If there's one thing I can do in French it is order food. I may be more timid than I should be when talking to people on the street or asking questions, but put a rose petal macaron in front of me and by golly I'm fluent. After risking our lives to take pictures in front of L'Arc de Triomphe, we made our way to the Eiffel Tower stopping only for a nutella crêpe on the way. This was a big food weekend for some of my travel buddies who had never had a crêpe OR a Prince Cookie before...we fixed that real quick. 

When we got to the Eiffel Tower, we were disappointed to find out that only one elevator was working because of construction of some kind and that the line to go up to the top was over two hours long. Having a very limited amount of time to see the city, we decided that we couldn't spend that long in line and would rather see other things. With a heavy heart I walked away from La Tour Eiffel. We enjoyed the rest of our day eating some authentic French food and walking around the gorgeous city and saw Notre Dame by night, which was breathtaking. We were about to head back to our hostel, but decided that since we did not get to go up the Eiffel Tower, we would at least walk by it at night to see it lit up. When we got there at about 11:30 pm, we realized that the elevator was still creeping up the side of the tower! We broke into a run hoping to get there before it closed down for the night. There was no line whatsoever and we practically walked straight onto the elevator...We spent midnight on top of the Eiffel Tower. Talk about a romantic comedy waiting to happen. I was just waiting for the male lead to pop around the corner with a dozen red roses and a cheesy song to roll us into the credits...needless to say THAT did not happen, but it was quite a fairytale anyway. It's not a bad way to start April if you ask me. 

The next day we took a train out to Versailles. We did not know this when we were planning, but April 1st is the opening day of the fountains in the Versailles Gardens, so it was probably the busiest day of the year. We spent so long waiting in line that by the time we got to the Palace, we realized that we wouldn't have time to do both the Gardens and the Palace itself. This was a huge letdown, but we couldn't really complain. We wandered around the beautiful, vast Gardens for hours and enjoyed every second of it. We sat on the edge of the biggest fountain bathed in sunshine and watched it turn on for the first time this season. It was magnificent! Once again I felt like I was in a movie. I know it's the wrong country, but I was waiting for Mr. Darcy to walk up beside me in the Gardens. A girl can dream, right? 

It was a short trip, and a few more things went wrong than we would have liked, but all in all you can't beat Paris in the Spring. Luckily for me, I have the great fortune to go back to France in about a week! My internship in London is about to wrap up, but instead of crossing back over the pond just yet, I'm going to head back to France with the wonderful company of my Aunt Swannee. 

La vie est belle!

Blast From the Past - Fam Jam in Belgium

Waffles and chocolates and beer, OH MY!

Dad...

What could be better than having my parents come visit me in London? Having my parents come visit me in London and getting to travel to our old stomping ground: Brussels, Belgium. My parents had been traveling around Scotland and England for their 25th Wedding Anniversary, they picked me up in London, and we all hopped on a plane to Brussels. I guarantee that there were waffles in our hands within an hour of the plane hitting the ground. One of the first phrases we learned as kids when we moved to Belgium was "Une gaufre, s'il vous plaît," however I did not even need to use it. Perhaps this is because with the drool dripping from my mouth, saying, "One waffle, please," would have just been redundant. My goodness those waffles are good. There are two things you need to know: 1) My family loves Belgian waffles. 2) My Dad got a fancy knew camera for their anniversary. Put these two together and you get a ton of waffle pictures... Or just a ton of pictures in general. There were many times that I had to take the camera away from him in order to keep us moving at a reasonable pace. "Dad, just because the light keeps changing does NOT mean that you have to stop to take pictures of the same building every ten minutes..."

Manneken Pis

The first night we were there, we had the Brussels experience wandering around the Grand Place and stopping by to see our old friend the Manneken Pis (the statue of a little boy that according to legend saved the town by peeing on a bomb to extinguish it). He gets dressed in costumes for special occasions and holidays, though this time he was just wearing his birthday suit. The first time we saw him right after we moved, he was dressed in an Elvis get up! It made us feel right at home. We ate mussels and frites and gawked at all of the chocolate displays that peppered the streets. Having rented a car, we drove out of the city to our hotel in Waterloo about 30 minutes outside of Brussels.

The next morning we got up at a freakishly early hour to get started on our day of nostalgia. We began at the Butte de Lion, the monument to the Battle of Waterloo, which is a large hill topped with a giant statue of a lion. However, when we arrived, the monument was not nearly as impressive as the gathering of Ferraris in the parking lot. There must have been over 50 of these sleek cars lined up and ready for some sort of rally. Needless to say, my dad whipped his camera out faster than you can say "sports car" and was going to town. Once we pried him away from the shiny cars, we started to make our way up to the base of the daunting staircase. In a moment of pure stupidity I exclaimed, "How much will you give me if I run up all of the stairs?" "Five Euros." "Deal!" And off I went... Now, this might not have been so bad if it hadn't been for the fact that I had woken up about 20 minutes before and was wearing knee-high boots that weigh who knows how much... At about step 200 of 226 I nearly collapsed. Luckily my dad stood at the bottom and took pictures of me running up the entire time (not a good angle let me tell you)  and was there to capture my exhaustion on film. I ran up the last 26 steps out of stubbornness, but sadly did not get my reward. The view from the top is beautiful and I enjoyed looking out at the country side and imagining how different life would have turned out if we had stayed in Waterloo. My mom was determined to find our house from the top of the Butte de Lion, and when she puts her mind to something she doesn't give up...ever. And by golly she found it! Technically she found a corner of the roof, but it counts.  The walk down the staircase was much more pleasant as we checked returning to the Butte de Lion off our bucket list.

So gross...

Next stop, the grocery store? Yep. The grocery store. Sounds exciting right? Well it was for us. We spent about an hour walking through the aisles looking at the brands that we don't get in the U.S. and the things that we remember from 12 years ago. My favourites included the bread slicing machine (you slice your own bread) and the hot dogs floating in jars. I thought that was nasty as a kid, and I think it's nasty now. There is just nothing natural about hot dogs in jars. Another thing you need to know: the women on my mom's side of the family have a scary ability to find someone that they know ANYWHERE they go. My grandmother could walk into a McDonald's in Antarctica and find a long lost friend or family member. My mother inherited that ability. As we are standing in line to check out she starts nudging us asking of we recognize the woman in the next line. "No mom, we're in Waterloo and haven't been here for 12 years we're not going to run into anyone that we know." We were so wrong. My mom then walked up to my little brother's preschool teacher and reintroduced herself. The teacher remembered my mom and they had a conversation in the grocery store about old times. It was one of the strangest moments I can remember. I should not have underestimated the power of the Williams Woman Curse...I wonder if I will grow into that?

We took a picnic to the ruins of the Abbey that we used to go visit and enjoyed a beautiful, sunny day and each others company. After walking through the Abbey (and breaking my camera) we began a search for the Bluebells in Halle's wood. Every spring the Forest floor explodes in bluebells leaving the forest a blazing blue color that is absolutely breathtaking. We knew that we were a little early for the bluebells to be blooming, but we decided to give it a try anyway. We found the woods and enjoyed walking through the paths even though the bluebells, sadly, were not there yet. We must have been about a week too soon and I bet if we went back now, the floor would be covered. This didn't stop us from taking cheesy pictures in the flowers that were there, however.

...what it will look like.

What it looked like for us...

Our old house

We went from the woods to see our old house. It was such a beautiful, regal home and it was very strange standing on the other side of the wrought iron gate looking into the yard that used to be our playground. I could see my bedroom window and the trees that we spent hours climbing. It was a strange sensation. It smelled the same. The atmosphere was so familiar, but at the same time, the house appeared vacant and empty giving it the air of a dream or half-realized memory. I think it was hard on my parents seeing it empty when it used to be so full and vibrant with four kids running around and growing up. Nevertheless, it was fun to see and I'm glad we went. It truly is a beautiful home. We then made our way to the old school. This was especially strange for me because most of my memories from that time were at that school. We were able to walk around and peer in windows and surprisingly I could pick out the desks that I sat at in each classroom. It is bizarre the kinds of things you remember.
We wrapped up our night at our favorite restaurant that was just as good as we remembered, even though it has changed names.

I did not intend for this to get so long...so I will wrap it up with a quick summary! We spent the next visiting the Atomium and Mini Europe and then wandered around Brussels and the Grand Place again. We flew back into London and got ready for a marathon day of London-sightseeing. It was fun to get to show my parents around my city and I didn't get lost once! (That's a big accomplishment.) After seeing most of the token London destinations, we went to see Singing in the Rain at the Palace Theatre. It was a perfect end to our trip! It was such a happy show full of impressive vocals and stunning dance sequences. I admit, I sat silently weeping through the entire second half because it made me realize how much I miss being on stage, but I enjoyed it greatly.

Saying goodbye to wonderful parents is not easy, but the fact that I will be home in less than a month made it much easier! I was so thankful to see them and thankful for the opportunities left in my short time here. I could not have asked for a better weekend!

Singin' in the Rain!

The Grand Place

The Atomium

Mini Europe

Ciao Bella!

After 2 months in dreary, drizzly London, Spring Break in Italy was a welcome change. Kayla, Paige, and I took on Pisa, Cinque Terre, Florence and Rome in 6 days and had the time of our lives. The most noteworthy detail of our adventure is that I do not think the temperature dropped below 60 degrees the entire week. We found ourselves celebrating a sunburn after a day spent outside soaking up the rays and exploring a beautiful city... that's the happiest I have ever been to have a sunburn.

Our trip began in Pisa. We flew into the airport there and spent the afternoon getting accustomed to the sunshine and embracing the fact that we were going to be shameless tourists for a week. We took pictures with the Leaning Tower in every pose you could imagine, and even captured a few of our fellow tourists in especially interesting poses. All the while, we had our backpacks strapped on tight and full of a weeks worth of clothes. We had initially been nervous about being three girls traveling alone to Italy, and our fears were temporarily recognized about five minutes after arriving in Pisa when Kayla's purse was attacked by a homeless woman, but that was the worst that happened all week. After taking the token tourist pictures and fishing our sunglasses out of the depths of our backpacks, we wandered into a restaurant for our first Italian meal. It just so happened that we ate outside with a gorgeous view of the Tower, and thoroughly enjoyed our pizza and pasta (we had no idea at this point how tired we would eventually be of pizza...). We piddled around for a few hours until our train departed for Monterosso, one of the five cities that make up Cinque Terre.


We stepped off the train in Monterosso and there was no doubt that this was going to be a good trip. The sky was a left over pink from what I imagine was a beautiful sunset, and the breeze was blowing salty air in from the rocky beach. The three of us exchanged excited looks as we made our way to our hostel. My favorite part about Italy is the fact that everywhere you go there are random cats strolling around just waiting for a pet-deprived college student to pet them. I happily obliged. 

Our hostel was owned by a very friendly Italian man whose family also owned a restaurant in town so after putting our bags down, he escorted us to the family restaurant where we were given a generous discount and were waited on by his equally friendly brother. After sampling their mother's homemade desserts, we returned to our hostel full and happy and ready to rest up the next day that would be spent hiking the five cities.

Such a beautiful view!

Cinqe Terre had some pretty destructive floods a few months ago, and the cities were all recovering while we were there. This did not inconvenience us at all, except for the fact that the trail linking the five cities was closed and we were forced to find an alternate route. What was supposed to be a two and a half hour hike through all the cities turned into a two and a half hour hike to the WRONG city that was in the complete opposite direction of where we wanted to be... and we couldn't have been happier about it. We hiked to a city called Levanto that was not one of the five cities that made up Cinque Terre, and ended up taking a train to where we meant to go. But we sure enjoyed our hike and all of the beautiful views that it brought with it. We discovered that we are not very good at following a trail because we were constantly looking off into the horizon or admiring the scenery and repeatedly found ourselves off the trail. The red and white makers that lined that the trail became a welcomed sight after we tired of the moments of panic when we realized we were no longer on route. Each one merited a point and an exclamation of "MARKER!" when spotted no matter how close it was to the last marker. Once we made it to Levanto, we hopped on a train and rode ten minutes to Manarola which was connected to Riomaggiore by a walkway called Lover's Lane. This was the only section of the trail that was not affected by the floods and so was open to the public.

  It was basically just a sidewalk with a fantastic view, but what made it so interesting was that the walls and stones surrounding the trail were covered with love notes and hearts enclosing names of lovers that have visited. As if that is not mushy enough, there is also a large collection of locks left on fences lining the trail perhaps to signify the strength of love. You can imagine the dialogue  of "Ooooh," "Awww," and "This sucks" that took place between three sentimental girls reading all of these notes having been far away from boyfriends or any semblance of romance for months. The bursting pink sunset didn't help either...

"Part of your worldddd"

The rest of our time in Cinque Terre was spent exploring five beautiful towns, enjoying local cuisine and people, and climbing on rocks in the sea pretending to be Ariel from The Little Mermaid. I could go on and on about how amazing our time in Cinque Terre was, but I am realizing just how long this post is going to be and how bad I am at short-and-sweet. My third grade writing teacher told me that I needed to elaborate more in my writing...she obviously never read my blog.

At the top of the Duomo

Off to Florence! Our strategy for conquering Florence was spreading out our map next to my computer that had Google's list of "Top Things to do in Florence" pulled up and circling everything that it listed on our map. We worked our way down the map seeing everything that we had circled and many things that we had not. What Florence lacked in cliffs and sunsets, it made up for in history and architecture. We first ventured into the Duomo or the Basilica of Saint Mary and were awed by the intricate detail and ceiling. We climbed hundreds of stairs to reach the top of the Duomo, and it was well worth the trip up. The panoramic view was astounding. We made our way through museums, cathedrals, and gelaterias taking in the culture and exploring. We learned that three girls traveling alone in Italy was perhaps not the most desirable situation as we were constantly yelled at, whistled at, even barked at. The most entertaining though was the shop owner who said "Hey Charlie's Angels" as we walked by, or the man who called out "Shakira! Shakira!" as I passed. We laughed and shrugged it off, but we were constantly aware and cautious. Perhaps my favorite spot in Florence was the Piazza Michelangelo, which is an overlook of the entire city. It was quite a hike to get up there, but at this point in our trip we were pro hikers. My least favorite part of Florence was the Ponte Vecchio, which houses shops and shops full of gold and silver jewelry. It made me so acutely aware of how I will most likely never be able to afford to return there... That night we were able to meet up with a few other GLSers that were also traveling in Florence, and it was nice to see some familiar faces. Our time in Florence drew to a close and we once again packed up our backpacks and strapped up for the trip to Rome. 

We attempted to watch Mary Kate and Ashley's When in Rome to prepare ourselves for the lovely city of Roma, however we were unsuccessful. This is probably a good thing because we would have had unrealistic expectations that would have been quickly smashed. Don't get me wrong, I loved Rome. Imagine with me for a moment, though, that you are three 20 year old girls arriving in a huge city...at night...with a map that screams "tourist"... in a not-so-nice part of town. Freaked out yet? Yeah we were, too. We figured that once we found our hostel our feeling of unease would settle, but when we walked into our coed dormitory style hostel room and saw the creepy half-naked guy wrapping himself in a towel... we knew we were dead wrong. Coed dorms were much cheaper, but we learned our lesson: some things are just worth the extra cost, like all girls dorms. We turned tail and practically ran out of there to find some food and calm down. Eventually we knew that we had to go back to our hostel, but delayed this as long as we could. We went back and got a skype pep talk from a previous study abroad student who lived in Rome who assured us that Rome is not as scary as we thought and that things would be fine in the daylight. He could not have been more right. Unfortunately, towel-guy soon turned into snoring-guy so our night was near sleepless and we were anxious to get up and going the next morning. We adapted out Florence map plan for Rome and found that it was similarly successful. Rome was absolutely fantastic. Everything was so full of history and each monument we saw was more impressive than the last. We did all of the token Rome spots like the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II (wedding cake), Spanish Steps, and many many more. We also found the best gelato in the world (thanks to a great recommendation). They had Nutella gelato that was wonderful but so rich we struggled to finish it. I'm pretty sure I have figured out there recipe for it as well: you take a container of Nutella, put it in the refrigerator, stick it on a cone, and call it gelato. Truly it was wonderful. We made our way to the Spanish steps to rest after a long day of sightseeing and were rewarded with a middle school flash mob rendition of "Tonight's Gonna be a Good Night" by the Black Eyed Peas performed in broken English and accompanied by woefully entertaining dance moves. Our day was complete.

Did I mention that our hostel smelled like death? It did. We got a hold of some air freshener and doused everything in the room while everyone else was out. It was a feeble attempt, but it softened the blow of the horrible odor. Our next and last day in Italy was spent at the Vatican. I have seen impressive places in my life and on this trip, but this was in a league of it's own. We saw St. Peter's Basilica, which in itself is a sight to see, but it also houses Michelangelo's Pieta - one of my favorite pieces of art. To say I was in awe would be a gross understatement. However, this is nothing compared to the way I felt standing in the middle of the Sistine Chapel. As I stood there gaping up at Michelangelo's ceiling, all of my AP Euro knowledge came rushing back and I was thrilled with how much I retained and even more thrilled with how much more all of this information meant to me standing there looking at the ceiling itself. The ceiling was amazing, there's no doubt about that. However, it was Michelangelo's The Last Judgment that I had been itching to see. I can distinctly remember sitting in Barbara Stewart's class studying this painting and now can fully appreciate everything that she taught. I bought a postcard of this painting to send to her because as I stood there looking at it, I realized just how much I learned from her and how much richer it made my experience in Rome. That's something I feel deserves a "Thanks." I stood with my feet rooted to the ground craning my neck staring at the ceiling and the walls trying desperately to take in everything. The security guards looked at me like I was crazy because I must have been in the exact same spot for a good half an hour before moving the slightest. I can say without a doubt that that was my favorite thing that I have seen since I have been over here. I can't wait to go back some day.

 Our last day in Rome was a huge success and none of us wanted to leave. But London was calling... This time, we weren't coming back for classes. Instead, we began internships. I am working with the US-UK Fulbright Commission and loving every second of it. I will find time to write about my experiences with them so far as soon as I can! Cheers!

Edinburgh, Scotland

The past couple of weeks came and went too quickly without my permission... We traveled as a GLS group to Edinburgh, Scotland, I explored Italy for a week on Spring Break, and I began a wonderful internship with the US-UK Fulbright Commission. That means I have too much to write about to be able to catch up in one post, so over the next week I am going to attempt to cover all of the exciting things that have been happening across the pond. So I apologize for inundating you with information you might not care about... but then again, no one is making you read this...

This post is going to attempt to cover the trip to Edinburgh that happened a week or so ago. I cannot guarantee that I will remember much, because a lot has happened since!

All 26 of the 2014 GLS class traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland along with Lane and Andrew, our directors, to enjoy some haggis and windy weather for a few days. Upon arrival, we went on a ghost tour of Edinburgh that landed us in the "vaults" of the city. I will admit I was quite creeped out. I don't generally scare easily, and maybe it was just that our tour guide was particularly creepy even apart from his job, but the tour did it's job. We were given free reign of the city at night after the tour and we ventured to find some traditional Scottish food. I was determined to try haggis, but after learning that it was basically sheep's heart and liver oatmeal I settled for some safe chicken...the ghost tour was enough fright for one day. I had the chance to roam around the city and enjoyed seeing the Castle of Edinburgh by night, which has been the background on my computer for years. I stumbled across The Elephant House - the cafe where J.K. Rowling began writing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Needless to say, I was very excited.

The next day, we woke bright and early in order to hop on a bus for a day-long tour of the Highlands and Loch Ness. Sitting on a bus all day may not sound like a barrel of fun to you, but believe me it was wonderful. Our tour guide, Andy, or as he liked to be called, "Dead Sexy," played 90's tunes while we rolled through the mountains and took in the scenery and history of the beautiful countryside. We were able to stop at a few castles along the way, including the castle used to film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The further we got into the Highlands, the more windy it got. By the end, the girls were all attempting to tame rat's nests of hair and everyone was wind blow, but it was well worth it. The sights were beautiful and the history was fascinating. It is lovely to be able to be so far away from big cities and tall buildings and for once to be able to look up and see the sky instead of a telephone pole. We made it to Loch Ness and were all able to walk out onto a pier to take pictures and absorb the beautiful scenery including four or five full rainbows. I had a close call that almost landed me straight in the Loch... as I began tumbling down the rocky side of the pier, I reached out and grabbed for Kayla, the first person I could reach only to realize that we were now both about to fall in the water. If it weren't for Chucky's Spiderman-esque reaction and quick save, it would have been a very long, cold ride home.

  The next day, which happened to be my 20th Birthday, we visited Edinburgh castle and ate fried Mars Bars. I'm not sure which was more exciting... the train ride home seemed exceptionally long, but that might just be because we were all anxious to get back and head out for Spring Break. It was a wonderful trip to a beautiful city, but the fun doesn't stop there! Hopefully I will have an Italy post up later this week!