"It does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live" Albus Dumbledore

So it is ridiculous that I haven't written on my blog since mid October but I have been so busy. Although the semester is almost up, the past couple of weeks I have had a paper due each week. It's been ridiculous.

So I guess the best place to start off would be my trip to Edinburgh with Ivan and Abbie. I had originally planned to go to Edinburgh with my friends from DU the next weekend, but I figured two trips to Edinburgh would be fun.

On the first trip, Ivan, Abbie, and I all headed took the Megabus to Edinburgh (Megabus is a cheap bus system for the UK. It only cost 10 pounds round-trip to go to Edinburgh from Glasgow). The bus ride was as nice as any bus ride can be but it was perfect because it only took us an hour and half to get there though. I slept most of the way ( I didn't get much sleep on the night before because my flatmates through a party. (At the party, I met someone from Sweden who knows a guy who knows Loui Eriksson. Therefore, I wanted to become his best friend. Of course, I haven't seen him since that party :D).

For those of you who don't know, this is Loui :D

We decided to go to Edinburgh to see the Catherine the Great exhibit at the Scottish Museum in Edinburgh. The exhibit was pretty cool. I kind of remember learning about Catherine the Great in AP European history but the exhibit really brought her to life. Her story is very similar to other great ruling women of the time. She was not born Catherine but changed her name when she married the Grande Duke of Russia. From what I can remember, she basically over through him and became ruled Russia as Empress then on. She was a very strong woman.

After the exhibit, Abbie, Ivan, and I walked around the other exhibits. We walked through the animal/insect exhibit and then found an amazing exhibit on clocks. It sounds crazy but they were so decorative. One was a clock that had a monster eating time, which was very philosophical and a good metaphor of time. There was another very tall call with different images of time. My favorite was the skeleton, which I guess represents death, in other words, the end of time (or it could just be the beginning, depending on your philosophy). Then we saw the Early Scots exhibit, which is cool because I am taking Scottish History at the University of Glasgow. There were items commemorating Robert Bruce and, of course, William Wallace. Then we got to see the most exciting thing at the museum, Dolly, the cloned sheep!

Time Eater!

Ominous Death

"For we fight not for glory, nor riches, nor honours, but for Freedom alone, which no good man gives up except with his life"

Dolly

After the museum we walked to the Elephant House, one of the places J.k Rowling allegedly wrote Harry Potter, to have lunch (I had a baked potato, a cookie, and a cappacino). It was a cute little cafe. The service was slow and I kind of got the feeling that they didn't like the influx of tourist coming to the cafe just for Harry Potter. One of the coolest things about the cafe was the bathroom. It had an outpouring of quotes and notes for JK Rowling and the Harry Potter series. Although I only read up to book 5, through my sister, best friend, and cousin, I know the series touched many hearts and it was really cool to read what people had to say about it.

"Of course it's happening inside your head Harry, but why on earth does that make it any less real"

I tried to go to the Ministry of Magic. It didn't work...

After the Elephant House, we all walked up to Edinburgh Castle. It took us awhile to walk up to the Royal Mile (the street the castle is on) because it was all up hill. We didn't actually pay to get inside but we got a wonderful view of Edinburgh. After the Castle we went to a souvenir shop and I got the Princess Diana memorial tartan! Then we walked to the city center and hung out there a little bit. Abbie had never been to Primark (basically a really cheap department store) so we window shopped there and then hopped on the bus back to Glasgow.

Edinburgh Castle 

Edinburgh

William Wallace 

Picture Perfect 

I cannot get enough of this view

Sweet Caption

The bus ride was a little more crazy this time. You never know if you will get a peaceful bus ride or have that one crazy person on the bus. Well the bus back had about three crazy people on the bus. They were either all middle-aged and trying to act young or all young and trying to act cool. They were drunk in the mid afternoon and were being so loud and obnoxious on the bus. They even started smoking at one point! Apart from the bus ride the trip to Edinburgh was great.

Still to come on "Living under British rule Finally"
Edinburgh take 2-- Dungeon of Terror
"In Scotland do as the Scottish do"/ Halloween
Ireland
ELECTION