Hannah and A Very Special Birthday Blog Post - It's Time Travel Ya'll

What's up with this you ask? Gosh Hannah, you've been AWOL for almost ten months (wait...seriously? *counts on fingers* holey moley! I think that's right). What the fluffy-monkey?

Cue cute fluffly monkey!

Well, I could give you the whole list of excuses - too busy in Aberdeen, too sad about leaving Scotland when I got home to continue writing, too busy with school back in the states etc. etc. But instead of going on and on about that (well anymore than I already have), I'll tell you why I have reappeared on the blog-scene (the blene, if you will). Earlier this week was my absolutely fabulous mother's birthday. When I asked her what she wanted for her b-day, she asked me to me to write about her visit to the UK over Christmas and New Year's. So what can a girl do for a wonderful mother except give her exactly what she wants? Nothing I tell you! Nothing!

So TA-DA! That is what this is.

Therefore, let us transport ourselves back in time to December, 2011. *Whoodle whoodle whoodle whoodle* Ahh there we go.

My mom headed to Aberdeen soon after my winter vacation started. I spent a couple solitary days in the flat, just chilling.

Literally.

I met a tired but excited mom at the Aberdeen train station, conveniently located in Union Square Mall, where our hotel was also located (hmmm that convenience might have been planned). It was later in the evening so we wandered around the mall to find some food, and oddly ended up at a place called Frankie and Benny's - New York Italian Restaurant and Bar where the food is "just like Momma used to make." It was one of those, we don't know where to go so let's just go to this place we are walking passed right now, type deals.

The next day was dedicated to showing mom around Aberdeen. I took her on a tour of the University's campus. She got to see where I had a couple of my classes and she even got to hang out with a unicorn.    

Mom and her new friend.

Then we met up with a very nice woman named Julia who works for the University. Mom's boss had given Julia our information, and she offered to take us for coffee. Instead of just taking us for coffee, she offered to take us to see one of the many castles around Aberdeen, since mom was only spending one day in Aberdeen, Julia felt that she couldn't leave without seeing a castle. I thoroughly agreed, so off we went to Crathes castle.

Crathes Castle

 Because it was so near the holidays the inside of the castle was closed, but we were able to see the beautiful exterior and the neat gardens. They had some ah-mazingly well manicured shrubs.

L: Mom and Julia. Above: Me and Mom

                  

    We really lucked out with the weather as well. It was absolutely gorgeous.                                             

The sun getting ready to leave for the day (at like 3pm).

After our lovely castle trip, we said goodbye to Julia and headed back to Hillhead so I could take mom to see where I lived. After a brief stop by the flat we took a quick look around Seaton park before heading back downtown for the night.

Bright and early the next morning we were on the train heading for Edinburgh. This wasn't just any morning either, this was Christmas eve morning. We arrived in Edinburgh late morning and went to drop our things off at the Balmoral hotel, which was to be the site of our exciting U.K. Christmas. The city was in full Christmas gear. From the window of our room we could see the Winter Wonderland festival held on and around Princes Street, as well as Edinburgh castle.

Edinburgh castle to the left and the winter wonderland festival down to the right.

 We trekked through the city and walked up to the castle for a look around.

 Edinburgh castle is on quite the hill, it is in fact an extinct volcano. You can sort of tell just how high up it is from the picture of mom waving from the top, across the way to the left is part of Arthur's Seat.

The castle was pretty impressive. Lots of cannons. One of the neat things about it is that it's in such good condition. Parts of the castle have been rebuilt at various times after various battles, but one of the oldest bits is a chapel that was dedicated to Queen Margaret, built by her son David I around 1130. 

 It is fairly obvious why this castle has been fought over so many times, especially between the Scottish and the English. It is definitely the stronghold of Edinburgh.

It also happens to have a gorgeous view of the city at night, especially when it's all lit up for the holidays.

After our tour of the castle, mom and I had an amazing Christmas dinner at a restaurant called the Witchery up near the castle. Lots of good food, lots of good wine, lots of cheerful people, and lots of Christmas crackers! No not Saltines. If you've never seen one, they look something like this:

I had never seen or opened one before this, and mom and I weren't exactly sure how to do it. We had to ask our rather amused waiter how to open them. Basically you just grab both ends and pulls. Then confetti and random trinkets fall out. It's good fun. Over our time together we collected several crackers and gathered everything from paper crowns to handheld mirrors to golf tees to a weird sprongy thing I got in one that has a suction cup and bounces through a combination of the suction cup and the sprongy thing. It also has a picture of a bear playing football (soccer) on it. It's pretty much the most entertaining thing I own.

After our Christmas eve dinner we walked (wove?) our way back down to the Balmoral.

Now, there are a variety of ways to be awoken on Christmas morning. If you're a parent perhaps it's by the pitter-patter-clatter-creak of little feet. Or the force of a little body excitedly throwing itself against your bed ready to see what Santa has brought. Or if you were me for the fifteen or so years before this particular Christmas it would be by your sister's best boy-from-the-sixth-sense accidental impersonation coming from somewhere near your head whispering "it's chriiiisstmas" and you would have half-expected her to conclude "oh and I see dead people." However, if you were my mom or I this Christmas morning you would have been awoken by a very loud fire alarm. At 5:30 in the morning. Bleary eyed and in our pajamas, we followed the crowd of similarly bleary eyed and pajama-clad people down the stairs, then back up the stairs when the alarm stopped, then halfway back down when it started again, and finally back upstairs. I swear I saw a man wearing one of those sleeping caps that Scrooge wears in all the productions of A Christmas Carol when he flings the window open to ask the world what day it is.

Despite the somewhat rough start to the morning, the rest of our Christmas was lovely. We had breakfast and then went for a long walk around the city.

 

Mom wanted to climb up Arthur's Seat, but it was soooo windy that I convinced her to stay a bit closer to the ground. So instead we climbed up part of the Salisbury Crags, which are next to Arthur's Seat. We still almost got blown off several times.

Mom up on the Salisbury Crags

 We found an old graveyard, it was beautiful and a little creepy at the same time.

 We climbed up Calton Hill where the National Monument and Nelson's Monument are. There's a marvelous view of the city and the sea from there.

Mom lookin' supa cute on Calton Hill

Looking out towards Holyrood Park and Arthur's Seat

After a four hour walk we went back to the Balmoral and had Christmas dinner. It came with fun hats and more crackers!

The next day we headed off into England. Our first stop was in Hexham where we stayed with a friend of my mom's, Dr. David and his family.

Mom and Dr. David in front of the barn he is fixing up.

It is a lovely area close to part of Hadrian's Wall, which was built by the Romans back in the day and runs close to the present day border between England and Scotland. That was neat to see as I had been learning about the Wall in my Celtic history class. It is also cool because a lot of it is still standing, mostly in small parts (it wouldn't be keeping any enemy armies out or prevent anyone from skipping the taxing points anymore), but seen as the Romans began building it around the 120s AD that's not altogether surprising.

At Hadrian's Wall

The town of Hexham itself is fairly small and cute, kind of what you picture when you think of a small town in England. There were quite a few pubs which Dr. David's son, Tom pointed out.
 
We also went to a Ceilidh while we were in Hexham. I had been meaning to attend one in Aberdeen and I kept missing them, so I was excited to go to one finally. A Ceilidh is a traditional dance, a bit like square dancing.

We left Dr. David and his family the day before New Year's Eve and headed down to London.

We spent a couple of nights at a Bed and Breakfast called Captain Bligh's house.

Captain Bligh's is right across from the Imperial War museum, which mom was very excited to visit. Just as we were heading to the exhibit on the trenches, the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the museum (personally, I was glad as I was getting rather depressed). It seems that I can't go to London without getting evacuated from at least one building.




We spent New Year's Eve day wandering around London. We went to Buckingham Palace and walked through the royal parks that surround the palace.

There I am in front of the Palace












And there's mom in front of the Palace.

A lovely look down one of the royal parks.

We split up for New Year's Eve, mom heading back to Captain Bligh's house and me heading out to meet a couple friends and to see the fireworks above the London Eye.

New Year's day we met up and went to Kew Garden's to spend the day with mom's friends Michael and Karen. Michael works at Kew Garden's so we got the insider's tour of the Garden's.

Michael, mom, and Karen

 I was impressed with the gardens, they were lovely and varied. It was the perfect way to start off 2012.

All the pretty things in Kew Gardens.

The next day we moved over to the Haymarket Hotel which is in the theatre district of London. We then explored more of the city:

Follow the light...

We went and saw Big Ben:

Yet couldn't quite manage to get both of us and Big Ben in a picture. It just wasn't meant to be I guess...

We went to Westminster Abbey, which I was a bit luke-warm on originally but when we got there I was thoroughly impressed. I was especially fond of the Poets' Corner which is a burial place in some cases and commemorative sight in others, for many famous writers including Chaucer, Spenser, Lord Byron, Shakespeare, Dickens, Kipling and many many more. As an English major it is kind of my job to geek out over that.

Westminster Abbey

                                                    Mom and me at the Abbey

Seeing as we were staying in the theatre district, it was only fitting that we should go see a play while we were there. So we went and saw The Lion in Winter at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. An excellent play with an excellent cast (including Joanna Lumley who is on one of my favorite BBC shows ever - Absolutely Fabulous. If you've never seen it, go watch it immediately. It will make your life better). 

The next day, it came time for mom and I to part ways. Mom was supposed to be heading up to Edinburgh on the train to catch her flight, while I was spending one more day in London with friends before heading to Bath. We said our goodbyes at the tube station near the Haymarket and went our separate ways...

But wait, there's more...

That evening I was in a Yo! Sushi near the hotel with my friends just about to pay the bill when all of a sudden I hear a veeerrrry familiar voice behind me. I turn around and who should be standing there but Mom. I was so confused! It was like she swooped in out of nowhere, kind like this:

I'm the unsuspecting one near the bottom just minding my own business.

 Turns out that the weather in Scotland was so bad that they were canceling all the trains going up there for the day. So I got a bonus night with mom and the next day we parted ways for reals. 

And that was our adventure. It was fabulous. I hope you enjoyed this recounting of it, mom. HAPPY BIRTHDAY. I love you tons. I'm glad that I got to share this experience with you, it was very special to me. One day I hope we'll get to go back to the U.K. for the holidays (maybe we can bring Addie and Sam with us this time though, I don't think they'll stand for being left behind). 

With that I'm most likely wrapping up this blog for good. It is possible that the mood will strike and I will decide to come back and recount a couple more adventures. But for now I have to focus on my last year of school and all that it entails. Thank you for reading, it has been fun sharing some of my experiences with you. I hope to be back at some point. 

For now though, so long. I'm going to go keep searching for that secret destination.

Hannah meets Nessie

I got a week and a half after my aunt left, and then my dad and his girlfriend came for a visit. I'm quite popular apparently, either that or everybody was just waiting for an excuse to come to Europe. Either way, they got here on Thanksgiving. Poor things were very jet-lagged. They spent two days in Aberdeen and we did a couple of rambles about so I could show them the town and the uni's campus in between classes. Then on Saturday we headed to Inverness, which is the city close to Loch Ness (where the Loch Ness monster aka Nessie lives).

But to get to Inverness we rented a car...to drive...on the wrong side of the road...in a car that had the driver's seat on the opposite side that it does in the states...on the tiny streets...with manual transmission (also now on the left because of the driver's seat being switched). It was a wee bit scary...actually no, it was a lot scary. But my dad handled it fairly well, and we didn't die, so that was good. I only almost peed my pants a couple of times. Also I have to say, my least favorite thing about roads in Scotland (besides the fact that they are very small and twisty) is that they have a lot of roundabouts which have no rhyme or reason to them seemingly - it's basically just EVERYBODY GOOOOO!!! Seriously, there aren't any traffic lights, and when there are they aren't for the traffic circle, but rather for the pedestrian crossings. It's very scary. And stupid. But if that's the worst thing I've found about Scotland, I think I'm doing pretty well.

Anyway, it took us quite a long time to get to Inverness, and then we realized that our hotel wasn't in Inverness the town, but rather just in the area of Inverness, and was really in another 'town' small village/location/area thing. It was right next to the Loch, about 20 miles outside of the centre of Inverness. Now that road was the smallest, most winding, longest road I think I've ever been on. Plus it was a two way road. It was pitch-dark. And it was raining. Needless to say, that was also quite scary. Oh and on one side there was almost a sheer drop for a lot of the journey. So yeah...But we got there and had a very interesting dinner at the hotel. I didn't think it was bad, I kinda liked it actually, but I think I've been in Scotland a little too long. The other two didn't seem so keen on it.

The next morning though when I woke up and saw the view from our hotel, I thought all the scary was pretty well worth it:

View from our hotel

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeep...oh and a little cute village

We headed down the Loch to Fort Augustus which is at the opposite side of the Loch from Inverness. Along the way we stopped at the Falls of Foyers, and took a mini-hike down to see some of the Falls:

Pretty mini-waterfall

 The view on the hike down

But it wasn't until we got further down that we saw the big one:

This ain't no sissy waterfall.

Oh, hey look who's here!

We then continued on to Fort Augustus. I have to say, I'm a very big fan of the highlands, they are beautiful. Aberdeen is in the highlands as well, but not as far North as Inverness, which is where you get even more giant hill/mountain things. Needless to say then the drive was beautiful as we drove down along the Loch:

If you look closely you can see a little waterfall on the side of the hill.

Such fun colors

Loch Tarff. When the road breaks away from Loch Ness, it passes this Loch.

Fort Augustus is another cute little town right on Loch Ness.

Fort Augustus:

I FOUND NESSIE!!! Oh wait...no. That's a wire statue...oops...

We took a short boat cruise on the Loch. It was interesting to hear about some of the history, and about how deep the Loch is, which is 755ft at its deepest. The second deepest in Scotland, and holding more freshwater than all of the lakes in England and Wales put together, just to give you an idea.

Looking out at Loch Ness

Many of the areas around the Loch are unreachable, and so many wild animals live in this area including wild Goats.

Loch Ness.

Oh there we go, there's Nessie. That's better.

We headed back to Aberdeen, slightly less terrified of the driving. And that was the end of my travels with them. It was short but nice, and I think they had a good time after getting over the jet-lag, car issues and food.

That's all for now. I'll be doing another post about the everyday things soon, since they have been focused mainly on traveling lately. But I've run out of time for tonight - I have to actually go and do a little schoolwork. Imagine that.