Beginning of the SPED in Scotland Program. All of us took a three day trip to London before the program actually started. I have been to London before, three years ago, on a short one week study abroad experience. It was nice to have this opportunity to go back and to experience things a second time and brand new things this time. I acted as official tour guide for the group and was in charge of navigation.
We stayed in this amazing hostel: Travel Joy Hostel in the Pimlico district. The staff was very friendly, the building safe, and the breakfast was amazing, filling, and included in the room fee. Every morning we filled up on things to eat that would last us throughout the day until dinner.
Enjoy the pictures and commentary! (More will be added to this page later, just making a quick entry)
Our Hostel: Travel Joy Hostel
Crossing Abbey Road
Gotta write on the Abbey Recording Studios wall.
Platform 9 and 3/4. Representing the Slytherin house. They added new features since I was there and moved its location. The guy leading it was hilarious and it is still free. Plus they added an amazing Harry Potter Store where you can get wands and platform tickets like the ones in the movies.
Replicating my picture from three years ago in front of Tower Bridge
Making a stop at St. Paul's
Me on Millennium Bridge--The bridge in the opening of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Me in front of Big Ben--even got a red double decker bus in there!
Taking a picture with one of the Horse Guards
We met this 83 year old man, James, who told us all about the Queen's Garden Party that she was having today and a history lesson on the changing of the guards. That has been done for over 200 years every single day. We watched them retire the horses and guards for the evening; then only two guards remain on post throughout the night.
Me with Big Ben and Parliament in the background
Westminster Abbey--where Prince William and Kate got married
You can't go to London without seeing a Broadway show. We went to Wicked and it was amazing a second time as well. It was great to hear it with British accents and the dancing was wonderful!
Feeding Paddington Bear my sandwich
Then we booked a fantastic trip to Stonehenge through Evan Evans Tour Company. They were a great group of people and we got a 1 and 1/2 hour bus ride plus entry into Stonehenge for only £27! We got to be pretty close to the actual stones and we got an audio guide filled with lots of information. Stonehenge is literally in the middle of nowhere and it was filled with green space everywhere. Very beautiful sights and even though it was incredibly windy, having the sun out felt fantastic!
The UK has just started growing plants for canola oil. They had a lot of pastures filled with the bright yellow plant.
Me in front of Stonehenge--so close!!!
The beautiful stones
Jumping pictures are the theme of our Scotland trip. You will see many of them!
From the distance--note the epic cloud cover.
Last time I was in London, I did not have the opportunity to ride the London Eye Ferris Wheel so I made sure to take advantage of it this time.
Going up!
The amazing sunset view of all of London
Big Ben at Dusk
The London Eye all lit up!
Before we knew it, our London trip was up. I was so glad that we went on this trip together because it made us bond before the trip even happened. It was a good stepping stone for me especially since I have not had a lot of classes with these girls in the past, but they are super accepting of me and it's been going wonderfully.
After some mishaps on our plane flight to Scotland: bird caught in plane caused an engine fire for one of the British Airline Planes thus delaying all other planes, then a very angry man on a Pakistan flight threatened to bomb the plane so the Queen's Royal Air Force had to escort the plane down so the airspace needed to be cleared for 45 minutes.
We are safely in Scotland now and we are starting our home stays tomorrow (Sunday morning). While here we stayed at the Dalkeith Palace--a beautiful estate that is only for Wisconsin students who studied abroad here. We also stopped at a great meat pie shop and toured about Edinburgh. I finally found a store that is as geeky as I am and sells Star Wars, Superhero, and Doctor Who things (I will be going back). We also stopped by the coffee shop where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter (*insert major geek out moment*). The best thing about going, was hiking 250 meters high to Arthur's Seat. It was amazing and the view of all of Edinburgh was beautiful!
I will be taking another flight up to the Orkney Islands. I will blog and edit some more once I'm there.
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