Week in Stirling- post complete with photos!

Friends and fams,

I last left you on Thursday after my lab class. This past weekend we didn't travel anywhere exciting, but there was still fun to be had. I'll give you the highlights and then dig in. Firstly though, I was looking at the stats for my blog audience, and apparently there are readers in the US, UK, Canada, France, Brazil, Indonesia, Denmark, and Malta (and tricia in Costa Rica). Is this real life? There must be some sort of blogspot.com mix up here. so bizarre. If you're reading from somewhere cool comment and let me know!

HIGHLIGHTS:
Friday--> We hosted an alphabet party
Saturday--> Music festival at Tolbooth in Stirling, tried a new restaurant
Sunday--> Hiked the Wallace monument and picnicked on top, got a new roommate, watched a movie
Monday--> Awesome outdoor lab class, climbed a hill near the old stirling bridge, tried a new pub
Tuesday--> Radio show, booked a trip to Belgium, watched Trainspotting
Wednesday--> Booked our fall break Scotland highlands tour, had homemade stew for dinner, went out with friends

PICTURE LINK: http://picasaweb.google.com/106047267595190685755/StirlingAndLakeDistrictOfEngland#

Thursday night we did some awesome practical bargain shopping. I got a super nice rain coat, quick dry travel towel, reusable water bottle, rain boots, leggings, a dress, a cardigan, some craft supplies, dish towels, a bowl/plate and paper towels all for 80 pounds. That's pretty darn good considering there were rain coat and rain boot options for well over 80 pounds each. turns out outdoor gear is pretty cheap here, and we found a dollar store, so i did a pretty good job. always love a good bargain purchase. Mama and alyssa will be proud, i'm sure.

Friday we did some group project work crunching numbers (boring but productive) and came home to make some bacon (take note that unsmoked bacon is not the same) and create some costumes for the night. Why did we need costumes you ask? Because we hosted an alphabet party- you pick a letter and everyone has to come dressed as something that starts with that letter. I was a clock, char was a cheetah, and calla was a captain. Other notable costumes: cleopatra, crack whore, and a cold person. Very entertaining. Overall it was a success.

We spent most of Saturday lounging around. Saturday night, however, we went to a music festival type thing in Stirling at a venue called Tolbooth. It was in a part of town we hadn't yet ventured to, up on the way to the stirling castle and near the old jail (which we found out does ghost tours-gotta do it soon. Mom/dad/jason- wanna do that when you come visit?) It was an AWESOME venue. It had this great cave entrance with floor lighting and glass doors. The whole place is 8 floors, with 4 (i thinkkk) different 'stages' on the different floors. They had a bunch of different bands playing on the different stages throughout the night. The first person we saw was our favorite, Pearl and the Puppets. We got there kind of late and so we only got to see the last song. After Pearl, we went down to the acoustic stage, which was just a small band set up next to a bar with a movie projected on the wall behind them. It was all fine and mellow until the fire alarm started going off. we all thought it was sort of bogus, until the doors started automatically closing, and we were ushered out of the building. So we stood in the rain waiting for the fire department to come for what was probably smoke machine over usage (there was obv no real fire because they were in no sort of rush) and observed all the hipsters complaining about rain and smoking their cigarettes. It was a weird sight to observe, and it clearly hindered attendance after we were let back in because the crowd seemed to be really young or older. We stuck it out and then left around 10. We were in search of some real dinner, and came across the Filling Station. It's a chain here (we saw at least one more in edinburgh so I assume) but it was pretty delicious. I will probably take my family here when they come because it has a large selection of relatively normal food and some more uk cuisine and it's reasonably price. great desserts, though we didn't make it that far. It was raining (of course) so we eventually made it home and crashed.

Sunday was pretty productive-- we finally hiked the wallace monument! When we set out we didn't really know which way to go, but because the monument is visible from campus we sort of just walked in the direction of the tower. We only got slightly turned around, and made it there in time to hike up the hill and climb the tower. It was super overcast when we set out, but by the time we got to the top it was gorgeous! The hill up to the monument was more strenuous than we had expected, but really not that bad. Once we got to the top we ooed and aahed at the sights, acted out some Wallace badassery,
and then walked up the monument. The tower has a small spiral staircase up the middle (europeans seem to be pretty keen on that idea) and has a few exhibits on the different levels. There was one about the history of william wallace, where we learned the battle on old stirling bridge took place on September 11th, 1297, which is the day (733 years later) that charlene and I arrived in stirling! When we got to the top we were in awe. It's an awesome view of the surrounding towns. We saw so many sheep! And windmills! And a beautiful oxbow lake! So wonderful. We took some ridiculous pictures (windy) and then walked down the monument for a picnic lunch on the top of the hill.

When we got home, I discovered that finally the last roommate had moved in! His name is Craig, and the reason he was 3 weeks late for school was because of an internship in Colorado. He's a 4th year as well, which is refreshing, he rows, and is much friendlier than some of the other flatmates. We invited him to watch a movie with us and he was on board, so we cozied up in my room and Char, Calla, Craig, and I watched Let the Right One In (swedish vampire movie). I had seen it before, but had somehow missed the last scene, which totally made the whole movie make sense and made it 10x better and I can't believe I missed it the first time!

Monday we had a morning lab, which consisted of a field trip to a local property where we were to analyze the soil and plant communities at different parts of a slope to determine proper management techniques for building a woodland forest. It was really fun. We had pretty solid weather. We took 2 vans, drove nearby campus, and were all of a sudden driving on a narrow road with short stone walls on each side and hills as far as the eye can see. and awesome sheep! Big ones, and little black faced ones, grazing ones, and sitting ones. We hopped a small fence to get to the study area, and then just dropped down some quadrats and started identifying grass and herb species. So fun. Got some sheep poop in my shoes but worth it. I am getting great use out of my hiking boots here. When we got back to school I was struttin through the halls with a rain coat, backpack and hiking boots. I felt like such an ecowarrior. Anyway, after some more classes we stopped at the travel agency and then went into town so I could get my sim card 'topped up.' I have a new number now, but I am having problems texting and it's super annoying. Anyway, after the phone place we hiked up a little hill that we saw from the street. It had some adorably fun cannons and a beheading stone and we played around pretending to be in the lion king etc and head down the hill for dinner. We found a cute irish pub and enjoyed a pint and some warm food. While waiting for the bus we stopped in a small cafe for a little carrot cake and something delicious and chocolately and then called it a day.

Tuesday morning we had our radio show, which didn't record well, but I may be able to get my hands on last weeks and pass it along. After the radio show and a short nap, we stopped by the travel agency and I booked my flight to Brussels! Super excited to hang out with Aunt Val in Brussels! Tuesday night we finally watched Trainspotting, a movie about drug addicts in Edinburgh. Good flic, but not a quiet night in kind of thing. Though Ewan Macgregor was adorable and young.

Wednesday we made some concrete plans and booked our 3-day Scottish Highland tour for fall break. The bus tour hits Loch Ness and Isle of Skye, and maybe one more place that I forget. We figured we would do a tour bus thing for obligatory scottish destinations and then formulate our own tour for the rest of fall break (including inverness, Smoo cave plus others). For dinner we had homemade stew that my flatmate made in a slow cooker. So delicious. Char, Calla and I got to know his girlfriend a little better by enjoying the stew together. Later in the night we met up with some friends at a place in walking distance from campus and danced the night away. They played some music that you don't normally hear in a club but it was welcomed. By the end they were playing rage against the machine and Shout and the YMCA and I think i remember them playing the twist. It was good fun. We also ran into a million people, which is weird because it's not like we know that many people. Apparently that's the place to be on Wednesday nights.

Thursday we had class and met with our group to do some stats. Stats are always the hardest part of research projects, and this time did not prove to be any different. We struggled through some stuff and then threw in the towel. Not looking forward to revisiting that one. We opted for a movie night. I went over to Char/Calla's and bestowed the gift of Samuel Goldwyn's Hans Christian Andersen upon them. I have such fond memories of that movie, and I love singing the songs with my mom, and since I have been here and have been trying to plan a trip to Copenhagen, I find myself belting out Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen, friendly old girl of a townnnnnn. It was especially fun because my mom recently commented on the one of my post quoting the movie with uncanny accuracy. It was great to pass the magic onto Char and Calla, and now hopefully they will have the same lust to travel to copenhagen as I do. Later I started watching the show Inbetweeners with one of my flatmates. It's a popular british tv show about high school kids. It is choc full of british humor. It's funny AND i feel like it's a cultural lesson.

Friday night we went to a student comedy show that char/calla's roommate was in. It was a fairly large troupe with 50/50 girls and boys. They were pretty funny! The show was 2 hours- which is kind of a lot. But I got the feeling that a lot of people wanted their sketches included so they had to make it long. Our personal favorite was a really animated guy acting out the lyrics to Mr. Brightside by the Killers with the song playing in the background. We were crying with laughter. The show was in a cute playhouse in the MacRobert Center, which is their movie theater/art gallery/playhouse part of the atrium (student union/multipurpose building student center type thing). After the show we met up with our new greek friend from our radio show and went to a spanish themed party thrown by our spanish exchange friend, Lydia. We left on the earlier side in order to pack and get a good nights sleep before our trip in the morning.

I will leave the Lake District weekend for another post, and end this one here for ease of reading.

films and funnies,
Amanda Tess