BALTIC SEA CRUISIN’

Leaving Germany for now and moving on to Copenhagen. Just thought I would share a quick snap while on the ferry. It was an entertaining ferry ride however, as I had never been riding on a train, only to immediately pull into ferry. I did not know ferries did that or were even big enough for that! But sure enough, away we went from train, to ferry, back to train, and then to bus for the final leg of the journey to Copenhagen. 

HERNDON HAMBURGERS

The next stop on our European journey was the second largest city of Germany in Hamburg. We were there for one reason and one reason only, to go see the world’s largest miniature museum. I will share my post about that shortly, because it really does require it’s own post as it was a genuine blast. While we were in Hamburg, we hunted for hamburgers which, oddly enough, were harder to find than one would think.

But here we are, gourmet hamburgers, made from 100% prime American grown human meat (my father really hated that joke but I can’t help it, I think it’s clever).

Also I picked up my German Vogue, so now I have Netherlands and Germany!

REMBRANDT ROOM

The Dutch really pride themselves on their people, as they should. My family and I stayed at the Rembrandt hotel while we were in Amsterdam. Just thought I should bring it up since the room was so aesthetic. I feel that I truly did have the whole Dutch experience given that I was sleeping under Rembrandt every night!

LAND OF A MILLION WINDMILLS

Apparently we caught the windmill bug after we saw the little city windmill earlier. We just thought, this is not nearly enough mills. The thing about traveling anywhere with my mother is that she wants the full fairytale, stereotypical experience of anywhere she goes. That is not always the worst way to be. But it not always the goal when you want to feel the current vibe of the city the way the locals see it.

But we are here for the touristy things at the moment. So we ended up here at Zaanse Schans just outside of Amsterdam to understand all of the most Dutch Ducthings that ever Dutched. We basically double dutched through all of Holland. I finally learned what delft is(previously I thought all blue and white floral patterns were considered just China), and we saw too many clogs, tulips, and cheese to even process.

Does anyone know what a size US 9 would be in European sizes? I really want to buy some clogs!

I do not think Cal knew his size either!!!

Just the most amazing amount of clogs making this pattern on the wall as they were hung up. It is crazy, given how colorful these pieces of wood look, that they were used only for the purpose of working on soggy farmland. But the clogs were so beautiful that I wanted to take so many photos of just how they looked from far away.

Honestly tourist gold but I do not hate it! It is like the crown jewels of the Netherlands!

Well it was pretty hard to ignore that delft

I do not think it would be possible to starve in the Netherlands because there are so many free cheese samples all over the place. They just really want you to taste their cheese. I mean they probably want you to buy it too but…oh well!

Every part of these place was beautiful despite the gray and rainy day. Even the marshy land was absolutely picturesque.

And of course we ended our little day trip in the famous Amsterdam Centraal station with the letters of the city spelled out in red and yellow on top of the station. I think I would have missed this if we had not gown out by bus. And that was actually really spectacular to see. And, of course, it made for some beautiful pictures with that nice worm’s eye view.

DUTCH MORNINGS AND DUTCH MASTERS

Our morning in Amsterdam begins with the great hunt for food as per usual. The thing about Dutch breakfast/bring cafés, that I suppose is not much different from the rest of the world but it seemed more pronounced here, was how tiny the restaurants were for sitting and enjoying. We tried one café first and were promptly turned away due to lack of space. The next one we went to was luckily nearby and we were fortunate because it had a second floor. This second floor was so nice for viewing the street below as well as the canals. And we got to this café right as the only couple on the second floor was leaving and so therefore, I quickly managed to get in a cute little cafe photoshoot with the large windows.

My family and I then took our rented bikes and found our way to the Rijks Museum to see some works by some of the mot amazing Dutch old masters such as Rembrant and Vermeer. 

Of course behind the museum there are more opportunities for photos with the giant I AMSTERDAM letters, the large pond and the little garden.

So many greedy tourists were hogging all of the letters. People just do not care about your cute photos so long as they get their cute photo. This one girl would not move from the letter D even though I was standing there for a good two minutes.

ARRIVING IN AMSTERDAM

I would like to believe that I am finally figuring out how to conquer airports. I am deathly afraid of taxi scams now thanks to watching dozens of Youtube videos related to the tragedy in various airports. But when I arrived in Amsterdam and met up with my dad, we took a bus, a subway, and a tram all to get to our hotel. It makes me feel savvy. First thing you notice about Amsterdam is all the bicycles and their never-ending bell-ringing at you to move out of their way. It is a bit of culture shock to see that bicyclists have greater rights than both pedestrians and motorists. Amsterdam is incredibly accommodating to cyclists as the city has a million different bike paths. 

The second thing that I noticed from Amsterdam(which really should have been the first but it was not as loud and obnoxious as people on bikes) was the amazing canals all throughout the city. I suppose this is why they call it the Venice of the north, because it really is a floating city—with all the same sinking risks of Venice too! But the city views were everything I wanted from the city because every angle looking down the canal with the building wrapping around it looked like a work of art. I could very easily imagine Vermeer or Rembrandt getting so much inspiration from the city. 

My family and I ended up stopping at a few different grocery/market type places in deep search of food as always. We went to this little one called Hema, the one that was the most our style was Albert Heijn, and then this one, Marqt, the fanciest and most aesthetic of the three. I just had to take a pic with that sign, it was calling my name.

This windmill was just a little one in the city, we went to more and bigger windmills. But still, it is just something you have to do as a tourist in Amsterdam is pose with all of the windmills

EVERYDAY EDINBURGH-ERER?

From my first time in Scotland back in 2015 to now being here, apparently I never knew that the best spot to take photos was literally right on top of Waverly Station…aka the station I have now been going in and out of at least 10 times. I suppose i cannot be too hard on myself the first time I was there. The train station was the very first and very last place we went. However, we did spend a decent amount of time shopping around in the Princes Street Mall.

But of course the one time I go to Edinburgh with my friend who lives there, the first place she takes me because of my giant camera was like the best, simplest vista point. She just took me right up on top of the station. And even though there were nice little benches set up for people who want to overlook the city…no one was there. You literally could not ask for a better place to take photos; I was so in awe! Always travel with a local if you want the best shots!

ON HIGHER GROUND

I crossed one major to do in Scotland off my list and that was getting a chance to tour the highlands. We started our trip visiting Doune Castle which apparently is one of the only untouched castles left in Scotland with the others lying in ruin due to the British. Then we pressed on into the thick of the highlands. Completely not what I expected at all. My only impression of the highlands was one of rolling hills probably in a similar vein to the Great Plains in the midwest with a bit of a rougher feel perhaps, maybe a colder wind. And there was a good amount of that (mainly dotted with giant, fluffy, Scottish sheep) but the highlands that I saw was something far more cinematic and epic. I saw massive, snow-topped mountains. These mountains were even more bizarre to me as they gradually faded from opaque white snow on the top to lush grasslands as their base. It felt like you could be driving though the tundra at some points and just change back to mild hilltop in an instant. We stayed overnight at Fort Augustus as the mouth of Loch Ness, basically at the most famous view. Then we drove through Inverness which was quite a strange place to me too as it was a fully developed, cosmopolitain city just randomly set up in the midst of these harsh mountains and northern highlands. I got to see Culloden battlefield which vaguely reminded me of home in Virginia with all the Civil War battlefields. Then we finished our journey at the Hermitage. It was an amazing trip given how much I saw that I probably would not get to experience on my own.

So this time, for this post, I wanted to experiment with a different format for my photos. Some will be the same that they have always been, but others are formatted slightly differently.

This is Doune Castle built and owned by Robert Stewart Duke of Albany in the 1400s. It is not so famous for it’s day but it is currently for it’s use on shows like Outlander, Monty Python and the Holy Grail and one episode of Game of Thrones as the very first Winterfell.

You quickly realize as you tour it’s interior that Doune Castle is not the most luxurious of castles. 

I think few people can understand how happy it made me that I decided to wear that sweater that day because it looks incredible against the Loch. The cable knitting almost looks like the water itself. 

Even though I wore red, I was not rooting for a side…I swear!

Every brick on that wall that sticks out slightly represents a fallen soldier.

This flag was one of the positions held by the government forces. The blue flags for the Scottish Jacobites were too far away given the amount of time we were given to explore.

The Hermitage is located in Birnam Wood, which is famous as the wood that moved in Shakespeare’s Macbeth that ultimately led to Macbeth’s demise.

LONDON LOG

My work is just starting to pick up, but before it did, I managed to get away for the weekend to London. First of all, I think next time I go, after having gone twice now by train, I will be flying. No longer will I take this five hour train ride! The plane rides are so cheap and would literally take thirty minutes. it is just not worth it to wait this long anymore. The one advantage was getting to see all the beautiful British cites and the coast in passing. I think I would like to go Newcastle. But I have bigger fish to fry in England(get it, fish and chips)! I need to go to Brighton first.

When we pulled in finally, it was about 3:30. So my friends and I decided to go to the hostel and set our things down in our room. Our hostel was located in Borough which ended up being an interesting little corner in London that I never experienced last time I was there. By the time we got settled there, we were starving from the train since we decided to not eat lunch at the little cafe they had on board. We went to Piccadilly Circus for dinner, which was coincidental since last time I was here, that was the first place my family and I went after getting off the train. This time it was different however as there was not a Taylor Swift concert that had just ended in Hyde Park which was an absolute disaster last time. Just floods of people in the tube and no clear way to compose ourselves in a new city. This time we could take it slow and just explore more. We really wanted Chinese so Chinatown was the obvious place to go. I do not think I mentioned this since last time but I am trying to go pescaterian and that was such a success on this trip. I had the mixed seafood noodles from the Chinese restaurant we went to and it was excellent. After that we explored Soho and got desert at a little Korean ice cream cafe where I got a green tea ice cream with all sorts of sweet fixin’s.

The next day was the touristy day. We caught a walking tour group through Westminster. That was a nice deja-vu for me since we went to Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey(although not inside), Buckingham Palace(the queen just never wants to be there when I come by), and a boat ride down the Thames as well as a tour of the Tower of London. But I decided to cut out of the tour during the boat ride and the tower as i had already done that and I decided that I wanted to see something else. I went to the National Gallery instead which was something I never saw last time. I was so happy I went because they had an excellent amount of pieces of art by some of my favorites. They had Caravaggio, Da Vinci(it is crazy how we only have one in the whole of the western hemisphere but Europe literally has hundreds), Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso, Cezanne, and Rubens. That night we went to Camden and got Italian for dinner. I got a margarita pizza which was delicious.

The next morning, on Sunday, my friends and I went to the Breakfast Club for breakfast which was fairly close to where we were staying. It, of course, had an eighties theme but it was not obnoxiously loud which made it so enjoyable. I got the most perfect chocolate banana pancakes that hit the spot and satiated my sugar tooth. From there, we made the trek to Greenwich to go to the Royal observatory with the Prime Meridian line where the coordinates are exactly (0°, 0′,0”). There was the most amazing park and vista of the whole city. I did not get to go to Greenwich last time and I discovered that it was my favorite area in London. We went to little shops in the town and that was a blast because they were the kind of grungy but charming little shops where everything is used and vintage and you just have to buy yourself a unique keepsake. We went to this used bookstore where everything was a pound and I got four pounds worth of books. Then we went to this outdoor market where I bought a dark, denim mini skirt. The man who sold it to me was the most interesting character. He was dressed like he steeped out of 60s London which made sense since he was selling some unique vintage pieces. He wore a head to toe colored corduroy bell bottom suit and he had a shaggy bowl cut—needless to say, it was perfect.

After that we had to get back to Kings Cross station to catch our train and make the long voyage back to Edinburgh. That trip was longer for me as i also had to take an hour long train ride back to Galashiels. The good thing about that train was that I did not purchase tickets before getting on the train because I was going to buy them from the ticket collector. But he never came around so I got a free ride back, making everything feel better.

 

In front of me is the Thames river and behind me is a water gate that helped stop flooding and the spread of Cholera—the more you know!:)

The Victoria fountain in front of the Buckingham Palace! I do not know if you can tell, but I wore my Herndon sweatshirt complete with a unicorn and a lion. Neither of those animals are my actual family crest but it does represent both England and Scotland so I thought it was appropriate!

Walkin’ the line—-the Prime Meridian Line that is! And there are my Docs! I could not leave my Docs when going to London.

The vista from the observatory!

I took none of these polaroids as my friends took them and gave me some. I LOVE getting polaroids. I think they are the cutest things ever.

This was actually the breakfast that i had in Edinburgh at a cafe called Pep and Fodder. It was fruit salad and yogurt with honey on top. As well as a Chamomile tea to calm me down.

This was the lunch I had at King’s Cross Station and it was a fish finger burger. Even the food at the station was amazing!

SCOTLAND SCHOOL

I arrived in Scotland only two days ago, and already, I am thrown straight into school. I was supposed to arrive in Edinburgh on Saturday, but the lovely Baltimore airport canceled my flight. So instead of flying to New York and then getting on a direct flight, I instead had to go to Frankfurt, Germany first and then fly to Scotland. It was fun, in a way, to fly on a German flight where the pilot and flight attendants all spoke German. It was also entertaining to try to pick the passengers that I believed could be German and who was visiting or passing through. But overall, it was annoying to go to an airport that I had not planned for, where everything is in German for the most part and try to find my gate throughout their maze of an airport despite my drained jet lagged mind and body. It was even more annoying to arrive in Edinburgh late as there was a woman waiting for me to take me to the town where I needed to be for classes. She had to come all the way from Dublin twice as there were other girls in my program who managed to make it to Edinburgh on time. The whole thing was just a hassle. I suppose I am being overdramatic because I had never experienced such annoying flight delays and cancellations before. The most seasoned of travelers would probably think I am whining.

However, despite all my trials, I made it to Scotland and I am currently trying to get adjusted as best as I can.

The time differences, while inconvenient for communicating with loved ones, makes posting so much easier. I can go through my whole day and not think about it until the night because it is still only late afternoon at home. I have not made an opinion of the people in Scotland yet because I have barely made friends. And making friends is hard here considering I only have two days of class a week. I just barely meet some girls and suddenly class is over and it’s just, “well see you guys next week!”. The class scheduling is perhaps the biggest change for me. I am not used to such little class time. I do not know what to do with myself with so few classes. And they say it covers the same amount of credits as five classes in the U.S. And that is just unnatural.

I need more time here before I can give a true assessment. Everyone expects me to be oozing excitement and be bursting with happiness. It is not that I am unhappy or unexcited. I am still just so out of it. I am learning everything and taking it all in. I am not wearing a huge smile on my face all the time because I am still processing everything. Also I do still miss home. I miss my family and my friends so much and it is only the third night, yet is is hard for me to understand that I will be staying here for the next five months. I am a whole ocean away…

But then again, everyone says that I will absolutely love it here and never want to leave. I think that will be true. I will hopefully come back fully adjusted like Scotland is my second home.