Field trip!!

Salutations from a girl who’s freshly arrived from the land of kilts, thistles, and bagpipes! This past weekend, Capernwray gave us a long/ travel weekend during which I went to Edinburgh, Scotland, along with many other students from school. It was a whirlwind trip and I loved it and learned so much!

The above picture was taken when we climbed to the top of the hills surrounding Edinburgh on Sunday. You can see the city in the background. Read on to find out more... =)

In past traveling experiences I have discovered the validity of the phrase “a picture’s worth a thousand words” and found that taking tons of pictures better captures the trip than writing pages and pages in a journal. Therefore, I took tons of pictures during my time in Scotland. In fact, I took over 1,100 in barely 4 days! (how’s that Erringtons?) =)

In light of that, I have decided it would be easier if I simply uploaded pictures onto facebook instead of here on my blog. I already succeeded in uploading a few last night and I hope to continue with more tonight.

To give you a better sense of my time there, I’ll give you an overview of my weekend’s activities:

We left school around 9am on Friday morning, packed into 2 tour buses (called ‘coaches’ here) and arrived in Edinburgh around 2pm. We then “hiked” up through the city to our hostel which was in a great location, carrying our luggage and following a small city map. Thankfully, we found the place with little difficulty and I was pleasantly surprised to have the hostel far exceed my expectations. It was clean, neat, colorfully painted, safe, and not bad smelling either. =)

We were all tired and not fully interested in exploring the city after we unpacked but we forced ourselves to go out, knowing how limited our time would be. We walked around the city, browsing shops, and just exploring to see what was there. We (me & the 6 other girls I booked with) had dinner at Maggie Dickson’s, a pub with a great discount for students staying at our hostel. To see a picture of it and hear the unique history behind the place, you’ll have to check my photo album on facebook. ;)

Friday night, being Halloween, we decided to play it safe and turn in on the early side. We returned to our hostel and enjoyed watching a free movie (The Wedding Singer) in the hostel lounge.

Both Saturday and Sunday mornings, I ate the £2 breakfast at the hostel (pretty much the cheapest option available). On Saturday morning after we all ate a “continental” breakfast together consisting mainly of toast, cereal, and croissants, we walked a few blocks to a Starbucks in the downtown area (yes, they have them here too! I was sorely disappointed in my fellow students to see how unadventurous they were about Edinburgh and how much some of them clung to Starbucks!!). We walked to the Starbucks to meet in front of it for a free city tour we had heard about. We were really surprised to see many other kids from Capernwray there too! what a small world… =)

This tour was fabulous and probably my favorite part of the weekend! (and it was free! though I did tip) The tour was 3 hours long with an ½ break in the middle to grab some lunch. I learned SO much about the history of Edinburgh and was fascinated to see and learn things that one would never be able to guess simply by looking at a building or even reading its plague. Edinburgh had a much more interesting history than I imagined (I know Daddy…imagine that) ;) For instance, did you know that the famous novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, was actually inspired by a true story that took place in Edinburgh? I know! Me neither! (well, not until Saturday, that is) I took tons of pictures of things we learned about and plan to upload them. So enough said about that for now.

After the tour, I walked through the Princes’ Street Gardens with 3 other girls and we explored the city for the rest of the night together. The sun continues to set earlier and earlier here and it is almost dark by a depressingly early 5pm. I am beginning to understand why people say we are spoiled in California! =) And maybe due to the limited daylight hours or some other unknown reason, the shops in Edinburgh close really early! Each night, after 5ish we had difficulty finding things to do besides go to a pub and drink (which we not allowed to do). So had a late dinner and ate take-away food in our hostel room on the floor. Not very elegant, but a lot of fun. I think one of the girls had too much sugar or something because she was just going ballistic which made the rest of us laugh hysterically. =)

Sunday morning we decided it would be excusable to miss church since we practically have it everyday at school and had really limited (esp. daylight) hours left. My roommate Angelic and I had planned to meet another two girls to take a ferry to a nearby island for the morning but plans fell through when the other girls realized they had somehow confused their information. It turns out the island we wanted to visit is on the complete opposite side of the country! I still don’t know how they got such faulty info…

So we decided on a Plan B. We walked all the way down the “Royal Mile”: a street that goes straight down from the castle, all the way to the palace. The street has many shops and interesting buildings on it, so we took our time. When we got to the palace, we stopped and had lunch and then went for a hike.

We hiked up the nearby mountain/large hill. One of the boys from Capernwray said it took his group about 20 minutes to climb. I’m wondering if they either had a group of macho boys who ran all the way up and down or if this guy is a severely poor judge of time. Either way, we somehow made the “20 min trip” last a couple of hours! =) it wasn’t so much a difficult climb in it of itself, but the path was extremely slippery and muddy which forced us to take it slowly for fear of face-planting or sliding backwards…and then face-planting (not to mention 3 of the 4 of us had shoes with no traction on). But we survived, we had a great time, and we *sweating* when we reached the top. Oh, did I mention I was doing this wearing my heavy winter coat and carrying a purse and shopping bags too?

At the top of the mountain, we met more Capernwray kids and took our time enjoying the fruits of our labor and soaking in the spectacular views of the city and faraway sea! Then all the Capernwray kids on the mountain (about 20/25? of us) traveled down it together. We then indirectly made our way back to the middle of town where we were meeting up with more students to go to dinner. Once we got there, I went off with 4 other students to go eat at the Elephant Bar, the birthplace of Harry Potter (where J.K. Rowling was sitting when she thought of the series). However when we arrived we decided it was more than we wanted to spend. So eventually after much searching, we found a cheaper place for dinner. I definitely experienced the ‘staring college student’ lifestyle while away this weekend. Everything was so expensive, and I’d rather spend money on something that will last, like a souvenir, or an experience instead of food. So I had maybe 2 or 3 good meals in Edinburgh and survived through the rest knowing that I’d have plenty of “free” food when I got back to Capernwray. =) …but don’t worry, I’m not turning anorexic, I ate…just not very well.

Anyway, after dinner Sunday night, we wanted to go to a church’s evening song and walked to the other side of town only to discover we had had the wrong time and had already missed it. Wanting to do something else before retiring that night, we found a free piano bar that we could sit in and listen to, but had to wait another 1 ½ hours until it started. So we went to the McDonald’s across the street to burn time. we played cards there and ending up making friends with some Scottish teenagers who joined in our game. They guessed that I was 20 years old which made me laugh! That’s definitely a first.

Then at the right time, we traveled back across the street only to find the gig hadn’t started and the doors were still locked. We didn’t know what to do and didn’t see any more options so we returned to our hostel and watched the 2nd half of a movie that people were playing in the lounge.

Monday morning before the bus picked us up at 11, I ran to the National Scottish Museum with 2 other girls. We first went to the roof of the 7 story building like our tour guide from Saturday had recommended and enjoyed the citywide view. The other unique aspect about the museum roof terrace was that it had greenery from every of the 10 or 12 (?) different plant climates/regions in Scotland organized by their location. To be honest, the variations between landscape regions didn’t have a large visual difference but it was a cool idea.

We quickly browsed through the rest of the museum and then power walked (I think you would have been proud E) down the city hills to the bus stop. I actually enjoyed the bus ride back to school more than the one to Edinburgh because it felt like such a long time since I had seen some of my friends whom I hadn’t run into in the city, since pretty much you were with the people you roomed with the entire time unless you arranged to meet others which was nearly impossible without any kind of phone or way of contacting each other.

I think it was a good move on Capernwray’s part to give students this travel weekend each year, because when we were gone we started missing our “home” and wanted to shower there, see friends, have hot food, etc. and now we’re happy to be back at school! (although I could have lasted longer and enjoyed at least one more full day in the city).

Now, regular school life continues as normal: four lectures in the morning, “free time” from 2 to 5:45 when we have “tea” (aka dinner), 2 more lectures at night. And a slightly changed schedule depending on the day (for instance, Tuesdays we have 3 lectures in the morning and during one of the normal lecture time slots we have worship and extra time to read our Bibles). And I say “free time” in quotation marks because this time is quickly eaten up with meetings and practices for different things. For example, yesterday (Tuesday), I had 4 meetings to attend, 2 of which conflicted, so I only made it to 3. I had dance practice for our dance outreach team, worship band practice, a meeting for the Christmas production, and a meeting for my outreach team to a Polish church we’re going to this upcoming Sunday. So everyday is a very full, but good day!

Similarly to NorthCreek, Capernwray puts on a Christmas production for the community about a week or two before Christmas itself and before all the students leave for break. It is totally student led, directed, organized, and performed. So no pressure… =) Any student who was interested in the program could come to the meetings to give input, so I joined and now I’m helping write the script for the production. We’ve only just had 2 meetings so far and we are in the very beginnings of the project, but I am really looking forward to it already! Probably in part simply because I love Christmas!! =)

Well you have passed the test and survived all the way to the end of my writing! That’s my life for the past few days and I pray you’re all doing well and taking advantage of whatever situations God has you in now back at home.

You can check out my facebook pictures album through my fb profile, or follow this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68370&l=49c9a&id=720019947
If there's not a ton of pictures yet, don't worry I'll upload more as soon as I can. I have lots to share!
Tons of love, fresh from Scotland! =)
~Sarah