More Scotland! (a little late...)

On Saturday, we drove around the Isle of Skye. It is a pretty big island, compared to the little islands we on our coast. I had a great time! Most of the day it was raining and freezing cold, but inspite of that, we had a wonderful time! We took a long hike up to the Mountain of Storr, through very very dense, quiet woods and we also climbed up on a 'fairy castle' (it was basically a small mesa) and climbed on all the hills around the fairy castle. And of course, our guide, Neil, told us tons of stories and myths to go along with all of the places we saw. We got back to the hostel in time to see three fourths of the qualifying football match between Scotland and Italy. Sadly, Scotland lost to Italy who are apparently great at football. But it was fun to watch it anyway!

The next day was our trek back to Edinburgh. We started off at 8am and we stopped to see the Three Sisters, a group of mountains. That is probably my last and best memory of the Scottish Highlands. They were beautiful! We stopped in a valley that the Three Sisters surrounded. It was gorgeous. I am so glad I got the opportunity to see the Highlands! After that we headed hard for Edinburgh. We stopped at a little gift shop place to see a famous highland cow, Hamish. Some of the people fed him (you could buy snacks for him in the gift shop). After that we went to see the Braveheart memorial. Neil pointed out that it was very ironic that the statue of Braveheart (with Freedom engraved on the front) was locked up behind bars every night to protect it from vandals.

We made it back to Edinburgh at about 5:30pm and I headed back to my friend's flat. We (Becky, one of her flatmates, and I) went to see Elizabeth: The Golden Age. It was a pretty good movie. Probably not the kind of movie I would pick myself to see, but it was better than I expected it to be.

Then I spent the night there and got up early in the morning because I had plenty of things that I wanted to see in Edinburgh. I left at 8am to climb Arthur's Seat. It took me a while to figure out which cliff was Arthur's Seat...I finally had to ask a nice lady who pointed me in the right direction. When I got up to the top, I could see most of the city as the sun was rising (behind heavy cloud cover, of course) and the wind was buffeting me around. It always came from one direction and there was a stone column proclaiming that this was Arthur's seat so I pinned myself to that for fear of being blown off! But all was well and I made it down safely.

Then I went to the Holyrood House which is where the Queen stays when she comes to visit Scotland. It is right across from the .....interesting..... Parliament building. The people of Scotland don't really like the Parliament building...it's pretty ugly and they spent millions of pounds on it, too.

But after I saw that I met up with Becky and we went up to Edinburgh Castle which we explored until it was time for me to meet my train back. So, I went back and grabbed my stuff and left. It was a nice trip back. There weren't as many people on the train so I was able to stretch out some and I think I even slept a little, which is odd for me. :-)

On Tuesday and Wednesday we had classes as usual. Tuesday night Laura, David, and I went to our Connect Group. That has been a lot of fun. We've gotten to meet more British students and really have some fellowship with them. They've always been so welcoming and kind. It's really been great.

On Thursday, we had a Thanksgiving dinner at the University Women's Club. It's a really nice club (Judi Dench is a member!!) and they had turkey (we think..it was all sliced so we couldn't really tell) and pumpkin pie! That was a surprise...but I am spoiled by my mom's cooking so I didn't like the pumpkin pie much...I didn't really eat much... But, I got to talk to my family before I left for dinner!!! It was so much fun to talk to them!! :-D It made me really happy! It also made me miss home more, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make to be able to talk to them! It'll be good to be home...as the end of the semester approaches, we are more and more ready to go home... While I am ready to *visit* home, I am not ready to leave London/Europe for good... It's really been a wonderful trip. I have been so blessed to be able to come on this trip and travel so much!

Anyway, back to the play-by-play. ;-) Friday and Saturday I wasn't feeling to well so I drank loads and loads of orange juice (since Tropicana was on sale!!) and watched lots of TV shows and movies and slept a lot. It was good. Then on Sunday I went to church and then afterwards, I just wandered around for a while since the sun was out. I hadn't realized how little sun I was getting. The sun rises at 8am and sets at 4pm and since we are in class most of the day, I wasn't getting much sun. So it felt wonderful to just wander around a little park/cemetary in the sun for a while.

Oh!!! How did I forget... On Friday we got a tour of the Houses of Parliament!!! O.O It was sooo neat!! It was amazing to get to see where all of Britain's legislature is made and it was really fascinating to get to learn a little about how their government works and some of the traditions that happen. Britain is very very dependent on traditions, we have found. Not that that is bad, it is just very different from the US, perhaps since we are such a young nation comparatively. Sadly we were not allowed to take pictures. But it was amazing just to be able to go in and see that place!! (Especially since there are guards EVERYWHERE around the Houses of Parliament...)

I will tell about this week perhaps tomorrow... things are getting stressful with lots of papers to write so I will make no more promises about when I'll update, that way I won't break any promises! :-)

Prayer requests: Focus and diligence on my papers, strength and less sleepiness (I've been pretty worn out this whole week, perhaps from all the traveling and now the absence of light for the majority of each day...). Thank you so much for all your prayers!!