We're like Bear Grylls.

This was another windy day. Nearly got blown over in between camping stores. Now that we are back safe and sound we are completely prepared for anything Scotland may throw at us. Sun, rain or snow, we are set.

My first proper backpack

Thankfully there is a plethora of camping stores in Leeds which means competition which means good deals for us! Plus student discounts :-) Along with everything that Luke's parents (thank you!!!) sent us, we have what we need to master those highlands.  Now we just have to figure out how it all works. Luke is very prepared and knowledgeable but the tent gave us a bit of a challenge....

I suspect the blog posts will decrease again in April because of the hefty traveling schedule that we have. Funchal is on the map next for us! I'm looking forward to a little luxury. We'll be headed there Sunday night and (if we have wireless in the hotel) I will post many pictures of what I hope will be a tropical wonderland. Thanks, mom and dad for this opportunity!

Funchal :-)

The last days of school went well although the testing system over here is a bit different. What is covered in class is not all that is on the test. I'm sure we did fine. Then again, anything over a 40 is passing so I doubt there's much to worry about. Either way we have 4 glorious weeks of break ahead of us. In no time we'll be back at home with all of our family and friends. Can't wait, but hopefully it won't go too fast!

Castles, Cliffs and Harry Potter

Scotland is wonderful. If I could go anywhere again that we have gone so far, it would be Scotland! Good thing because we are spending 9 or 10 days hiking through it in April!

Early Friday morning Luke and I walked to Uni met about 45 other U of L students also going to Edinburgh. We loaded up two huge coaches and set off around 9 am. We got to the Hostel at about 2pm and checked in. It was actually really nice and the beds were cozy if a little creeky.

Luke and I and some of our friends set off to see the castle and walk down the Royal Mile. It was such a gorgeous day! There was even a bagpiper! I loved its so so so much. There were a ton of shops ( I got my sisters each something very Scottish. Be excited, you two!) After that we went to the top of Calton Hill, which had a national monument on it and beautiful views. On the way we happened upon a rather ghostly graveyard.

After walking for hours we were starving so we went to a very authentic Scottish restaurant...

Delish :-)

Afterwards, because it was getting dark, we decided to find a nice place to sit and have a few drinks. Luke wanted live music so we got a computer pass and looked up the top rated Jazz bar. We found one that was very popular named The Jazz Bar (wow.) and went. I got a lovely Bailey's and hot chocolate and Luke sampled some local ales. Yum again.

By 10pm we were both so tired. We have been getting up earlier lately and so early bed times are a must.

The next morning we met up with our friends and ate breakfast in the cute hostel kitchen. They had a nice little selection of carbs and juice. Then we all set off in search of the Royal Gardens. We got to it after about an hour of walking and wandered around inside for a few hours. It was again such a beautiful day! The garden had wonderful views and it seems like Spring is finally here!

For lunch we went to The Elephant House which is where JK Rowling started writing the first Harry Potter novel. I'm not the biggest fan of Harry Potter by any means but it was interesting seeing the environment where she came up with her ideas. The Edinburgh castle view out of the window was strikingly similar to Hogwarts... I got an elephant shortbread and some lentil soup. Luke decided against the haggis calzone in favor of a the tomato and mozzarella one. So Scottish.

Nice and full we went off window shopping until we had to go take a little nap. We went to Greyfriar's Kirk and the place where his dog was buried. Some of the graves were from the 1700's. This got us all prepped for our ghost tour that night!

After a nice little nap our little group met near the castle and we went on an historic ghost tour! We went down into the vaults underneath the city.  There was even an active coven down there... Entirely terrifying although nothing supernatural happened. Afterwards they gave us shortbread and whiskey :-) That would keep me coming back.

We went for a late dinner at an "American style diner" cafe in one of the side alleys. It was so good! THEN bed time.

Our last day was yet another gorgeous day! After breakfast we hiked to the top of the bluffs which hang over the city. There were amazing views, even though they are not anywhere near as tall as the ones in the highlands. Luke and I decided to go down the precarious way. My arms are still sore from the climbing! Good conditioning for our upcoming hiking extravaganza.

After another pizza we decided to spend our last 3 hours walking to the piers. We got there with no time to spare and had to turn around pretty much immediately to make it back in time for the coach. We found two little kittys who wanted to join us in the US I think. We had to pretty much run away to keep them from following us :-)

Well, not much happened after that other than loading up and driving back. We've been spending the day today recovering and solidifying our plans for April. Its going to be a busy last 2 months!

Luke's sweet video posts coming soon

Ain't no rhyme or reason

Signed up for classes this morning! I have one whole class that I was able to get on my schedule without problems. Lets hope we graduate by the time I'm 50.

Me and Luke finishing up our last year. Go class of 2045!!!

That picture kind of even looks like Luke! I'm proud I found it.

 Its another beautiful day here in Leeds! I would have loved to have woken up earlier but my alarm didn't go off so we didn't get to go for our morning run. Now I'm holed up in the room finishing up my paper. I know I've been working on it for days, but I'm a slow writer and its ALMOST DONE!

Who needs sunlight when you have Louis Vuitton?

There are a lot of slightly different brand names here and Luke and I have no idea why- 'Bounty' is 'Plenty', 'Ziplock' is 'kwikzip.' Apparently J's not a popular letter around here. TkMaxx is where its at.

T.K Maxx... really? REALLY?

Tonight we're going to be packing for Edinburgh and eating all the food that will go bad in the next three days if we leave it. Yummy celery, pizza sauce, milk and curry creations, here we come! Yum. We'll be back on Monday and have plenty of pictures I hope!

 PS- I just spotted a bud on a tree. Must post a picture of this rarity later!

Its always sunny in Leeds (not quite...)

Woodhouse Moore on the way to Campus

Spring has arrived and the weather is behaving appropriately! After we went to Red Hot yesterday we went for a walk down through the city center and along the canal. Apparently there is student housing down there... How did we miss out on that?? The sun was shining and it was in the mid 50's so it felt awesome to be outside! I almost forgot about the misery that is my paper, it was that amazing.

Luke's 98th plate at Red Hot

Arcade:-) So pretty and soooo expensive

A picture of the canal bridge for Jim, cause he likes these things ;-)

Just flirting with the sculptures. That's what real artists do.

 Red Hot was pretty awesome! The place looked incredible and there was so much variety. The desserts were the best part though! Yummy.

Today it was still sunny my early class wasn't nearly as hard to get up for. I got down to the City Art Gallery around 9 am and my teacher let us out early to enjoy the weather. I used the time to nab some books on my paper subject at the library and read in the sun before Luke's class let out. The walk to and from school is so nice when its almost 60! We were actually warm enough to try the smoothie place we had found a bit ago.

Charcoal for Gallery Class

Shakey Jake's!

We got kale at the store yesterday and Luke was highly skeptical. We decided to give it a try tonight with mushrooms, garlic and red onions. It was actually really really good! I think it might be up there with broccoli...

Tonight consisted mainly of homework. Our German portfolios are due tomorrow morning so we're scrambling to get them presentable. They look pretty good now. Mine's purple :-)

Studying disaster area

Bed time.

Writing Papers, Lost and.... Curry. What else??

We have vowed to do better about posting! My sister does an inspiring job posting on Her Blog ! Following suit we're turning over a new leaf and posting more often. Unfortunately for you, today was a pretty uneventful day, but its been nice to not have had any place we had to be for a few days! I'm still working on my paper which is due next Monday. I'm racing to get it done because I'm a terribly slow writer and we're going to be gone Friday and all weekend (Edinburgh!) Luke's been working on German and keeping up with his soccer scores. He went down to the pub today to watch the second half of the Chelsea vs Man City game and came back all smiles. Apparently Chelsea is doing well or something.

Red Hot World Buffet

Tomorrow for lunch Luke and I are planning on taking a break from homework and going to a restaurant downtown called Red Hot.They are a buffet style place, which we usually don't go for but this one is supposed to have high quality food. They have a "World" theme and have Thai, Indian, Mexican, Chinese, Cajun, Japanese, and Italian.  It sounds pretty amazing. Luke already prepping for the curry.

In other news- We finished LOST. We began watching it about two Christmases ago and we just now mustered up the stamina to finish the last season.... we are... at a loss. Its like finishing a really good book, knowing even if you read it again it won't be the same. Now I guess we'll have to resort to Star Trek again.

That's about all I know for now. I'm going to go to bed and try to start getting up before 11!

What We've Been Doing..... Other Than Not Posting

We haven't had the chance to travel much the past week or so. Easter break is just around the corner and things are starting to get close to their due dates. I've got a 3,000 word paper and Luke and I both have a lot of German homework to get done. We're having more fun with it this time though, thankfully!
We did have time to discovered a love for curry this past week.... and then Sainsbury's just happened to have a super sale on their pre-made curry. 4 main meals and 2 sides for 10 pounds! This means we reek of tikka masala and garlic naan bread. It is delicious stuff.
Tomorrow might be pretty so perhaps we'll try some sort of hiking or something. Next weekend is Edinburgh! We're leaving on Friday night for a 6.5 hour bus ride to the city and we get to stay for 2 nights. I'm really excited because its supposed to be absolutely beautiful there. The castle looks amazing from what I've checked out on Google.

I've been thinking a lot about how great studying abroad actually is. It's thrown me for a loop quite a few times, but it's also made me realize how small the world actually is. I love all of the material I'm able to gather for paintings because of all of the new places I'm seeing. Hopefully this will aid me in completing my senior project ON TIME. It's going to be so fun going home again, but while I'm here I'm really loving it. School is pretty much exactly the same everywhere but walking past a moor everyday to get there is a pretty cool change.

The Cavalcade of Posts Cont.

Well met Outlander! I write this to you under siege of "freshers flu." A common strain of flu in the Lupton Residences stemming from everyone being from a different place, but having one thing in common: being ridiculously unhygienic. Merrie has been solidly sick for a week+ and I finally seem to be coming down with something. I'm writing this post directly after the last; so it's not like it's new news... But it still keeps the posts fresh and exciting. Barrages of cold and flu pills, vapor rub, lozenges, throat spray, and minestrone will hopefully keep it at bay.

Our puckish adventures continued with a trip to the Lake District on 2/26/11. We were going to the largest lake, Windermere, and the town of Bowness. We went through U of L, so we took a bus with a lot of other international students. It took awhile, but thankfully the clouds parted during the 2 and half hour ride. We arrived, and being a gastronome, quickly found a place to eat. Our group found a cheap, lakefront carvery place so it was a no-brainer. The decision was only made easier when we found out they had unlimited soft-serve. After a nice meal we decided to buy tickets for a boat ride around the top half of the lake. They were expensive, just like everything else. While waiting for boat trip, we decided to walk as long as we could. We quickly found a trail and trekked it through (seemingly) random fields. This produced some of the best pictures so far. Unfortunately, almost everyone payed the price by falling into very wet grass. Not to mention a freak raincloud (seen in the bottom left picture) literally drenched us with rain for about 10 minutes. Ergo, we looked like vagrants in line for the boat.

The boat trip took 70 minutes and also had pretty stunning views. Unfortunately, we were already pretty drained from the hiking the the boat was warm. This surely harmless combination caused a constant battle with nodding off. It was practically time to leave when we docked and returned to the bus.  

Another success. WE'RE WINNERS.

Skipton/Lincoln

SOOOOO... for the past few weeks, we thought to ourselves, "how do we destroy whatever little readership we already have on this blog?" Well, the obvious conclusion we came to was not posting. This may or may not be a true story.

I will post in chronological order of our adventures. You must also listen to City and Colour while you read this. It makes it more poignant, reminiscent, and thought-provoking. maybe.

One final comment before I actually talk about anything important. I like being 5 hours ahead of the East coast. Doing things during business (1-10pm) hours is much easier. Sometimes I send someone an email at like 10am GMT and it shows up as 5am EST and I feel great about myself.

Anyway: 2/18/11 we went to Skipton, "THE GATEWAY TO THE DALES" as they like to be known. It was like an hour bus ride because we took the city bus (the X84) and had a toooon of stops in Otley and Ikley. It was a... big surprise... dreary day. So we didn't get to do to much but it was a nice reconnoiter for the Yorkshire Dales. British hiking (or walking as they call it) paths don't really exist. Which is neat, you just need maps, since the average view distance seems to be about 50 feet. (I am only mildly exaggerating.) Still, coming from the great U.S.A., it just strikes me as odd to just walk through people's land with cows, sheep, farm equipment, etc. Plus, there aren't really any markers other than at the beginning. It's kind of just a, "here's the trail, good luck" kind of sign. The only way I ever feel like we're doing something legal is when we see ways to cross over/through fences and walls.

Long story short: fun day trip.


2/20/11 (or 20/2/11 here... I probably seem like a prick, wahr nicht?)

On Saturday we went to Lincoln. Guess what kind of weather we had? Consequently, Merrie was not in the photoiest (read: photo-ee-ist) of moods. Lincoln itself was... alright. It was a good experience to do, just so you know your not missing out toooo much. It had a castle... and a cathedral... just like every other town. Actually, the castle not only housed an original copy of the Magna Carta, but it was used as jail based upon the separate system. The chapel was especially eerie. We also felt obligated to go into the cathedral, which we did. It was not as opulent as York Minster, but it was neat in it's own right. The town itself is built on the only hill in Lincolnshire, so on our way back to the train station we had to walk through a very long, and commercial, hill. It would have been extra neat if we had any money to spend. There was more to see, but we didn't get to it in time.