The Black Lung Fulfills her Destiny! Part 3: Scotland and the most delicious dessert in the world.

Unless otherwise noted, all photo credits go to Niki Erickson, an awesome photographer, a fantastic friend, and a really top notch traveling companion. Thanks, Niki!

Previously on The Black Lung...We arrived in Edinburgh at about 10:00 at night. The best thing about our hotel-the super cute porter who carried our bags up 3 flights of stairs for us, practically at a run. He was so strong! We joked with him that he should come on the rest of our trip to carry our luggage, but we have no idea what he said back, because he had an awesome accent that was totally incomprehensible. The worst thing was that when we got there, it was really late, and everything was closed, but we were super hungry. The lady at the desk suggested that we walk down the street to a fantastic chips shop to get fish and chips. Now, it's well known that I do not enjoy fish, but I figured, when in Scotland, right? So we went, and I got fish and chips. And let me tell you, it was not delicious. It was really gross, and it made me sad. Niki got fish and chips a few other times while were were on vacation, and she assures me that the ones we got in Edinburgh were terrible. So either the desk lady has bad taste, or she's a liar.

We spent the next day in Edinburgh. What a fantastic city. It was by far my favorite city that we visited on our trip. We were only there for one day, but we could have spent a lot longer and still had a super awesome time. First we saw the changing of the guard at the Palace at Holyroodhouse, the queen's official home in Scotland. I want an official home in Scotland. It was actually much cooler seeing the guard change at Holyrood than at Buckingham. First of all, there were a lot fewer people, so we could actually see what was going on. Second, bagpipes! Pipes and drums are much cooler than a regular marching band.

Bagpipes forevah!!!

Then we walked up the Royal Mile, which is very historical and interesting, but for tourists mostly consists of SHOPPING. You guys are super lucky that I didn't buy a set of bagpipes, because then I would have tried to learn how to play them, and it would have been ugly. My favorite purchase on the Royal Mile was a tiny little kilt and sporran for my baby nephew Bryce, who was born about 3 days into our vacation. It's so cute! And he looked super adorbs when he wore it to his baby blessing at church. Anywho, the Royal Mile goes between Holyrood Palace and Edinburgh Castle, and there's a lot of other really cool stuff along the way and nearby. We went to Calton Hill, which is a park at the top of this giant hill. You can see practically the whole city from the top, plus the Firth of Forth, which is always cool. And there are monuments everywhere.We also spent some time at Old Calton Cemetery at the bottom of the hill. There's a statue of Abraham Lincoln! Seriously though, I loved the cemeteries in Scotland. Very old, beautiful, and creepy.

Calton Hill and gorse! I loved these pretty yellow bushes, but actual Scottish people assure me that they're a weed, they're everywhere, and they're impossible to kill.

 

Monument to Scottish soldiers who fought against Napoleon on Calton Hill. They never finished it because they ran out of $. 

Bryce in his kilt and sporran. Obviously taken after vacation by my dad.

 

The Royal Mile in the evening. In the morning it was full of people.

 

Scotland-The Land of Lincoln! Oh wait.

Finally we made it to Edinburgh Castle, which is so awesome. It's at the top of another giant hill called Castle Rock, which is great for defense, and also great for the view. The castle is still used as a military base, so legit British soldiers live there. You can also see the Scottish Crown Jewels (less gaudy than the English ones) and the Stone of Destiny. Basically it looks like a rock, but it has the best name ever, and British monarchs always have it under their thrones during coronations. There are several museums and the Scottish National War Memorial, as well as St. Margaret's Chapel, which was built in the 12th century. They still have weddings there sometimes, and they had one on the day we were there. My favorite thing that we saw at the castle was a demonstration of how to wear a traditional kilt. The guy who showed us was super funny, and he told us lots of cool things about Scottish warriors.

In front of Edinburgh Castle. I do not know what was up with my hair that day.

 

With Mons Meg, the giant historical cannon.

 

Not joking, he was there with the people getting married.

 

After we left the Castle, we went on a tour of the Real Mary King's Close. Basically, Edinburgh has 7 really big hills, but you can only see two of them, Calton Hill and Castle Rock. The rest of them are basically invisible because of the way that the city has been built. There are bridges everywhere that don't look like bridges until you randomly notice that there's another street running underneath your feet. There's this whole underground city that has been built up over the years. The closes were along the Royal Mile, and they're really skinny, steep little streets that had very tall buildings built up along them. The buildings would be maybe 6 to 8 stories tall at the top of the hill and 12 to 14 stories high at the bottom of the hill. Rich and poor people would live in the same streets, with poor people have the lowest underground levels and the highest rickety levels and rich people in the nicer levels in the middle. At some point, the government decided to build some city buildings in the area, so they cut the top layers off and built over them, leaving the underground rooms and many of the streets. It's hard to describe but really interesting. Apparently, Mary King's Close, which we toured, was hit particularly hard by the Black Plague. Luckily for me, that meant that the tour guide scared the pants off me with a rubber rat when she was telling us about Plague doctors. Truly, I screamed and everyone laughed at me. Good times.

View from one of the bridges in Edinburgh. Seriously, it just seems like you're on a normal street until this pops up.

The sight of the last public execution in Edinburgh on the Royal Mile.

 

Edinburgh after a rain storm.

The last place we went in Edinburgh was Greyfriars Kirk and the statue of Greyfriars Bobby, a little dog who spent 14 years at the grave of his dead owner until he himself died. The graveyard at Greyfriars Kirk is awesome! It's even creepier than Old Calton Cemetery. According to a book we read, The Town Below Ground: Edinburgh's Legendary Underground City by Jan-Andrew Henderson, even though there are only a few hundred headstones in the kirkyard, there are maybe 100,000 to 250,000 people actually buried there. Shocking, eh?

 Aw. He's so cute and loyal.

This should give you a pretty good indication of how creepy Greyfriars Kirkyard really is.

 

The next day, we went to Loch Ness! It is so huge! I never really understood how big it was before. It's 23 miles long and 755 feet deep at it's deepest point. No wonder we can't prove conclusively if Nessie exists or not. We didn't see her (sad face), but we enjoyed seeing the beautiful Loch. We also went through Urquhart Castle, which used to be an important defensive position on the Loch. The inhabitants destroyed it themselves in 1692 so the Jacobites couldn't use it, so it's in ruins now. After we left Loch Ness, we went to Eilean Donan on Loch Duich. It's on an island near the shore, so you have to walk over a bridge to get to it. The castle was destroyed in the 1700s but rebuilt in the early 20th century. Unfortunately, when we were there they were renovating the back of the castle, so it wasn't as cool looking as it normally would be.

Urquhart Castle and a tiny part of Loch Ness.

 

The trebuchet! I'm pretty sure it's blocking a really primo view of Nessie.

My shadow, standing on the drawbridge into Urquhart Castle. I totes took this picture, you guys.

  

Eilean Donan. You can kind of see the scaffolding on the back. Also, the people who worked there would not let me use the bathroom. I was bitter about it.

 

While driving near Loch Ness, we saw a sign that said, "Caution! Feral goats, two miles." Then we saw some goats.

 

That night, we drove to the Isle of Skye. Beautiful. We stayed at this fantastic bed and breakfast called Hallaig Guest House in the middle of nowhere (a lot more sheep than people). This bed and breakfast was the first place that I had the most delicious dessert in the world: Sticky Toffee Pudding. *Choirs of Angels* Sticky Toffee Pudding is a really moist cake made with dates and brown sugar and topped with warm toffee sauce. I'm not kidding when I say that it was life changing. I had it 3 times while I was on vacation. The first time was most delicious, but it was always awesome. I actually made it myself when I came home. It wasn't the same, but I learned from the experience, so next time it will be better. I'm sure of it. We also loved the bed and breakfast because of the super comfortable beds. Not just the most comfy of the vacation either. I think they might have been the most comfortable beds in the world.

Highland cow! The best part of the Scottish Highlands.

 View from Hallaig House.

The next day we drove around the Isle of Skye. Skye is not highly populated, so it's definitely a "looking at nature" sort of place. Pictures don't do it justice. Everything was so beautiful it was almost otherworldly. One place that we went was the Fairy Pools. It was a bit of a hike, but definitely worth the extra work. Super beautiful. We did go to the Isle of Sky Life museum, which showed how people lived up until the 1950s. It was very interesting, and Niki almost knocked herself unconscious when she didn't duck going through a low doorway.

The coast in Skye.

 

More of the coast.

 

The beach near Hallaig house. Notice all the sheep! What you can't tell is how cold it was.

 

Driving to the Fairy Pools.

 

 The Fairy Pools! I was pretty obsessed with these mountains, too.

After we left Skye :( we drove down to our next hotel near Glasgow. And guess what, our hotel was totally a castle! We stayed in the Castle Levan in the converted guardroom near the dungeon. It's a pretty awesome/weird castle, because it's in a normal neighborhood surrounded by normal houses. The people who own the castle are from former Czechoslovakia, and they were really nice. Supposedly the castle is haunted by the white lady, who was really cruel to the peasants. So her husband shut her in the dungeon until she starved to death. Luckily, we didn't find this out until we were leaving the next day! The only bad thing about staying there was that our hosts had some (non-paying) house guests, and one of them was a smoker. The Black Lung practically got real black lung from it. Gross. Once we figured out how to open the tiny guardroom windows, things were a lot better.

The castle was our last stop in Scotland. It really was a dream come true for me. My entire life I've wished to go to Scotland. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would always say, "Scottish!" I'm glad to say it didn't disappoint. Next time I go, I want to stay at least twice as long.

Fortunately for us, when we left Scotland, we still had more than a week left of our vacation. Next stop: Northern Ireland.

To Be Continued...

The Continuing Adventures of the Black Lung! Part 2: I meet the man of my dreams and also go to Mr. Darcy's House

Unless otherwise noted, all photo credits go to Niki Erickson, an awesome photographer, a fantastic friend, and a really top notch traveling companion. Thanks, Niki!

 I left you last time on a train to Manchester, which is a stress free but expensive way to travel. Niki and I were both looking forward to the freedom of having a car, but as the car itself drew closer, we began to get nervous. Driving a car  on the left side of the road with the steering wheel on the right side of the car may be less expensive than trains, but it is certainly more stressful. What if we couldn't do it? What if we crashed the car immediately and were stranded in Manchester for the rest of our vacation?

One thing we didn't think to worry about was whether or not the car place had forgotten us. But they totally had! And of course, we got to Manchester so close to the end of business hours that no one was available to pick us up, so we had to walk to Enterprise through a rather sketch part of the city. Dragging giant suitcases. Unsure of our way. Good times. Fortunately, we are awesome, and a weird  but nice guy gave us directions, so we made it to the rental place 5 minutes before closing.

At that point, we were both really tired and annoyed (and hungry. I feel like I spent the entire vacation either starving to death or being full to the point of vomiting. This does not happen in my real life, you guys). Luckily for us and the women of Manchester, the guy who helped us rent our car was dreamy. We spent a lot of the rest of our trip talking about how cute he was, and how we could get him to join the Church, move to the US, and marry one of us. We never came up with a really good plan. Suggestions in the comments, please!

Anywho, we were conducting some car business with Joe (not a euphemism, although there was a lot of giggling going on. He's so good looking, and we loved his accent), and expressing some concern about our ability to drive in the UK. And get this, he said, "I have faith in you." Swoon! We love you Joe! He also asked if we wanted manual or automatic, and after laughing hysterically, we assured him that there was no chance we could successfully drive a manual anywhere, let alone with a funky steering wheel and on the left.

Behold the Vauxhall Corsa! Good little car, but I was happy to be rid of it at the end of vacation.

 

Finally we were ready to leave, and by ready I mean there was no conceivable reason for us to stay any more. Niki gamely (or reluctantly, depending on who you ask) volunteered to drive first. I volunteered to navigate and also pray that we wouldn't die. And it was my job to yell, "Left! Left!!!!" whenever I thought Niki was veering into the right lane out of habit. Actually, those were always the jobs of the person in the passenger seat, because we are both super brave and took turns driving.

In regular, American life, I think Niki and I are both good drivers. But UK driving is different, y'all. Everything is in the wrong place! More than once when I was driving, Niki freaked out because she suddenly thought she should be holding on to the steering wheel and she wasn't. More than once when she was driving, I was sure we were going to go over the side of cliff (we weren't, I'm just paranoid). It's really hard to sit on the left and have no control. So, we definitely hit a few curbs, and scraped a few bushes, drove on the wrong side of the road for a minute or two, and shaved a few years off our lives after a very near miss with a biker (Sorry, guy! I really hope you didn't notice how close you came to death, because it would put you off biking forever. My bad!). Also, the roads in the UK and Ireland are really, really skinny. It wasn't a huge deal for us, because our car was tiny, but still, there were giant semis driving on them, and buses, and sometimes it seemed unpossible to pass anyone coming the opposite direction without being crushed like a bug. And that's not even counting the one lane roads, of which there were a decent amount, especially in Skye. Also, many of the roads are super steep, and our poor rental car did not have a lot of get up and go. Plus! Plus, the speed limits seemed really fast for really skinny, very windy mountain or loch adjacent roads.

However, and not to ruin the end for you, but we made it through the rest of our vacation without actually crashing our car. We totally got the deposit back. We are awesome at driving! Oddly enough, since I've gotten back to the US, I've more than once had the sudden horrified feeling that I was supposed to be driving on the left. I'm hoping this feeling passes soon, because you're totally not supposed to do that here. I guess I worked so hard to convince myself that driving on the left was normal that I finally succeeded. I have great powers of persuasion.

So, yeah, after we got our car we drove to our hotel, which was actually a really fancy golf resort called Shrigley Hall. We didn't play golf, because that would be lame, but it was a beautiful hotel with great views. And low ceilings by the window. Don't stand up too quick from the coach, is what I'm saying. This was also the first night that we watched British TV! J'adore British television. Seriously, some of their stuff is insanely funny. I became quite fond of Never Mind the Buzzcocks and 8 Out of 10 Cats. At first, I thought they were the same show, but once I had the internets again, I figured out that they were just similar. I also watched a fair amount of Law and Order: UK because Jamie Bamber is a dreamboat.

Shrigley Hall. It's an actual fancy pants hall that they've turned into a golf resort. And my first experience with British driving was in the Shrigley Hall parking lot!

 

The ceiling in the lobby of Shrigley Hall. Totescore amazing, right?

 

But enough about that. Let's talk about the really exciting stuff-the day after we got our car, we went to Lyme Park! For those of you who've seen the 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth, Lyme Park is where they filmed the exterior of Mr. Darcy's house. For those of you who haven't watched it, Look at your life, Look at your choices. The interior of Pemberley was filmed elsewhere, which is a shame, because the inside of Lyme Park is awesome. We learned a lot about the Legh family, who used to own the house when we were touring it. For example, did you know that their family crest has a severed arm holding a flag? It's true, and it's all over the house. Apparently, the first Legh to own the property got it as a reward for saving the Black Prince. The standard bearer had been killed and the standard taken by a French guy. The Legh ancestor galloped up and killed the French guy, saving the Black Prince, and tried to take the standard back from the dead French guy. Unfortunately, he wouldn't let go, so they lopped off his arm and carried that around. Good times. 

First sight of the South Front of Lyme Park (as opposed to the North, East, or West front. There is no back on these great houses) aka the side that's the front of Pemberley.

 

Anyhow, the house and grounds are beautiful, but I'd be lying if I said we weren't super excited to see Mr. Darcy's house. It was so awesome! It felt like we might see the gentleman himself at any moment. We never did, but we totally ate lunch there (they have a restaurant). And we tried valiantly to find the famous pond, but the map was way confusing, and we never made it. But who even cares! Lyme Park is amazing, even if you don't like Pride and Prejudice.

Eeeeee!!! We're at Mr. Darcy's House! Eeeeee!

 

We may not have found the pond, but I'm in love with this lake. It has a random island in the middle of it!

 

After spending way too long at Lyme Park, we finally drove North. We passed through the Lake District, which is amazingly beautiful. Next time I go, I'm spending some time there. But we had a goal in mind, and that goal was Scotland! It took us much longer than we would have liked to get to our destination of Edinburgh (we had to pass up Peebles, where many Veitches live, and Melrose Abbey, where Robert the Bruce's heart is buried-it was already closed when we finally got there) and we still didn't get to Edinburgh until about 10 PM. And Edinburgh is where our journey will continue next time.

The Welcome to England rock!

The Welcome to Scotland rock! They're the same rock, fyi. And look, the Corsa!

To Be Continued...

Introducing: the Black Lung! Part one: London Calling

Unless otherwise noted, all photo credits go to Niki Erickson, an awesome photographer, a fantastic friend, and a really top notch traveling companion. Thanks, Niki!

Hey all! As you know, I recently had the trip of a lifetime in the UK and Ireland with my friend Niki. It was so awesome and we did so many cool things that it will probably take a few posts to get it all up.

First, an explanation of the title. Everyone in the UK smokes. Seriously. You think it's a problem here until you go there and realize that it's an epidemic overseas. So Niki and I were talking about how gross it was, one thing led to another, and suddenly I had a new superhero alter ego: The Black Lung! Basically, the Black Lung's mission in life is to stop people from smoking. She has a whip, and she travels around whipping people's cigarettes out of their hands. Then she says something obnoxious like, "Saved your life!" or "I'm doing this for you!" or "Someday you'll thank me!" Then she speeds away. I suspect that she has super speed. Anyway, we spent our entire time in Europe whipping people's cigarettes out of the hands. We got pretty good at it. And really, someday they'll thank us.

The Black Lung, ready to unleash herself on the unsuspecting British public, Superman style. Also, I LOVE these phone boxes.

OK, so the start of our vacation wasn't great. We had the red-eye flight from DC to London, and of course it was delayed. I'm not sure what time we actually left, because I fell asleep as soon as we got on the plane, but I think it was at least 2 hours after our scheduled departure time of 9:50 PM. I had never flown red-eye before, and I really hope to never do it again either. It was pretty terrible. I actually slept a lot (maybe 6 or 7 hours), but not a great, relaxing sleep, and I was supremely uncomfortable. Plus you feel gross. I don't think Niki slept at all. So when we got to London on Saturday around noon, we were both feeling a little worse for the wear. Plus, the extreme lateness of our flight made us miss our time at the Harry Potter Studio Tour! Seriously terrible.

After some adventures with public transportation (favorite line of the Underground is Bakerloo, because I like the way it sounds when the announcer is talking) and some walking the wrong way, we finally found our hotel. We stayed at the Victor Hotel, which is near Victoria Station in a pretty nice part of London. That means it was expensive and our room was tiny. And it was on the 4th floor of a building with no elevators. I thought we were going to die when we were carrying our suitcases up those stairs, especially since "near Victoria Station" meant about a 15 minute walk, plus the time we were going the wrong way and the jet lag/lack of sleep.

On the bright side, when we got to our hotel, we called the Harry Potter people and they kindly let us reschedule our tickets for Monday without charging us a thing, so instead of rushing around like chickens with our heads cut off, we were able to shower and nap for a couple of hours. Then we headed down to the Tower of London area so that we could eat some food and go on a Jack the Ripper tour.

Here's something you should know about the UK-their restaurants are different from ours. It was kind of stressful. I really wanted the people to tell us where to sit when we came in, and to come to our table and give us our bill when we were done. But they didn't. Mostly you have to seat yourself and then when you're done go up to the bar to pay. This is what we figured out anyway. We did have a few good restaurant experiences, especially at a really delicious Lebanese restaurant in London, where we had great service, but mostly we weren't giving out tips, if you know what I mean. (We really were, because we are lovely, generous people, but I'm not sure everyone deserved one).

Our Jack the Ripper tour was pretty cool. It was really interesting and kinda disturbing. We walked to the different murder sights and they told us about the victims and the suspects. And it was our first experience with UK weather. It kept raining and being super windy and cold. After that, I took my raincoat with me everywhere. We were also amazed by how few people were out and about on the streets. At least where the tour was, it was really quiet. It was pretty creepy.

 

Random sign we saw in London. Magnify so you too can wonder why it says "Infants and Cookery" over that door.

 

After our tour, we went back to our hotel and slept the sleep of the just. We were really, really tired. We also discovered something that would plague us for the rest of our journey-the sun rises crazy early that far north. After waking up in a panic at about 5:30 Sunday morning, we learned to close the curtains of our room.

The next day was Sunday, so we went to Church at the Hyde Park ward. Apparently every other tourist in London was there too, because it took at least half an hour for them to pass the sacrament. Niki and I were both still so tired that it was very hard for us to sit and ponder that whole time without nodding off. But we mostly did it. It was a little disappointing though, because a bunch of the people were American. Whither all the British Church members??? Honestly though, after our church adventures of the next two weeks (spoiler alert!), I'm just glad that we were able to easily find the chapel. Good job with that, London.

After church we went to Buckingham Palace and watched the Changing of the Guard. Pretty cool, although there were a million people, and it was really hard to actually see anything. But we could hear the band, so that was nice. At one point, they were literally playing the theme song from Pirates of the Caribbean. Very weird. Also, I'm not sure how long the actual changing of the guard lasts, but it's basically forever. We were there for at least 45 minutes, and they were still going. In other news, why do they wear those funny hats? I understand that it's traditional now, but how on earth that ever get started?

I may have looked silly, but I was prepared for all weather eventualities.

Niki could see the whole thing much better than I could because of her superior height. Curse my averageness!

 

For the rest of Sunday afternoon, we traveled around London looking at cool stuff. We took our pictures in the ubiquitous (and fantastic) red phone booths. We went to Westminster Abbey and walked past Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and the London Eye. We crossed the Thames twice, including on the Tower Bridge, which is really cool. The one thing we didn't get to do was go through the Tower of London. We just didn't have time. Next time, though.

 Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, the Thames and me! Look how happy I am!

 

Not actually falling down, although I was pretty tired. (Awesome drum sound indicating that I just made a joke. Yay me.)

No, we did not ride on the London Eye. Honestly, does this look like something that I would like? High and spinny?

 

Sunday night we went to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. We came to be really grateful for the maps all over London (and also bitter against them) because we totally got lost while trying to find the theater. On all the maps, there are two things listed: The Globe and Shakespeare's Globe. They're not the same, and they're not in the same place. We think that the Globe must be the original sight of the theater, but we're not sure because we never made it there. But in any case, the path to Shakespeare's Globe is confusing and not well marked. I don't think it's even on an actual street that you can drive on. Only open to foot traffic as far as I could tell. It's on the banks of the Thames, and it's really beautiful. And super authentic, which is impressive. There are no chairs on the main level of the theater. If you have tickets for that area, you just stand up the whole time. I think I would have passed out. As it was, we had seats in the Middle Gallery on really uncomfortable benches. Still better than standing up all night.

Huzzah and well met, Shakespeare's Globe!

The play we saw was The Tempest. It's actually a really weird play, but they did a great job, and we enjoyed it a lot. I was especially excited because the part of the spirit Ariel was played by Merlin from Merlin!!! That's right, Colin Morgan and I were totally in the same space for almost 3 hours. Pretty great stuff.

We did it!

 

The next morning we finally got to go to the Harry Potter Studio Tour. We were really glad, because it's awesome! It was really cool seeing the actual sets and props. My favorite part (besides the Butterbeer, which is yum) was the outdoor sets, like 4 Privet Drive and the Hogwarts Bridge and the Knight Bus. They also had the giant chess pieces there. We also loved Diagon Alley. So cool. I can't believe I actually stood outside Weasley's Wizard Wheezes! At the very end of the tour, there's a room filled with thousands of wand boxes with the names of every person who ever worked on any of the HP films. Sitting in the room is an old guy who literally knows who everyone is and what they all did in the films. So impressive. We also saw two sets of LDS missionaries there for their P Day, elders and sisters. They seemed to be having a great time, and who can blame them?

 Mmmm...Butterbeer...

 Much like Harry, I was uncomfortable riding in the sidecar of the flying motorcycle.

 Hogwarts! Movie magic is pretty astonishing. It looks much bigger on film.

 

Uh oh. It's the Mormons! Quick, pretend like we're not home!

 

 Just being crushed by the magical patriarchy. You know, the usual.

 Potions class! Although considering my non-success with Chemistry in Muggle school, I'm not super sanguine about my chances here.

 

Oh Weasley twins, I do love you. But I will not be buying any Puking Pastilles, thank you very much.

The wand room. I'm doing a terrible Vanna White impression here, but one row to the right and three boxes up from my hand is totally Rupert Grint's wand box! Seriously, why can't I point correctly?

Ahhhh! I'm no good at chess!

After that, we left London on a train to Manchester. We were both really excited to leave the giant city behind (even though we'd gotten really good at riding/navigating the tube), but Manchester is where our adventure really started, because Manchester is where we rented a car.

To Be Continued...