Nocturnal Yet Again

I've begun going to bed at 4 and waking up at 2 again! Yay! :-P

Ever since classes ended I've been goofing off watching movies, hanging out, throwing dinner parties, going on random trips and staying up WAY too late. It's been fun, but I'm ready for normal life to resume soon. I can't wait for Lyss to get here (in about TWO AND A HALF DAYS!!) and to travel around and have adventures with her. We're gonna stay around here until Friday afternoon because I have finals, but then we're going down to see Sarah, and then up to Loch Ness and the highlands! And then to Edinburgh, and then we go HOME!!! YAY!!!

I'm SO ready to get home. I love Scotland, and I've had a great semester here, but it's time to go home now!

Anyway, for a quick update on last weekend when I went to see Sarah in Oxford:
I took a train down on Saturday (and forgot my camera!! Can you believe it???) and we spent that night out on the lawn of her college (there are about a million colleges that make up the whole of Oxford University) playing music with a bunch of cool people! I haven't held a guitar since I left the States, and my fingers were just itching to jam. It was great times.
We spent the rest of the weekend going to fancy Oxford meals in ornate wood-carved halls, reading and discussing poetry, running errands and shopping (I bought a bunch of amazing books), and staying up late talking about life. It was so great to feel the academic life there and pal around with Sarah for a few days.

On Tuesday morning I left Oxford on a train bound for York and arrived there in the early afternoon for some lunch and a look at York Minster Cathedral, which was stunning. I love huge old churches, and this place was breathtaking. I also walked along the road where Guy Fawkes was born, and saw the church where he was baptized. Of all the cities I've seen while I've been on the British Isles, I think I'd most like to live in York or Galway, with Edinburgh a close runner up.

So then I took a train from York to the tiny town of Thirsk in Yorkshire, which is James Herriot's "Darowby." I had to walk about forty five minutes from the train station into the village, but it was worth it when I got to see the clock tower where James first came into town, and finally his house and veterinary practice, which is one of the best museums I've ever seen! It had the house just as James, Sigfried and Tristan used to keep it (with the phone in the hall that they used to have to run down the stairs to get to at night!), and all the medicinal and examining rooms (just so tiny and non-sterile! Crazy, by today's standards), not to mention the courtyard which had the old car that James used to drive, and it still works! From there you got to go into an exhibit of the sets for "All Creatures Great And Small" and it looked just like the show! The last set of rooms was an exhibit of all the veterinary tools and methods that used to be used, and how they vary from today's methods. The whole thing was just fascinating, and totally worth it for any Herriot fan out there.

And finally I got on a set of trains back to Stirling, and it was nice to be back in my Scottish home. Even the Dales in England are nothing to the hills and mountains here, and I missed the rugged outdoor-ness of the Scottish lands. Everything down in England is soft and man-made in a way, and while I like it for a short period, I'd much rather have the Scottish Highlands any day.

So now I've just got a few more days to hang out and study before Lyss gets here and we'll have awesome new adventures. In the meantime, I'd better try to get back on a daylight schedule. :-)

I'll see you all soon!