~William Edmondstoune Aytoun



I am back from Scotland, I did not board any trains in the wrong direction and end up in the highlands or Wales or something like that. The trip was amazing, although the weather was a bit crazy. It was sunny so when the wind would stop it was really warm, than the frigid wind would pick up, it was like an arctic breeze and there was not enough layers in the world to keep me warm. And then it would randomly pour rain, and one moment it hailed like crazy, and then the sun would burst out from behind the clouds in glorious flamboyant streaks of light, and pretty soon it looked like a cloudless summer day, and I wanted to change into shorts and a T-Shirt. And than that dang wind would pick up...

Above are some pretty Scottish flowers, and below is a view from an Edinburgh street. They were taken within minutes of each other.

When we first got to Edinburgh, we went to the Edinburgh Castle, and let me tell you, it was a castle with a view. You could see the city, the rolling green hills of Scotland, the craggy cliffs, and the brilliant blue ocean. I know they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but even so it would take two thousand pictures to even begin to capture the beauty of Edinburgh, I have never been so in love with a city, and never thought any place was so captivating. That evening we went back to our hostel, and had a delicious dinner: Bread, soup, baked potato, and cheesecake! Yum! The hostel was super nice, so it gives me hope for spring break!

Above: Edinburgh Castle.
Below: View from hill that Edinburgh Castle is built on.

David, Me, Kathryn, and Joel chilling in the castle. Literally.

Above: View from a little arrow window- Ready, Aim, Fire!
Below: Another view from the castle, so gorgeous!

The next day we climbed a steep and seemingly never ending hill, but it was worth it, the view was breathtaking, ocean on one side, green hills behind you, than the city landscape, and of course the beautiful Edinburgh Castle. There was tower on top of the hill, and when I climbed to the top of that I literally felt as though I was on top of the world. Then we went to a museum, for about two seconds when the alarm went off, so we made our way to Starbucks, and than an art gallery. Some of the painting were amazing, and I felt fairly cultured as I wandered around listening to classical music on my MP3 player and looked at paintings and sculptures.

Above: Emily, Kathryn, Me, Julia, and Aleah after our climb.
Below: The tower I climbed!

That evening we went a saw a forty person choir sing. If I do things like that enough, maybe I will pick up some Latin! The choir was amazing, plus some of those Scottish choir guys were pretty cute. :)



The next day we went to Scottish Parliament, which is housed in a building that is about ten years old or something like. Sorry to say, I was bored. I guess I am not very up on Scottish Politics, and I really could not muster much enthusiasm for the building, which I did not even snap a single photo of, because I thought it was so ugly. The only ugly thing in all of Edinburgh, I guess every city has to have one blemish it on its otherwise perfect architectural complexion. After that we power walked about a long hill to St. Giles Cathedral, which was beautiful. We were not allowed to take pictures of the inside, but I got a few of the outside. That afternoon we sadly had to catch a train home, and leave Scotland behind, with a little piece of my heart. Just kidding, but I did love it and hope to go back.

Above: St. Giles.
Below: View from train window.

When we got back to King's Cross Station, we darted across to St. Pancras and bought our Eurostar tickets to Paris, France for Spring Break, hopefully we will get to Belgium too, if all goes according to plan! Then we got home, and crashed, the trip was amazing but getting back was amazing too, because I haven't been that exhausted since we flew in!

~Groucho Marx

The weather here in England has truly been lovely, and on Friday it is supposed to be a balmy 57 degrees! Emily and I have decided the moment it hits 60 we are going to go and frolic in all the parks!

As you can tell, I had a pretty tough school week, a whole 3 hours of class for the entire week! That's definitely to much work for one person to handle, luckily , I have a nice five day weekend to recover! (Although usually we only have 3 day weekends, how I suffer!!) Every morning my host father asks me "What, no school today?" And I groan and explain what a hard day I have in store.
For Example:
Eric: "What, no school today?"
Kathryn: "We have to be there by 2, I don't no if I am going to make it!!"
Me: "Uggghhhh... and tomorrow we have to be there by the crack of noon, its becoming intolerable!"

And then Eric laughs and shakes his head in disgust. Its a good time.

It seems some of my readers have been curious about my daily life, so I thought I would give a little peak into my mornings!!

My little house in Eastcote!

The street where I live!


The street I walk down to get to the tube station!


Strolling along to Eastcote!


Turn right at the mailbox!


Hello Eastcote!


The Underground Station!


I swipe my Oyster Card on that yellow button, and the little doors open so I scamper through!



Yay! Tubes here. :)

Well, three days of my five day weekend will be spent in Scotland, so I must go pack, as I am leaving on a 9 AM train tomorrow! Love you all!

~Thomas Lux
Your tear-wracked family bedside: elderly grandchildren, great-grandchildren arriving straight from med school; not a peep of pain, calm, lucid, last words impeccably drafted?


No. Pecked to death by swans.



Having saved the lives of twelve crippled children (pulled from a burning circus tent), the president calling your hospital room, and you say: Tell him to call back; all the opiate drugs you want?


No. Pecked to death by swans.


Great honors accrued, Don't go telegram from the pope on the side table, serious lobby already in place re a commemorative stamp; a long long life capped by falling, peacefully, asleep?



No. I said: Pecked to death by swans.


By a bullet meant for a lover or a best friend, by a car set to kill someone else whom you pushed, because you could, out of the way; the ululations of a million mourners rising to your window?



No. Pecked to death by swans.



Yesterday, Joel and I went to Ruislip Lido and feed the swans! They were beautiful, but absolutely terrifying, there was a few moments when I didn't think both Joel and I were going to make it out alive, the poem "Pecked to Death by Swans" just kept running through my head.


They were chasing Joel, because he had the bag of bread. Every time he would throw them a piece, the swans would look at the crumbs disdainfully and reach their heads up to snap at the bag!


The lake was absolutely beautiful, and I feel like if we had not gotten hopelessly lost, it was probably was only a short distance from Eastcote. It was also nice that it was so incredibly warm out, T-Shirt weather may actually be on its way!

~George Ade

Aleah and I showing our affection for Joel.

I have been in London for 3 weeks now, and feel like I am finally starting to settle in and feel pretty comfortable with the transport system and my ability to get around, except for on trains to and from Bath of course. Keeping the room tidy is a rather constant struggle as it is so small and has limited places to put things away in, but we do a fairly good job!

A Statue

Yesterday, Kathryn, Emily, and I went shopping at some of the many shopping areas in London; Russel Square, Oxford Street, Oxford Circus, and Notting Hill. As not to alarm my father, I only spent seven pounds! All in all, it was a very funny day, and to top it off, Kathryn and I got our peanut M&Ms!

Cobblestone!

Today is Saturday, but we don't have any huge plans as we must read half a book and write a paper about Virginia Woolf by Monday, I guess we best get started on that!

~Paul McCartney

David, Nick, Sarah, Colin, Kathryn, Me, Rollie, Jenny, Jessica, Joel, and Nicole!

I almost feel as though spring is upon us here in London, it has FINALLY begun to warm up, now if it would just quit raining! Rain is as common in London as in Seattle, and I am starting to wish I had packed my wellies!



Saturday was Valentine's Day, so Kathryn, Emily, and I went out on a little date together. We ended up dancing, and it was jolly good fun, although I, for one, should not quit my day job- Grace Kelly I am not!

Kathryn and I on Valentine's Day!

Today the class took a little field trip to the Banquet Hall where King Charles I was beheaded. Charles was the son of James I and VI (first King James of England of Ireland, sixth King James of Scotland).Charles reined from 1625 until his execution in 1649 by members of the uprising Parliament during the English Civil War. He is remembered for his belief that kings were little gods on Earth and basically bringing about the war in his quest to create a religiously unified Scotland, Ireland, and England. Didn't really work out, and he ended up losing his head. He was succeeded by Oliver Cromwell.

The Banquet Hall (where little Charlie's head was parted from its frame!)

The central painting of the nine panel Charles had commissioned.
This painting depicts his father James being welcomed into heaven as a God!

Joel, Emily, and Kathryn chatting it up in the hall.

It was an interesting little tour, and the Hall is near Trafalgar Square, an area I definitely want to explore on my own!

Today Kathryn and I were studying when we heard a strange thump on our door. It seems one of our host family's dogs wanted to be let in. Rackey knocked once, and waited politely until Kathryn opened the door when he bolted in and settled onto her bed. So cute!

~Regina Nadelson

Kathryn and I.

Justice!

This week has held many adventures. On Monday I searched the whole of the area nearby my school for postcards. Now when you aren't looking for something, it is naturally easy to find, and usually there are postcards spurting out the ying-yang. But on a rainy day that you decide to wander about on your own looking for postcards, every store you walk into will look at you like you are crazy for asking about them, and tell you that they don't have any. Finally I found a little store with lots of postcards, so I bought 20 and then spent the next hour filling them out. It was a fun time. :)

On Wednesday we went for a walk and ended up at a little church called Saint Sepulchre. It was originally built in 1103, and finished in 1173! And then it was rebuilt and enlarged in 1450, and restored in 1670, so this little church had a lot of history.

Little glimpse of the outside!

And the inside.

Thursday was my friend Emily's birthday. It was really rainy and we took a walking tour with our history class. That kind of bummed her out. :)

Guildhall.

But it ended up being really cool and we got to see an medevial guildhall that has been much restored throughout the years and is still is use! It was built between 1411 and 1430, and parts of it stood there since the 13th century. It is part of the original square mile of London, and thats where all the local government developed.

And the inside!

Then we went to dinner, which was awesome, and Othello, and which was not quite as awesome, due to the large number of understudies it employed!

Joel, Me, and Emily at dinner.

Friday we went to Bath, which may be one of my new favorite place EVER! It was a beautiful day, and we got to go to Bath Abbey, which was founded in the 7th century and rebuilt in the 10th, and again restored in the 17th century, and of course quite often since then since it is still a working church!

Above is the outside of Bath Abbey,
and below is Kathryn and I inside the Abbey.

We of course saw the ancient Roman Baths still present from when the Romans invaded and took over the island of Britain back in 43 AD.

The Roman Bath. Steamy!

Two views of Bath Abbey from the Roman Bath.

We also walked all around, saw some pretty amazing buildings, as well as the Museum of Fashion!

The Circle! It was so huge, I could barely fit it all in. Gorgeous though. :)

And then, since it was Friday the 13th, disaster struck. On the way back, Emily, Kathryn and I boarded a very crowed train home. It was so crowed we all had to stand in the isle for 35 minutes until the first stop. Finally we found seats, and sank, exhausted, into them. There we sat for another 2 hours, when we began to realize we should be back in London by now. That's right, for 2 hours and 25 minutes we rode a train in the completely wrong direction and didn't notice. We ended up on the southern coast of England, literally at the sea side. We finally got directions back to London, and while waiting for the next train we decided to get food. The station cafe closed RIGHT as we reached it, and then the vending machine was out of order, that is when I turned to Emily and Kathryn and said, "OH MY GOSH! Its Friday the 13th!" That explained it. But four hours later than we were planning, we made it back to the tube station, on the complete opposite side of London that we should have come in on on the correct train. It was a lovely accidental trip to the southern side of England, but we made it back safe and sound!