Road Trip Part 3--A Man Named Wallace, Arthur, and the Zombie Apocalypse

"The Journey, not the Arrival matters"--T.S. Eliot

Annnnd we're back in Edinburgh! There was just so much we felt we needed to see so we explored the city more before heading off to our next destination. Just as we arrived at our parking space it started raining... No big deal right? I'm used to it. Except... my stupid self left my rain jacket back in Leicester and all I had was a very permeable sweatshirt. Sarah and I grit our teeth and spent almost the entire morning outside visiting these lovely places:

That's Scot's Monument on the left and "The Shame of Edinburgh" on the right. It was SUPPOSED to be an exact replica of the Parthenon in Athens...

 NAILED IT. They took almost 8 years to do that and didn't even finish the foundation when money ran out. When they got the money again they decided to just leave it...

And that sums up how we felt all day in the rain.
We decided to go indoors to dry off so we went back to the National Museum. This time we started on the bottom floor like normal people and saw something pretty cool and creepy things.

I'll start with the creepy things. Yes that is a glove and dagger from the 15th century. Yes that is actual blood on it.

I just love full face masks that make people look like serial killers. Don't you? This was the mask of a churchman who was wanted for traveling around Scotland preaching against the religious changes that Charles II was forcing people to accept. He was never caught. Personally how dim do you have to be to not realize that is not actually someone's real face? Slightly sketchy situation in my opinion.

Now for the cooler things.

Sarah became and astronaut. We discovered the Lewis Chessmen who were made of walrus ivory and had the BEST facial expressions.

 We saw the first cloned sheep. I didn't realize she was already dead. Oops.

An AWESOME electric cello was there. I contemplated breaking the glass so I could play it, but I had a feeling I didn't want to end up in a Scottish jail.

I FEEL OLD knowing that this gaming system of amazing childhood dreams is now in a museum...





After playing with all of the objects that were mostly dominated by 8 year olds Sarah and I decided it was time to hit the road and say sayonara to Edinburgh. We were once again on the move and I was trying my best not to take out vehicles, pedestrians, foliage, and curbs as I was driving. We did feel really bad for the car at one point on the way to Stirling. There was some road work and a rather large bump in the road... we had passed it once on the way to Glen Coe and hit it at top speed which made both Sarah and I yell WOAHHHHHHHHHH for 20 seconds straight. As I neared it this is what happened in my brain.

"Emma there's that horrendously large bump. What would a normal person do? Well some people would slow down, but I'm not really in the mood. Oh well"

This is the conversation between Sarah and I right after those thoughts.

Sarah--"Hey Emma... do you remember that huge bump we went over before"

Me--"Yup. We're about to hit it again"    BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

The car survived... Not sure about unscathed, but we were never charged anything for damage so I'm just going to assume the poor thing is alright. If anyone ever wants a sturdy car get a Vauxhall. I swear Sarah and I should be the people who test them for any kind of damage possible. This car was prepared for us and that's saying something.

We got to Stirling and managed to find the Wallace Monument without any trouble. We decided to hike all 200+ stairs to the top. I'm not sure what midget population of anorexic people lived in the UK way back when, but it really shows when you climb up a staircase an ant would find cramped, especially when it's a slippery stone and it's raining like crazy. Here's some pictures of Sarah's near death experiences and my near heart attacks after we made it to the top and back down without her slipping and used the stairs as a very bumpy slide.

That sword was taller than I was. That man must have been a goliath.

After we had explored the Wallace Monument we were pretty wiped out and made our way back down into England to Kendall where our bed and breakfast was located. On our way we made a wrong turn and tried to turn around literally 10 times, but the space was so narrow we just couldn't without backing into someone's living room. There was a cat sitting on a car watching our every move. I have never felt more judged by anything on the planet. It followed us with those judging eyes at our pathetic attempts at trying to leave this odd residence we randomly found ourselves in.

Just look at those beady little judgement eyes...





We finally arrived at the right bed and breakfast and Me being an exercisaholic decided to go for a run. It had just finished raining, which meant SLUGS. So many slugs. I felt like a mass murderer. I just gave up trying to avoid them because I'm pretty sure the cop I ran past doing a weird avoidance jump run thing thought I was on some sort of  drugs. He definitely gave me a funny look as I ran past on my way back. Sorry slugs...


We then woke up at the buttcrack of dawn to make the 6 hour drive down to Cornwall. Our first stop was Tintagel, birthplace of King Arthur! They had one heck of a castle. It was a 2 part castle set on 2 different cliffs facing each other and the only way to access either side was a steep, slippery, and rickety staircase. They must have had buns of steel climbing up there frequently.

I'm not sure how Sarah and I managed to do this, but we found a back way to the castle by completely bypassing the tourist paths that were easy. We went through a sheep field around a cliff, down a mini valley, over a cave, and up a path to the tourist building to buy our tickets. We still have no idea how we did that. It was an adventure. Sarah and I bought the world's best present for our friend Laura. Sarah got her a pencil sharpener that was a working catapult and I bought a bow and arrow and the arrows had suction cups on them. I ran around the whole site jumping out behind rocks and pretending to shoot things. I love being 5.

Look how terrifying those steps are. The mini blobs on top that are barely visible is the castle ruins...

We tried to get into Merlin's Cave, but we of course timed it so we came right at high tide when they were flooded. We at least got some great pictures.

After that we climbed up the other side of the ruins and explored the entire area only to find a sign that says "Beware this cliff could collapse at any time. It will eventually all collapse and fall into the sea."
THANK YOU SO MUCH for telling me that AFTER I climbed up here and am looking out over the edge. Jerks. The English have a distorted sense of humor sometimes...

Sarah and I completely entered nerd heaven here and ran around exploring the rest of the day. We were kicked out at closing time and went into town to have lunch in a local pub.

We then drove another few hours to our hotel. We woke up the next morning ready to go on an epic fossil hunt. Turns out we have no idea how to find fossils. We spent about 3 hours and all we found are what we are assuming to be fossil poop... Yay poop... Buzz kill.

Our morning was anti-climatic, but our afternoon drive back to Leicester was filled with the beginnings of the zombie apocalypse.

It was a dark, foggy afternoon and looked like something out of a horror film. We were the only cars on the road and had passed under a thick patch of trees so we couldn't see anything but fog. Then suddenly out of NOWHERE a creepy figure of a woman slowly lurches across the street in such a zombie like fashion that the Walking Dead show needs to hire her immediately.

Man, look at that splendid view. Perfect for driving.

The rest of the trip consisted of us discussing:

1. Worst countries to be in during the zombie apocalypse: Any country in Asia... too many people to eat us. Africa... same problem and too many scary animals to eat us.

2. If you could have anyone in history be on your side for the attack who would it be?     Chuck Norris, George Washington, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Batman, Spiderman, The Hulk, Thor, Jason Bourne, Terminator, Houdini, Ivan the Terrible, Abe Lincoln, etc.

3. What skills should you acquire to convince someone they NEED you in your awesome amazing safe house?   Knitting (don't judge you need clothes fixed and made), scuba so you can build a dome of safety underwater, knife throwing skills, sniper, cooking, washing, ninja, ventriloquism (throw voice so zombies think I'm in a different place and then ninja them to death), climb trees, fort building, agriculture, build a batmobile, fire breathing, tank driving/construction/operation, baking, become an electrician, to name a few.

I hope you feel more prepared. Sarah and I do.


"We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment" --Hilaire Belloc

Road Trip Part 1--Ping Pong, Stalling, and Castles

“The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” – Saint Augustine



One of my best friends, Sarah, had decided to visit me from the States. We courageously planned to teach ourselves how to drive a manual and rented a car to take us on an epic journey up the East Coast of England to Scotland and back down the West Coast. My parents and friends tried to talk me out of it.  Knowing me, it was a losing battle. Sarah and I have a knack for having hilarious and completely random adventures together and this one was by no means an exception, but the icing on the cake.

Sarah flew from the States and landed at 7am and drove from London to Leicester for the first time driving on the left hand side of the road... Did I mention it was in LONDON?? This girls has some cajones. If you don't know what that means...look it up but don't use google image unless you want a vulgar surprise ;-)

Back to the trip. Sarah and I spent the two days exploring Leicester. We went everywhere that anyone could possibly go in Leicester like the Newarke Museum, Cathedrals, Leicester Uni, New Walk Museum, parks, Guildhall, etc. We then discovered Leicester had assembled ping pong tables everywhere and we quickly took over a table for 2 hours. That may seem like a long time to bounce a small ball across a net with wooden paddles, but I'm guessing you have never played ultimate ping pong with no paddles. Sarah and I became bored with the normal version and decided to ditch the paddles and whack the ball as hard as we could without paddles and even if it went off the table we still  smacked it around. This led to the ball being lost several times and us playing in the bushes at one point. Everyone else got some entertainment too, so it was a win win situation.


Here's a demonstration of the shenanigans and the extent to what we had to do to retrieve the ball.

Sarah and I know how to have fun doing just about anything. One of the many things I love about her.

The next morning we had a lovely 5am wake up call and hit the road to Edinburgh. Poor Sarah had to drive the entire 6 hours because I hadn't learned how to drive manual yet. When we arrived at the parking lot after getting lost we decided to go to Edinburgh Castle first. On the way we saw a bagpipe parade that started the second we crossed the street in front of them. Thanks Edinburgh for welcoming us like that. No where else gave us a parade :-p

It was a hike and a half up the hill where they used to torture people. Great thoughts to get you encouraged enough to keep going... Once we got there it starting raining... SHOCK. We toured every single room you could possibly go into including the: dungeons, royal jewels, war memorial, canon area, and one of the halls. 

The pictures do it so much more justice than words. Next on our list was to just walk around outside and enjoy the view and we did just that. We could literally see ALL of Edinburgh from up there. How in the world people would decided it was a good idea to storm that castle is beyond me. I think they were a little wr

ong in the head. If you didn't have a stroke running up the steep incline and somehow managed to miss the arrows and flaming pots of poo being rained down on you then you had to get over the walls or through the gate. If I happened to be a male warrior attempting to besiege the castle in the past I would've just laughed at my commanding officer and patted him on the back and said good luck and then mutter "..idiot".

Next on our tourist to do list we went to the National Museum of Scotland. For those of you who read my previous blog about the trip to the Irish National Museum you will be pleased to know Scotland knows how to build a fantastic museum. There was only one flaw to this plan. Sarah decided we should start at the top of the museum and work our way down. Folks, never do this. They put the boring stuff on top and the ridiculously fun and interactive things on the bottom to rope people in. We discovered that sad fact 10 minutes before it was closing. We walked downstairs expecting to find more boring things only to find we could've spent our time looking at cloned sheep, mega sloths, rockets, and racing formula 1 cars. It was a sad and slightly embarrassing moment in the lives of Sarah and Emma as we realized our stupidity. Oops. BUT never fear we came back 2 days later, which you'll hear about later.

We did get to see these things on our journeys at the top of the building:

In case you're wondering the top left picture is a bear claw necklace. The bee picture is a creepy but fascinating perpetual motion clock. The bottom left picture is a really complicated locking trunk that I'm convinced was the inspiration of Mad Eye Moody's trunk. Last but not least is the bottom right picture of an Anglo-Saxon Brooch.
 YAY history! At this point Sarah and I were TIRED from walking over the entire castle and all over Edinburgh after getting no sleep and driving for what felt like decades. We decided to get one last picture and the Olympics statue and then make the 30 minute drive to our hotel. For those of you who think all hotels in Britain are typical... think again.

As we drove to our hotel up the driveway we had to compose ourselves before going inside. It was a flipping CASTLE. The reception area had an enormous fireplace with suits of armor flanking it with a gigantic moose looking skull mounted above it. If that doesn't scream castle then the stuff boar in the living room does. 

We were in love. We had dinner inside before heading to our rooms in another building. We met the owner and were given permission to explore the whole castle. He obviously didn't know what he had just set loose in his beloved castle. We sang songs in the music room as I accompanied myself on the piano in a very unprofessional sounding way since I'm awful at playing piano. Then we pretended to be philosophical in the library and climbed the ladders to look for more books, but we were really just taking pictures. We also walked around with ridiculously stereotypical British butler accents. It just felt so right, but seeing as we were dressed in jeans and sweatshirts it probably looked like a bunch of nutters were meandering around the castle. 

Then we let ourselves into the garden and discovered.. SLUGS. Slugs were EVERYWHERE. We went for a walk and I'm pretty sure I accidentally killed about 50 just by walking. They are surprisingly camouflaged. 

In case there are slug lovers reading this blog, I really did try to avoid them but it just wouldn't work. I like to think I helped the human race by protecting them from slug invasion, which was obviously being plotted.

Look out for next week's blog for part 2 of the trip!

“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.” – John Hope Franklin