Day 77-78

Tomorrow is the big day, leaving for 3 weeks of travel. With nothing but a smile and a backpack.

I can't wait. I went out in the freezing blizzard of hail and rain today, to get free dinner at Frankensteins with Ashley, Lea and Katie. It was horrible walking through this. I think my body just shut off, because about half way there, I wasn't cold, other than my eye brow, which appeared to be frozen. The food wasn't too great, but for free, I wouldn't complain. After I got back, I was turned to a movie called "Waking Life", which is about the dream world, one specific quote that has really impacted me is what follows... "They say that dreams are real only as long as they last. Can't you say the same thing about life? A lot of us out there are mapping that mind/body relationship of dreams. We're called the oneironauts. We're explorers of the dream world. Really, it's just about the two opposing states of consciousness... which don't really oppose at all. See, in the waking world, the neuro-system inhibits the activation of the vividness of memories. This makes evolutionary sense. It'd be maladapted for the perceptual image of a predator...to be mistaken for the memory of one and vice-versa. If the memory of a predator conjured up a perceptual image, we'd be running off to the bathroom every time we had a scary thought. So you have these serotonic neurons... that inhibit hallucinations... that they themselves are inhibited during REM sleep. This allows dreams to appear real...while preventing competition from other perceptual processes. This is why dreams are mistaken for reality. To the functional system of neural activity that creates our world, there is no difference between dreaming a perception and an action... and actually the waking perception and action."

I spent the rest of the day lost in books. I read about phenomenon such as Astral Projection and Lucid Dreaming... as well as started a book by Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain. All were great and quite interesting. So, being stuck on this dreaming subject, and with the promise of all these reading of being able to Lucid Dream, which is essentially being conscious that you are dreaming, inside of your own dream. Once you have mastered this ability, you are able to not only go free flowing in your dream, but actually able to control what happens, where you go and what you do. Determined to make this work, even in spite of the intense practice and dedication the readings told me I needed. I concentrated on being conscious in my dream for a good time, 3 to 4 hours before I went to bed, and continued laying in bed ready for this to happen. The method I was using was a combination of two, MILD and WILD, standing for Mnemonic Induced Lucid Dreaming, and Waking Induced Lucid Dreaming. In the former, you are suppose to constantly repeat counting, intervened with repeating the phrase "I am dreaming" in your head. The latter consists of keeping your brain conscious enough that when you are finally drifting into a dream, you will realize this, and pull yourself into the dream. For example, if the first dream projection you see if of a rock, imagine yourself holding the rock, thus taking you into the dream in a semi-conscious state. I'm sure if you are reading and hearing about this for the first time, you think it is absurd and I am off my rocker. But I assure you there is some substance behind these claims. Anyhow, here I am laying in bed finally at a late hour of 2am, I am concentrated hard trying to stay conscious, which undoubtedly led me to staying up for what seems like hours, I did not want to open my eyes though. And finally I could feel myself drifting into a dream, I felt myself getting excited and I remember thinking "This is it! You're dreaming, this isn't reality!" - I was plunged into a classroom simultaneously, the consciousness I felt in the dream was overwhelming, I had a full body sensation that was too intense for words, I tried to muster out the words "I am in a Lucid Dream" before I slipped out of it, but my throat wouldn't allow me to produce words, as if I was in a body paralyzed state. One of the keys to Lucid Dreaming, I have read, is to keep calm, I was the exact opposite of this, completely enthralled by the experience that has just blown my mind - hence, I woke up. I was exhilarated to say the least, wow, what an experience. I vaguely remember trying to go back into one after this, I remember being in a large field, and seeing some sort of Buddhist Monk, he told me "There isn't a key to life, the key is to find meaning in life." Interesting. I lost it after this and fell asleep for good, only to be awoken by my alarm clock, remembering nothing after this point.

Wednesday is finally here. I woke up at about 1030, planning on leaving my flat at 130, I ate a good breakfast, packed my bag up with my computer ( as you can tell ). Then headed off to the post office to weigh it and make sure it is under the 10kg limit (great idea mom)! It was 9.9!!! What a deal, I had everything I possibly needed packed in there, along with a laptop, which is quite key in traveling situations. I can find maps, things to do, stay connected with family, keep my blog updated, post pictures, etc etcccccc!!! I was excited.

Marc, Jordan, Amy, Becca and I left for the airport around 1:30, as planned, in a taxi. About 30 minutes out, Jordan was joking around like "everyone has their passports right? boarding passes? eurail passes?" the last statement echoing as much more than a joke. Marc just stared, in utter disbelief it seemed, he forgot his eurail pass. We pulled over, he jumped out, got a taxi the opposite way and met up with us at the airport. How lucky Jordan said something! Anyhow, we boarded the plane with ease. I read mostly on the plane, about 30 minutes out I decided to put my book away and close my eyes. Seconds after I did this, I felt a slightly cold and damp feeling on my right pant leg and arm (no I didn't have an accident). Amy opened her water bottle, which had quite a pressure change since being a few thousands feet in the air. It geysered out a 3 foot stream of water, which landed on myself, her and a wee lad in the seat in front of us. It was all in good laughter though, pretty funny. We landed around 7PM, took a bus into town, got here around 8:30PM, got a metro and met up with Bjorn, Tim's friend (the place I will be staying), who led us to the humble abode. Everything has gone great so far, Stockholm has a lot to offer, I for one, can't wait to get to the Nobel Museum! We will be picking up 3-day metro passes, for around 10 pounds, which allow us to travel almost anywhere, as well as take a ferry to the Vasa Museum, an ancient sunken ship recently pulled out and restored.

But, it seems time to turn in now, who knows, maybe attempt to have another Lucid Dream? Exploring is on the menu tomorrow...

Day 75-76 (Post 2/2)

First off, if I remember everywhere I went this weekend, I get double the points.

Bah, this is going to be harder to pull off than remembering Thursday...

Ok. Let's start at the start, we woke up early Saturday to catch our 9am bus up the Inverness, it was a beautiful sunny day in the meadows...

Now the trip. We drove for about 9 hours in total, stopping at various different points along the way. I actually enjoyed it for two reasons, 1) I saw beautiful sights, in which you are about to get a small taste of... and 2) I finished about 3 or 4 complete sections of my study. Perfect.

Well here it goes, I know for sure we stopped at the "three sisters", which are three adjacent mountains... I believe they are what you see here.

We stopped a few other random view points, in which I captured this picture... gorgeous panoramic pictures... at this viewpoint there was a scottish man playing the bag pipe. There were decently strong winds and it just started to rain a bit, but he stood out there letting all of Scotland hear the mighty pipes.

Next we headed to a place called Glen something or another (I am disappointed in myself, too)... it was great! All of these stops were great! We were literally just in the wilderness, I would love to go back and hike up some of these mountains. I recall a story about these hills, it was where the Mac Donald clan would hide all the sheep they stole, as supposedly there was a secret pathway somewhere up there. Another story, riding more of the lines of myth, was that when the Romans came into Scotland, a giant battalion of the army marched in these hills, to never be seen again... DUN DUN DUN.

This shot was actually just out of the bus window... Still beautiful if you ask me.

We actually stopped in a city (more like a small village) called Fort Williams for lunch. I packed lunch/dinner/breakfast so I didn't eat, but I went along nonetheless. Jordan ordered a bowl full of muscles, which came to be about 60 total muscles, it was ridiculous. The pile of shells after was bigger than a football. I tried a couple, for the first time, they were interesting, chewy indeed, but they did have a somewhat good taste to them haha.

At last! Finally coming into Inverness... it was approaching 7PM...This first shot was coming into the city, I don't recall what body of water that was? But Jaime and I swore we saw a baby nessy in it, a little head popped out of the water... and then ducked back under! Marc saw it after it came back up the second time, he said it was a turtle, which it probably was, or a Duck. But I'm going to stick with a baby nessy...

Later that night we headed to a local hot spot called Hootananny, which had live music playing all night. It was pretty fun, there were three floors and three different bands. It actually got extremely packed. Before the live music started we actually went to an ESPN sports bar. I was good and only had two drinks the whole night (I know). Regardless, good time, and good scottish music!

The next day we headed out at about 9AM. Went to the local grocery store for some breakfast, they served hot food, kind of like a big Dennys, except the quality of the food wasn't to die for or anything ( unlike Dennys ;) ). I had a hearty breakfast and also picked up some water and an orange for the rest of the ride.

We then headed to the Culloden Battlefield, in which the Highlanders fought the government for throne rights in 1746. It was a huge battlefield, thousands of people were killed there, each person represented by a stone in the wall pictured above... The Highlanders actually lost this battle, as they were tired and got surrounded. It had a pretty significant history. It was cool being able to walk all around it, there were headstones of fallen warriors, a memorial, as well as the bandage house (above) that was used back in the battle.

Next, seeing as we were on the topic of intense death in battle, we headed to an ancient burial ground. This was specifically cool because it was built in 2000BC, four thousand years ago. Seeing as I had just been to Stonehenge a few weeks ago, I noticed this burial/ritual ground had the same layout as Stonehenge, which was interesting in itself. All the burial sites were directly lined up with the mid-winters sun. All of these tombs were piled around with a few tons of stones, making a circle, with one entrance leading into it. Although it was not present any longer, I read there was once a closed off top of the circle, as well as the passage way, no light could even get in here - until the sun set, which shined straight down the passage way and illuminated the inside of the dome. Pretty cool.

After that we headed back into Inverness for lunch, I headed up to Inverness castle, which you will notice looks quite new. That is because it is, the original castle no longer stands, and this is one made within the last 200 years.

Finally! Loch Ness! It is a huge lake, it is said that if you tipped it up on its side, it would have enough water to fill every loch in Scotland, or the worlds population 3 times (don't quote me on this last one). It was pretty amazing, and went on for 22 miles, and about 700-800 feet of depth... (hence the sheer volume of this loch!). I also had a lady bug crawling on me in the bus, which is probably the first insect I have seen in Scotland, believe it or not, and set her free in this bushy area behind me ;).

Next was Urquhart castle, which is where the most reported sightings of Nessie is from. It was somewhat in ruins at the moment, but I managed to get a pretty good shot of it. There was also an old catapult near the castle, definitely cool to see.

We then headed to a small town called Pitlochry, it was quaint. Jordan Marc and I got some old-fashioned ice cream and then headed to the towns dam, which is about the only thing it had! Not a bad view from up there though. We only stayed here momentarily and then headed back on our way to Edinburgh.

A beautiful trip, a fun trip, and a productive trip.

Now, 2 days until Spring break traveling, can't wait!

Day 73-74 (Post 1/2)

Well, this was such a packed weekend, I am going to have trouble remembering everything that happened on Thursday. But let's give it a shot.

I finally gave it to reality and realized my backpack was too large to fit into the carry-on boxes. It was about 2 inches too tall, but I kept rationalizing that they wouldn't care, or that I could make it diagonal and it would work out. But the risk with 6 or 7 flights upcoming was too great, as I would get charged a grand fee of 35 pounds every time it got rejected! And that is no fun for anyone. So, I headed the post office, picked up a few postcards on the way, packed up the bag and wrote a few words - off they all went. Funny thing is, the bag was 38 pounds to start with, and I paid around 16 pounds just to ship it back to get my money back! I guess getting 22 pounds back is better than nothing. I also purchased a slightly smaller bag last Tuesday, which is risky, due to the fact that I leave on Wednesday, if that bag isn't here... well... I won't have a bag! So I am going to be keeping my fingers crossed.

Later Thursday night a group of us guys headed to the pool hall once again (Dave, Myself, Jordan, Marc, Nick, Malcolm and Ben). It was pretty fun, we started off with a little snooker, which is the giant pool tables with smaller balls. Dave quickly ran over a few rules, but before we even finished the game a few American pool tables opened, so we jumped on those. The rest of the night we played cut-throat and 2vs2 games. As well as continuing the grudge match Dave and I have (he beat me 1vs1 again tonight). We headed back after a few hours, Dave and I planned to go back Friday morning for a few hours to duke it out... and that's just what we did.

We got to the pool hall around opening, noon, and played until about 3. Started out with a game of snooker, of which I am a complete fan of now, even though it is entirely both frustrating and fun. The bumpers on the pockets are not forgiving in the least. This causes much anger. Anyway, after a game we headed to the American pool tables. We managed to get a total of 19 games in just about 2 hours. I took the series 11-8. Dave was sad, I was triumphant.

Later Friday it was Mexican night at Paiges! Jordan, Marc and Paige cooked up some delicious fajita material, and some strawberry daiquiris, I brought some chips and salsa. We feasted like kings, it was so good! Amy came a little later and we brought out the piñata, it was hilarious, Paige went first and literally almost killed Amy with her first swing... it was intense. Amy then went and damage the paper-maché fish, but he still lived. Marc came in and destroyed him, candy flooded the flat! We started a game of poker after that just for fun... and then Jaime came even later then that, but it was all good fun.

Day 70-72

6 Days until Spring Break and massive traveling. Couldn't be more excited.

I came down with a cold starting monday... luckily, I am virtually better now.

Monday was good, it started off with meeting up with my partner for a presentation. I had finished my part up the night before, but we went over it and what not. Seemed like we were going to do a good job on it. After that I had class, which was good. The rest of the day I invested in reading, tons of philosophy, some research papers and a little bit for class.

Tuesday was dedicated to finishing up the last project of the semester! For scottish culture, Amy and Sogol came over and we got to working on it. We had to do a powerpoint slide with a voice over, pretty simple right? Well, I tried to record my segment over 10 times, no exaggerations there, and every single time it would say it recorded the entire part. But when I went to play it back it would cut off at random times. Never even got close to the full time. So, I had to download a program and play around with it and I finally was able to get my voiceover on the damn slide! Which means I am officially done with school work for this year! YEEES. Still have two tests, but studying for them and basically just learning - and learning is good, right?! :) Later tuesday night I ventured onto couchsurfing.org, a site in which over 1.7 million people are involved, offering their couches for stay for travelers. I found a guy in Berlin and messaged him, he say it was fine if I stayed there for the two days I'd be there! Free stay! And he is a cook, Free food!!!! What a deal. So, out of the 3 weeks I will be traveling, I have free housing for the first 17 days... I will probably go to couchsurfer again for the last 3 nights in rome as well. If that works out, I will have planned an eight country/three week adventure for 395 U.S. dollars. Insanity!

Wednesday I had class very early as always. After that I met up with Robbie and we went over the research project a bit more. And after that I actually met up with a girl doing her honors project and helped her out with that by participating in her experiment - she has been trying to recruit people since christmas! Still is under her 100 people mark, that is terrible. Her project was pretty interesting, it was about police line ups, I had previously watched a video two days before of a young person and of a young adult going through a school hallway, finding an open door and then taking some things. Now I watched two line ups, one for the young kids, and one for the young adults. I was able to correct say that the little kid wasn't in the first line up, and picked out the guy from the second line up. Which isn't the norm... and I can see why, that was hard! I think I cheated because I had thought about the video I watched a few times, rather then let it slip my mind... but I guess in a real life incident the person effected would be thinking about it more than I! Not to mentioned emotionally charged events commit to memory far better than just simply watching a video...

Anyway, after that, I went over my presentation I was about to give at 4 a few times. Gave a few mock runs of what I was going to say, then met up with my partner Ben, and we were off. I felt great when I started talking, my words were flowing well and I had complete control of the topic and audience. I probably talked for about 80% of the total presentation time... after we were done the professor asked if anyone had questions, no one did, and then she mentioned she didn't have any either, as it was one of the most thorough presentations she has seen thus far! We felt pretty good about that, especially since we were half of the normal group size of 4 people! :) "The reward of a thing well done is to have done it" - Emerson

I dedicated the rest of the day to studying for my exams, as I am going to be traveling for 3 weeks... my time to study is very limited. These exams are essay based, not multiple choice, so you really need to know your stuff... which researchers did what, whos theories are whos and so on. It'll be a challenge, but a good one. :)

Day 68-69

Saturday! The weekend. It started off by magically finding my phone. That would be the story for the rest of my weekend. Anyway, Saturday I worked a little bit on a project until later that night. Come night fall, Myself, Benny, Dave, Rob, Jacob and Marc headed to the pool hall. It was a good 30 minute walk away, but it was well worth it. We were able to get two tables for two hours, for a total of 8 pounds. Not bad if you ask me. Definitely a fun night, haven't shot pool for a while.

Today was even better. It started off with an early wake up time and an 11:45 tee time at Braid Hills, one of Scotlands Top 100 golf courses, and one of Edinburgh's hardest. Shahab Marc and I arrived just around 11:40, plenty of time to not warm up at all. . . When we got to the proshop he informed us that all his computers, phones, and card machines are down - meaning our credit/debit cards won't work! So, he proposed that on hole number 5, we take a detour to a neighboring and connected course and pay there. But by the time everything was sorted out and we got the rental clubs, the machines came back online! Yet he couldn't sign in to the till etc... so we left our cards there and just started our round.

It was an absolutely beautiful course. With panoramic views of all of Edinburgh. It was also one of the most hilly courses I've seen in a while, if not ever. Luckily, it wasn't the longest course, which made the blind tee shots and tough holes accessible via irons. I played exceptionally well for not having played in a while, ended up shooting 3 over. Highlights of the day were a 410 yard drive and another drive that was about 300 up hill which flew over a guys head who was playing that hole landed right in front of the hole (picture), of which I got my only birdie >.<

Some of the landscape of the course...

The up hill drive!

A great panoramic shot of Edinburgh...

Another great view

Me standing on the 18th tee...

After golf, we headed to Shahab's place, he made some pasta that was damn good.

When I got back home I started out on one of the two projects I have left to do.

This one is on the Cohort Model of Speech Perception...

What the general consensus in speech perception research is at the moment, is that there is competition in our lexicons (essentially a giant word-bank in our mind) between similar sounding words. The Cohort Model states that acoustic information required to identify a word is revealed over time. The central idea of the model is that a large number of words, in parallel, are considered as "candidates" and gradually decay away when more evidence is provided (more of the word, context, etc). For example, when the sound "e" is presented, all words beginning with the "e" sound are accessed, this is called the "cohort" of words. When more information is provided, such as "ele", the cohort gets smaller (elephant, electricity, etc). This proceeds until a point is reached, "eleph", where the evidence is consistent with only one word, elephant, this is deemed the "uniqueness point". With this being said, the start of the word, and more specifically the first syllable, is extremely important. This is shown through research, one experiment shows that listeners are better at detecting speech distortions prior to the uniqueness point. Going with this further, in a study on "fluent restorations", in which subjects made "corrections" when repeating speech that had distortions in it, it was shown that more restorations were made if the distortion was: slight, at the end of the word, or in predictable context. Further supporting sensitivity to beginning of words. Another study showed that the time it takes to recognize a word depends on when the uniqueness point is, however, context effects will allow selection before the uniqueness point. Granted, this can lead to possible errors. So, what about context? What about word frequency (how often you see a word)? In a study on word frequency, it was found that not all candidates are equivalent. For example, "spee" is more likely to activate high frequency words such as speech and speed before low frequency words such as species. This suggests that word frequency has an early effect in speech recognition. Now, what about the semantic context? In initial versions by Marslen-Wilson & Tyler (the cohort models parents), they state that context could eliminate items in the cohort. Now, with new studies being presented, this has changed and it is said in the later versions of the model that context is only involved in the interaction stage of speech production - in which we use both semantic context and word frequency to integrate the word into a sentence and a mental model. The evidence for this is seen through numerous different experiments. First, reaction time studies have shown that perceptually ambiguous speech activates the full cohort, even contextually inappropriate words. More evidence, is the Gating Task, in which increasing amounts of a word was shown (a...ap...app...appl...apple), when no context was reported - the average response was 333msec, when context was provided, the response time dropped to 199msec. The last evidence supporting late effect of context in speech recognition is that of electrophysiology studies. More specifically N400 tests, which means there is a negative peak of electrical current around the 350-400msec mark, this peak appears to be particularly sensitive to semantic anomalies. In one of these studies, there was a N400 found with semantically abnormal sentences, such as, "The Dutch trains are sour" - obviously, a train can't be sour. The N400 was also found during semantically conflicting sentences, such as, "The Dutch trains are yellow" (when in fact they are white; the subjects knew this). In another N400 study, the researcher presented homologous word triplets, such as "River-Bank-Money" and "Finance-Bank-Money"... the N400 was found in the former but not the latter. This suggests that the N400 reflects global context versus local context, due to that fact that it operates over all three words - given the last two words are the same in both conditions. And that my friends, is the Cohort Model of Speech Perception.

Day 64-67

Tuesday. Rest day from London, I pretty much relaxed and did some work on a research project the whole day. Ended up going to bed around 9pm to get ready for my 8am flight to Dublin the next day!!! (St Patricks Day)...

Let the 22 hours of madness begin...

As you can see, this was a very very busy day! There were thhhhouuuusssands upon thousands of people. It was so hard to walk, there was 11 of us (Shahab, Jacob, Jordan, Marc, Nick, Shannon, Rebecca, Erica, Jenna, Sarah and myself)... we had to initiate a 'buddy system' while we were going places. It was so fun though, you could feel the Irish joy in the atmosphere. Everywhere people were merrily drunk. Us guys actually purchased 2 bottles in duty free to save some money on drinks in Ireland, we split those up and they gradually decreased throughout the day ;).

Of course I had to enjoy a nice cold Guinness, or two ;). This was in The Temple Bar, one of Irelands most famous pubs. It was a bit chaotic in there. Wall to wall people, blasting Irish music and very hard to even turn around. But, that all added to the enjoyment of the day.

After a while roaming the streets, we headed to Brazen Head, which is Irelands oldest established pub - In 1179 I believe. Pretty damn old huh? This pub was pretty far out of the city center. With that being said, it was filled with all real Irish people, not those damn tourists ;). So we fit in juuuust fine haha, actually this was about the time where people were beginning to lose energy... I won't name any names, but uh, Nick fell asleep in the pub. Hilarious. We ate dinner here as well, which was quite good I think!

Even though it was a day of festive drinking, I still managed to keep my eye out for some cool sights. I have about 20 pictures of landmarks and cool buildings, this being one of them. Just to show you that it wasn't all about the drinks (yeah...) :).

We managed to make it back to the airport, only to find people passed out on EVERY chair, table, booth... and even under tables and curled up in plain view on the floors. It was pretty damn funny. Having about 3 hours before our plane took off, we wanted to get some snooze in... so we managed to find an office cubical, which was unoccupied, there were 4 sets of 3 chairs length wise. Marc, Nick, Shahab and Jacob took those, I grabbed the comfy office chair, combined with a handicap chair, and made myself a nice little bed. Once we got on the plane, I think everyone was passed out before take off, I literally do not remember leaving the ground. And that is how I know I had a good time.

Thursday was definitely marked off for a day of recovery, but after I slept from 9am to 4pm, I felt great. So, I put on my scholar cap and busted out a full essay for Scottish Culture! Now I need to do two presentations, and all my course work is done for the semester. Minus those exams, damn those exams... Regardless, very successful day!

Friday was great. It started out with my going down to the lab to set up the research experiment on position bias... I was able to set it up pretty well, when Robbie met up with me we went over some finer details. I was brought back to my high school days when we started using trig to figure out the visual angles people would be looking at. This is going to be a thoroughly set up experiment, which even heightens its value for publication... I am pretty excited to get going on this one.

Friday night was equally as good. It was time for beer olympics... I'll just come right out and say it. My team (Team: We like to party) DOMINATED. We destroyed everyone in flip cup, and ran the beer pong table all night. It was a ton of fun and I met about 20 new people that are half real scots and half other Americans studying abroad. It was really a good time. Afterwards we headed out for food. And it was a few minutes after we left I realized I didn't have my phone any more... I thought it was gone for good as Dave and I scoured the city for it. But - Benny and I went out on an expedition this morning (saturday) ... I walked back to Princes street, which is where I remember the last time I had it, but it is also the busiest street in Edinburgh. I was more so just going there because that is where T-mobile was, and I was going to get a new phone. However, I jumped over a little barricade that I remembered laying on, AND BAM! I landed 6 inches from my phone!!! I was pretty ecstatic to say the least, it was ridiculous, people in the street were looking at me and smiling. I think my happiness rubbed off on a few people today haha... Good stuff. :))

Day 63 (London Part 3/3)

Stonehenge wasn't until 12:30, so we had a good 3-4 hours to kill! What a perfect time for a walk in the park...off to Hyde Park we go, the host of Princess Diana's Memorial Fountain (third picture).

On the way there, we ran into Wellington Arch, and lucky for us, at the same time we were there, the Queens Guards came riding by on their horses. Just a little de ja vu of changing of the guards! The Park was great, so much green... a giant lake was plopped right down in the middle. We were thinking about renting some paddle boats, but by the time we made it to the lake, it would have been too close a call. And I was not trying to miss Stonehenge...

STONEHENGE! It was about a two hour bus ride there, but damn was it worth it. I loved Stonehenge, the bus driver gave some good info on the trip up about the city of London and various sights, and then popped in a DVD on Stonehenge, which I gladly enjoyed. Supposedly it was constructed around 2500BC, it is aligned with midsummer's sunrise and midwinter's sunset... it looks as though it is a horseshoe of stones, within a circle, within a circle, within a circle. There were giant raised mounds about 20 feet apart that go back a few miles, this was the path in which ceremonies would come from. All of it was so intriguing, the video proposed possible ways in which they were able to raise the stones to the top, and even how they got them there - from the Preseli Hills, a good 240+ miles away. The contractors carved holes out of the top of the outer stones, in which the top stones (who had bumps), nicely fit into place. It was also said that stonehenge provided great acoustic privacy, in that the structure of it muffled any noises that were said inside of the circle. Even people standing directly outside of it would be unable to hear what was going on inside of it. Quite the mystery... along stonehenge there are "burial mounds", in which one person was placed in the fetal position (as they were in the womb) and given a cup (to receive water in the afterlife). These were huge mounds and all over the plains, you can see one in the last picture. All in all, stonehenge was a great experience. If only I could time travel...

We got back around 6PM, and our bus left at 11:15PM that night. So, we wanted to do a few more things before we had to go. First things first, we headed into a grocery store to get some grub! After that, Marc Sogol Taryn and I wanted to go check out the Science and National History Museums. Unfortunately, they closed at 5:30 and 6... bummer. But I took a picture of it anyway. We walked back from there, which you can see from the sky in the next two pictures, was a long way! We ended up just relaxing and unwinding in the hostel, a few soccer games were on, we watched those and chatted until it was once again time to catch the bus from hell.

Well, I made it back. It was a great trip. As any is. Traveling has a great way of opening your mind to the ways of life in different time periods, Stonehenge is still one of my favorite things I have seen thus far... It is amazing on quite a few different levels... Well, Ireland in two days, a week of rest, then the Scottish Highlands and my Spring Break adventure. I can't wait.

Day 62 (London Part 2/3)

That was a much needed sleep!!! We woke up at 8am to get to the free hostel breakfast at 830 , after that and a few more cups of coffee were left for Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards! There was thoooousands upon thousands of people at the Palace. We moseyed around the local park for a bit before we went to get our spots for the parade that precedes the changing of the guards. Marc and I got pretty close, ok we were on the rope, as you can see by the video! There was a huge band that marched in, guards after guards, and a giant ceremony type deal before the guards actually changed. I mean, this was an hour if not longer deal. Parades, security, the whole nine yards. This happens every other day!!! During summer, everyday! Seems like a lot to go through, but I think it is great that they are keeping the tradition alive, and that so many people want to go see it!

After we got done with the changing of the guards we headed into St. James Park onto St. James Palace. The park was great, there were millions of birds, ducks, black swans, you name it - it was probably there. Oh yeah, even giant pelicans. It was an enjoyable jaunt. Once we came up to St. James Palace, we saw one of the guards who doesn't talk or anything standing out front. Of course we took a picture with him. It was kind of funny, because the next person who took a picture with him touched him. He quickly turned his head at her, yelled something and stomped away like a penguin. I felt bad, this guy has to hate his job! Not talking and having hundreds of people act like you are a statue. But hey, he signed up for it. At the other end of St. James Palace was the Horse Guards, again, just standing. I feel like if something ever actually happened to this place, the guards wouldn't know what to do! Reacting? What a concept, they are trained not to react to anything.

Our next stop was the Tower of London, which at the time, is holding the Crown Jewels. The underground tube was closed, so we bussed it. We met up with Jordan when we got there. Before we went off, we munched on some good ol' fashion Fish & Chips... ah, such a delightful meal... Well, I didn't think getting a glimpse at the Jewels was worth by 17 pounds, either did the girls. Jordan and Marc headed to the Tower and Sogol Taryn and I headed to the Tower Bridge exhibit.Which was equally cool, I'd say, and only 5 pounds ;). The exhibit took us around the building of the famous bridge, how it works, its history, and even a look at some other famous bridges. I enjoyed it. What I didn't enjoy was losing my glove! I went up and down the stairs looking for it, talked to every person at every check point - but to no avail. After we left the exhibit, I felt it was symbolic, and threw my other glove far down into the Thames. Which, I caught in an action shot :). My hands didn't appreciate that.

After we got done with our exhibits, we met up again and headed on the riverwalk. The first thing we saw was the invisible man (street act)... Very impressive, I don't know if it was a robot, or someone inside controlling the movements. But it definitely caught me off guard at first glance! When I gained our senses back, we came across the Southwark Cathedral, which was a pretty cool sight. Right under it was the Bourough Market, in which the first things we see were giiiiiant skewers of marinated chicken, lamb, and steak. I was drooling. We kept walking through and saw endless types of vendors and food places. The market connected with two other markets, Middle Market and Jubilee Market. Both equally delicious.

After the Markets, we met up with Paige, and continued on the Riverwalk. We saw London Bridge on the way! And I am not going to lie, it is nothing special. In fact, London Bridge is probably the lamest bridge out of all the bridges in London... Alas... the first place we went to was Shakespeare's Globe, which apparently was his first theatre? Who knows. Next came Tate Modern, a giant, towering museum which had only modern and abstract art. It was pretty cool actually, I was a bit art-ed out at the time, but abstract is definitely something that is pleasing to my eye, and my brain. Regular art is nice and all, but I feel as though I am just looking at pictures, whereas abstract art lets you decipher it in your own way, good stuff. Anyway, after the modern we headed across the Millennium Bridge - it was just about sunset, and I snapped a picture across the Thames... we arrived at St Pauls Cathedral on the other side. It was a grandiose building, absolutely huge. Definitely a must see. When we got done there, Jordan and Paige went their own ways once again, and we headed back into the main part of the city.

We eventually made our way to the London Eye, which was lit up in Bright Neon Purple, next to an equally flashy hotel and aquarium. None of us went on the London Eye, however, due to the hefty 17 pound price tag. London is not a cheap city ladies and gentlemen... Anyway, we spent some time walking the river, listening to a street band and watching an intense robot street act. We headed across the bridge toward our hostel, but not before getting a few shots of Parliament and Big Ben lit up together... I love the river at night, reflections make everything just that much better. We went to dinner after we got to that part of town, again in the spirit of money saving, I picked up some stuff at the grocery. Equally delicious ;). Then back to the hostel it was! STONEHENGE TOMORROW!!!