United kingdom

So since the last post I have been extremely busy for the better. After leaving Edinburgh Scotland Lucas and I headed to Liverpool England. Now Liverpool is a very old town they have main docks that have been around for centuries and that is what first made people settle in Liverpool. Our first day in Liverpool we visited china town and china town in Liverpool is the biggest in England. It was full of decorations and lights for the upcoming Chinese new year, but while we walked through during the day it was very calm nothing was open and the streets were deserted it was a strange feeling. After china town we headed to Albert's dock which is full of restaurants shops, docks and museums. We went into two museums the International museum of slavery and the ship museum. The international museum of slavery was amazing the history was unbelievable. There were shackles and chains from slave ships, the stories of slavery and human rights were inspiring and heartbreaking to think about how people can just treat people like they are not humans. It is good to see the progress that the world has made but also made you think about how far we still have to come just to make sure every human has the basic rights of life. After the slavery museum we attended a museum of sunken ships which was hard to look at knowing that people on these ships were well off enough to ride on ships, when other people were being treated like animals. The tragedy of the Titanic and Lithuania ships were highlighted in this museum. It was interesting to see the facts about the ships and pieces recovered from the ships. The second day in Liverpool was also fantastic Lucas and I did a taxi tour of the famous beetles locations. Rings child hood house by the old docks near the water. Then Paul child hood house where he used to sneak out the windows as a teenager. George's house tucked away in an old quite neighborhood and John's house located across the street from where the above ground train used to run.John's mother was actually hit and killed by an off duty police officer after leaving John's home and crossing the tracks. The facts and history of Liverpool for the beetles was breath taking. Sitting at Eleanor Rigby's grave and walking down penny lane thinking and wondering what the beetles were thinking when writing these brilliant songs. My favorite stop was strawberry fields the location of an orphanage that John Lennon used to play at when he was little. Everyone was so friendly in liverpool it was sad to leave. London is a completely different world, it is huge.

Day 2

Today we celebrated burns night by having a dinner of Hageiss. Yuck! It is like all of sheep thrown into the sheep stomach and cooked. After dinner we had a keighley dance soo much fun. A keighley is a traditional Scottish dance. The pubs are great as well whiskey is the drink of Scotland. The locals are really nice for the most part but everyone can sense that we are American so that is a little ofrusturating also the pound. The American dollar is not worth anything compared to the pound or the euro. It is already a blast and the cultural differences are very apparent.

Day 1

We finally arrived to Scotland after 14 hours. It is amazing looks just like home but much greener and warmer. We are staying in the dalkeith palace until Friday it is great but I'm pretty sure haunted.lol We traveled into Edinburgh and it was beautiful all the stone roads, castles, and church's. We took a tour of the south bridge and the under ground vaults it was amazing the vaults Scottish people used to work in but the conditions were so rough and the vaults leaked water so later people stopped working in them and criminals took them over to make whiskey and trade dead bodies. Check out my Facebook for photos

20 Days

This is a photo of the Dalkeith Castle in Edinburgh,Scotland. This is were we will be staying while in scotland. If you would like to read more about the Dalkeith castle follow this link.

http://www.dalkeithcountryestate.com/

The countdown begins 20 days until I step on the plane to Scotland for the first stop in my European adventure. I will be traveling with a group of 36 students and 4 professors. I also get the oppurtunity to travel with my best friend in the world Lucas. Lucas and I have been planning and orgainizing for weeks now and it finally feels like everything is coming together. I hope we do not forget anything! At this point we have a few hostels booked in places we feel will be very busy during independent travel.