Manchester

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Woke up this morning with every intention of heading to Stirling Castle or the Wallace Monument but ended up not having time for either. Milled about Stirling instead which is an incredibly boring city. I wouldn't recommend going there for anything beyond a brief day trip to see the castle and the monument (maybe two if you want to see Doune as well).

Bought a train ticket to Manchester - was a ridiculous 60 pounds - and hopped on the train on track 3 just like the lady at the ticket desk told me to. Within two stops they finally did their announcement - "this train is on track to Edinburgh Waverly" which would be awesome if I didn't have to go to Glasgow in the complete opposite direction. Fantastic. Have I said how much I hate Scottish Rail transit yet? Basically unless you know exactly where you're going already you are screwed. Don't assume the staff will help you because they won't. They are apparently notorious for screwing people over all the time. What great customer service eh?

Thankfully there was a train heading from Edinburgh to Manchester so I caught that one and Andrew and Chris met me at Manchester's Oxford station. The trip was quite long - a few hours at least - but that was fine because it gave me quality time to work on my paper and mark some assignments.

Went out for curry with Andrew, Chris, Emily and Jon. Was delicious and good fun to see them all again. After dinner I had every intention of doing more work on my paper but I felt so exhausted I had to sleep. Wanted to just take a nap but ended up not waking up until morning. Guess I was really that tired from all the travel *whew* Heading out to breakfast with Emily and then off to the airport and home. Sad to be leaving - wish I could stay forever.

Next entry - my final thoughts on Scotland and some interesting observations.

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Photos

Welcome to Stirling
Apparently the safest city in the world according to these lovely signs posted up everywhere in the library

View from Willy Wally's
My hostel in Stirling - I was in room 5

Second View
The people living in the flat across from us frequently enjoyed their balcony...together...naked... *ahem*

Willy Wally's
Features themed rooms - can you guess what our theme was?

I was in bed 4
Xena Onatopp all the way!

I was friends with 8
She was pretty cool - from Tennessee