MIDTERM TRIP - day 1

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We left the castle at 5:30am that day. We had to be up and ready by 4:30 to load our luggage on the buses. It SO wasn't worth it; we spent the whole day traveling and only stopped at two places on the way: the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield (which I didn't see cause it was only for students in the first-year history class), and the National Museum of Photography, Film, and Television in Bradford.

The museum was interesting, but alot of it was lost on me because the displays were mainly about the technology and history of film, and I don't know anything about film. There was a section that had displays that demonstrated different optical illusions; that was amusing. But the best part was definitely the little mini theatre called "TV Heaven" where you could watch episodes of British television shows. We saw Blue Peter, a very fake and annoying children's show from the 70s, Brass Eye, a very controversial comedy / spoof news program, and Ali G, which was like a parody of a talk show hosted by some guy pretending to be a rapper; that one was very strange.

I was looking forward to seeing Brass Eye. We had watched a few clips of it in my British Studies class the day we were talking about British television humor. I love how British TV is so much less restricted and censored than American TV. I think that's the way it should be for us too. It's freedom of speech. But the stuff in the Brass Eye episode we saw would NEVER be shown on U.S. television. It was the infamous episode about pedophiles, which I don't think they're even allowed to show on television in England anymore. It was so gross and inappropriate. I'm a pretty objective person, and I don't get personally offended by many things, but even I was considering walking out at one point. One of my friends actually did leave. But that's the point of free speech: you have the freedom to choose not to listen to it if you don't want to.

After that museum we didn't stop again except at rest stops to use the washrooms and get food. The best part about this trip was that I finally had access to real food again (Burger King, Pizza Hut, KFC), which was sooo awesome after having had only the questionable meals they serve at the castle dining hall for the past month and a half. There was a Burger King at almost every place we stopped throughout the whole trip; I was so happy :-D But I soon made the disappointing and yet humorous discovery that Burger King meal sizes in the U.K. are noticeably smaller than in the U.S. I ordered a normal bacon double cheeseburger meal and the burger was much smaller than what I'm accustomed to and the fries were the size of what would probably come in a kids meal in the U.S. You have to order the large size to get what would be equal to the standard size meal at home.

We got to the Travelodge in Edinburgh around 10:00 that night.

...our room.


As you can see, the sleeping arrangements were less than equal. There were three people in each room, which meant one person got a double bed, one person slept on the couch, and one person slept on the tiny mattress that pulls out from under the couch. I was nice and took the tiny mattress. It wasn't that bad though. Plus I was tired from traveling so it wasn't too hard to fall asleep.

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