Edinburgh

One weekend in April, I walked to Kings Cross Station and took a train up to Edinburgh for a weekend trip on my own. After four and a half hours of the English countryside flying by, the Scottish coast came into sight and I arrived in Edinburgh. I spent the next day and a half walking around the city and taking several hundred photos of the old buildings and streets. It was a nice weekend to be in Edinburgh, and I loved the city.

The National Museum of Scotland

St Giles Cathedral

The Royal Mile and Cockburn Street

I headed to Calton Hill, which has several monuments at the top and a view of the city.

I went by Edinburgh Castle, although I didn't end up going in there. After everything else closed, I went to the Elephant House, a coffee shop that is around the corner from where I was staying and is known as a place where J.K. Rowling wrote the first book of the Harry Potter series. It may have been a very touristy thing to do, but I read

The Raven King

by Maggie Stiefvater and wrote for a couple hours while I sat in the back room with a view of Edinburgh Castle, like she supposedly did in 1995.

I started the next morning by walking down the Royal Mile to Arthur's Seat. I walked partway up one of the paths and didn't go all the way up to Arthur's Seat, but still had nice views of Edinburgh as I went in a loop.

Glimpses of Holyrood Palace and more pretty streets on the way back from Arthur's Seat.

As always, I ended up at an art museum, this time the Scottish National Gallery.

It was really nice to walk through the Princes Street Gardens, especially because there were flowers everywhere and the sun was shining, after weeks of spring stubbornly refusing to start in London.

Yes, more cute streets and nice buildings of Edinburgh.

London + Meena

After leaving Berlin, we came back to London for the rest of Meena's visit. Lots of museums, theater, food, and photos followed.

After an early morning waiting in line for day seats for Billy Elliot, we walked down to the Tate Britain, one of my favorite museums in London. We also went to the National Gallery later on; I'm there nearly every week, either for class or for fun, but this was the first time I saw most of the museum, as I'm usually in the Renaissance galleries. Our time there included passive-aggressively waiting for people to move so that we could take a picture in front of J.M.W. Turner's The Fighting Temeraire - yes, because of the scene in Skyfall. Couldn't resist the Bond references.














I had booked free tickets to the Sky Garden, an observation deck (about 40 floors up) with a restaurant, bar, and indoor garden. The view of the city was great, even on the cloudy day - we didn't get to see a sunset like I had hoped for - and it sure beats the price tag of the Shard's observation deck.















On Meena's last day in London, we went to Notting Hill after brunch at the Breakfast Club. We went to the crowded Portobello Road Market to look at the records, old books, film cameras, bags, and other antique things on sale. We also wandered around the streets lined by cute, colorful houses, pointing out the pretty ones we'd like to live in (Meena wants a bright pink house).

















A few blocks from the tube stop is St. Luke's Mews, which is just so cute. Can I live there? Some of these photos are phone photos - I had filled up my memory card and couldn't delete photos quickly enough.












Meena is a big fan of the Beatles so we had to go to Abbey Road to do the typical tourist thing - take a picture at the crosswalk. As another tourist activity, we went to Baker Street and briefly went inside the gift shop for the Sherlock Holmes Museum.

Berlin

Meena came to visit me in London for her spring break... and we actually decided to spend the first few days of that time in Germany! I met her at Heathrow and we headed to Berlin for three days.

It was late by the time we arrived - our flight was delayed - so we only got dinner and went to the Brandenburg Gate, which was near where we were staying. The next morning we started the day by going to the East Side Gallery, a long stretch of the Berlin Wall, before going to Museum Island, home to five museums and the Berlin Cathedral. We started off at the National Gallery of Art.

Afterwards we went to the Berlin Cathedral. We toured the inside and then climbed up to the top of the cathedral, where you can get a panoramic view of the city from the dome. The Altes Museum is next to the cathedral, so that was our next stop, before the museum closed.

In the morning we first went to the Holocaust Memorial, before walking over to Museum Island again. We sat in front of the Berlin Cathedral in the sunny Lustgarten under momentarily bright blue skies with some brief warmth from the sun.

We spent the rest of our last full day in Berlin at the Pergamon Museum and the Neues Museum, before hunting down fries for lunch and waffles for a second lunch.

Paris

My first trip out of the UK was a weekend in Paris last month. We spent the weekend going to the Eiffel Tower, exploring museums, visiting churches, and eating lots of bread and cheese. It was a really fun trip, and I liked Paris a lot, despite being really awkward about my terrible French, not much of which came back to me. I'll actually be back for another weekend in April, because I have many more things I wanted to do (like visiting Versailles), and I hope to have better weather then so I can go to the gardens and enjoy a sunnier, warmer Paris as well.

We started our first day in Paris with breakfast at Angelina before going to the Louvre for a few hours. I could have easily spent the entire day making my way through the whole museum. We saw the Mona Lisa, of course, as well as everything from Renaissance paintings and Greek and Egyptian antiquities to French sculptures and Impressionist paintings.

After eating in a cute cafe we went to the Musée de l'Orangerie. Eight of Monet's Water Lilies are arranged here panoramically in two round rooms. It's so beautiful and peaceful, and I could have sat there looking at them for even longer than we did.

Afterwards we walked along the Seine to the Pont Alexandre III and went by the Petit Palais. After getting macarons at Ladurée, we headed up the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe. We didn't go to the top of the Arc, but I think I will when I go back to Paris next month.

The next morning we started by going to the Île de la Cité. Notre Dame was first on our list, the bells tolling as we approached. We realized once we went inside that as it was Sunday morning, there would be mass, which began while we were visiting. It was an interesting experience to be there as the service began and to hear it in French.

After that we went to Sainte-Chapelle, which I was so excited about after studying in class last year, and I wasn't disappointed. It wasn't sunny that morning, but some light still came into the chapel even though it was very overcast.

We spent the afternoon trying to find a place to eat lunch (everywhere was closed!) and visiting the Musée Rodin to see The Thinker, The Kiss, and The Gates of Hell. We also went up to Montmartre, where we climbed many stairs to get to Sacré-Cœur and the lovely view of Paris from the highest point in the city.

White Cliffs of Dover

Last week we spent the day in Dover! We toured Dover Castle first, and then went over to the white cliffs. My friends and I spent an hour walking around, trying to get to the best vantage points. The cliffs were beautiful, and luckily we had pretty good weather to be out there. At one point during the day it was also clear enough to just make out France across the channel.

I wish we could have spent more time there!