"I only have one face."

Today's quote of the day goes to Stephen. In context - Becky was mad because Stephen had his back to her and the rest of the back of the bus. She said, "Stephen is creating a wall between us!" And Stephen said, "I have the greatest respect for you. But I only have one face." Hahahahaha.
So we're back from the North trip! And it was amazing. Allow me to share the glory.
Day 1: We leave the Centre at some absurdly early hour. Hilarity ensues in the form of several games and stories. We arrive at Haworth at some point and party with the Brontes. The highlight may be the moment when Frances reads the word "exhibition" and we are all agape. Also this picture:


From here we go to Durham, where we have accommodations in a castle. You think I'm kidding.

Ta da! Durham Castle in the morning is lovely.

The Great Hall, where we had breakfast.

Our room in the castle

The best part of this castle happens at about 5am, when a fire alarm goes off. I don't know what it is about me and the North trip, but it is a fickle friend indeed when it comes to fire alarms, and we ended up outside in our pajamas in the middle of the night. Annie tried to go back for her jacket and shoes and Erin said, "NO! It's a FIRE! We have to go OUTSIDE!" So Annie was freezing and barefoot outside the castle. A good time indeed. Other castle highlights include telling scary stories in the cemetery across the way, and reading Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging in our room (with Erin reading aloud in a fabbity-fab British accent).
Durham at night is not a happening place, but we did find a pub with good food, and it is a very pretty place, which we discovered while we wandered in search of ice cream.

Pubbing
Outside our pub - the only place in all of Durham open after 6 pm

Our castle from below

The London Ace Gang

The next morning we left bright and early for Housestead's Fort to see Hadrian's wall. Here I became Gracie Holland's personal guide to the walls, and I did talk her into taking a picture with me. She acted sweet, but snuck in the bunny ears.

Aw.

Chilling on the wall with Mallory, Erin, Annie, Adreanne, David and Lizzy

One of two attempts to get a picture of us leaping into the air from the wall. The other was more successful, but I think this one is funnier.
Walling it up.

From Hadrian's Wall we crossed into Scotland, and after a short stop in a tiny town for lunch (where I ate at a place called The Cookie Jar), we made our way to Abbotsford, home of Sir Walter Scott. The general feeling as we left the bus was one of annoyance; we wanted to get to Scotland and we'd already seen a house. But then we saw the house.
Walter Scott wrote overdramatic romance for a reason. Apparently, he was an overdramatic romantic. No, he didn't just move into an existing castle. He built a castle. Just for fun.

Yup. This is it.

Here I am enjoying the way the hedge frames my beauty. :)

Best rolling-down hills ever.

Here's the river where I got a rock to skip 3 times - a new record for me.

Yes. This house is rocking. Just like us.

The highlight of this tour was the Scottish Scott tour guide. I nearly burst my face smiling when he said that Scott's body or work (or talent or something) was "absolutely colossal," but the real best part was when he was talking about the swords.
There were these gigantic swords on the wall, because Scott was a collector or all things chivalrous. The guide explained that people were much shorter back then, and these swords would have been taller than most of them, and they actually would have fought with them, not just used them for ceremonies. When he told us about the size of the population he said, "And that makes it all the more horrendous! People are always talking about how wonderful everything was in the good old days. This (refers to swords) was the good old days!" Classic.
After the tour we walked through the gardens, played in the river, and checked out the gift shop, which included a CD called "Pure Bagpipe Magic" and some trashy pictures of men in kilts without shirts. (We called it "kilt porn.") I ended up with two tiny poetry books - one of Walter Scott's and one of Robert Burns's (Rabbie Burns, that is).
From here we went to Edinburgh, but it's late here, so I'll save my other stories for tomorrow and a new post.