The Past few days...

So far things are going pretty well, and I have been doing so much each day. I feel like all I do is walk and run errands or travel around. This past Sunday, Jenn, Rita and I went back to Alnwick Castle to have the "Magical Tour" of the castle, which takes you and shows you all the places where parts of the Harry Potter movies were filmed. I was really excited for this, and I was so excited to hear all the different points. The most well known part is the flying lesson in the first film, where Neville's broom goes crazy. Other scenes include Oliver Wood teaching Harry the rules of Quidditch, the actual Quidditch Pitch built on the pastures, Hagrid's Hut and part of the forbidden forest, Hagrid dragging Christmas trees, and Hermione, Ron and Harry walking, when Hermione brushes past them crying. After this tour we walked around the Alnwick Food Festival, and went from stand to stand taste testing everything! There were many different foods, and Jenn and I bought a cupcake - which was very tasty.

The rest of the week was freshers week pretty much. We took a trip to the Angel of the North, which is a giant, metal structure in a field basically. You don't understand how huge it actually is until you are standing at the foot of it and the wingspan of the angel doesn't fit in your camera's window unless you are like a hundres of feet away. One day we went to the Metrocentre, which was basically a mall, nothing too special. Of course in the evening there are parties and live music and dancing, things of that sort to do until late. I went a couple nights, and it was pretty fun .

Last night Jenn and I made it to the Grub Crawl, which took you to three different restaurants. One for the appetizer, one for main course and one for dessert. This event was a sign up event and was actually closed, but about an hour before it started Jenn and I decided to go down and see if people didn't show up and then we could get on the waiting list. Well, we got lucky and were able to go! The food was so good, and we met some really nice people so it was a fun night. Exchanged some numbers, met different people and ate some good food. The best part was part of dessert - Sticky Toffee cake. Soo good.

Today, (Wed.), Jenn, Rita, Katie and I took a bus over to the city of Durham. It was about an hour long bus ride. Durham is a nice city with lots of cobblestone paths and hills and narrow pathways. I bought some tea from this shop that was one of the original buildings in Durham, and then we walked to the Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle. The Cathedral was beautiful, and very large. It is run completely on donations and does not get any government funding. There are actual tombs in there, and gorgeous stained glass windows. The architecture was meticulous and there was so much detail. We took the guided tour, which was really long, and at some points boring, but naturally had some interesting information. The courtyard, which was also really nice, was used in the filming of Harry Potter also! So cool. Stopped in the gift shop and then we were off to lunch, and then Durham Castle.

The Castle is still used today as part of Durham University, and students actually live there so we had to take the tour in order to see inside of the castle. It was really nice inside, and the designing was unique. One of the things that stuck out was the staircase we walked up was slanted, and it felt strange like we were going to fall. This was because a longggg time ago the staircase was a "floating" staircase with no support pillars in the center, so the roof collapsed, and then they got the brilliant idea to put support pillars, after the stairs were affected. Harry Potter was actually filmed here a bit also I think...but I couldn't understand the tour guide so I'm not 100% positive.

The rest of the week doesn't look bad...except that I have to figure out my classes still and get my paper signed by one more professor...who is not in on Thursdays so..he better be in on Friday! Then Friday evening we leave for Edinburgh, Scotland! We get back Sunday sometime, and then classes finally start on Monday. I'll probably update after this weekend, maybe beforehand!

xoxo