Day 38

Today was a day of being outside and being on the bus. We were allowed to do whatever we wanted in Ambleside until 12, when we had to leave. So the four of us went down to Lake Windermere to see if we could rent a canoe or something fun like that. There were some row boats, but a lot of them had water in them and they looked a little questionable. We decided on a little 40 minute cruise around parts of the lake. When we started it was nice a sunny and getting a little warm. In about 5 minutes it started raining a little. Then it stopped for a while but was windy and chilly. Then it started pouring for a while, and we ended the cruise with it raining lightly. So after all that we were glad we didn’t do a row boat, especially since we saw a family that had and they were soaked. After the lake cruise we went to a cute little café and got some blueberry scones (yum!) then walked back to the hostel. The scenery there is seriously so pretty. Tons of green and trees and nature, so if you are into that kind of thing, I would definitely recommend the Lakes District.

At 12 we were off to our next destination- Hadrian’s Wall. We stopped at a Roman fort that they built on the wall and looked around. We had to walk up a freak steep hill to get there and the wind was blowing like crazy (10 times worse than Stonehenge), but I was glad we went. We took some really cute jumping-off-Hadrian’s-Wall pictures that just reaffirmed my suspicions that I am the worst jumping picture person in the world. I always jump too late or too early, and I close my eyes and make weird faces. This does provide entertainment to many when they see the pictures, so I guess I can’t complain too much. So it was a pretty quick stop and we didn’t look around too long because it was chilly and windy, but it was cool nevertheless. After this we went back to the bus to finish our drive of the day by going to Edinburgh. The first part of the drive was ridiculous- along with being really hilly it was also windy, so on a bus it creates a nice roller coaster effect, complete with the nice stomach drop feeling. It reminded me of when my family came to Scotland and my dad was freaking out the whole time because he had to drive on that kind of terrain with a stick shift car. Oh, the memories.

We finally got to the hostel in the evening and after taking forever to get us checked in we finally got our room assignments. To get to our room four of us (not the usual four) went to the elevator with our luggage and stuff, so of course there wasn’t much room to spare. Then of course these crazy weirdo French people- like 5 of them- decided that they needed to cram on with us even though they had no bags. Eww that was annoying. They jammed me in and kept hitting me and I was already tired and cranky from the bus so that was just an annoying part of the day. But this is a really nice hostel; it is more of a hotel than a hostel. For dinner we went to Pizza Hut (America!) and then went back and chilled before retiring for the night.