Hiya! I have a few quick, fun stories to tell you all about before I rest up for my first day of classes tomorrow. While the title of this post may suggest that I went to Disneyland, I did not. However, I did have a couple of princess-in-a-castle moments… so keep reading!
Thirsty Thursday
Since we had only attended one of the five events included in our Gold Wristband passes, Alyssa, Isabella and I decided to go out on Thursday night. We started off by going to Slain’s (the old church turned into a medieval pub), which ended up being the best part of the night. We should’ve stayed there… Alyssa and I shared a pitcher of “pride”, a blue drink that was absolutely delicious. That’s one thing I love about Slain’s — the drinks all have fun names and descriptions! For example, there are drinks called “death”, “war”, and “famine”. It really fits the theme of the pub.
We left Slain’s at about 10:00 to make our way over to Tropicana, the nightclub where the freshers event was supposed to take place. The schedule had said to arrive at 10 with the doors closing at 10:30. However, we got there at 10:20 and they still weren’t ready to go! So, we left and went to KFC for a bit. At 11:00, we walked back to Tropicana to find out that nobody had showed up! I felt so bad for the guys working there. Alyssa and I insisted on dancing, whether there were people there or not. For about 10 minutes we danced in the club alone 😆. It was quite the experience.
After we left Tropicana, we decided to walk until we could find a place to party. This was the only night we had really gone out this week, so we were determined to find something. After a few minutes of walking, we came across a place called “Prohibition”. It looked like there were a lot of people, so we went for it.
I ended up talking with a guy from Scotland for a bit. When I told him I was from Wisconsin, his face lit up and he said “NO WAY. I’m a Milwaukee Bucks fan!!!”. He then went on to tell me (at least three times) all about how awesome Giannis is. Small world.
But get this — on my way out of the bar, I saw a familiar face….
it was the guy I had danced with at Atik on Sunday night!
Aberdeen is a pretty big city with a population of about 200,000, and I have only met a handful of people here so far. The fact that I ran into the same random guy twice in one week blows my mind. Once again, small world.
Dunnottar Castle
Saturday was absolutely magical. Well, except for the part where Alyssa, Isabella and I waited over an hour for a bus that never showed up… but aside from that everything was amazing. We ate a delicious breakfast downtown and then made our way to Stonehaven, a town just south of Aberdeen. Stonehaven was a vibrant little town, unlike Aberdeen (the “granite city”) which is entirely gray. We didn’t have much time to walk around, though, because we were on a mission.
We walked along a steep path for about 20 minutes, stopping several times to enjoy the view (and maybe catch our breath 😉). Finally, we reached our destination. The waves of the North Sea crashed against the shores of a massive cliff, and on that cliff stood the remains of Dunnottar Castle.
We spent the next couple of hours exploring the inside of the castle: dining halls, drawing rooms, kitchens, and, of course, a musty vault where prisoners were contained and tortured.
Once we had explored the entire castle, we made our way down to the shore. I hopped along the rocks to see some tide pools and then wandered into a dark cave. I have to say, it’s pretty fun being so close to the sea!
When we were finished exploring, we walked up to the Dunnottar bus stop. There was a girl waiting by the stop already, and I thought she looked familiar. As we got closer, I realized it was a girl named Sofia that I had met last week! I swear I have not met THAT many people, but somehow I keep finding familiar faces everywhere I go!!!
Small world.
Banchory
Yesterday, Alyssa and I woke up early with the intentions of going to Slain’s Castle (not the pub, the actual castle). However, it was 8:00 and the first bus didn’t come until almost noon. We debated going to the train station and playing train roulette, but it looked like the rain had caused some cancellations once again. After searching “what to do near Aberdeen” on Google, we decided to take a bus to a nearby town called Banchory.
Banchory was only an hour bus ride inland from Aberdeen, but the scenery was completely different. There were small mountains and LOTS of trees! For some reason, it felt a lot like the Midwest. Alyssa said it also felt like Quebec.
As we were walking around town, we stumbled upon a pancake shop called “That Pancake Place”. Even though we had just eaten breakfast, we could not resist pancakes. We both had raspberry and hazelnut pancakes with white chocolate drizzle — delicious! When we were paying our bills, I asked the women working when the restaurant opened. I was curious because the sign had said “established 2022”. They said that this was only their second week of being open!
We certainly walked off any calories from the pancakes because it took us an hour and a half to walk to Crathes Castle! Thankfully, our walk on the trail was quite entertaining. First, we saw a bunch of ducks floating down the river. Then, we saw a little steam train chugging down the railroads next to us. And finally, when we were almost to the castle, we saw a herd of highland cows.
The castle was much different from Dunnottar but still beautiful in its own way. Whereas Dunnottar was a fortress spread out on top of a cliff, Crathes was a family’s tower and garden in the middle of the woods. We were able to tour the inside by following a one-way system up a long spiral staircase with rooms to stop at on each floor. The rooms were set up to resemble what they looked like in the 1800s and 1900s. However, there were also paintings on some of the ceilings from well before that. If I remember correctly, the castle was built in the 1600s.
On the way back to the bus stop, we accidentally took the wrong path and didn’t realize it for at least 10 minutes. Everything looked the same as it was when we were walking to the castle, so we were really confused. We laughed about how it felt like we had walked into a time warp or something. Or maybe a video game where the character just walks out through the left edge of the screen and comes back in on the right? For Outlander fans: we felt like Claire when she accidentally travels through the stones. Thankfully, Google Maps saved the day and we made it to the bus stop on time.
And thankfully I haven’t managed to travel through any stones… yet
Until next time,
Clara