Day 14 - Hadrian's Wall & Edinburgh

May 15, 2008

We woke up in time for breakfast at 7:30am and headed over to the Dining Hall. After breakfast we went back to our room to finish getting ready and to finish packing. We took some stuff up to our car and at 8:30am we went to the Registration Desk to pay our bill (£15 per person per night - included breakfast - plus £3 per meal). While there we asked for the key to the Tower.

We then proceeded to The Tower and made our way up the windy staircase to the top. (Students actually live in rooms off this staircase and I was amazed that they probably had to climb it multiple times a day - the steps weren't that big and there were quite a few of them to the uppermost room.)

We got to the door and I had the priveledge of unlocking it. We opened it and were now at the highest point at the castle. The Tower had excellent views of all the surrounding areas and we just enjoyed our time there.

After a little bit, we headed back down and turned in the key. I needed to use the restroom so I stopped while inside the castle and Jeremiah continued on to our room (didn't mean to tell you so much detail but it is relavant as to why we were no longer together at this point in the story). When finished, I realized that I hadn't been up the grand staircase yet and seen any of the area on the second floor. I really didn't want to leave without seeing as much of Capernwray as possible and Jeremiah didn't feel comfortable taking me up there as those were the girls dorms. So since we weren't together, I thought I would sneak around a little bit to take a look for myself.

The students were out of the castle at the moment doing their Family time so it was the perfect opportunity for me to look around and not get weird looks. I first walked into a few of the rooms on the first floor that I hadn't yet been in, like the Preparation Room (used to be one of the old dining rooms) and the Library. Then I headed up the stairs to the second floor. One of the doors to a girls room was open so I peaked in a bit to see more of what the inside looked like. The room was rather large, bigger than the room Jeremiah and I were sleeping in which was for four people. This room was also for four people but they definitely had more space. I then noticed that there was a girl on one of the beds so I quickly exited the room. I walked down the hall and looked around a bit more. It was quite fun and exciting. Then I headed back to the room as I guessed Jeremiah was probably wondering by now where I was.

When I got back I told him what I had done and he was glad I had. I then told him the size of the girls room I had been in and his jaw dropped. He said that they crammed 4 guys in less than half the size of the room we stayed in. He said that they probably never allowed guys to see those rooms because there would be protests about the size differences.

We needed to get on the road so we said our last goodbyes and got in our car.

We drove a different route through the Lake District on our way to Edinburgh so that each time we went through the area we saw different sites. We stopped at a beautiful lkae along the way that was just north of Windemere. For some reason I really felt attached to this lake and although we were only there for a little bit, I thought it may be my favorite of them all.

We then continued North and a little to the East until we made our next destination, Hadrian's Wall. Jeremiah had found a place online that had ruins of a Roman Fort next to the Wall so we stopped there. Of course we had to pay to get in but before we did I was starving so I bought a sandwhich: Sausage Onion Marmalade. It was the one that sounded the best at the time and while I was eating it, it tasted pretty good. But every time I look back on it and remember exactly what I put into my mouth I can't believe I ate it. I must have been REALLY hungry. Oh, and I should mention, the sandwhich was cold.

We climbed all over the Roman Fort and laughed at some of the sign posts that were supposed to tell you what you were looking at. Many of the pictures looked exaclty the same with just different people in the courtyard (one had a soldier and another had a farmer but the courtyard looked exactly the same in each picture). The best part was that everything was speculated to be a certain building. I would like to know exactly how they knew that one building was used for a hospital and another was used for lodging.

The only one that was fairly obvious as to what it was was the Latrine (or toilet, in our words). I had read about this room in the little museum that you go through before you make your way to the actual ruins. It was a long rectangular room with wooden benches along the long sides with holes cut out in them (yes, you did your business with someone else right next to you and without any dividers). There was a basin of water in the middle of the room and sponges near the basin. Apparently the sponges were used as toilet paper and when finished, you simply washed it out in the basin and left it for the next person to use. Now that can't be very sanitary.

We also went to the actual wall and stood on it for a bit. You couldn't walk very much on it which was disappointing for Jeremiah as he remembers being able to walk on it a lot from his previous times there. He had remembered going to open places where you could see the wall go on for miles with no one else around. He remembered walking along it for a long time with his brother Josh and his parents. He wanted me to have that same experience.

So after we were done looking around we got back in the car and headed towards Edinburgh. While we were still driving East we tried to find another place to pull over to enjoy the wall but it was really hard to tell if what we were seeing was the wall or just a boundary between two plots of land. Then it was time to head north.

We drove for 2 1/2 hours to Edinburgh and found our next B&B. We didn't quite believe it's location at first as it was right off a main road and we had it in our heads that from how the website made it out to be, it would be on a smaller side road. We pulled in to the narrow driveway and went to the door. We checked in and were shown our bathroom first as we had a private bath instead of an ensuite bath and then to our room up a few more stairs and past our neighbors rooms.

The room was very nice, although it was smaller than what the pictures looked like on the website. We brought in our stuff for the night and then headed out to the city to find someplace to eat. We looked for eating places on our GPS and saw that there was a HardRock Cafe not too far away in the city so we decided to go there as we were craving American food and we knew they would not disappoint.

We found some parking and walked up to the restuarant. We had to wait for about 10 minutes to get a table. We were so excited to see all the American food choices on the menu and had some difficulty deciding what to get. I ended up with a big Cobb Salad, steamed vegetables, and garlic bread. Jeremiah got a BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger with fries. It was delicious!

Our waitress was very nice and helped to make it a very enjoyable experience. We felt so good after eating there :)

We then made our way back to the B&B as it was now after 9:00pm and we wanted to get cleaned up before bed.

Our bathroom did not come with a shower but with a bath and a detachable shower nozzle so you could kind of take a shower while in the bath. So that's what we decided to do. The water was really hot so we had to use a lot of cold water to get it to the right temperature. After a bit of relaxing, we turned on the shower portion to soap up and rinse off. When I was almost finished, the water started to get cold. I tried to finish as quickly as I could and it was a bit unbearable at the end. I was just glad to be done with it.

Jeremiah, on the other hand, was still very soapy and the water was now icy cold. We turned off the water and waited for it to heat up but it never did. We tried to think of what we could do. I didn't really want to bother the owners as it was now well after 10pm but this was just ridiculous to run out of hot water in the middle of your shower/bath.

I then got the idea to heat up water using our electric kettle in our room. Since there wasn't a sink in our room, I had to bring back the kettle to the bathroom to fill it up. There wasn't an outlet in the bathroom so I had to bring the full kettle back to our bedroom to plug it in. There wasn't an outlet near where they have the kettle placed so I had to find one near my nightstand.

While this was heating up, I got up the courage to go downstairs and knock on the owner's door. I let her know that we were out of hot water to which she was surprise and said that she would go turn it back on (not sure why it was not turned on in the first place). She then told me that it would take a while for it to heat up.

I went back to the room and got the kettle and brought it back to the bathroom. I then had to add some cold water to the kettle as this water was a little too hot. We used that water and I heated up some more and used all of it. By the end, Jeremiah was finally clean of soap but there was still no hot water.

We finished getting ready for bed and hopped in. At least the bed was comfortable.

Not the greatest of experiences but we lived and now have a story to tell.

Until tomorrow,
S&J