I Solemnly Swear that I am up to no Good

Ello Mates, I think I owe you a blog post. I feel like I’ve been lax lately. So I have just the thing to write about. Wands at the ready, and don’t forget your Nimbus 2000. We’re headed to Hogwarts! Well… not really, but you’ll see.

Saturday 13 April 2013

9:38 AM

Berwick Upon Tweed

“And that’s the rail station over there,” I told Jana, as I pointed out the train station I had arrived at the day before. This was kind of a nice treat for me. The day before, I had taken a day trip down to Berwick for an archaeological dig at Norham castle. The dig was rubbish, but it gave me an excuse to wander around Berwick for a few hours. It’s a beautiful boarder town. Today, I was on a bus with a most of the house, on our way to Alnwick castle. A few scenes from the first two Harry Potter movies had been shot here, so a lot of us were rather excited about visiting Hogwarts. We didn’t have to drive through Berwick, but since we did, and I had been there the day before, I was able to act as a bit of a tour guide to the small number of people sitting near me.

I was able to point out the city wall, the town hall, and a few amazing medieval bridges. Once on the bridge crossing the river tweed, one could see the where the river met with the North Sea. It was an amazing sight with the early morning sun shining brightly on the sea in the distance. I hate how pictures turn out when you take them from inside a vehicle so I didn’t take any, but it really was something to see.

It was another hour and a half before we reached Alnwick, but we were all really excited when the castle came into view. Remember how last time I said Blarney was a proper castle? Well Blarney isn’t a proper castle. Alnwick is. We stopped outside to get a few good photos of the place, and then drove through the gate and into the car parking area. Before getting off the bus, Professor Deller stood up to tell us some of the rules and regulations for staying at Alnwick. As it would turn out, the University of Minnesota – St. Cloud. Has a similar program to River Falls’ Wisconsin in Scotland Program. They live in Alnwick castle, like we live in Dalkeith house. This program has been running for 30 years, and it makes me wonder if it in some ways served as a prototype to the WIS program. Anyway, Professor Deller finished off her rules and regulations speech by telling us to avoid a pub that had a bunch of various interesting bottles.

“What about the Three Broomsticks?” I asked when she was done. Most of the bus chuckled a little.

Professor Deller however, seriously responded, “Huh, I haven’t heard of that one. I’ll have to look into it.”

The whole bus was laughing now. So I told her that I was making a Harry Potter joke. For those of you who don’t know, and shame on you if you don’t know, the Three Broomsticks is a pub in Hogsmeade. It is frequented by Hogwarts students. Not surprisingly, there is no such pub in Alnwick. However, that might not be a bad business idea. I'd go there.

Anyway, we were soon in our rooms, which were slightly less lavish than our quarters in Dalkeith. Not being one for glamour, that didn’t bother me. However, I was slightly disappointed that we didn’t have to give a large painting a password to get to our room.

Once we’d gotten settled, we returned to the courtyard, and received our visitor’s passes. The security on site was a novelty that I wasn’t used to. Unlike the WIS program, the Duke of Northumberland lives in Alnwick castle during the winter months. When he and his family aren’t living there the house, castle grounds, and magnificent gardens are on display to the public. We were still in the slow season, but there were tourists everywhere. Dalkeith County park on the very busiest of days might have a few small groups of people walking about, but without some sort of special event going on there would never be this many people.

Several people wanted to get to the garden, but my first objective was Breakfast. I had been told that there was a small market place in town, and if you’ve noticed anything about my blog posts, I love to buy things off the street. So I went into town with Aaron and Nate who was going to meet up with his High School friend Erica. In a happy coincidence she was on the St. Cloud program.

We eventually found the small book shop where she was volunteering. The three of them wanted to return to the castle, but I was hungry. So I went back to a Greg’s that I had seen on the way. They were advertising a £2 breakfast deal and that seemed too good to pass up. Truthfully, I should have waited until I got to the market. There really wasn’t anything that caught my eye, but had I not already eaten breakfast I could have easily gotten some freshly baked pastries instead.

Before returning to the castle, there was a shop I had to visit. Apparently, Alnwick is home to a world renowned second hand book store called Barter’s Books. I sincerely hoped it was more impressive than the small shop we had gone to meet Erica in. Barter’s Books is in the old rail station, and isn’t exactly in the town centre. It’s a bit of a hike to get out there, but it was a beautiful day in a picturesque wee town so I didn’t mind. The rather strong wind made my long trench coat flap behind me giving me a really cool looking shadow.

I had to hop across a few busy streets before I made it to the arched gate which read Barter’s books. This was kind of cool, I thought myself as I walked up a winding ramp to the old train station. Little did I know that I was about to step into my favourite shop in the world. There are thousands upon thousands of books. Some were so old that they were printed in the 1600’s. Others were printed last year. Walls of poetry, Isles of history, Rows of Science, Oceans of first editions – this was a book lover’s paradise. The first main room was made up of a few stacks, which were topped with miniature train tracks. Two small locomotives whirled overhead, surrounded by quotes from famous authors and poets. The other main room was much larger, and its dome ceiling was once certainly where the platforms were, when this was a rail station. Here there were countless more book stacks, and glass cases lined the walls each containing several rare books of various genres.

After a while I found the science case. There was an astronomy book printed in the early 1700’s. If it didn’t cost a staggering £645, I would have bought it right then and there. That’s the problem with my hobby. Old books are expensive. Old science books, which are obviously my preference, are even more expensive. Of course the book had to be opened to a page with a beautifully inaccurate diagram of the solar system. Ohh it breaks my heart.

So I continued to browse for a less expensive book. Eventually, I book that was in a section called Cornucopia of history. I’m not sure how historical it really is but it’s a non-fiction book that was printed in MDCCXXVI. For those of you who don’t read Roman numerals. That says 1726. It was originally £36, but since the cover had been badly damaged in the months since it was put on the shelves they were willing to sell it to me for £24. It was a deal that I would have felt better about if it had been made over my bartering abilities, rather than the desecration of a beautiful ancient book.

I left Barter’s books two hours after I’d entered, feeling really quite proud of my new oldest book. I had shattered my previous record (1843) by over 100 years. With a spring in my step, I wandered through the streets of Alnwick, back to the caste. Now it was time to do some exploring. It was about this time that I realized that the castle had about as much to do with Harry Potter as Harry Potter had to do with the castle. The womping willow scene in the second movie had been filmed here, although there was no willow that was entirely computer graphics. And Harry had learned how to fly a broom in the courtyard, but beyond that there really wasn’t anything about Alnwick that had anything to do with Harry Potter.

Instead, like all real castles do, it had a wonderful rich history of battles, wars, dukes, scandals, and all of the other castle-y things you’d expect. It was fun to wander about the ground and the walls, but I have to admit I was kicking myself a bit. Because I had gone off on my own earlier in the day, I was now on my own. So I wandered into the garden, buying some honey flavoured ice cream in a waffle cone.

It was kind of an odd moment for me, as I sat in this amazing garden watching one of the most spectacular water fountains I’d ever seen. There was this amazing saxophone player playing hey Jude in the background, and I was eating Ice cream in April. Really none of that fits within the box of things I would classify as normal.

After I was done with the ice cream, I wandered through the garden taking several good photos. It was all nice to look at, but honestly the one shore-fire way to bore me is to show me plants. I don’t care how nicely they’re arranged. So I was rather bored, by the time I made my back to the castle. It was here that I noticed a sign that said the State rooms were open.

So I wandered in, and joined a walking tour led by a pretty blond girl. So this is how the aristocrats live… I thought to myself, as I walked along breath taking marble stairways, and countless priceless paintings. Of course the walls were lined with silk. Aren’t yours? There are two cabinets that Madame De Pompadour didn’t fancy, and so she had them thrown in storage. Because of it, they survived the French Revolution. They are now some of the most expensive pieces of furniture in the world. Yeah I don’t have things like that in my drawing room… actually I don’t have a drawing room. Have you seen the library? Ohh my stars. That library. Wow… remember what I said about the archives in Edinburgh… yeah that’s shabby. What about my impressively old book sitting in my shoulder bag. It all of a sudden felt second rate. 40,000 books. All of them beautiful, and ancient, lining the shelves of this two story room. The oldest of which was printed in 1475. One day I aspire to have a collection of old books that wouldn’t look pitiful next to this one. I have a long way to go.

When I left the grandeur of the state rooms, I bumped into Aaron, Casey, and Andy who were coincidentally sharing the room with me. They were about as bored as I was. There was an hour until dinner, and so we all just sat in the room and chatted. We weren’t really talking about anything in particular, but it was nice to relax. The wind had gotten really quite cold.

At six, we made our way to the common room. The food wasn’t there yet, but we began to sit in a large circle. As more people joined, we enlarged the circle pulling chairs that were stacked along the walls. We were chatting away, during the meal, and when we were finished eating we never really stopped chatting. As far as we were concerned, the Alnwick trip was a bit over kill. We’d already seen pretty much all there was to see, so none of us had anywhere else to go. So we went around the circle, telling ghost stories, our strangest dreams, and our most embarrassing moments. It was loads of fun, three hours passed in what felt like only a few minutes. I don’t think our group had ever had a bonding experience quite like this, and it was really quite nice, albeit a bit late in the term.

At 9:00, Nate, Aaron, Casey, Amber and I decided to go out to the pubs with Erica and a few of the other St. Cloud students. I wanted to see another aspect of the town and to meet new people so I was rather eager to go along with them, but in hind sight. I probably should have stayed with the group in the common room.

It was a fun night all the same, having gone to a few pubs and then a club, but I just think I would have enjoyed hanging in the room with everyone else more. Apparently, they continued talking until close to midnight. I don’t think it’ll happen, but I’d really like it if we did that again sometime at the house before we left.

Sunday 14 April 2013

7:31AM

Alnwick Castle

My head didn’t feel great, and I was really quite thirsty. So I reached to my bedside table and went into my packed breakfast. There was a can of Tang soda; that would do. I cracked it open and took a sip. It tasted like orange Alka-Seltzer. Since I knew it was good for me, I took another sip, but that was all that was happening. This stuff was disgusting. It was about this time I realized that I had no reason to be up today. The bus didn’t leave until 3:00 in the afternoon, and I’d already seen the whole town and the whole castle. So I went back to bed.

I think it was about half ten when I woke again. My roomies were starting to stir by that point and so I figured now was as good a time as any to take a shower. When I was out I joined a small band of people who were off in search of breakfast. Well over half of that group, decided they just wanted coffee, and so I ended up eating breakfast with just Amber and Myranda. The food was good, and we ate in this cool subterranean restaurant, beneath a pastry shop. From here we went to Barter’s books.

I ended up buying a record of Steely Dan’s Greatest hits for my dad, and almost another book from the 1700’s. I let the others talk me out of getting it though, because it was £32 I didn’t need to spend.

From here we went back to the castle, and back to the estate rooms where I chatted with several of the various guides. There was one in every room, and so I was able to inquire about various features in each room and have some really nice chats. I have to say I love British accents so really any chatting is grand with me.

Before I knew it, It was 3:00 and we all piled onto the bus making one short stop on Holy Island before driving back across the border into Scotland and back home to Dalkeith.