Tourist Life By ERICANANA

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Spectra Light Show






This past month has gone by fast. I was more so being a tourist in my own city. Connor, Dima, Alex, and I went to the light show, Spectra. It was all throughout the main parts of the city centre. The coolest part was at a college where they had a movie type light show. It would show up along the outside of the building, while they played music and talked about the person that was being shown. Another part of the light show was at the Church which also has a grave surrounding it. Inside the church they had an electric force of a light, almost looked like a static electricity ball.

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Valentines Day Dates



Valentines Day was well spent with good company. Seven of us went out for thai food, and shared the experience of trying a drink called ‘Pennywort”. One of the weirdest tasting drinks I’ve ever tried. Dinner was really tasteful, I had the Vegetarian Pad Thai. After dinner we departed with all the boys, and met up with more girls to go watch a movie, “How to be single”. Some of us left feeling more miserable of our single lives than how we felt when we first sat down in our chairs. Of course my chair was drenched in my cider, the klutz that I am.



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My Lady in Crime


Week 3 consisted of games night, red team vs the blue team. I was on the red team, the winning team of course. On Tuesday it was hosted at Slains Castle (the bar version). We played beer pong, flip cup, and some other game I didn’t get the chance to try. My partner for beer pong was Louise. We made quite the duo, and ended up winning our matches. This night consisted of too many drinks, and even more laughs. Meeting new people, and letting them see the crazy side of this mysterious Erica… Okay I’m not that mysterious. Thursday night was the second night of the games, we played many games like; trivia, paper toss, ‘guess the song’, tic tac toe, etc. By the end of this night the red team had finally made the blue team blue.

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Girls Night
The next night we had a girls night over at Sophia’s house. We had lots of wine, and cheese. Being a european isn’t so bad. This night consisted of getting to know one another, learning about our different cultures. We shared many stories, and laughs.




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Creepy Figures at Tollbooth Museum



Alex and I made our way over to the Tollbooth Museum. Which was not what I was expecting, it is a small exhibit, but big enough to scare your pants right off. This museum used to be a former jail. It was built between 1616-1629. It is located along one of the popular streets here in Aberdeen. As we walked up the circling stairs, holding onto the rope as we made our way up to the first room. They had a couple drums that were used for big events. Then we made our way up to the jail cells, I am not sure how people didn’t die from falling down these stairs. A woman’s size 9 shoe fitting on a 5 inch stair isn’t the easiest thing to accomplish without tripping. There was a room which had all of the old technology that was used to communicate with people around the world; computers, fax machines, a calculator. We made our way to the first jail cell which had a woman figurine sitting on the floor. Within this cell it had all of the peoples names who went to jail, and what for. Most were there as “debtors”, which is someone who is in debt. They also had a head brace in there which was used on woman who would use foul slander, and who would gossip. Maybe we should bring it back? haha! We made our way up some more stairs, I saw a small hallway to the left so I guided us over there. As I peaked my head through the doorway, I jumped and screamed. Causing Alex to scream back, “Oh my God, WHAT!?” I saw two figures standing in there fighting one another, one of them being Alexander Keith. As we left the room with my heart pumping fast, we gracefully walked over to the next jail cell, arguing over who had to go in first. I decided to go in but this time I tip-toed my way in, as I peaked around the corner there were three more figurines sitting on the floor. I felt a wee less freaked out… until one of them started talking to us. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PLACE! We scurried our way out before we died of a heart attack. That was a spooky adventure thats for sure. After our lovely adventure at the museum we decided we would eat our sorrows away at Nando’s.


Old Aberdeen
Old Aberdeen
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We also took the opportunity on a nice sunny day to walk through old Aberdeen. We walked in the neighbourhoods, the roads were narrow in some areas. We walked over to the University of Aberdeen, which looks like what you would picture every building in Scotland to look like. It was really beautiful, we got to walk during the beautiful sunset, we’re so romantic, right?
 
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Inverness



On the last weekend of February we took the opportunity to make our way to Inverness, and Elgin. Inverness was so beautiful, the whole weekend it was sunny, and warm. The town sits on a river, I would say it is the equivalent size of Sechelt. We checked into our hostel, our roomies for the night were two Chinese girls, two girls from Germany, one from Austria, and one lonesome boy who was from Orkney Island, which is in Scotland. The first day we went for a very long walk, we walked through town and made our way over to the Caledonian Canal. We went to go watch our friend Sophia in a rowing competition. We walked about 18 kilometres, cheered her on, and got to listen to the coaches of the teams yell at the rowers. They kept on repeating phrases getting louder and more stern, it was hard not to laugh. The river sits along beautiful scenery, farms on one side, and forest on the other side.
IMG_9347We got to see a bunch of sheep along the walk. We stood at the fence making our calling noises at them, which consisted of “baaaa’, and farting noises.. how mature are we? HAHA! We made our way down to a dock, and sat there watching all the rowers take off; there were individuals, doubles, and teams. Our friend Sophia was in a double, and they managed to take 1st place. YAAAAY. That night we hung out with our new good friend Tom, who was our roomie for the night. We exchanged stories, got to know one another, he can do the rubix cube super duper fast. He also rides a unicycle, and travels around the world to do competitions with his unicycle.


Bike Ride to Loch Ness

Day 2 of Inverness, we went out for a lovely breakfast. How did I forget how much I love breakfast? We wanted to go to the Loch Ness, but the only buses that went there were at 9:15 am, or after 4:00 pm. Which didn’t work with us unfortunately, but then Alex had the brilliant idea of renting bikes. We found a local shop that rented out bikes, only 20 pounds a bike :| We made our way on our long journey. It was such a beautiful ride, the bike trail had you riding through the country. We got to see the Scotland I’ve always pictured, riding through a pathway with beautiful trees along the side, and fields in the background. We made our way to the mouth of the Loch Ness lake, but unfortunately from there you aren’t able to see the Loch Ness monster nor could you see the Urquhart Castle from there. We made the decision to keep biking along until we could see the castle, we of course were on the opposite side of where the castle sits. But we spotted it through the trees, and ventured down to the beach so we could see it. Our bike ride was a 47 kilometre ride in the beautiful sun.




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The Mansion House Hotel


That evening we made our way to Elgin to the Mansion House Hotel, which is more of a castle than anything. It was like entering the doors of heaven when we got to our hotel room, there was a big comfy bed, and a bathroom that is almost the size of my dorm room. We got the chance to sit in a hot tub, and have a sauna, or a swim. A relaxing way to end the weekend. On our second day in Elgin, we got to wake up and have some lovely breakfast, then journey over to the spa for a massage.




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Elgin Cathedral


After checking out of our castle we walked over to a cathedral, Elgin Cathedral. It was really beautiful, they were doing construction on the towers so we were unable to go through all of it. But what was left of the cathedral had me in aw of everything. Along the sides of the cathedral were the coffins of all the people who had lived there before in there tiny community. Elgin was a small town, but Inverness was the prettier one of the two.

Until next time,
XO


Erica is a  Bachelor of Business Administration Degree program student at Capilano University. Erica is studying abroad at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland.    

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