Burn's Night & Lincoln Field Trip

Last night we gathered in the Bistro for Burns Night.  Burns Night is a Scottish traditional holiday to celebrate the poetry of Robert Burns.  Burns is the national poet of Scotland.  We gathered for a fun time singing scottish songs, reading Burn's poetry, and taste-testing Haggis (look it up if you want to know what it is!)  It was actually not too bad suprisingly!  It was a good time and really put me in the mindset for my trip this weekend to Scotland :)

Today was a fun day except for the rainy/cold weather.  We were able to board the coaches and take a school-wide trip to Lincoln (no, not the 16th president Lincoln).  Lincoln had a lot to offer.  We first broke off into small groups and my group took the Roman walk first.  We saw where the Romans first built the city Lindon and saw some of the walls and original archways that have been there since 48 a.d.  Afterwards, it was time for my group's self-guided tour so Clare, Dannie, and I followed the confusing directions down Steep Hill Street (named very literally!).  Here we ran into an assortment of tea parlors, sweet shops, vintage clothing stores, and used book stores.  It was quaint.  We followed the street all the way down to the High Street shopping centre.  We saw the river and walked around in a mall to warm up.  We took the terrible journey back up Steep Hill Street and then caught up with a few friends from a different group.  At this point we were on lunch and pretty much just wanted to find some place warm and dry.  Thus, we stopped in a quaint little restaurant called the Prince of Wales Inn.  Here I split some Sticky Toffee Pudding with Amanda and it was absolutely delicious!  I definitely wouldn't mind having that again!  It came time for me to re-join my tour group for our visit to the Lincoln Castle.  This castle was built by William the Conquerer after the Norman conquest of England.  It is a traditional motte and bailey style castle (motte is the mound and bailey is the ditch they dig around to make the motte) and it is special because it has two mottes.  Here we saw a dungeon, stood where they publicly hung people, and also were able to view one of the 12 original copies of the Magna Carta.  This was really neat because we've been learning about it in our British Studies class.  Finally, my group went to the Lincoln Cathedral.  This cathedral exhibits four different types of architecture; Norman, Old English, Decorative, Perpendicular.  It is a magnificant building and has soo much history within its walls--truly amazing.  We also went into the Chapter House.  This room of the cathedral was neat because they filmed part of the DaVinci Code film there.  When all of our tours were complete, we headed to a tea shoppe for the last time that we had there in Lincoln before the bus left.  I enjoyed some tea from The Tea House that was delicious and warming :)  It was also served in ornate teacups and a teapot which I thought was special!  We loaded the buses and took the ride back to the manor gladly.  Today was a very long and tiring day, but it was very interesting too!