City Post: Newcastle Upon Tyne

This is going to be a short one, because we didn't do too much here. We stayed with some of Jo's family in Newcastle, and took the time to rest and recharge before heading off to Morocco. We did, however, partake in some traditional British food, like Friday fish and chips, Sunday roast, and haggis. Neither of us expected to like fish and chips, but it didn't really taste like fish. More just the batter it was fried in. We also got to hang out with her family's two dogs all day, which was a lot of fun. We watched a few movies (Barbie and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part I), a corrida or two (naturally), and, unfortunately, kept up to date with the latest ongoings in Israel and Gaza (the conflict erupted while we were in Newcastle). Needless to say, we decided at this point to forego going to Israel for Christmas like we had originally planned.

We also intended to go on a day trip to Edinburgh to meet up with Annie from Belfast, but fate had other plans. The train normally takes and hour and a half, but they were doing work on the tracks, so our train was going to end up going the long way around and taking four hours instead. When we showed up to the train station at 6h the next morning, our train had been outright canceled. There had been a torrential rain in Scotland that flooded the tracks, and they didn't have a backup bus for our particular train. Oh well. At least we got our money back.

One day we went up to Alwick to visit the castle there. We met some other of Jo's family for coffee and a walk along the beach in the morning, and headed to Alnwick for lunch that afternoon. The Alnwick Castle sits on a beautiful stretch of land overlooking the Scottish countryside. The Duke of Northumberland owns most of the land in Alnwick, including the castle, and he has really played up its role in the Harry Potter films. A few scenes were filmed at Alnwick Castle (the flying lessons, Ron saying Hermione really needs to get her priorities straight, and one of the scenes where Hagrid talks to the three of them). They would have filmed nearly the entire series there, but the Duke wanted too much money, so the film found other locations. Nonetheless, they put on mock flying lessons on the castle grounds, and the guided tours point out all of the different places where various movies were filmed. We just did a self-guided tour to take in the sights. There are a few cool exhibits in the various towers, like the history of the Northumberland Fusiliers, which hail from Newcastle.

All in all, a much-needed, relaxing, lazy time in Newcastle.

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