Edinburgh & London Photographs
(with Commentary, because you KNOW I can't keep my mouth shut.)

When you go on IQP, WPI encourages you to see the world. They make it sound like an adventurous academic challenge, like conducting surveys on "the impact of Facebook pokes on the intellectual development of elementary school children in 3rd world nations," while you spend your weekends riding white water rapids yet somehow staying completely dry, and your nights rubbing elbows with the clever & classy in trendy cities, wearing expensive sunglasses even though it's dark outside.

REALITY:
You spend:
80% of your time going "AHHH, MY GOD, HOW DO I FIX THIS?!" because your advisor sent your report back for the 8th time with the comment "Please rearrange your paper to chronologically depict the evolution of your project, while weaving the results in by order of importance to the academic goals of WPI, and add in some personal thoughts for color without using 'I or we' statements."
10% of your time going "...is it cheaper to take the plane to Paris... nope... well, if we took the tube to Paddington and then paid the 9 pounds to take the express to Heathrow, we could make up the difference for..." etc etc etc, this is painful to describe.
ANOTHER 10% of your time going "Dude, is that the Eiffel Tower? Whatever, take a picture of me doing the Gangam Style dance next to the statue guy. ...did you get it? No, that's no good, take another, take another!"

But, inevitably, you find time to see the sights, and you enjoy them that much more because you appreciate, just for a moment, that your work schedule is miles behind you and memories can be made. Thus, I present to you the best snippets of the past few weeks, a couple memories I made while busy doing other things:

Edinburgh Castle off in the distance. Centuries of history, the entire story of a proud civilization, and the ancestral home of royalty...
and next door to the entrance is a museum completely devoted...
...to whisky. Go Scotland.

 The Edinburgh grave of poet William McGonagall, widely acclaimed to be, among other things, the worst poet in history, and the owner of one of the world's very first restraining orders, bequeathed to him by Her Majesty the Queen Victoria.

In case you were having a bad day, and needed a self-esteem boost about your own resume!












The beloved statue of Edinburgh's favorite dog, Greyfriars' Bobby.
...just look him up on Wikipedia. I can't talk about the story. I'm one of those people that can watch the Silence of the Lambs without cringing but won't watch anything where a dog dies.

Couple views from the top of a hill in Edinburgh. The Pantheon on the right was never completed, but serves as an excellent location for photos where you lean on things acting cool.






Below, a panorama I took at the summit of Arthur's Seat, which looks over the whole of the city.

 The view walking up to Arthur's Seat.




Arthur needs an escalator.












And lastly, my girl Dolly the Sheep. The first cloned animal, laid to rest in a display case in the middle of the Scottish National Museum, where she spins around, eternally illuminated by the LED lights... of science.












So let's check out London in 5 words or less:






Bus.

Pirates?

Palace!

...Time.

Shakespeare.