Inspiration Fridays: Back to Britain

Since my parents visited England a few weeks ago, my brain has been dreaming of returning to Great Britain.  I want to see more, desire to do more, and need to learn more.  I want to learn everything about the culture, immerse myself in it.  There is this vision I have, of me wearing a tartan scarf, eating a sausage roll, and reading Shakespeare whilst sitting in the middle of  a stone circle.  Call me stereotypical, but that just sounds fantastic. 

Kind of like this, but with said food, book and scarf... and my face...

 (This creepy effect happened and I just LOVE IT.)

But anyway, check out these other, fabulous, Britain-only things that I just can't wait to get more of!  There are quite a bunch, but I've narrowed it down for the sake of brevity, and not losing readers because I've written an extensive, but contentless bit of drabble.

1.  Highland Cattle

Because, Holy Cow!  These things are awesome!  They are also 100% real.  And, in Scotland.

Animal Wallpaper

Oh my goodness.

 Scotland in May

Oh My Goodness!

Highland Cattle World

They have a world??!??

Red Bubble

OHHH My GOODNESS.

Seriously, though, have you ever seen anything more fluffy and stupidly cute in your life?  Best of all, these animals a freaking huge.  Like taller than I am (5'3") at full height.  That is so much fluff, I can't even take it.

2. Pasties, Sausage Rolls, and Meat Pies

Because what is better than meat?  Meat wrapped in pastry!  Pronounced pah-sty, as opposed to pay-sty... pasties (pay-sties) are things ladies wear on their nipples, especially whilst stripping.  I considered putting some kind of hilarious photograph of that in this post, but, I'm at work, and even though my place of employment is an acting school, there are just some things I feel like I shouldn't have on my screen.  Unlike this meaty, pastry glory...

Savory Bites

Yum.

Tastefully British

Well, yum.

The Cornish Pastry Man

Nom nom nom nom...

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So, there are Pasty STORES like this all throughout Great Britain.  It's wonderful.  Not all of them have meat, some have vegetables, cheeses, eggs- all kinds of delicious stuff.  I'm drooling a bit just thinking about it.  

3. Stone Circles 

Now these are just mind-bogglingly amazing.  Think about how crazy they are.  Obviously, there is Stonehenge, which everyone and their mom has heard of, but there are dozens upon dozens of stone circles and other old stone structures in the UK.  It's so nifty.  People care so little about these things, because they are just, well, standard, that they are in the middle of parks, and even intersections.  A road goes through Stonehenge.  It's mind boggling.  I was able to snap that photo of myself standing on an altar-like structure in the middle of one in Cardiff, and no one stopped me.  No one was even around.  I love this blatant love and simultaneous complete disregard for history.  They have so much old stuff, the insignificant historical locations don't even matter, per se.

Channels

There's the classic.  Stonehenge.  It's pretty epic.

Here's one of the ones I took in Cardiff.  Yes.  This stone circle is smack-dab in the middle of... a traffic circle.

This is the same stone circle from the top of the page, sans moi.  It's in Bute Park in Cardiff.  No fence or anything.  Just, you know, ancient stone circle, chillin' out.

Note:   I know that stone circles exist in places other than the UK, but, the ones in the UK just rock my socks.

4. Tartans

Here, we have another specifically Scottish one for the win!  Tartans!  Part of my family is the Craigs, it was my grandmother's maiden name, and it is my father's middle name.  If my parents had a son, they might have given him the middle name Craig as well.  Though I am actually more English than Scottish (and also more German and Swiss than Scottish...) I feel a strange affinity with this part of my heritage.  Not as much as my uncle Barry, who used to dress in a kilt and go to big Scottish events, but I do feel proud.

This is the Craig tartan. 

Loch Carron

Family pride is kind of awesome sometimes.

Wish I Was There

My mother and father are in London right now, and I wish that I was there too.  I loved London, and since I came back to the US, I've just wanted to go back and take even more advantage of what the city and country have to offer.  I think that I did a pretty brilliant job last time of exploring, learning the culture, and the theatrical environment of London.  I loved the art, saw most of the museums, hung out in the pubs, etc.  But... I want more.  I want to explore the mystical side of Britain a bit more, I want to learn more of the historical heritage of art, literature and theatre that developed there, and I want a grad degree.

It's funny, two years ago, which is almost how long it's been since I first left for London, I was scoffing at the idea of grad school.  I saw it as what my friends who didn't know what they wanted to do were doing.  The ones who wanted to put "real life" off for a little bit longer, or were taking a little bit more advantage of mummy and daddy's dollars for a few more years of college playtime.  Now, I know that some of them are doing that for those reasons, but for many people, it is much more than that.  My initial view was very shallow and critical.  

I want to go to the Central School of Speech and Drama to receive and MFA in Voice.  Not immediately, but sometime within the next ten years, I plan to do this.  This shall happen.  Right now, I'm being handed, on, essentially, a silver platter, everything that I want to be learning, opportunities, an environment that fosters creative learning, and a paycheck, so I would be insane to go now.  As I said, this is in my ten-year plan. I'm extremely excited about the prospect,however, partially because I will get to return to London, but, well, mostly because this will give me the chance to rise from "a voice and speech teacher" to "an amazing voice and speech teacher at the cutting edge of the field."  I find that thrilling.  My parents' current trip has only made me more excited about this.  Their descriptive emails have also made me trail back through some of my old photographs, which I have shared below.  I don't think any of these have ever been on this blog before, but I'm proud of them.  Many of them aren't my best photographs, but I take them as a testament to how far I have come.  I've become a much better photographer (and person) since I started this blog.

Eventually, I will go back to London, and it will be to study what makes me more happy, and excited than any other pursuit ever has.  I'll apply in a few years, and keep applying until I am accepted.  And, I'll go through the whole process with enthusiasm and happiness.

London is calling!

London, England, UK