The Highlands and such

Hullo and a happy late May Day to you all! Since it's been a while, I thought I'd write a post about the tour my friend Lydia and I took of the Scottish Highlands. A couple weeks ago we boarded a bus at 8:30 am and commenced 12 hours of pre-packaged sightseeing. The scenery was lovely as always and we experienced all manner of weather on our jaunt. The first stop was a quick breakfast/bathroom break only made notable by the fact that is was home to Hamish the Highland Coo, who somewhat famous.




The first part of the trip was rather cold, damp, and drizzly, in true Scottish fashion. The good thing about lots of rain on and off during the day was the abundance of rainbows. If memory serves, we saw ten in all. On our way to the next stop we passed a couple of movie locations including the castle from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the hillside where Hagrid's cottage was located in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Our tour guide was really good about including sillier facts like these along with all of the history. Though he was an excellent guide, he did get a bit tiresome to listen to after a while. Worse than that was the unspeakably awful music he played when he wasn't talking. At first it was some pretty unobtrusive Scottish folk music, and while it made the whole experience feel more than a little kitschy, it was not unpleasant. Then things took a turn for the worse with the celtic covers of songs like the theme from Titanic. The only time it was really unbearable was when it was played so loudly late in the afternoon when everyone was trying to take a nap. ach well...

The next stop was Glencoe. It was a lovely spot, but I was a little disappointed that we didn't get to stop at many of the other, even prettier locations along the way. Around this area is an entry point for lots of hiking and walking trails, which looked like a lot of fun.



After another stop for lunch, we finally made it to our main destination of Loch Ness. I must say, it was even prettier than I had imagined.


Unfortunately, I didn't spy any monsters in the water but Nessie's presence was certainly felt. I did, however, have an encounter on the shore before our boat ride.


The boat ride was wonderful and offered some spectacular views. The water in the loch is peat-stained after being filtered through the ground and as a result is incredibly dark. For whatever reason, the water also looked really thick. In fact, it looked kind of like the loch was full of Guinness. After riding on the top deck, we ducked into the enclosed portion to get out of the wind and have a cup of coffee. I'm so glad we did because otherwise we might have missed this utterly fantastic sign:


When we finally arrived back in Edinburgh hungry and exhausted from an eventful day, we couldn't wait to get home to eat, so we popped into one of our favorite pubs that has cheap meals. I turned out to be a perfect end to the day. Bowls of piping hot beef stew with mashed potatoes were delicious and just what we needed. It was made even better by the group of musicians that play there every week. So we decided to linger over another pint and listen to them play for a while longer.

Some cultural events

Included in this weeks activities were two concerts (one of which I will write about in the Highland tour post) and a play. On Tuesday Lydia and I went to see Robin Williamson and John Renbourn at the Cabaret Bar. It may have been one of the best concerts I've ever seen. The venue was small and pretty intimate. The opening act was a great two-piece fiddle and guitar combo that was pretty lively. Lydia and I were two of only a handful of people under 50 in the audience. We bonded with the old Scottish men complaining about how awful one of the bartenders was. (I know very little about pouring Guinness, but I know enough to know that the way he was doing it was completely wrong. Criminal even.) Robin Williamson and John Renbourn played two pretty lengthy sets and performed a wide variety of material. A fair amount of it was their own work, but they also played some covers including songs by Blind Willie Johnson and Bob Dylan. Robin Williamson's version of Absolutely Sweet Marie was especially nice. Often they would seamlessly transition from one song into a well known Irish or Scottish folk song, with the audience joining in toward the end. Something I appreciated about the performance was that they maintained a really good balance between playing and talking to the audience. They told the perfect number of amusing anecdotes and always introduced their songs well. I suppose you get the feel for that sort of thing after performing for so many years. All in all it was an evening close to perfection and I'm really glad I got a chance to see them perform.


The next night we went and saw a production of The History Boys and The Kings Theater. I had only ever seen the film, so it was interesting to finally see the stage production. It was especially easy to compare the two since the dialogue was the same almost line for line. The remarkably tiny seats in the theater, which was clearly built in a time when people were much shorter, were a bit distracting though. Hard to enjoy a performance when your knees are crammed up against the chair in front of you. Enjoy it we did though. Aside from a few weird transitions, I though it was very well done indeed.

An overdue account of a short trip to Ireland

At the end of March we made a short jaunt to Belfast to see the sights and visit some friends from Macalester who are there for the semester. Thought it was a wonderful city to visit, I'm glad I made the choice to come to Edinburgh. I think it's a much better fit for me. While in Ireland I found myself missing things about Edinburgh and Scotland. As one my friends pointed out, isn't it nice to feel homesick for somewhere that isn't your home?

The journey there was an exhausting one. Between finishing essays and staying out late celebrating a friend's birthday, I was running on very few hours of sleep when we woke up at 6am to catch our plane. Upon arrival in Belfast we met up with Lily and Eddie (two fellow Mac students), got some breakfast, and began what would be a day full of walking. Our first stop was St. George's Farmers Market, which was lovely and full of fish.

After that we walked around the City Centre neighborhood and then headed over the Falls, one of the Catholic neighborhoods. I'm going to tell you this upfront, I was told many, many details and facts about the history of Belfast and Northern Ireland. However, I remember most of them only vaguely if at all (like I said, I was running on very little sleep) so I'm afraid you'll have to get your historical account from another source. One noteworthy thing about The Falls is all of the murals. I don't really think this counts as a mural, but it was one of my favorite pieces of graffiti.


Pictured below is the wall of international murals. It is also of the rainbow (I know it's hard to see) we saw over said murals. Yes. We found the end of a rainbow in Ireland, though no gold was found that I am aware of.



The next day was spent wandering around town some more, looking at monument and exploring neighborhoods. One of the highlights was stopping at The Cookie Box. They have lots of freshly baked cookies in addition to 101 FLAVORS OF MILKSHAKES! I had a berry milkshake. Other flavors sampled by our group include: chocolate chip cookie, double chocolate chunk cookie (the clear winner), and Cadbury Creme Egg. That milkshake may have been one of the best I ever had. Later in the afternoon we walked along the river a bit and frolicked in some daffodils.


After we finished frolicking, we very innocently picked up some of the flowers that had fallen on the ground. I repeat, they were already on the ground, their stems had already been broken when we arrived on the scene. While we were standing by the bridge, two police officers walked by and informed us that there was a police camera across the way watching us "pinch them flowers". We're pretty sure they were just teasing us, but we left all the same.

Well those are some of the highlights of the trip. I'll add the rest of my pictures to the Snippets album.

Deep-fried pizza and other, more educational adventures with Lily

Goodness, I'm even more behind than I thought I was. Here are just a few highlights from my friend Lily's visit a few weeks ago.

Our activities consisted almost solely of eating and walking. I was able to introduce her to the wonder that is battered pizza. The concept of a small frozen pizza that has been battered and deep fried is equally revolting and fascinating. Frankly, I'm surprised the Minnesota State Fair hasn't picked up on this little gem yet. Not surprisingly, it is absolutely delicious, even if it makes you feel as if you're second away from a heart attack. ***Attention all concerned grown-ups who are reading this: Do not worry. Deep-fried pizza is not representative of my typical diet. I assure you that I do, in fact, eat vegetables***

On Saturday we stopped at one of my favorite coffee shops for a yummy breakfast and continued on to the Edinburgh Farmer's Market. Since it's not really the season for produce, most of the vendors are selling meat and cheese. After that we walked around the castle for a bit and then proceeded to walk down the entire Royal Mile. Along the way we saw some interesting sights and people, including a man dressed as William Wallace asking for donations for what I'm sure was a very worthy cause. Two gems we stumbled across were the antique map and print dealer and the antique children's book store.


Arriving at the end of Royal Mile, we gawked at the bizarre Scottish Parliament building and poked our heads through the gates of Holyrood, the Queen's official residence in Scotland.

On our way back up we popped into the Edinburgh Museum. We were expecting much, but were pleasantly surprised with the exhibits. We were especially pleased when we found the "activity room" which housed baskets of craft supplies and coloring sheets as well as historical dress-up costumes. We both agreed that it would be to our academic and cultural benefit if we stayed for a while and colored paper models of historic townhouses. This is one of the murals/wall hangings from said activity room:




We also ventured up to Calton Hill which boasts an odd assemblage of monuments and memorials in addition to some stunning view of the city and the sea. Here a couple pictures, the rest can be found in the Photographic Snippets album.

Springtime continued

Due to the not so subtle hints in my mother's emails that I haven't been posting enough, I'm going to try and get caught up with this whole blog business. First of all, let's begin with some small talk about the weather (wouldn't want to dive right into the heavy-hitting subjects, after all). Last week while it was bright, sunny, and in the upper 70's in Missouri and Minnesota, it snowed here. I was already planning on lying low Monday and Tuesday to recuperate from our trip to Belfast and bask in the glory of spring break. This was only furthered when I woke up and saw big, fluffy flakes falling from the sky and covering the ground. Naturally I did what any sensible person on spring break would do when I saw this - I burrowed under the covers and went back to sleep.

Luckily the snow melted quickly and it seems that nasty weather has left us for a bit. Lately it's been lovely and sunny with only occasional rain and gloom. The crocuses have subsided only to be replaced with countless daffodils. Since I wouldn't want to be scolded by the police again for pinching flowers (more on that in the post about the Belfast trip) I bought a bunch at the grocery store. They opened up beautifully and are doing their very best to brighten up my room.



Doing a rather good job, aren't they? And now to continue the trend where I include relevant gobbits (one of my favorite British terms) from things I've been reading. This poem by A.E. Housman has been rattling around in my head for the past week or two and seems especially fitting since it's Easter (Happy Easter by the way! I hope you all enjoyed a chocolate egg or two...or seven, but who's counting, right?) Anyway, here's the poem:

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs is little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Gloaming

There is apparently distinct type of twilight found in Scotland, especially in the summer. They call it gloaming. It is specifically not sunset, but is the time that is neither day nor night. It also happens to be my very favorite time of day. A few weeks ago I took some pictures from the top floor of one of classroom buildings during this time. I posted some of them below. Gloaming was also discussed in a short story we read for my Scottish Lit class called "The Library Window" by Margaret Oliphant. Here is one of the excerpts I especially liked:

"Sometimes, as I have said, he would turn round in his chair and turn his face towards it, and sit there for a long time musing when the light had begun to fail, and the world was full of that strange day which was night, that light without colour, in which everything was so clearly visible, and there were no shadows. 'It was between the night and day. when the fairy folk have power.' This was the after-light of the wonderful, long, long summer evening, the light without shadows. It had a spell in it, and sometimes it made me afraid: and all manner of strange thoughts seemed to come in, and I always felt that if only we had a little more vision in our eyes we might see beautiful folk walking about it in, who were not of our world."

Crocuses Galore

First of all, I'm sorry for the lack of posts recently. We're finishing up classes and my attentions have been elsewhere. Classes end here on March 26th, which is so soon I can't even believe it. After that we have a 3ish week spring break followed by an insanely long exam period that last from the middle of April to the end of May. I'm hoping to do lots of traveling around Scotland and some further exploring of Edinburgh during this time. That's in between all the very serious studying I'll be doing for my exams of course. I wish I was kidding about the last bit. oof. The exams here sound a little bit terrifying, but it will be fine, right? Right. Moving on...

It seems that spring has arrived in Edinburgh. This weekend saw the blooming of copious crocuses. They're so beautiful and colorful that I kind of just want to roll around in the fields of them.

These pictures are from The Meadows, the enormous park not far from my flat. You can sort of make out all the daffodil shoots in the background that are about to bloom as well. I can't wait!

In addition to the floral harbingers, the weather has also turned a bit spring-like. We've been lucky and have had quite a few bright, shiny, relatively mild days here. The only downside is the wind. This weekend I noticed that even the wind had started to change and smelled like spring and storms. Now I don't have time to notice what the wind smells like because I'm too busy trying to not fall over. It was so strong today that it literally almost knocked me down. It was like walking into a wall. It's not quite this blustery yet though...yet. My Scottish flatmate said that they only very occasionally get big, proper thunderstorms here. This wind and the dark clouds that it brought with it today make me think we get a taste of one soon.

My friend Lily visited this past weekend and gave me a good excuse to check out some of the touristy spots I hadn't been to yet. I've uploaded pictures from St Giles, Holyrood, Calton Hill, and other places around the city to my Picasa Album, otherwise known as the 'Photographic Snippets' section to the right of the page. I'm planning on writing more posts about the places we visited very soon, and I mean it this time.