Obama the Pumpkin Pirate

Check out the Obama the Pirate my friend Nate created and carved.

No, this has nothing to do with Scotland, I just think it's cool.

Edinburgh Escapades

I spent a couple days in Edinburgh.

Arcadia sponsored a dinner and ceilidh this past Thursday in Edinburgh, and a trip to the Highlands yesterday and today. And seeing as how I hadn't either been to the castle or climbed Arthur's Seat when I was there before, and have only one lecture on Friday, it seemed like a perfect opportunity: Go Thursday evening, stay with Destinee, a friend from Wooster, then do the Castle and the mountain Friday, and on Saturday I'll already be in Edinburgh, where the trip left from. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a spot on the trip, but everything else worked out wonderfully.

Destinee hadn't been to the castle yet, had only one class that morning, and with her friends had been planning a whisky picnic atop the mountain that afternoon anyway.

I missed the dinner, but made the ceilidh. It was great! there were Scottish dance demonstrations, they taught us how to do the Highland Fling, and just a good time in general.

Friday morning I joined Destinee in her lecture, called "Mind, Matter, and Language." It was a philosophy class, and very interesting; the lecturer talked about differing hypotheses on how we think.

Then to the Castle!

We joined a tour that had just started, then finished just they were about to fire the 1300 gun:

It fired every afternoon except Sundays, Christmas, and Good Friday, at 1300 so the sailors in the Firth of Forth could keep accurate time.

Then we wandered around the Castle, going in the various museums and taking loads of pictures. I'd have to agree with the conventional wisdom that Stirling Castle is much nicer, and if you have a choice, go for Stirling. Edinburgh was still awesome though! We spent several hours there. Not being pressed for time was wonderful.

Then shopping for the picnic, and we found tons of cheap food. Met up with Destinee's friends Rachel from Bristol, Hime from Cali, and Bryce from Pennsylvania, and ventured to Arthur's Seat, a small mountain in the middle of the city.

That's the view of it from the Castle. It had steep sides that the path zigzagged up, and a flattish meadow just below the summit where we ate baguettes, cheese, fruit, chocolate, and biscuits and drank whisky till the sun went down. I learned three new drinking games: slap, cowboy face, and arrivederci (sp?). As the sun was setting, which takes a wicked long time because Scotland is further north than you think, a piper came and played.


Betsy tells me he played a theme from Dvorak's New World Symphony, oddly enough.


To end the day we were going to go to an improv show by a group from the Uni Edinburgh, but it was sold out. So Destinee and I went to a pub I had been to before called "The Royal Oak." It's one of those tiny, crowded places filled with friendly Scots who mostly know each other, but welcome strangers anyway. There's a store of instruments, and people will come and play, and everyone else sings along if we know the words (I was proud that I know almost every song they played). We were there a couple hours, then went back to her flat and finished off some of the food with her friends. Woke up early yesterday so Destinee could get to the highlands trip, and I caught a train back home.

It was a really wonderful trip. I need to go back before too long.

There're loads more pictures on Picasa.

A Day in the Life

My mum wanted to know what a typical day is like, so Here goes. This is today, a Monday.

I got up around half ten or eleven. I don't have class till thirteen on Mondays. Made breakfast - today I experimented with pancakes. Didn't turn out too well, they were very tough, but with syrup and Neutella, who cares? Often I'll have eggs and sausage, or Tesco cornflakes, which are wicked cheap.

Washed up, checked email. Went to the international office to finalise my registration, but Annie was out. That's okay, it's not urgent.

First class today was Celtic Civilizations, which I'm unofficially auditing. Today's lecture was on the Roman conquests of Celtica. Large lecture hall, maybe 75-100 students on average.

From there straight to "Learning Society: Issues in Modern Education." Technically this is a lecture, but with usually five or six students, and today four, it works more like a seminar. All classes are divided into lectures and seminars. Seminars are small group discussions, usually guided by a post-graduate student. Today we talked about nationalism and other exclusion in education, and how the movement of "inter-culturalism" is trying to fix that.

I had an hour to kill before my last class. Sometimes I go home and have lunch - usually a sandwich - , or maybe I'll go to one of the campus museums or a stroll in the park. Today I laid on a bench outside the library - glorious weather - and read about how the Roberts the Bruce (there were at least three) tried to get the crown of Scotland. The last one managed to because all the other claimants had died out, or he had murdered them, and the English didn't have the resources to keep hold of Scotland, in a nutshell. This was after Bruce had switched sides from English to Scottish and back about five times. This is for my class, another very large lecture, "The Independent Kingdom of Scotland: 1100-1707," which I didn't have today. Two people in my seminar for this class are native Gaelic speakers, which is pretty cool.

My last class today was "Central and East European Studies, Level 1." The lecturer is a riot. He reminds me of a cross between John Cleese and Patrick Stewart. Today's lecture was on the cultural foundations for revolution in Russia.

Came home, made dinner - grilled cheese. Not sure what I'm doing for supper. I think I might want to get a pint later, perhaps at the GUU reading room, and do some reading there.

Free Tango and Church

Wednesday there is a free milonga at the Blackfriars pub, in City Center. Good floor, good DJ, good music, good people, good dancers. Good price. I will return often.


 Today, after getting up late from a long and fun-filled evening, I decided to visit Glasgow Cathedral. It's a long way away, 2-3 miles, but it was worth it. I unfortunately arrived very late, so half of it was closed, and tours were not running.
Technically it has not been a cathedral since the Scottish reformation, but is part of the Church of Scotland and owned by the Crown.

 The church is named after the 6th century saint Mungo (he of Harry Potter fame), who founded it. His insignia are found in the Glaswegian coat-of-arms, and in a poem:
Here is the bird that never flew
Here is the tree that never grew
Here is the bell that never rang
Here is the fish that never swam


The church is surrounded by a very large and very full graveyard.  It was consecrated as a place of burial in the early 5th century.

The current building was consecrated in 1197, replacing previous one that had been damaged by fire. It has the oldest intact spire in Scotland.

 The inside was glorious.

Next to the cathedral is the Royal Infirmary. Yes, this is an actual working hospital.

On the other side there is a museum of religion. Again, I had only a short time to visit before it closed, but they had some very cool exhibits.

The View from Here

This is what I see while making dinner. It was especially impressive tonight, but is usually pretty good.
Further to the right. Yes that really is a Tall Ship in the middle ground.
[You can click on the images to enlarge them.] 

The Nicest People

I have to say that Glasgow, and Scotland in general, is populated by the nicest people (other than of you all, of course). My fruiter, for example. Theres a produce shop just down the street where I do a lot of shopping. The owner (I think he's the owner) will sometimes give me a few extras - nothing big, but if a banana has a wee bit too much black to sell, or something like that, he'll pop it in my bag. A few weeks ago a bartender gave me a hoodie and a zip drive - big logos of course, but I've never seen that happen in the states. He also told me about a bunch of places in Glasgow to visit, with interesting history, that mot people never see. Where the BBC campus is now is the sight of the first university (not sure if that's in the UK or the world) to graduate women doctors. Most of my friends have had similar experiences.

 I booked a trip to Paris in November, pretty cheap. And I found £10 tickets to Bucharest, Vienna, Munich, Zurich, and a bunch of other places. We'll see where the wind takes me!

Chocolate

How well do you think this would go over in the US?