England and its Neighbours...

...was awesome. Excellent lecturers, who were engaged and interesting and interested and lively and told good stories. I made good friends in my tutorial, even though they were few and far between. The format was the best of any I'd had. Two people would each have to present on a topic for ten minutes, and had to do extra reading for that. Everyone else had to read the primary sources, which was always a reasonable amount and usually interesting by themselves. We always had good conversations going, just all around an excellent course. My favourite by far.

Central and Eastern European Studies...

... was a mixed bag. I had lot's of fun with my tutorial group, and the lecture hall as a whole (those who showed up at least), but for the most part the lecturers were lacking. The men were great -- they were interesting, interested, excited, full of stories, of life, engaging. The women left much to be desired. They droned on, seemed to have no interest in what they were saying, and it was a struggle to get through lectures. But at least the material went deep into the subject matter! It was for the same time period as Economic and Social History, World War One-ish to the early ninties, covering a similar geographic area, looking at politics, economics, society, gender, environment, art, etc., about an area I knew nothing about. So that was good.

Economic and Social History...

... was my least favourite course this semester. It covered from World War One to the Eighties, with some residiual tails into the Nineties and the Naughts. It seemed like such a surface look at things, and the economic side was especially lacking, no more than 'things were good, things were bad, things were very bad.' I didn't really meet anyone in the tutorial, and honestly I can't remember much of what happened in them.

Dublin

Hi blog, long time no see! I'll be trying to play catch-up for a while; today will be about Dublin, because I promised you that a while back.

Dublin was a slight disapointment. It was basically JustAnotherCity, nice, fun, but not spectacular. And expensive - everything is priced and pricy. Even the two cathedrals, St Patrick's and Christ Church charged for entry.

Dublin

I spent the weekend in Dublin! I'm wicked busy for the next few days, so a blog post will be a long time coming, but pictures are up!

The Museum of Transport

Today I decided to finally check out Glasgow's Museum of Transport. It was really well done, quite beautiful, and like all Glasgow museums, completely free! Unfortunately I didn't think to bring my camera.

They have on display over a hundred different cars, carriages, trains, and related such. Most if not all are the genuine articles, not models or replicas.

When you first walk in, on your left there is a space dedicated to shipbuilding and train-building in Glasgow. Apparently the QE2 cruise liner was built right about where I currently live. Then there is a reconstructed street from maybe 1940, with store-fronts and a cinema. (The British spell-check marks 'movie' as incorrect.) This is also where the Glasgow Subway exhibit is; they have subway cars from the different eras along a platform.

To the right of the entrance, past the gift-shop, are two areas filled with carriages, cars, vans, caravans, wagons, trucks, etc. They have some beautiful specimens, including 'truck art,' i.e. an intricately painted van, from Pakistan; a Gypsy caravan cart from the turn of the century, richly decorated and intricately painted and carved; and early and classic cars galore. They placed specific emphasis on Scottish and Glaswegian cars like the Argyll.

Next is a section on trams, and they show the evolution of Glaswegian trams, from horse-drawn to cable to electric, by having the restored models all in a row. (Edinburgh is building a new tram system, but unfortunately I'll be long gone when it opens.) Then there was a section on trains, with several Scottish-built engines on display, and a car from the new trains that will be whipping around the country by the end of this year - very exciting. (Scotland has an amazing train system. Only 5 million people, and 1,696 miles of track. The trains go everywhere - except St. Andrews - quickly and often.)

There were bits and pieces on boats, bicycles, and planes, but the exhibits were not as comprehensive. They're moving to a new location soon though, where they will probably have room for that.

I'd really suggest a visit, if you're in Glasgow.

Christmas in Glasgow

Sorry it's been a month since I've posted. I was wicked busy with finals, then wicked lazy with vacation.

So, finals went okay. Glad I busted my arse studying though!

Then I didn't do much over break. Mostly watched movies, read, and slept. There were a couple parties organised for those of us in Glasgow over break, which were fun. Christmas Eve I went to the service in the old cathedral, almost completing of one of my goals - I want to go to a Latin Mass in an ancient church. The cathedral is now part of the Church of Scotland, but it still counts as ancient. It was a nice service. The words to "Silent Night" are different in Scotland: "Still the night, Holy the night," and a couple other differences.

New Years (or Hogmanay) I had a dinner party and movie night with some friends, which was really nice. Glasgow and Edinburgh (and a couple other places) have giant street parties, competing with each other for the biggest, but you had to buy tickets, and I didn't want to be in a sea of tens of thousands of drunk people.

A few days ago I checked out the Doctor Who exhibit at the Kelvingrove Museum. It left much to be desired: just a couple costumes, bad animatronics, and whole bunch of television screens.

A group of us were going to go to Inverness this weekend, but Katy, who has the car, slipped on the ice that covers most of Glasgow, and killed her knee, so we'll have to go some other time. Inverness is right near Loch Ness of the famous monster, and where one tradition has it that MacBeth killed Duncan!

Classes start again tomorrow. I'm not exactly sure what I'm taking, I'll let you know when I know!