So you might notice the rather vague title of this blog post. My reason for choosing it is simply because so much has happened since the last time I blogged!! I hardly even know where to begin - how about with a preview of what you are about to read about? (Or attempt to read about. Anyone who actually makes it through this marathon of a post gets a special prize).
- The first week of classes and adjusting to attending a university with a student population of 26,000 as opposed to Davidson's 1,800
- Patrick's visit to Edinburgh
- My adventure to Carbisdale Castle and the Isle of Skye
- Accounts of various other random adventures that I probably will just spontaneously mix in somewhere
So... brace yourselves!! I'll do my best to make this coherent and organized, but no promises. And I apologize for the somewhat jumbled photos, I had a little trouble during the uploading process. I think Blogspot was getting angry with me for posting so many, so it decided to be ornery and rebel against my onslaught of pictures. But I prevailed in the end!
FIRST WEEK OF CLASSES
(There we go, bolded and all caps, off to a good start with the organization)
Thankfully, I ended up being able to enroll in all the classes that I wanted, which means I am taking Archaeology of Scotland, Fiction in Edinburgh, and Traditional Song - Scots. I decided that I wanted to take classes that were specifically Scottish (when in Rome, right?) and so far I have really been enjoying them. One thing that has taken some adjusting to... actually no, that is not true. Many things have required some getting adjusted to. To name just a few - having a lecture with about 75 students in it, attending tutorials led by a teaching assistant, navigating my way through a library that could probably fit the Davidson E.H. Little Library into its foyer and still have some extra space left over, having a legitimate walk to class and no longer being able to leave three minutes beforehand, and having to make a conscious effort to focus my brain power on the actual information presented during lecture instead of just thinking about how much I love my professors' strong Scottish accents. For example - "Now class, let's just have a wee look at this chapter of the book before we take a wee break for a wee cup of tea." (Yes one of my professors did in fact say this.) Just in case you couldn't tell, I have developed quite an infatuation with the word 'wee'.
Another thing that is very different is how little time is actually spent in class. At Davidson I will usually spend about ten hours in class a week, Monday through Friday. Here, I only spend six hours in the classroom each week, with just two lectures a week for archaeology and one seminar a week for both Fiction in Edinburgh and Traditional Song - Scots. Now I am definitely not complaining about this, especially since it allows me to turn the days I don't have class, Tuesdays and Fridays, into "exploring days" as my flat mates and I have come to call them. Now I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression - I am not just frolicking around over here, eschewing all academic responsibilities and carousing all over Edinburgh. (That's reserved just for one day a week). No, I'm still only joking. The university system is just different here, with much more emphasis placed on independent work. For example, instead of concrete must be adhered to AT ALL COSTS syllabi, we receive an extensive reading list, and it is up to each student to pick and choose their outside reading . Don't get me wrong, we do have a good deal of required reading, but apart from that it is all very free form, which I enjoy and find overwhelming at the same time. But I am most definitely taking advantage of having the freedom to just go in the library and not feel guilty about checking out a large stack of random books to peruse at leisure. Nope, not feeling bad about that at all.
So that is pretty much all the news I have in terms of academics. Like I said, I am really enjoying the classes and am finding them engaging and demanding enough to keep me occupied and sufficiently nerdy. But thankfully I do not feel overwhelmed and like I have too much work to devote time to traveling and exploring Edinburgh. With that being said, onto recounting some adventures!
We had a rather interesting time getting there since our bus was quite late and we were sitting there thinking that even though we had checked the bus timetables online multiple times, the Scottish bus system had indeed thwarted us in the end. But never fear, our bus FINALLY came and collected us, depositing us just half a mile or so from the gates of our destination. I mean, come on... where else can you take a public bus to a castle? Lauren and I find ourselves using our new favorite phrase, "only in Scotland," on a daily basis as we encounter bagpipe players on the Royal Mile, teenage guys striding about in kilts, an value meals of haggis, neeps, and tatties sold in the frozen food section at the grocery store. But Scotland has also surprised me in a lot of ways - I came here ready to be bombarded by the stereotypical elements of Scottish culture, e.g. the very bagpipes, kilts, and haggis that I just mentioned. But Edinburgh is also a very diverse city (30% of the University of Edinburgh's student population are international students) so I never feel overwhelmed by its "Scottish-ness" I suppose you could call it. I'm not going to lie, I did fall prey to some of the stereotypes people share with me before I came... I honestly thought I was going to come over here and have to stomach eating haggis on a regular basis for three months and that I would live in my raincoat 24/7. I think that people have a lot of misconceptions about the culture here, and one that I would like to point out is the weather. It is really NOT as terrible as people told me it was going to be! Now, ask me again in a month or so and I may have a very different attitude, but as of right now I have been pleasantly surprised. Sure, Edinburgh is notorious for its wind, so sometimes you will round the corner and nearly be blown off your feet by a particularly forceful gust. But the occasional day of rain doesn't bother me very much nor does it seem to bother anyone else. I remember in one of my Alexander McCall Smith books, the author said something along the lines of "nice people are nice about the nasty weather, while nasty people are just nasty about it." Having lived here for a month now, I definitely agree that the best way to deal with those gloomy days is just to be nice about it and laugh rather than get upset when you step out of the grocery store laden down with bags to a torrential downpour when it had just been clear blue skies fifteen minutes before, only to realize that you have no umbrella or raincoat (yes that anecdote comes from personal experience).
Following our journey to Craigmillar Castle, the big event later on that week was Patrick's arrival in Edinburgh! He is studying in Vienna for the semester and decided he absolutely could not go abroad without partaking in a good dose of Scottish culture. So he came here and I fed him haggis, took him to a few pubs so he could sample cider and scotch, made him hike all over the place, got tickets for a rugby match, and booked us a place on one of Edinburgh's infamous ghost tours, trying to make sure he didn't miss out on any Scottish experiences. Here are some pictures from his visit, they are sort of out of order to my technological difficulties, but I think they show that we had a great time seeing the city together.
Touristy picture in the phone booth
was a must
Hike number one! Up to the top of Arthur's SeatPatrick pretending to "fall" back down the hill... and me doing the same. And actually almost falling due to my clumsiness.
The EXPLORER!!! Just taking in the city of Edinburgh
So there is an area at the top of Arthur's Seat where people write messages in stones, so about a week before Patrick arrived, I walked up there and left him a message - I heart Patrick. Unfortunately, when I took him up there to show it to him, someone had changed my message to I heart Aya. No idea who Aya is, but we just placed Patrick's face where his name was supposed to be to make up for it. Sorry Aya.
These were taken during our day trip to North Berwick, a little coastal town about thirty miles east of Edinburgh. It is home to the Scottish Seabird Centre which has a gift shop, interactive museum, and live cameras from which you can watch the world's largest single rock gannet colony. Every January 150,000 gannets return to Bass Rock, which has been described by David Attenborough (the guy with the AWESOME accent that does the television series Planet Earth!!!) as "one of the wildlife wonders of the world." Just concentrate hard and think of his British accent making that declaration... I was immediately sold and became a huge fan of this place. After all, I did spend far too much time watching Planet Earth as my "study breaks" during cramming for exams this past spring. Patrick and I decided not to dish out £30 pounds or so to brave the freezing cold waves and wind on one of the boat trips out to the coastal islands, however we did hike to the top of the North Berwick Law to find some significantly drier and equally beautiful views. Also included in here is Patrick's lunch of freshly battered haddock and chips, which we proceeded to douse in the UK's deliciously superior ketchup. (I swear, it just tastes better over here, just like their soda, for which they use real sugar instead of corn syrup). Okay, I promised no rambling. I'm stopping there.
After the three pictures from North Berwick, we have some pictures from our THIRD hike of the trip. Just as a side note, we also napped a significant amount during Patrick's time here as well, mostly in an attempt to recover from excessive amounts of walking. But I feel like (and I hope Patrick and his somewhat sore legs agree with me) it was the best way to see the city and explore the areas surrounding Edinburgh. On our third and final hike, we walked up Calton Hill which is situated just east of Edinburgh's New Town, offering great views of Arthur's Seat, Holyrood Palace, Leith and the Firth of Forth, as well as the Castle. There are several monuments and interesting buildings on top of the hill, including the Dugald Stewart Monument, Nelson's Monument (geez, you would think they would build poor old Nelson a monument taller than Patrick... how rude), the City Observatory , and the National Monument. (I thought I would insert some links in deference to those who don't want to scroll through all the historical information that I am just itching to include here... no I won't do it, I shall resist.) Patrick also snapped a picture of me in full tour guide mode, pondering my well worn Lonely Planet Edinburgh guidebook. It has certainly served me well thus far!
Finally we have pictures from our rugby game... which was QUITE the experience. After sitting down and taking in our surroundings Patrick and I sat there for a good part of the first half with our mouths gaping open, trying to ignore the crunching of bones and the knocking together of skulls as the rugby players bashed their way across the field. Now, as most of you may well know, Patrick is quite the sports guru while I am... well... just not. So I was not at all surprised when I went off to pay a visit to the concessions stand at half time and then returned fifteen or so minutes into the second half to find him with a perfectly adequate grasp on the rules of the game. So in case you were wondering, give Patrick forty minutes or so and he can deduce the regulations and inner workings of pretty much any sport. I guess we really do complement each other, good thing I have him around to make up for my near complete ignorance of the sports world. Oh and the final photo is Patrick driving us to the rugby game in our very own private double decker bus. He adjusted to driving on the left side of the road quite quickly and only lightly grazed the old lady with the walker, didn't actually inflict any sort of injury.
Overall, I had a great time showing Patrick around Scotland and it was absolutely amazing to see him since the last time we were together was for the fourth of July in Washington, D.C. We have planned a trip to Paris and will be meeting up there this coming Wednesday the 13th, so we are both looking forward to that. And then I will also get a chance to visit him in Vienna. (Don't tell him but... the only reason I'm going is because I have heard their coffee is AMAZING!!!!! But remember... shhhhh).
Whew, deep breath! This blog is something akin to running a marathon. I just know that I need to finish this tonight since I have been putting it off all week thanks to schoolwork. If I don't blog now I am afraid I won't again this semester since I have more big adventures coming up this weekend and next week and I will just be far too overwhelmed to write about more than a month's activities in one post. So, diving back in...
After Patrick left I spent all of Monday alternating between napping and barricading myself in the library to catch up on work. Since his flight left very very early we woke up at 3:55 AM to take the bus to the airport. So, in case you had any doubts, that hour does in fact actually exist, I have now found that out from first hand experience. By Wednesday I was good to go again, so a few of my friends from the Arcadia program and I visited the Holyrood Palace where the Queen resides during the summer months. (Once again, history buffs feel free to take advantage of the link). Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside, but the rooms were incredibly ornate and I really enjoyed the audio guided tour since it maintained the peaceful atmosphere of the palace. I really did feel quite proper as we glided from room to room and saw the king's private bedchamber (gasp!), the very stately dining room, the morning drawing room, the afternoon drawing room (of course, you simply cannot be made to draw in the same room as you did that morning... what an atrocious thought), and Mary Queen of Scots' private bedchamber. We also had a chance to see the Holyrood Abbey which was founded in 1128 and used to be the meeting place for the Parliament of Scotland as well as the location of royal coronations back in the day.
So now we have reached my adventure to the Highlands and the Isle of Skye with fellow Davidsonian Jenny Hall. We had an absolutely amazing weekend and I am somewhat overwhelmed by the thought of trying to recount everything. So instead I will just give the highlights and let the pictures speak for themselves. Surprisingly, these actually cooperated and ended up in chronological order, so what you see oh lucky viewer is the actual progression of our trip minus my frantic and futile attempts to cut and paste and fight with the evil forces of Blogspot.com. What a crazy notion.
We began our trip on Thursday afternoon, departing from the Edinburgh Waverly train station with our final destination in the tiny town of Culrain. The train ride was absolutely beautiful (I included a photo I snapped out the window when we passed through Inverness which people call the "capital of the Highlands"). Then you will find pictures of the castle (yes castle) where we spent the night. Carbisdale Castle was built for the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland in 1906 and has since been converted into a youth hostel where eager, castle-crazed youth such as myself and Jenny can spend the night for a mere £20. The photos I have included show the main hall and all of its lovely nude statues as well as Jenny's new deer friend in the library (where we spent the majority of our time due to the large bookshelf housing hundreds of random books donated by travelers around the world). The one problem I had with this accommodation was the fact that it was intensely, legitimately, completely, without a doubt HAUNTED. Now, at this point I had survived the Ghosts and Ghouls tour in the underground vaults of Edinburgh with Patrick (albeit clutching his arm and cutting off the blood circulation in his hand the entire time). However, that was no match for the Carbisdale Castle aka youth hostel that charges nothing since there are GHOSTS cohabitating with its unsuspecting guests! Jenny and I poured over the informational pamphlets we received at check in, which included a brief history of the castle, information on all its paintings and statues, and finally the low down on its ghost stories. So naturally we decided to go exploring for ourselves. Room 218, the Old Nursery, has been called one of the most haunted places in Scotland, so we took a deep breath and went in search of this place that would supposedly give even the most stoic person the heebie-jeebies. Oh boy, it did not disappoint!! Now Jenny claims I am being a wimp, a baby, a scaredy cat, etc. But I am not joking when I say I felt weird drafts, heard some stairs creaking that should most definitely not have been making a peep, and nearly jumped out of my skin when the fire door behind us opened slightly and then thudded closed again apparently of its own accord. Laugh at me if you will, but I hightailed it out of there, crawled in my little bunk bed, took a sleeping pill and was out for the night after that creepy crawly experience.
The next day the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and (hopefully) all our new ghost friends had departed the premises to lie in wait for the next batch of visitors. So Jenny and I enjoyed our free breakfast and carbo-loaded before heading out for a hike. Ahem. A very long hike. Unintentionally long that is though... We walked around in the forest surrounding the castle and then decided to head up to the Falls of Shin, which is one of the largest salmon rivers in Scotland. Well turns out maps can be quite deceiving, leading you to think that you have a 30 or 45 minute walk ahead of you as opposed to an hour and a half trek mainly uphill. But even though we did not see any salmon, we enjoyed the falls and enjoyed the delicious, stick to your ribs food in the Falls of Shin restaurant. Yet undoubtedly our favorite part of their Visitor's Centre was an amazingly nice little Scottish woman who took pity on the two bedraggled American tourists and drove us back to the highway, dropping us just a fifteen minute walk or so from our castle. This blog is dedicated to her for that gesture of kindness which prevented many many blisters and soaked clothing for the rest of the trip (since it had started to rain at that point. Typical).
After returning to the castle, we gathered up our belongings and headed off on phase two of our adventure - Isle of Skye!! You will see a picture of the sign in the little town of Dingwall with the word 'Inbhirpheofharain' - this is Gaelic for Dingwall. In the Highlands, it is customary to list both the English and Gaelic on signs. Most of them made sense... however this one just baffled me, hence the picture, snapped as I stood there giggling to myself on the train platform and receiving funny looks from passerby. We ate dinner at a restaurant right next to the Dingwall train station (we were too tired to walk farther after our epic trek earlier) and it was absolutely delicious and well worth the arduous 15 step walk from the train. We dominated a huge plate of sizzling fajitas (such traditional Scottish fare I know) and then moved on to sticky toffee pudding. Now, I could devote an entire blog post to sticky toffee pudding. No, I could write a book about it. No, I could write a series about it!!!! I hope that everyone who reads this gets to sample sticky toffee pudding at some point in their life - go add it to your bucket list right this instant or else you will die and have missed out on one of the great treasures of this world. If you think I exaggerate... you misunderstand. Go try it. NOW.
After drooling over our dessert, Jenny and I boarded train number two and headed west towards the Kyle of Lochalsh, located at the entrance to Loch Alsh and the site of the start of the Skye Bridge connecting the island to the mainland. Jenny and I arrived around 9:00, boarded a bus and made our way across the bridge and to our hostel in the tiny village of Kyleakin, population 300. We were warmly welcomed in our cozy little hostel with free coffee, tea, and hot cocoa at our disposal and a room all to ourselves, which was probably a good thing since our stuff magically transformed into piles larger than a third and fourth roommate would have been. Jenny and I had been unsure how to tackle the entire Isle of Skye in just one day, so we were pleasantly surprised to find that we could hop on the Mackbackpacker tour company's Saturday trip around the island. Thanks to this we got to see far more of the island than we would have otherwise, and we were guided by a knowledgeable and immensely funny Scottish native named Ruth. We hiked up and down and all around, heard a good deal of history with some hilarious anecdotes mixed in, saw five rainbows, visited the town of Portree, saw several waterfalls, and even paid a visit to a fairie glen! Overall it was an amazing day and we were very pleased with how much we were able to do and see. It was by no means one of those tours where you stay on the bus the entire time!
After viewing these pictures you might be wondering why I am sticking my face in a freezing cold river?? Do not worry, I have not gone completely batty. Please allow me to explain. At our first stop of the day, a picturesque point that offered great views of both the Red and Black Cullen mountain ranges (a huge draw for avid hikers and mountain climbers from around the world), our guide Ruth explained in her awesome Scottish accent (she used the word wee like five times a sentence on average, it was spectacular) that anyone who plunged their face into the river's waters would be guaranteed eternal youth and beauty. So I figured, what the heck? I was very careful to only dunk my face in the water though, that would have been a long cold day after taking an accidental dip in that water! You'll also see me holding a children's book (unsurprising and completely normal Katie behavior I know) but take a closer look at the title - "Katie's Coo"!!!!! Jenny discovered this book in one of the little shops we wandered into in Portree (the harbor of which you can see in the picture with the colorful buildings) and she bought it for me as a gift since apparently it was too good to pass up. Which was completely true. Listen to this - I have my own Scottish nursery rhyme! "Katie Bairdie had a coo, black and white about the mou. Wasna that a bonnie coo? Dance Katie Bairdie!" So naturally Jenny proceeded to call me Katie Bairdie for the rest of the trip. I didn't mind at all, quite enjoyed it actually. I was just glowing after finding out that I have my own folk rhyme.
The rest of the photos show some pictures from the hikes we took throughout the day. The one at the waterfall is with our crazy guide Ruth who kept us entertained all day long and then the others are from when we hiked up to the top of this amazing ridge and encountered some breathtaking views. I still find myself shocked by how beautiful it is here at times. The final pictures show our adventure on Sunday - a trip to the Eilean Donan Castle. For any movie buffs out there (well more like chick flick buffs, but oh well), here's a fun fact - this was one of the castles they used when filming Made of Honor, the movie with Grey's Anatomy's "McDreamy." But it was definitely amazing in its own right, minus any influence from Hollywood and much sought after television show characters. We spent the morning and early afternoon exploring the castle as well as the nearby town of Dornie, which, if this is possible, may have been smaller even than Kyleakin. We ate lunch in a pub there and ordered, wait for it, southern fried chicken!!! I love discovering little bits of America tucked away over here.
After lunch and tea time (notice the picture Jenny snapped of me sipping tea and reading my Scottish novel) back in the castle café (please don't judge us too much for all the milk and sugar packets... we just love too. A little too much... okay way too much!) we headed back to the bus stop to get to the train station. Coincidentally we ran into a guy from northern Spain who was using his vacation from work to travel in Scotland for two weeks. He and I struck up a conversation for about twenty minutes while we waited for our bus and I was glad to shake the dust off of my somewhat rusty Spanish after studying abroad in Cádiz last summer. It ended up being really neat that we had run into him since, although his English was relatively good, he asked me a favor on the bus ride back to Kyle of Lochalsh. He was heading on to Portree (all the way on the Isle of Skye, about an hour away from the mainland) and really wanted to run to his hotel when the bus stopped there to let Jenny and I off so he could grab his suitcase but not have to wait four hours until the next bus arrived. Public transportation can be pretty tricky on the islands since they are still very traditional and observe the Sabbath, so you have to plan carefully if you do not want to get stranded! So thankfully I was able to translate for him and ask our bus driver to wait ten minutes rather than leave the poor guy with no way to get to his next accommodation. It was really neat to run into someone who spoke Spanish here in Scotland and I was glad I could help him out! He was very surprised as well, and said "you are the only person in all of Scotland that speaks Spanish I think!!" Although I am sure this is by no means true, it still made me laugh.
Almost done!!! Then you can go rest your eyes and nap and take a three or four hour recovery. I promise. So... up until this point our trip had gone pretty much flawlessly. We had had an amazing time and had avoided any major problems such as missing trains, losing credit cards, getting lost, etc. However... it was not to end on such a perfect note. Jenny and I arrived at the train station a good hour and a half before our train was scheduled to depart, delivering us back down south to good old Edinburgh. Alas, it was not to be. Turns out the train time we had been going off of (17:15) was the time for Saturday not Sunday. So... in a nutshell, we looked at each other, realized OOPS and then took a moment to figure out what on earth we should do. I am actually very proud of how we handled the situation and it worked out in the best way it possibly could have. We hurried off to the bus station, deciding that due to the scarcity of buses (as I mentioned earlier) we should be there just in case one was about to leave before taking any other course of action. Somehow, miraculously, there was a bus just about to pull out when we came running up. I marched up to the door of the bus and said to the driver, "excuse me sir, but we're in a bit of a predicament. Where might you be heading?" He replied that he was going to Fort William, which is located on the west coast about midway down Scotland. Picturing my guidebook's map in my head I asked if we could get to Glasgow from there. He replied that that could be arranged and then I knew we were home free since a bus from Glasgow to Edinburgh would be no problem. So we were then home free!!! But only after seven hours on a creaky old bouncy bus that smelled oddly like someone hadn't made it to a bathroom in time. Also, you can compare the final two pictures for a laugh. The second to last is us on the bus ride home after the glitch in travel plans while the last one is the very first picture taken on the trip. Note the difference in facial expression? But nonetheless, Jenny and I spent most of the trip laughing and exchanging funny childhood stories. We did not by any means let the change of plans ruin our trip and it just topped off what really was an amazing weekend.
Now for anyone who actually made it through all that, thank you so much and also, I am sorry it was so long!! I do have many more adventures in the near future but I will try hard to be better about documenting them in a timely manner so that you are not left to tackle another post as massive as this one. But I hope everyone enjoyed it or at least had a good time looking at the pictures. Hope all is well back in the States or wherever in the world you might be!
Great post!! Only a little long Katie haha, but I enjoyed hearing it all! I also love the picture of you drinking tea and reading a book at the same time!
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