Glasgow

Today was my second Arcadia-run day trip, and as you hopefully guessed already, I went to Glasgow. The train ride from Stirling to Queen Street Station was only about 30 minutes, and since I had some extra time when I got there, I bought a hot tea and a lemon tart, which reminded me how much I really like lemon curd. And butter.

The interesting thing about Queen Street Station is that there are only seven platforms all right next to each other, and the tracks dead-end at the station. You can see them all from the entrance. This just surprised me because Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland, but I guess they run trains often enough (every 10 minutes, it seems) that they don't need more platforms.

Once everyone met up at the train station, we headed toward the subway, since the tour was a "subcrawl" based on the route of the famous pubcrawl, in which you go to a pub at every stop. Passing by the buildings, I noticed how much Glasgow reminded me of Pittsburgh, probably because both cities were important in the Industrial Revolution and so were built up at around the same time. The architecture is very late 19th century, and the old buildings are sandstone, like the ones in downtown Pittsburgh.

Guess which is Glasgow and which is Pittsburgh.

If you're from either place, that's cheating, shush.

So yeah, the second one is Glasgow. But I could totally see it fitting in at home. Anyway, the first place we stopped on the way to the subway station was the Lighthouse, which was originally the Mitchell Street Building, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. He was a really famous architect in the late 19th century who pioneered the modernist style and built a lot of important things in Glasgow like the Herald Building and some other stuff we visited. Our tour guide, Andy, was actually a grad student in architecture, so he knew all about the history and designs of the buildings. Also, Andy had my favorite accent ever, and he wasn't actually hard to understand, even though Glasgow accents are supposedly the most difficult.

Andy took us up the tower in the Lighthouse to see what is allegedly the best view in the city. It wasn't very high up, but it was still cool.

The Lighthouse is  Scotland's national center for design and architecture, and the building is basically a museum about Glasgow's architecture. I think I'd like to go back sometime because it seems interesting. 

Mackintosh knows.

We rode the subway to the Scotland Street School, which Mackintosh built in 1872. It closed in 1979 when almost all of the shipyards had been closed and there weren't enough people living in the area where all of the laborers' families used to live. The school is a really cool museum now, and Andy told us that he used to go on field trips there when he was little. They do reenactments of Victorian class sessions for the students, and sometimes they accidentally make the kids cry because the Victorian teachers were so mean.

Victorian classroom

They had various rooms set up like classrooms from different eras. It was pretty neat to learn about the history of a school since the late 1800s, as I'd never seen a museum dedicated to that before. I also thought that the way the seats were arranged in levels like bleachers was interesting.

By the by, I saw this billboard outside the school. Pretty funny representation. It's odd to me how they advertise U.S. tourism for the entire country at once. It's such a huge place with so many different things, I can't imagine summing them all up in one advertisement. You really can't see all of America in a week. Or even a month. Or even possibly ever.

But I'm not in the U.S. right now, so back to Glasgow.

We got on the subway again and rode to Govan. There was a time when Govan possibly could have usurped Glasgow instead of the other way around because it was actually bigger. Again, this reminded me of Pittsburgh because the city of Allegheny used to be huge before Pittsburgh usurped it. 

The history of Govan is cool though because it used to be very industrial with a lot of shipyards, and when they couldn't compete with other nations anymore in the late 70s, they closed all of the shipyards except Fairfields. This also reminds me of Pittsburgh because there used to be a ton of steel mills until they couldn't compete anymore in the early 80s, and now there's only one steel mill left by Kennywood. In conclusion, Glasgow is Scottish Pittsburgh. Or Pittsburgh is American Glasgow.

The Glasgow Museum of Transport, where the shipyards used to be in Govan

Speaking of transport, I forgot to mention that the subway cars in Glasgow are REALLY tiny. This is because the rock underneath the city is super hard, so I guess they only carved as much as they needed to in order to make the tunnels.

Tiny subway cars! So cute. I also love that they're orange, and a lot of the stations are decorated with Very Seventies Orange Tiles.

While in Govan, we visited the Old Govan Parish Church, which is ridiculously MASSIVE and ornate. The church was built on the site of about four previous churches dating back to medieval times, I believe. The current one is only as old as 1888, and the reason it's so huge and fancy is that Govan used to be a really wealthy area. Then during the lock-in in the 70s, when people were protesting closing the shipyards, the workers would go to the Parish because there was a short path to it from Fairfields, so they didn't technically have to leave the area.

Nowadays, the church is a museum that houses a ton of really old stone carvings, mostly slabs and "hogbacks" that used to cover graves.

That hogback in the back is the oldest one they have. To me, they look like alien pods or something.

The people in the towns where the carvings came from apparently didn't find them very significant, so they used to re-carve and re-use them and do other weird things with them. One of the hogbacks has a dent in the top where someone used it to sharpen his plow, and another guy in carved his name on a slab.

After seeing the church, we stopped at a restaurant called the Ubiquitous Chip, which has some murals painted by the famous Glasgow artist Alasdair Gray. He actually did the paintings for free because the restaurant would feed him free dinners while he was working. 

The last thing we saw was the Glasgow School of Art, which was also designed by Mackintosh and is commonly considered his greatest work. Andy told us that you can take some really worthwhile tours of it, so I'll have to come back for that too.

I had a very fun, tiring day in Glasgow, and it made me really want to go back and explore some more later.

Other fun things that have happened:

1. Someone told me the other day that my accent was cool, and I was surprised because I thought American accents were considered funny here. But she said mine was different and had a sort of drawl that wasn't Southern. So I guess she meant that I have a slight Pittsburgh accent, and that is apparently cool. Although I bet if she heard a serious Yinzer, she probably wouldn't have liked it as much, haha.

2. I started listening to this London oldies station online that my friend recommended, and it's really great because they play all these songs I never hear on air or don't even know. It's interesting to hear what were the big hits and artists here and other songs by artists who were only one hit wonders in the U.S. They also have a late night 60s show wherein I haven't heard of like 70% of the songs and artists, so it's awesome to be introduced to that.

3. I also got to see St. Andrews for the first time last Wednesday at our rugby game there. It was kind of an ordeal because not everyone on our team showed up, so we had to forfeit and then push back the game when some of our players were coming late and got stuck in traffic and then lost. But the St. Andrews' team was really nice and they let us borrow some players, who turned out to be really funny people and fun to play with. The game started out bad but ended up being really fun, and the weather was gorgeous. I played better than I expected to after being out of it for so long, and my muscles hurt A LOT the next few days, so I must have played hard.

I'm really glad that I'm finally getting around Scotland more, and I'm planning to go back to St. Andrews on Friday. I've also signed up for a trip to Glencoe and the Western Highlands in a couple weeks, which I'm extra excited about. Now I just have to remember to work on those darned essay outlines....

Song of the Day (because I am going places!):

To Do List

I'm taking a break from all of the [largely boring] reading I have to do this weekend and am making a list of all things I actually want to do.

• Visit Alloa and Falkirk: these are small areas only a short bus ride from Stirling, so I might as well visit them, especially since I'd probably be able to cover each of them in a day or less
• Stirling Old Town Jail: it doesn't open for tours until April, so waiting on that
• The Pineapple: a building in Falkirk, built in 1761, that literally looks like a pineapple is growing out of the top

Awesome.

• The Callendar House: just a pretty, historical house that you can tour
• Falkirk Town Centre: shopping, yay
• Bannockburn: where Robert the Bruce defeated Edward II in 1314; there are various statues/memorials around the area
• Doune Castle: apparently really close to Stirling
• Argyll's Lodging: it's free with my Historic Scotland pass, so why not?
• Alloa Tower: also doesn't open until April, but it's from the 15th century, so I'd like to see it since there aren't any 15th century things at home

Alloa Tower

Things to see outside of Stirling area:

• Isle of Skye and Eliean Donan Castle: arguably the most picturesque castle in Scotland or, like, anywhere

Let's go, let's go right now.

• Shetland: there's a mountaineering club trip at the beginning of May, and it includes going to a folk festival there; definitely a must

Also they have short, fat ponies, who doesn't love that?

• Glencoe; there's an Arcadia weekend trip going there, and I think I might jump on that (I just emailed them to see if there are still spots open); I've heard the landscape is really beautiful, and it has an interesting history with the infamous massacre that happened there
• Loch Ness: right near Glencoe actually, so that's pretty much killing two birds with one stone
• Fife: I still really want to see a Fife Flyers game, but I haven't found any hockey fans to go with me (here "hockey" refers to field hockey, so it's a little disheartening when I realize they're not talking about ice hockey, which nobody cares about at all here)
• St. Andrews: I really need to go back there so I can get a good look around; I'm going to ask Moriah about good weekends to visit
• Aberdeen: I'm not sure what there is to do there, but it's a fairly large city, so there must be something!
• Inverness: the Battle of Culloden battlegrounds and Urquhart Castle are somewhere around there
• Castle Stalker: really pretty and Monty Python related, as I mentioned before
• Glamis Castle: one of the more talked about castles, it seems, so it might be worth going
• Northern Ireland: if I have time and can figure out how to get there

Sadly, I don't think I'll actually be able to do every single one of these things, but we'll see! I feel like I keep wasting my weekends by not travelling, even though I am actually doing homework and other stuff I need to do. Plus, I've got to find people who both want to and are able to do all this stuff with me.

Song of the Day (although I definitely haven't been to enough places, yet!):

Saturday

I did some new things today, so I thought that called for a post.

First of all, I should note that last night was rather stressful because I didn't realize until I saw the completed station schedule that I couldn't make it to a 1-3am radio show like I can at home. I didn't take into account that I'm living off campus without a car this semester, and buses don't run that late. So I was basically Facebook messaging the program director (who was very nice and helpful by the way) all night, trying to figure out what to do, since none of the other open times worked for me. Finally, a slot opened up at 1-3pm on Tuesdays, and I was so happy that I was actually going to be able to do a show in Scotland. On Monday, I'm planning to sit in on an exec member's show to see how the station equipment works, though I don't think it will be too different from the Doobie.

Anyway, after being relieved from that stressful situation, I wanted to take Saturday day off. I meant to get up early and exercise, but then I got on Facebook and saw a Tim Hortons ad, which made me really want a donut, so I decided to go on a walk to find a bakery instead. Surprisingly bakeries are rather difficult to locate in Stirling, even though I've seen a ton in other Scottish cities (apparently, there's a Krispy Kreme in Edinburgh, but I obviously didn't have time to go there). There is a Greggs in the city center, which is a weird little chain that sells baked goods like pasties and Scotch pies and donuts, but I wanted to find a real bakery.

Scotch pies are tiny pies with sheep meat in them, and they are very bad for you which means they taste very good.

I finally found We <3 Cake, but it was very tiny, and there were no doughnuts, so I just got a Mars crispy cake, which I assume requires melting down a Mars bar. It's basically just a rice krispie treat with chocolate in and on it. Scotland knows how to do rice krispie treats, man.

Speaking of desserts, I had an Empire Biscuit a few days ago at the Starbucks on campus, and it was basically a Pop Tart made from two sugar cookies with jam in between and white icing on top. WHAT A GREAT IDEA.

Actually, now would be a good time to describe the different kinds of sweets that I have been seeing at all the cafes and bakeries in Scotland.

Mars Crispy Cakes

Empire Biscuits 

(often they don't have nearly this much icing, which is sad)

Caramel Shortbread Bar (also called a Million Dollar Bar)

I tried to make these at Denison once, but the caramel came out as toffee. The bottom level is shortbread, followed by layers of caramel and chocolate.

Shortbread in general is a big Scottish thing, so there are also peppermint shortbread bars, which are like the caramel ones except with a layer of peppermint creme instead of caramel.

The most common donut here is the yumyum, which I think is kind of like a cruller, but I haven't had one yet.

I haven't had rocky road bars yet either, but they have them at the Starbucks. They're a combination of mashed ginger snaps, chocolate candies and marshmallows.

Actually ginger snaps are a big deal here in themselves. I've seen a lot of them, although they are usually called ginger biscuits. By the way, people do actually say "cookies" here in certain cases, not just biscuits.

Tablet is also a thing. It's hard like maple syrup candy but tastes more like really sugary fudge. It's made of sugar, butter, and condensed milk.

There are more I can't remember right now, but a lot of them involve shortbread. 

Anyway, other things happened today besides baked goods. I stopped by the 20 Rocks bar that I've been wanting to go to, and I found out it's also a restaurant. There's a stage where live bands play every night, and they have some cool rock memorabilia on the walls. Definitely going to go back there at some point.

Check out all the famous people on the walls.

I walked around the back roads in Stirling and stumbled onto a really pretty view of the city, which you can see from a little public playground. I want to go back there and take pictures. Stirling is actually very easy to navigate, even though the layout isn't in conventional blocks (of course, neither is Pittsburgh).

I wandered back to the center of town and had lunch at NY Slice, which is the best pizza I've had in Scotland. It wasn't the absolute best pizza I've ever had, but it was good thin-crust pizza and more like what I'm used to at home. I'm picky about pizza.

I also had time to go to one of the used book stores, which is actually a thrift shop where the proceeds go to charity. So I felt a little better about spending money on records there. I got a couple Bay City Rollers albums (which are kind of impossible to locate in the US), Steve Winwood's Roll With It (which I've been trying to find for a while), and Argus by Wishbone Ash (which was a rather serendipitous find).

After that, I walked up to Europa Music, a really good record store where I (finally!) got Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and Paul Simon's Graceland, as well as a Bay City Rollers record with cool pull-out posters and Too-Rye-Ay by Dexy's Midnight Runners. When the cashier saw the BCR record, she told me that when she was little and BCR were really popular, her mom would stitch tartan on the sides of her jeans for her so she'd look like the band. So cute!

I've found that carrying cash causes me to buy less, so that's a good tip for the future. I have to be careful that I don't get too many records while I'm here because I do have to get them all home on the plane. I think that when I leave, I'm just going to have to make hard decisions about stuff to give away so there's room for my souvenirs. Probably not going to come in under the weight limit again though...

The one bad thing about today is that I didn't get much any reading done like I wanted to, but I have most of tomorrow for that. The only thing I'm doing on Sunday is going to the Alanwater Brewery in the evening for a meeting of the university's Craft Beer Society. I'm hoping we get to tour the place.

Song of the Day (because most of this post was about bakeries; also idk what this video is, but it was the best sound quality version of the song on youtube):

Rugby and Other Activities

I just feel like I should be updating this blog, so here is a disjointed post about a few major points in my life abroad thus far.

I've been practicing with the women's rugby team, and they are super nice, fun people (on a side note, Stirling is a very friendly city; everyone I've met here has made me feel comfortable talking to them). So far, the practices have been really fun and a lot more mini-game oriented than the ones at Denison, with mostly fun little conditioners and a few regular drills. Although I think that's just because we are trying to get the new people into it before we make them do anything too hard. We had a try it out session today, and I hope all the new rookies come back because they did a good job and put real effort into their first day. Except nobody seems to call them rookies here, and there don't appear to be any rookie challenges or making the rookies carry the pads or anything like that. No fair to those of us who had to be rookies, man.

Anyway, I'm excited for the game prep practice next Tuesday because I get to lift and scrum again. Although the scrum sled here has a ton of big concrete chunks on it, whereas Denison's changes weight with the number of people standing on it, so I'm not sure how much I am going to like pushing a super-heavy sled all the time. They also have these big cylindrical punching bag things they call "sausages," and I'm still not totally sure how I am supposed to tackle them. But it looks fun because it seems like you basically end up bouncing off of it when it hits the ground.

I feel like I wasn't really doing my best in practice today, which is embarrassing because I've been playing for a while. For example, I was doing a rucking drill we do all the time at home, and it took me forever to remember, "oh yeah, I need to power step into the pad." Pathetic. I always forget to do the most obvious stuff. Although I am making a serious effort to be more aggressive and to remember to launch up quickly on defense.
That said, I really want to play well in the game on Wednesday. Hopefully St. Andrews isn't a super hard team to beat so I can sort of ease back into things, seeing as how I haven't actually played a game since October. At least finally visiting St. Andrews will be fun in itself, and maybe we'll hang out there a bit and social.

There's also a local Stirling County women's club that practices on Fridays, and a few of the university players are on it and invited me to check it out this week. Right now, I'm thinking that I probably won't join the team because I believe their games are on Saturdays, and I want to be free to go places on the weekends. But I'm going to try training with them at least once.

In other news, I signed up for a show on Air3, the university's radio station. I didn't give them a lot of options on my schedule (partly because my Mondays are packed and I want weekends off) so I'm a little worried I won't get a slot. But if they put me in a last resort 3-5am show, that would actually be great because then people at home can listen, since that's like 10pm-12am for them. Originally, I actually wasn't even planning to do a show here, but I might as well if there's an opportunity. I don't even have to try out!

Also relating to radio, I'm thinking of going to the National Student Radio Conference over spring break, which is great  for people like me who are seriously interested in a career in radio. I've never heard of anything like it at home (although they probably exist in some state far away from where I live), but it sounds like the perfect opportunity, especially because the school subsidizes part of the cost. And it will be really interesting to go to a conference in a different country. Although part of me is thinking maybe I should use my week off to travel Europe, since a lot of people I know are going to Spain or Italy or wherever during their breaks. But I didn't really have any concrete plans, besides possibly going to London, which I can still do in late May when my classes are over. Oh yeah, I don't think I mentioned that I get the vast majority of May off for finals, which are mostly going to be done in the second week. Hooray for travel time!
But overall, the conference seems like too good of a chance to pass up, and I'm really excited to meet other students who are interested in radio and to hopefully make some connections with stations and broadcasting corporations overseas.

On another note, I'm not sure I still want to join the mountaineering club because it's more expensive than I anticipated, and I think there's more serious mountain climbing than just hiking involved. I really want to go to the places they're going though (Isle of Skye, Shetland, Glencoe, etc.), so I'm still considering it.

With all this other stuff going on, I'm actually a little concerned that I'm not worrying about school enough. But there are no pop quizzes or weekly papers or anything like that, so I don't really have anything to focus on right now besides my reading assignments. I hope that nothing creeps up on me.

Oh, and fun fact: Apparently people don't say "the mall" here? I called the Thistles shopping center "the mall," and some girls on the team were like, "that's so American: the mall." I'm pretty sure I've heard some people here call it that, but maybe I'm wrong.

Song of the Day (just hangin' out right now, gettin' used to a schedule):

Classes and Rugabugs

I'm going to start off this post with a major coup we accomplished last night: Myrthe doesn't like peanut butter because nobody in Europe seems to understand why peanut butter is such a perfect invention. But we made her try Reese's cups, and she liked them. Mission accomplished.

I got up super early at 7am to finish my reading for my two classes today, but I honestly could have waited another couple days because both lectures ended up regurgitating exactly what I had read. And since there was no participation aspect, I didn't need to prove that I already knew it, so it was kind of boring hearing them re-explain the pretty obvious information I'd just learned. I guess it's good to know now that I can wait to have the homework done by Wednesday, when the seminars/tutorials are, because that's when we are supposed to actually discuss the reading.

The lectures today were pretty boring, but that might have just been because I'd already read or knew most of what they said. This was especially true of the film class because it was all about the structure of narratives, which besides being super basic, I'd had a whole class on just last semester. But I think the film class will be pretty interesting once we get into deeper stuff, and the English class should get better as well because it's about taking a linguistic approach to literature, which isn't something I've done very much of before.
It didn't help that two of the four lecturers (there were two in each class) today weren't very engaging, so I spaced a lot. I hope I grow to like them more as the semester goes on. They don't have Scottish accents though, so that automatically makes them less fun to listen to, just sayin'.

There was an hour break between the film class and the movie screening, during which I went to the student union for the Clubs and Societies Fayre. I signed up for a few emailing lists, including the radio station, the craft beer society, the international society, and the rock society, which were all ones I had been interested in initially. I still need to pay a membership fee to officially join the clubs, and I think there's just one flat fee of five pounds that lets you join them all. Rugby will be a little harder because I have to pay for a sports union membership and a specific club membership, but it shouldn't be too ridiculously expensive in the end.

Anyway, the movie screening was of Casablanca, which was good, of course, and I'd seen it before. But I didn't know what to take notes on exactly, since today was pretty introductory. All I really noticed in relation to the class material was that every single one of the loose ends got tied up and there was a romance and a happy ending, as typically happens in classical films. I also noted how pro-America the film's ideology is because everyone in that movie wants to go to America and everyone is all about how great America will be and knows the Allies will win the war. But that was pretty much it. I mostly just enjoyed watching it. Maybe we'll talk more on Wednesday about what we were supposed to notice.

Since the movie ended earlier than the designated screening period, I had about two hours before my first rugby practice with the University of Stirling women's team. I de-tagged all my new rugby stuff and molded my mouthguard (which they apparently call "gum shields" here) before the team captain Iona picked me up at my apartment. She's really nice, and besides the school's team, she plays a for a separate, very high-level rugby club and a netball team, so she's very experienced.
Apparently, the university team is in need of a prop, so it's perfect that I'm there. We had a meeting at the Stirling County Rugby Club, so I got to meet some of the other players, who all seemed nice and friendly. One of them wants to give me the rugby nickname "Gandalf," because my last name is almost "unicorn" which she said is magical and Gandalf is magical. It's a little odd responding to a rugby name, since I've never had one before, but she is being very consistent with it, so it might stick. We'll see. I'm alright with it though cuz Gandalf is a boss name.

The practice wasn't as organized as what I'm used to at Denison, but Iona told me that normally they are more organized. She also said they only practice things like unopposed and scrumming and lifts on Tuesdays during "game prep" practices, because Wednesdays are game days. That's also really different for me, since Denison games are on Saturdays, but Wednesday is good because I want to travel on weekends. I do have to work things out with my tutorial teachers so I can play though.

Mondays and Fridays are just for skill drills, which I assume normally include things like rucking and tackling with the pads, although today we just played some conditioning games like touch rugby to get back into the swing of things for the new season. Iona told me that a lot of the players aren't very experienced, and there weren't nearly as many as at a Denison practice, so it was different playing with such a small group of totally new people, doing different things and even different stretches I'd never heard of. They also have different signals that I have to learn, like when the scrum half throws the ball out, they call "push" instead of "ball's out" or "launch up" to signal the defending side to run up. We also practiced at night, which felt really strange but is good because my film screenings wouldn't allow me to make a 4pm practice. There were lots of little kid rugby teams playing on the fields next to us, and that was kind of cool to see them getting into the sport already. I'd actually never seen kids that young playing rugby before.

Unfortunately, the team has trouble with everyone showing up to practices, so hopefully we can recruit a lot of people tomorrow at the sports clubs involvement fair, because the team could be in danger of folding next year if they don't get enough consistent players. I'm going to help them run the booth in the student union, which should be a good opportunity to get to know the other players, and I will do my best to help get people to sign up. The team is having a try-it-out day for the new recruits next Monday, which will be fun because we get to set up stations with rugby drills for them to do. I think I'm going to like playing with this team, and it will be interesting to find out all the different ways they do they things.

Song of the Day (because I really am right now, after all this stuff):

Two Full Days

The last couple of days have been totally packed with activities, starting at 6am on Saturday when Stephanie and I got up to catch our 7:15 train to Edinburgh. We were going on an Arcadia-run day trip to the Borderlands. On our way from the Edinburgh Waverley train station to the Arcadia study center, Stephanie recognized a friend from her home university crossing the street, and at the same time, I saw that her friend was walking with my friend Moriah from Denison. It was so weird, but awesome, that they had happened to meet each other at St. Andrews and that we all happened to be going on the same day trip. The four of us ended up hanging out together in a group with another one of their friends from St. Andrews.

The tour consisted of riding around on a coach (we weren't supposed to call it a bus because it has seat belts), and our guide Gavin was the most entertaining tour guide ever. He was from Alloa, which is very close to Stirling, so he pretended to be offended that we hadn't been there.
Our first stop was at the Rosslyn Chapel, which was built in the 15th century. It's most famous for being featured in The Da Vinci Code, and for that reason, it became a major tourism spot right after the movie came out. The lady who gave us our tour of the chapel was really nice and knowledgeable. She said that there are meanings for all of the intricate carvings on the walls, but some of them are largely speculation because the records about their meanings were destroyed during the iconoclasm of the Protestant Reformation. Some of the carvings were even vandalized beyond recognition. It's still a really beautiful church though, and a lot of people have added things onto it and tried to restore it throughout its history. We were told that, before the restoration team sealed the walls with cement, they used to be a light shade of pink, which is the natural color of the sandstone in the Borderlands.

An example of the red fields we saw, which are so colored because of the sandstone that made the original  walls of the chapel pink (not my photo)

And the current inside of Rosslyn Chapel

And the outside

After visiting the chapel, we headed to Melrose, and I tried to take some pictures of the lovely scenery along the way.

Which was hard to do on the coach.

At Melrose, we saw the ruins of an old abbey. For ruins, they were still pretty amazing because of how huge they were.

People included for scale

The view from the top of the abbey

Walking back from the bathrooms actually provided the best view.

Melrose was a really cute little town. I bought a brie and cranberry sandwich there for lunch, which is apparently a very delicious Scottish thing. I also tried a lemon bar and a Booster candy bar, which has a really good crunchy chocolate center. My bottle of water was kind of funny because it was "tropical" flavored, but the brand was Purely Scottish Water. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think there's anything tropical about Scottish water.

On our way to Dryburgh Abbey, we stopped at the Leaderfoot Viaduct, which Gavin said is next to two other bridges. Moriah asked where they third bridge was, and he said we were standing on it. None of us had realized that, so we all felt kind of dumb.

Leaderfoot Viaduct: obviously a bridge

Dryburgh Abbey was another collection of ruins, but they were cool too. Sir Walter Scott's grave was the highlight there.

Scott's Grave

Dryburgh Abbey

The last stop was Scott's View, where Sir Walter Scott liked to go to be inspired. After his death, his horses still stopped automatically at the spot because they knew, out of habit, that he loved to stop there. It's really gorgeous, and there are no pictures that do it justice.

It was hard to take a good photo there because the vista was too huge to fit in the frame.

When we arrived back in Edinburgh, we all decided to hang out a bit before leaving the city. We stopped at an Indian restaurant for dinner, then at the Elephant House restaurant where JK Rowling started writing Harry Potter and where I got some awesome shortbread (another famous Scottish thing). Finally we went to Whistlebinkies, which is a pub that has live music every night. They had a cool blues band, and it was super busy, so we had to sit at a table next to some crazy ladies having an awkward bachelorette party. 

We decided that we should meet up again later and visit each others' schools. I really want to see St. Andrews some weekend because they made it sound like so much fun.

The thing I want to see most is St. Andrews's beach. (not my photo)

On Sunday morning, I woke up and immediately wanted to go outside because I saw how blue the sky was. I was sad that I had reading to do instead, but then I found out that my flatmates were planning to go hiking in the massive hills around Stirling. I decided that I couldn't miss out on that, especially on such a beautiful day. Although it was really tiring, it was totally worth it to see the hills and the views from them. Everywhere I turned was a great photo opportunity, and I came away with a ton of pictures. Here are a few of my favorites:

We got a little lost on our way back down the hills, but it allowed me to take some more great pictures. Also, my tennis shoes didn't have the best traction (although I avoided falling over!) and were totally muddy at the end, so I had to wash them in the shower. If I'm going to be doing any more hiking, I seriously need to get some hiking boots.

So now I'm taking a break from homework. I feel like I'm not very social because I'm always working on something instead of hanging out in the kitchen with everyone else. But I really need to focus on my reading, since I have the first meeting of two of my classes tomorrow, and I want to start off on the right foot. I did come in for Olivia's happy birthday song and cake, and then we watched a few episodes of Dr. Who, which is one of her favorite shows. 

It's been a great day, but I guess my punishment for not working during most of it is having to finish my reading instead of sleeping. Oh well.

Song of the Day (because of all the hiking):

P.S. Here are few corrections to my last posts: 

1) Monty Python was also partially filmed at Stalker Castle, not just Doune.

2) Princess Street is actually called Princes Street. I'd never actually seen it spelled out until my second time in Edinburgh, but they sound the same, don't they?

A Sunshine Day

(All of my blog entries are becoming song titles. I guess this is not a particularly creative period for me.)

Since the day before had been so miserably snowy and freezing-rainy, of course yesterday had to be absolutely beautiful. After enduring the awful weather, I had actually been hoping that this would happen, though I was surprised when it did. Almost all of the snow was melted by the time I left the flat. The nice thing about my experience with Scotland's weather is that when the weather is good, it's amazing.

I spent most of the day with Olivia and Myrthe, who are from Wisconsin and Holland respectively, and are the only people in my 6-man flat who aren't with Arcadia's program. We went to the Freebie Fayre (actually spelled olde-timey like that) in the student union, but there weren't very many booths and nothing was actually free except for the flyers advertising events and discount nights at restaurants and clubs. The three of us bought tickets for the Fubar club that night, since they were only 4 pounds. I had never been to a club before, but I'd heard that British clubs are different than American clubs in that, thankfully, the dancing isn't just a lot of grinding, so I felt more comfortable going to my first one here.

I also got an advertisement for this bar called 20rocks, which has a lot of discounts and fun event nights related to music and live bands. It looks really cool and generally more my style than a club, so I'm excited to go sometime.

Later that day, I tried to work on my homework, but I just fell asleep for an hour, and by the time I woke up, it was dinner. So I ate with Olivia and Myrthe, and we had a really good conversation and even discussed plans for dinners and doing other fun stuff in the future, so I'm glad I have some more friends to hang out with now.

The three of us went to the Fubar at ten, when they opened, and we hung out a little bit, waiting for people to show up. We got some 1 pound drinks, which turned out to just be shots (they were pretty good though because they were apple flavored and kind of sugary sour). Eventually, we figured out that everyone was buying their wristbands and then leaving to come back later. That seemed kind of weird because the club was only open until 3am, but we decided to leave and come back later too. When we got back at around midnight, the place was totally packed. A lot of the kids there seemed pretty young, like 17 and 18. I was sort of surprised to learn that it was pretty much the same thing as a Denison dance, except way more people and therefore a lot hotter and harder to move around. I guess I had some fun, but I was pretty tired, and I didn't really care for a that much of the music. They played a weird mix of songs that ranged from the late 90s/early 2000s to last year (and for the most part  they weren't the songs I would have expected). I liked some of the songs and tried to dance the whole time, but I tend to get bored at dances, especially if I don't really love most of the music or know that many people there, so I was ready to go after the first hour. I did like hanging out with Olivia and Myrthe though, so that much was worth it. We finally left at 2am because we all had class the next day.

I actually wasn't too tired when I got up this morning, and I think the really great weather, which was even better than yesterday's, helped me want to get up. I had a class at 10, and I was glad to find that the buses come frequently enough in the morning that you're not likely to miss class if you live off-campus. I only had one class today, which was a lecture about Scottish literature and history. Today was just an overview of the periods of Scottish history we're going to look at. It seems like we're mostly going to examine Scotland's resistance to and acceptance of Anglicization ever since they joined England to form Great Britain in 1707. I really like history, and I found the information new and interesting, so I think I'm going to enjoy this class. The lecturer also seems nice, and I think he's a pretty engaging lecturer, although that's partly because I really enjoy listening to his Scottish accent. I'm glad that I like him so far because he's going to lead the tutorial discussions, which are basically seminars wherein the students can ask questions and discuss the material instead of just listening like in a lecture.

I was kind of surprised that there were a few adults in the class, but I guess that's because I'm used to Denison where everyone is an undergrad and we're almost all average-aged college students. The lecture format didn't bother me as much as I was worried it might, probably because there wasn't an overwhelming number of people (no more than 30) and because the lecture was only fifty minutes long (I hadn't had a fifty minute class since last spring, so that was nice). And I didn't feel like I had to talk. I could just take notes and listen. I'm glad I'll have a chance to participate in the tutorial on Wednesday though because I did get some ideas of things during the lecture that I wanted to discuss. Although I wish that participation counted as part of the grade here. Sadly, only the final papers and exams do.

After class, I went to the student union to buy a University of Stirling sticker for my car and a shirt for my sister. While I was there, I met some people advertising a lunch program run by the Christian Union, and I was glad that they came to me in this way because I had been wondering if Stirling had a Christian group that I could join. I met some really nice people there, and they invited me to their Bible study and weekly meeting next week, which I'm excited about. They are a pretty big organization, so I think I'll be able to make some friends there.

I feel like next week is going to super busy, since it will be my first full week of classes, and I'm planning to go to rugby practice (they call it "training" here), the Christian group, and check out some other clubs like the Rock Society (because they go to concerts and have music-related events), the Air3 radio station (because I want to see how they run their station), the Nature Society (because they do hikes around Stirling and are walking to Dunblane next week), the Craft Beer Society (yes, that exists, they're going to a local brewery next week which sounds interesting), the Fencing Club (to check it out with Olivia, though we probably won't stick with it), and the International Society (to meet other students from around the world). I definitely won't stay with all of the groups, but they have these "Try It Out" sessions during the first couple weeks, where you can just show up for a special event with the club to see if you like it. And you aren't at all obligated to come back. It seems like a really good idea, and I wish the clubs at Denison would do something like that. I mostly just want to use the sessions as opportunities to meet people and do something fun and relaxing.

That's all for now. I have to work on my weekend reading since I'm going to the Borderlands tomorrow. My friend Stephanie is staying in my room tonight so she won't have to take a taxi from campus to the train station at 6am tomorrow, and we'll just walk from here instead. I'm really excited to see other parts of Scotland besides Stirling and Edinburgh, so I'm glad that Arcadia offers us the opportunity. I'm also planning to go to the Isle of Skye, where the famous Eilean Donan Castle is, over spring break with Olivia and Myrthe. There's so much fun stuff coming up, I hope I can focus on studying these next few months!

Song of the Day:

I used to be so into this song in like 10th grade.