Apologies for the delay...

Just a quick note to say that I will try and update my blog again soon - I have lots of pics to post, but am running low on time these days. Believe it or not, it takes me a fair bit of time to put together a cohesive post! My friend Kate from Guelph is here visiting for the week (she's teaching English in Paris for the year), so expect a mega-update (or several consecutive updates) once she leaves me all alone on Saturday and I'm looking for ways to avoid catching up on school related reading. So check back then!

Queen of the castle(s)

Where to begin? I've been busy since I last posted! It's been a fun but often gruelling week, as I spent a good deal of time plugging away at D.H. Lawrence's Women In Love. That being said, I did make time for more castle expeditions (mostly at the expense of the rest of the week's assigned reading), so as promised, more castle pictures!

Our bus tour on Sunday turned out to be a mini-bus tour - only about 15 people total in a van - saving us the embarassment of piling out of a huge coach bus and being full-on touristy. The tour took us south of the city, along the coast, eventually arriving at Bamburgh Castle, across the border in England. Not only is the castle rather stunning, but the location is incredible - it's right on the coast:









In most of these castles they don't let you take photos indoors; luckily, the only staff to prevent you from doing so are usually roaming from room to room, permitting a few sneaky shots.

Turning off the flash helps too - and in the case of the very cheesy dungeon they have set up, the lack of flash makes it look way creepier than it did in person:


Spooky, no? The dungeon is complete with cheesy dungeon music - clearly authentic, as I'm sure back in the day they pumped in creepy tunes to add to the tortured atmosphere.

Next, we were off to Alnwick Castle, located further inland, still in England. Almwick is about as storybook as a castle can get - the fact that it stands in for Hogwarts in the first Harry Potter movie is a testament to that!



(Apparently Harry learns to fly his broomstick here? Forgive me for not knowing the details, but being a humongous literary snob, I eagerly turned down the chance to go on a "Magical History" (read: Harry Potter) tour of the castle, opting for real history instead...)



One of the incredible things about this castle is that people actually live here. For half the year the castle is closed to visitors and the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland (I think) move in. Unfortunately, I couldn't take any photos of the absolutely stunning interior of this place (their library was fabulous - and clearly lived in as well, scattered with family photos and a flatscreen tv). The one inside picture I could sneak is below:


Says a lot about their visitor demographics - it takes a lot of little skater boys wearing heelys (those shoes with wheels in the heels) to necessitate putting up a sign.

It's no surprise, really, that little wannabe-knights flock here - they have two massively cheesy sections, one called A Knight's Quest, where you swordfight dummies and arch and such, and the other called A Dragon's Quest, a blacklight-lit room full of fake skulls, skeletons, terrified little children, and with a smoke-blowing dragon at the end. No pictures of that, sadly - luckily (or embarrassingly?) my quest for knighthood was caught on film:


At this point, my camera batteries conveniently died. The rest of the tour was spent back in the border region of Scotland - we made a brief stop in Kelso for a snack, followed by a trip to the Wallace statute (not to be confused with the Wallace Monument). Finally, we ended up at Scott's View. This was a favourite spot of Sir Walter Scott (who in turn is a favourite of the Scottish - seriously, I may do an entire blog post about all the monuments dedicated to him). Apparently his horses were so used to stopping here that when they were pulling his funeral procession, they stopped here automatically, providing Sir Walt with one last look of the stunningly beautiful country side. As I said, my camera died, so these are shots stolen from friends (that's me on the bench though):



We arrived at the perfect time of day - sun setting over the hills, mostly clear skies, slightly crisp breeze blowing through the valley. I could have stayed there for much, much longer, looking out at the view - the effect was both calming and invigorating all at once. A perfect end to the day.

Spending the day walking and driving in the countryside was appropriate, seeing as it was Thanksgiving Day and I would have normally spent the day in the countryside of Hanover, Ontario. The leaves here are just turning now (mostly just yellow, no brilliant Ontario colours). Our residence's thanksgiving potluck on Saturday was delicious - tons of food and someone even brought Swiss Chalet sauce! - but not quite the same as home - no Jeopardy, for one thing! All things considered, if I'm going to miss thanksgiving at home, I think touring castles is a pretty good alternative activity.

Other updates: Macbeth was pretty good - not as tight as the Stratford production I saw a few years ago, but the genuine Scottish accents certainly add to the play. Macbeth was excellent, Lady Macbeth was overdramatic, and I disagreed with their decisions when it came to the hallucinations (In the "damned spot" scene, Lady McB had blood all over her nightdress and hands, which in my opinion kind of takes away from the "it's all in her head" effect). But, that being said, I'm glad we went!

Last night we went to see a movie called "The Stone of Destiny," about a group of Scottish nationalist Glaswegian students who steal the Scottish coronation stone from Westminster Abbey in the 1950s. It was a tad cheesy but otherwise good fun. A highlight: as the credits rolled, we noticed that the movie received Canadian funding - funny for such a thoroughly Scottish movie to be paid for in part by Canadian tax dollars! (I'm sure that's the sort of thing used by Harper to justify his cuts to arts spending, which we can only hope does not continue in light of this week's election results). Not sure if it'll be released in North America, but if it does come out, I would recommend seeing it - it's really a great story.

This weekend, we're planning to do a day trip to St Andrews, and tomorrow (weather permitting) we might finally walk up the street and do Edinburgh Castle. I think castles in Scotland are like restaurants in Montreal - there seems to be an inexhaustible supply. Some friends are even looking into renting a whole castle for a weekend (yes, apparently you can do that).

That's all for now - happy belated thanksgiving to everyone!

Gift shops and damned spots

You may have noticed that as much as I like to do so-called "local" things when travelling, I still derive quite a bit of enjoyment from a certain type of touristy thing: those that are so tacky that they become hilariously ridiculous because of their tackiness. Kilt towels are one such example (I'll have to get a photo of one of those puppies up here). Stirling Castle provided a few more examples. Behold:


They are all about the whisky here, or at least tourists are all about buying the overpriced whisky in bottles of various shapes and sizes, affiliated with certain clans and whatnot. I suppose I shouldn't knock whisky til I have a "wee dram", but... really? You need a one-stop shop (in a castle, no less) for both your booze and your biography of William Wallace? Only in Scotland...

The following pic is a stealth, no flash, pretend-I'm-looking-at-photos-I've-already-taken-on-my-digi gift shop shot (they tend to dislike it when you photograph the merchandise):

Please note the fine music available for sale: Ceilidh Minogue, and next to that, Deaf Sheppard. My favourite, though, is the Red Hot Chilli Pipers. Ah, how I love a good (or even bad) pun.

Tomorrow night we're going to see "the Scottish play" itself, Macbeth. Having read Macbeth and also having seen it performed a few times now, I have to admit that it's not my favourite Shakespeare play (sorry, Will). That being said - I'm in Scotland. I really can't pass up this chance. I'm too much of a lit nerd not to go - the other day while looking at a map of Scotland I spotted Cawdor and got all excited. What I am also really excited about is the possibility of seeing Hamlet in London's West End next summer - Kenneth Branaugh is directing, and Jude Law will play the Prince of Denmark. Also on my list of places to go: the Globe Theatre (didn't get the chance to go inside when I was in London this past February) and the real Stratford-Upon-Avon.

I'll let you know how this production compares to Stratford, Ontario one I saw a couple years ago. I'll warn you in advance, however, that my next post may not be til next week - this weekend I have to read all of D.H.Lawrence's Women in Love (550 pages) and as much as possible of A Scots Quair (600+ pages), as well as a Canadian Thanksgiving Potluck on Saturday (for which I am making my speciality, mashed potatoes) and our castle bus tour day trip on Sunday. Busy weekend ahead! And in one final bit of news - my special ballot finally came today - hopefully I can FedEx it or something and get it to Ottawa in time for the Tuesday at 6pm deadline!

Day tripper

Amongst the many perks of studying in Edinburgh is our proximity to other really cool stuff. For instance: this past Saturday, we hopped on a train (for just under an hour, and costing 4 pounds/$8 round trip) to Stirling, a small city situated right between the Highlands and the Lowlands, home to a rather impressive castle, and setting of great clashes between the Scottish and the English. Click here for a little backgrounder courtesy of Wikipedia.


Like Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle is built upon a crag in the middle of the city.





Though the weather was typically Scottish (read: drizzly, windy, and cold), it didn't bother us to much, if only because it meant we could take brooding landscape shots such as this one:

The weather did, however, keep us from hiking up to the nearby Wallace Monument, which can just be seen on the distant hill in this picture.


Here's a better view of the monument, complete with rolling mists and creepy graveyards:


Robert the Bruce watches over the land:



The following shot was taken inside the Great Hall of the Castle - look carefully and you'll notice that the man on the far right is dressed as a knight:


They're in the process of restoring the palace itself, so unfortunately we couldn't go in and see the royal apartments etc. However, we did get to tour a nearby restored 17th century townhouse called Argyll's Lodging. Apparently the man who founded Nova Scotia once lived here:




The castle as seen from a nearby graveyard:


Below is the Church of the Holy Rood, which, according to my sources (i.e. Wikipedia) is the only surviving church in the UK where a coronation has taken place, apart from Westminster Abbey in London. Unfortunately, it is closed from October to April - being in town on October 4th, we just missed our chance. This just means that I'll have to come back next summer (and hopefully do the Wallace Monument while in town).



And here is Stirling proper, as well as the only glimpse of blue sky we had all day:



The last thing we did before heading home was visit the old Stirling Bridge, site of the famous Battle of Stirling Bridge in which William Wallace fought (hence the nearby monument). This is me (in case you couldn't tell), on the bridge, with the castle (the beige-ish building on the hill) in the background:


This weekend we're doing a bus tour to some other castles nearby, and hopefully sometime this week I'll finally make a visit to Edinburgh castle, as I am now a member of Historic Scotland, which means I paid 29 pounds and now have "free" entry to a large number of historic sites around the country. Woot! Expect more castle pictures next week.

Off to a running start

As you may have noticed, it's been just over a week since my last entry. School is almost entirely to blame for this delay, as this week all of my classes have finally started, and I had a small assignment due for the Research Skills and Methods course I had last week. Despite feeling a bit swamped initially, I am liking my program so far. I only have two classes a week (one on Modernist literature and cultural theory, the other on Canadian Lit, funnily enough), which means I also have a four day weekend, but also tons of reading to do every week. In the Modernism class I'm getting to read a lot of classics which I've always meant to get to (for next week I have to read Heart of Darkness, for example). Despite having written my undergrad thesis on Alice Munro, I haven't every really done a basic CanLit class, and this one takes an interesting post-colonial/gender approach. I'm the only Canadian in the class, so I do get the occasional question about Canadian history (which is sometimes followed by a shrug of shoulders and nervous laughter). The profs seem friendly, down to earth, and quite funny, so it looks as though I will get along quite well here. The CanLit class is held in the prof's office, so halfway through we break for tea and chocolate biscuits!

If you'll indulge my English Lit nerdiness for just awhile longer, I'll proudly tell you that I also now have a general reader's ticket for the National Library of Scotland. This means that I can go in and use their material (which is generally kept away in storage, and cannot be taken out of the building). The NLS is a copyright library, meaning that anytime a book is published in the British Isles, a copy must be sent to the NLS. So basically, they have everything - including a bunch of rare materials and manuscripts.

The Edinburgh Public Library is just across the street. I have a feeling I will be studying there a lot - the building is gorgeous, with a big domed main room, and those two-story bookshelves which have a balcony half-way up. Best of all, both of these libraries are just around the corner from my residence! The University library is another story - although they have a lot of online materials, their actual holdings seem rather disorganized - half are shelved using Dewey decimal, the other half using Library of Congress, and the online catalogue is not nearly as detailed as McGill's.

Turning back to topics you might actually care about, there is still lots to explore in and around Edinburgh. A bunch of us have signed up to take a day-trip next weekend to see some castles south of here, and a potential visit to Stirling this weekend is in the works. I am beginning to feel (or at least convincing myself that I am) more like a local, pushing past tourists on my way to campus and looking unfazed when the Castle's 1 o'clock cannon strikes. I'm getting much better at looking right, then left when crossing the street, although signs like this are still helpful:


I've had not one but two deep fried mars bars, and let me say that they are delicious. The combo of fried dough and chocolate almost reminds me of beaver tails back home. And in lieu of poutine, our new post-bar obsession is chips with curry sauce, as documented below (with fish and chips in the background):



We also found the sauce in a jar at Sainsbury's (a grocery store here) for 4p - that's about 8 cents! Compared to the 2 pounds 50 you pay at a chip shop, homemade curry fries may be a much cheaper option. I've also had steak pie (delicious), but despite my love of a good brunch, have still not had a traditional Scottish breakfast! Hopefully that will change soon.

Still on the (recurring, it seems) topic of food, we've also discovered a brilliant (hehe) farmer's market, located just on the other side of the castle from us:


It's mostly organic food from local farms, but surprisingly not too pricey, and all in the shadow of the castle! They have lots of different types of meat (venison and ostrich, for example), but the highlight so far has been the delicious, delicious cheese! I got some excellent mature cheddar two weekends ago, and some tasty brie this weekend. The fresh scones are also a good buy - future visitors will have to come along and check it out!

Tonight we're all going to a pub quiz, which should be fun, and then tomorrow I may meet up with second-cousin Natasha Olechowski who is in town for a visit. Then may watch a taped version of the Palin-Biden debates on Sunday at a Democrats Abroad event (last weekend we watched the Obama-McCain debate in the same cafe). Weird how close to North American and home technology can make me feel - especially the miracle that is Skype. Hope everyone is well, I'll try and post again soon.