Sarah Senter's Crash Guide to Paris 101 (or, An American in Paris Part 2)

Eiffel Tower

I mean, come on. You're potentially in Paris for only one day - why wouldn't you climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower? I mean, it's only one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world! 

670 stairs later I was beginning to have second thoughts. Steps are not my strong suit - I am a traditionally built lady, and do not normally find myself scaling massive flights of stairs to the tops of towers, but let me tell you - the view made every single step worth it. It was a cold, cloudy day, but we could still see a long ways into the distance, and the view of the city was absolutely phenomenal. It was a totally surreal experience, standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and being able to look down on the entirety of Paris and pick out all of the famous buildings and structures, and one that I would recommend to anyone. The Eiffel Tower is also beautiful at night, as we had seen the night before--they light up the entire structure, and every hour on the hour, the lights start to sparkle and glimmer, and it's truly spectacular.

Notre-Dame Cathedral


Like I've said before, I love cathedrals. I think they're absolutely stunning and awe-inspiring, and let me tell you - none that I have seen are more stunning or awe-inspiring than the cathedral of Notre-Dame. (The fact that The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is one of my favorite Disney movies is irrelevant...heh.) The amount of exquisite detail in the stonework and gargoyles and chimera is astonishing, and the stained glass and Gothic architecture are positively beautiful, and you get an immediate sense of it's 850+ year history as soon as you see it and walk through its massive doors.

Inside, the cathedral was dimly lit by chandeliers and all of the candles from the surrounding chapels, and they had a path roped off for tourists to walk around the perimeter of the cathedral. Since it was Sunday, there was also a mass going on in Notre-Dame as we were walking around, and this made it even more eerily beautiful. The central nave of of the cathedral was packed with people attending the mass, and the organ music and the Latin chanting of the priests went on the whole time we were there, and they made the whole experience very atmospheric. They even had the swinging incense holder, which sent smoke up into the vast expanse of space above the alter in front of the exquisite rose windows - absolutely beautiful.

Shakespeare & Co. Bookshop


Across the Seine from the Ile-de-Cite where Notre-Dame and the Palais de Justice are, is an English-language bookshop called Shakespeare & Co, which was founded in the 1920s, and apparently was frequented by all of the American and British ex-patriates living in Paris during the interwar years, like Enrest Hemingway, Gertrude, Stein, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald and more. It's a tiny little shop with two floors, crammed with books in every single possible place, as well as reading rooms, tiny writing rooms with notebooks and typewriters for visitors to leave messages for later visitors, beds for people to sleep on (including beginning writers), and a piano for anyone to play. It reminded me of a much, much more compact, and much much older-feeling version of Ed McKay's - I figured I should buy something, just to say that I had, and I ended up getting a collection of selected poems by Dylan Thomas. Score.

The Louvre


Ahhh, the Big Mama of all art museums. I can't really talk about all that we saw in the Louvre without going on and on and on, but suffice to say...1) It's absolutely gorgeous. 2) It's absolutely MASSIVE. 3) It was SO bizarre seeing all of these amazing paintings and sculptures that you see in textbooks and online for years and years in person. Examples: The Mona Lisa (oh yes, we saw the Mona Lisa), Liberty Leading the People (the Viva la Vida painting, guys), Napoleon crowning Josephine in Notre-Dame, the Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, a slew of awesome Egyptian artifacts, and so so so so much more. Expect pictures.

Montmartre and Sacre-Coeur

The 19th-century haven of bohemian artists, painters, and writers is just as charmingly boho and vibrant today, and we walked through the Artists' Square and several little side streets that were all lit up with Christmas lights - c'est magnifique. There was even an accordion busker - it's legit guys.

Sacre-Coeur is another cathedral, albeit one that was built in the early 1900s, but it was nonetheless just as beautiful as Notre-Dame. It's a huge, domed white-stone building sitting at the very top of the hill of Montmartre, and it holds some of the largest and most ornate wall and ceiling mosaics in the world. The bells were ringing as we were walking around the basilica - which I think is modeled on St. Peter's in Rome? - which made it even more epically amazing. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the cathedral, but I did get some lovely nighttime pictures of the outside of Sacre-Coeur, and the view of Paris from the hill.

Also Included in Sarah Senter's Crash Course Guide to Paris 101

• Walkbys of So Many More Parisian Landmarks (ie the Musee d'Orsay, L'Academie, Place de la Concorde, Tuileries Garden, the Moulin Rouge, the Pantheon, the Sorbonne, the Hotel de Ville, and so many many more.)
• Delicious food: Onion and cheese soup, hot wine and hot chocolate, crepe au chocolat e chantilly (Nutella and whipped cream - HELL YES), all ordered in broken French by MOI.
• Reenactments by Sarah and myself of various moments from a Hunchback of Notre-Dame inspired Whose Line is it Anyway? sketch in front of several Paris landmarks. Video evidence will surface, but content yourself with the original video, so you can compare later. :-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YkR5byDw2w

An American in Paris

So after a hair-raising disaster of canceled flights and trains, terrible weather, and an emergency bus ride to Glasgow, I finally (finally!) made it to PARIS, FRANCE to meet Sarah and Jacob!!!!!!! We had been planning this since the beginning of the semester, so it was ABOUT DAMN TIME. I got into Paris proper around 9:00 Saturday night, and I tell you - I have never been happier to see anyone in my life than I was to see those guys.  I was so happy to be in PARIS (it must always be referred to in capital letters) that I immediately forgot all of the travel hell that it had taken to get me there.

Anyhoos, since I wasn't able to get there until Saturday night, that left me with really only one full day in Paris before Jacob and I were supposed to fly back to Prague on Monday morning. This was unfortunate, but not to be helped, so Operation: Take Full Advantage of the Time You Have in Paris was instigated in full effect. Time was not wasted. Within ten minutes of getting off the bus from the Beauvais airport (and snarfing down the delicious pain-au-chocolat Sarah brought for me), we were walking around the streets of Paris, which let me tell you are absolutely gorgeous, most especially at nighttime. We would be walking along a beautiful stone bridge over the Seine, the streetlights would be reflecting in the water, I would look up....and see a world-famous Parisian landmark like, say, I dunno, THE EIFFEL TOWER or NOTRE DAME or THE LOUVRE. You know. Nbd. Actually BFD.

So after a nighttime wander through Paris, a delicious (and marvelously inexpensive) dinner at a wonderfully atmospheric cafe in Saint-Michel, and a soujourn up the Champs-Elysees through the Parisian Christmas markets to the Arc de Triomphe, we split up and Jacob and I went back to our hostel in Montmartre to prepare for the intsense, crash course of Paris that was in store for us on Sunday.

See the next post for Sarah Senter's Crash Guide to Paris 101, since this post would have been obscenely long had I included it..

Also, pictures are to come once I get back to Edinburgh - I forgot to bring the cord that connects my camera to a laptop, so they have to stay on my camera until next week. Apologies, but they'll be worth the wait! Until then, enjoy these videos of one of my favorite movies - rest assured that this is what actually happened. Gershwin and hordes of French children and all.

An American in Paris, Example 1

An American in Paris, Example 2

An American in Paris, Example 3

Computer troubles = Bane of my existence.

Hello all!

Apologies for the long silence on my end, but November has been a super busy month, what with shows closing, papers to be written, presentations to be created, people coming and visiting and having subsequent adventures, etc. etc. etc....And now, to top it all off, my Wake laptop - good old pain in the ass ThinkPad laptop - is truly on its last legs, and is refusing to connect to the Internet. It has been somewhat virusy and finnicky since I got to Scotland, but now it's just being more of a nuisance than a help, so I'm being forced to use the computers in the residence hall lab and the library. Man, luckily I am getting a new one in January - if I didn't have to return this one to Wake Forest, I would gleefully take a baseball bat to it.

This means I'm not entirely sure how reliable (or frequent) my internet access will be, but I am going to do my best to keep in touch with everyone, and keep trying to post things on this blog. The next four weeks (only four! Gah! It's gone by so fast!) are going to be filled with really exciting things and adventures to be had, and so I'm going to try my best and keep up to date with blogging about them! As for the past few weeks, there will hopefully be some retroactive blog posts detailing those adventures, such as Amadeus, Remembrance Day, and Sarah coming to visit Edinburgh and the wonderful things we did then!

Love until the next blog post

There was a star danced, and under that was I born.

So yesterday was my 21st birthday.

Yeah, it's weird.

To be honest though, turning 21 in a country where I've been able to drink legally for the past three years made it a little bit more low-key than if I had been in the States, where I'm sure all of my friends would have abducted me and made certain that I made very poor life decisions for the rest of the night. :-) However, this does not mean that my birthday was dull, not by any means! I had a really lovely day, and I had a lot of fun and spent the day with some really wonderful people, so I think that this birthday could be classified as a success!

Also, I'd say that my birthday haul was pretty respectable: I got a lovely card from Poppa and Joyce, and a really cute one from Lydia; I had a fantastic long Skype call with Mom, and a great email from Uncle Alan (both of whom have the same birthday - twins!) and so many of my friends and family wished me a happy birthday via Facebook - it's always wonderful to go through all of the wishes, especially when people write/record really hilarious things (*cough*TreEaston*cough*). A bunch of the girls in the residence hall and I also got together and had a nice little party that consisted of junk food (including about 8 or so Mars Bars that they got me instead of a cake, which was fantastic), alcoholic beverages, and a very amusing viewing of the Disney version of "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame" (SO GREAT.) Couldn't have asked for a better way to spend my birthday.

However, the best thing I got for my birthday this year.....were these:

Flowers from Quill.

Totally made my day. My room smells wonderful now. :-)


UPDATE:   AND, to make my birthday/day-after-birthday even BETTER, The Decemberists' newest album has a name, a track list, and a release date. I AM SO EXCITED YOU HAVE NO IDEA. http://www.zmemusic.com/feature/news/new-decemberists-album-announced-the-king-is-dead-512536/

Speas and Eichhorn Do Edinburgh, Part Two

Concluding the tale of two Americans gallivanting about Edinburgh for the weekend.

Anyhoos.

So, at the end of last week's installment, I had collected Jacob from the airport, we had visited the Queen (well, sorta), and eaten our weight in delicious Chinese noodles. So great.

Anyhoos, the next day was spent wandering up and down the Royal Mile, including visits to Edinburgh Castle, St. Giles' Cathedral, and various touristy shops. But the main part of the day was spent hiking Arthur's Seat, the extinct volcano in the middle of Holyrood Park, right behind the residence halls where I live. I hadn't made the climb before, and since it's pretty  much something you have to do at some point while in Edinburgh, I figured it would be a great thing to include in Jacob's Edinburgh experience.

Arthur's Seat. Also, I didn't take this picture - I got it from Google. There is no snow on the ground here, thankfully.

Anyhoos...so as you can see, there is a very nice, relatively easy way to climb up the mountain, starting with the footpath that goes off to the left from the top of the road in this picture. That path curves up to the right around the mountain with a very  nice stone staircase that has been placed into the side of the mountain. This makes it pretty simple to climb up to the top, and lets you get up there without losing too much breath.

Yeah. Jacob and I missed that path.

In my defense, I had never made the climb before. But we kept going around to the right, and ended up heaving ourselves up the much, much steeper slope with not much path to speak of -- more like footholds cut into the hill. There was a bit of scrambling up a tiny rock wall portion of the mountain, but we got to the top with little problems.

I was really excited.

So was Jacob.

The view was indeed amazing.

 As you can see, the view made the unexpectedly-arduous trek totally worth it.

So then came the time when we needed to descend - for we had other misadventures to attend to. Since we'd missed the easy way up, we both agreed that we would take it on the way down. As we prepared to descend, we realized that there was a flaw in this plan: we hadn't taken the staircase up. So we didn't know where the staircase began. Crap.

So we started climbing down the middle of the mountain, hoping to intersect with the easy path at some point. Well - we didn't. We ended up climbing down A NEARLY VERTICAL INCLINE OF ALMOST SHEER ROCK. WE WERE LEGITIMATELY ROCK-CLIMBING DOWN AN EXTINCT VOLCANO.

It was pretty awesome. A little scary. But awesome. There were a few times when the rocks under our feet got a little shaky, and we slipped and fell/slid on our asses (by "our" I mean "mine," as I am a traditionally-built lady and weigh significantly more than Jacob McLankyFace). BUT WE WERE VICTORIOUS.

Yeah. We climbed that. THAT'S RIGHT.

Needless to say - the next time I climbed Arthur's Seat, I made sure to find the EASY way up.

Speas and Eichhorn Do Edinburgh, Part One

Eureka! A blog post!

I know, I know, I know. I've been neglecting my blog. But I'll make it up to you, Blog, I promise. I'll buy you some nice HTML codes to make it up to you.

Anyhoos, this past weekend was very exciting, because Jacob came from Prague to visit! He's the first person from Wake that I've seen this semester, and we had a really wonderful time wandering around Edinburgh and seeing all of the sites. I've been having random bouts of slight homesickness recently, and hanging out with someone from home was really great and reassuring - plus, after a month and a half of functioning in Czech, I'll bet that an English-speaking country was a nice break for Jacob.

So on Friday afternoon I met Jacob at the airport, and we bused back into the city for lunch with no problems. This was very comforting, because airports make me really nervous - I'm always terrified that some crazy, random happenstance will pop up out of nowhere, like a passport or security problem, or the plane had to land somewhere else or something, and everything will derail. Luckily this did not happen, and we got into Edinburgh without a worry.

So after we had lunch at my favorite baguette shop on Nicolson Street, we dropped off our stuff at my room, and we went to visit the Palace of Holyroodhouse, a gorgeous building that I have walked past but not actually gone in. The Palace is Queen Elizabeth II's (and other members of the royal family's) official residence whenever they are in Scotland, although it's arguably more famous as the main home of Mary Queen of Scots. We couldn't take pictures inside, but it was absolutely beautiful - it had dozens of impressive tapestries and paintings and original (17th-century) plasterwork ceilings, as well as an entire exhibit (with jewels and heirlooms) on the Stuarts, from Mary's immediate ancestors to the 18th-century Jacobites.

The Palace of Holyrood House. Where the Queen lives, yo.

Yakob! They gave us cool audio guide tour things. We were really excited.

 The personal chambers of Mary Queen of Scots were also preserved, including the tiny dining room where Mary's second husband Lord Darnley (who was an asshole of the first degree, by the way) and his posse killed her personal secretary David Rizzio. They broke into the Queen's apartments, dragged Rizzio from behind her while they held her at gunpoint, stabbed him 56 times, and left his body on the floor. The Queen was seven months pregnant, and they still have a plaque on the wall showing where Darnley & Co. left Rizzio's body after they killed him. It was eerie. My inner history nerd almost had an aneurysm.

After a lovely tour of the Palace (and after Jacob had to drag me away from all of the pretty pretty [and creepy] history), we wandered around the adjacent Holyrood Abbey and the Palace Gardens. Absolutely stunning.

The ruins of Holyrood Abbey.

Holyrood Abbey with Arthur's Seat in the background. He will feature heavily in the sequel to this post.

We topped this day off with a trip to Red Box, which is a build-your-own-meal kind of Chinese restaurant, where they serve your food in big paper boxes and give you a pair of chopsticks and let you fend for yourself. Quite possibly THE BEST CHINESE I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE.

SERIOUSLY.

I may or may not have reached nirvana.

My heart's in the Highlands...

“My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,

My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer -

A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe;

My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.”

Robert Burns, when he wasn’t busy getting his face slapped all over Scottish money or putting the moves on some unsuspecting Highland lass, actually wrote some pretty cool and beautiful poetry—including the above verse. Sentimentality and pastoral images aside (oh those crazy Romantics), it’s a pretty accurate statement: the Highlands are absolutely AMAZING.

I spent the past two weekends in the Highlands - last weekend in Insch, Aberdeenshire, and this past weekend about 100-some miles west in Inverness - and I absolutely loved every minute. Because I'm so behind on blog posts, I'm not going to try and write retroactive blog posts about the weekends; instead, I'm going to link everyone to my photo albums from both weekends, and everyone should be able to see them.

Also - I will get better about posting. I promise.


INSCH HOMESTAY: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=559220&id=820825600&l=d793ca4911

IFSA-BUTLER TRIP TO INVERNESS: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=560114&id=820825600&l=1112721521

 Also, if these links don't work, let me know. We'll figure something out.

Music for a rainy day in Edinburgh.

Although I know I should really get used to this kind of weather, today is really only the second or third day since I got here where it has really rained. As in, more than a drizzle or a light rain. It's one of those days when the fog comes in around Arthur's Seat and the wind starts endangering everyone's umbrellas, and where I just want to curl up in an easy chair with some hot chocolate and watch movies all day.

Alas - I have to do laundry at some point today, and should probably try and get some of the online reading done for my lectures. I should also probably go to the Travel Fair they're having at the IFSA-Butler Scotland office today, but I honestly don't feel like walking the couple of miles to and from in the rain.

However - in addition to my laundry and coursework, I feel like an afternoon of staying in, watching episodes of Robin Hood (the most recent BBC TV series), and eating leftover pizza from the IFSA dinner last night is a GREAT idea. And since I really only seem able to communicate through other people's music, I will share with you all the music that I've been listening to recently that I think really encapsulates the experience of a rainy day in Edinburgh.

A RAINY DAY IN EDINBURGH

1. Postcards from Far Away - Coldplay
2.  Dead and Lovely - Tom Waits
3. The Tree - Blitzen Trapper, with Alela Diane
4. Race You Back Home - Elizabeth & the Catapult
5. Not in Nottingham (from Disney's Robin Hood) - Mumford & Sons
6. Wide-Eyed, Legless - Laura Veirs
7. June Hymn - The Decemberists
8. Sail On, Sailor - The Beach Boys
9. Interstate Love Song [Acoustic] - Stone Temple Pilots
10. In Our Talons - Bowerbirds
11. Rambling Man - Laura Marling

A word on Scottish pragmatism.

I'm trying to keep up with the blog. Really truly. Promise. I'll be posting an entry on classes and such things as that once I get into the swing of things, and have a chance to feel out exactly how each one is turning out. For the moment, I will suffice with--as the title suggests--a word on Scottish pragmatism. Of the most delicious kind.

Imagine, if you will, a hamburger. We've all had one. A normal, regular hamburger. We've also all had French fries, or chips, as they call them across the pond. Quite delicious, I'd say. Here is a visual aid, just for reference:

 So, imagine my surprise, when I ordered a "hamburger roll with chips" for lunch the other day, the very nice Scottish woman pulled out a MASSIVE bread roll (about the size of my face) and proceeded to stuff said roll with a FRIED hamburger patty (seriously), a huge handful of potato wedge fries, ketchup and salt. On one roll. Size of face. I practically had to wheel the thing out of the shop. Like so:

Because really, who needs a separate side of fries when you can just stuff it all into one big fried conglomeration of greasy delicious food?

God bless Scottish pragmatism.

First day of classes!

And so it begins.

Today, after nigh on two weeks in Scotland (holy crumbcake, Batman, has it really been only two weeks? It seems like I've been here forever...), I finally started classes! I'd almost forgotten that I was here to actually, you know...STUDY...and I'm glad that the courses have finally gotten under way. I usually hate the first week of classes because everyone has to talk shop and go over the mechanics and the structure and policies of all their subjects, but I was getting a bit restless with nothing really structured to do with my days.

I only have two classes on Monday, one at 11:10 and one at 2:00 (or 14:00, as some clocks say here...confusing as hell.) The first one is a third-year honors level history seminar that meets once a week from 11:10 to 12:50, called Ghana: Colonialism to Socialism, 1880-1985. From a look through the course syllabus and what the professor (whose name is Paul Nugent, by the way---totally cool) was talking about today, this class sounds like it's going to be really interesting. I took an introductory African history class last year, which of course focused on the whole continent; I'm looking forward to focusing on such a specific region and time period. Downside? I have to lead discussion at one of the seminars, which is quite possibly one of my least favorite things to do in academics ever. Oh well. It happens.

My other class, Celtic Civilization 1A, is structurally very different: it's a first-year class, with lectures three days a week and a tutorial (smaller, discussion based class) once a week. From what I can tell, this class starts out with an introductory history of the ancient and medieval Celtic peoples and then moves into the current sociological implications of the term "Celtic" and "Celt." Apparently there's all sorts of components to the class, including history, culture, language, art, and anthropology. I'm excited. I'm picturing something like this:

 I expect to be disillusioned of this rather quickly. :-)

Anyhoos...here's my schedule as of now:


MONDAY

• 11:10AM - 12:50PM - Ghana: Colonialism to Socialism, 1880-1985
• 2:00PM - 2:50PM - Celtic Civilisation 1A (The 's' is going to trip me up so bad...)

TUESDAY

• 10:00AM - 10:50AM - Introduction to Medieval Europe
• 12:00PM - 12:50PM - Tutorial for Celtic Civ 1A
• 2:00PM - 2:50PM - Celtic Civ 1A
• 4:10PM - 5:00PM - Tutorial for Intro to Medieval Europe

WEDNESDAY

• NO CLASSES! - This day is saved for exploration. And schoolwork, most likely. Oy.

THURSDAY

• 10:00AM - 10:50AM - Introduction to Medieval Europe
• 2:00PM - 2:50PM - Celtic Civ 1A

FRIDAY

• NO CLASSES! 3 DAY WEEKEND! WAHOO!

Coronation Chicken Recipe!

Okay, two posts in one day. Unheard of. Luckily this is just a real quick one!

I have discovered a dish over here in the UK, one that is particularly delicious on a sandwich with brie cheese and lettuce, but can also be eaten on its own or in baked potatoes or wraps. This dish is called coronation chicken, and it's similar to chicken salad, I suppose. It's essentially baked chicken pieces in a mayo-based curry sauce, with various and sundry herbs and spices added in as you please. It supposedly was created some sixty years ago by the royal cooks for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Hence the name.

It don't look like much...but it is actually DELICIOUS.

ANYHOOS. Here is the recipe, if you wanted to make it for yourself. This is where I'm going to get the recipe for when I try to make it back in the States.

INGREDIENTS

• Shredded Chicken from a medium sized pre-roasted chicken
• 3 tbsp Mayo
• Mild curry powder to taste
• 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
• Ground Black Pepper
• 1 tbsp Mango chutney (optional)
• sultanas - as many as you fancy (optional)

PREPARATION

1. Mix the mayo, curry powder, cinnamon, black pepper, chutney and sultanas together. Altering quantities to your preferred taste
2. Mix the combined ingredients with the shredded chicken
3. Serve with baked potatoes, wraps, sandwiches etc
   
   Enjoy!

Cathedrals, Daleks, and Popes, Oh My!

First off, let me just say that I am not a religious person. Religion has never been a part of my life; I was not raised going to church, and I have always found many things about organized religion (any religion, just for the record) troubling and unintuitive. It's just not something that I really think about, although some people I know would throw a fit if they heard me saying that. However, I do have great respect for religious people (although, thanks to a few angry, angsty teenage years, this has not always been so), and I find that religion continues to play a large role in my chosen path of academics. History and religion are oftentimes inseparably linked, especially in the time following the fall of the Roman Empire and the conversion of much of modern-day Europe to Christianity. Monarchs and political rulers could make or break kingdoms depending whether they were Catholic or Protestant supporters; people could raise rebellions over proposed changes to the Church's prayerbook. History and religion go together like the Queen and her Welsh corgies. Get me?
Ergo.

Despite being a strictly non-religious person, I loves me some cathedrals. The history in the sweeping Gothic architecture and beautiful stained glass is practically palpable. There are always dozens and dozens of stories and traditions practically carved into the building itself, so many that you almost have to go on a guided tour, because most of these things you'd never notice or figure out on your own.

I went on one such guided tour of St. Giles' Cathedral, or the High Kirk of Edinburgh, the other day, and it was really really beautiful. St. Giles was a very popular medieval saint associated with the poor, lepers and cripples, and animals - he saved a deer from being killed by a king by stopping the arrow with his hand, and he is most often depicted holding some kind of deer or faun with an arrow sticking out of his hand. In fact, because of St. Giles' association with animals, on any Thursday of the year you can bring your pet into the cathedral, and they will give them water, something I thought was really neat. Say what you want about the Scots, but they do love their dogs - there's even a dog cemetery in Edinburgh Castle!

The interior of St. Giles' Cathedral.

Looking back towards the front stained glass window.

Anyways, our tour guide, John, was a hilarious little Scotsman who had a penchant for using us to reenact the historical and Biblical scenarios associated with the cathedral. For example: the initiation into the Order of the Thistle, the baptism of Royal Navy babies, and the events leading up to the executions of two rival Restoration noblemen (who are now buried across the cathedral from each other).

Two girls from our tour, with John and an adorable little Polish girl who was used to reenact several historical occurrences and ceremonies. Currently they are being administered the oath that every initiate into the Order of the Thistle must take. (The little girl also got to sit in the Queen's seat on the other side of the Chapel of the Thistle.)

John also had a habit of dropping gems of wisdom into his otherwise humorous and informative tours. He made it very clear from the outset that he meant no disrespect to anyone else's religion; he was just informing us of this particular church's principles and the beliefs that went into its building. He also encouraged us to never lose sight of what it is like to see the world through a child's eyes, and the inherent imagination that we inevitably forget as we get older. He says that children on his tours have noticed things about the cathedral that he himself had never seen before, even after working there for nearly twenty years. For example:

E.T.'s head?

A Dalek?

But the thing John said that I will really remember was this:

"Now, I want to say something. If you hear or see something in here that might make you laugh....please do. Don't try to quiet yourself...because He is not going to disapprove of laughter in a church."

I dunno. I'm not religious, like I said. But I feel like there's something to take away from that. Maybe that's just me.

Anyways, the next day, I saw the Pope, who was in Edinburgh as part of the first papal visit to the UK since 1982. It's true. He drove within about 30 feet of me. I have pictures as proof.

Pope Benedict XVI. In his Pope-Mobile. I also love his little tartan scarf/sash thing. I think it's cute.

Bit of catch up...

Blogging is hard, guys. Really. BUT. I am determined to keep this going this semester, so here goes: Blog Post Take 2!

Since the last post I made, I’ve finished the IFSA-Butler orientation, moved into my room in Pollock Residence Halls, met a WHOLE lot of people from a WHOLE lot of places (including various places around the United Kingdom and Ireland, Spain, Slovakia, Poland, and Australia), had my first plate of fish and chips and pint of Guinness, took a tour of beautiful Edinburgh Castle, began the infamous Freshers’ Week, did some traditional Scottish dancing, got my finalized class schedule and walked the equivalent of probably 10+ miles all around Edinburgh. And more. This is in the span of about four days? Yeah. Talk about overwhelming. Here are some visual aids, to inspire the imagination:

The top of Calton Hill, looking toward Arthur's Seat.

First pint of Guinness!

The entrance to Edinburgh Castle, guarded by Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland (left), and Sir William Wallace (right).

An absolutely packed Scottish ceilidh (pronounced KAY-lee). It's like swing dancing...on speed.

Orientation finished fine—it was essentially a bunch of power points about expectations and procedures of the University of Edinburgh and living in Scotland, and the like. We did have two really cool people come and speak to us: an Edinburgh policeman who talked to us rather hilariously about personal health and safety, and Margo MacDonald, a Member of Scottish Parliament (MSP), who talked to us a bit about Scottish politics historically and currently, and also took questions both intelligent (something about David Cameron’s coalition government?) and…not so intelligent (Northern lights? Really?) She was quite humorous, and had a thicker, almost Glaswegian accent than some of the program directors, which was actually really lovely to listen to. She also offered us some tidbits on places to eat and things to see while in Scotland, often with some humorous anecdotes and tangents. My favorites being:

[To a girl in the front row]: “Oh, you could meet my grandson! He’s a student there—you could get married!!!”

[On traditional Scottish foods]: “You’ll notice that they all have oatmeal in them…good, hearty stuff. And the story goes, is that the English would feed the oatmeal to their horses, and the Scots would feed it to their men. And so they’ve got the best horses….and we’ve got the best men.”

She was pretty cool.

Anyways, on Saturday, we all checked out of the hotel and moved into our university accommodation, either the university flats or the residence halls. I am in Baird House, which is one of the Pollock Residence Halls, on the fourth floor in a single room. The girls (and one guy) in my hall are all pretty cool. We all seem to be getting along pretty well, and they’re all really cool people. There’s three girls from various parts of England (including London and Scarborough), and the guy is from Scotland; one of the girls plays harp (legitimately—she has a huge harp at home, and a smaller one here at school with her. It’s brilliant.)

Also, about the room: 1) The room is bigger than Mary and my room last year. 2) There is a sink, full-length mirror, shelves and a cupboard in my room. 3) The view is awesome. Observe:

View of some other residence halls, and the city beyond.

Mmkay. That’s enough writing for the moment. I’ll update in a bit about Freshers’ Week and my excursions and adventures around and about Edinburgh—they are bound to be interesting.

LOVE.

I hear bagpipes, guys. We must be in Scotland.

Guys. I’m actually here.

Like, really truly honest-to-goodness here.

It only took a 7-hour train ride to DC (which could honestly have been the subject of its own blog post), a four-and-a-half hour car ride to Newark (aka Aunt Cindy is the coolest, and I NEVER want to get semi-lost in Jersey EVER again), and a 7-hour international overnight flight (during which I found out just how small a space I could force myself into)…..but I’m officially here in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The plane ride over was surprisingly painless, despite the fact that I really didn’t move for 7 hours. Since we were flying over at night, we were rewarded with some really killer views of the city lights of Newark and New York; we could even see a game going on in Yankee Stadium—so cool! However, the nice aerial views were soon over due to the majority of the flight being spent over the Atlantic Ocean. Luckily, all of the seatbacks had touchscreens TVs, essentially, so we had all sorts of movies and TV shows and games to choose from to keep ourselves occupied. I ended up watching all of Prince of Persia (shut up – it was great in that hokey, summer popcorn-munching kinda way), trying to fall asleep to my iPod for the next three hours, and then watching the first half of Casablanca before we finally landed in the Edinburgh airport.

It was about 7:15 AM Scotland time when we arrived (we’d left Newark at about 8:00 PM Eastern Time), and it was surprisingly chilly at about 57 degrees Fahrenheit. Considering that a few days ago I was sweltering in shorts and a t-shirt, this is a nice change of climate, especially because now it really feels like autumn is coming. Anyhoos, some IFSA-Butler people met us at the airport and bussed us over through downtown Edinburgh to the (4-star!) hotel that we’re staying at for orientation. And let me tell you…

The city is absolutely GORGEOUS.

All of the buildings look like they’ve been stacked up on top of each other, and it’s really beautiful to see where the old architecture mingles with the new—for example a green-painted door to an inn pub founded hundreds of years ago, right next to a neon-signed Chinese restaurant, or the National Gallery of Scotland just down the road from a sleek glass H&M. It’s absolutely FASCINATING, and I can’t wait to do more exploring around the city—visual aids are coming. I forgot my camera in my bookbag, so I couldn’t really take pictures today, but they are coming!

Anyways, not much else really happened today, since most of the day was spent either eating at the hotel or waiting to get into our rooms (of course, I was one of the last ones to get their keys…it was awful). Or sleeping. Sleeping is wonderful. The jet lag isn’t as terrible as I’d thought it would be, but it was still rough there for a while. However, a few of us decided to go get our cell phone situation sorted out, and we meandered down across the Royal Mile to Princes Street, which is apparently a main thoroughfare of Edinburgh, to a phone store. Most of us ended up getting a super-cheap pay-as-you-go phone—ie 20 pounds for a phone and a first-month plan that’s pretty respectable, and then you can just add minutes and texts as you go. Also, for those of you who know what my American cell phone looks like – this phone is so much nicer. I kinda want to keep it after I come back.

Also, on the way back to the hotel, there was totally a bagpiper busking near the Princes Shopping Center. WE ARE SO IN SCOTLAND.

I guess that's it for now...so apologies for the novel that I have written for my inaugural blog post—I’ve never really kept a regular blog, so this is going to be a new, exciting (and difficult) experience for me. I also apologize in advance - I’ve noticed that I tend to type as idiosyncratically as I speak. Bear with me.

LOVE.