Pictures

Pictures from Glasgow, Dumfries, Ruthwell, Carlisle, Housesteads, and Hexham are up. You should be thankful, too--I haven't had dinner yet because of all the work I've been doing, just for you. Enjoy!

Italy, Poetry, Etc.

Hmm, it's not been as long since my last post as I thought. Anyway, life's been quiet around here. I think it's just waiting to leap at me from behind a bush or something, because soon I will have more essays and coursework due. Oh joy!

I got my Creative Writing coursework back on Monday. My instructor said my "writerly appraisal" was good. So pretty much everything she said about not having to write an analysis was entirely moot, because I wrote an analysis anyway. I just stuck a little bit in at the end saying why I liked the poem and how I appreciated the language or something dumb like that. For my poems, she said mine were "tight and considered" and show "good understanding of key elements of the genre", but I needed to "take more risks" and use more imagery. I got a 65, which is apparently pretty good. The rubric says this means my work is "good/proficient", "stylistically fluent", has "maturity and some individuality", and "good control and invention in the use of language." Unfortunately, everything I've written in the past few weeks has been utter garbage, including the poem I submitted for workshop on Monday. My classmates (kindly) did not rip me to shreds or tell me to burn everything I've ever written, and I lived through it. It was a poem with potential, that collapses under it's own weight because some of the writing is weak. Anyway.

I am finally registered with the campus medical center (or centre, if you prefer). I had to go in this morning to meet with one of the nurses and answer some questions and let them take my height and weight and blood pressure. So that's done.

Monday night, after class, I went over to Catie's flat, ostensibly to discuss our plans for Italy. We didn't do much of that. I ended up sitting in her kitchen for a while, watching her flatmates play I Spy while we waited for our food to be delivered. It was...interesting, to say the least. Which I will do, because I am not being marked on my use of imagery or artful language in this post. Anyway, we've changed some of the specifics for when we're in Southern France. We're only going to spend one night in Marseille and spend three nights in Nice instead. As for Italy, after New Year's Eve in Bologna, Catie and I are going to split up for a few days. She's going to go down to Florence to meet her family, and eventually head down to Rome. I'm going to go to Venice, then Ravenna, and meet Catie back in Rome. It means I won't get to see Florence, but I've been dreaming of going to Venice for a long time, and I'm not going to pass it up just because Catie's sister has already been there and didn't really like it. I'm really excited to go off on my own, too. I mean, yeah, I'm scared out of my wits, but I'm terribly excited.

So that's been my life for the past few days. Not incredibly exciting, but there you go. I'm off to play with Flickr and read more at Journeywoman. I'll have pictures from Glasgow, Ruthwell, Carlisle, Housesteads, and Hexham up shortly--I'll be sure to let you know when I'm done!

Photos!

Edinburgh/Roslin pictures are up!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thankgiving, everyone! I celebrated by spending 5 hours in class and going to the library.

Yesterday, though, Catie and I made a big dinner for her flatmates. They all enjoyed it, and we had a good time. It was, in fact, a really good dinner, which surprised me. I was just waiting for the entire plan to collapse. It also means I got to have leftovers for dinner! Yay for not having to cook for the next few days or so!

I have also rediscovered Beowulf. I picked it up in the library this evening and started to read it again (fifth time, I believe). I haven't enjoyed reading this much in months! Seriously, you all should read it. But read the Seamus Heaney translation. It's incredibly engaging. I read 25 pages in an hour, and it's only 100 pages long. You ought to read it. I'm also planning on going to see the new movie this weekend, so I'll let you know what I think of it. I've heard from a lot of people who know way more about Beowulf than I do that it completely and utterly sucks, though, so my hopes aren't high. Anyway, the poem is excellent, and easy to read.

Saturday, 10 Nov and Sunday, 11 Nov: York and Home!

Saturday, we got up and went to a few craft fairs in York, and then tried again to go to the Minster. It was closed again, at least until 1:00. So we went back to the Yorkshire Gardens and wandered around the abbey for a bit, and then walked on the medieval walls of the city before checking out the market and getting some lunch. Then, we went to York Minster. It was really impressive. It was absolutely huge (it is the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe), but there were a lot of people there. Usually, when I'm in a cathedral, I wander around awestruck, trying to imagine what it was like to build the thing, or what it would be like to genuinely worship there. The thing is, this requires quiet, and the Minster was not quiet. It was lovely, though, and we got to go down into the undercroft and see the remains/foundations of the Roman fortress and the Norman cathedral that still stand. Also, we got to see the treasury, which houses silver from churches all over Yorkshire, and the crypt, which has the tomb of St. William, Yorkshire's patron saint.

Saturday evening, we had dinner in the hostel again, and were just going to sit in the kitchen and read and write quietly until going to bed early. However, we met some more of the guys who work at the hostel--two guys from Australia and one from South Africa. They were interesting, to say the least. They were actually all pretty openly racist, which was shocking to me. I'm used to the cloaked American racism. Also, until they started drinking, they were kind of negative about England. But one of the Australians showed us pictures from when he was in France and Italy, and they told us about their countries and their times in England, and made fun of us for being American (of course), so it was okay.

Sunday we had planned on getting up early to catch a 9:00 train from York to Peterborough, and we did, except it was REALLY hard to get up that early. You see, a bunch of French travellers checked into the hostel Saturday night, and spent from about 2-5AM running into our room, turning on all the lights, shouting at each other, turning off the lights, and slamming the door. Even after we told them to quiet down, they still talked really loudly, only then they included multiple "shushs". It was really obnoxious. And one English guy started in on us when I said we had to get up early to catch the train. I don't know why it made him so mad. Anyway, up until that point, our experiences with hostels had all been very good. I still like them. They're cheap and you tend to meet a lot of people.

Anyway, we did get up early for the train, and caught it, and once we were in Peterborough, we had to catch a bus to Bury St. Edmunds, then a train to Stowmarket, and then another train to Norwich. It was really long and complicated and we didn't get home until 3:30. Apparently, there was a train derailed between Peterborough and Ely, right on our way home, so we had to go around. Oh well. We made it back safe and sound.

Oh, and pictures aren't working again, and it's late and I'm tired, so you'll just have to wait until I stop being lazy and put them up on Flickr. Sorry!

Friday, 9 Nov: York

Friday, we wanted to go see York Minster, but it was closed for a graduation, so instead, we went to the Yorkshire Museum and Gardens. There used to be an abbey there, but it was destroyed, and now there's a museum about the history of York. We got to see stuff from the Romans, Anglo-Saxons (yay!), Vikings, and Normans. So that was exciting. There was also an exhibit about the icthyosaurs and whatnot that have been discovered nearby. That was also cool, but I always find those prehistoric sea-creatures really scary-looking. After that, we went to St. Olave's Church, which was nearby, to take pictures. They're big fans of St. Olaf in York. I don't know why. He wasn't the nicest guy. Anyway, so we were good and obedient Oles and took pictures of the church. Then we went to the Fairfax House. This is allegedly one of the finest Georgian (mid 18th century) houses in England. You would have really enjoyed it, Mom. The tour guide explained the family history (the Viscount Fairfax had two wives and 8 children die of smallpox, leaving him with one daughter who never married) and the furniture and building. It was really interesting, especially the kitchen--apparently, you can eat the feet of pigeons, but I personally think that's one of the most disgusting things I've ever heard. Then we had dinner at the hostel, and we met a guy working there from New Zealand who had been working in Scotland for a trail riding barn in the Highlands. After that, we went out to meet Catie's flatmate Tim, who lives outside of York. We meet a couple of other guys that night, one from near Leeds, I think, and one from Cardiff in Wales, and they took us to some pubs they liked. We actually met them because I was talking about being from Green Bay and football and stuff, and one of them happened to like American football. So that was interesting.

Thursday, 8 Nov: Durham and York

Thursday morning, we got up and took a train back up to Durham to go see Durham Cathedral. This was really important to me, because not only is there a shrine to St. Cuthbert, but the historian Bede is buried there, as well. Almost everything we know about the early centuries of the Anglo-Saxons in England comes from Bede. He founded the study of English history as we know it. Furthermore, I've spent the past 6-7 weeks thinking about, reading about, talking about, and writing about Bede, so I figured I ought to go see his tomb. It was amazing. It was really cool to encounter history like that. We also wandered around the town of Durham, which was really nice. We walked down by the river Wear. It wasn't too cold (yet), the sun was out, and the leaves were all turned, and we watched the swans on the river. After that, we went back to York, wandered the city for a while and stopped at the tourist information center, made dinner in the hostel, and then went out to some pubs. There is totally a store there that sells swords, including replica weapons from the Lord of the Rings films! Actually, they had one from the Silmarillion, too. Naturally, this was incredibly exciting to me and I stood in the store drooling for a while, I think. They weren't as heavy as I thought they would be, though. Catie wanted to buy a mace. Anyway, that night I had made plans to meet an internet friend of mine, whom I had met on a Lord of the Rings forum a few years back. He was in York with his history class on the Vikings. So that was a lot of fun.

Blogger's not been working well for me the past few days, so I don't know if this is actually going to post. And if you had checked earlier today, only to see a title and some tags, but no text, that's why. I did have a post there, but Blogger didn't post it.

Wednesday, 7 Nov: Haltwhistle, Housesteads, Hexham, and Our Adventures in Newcastle

60 posts!

I'm still procrastinating, so here's another entry from my Reading Week trip.

On Wednesday, we got up and had a full English breakfast, which was wonderful. Then we caught the bus out to a little town called Haltwhistle and took another bus out to Housesteads, which has an old Roman fort (Vercovicium) on Hadrian's Wall. So that was pretty cool. It was bright and sunny out, as well, and there were, of course, a bunch of sheep around. Then we went back to Haltwhistle and caught the train to another town called Hexham. There, we went to see an old abbey founded by St. Wilfred. It was really cool. After having dinner, we went to a Choral Evensong service there. Most of the people in attendance were really surprised that anyone under the age of 40 was even there, so a bunch of people came up to talk to us. It was really nice. But I've got to say, the Church of England says the Apostle's Creed and the Lord's Prayer funny. The words are all changed, which really confused me. I really enjoyed going to the service, though, because services are so much cooler in cathedrals. Also, it was really nice to meet people who aren't students, because when all the people you interact with regularly are students, you sort of forget that real life exists.

Then we got on the train to Newcastle. At this time, Catie told me that she didn't actually know where in Newcastle our inn was. It was about 9:00 at night, and I really didn't want to wander the streets that late at night. So she called around Newcastle, trying to find directions. No one had ever heard of this place before. So we decided to go directly on to York, as we hadn't planned on touring Newcastle anyway. We bought our tickets and sat waiting for the train. Then, Catie gets a call from the inn. Where were we? Since the cancellation fee was less than our tickets, Catie cancelled (and she's picking that up. It's her fault, so I'm not going to pay. In the future, I'm going to make sure we're more prepared than that). So we went straight on to York--fortunately, our hostel there had rooms open a day early, so we got to York around 12:00-1:00 in the morning. So that was fun.

You can see I have graced you with another picture of sheep. I absolutely love seeing sheep all over these old ruins. I think it's fantastic. Life goes on, I guess.

In other news, I take really crappy pictures indoors. My hands shake a lot and my camera doesn't like low light. So half of my pictures really ought to be tossed, but I'm not going to get rid of them.

Tuesday, 6 Nov: Dumfries, Ruthwell, and Carlisle

Sorry about not posting yesterday, either. I have no good excuse except, Look! Medieval Webcomic!

Tuesday, we got up and took the train to Dumfries. Again, the scenery was simply stunning. When we got to Dumfries, we wandered the streets for a really long time, trying to find either the tourist information center or the proper bus stop to take us out to Ruthwell. We did find the bus stop, and hopped on at the last minute for a 40 minute ride out into the middle of nowhere. Seriously, the bus stop was next to a farm house and a few cow pastures. It was ridiculous! Enchanting, but ridiculous. Anyway, we walked down the road to Ruthwell Church, which houses the Ruthwell Cross. The Ruthwell Cross is an Anglo-Saxon preaching cross with fragments of the poem "The Dream of the Rood" carved on it. "The Dream of the Rood" is a fantastic Old English poem portraying Jesus as some sort of warrior king who leaps up onto the cross to be crucified and shows the nails in his hands and feet as arrows. It shows us a lot about Anglo-Saxon culture and how Christianity is easily manipulated to convert as many people as possible. Anyway, Catie and I had read this poem in English 221, so we just had to go see it. After that, we had planned on going back to Dumfries to see the grave of Robert Burns, so we could reunite him and Clarinda in the photographic afterlife, but instead, just got back on the bus straight to Carlisle (which is back in England).

In Carlisle, we went to the castle, after walking the entire way around the castle walls looking for the entrance. It wasn't as informative as Edinburgh Castle, but we did learn all about the Jacobite rebellion in 1745, when there was a dispute as to who would take the throne and the Scottish Highlanders all rallied around Bonnie Prince Charlie and invaded England. Scottish prisoners were held in the dungeons of Carlisle Castle with little food or water, and you can still see where they would lick the stones to get something to drink. Also, Mary, Queen of Scots was held prisoner there before her execution, but that was well before the Jacobite rebellion.

(This picture has nothing to do with anything I just mentioned. I just thought it was funny to see tanks in a castle.)

That night, we stayed in this lovely little bed and breakfast, which meant that we got our own room and fresh towels and a full English breakfast in the morning. It was such a nice break from hostels! The reason we stayed there was because there are no hostels open in Carlisle in November, not being tourist season. So we went to the public library to use the internet and got Chinese take-away and watched a rerun of the Daily Show, Batman, and some other TV shows. Just watching TV was exciting.

And you can see that I am now back to form with the livestock pictures. I spent a good long time looking at the cows when we were at Ruthwell. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go read about the "Kingdom of the English" and freak out about how I'm graduating in just over a year and a half.

Monday, 5 Nov: Glasgow

Monday, we got up early and caught a train from Edinburgh to Glasgow. Catie and I were kind of scared to go to Glasgow, because we'd heard things like it was the stabbing capital of the UK and things like that. However, we did not get stabbed or molested in anyway in while there. So that was nice. The train ride from Edinburgh to Glasgow was beautiful. I just loved Scotland so much. I really want to go back. Once in Glasgow, we checked into the hostel and then went to Glasgow Cathedral, which managed to escape the English Reformation with minimal damage, luckily, and the Necropolis. The Necropolis is this giant cemetery built on a hill starting in the 1830's, I think, and it was lovely to be there in November with the leaves falling and the sun shining and the air just a little bit chilly. We got up to the top of the hill, and it started raining a little bit, but the sun was still out, so all of sudden, there was this rainbow right over the head of the statue of John Knox at the top of the hill. It was fantastic.

Then we went to St. Mungo's Museum of Religious Art and Life, which wasn't as interesting as I had hoped, but was free, so who cares? They did talk about Celtic Christianity with relation to the Scots, though, so that was cool. After that, we went to a Gallery of Modern Art. Some of the artwork was really just out there, but there were some interesting pieces as well. Then we had to go to Primark, a cheap UK clothing store, because Catie needed a sweater, then we went to Pizza Hut and back to the hostel. We were going to go out to see the fireworks for Bonfire Night (5 November), but it was cold and we could see them from the window. We did go down to the hostel bar and talked to the bartender, who was a student at one of the universities in Glasgow from Belfast. He asked us why we were studying in Norwich, "because there are so many English people there". We went to another pub across the street for a little, too.

I would have pictures, but Blogger is having problems right now, so those'll have to wait. I was going to do two entries today, but my entry for last Tuesday really needs illustration, so you'll just be getting the one, then.

Sunday, 4 Nov: Roslin

On Sunday, we got up and went back to Canongate Kirk to see the grave of Clarinda, some woman that Robert Burns loved from afar. She was actually married to someone else, and Clarinda was just her pseudonym in her letters to/from Burns, but that's the name she's buried under. It's odd.

Then, we caught the bus out to Roslin to go see Rosslyn Chapel. (My pictures of Rosslyn all really suck, so these are just to give you an idea.)

This is where people say the Holy Grail is hidden, including Dan Brown (though he says it was moved). It has strong ties to the Knights Templar and every last bit is carved with some sort of pagan/Christian/freemason symbolism. The tour guides say it is "a poem in stone". It was gorgeous. Right now, it has a canopy/umbrella thing over it, because the stone needs to dry out for it's preservation. While this makes it look really ugly from the outside, it means that you can climb up the canopy and see the outside of the church really well.

We also walked down to Rosslyn Castle, which is now in ruins, thanks to the destructiveness of Oliver Cromwell & co. in the 17th Century. The bus ride out to and around Roslin was absolutely fantastic. Allie and I decided that we are going to move there and raise sheep. It will be fun, I think. Anyway, then we headed back and dropped Allie off at the train station, then Catie and I wandered around looking for a Tesco (supermarket chain). Unfortunately, we didn't find one, so we went to Subway and then back to the hostel to play cards and watch Ugly Betty. We didn't want to go out that night.

I just loved Scotland so much, people. You can't even understand. And wait until you see my pictures from Ruthwell!

Saturday, 3 Nov: Edinburgh

Saturday morning, we got up and saw the statue of Greyfriar's Bobby, that little terrier who guarded his master's grave everyday until he died. I love that he has this little statue in the middle of the city, and a pub nearby named after him. We didn't go to that one, though. After that, we went to go see the grave of Adam Smith, in Canongate Kirk, which was down the Royal Mile. We figured it was important, because we base our economic system on his writings.

I've been to so many graveyards, churches, and castles this week, it's not even funny. After that, we walked back up the Royal Mile (taking tons of pictures) to go to Edinburgh Castle. It's this gigantic structure on top of an extinct volcano, and it's pretty impressive. We got to see the Stone of Destiny, where Scottish rulers are supposed to be crowned (of course, it was stolen by the English and only returned in the 1950's) and the Scottish crown jewels. We also saw where American sailors were held prisoner during the American Revolution. We also wandered through the War Museum there. Then we walked all the way to the other side of the city to go to the Dean Gallery, part of the network of National Art Galleries in Edinburgh. It was the only art gallery we went to there. The Dean Gallery houses Surrealist art, so it was all kind of really weird stuff. I did get to see a Dali in person, though, so that was exciting, and there was this whole exhibit about a Scottish architect, Basil Spence, who was pretty cool. After hitting some gift shops and dinner, we went on a literary pub crawl of Edinburgh. Not the big, heavily advertised one, but a smaller one with a really cool tour guide named Allan. He knew so many random facts about Edinburgh and it's literary history! It was a lot of fun, and we met a couple from Glasgow, so that was nice. We saw one of the places where Harry Potter was (allegedly) written. Apparently, claiming that JKR went to a place is a big tourist draw, so anywhere where she ever set foot is advertised. Except the Chinese restaurant that now stands in the coffee shop where she actually did write the first few chapters. So go figure. I, however, having a modicum of dignity, did not take pictures of it.

Friday, 2 November: Edinburgh

I'm going to do this day-by-day, because in my word processor, it's 11 pages and 3673 words long. I wish it were this easy to write a paper for my classes. So there will be at least one somewhat interesting post a day for the next few days, and some pictures as well. Once I stop being so lazy, there will also be pictures on Flickr, providing it doesn't freak out that I'm actually trying to post pictures. Maybe by next week. If you're lucky.

Friday I got up at 3:30 AM to catch the 4:44 bus to the train station. I left Norwich at around 6 and got into Edinburgh at 11:38. I think I really prefer Scotland and Northern England to the South/East Anglia. I met tons of people and the area is much more rural. At one point on the train, I looked out the window, and on one side was a field full of sheep, and on the other was the sea. It was gorgeous. Edinburgh was simply fantastic. It has a very stately sort of gloominess to it, and at the same time is incredibly fun. It is very touristy, though, mainly because we never really left the Royal Mile. The Royal Mile is the main street running from the castle to Holyrood Palace, the Queen's Scotland residence. That's where all the really famous buildings are, like St. Gile's Kirk (church).

I met Allie and we wandered up and down the Royal Mile before going back to the train station to pick up Catie. Then we checked into our hostel and went to the Writer's Museum, which memorializes Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, and Robert Louis Stevenson. I've read pieces by all three (although only one poem by Burns--the title of Of Mice and Men comes from one of his poems--thank you, Mr. Last), Catie's never read any, and Allie's read Stevenson, I think. I don't remember. We also went to the Scottish National Museum for about an hour. It was free to get in, and we got to see the body of Dolly the sheep. That was pretty exciting. We also saw an early Scottish guillotine. It was cool. (Don't get me started on my penchant for medieval torture devices.)

Catie and Allie also had multiple opportunities to get dressed up:

That night, we went out for dinner and then went on a ghost tour of the city. Ghosts have seemingly lost their power to scare me, because I wasn't scared and I was able to sleep that night, but I know last year or before, the tour would have terrified me. The first part, we wandered the Royal Mile, with our guide giving us some history of Edinburgh and telling us what life would have been like. The second part, we went into these vaults under the city that are "haunted", as in people genuinely believe there's supernatural stuff that goes on down there, like inexplicable changes in body temperature and orbs of light in photos. We didn't see anything, though, and like I said, I wasn't too scared. If people had been jumping out at us, though, I don't think I could have handled it. Then we went and hung out at an Irish pub down the street from the hostel that played American music. It was weird, but we had a good time.

Facebook and Open Thread

Okay, this post has two purposes. First, I want to hear arguments for and against joining facebook. This was an issue of some contention in the past week, so I said I would take arguments when I got home. If you have an opinion, let me hear it.

Secondly, I want to know who reads this blog but doesn't comment. I know my parents and maternal grandparents do, because they tell me this, but the rest of you who don't feel the need to email me about it and don't ever comment--I want to know who you are! Leave me a comment!

Back Again

I'm home now. I'm absolutely exhausted. I've had a fantastic week, but I can't even begin to process everything yet. I'll post something more substantial later, but for now, I'm going just list the highlights:

• Seeing Allie
• Catie doing a faceplant on the sidewalk in Edinburgh
• Keeping myself from spitting on the grave of Adam Smith
• The bench in Edinburgh in memory of Beethoven (really, what is that?)
• Seeing a Dali in person. Not a great one, but it was still a Dali!
• Literary Pub Crawl in Edinburgh
• Rosslyn Chapel
• The Necropolis in Glasgow, including a rainbow over the giant statue of John Knox at the top of the hill
• Not getting killed in Glasgow
• The bus ride to Ruthwell Church
• The bus stop at Ruthwell Church
• Ruthwell Cross
• The bed & breakfast in Carlisle
• Haltwhistle
• Seeing Hadrian's Wall
• Choral Evensong at Hexham Abbey
• Seeing Bede's tomb at Durham Cathedral
• Sitting in the (warm!) kitchen at the hostel in York
• The Undercroft in York Minster
• Meeting tons of new people

So, yes, I had a great time. I'm completely wiped out now, though!

Quick Check-In

Hi everyone!

I'm in the public library in Carlisle right now, using the internet (obviously). I've had a great trip so far. I love Scotland. It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been (and that's saying a lot!). On the train from Glasgow to Dumfries this morning, I just sat and stared out the window, open-mouthed. Edinburgh was absolutely fantastic. It was also great to see Allie again! Anyway, from here on out, we're going to see Hadrian's Wall, Newcastle, Durham, and York before heading back. Should be exciting, but I'm also excited to get home and get some sleep! I had 7 hours of sleep in 3 days before leaving for Edinbugh.

There's so much I have to say, but I don't even know where to begin. I think I'll leave off this entry and post more when I get home. Just wanted to treat those of you who actually read this blog and let you all know that I'm safe (if hungry)

So I survived yesterday with no serious scars, and even managed to have a little bit of fun last night. Now I'm off to Edinburgh to meet Allie. I don't know what my access to the internet will be like, but if I can, I'll keep you updated. Have a good week, everyone, and I'll see you on Sunday at the latest!