Blogs from Midlothian, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 136

I finally met my department yesterday. Okay, it's history, so I imagined that everyone would be a little eccentric. We're not the most socially capable bunch in the world. Yesterday's History Postgraduate reception involved a lot of nervous speeches from faculty members who all seemed a bit scared of us, and a lot of professors pushing students to "finish the wine before they kick us out of here." Okay, so I guess I not in the States anymore. The first and only time I shared a drink with any of my professors was when I gave my senior presentation on my absolutely fascinating thesis entitled "Intellectual Origins of Nazi Doctrine." I was nervous, drank a bit too much before my presentation, thought I bombed it, and wound up getting an A. In general, when presenting papers ... read more

Well I arrived in Glasgow yesterday. I had to catch the train into Edinburgh... but I decided to first see Glasgow. I walked around for a while... its quite industrial. Of course I ventured into a local pub... ... ended up meeting this guy Steven... real friendly fella. Anyway he started talking to me about some Scottish history, some stuff about Bill Gates, and George Bush... and I just kept listening. He told me about some great local bands and to go visit The River Clyde (which I did). Before I left he did something that was really nice... and it really left with me a lasting impression. He went to the bar and exchanged one british pound for a scottish pound (made by the bank of scotland). Apparently they are hard to come by. ... read more

The next morning we headed to Edinburgh and saw the royal mile and whiskey shops. We also saw Edinburgh castle and the Cathedral which I think was one of my favorites of the whole trip. We saw where John Knox is buried under the parking lot and I especially loved the stained glass window portraying the medieval lords and ladies at the death of Christ... It was very dark inside and stained with soot outside. In fact a lot of buildings in Edinburgh are black. The streets are cobblestoned in the old part of town and the shops are in the original houses so their small with low ceilings. I went to see Holyrood Palace the next day only to find that Mary of Scots' quarters had been shut the day before for renovation! I was ... read more

Oh crikey. It's 2.30pm on the day before I'm due to fly and I'm not packed. I'm not even close to being packed. Instead of doing anything useful, I'm adding cds to the computer that's not coming with me in some vain hope that I can copy them onto a mega-holds-everything DVD-R and somehow transfer that onto my laptop. But as we all know, though that might work in theory, practice is something altogether different. And I'm not even sure it works in theory... So far today I've bawled my eyes out as I watched The Man (Simon) drive off into next year, eaten some of his birthday cake, eaten some dried mango, eaten a cheese sandwich (are you starting to see the pattern here?) and printed off some more photos. And here I am. Just ... read more

Egg #2. Alan and I officially finished up at work on the 19th August (or 1.14 working weeks ago). The last 6 days have been relaxed, happy, fun, dizzy, lazy and downright irritating: RELAXED - Because we don't have to go to work ( yay!) HAPPY - See above 'relaxed' / looking fwd to getting away to the sunshine & further chilling. FUN - The Edinburgh Festival has been in full swing, so there's been lots of interesting things to do/see. DIZZY - Wine / beer / cocktails / more wine & beer & cocktails etc... LAZY - Getting up later than 10 am following 'Dizzy' nights.. DOWRIGHT IRRITATING - ...This is the one that'll be stumping you, yeah? Last week - we turned up at the Travel Clinic for our first Rabies innoculation, of which ... read more