A picture says 1000 words..

 

 

…so I’ll just say a few! Below are some long overdue!

Classes are in full swing and my workload is the heaviest it has been yet! Still, the past two weekends have been bright lights at the end of the seemingly endless Mon-Fri tunnel!  I spend the 18^th-19^th reunited with classmates from QM…we went to a Ceilidh together Friday night and had a big potluck dinner on Saturday before painting the town! This past weekend, I went to two Burn’s suppers on Friday and Saturday: a celebration of famous poet Robert Burns and the revered Scottish haggis!! Saturday morning I went with QMU to St. Andrews (the birthplace of golf!) stopping in Anstruther, a small fishing village, on the way home. 

It’s crunch time for my dissertation, and planning out my proposal and methodology is taking a lot of time. And brain cells. But hopefully I will have a clearer idea of my topic in the next few weeks.  Then the real fun begins!

Scottish Fact:  It was brought to my attention at the Burns supper that according to recent national survey, 32% of Americans think that a Haggis is an animal that lives in the Highlands of Scotland.  Read on and (complements of Wiki) may you be part of the 68%!! “Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep’s pluck (heart, liver and lungs) minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock and traditionally encased in the animal’s stomach and simmered for approximately three hours.  Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish, considered the national dish of Scotland as a result of Robert Burn’s poem Address to a Haggis of 1787.  Haggis is traditionally served with neeps and tatties (turnips and potato) and a dram of Scotch whisky.”

And for a taste of Burns poetry, here is the first verse (and translation) for the famous Address to a Haggis:

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak yer place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my airm.

Nice seeing your honest, chubby face,
Great chieftain of the sausage race!
Above them all you take your place,
Belly, tripe, or links:
Well are you worthy of a grace
As long as my arm.

Hogmanay Crew en route to Princes Street!

Chuck is the BEST! Care package in the mail from Gettysburg including a tin of SERVO COOKIES!
 



Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow

Necropolis, Glasgow

Glasgow University

The Princess Royal (Anne) at Queen Margaret!



'Welcome back!' potluck with QMers

Address to the Haggis at Robbie Burns supper!

Best Fish and Chips in the UK! Anstruther Fish Bar!

Chariots of Fire?

St Andrews Castle



Standing on St Andrews famous green!

Back to school!

With classes starting tommorrow, the last 10 days have been about prepping for next semester and handing in term papers that were forgotten over the holidays- but mostly about enjoying late mornings, later nights, and packed days.  Jackie's choir performed 'The Messiah' in the Usher Hall on the 2nd.  The choir sounded fantastic, and I recognized some familiar songs! We went back to their house, and later that night I taught J&K the family favorite card game, Wizard, that Mom and Dad sent over for Christmas.  I squashed everyone the first hand but Ken caught on a bit too quickly and thrashed us the second.  There will be a rematch soon :)

With Gianmarco (Giulia's friend from Italy) still in town, we had a tourist's excuse to go on a walking tour of Edinburgh.  It was 3 hours packed with stories and history, most of which I did not know, about the city I've been living in for 4.5 months! Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is based on a 'burgher and the story of how the Scots came to acquire the Stone of Destiny from England is worth a read!  As a closet Potter fan, I got really excited to see the building that inspired Hogwarts and the graveyard whose headstones contain many of JK Rowling's characters' names (including Tom Marvolo Riddle).  The cookie in the picture with me is none other than a Gettysburg College Servo cookie, which arrived in a package that morning from my good friend Chuck!!  The box also contained New Orleans jambalaya, a selection of hot sauces, Steeler's tissues (still crying), and a Christmas CD.  The box of goodies made my month, and the cookies got some pictures around Edinburgh for the dining hall's website, which documents the cookies 'worldly travels'. 

Last Friday-Sunday, I hopped a bus to Glasgow, Edinburgh's 'sister city' in the west, that I've wanted to explore for some time.  I took the classic 'red bus tour' and learned a ton about the city:  hub of music, unique arquitecture, and a museum metropolis.  I met up with two Rotary scholars studying in Glasgow.  We went to a pantomime of Cinderella, complete with outstanding costumes and thick Glaswegian humor, before they took me out to some of their favorite spots.  Glasgow University is a beautiful, gothic building and the Glasgow art school is just one of Charles Mackintosh's masterpieces (the Willow tea rooms being another!) Glasgow Cathedral is really neat too, set against the beautiful Necropolis, the city's 'Land of the Walking Dead'.

Tuesday night was a great Ceilidh, but more importantly Susi's return from Christmas in Siena! It is so good to have all of the flatmates together again!

I had my first fiddle class this week! There are 10 of us in total, all from different countries (again, not one Scot).  We covered alot of ground in one session, starting with tuning and bow strokes, progressing to scales and by the end we had learned 8 measures of Mary's Wedding!  The issue now is where/when to practice- I like my flatmates enough that I can't subject them to the 'screeches' of a first-timer.

Yesterday morning, I met up with Caitlin and we hopped a bus to Rosslyn Chapel, made famous by the DaVinci code as houser of the Holy Grail.  It is the most intricately carved building imaginable, full of stories and lessons in the fine workings of master stonemasons from the 15th century!  Unfortunately, no pictures allowed but the 'dance of death' and famous 'green men' are worth a google! Caitlin's host dad from Rotary, Robin, picked us up from the chapel and brought us back to his house nearby where we enjoyed a lovely lunch and afternoon with his wife Sarah.

For Susi's birthday  we got her a ticket to see the Nutcracker at the Festival Theatre by the Scottish ballet, as she is a phenomenal dancer herself!  I snagged a last-minute student deal an hour before the show and got to join her!  I thought it was great, and it got good reviews from Susi as well...Clara in particular was outstanding.  I think ballet is a pretty amazing art of expression, and Tchaikovsky's music is incredible. 

Last night we had a big suprise celebration for Susi:  the house was packed, the food was abundant, and I think the birthday girl had a great night!! The kitchen this morning...yikes!

I am excited for my classes this semester, but also nervous about an overpacked semester.  I overloaded my schedule for the next 6 weeks because I was really keen to take an extra course being offered.  I may as well pay my rent to the library this January, but will enjoy a lighter schedule in March. 

Word of the day:  Ha'penny:  Robin and Sarah told Caitlin and I about collections of  'half pennies' that were part of the British monetary system before it was decimilised in 1971.  Before then, the British pound was made up of 240 pence, 12 pence were in a shilling, and 20 shillings were in a pound.

(I'm having trouble uploading pictures...As soon as I've sorted it out, I will post pictures from this post and last!)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Happy Hogmanay (New Year) from Scotland!! I'm writing this post from my bed (its 4 PM) after enjoying the Hogmanay festival to the fullest last night into the early hours of this morning! After a delicious potluck dinner at my flat, a crew of flatmates, Rotary scholars, and classmates from QM took to Princes Street for street concerts and hourly fireworks leading up to a huge fireworks display at midnight! The bands were awesome, all Scottish (Admiral Fallow and OK Social Club were really great!) We were positioned perfectly in front of the castle for the midnight show and the fireworks were spectacular, just overhead!

Hogmanay was the icing on the cake of a terrific holiday in Scotland!  Jackie, Ken and I went to Glasgow on the 23rd, stayed with their daughter Hilary and her family and celebrated the 6th birthday of their grandaughter, Holly.  We spent Christmas day just down the street at Catriona and Neil's house.  It was brilliant to be surrounded by children and the magic of Christmas and Santa! We ate incredibly delicious food, played cards, went for walks, sipped mulled wine and watched my Christmas favorite-'It's a Wonderful Life'.  I missed the Pizor-Yoder family very much, but could not have been with a more lovely Scottish family for Christmas!  So grateful for Skype, I was able to introduce my American family to my Scottish family, and play in the first ever cross-Atlantic card game!

Jackie, Ken and I spent the 27th-29th in the Highlands (which was beautifully dusted with snow!).  It was super relaxing- reading, late mornings, jigsawing, and getting repeatedly beaten at Cribbage!  The bothy adjacent to their cottage, is really coming along; all the plumbing and appliances have been put in, tiling, and new paint since I was last up! It looks really great!

One of my favourite things about Christmas and New Years in Scotland has been learning about different traditions over the holidays.  Hogmanay (the largest annual celebration in Scotland, as Christmas was traditionally observed 'quietly' after the Protestant reformation in the 16th century...Christmas only became a public holiday in Scotland in 1958)  and 'first footing' (luck brought by the first person to cross a friends threshold bearing traditional gifts) are local customs of Scotland for the New Year.  I laughed when I found out that Santa gets single-malt whisky on Christmas Eve (none of this milk and cookies business)!  Last night over dinner, we were talking about how different countries bring in the New Year:  In Japan, children draw on paper the symbol that represents their hopes for the next year; in Spain everyone together eats 12 grapes in the 12 seconds before midnight, and wears something new and red for good luck; feasting, drinking and sharing the evening with friends and family seems to be a common thread around the world!

Scottish phrase of the week:  'Lang may yer lum reek' which means literally 'long may your chimney smoke'.  A traditional cheers on Hogmanay, it wishes long life and prosperity!