The Novel Concept of a Day Trip is Introduced to the Story

Hello my friends! I’ve had a bit of a busy week, due in no small part to the weekend I just had, which I shall tell you about. Last Saturday, four of my friends and I decided to take a day trip to Stirling. ‘Why Stirling?’ I asked. ‘Why not?’ was the answer I was given. And then I was told that it had a castle, and I was perfectly happy to go. Besides the pictures I’ve posted here, I also have a public google album, viewable at this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/riordan.frost/ADayToStirling#. On another note, I also have an album consisting of a collection of pictures, primarily from Holyrood Park, from my first month here. It is at http://picasaweb.google.com/riordan.frost/RuggedWondrousScotland#. I think you can comment on the photos there, so please do if you are so inspired.

Last Saturday morning we went to the Edinburgh Bus Station (which used to be the first Veterinary College in Edinburgh, as the first photo in the album shows) and bought a round trip ticket for only £6! Two of my friends and I went on the earlier bus, with two others going on one an hour later. Whilst waiting for them to arrive, the three of us went to The Church of the Holy Rude (‘rude’ I believe was derived from ‘root’ which I believe used to mean ‘cross’... same derivation of Holyrood Park in fact). It was closed, but we happened to walk up to it as a kindly old Scotsman was walking out while cleaning the place. He welcomed us in, and we trod very quietly around the place where King James VI was named king in his infancy, towards the stained glass, and to the old Scotsman as he beckoned us on to look at this architecture or that window, speaking in hushed voices all along. We left and met up with the other two and went to Stirling Castle, which was beautiful. The sun was shining in and out of the clouds, causing the lighting to change rapidly, and causing the beauty to never really fade. I had a sample of haggis, followed later by a much better sample of whiskey mixed with cream and honey. It tasted, as my friend Alena put it, like sunshine. I don’t even like whiskey (gasp! I don’t say it out loud here, don’t worry) and I loved this stuff. We walked all about the castle, and then three of us decided to become members of Historic Scotland. I got my membership card just today. What does it do? What doesn’t it do is a better question. I get in to any castle or historic site in Scotland for free. It was a fabulous deal, and it will prove itself to be even more fabulous, I am sure. And it is the prettiest card I have in my wallet. So we explored the castle, and then walked a bit around the city. It felt surprisingly good to be out of Edinburgh and in a more peaceful and serene place. I do love Edinburgh, but it was lovely to get out for a day. And my friend Allie took this dashing picture of Alena, me, Taylor, and Sarah (left to right), which I quite enjoy:


I’ve decided to close this post with some cultural observations:
-Cars (and all vehicles) aren’t too keen on the concept of ‘yielding to pedestrians’
-Pedestrians aren’t too keen on the concept of ‘yielding to pedestrians’ - there is no set traffic flow of pedestrians at all. Do you walk on the left side? No. You walk wherever it is bloody well convenient and do whatever you please.
-In the pantry on every floor of my dorm there is what? Not a coffee maker, but a hot water boiler. Civilisation at last!

All for now. Take good care!

The Time it Snowed, and the Time I Found My Home Here

Since it’s been a little while since I last posted, I have a few stories for you today, and something interesting to start out with: I am writing this blog from The Elephant House café, which is (allegedly) the café where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter. Pretty amazing, and it just adds to the surreal feeling when I think about the fact that I am living in Edinburgh. Oh, and I updated the '33 Hours' blog post with the airport photo, so you should check that out. Be well.

I realize that I haven’t yet told you about my classes, so I shall do that first. I am taking three classes (a full load for the Scottish) this semester, and they are: Meta-Ethics, Philosophy and the Environment, and Celtic Civilisation. The first two are third-level Philosophy ‘honours’ (as they call it) courses. The lattermost is a first-level Celtic culture class, which I took because I wanted to learn about the culture from the people who lived there (and, of course, it is always important to get a break from Philosophy). Meta-Ethics deals with the theory of ethics itself, the metaphysic of ethics in a sense. It looks at questions such as possession of moral knowledge, existence of moral facts, and objectivity vs. relativity of ethics. Philosophy and the Environment is much more of an applied ethics course, dealing with Environmental Ethics from all sorts of perspectives and angles. Celtic Civilisation is turning out to be a bit of a historical course, with suitable amounts of culture mixed in. I like them all so far, actually, and I am especially enjoying Celtic Civilisation, because all of the information is new to me, and so different from the popular beliefs I subscribed to regarding Celtics and their civilisation. All of the work is done independently, which I am really enjoying thus far, as it allows for a great deal of freedom, and it also shows an unusual kind of trust in the student. Altogether it is going pretty well. Here’s a picture to break up the text a bit, a mysterious nightly one:


Last Monday, I took a walk to Holyrood, as I have decided to do every Monday morning, and it happened to be raining, as it is oft fond to do in Scotland, but I decided that if I let the rain get the best of me I wouldn’t make it far here. So I suited up and went out to visit the mountain. As I walked, I noticed that there was snow intermixed with the rain, which was quite surprising, noting that it was 30℉ outside. I continued on the main paved path that slopes around the mountain until I found a stairway cut into the mountainside, going straight up a rather steep slope. I decided to climb up and investigate, and upon doing so reached the top, which turned out to be little more than a crevice in the mountain, with no access to the top, unless I scrambled up about 20 feet of steep, wet stone. Yet this crevice was three sided, so I could stand there and look up at the top of the crag I was on, at the tufts of grass, so green in January, and behind me was an excellent view of the countryside below, as Holyrood so well provides. Just as I was standing there, appreciating the beauty of it all, the mixed precipitation turned entirely to snow and intensified, all rather quickly. And suddenly there I was, standing in the same place, but now surrounded by an endless sweeping current of snow. I watched as it flew over the town, and turned to see it playing in the crevice, falling into the grass or missing that and touching the stone, only for the rest of it to sweep up again, and I looked up to see the current with its gray backdrop and it seemed to go on forever. I stayed there for quite some time, until my clothes were covered by a veritable blanket of snow. I went back in eventually, and took a picture of the mountain from my room to remember the experience. It's at the top.

Oh, and I should mention that I watched Obama’s inauguration from Aspen, an American bar in Edinburgh, with all of my American friends, and had a ‘Red Roosevelt’, a themed cocktail for the occasion. It was fantastic. I loved the song John Williams composed, and I especially loved Obama’s speech, of course. Oh, and my friend Yannick is playing on the University of Edinburgh’s basketball team (the Snow Sharks) and last night they beat the University of Glasgow in the finals of Scotland. So... we won Scotland. The game was played in the University’s gym, and they had to divide the gym so that the trampoline society could practice on the other side. So many hilarious cultural observations... And here's another Holyrood picture for your enjoyment:

Last Tuesday night, I decided to attend the University of Edinburgh Folk Society meeting for the first time, which I had read about on the Student Association site, which I was exploring for chances to meet more native students, and more my age. I settled on this one (though it was the same night as the Chocolate Society meeting, a tough choice) and I couldn’t be happier with that choice. I went to the meeting place, a permanent room the Society has amongst some student flats, about ten minutes early, and I was greeted by one man in the expansive room with its old hardwood floors and plentiful, assorted worn furniture. The man was the treasurer of the Society, and I talked to him for a little while about the society and how it worked - it turns out the society has been around for 50 years (hence the permanent room). We talked for about fifteen minutes, and in that time two more people walked in, one as new as myself, and the other a regular member. The conversations were a bit awkward (helped in no small part by the characters of the two regulars involved) until the people finally started to enter in a seemingly endless stream. The room filled quickly (and for me unexpectedly so) with about 30-40 people each bearing either a fiddle, a guitar, a mandolin, a whistle, or even an instrument I didn’t recognize. There was even one particularly elderly man who came in with a small bagpipe. The crowd was unruly for a short time with all of the greetings and tunings and laughter that resonated throughout the room, until one person just started playing a song.

It was a fiddle player, and it was a song that four or five other people knew, and they then joined in and performed an excellent Celtic-sounding song. This happened a couple more times before someone introduced the Folk Society and explained that this is how it functions - spontaneous songs that people bring to the group and perform, either ones that multiple people know (they have a song book) or a solo song. The night then continued with people either introducing their song or just breaking out into it, always met with applause afterwards, followed by banter until the next song came about. A friend of mine from my study abroad program came in and sat next to me (through coincidence, not planning), which helped me work up the courage to stand and sing one of the shanties I know, and it was very well received. People there actually joined me in the chorus a couple of verses in. I stayed there until midnight, and I was overjoyed to do so. There were many very talented musicians there, and I enjoyed each and every song, whether it was a crooning Scottish song, a lamenting song, an instrumental, or even a Japanese folk song. There was a short song played by the man with the bagpipes, which was quite loud, but enjoyable. There was even a man who was president of the society in the ‘60s, and he sang two songs in a reminiscent fashion. I sang another shanty at the end of the night, and they actually ended up closing the session with it. Afterwards, I got a chance to talk to the Italian man next to me who is doing his Masters here, and he sang ‘Bella Ciao’, an upbeat and lovely Italian song about love and war (I believe - it was, after all, in Italian). I couldn’t stop smiling the entire night, and for the first time since I have been here, I felt a little sense of home.

A Game of Skittles and Adjusting Thoughts

Another picture from Holyrood Park. My favorite part of Edinburgh actually, as of now.

When I first arrived in the Pollock Halls (the dorm complex) and went to the reception centre to see where my dorm was, they gave me (and all of the other international students) a yellow slip inviting us to a game of ‘Skittles’ in the “oldest public house in Edinburgh” on Tuesday night. Well, after adjusting and coming down with something of a cold, I was debating whether or not to go, and I decided at the last minute to go on ahead, preparing to meet people and the like. When I arrived at the reception centre, however, I discovered that I was literally the only one to make such a decision. I was greeted by three ‘Assistant Wardens’ (basically RAs but not students, yet still young - late twenties; there is one Warden for each dorm, and he/she is usually a middle-aged or older adult.) After some waiting, no one else coming, and then some debating as to whether or not we should still go, we decided we very much still should.

We arrived to what actually turned out to be the oldest pub in all of Scotland (not just Edinburgh), or so they claimed. It was in a tiny village of Edinburgh called Duddingston, about twenty minutes walk from Pollock Halls, and we actually ended up driving there since there was only four of us. It had a wonderful old Scottish pub character and we were led to the back, through a door which was actually a wall with a handle, to the Skittles alley. This was comprised of a long hallway with two long wooden ‘alleys’ and a long central wooden divider between the two. There were only gutters in the sense that there was a stretch of floor between the wooden alleys and the wall or the wooden divider, respectively. On the wooden divider was a groove, which slanted downwards from the end of the hallway to the part where we stood. On it was a long line of heavy skittles balls, entirely solid with no holes to hold them by, and at the end of each alley stood ten white pins, and a little place for a person to stand. An early form of bowling!

I ordered myself a Gin & Tonic, and the four of us had a jolly old time playing round after round until we were joined by a Warden from Pollock. He was a good-humored middle-aged man who found the whole situation hilarious, and then bowled his heart out (near literally - he had a style of flinging the ball, followed by himself onto the alley) along with us. I had invited my new friend Yannick, who lives in a flat in the city, to come along to the alley with me before I went, and he called while I was there to ask how to get there. It turns out that from where he was it was a 40 minute walk, half of that along a road with no streetlights, along Holyrood Park in the night time. He decided to go for it all the same, which I was quite amazed by, and he joined us after a few games. We all talked, joked, bowled, and ran repeatedly down the alley to set up the pins. Some good British jokes were made - “Oh, you have holes in your bowling balls? Must have some awful wood worm out there!”, and I enjoyed the framed pictures on the wall from 1913 and on which portrayed the alley exactly as it was now, but with brawny Scottish men with great big bushy beards playing. It turned out to be quite enjoyable for the lot of us, and I even won a game! The Warden even bought me a drink, which was a humorous situation, because I hesitated, out of habit, when he offered me one. I’m still getting used to the concept that it is in fact legal and acceptable for me to drink here.

Now, with the traces of a cold that I had from the jet lag coming around, the two Gin & Tonics I had on Tuesday night played their role and did their level best to make sure that the cold came on with force. It did, and I had that cold for the rest of the week, though I am starting to recover from it now at a rather good pace. The cold was probably also caused by the adjustment. I have come to realize that I expected a great deal from myself and also from this experience, to the point where I was a tad overwhelmed throughout this past week. I struggled a bit with those expectations until I realized (and was reminded) that Scotland, while incredible, is after all just another place on the planet, and people here live their lives in a Scottish way, but not terribly differently from the rest of the population. In essence, not every day needs to be incredible and amazing and beyond my wildest dreams. I am living here for five months and while I plan to make a great adventure of it and explore the place thoroughly, I am still a student in a university and not every day can or even should be amazing. It was great to realize that (and I owe some credit to my family for helping me to do so), and I think I am finally starting to really adjust.

And I took another walk in Holyrood Park today. I believe that it will become my spiritual link to this land. I also climbed some dangerous not-well-trodden paths, which was exhilarating. Here’s a picture from today:
Oh, and it rains quite a bit here. So don’t be fooled by the pictures of sunlit beauty. That happens, but not all the time. My camera isn’t waterproof after all.
And thank you all for the comments, and my thanks to all of you that read this blog. And Deb, I'm so glad you found the blog and can have new pictures of the land you love.
My best regards to you all.

Living in a Room Across the Road from the Highlands (or Rohan)

Hello again everyone! I have just made it through my first bout of classes, and also it turns out that jet lag has come back around to bite me, so I shall have to withdraw my previous statement about defeating it. But, with 99p (pence, for the Americans in the crowd - 100p = £1) soup from a local café in one hand and a smoothie in the other (metaphorically speaking, I do have to use my hands to type) I am recovering, and I shall update you whilst I do!

Last Saturday morning, after orientation was finished, we all awoke and boarded buses quite early to get to our separate residences. I arrived in the dorm complex of the University, which I had chosen for the purposes of meeting Scottish people, for the most part. I found my residence on the fifth floor - though they call it the fourth, because they have ‘ground floors’ here - and happily moved in. It has a sink, which I was quite surprised to see, and a view of Holyrood Park - a giant hill, or crag, of sorts, with King Arthur’s Seat on its top, and also a view of construction site, but with the crags in the background, how could I complain? Here’s the view (the spots are from the rain, which it adores to do here):

And the room (a tad messy, I had just moved in after all - and they even provided me with a fitted sheet and one other - very nice! I have my sleeping bag to top it off - Frugality!):

The dorm is working out pretty well so far. They serve breakfast and dinner (or ‘tea’ as they call it - silly Brits) and I have to forage for lunch, which I quite happily do. It helps me explore all of the cafés and restaurants here, which there are quite a few of in fact. A lot of Italian and Indian places actually. That’s another thing - the University is apparently about 50% English, 25% Scottish, and 25% International. Which is quite fascinating to me. But it’s reflective of the city and its international composition. The only drawback to the dorms is that 95% of its residents are first-years. This isn’t actually that much of a drawback, but it is something I wasn’t expecting, so I’m still getting used to it. Sunday was one of the windiest days on Earth actually, where a man of my height and weight was literally moved whilst I walked. I had to jog, sometimes involuntarily. Otherwise it was uneventful, and mainly involved the University’s orientation.

On Monday I didn’t have class until 2pm, so I decided to have a walk on the crags that I could see from my room. It was sunny out, which was a tad rare, and it was beautiful. Actually absolutely gorgeous. It felt like I had climbed into the Highlands (Northern Scotland - notoriously beautiful and sparsely populated) and completely left the city behind despite the fact that it only took me about fifteen minutes to get into the crags. I didn’t make it up to Arthur’s Seat, but I soon shall. I trekked up and quickly lost my breath both from the exhaustion and beauty of the landscape. Here’s a few pictures to give merit to my words (one of which is at the top of the post):
Hence the Rohan comment (It's a Lord of the Rings reference).
Lots of rain means frequent rainbows.

My First Taste(s) of Nightlife in Edinburgh

After my 12-hour night sleep and the next day’s orientation, my new group of friends and I went out to eat in the city. We didn’t actually know where to go, but we decided to have a walk about and decide eventually. The first place we stopped could not fit our number, which was 10 strong, so we decided to split up and separate. One half went to Indian food while five others and I went off looking for something more Scottish. We passed by a man we had seen briefly at the IFSA-Butler Orientation, a big man with a beard and a jovial look about him. After briefly debating the idea, two of our number ran off after him to ask him for directions. He responded quite warmly and gave us some great pub ideas. We went to a place called ‘Abernach’, which was a lovely little place on the Royal Mile. I legally ordered my first drink - Strongbow Cider - and mustered my courage to order a full meal of Haggis. It was actually pretty good. It tasted like ground beef almost - the primary difference being the texture - which was slightly slimy and almost a bit seedy. It’s hard to explain, but it really wasn’t bad at all. I finished it all, along with the mashed potatoes and mashed turnips that came with it, each portioned off by massive oatcakes. Very rich, the lot of it. We then had a traditional dessert (the name is slipping my mind - something that starts with a ‘c’ and maybe ends with a ‘-ch’... which doesn’t do well to narrow it down) with a round of whisky shots, which we got a variety of, from peaty to smoky to a balance of the two (the only name I recognized was Laphroaig). When my friend Yannick asked how we should go about eating and drinking this together (as is culturally advised), and asked if we should take the whisky as a shot, the waitress gasped. “This is good whisky! You don’t shoot it, you taste it! It isn’t Tequila! We have Sambuca and stuff for that! This stuff is great - sip it, then add some water for flavor.” That wasn’t the only inadvertently culturally offensive thing we did, but it was all understood (likely because we were on the Royal Mile - well solicited by tourists). I believe we even cleared out the back dining area...

Afterwards, we set off down the street, found our other half, and headed towards the nearest dive-looking pub. We found one with a sign outside that said “Live Music, Open Until 3AM” and ventured inside. That’s another thing I should note - almost nothing in Scotland is open 24/7. Nearly everything closes at 5 or 6pm, with the exception of pubs and restaurants, but most of the city is closed down by 9pm. Thursdays are their late night shopping days, with shops staying open until as late as 8pm! It’s actually kind of nice, because it promotes the idea that there are real people here. Anyway, we ventured into the pub and had a few rounds, and we actually found an excellent den with a table just large enough for all of us. It was lit orange, with a dusky feel, and we all happily drank, shared stories, and laughed the night away. Quite fabulous, really.

The next night, we found a cheap Indian place and had kebabs and even tried the famous Scottish soft drink - Irn-Bru (pronounced Iron-Brew). Brewed by a secret Scottish recipe for over 100 years, this bright orange drink contains 33% of your daily allotment of sugar, and it tastes, quite literally, like liquid bubblegum. Now the tables were turned - whereas I was willing to have Haggis and my friends were not, they were all willing to try Irn-Bru, and I could only have (and stomach) a wee taste. Afterwards, we went to a club on Grassmarket called ‘Three Sisters’. Every review that my friends had heard of the place said it was the place where Americans go to get drunk and throw up. So, of course, we went.... for reasons beyond me actually. It was rather trashy, with a DJ who had a set playlist and couldn’t take requests to a crowd of people aged 30+. Granted, that isn’t terribly old, but for a club scene, it’s definitely up there. I think you can guess which nightlife experience I enjoyed more.
Here’s a few pictures from the bus & walking tour we took on Friday:
Edinburgh was once called "The Athens of the North". This is a partially finished Parthenon - never actually finished, because it cost too much. Frugal, these Scots.
The view at dusk from Calton Hill.

33 Hours of Waking Walk to this Lovely City

I arrived in Edinburgh two days ago, to this sight, on Wednesday January 7th, tired and delusional from the trip, but silently quite happy, a feeling that has developed well over the past few days. I departed from Minnesota at 7AM on Tuesday, which meant waking up at 4:30AM with groggy eyes and groggy, wonderfully adaptable parents. I left the Minneapolis airport to arrive in JFK at about 10:30AM (I shall always list times in their respective time zones) and I navigated the enormity of the place until I found my bags, lugged them up to the check-in lines, and discovered that I wasn’t sure where to go. I was flying with Virgin Atlantic for the first time in my life, and so I followed some Virgin (ahem) signs and saw some Virgin America check-in lines. I talked to the man there who told me that no, they weren’t the same thing, and that Virgin Atlantic doesn’t even open their ticket lines until 2 or 3PM. Tired, thirsty, hungry, and so forth, I lugged my bags downstairs, to the mall of sorts they have behind security, and I found what seemed like the only available outlet in the place, where I promptly camped out with my computer, a wireless day pass, and a nervous heart.

When 2PM came around and I’d watched my fair share of Daily Show, Colbert Report, and Family Guy (so much collegiate viewing!), I’d decided that the stares people were giving me for sitting on the floor (which I think were actually just stares they didn’t register I could see perfectly well, as they assumed I was deaf and blind while I had a computer) had become a bit too uncomfortable, and I packed up and went laboriously back to the ticket line. There I was greeted by a good-sized line, and a lot of those people with red ribbons on their bags, a distinctive mark of IFSA-Butler students. I got into line, and my passport was requested from a staff member. I presented it, whereupon the woman laughed, and asked “Is this you?” ... ‘Yes... it was a different phase of my life though’. The picture in question showed a Riordan with a ponytail, no glasses, and a tie-dyed shirt. Quite different, but still recognizable. She demanded additional identification. No one else - not even Customs - did that. I guess I should be... grateful?

Once my bags and identity were both checked, I continued into the terminal and made my way towards my gate, where I found many fellow IFSA students, all waiting for the same group flight across the pond. I met up with my two fellow Connecticut College students as well who are, rather coincidentally, going on the exact same program. We all made awkward small talk asking names, home universities, majors, and other requisite questions. Some of us even played ‘Go Fish’. After a while, the excitement and rush of travel started to ebb away, and weariness and nerves started to overtake the crowd. 4 hours gives ample opportunity for that - and I’d had 4 hours before then even. At long last, we boarded our plane - the very first plane with a second story and full bar that I’d ever seen. We filed on back, and I settled into the middle seat between an IFSA student by the window and a Brit by the aisle who was no novice at flying - within five minutes, she was set up with the full nine yards - neck pillow, sleep mask, blanket, seatbelt on top of the blanket (before I even knew you had to do that). I was impressed. After some good conversation with Darcy, the IFSA student, I tried my best to read, which lasted all of twenty minutes, and then I tried my best to sleep, which lasted all of the entire plane ride. Note that the key word is tried here, and I happened to fail spectacularly. With the minor enjoyable interruptions of dinner and breakfast (in actual time only about 3-4 hours apart), I attempted to sleep, but me being quite a tall man, and sitting in the middle seat with nothing to lean against, with the chair in front of me being leaned back as far as possible, I was in no position to sleep. Or to move, for that matter. Quite fortunately, I had my iPod, and I had purchased a Zen Garden application in the JFK airport, which simulated just that, along with varieties of ambient sounds on loop. Thus, I listened to sounds of rain, shut my eyes, and had my best attempt at meditating. It was a good lesson in will power. It was also quite difficult.

We arrived in Heathrow at around 8AM, whereupon we all stumbled through Customs (not nearly as stressful as I’d expected) and made little jokes about the moose-like logo of the airport: and enjoyed the English accents and mannerisms. We proceeded to our gate and sat wearily about until British Midlands Airlines were ready to fly us to Edinburgh. That flight I was more fortunate on. I sat by the window, and had one of those moments where I fell asleep while the flight crew were talking, awoke after what I thought was five minutes time, only to hear “We are beginning our descent now”. I fared better then. This was my first sight of Scotland:

We collected our baggage (I was quite grateful for the presence of both bags) and boarded buses to Apex International Hotel, in the very heart of the city of Edinburgh. We had the afternoon to freshen up a bit, dinner at 6PM, and then, for me, a bedtime of 7:30PM. I had been awake for 33 hours, with only intermittent naps, the longest being the one hour flight to Edinburgh. I crashed and slept more soundly than in quite some time until 7AM - almost 12 hours. Thus Riordan did conquer jet lag before it could even greatly affect him.

More to come soon. Sporadic internet at the time though. I hope you are all quite well indeed.