Seattle → Edinburgh

Visitors...and a parade

2007-03-24T11:19:00.000-07:00

So, I got to see some friends from home today! Liz D. and Liz G. are in Edinburgh, before taking off with some of the other Brown/U.Edinburgh girls who I've met this semester on a trip around Scotland.

We got lunch, and as we were walking down to the library to check email etc, we saw these people.

Hmm, we thought. A marching band. Then we got to the library, and thought it would be a good idea to show our visitors the Meadows, the big, beautiful, don't-walk-in-it-after-dark park next door. Where we saw another marching band.

I mean fifty or so.

It turns out we stumbled on the march commemorating the 300th anniversary of the union between Scotland and England, being sponsored by the pro-union political groups against the Scottish nationalists. There were no Scottish flags we saw (except for the one at the pub in the first picture), but lots of Union Jacks:

Also lots of pro-Protestant sentiment. We were given leaflets by a man who told us it was necessary to prevent the separatists "cos otherwise we'll have to have a Pope."

On the other hand there were also plenty of cute kids.

ok, it's a scotland blog...

2007-03-13T02:13:00.000-07:00

Woke up at 5AM on sunday morning to climb up Arthur's Seat, the pint-sized mountain (?) conveniently located in the middle of Edinburgh. The other people in the picture are Bria, Anna, Bob, & Lewis, all from the FolkSoc group I've been going to.

is this a scotland blog or a dance blog?

2007-03-10T04:10:00.000-08:00

...unclear.

Anyway, I had a rollicking good time at the Inter-Varsity Folk Dance Festival (IFVDF, pronounce it 'iff-diff') last weekend. I stewarded in exchange for a slightly cheaper ticket and a purple haggis t-shirt, but mainly I wore myself out watching & participating in everything from swing to irish step dance (which brings back 8th grade memories...)

Some pictures:

Remco, Amber, & Bryony at the 'Dem' ceilidh, w/ performances by lots of the visiting groups, some traditional,

and some not so much.

Can I please be this morris troup (Gog Magog Molly) when I grow up?
Sadly I have no pictures of the New Scotland dem (these are the people I dance with) - they did a medley to songs from the Sound of Music, complete with lederhosen, nun costumes, and the following lyrics to 'Do a deer' as they executed their flawless pas-de-basques:

DO a deer, I need a beer
RAY - the man who buys me beer!
ME - the one I buy beer for
FA - a long way to the bar
SO, I think I'll have a beer
LA - la la la la la laaaa
TEA - No thanks, I'll have a beer...

um. yes.

That night was a series of social dances in Teviot (one of our FOUR student unions) with swing upstairs:

and contra (yes!!) downstairs:

Gaelic = awesome

2007-02-22T09:04:00.000-08:00

I just want to share the text of an email I recieved today, for a ceilidh (dance party ala Scotland, if you're just tuning in) that I'm going to this Saturday.

Posted for no reason other than that I really enjoy the apparently random decisions about what to print in English versus Gaelic.

***

Comann Ceilteach Oilthigh Dhun Eideann

An Dannsa Bliadhnail
The Highland Annual

Di-Sathuirne 24mh Gearran, 9f – 3m
Saturday 24th February, 9pm – 3am

Teviot House

Fergie Domhnallach
agus
Meantime

Caitlin NicAonaghais
Darren MacIlleathain
Tormod MacArtair
Maeve Nicfhionnaghain

Fearchar Domhnallach
Mike & Ali Vass
Anndra Mac a' Gobhainn

Coisir Gaidhlig Lodainn

Tradtional Ceilidh with:

Kathleen Macinnes, Darren Maclean,
Maeve Mackinnon, Tormod Marcarthur,
Mike & Ali Vass, Farquar MacDonald, Andrew Smith

Lothian Gaelic Choir

Tiocaidean: £8, £6 (Oileanaich/Students), £5 (Luchd-ciuil/ Musicians)

Two classically Scottish things.

2007-02-20T16:42:00.000-08:00

Thing #1: Greyfriars Bobby

From left to right, Laura, Emily, Rachel, Charly, Betsy, me (together, half of flat 8)

Thing #2: Nationalism

Edit: these are apparently all over town now; Emily saw one which had been amended to read 'Scottish AND British.'

Fashion Statement

2007-02-10T09:18:00.000-08:00

I just found this article on the New York Times web site.

On the ground in Edinburgh, I can report that the kaffiyeh-as-scarf phenomenon is indeed flourishing. I noticed it my first week here; these days I probably see at least one if I walk from my flat to the library on a weekday. There is a little shop nearby that sells cheap scarves & bangles, and the kaffiyeh has the advantage of being one of the designs without any sparkles in it, so it is worn by men & women to some extent as well.

Fancy dress?

2007-02-05T04:17:00.000-08:00

I've been going to classes on Scottish Country Dancing for about a month now, and this weekend I went to my first real country dance ball (as opposed to a ceilidh, which is more informal.) It was in Glasgow, so we all piled onto a hired bus to get there. It was a formal dance, which was initially worrisome as I hadn't brought any dresses...but then I remembered that I live with 11 other women.

I had a bit of confusion with one of the English flatmates, Charly, because I told her that I was going to a fancy dress ball. It turns out that 'fancy dress' over here means halloween-type costumes!

Anyway, the dance was great, though quite a mental workout. Scottish country dances, like contras, are all made out of a fairly small set of 'figures' - little patterns that take 4 or 8 measures to complete. But each dance strings together its own order, and there are thousands of dances. If you're experienced, a ball usually consists of around half 'standards' that everyone knows, and half new ones. If you're me, they're all new.

When we arrived, we were given dance cards, little booklets with a crib for each dance (these are the red & yellow things safety-pinned to the women in a couple of these photos - the men are lucky enough to have dance card-sized sporrans as part of the traditional costume!) If you had a spare minute you could try to learn the next dance, but otherwise all you had to go on was the description announced before the music started. Or, if the dance was especially hard, you might get to walk it through, once, before it began. I managed to get through most of them (especially when the rest of the set was more experienced) though we also managed to 'kill our set' on a few as well!

Failte don Gaidhealtachd!

2007-02-03T02:43:00.000-08:00

Took the obligatory Highlands tour last week with one of my flatmates - quite touristy, but with enough scenery to make me hope I have a chance to come back with hiking boots. Some pictures:

Hamish the cow

Going into the Highlands proper

At Glencoe

Pretty fog picture from somewhere near Glencoe

Urquhart Castle looking out over Loch Ness, as preserved by Historic Scotland (which my archaeology teacher refers to as the Ministry of Tidy Ruins)

Loch Ness (plenty of monsters, incidentally, but only plastic and living outside petrol stations)

this has very little to do with scotland

2007-01-28T08:20:00.000-08:00

My cheapo mobile phone comes with language options. The language options of my cheapo mobile phone are six in number. The language options of my cheapo mobile phone are as follows:

English
German
French
Turkish
Zulu
Sesotho

Yep. Sesotho. As in, the language whose passive verbs I spent last summer analyzing as part of a research project. The one they speak here:

(in the green dot and surrounding areas)

I suppose Mobileworld could secretly be a South African company (fits the Zulu as well), but that explains neither why Turkish is on here, nor why Afrikaans is not.

I don't actually speak Sesotho for beans, but I had surprisingly little trouble navigating the menu, since several of the headings were 'ladi-call,' 'Di-setting,' 'di-alamo' (alarm clock) and so forth. Yay noun class prefixes!

I Have Been Officially Warned

2007-01-25T07:11:00.000-08:00

This is even better than the University's internet connection scheme that requires you to send out an email in order to get web access. All hail bureaucracy.

I came home for lunch today to find a stack of brown envelopes on the mail table, one for each of the 12 flatmates, and one for the common room (little do they know there IS no Legal Occupant there...)

Small note on TV in the UK: there are no such things as free channels. If you want to watch tv, you plug your tv into the wall and start watching. The catch is that you are supposed to have a tv license, which costs on the order of $300. Accordingly, nobody in the flat owns televisions.

How does the gov't regulate this? Well, one strategy would be to assume that everyone without an active license is violating the law...

The text of our letters (italics are mine):

~*~

OFFICIAL WARNING

To the Legal Occupier,

We have previously informed you that it is an offence to use any device to watch or record TM programmes at your address without a valid TV license (this must have come before I got here)

However, it's been noted that your address remains unlicensed, so you should expect a visit from an Enforcement Officer shortly.

Until then, everything you need to know is contained in the enclosed leaflet.

To avoid further action buy a TV license now by (etc, etc.)

If you are not using TV receiving equipment at your address you should advise us in writing at (etc, etc) We will then arrange a visit and update our records accordingly.

~*~

And a further goodie from the attached leaflet: "Officers are briefed to ascertain whether you are watching TV without a license. They will call at their own discretion and will return as many times as is deemed necessary to complete the investigation."

yikes!

Thoughts

1) The government is going to search my room for illegal TVs. Interesting. One of our flatmates (English) is checking with her father (lawyer) to see if they can actually do this.

2) The flat upstairs from us hasn't gotten these notices. We're wondering if the people who last lived here had some kind of violation - when one girl called in to try and explain the situation to the license people, she had a really difficult time communicating that a) we're students who didn't live here five months ago and b) all 12 of us live in the flat and if an inspector comes out can they please take care of all of us at once. They also told her it didn't matter we had reported our absence of TVs, and they were coming anyway.

I'm sort of amused at the inefficiency of the licensing system, and sort of uneasy about getting investigated for my nonexistent entertainment systems.

Burn's Night by Accident

2007-01-23T16:09:00.000-08:00

I am kicking myself for not taking a camera to FolkSoc tonight!

For those who don't know, this Thursday is Burns' Night, the national celebration of Scotland's most famous poet, author of Auld Lang Syne among other things. The two main events as far as I can tell are the recitation of Burns' "To a Haggis" and the consumption of said meat product accompanied by "neeps and tatties" aka mashed turnips and potatoes.

There are a number of Burns' Night events going on all this week, and I had been planning on going to the international students' center one this weekend (I'm also going to a ceilidh on the day itself.) I figured I'd get the haggis and the poem at least, even if it was mostly with other Americans in my program.

Instead, I walked into the Folk Music society meeting tonight to see a microwave in the center of the room, and people walking around with paper plates of haggis, neeps, & tatties. So, I can now report that haggis does in fact have a meatloafy texture, and tastes, I was surprised to find, a bit like liverwurst.

If they read the haggis poem I missed it, but I did get to hear the full dramatic rendition of Tam O'Shanter presented by a student in a kilt (one of many), which in the short version goes something like

1) Tam is very drunk, but needs to go home although his wife Kate is going to tell him off for being sloshed
2) Tam rides through the storm, and finds a big party of witches a devils dancing around in an old church
3) All of the witches are old & ugly, except one who is not. She is young and curvy to behold and dressed in a skimpy outfit called a cutty sark (?)
4) Tam gets excited and yells out something to the effect of, "well done, cutty sark!"
5) All the witches hear him and he has to run away. He escapes, but his horse loses his tail

This reading came in the middle of all the usual FolkSoc goodness, which is heavy on fiddle/whistle tunes with songs thrown in for good measure. I did manage to inject some shapenote (thanks, Hoy) which went over I think very well. Which I suppose means I'm going to have to start knowing more of it off the top of my head...poor me!

Edit - Um, cutty sark the undergarment, not cutty sark the boat. F'ristance, on the right:

weekend

2007-01-21T11:12:00.000-08:00

Today I went to the National Gallery with Emily and Jackie from Brown - free admission, and the story I've heard is that anything that has National in the title has to be, on account of it belonging to the British people. We spent most of our time in the Scottish section, the focus of which is this painting:

This man (Reverend Walker, as painted by Raeburn) is on EVERYTHING in the gallery, from sillhouettes (sp?) on the walls to merchandise in the giftshop. Sadly, I did not purchase either the china plates or the keychains. I appreciate that the painting is quite famous, but my favorite was this landscape by Peter Graham:

Also, yesterday I thought I climbed Arthur's Seat (the volcano in the middle of the city of Edinburgh.) After some discussion with flatmates, it turns out I climbed the hill next to it. So I'll have to make another stab at that next week. But meanwhile, a view from whatever it was I climbed, looking out over old town and with the famously incomplete National Monument in the background:

...In other news, Sir Walter Scott was born a block away from my flat, more news at 11 or whenever I get a chance to take a picture of the relevant inscription...

Fun stuff

2007-01-17T14:50:00.000-08:00

...so as promised I've been getting out a little more this week. We have fewer lectures to go to here, so I've been able to treat my reading something like a nine-to-five job. So, my evenings so far this week:

Monday:

Went out with the English Language society to a few clubs - a good group to pick if you want to compare accents and vocabulary, though the music was so loud we had to shout. Also had a chance to compare notes about Edinburgh life with another American from my Lexical Semantics class. At club #2 the background entertainment was what appeared to be a German version of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, done with animated shadow puppets, with intermittent, unhelpful English subtitles.

Tuesday:

First, I went to a Scottish Country dancing workshop. A pretty small class, but looks like good fun, and their main event is tomorrow night. Turns out it is a close relative of contra - there are petronella twirls, right & lefts through, and stars (I think this means something to four of you or so!.) Also Hey-for-fours, but they have a different name which I can't remember. Two major differences:

-no swinging, to my deep disapointment
-all of the above moves, which we contradancers walk through, are done while skipping and pointing ones toes

As if this wasn't enough, I headed off to FolkSoc, one of the folk music groups on campus. It was pretty good once it got going, though when someone started up 'Angel Band' I very neatly and prominently screwed up the descant on the chorus.

Wednesday:

Tired.

Staying in and watching old episodes of Ghostwriter on YouTube.

Cheerio til next time!

Good morning!

2007-01-14T05:13:00.000-08:00

(The view out my window at 7am or so)

Sorry for the lack of interesting posts this week - I'm doing my usual thing in new places, which is to establish routines before I go exploring...so mostly I've been figuring out my classes, trying to get Skype to work so I can call home, buying groceries, etc.

My gigantic, 12-person flat is actually full now: there are 4 girls staying with us who are doing a special internship program where they'll take five weeks of intensive classes, and then go work at the Scottish Parliament. Speaking of my flatmates, stay tuned for pictures...

right now...

2007-01-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

...a bagpipe in the courtyard and a boombox in someone's flat are having a war outside my window.

I think the bagpipe is going to win.

Edit: yes, it definitely wins: it's switched to the Star Wars theme.

I am arrived

2007-01-05T12:43:00.000-08:00

...And, welcome all, now that anyone knows about this site by means other than word of mouth.

No picture today (everything was either after dark, or in a security zone). But, here are some of my experiences so far (1st 20hrs or so):

*Spent the transatlantic leg of the flight smack in the middle of a large group of senior citizens on a theater tour. The woman next to me (center seat) was having a really rough time of it - I think she was annoyed with the flight attendants for part of the time, but mainly battling a vicious cough & mobility issues...but what this resulted in was that at fairly regular intervals, she would look up from the little movie screen in the back of the seat in front of her, and say in a very tired tone either "oh no, oh no" or "this is a nightmare" or else "sh*t" and then return to what *she was doing.

*Had tabbouleh salad and apple crumble(?) served to me at 4:30pm on a one-hour, economy class flight.

*Saw Edinburgh castle in the dark, and what I think is a carnival left over from Hogmanay (=massive Scottish new year's party)

*Had my suitcase tipped over (intentionally, and with an air of lighthearted hijinks) by drunk-ish highschoolers in Princes St.

*Successfully ferreted out Calton st. (it was either an alley, a close or a wynd. I still don't know the technical distinctions)

*Conquered UK power infrastucture! (=got plug converter oriented in the correct direction...perhaps I should sleep now)

Providence

2007-01-01T16:33:00.000-08:00

And the other city I inhabit, for those of you who know me from Seattle.

View out a window in my dorm

Thayer st.

Metcalf Research, where I spend plenty of my academic time

Seattle

2006-12-25T15:20:00.000-08:00

...where I am right now. We had a big windstorm last week that knocked out our power and downed several trees in the area.

Ok. Pictures from our annual Christmas Lincoln Park walk:

Hello

2006-12-13T19:42:00.000-08:00

Check back here starting in a few weeks to hear about my adventures in Scotland. I'll be a visiting student at the University of Edinburgh, although at this point I'm contemplating bringing a tent - housing assignments have not been forthcoming.

I'm buried in finals at Brown right now, but starting to get the inkling that I should have started reading Scottish newspapers weeks ago. I suppose I have two weeks at home to become fully versed in Scottish culture...