Thursday, October 30, 2008

Awwwwww

Quite possibly the cutest blogpost ever.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Challenging fate again

I've gone and ordered a trip again, knowing full well that the chances are better than even I'll come down with something nasty. This time I'm planning on fleeing family Christmas here in Norway in favor of a week in The Eternal City. I'll fly out Friday Dec 19 and return Friday Dec 26. Anyone wanna join, gimme a holler!

Friends

I bought the complete set of Friends this spring, and yesterday I finally saw the last (double) episode. It was the saddest thing since... well, since the last time I saw it. It brought home to me just how much I loved that show, and how much I still miss it. Ten seasons of such quality is an incredible achievement, and I just hope they will keep showing the reruns often. Future generations deserve to share in this bunch who have given so much joy and laughter to the world (which, for once includes yours truly...). *sniffle*

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Scotland VII: The rest

Thursday I drove down from Stirling towards Prestwick, whence I would fly out Saturday. On the way I made a stop at Dundonald Castle, which is mostly a ruin today. There have been fortified settlements on this hillside for thousands of years, including several castles belonging to local kings and later the Stewarts and then local notables again. The most interesting thing about it is actually the very well made display in the visitor centre. Highly informative with good visuals, while the structure itself is really just one big room, and some rubble. Yawn.

Dundonald castle
SANY0660 SANY0662

I like this pic...
SANY0685

After Dundonald I drove north to Largs, intending to see a Viking centre I'd been told about at Dundonald. However I was immediately put off by the fact that the centre was located in some kind of mall-like training and health resort thingy, also they only let people in in batches every hour, and it was now 45 mins till the next show started. I left quietly and on the way out of town I now noticed several shops and eating places selling horned plastic helmets and advertising junk food with huge, glossy viking-related promotion materials of various kinds. It was all tacky in the extreme, and completely put me off having lunch there (which I'd originally planned).

Friday was another lazy day. I drove about an hour south of Ayr, to the little town of Girvan, where I had a very, very good lunch at a restaurant called The Kings. I highly recommend their 21-day primed fillet, it's yummy. I also got in a few pics of the surroundings, it's quite a nice stretch of land south from Girvan. In the evening I had an exquisite dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Ayr called Ruby.

Ailsa Craig, the effin huge rock that sits about ten miles out at sea outside Girvan. In the background you can barely make out the Island of Arran to the right and Mull of Kintyre to the left.
SANY0690 SANY0687

That faint outline of land way out there is Ireland (my cam is crap, it was much easier to spot with my bare eyes).
SANY0692

Soooo... it's Saturday morning and I'm checking out of my hotel in ten minutes. I don't want to go home. I don't want to go back to Norway and to the class room. I texted some colleagues yesterday that I was planning on fleeing up into the Highlands to live on berries and tourists, but for some reason they found this highly unlikely. Still, I've come to enjoy Scotland the more every time I'm here and I find I can't wait to come back.

I'm no awa ta bide awa; Alba, cruit mo chridhe.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Scotland VI: Jamming

Wednesday evening I went up to the Settle Inn, Stirling's oldest pub (1733). Coming down from the castle earlier that day I'd spotted a sign promising live music from 9PM, so I was there around 8, to grab me a good spot. Around 8:45 the first musicians started to arrive, and I figured the first 3-4 to be the band members. Luckily, I had misunderstood the setting; this was no mere band performance but a weekly jamming session with local musicians.

During the night I think almost 20 people must have been playing something, and the rest of the crowd were happily singing along, stomping their feet and clapping their hands. It was folk music heaven and as authentic as you can get it. Five or six fiddlers playing at a time, one or two putting down their instruments in the middle of the tune to take a sip of beer... that kind of gathering.

Some of you know that I like to sing, and that my voice ain't too shabby. For the first hour or so they were mainly playing Scottish stuff I'd never heard of or at least didn't know the words to. As I was sitting there, pondering what tunes I might sing along to,one of the women started in with the Irish ballad "The Fields of Athenry", one of my favorites. I chimed in with my best barytone, and when we were done I noticed several of the musicians pointing, nodding and talking amongst themselves.

A few minutes later, one of the women asked me if I wanted to sing a song; I said maybe later (I was still trying to come up with appropriate tunes I actually knew), but some of the guys fixed me with a grin and said "yer noo gettin oot'a here until ye sing us one"... At that moment some guy (I think he was French) asked the question of the evening: "Do you know a song that starts danny boy, danny boy..." When the laughter and shouts of "never heard it before" had died down, he started playing and humming it, while I put on my most operatic voice and did a pretty damn good rendering I'm happy to say. Afterwards several of the musicians actually asked me if I sang professionally! (They also thought I was American, another bonus).

Later, towards the end, when the session was breaking up, I also got so sing a tune none of them knew, called "Sgt McKenzie" (some of you may have heard it used in Mel Gibson's Vietnam war movie We were soldiers). Another success, and we rounded it off with me leading a singalong of the old tune " The Bonnie Ship the Diamond". A wonderful night of great music, great fun and great companionship. I'm definitely going back there some day, and if you should ever happen to be in Stirling on a Wednesday night, do visit the Settle Inn and say a warm hello from the Norwegian with the American accent.

Scotland V: Your mother was a hamster

After Stirling Castle I drove up north to the cozy little village of Doune, where lies the castle of the same name. This was used as a hunting lodge and rural retreat for the royal family when they wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of Edinburgh or Stirling. Doune Castle is quite a nice place; don't be fooled by the apparent state of disrepair and ruin that meets you when you come inside the courtyard, there's plenty to see inside. Its main claim to fame these days, and the reason I felt I was walking on hallowed ground, is that this is where most of the castle scenes in Monty Python's Holy Grail were filmed.

This is the Great Hall - where they shot the insane Knights of the round table dancing scene:
SANY0652

Lord's Hall, the more private place the royals would entertain guests.
SANY0654 SANY0655

View of the village. You can climb all the way to the roof, and I just loved how the structure is full of winding stairs, little rooms, narrow hallways, etc. Makes it fun to explore and also gives the castle the impression of being larger than it really is.
SANY0656

This is where the outdoors scene in the Swamp castle took place.
SANY0659

In addition to Swamp castle and Camelot, Doune castle was also used for the Tempting of Sir Galahad, and the famous taunting by the French knights (and the subsequent Trojan rabbit scenes). The Holy Grail was shot on a very small budget, and they had to film the place from different angles to make it look like different castles. In the gift shop they have a scrapbook with lots of Python-related materials, and apparently they also have coconuts you can rent if you wish to reenact the opening scene.

Scotland IV: Stirling Castle

Wednesday was probably my best day ever in Scotland, and possibly one of the top ten days of my entire, miserable little life. I started out by driving up to the Castle again, and this time the weather was quite nice; windy but sunny.

Walking along the side of the parking lot to get a picture of the adjacent graveyard and pyramid I was accosted by a young French couple who asked me what the pyramid was for. These were fairly young frogs, no more than 20, yet their English was delightfully atrocious, almost a parody of how the French are supposed to speak it. At least they provided me with some entertainment at the start of my day. The pyramid by the way was built by some religious lunatic in the 19th century who'd made a fortune from selling religious tracts at a penny a piece. It was built in remembrance of all who have died in the battle for religious freedom (whether this includes all those poor fuckers persecuted because of the very existence of religion I strongly doubt). Inside the structure there is reportedly a bible buried.

SANY0607

On the other side of the parking lot there's a statue of Robert the Bruce, who kicked out the English and leveled the original Stirling Castle to the ground so that it could never again be used against the Scots.

SANY0604

Some years after The Bruce's death it occurred to the then Scottish king that persnaps the castle might be used against the English, so they rebuilt it. Yes, this is somewhat typical of Scotland. I also found it wonderful that the church right next to the castle is known as The Holy Rude, because if anyone can mix bible thumping with profanity, it's the Scots. Sadly, rude in this case has the same meaning as in rood (see Holyrood) and simply means cross.

I'm not going to repeat everything I learned about the castle. Suffice it to say that it has some very nice buildings, and you can learn a lot from walking around here, which I happily did for a couple of hours. You can see all of the pictures here, but I'm enclosing a few, with some commentary.

The Great Hall, built in the early 1500s. Note the bright color (known as King's Gold), which some may find tacky and jarring with the rest of the castle. Bear in mind, then that this is how the whole castle looked back in the day. It was intended to shine and send a signal to the world about the King's wealth and power and apparently it could be seen from as far away as Edinburgh. The interior is great, and there were thrown some pretty wild parties in there (but for these stories you'll have to visit, neener, neener):
SANY0611 SANY0627

There are tons of statues, gargoyles etc on the outside walls and some are of historic interest. One statue is of James V himself (he was the father of Mary, Queen of Scots) portraying him as an ordinary citizen, but with a lion holding the crown above his head. Apparently the good James sincerely desired to be a wise and competent ruler, and would sometimes sneak out at night to go around in the taverns of the city to hear what the commoners were talking about. He might have done more than listening in, since he had at least nine illegitimate children that we know of. Another figure is shown throttling a snake; which is here meant as a symbol of the Catholic church, though this must be a later addition Protestant church, as James V was a devout Catholic - devout in the traditional sense that he'd pretty much kill anyone who disagreed with him.
SANY0632 SANY0634

The subterranean kitchen wing is well worth a visit; great displays and much information. I learned one new thing; almost all the kitchen workers back then were men, not women.
SANY0641

They say it's no use crying over spilt milk, but the imminent threat of a thorough beating might justify a sniffle or two.
SANY0642

These mighty cannons blew Bonnie Prince Charles out of the water (figuratively speaking) when he laid siege to the castle in 1746.
SANY0644

Some truly great views from the castle... across to the Wallace monument, looking down on the castle gardens (which were once the royal hunting grounds), northwest towards the highlands, east towards Edinburgh...
SANY0606 SANY0638
SANY0637 SANY0609

There are several indoors exhibitions, there's a military museum for a highlander regiment, there's a tapestry workshop with displays, etc, etc. One of the main palace buildings is closed for extensive repairs and reconstruction, and will open in 2011 I think. This place was so worth a visit and I'll definitely come back often.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Scotland III: To Stirling

Monday was my last day in Kilchrenan, and I started by driving up the Hotel to say goodbye to Martha. I gave her the polished fossils as a gift for her and her fiance back in Warszaw and also told her to get in touch if they were ever in Norway. I then drove up to Ft William to buy some more loot at the gem shop (more cool fossils, metorites and onyx eggs) before driving to Stirling by way of my beloved A82 over Glencoe again.

Tuesday I drove up to Stirling Castle, which is every bit as good as the one in Edinburgh, and is run by Historic Scotland (of which I am a member). I was one of only two to show up for the guided tour that morning, and as the other guy was off on his cell phone half the time, I got a very exclusive treatment. I highly recommend taking such a tour, you learn a lot and the guides are knowledgeable and friendly. It was raining for most of the time, so I didn't take any pictures, figuring I'd come back the next day when the weather reports were looking better. Included in the ticket was a guided tour of a building known as Argyll's lodging, with the interior reconstructed to be that of a 17th century nobleman. Very interesting story and some magnificent furniture, etc to be seen.

As the weather improved I quickly drove up to the National Wallace Monument on the other side of the valley. The view is incredible from up there, and I climbed all the 246 steps to the top, a good 200 feet up. There are a few landings with various displays along the way up, you should take the time to stop and study them. I recommend you get one of the free audio guides from the front desk, they are very informative.

This sword alledgedly belonged to William Wallace, aka Braveheart. Judging from the size, he must have been a huge man in order to wield it - 6'6 I think the display said.
SANY0590

One of the displays was a Hall of Heroes, with 20-sumfin busts of the great and good and audio bios. You can go here to see more, but my hero of choice is of course Adam Smith:
SANY0591

View east from the top towards Edinburgh:
SANY0599

Northwest towards the Highlands. The Battle of Stirling Bridge took place down on the fields.
SANY0600

The Monument from the bottom of the hill:
SANY0601

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Scotland II: My precioussss

Sunday I spent most of the day driving again; this time up along the coast and then by ferry over to the peninsula at a place called Onich. Some nice scenery, but the roads out there were mainly single lane, which means that you have to take it slow, and it gets really taxing after the 20th sudden stop or so.

Close to Ft William I happened upon a museum called Treasures of the Earth. They have exhibitions on gems, mining, geology etc. I never went inside the actual museum, but they have a nice gift shop there with quite a few reasonably priced items. Ever attracted to shiny objects (it's the greedy capitalist pig gene in me) I lurked around the displays, and I can't be certain that I didn't whisper "preciousss" somewhere in there.

I bought a nice onyx egg as a small gift for my Scottish hosts' Swedish maid, who was 19 that day; a small piece of a meteorite (because they're cool) and two polished fossils about 350 million years old, intended for a friend of mine.

Afterwards I drove down to Glencoe and over the mountain to Tyndrum - that drive is just about my favorite in the whole world. Back at my lodgings I had a very good dinner, before popping down to the local pub with my hosts and the Swede to celebrate her 19th.

After they tucked in (shortly past 9 I think) I drove up to the Taynuilt Hotel again, to pester the locals once more. I had a splendid time talking to the staff all evening, I think it was past 1am before we finally closed up. They have some truly wonderful, friendly people working there, especially the bar manager, the formidable Martha. She's Polish but has been working there for over 3 years, but is (sadly for me and the hotel) going home to Poland later this year. She's simply one of the nicest people I've ever met and they will have a hard time filling her shoes.

The mountains, just before the Bridge of Orchy area (the lake is called Loch Tulla):
080929 boo1 080929 boo2

080929 boo3 080929 boo4

McDuff, my hosts' Italian Spinoni dog was even larger than before. Fortunately, he's still just a big, furry ball of love and drool.
080929 Macduff

Scotland I: The West

I know I promised more or less daily updates, but you'll have to settle for a bit less, dear reader(s). Let me begin this travelogue much in the same way as I did the one from this summer, by inviting you to join me in a prayer to the deity of your choice, this time asking for swift and merciless smiting of drunken airplane passengers. The smiting should take place AFTER the plane has come to a complete halt and the fasten seatbelt signs have been switched off, thank you very much.

Aaaaanyways. The car rental pickup was a much smoother process this time, probably due to Prestwick being a smaller airport and this not being the high season. Also, the woman behind the counter must have been born in the 20th century, unlike the one they had operating the desk in Edinburgh this summer. I spent Friday afternoon driving up to Kilchrenan, and in the evening I hung out and pestered the very nice people in the Taynuilt Hotel bar (again), both the workers and the customers.

I stayed up most the night to watch the 1st US presidential debate, so after breakfast Saturday I went back to sleep and got up again around 2PM. I spent the rest of the afternoon driving around in the area; first I drove out to Oban and took some pictures of the beaches there and sniffed in the familiar smell of seaweed. Then I drove south through some very nice scenery, but I just couldn't be bothered to take any pictures. I know, it sucks to be you. In the evening I hung out at the bar again, but only for an hour or so, as I was still exhausted from the previous night.

The beach just outside Oban:

080927 Oban1 080927 Oban2
080927 Oban3