Glengoyne & Glasgow Film Fest (Scotland Day 4)

Day 4-Sat. 20 Feb.

Today was yet another day of travel, although much shorter than Wednesday, since I was only going from Edinburgh to Glasgow. But there also happened to be a rail workers strike today, but luckily the route I was traveling was not affected too much.

After checking out of my hostel, I headed up the Royal Mile to do two of the smaller museums on the Royal Mile. There are almost as many tourist trap shops as small museums. This time I visited the John Knox house, which is part of the Scottish Storytelling Centre and is the house John Knox lived in while preaching at St. Giles Cathedral, just up the road. I then headed across the street to the Museum of Childhood, which contains many, many toys from over mostly the past century. (Note: yesterday’s post said I did this on Friday, I actually did the Museum of Edinburgh then. With so many small museums, they kind of blurred together. I have corrected yesterday’s post).

Then it was time to catch my train to Glasgow. Since my ticket was good for any train, I got there a little early in case of a canceled or delayed train due to the strike. Even though most trains were running a little late, I was able to get an earlier train than I had anticipated. An amazing thing about the Edinburgh-Glasgow train is that they have a food trolley that goes up and down the train. Unfortunately it wasn’t a little old lady that asked you “Anything from the trolley, dears?” That would have been too perfect.

After arriving in Glasgow, I headed straight to the bus station to catch a bus to the Glengoyne Distillery:

The tour began with a tasting of their 10-year old Scotch (£27/$43) and their 12-year old (£40/$64). The 12-year old is bottled at cask strength, meaning no water is used to dilute it to 40% or 43% ABV, it is bottled at 57.2% ABV. We then departed on the tour of the facility, which was not in production the day I was there, so we didn’t get to see anything happening. I won’t go into all the details of how they make their scotch, but here are a few photos of the distillery:

The shape of the stills in the last one are unique to every distillery, so no other distillery has stills of the same shape.

We then ended the tour with a taste of the 17-year old (£50/$77), recently voted the best highland single malt, and the 21-year (£80/$128) old varieties. Of all the varieties we tasted I liked the 10 and 17 year old the best.

Above, Glengoyne's core range (L to R: 10, 17, 21 yr. old). One we did not get to sample was this 40-year old that goes for £3750/$6,000:

An interesting note about the Glengoyne Distillery is that it barely makes it into the highland region, the road running in front of it is the dividing line between the highland and lowland whiskey producing regions.

Upon returning to Glasgow it was time for the first film of the Glasgow Film Festival, Crazy Heart. This was the first U.K. screening outside of London (wide release is next week). The movie was very good, and now I am extremely torn between wanting Jeff Bridges or Morgan Freeman to win the Oscar. The movie tells the story of Bad Blake (Bridges), a down and out country singer on his journey of cleaning up his life. Along the way he meets Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhall), but things don’t work out for them in the end, which helps to serve the point of the movie. He does get his career back though. It is very powerful, and I would highly recommend it to anyone. Jeff Bridges (and Colin Ferrell) do a surprisingly good job doing their own singing. Grade: A-.

A Church, A Castle, and a colossal amount of Scotch (Scotland Day 3)

Day 3-Fri. 19 Feb.
Today was the second full day in Edinburgh, and today it was time to see the sights of the high end of the Royal Mile. And again today, the sun was out. First stop was St. Giles Cathedral to snap a few photos, which will come later in this post. Then it was off to the National Museum of Scotland. The museum holds objects that tell the history of Scotland. one interesting item was a ceremonial drinking bowl may have been used by Robert the Bruce. He is represented by the lion in the center. Each of the seven shields around it are symbols of families that were loyal to him.


The museum went up into the 20th century, but this was perhaps the weakest part of the collection. After walking through the museum, it was time to head off to St. Giles Cathedral for church.

Yes, I went to church. While it is known as St. Giles Cathedral, it is not affiliated with the Catholic church (it was for two brief periods in the 17th century), but is part of the Church of Scotland, which is a Presbyterian church. It is tradition for them to hold a short midday service every weekday. And when I say short, I mean short. It was over and done with in less than 10 minutes. Welcome message, prayer, scripture reading, benediction, done. I knew it was going to be short, but I had not expected it to be that short. There were only a handful of people taking part, and the people who did not wish to were asked to remain still and silent at the edges, and to not take pictures. But here are some I took earlier that morning and after the service:
I then headed down to the downstairs cafe for lunch, and then off to Edinburgh Castle. Instead of going around myself, I waited a short period for a free guided tour. This tour turned out to only be a quick overview of the castle buildings, but it was good to do to get an overall sense of the castle. But before it departed, I got this picture of the "One o'clock Gun", which used to be a time keeping device for the ships in the nearby port, but is still fired six days a week at precisely 1 p.m.

The tour helped because then I could pick and chose which areas of the castle I wanted to see. First stop after the tour was the Royal Palace, which is where the "Honours of Scotland" are held. These consist of a scepter, sword, and crown and are considered the crown jewels of Scotland. Before you get to the "Honours", you have to pass through an exhibit on their history which began with this display:

Then it was on through a few more rooms and you finally arrived in a darkened room with a large glass case containing the "Honours" and the Stone of Destiny, on which all Scottish Kings and Queens are crowned. For hundreds of years it was kept in Westminster Abbey, but was returned to Edinburgh in 1996, but will go back for all future coronations. No photos or video were allowed in the room.

Then it was off to the Great Hall, which has been renovated many times, but the best feature is the exposed wooden beam ceiling, which contains absolutely no metal. It is held together entirely by wooden pegs.
After that I headed over to the Scottish National War Memorial, which has to be the most somber building ever. The inside is all dark grey stone and the walls are lined with books listing all the Scottish war dead since World War I.


The next stop was the Queen Anne Building, which housed the Prisons of War exhibit. Believe it or not, the vaults of the castle have been used to house prisoners of war during the Napoleonic Wars and, as they called it, the American War of Independence. These vaults held American sailors that were captured off the English coast during the war:


Upon exiting the prisons and on my way to St. Margaret's Chapel, which is the oldest building remaining, I saw that a wedding had just occurred in the chapel. According to the tour guide, this is a common occurrence and the chapel is popular with fathers-of-the-bride since it holds about 20 people. Here are a few photos of the castle and a view of the city from the castle.



After touring the castle I went to two of the small museums on the Royal Mile, The People's story, which tells the story of the ordinary people of Edinburgh, and Museum of Edinburgh, which tells the story of the city's growth. Each of these were so small I was able to both in less than an hour, although I did do them fairly quickly.

Then I headed to the Scotch Whiskey Experience. The best way to describe this place is like Chocolate World at Hersheypark, tasting and all, except with Scotch. They take you on an indoor ride that explains the process of making single malt scotch. Then you learn about the different regions of Scotland that produce Scotch: the Lowlands, Highlands, Speyside, and Islay. We were able top choose which one we tasted, but first they had little bottles that contained a representative smell of the whiskey. I ended up sampling a Lowlands single malt (Glenkinchie 12-year old). At the end they take you into the world's largest collection of Scotch bottles, none of which have been opened. There were nearly 3,400 bottles in the room.


Highlights included a blended whiskey called the Glengoyne Millennium Edition. It contained over 50 different whiskeys, the youngest of which is 30 years old and the combined ages is 2,000 years old. They also had a specially commissioned bottle, of which only just over 100 were ever made (the Queen has #001). I wonder who has #007? They don't know how much it is worth since none of the bottle have ever been put up for sale. They also had this unique bottle, and I think the only thing missing from this picture is some haggis and Robert Burns:


I then returned to my hostel after grabbing dinner at a pub just off the Royal Mile and did a little work before heading to bed. Had to keep up with the "study" part of "study abroad"!

Holyrood, Haggis and Ghosts? (Scotland Day 2)

Day 2-Thur. 18 Feb.
Today was the first sightseeing day of my trip and when I looked out my window, it did not bode well. Everything looked wet and the sky was covered with grey clouds. Both of my sightseeing days in Edinburgh offered opportunities for spectacular views of the city, so I debated for a while which one to do first. I went into a shop and asked the guys at the counter what the weather was supposed to be and learned it's like this 90% of the time.

I decided that it was the best I might get so I headed down to the low end of the Royal Mile to visit the Palace at Holyroodhouse.


Since it is a working Palace, photos were not allowed inside the building but photography was permitted on the grounds, which also included the ruins of Holyrood Abbey. The ticket to the palace included an audioguide, which was very informative and well paced. Since it was winter, the gardens were closed, but the Abbey ruins were open. The abbey was built in the 12th century and has seen royal coronations and has sat in its current condition since the 18th century.

And yes, since Holyroodhouse is a working Palace, the Queen does stay here, although she is usually only here for a few days each summer.

After the Palace and Abbey, it was time for lunch so I headed up the Royal Mile and found a nice cafe where I had a cup of tea and an excellent chicken sandwich.

Remember those grey clouds I mentioned earlier? Well, by now they were gone and the sun was out, with some clouds though. So it was time to head back down the Royal Mile to visit Holyrood Park, the 640 acre park that sits behind the Palace. The main feature of the park is Arthur's Seat, a 823 ft rock formation that rises above the city.

Also in the park are the Salisbury Crags, which form a cliff overlooking the city in front of Arthur's Seat. Arthur's Seat is the remnants of an old volcano that last exploded 350 million years ago. The volcano actually had two outlets. Edinburgh Castle sits on the other one.


They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, and I could write a novel with the pictures I took, so I'll post a few of them here and let them speak for themselves. The picture at the end of the previous post was taken from about halfway up Arthur's Seat. The second picture in this set is the ruins of St. Anthony's Chapel, which sits in Holyrood Park.


After spending the entire afternoon trekking around Holyrood Park, I headed back up to the high end of the Royal Mile (there is about a 200 ft elevation difference). It was time for diner and I decided to try haggis, because I felt it was something that had to be done while in Scotland. I don't see what the big deal with it is. I know it's cow stomach, but as long as you don't think about that while eating it, it tastes just like finely ground beef, albeit low quality, with lots of pepper.

After dinner I headed out for a ghost tour of Edinburgh where I learned about a darker side of the city, as well of some of its more notorious citizens, and went into some of the vaults under one of the bridges.

After such an intense day of sightseeing, my legs were sore and I was ready for a good night's sleep to prepare for another day of sightseeing.

Planes, Trains, and a Pub Crawl (Scotland Day 1)

Day 1- Wed. 17 Feb.
Today was the big travel day. I left QM around 8:30 a.m. and did not arrive to my final destination until 5 p.m. that afternoon. To get from London to Edinburgh required 5 different modes of transit (walking, underground, train, plane, and bus). First it was a short walk followed by a short tube ride to the train station. From there I caught a train to the Stansted Airport. At the airport, which included a speedy security (only in line about 10 minutes or so), I boarded my flight to Glasgow. After landing at Glasgow Prestwick Airport, I got another train into Glasgow Central station, from which I had to walk to catch another train from Glasgow Queen street station since there is no direct rail link between the two (think NYC's Penn Station and Grand Central).

Then it was a train to Edinburgh. The only problem was that I had booked my ticket to the wrong Edinburgh train station. I knew this ahead of time and found a bus route that travelled right by the station and my hostel. Only problem was that there was major roadwork ocurring outside the train station, which meant my bus was rerouted. The bus stop listed the temporary stops, but it still took me around half an hour to find one. Then after a short bus ride, I finally arrived at my hostel.

After checking in and unpacking a little, I headed out to the Elephant House for dinner. This is the very same coffee shop that J.K. Rowling wrote some of the early parts of Harry Potter. I sat in the back room, the same one where she would have sat looking out the large window with a great view of Edinburgh Castle. I unfortunatelly do not have a photo of the Castle from The Elephant House. Sadly, there was only one HP-themed item on the menu, a drink named "Fleur's Fantasy" (Hot Chocolate with Bailey's). I highly recommend it and their house salad.After dinner I walked around a little bit before heading back to my hostel for a short break before heading out on the hostel's nightly pub crawl, which would also be my first pub crawl. I quit after 3 pubs since it had been a long day and I had another long day of sightseeing ahead of me:

Bath, Take 2 of ??

Last Saturday was the second of what will be probably at least 3 trips to Bath while I am studying abroad. This time it was a trip to see the Roman Baths organized by my program.

After getting up way too early to catch the tube to the program offices over in Notting Hill, we boarded the bus for a journey that was just over 2 hours. When we arrived in Bath, we got off the bus, only briefly though, as we also had a bus tour of the city. We, of course, stopped by the Royal Crescent (which has very little connection with the royal family):After our bus tour, I met up with Terry and only had time to quickly eat a sandwich before my scheduled tour of the Roman Baths. The tour was a self-guided tour with a free audio guide so we could go at our own pace, which was nice. What I did not know was that the Baths were actually once part of an entire bath and temple complex (the big arched building was the main bath):

After touring the Roman Baths, I met up with Terry again and we toured the Abbey. The choir was practicing while we were in the Abbey, so it was nice to have voices singing while we were walking around. We did not go up the tower, but this is something I wan to do when I return to Bath.
Along the walls there were grave markers, including the followign one. Note what war this man fought in:
Before I had to get back on the bus, we had tea at the Boston Tea Party, which was nice except for having to sit outside. I highly recommend their chocolate chip muffin (and that's after only having 1 bite)!
I depart for Scotland tomorrow, so look for a few blog posts covering that over the course of next week.

England vs. America: Round 1

So I realized a while back I said I would do several posts comparing life in England and America. Well this is the first one in the series. Now for the purposes of school-related ones, QM will represent England and F&M will represent America. I know they're not representative of each others country, but they will have to suffice. So we begin:

Round 1: Libraries

Shad-Fack at F&M.

The library at QM.

Coming here I was told I should expect the study habits of British students to be different from American students. They are. To begin with, there is a lot less work, and British students tend to use the library a lot more. I was also told not to expect the library to always be open as late as college libraries are in the U.S., but QM's library is open a total of 89.5 hours every week (and until midnight M-F), but only 12 of those hours are on the weekend. Shad-Fack (F&M's main library) is open 102 hours a week (24 of which are on the weekend). I'm not counting the medical library at QM or the science library at F&M since I don't use those. So purely on open hours, F&M is superior.

As far as the books available, this also goes to F&M, hands down. Since much more outside reading is expected in class, the books are used more, and generally not available. Luckily though, there are multiple copies of some books. More frequently used books are limited to a one-week check-out. Some of the more popular ones are in the "Short-Loan Collection" which are generally due by 1:30 the next day. But just this week I went looking for a book on the Vietnam War from my reading list, but it wasn't on the shelf, so I came back the next day, and the day after, same story. Every time I checked the shelf, I first checked the catalog, which told me a copy was available. This is not the first time this has happened to me so far.

The frequent use of the books leads to wear on the books, which shows badly in some books. Many of the books show more wear than library books should, and not of them are wrapped in plastic. I have also found underlining and highlighting in a few books.

One good point for QM's library is the number of computers it has (over 200), but often there are very few open ones. Most of them are on the ground floor, and with all the people, this area can get rather noisy. Too noisy for a library in my opinion.

Also, F&M's library building just looks better.

The winner of round one, by a long shot, is the US (represented by F&M).
Score: USA: 1, UK: 0

I know all of you back home are getting buried in snow, and I hope you all take it safe as you dig out. Know that we have it here too, although it is probably best measured in millimeters.

I'm off to Bath on Saturday and then to Scotland next Wednesday. I'll try to make another post before I trek up north, but I will not be making any while I am in Scotland, but there will be probably at least 2 posts covering the trip.

Bath, Take 1 of ??

On Friday I went to Bath for a class field trip. We had to pick from one of four places to go and since I had friends in Bath, I decided to go there. I went in early to see Terry and Annie, and we saw a red telephone booth and decided to take typical tourist photos:




After meeting up with them it was time for our tour of the Theatre Royal, Bath. This was actually the second Theatre Royal in Bath, built in 1805. We got to go around backstage and around the theatre getting some history of the building. The first picture is a view of the theatre from the stage and the second is of the chandelier hanging in the theatre, which used to hold around 1,000 candles, and now has about the same number of lights.After touring the "new" Theatre Royal, we went to tour the Old Theatre Royal, which is now the Masonic Hall. It was built in the mid 18th-century and after the Theatre moved to the newer building, it became a Catholic Chapel, and subsequently a Masonic Hall.

As you can see from the first picture, the weather was very nice. And, a rarity, the weather was just about the same the next day in London. I go back to Bath next week for a bus trip with my program and tour the Roman Baths.

Tonight, they are keeping the bar down at the medical campus open late for the Super Bowl, but I think I'll probably only stay out for the first half since I have a presentation due tomorrow.