wander lonely or as a crowd

On a storefront in Grasmere

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

After seeing the aforementioned lake, Ullswater, it's easy to see where William Wordsworth found inspiration for his poem "Daffodils".

Such a view would tug at the heartstrings of any poet.

No daffodils in February

Ullswater lies in the heart of the Lake District and is the second largest lake in the District. It was one of the many I saw on my brief weekend trip with the International Student Centre. A fun fact about the Lake District is that out of the 20 major lakes in the area, only one is actually known by the name 'Lake': Bassenthwaite Lake. The rest are either waters or meres. To say "Ullswater Lake" is to say "Ulls Lake Lake".

On Saturday, the bus left at 9 am from Edinburgh, with our lively tour guide chattering away. Gary works with Haggis Adventures and was honestly hilarious. He hails from the Lake District, so this tour was near and dear to his heart. The first stop was Gretna Green, a village right on the Scottish-English border. This village is reportedly the first village in Scotland, and one of the most popular places to be married. Back in 1754, a marriage act was imposed in England requiring any person under the age of 18 to have parental consent before marrying. In Scotland, however, boys as young as 14 and girls as young as 12 could still marry without parental permission. Thus, a tradition of eloping to the Scottish border was born, with blacksmiths in Gretna Green holding enough authority to perform a marriage ceremony. Crazy kids.

A romantic setting for a wedding, I guess.

Overall, the village was a bit too touristy for my taste, but the elopement stories were harrowing. Fathers would literally be chasing after their sons or daughters by moonlight, trying to stop their carriage from reaching Scotland. Next up was Hadrian's Wall, which was built beginning in 122 AD. Hadrian was a Roman emperor who wanted the wall as a defensive mechanism. It's 73 miles long, and people often walk the entire length of the wall.

Also, while in Gretna Green, I found something I'd never seen in Scotland or England...

...ROOT BEER! If you know me, you know that root beer is my favorite. However, a couple sips in, I began to understand why the UK doesn't brew this drink. I'm not sure they have the hang of it, really. Oh, it started off fine enough (I was desperate for root beer, so I'd take anything, right?) but halfway through, I noticed a tang. A distinct, fruity tang. Root beer should not be fruity. And so the search continues.

One other place we visited on Saturday was Northumberland National Park for a brief hike (or hill-walking, as the Scots call it). It was a great day for a walk. The destination was a small waterfall in Aira Force. Luckily the English rain held off for the entire trip! Well, most of it.

 
Saturday night was spent at a hostel just outside of Keswick. I didn't know any people coming into the trip, since no one from my program was going, but I knew I had to go to the Lakes even if alone. This made the first day not as fun as it could have been, I think, but it worked to my advantage later. At the hostel, I MADE FRIENDS. It's a lot easier to meet people when you know no one, since if I had come with a friend I would have just spent the time with him/her instead of branching out.

On Sunday, we had a short time to roam in Keswick and also visited the Pencil Museum, home to the first pencils and the largest colored pencil in the world (it's in Guinness — look it up!). The Lake District is a huge backpacker/biker/outdoorsperson destination, so every other shop was a fancy outdoors outfitter. I met a shop keeper there who had actually been to Minnesota about 30 years ago, though he had forgotten which part.

Part of the largest colored pencil

oh, did I mention it was beautiful there? (bad quality b/c ipod from a bus window)

Next up was Grasmere, where Wordsworth lived for fourteen years. I saw where he was buried, his daffodil garden, and briefly saw the house where he and Dorothy lived. It would have been nice to actually walk up to their house and see it, but no time. That's the downside of being on an organized tour — no flexibility in activities. I mean, we had some time to wander, but also needed to find lunch. But as my dad told me, the benefit of doing this tour is getting an overview and scouting out places to come back to later on!

The entrance to the Daffodil Garden

William and Dorothy's grave

Daffodil Garden sans daffodils

I took a class on the Wordsworths, Coleridge, and other poets of that era last year, so it was very cool to see where they lived and wrote! After Grasmere, we went on a little hike in the White Moss Wood. There were so many trails threading through the hills. This is definitely another place that I want to come back to, just to explore more of the trails and hike further in!

Here's us in front of Rydal Water. Danielle actually goes to Macalester College in Minnesota, which is a pretty amazing coincidence.

Bettina from Germany, myself, Danielle from Wisconsin

Do Not Feed The Vicious Swans

Our final stop was Windermere, the largest and most popular lake in the Lake District (and in England). Our guide was able to get us a cruise on the lake for just six pounds ($9). Cruising is one of the lake's most popular activities — Over 1.5 million people cruise Windermere each year. Though it was cold (of course), it was fun.

I actually didn't visit Windermere. I just photoshopped myself in.

Ye Olde English Town

Instead of outdoors shops, every other shop was a Windermere Lake District Ice Cream shop. Though there was a fair share of outdoors ones, too... It was too cold for me to be tempted by ice cream, however.

I know it's been awhile since my last post, so hopefully this beast makes up for it. I'll post later this week about what I was up to for Innovative Learning Week. It's back to classes and reality for now!

Working for the Weekend

For most people, this week was the Week of Work.

Now, this is not to say we haven't been working prior to this week, but since this coming week is Innovative Learning Week, most assignments were due now. My workload wasn't too bad — just a 1200 word paper (4-5 pages) for celtic civilisation and a genetics assignment, but it was enough to make the week uneventful. I have no classes next week, and my flatmates have dubbed it Innovative Baking Week, so many delicious things shall be made (including Milwaukee Butterhorns. For sure.).

For bio, one of the questions asked us to determine 'whodunnit' by looking at DNA samples. I had a little too much fun concocting an answer... It's student-graded though, so hopefully someone will enjoy it. Here was the question:

A man was found murdered in his dining room and a blood-stained candlestick was found next to his body. The dead man was known to have a turbulent domestic environment with several recorded episodes of violent disagreement within his home. As well as the dead man’s DNA, additional DNA was recovered from hairs, which were found on the candlestick, and from skin cells under the murdered man’s fingernails. The results of PCR analysis of this material, together with the PCR analysis of DNA from the dead man’s wife and two other suspects, are shown in Figure 3. 

We had a figure showing the DNA of the man, wife, hair, skin cell, and two suspects so the relationships between them all could be deduced. Here's the story I came up with to match the evidence:

The skin cell belongs to the daughter of suspect 1 and the dead man’s wife. Suspect two is the daughter of the dead man and the dead man’s wife. Suspect two and the owner of the skin cell are half-sisters. The hair on the candlestick belongs to suspect one. 

It was a dark, stormy night at the Smith household. John and Susan Smith were eating dinner with their two daughters, Shelley ‘Skin-cell’ Smith and Belinda Smith, along with their mailman and neighbour Rupert. Their power had gone out due to the storm, so they were dining by candlelight around a nice cosy table. Almost too cosy, in fact, with Susan seated next to Rupert, across from John. John had been having suspicions for weeks. I mean, surely there was only so much mis-delivered mail that had to be personally returned to Rupert’s house for resending... right? John had tried to convince himself that Rupert was merely horrible at his job, but that thought can comfort for only so long. Something had to be done. 

With this resolution made, John confronted Rupert. Rupert acknowledged that Shelley was his daughter instead of John’s. John had always been an angry person, so he thrashed out at Rupert with the candlestick, hitting him on the head. The room was thrown into darkness as their only candle was extinguished. Shelley was shocked to see her newfound father hurt, and ran across the table at John. John tried to stop her, reaching out with his hands to push her away. John’s wife just looked on in horror. These acts of violence pushed Belinda over the edge. Belinda couldn’t handle seeing her father strike down the mailman, and likely soon her sister. She needed to stop all the fighting. She reached for the candlestick, and tried to hit John away from Shelley, but due to the darkness miscalculated and hit too hard. (Blood sample analysis from the candlestick would serve as better evidence for what actually took place.)    

Murder mysteries aside, the weather has been beautiful the past two days. I've been able to wear sunglasses for two days IN A ROW, an amazing feat for Edinburgh. This weekend I've heard it's supposed to get into the 50's, so I've made plans to to go the farmer's market tomorrow morning and then walk in Holyrood park and around the river to enjoy some sunshine. Earlier this week, on Wednesday, I went to the Harry Potter Society with Yvonne and her mom, who is visiting from Madison, WI. The society was doing a Care of Magical Creatures quiz, which was crazily difficult. The four houses competed against each other. Apparently the week before a quiz, some houses divide up the books for people to STUDY sections in preparation! Also, this past Tuesday was national pancake day (also known as Shrove Tuesday) so I enjoyed some delicious pancakes + Nutella with friends.

Next week I'm hopefully climbing Arthur's Seat, finally. And baking, of course. I'm also hopefully getting a guitar today!

update: I HAVE MUSIC NOW.

Happy Bastille Day!

Bastille, the band, that is. (apologies in advance for the incoming hipster-music post)

On Tuesday, I had the great pleasure of going to a sold-out Two Door Cinema Club and Bastille concert in Glasgow. On Monday, I had the almost-greater pleasure of getting tickets to said sold-out concert.

Bastille

Two Door Cinema Club

Both bands are UK-based, though Two Door Cinema Club has gained a wider following in the US over the past few years (and Bastille soon will). Funnily enough, though I love both bands, I had NO idea either of them were playing this week. Just last week I had been researching Bastille to see when they were playing, only to find that their show here in Edinburgh in March was already sold out. I thought that was the end — I'd have to wait at least a few years before they come to the US to see them live. But fate intervened!

On Monday, My friend Lauren posted on Facebook that her friend had two spare tickets to a Two Door Cinema Club show, if anyone was interested. Along with Bastille, this was another band I was looking to see live while in the UK. I had looked and found that they were playing in April in Edinburgh... but this was even better. I googled the show and couldn't believe it when I saw Bastille was supporting. I snapped those tickets up like a sea-turtle.

turtles like music too.

Tickets were only 15 pounds, which was quite good considering I was getting them the day before a sold-out show. The show itself was at Barrowlands in Glasgow. Another guy from my program, Richie, bought the other ticket. The four of us took the train into Glasgow around 6:30 on Tuesday evening and then walked to the concert venue. From what I saw, Glasgow has some nice historical buildings, though it is definitely a more "industrialized" area due to its location. I'm planning to come back in the daylight soon so I can actually look around!

Both bands were fantastic live. (That is my #1 criteria [criterium?] for a band, apart from liking their actual music. If you can't sing live, you're not worth my money.) The Scots were going absolutely crazy for Two Door Cinema Club, who are Northern Irish, and probably fairly popular here (maybe). Also, I'm not sure if it's just me, but it seems like Scottish people are a lot shorter than American people. Or maybe (more likely) I was just shocked I could actually see pretty well at a concert (do I have enough parentheses yet? [I even have parentheses inside parentheses. I think there's a word for these.]).

I took some video of a few of my favorite songs from each band:

Bastille - Pompeii

Bastille - Flaws

Two Door Cinema Club - Next Year

Two Door Cinema Club - Come Back Home

Next month I'm seeing Lewis Watson with Saint Raymond (two acoustic singer-songwriters) in Edinburgh, which I'm also very excited about. Also, tomorrow night I'm hopefully going on a Ghost Tour with some friends, an event that seems to be very popular in older cities!

To Be A Sheep in Shap

...would be a pretty relaxing life.

just chillin'

This past weekend was my home stay in Shap, England. My program, IFSA-Butler, had set it up as a required event for each participant in the program. Shap is right on the outskirts of the Lake District (yeah, they don't sprawl their lakes over the entire state like Minnesota. They restrict them to one little district. Poor lakes.) The farm I stayed at was about 20 minutes from Shap.

I'd heard from IFSA as well as from friends who'd done home-stays on past weekends that a typical group was 3-4 people per family. I got on the bus on Friday knowing two people who were in the same family as myself, and figured that was it. Little did I know. When we arrived in Shap, there was a coordinator reading out lists of who goes with which family. She read my name... and continued to read seven others. My surprise continued when my host family, Alex and Douglas, picked the group up in nothing less than a 16-passenger van to take us to their farm.

"Welcome to the farm," Douglas said, as he pulled into the driveway. "You guys will be sleeping in the barn," he continued. When he said barn, I pictured what most people think at the word. Big red building, hay, probably a few animals. After being shown around, I soon realized he should have said "ski chalet" or perhaps "summer camp" instead.

All of the stone housing on the right was for visitors. (us!)

Where we stayed. Also known as summer camp.

We even had our own kitchen area.

Alex had a delicious dinner waiting for us on Friday, and we fell upon it as if we hadn't seen a home-cooked meal in months. (Hint: we hadn't.) The next day, we made breakfast in our gourmet kitchen, and then they took us into town: Appleby-in-Westmorland. Here they showed us the Parish Church of Saint Lawrence, located in the diocese of Carlisle. Coincidentally, I just learned today in Celtic Civilisation that this diocese grew to be one of the more important and influential ones in medieval Britain. In case you were interested.

The town has a small farmer's market every Saturday.

Afterwards, we wandered around town a bit, and then headed to a shop which had an upstairs cake-and-coffee area for morning tea. (I am a fan of having breaks at 10 am for cake and coffee. Though I guess Gustavus has it's own take on that with Chapel break, in a way.) You could tell it is a smaller, trusting town because you pay after you eat, downstairs at the counter, when you're done shopping. I had some delicious chocolate cake.

our morning cake stop

Next, we loaded back into the "tour van" for our next stop — Kirkby Stephen. There, we did some more wandering, then got sandwiches at a local shop and drove out to a castle to eat them. That's what they do in Scotland. If a restaurant has no seating space, just drive to the nearest castle. The castle was Pendragon Castle, supposedly where Uther Pendragon (King Arthur's father) lived.

Snapped from the van window

If you look very closely, you can see sheep living on those steep inclines top right. Fighting gravity.

This picture does not adequately capture how cold it was.

Being the adventurous people we are, the group chose to eat outside. It was cold. Very cold. If you can't notice from the picture, Pendragon Castle long ago ceased having solid insulation against the wind. (Sidenote: the wind in Edinburgh is at times as bad as Gustavus.) This hideout below was the only shelter from it...

Nor does this one. We deemed this the Pendragon Master Suite.

Surprisingly, after all of this, it was only 2 pm. We then went to a local chocolate shop, where they had many different types of little chocolates, and also larger decorated ones. Our day out was mostly complete by then, so we drove back to the farm, whereupon more chocolate greeted us! Alex made us all much-welcomed mugs of hot chocolate, and then the group decided to go hiking in the woods nearby, since their dog needed a walk.

Joey and Matt

Shannon and Madison

After being in a city nonstop for the past month, it felt so great to be out where GREEN THINGS grew. I know that by the end of the weekend, I just wanted to move there and be their fourth child (They had three kids, one of whom was named Fergus. This was how we all identified we were at the same homestay: "is your family the one with Fergus?!" "...Yes!"). We then went to the empty local pub, where the bartender was celebrating a lonely 30th birthday, followed by another delicious dinner and even more delicious crumble back at the farm.

Sorry that this is becoming a novel. DAY 2, SUMMARIZED.
Sunday was spent on the farm, with Alex and Douglas giving us a tour. Their farm is called Nag's Head Farm and they operate a non-profit organization called Learning Fields, bringing in groups of people who otherwise wouldn't have the experience of being in nature or on a farm. (At-risk youth, mental health patients, physically disabled people, retired farmers who need something to do, the list goes on.)

Alex's dream was to open a farm with all types of activities and things for these people to do, and along with Douglas, she is on her way. It's already a reality. They have massive plans for expansion and new projects, and already have so many current projects/activities going. On our tour, we got to dig in their stream which contains a large deposit of clay, and craft some beautiful faces.

The group: Joey, Madison, Lauren, Grace, Shannon. Ivy, myself, and Matt

This weekend was one of my favorite parts of being in Edinburgh so far. Though I did just see Two Door Cinema Club and Bastille at a sold-out concert in Glasgow... which will have to be part of another post, I think. I can safely say that Alex and Douglas are two of the nicest people I've met, and also one of the cutest couples. Anyway, I'll put up pictures/video from the concert soon, and some other things

Overheard At Edinburgh: Superbowl Edition

I'm not sure if you are aware, but the Scots and Brits love a good superbowl game. Here are some of the choice comments I picked up while out watching the game...

"Wait, so even if they're not playing, the clock keeps running?"

"This is not real football which actually makes sense in the world!"

"Do they switch sides or something?" (As the Ravens scored on an endzone saying "49ers")

*touchdown occurs* ...No reaction

"Go Seattle!"

"You would think that the best cities in America would have the best football teams, like Seattle. It's cool — they have festivals and music, home of Kurt Cobain, Starbucks... so they should have the best team in America."

*second quarter is happening*: "How are they still playing?"


And finally, the shout heard around the world:
"If I miss Beyonce... It's over."

The Regulars

Haven't you always wanted to walk into that cozy coffeeshop, or that pub on the corner, or whatever the place — you know the place — and have your order waiting for you on the counter (and added to your tab)?

I may have found the place. Two weeks ago, a few friends and I visited a quiet little pub called The Montague for their advertised pub quiz Thursdays at 8:30. We hadn't decided whether to partake in the pub quiz until the very last minute, when they had just started reading questions. So of course, we were the people who interrupted the entire quiz to "buy in" to play. It costs one pound per person, with all money going to the final pot for the winner at the end.

My group played under the name "The Americans Who Tried Their Best"... and we did, but to no avail. Most questions centered around Scottish and British TV, events, people, etc, and half the fun was trying to understand the questions being read in a thick Scottish accent. A nice old bartender, whom we've fondly nicknamed Angus, kept coming to our table and slipping us the answers. Even with that, we still got dead last.

A large group of us decided to go back for the quiz the following Thursday, which happened to be my birthday. Before we left, we mentioned to the bartenders that we would be back for the 24th, and begged them to throw in some American questions.  I ate dinner in with some friends that night and then went to the quiz. We showed up to find they had written an entirely American-themed quiz for us! It may have had something to do with us bringing in 20+ more customers that night... either way, I doubt the Scottish locals were too pleased at the quiz contents. Pathetically enough, my team tied with another team of friends for fourth place. The Americans did not win the American quiz. Granted, most people there had about ~20 years on us age-wise.

Part of the group

After my trip to Stirling on the Jan 25-27 weekend, my flatmates had arranged to do a flatmate dinner on Sunday evening. Katy made a delicious English roast. My flatmate Gemma, who is from Scotland, went home for the weekend and came back with a delicious birthday cake for Camille and me!

The Table

Camille, myself, Katy, and Gemma

I just got back this afternoon from my weekend home-stay in Shap, which I'll write about sometime this week. It was so much fun. Tonight I'm off to celebrate the superbowl Scotland style. Kickoff is at 11:30 pm, I think. Thankfully I don't have class until 2 pm tomorrow, so I think I can at least hold out until halftime.