You knew Christmas was supposed to be heart-warming. Did you know it could be epic?

Without a doubt, Trans-Siberian Orchestra has the most amazing showmanship I have seen. As to the music itself: you may or may not have noticed that I am, in fact, very good with words. Yet for some reason, I have none.

They did O Fortuna.

O Fortuna!

What was that about catching up?

If you haven't given up on me entirely, have some more random December pictures; these are when I was walking home after the Christmas banquet.

The clouds were really, really pretty that particular afternoon/evening. The lavender on the left and the pink on the right were on a collision course. It took them a while.

And this is the library across the place where I stayed.

I'm very fond of libraries.








Well... forgive my spelling, but "Sannu, sannu, bata hana zua."

More random pictures from Glasgow, from December again.

One day I will catch up.

No, really.

Buchanan buskers

,

Boo.

This is the commemorative last post from Scotland.

Well, if you take out the commemorative bit.

Flying home tomorrow afternoon; it'll be about an eight-hour flight, give or take half an hour, so it'll kind of be a long day. If you don't hear from me, it's probably because either security decided I was dangerous ("Why are you carrying candles?" "Just in case there's a blizzard and we get stuck.") or we crashed in a fiery ball of death.

Or because I got home safely. Either way, no worries.

When I get back, I hope to have more time to catch up on recording my adventures -- but on the other hand, I'll have access to video games again.

It's a bit of a toss up, I think.

Anyway, this concludes the Glasgow part of Notes from Glasgow, soon to be continued with Notes from Glasgow from Canada.

Catch you all later with more fuzzy pictures and long-winded anecdotes.

Oh, and depending on how they turned out, I might just have a couple of video clips of buskers on Buchanan Street. Yay, kilts. I mean, bagpipes.

P.S. Irn Bru still tastes like carbonated bubblegum. Moderately tasty carbonated bubblegum, but still flourescent orange carbonated bubblegum.

I did something interesting the day before yesterday, but I'm not telling you what it is yet.

Ireland was fantastic. I'll have lots to say (and 450+ pictures) on that point later. For now: pretty!

Alas, Jenny is leaving me today, so my attention will be otherwise occupied for another five or six hours. After that, I have to find a new excuse.

Glasgow in the fall (yes, it's been a while)

Um, have some random pictures of Glasgow from October?

Lazy? Me?

See also: reasons why I shouldn't have a camera.

The last ones are the kind of pictures I prefer to take. Scenery just doesn't compare to tables and chairs.

/facetious

No pictures again -- I plead Bonhoeffer -- but some fun stuff from today.

We had a service and buffet this afternoon, since it was the last day youthwork students and theology students were in together. Backfire one: theology students didn't have class, so those of us who didn't live upstairs had to come in special. Backfire two: the youthwork students couldn't stay for the buffet, since they had to meet an advisor-ly person.

But it was great fun. Good food. The neat part was the music, though.

Remember when I jabbered on and on about "The Development of Doctrine: the Musical" and the brilliance that was that lecturer? Yeah, he was part of the band.

"Five PhDs and a Piano" (for serious). There weren't that many PhDs there, though. Recording the names here because I know I'll forget: Dr. Martin Spence (church history) on piano; Dr. John Dennis (New Testament) on electric guitar; Mr. Graeme McMeekin (youth work; he guest lectured our class on war ethics) on bass; Alan Guy (first year theology) on drums; Moira Hannan (first year theology) vocals; Alan Harrison (I think) (youth work? second year?) on vocals (he wore sunglasses indoors to fit the part, too).

Yes, I think it's funny to see my lecturers rock out. And awesome; don't forget the awesome.

They did stuff like "Sweet Home Alabama", "Son of a Preacher-Man", and "I'm a Believer", plus a couple I didn't really know, and one that was apparently the themes from Ghostbusters and Blockbuster together. All the musicians were pretty good, but the two doctors really stood out as very talented. It was a lot of fun.

Since I'm more than a little bit nerd, I have a couple videos (haven't checked the quality, but it will suck) on my camera plus a few pictures, and an 18-minute recording on my mp3 player that may be very poor quality, but exists for posterity. And made me grin to listen again.

Plans for Ireland are finally solidifying: Jenny and I plan to spend a week in/near Dublin after my last exam.

Flying home on the 24th of June.

Two more essays, two more exams. So dead.

Also: read Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison.

(Did you know he was homeschooled? And that early on he considered pursuing a career in piano? I didn't, but now he's twice as awesome.)

It'd be much more interesting if I actually had something to say here.

Actually, I just wanted to stop feeling guilty about not saying anything here.

So, no pictures right now, although I forgot in the list before to add Kelvingrove Museum and now the David Livingstone Memorial.

I will get some up, sooner or later, although chronology is frightful. (Most recent, or least? Or just whatever I feel like?) But I have essays I ought to be doing.

Hah.

If all else fails -- which it will -- I'll continue this into the summer (by which time I hope to have Ireland pictures, too), but I'll have to change the blog name and address, because it would be silly and frivolous to post notes from Glasgow on a Glasgow blog when I'm back in Canada.

And I'm never silly and frivolous.

Skye -> Crianlarich

Believe it or not, folks, this is the end.

Well, there was another day after this one, but the pictures are all gone. These are the last. I'd be sadder if I weren't surprised that I actually managed to finish before the end of the year.

So, the day after Dunvegan, we left Skye, going over roads we'd already covered to get to Crianlarich.

The only new thing of note was Glencoe.






Pretty, pretty region, but that wasn't the reason we stopped there. History lesson very simplified and brief (look up "Glencoe Massacre" for more):

After the Jacobite Uprising, King William offered a pardon to all the Highland clans who'd participated, on the condition that they signed an oath of fealty by January 1, 1692.

The chief of the MacDonalds of Glencoe was late, for reasons of pride, inconvenience, and beaurocracy, but his oath did get to the king -- late.





King William, John Dalrymple (Master of Stair and Lord Advocate -- I don't know what that means, either), and Sir Thomas Livingstone (commander of the forces in Scotland) decided to make an example of them. Sources vary on who had the greatest responsibility in the plot; most of the ones I know hand the blame to Dalrymple.

In January/February 1692, a number of Campbell soldiers -- a clan long at odds with the MacDonalds -- came to Glencoe and were billeted there. On February 12, their commander arrived with their orders.

That night, the soldiers slaughtered their hosts.




Again, sources vary on how many of the soldiers were aware, and how great was their participation. Stories abound of soldiers who warned individual families to leave before the massacre.

38 men died; more than that were killed by exposure when they fled the glen.

Hardly a legendary massacre, right? Among the reasons it's such a big deal is because it was a sick subversion of the old laws of hospitality, it was plotted by the government, and it was sanctioned by the king himself.

Below is the monument to the Glencoe Massacre.

Well, not quite so brief as I'd hoped, but I've always found that piece of history fascinating. For one thing, I read a somewhat romanticized account when I was a kid. For another, it was part of a character's history in George MacDonald's Malcolm, and, apparently, George MacDonald himself traced his history back to it.

Why, yes, I am quite fond of George MacDonald. How did you know?

Back to travelling, there really isn't much more to say. We went on to Crianlarich, and in the morning, we headed back to Glasgow. We stopped by Loch Lomond on the last day, but the weather was poor and I was tired, so there are (alas!) no pictures.

And that was our Scotland trip, Sept. 9-19, 2008.

Don't worry, though: I have lots more to add to this. Since coming here, I've walked along the Forth and Clyde Canal, seen the Falkirk Wheel, visited Mugdock Park and New Lanark, and returned to Loch Ness. I have lots more pictures to add.

Later, though. This morning, it was either this or my essay. Guess which took priority?

Skye (the rest of it)

My only excuse for the long delays is that it takes effort to be this witty.

Really.

So, post-Dunvegan, we drove east and then north to follow the coast of the Trotternish peninsula. First stop was the Skye Museum of Island Life: seven old-fashioned thatch cottages, each built and furnished to represent an aspect of life for the people of Skye.

Yet again, no pictures inside, I'm afraid. Was very interesting, though: each cottage had a different theme: among the ones I remember were a kitchen and bedroom, a smithy, a weaver's cottage, a barn, and a ceilidh house. Each was furnished and filled with tools and items that would have been in use through different eras.

There were also wax dummies. Some of them were slightly menacing.

This one, I do remember, was the ceilidh house. It had a number of historical documents and photographs chronicling the history of Skye, as well as more wax dummies and their instruments.

It also had a hot soup machine.

Not very historical, that bit.

And more obligatory coast shots.

C'mon, it's a pretty coast.

I'm not sure Mom liked the driving as much as I did; that was just about my favourite part, because I got to sit back and watch all the pretty scenery (and occasionally clamour to stop and take pictures) without any effort on my part.

All holidays should work like that.

Unfortunately, I don't seem to have any pictures of the road here. It was one heck of a road. I have complained aforetimes, remember, of the quality of the roads in the Highlands and on Skye, and the lack of actual road-qualities thereof. This one was just plain fun: same kind of road, yes, but by far and above the steepest I'd ever met. I think. To my memory, anyway.









The destination of said road was the Quiraing: a landslip with some extraordinarily unique formations. After we drove up the tiny steep road (I found it fun; I doubt Mom did), we came to a nice flat space to park and wander off. Naturally, we did.

I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves, here.

If you're not very good at interpreting photographs, though, I'll translate for you:

Pretty.

Unfortunately, it was getting late into the afternoon by this time and fairly chill to boot, so we couldn't follow the path all the way up to the Quiraing bits. Still, was a lovely walk, and the play of light and shadow across the landscape was fun to watch, even if my photography skills weren't up to the task of recording it.









Speaking of which, we were trotting along this lovely little path, me snapping away with my little digital camera, and we came across a gentleman with a real camera. If he wasn't a professional, he came awfully close. That was quite a piece of equipment.

My camera got embarrassed and hid for a while after that. Poor camera.

This is the path we followed. It was very narrow, but really quite comfortable. No real fear of falling. I had a great deal of fun jumping over the clefts and rocks and puddles in the way.

Nobody should ever have to grow up.

After the Quiraing, we still had quite a way to travel before we returned to the hostel: complete the coastline of the Trotternish, and then pass through Portree (that's where the ten percent of reasonable road was, in case you wondered), and then... actually, I don't know how we got back to Glenbrittle. We just did, okay?

Anyway, on the way, we made one last stop: Kilt Rock and Mealt Falls.

Again, the day was passing on, so we didn't have too much time, but there was quite enough for me to go camera-happy again (my camera had since recovered from its sudden attack of inferiority on the Quiraing path).

I don't have much to say here, really: there was a path, but it was mostly flooded, so we only wandered along the (very long) pre-path parking area stuffs. Pretty, pretty rocks, though, and, for once, a real waterfall.

And that's that.

I'm on Easter break right now. Started it off by going to Loch Ness and spending four full days there, all by myself. Aren't you proud of me?

I'll have to stick that up here eventually, but as there are 543 unsorted pictures, that will definitely take a while.

Hey, there are even a few of me in there. Isn't that neat?

Back to essays tomorrow. (Actually, the next day, because I'm a terrible person: that leaves me exactly a week to finish it. Wonderful.)

Cheers.