As an arts student (American Studies is considered an art!) I receive the very special gift of Reading Week. Reading Week takes place around Mid-Term and is for students to catch up on all the readings they may have failed to complete throughout the current semester. My parents have a slight concern that I am participating in no school work and am just gallivanting around the United Kingdom on trips and the like. While I will not deny my gallivanting I will say this. I have no reading to do for reading week because I have stayed on top of all of my reading. Parents of the World it is possible to gallivant AND do all the readings they give you in Grad school. While I don't have to catch up on readings I certainly have plenty to do this week. In early November I have not only a journaling assignment and an essay due but a presentation as well. I will be spending some quality bonding time with Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" this week. Having said that, enough about school let's get on with the gallivanting side of my week.
I take my position as an arts student very seriously. Which means I find it imperative to explore all the arts of this city. This week was certainly a week filled with the arts. In an epic discovery by my flatmate and me it was uncovered that many of the cultural venues throughout the city offer inexpensive tickets to students and to what are called preview performances. These preview performances are technically dress rehearsals that take place one to two days before the actual play. Essentially, it is exactly the same as going to the "real" play but at a drastically reduced expense. Somehow many of these cultural events seemed to collide in this past week.
First on the list was "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg." I had seen signs up around Glasgow for the play but wasn't entirely sure what the play was about. Having taken our seats on Thursday evening waiting for the play to begin I may have mentioned my lack of knowledge regarding the play. My theatre companion was appallled... had I really not read the synopsis of the play online? Nope. Did I not watch the trailer? No, again. Did I not research the actors appearing in the play? No, I definitely did not do that. This led to a very interesting conversation about being prepared for cultural events. Is it better to know what a play is about or to go in completely blind? Is it better to have listened to a symphony before you attend the production? Is it absolutely vital to know about the actors before you see them perform? I am generally open to anything and don't feel the need to know exactly what a play is about before arriving. However, I do read every bit of the program before the show starts so that has to count for something! Below is the trailer that I didn't watch before the play!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdbquEoH2G0
This was the first chance I had to experience the Citizens Theatre. I really enjoyed the theatre and would absolutely recommend this particular theatre to any visitors of Glasgow. The theatre is not only beautiful but realtively small so the theatre performances feel quite intimate. In fact, I enjoyed the theatre so much that I returned Saturday evening for a production put on by the youth theatre company. This particular production featured the works of Poe. It was very well done and if I were currently teaching English (in Glasgow) I would absolutely take my students to this production. The set up of the theatre was very atmospheric and certainly added to the darkness of Poe's writing. Live theatre is always much more scary than any horror film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJzqUBRvXCM
In between all my theatre goings I was able to leave Glasgow for a short while this weekend. I had agreed to travel to Pitlochry, Scotland to visit the Enchanted Forest. Now, because I have the best friends in the entire World I apparently wasn't only going to Pitlochry. Sunday evening I received a personal menu of places to visit the next day. Here were my choices:
"Ok, so for tomorrow, there are a few things we could do before the Enchanted Forest event:
1) The Tenement House - before even leaving Glasgow we could go here: a traditional tenement house as it looked at the turn of the 20th century. The woman who lived in it from 1911 until 1965 hardly changed a thing about it (apart from installing electricity).
2) We can then head up the motorway toward Stirling where we could pop up to the site of the Battle of Bannockburn where in 1314 Robert the Bruce defeated the English in the decisive battle of the First Scottish War of Independence. Or, we head to Culross, a village which is the closest thing you will find to a 16th century village in Scotland with some amazingly cute and beautiful old houses.
3) Having done that, we could then continue on towards Pitlochry, perhaps stopping, if it took your fancy and you had £12.50 to spare, at Deep Sea World at North Queensferry (which also happens to sit right under the famous Forth Bridge). There is a long, underwater tunnel where you can look at fish and sharks, and they have seals too.
4) A potential pit-stop at Perth might be in order. Perth is a small but pleasant city which might be nice to have a wander round.
* or forgetting 3 & 4 - continue on to the City of Dundee and visit the RRS Discovery, famous and fascinating Polar exploration ship of Robert Falcon Scott.
5) Getting closer to Pitlochry now and you have the option of calling in at Dunkeld Cathedral.
6) Finally Pitlochry is in sight, but perhaps there is still time to take a left turn before getting there to quickly call in at Fortingall, reputed birthplace of Pontius Pilate, and home to Europe's oldest piece of vegetation - the 2,000-5,000 year old famous yew tree?
7) Pitlochry, and time for dinner before the Enchanted Forest."
--Yes you may take a moment to be envious of my super planning friends. So which of these lovely things did we end up doing on Sunday? Well, we managed to do quite a few!
After tromping around the battlefields... we decided not to reenact the battle, we simply did not have enough people! It was off to Culross, a town that has worked to hold onto its 16th century Scottish village image. The town was really beautiful and was nice to wander about. While wandering around the town we discussed what it might be like to live in a town such as this. I would like it for about a week but Stuart believes that living in a place like this might unlock all the artistic prowess he has held in for so long and he would paint, write and do a number of other artsy endeavors...A look at these pictures might have you believing you could do the same.
A beautiful chuch. A random woman on the road gave us a history lesson about this church and she would know because "she's a historian."
After exploring the town we decided it was time to join the Modern World, because well we were hungry. But before getting a pub lunch we made a quick stop to visit Deep Sea World. I had never really thought of aquariums being a major part of my adventures here but this is now the second aquarium I have visited! This one was really nice and included a long underwater tunnel where you were able to walk with sharks and fish of all description swimming around and above you. While standing on the conveyor belt taking in the scene Stuart and I played our favorite game "Stupid Questions Americans Might Ask in This Situation." While this may seem stereotypical and unfair of us, Americans asking stupid questions is unfortunately excessively common. In fact, while in Edinburgh Castle I heard an American loudly carrying on with the tour guide saying that we Americans have an impossible time with British History because all of the key players are named the same name. He asked "Why didn't they all just have different names? It would be easier for us!" After much prodding from Stuart to ask one of our amazingly clever questions to the guides in my thickest American accents I fed him to the sharks. No actually, we became distracted by the seals.
After paling around with the seals for a bit we decided it was really time for lunch. Our walk to find a pub wound us around the greatest feat of Scottish engineering and architecture, the Forth Bridge. Which I said looked like a roller coaster. I was yelled at for this!
While Stuart was busy taking all his impressive, artistic photographs I was busy taking pictures of plastic sheep.
Yet another creepy Scottish Mannequin!
Please ignore my terrible videography skills, I promise to improve quickly! While this video is terrible and might make you motion sick it does have some good views of the boat. It allows you to take place in our argument regarding which of us would be able to last longer on the sea. I wouldn't want to stay on the sea for two years and certainly not in the cramped rooms. Although, I might be "thankful for that room if I was stuck in the Antarctic!"
It was at this point of the evening that we had accomplished so much I had almost forgotten that we hadn't even accomplished the one thing we had set out to do.. the Enchanted Forest. After a short drive we arrived in Pitlochry had a quick dinner and prepared ourselves to enter the Enchanted Forest. By we I really mean Stuart who loaded himself down with camera equipment and changed into hiking boots.
Ridiculous amount of camera equipment. We probably could have just lied and said we worked with National Geographic... I'm sure they would have believed us! Even though I may have mocked someone slightly for the camera equipment I can't mock the product!
We have some serious light harp playing skills!
The Enchanted Forest certainly helped to get me into the Halloween mood... As did the two gigantic packages of Halloween decorations my mom sent to Glasgow. It was decided that something had to be done with these decorations and it was for this reason Flat 3/1 had a Halloween Pumpkin Carving Evening. Halloween is slowly becoming a more celebrated holiday in this part of the world. Whereas in the past the Brits would carve turnips, if they carved anything, pumpkins are slowly taking their place. Although, you won't find the massive pumpkins you find in the States. While the craze might be taking over Britian it hasn't hit South Africa quite yet. For this reason, Richard had never carved a pumpkin and this needed to be changed. We headed down the street to one of my favorite stores in Glasgow, Roots and Fruits and selected a couple of the stores very moderately sized pumpkins.
Someone took their pumpkin carving very seriously... fine was just not good enough!
And here it is Mom... all your decorations being hung up!
In other news I have officially booked my tickets home for Christmas vacation. I will be leaving Glasgow on the 15th of December and will arrive in Kansas City the same day. I will be home for three whole weeks. I am already making a list of things I am eagerly awaiting to be reunited with in Kansas city and things I will miss in Glasgow.
Scotslish Lesson: NEDS- Non-Educated Delinquents... there are plenty of NEDS in Glasgow and some in Dundee as well!
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