Kerouac's quote is a wonderful way to begin this blog post for many reasons. The main reason being, I spent so much time with my Kerouac essay this past week that I was afraid I would have to post the paper as this week's blog post rather than writing about any adventures. Fortunately, the paper was turned in with plenty of time to take full advantage of what the weekend had to offer and what lay ahead on the road.
This week I made time to visit the Scotland Street School Musuem. With this visit, I have officially visited all seven of the free museums in Glasgow sponsored by the City Council! The Scotland Street School is a school located on Scotland street. It actually does have more significance than that, the school was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Glasgow's most celebrated architect. The musuem focuses on the history of education in Scotland and provides its visitor with classrooms frozen in time.
Kelvingrove: Visited
People's Palace: Visited
Burrell Collection: Visited
Modern Art Museum: Visited
St. Mungo's Museum of Relgious Life: Visited
Provand's Lordship: Visited
Scotland Street School: Visited
There are also other museums that are not on this list that I've visited and of course there are so many more throughout Glasgow that I still want to visit as well. There is always something to do in Glasgow!
I could have used a little chart like this when I first arrived!
Friday evening, I went with three of my American friends to see "The Awakening," a period piece ghost story produced by the BBC. I don't believe I have mentioned that "Cineworld" in Glasgow is the tallest Cinema in the World! You certainly notice this after you have travelled up many escalators to arrive at your theatre. "The Awakening" was intensely frightening and very entertaining. While the movie itself was entertaining, the reactions of those in the movie going crowd was entertaining as well. I rarely go to see horror movies in the theatres, however, the few times I've have it's been quite an experience. Generally, you have people perched on the edge of their seats, hands over their eyes, people hiding under their chairs, sitting on someone else's lap, shrieks of terror (I once even saw a group bring in pillows to shield them from the frights on screen!). It appears that all the previously mentioned horror movie characteristics are purely American. The Scots are a tough crowd and watched this movie dead on with no shrieking or gasping (except for the most horrorifying moment of the movie). I am pretty impressed, considering this had to be one of the scariest, if not the scariest movie I have seen. My hands were plastered over my eyes for most of the movie until I became slightly embarrassed at how weak I was in comparison to the surrounding Scots. It was at this moment that I removed my hands from my eyes and simply diverted my gaze to the ground... it just wasn't possible to watch that movie dead on!
After the film we decided to all head home and get a good night's sleep before our adventure the next day.We had all signed up to take part in a student trip to Argyll. There are numerous ways to take weekend trips here in Glasgow. A number of places offer day trips that allow you to get out of Glasgow and explore all that Scotland has to offer.I went on one of these trips to Edinburgh. While the price of the trip was unbeatable the overall trip left something to be desired. Since this Edinburgh journey, all of the trips I have taken on the weekend have been with friends rather than a tour group. I had considered going on another trip with the group that organized the Edinburgh trip but Emily and Gillian instead suggested I should tag along with them on the Argyll trip. I am so happy that I did! The trip was much better organized, the price was fantastic, the people on the trip were really fun and overall the trip was a great success.
After leaving Glasgow our first stop was Inveraray. Inveraray is a small town that contains all the quintessential stops of any great small Scottish town: a castle, a port, a jail, a whisky store and a church. Filing off the bus we all met along the shore of Loch Fyne to have a brief introduction to the town. Throughout the trip we received a great deal of information about the places we visited as well as myths and stories regarding the areas. I really loved this part of the trip, the stories told on the bus and in the towns were entertaining, funny and at times even informative! It gave everyone on the tour more insight into what we were seeing.
There was one story in particular that stands out. In the 1940's Lady Arran Colquhoun brought Australian Wallabies to Scotland. The wallabies were placed on an island in Loch Lomond where they furthered their species creating their own wallaby colony. The island is now called "Wallaby Island" and is home to over 60 wallabies. I now really want to go see the wallabies.
While we didn't get to see the wallabies we did get an hour to explore Inveraray.
After a quick cup of coffee it was time to continue up into Argyll to the town of Oban. After getting off the bus we went to explore the ruins of Dunollie castle. To get to the castle ruins you had to climb a hill that had a narrow, rocky, muddy path. I think everyone, including myself, was slightly worried about their choice of footwear for the day. The climb up was fairly simple but I was more worried about the climb down! The views from the castle ruins were beautiful and the ruins themselves were very interesting. After a few stories and picture taking we made our way back down the hill. No one died or even slid down the hill!
As documented by this blog, I attended a football (soccer) game last week. This week I took my sporting attendance to a whole new level and attended a rugby game. Before coming to Scotland I knew absolutely nothing about Rugby. Although, I will admit to knowing more than one particular American friend. I was skyping with said friend (I will not mention names) whom I told I was attending a rugby game. This friend said "Oh Rugby! Is that the thing with horses?!".. No, it is not the thing with horses that is polo, which I should also go to! On Sunday, the Glasgow Warriors were playing against Bath Rugby. For knowing nothing about the sport I had a really good time. The game ended up being pretty exciting and the Warriors won in the very last seconds of the game. I believe I embarrassed my poor flatmate by continuing to call a particular form of scoring a "goal"... apparently they are not "goals" they are "tries" Although, this terminology doesn't make sense to me. If you score a "try" you aren't really trying anymore you've already achieved your goal. Therefore, I believe that they should be called "achieves" and not "tries." I know that my brothers and Dad greatly miss all my sport insights. During half-time they shot scarves, water proofs and teddy bears out of a t-shirt gun. It was the first time my flatmate had ever seen a tshirt gun, he fell in love instantly. I told him that if he thinks shooting scarves out of them is impressive he should come to an American game where we shoot hotdogs out of guns while watching children dressed as ketchup, relish and mustard race around a field. I believe he already booked his ticket!
Scotlish Lesson: Skint- Short on Cash.
----If you are reading this blog you probably have a bit of an interest in travel. And, even if you don't you probably love good pictures because who doesn't? My good friend, Stuart, just got back from a trip to India and his pictures are fantastic! You can take a look at them here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.10150462877059810.433892.726659809&type=1
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