Some Pictures of Rome (1st day)

Colosseum

View of Ancient City from Palatine Hill

Remains of Emperor Augustus's Palace

Roman Ruins

Trajan's Column

For the complete album, click here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/hmotis/RomanHolidayDay1?feat=directlink

Map of Spring Break Travels

Spring Break: Roma, Day 1

After a long Friday of traveling from St. Andrews to Glasgow to London, I met up with my Spring Break travel buddies, Laurel, and her friend, Sarah.  We stayed overnight in London-Gatwick airport and took a plane to Roma at 7am Saturday morning.  We arrived in downtown Roma by 11 am and after dumping our luggage off at our B&B, we headed off towards the ancient part of the city, which, with Trajan's column, the Colosseum, and Roman ruins everywhere you turned, wasn't that hard to find.  After wandering around a bit, we got a combined ticket for the Colosseum and Palatine Hill, one of the oldest parts of the city, where the residences and palaces of many affluent members of the Republic were built.  The Colosseum was even larger than I imagined.  I think I was more impressed with it than Laurel was, but that's probably because she didn't know anything about it, besides the fact that it was famous and Roman.  I told her we would watch Gladiator when we got back to school.  Palatine Hill was beautiful, and the views of the city from one of the upper gardens were amazing.  However, as we were finishing the site, it started to rain, the only time on our trip, in fact.  We weren't too upset though, because we were jet-lagged, seriously lacking sleep from our night in the airport, and feeling gross from being unable to shower.  Needless to say, it was an early night back at the B&B, which was run by this really sweet Italian woman, Maria.    

Highland Photographs

Hamish, the Highland Coo

Another breed of Highlander...

Unfortunately, our guide Stevie did not feel man enough to don a kilt for us. And, no Mom, I did not ask the nice guide what was under his kilt, not even for you.

Pretty loch

Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in Scotland

Sean Connery's Highland house

Laurel & Me at Ben something or another...

("ben" is the highland name for mountain)

Glencoe

Urquhart Castle

Me, Laurel, and Nessie

Laurel & Me at Loch Ness

The HIGHLANDS

I know I promised an album of Edinburgh first, but I am having some difficulties with loading the pictures, so in the meantime, I thought I would write about the Highland trip Laurel and I took.

We checked out of the hostel and 7:30 on Sunday morning, and then walked up the street, grabbed some Starbucks to go, and arrived at Haggis Adventures Tour Co. to check in before eight.  We were loaded on a small tour bus by our guide for the day, Stevie.  Stevie was a Scot from a town in the Kingdom of Fife (known as just "the Kingdom" by locals, and also the region St. Andrews is located in).  Not only did he have a great Scottish accent, but he could really tell a tale, which made him the perfect tour guide.  Although the English might disagree with Stevie on some of the finer points of some of his stories, almost all of which contained an English villain, it was fun to have a Scottish perspective.  Anyway, before I talk about the places we went, I figured I'd post a map with our tour route.  We actually went up through Inverness on our tour, but otherwise, this map is pretty accurate:   

 In case you don't know Scottish geography very well, the Highlands cover most of the northern part of Scotland, excepting a narrow strip up the eastern coast.  They are, as I found out, characterized by their mountainous terrain and abundant lochs (or lakes, as we call them), with countryside unsuited for most crops except for cattle and sheep.  Historically, the Highlanders were not only separated by their dress (the tartans, kilts, etc), but also by language.  Most spoke (and still speak) Gaelic as their first language and English as their second.  All the signs in the Highlands have both Gaelic and English translations on them, sort of a Scottish version of Quebec.  Highland cattle are also different, very hairy and apparently have no body fat, because they have a double layer of hair on them to keep them warm.  We met Hamish, the Highland coo, at a rest stop on the Highland border:

After crossing into the Highlands, we were met with the most gorgeous landscape.  Although I was a bit disappointed not to notice any moors of heath and heather (probably because the heather wasn't blooming yet), the view was as spectacular as I imagined.  On our journey to Loch Ness, we passed the William Wallace Monument, the castle where 99% of Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed, many historic battle places, the countryside where Rob Roy lived before becoming an outlaw, and Sean Connery's "country cottage."  Along the way, Stevie told stories non-stop about historical happenings that seemed to come right out of a swashbuckling adventure novel.  I have to say that William Wallace and his rise from petty thief to national hero is a little more captivating than George Washington and his cherry tree.  

We stopped for lunch in Fort William after stopping for pictures at places such as Glencoe (where the famous Glencoe massacre occurred).  Apparently, the Campbells, the Highland clan responsible for the Glencoe massacre in 1692 (if you want to read more about it, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Glencoe), are still not served at pubs and hotels in Glencoe.  So, basically, if you are a Campbell, avoid the area next time you are traveling in Scotland.  About an hour later, we got to Castle Urquhart on the shores of Loch Ness.  We were only given 15 minutes to walk around, but Laurel and I had Explorer Passes that would get us into the castle grounds, so we ran down the stairs, down the path, and across the footbridge to the castle, took a couple pictures, and ran back.  Laurel got this lovely candid of our crazy plan in action:

Loch Ness, on the other hand, was a much more leisurely visit.  It's a gorgeous lake, but besides Nessie, there is really nothing that separates it from the other lochs we passed, besides its size and depth.  Apparently, if you take all the bodies of water in England and Wales, you could only fill half of Loch Ness.  It's something like 1000 meters deep, which means Nessie may never be found.  There is in fact a million pound reward for an authentic picture of the Loch Ness Monster, but no one so far has been able to collect the prize.  

After a little Nessie watching time on a bench along the loch's shore, we headed on our way, passing through Inverness (the capital of the Highlands), before making the journey home.  The drive back included a view of the highest Scottish whiskey distillery (single malt), a castle whose inheritor donated to the Scottish people after deciding he missed his cottage in South America, and a ride along the highest road in the U.K.  We got back at 8 pm, waited for the next train, and then headed back to St. Andrews, exhausted but happy from our weekend adventure. 

P.S.  I will post some Highland pictures soon, as well, before I continue on to St. Andrews with Laurel and Stirling.  Oh, and if you guys ever have any questions or requests to hear more about something, I'm pretty sure you can post comments on the blog, and I will be happy to answer you.  I am pretty much a sponge when it comes to any sort of information of interest to me, which is basically everything over here, so really, I could go on forever if you asked.  On that note, I will end with saying how much I miss all of you.  

Some Pictures of Edinburgh

Me and my Scottish Man

Holyrood Palace

The "Birthplace of Harry Potter" (also where we ate lunch)

The Royal Mile

Edinburgh Castle (the sign in the left-hand corner is for our hostel)

P.S. I promise to post the full album soon!

Sorry...

Okay, so first off, I just wanted to apologize for not posting anything in over a week.   I think I got overwhelmed at how much there was for me to post, which is completely illogical if you think about it :)  So, where to begin?  I think maybe I'll start from the beginning, when my roommate from Hamilton visited me in Scotland for a week.  Laurel, if you don't know her, is studying abroad in London this semester, so she decided to come over and see me for her birthday.  I will post pictures soon, but basically I took her around St. Andrews, which you guys have heard about, and then on Valentine's Day, we took an early train to Edinburgh for the weekend. 

Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, and the first thing you notice when you get there is the huge castle on the volcanic rock (creatively called Castle Rock) towering over the rest of the city.  Our hostel was very easy to find since it was literally right across from the steps up to the castle.  After we dropped off our bags, we went straight for the castle which looks something less out of a fairy tale and more out of a medieval war film, probably because the castle has been on Castle Rock in some form since AD 600 when King Mynyddog and his band of warriors fortified themselves in their preparations to invade and attack the Angles (one of the peoples in Briton at the time along with the Picts, Gaels, Saxons etc).  Inside the walls of the castle, we saw everything from the Scottish Honours (the Scottish Royal crown, sceptre, and sword), the room where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James VII of Scotland (James I of England), and the oldest building (excluding the castle) in Edinburgh (Queen Margaret's Chapel).  Queen Margaret was wife of Malcolm III and died brokenhearted when news was brought to her sickbed that her husband was killed in England.  She was declared a saint by Pope Innocent IV in 1250.  The chapel itself is a simple building most likely meant for private prayer, but the stained glass, especially the image of Margaret, is quite striking.  My other favorite part was probably the Highlands weapon and dress demonstration.  Apparently traditional kilts were formed from a single piece of tartan and hand-pleated each morning in such a way that left a tail of fabric that was slung over the man's shoulder and pinned.  If you have ever seen Braveheart, you will have noticed that he wore this traditional garb.  However, William Wallace was actually from the Lowlands, so he would most likely have worn trousers, not a kilt.  He did, however, carry a claymore (or claighmore), the two-handed broadsword typical of Highlanders, which you see slung over Mel Gibson's back in the movie.  They had to carry them this way, because the typical claymore was 55'' long and couldn't be worn on a belt.  Because of its length, it was dull most of the way up the blade so it could act as a shield as well (the highlander could grip the actual blade to parry a blow), but it's razor sharp edge was quite effective at chopping a man in half before the English soldier could even reach the Highlander with his shorter sword.  I actually saw William Wallace's claymore this weekend in the William Wallace monument in Stirling, and it was GIANT...66 inches long (the blade alone is 4 1/2 ft!).   Studies say that in order to actually wield the sword, Wallace had to have been at least 6'6'' tall in real life (basically a foot taller than Mel Gibson).  Anyway, back to Edinburgh.  After a lengthy tour of the castle, we headed off to lunch at the Elephant House, the cafe in which J.K. Rowling penned the first Harry Potter book.  Apparently, she was so poor that she couldn't afford to heat her house, so she would go the Elephant House and drink coffee and scribble lines on napkins and notebooks.  From our seat we could see a view of Edinburgh Castle up on the hill, and the resemblance to Hogwarts was striking.  Btw, Uncle Jay, you would have loved this cafe...I have never seen so many elephant figurines in my life!  Even my shortbread was shaped like and elephant.  After lunch, we went to the Writer's Museum, and I got to see lots of artifacts relating to Robert Louis Stevenson (author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, etc), Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Burns, the three most beloved authors of Scotland.  I had never heard of Robert Burns (or Rabbie Burns as they call him over here), but he is basically a national hero over here.  Guaranteed, the first statue or portrait you see over here will be of Robert Burns, unless you are lucky enough to run into Robert the Bruce, the first king of independent Scotland (also featured in Braveheart).  Apparently, you're name is pretty popular over here, Daddy.  After the Writer's Museum, we headed to the National Portrait Gallery, which was incredible.  They had tons of royal portraits including that really famous one of Mary Queen of Scots that you see in all the history textbooks.  By then, it was dark, so we wandered down to the end of the Royal Mile, which starts at the castle and ends at the Holyrood Palace, which is where the Queen and royal family reside when in Scotland.  On the way to the palace, we passed this really strange modern building that turned out to be the Scottish Parliament Building.  Scotland was awarded a separate Parliament from England in 1997, almost 400 years after the two nations were joined governmentally under James VII/I.  Their Prime Minister is called the First Minister, and the Scottish are very proud of their new government.  After eating, Laurel and I headed back to our hostel, which was actually pretty nice and clean.  We ended up in the Classical Room, and I slept in the Topus Bunkus (Laurel got the Bottomus Bunkus).  I will post details of our Sunday Highland adventure after I get the Edinburgh pictures posted!

1st Week of Classes

Sorry I haven't posted in a couple of days, but there really hasn't been anything to post.  The excitement starts up again tomorrow with Laurel (my roommate from Hamilton) coming in from London on the afternoon train, but for the last couple days, I have just been hanging out waiting for classes to start.  I only have two classes at St. Andrews for the semester, since I am taking what they call Honours courses (or upper levels).  They are the classes taken by 3rd and 4th year students, who by this point in their education, have had significant background in their major.  Apparently, in their last two years of schooling before university, UK students often specialize in one or two areas of studies as opposed to being required to taking english, science, math, and history like in the U.S.  Although I haven't actually attended a class yet, based on what people have said and the course outlines I have received, the courses (or modules as they call them), are based much more in independent study and reading than assigned work.  I might have 3 required readings per class with a weekly recommended reading list of 15-20 books.  Although we aren't expected to read all of them, students are generally expected to pick a few sources that interest them, and read through them, bringing this additional knowledge to seminars.  Since I am taking honours modules, there is even less class time and more independent reading, meaning that I only have 4 hrs of class time each week.  In fact, my schedule for this week is 9-11 am and 3-5 pm on Friday, so I am basically having a 6-day weekend.  I am enrolled in a Social Anthropology class called Regions in Ethnography I, which focuses on studies of South American (specifically Brazilian and Amazonian) indigenous peoples, and a Scottish history class about the early Stewart Dynasty from 1306-1467, in which we will compare the reigns of the first four Stewart kings.  I am a little worried about having absolutely no background in Scottish history except for Braveheart, but I guess I will see what happens :)  I will definitely have more to post after my first day of classes, and Laurel's trip to visit me, so keep posted! 

Lots of love,

Heather

Here are a couple pictures of St. Andrews Castle, Cathedral Ruins, and the Sea Side:

Here is a link to a photo album I made of many (more) of the pictures I took over the last few days in St. Andrews (just copy and paste the url):

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/hmotis/StAndrewsPhotoAlbum1?feat=directlink 

Pictures!

Here are some pictures of the inside and outside of my dormitory, Wardlaw Wing, the all female part of University Hall.  Basically, I live in a castle...

St. Andrews-Arrival and Orientation

To everyone's relief, we finally made it to St. Andrews yesterday at around 17:00 (aka 5:00pm) after a grueling day of orientation given by representatives of our Butler study abroad program.  It started snowing again as soon as we left Edinburgh, so the hour and a half bus ride to St. Andrews turned into a 2 hr bus ride instead.  The scenery was beautiful though, lots of farmland (complete with hay bales and sheep), rolling hills, and a couple snow covered mountains.  We also got a chance to drive through a couple quaint towns including Anstrhuther, which houses Anstrhuther Fishbar, voted the best "chippy" (aka best fish and chip restaurant) in the UK this year.  When we arrived at University Hall, we met the hall warden who gave us our room keys.  While everyone else from our group assigned to Uni Hall was given a room in the New Wing, my roommate, Lauren Tom, and I were sent off to the building next door, a separate women's hall, which was integrated into University Hall in 1947, although it is much older.  Basically, we were sent to the castle next door...(i will post a picture asap).  I had a little trouble finding the room because of all of the fire doors the British love so much, but after knocking on the wrong door, the really nice girl who opened it showed me to the other rm. 1 on the 1st floor.  We are in the "flats", basically a small, secluded wing off from the kitchen with 3 rooms and a private bathroom right next to our room.  The room is pretty nice, although it gets a little cold at night, when they completely shut off the heat...which meant, since it was in the 20s last night, that I wore my fleece pajamas, a fleece bathrobe and my fleece blanket to bed on top of the standard duvet that came with the room.  Tonight I plan to scale the staircase and find the way to the top of the tower.  

After I got settled, I went with my roommate into town to purchase some laundry detergent and then came back for my first meal in the Uni Hall Dining Room.  The food was actually much better than I expected, and hopefully will continue that way.  I had orientation lectures for St. Andrews throughout the day today, and so have got a chance to see a little more of the town.  It is very chilly out though, so, I am leaving the longer walks/photography for tomorrow after I matriculate and officially enroll in classes.

P.S. To reach me by post, us this address: 

Heather Otis

University Hall

Kennedy Gardens

St. Andrews, Fife KY16 9DL

Edinburgh

We made it to Edinburgh late this afternoon, and although it was too late to do much exploring, what I did manage to see was beautiful.  Next time I make the short trip from St. Andrews to the capital of Scotland, I will spend time along the Royal Mile and other historic districts.  Tonight, I only managed to make the mile and back to the phone store to purchase a SIM card for my UK phone.  Here are a couple of pictures of me in London as well (unfortunately, they were all taken in the dark, so sorry about the poor quality):

             

Let it Snow!

Although my group flight had us arriving in Edinburgh at noon (UK time) today, we ended up getting stuck in London-Heathrow airport due to the largest snowstorm London has seen in twenty years.  What are the odds?  Even though we spent a frustratingly long time locating everyone's luggage (5+ hours), we did get to witness British people going nuts over snow.  Apparently it is not a common thing in London, and everyone in the London area enjoyed their snow day as much as any kid in New England.  In fact, I have never seen so many snowmen and snowball fights all at once in my life.  We are staying at a hotel in London tonight, but (if the weather proves better than today), should be on our way by plane to Edinburgh tomorrow.  I will post some pictures tomorrow if I can!  It's shower time then off to bed early for me!

Here is a map of where I will be studying this semester.  St. Andrews is a small seaside town in the county of Fife, located in the middle Highlands (right side of the country):

Hey Guys!  The time has finally come for me to get out of the house and out of the country!  I hope to keep this blog updated as often as possible, but you know me and electronic communication...so feel free to e-mail me a nice reminder if I am not keeping it up as often as I should.  The plan is to fly out on Sunday to Newark and then take an overnight flight to Edinburgh with a connecting flight in London.  The next week will be orientation for me and my fellow study abroad-ers, so I will be all over the country.  We are even doing a home stay with a Scottish family for a couple days, which should be interesting.  I hope there is no blood pudding or haggis on the menu:)  When I get to St. Andrews, I will be staying in University Hall (to check it out, go to www.st-andrews.ac.uk/students/accommodation/Residences/Guidetoresidences/UniversityHall/).  I will probably be able to post my first post sometime next week, so check in soon!

xoxo

Heather