First thing's first: I brought roughly four pounds of my favorite peanut butter with me here. I love peanut butter. I have been here almost three weeks. All of that peanut butter is now gone. Now I have to eat SCOTTISH peanut butter. They just haven't mastered the art yet. Anyway...
I got to see some sites in Scotland this week. We took a 45 minute walk down to Leith Harbour (Leith is a part of Edinburgh known in the '90s for its inhabitants' high propensity for AIDS (featured in the movie Trainspotting), although now it is a more cultural area).
A couple of friends and I took the train for a day trip to Glasgow on Sunday. I love Glasgow. Sorry, Edinburgh. (The two cities have an age-old rivalry on which is better.) It felt a lot more Scottish than Edinburgh does and a lot less touristy. It's also actually larger than Edinburgh, despite Edinburgh being the capital of Scotland. I do love Edinburgh too though. Don't think I don't.
We started the trip with French toast in a small diner called the Trans Europe Cafe. The waiter sang along to songs by The Fratellis playing through his computer while he was serving. Heading back to George Square, we heard a lot of shouting and arrived in time to see the departure of a flash rally protesting the "BBC bias" (the BBC has only been posting pictures of a few "Yes" supporters holding signs instead of the large crowds that show up, looking as nationalistic as possible, making the cause's support seem weak and lackluster) as well as a general support of the "Yes" movement. The group was the size of a large parade and consisted of all sorts of people, wearing anything from regular clothing to nothing but a Scottish flag and pants and holding signs, marching through the streets chanting "Scotland" and "Yes." I ran along for a while and got some video on my phone of the display (I don't have a subscription to Weebly, so I can't post video or audio, email me if you'd like to see it?).
After a while, we left and headed to the Necropolis (meaning "City of the Dead"), which is a highly design-oriented cemetery. For being full of dead people, it was really cool. It is situated next to the Glasgow Cathedral and also contains several monuments to noteworthy Scots. I really liked it there.
Keeping with the creepy theme, we then went to see Sharmanka (rated the number two activity in Glasgow). If you don't know what Sharmanka is, and I don't know why you would, it's difficult to describe and we weren't allowed to take pictures. I would recommend Googling it, but if you're too lazy, I'll try to explain it. Sharmanka is a type of Russian puppetry performance. But instead of being controlled by people, they are all completely automated and run on electricity (kind of like at Disneyland). And instead of puppets, they're more like moving art sculptures made of scrap materials, some parts recognizable (like a mannequin, cow skulls, or little wooden bears) and others that were just odd pieces of metal, wires, and gears. It's a Russian art form, it has to be creepy. So, all of these pieces (most of which stood about four to seven feet tall, although one especially unsettling one hung from the ceiling) are lined up along three walls of a dark room. There were probably about 20 of them. Each one takes a turn in multicolored lights as the show consists of each one moving by itself to music that has been specially composed for it: some with words, others with just fiddle or bagpipes, and one with jazz. All of the parts are connected and move in order to tell a short (abstract) story or to express an emotion. The show lasted 45 minutes.
My personal favorite one was called Bear's Tower and bore the description of "Everyone is seriously busy with their tasks, but the Bear has climbed to the roof and flies his swallows." While the creepiest one (the one that hangs from the ceiling and consists of a trapezoidal crate with a deer skull on each end, mechanical wings that flap, and long legs that slowly pedal pedals that connect to nothing as an extremely slow song about a broken heart plays and it slowly rotates back and forth) is called The Last Eagle of the Highlands and is described as "...Commercial spruce trees were planted too close to each other in the hillsides in order to get maximum profit from wood. The eagles with their huge wing-span could no longer hunt there and many left their homeland. So too did many people of different nationalities, when they could not find enough space to spread their wings." See what I mean? Creepy and abstract. It was still pretty neat though, besides being a bit disturbing at times. I'd definitely not seen anything like it before.
Enough about Sharmanka though. I could go on about it longer, but it's already taking up a large section of this post.
We also saw a parade of cars decked out in "Yes" gear driving in a long line, honking and shouting. (I also have a video of that; again, if you desire to see it, email me).
We walked to the Glasgow School of Art only to find we'd missed all of the tours and had a Malaysian dinner. Besides walking and wandering, that pretty much sums up our (first?) trip to Glasgow.
Monday was our first day of truly Scottish weather. Somewhere between a mist and a drizzle with a fog that blocked out the distance in its blurry, velvet sheets. I love this kind of weather. Sweater weather.
Today we finally got to see Edinburgh Castle! And we got out of paying the 16 pounds (thanks Parliamentary Programme!). Besides the great view, we also got to see the National War Museum of Scotland, the Scottish Crown Jewels, the War Prison, and a bunch of canons.
We're now looking into planning some more side trips, so we'll see where we can cheaply get to next. We'll be traversing the Highlands three weeks from Friday. I could not be more excited. The myriad Highland cow photos will commence!
And lastly (but actually most importantly), the referendum is in two days! Although, as you may have noticed, I've been supporting the "Yes" vote, I anticipate "No" winning. New things are, ultimately, difficult and scary. But we'll see what comes of that. I promise to post on Friday with the results and my personal thoughts and analysis (not that mine will be worth anything when you could just read The New York Times, BBC News, or The Scotsman). I'm no political scientist, but I still will.
Three papers to write this week. Life.
Happy Referendum Eve Eve!