Well, we’re finally making a trip back to the States. It will be for a month, while we visit family and friends and apply to jobs. We also got lucky because we purchased our tickets before airlines started charging for checked luggage, so we each got to bring two, 50 pound suitcases with us, stuffed full of things we didn’t need anymore in Scotland. So we can get a head start on moving back in August. Jonmikel packed up his main computer in a couple of boxes, and I stuffed all my winter things in my suitcases.
The trip went surprisingly smooth, partially because at the Edinburgh airport, you HAVE to talk to a person to check in. There are none of those obnoxious automated check in machines that do way more harm than good. I hate machines. So all of our stuff got in and out on time, we made it to Newark after watching several movies on our very own TV screens (I love 777s), notably The Other Boleyn Girl, which I didn’t think was all that bad, nor all that good.
We arrived in Newark just in time to get on the plane and sit for 3 hours on the tarmac. It was miserable. Storms were coming our way, so the airline determined that the best thing to do was let us sit on a plane. Great, huh? But they started handing out free booze, and a group of business travelers sitting in front of us and also heading to Charleston, WV very slowly got drunker and drunker and more entertaining, so it wasn’t a complete waste. They were awfully friendly and awfully lively. But we made it to Dan and Heather’s in one piece and with all of our luggage, if starving and exhausted.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Wierd British Thing #7
Strange thing about the British, #7: They rob banks with knives. Really, I saw it on the news. Worst problem since WWII, if you could infer importance by the amount of hype.
Above the Law
To steal Jonmikel’s signature title for this entry, today we traveled Above the Law. Clever, I know.
We headed out to North Berwick (pronounces Berrick, why? Because they’re Scottish), which is about 20 miles east of Edinburgh, or a nice half hour by train. Once you get out of Edinburgh, the number of nice, single-family homes increases exponentially. If I were to stay in the area long-term, I would definitely look to living out this was and just commuting by train. It’s quite nice, really.
North Berwick is a cute little seaside town, the kind of place families go on weekends to get out of the city. So, full of small bathing suit clad children running into the cold ocean, squealing, running out, and doing it al again, taking breaks to poke at the dead jellyfish that line the shores. It felt very Cape Codish, with very traditional colonial style architecture, boats everywhere, people in big hats, tall grasses growing up from the sands to give it that particularly New England feel.
The day started off gray, so we took the opportunity to climb up this small, cone-shaped mini-mountain, called a law. The law in question is the North Berwick Law, aptly named, I think. It’s not large, perhaps half the size of Arthur’s Seat, but offered great views of the surrounding coasts and bays and farmland. It riises sharply from the middle of the city, rather like Arthur’s Seat, and is even made from the same geological processes, basically a volcanic plug that was left after lava hardened inside a volcano and then the mountain fell away on the outside, leaving the exposed lava rock. Like Devil’s Tower, only more urban. There are several ruins on top, an old stone chapel, some defense structures from the Napoleonic Wars, some prehistoric stone circles of unknown use, and a fence around what used to be a whale jawbone, removed for posterity’s sake, or something.
It worked us up an appetite, so we headed into town to have some fish and chips at an outdoor eatery, the we meandered around town until it was time to return to Edinburg. We stopped to look at an old church that had been abandoned for some time but that housed several old and creepifying graves. We took some time ourselves to poke dead jellyfish, beautiful little guys entirely clear except for four neon purple rings in their centers. We also marveled at the British version of mini-golf: a large green space with holes in strategic locations. Seriously, that was it. No windmills or waterfalls or creatively placed tunnels or even separate areas for each hole. Entirely unentertaining, if you ask me. Just a big open green space.
One thing I will say for the Scottish, it’s easy to get out of town. The cities may be big and modern, but a 20 minute train or bus ride will take you into the middle of nowhere for a nice day-long mini-vacation. There was nothing about North Berwick that suggested it was commuting distance from Edinburgh.
We headed out to North Berwick (pronounces Berrick, why? Because they’re Scottish), which is about 20 miles east of Edinburgh, or a nice half hour by train. Once you get out of Edinburgh, the number of nice, single-family homes increases exponentially. If I were to stay in the area long-term, I would definitely look to living out this was and just commuting by train. It’s quite nice, really.
North Berwick is a cute little seaside town, the kind of place families go on weekends to get out of the city. So, full of small bathing suit clad children running into the cold ocean, squealing, running out, and doing it al again, taking breaks to poke at the dead jellyfish that line the shores. It felt very Cape Codish, with very traditional colonial style architecture, boats everywhere, people in big hats, tall grasses growing up from the sands to give it that particularly New England feel.
The day started off gray, so we took the opportunity to climb up this small, cone-shaped mini-mountain, called a law. The law in question is the North Berwick Law, aptly named, I think. It’s not large, perhaps half the size of Arthur’s Seat, but offered great views of the surrounding coasts and bays and farmland. It riises sharply from the middle of the city, rather like Arthur’s Seat, and is even made from the same geological processes, basically a volcanic plug that was left after lava hardened inside a volcano and then the mountain fell away on the outside, leaving the exposed lava rock. Like Devil’s Tower, only more urban. There are several ruins on top, an old stone chapel, some defense structures from the Napoleonic Wars, some prehistoric stone circles of unknown use, and a fence around what used to be a whale jawbone, removed for posterity’s sake, or something.
It worked us up an appetite, so we headed into town to have some fish and chips at an outdoor eatery, the we meandered around town until it was time to return to Edinburg. We stopped to look at an old church that had been abandoned for some time but that housed several old and creepifying graves. We took some time ourselves to poke dead jellyfish, beautiful little guys entirely clear except for four neon purple rings in their centers. We also marveled at the British version of mini-golf: a large green space with holes in strategic locations. Seriously, that was it. No windmills or waterfalls or creatively placed tunnels or even separate areas for each hole. Entirely unentertaining, if you ask me. Just a big open green space.
One thing I will say for the Scottish, it’s easy to get out of town. The cities may be big and modern, but a 20 minute train or bus ride will take you into the middle of nowhere for a nice day-long mini-vacation. There was nothing about North Berwick that suggested it was commuting distance from Edinburgh.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Today we said goodbye to Aberdeen and our mini-vacation and took the train home. The train ride back was quite peaceful, as train rides through Scottish countryside are apt to be. It’s nice that they seemed to have reserved pretty countryside and seaside land for farmers and trains, instead of jumping on teh development bandwagon and putting up expensive condos instead. It makes for nice scenary.
We played Uno on the way back, and because we didn’t have any paper to keep score, we used a postcard from Portugal and sent it off to friends Dan and Heather when we got back to Edinburgh.
We played Uno on the way back, and because we didn’t have any paper to keep score, we used a postcard from Portugal and sent it off to friends Dan and Heather when we got back to Edinburgh.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Aberdeen, the Freezing Beach Town
I’m telling you, free room service (the food included with the price of the room) is the way to go. Another breakfast in bed set me up for another nice. This time, though, my brain was at a nice, euphoric mode, because my speech was over and all I had left to do was hang out and listen to other talks. I love going first.
So many people ended up not showing for this conference that many sessions were cancelled. I went to one focusing on travel and stuff, which had some interesting pieces on the new trends of migration. Katie from Ohio but who went to school in St. Andrews and was getting a master’s in creative writing and who wrote a brilliant creative non-fiction piece (think travel writing, Bill Bryson or Pico Iyer-style) on female, American study abroad students in Europe and eating disorders. A later session focused on the media, and one talk did an interesting comparison of Charles Dickens’ works to the Simpsons as social and political commentaries. I do not necessarily agree with some of the woman’s points, especially because print and TV do not reach the same audience, and I do not think that Dickens’ works could ever reach those who cannot read, whereas the Simpsons is designed to do just that. But her idea was quite interesting, especially considering that Dickens published much of his work as serials in weekly papers.
Another piece compared ideas of masculinity in works by Toni Morrison and an anonymously published diary of a German woman in Berlin during WWII. The woman who presented it, a German woman, and a man from Ghana got into an interesting discussion about what it means for a German man to shoot his wife and then kill himself. The woman argued that it was an act of desperation because he wasn’t in control, and the guy countered by saying that killing his wife was an exercise in control because he could control nothing else. They got into what was, essentially, a cultural argument, though neither seemed to realize it. The point was that in southern black culture, such an act could be seen as a last grasp at control and a reach to reclaim masculinity, but in Germany culture this act is seen as a complete loss of masculinity, as a German “man” would never do such a thing. This was the essence of it that the two of them skirted around, unable to find the words to describe it. It was, for me, more of an exercise in cross-cultural communication and miscommunication than anything else.
Because we had such a limited time at the conference, I decided to skip out on the final wine reception and explore the city with Jonmikel, who took me on a mini-tour of some cool places he visited yesterday while I was at the conference. We went into an old cathedral that, like so many Catholic sites, was completely renovated by the reformists in the Church of Scotland however many hundreds of years ago. The result is that most of the stained glass and religious figures, etc. had to be recreated once people remembered how cool they had been before they were all destroyed. It’s now a simple parish of the Church of Scotland.
We also headed down to the shore because, after all, Aberdeen is a beach town. So we took a hike and ended up on rough seas, watching oil rigs roll in from a hard day’s work. We caught a few minutes of sunshine, hit up Footdee (pronounced “Fiddy”), a small fishing village turned summer home locale, and then the docks, where we marveled at the sheer size of the oil rigs and the relative openness of the area. In the US, random people would never be allowed to walk through such industrial and oil-important areas.
It was all fun and games until we got caught in the rain. The day had already been quite chilly, similar to the weather we had gotten all winter. So down to the upper 40s. Getting soaked at sundown in weather like that is probably one of the least fun things in the world, and yet there we were, 2 miles from home, dripping and freezing and not entirely sure how to get back. Looking back, it was quite the little adventure. We got back to our Inn and snuggled under the covers with some éclairs we picked up as a reward for feeling sorry for ourselves.
So many people ended up not showing for this conference that many sessions were cancelled. I went to one focusing on travel and stuff, which had some interesting pieces on the new trends of migration. Katie from Ohio but who went to school in St. Andrews and was getting a master’s in creative writing and who wrote a brilliant creative non-fiction piece (think travel writing, Bill Bryson or Pico Iyer-style) on female, American study abroad students in Europe and eating disorders. A later session focused on the media, and one talk did an interesting comparison of Charles Dickens’ works to the Simpsons as social and political commentaries. I do not necessarily agree with some of the woman’s points, especially because print and TV do not reach the same audience, and I do not think that Dickens’ works could ever reach those who cannot read, whereas the Simpsons is designed to do just that. But her idea was quite interesting, especially considering that Dickens published much of his work as serials in weekly papers.
Another piece compared ideas of masculinity in works by Toni Morrison and an anonymously published diary of a German woman in Berlin during WWII. The woman who presented it, a German woman, and a man from Ghana got into an interesting discussion about what it means for a German man to shoot his wife and then kill himself. The woman argued that it was an act of desperation because he wasn’t in control, and the guy countered by saying that killing his wife was an exercise in control because he could control nothing else. They got into what was, essentially, a cultural argument, though neither seemed to realize it. The point was that in southern black culture, such an act could be seen as a last grasp at control and a reach to reclaim masculinity, but in Germany culture this act is seen as a complete loss of masculinity, as a German “man” would never do such a thing. This was the essence of it that the two of them skirted around, unable to find the words to describe it. It was, for me, more of an exercise in cross-cultural communication and miscommunication than anything else.
Because we had such a limited time at the conference, I decided to skip out on the final wine reception and explore the city with Jonmikel, who took me on a mini-tour of some cool places he visited yesterday while I was at the conference. We went into an old cathedral that, like so many Catholic sites, was completely renovated by the reformists in the Church of Scotland however many hundreds of years ago. The result is that most of the stained glass and religious figures, etc. had to be recreated once people remembered how cool they had been before they were all destroyed. It’s now a simple parish of the Church of Scotland.
We also headed down to the shore because, after all, Aberdeen is a beach town. So we took a hike and ended up on rough seas, watching oil rigs roll in from a hard day’s work. We caught a few minutes of sunshine, hit up Footdee (pronounced “Fiddy”), a small fishing village turned summer home locale, and then the docks, where we marveled at the sheer size of the oil rigs and the relative openness of the area. In the US, random people would never be allowed to walk through such industrial and oil-important areas.
It was all fun and games until we got caught in the rain. The day had already been quite chilly, similar to the weather we had gotten all winter. So down to the upper 40s. Getting soaked at sundown in weather like that is probably one of the least fun things in the world, and yet there we were, 2 miles from home, dripping and freezing and not entirely sure how to get back. Looking back, it was quite the little adventure. We got back to our Inn and snuggled under the covers with some éclairs we picked up as a reward for feeling sorry for ourselves.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Conference Life
It can’t be a bad day when breakfast is delivered to your door and eaten in bed. Even if it is cornflakes.
The Inn does basic breakfasts for it’s guests and, because the pub doesn’t actually open until noon, delivers it to your room before you awake. It’s waiting at your door, for no extra charge.
It’s also worth a note that Aberdeen is a strict oil town, the powerhouse, as it were, of Scotland. This means that 1) the harbor is very industrial and 2) most of the workers are weekly imports. They come for the week, when cheap accommodation is almost impossible to find, to work on the rigs and return to their families on the weekend. At the Inn, you can hear the 5 am shift shuffle awake and leave, heading out to the docks.
So the day started with cornflakes, a croissant, a hot shower, and more rehearsing of my paper. Nothing makes me feel more academic and professional than an academic conference. My topic was the effectiveness of ecotourism in Egypt, and I could fit it all in if I read the paper straight. But seeing as I hate that, I didn’t.
And seeing as I didn’t, I went waaaaay over. It was my first conference, so I suppose I should give myself some credit. While I didn’t give the greatest performance of all time, my topic certainly attracted a great deal of interest, especially among the sea of papers on obscure existential topics and complex Dutch theories of education and proposed by some guy back in the 1960s as a reaction to communism. Whatever. At the evening reception, I was quite popular. Jonmikel (who got special permission to come along as my fiancé, making him a celebrity in his own right) and I found a nice table, thinking we would be alone, and found ourselves in the middle of conversation the whole night. The reception included wine and finger foods, so who can beat a free night out?
There was Katie, a postgrad at Aberdeen from Montana; she was so excited to meet other people from Montana who could confirm all her stories about bison in the front yard, elk-hunting from the porch, and tractors and wide open spaces that she called over everyone she ever met. She studied migration patterns, especially among Eastern European women. There was Lindsey from Ottawa who studied Gaelic language preservation and use in modern Scotland and Wales. Ivan, from the Ukraine, studied rural agricultural development; Boris from Russia who was studying oil engineering and worked on an oil rig and had only studied English for like a year and spoke it more or less fluently. Clancy from Kent State (though he wouldn’t admit it, it was too low class for him; he was one of those pretentious philosophers that usually abound at these kinds of things). James, originally from Crete (or something?) but was more or less British in his mannerisms and accent. A girl whose name escapes me from Sweden. Another woman originally from Jamaica who was a US citizen but had lived in Germany for nine years. They came and went all night, and all we had to was sit and relax. It was actually very cool, and made me feel good about my talk, even if it didn’t go as planned.
The night finished up with us meandering back to our Inn to enjoy a couple more drinks, this time in the company of the Aberdeen A Cappella Choir celebrating the 50th birthday of one of their members by drinking heartily and breaking into song until closing time.
The Inn does basic breakfasts for it’s guests and, because the pub doesn’t actually open until noon, delivers it to your room before you awake. It’s waiting at your door, for no extra charge.
It’s also worth a note that Aberdeen is a strict oil town, the powerhouse, as it were, of Scotland. This means that 1) the harbor is very industrial and 2) most of the workers are weekly imports. They come for the week, when cheap accommodation is almost impossible to find, to work on the rigs and return to their families on the weekend. At the Inn, you can hear the 5 am shift shuffle awake and leave, heading out to the docks.
So the day started with cornflakes, a croissant, a hot shower, and more rehearsing of my paper. Nothing makes me feel more academic and professional than an academic conference. My topic was the effectiveness of ecotourism in Egypt, and I could fit it all in if I read the paper straight. But seeing as I hate that, I didn’t.
And seeing as I didn’t, I went waaaaay over. It was my first conference, so I suppose I should give myself some credit. While I didn’t give the greatest performance of all time, my topic certainly attracted a great deal of interest, especially among the sea of papers on obscure existential topics and complex Dutch theories of education and proposed by some guy back in the 1960s as a reaction to communism. Whatever. At the evening reception, I was quite popular. Jonmikel (who got special permission to come along as my fiancé, making him a celebrity in his own right) and I found a nice table, thinking we would be alone, and found ourselves in the middle of conversation the whole night. The reception included wine and finger foods, so who can beat a free night out?
There was Katie, a postgrad at Aberdeen from Montana; she was so excited to meet other people from Montana who could confirm all her stories about bison in the front yard, elk-hunting from the porch, and tractors and wide open spaces that she called over everyone she ever met. She studied migration patterns, especially among Eastern European women. There was Lindsey from Ottawa who studied Gaelic language preservation and use in modern Scotland and Wales. Ivan, from the Ukraine, studied rural agricultural development; Boris from Russia who was studying oil engineering and worked on an oil rig and had only studied English for like a year and spoke it more or less fluently. Clancy from Kent State (though he wouldn’t admit it, it was too low class for him; he was one of those pretentious philosophers that usually abound at these kinds of things). James, originally from Crete (or something?) but was more or less British in his mannerisms and accent. A girl whose name escapes me from Sweden. Another woman originally from Jamaica who was a US citizen but had lived in Germany for nine years. They came and went all night, and all we had to was sit and relax. It was actually very cool, and made me feel good about my talk, even if it didn’t go as planned.
The night finished up with us meandering back to our Inn to enjoy a couple more drinks, this time in the company of the Aberdeen A Cappella Choir celebrating the 50th birthday of one of their members by drinking heartily and breaking into song until closing time.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Aberdeen; City of Oil Rigs
Note: the next few entries will be about my trip to Aberdeen for a conference from 10-13 of June... sorry for the delay!
Can you get any more traditional than a real life Inn? Nothing conjures up images of highwaymen clad in ruffles and velvet riding noble horses, bar wenches, and medieval debauchery than a duty wooden bar with rooms on top. And that’s just what we got in Aberdeen.
I had never stayed in an Inn before, and The Globe Inn in Aberdeen seems to be an excellent first experience. It IS an old, dusty, wooden bar, with creaky chairs and creaky floors and a creaky manager. The insides are covered with old relics of the real Jazz age – violins and trumpets and records and old-timey music advertisements. A cheerful mural caresses the beer garden out back, bringing out scenes from New Orleans and Nashville and Harlem. Old wooden stairs covered in atmospherically worn creep noiselessly up from a discreet corner of the bar, taking a select number of “residents” to the upper regions of the Inn, housing eight squeaky clean and quaintly faded rooms. A pub that happens to have rooms above, reminiscent of the days of horse travel and before the concept of reservations. It feels like you can walk in, order an ale and a hot meal and, dripping wet or weary with wandering, ask for a place to stay for the night. And stabling for your horse.
Well, today, it’s minus the stabling.
The pub was crowded with football revelers by the time we arrived, and buzzing with Pro-Croatia or Pro-Germany sentiment and the smell of ale and steak pies. Our room was right above the bar, with barely any pub noise passing through the thick Scottish walls. The accommodation itself was truly first rate, with tall windows, plush Victorian furnishings, shortbread biscuits to go with afternoon tea.
Throughout our 3-day trip to Aberdeen, Aberdeenians, all who had heard of the famed Globe Inn, seemed totally in the dark as to the fact that there were actually rooms for rent above it. A hidden gem.
The purpose of our sojourn was for a conference, so we took it easy in the afternoon while I read and rehearsed and shortened and rehearsed again the paper I would be giving tomorrow morning.
Can you get any more traditional than a real life Inn? Nothing conjures up images of highwaymen clad in ruffles and velvet riding noble horses, bar wenches, and medieval debauchery than a duty wooden bar with rooms on top. And that’s just what we got in Aberdeen.
I had never stayed in an Inn before, and The Globe Inn in Aberdeen seems to be an excellent first experience. It IS an old, dusty, wooden bar, with creaky chairs and creaky floors and a creaky manager. The insides are covered with old relics of the real Jazz age – violins and trumpets and records and old-timey music advertisements. A cheerful mural caresses the beer garden out back, bringing out scenes from New Orleans and Nashville and Harlem. Old wooden stairs covered in atmospherically worn creep noiselessly up from a discreet corner of the bar, taking a select number of “residents” to the upper regions of the Inn, housing eight squeaky clean and quaintly faded rooms. A pub that happens to have rooms above, reminiscent of the days of horse travel and before the concept of reservations. It feels like you can walk in, order an ale and a hot meal and, dripping wet or weary with wandering, ask for a place to stay for the night. And stabling for your horse.
Well, today, it’s minus the stabling.
The pub was crowded with football revelers by the time we arrived, and buzzing with Pro-Croatia or Pro-Germany sentiment and the smell of ale and steak pies. Our room was right above the bar, with barely any pub noise passing through the thick Scottish walls. The accommodation itself was truly first rate, with tall windows, plush Victorian furnishings, shortbread biscuits to go with afternoon tea.
Throughout our 3-day trip to Aberdeen, Aberdeenians, all who had heard of the famed Globe Inn, seemed totally in the dark as to the fact that there were actually rooms for rent above it. A hidden gem.
The purpose of our sojourn was for a conference, so we took it easy in the afternoon while I read and rehearsed and shortened and rehearsed again the paper I would be giving tomorrow morning.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Bus Driving Woes
I would just like to point out a news story I read today. A bus driver from Edinburgh has been fired because he blacked out while driving and ran over a bus stop and into a building. This driver is protesting the firing, saying that he was just blowing his nose, and whining about how unfair it all is. My feeling on the matter: HE RAN INTO A BUILDING. He was not avoiding a puppy or old lady or wild car. I think firing is justified. If you can no longer do your job with the necessary safety, then you can't keep the job. No offence to you. It just works that way when the safety of the public is in your hands.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Scottish Wilderness?
You can get on a bus in the center of Edinburgh, bright and busy and modern, and sit for 4 minutes, and end up among hills and farmlands. Really. It’s a complete transformation. And a popular one on Sundays.
We headed out to the Pentland Hills today. Just a few miles southeastish of Edinburgh, these large hills (not quite the size of the reliable Appalachias) are dotted with sheep, large farmsteads and fishermen’s camps. Beware of the anglers backcasting. The most important rule.
We arrived at Balerno in the late morning and amid gray skies. It sprinkled here and there, but that didn’t stop the many hillwalkers from breaking away from city routine and escaping to the green hills. We chose a path that would take up through the hills without actually ascending any big ones (I was sore from a kickboxing session), about a 9-mile loop, not counting the distance to the park from our various bus stops. A good day, trip.
I hate to be brief, but taking a hike like that is really all about inner reflection and relaxation. I could tell you how misty and green everything was in the mornings, how the sun pushed through the fog and brought out each of the minute greens and yellows and pinks in the hills, or how I’m pretty sure one of the horses I saw was foundering, but it’s not something I recorded color-for-color, step-for-step, to be written down in a blog entry later. It was nice to spend a day out of the city, without car noises and crosswalk beeps and tourists wandering aimlessly and in large, space-consuming quantities down the street. In Gardiner, I could walk easily into the park or national forest and escape the hoards; here, I have been surrounding by the hoards inescapably for 9 months. While the Pentlands are kind of a cute, if fruitless attempt at creating mountains in Scotland, the whole hike was really... nice.
And of course, at the end of our journey, we found a delightful pub with a beer garden, strategically placed at the Penicuik entrance to the park, just for weary and relaxed hillwalkers ending their journeys. Rock on, park planners.
We headed out to the Pentland Hills today. Just a few miles southeastish of Edinburgh, these large hills (not quite the size of the reliable Appalachias) are dotted with sheep, large farmsteads and fishermen’s camps. Beware of the anglers backcasting. The most important rule.
We arrived at Balerno in the late morning and amid gray skies. It sprinkled here and there, but that didn’t stop the many hillwalkers from breaking away from city routine and escaping to the green hills. We chose a path that would take up through the hills without actually ascending any big ones (I was sore from a kickboxing session), about a 9-mile loop, not counting the distance to the park from our various bus stops. A good day, trip.
I hate to be brief, but taking a hike like that is really all about inner reflection and relaxation. I could tell you how misty and green everything was in the mornings, how the sun pushed through the fog and brought out each of the minute greens and yellows and pinks in the hills, or how I’m pretty sure one of the horses I saw was foundering, but it’s not something I recorded color-for-color, step-for-step, to be written down in a blog entry later. It was nice to spend a day out of the city, without car noises and crosswalk beeps and tourists wandering aimlessly and in large, space-consuming quantities down the street. In Gardiner, I could walk easily into the park or national forest and escape the hoards; here, I have been surrounding by the hoards inescapably for 9 months. While the Pentlands are kind of a cute, if fruitless attempt at creating mountains in Scotland, the whole hike was really... nice.
And of course, at the end of our journey, we found a delightful pub with a beer garden, strategically placed at the Penicuik entrance to the park, just for weary and relaxed hillwalkers ending their journeys. Rock on, park planners.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Buffalo Girls, Won't'cha Come Out Tonight...
The foot taps with the rhythm smoothly, keeping time with practiced ease that made up for any physical deficiency brought on by the weight of 90 years of life. His hair was thin and white, and his hand tremored slightly as be brought his pint—the 3rd since we arrived, a true Scotsman—to his lips. Each time he would take a long, slow quaff, savoring the thick amber, and his hand would grow still for a brief moment, his mind too busy reflecting on his days as a wee baern to remember its age.
I imagined him a Highlander, though “Bob” didn’t have a particularly traditional bent to it. But he knew the Highland tunes by heart, even if the words were from Virginia. The Scottish tradition reborn on American soil, cross-cultural communication through folk. An old man reliving his Scottish youth through a song written thousands of miles away about the same sorrow and love and adventure.
“Buffalo girls won’tcha come out tonight…”
Yeah, my own youth in rural Ohio…
All the lads here, 70, 80, 90 years old, tap their feet and sip their beers and nod knowingly at the universal theme about the one that got away, the one that left, the one they didn’t want but should have. The performer, Yank Jeff Werner, based his life on the learning of American Folk Songs from Appalachia, the Deep South, Coastal Carolina, and everywhere else where the dirges and forgotten and marginalized of society clashed headlong into emergency rations of banjos and fiddles and guitars. He brings out the little dancing man, the likes of which I had never seen but on the dusty shelves on Cracker Barrel General Stores. You know, the little wooden figurine with moveable parts attached to a stick; you bounce a platform while holding the stick, and the little man does the moon walk or break dances, much to the delight of the roomful of old folk singers in which I now sat.
Werner would recite the refrain of each song as he began, sometimes several lines long, and by the second stanza, the whole crowd was singing along, even the unfamiliar tunes mastered easily by the life-long folk singers.
Traditional folk singers and musicians in Scotland follow a thousand years of history and passion and struggle and pride. They are raised with it; it becomes a part of what it means to be Scottish (or Irish, or Welsh, or Appalachian…). Performing for them means provisioning for a high level of audience participation. Folk singing for them is about life and is a social activity. For modern, American folk singers, young hippies of the hobo-nouveau generation—travel without the adventure, music without the passion—“folk” songs (few of them traditional) are about looking cool and impressing the chics. Scottish folk involves an intimate knowledge of the music, a deep, satisfying relationship with tunes and rhythms and lore. New American “folk” involves knowing three notes on a guitar and plucking at them until some semblance of a melody comes out. Where did traditional American folk singer go? Where’s the talent, the heartache, the love and resilience and sorrow?
“I never had the yen to write songs,” Werner says, wiping his forehead with an old kerchief. “Never wanted to be creative enough.” Instead, he has taken on the monumental task of collecting of preserving songs, a historian, of sorts (an ethnomusicologist??). A talented musician with no taste for imagination, but a taste for the past, Werner played everything from guitar to banjo to accordion (a perennial favorite of mine) to the bones and spoons. He also pulled off a mean a cappella in the true style of traditional folk music. Not to mention one helluva Dancing Man.
At the break, Bob, my 90-year-old folky friend, was invited up to sing some hymns of his own. He addled up, slowly and steadily (I know men 20 years younger who can’t move half as well), with the world’s widest, little-boy grin on his grizzled face, he was even able to recall songs he wrote himself—in the Scottish, fisherman’s ditty style, I couldn’t tell the difference between old and new—years ago, all delivered in the simple, practiced timbre of his fisherman’s voice and Highland brogue. It was nostalgic, antique, almost eerie.
As Werner ascended the stage again, paying due homage to the living history found in Bob’s words, he provided the standard, “It’s great to be here” spiel and was reminded appropriately of a strategically-placed anecdote (folk singers are, first and foremost, storytellers). A couple of years ago, he went on stage in Indonesia and said, “Thanks guys, I’m just tickled to death to be here.” Well, he should have known better than to use cutesy American colloquialisms, as he admitted woefully. Even through a translator, “I scratch myself until I die” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
I imagined him a Highlander, though “Bob” didn’t have a particularly traditional bent to it. But he knew the Highland tunes by heart, even if the words were from Virginia. The Scottish tradition reborn on American soil, cross-cultural communication through folk. An old man reliving his Scottish youth through a song written thousands of miles away about the same sorrow and love and adventure.
“Buffalo girls won’tcha come out tonight…”
Yeah, my own youth in rural Ohio…
All the lads here, 70, 80, 90 years old, tap their feet and sip their beers and nod knowingly at the universal theme about the one that got away, the one that left, the one they didn’t want but should have. The performer, Yank Jeff Werner, based his life on the learning of American Folk Songs from Appalachia, the Deep South, Coastal Carolina, and everywhere else where the dirges and forgotten and marginalized of society clashed headlong into emergency rations of banjos and fiddles and guitars. He brings out the little dancing man, the likes of which I had never seen but on the dusty shelves on Cracker Barrel General Stores. You know, the little wooden figurine with moveable parts attached to a stick; you bounce a platform while holding the stick, and the little man does the moon walk or break dances, much to the delight of the roomful of old folk singers in which I now sat.
Werner would recite the refrain of each song as he began, sometimes several lines long, and by the second stanza, the whole crowd was singing along, even the unfamiliar tunes mastered easily by the life-long folk singers.
Traditional folk singers and musicians in Scotland follow a thousand years of history and passion and struggle and pride. They are raised with it; it becomes a part of what it means to be Scottish (or Irish, or Welsh, or Appalachian…). Performing for them means provisioning for a high level of audience participation. Folk singing for them is about life and is a social activity. For modern, American folk singers, young hippies of the hobo-nouveau generation—travel without the adventure, music without the passion—“folk” songs (few of them traditional) are about looking cool and impressing the chics. Scottish folk involves an intimate knowledge of the music, a deep, satisfying relationship with tunes and rhythms and lore. New American “folk” involves knowing three notes on a guitar and plucking at them until some semblance of a melody comes out. Where did traditional American folk singer go? Where’s the talent, the heartache, the love and resilience and sorrow?
“I never had the yen to write songs,” Werner says, wiping his forehead with an old kerchief. “Never wanted to be creative enough.” Instead, he has taken on the monumental task of collecting of preserving songs, a historian, of sorts (an ethnomusicologist??). A talented musician with no taste for imagination, but a taste for the past, Werner played everything from guitar to banjo to accordion (a perennial favorite of mine) to the bones and spoons. He also pulled off a mean a cappella in the true style of traditional folk music. Not to mention one helluva Dancing Man.
At the break, Bob, my 90-year-old folky friend, was invited up to sing some hymns of his own. He addled up, slowly and steadily (I know men 20 years younger who can’t move half as well), with the world’s widest, little-boy grin on his grizzled face, he was even able to recall songs he wrote himself—in the Scottish, fisherman’s ditty style, I couldn’t tell the difference between old and new—years ago, all delivered in the simple, practiced timbre of his fisherman’s voice and Highland brogue. It was nostalgic, antique, almost eerie.
As Werner ascended the stage again, paying due homage to the living history found in Bob’s words, he provided the standard, “It’s great to be here” spiel and was reminded appropriately of a strategically-placed anecdote (folk singers are, first and foremost, storytellers). A couple of years ago, he went on stage in Indonesia and said, “Thanks guys, I’m just tickled to death to be here.” Well, he should have known better than to use cutesy American colloquialisms, as he admitted woefully. Even through a translator, “I scratch myself until I die” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Victoria Vox
http://www.victoriavox.com/
Check her out. Seriously. She plays one helluva mouth trumpet.
Check her out. Seriously. She plays one helluva mouth trumpet.
Monday, June 2, 2008
The storks! I forgot to mention the storks! As well as the city layout looking much like an old Moroccan medina, they also have these great storks that I saw all over Morocco. These huge things, black and white with vicious-looking beaks. Well, they have them here, too (I guess it makes sense, considering the proximity). In fact, there's a big next of them across the way, on top of an old factory exhaust tower. We were out taking pictures of the tower the other night, trying to get the midnight lighting just right. A guy came over and asked if we spoke English. He was Portuguese, and (sadly, and I do regret this), we at first assumed that he would try to sell us something. So we didn't know quite how to respond, but it turns out he was a waiter at the restaurant across the way and he wanted to give us some photography tips. He also informed us that the factory hadn't worked in years but that they just tore it down 3 years ago. The left the chimney tower (complete with a fireplace at the bottom) standing for the storks, which I thought was very noble of them. But the storks have babies in the nest, and so one is there standing watch all the time while the other goes a finds food. When he/she returns, the greet each other with this wonderful symphony of clicks that can go on for minutes and can be heard everywhere in the vicinity. It's almost a soothing sound, and I often find myself wondering what it is they're saying to each other.
Anyway, we got up early again in an attempt to make an early bus back to Faro to get our plane. We forgot to take into account that June begins a new season and, thus, a new bus schedule, so we rush in and I get the tickets while Jonmikel rushes outside to stop the bus that's pulling out. Yes, we were those people. But we make it to Faro and get information for the airport bus, which apparently only run once an hour. Good news, we're just in time for the next one! So we wait... and wait.... and finally see the bus go by... on the other side of the road. Another strike for the Americans! We manage to navigate the buses in Scotland perfectly fine, but stick us in Portugal and we're total messups, even with signs in English. Not sure what it is about this country take has made us lose our public transportation sense.
We home we must go, as thesis and work await us. Though, vacation has proved to be hard work, so we're ready for some relaxation. :-)
Anyway, we got up early again in an attempt to make an early bus back to Faro to get our plane. We forgot to take into account that June begins a new season and, thus, a new bus schedule, so we rush in and I get the tickets while Jonmikel rushes outside to stop the bus that's pulling out. Yes, we were those people. But we make it to Faro and get information for the airport bus, which apparently only run once an hour. Good news, we're just in time for the next one! So we wait... and wait.... and finally see the bus go by... on the other side of the road. Another strike for the Americans! We manage to navigate the buses in Scotland perfectly fine, but stick us in Portugal and we're total messups, even with signs in English. Not sure what it is about this country take has made us lose our public transportation sense.
We home we must go, as thesis and work await us. Though, vacation has proved to be hard work, so we're ready for some relaxation. :-)
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Sail' 'round the world, on a boat...
Our last day, June 1. Fitting, because June is the start of the real summer season here. You can tell, too, because suddenly the pedal-boats, stacked teasingly on the beach in “boat zones” are out, lifeguards man the beaches, parasailors abound, even the sunshiney weather has stepped up a notch. Hotel prices jump and food portions fall. Amazing how it happens over night.
The beaches were crowded with revelers.
If there’s one thing I actually like about this part of the Algarve, it’s that it’s family friendly. Everywhere you look, there are kids playing in the sand, burying their siblings or making a scene in the freezing water. And in places where there aren’t kids, there are pregnant women basking in the sunlight drinking mocktails while their husbands sit by watching the surrounding kids and looking worried. I’ve always hated places like Cancun, big teen-age parties where everybody gets drunk and stupid and topless. Here, it’s toned down a bit, a little more grown up. Late nights without the obnoxiousness.
I’ve also decided places like this confuse me. Here I am, trying to speak at least a few phrases in Portuguese, but it’s proving to be much like Dubai: English the common language, because not many people here are actually FROM Portugal. Many are Indian or Southeast Asian or Eastern European, looking for summer jobs and (in the case of the Europeans) a chance to see sunlight. So half the time, you don’t know WHAT language to use, even though you’re very much in Portugal.
We also woke up to a very pissed of Mama Seagull. If we could tell by the egg fragments littering our balcony this morning, the eggs had hatched, and mom was in no mood to deal with us humans. As long as we were sitting down, she was content to merely “caw” at us crossly, but if you would venture to stand up and look out onto the street... that simply could not be tolerated. She would commence a series of intricate swoops designed, I’m sure, to bamboozle predators, before coming in for the kill, striking at you with her viciously webbed feet. I saw it happen to Jonmikel before running out there with a towel to chase her off, saving the day. Her attacks were fairly harmless, and if you kept a close watch on her, she never made a close pass. But it was pretty amusing to watch Jonmikel’s already scruffy hair become more ruffled under the beat of gull wings.
At any rate, today was the day of our sailing trip. We purposefully chose a small sail boat because the last time Jonmikel was on one, its rudder broke and it was all downhill from there. This particular ship came complete with beer and pirate costumes. And two annoying Irish children whose parents allowed them to play with the ropes that ties the sails down… probably not the best of ideas.
But boats are always nice. I’ve never gotten seasick, not even sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, which is notorious for making people turn green. I found my sealegs easily on this small ship (though I’m sure there would be many SASer arguments as to whether it is actually a “ship” or a “boat”… big difference); every time I climb on a boat, I remember how much I love them. I have no idea how to sail one, but the whole thing is so very… calming. I love looking out and seeing nothing but water, and the freedom of knowing that with a boat, tomorrow you could be somewhere entirely different, where the world is different, where your life is different. You can only ride so far on a train or drive so far in a car.
The trip was quiet and calming, with the two-man crew pointing out secluded beaches and cities along the coast, taking us into small alcoves of turquoise waters, yellow caves and red cliffs. When they put the sails up on the way back, I was amazed at how smooth and fast the boat moved, though it took quite a while to get the sails situated in exactly the right spot to get us to go in the right direction. I guess if the wind wasn’t right back in the old days, you just did a lot of sitting. But it was a fitting and relaxing end to our vacation, plus I’ve now decided to live on a boat.
The beaches were crowded with revelers.
If there’s one thing I actually like about this part of the Algarve, it’s that it’s family friendly. Everywhere you look, there are kids playing in the sand, burying their siblings or making a scene in the freezing water. And in places where there aren’t kids, there are pregnant women basking in the sunlight drinking mocktails while their husbands sit by watching the surrounding kids and looking worried. I’ve always hated places like Cancun, big teen-age parties where everybody gets drunk and stupid and topless. Here, it’s toned down a bit, a little more grown up. Late nights without the obnoxiousness.
I’ve also decided places like this confuse me. Here I am, trying to speak at least a few phrases in Portuguese, but it’s proving to be much like Dubai: English the common language, because not many people here are actually FROM Portugal. Many are Indian or Southeast Asian or Eastern European, looking for summer jobs and (in the case of the Europeans) a chance to see sunlight. So half the time, you don’t know WHAT language to use, even though you’re very much in Portugal.
We also woke up to a very pissed of Mama Seagull. If we could tell by the egg fragments littering our balcony this morning, the eggs had hatched, and mom was in no mood to deal with us humans. As long as we were sitting down, she was content to merely “caw” at us crossly, but if you would venture to stand up and look out onto the street... that simply could not be tolerated. She would commence a series of intricate swoops designed, I’m sure, to bamboozle predators, before coming in for the kill, striking at you with her viciously webbed feet. I saw it happen to Jonmikel before running out there with a towel to chase her off, saving the day. Her attacks were fairly harmless, and if you kept a close watch on her, she never made a close pass. But it was pretty amusing to watch Jonmikel’s already scruffy hair become more ruffled under the beat of gull wings.
At any rate, today was the day of our sailing trip. We purposefully chose a small sail boat because the last time Jonmikel was on one, its rudder broke and it was all downhill from there. This particular ship came complete with beer and pirate costumes. And two annoying Irish children whose parents allowed them to play with the ropes that ties the sails down… probably not the best of ideas.
But boats are always nice. I’ve never gotten seasick, not even sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, which is notorious for making people turn green. I found my sealegs easily on this small ship (though I’m sure there would be many SASer arguments as to whether it is actually a “ship” or a “boat”… big difference); every time I climb on a boat, I remember how much I love them. I have no idea how to sail one, but the whole thing is so very… calming. I love looking out and seeing nothing but water, and the freedom of knowing that with a boat, tomorrow you could be somewhere entirely different, where the world is different, where your life is different. You can only ride so far on a train or drive so far in a car.
The trip was quiet and calming, with the two-man crew pointing out secluded beaches and cities along the coast, taking us into small alcoves of turquoise waters, yellow caves and red cliffs. When they put the sails up on the way back, I was amazed at how smooth and fast the boat moved, though it took quite a while to get the sails situated in exactly the right spot to get us to go in the right direction. I guess if the wind wasn’t right back in the old days, you just did a lot of sitting. But it was a fitting and relaxing end to our vacation, plus I’ve now decided to live on a boat.
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