Isle of Skye and London

So, last weekend I traveled up to the Isle of Skye in western Scotland and it was ahh-mazing! Go here to see 50 or so of my pictures (I took 290 including videos). The first two days were solid sunshine, though a wee bit windy, and the third was pouring rain the entire way back to the 'burgh. That was alright by all of us, however, because we were exhausted from the first two days of the Skye trip. While on Skye I hiked around lighthouses, 16th century houses and brochs, sampled the local ales and whisky, and generally got to know everyone on the minicoach. If you're ever in Scotland, I very highly suggest you take a trip with Rabbie's Trail Burners; they are fantastic!

Tomorrow morning I head down to London for a weekend full of museums, theatre and sightseeing! I had to splurge a little and get a plane ticket because the rail workers in Scotland are on strike and the trains are barely running at all. So, that means that I can be in London in an hour and a half after leaving Edinburgh and get started on my adventures. The hostel I'm staying at near King's Cross Station supposedly has internet access so I'll see if I can post from there.

Hope y'all are having a great start to the month of March!

Travel!

For the first time in the two months that I've been in Edinburgh I'm going to leave the city limits. This weekend I'm going on a three-day trip to the Isle of Skye with Rabbie's Trail Burners! (Check out the itinerary here.) And next weekend I'm going to London to see the following museums: British Museum, Freud Museum, Museum of London, Natural History Museum, and the Science Museum. Then, the weekend after, I'm headed off to the Isle of Mull with my flatmate and some friends! And the weekend after that my Mom is here so we'll be going to Glasgow and Dumfries!

I'm so excited to travel!

Snow, free tours and school, oh my!

We finally got some sticky snow, even though it was only a couple of centimeters. Here's the snow right outside my window...

And here's a wee bit of snow on Salisbury Crags, right by Dynamic Earth...

All of it was even lovelier in person! Also, with the (literally) freezing temperatures we're having, I've gotten to use my puffy brown, knee-length jacket with faux fur lined hood; I feel like I'm walking around still wrapped up in the duvet from my bed!

In just a few weeks' time I'll be heading out on a 3 day tour to the Isle of Skye in the northwest of Scotland! I had heard great things about Rabbie's Trail Burners, located on the Royal Mile, so I went to see them last Monday. Since I still had my ASVA pass from the trip to the zoo, I asked if they had a discount for ASVA, not really expecting much. The fella at the desk wasn't sure and asked someone else in the shop. She didn't know either and told him to call up someone to ask about it. So, he calls, and I'm waiting patiently, telling him my name and that I'm with Dynamic Earth, etc. He hangs up the phone and says, "Yes, you do get a discount... Free!" I couldn't believe it and blurted out, "Are you sure?" He booked me on a tour and told me to give a call back a week before to just confirm that the tour would be going on the date I wanted. (In the slower months, one has to have patience and understand that a tour bus cannot just go with one visitor aboard!) I will need to pay for my lodging in a hostel or B&B and food but that would have been extra anyway. This is saving me the 79 pounds (roughly $155) that I would have paid for the 3 day trip (click there to see the itinerary)!

For those of you keeping up on my academic life, I've decided to ditch the Anthroplogy minor idea. Why, you say? (Or perhaps you don't say and I'm just stuffing words into your mouth.) Well, I looked at what I would need to get my half finished minor in Community Development and it is decidedly less than I remembered. It would take less time, less money and less insanity to complete. Less is more, sometimes.

And with that, I shall end this post. Thanks for tuning in and, if you want me to know you've been reading, leave me a comment! =)

Zoo Review

Yesterday, Sunday, I decided to go to the Edinburgh Zoo for a few hours since I had the ASVA pass (Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions) that gets me in free to most of the museums/galleries/zoos/guided tours/castles/distilleries/etc. in Scotland. The zoo here is located on a hill and so I ended up getting quite the workout! They had a lot of animals, some I hadn't seen before, some I hadn't heard of before, some I was suprised to see. For example, they had a skunk. Yes, a skunk in a zoo! It was in a little hutch when I was there so I didn't see it, but I smelled it for sure. Some of the more unique animals I saw were the Painted Hunting Dogs, the Maned Wolves, the Southern Cassowary, the Eastern Bongo, the Capybara, the Cotton-Top Tamarins, and the Steller Sea Eagle. (I'll post pictures to my picture site soon!) And here's a video of the Oriental Small-clawed Otters! They were so tiny!

The trip to and from the zoo was also a very musical one. On the walk to the bus stop I listened to The Shins, my favorite walking music. On the bus I listened to Seu Jorge and Four Tet. At the zoo I listened to the Glenn Miller Orchestra (and Bill Bailey for the Zebra song). On the bus ride home I listened to Belle & Sebastian and Cities of Foam. Walking back to the flat I listened to Frou Frou. Huzzah for musical diversity!

Today I have the day off and I think I'll hang out at home for a little longer and then do touristy stuff. I was thinking of going to Mary King's Close and then buying tickets for my trip to the Isle of Skye. I might stop by the library as well. Hope y'all have a fab week!

More news from the Land of Scots!

If there's anything that I've gotten a chance to work on whilst here, it's been social networking. I consider myself to be a pretty shy person and, as a result, I don't get out much to meet new people. Or, rather, I didn't before I came here. Here, I meet tons of amazingly kind and open people through work and my flatmate. Any time I'm invited out, I go, even though I'm usually completely unfamiliar with most of the places I end up. And, except in the rare occasion, I usually have a total blast! People can really make an experience worth it, I've learned. I'd like to think I knew this before, as a general idea/theory, but now I've experienced it and know it to be true in many situations.

As a result of spending massive amounts of time at the National Museum of Scotland, I've become increasingly interested in dead people. Sure, it might sound weird, but just think of all the people who have lived before us and the experiences they must have had... There's no recreating that experience because most of us cannot go through that without some serious time travel! So, anyway, my point is this: Dead people are fascinating. That said, I'm thinking of pursuing a minor in Anthropology once I'm back at Portland State in either Spring or Summer. I've already got one of the required classes under my belt and I would just need an additional 24. All of the classes look amazing and I would be able to finish those credits within two terms, which is only one additional term to what I would have done without the minor. Also, getting a minor in a specific field will hopefully give me a better chance when it comes to applying to graduate school in a year or so.

I can't believe I'm nearly half-way through my internship! I'll finally get to start surveying and observing next week as well as continuing my research on evaluation and education program development. It'll be interesting to see what kind of data I can compile based on the surveying and observing!

This weekend I was planning on going to Rosslyn Chapel with some friends but one has been out sick so I believe we're postponing that for the time being... Tomorrow I plan to go to the Edinburgh Zoo though and I'm so excited! I'll try to remember to post after my trip and give you all a review of the place. =)

Well, it's just about 1:35 am here so I'd better head to bed! Hope you're well and thanks for reading!

What a week!

So, I meant to post a review of each day of my internship for the first week but I just got so busy that I didn't have too much time to sit and blog! This is a good sign, I think. The week has been absolutely wonderful, getting to know so many people within Dynamic Earth, but I'll be glad to start this next week knowing I don't have as tight of a schedule to keep. This is what my week was like...

Monday
Meet with: Education Manager, Outreach Coordinator, Groups and Education Bookings Officer, Food and Beverage Manager. Also, attend puppet training as the skills may work into one of my internship projects.

Tuesday
Meet with: Education Officers, Marketing Director, Events Manager, Corporate Sales Manager. Also, read the education folder which outlines the last year's education programs.

Wednesday
Meet with: Chief Executive, Retail Manager. Tour the attraction and attend two classroom sessions.

Thursday
Familiarisation day with Front of House, which took all day and I got to see how the exhibition works from the inside out.

Friday
Meet with: Scientific Director, Operations Director, Corporate Director. Help set up Saturday's club for kids with an Education Officer and have a catch up meeting with Scientific Director and Education Manager.

As you can see, I was quite busy meeting all sorts of fabulous people! This next week I'll be working on designing my projects and continuing to get a feel for the place.

On Friday I went out with two Front of House employees from ODE to get my first taste of haggis. My review? Not too bad, but not too good either. It was kind of bland and peppery and all smushed up with neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes). For a drink we all had Irn-Bru, which is a Scottish fizzy drink (soda or pop).

Yesterday I went on a tour at the Museum of Scotland called "Scotland's Ancient Flora and Fauna" and was very impressed at the amount of information available about Scotland's past. After the tour, I hung around the museum and took a bunch of photos of my favorite things. Check out the National Museum of Scotland album at my photo site. The captions will hopefully be updated soon.

Tonight I'll be doing some research on how I want to design my study at Dynamic Earth and perhaps attending a movie night at a friend's flat.

Thanks for reading, cheers!

The Last Few Days

The last few days have been quite good! I met up with my site supervisor at Dynamic Earth and she gave me a little introduction to the organization and a schedule outline of my first week. Looks like my hours will be pretty consistent: Monday through Friday, 9:30 - 5:30. Works for me! Today my flatmate and I went to a bunch of charity shops (think secondhand/thrift shops) for some retail therapy. I got a pair of jeans, a brown sweater (called a "jumper" here), a fun compilation CD, and some nice work trousers. All of that for about 15 quid (slang for pounds currency). I also got to go to a large Tesco (grocery store, kind of like Safeway) with my flatmate the other night. (Check out the videos at the end of the post.) Also, this morning, I had orientation at the BUNAC office which is only about a three minute walk from my flat on High Street on the Royal Mile. Most of the information was not relevant to me since I already have accomodation, a job, and insurance. I am really glad I went because they did give each of us a reference letter to open up a bank account at a local branch to avoid any hassle for being from out of the UK.

I believe I had my first real culture shock today. While taking a lunch break from our retail therapy, my flatmate and I were trying to name as many foods as we could to see if they were called something different in each other's countries. I asked him about s'mores and he didn't know what they were. Not only that, he had never heard of graham crackers either! After looking up s'mores on Wikipedia, I understand that it's mostly an American and Canadian concoction. And, apparently, graham crackers are also an American food. I never knew any of this so I was quite surprised! The one thing that I'd never heard of was called trifle cake. Wikipedia says that this is a British dessert, which makes me sad that I won't be able to get it in the states; it's very yummy! The small consolation, at least, is that I can make trifle once I return to the states.

Tomorrow I can look forward to going to a few of the local museums, including the Museum of Edinburgh, the Museum of Childhood, the Royal Museum and the Museum of Scotland. If I still have time after seeing all those then I'd like to see The People's Story, the Loch Ness Discovery Center, and the Surgeons' Hall Museums. Those last few will be saved for another day if I don't get to them right away. Can you believe how many museums there are here? The list above is just making a dent! There are even more galleries and historical buildings that I haven't even gotten a chance to think about yet. Wow, what a city.

Finally, here are videos from the trip to Tesco.





Go here to see the rest of the videos. Cheers!

New Pictures and Videos

Today I decided to venture out to the Royal Mile which led me to the Palace of Holyroodhouse (where the Queen stays when she visits Scotland), which in turn led me to a nice little walk up towards Arthur's Seat in Holyrood Park. Go ahead and check out the resulting photos at my Photo Site (and leave comments if you like!) to see all that I got to see today.

Also, please enjoy the following videos that I took today! This first one is a short walking tour from Holyrood Road up towards my flat and the old city boundary, Flodden Wall.



This one is the view from halfway up the Salisbury Crags/Arthur's Seat area.



And, finally, this is a view from higher up where you can see many of the great landmarks of Edinburgh as well as the location of my internship at Our Dynamic Earth.