I took a 3 hour train straight from Stirling and was treated with my first views of the Highlands. Unfortunately the heather was not in bloom, but the sheep grazing on bare rolling hills was still very pretty to see out the window.
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| The Highlands |
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| The river in Inverness |
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| Inverness Castle |
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| All the buildings in the cite centre were amazing! |
Our hostel was a quick walk from the station, and we started off by visiting the crumbling Urquhart Castle just a bus ride away along the Loch. Urquhart was a fairly peaceful place until it took a beating in the late 1600s with the intention that it should never be repaired lest it fall to the Jacobites. Now it is a very photogenic ruin with views over the dark Loch Ness. The Loch itself is very pretty and the straight lines of whitewater made it look almost striped.
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| Loch Ness is in the background |
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| Walking up to the Castle |
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| View from the tallest tower |
I also explored the small town of Drumnadrochit very extensively as we waited for a missed bus and bought a pot of tea and some candy in local shops. On the bus ride back a full and brilliant rainbow appeared out the window and seemed to dissolve right into Loch Ness! I have seen more rainbows in the past few weeks then I would in a year at home!
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| Drumnadrochit |
In town that night we walked around looking for a place to sit and eat and came across Smith and Jones Pub, a classy mixture of antique and modern décor with fun music and inexpensive food. We had a good night in Inverness Tourist Hostel and left the next morning for a walk along the river, which led us to the Ness Islands, which were like long parks covered in paths and trees that you could reach by footbridge. I was surprised here by the number of well-trained dogs that walked around without leashes – this was very common in Inverness.
We made a loop around the top of the trails (eating some blackberries along the way) and stopped for directions in a convenience store. In another show of Highland hospitality, the woman behind the counter was so nice that she ran back to print us a map, and later helped us out again making our way back into town. We found some walking trails in Craig Phadrig forest that looked out over a body of water that may have been Beauly Firth. While walking back into town after asking directions from nice locals, we passed through a gorgeous neighborhood and over the river before stopping in a place called JD Whetherspoon Pub (a chain) for fish and chips. Unfortunately that menu item was so hot they were out and I got haddock fishcakes instead. I can’t wait to try more fish here! The ride home had us change trains in Perth and we were in before 11.
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| I loved the cat in this window! |
It was wonderful to experience staying however briefly in another city in Scotland and I feel like I could go back and do even more. Traveling on a Sunday was difficult because many places were closed and the bus schedule was very limited, so I will have to keep that in mind next time.
Yesterday I had a great time getting to know members of the Media Societies on campus during a Harry Potter-themed pub crawl (people here are surprisingly in to Harry Potter; I thought it would be passé or annoying but people love it). As a member of the radio station I was in Hufflepuff house, and my friends and I spent a while in a nice pub and later a club with some 50 other members. It was fun to walk around the streets with such a large and strange-looking group! I met some very nice people. “Pub crawls” are often carried out here in “fancy dress,” which does not mean suits and ties but rather costumes!
As of today I have officially attended every type of class I will be having for the rest of the year. My psychology class has practical labs (only 4 per semester) in addition to lectures (three times a week); my English studies class meets twice a week, once for lecture and once for a small group seminar; and my cinema class meets just once for a couple hours. My psychology class is introductory level and full of students normally in their first year who intend to follow the psychology track. While the system is similar to WSU, from what I understand students here would choose a degree programme like Psychology and follow it through without anything like a minor, although they can choose a complementary second “major” to study as well. Something else different from courses at home is the number of professors that take turns teaching during the semester. I have six different instructors that will rotate lecturing in PSY911, usually in groups of three days each; for EUC9C5, a class on global cinema and culture, I will have three different lecturers; for ENG9HE, on modernism and modernity in literature and art, I will have (only!) two professors! This is consistent with friends’ classes as well and seems to be unusual for most universities in North America. It seems like it would be difficult for the professors to work their schedules out – I thought I had it bad!
The work load is light so far for me, although others are already preparing for essays due in the next couple weeks. As I mentioned in a previous post, there is very little to be graded in each class, so every assignment can count for 25%-50% of the final grade (if there are assignments at all – I believe someone told me they have exactly one final exam to determine the whole outcome of the course!). Directions for what to read to prepare for class are open-ended and many suggested readings are listed in addition to required readings. A few friends have no set list of what to read but are expected to search the library for relevant material to prepare for a research paper or essay. I am grateful for the structure of my psychology class, which takes material from specific, assigned book chapters for the exams. I am not sure if I am doing anything to prepare for my other classes since I am not sure what to expect! Things will get clearer as classes progress, though.
It seems to be a tradition now to end with a story about food, so here is the latest of my taste-testing adventures. I purchased a Cadbury Wispa bar the other day, which was delicious, as well as a pack of soft cookies with jam in the centre endearingly referred to as “jammy biscuits.” I also purchased a harmless-looking Tesco-brand dessert the other day called “fool” and found it was actually very delicious, like a sturdier, creamier whipped yogurt with a strawberry flavor. Unfortunately I peeked at the ingredients – the standard yogurt cup-sized batch of fool had 12 grams of fat and 8 of them saturated. Definitely not like yogurt at all – I’d say I had been fooled, but I only had a couple bites! Still, I love trying grocery-store desserts. I had a restaurant dessert in Inverness called “sticky cake” (imagine cake completely soaked in sweet sauces- yum!) that was toffee flavored and served warm with ice cream.
Until next time!
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| Oh- did I mention I found Nessie? (just kidding... it's Photoshopped. Or is it?) |
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