Gondolas, Castles and Bonfires

Last weekend my friend and I took a day trip up into the West Highlands to visit Fort William, the highland’s second largest town at 9,900 people right after Inverness, which I visited earlier this year. This trip interested me because I am a mountain gondola enthusiast, and a few miles away from the town is Britain’s only gondola, that climbs up the side of Aonoch Mor in the Nevis Range (Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the British Isles) – naturally I had to see the British claim to gondola fame, and I was able to do it just in time; the gondola actually closed for the season later that weekend!
 

In the highlands

Our trip up to the West Highlands took us past some amazing scenery, including bald, rolling hills and even some male deer out on the flat plains. After around 5 hours we found ourselves in the little highlands town of Fort William. We had some time before the bus to the Nevis Range centre so we stopped in for food (I had some tasty mac and cheese) and explored the shopping street and the walkway by Loch Eil. We caught the bus over to the foot of Aonoch Mor, a mountain with a ski area a couple of miles away fro Ben Nevis, and of course the wonderful gondola! As an enthusiast, I have been on several gondola lifts in the Northwest region of North America, including Silver Mountain (the longest single-stage lift in the world that carries people) and the Wallowa Lake Tramway (the steepest four-person gondola in North America). The Nevis Range gondola was lovely and the weather was spectacular the whole trip – crisp, windy, and good visibility of the mountain range across from a viewpoint called Sgurr finnisg-aig, which is hard to say as it was to type. I had a lovely time taking pictures and enjoying the view from the top! Unfortunately we had a bit of trouble locating which mountain was Ben Nevis, and am still not sure even when reflecting on the pictures I took. After a little walk around the ski area (completely devoid of snow, even in November in the Highlands!) we stopped into the gift shop and I mailed home some postcards to be stamped with a special seal from the Nevis Range. Everything worked out perfectly with the bus and train, and we made it back from Fort William to Stirling in plenty of time (and a few rounds of cards).

Very pretty! I miss eastern Washington and Montana!

The viewpoint we walked up to

Another couple of events I haven’t had time to mention before are Bonfire Day and a trip to Doune Castle, famous for its appearance in Monty Python and the Holy Grail in several scenes, including the outside wall during a discussion of swallows and coconuts. The castle itself was very close to Stirling, and we enjoyed the audio tour narrated by Terry Jones of the Monty Python crew as we explored the fun stone rooms, tight spiral staircases and beautiful views of the countryside from the battlements. 

The view from the top of Doune Castle

In addition I got to experience the celebration put on by the nearby town of Bridge of Allan for Bonfire Night (also called Guy Fawkes Day or the 5^th of November), in which quite a few people turned up to huddle around the massive bonfire in a field and enjoy a fireworks show. It was a nice night and a new experience to watch fireworks in the fall instead of July!

With friends on Bonfire Night!

Castles and Capitals 2: Dublin and County Clare

The next few posts concern my mid-semester break during the week of October 22^nd through the 30^th, during which we took a grand tour of the British Isles via capitals Dublin, Cardiff, and London!

Our first day was Saturday the 22^nd, when we hopped on a plane out of the country to Dublin. After a little hour long jaunt over the ocean we finally saw our first glimpse of the brilliantly green Irish countryside as we landed, and in the airport we exchanged our pounds for colorful Irish euro notes and bought expensive airport bagels to break them into change (the Irish euro coins have a very graceful little harp on the back). There was our first taste of rain while we waited for the bus (little did we know what was to come) and after a trip into town we somehow managed to get off at the correct stop and found ourselves right outside the hostel. That night was mercifully dry and so we explored the Temple Bar area just near our place, a popular and fun night atmosphere where I enjoyed a dinner of Irish stew in an upstairs pub with friends and later got gelato down the street. We stopped in for some good live music before continuing our exploration along the River Liffey, taking pictures of gorgeous, columned buildings lit up from the ground, and the harp-like Beckett Bridge. When I think of Dublin now I remember how lively, urban, and relaxed the city seemed that first night. 

Temple Bar at night

Bank of Ireland

Samuel Beckett Bridge

The River Liffey

The next day, Sunday, we enjoyed a nice hostel breakfast and took a walk out of the main city centre towards what my Dublin map dictates as the “cathedral district.” I walked in the shadow of the impressive St. Patrick’s cathedral and saw the exterior of Christ Church before a few of us moved on to Dublin Castle. After picking up some souvenirs we took the tour of the beautiful state rooms and the impressive hall where Ireland’s presidential inaugurations take place! 

The bells of St. Patrick's were ringing when we arrived! Interestingly, it is an Anglican church now.

Me in the area outside Dublin Castle

A room inside the castle

Irish license plates are very long! See the Gaelic above the numbers?

Above the door to the chapel area

After lunch at an American 50’s themed café, we took a guided walk through Trinity College, an old and beautiful campus right in the middle of the capital. The system of governance (formed in some part in the 1600s) and some of the college traditions (see my extra note on Commons* at the end of this post) struck me as something I would read about in a piece of 19^th century literature about boy’s boarding schools (the official name of the school alone is very telling: The Provost, Fellows and Scholars of the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin would not fit tidily on a hoodie). Nevertheless, I enjoyed seeing another UK university campus, and especially enjoyed the old library, which contained an exhibit about the Book of Kells and the beautiful book itself! The old library also housed the “Long Room,” a gorgeous and staggeringly tall collection of old books under a dark, rounded ceiling. 

A view of the city

The bell tower on the campus at Trinity College Dublin is supposed to be bad luck for students to walk under; our student guide certainly believed it and walked around to meet us on the other side!

Lovely buildings in the city

It is important to note that we were absolutely soaked through the entire day, and that strong winds rendered our umbrellas useless for the most part, but the worst was yet to come…

The next day, a few of us in the group decided to take a day-long trip with a tour company across the country to see the Cliffs of Moher, one of Ireland’s most popular attractions and an amazingly beautiful landscape. Our day began with a nice view of the Irish countryside (traveling from coast to coast took about 2 and a half hours) and eventually we made our way through The Burren, a rocky landscape in County Clare. From a distance I thought the hills all around were covered with a sort of bluish heather or other flora, but it turned out to be a mosaic of stone! Our bus driver explained the impossibility of growing crops on the land and the efforts farmers took to remove the rock, which ended up being reused for the stone walls snaking up and down the hills around us. We had our own experience on an Irish farm, as the tour included a nice walk through the speckly Burren Mountains behind the Connolly family home, where we ended up at the end for some pie and tea. From the higher parts of the walk I could see the coast past a wide, misty plain, complete with an old church ruin and wintry little trees. 

Panorama of the view from the walk

The family that owned the farm had a cute dog!

This hill is not covered in some kind of tree or grass- look close and you can see all the small rocks!

Our tour continued on from the farm past a captivating countryside and coastline, with mist, castle towers, abandoned stone barns overrun with rich greenery, and strange rock formations protruding through the grass. We stopped at an ancient structure called a “portal tomb” dating from around 4200 BC (older than Stonehenge!) that stood in solitude amongst a whole field of jigsaw-like rocks underfoot. 

A cute donkey in Doolin

We stopped to eat in a small town called Doolin before arriving at the much anticipated Cliffs of Moher! I could instantly see why they cause such a fuss, and we explored the trail as far along the cliff as we could in the time allowed to see as much as possible of the towering, emerald green layers of cliffs and the pretty blue ocean. The little O’Brien’s Tower added a castle-like flair to the view.

O'Brien's Tower is the small dot on the left-hand side of the cliff. We walked over there as well

Friends!

Our bus driver serenaded us with traditional Irish songs to and from an unscheduled stop that I lamentably cannot find a name for, but what I believe I overheard referred to as “mini cliffs” still part of the larger Cliffs of Moher. The rock formations near the coast were flat as pavement, but with massive cracks, and I felt like I was hopping around on the top of a flaky brownie. It was a lot of fun and we explored the coast gleefully until we were called to leave.

We stopped for a quick bite in Galway before catching a transfer bus home as the sun set. For a while all was peaceful until our driver informed us that due to severe rain, we might not be able to drive back into the city! Courtesy of free wi-fi provided on board the bus, I was able to look up the situation in Dublin: the capital had received a month’s worth of rain in 24 hours! Streets, houses, even buses were flooding, and I overheard locals on board calling friends for information about the state of their lodgings (one gentleman’s flat was flooded, and he decided with a laugh just to ride the bus back to Galway- the Irish were very easygoing). On our way to a stop at the airport I caught a glimpse of cars abandoned in the water-logged streets, and the River Liffey looked decidedly swollen when we were walking back to our hostel, but luckily there was no trouble making it back for the night before an early start in the morning to Cardiff, Wales.

A very nice little castle on the drive home

My time in Ireland was very brief, but I really enjoyed both the vibe of Dublin and the calm of the countryside and hope sometime to make it to other parts of the country as well! Perhaps next time the rain will lay low – I don’t think my shoes will ever be the same again.

The next part of my trip began on October the 25^th, a bright and sunny day in Wales!

*From the Trinity College Dublin website for “Scholars,” or university students who have passed a series of examinations that entitle them to free room and board: “Commons is a three-course meal served each weekday in the Dining Hall on campus. It has been around for centuries, and was originally attended by almost all of the College population where they might meet and discuss ideas. Before and after Commons, one of the Scholars gets up and recites a traditional Grace, in Latin, from memory.” We definitely don’t have anything like this at Washington State, let alone Stirling!

My First Week

I have now been living in Scotland for a little over a week, and yet in that time I feel as if I have been here much longer and spent more money on food and supplies than I could have imagined. The Scottish accent is becoming more familiar (just in time for lectures) and while I haven’t traveled far out of the Stirling area, I have had a few adventures over the weekend!

Courtesy of the university, exchange and international students were invited on a bus tour of Stirling and a small outlying town called Dunblane, where we were treated with brief stops in Old Town and the Stirling Castle, the gorgeous Dunblane cathedral, and the field of Bannockburn where Robert the Bruce (immortalized here as a massive statue seated on a horse) led the Scottish in victory against the English forces. While we had no time to explore the Castle or the heritage centre at Bannockburn, I was happy to have had the opportunity to visit a couple of historic places, and set foot inside the ancient Dunblane cathedral – a medieval masterpiece built in the 12^th and 13^th centuries, making it possibly the oldest building I’ve ever entered (at least on the trip thus far). 

Dunblane Cathedral

The interior

The outside

Later in the week my friends also suggested a trip up to the Wallace Monument, a short and serene walk in the woods to the base of the tower where we took pictures and got a little lost in the trails for a while before returning home. Unfortunately the monument was closed but next time I visit I will have to climb the steps to the top and see the view from there!

View from part of Stirling Castle

Cemetery from Stirling Castle

The Wallace Monument

 Just the other day I was also able to experience the Scottish wilderness on a hiking trip with friends from my hall. We traveled a few miles out of town by bus to the town of Gargunnock. While the name sounds like something J.K. Rowling considered for a Harry Potter goblin, the town itself was picturesque, with small white stucco houses lining a steep and narrow street. On our walk to the trail head we took pictures outside a small church with a large cemetery, asked a local for directions, and finally found ourselves on an ambling road through sheep pastures before finally being spit out on our own on the cliff-side with a vague idea of where to orient ourselves towards the waterfalls we were looking for. All over the hills are old mossy walls with gaps where the stones had tumbled down, and white sheep with bright spray-painted bellies or backs watched us from the lip of the cliff. We found our first waterfall (called Downie’s Loup) and then climbed up two more sections to reach the top where I was reminded how very much in Scotland I was. The view from the cliffs looked out over a basin with the tiny little Gargunnock houses, the mountains facing us from the other side, and a full rainbow touching the trees near where we had started the hike. A Scottish mist passed over us and the sheep we shared the view with before we started the trek down. Afterwards we stopped into a small pub afterwards for some chips and cheese and a half pint of something local. We were only wanting, as my Dad suggested, the sound of bagpipes to make it complete!

Cathedral in Gargunnock

The waterfall

Rock walls up on the hills

View from the top

Just today I also took a walk with a student from Norway to explore the wooded area just behind our dorm, which led to a beautiful field and snaked around towards a very old church (missing the roof and greater portion of two walls) and graveyard, then past the campus’ very own Airthrey Castle.

Old Logie Kirk

Airthrey Castle

The daily grind on campus and in the dorm is not as magical as the scenery, but I have had a good time in classes so far and am settling in to life in my hall. I really enjoy the company of my floormates and have often gone into town with friends to shop or see a movie. Primark, an inexpensive and high quality clothing store, is one of my favorites, where I picked up a pair of jeans, a top and boots for cheap the other day. I also went into a place called Argos, a store in which you order from a massive catalogue and the employees pull out your item from a warehouse in back. I’ve stopped in with friends at Costa Coffee, a popular UK coffee shop, and been to several different grocery stores (all of which stock a variety of digestive biscuits that never fail to amaze me – the Cadbury chocolate-coated kind are excellent!). On campus, there are no centralized dining halls that offer meal plans like at my home university, so I stock up on pasta, bread and deli meat for quick lunches and dinners in the hall. Just the other night I ventured to the other wing of my hall to have tea with an English and Scottish student and some fellow international students, and was informed on the proper way to put milk in tea and how to dunk biscuits!

Catalogues in Argos

My dorm room

My first week has been busy as I tie up odds and ends, like opening a bank account, getting registered with the doctor, buying creature comforts like towels and dishes, figuring out how to use the expensive laundry system, and doing my first readings for class. Already I have been to two lectures, one for my introductory psychology course and another for an English class that counts for a humanities requirement back home. The classes are located in only two buildings each about 5 minutes away, but Cottrell is deceptively large and complicated and Pathfoot (which looks a bit like a waffle fry from an aerial view) has several alphabetical corridors for offices and classrooms. The grading system at the university as it was explained to me is discouraging, as marks over 75% are not common (opposed to frequent instances of 80-100% marks in American schools) and I can expect to struggle for a high B in any of my classes. Often the grade in a class is divided between two or three large assignments, so that in one module I have two essays due in October and December respectively that count for 50% of my grade each, effectively eliminating busywork but also packing on the load of the class into two horrifyingly weighty pieces of schoolwork. It will be an interesting semester!

 On a final note, I randomly purchased a food item called Lee’s Scottish Tablet, which came in a package like a candy bar but was actually a thick slice of something like sweet white fudge in a wrapper. After consulting Wikipedia, I learned that “tablet” is a real Scottish sweet – it is very good but incredibly sugary! It is nice not to be able to know how many calories are in something when they are expressed on the labels as kilocalories or kilojoules. Who knows what I’ve been eating!