Scotland

After the National Railway Museum, we got on a train (how appropriate) to Edinburgh. It was already dark when we got there at 5:30- Scotland's far north and it was the first day after British Daylight Savings- so we checked in and went in search of dinner. We stayed at a hostel below Edinburgh Castle, just off the Royal Mile, a major, now touristy street that is the main approach to the castle. Also visible from the hostel was the school said to have inspired Hogwarts, and yes, we ate at the Elephant House, where JK Rowling wrote the first two books. On Tuesday, we went on a fantastic free walking tour. It was 3 hours long and raining for over half of it, but our guide was so good that he held our attention the entire time. Hilary and I were observing on the way back that he was using many of the teaching strategies we've learned, like telling the group what we would be learning about at our next stop before we left for it. As you can imagine, in 3 hours we covered most of the major sights on and around the Royal Mile. We didn't go terribly far since we were on foot, but we learned about lots of famous people from Edinburgh, including Adam Smith (economist, if you don't remember that detail from middle school), John Knox (founder of Presbyterianism- I later went on a religious history tour lead by reenactors dressed as John Knox and Cuthbert) Robert Louis Stevenson (author, also from middle school- Treasure Island, anyone?), and lots of others. Unfortunately, since it was raining, I didn't take many pictures.

After the tour, we went to the Museum of Childhood, where we learned that an entire room of dolls is actually really creepy.

That night, we cooked our own dinner for the first time in almost two months. We made mac & cheese from a box and vegetables. It was delicious.

On Wednesday, I took another train to Glasgow to go to the Glasgow Science Centre. I spent several hours there learning random science facts and analyzing different ways of information presentation and exhibition construction. There were some rather familiar exhibits that there are versions of at the VDM, so they were especially interesting to look at. After the Science Centre, I completely switched museum gears to go to the Gallery of Modern Art, where there was a very different sort of looking at interesting things and analyzing. This busy ball clock was in the Science Centre, but now that I look at it, it could be modern art, too...

Thursday was a bus tour back to Glasgow, out to Loch Lomond, then over to Stirling Castle. I got a bit more information about some of the things I had seen the previous day and saw a lot of pretty countryside. This was a pleasant change, as we have been spending most of our time in cities. At Loch Lomond I chose not to go on the boat tour, but instead walked a path that lead to the loch and took pictures. Here's one- I may post more at some point.

Friday morning was a bit of an adventure, actually. At friends' suggestions, Hilary and I decided to climb up to Arthur's Seat, a hill/mountain/large geologic feature that overlooks the city of Edinburgh. We took the wrong path from the very beginning, however, and ended up walking nearly all the way around it without making much progress to the top. If you ever attempt this, go left. The path to the right looks like it goes up, and it does, but then it goes back down, then back up, then back down... you get the idea. We still got some pretty views of the city, and I enjoyed resting on the grass, which was very soft.