This week was almost as slow as the week where I did nothing but work on papers, mostly because the weather decided to throw a temper tantrum.

Thank goodness for the internet. If I’m going to be lazy and unproductive I might as well do so by looking at pictures of cats.

There was one nice day though, so I finally got to get over to the National Portrait Gallery. Since that’s really the only thing of note I managed to do this week, I shall narrate pictorially.

Not actually at the gallery proper, but there’s an outdoor exhibit that’s been set up at key point throughout the city. I believe the exhibit title is “Britain From The Air,” which would explain the broad range of subject matter. If I had to come up with an explanation of the exhibit’s theme on my own, I wouldn’t.

Architectural detail on the outside of the gallery. Because I have a problem. And I find it amusing that this gargoyle is stuck perpetually trying to get rid of an itch.

Seriously cool window with a bunch of important people I either kinda recognize or don’t recognize at all. Who are all old white guys. Except for the Queen up at the top there. She’s not a guy.

If you put a squirrel in anything, it doesn’t matter where, I well find it. It’s either a gift or a curse. Not sure which.

I’ve always had difficulty with classical portraits, mainly because an overwhelming amount of their message and meaning is conveyed through a system of symbology people don’t use any more, so I miss almost all of what the artist was trying to convey. As a result I found myself responding more to the frames than the actual portraits.

Seriously though, what is the actual focus here? One frame actually had full-bodied figures carved into it, but my camera decided to be a diva and not take pictures because it didn’t like the lighting.

Seriously Edinburgh?

Monday wasn’t exactly the best. My Starting to Write class met at the Scottish Poetry Library for class, which would have been cool, if my body hadn’t decided to rebel against me half way there. I walked the rest of the way anyway, only to not be able to actually find the place once I got where Google told me to go, which was when I realized that checking on three separate occasions to make sure you have your instructors’ cell (mobile) number right doesn’t do you any good if you forget to bring it.

I did run across this though, so the trip wasn’t a total bust. I’ve seen several examples of sidewalk chalk advertisement, but this is the most elaborate.

We made up the linguistics class we missed last week on Tuesday, and since I didn’t have anything immediately following class like usual I was able to go over to a friend’s flat for lunch. We ended up discussing her dissertation, which was on Scottish advertisement in print. I was rather surprised that I was able to help and provide insights despite having no background in communication or advertising.

Since we were having linguistics on a different day, we had class in a different room. Which was, of course, more pleasant than the room we normally have.

Since I’m a student at Napier as well as WOU right now, I got called to Napier’s version of an advisor meeting, which they call Personal Development Meetings. Turns out they have a graduate program for creative writing that seems to address all the reasons I avoided majoring in writing to begin with, despite it being my current goal career. Depending on how stressed out the future makes me, I might end up considering grad school.

Genre Writing had class at the National Portrait Gallery, so of course it was raining and awful and I felt miserable. At least I recognized the building when I got directions off Google, so even if I couldn’t make it to class, I can at least go on my own and try to make up something.

I was wondering what this building was…

And then Sunday was St. Patrick’s. Overall, pretty much the same as in the states, just without as much gaudy decorations. Which isn’t to say the gaudy decorations were entirely absent. Are felt Guinness hats a thing in the U.S.? ‘Cause they’re a thing here.

I went with another friend from linguistics to Malones, an Irish bar, seen here in the daylight. The music, lighting, and overall feel reminded me more of a club than a bar, which was strange given both what night it was, and the fact that the architecture and set up were very pub/bar. All of the pictures I took on the actual night ended up blurry because my camera hates me.

Crocuses make me happy, okay?

My linguistics professor got sick this week. None of us figured this out until someone thought to check Moodle (they use Moodle here too, which I had not been expecting.) We were forty minutes into class at that point. It wasn’t a waste of time for me, since I got to use the opportunity to ask people about their various experiences in school before now. The general consensus was high school was not pleasant.

I took the opportunity to actually go into the shops I pass everyday to get to campus or down town. I focused on the gift shops, and really didn’t find much of a difference between them and the ones in the states. They do however differ markedly from the shops in Old and New Town, particularly Prince’s Street, in the obvious absence of tartan.

I encountered several instances of Daffodils for Marie Curie, which is a fundraiser for Marie Curie Cancer Care, a UK charity that provides care for terminally ill patients. I took the opportunity to donate on several different occasions and as a result I now have two daffodil pins. I haven’t worn them, but I’ve continued to see people with one pinned to the outside of their coat.

I worked my way through the rest of the National Museum of Scotland’s new building, which is the part dedicated to Scottish through the ages. The top floor was dedicated to the last century, and they had a video of native Scots talking about different aspects of being Scot, like what they like best about the country, what they like least, how they would describe themselves, and how they think others would describe them. They talked too fast for me to take notes like I would have liked. Anthropologist problems.

This obviously isn’t from the 20th century. Everything about it’s existence confuses me. Just… why?

The rest of my pictures didn’t go with any of the things above and more or less stand on their own.

I am slowly becoming addicted to these sandwiches, and all they are is cheese and tomatoes. And bread. But that’s sort of a requirement for a sandwich.

The most common piece of intellectual vandalism I’ve run into. I’ve found it in several locations in different colors and it makes me smile every time.

…
I had to.
For science.
I feel like I’m going to regret this.

This week saw the start of my favorite season of the year; crocuses.

I don’t care what anyone tells me, crocuses is a legitamate season. A lot of them have been planted along the meadows area, so whenever I walk into the down town area I end up smiling.

My only class this week was linguistics since my writing classes both had a reading week following what was basically the midterm. The presentation in liguistics went fine as far as I can tell, though it was a little short. I don’t have a communications background so I had to rely on my partner to take charge of that aspect, which was slightly complicated by the fact that I seem to be one of the few people in the class who really gets linguistics.

I used the time off to actually make it to Rose Street and the surrounding area. All the highlights are visual so I’m just going to put my commentary in the captions.

They had these mosaics at every entrance from the crosswalks. All of them were slightly different.

This was down a road that seemed more like a “local people live and work here” kind of place over the doorway of one of the buildings. I can’t even begin to interpret what this is supposed to be. Secret society? Summoning ritual?

I’ll admit, I didn’t think there was anyway to keep pay phones relevant in our current technological climate. Well played city of Edinburgh, well played.

There’s your classic spray paint tagging going on, but there’s also a lot of either encouraging – “SMILE!” – or intellectual vandalism in the city too. The intellectual/encouraging stuff also tends to be written in chalk. Encouraging, polite, intellectual vandalism.

I also got a chance to stop by the library, which is closer to my flat, and I thought their method of identifying genre in the young adults section was really clever.

I also spent the time looking around shops that had caught my attention in some way earlier. The most striking item for sale ended up being in the grocery store.

Literally the size of an ostrich egg. I asked one of my classmates the following week and apparently they’re just a hollow chocolate egg that sometimes has stuff inside it. We’ve got giant chocolate rabbits, so I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised.

Then there was this one the walk back from the grocery store.

This was posted in the window of a shop that’s either now for sale or undergoing construction. Don’t put advertisements on the windows? Either way I’m going to avoid the place in case I flypost by accident.

And, finally, I got to meet our vacuum cleaner.

I can’t decide if he’s cute or terrifying…

Friday was the deadline for the short stories for both of my writing classes, and I had a partner presentation the coming Monday in linguistics that I needed to get ready for. My activity outside schoolwork can best be summed up by the number of pictures I took. I can take 200 pictures a day easy. I can take 200 photos within the span of three hours, and the only thing stopping me from taking more is the memory space on my camera. This week I took four pictures. Not a day, for the whole week I had only four pictures taken. Yeah. Not going to be much visual illustration of my points this time.

I did get some interesting insights into the academic system though. The first was the grading system. It’s one thing to read in the syllabus that the percent that a student is expected to manage out of 100 is lower (from what I’ve gather up until now this is because 100% to them means perfect professional quality.) It’s another thing entirely to here “I’ve done this sort of presentation for this teacher before and I got a 62%, which is pretty good.” It took awhile before my brain could catch up and realize that 60-70% here is a B. unless I go above and beyond all expectations on all my course work, I think I’m going to have mini heart attacks when I first get grades back on things before my brain can make the conversion.

My partner for the linguistics presentation also believes in aliens. I really didn’t know what to do with that, especially since it followed a discussion of what he felt was the best TV show Britain produced (Only Fools and Horses.)

The other interesting academic point was how assignments are turned in. the system is set up so that your work is graded a objectively as possible. Work isn’t handed into the teacher but rather submitted in a room that has boxes for each of the years. You fill out a cover sheet with your student number and the course information, and your name is covered so that the person grading can’t see it. You then drop your work in whatever box the course corresponds to (year one, two, etc.) and then you go home. The end. It’s actually a really nice system.

And here’s a picture of a chocolate lamb that I bought to help me stay on track when I was writing. There’s nothing like the promise of chocolate to make things go faster.

The middle was interspersed with little air bubbles, which was nice since it prevented that coating of chocolate you sometimes get on your tongue. That’s always the point when I’m like “okay, I don’t think I want chocolate anymore.”

This week was Valentines day, and, in the days leading up to it, specifically because my mother was curious, I made a point of taking pictures of shop displays that were Valentine’s themed. Or, that I thought were Valentine’s themed. Valentine’s day, as far as I can tell is basically the same here, just a little more understated.

Granted there were shops like this, where you could practically drown in hearts and roses, but they tended to be places that rely on holidays like this to boost business, like florists.

But there were also shops like this. This isn’t a valentine’s themed display. This shop always looks like that. Though they might have added a few more hearts now that I look at it again.

I’d been meaning to go to Rose Street, the next street up from Princes Street, and go street by street seeing what sorts of things were around the area, and I finished this week still meaning to do that. The route I took to get there ended up being in the middle of a mass of construction – I think they’re installing rails in the streets, but it was hard to tell – so, rather than course correct like a normal person, I decided to follow the pedestrian route in front of me and go in the complete opposite direction. I ended up at Calton Hill and a bunch of other places in between that overall validated a decision that was basically fueled by stubbornness.

While this place’s existence doesn’t surprise me, it does make me happy. I both really want to go and am kind of wary of because it might not be as amazing as I think it should be.

The Old Calton Cemetery has a statue/monument commemorating the American emancipation act. I can’t tell you how long I spent trying to convince myself that, no, I was not looking at a statue of Abraham Lincoln, this is Scotland, before I actually read the plaque.

There isn’t really anything all that culturally relevant about this place, except it might have been in an ethnic neighborhood now that I think about it. I’m just including in because I’m pretty sure they only have one of their advertised services and this saddens me.

I had to pick up some house supply stuff (and jelly babies) at The Pond Stretcher, and noticed this on my way.

I suppose he’s more recognizable after the movie came out, but for those who don’t know, this is Tintin from the Belgian comic The Adventures of Tintin. Dressed up Scottish for some reason.

Something that’s really been throwing me off is the Post Offices here. If they didn’t have a sign saying “Post Office” I would think they were some sort of convenience-souvenir store hybrid thing. I’m so used to post offices being places that are for everything to do with mailing something, and everything to do with mailing something ONLY that I’m actually having a hard time believing this is where you go to mail stuff and “post office” doesn’t just mean something else here.

Why? Why would I want the person mailing my stuff to clean my clothes? I seriously need to find someone to ask about this.

I made an attempt at Arthur’s seat late in the week, but I didn’t set aside enough time to make any real progress and still be able to make it home before dark, and when I Google routes to the top, I didn’t pay enough attention to the directions and ended up going up a much steeper incline than I intended. So that remains on my To Do list.

That’s Calton Hill as seen from part way up the slope.

I decided to start the week off by cementing myself as a Strange Person in the mind of my linguistics classmates by taking pictures of the light fixtures and outlets because they looked like faces.

There were a bunch in the flat as well. Actually, there are precious few that don’t look like faces. At least they’re kinda cute and not the sorts of things that could keep you up at night because they’re watching you.

During the week, my free days were spent finishing earlier photo adventures that got cut short by my camera being cranky, which, oddly enough turned this into graveyard week. Yay?

First up was Greyfriars, where I got pegged as Canadian twice, the second time because I stayed on the trail when taking pictures rather than walking over the graves for a better angle. I’ve seen several people doing this and it always seems so disrespectful to me.  Is there any sort of standard graveyard procedure?

The place is known for Greyfrairs Bobby, the Skye Terrier who waited by his master’s grave until he died. I keep hearing stories of dogs doing things like this. It’s like they’re trying to break my heart.

After that was St. Cuthberts Church, which is where John Napier – the guy the university I’m going to here is named after and the one responsible for that chapter you had to do on logarithms in math – is buried. Apparently. Only about a third of the gravestones are legible, so I didn’t even bother trying to find him. Most of the headstones were either so old the words were worn away, or they’d been recently replaced with new stones where the words were white on a sort of pink-red-white marble that’s almost painful to try to read. It did have some cool headstones though, and made it onto my mom’s list of Things She Wants to See when she gets here.

Nana, nana, nana, BATSKULL!
Managed to get that stuck in my dad’s head for a day. I won’t say I’m proud of myself, but I am.

Having only really visited newer graveyards before now, it was really interesting to see the prevalence of imagery alluding rather bluntly to the fact that, yes, these people are in fact dead. Modern culture seems to ignore that fact as much as possible.

I got the chance to go to a pub called Bennet’s just down the street from my flat. I got fish and chips (because I adore it and I figure I should take advantage of it now while I’m some place that consistently does it right) but one of my flatmates ordered a steak pie and this is what she got:

You can see how it’s a pie, I guess – it has a pie crust at least – but it was just so not what you would think of as a pie in the states that we were all a little stunned.

The weekend I took the chance to go to the general section of the National Museum of Scotland since I’d only been in the Scotland focused part up until then. The general museum stuff – taxidermy, shiny rocks, a bunch of different typewriters – is in the older building and has a more traditional museum lay out of rooms with display cases in them. It was still really well laid out, but after the newer building, which I’m guessing was built with the intention of being a museum and is subsequently very impressive from a museum studies stand point, I was a little disappointed.

That aside, I think my favorite section was the taxidermy.

The majestic tiger. With perhaps the least dignified expression physically possible. I think I’ll call him Hobbes.

The most striking thing about the section – beyond the fact that, wow, my camera is a recalcitrant teenager that occasionally throws temper tantrums that consist of 20 blurry or out focus pictures in a row of the exact same thing – was that there was a display dedicated to the different methods animals use to fertilize their eggs.

I don’t think I could see this happening in the U.S. Not without someone making a huge deal out of it.

So, guess who thought she’d posted about week two but apparently didn’t and now subsequently has her posts out of order? At least I’m labeling the weeks in the titles, so hopefully ya’ll can figure it out.

Classes started on Monday. I find it a little odd that classes don’t start until the second week of the semester, but then again I’m American and I’ve only ever been to schools on the quarter system. I think the American part is probably more prevalent though.

My first class was liguistics, to which the professor did not show up. There were also only four of us waiting in the otherwise empty classroom, which was all around worrisome. My other two classes, Starting to Write, and Genre Writing, ended up both being taught by the same teacher who seems like she’ll be an excellent writing facilitator. She appears to be Indian, and has the accent, but has obviously been influenced by the Scottish way of speaking. It’s very interesting to hear how one accent is affected by another, though I do have to spend more time focused on what she’s saying than I can how. The classes themselves have a larger focus on literary theory that other writing classes I’ve taken, (in that there actually is a focus on literary theory) so that will be an interesting point of comparison.

It snowed one night early in the week, which, according to one of our resident assistants, hasn’t happened in several years.

Because of the way my classes are set up, I have Tuesdays and Wednesdays free, so I decided to go on a photo adventure to the National Museum of Scotland.

This is just one side of the Museum. There’s another bit that’s older around the corner. The mix of architectural styles and time periods is persent just about everywhere you go.

I only managed to make it through a couple of sections before my camera decided it well and truly hated me and if I insisted on taking any more photos it was going to make sure every single one came out blurry. That was about when I left.

This is why I make a habit of looking up no matter where I go. There was a section of painted roof displayed on the ceiling and if I had spent my time only concerned with what was at eye level I would have missed it.

I also spent my days off visiting cafés that I’d noticed while walking various places. My Starting to Write class had an assignment to go to a café and observe three people, so I decided to use it as an excuse to try several places out. My favorite ended up being the first one I tried, which also happens to be the closest.

I did take a picture of the outside, but I think this is more interesting. One of the postcards/picture things proclaims buiscuits and potatoes to be friends, but I don’t remember the reasoning. Or if there was any reasoning. It could have been an unsubstantiated claim. Also, if there’s an emergency, we’re supposed to breakdance.

And then Friday was Burns Night. They don’t actually call it the Night of Burns. I wouldn’t recommend calling it that. I’m pretty sure they’ll think you’ve lost your mind. Some people might get what you mean, but really, why risk it?

My flatmates and I went to The Golf Tavern to celebrate because they had two for one haggis that night and they are literally right next door.

Haggis, (lightly) mashed potatoes, some gravy thing I didn’t try, and turnips. All really good, though haggis is a little spicy for my tastes. Also, my parents were super amused when I told them about “two for one haggis.” I have no idea why. I just thought I’d share that.

My linguistics teacher actually showed up to class, as did the rest of the students. Apparently, despite being a discipline that focuses on communication, the journalism department forgot to tell students with different majors the teacher wouldn’t be coming in until next week.

The class itself was fun since once we finished going over the syllabus (I’m not actually sure what they call it, it’s either a guide or a handbook) we split into groups with a worksheet and started working out the rules for both a standard Scottish accent and a less prestigious Scottish accent. I think I’ll really enjoy that class since we’ve got a decent range of UK accents, and, while I’m not the only international student, I am the only American in the class.

Wednesday I decided to go on another photo adventure in the National Museum of Scotland. Except there’s this cool looking church a little further down the street that I’d been meaning to take a picture of, and then there was a neat detail on the building a little past that. Half way down the block I gave up and decided to go on an outdoor photo adventure instead.

One of the things I ended up passing was St. Giles Cathedral. My creative writing teacher had mentioned the fact that the top of St. Giles was a crown just the day before and I was having trouble visualizing it. Then I walked down the street and with out anyone telling me that was the cathedral was like “oh THAT’S what she meant.”

I decided to go to the museum the next day, and it turned out it was a good thing I did. It was raining and kind of miserable, but I managed to make it all the way through the EARLY PEOPLES exhibit getting pictures of just about everything I wanted to, so I count it as a win.

The National Museum of Scotland continues to impress me with the way it displays its items. They had several of these metal statues/display cases that not only showed you the items of jewelry, but showed you where they would have been one the person wearing them. I’m not entirely sure how they compiled the ensembles for the statues, but it was cool to see regardless.

My next order of business was to make it down to Prince’s Street to explore the area around there. I’ve slowly been building a mental map using a combination of google and the EASY MAP my aunt sent me before I left. It’s actually been working really well and just about every time I go out the area of the city I feel comfortable navigating expands. This was another aimless photo adventure just to see what was there, so I ended up having to put several places on my mental list to explore later because my camera decided I was working it too hard and it wanted to go home and sleep.

This rather nicely sums up one of the differences that I wasn’t necessarily expecting. A lot more people here smoke a lot more often. It’s also perfectly fine to smoke in front of the entrance to a building. It’s overall an interesting study in the differences in cultural views of tobacco.
Also, streets and roads are often uneven because that’s just the way they are rather than because the city hasn’t properly maintained them. But my main point is the smoking thing.

Ten A.M. becomes a rather peculiar brand of early when sleep deprivation is mixed with jet-lag. I probably wouldn’t have woken up at all if it weren’t for the fact that all of the American study abroad students were put in the same buildings so I heard my flatmates getting ready to leave. We bused over to Craiglockhart campus, one of three main ones for Napier and where the orientation was going to be. Luckily it’s not where my classes are because it’s an hour walk from my flat. I may or may not have confirmed this myself in order to get a picture of it.

I didn’t get a picture on the day due the previously mentioned sleep deprivation/jet-lag combo. I don’t think it would have mattered if I remembered anyway since I’m pretty sure my camera was still buried in my bag at this point.

The real point of interest of the event, which was mostly just logistical details, was their list of 10 Things to do While in Scotland (I might have added the capitals myself. I honestly don’t remember.) I wrote them all down, but I know I at the very least omitted “do a pub crawl,” and I think I might have condensed one or two points, so my list only consists of seven.

One: Go on the Edinburgh ghost tour. I wasn’t actually aware this existed, so I’m glad they pointed it out. I do remember my mom telling that Edinburgh has portions of underground city, so that’s something I’d like to check out too.

Two: Climb Arthur’s Seat. Which can apparently get really icy, so you have to make sure it’s a nice day. Probably going to wait for the weather to get a little nicer before I think about doing that. So, the way things are going, I might not get up there at all.

Turns out I can actually see it from my window. That, along with the fact that it’s name does in fact refer to the King Arthur of legend, is the extent of my knowledge on this particular piece of geography. I can also see a tree covered in ivy from my window, but I doubt it has any significance beyond looking cool.

Three: Go to the Highlands and the West Coast. We do get two weeks off for Easter, (interesting little example of none secularization there) so that might end up happening.

Four: Try Haggis and Irn Bru. It’s nice to have haggis confirmed as something you Have To Have by actual Scottish people because you hear about it so much in the states you start to wonder if this is just something Americans obsess over. It isn’t, in case you were wondering. Irn Bru, which I’d never heard of before, is a Scottish soda. It is amazing.

It also happens to be something that defies description. The best I can say is “it tastes like Irn Bru,” which probably has every writing teacher I’ve ever had hanging their head in defeat.

Five: Go to a Ceilidh. Another thing I hadn’t heard of before. It’s a type of dance thing I know embarrassingly little about, but if I get the chance I think I’ll go.

Six: Go to the Edinburgh Beltane Fire Festival. I should probably find out when that is….

Seven: Go to a rugby and/or football match. I’m not a sports person myself, but since neither of those have anywhere near the popularity in the states that they have here, I think it’s some thing I should do anyway.

Not much happened on Monday after that, beyond almost managing to get myself lost walking back.

This is not the street I’m supposed to turn onto. This doesn’t even look like the street I’m supposed to turn onto. The only reason I went down here to begin with was because I’d been walking for awhile and it felt like I should be there already and there was a street there so hey, why not?

Tuesday I got to meet the academic advisers for my faculty (division) which consisted of the distributions of the forms we needed for matriculation (a word which is new to me) and a powerpoint about Napier University and scotland in general. The advisor giving the powerpoint presentation brought up Braveheart as one of the things people think of as quintesntially Scottish along with kilts and bagpipes. Considering I spent most of my time growing up confusing Braveheart with Die Hard, I can safely say that isn’t the case for me.

The rest of the week was spent figuring out where to buy dishes and textbook, though not all in one place. Universities here apparently don’t have their own bookstores, so there’s a chain that focuses specifically on academic texts.

I figured out the route to get here using google maps’ satilite view and I didn’t realize why it looked wrong to me until I actually walked down the path and realized their pictures had been taken back when the trees had leaves.

Then when the weekend rolled around I went on a photo adventure. I anticipate I’ll be going on a lot of photo adventures, be it at museums or, as in this case, just by wandering around random neighborhoods.

42 of my 152 photos were close ups of stone walls, if you wanted any indication of what my photo adventures tend to be like.