This was the week my parents had set aside to visit, so of course the weather decided it wanted to be Windy Beyond All Belief. I’m more or less used to it, but my parents definitely weren’t. I heard all about it being cold. Which I guess it was, but not that bad.

Since I had people who weren’t on a student’s budget with me to pay for things, we went to visit some of the more touristy places you have to pay to get into.

First up was the Palace of Holyroodhouse, which is where the queen stays when she’s in Scotland. We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the interior, so I can’t illustrate just how much it was a place I would not want to live in. The whole place was full of the crazy amount of intricate detail and empty space that people seemed to think necessary to announce that, yes, these people are important.  The fact that the details are on everything makes the whole place feel stiff. Impressive, yes, but at the cost of comfort.

I finally decided to look up why there were so many images of unicorns around. Turns out its part of the Scottish coat of arms the same way the lion is part of the British coat of arms. I feel like I should have known that. Interesting detail (that I wouldn’t have noticed on my own,) the unicorn, when depicted as part of the Scottish coat of arms, is always shown wearing a collar with a chain attached. Because unicorns are dangerous. Scotland knows what’s up.

Right next door was The Queen’s Gallery, which had an exhibit about the tour of Egypt King Edward VII took back when he was Prince of Wales.

Of course what resonated most with me was the railing. Not the cool pictures or artifacts. That would be too normal of me.

We got to go the Viking exhibit at the National Museum of Scotland as well, though photography wasn’t allowed in the exhibit, so I, yet again, don’t have visuals. The two things that really stand out as worth sharing are 1) Viking is a verb and 2) almost all of our days of the week come from Norse mythology (Thor’s day being the most obvious example.)

And to round the week off we went to the Edinburgh castle.

So of course it had to try to snow. Edinburgh is like that puppy that’s perfectly well behaved until you have guests over.

Castles and palaces serve different purposes, and this was reflected in the sorts of things that were at the castle. Namely mostly military things, up to and including a military museum.

I send separate emails to my friends and family updating them about my status using mostly pictures with some explanation. The reason I keep those separate from this blog rather than just send people here is I tend to take creative license with my descriptions. This photo was accompanied with an entire paragraph explaining that the etchings are to imbue the sword with properties to fight against the supernatural. I didn’t actually read the plaque for this item, but I think it’s a safe bet that’s not actually the case.

Then I got myself an egg for Easter. Since I know little of the candies here, I relied on the tried and true “hey, that box looks cool” method.

The box is shaped like a lion. How could I not buy it? Also, they were out of the Maltesers eggs.

My mom brought me some Easter chocolate from the states as well, and after getting used to chocolate here, I can almost taste the wax. A friend of mine lived in the UK for a while, and now I understand what she was talking about.

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.