Tea, Cathedrals and Rocks...

This is very delayed...obviously. I have been busy here with classes and traveling and I am therefore very behind on my blog. In order to remedy this to a certain extent I have decided to loosen things up a bit. So, please realize that these next few entries are going to be more in the style of stream of consciousness and therefor are unedited. If you know me, as you all do, you will probably be aware that spelling is not my strong suit. Also, grammar will be unedited and therefore frequently wrong. I apologize to the English majors among you.


Southwest England is quite a different place from Scotland. I know this may seem obvious when you think about it, but think how many people assume that East Tennessee is the same, in culture or land, as West Tennessee, or that North Jersey is the same as South, or even that West coast and East coast USA are the same. It is easy, as an outsider, to think that a nation has a single identity, this tendency probably only gets easier to fall into the smaller the country. Well, there are many differences that I got to experience first hand this past weekend!!


Very early Friday, so early it could have almost been considered Thursday, five of us set out for Edinburgh airport to get on a plane to Bristol. After getting some tea, we headed through security and off to the gate. Things went very smoothly and we even got seats together on the plane. A short flight later we were in Bristol. We got into a cab to go to Bath and ended up getting a cabbie who not only drove us to Bath but also took us by an ancient stone circle and gave us great advice about where to eat and some things to see.

After a delicious breakfast we headed to the abbey. Everything about the building is beautiful. The ceilings,the stained glass windows and the side chapels are in different styles, but somehow it all fits well anyway. One thing that I loved about all of the cathedrals we saw was that it was clear that people still use them. They are living churches. It is sometimes odd to me that we move out of old buildings and houses and make them museums. There is something about using a building that connects you even more to its history. I feel this way when I sit in the classrooms here. Though there is technology and white boards that weren't in the original rooms, it is still something to learn in the same buildings that people have been learning in for hundreds of years.

After a good amount of time at the abbey we went to the roman baths, which are right across the square. This was maybe my favorite site of the whole weekend. The source of the water that filled the baths in ancient times is still filling them today. You can almost see Roman citizens walking around. The steam rooms were really interesting too. At first I didn't understand what I was looking at, but a friend who is a classics major explained that the piles of stones held up a tiled floor and created a gap that could be heated by a fire and thus create a steam room above. There was also a section that was the temple. Though mostly in ruins, you can still see the steps into one part of the temple and can tell where they have been warn away by the years of people walking up and down them. You can tell something is old when stone has been warn down not a few centimeters but almost half a foot!

After the baths we headed to the Jane Austen Center. While slightly touristy, it was interesting to see the fashion and get a better understanding of Austen's family structure. However cheesy the center was, the tea room upstairs totally made up for it! We got the full high tea of scones and clotted cream (Alex's new favorite spread), cucumber sandwiches, cheese sandwiches and lemon drizzle cake! It was delicious and quite relaxing.

Next we headed up into the Circus, a circular set of row houses. These are some of the oldest large houses in Bath. Next to the Circus is the Royal Crescent, a crescent shaped set of row houses. The buildings are all either houses, apartments or a hotel. No 1 Crescent is open to the public and is a museum. We went in and got to see several of the rooms and the kitchen. The docents there were wonderful! They were very knowledgeable but also personable. One explained that No 1 was built by the man that owned the land and so he required all houses built in the crescent to follow the same architectural style. Also, a good number of the houses were rented "for the season" to people "coming to Bath to take the waters".

After walking around the house we headed across town to the hostel. Literally across town. We had no idea how far across town it was until we finally got there. It was at the top of quite a large/long hill as well. After dinner in town and a bus ride back to the hostel we passed out after a very long day of traveling.

The next day we headed to Salisbury on the train. We saw the Cathedral first. It is huge! The building is beautiful wherever you look! Inside, outside, from every direction! We also saw the Magna Carta!

After the cathedral we headed to catch a bus to Stonehenge. I am not sure how to describe how I felt about seeing Stonehenge. I think I have decided that it is one of those things you have to see, but after you have seen it you are not entirely sure why you felt you needed to see it. The size and age of the stones is amazing, but I was almost depressed by the way our culture has made something that was supposedly so sacred to a group of people before us into something so cheesy and touristy. I imagine that it would be like people thousands of years from now wearing t-shirts with cheesy sayings walking around the ruins of the Duomo making up wild stories about what we used to believe. Something that old, to me, deserves a bit more respect.

We had lunch in the market in Salisbury before heading to Exeter and then on to Dartmoor national park! This was a long train ride, but it was through beautiful scenery! The land looks so different in the southwest than up here is Scotland.

Dartmoor was amazing. It is hauntingly beautiful in a unique way. I now understand why English authors frequently set their works on moors. The land itself seemed alive. It was nice to just walk around the land and soak in the scenery and emotion.

My friend Alex and I headed back to St Andrews that night as we had class the next morning. We spent a few hours in Exeter, saw the cathedral and learned a bit about the time when the Romans settled in the area. Though we were slightly delayed on the way back, things worked out just fine in the end and we got back safely.

It was a fun weekend with some great people. I am glad to have gotten to see an area that is not visited quite as often as London or Edinburgh for example.

Argyll Forest Adventure!

I have always believed that I am blessed to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. The hills of East Tennessee are always magnificent and I feel a certain peace and comfort when I return to them. However, I have visited many other gorgeous places: The Grand Canyon, the Tetons, the coast of Maine, Venice, the mountains of North Carolina, rice fields in Japan. I feel lucky to have seen all of these places, but I must say that the most breathtaking, gorgeous place I have ever been to is the Argyll forest.

My program planned this trip and so, blissfully, I was not in charge of anything but getting myself to the bus on Friday afternoon. We had about a three hour drive to the forest, and I decided to sleep the first part of it as I had already taken the drive to Glasgow a few weeks before. This was a good choice because the part of the trip past the Glasgow city limits was the scenic portion.

The bus driver got a bit lost, but I am glad he did! We ended up driving down this tiny road that we would have never gotten to see if he hadn't taken the wrong turn. It was so interesting to see the differences in the land. This little road, which I later learned is actually Emma Thompson's driveway, was through the forest and took us between two mountains, past sheep farms and by several small houses.

I am having trouble explaining what I saw so I think I am just going to have to talk about the land in comparisons and more as a whole than chronologically.

The land changes quickly here so there is not one way to describe it. Some parts remind me of the area near my Great Uncle's mountain house in North Carolina. There are fields that lead into mountains and little farms and houses dotted across the country side. However, there are distinct differences here. The land is greener, even in the winter. The trees are different too. The branches don't grow as predictably. The most shocking thing about the land is that the mountains seemingly have been placed on flat ground. The valleys are almost perfectly flat, but then suddenly the land shoots up for miles. This creates an odd feeling for me as I am used to rolling hills gradually getting taller into the mountains. I understand that land on the west coast looks a bit similar, but I have no comparison I am used to. You stand in the middle of a field and look in any direction and the mountains, each distinct, but close to others, is just...standing there.

When the driver finally got on the right road, we arrived at the Benmore activity center. The center is in a building that used to belong to a wealthy American and then a wealthy Scotsman from the Edinburgh area. The house, or should I call it a castle, is really interesting. It has been made into a hostel inside. The center owns a good portion of the land it is in and run activities, from hiking to high ropes to gorge climbing to kayaking, in the immediate area.

Friday night after dinner we went on a night hike. Basically, a guide took small groups of us out without flashlights to walk around the area. We did a few trust walks through woody areas with the help of a string. (There is a string tied to trees that you follow through the woods, and you talk to those in front and behind you about hazards.) I've done this a few times before, but it was fun and interesting as I had met most of the group only an hour before. Let's just say, it is a quick way to bond with people. At the end we walked up to an overlook area and looked across the valley. Even in the dark it was amazing. Little did I know that I would get an even better view the next morning. After a few rounds of Pictionary with some friends we went to get some sleep to be ready for a full Saturday.

We were assigned different activities without much input from our part. (I did request not to go caving as I am a bit claustrophobic.) When we were given our groups I was originally not particularly thrilled. My group went hiking and mountain biking. Having always enjoyed the outdoors and 13 years of Girl Scouts I felt a bit like I had gotten the "boring" activities. I like hiking and enjoy a nice bike ride, but I love high adventure! The gorge climbing sounded intense. They basically climbed waterfalls and up the side of a gorge. The high ropes looked fun and like fun activity. The kayaking would have been fun as I love boating, and repelling and climbing was always one of my favorite activities in scouts. Hiking and biking? I felt like I had done that countless times. Thankfully, I underestimated the experiences.

After breakfast and a cup of tea, we met with our groups to go on our first adventure. Our guide, Liz, was great! She knew about the area and was also just really easy to talk to as well. She took us to one of her favorite hikes. The trail is called Puck's Glen, and I could instantly tell why. If there is any real place on earth that Puck could find love-in-idleness it would have been there. I am also convinced that Middle Earth and Narnia are similar to the land of Scotland.
The view from the top of the glen was also amazing. We were not at the highest point on the mountain, but we could see across the valley to the other mountains. We stopped and had a cup of hot chocolate and then carried on up the glen path.

After winding our way back down the mountain we made our way back to the house for lunch. The afternoon was a bit more intense. We got geared up to go mountain biking! First we headed to a skills course out in the side yard of the house. We rode around a few loops to try to get used to a bit bumpier ground and steeper hills. When then tried a couple of balance beams and sea-saws. This was not my forte to be sure, but was a challenge none the less. We took a short ride across the valley to a few steeper, more wooded areas. It was fun, but probably not something I would enjoy doing all the time. My favorite part was later when we took a more leisurely bike up a small hill and then down to a creek. It was pretty to go through some different land and see some more of the area. When we got to the creek we had to cross through the water! This was maybe my favorite part of the bike trip, to be honest. Though a bit chilly at first, it reminded me of all the times I have gone wading in my uncle's stream (or wet launching for my crew friends). After biking back to camp we got showered, had some tea (I wholeheartedly agree with this custom, by the way) and caught up with our friends in other groups who had done different activities.

After dinner we all got together to watch Braveheart. Cheesy, I know, but for some reason, however inaccurate the film is, everyone here wants to show it to us. After watching it for the second time this semester (and I doubt if it will be the last) we hung around the house discussing everything from movies we had seen to the day's activities. A few rounds of ping-pong later we were off to bed.

Sunday was much less of an adventure. After breakfast and getting packed up we took the long and more scenic route back around Loch Lomond. The views out of the coach were beautiful! We were driving though the mountains, around lochs and past lots of sheep and even a field of highland cows!

It was a wonderful weekend, something I am sure I will remember for the rest of my life.