Moving Back

Just saw the most amazing apartment in Craig's list. It has hard wood floors, a gas stove and big windows, located at Myrtle and Himrod and just almost affordable, but heat was included. I really really really want it. But the sad truth is that since its on Craig's list now (June) the people want the renter to move in July first and while I'm totally willing to move back for July the truth is its not going to happen. I have already arranged commitments for July and it will cost me a lot of wasted money to cancel them. So I'll watch as my dream apartment gets lived in my someone else. But since I'm crazy enough to call the people renting it out and ask about the place, I learned they rent out outs of similar places in the same area and maybe something else will be available when I'm ready. Maybe something in the same building. OR maybe no one will take this place and when I'm part I can bargain them down a few hundred dollars because it's just been empty for 3 months and they really need it rented. Here's to hoping.

Classes are done

Well, I'm officially done with classes for my masters degree. YIPPEE!!! Am I out celebratiing with friends, painting the town red, causing scandels that Aberdeen isn't soon to forget? No. Not at all. I even only just realized I had a beer in the fridge. And the first sip of lime infused Corona makes me sick for hot summer nights in cities I love.

At least now I can say that I've completely 2/3 of the work I need to do for this damn degree. And even if I quite now I'll still get a diploma, but not a degree. So I'm sticking through. This weekend should be fruitful. I'm attending some storytelling events which should lead to contacts with people I want to interview for my dissertation. And in other good news I might just end of working on a film commemorating Jeannie Robertson. Fingers crossed on that.

In other positive news, I've turned in a tenative draft of a chapter in for my dissertation, because I wanted to submit the essay for an academic essay competition and I had to be officially submitted to my academic institution. So my extremely wonderful prof. accepted the essay. Fingers crossed on the essay competition as well, it will look good on my resume. But having written about 2500 words that will go towards my actual dissertation feels really really good. So that's something to celebrate.

Best Thing Ever

I am so glad I can call up my best friends and just chat for a few brief minutes about anything, even though they're an ocean and 5 time zones away. That's the stuff that cheers me up. I really should call more.

Valencia

So apparently I didn't take many pictures in Valencia. Which makes sense, because I wasn't there for very long and I took this really long walk through this old riverbed which is now a giant public park and where they had a how much of sports facilities. I think Valencia might have hosted the Olympics way before I was born. I should look that up. Anyway, so I took this long walk, which I didn't realize would be so long. I was trying to get to the Museum of Archeology. Never did get there. I walk took too long. But it was nice and sunny. So I'm not overly upset. I even got some sun that turned into a beautiful golden tan. Er, or ya know, normal people color, since I'm so pale.

This is some orange trees in front of a building.

This is looking in the opposite direction. The Placa something or other. I think maybe Reina Sophia. Or Reina somebody. But its pretty. Oh, just looked it up, it's Plaza de la Virgin. So I was close. Queens. Virgins. Same thing.

Anyway, inside that building on the right - which is the Cathedral - is something lots of different people have been searching for, for about 2000 years now. I don't know why they keep looking, it's been in Valencia for about 600 years.


In that glowing wall sconce behind everything is....drum roll... THE HOLY GRAIL.

That's right folks. Here's a close up. The Holy Grail not only exists, but it's alive and well and being housed in Valencia. I don't know why Tom Hanks was tramping all over Europe looking for it. You'd think a well educated man like that character he was playing would know better. They never even went to Spain in that movie. They stayed in France. Well, fuck France.

I do actually think I like Spain better. It reminds me of all the good things about CA and none of the bad things. Because, yes, there are good things. The dreams of my childhood are wrapped up in the myths of what California could have been. And then I grew up. And realized the dreams of orange groves, the sun setting over the ocean and endless summers, were just the glaze on a rotten cake. And you know young kids, sometimes they only want the frosting.

Granada

Granada, the city of the Alhambra. Interestingly enough Granada was ruled by the Moors until 1492, the same year Columbus went in search of a western route to China, but instead got twarted by a pesky landmass. Silly Chris.

This is a view of the hills from the Alhambra.

This is some of the ornamentation in the buildings. You can still see the paint, which is pretty cool.

This is in the courtyard of the main Palace of the Alhambra. The Alhambra as a whole is a, well, I'd go with small fortified city. Kinda. It's a Palace and gardens and a collection of other buildings. If you look carefully the water surface belies the fact that everything looks warm and beautiful and sunny.

This is me in the gardens in front of a giant wisteria. Although it is not the largest wisteria that I saw whilst in Spain.

This is a view of the Jarden de Machuca. Part of the Alhambra Palace proper. Those are orange trees in there.

This is a few from the Alhambra towards the coast. I don't think you can actually see the water though, it's a long way off. But all the gardens look so lush and green and the sky looks so lazy. It just makes me want to take a nap.

This is a garden path in the Architect's Garden at the Alhambra.

Doesn't that look like a postcard. But I was actually there. Yup, took that shot myself. All of these actually. Jealous yet?

I apologize for the gloating. It would have been nice to have company. This is a shot of a tower in the Alhambra, from another tower.

Ooooh, these are cool. No, it's not a maze. But its aMAZing. hehheeee. No, it's the bases of walls that were once a ghetto inside the Alhambra fortifications. The rooms are sooo small. But each of these buildings potentially had two more floors made of rickety wood. There's also a well at the other end, which still has green stuff growing from it, so it probably still has water. I'm actually surprised to see that these people had stone floors.

More Alhambra.

This is NOT the Alhambra. This is one side of the Cathedral in Granada. I like the shape of the street lamps (the square-y glowing things). The cathedral was cool inside too, but I went in right as they were closing and actually got locked in, which kinda scared me. But I wasn't alone and the person locking up shook his head at us and then let us out. Thank goodness. I don't want to get locked in a cold stone cathedral all alone all night.

Next stop: Valencia.

Tarifa

Tarifa, the next stop on my journey through Spain, is the Southern most point of land in Europe. Now many of you might have thought that it's Gibralter, but it's not, it's Tarifa. Tarifa apparently means tarif in English, my Spanish speaking friend pointed out to me one day before I actually visited the place. In situations like this I do what I call 'intellectual vamping', other people call it making shit up. I prefer my term because usually the made up bits are based on actual facts. So after learning about the meaning of Tarifa, which is really rather obvious, I went on vamping about how it makes complete sense, because Tarifa is the closest point between Europe and Africa and therefore a HUGE trading port with lots of goods moving back and forth. These goods where probably taxed. Hence, Tarifa, the place where shit gets taxed. The better part about this is that I'm actually pretty close to correct. Since I'm not stating any actual facts, I'm as good as golden. The port is still very active and does still host business interactions between Europe and Africa.

Enough, intellectual vamping. PICTURES!

This is me (duh) in Tarifa (double duh). That mass of dark blue and green behind me is the Mediterranean. The light blue and white mass is the sky.
I hit Tarifa on 6 April, which was the monday after Palm sunday and the monday before Easter sunday. Smack dab at the beginning of Semana Santa. So of course they have a procession. When I just caught sight of them it actually freaked me out because they were dressed in the same thing the KKK wear, except in purple and green. It took me a minute to realize they were Catholics not racists, but I was scared there for a minute, because I think racists are scarier than Catholics. I caught more of the precession a little farther down the road. In the above picture you can see the people of Tarifa carrying their giant statue of Jesus and a donkey (I think) through the street. They were also playing instruments, some were carrying a giant cross and others were carrying palm fronds (now weren't they lucky, palm fronds don't weight nearly as much as that statue).

This is another shot of the Mediterranean. Off in the distance, through all the clouds, you can see Africa. No, seriously, you can see Africa. It's like right there. If I was a major league baseball player I could have thrown stones at it. Well, maybe not that close. It's about a 35 minute ferry ride from Tarifa to Tanger. Just like the picture of the boat below says. Also just off the bow of the boat, that brownish mountain looking thing, that's Africa. I'm really proud of this shot. It packs in a lot of information. The only thing that would make it better is something making it very obvious that the photographer is standing in Tarifa. I guess if you look closely the car plates have the EU stars on them.


And another shot of the Mediterranean from Tarifa with Africa in the background.
And a shot looking about 90 degrees to the right.

The actual most southern point of Europe is out on that piece of land in the upper right of the photo. However, as typical of governments, that small bit is a military base and closed to the public. But I did walk out along the wee strip of land as far as public people are permitted to pass.

The thing about Tarifa, aside from being really close to Africa, is that it's also on the Atlantic Ocean. That's right, two oceans for the price of one.

This is the beach that is washed with the waves of the Atlantic ocean. On the water are two sail boats and three kite surfers. Although it was sunny in Tarifa the day I was there, it wasn't really warm enough to sit out on the beach due to the wind. There is sooooo much wind. But this makes it a kite surfers paradise. At another popular beach, farther up the Atlantic coast (so to the right of this photo) is where more of the kite surfing is done.

I took a hot bus from Seville to Tarifa and as she finally came out of the low mountains that sweep along the coast the ocean stretched out in front of us and the air was filled with kites of all colors. Flitting and dashing and fighting for space above the waves. The sun was low in the sky, reflecting off the water and illuminating the undersides of the kites so they glowed in rainbow strips of nylon. There must have been five hunderd kites in a stretch of beach a mile long. I can't even imagine anyone trying to navigate through those kite strings. But it was beautiful, like a hundred million butterflies skimming along tree tops. And then the image was gone as we rounded a corner behind another hill.

Seville

The next stop on the Spain trip was Seville. It was also the city Kenna left me in. She had to get on a plane and fly all the way back to Rome, how tragic.
I thoroughly enjoyed Seville. The weather was beautiful, the architecture was beautiful, the people were beautiful. The whole city was done up for Semana Santa, chairs for the upcoming processions lined every street. The whole city seemed to be in a vacation mood, or maybe it was just me projecting my happiness on everyone else. Either way, it was great.

The funny thing I noticed about the people in Seville is that, I assume the Mother's, dress up their pod of children (generally not more than 3) in matching outfits. It was adorable when the kids were all under the age of 5. Cute little blouses with matching embroidery on all their kids, both the girls and the boys matching each other. And these outfits seemed like something from 1914. The little girls had matching bows in their long dark curly hair and the boys were also in tights. No seriously. Although it all started to get strange when you saw an 11 year old boy in an outfit that matched his 3 year old sister and 2 year old brother. The matchingness had no age limits. I felt sorry for these boys, they looked rather silly, because they were obviously old enough to dress themselves and they very obviously didn't. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of this because it's creepy taking pictures of other people's kids.

This is the outside of the large cathedral in Seville. Originally on this spot was a Moorish Temple, but they did away with that when they did away with the Moors in Seville and built this huge cathedral. What they didn't do away with were all the orange trees, which were original to the yard of the Moorish mosque. There were orange trees every where and they were all filled with fruit and the air smelled like orange blossoms. It was absolutely incredible.

This dark picture is actual the dark interior of the above cathedral. These two statues hold up one end of Chris Columbus' giant tomb/memorial thingy. Chris was actually buried in the New World - don't remember which part. But I have heard that he was broke, sick and nobody liked him when he died. So they weren't really sure where he was buried. But someone decided that he should be dug up and moved to Seville. So they dug up a skeleton and hauled it on a boat across the Atlantic ocean. Now they still weren't really sure if it was him, so they didn't tell anyone this and continued on like nothing was wrong. Flash forward to the age of genetic testing and someone who remembers - or read in a book or something - that people were a little uncertain about these bones in Chris' tomb. So some scientists pop open the tomb and extract some DNA. Now you're thinking, they can't just read the DNA and it will say 'Chris Columbus was here'. No. What they do know for sure is where is brother is buried, which if I recall correctly is somewhere else in the New World. So they dig up Brother Columbus - he was not of a religious order to my knowledge, nor was he anyone's "soul brother", just little old Chris' bio-bro. So they test the DNA against each other and apparently the two sets of bones are brothers. So the people, who are probably all dead now, who dug up Chris are all celebrating that they got the right dead guy. YIPPEE!!! However, I'm wondering how many of the bones in the tomb they actually tested. It could be possible they only tested one bone, and that one bone matches. But that's almost too much good luck.

Anyway, so while the Catholics were pulling down the Moors' mosque, probably a long time before Chris sailed the ocean blue, they decided that the minaret that the Moors built was pretty nifty, and they didn't tear it down. Good choice! It is pretty nifty too. It was built with a ramp instead of stairs all the way to the top so that the soldiers could ride their horses all the way to the top. Or for future annoying tourists to push their baby carriages up, thus blocking everyone from going in the other direction.

Despite annoying tourists, the view from the top is pretty stunning.

These are some other building that I didn't go inside, but the evening light was so pretty I took a whole bunch of pictures of it and here's a decent one. The light in the evenings was so beautiful, low and golden.

This is another building in Seville whose name I can't remember, real helpful right? Anyway, it's obviously left over from the Moors. Oh wait, I remember, it was a Moorish section of a palace that each monarch since like forever (probably actually only 1200ish) has added their own section to. So every part of the entire compound is different. It's pretty cool. And the gardens were amazing. And so many orange trees. So if you go to southern Spain drink the orange juice. It's fresh squeezed and the most amazing orange juice in the world. And I actually don't like orange juice. Also, they call it zumo naranja. For anyone whose taken Spanish, they DON'T use that other word for juice. The one that just slid out of my brain.

Ok, so next stop Tarifa.

revolting

my blog has revolted against me in vicious rebellion and is refusing to show me any of the buttons of the fancy things you can do on this blog, including posting pictures. So, folks, I'm going to have to take a pause in posting pictures from my Spain trip, until this blog gets its act together and lets me post pictures again. GR!!!!

on Homesickness

All experiences are veins of precious metals for writers to mine when they create. It is impossible to write about pain and sadness and joy when you have never experienced them.

I try to keep telling myself this is true, willing myself to believe that one day this frustration will lead to something useful. But the thoughts fall flat from my lips and the tears fall thick from my eyes into my stomach.

I thought the surest cure to homesickness, or at least something to relieve the symptoms for a while, was to see at least one person I am homesick for. And in theory this makes perfect sense. And while I'm seeing this person, enjoying their company, stunned into silence by the shock, like before I learned to talk. The shock of actually standing next to them, fingers interleaved between us. And momentarily it does work, the long ache in the pit of my stomach subsides, even vanishes. I feel as if, perhaps, my soul is sparkling and I can see the glow just on the edges of my vision. I want everyone around me to see it and experience their own. When I'm happy I want the whole world to be happy with me, but I would never wish my unhappiness on anyone else.

Then its time to say good bye. And you think even though you will once again be 100 thousand miles away from every thing that your heart yearns for, it will be easier to miss them for a while, because you just held it, however momentarily in the palm of your hand. You were happy for more consecutive hours than you can count on your fingers and toes, that hasn't happened recently. But the feathers left on your palm from the bird you held so close are not a happy consolation prize. You don't want to look at them for the pain of it all. You want to forget that you knew happiness. You want to return to the world where longing is the norm, and all you remember are the brief shadows that you long for. Then sharp pain of tangible happiness stolen away, hurts more than all the burns from a 100 thousand droplets of hot wax on Icarus' skin as he flew towards the sun. At least if he cried as he climbed towards his desires his tears would soothe his burning flesh.

Madrid

Kenna and I took the night train from Lisbon to Madrid.I was really excited about a sleep train, because let's be honest its totally a novelty, especially for us silly Americans who seem to have forgotten that train travel exists, AND for the rest of us who have experienced the sheer stupidity and incompetence that is AMTRAK.(flowers in Madrid)

So despite how brilliant the idea of taking a sleep train who, both Kenna and I woke up feeling sick the next morning. And not like motion sick or anything, like actually genuinely ill. I had a sore throat and I can't remember Kenna's symptoms. So we arrive Monday morning in Madrid feeling sick. We get breakfast, check into our hostal and decide to head over to the Museum of Archeology, to learn a little about Madrid.

(Kenna and I outside the wall garden of the Caixaforum bank building)

But the thing is, in Spain museums and stuff tend to be closed to the public on mondays. Go figure. By the time we realize that the museum is closed (we were standing in it and the guards told us) we were feeling more sick. So we went back to the hostal for a nap. And that my friends basically sums up the next four days in Madrid. We ate some spicy food to try to clear our systems, but we never did see the Museum of Archeology. In fact we didn't see much of anything. We were feeling really sick. I for one had a new symptom everyday. It truely sucked.

(Wisteria vine outside some fancy bank building)

Then to top it all off, the day we're leaving we head to the train station to get an 11 o'clock train to Seville. And we realize that our clocks are wrong, whether this was due to time change or time zone crossing I still can't figure it out. None-the-less, we had missed the train we wanted. So we bought tickets for the 2pm train. Luckily, we were really close to the Reina Sophia museum, which is apparently THE museum to see in Madrid. So after getting lunch we went in for 15 minutes. Later, much later, I discovered that Picasso's Guernica is housed in this museum and we could have spent those 15 minutes looking at that. BUT NO, we looked at some other stuff. Some other interesting stuff, but I would have liked to actually see the Guernica, especially because when I realized it was in Madrid, that means the I didn't see it 10 years ago at the UN building in NYC. I have been seriously confused about this painted for some time now.

To sum it up, from what I can tell Madrid is a lovely very metropolitain world city. But I feel I should make too many judgements as I didn't seem much other than the inside of my hostal and a hotel.

(Some royal palace)

Actually that's not true, we also saw this place, which is a Palace. It was pretty and had a huge collection of ceramic urns for medications. I think it housed what they called the Royal Pharmacy, but mostly it was a lot of ceramic urns, and some glass urns. It was cool seeing how they used to keep medications, and what they used to consider as medications. Some of the containers still actually had stuff in them, which was actually kinda gross, especially when I was liquid stuff - the cinnamon bark wasn't so bad.

Portugal

Now that I'm back from my 3 week trip to the Iberian pennisula I can share photos and stories and such.


LONDON
My trip started with a six hour layover in London. Which is good. I like London. I know London pretty well. So I did some shopping. I got exactly what I wanted and at a good price. People say shopping in London is expensive. I say it's only expensive when you don't know where to go or how to sale hunt or you're an idiot. No that's mean. Idiots could probably find bargins in London.


Being in a big city always makes me feel more like a real person. No offense to any Aberdeen people reading this, I'm just a big city girl.

LISBON, PORTUGAL
I got into Lisbon fairly late in the evening, about 8pm. But the weather was so nice and warm. walking out of the airport was like walking into the bathroom when the showers been running for a while as hot as possible, filling the whole room. Needless to say it was wonderful. I was so happy.

My hostel was actually on the other side of the river from Lisbon proper, but it was on top of a hill and offered great views of Lisbon. Like this one from the room I was staying in.

Lisbon is very pretty in a slightly run down magestic sort of way. I think I'd like to go back.

I was only there for 2 full days and a lot of that time I spent worry about meeting up with Kenna, who few in 24 hours after I did, and then trying to get Kenna's luggage. Kenna's luggage missed her plane and then didn't come in for 24 more hours. Just in time for us to make the train to Madrid. It was kind of a pain in the ass.

This is the monastary St. Jeronimo in Lisbon. It's really very pretty close up too. Intensely carved white stone. It almost looks like ivory.

This is me sitting in the courtyard of the monastary enjoying the sunshine, sheltered from the wind. As you can see I'm still wearing my jacket, so its not all that warm and it was windy, BUT the sun was shining which was absolutely fabulous. The whole trip was mostly sunny, except for the few days it rained. I even managed to get a tan, which hasn't happened since, I think, 2002.


This is me waiting to get on the train to Madrid. Kenna and I took a sleeper train. Which was kinda cool and totally saved on separate hostel and transport expenses. The downside? We both woke up the next morning sick. And yes, I'm totally blaming the train. However, I would recommend everyone to take a sleeper train once in their life. It's the most wonderful experience that you're supposed to sleep through.I'll talk about Madrid in the next post. Lisbon truely was lovely. I wished I had had more time to actually explore Lisbon rather than worry about sister and luggage and such.

Thoughts on Skype

I absolutely adore Skype. I think its a revolution in communication. Mind you I'm finding Skype 4.0 slower than 3.8 which is annoying, but over all the concept of Skype and what it allows you to do is incredible. Now all it needs to do is figure out how to cure the problem of time zones.

Skype allows you to not only talk in real time, but see in real time the person you are talking to. Which for me is perfect. I'm a very visual speaker - I use a highly integrated system of visual clues with my audio speech patterns to communicate an idea, and I rely on the visual clues others give to understand what is being said. Which is one of the reasons I'm such a reticent phone user for serious conversations.

Email - and instant messaging - solved this problem for me previously, because written language is so different from spoken language and used so different I never encountered the same problems I did with phone use.

In attempting to maintain relationships across vast distances, oceans and continents in my case, and any kind of relationship - friendship, familial, business etc - I have come across two main problems. 1) its easy to let these relationships collapse, and 2) its easy to construct the relationship in an imaginary way when not in regular contact. While problem 1 seems fairly obvious, problem 2 is something I've discovered about myself in the last 3 or so years. I find it easy to construct an image of the person I'm trying to maintain a relationship with in a way that is based on my knowledge (or understanding) of who they are to me, but this image tends to get stuck in the past of when we weren't long distance and not develop, and to take on characteristics that I want that person to fulfull in my life. All in all this can create and fairly "false" image of a person, which ultimately causes problems when the person and I reconnect.

While email (and facebook) have drastically helped me overcome problem 1. Problem 2 can still exist despite constant email communication. I find that Skype is amazing for banishing all false creations of people. The visual helps me see how a person has changed, or not, and gives me a solid clear "real" image of them to maintain.

But there's another complication. I think Skype might actually increase my homesickness. Everytime I get to see someone I desperately miss, and usually a little bit of their apartment as well, I realize exactly why I miss them. I see how happy they are in their life and I wonder why I'm not there being happy with them. Or worse, I see how frusterated they are with something and I can't reach out and try to comfort them, I can't just squeeze their hand to let them know that things will get better. I have to say it, and we all know that talk is cheap (unless you're looking at your phone bill). While I love being able to see my friends from a million miles away, I'm never more homesick than when I'm staring at their faces moving across my computer screen.

This makes me think that maybe I should go back to pen, paper and post. It'll make me live my life more in situ, rather than the way I am now split across an ocean, my heart and hopes on one side and my body on the other.

I think perhaps homesickness has mutated from being a dull chronic disease of the soul to an acute progressive disease of the heart.

More Doric

The longer I've been in Scotland the more I'm slowly becoming obsesed with Doric. Now Doric is the North-East variety of Scots. Scots, the language, is NOT Scottish Gaelic (pronounced gal-ick), which is the younger sister of Irish Gaelic (pronounced gay-lick). The Irish version travelled to Scotland with the Dalriada's who founded Argyle (yes, the home of that lovely triangle pattern on socks), which means Coast of the Gael.

Scots is a sister of English. I have come to decide that it is NOT a dialect of English, but its own language, with its own dialects. Doric is the version found in the North-East, where I am, how appropriate. Scots and English have similar histories and foundings, and have their own versions of words with the same french or german roots. Scots has more Dutch/Norse influence then English though and it probably closer to Frisian than English. Doric is called such, because 'doric' means north in some derivative of something from Latin. This is where my language history knowledge gets fuzzy, because I've never studied Latin. Yes, Doric columns are relating in the semantic naming sense, but little else.

So, what this all means. I've attempted to read Scots poetry, which makes me feel clever, because it is ever so closely like English, but different enough that I feel like I'm learning a new language.

Now, my most recent favourite quotation (and explanation):

the wee bairn stammers oot his smaw speech in the accent o his ain fireside: the accent that will bide in his speech till his voice is heard nae mair. (Robert Garioch)

wee - small
bairn - child
oot - out
smaw - small
o - of
ain - own
bide - live
nae - no (general negation)
mair - more

There is something much more immediately evocative of place in the Scots. I just see a very small, little boy struggling to to put words together to express his thoughts as he warms himself be the fire.

On a side note, the man being quoted - Robert Garioch - is also the name of a town. Garioch, not Robert. Garioch, is not pronounced as you are assuming. It is pronounced Gar-ee-o. And the town Gardenstone is pronounced Game-ree (but that's a weird local thing and not actually a pronunciation thing).

SPAIN

I'm headed to Portugal and Spain for spring break, for three weeks and, obviously, I'm really excited. The map below shows my current plan, but it totally subject to change, particularly the part along the Med Coast - I might hope over to Ibiza, not sure yet.

I'll fly to Lisbon and then my sister will join me the next day. Then we'll take the night train to Madrid. We'll be in Madrid for 3 nights. Then Toledo for 1 night, then Seville for 2 nights. My sister's break is over and she flies back to Rome from Seville. I continue on to Tarifa - the most Southern town in Spain - then Granada, Valencia and Barcelona. I might stop at other coastal towns along the way, but I'm not planning anything. I'm gonna wait and see what kinda student bus pass-y-thingies they have when I'm in Madrid. I think my Spanish might be better than assume - readingwise, but I'm nervous about the accent. Most I've the previous Spanish I've heard spoken is of Latin America.

2009 is the year Callan first goes to countries where she's never studied the language even a little bit - Portugal and the Netherlands (in late July).

I'll keep you updated at the Spain stuff when I'm there, or when I get back either way. Until then I need to finish an essay.

Inter Varsity Folk Dance Festival

I went to Exeter this last weekend to dance at the Inter Varsity Folk Dance Festival. Aside from learning a few new types of folk dance, and just generally doing more hours of dancing then sleeping every day, I performed.

Below is the video of our performance. Sorry its a little dark. I'm the girl in the blue skirt and red blonde hair.

Scottish Trivia #1

ABERCROMBIE is a word of possibly (mixed) Pictish origin, which can be poetically translated as 'the mouth of the bendy river'.

Let's break that down:

ABER-
from Pictish (possibly a p-Celtic language) meaning: a confluence of waters, or mouth of a water way.

CROMB-
in the old Irish (which is a q-Celtic language) meaning: bent.

Therefore, the only question left to ask: Does the clothing company realize that they're name means bent river mouth? And why don't they sell more rafting equipment?

On a more applicable note:
ABERDEEN can be poetically translated as 'where the male and female river gods meet'. However, is this my own poetic translation and should not at all be considered relevant to any sort of academic scholarship.

The academic hints that lead me to this poetic translation are:
1) ABER - confluence of waters
2) The city is located on the joining of the River's Dee and Don.
3) W. F. H. Nicolaisen, a Scottish Place Name scholar and research fellow at the Elphinstone Institute (my school) says "River Don (Devana c. 150 AD Ptolemy), from devos 'god', cf. River Dee (Deva) - 'goddess'. " (W.F.H. Nicolaisen, The Picts and their Place Names (Rosemarkie: Groam House, 1996) p. 18)
4) Therefore Don is a male god, and Dee is a female god.
5) We can assume they mean water gods becuase they are attached to rivers.

Now a piece of poetry I just made up:

ABERDEEN
Where the River Gods meet
and dance without feet to the sounds of their waters
and songs from their daughters

Only an English man could write an essay about parody songs that's dull enough to put an insomniac to sleep.

The Silver Darling

Restaurant Review

My odyssey of learning about food started exactly two years ago today. That's the day I started working at The Little Owl, which, in my opinion, is the best I've every had and probably will every have, it is also the best restaurant food-wise in the world. And according to Facebook I've been to 8% of the world, which doesn't include the numerous Caribbean countries I don't remember going to from that cruise I took once.

Let's start somewhere I'm familiar with: Menus.
The menu presentation was nice. Shiny silver paper fit right in with the name of the restaurant. The descriptions of the dishes seemed right on, not overwhelming, but tantalizing. Unfortunately, my waiter had a hard time remembering the specials and attributed it to not have worked the night before. Not a good excuse.

The amuse bouche, was indeed fairly amusing. It was a trio of tuna & salmon tartar, pesto bruschetta and a soup shooter. I'd definitely had more interesting tuna tartar and this was pretty forgettable. The pesto was the consistency of a sauce and failed to work in that respect as an equivalent for the standard bruschetta tomato mixture. The chopped onions under the pesto overwhelmed the basil and thyme flavors pesto is supposed to have. However, the soup shooter was nice. It was creamy and warm, served in a clear shot glass. I think the favour was tomato, but since it was pleasing over all, I wasn't too fussing about figuring out exactly the flavour combination.

For a starter, I had the Sashimi, because I have an intense fondness for it and have not been able to locate any in Aberdeen. However, its appearance on the menu of an otherwise mostly Mediterranean influenced affair was curious to say the least. There was nothing overly exciting of disappointing about the slices of fish. However, the cucumber wasabi sauce was inspired, adding just enough heat to make the fish exciting, but it also cooled off the palate with the cucumber.

I had the halibut for a main. I enjoy halibut immensely and was not disappointed. The combination of fish and cheese is always a strange one for me, but the chief pulled it off nicely. Neither flavour overwhelmed the other. The fish was served over chopped beets and with a side of creamed leeks. The intensity of the flavours was equal and complimentary, but I feel the chief should have tried to put with creamy leaks onto the same plate as the rest of the dish, rather than in a separete sauce dish. I wasn't entirely sure if I was supposed to dip the fish, or pour the creamy leeks over the fish or eat them seperately. All three methods seemed to work, but I was a bit intimidated by the seperate dish.

The chocolate mouse for desert was lovely. A soft creamy mouse coated in crunchy chocolate bits, paired with a vanilla ice cream balanced on a pasty crust. Dessert was delightful.

I would go back to the restaurant to try the chief's other creations.

MORE IRELAND PICTURES

More pictures? How could there be more you say? Well there are. In fact I have a total of 444, but I'll spare you. I promise.
Cool stone statue out side a tourist info point. It reminded me of the statue of Prospero outside the theater in central park. It also looked like his face was melting

Stained glass window from St. Patricks Cathedral.

Awesome celtic knotwork on a chest in St. Patricks cathedral.

This is another pretty building on the grounds of the Blarney castle.

This is the entrance to the New Grange passage tomb. Look at those really really old stone carvings.

This is a really really old Celtic Cross. The image in the center is 'Jesus being marked', not really sure what it means. Looks like they're poking him with sticks. The celtic knotting around the circle part is cool. And the knotting on the other sides, but the pictures didn't turn out too well. Legend has it that the Celtic Cross has a circle around it because when St. Patrick was meeting with the High King of Ireland (whose name escapes me, but might have been Murrough) the King asked Patrick (he wasn't a saint yet) to incorporate imagery that was familiar to the celts of Ireland. So he put a circle around the cross. And said 'Tada! I give you the Celtic Cross. The symbol of the Celtic Church'. And so the people of Ireland said 'ooooooh, wow! What else can you do with your monothesism?' And Patrick said, 'ummmmm, I'll get rid of your snakes.' The Irish were sold. They've been Christian ever since.

This is a sideways picture of a Church in Cork.

These are really really old stones with writing on them. It's an Ogam script, which is basically a bunch of lines cut onto the corners of the stones. It was only really used in Ireland (a wee bit in Scotland), but it was from the Romans.

This is more Blarney castle.

This is St. Kieran's College. Nothing special about it. I thought it was pretty. It's in Kilkenny City.

This is the Callan Priory and its well (foreground).

Blarney Castle. The wee bit of sky between the top layer is where the stone is. Notice the iron bars. A person has to lie down, and bend backwards to kiss it. Mind you a very nice old Irish man holds you and no, he doesn't hold you inappropriately at all.

The legend of Blarney is legended to have come about after Queen Elizabeth the First, said something to the effect of "Lord Blarney sure can talk your head off!". Lord Blarney ( Irish Lords were called after their land holdings, his name was something else) was supposedly a great talker, so much so that when the Queen's envoys were trying to get him to agree to things, he could talk in circles and never agree to their terms, but make them feel like they had accomplished something. In turn, the Queen never got what she wanted and Lord Blarney never gave up what we wanted to keep. Smart man.

How did the gift of gab get associated with a stone on the castle that's very difficult to access? Other than the official story that has something to do with a stone of destiny being split into pieces, etc, if you really want that story google search it. My theory is:

Blarney was associated with fast talking - due to Queen Elizabeth or otherwise. A stranger to Blarney castle asked someone at the castle, perhaps the Lord, perhaps a steward or the kitchen maid, how the Lord Blarney learned to talk such a good story. Since all the people of Blarney have this skill, the answerer of the question said "Oh, there's a stone we all kiss and it gives us the gift of being able to spin a good yarn". The stranger took this story with him (or her) when he (or she) left Blarney and that circled around the country with this stranger on their travels and slowly spread until lots of people believed it. Then much, much, much later someone different came back and asked a different kitchen maid about this stone and she - because of her gift of gab - said "Oh, that's a hard stone to kiss. It's up on the roof." Then later someone picked an actually stone. Now, the owners of Blarney caslte make lots of money from more gullible strangers every year. And that's the true story of Blarney.

Yes, I've kissed the stone, so the above could be complete blarney.

Blarney Castle from afar.

I also saw bog men. They're really really really old dead guys, who ended up in bogs at the end of their lives - or after death. Anyway, they're really cool. All collapsed and dried out. Creepy but cool. I have a tendency to decide how creepy something is by how intense my desire not to put it in my mouth - yes, I know this is an amazingly infantile way of judging things, but at least I'm aware of it and I don't judge more important things, like friends, in this manner. So I decided that not only do I NOT want to put the bog men in my mouth, I don't even want my mouth open while in their presence. Truly creepy, but historically fascinating. They were actually able to tell that one of the bog men has wearing a type of ancient hair gel imported form the Mediterranean. His hair was combed up on to the top of his head and then gelled in place, before he was killed and put in the bog. Researchers have bets on him having been scarificed. But why did he have fancy imported hair gel? I don't think we'll ever know, but it does point out that this bogman was rich when he was alive. Or that the people who scarificed him were rich. Either way.