Greetings friends! It seems like ages since I last wrote and indeed has been. Sadly, "Update Blog More Frequently" was narrowly beat out on my list of new years resolutions by "Get hard body for next casting call of MTV reality show 'Jersey Shore'". So don't expect to hear from me again anytime soon!
Since we last spoke, I made a second trip to Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands, climbed some, attended the grotesque British celebration of the hanging and quartering of a fellow human, celebrated the civil American tradition of Thanksgiving, finished my first term, celebrated my birthday, travelled to London and Turkey, moved to a new 'flat', and started a new term!
Van turned Camper-Van ( Photos are courtesy Liane Vietch, Sara Hummer, and Caroline Overy.)
Many of you may know there are some vernacular differences in the American and British dialects of English. For example:
- In the UK a "Jumper" refers to knit woolen garment that covers the torso and arms-- a sweater to us. (Presumably this word refers to maverick kangaroos to Aussie ranchers).
- Fanny, of course, is a childish term for ones rear-end in the US, however, in the UK it refers to the distinctly female region on a woman's body-- a distinction that could be potentially embarrassing if you were to, say, do something like pat the seat next to you at the dinner table and tell somebody's child to "Sit your fanny up here next to me" (didn't happen to me).
There are also some differences involving numbers. For example:
- If someone were to say the "first floor" over here, they actually mean "the first floor above the ground floor" --or the second floor
- A bit lesser known is that if one says "We have 5 tents, you don't need to bring one" they actually mean "We only have 3 tents, Brian and Guy are going to have to sleep in the van."
The last example created some confusion on a trip this past October up to the Highlands when ten of my classmates and I rented a van to head up to the Ft William area to do some hiking and precipitation observing (I said it was a bad idea from the get go). It was a classic case of the distinctly American phrase "Too many chiefs, not enough Indians." I decided to step down from my leadership role and let someone else take on the difficult responsibilities of counting.
Like a scene from the National Lampoon's, we pulled out tents from the van at the campground only to find we were a few short. No problem though! Guy and I much preferred the bench seats to soggy sleeping bags. In fact the van benches were hot real-estate by the second night and 36th hour of rain. Guy and I were starting to feel a bit entitled to our space in the van as other tried to move in.
Photos are courtesy Liane Vietch, Sara Hummer, and Caroline Overy.
Speaking to both Greeks and Irish here, I have learned that the traditions of their respective nations often survive in the diasporas. Irish music for example was largely kept alive in the US until it made a revival in the last 40 years and things like Greek dancing, although beloved by Greek-Americans, exist only for the pleasure of tourists in modern Greece. It is funny how when surrounded by another culture you become more keen to embrace your own. The photo above is partially a product of this phenomenon. Also, in attempt to look less Scottish (I've posed for photos with Europeans who thought I was Scottish), I decided to carve out some Friendly Mutton Chops, don a Billy Ray Cyrus t-shirt, and bring only peanut butter and bread for rations.
A stop by the Glencoe Visitors Center. Guy (Irish) used his knowledge Gaelic (long A) to translate the Gaelic (short A) writing on this map/model. There was no mention of buried treasure.
More or less the group I went up with. The crazy looking guy in the front is not the hitchhiker we picked up on the way home but is our friend Chris. Also, the photo is not being taken by the driver but we are on the wrong side of the road.
Just your average Loch-- and your average American.
This is as good as the weather got. The combination of terrain and weather is so distinctly Scottish. And while it is beautiful, I do find myself wondering what the people who stuck around here were thinking after hearing of the riches and subtropical weather that awaited them in the New World.
Remember Remember how we tortured and killed that dude on the fifth of November
On November 5th, I joined some of my classmates in a climb up the Crags to watch the fireworks display for Guy Fawkes Day-- an odd celebration of the foiling of a plan to blow up the parliament building. They like fireworks here.
Last Climb of the Year
My buddy Tim snapped this photo of me at the quarry at North Berwick Law (a 'law' is Scottish for hill). They are big on not bolting climbing routes here-- quarries are the exception.
On top of Berwick Law, Firth of Forth in the background (a "firth" is Scottish for bay or estuary).Tim Randal of Cornwall.
Great Holidays need Great Company
Laurel Wheeler likes Thanksgiving so much she celebrated at her university in England, hopped on a bus with a friend of hers, and came to celebrate with me the next day. Here we are on Victoria Street below Edinburgh Castle.
North American Invasion
I made the decision not to go home this year for the holidays. I regret it. It was sad when all my friends here from Florida got to head back home and I was left here alone with no brothers and sisters of the Sunshine State. Luckily some Canadians, Liane and Nicole, came to my rescue and invited me down to London with them for a few days. We met a completely insane woman on the street one night who told me I "look like [I'm] wearing her knickers".
I forget the name of these canals. Near Camden Town somewhere. That's Liane on the right.
A blurry Liane and Nicole ascend through the center of the Earth at the London Museum of Natural History.
For anyone that doesn't know, this is the science behind the whole Anthropogenic Climate Change scam: Put a Popsicle outside and see if it melts. That's according to this wise lady whose climate-related qualifications are: "I live in Alaska, it snows all the time up there."
Hold the ham, I'll have the Christmas Turkey
After I made the decision not to go home I had to find somewhere to vacation to. I figured if you weren't with friends and family on Christmas, you should probably go where people won't even care that it is Christmas.
... Turkey it is. My European experience is now a country that doesn't wan't to be European (UK) and a country that is only partially European.
It wasn't a tropical paradise but the blue skies of Istanbul were a welcome sight.
I wish I would have had a guide book for Istanbul just so I can keep up on the history. This is the Hagia Sophia. A church when built in the 6th century, the minarets were added and it was converted to a mosque when Constantinople fell in the 15th century.
Not to be outdone by the Byzantines, the Ottoman Turks later built this slightly grander mosque across the way of the Hagia Sophia-- know in English as the Blue Mosque.
Lots of foot washing stations.
Even divine rugs need hoovered.
I go to Turkey to escape Christmas and naturally the most popular street food is chestnuts roasted on an open fire.
Bachlava.
This was my favorite site in Istanbul, the Basilica Cistern. The entrance is a poorly marked door in the middle of the city. You would never know (and I didn't for two days) this giant room lies beneath the street and parks and buildings.
Medusa's head supports one of the columns. They think this was salvaged from another site and incorporated into the cistern. If they didn't turn the head sideways like that I would have turned into stone when I looked at it. Really.
This is my favorite photo I took. It is the Valens Aqueduct. It reminded me of when my brother and I were kids we had two water oak trees that stood about fifteen feet apart in our front yard. They served as field goal uprights, soccer goals, punt-pass-and-kick targets, as well as handy obstructions when we fought and chased each other. In Istanbul the kids use an aqueduct arch from 368 A.D.
I arrived in Turkey without any plans beyond Istanbul. I like to keep my schedule flexible and have found that people I meet are usually the best resource regarding where to go. Unfortunately, I instead found that Turkey isn't much of a winter destination and Christmas isn't a popular time to travel. I spent a lot of time in Istanbul catching up on reading, writing, and just walking around. It was nice but I didn't want to spend my entire holiday doing that so on the advice of the hostel management I headed to an area of central Turkey called Cappadocia. The area is known for its sandstone rock formations into-which people have carved cave dwellings for over a millenium. You may recognize my photos as the setting for a Star Wars scene.
Turkey is an enormous country and it took me about 12 hours to get there overland from Istanbul-- an 8 hour sleeper train and 4 hour bus.
Haydarpasa Terminal. Istanbul has two train stations: one on the European side of the Bosphorus and another on the the Asian side. Haydarpasa is the Asian terminal. Surprisingly, Istanbul still relies heavily on the ferries as a means of transportation. While there are two bridges between the continents, it appeared to me that most people still hop on one of the well-run ferries to across or up or down the river. This photo was taken from the ferry on my way to catch a train to Ankara.
Christmas dinner on the train to Ankara. Some friendly people in my sleeper cabin invited me to the dining car with them. We filled our bellies on dolmas and Raki-- a Turkish anise-flavored spirit.
The Turks are known for their longevity. Actually, I think the birthdate is given in the Islamic calendar year and the death in Gregorian.
While some of the rock formations are nice I actually found the cave dwellings to be a bit of an eyesore. Many of the nicest cliff lines filled with caves have collapsed after a thousand years of wind and rain and earthquakes. The one above has collapsed quiet dramatically.
Photo for Mom.
A lot of people still do live in caves more or less but the majority of them have some sort of improved structure on the front of the cave--unlike these. Not sure if the one above is living quarters or not but it appears to have running water. You'll notice there are multiple levels of windows. I am told there are stairways between floors once you get inside.
I flew back to Istanbul from Cappadoccia and had to take one last trip across the Bosphorus to get from my arriving airport to the one I was departing for London. The ferries run so smoothly. They are one of the many things that seem so modern and European alongside the impoverished. I always grabbed a seat on the top deck even if it was a bit chilly at times. A lot of passengers will feed the seagulls as the ferry speeds along, tossing bread through the rails and the seagulls catching it in midair.
I dress in gray as a reminder of the Scottish weather.
We found a Japanese person to take a photo of us. They know how to work cameras and appear to know a thing or two about composition.
Aside from chocolate and money, Switzerland lacks a distinctive culture. Where we were everything was German influenced. So we decided to eat sushi. It was one of those conveyor belt sushi places where various dishes come around in front of you and you grab whatever you want. Then they count up your color-coded plates and they charge you a shocking amount. There are also interactive screens where you can select a chat character (including one called Mao, and another called Horny) to send messages to the screens of other customers. In the spirit of St Valentine, we tried to send flirtatious messages to strangers but failed.
German bar where we met a gregarious old man and ordered a bowl of sauerkraut.
I ate one of these.
"Kraneberger". We learned how to say "Tap Water" in German. That was after we learned mineral water is about 4 US dollars.
Dear Switzerland, So long as you keep your windows and my belly full of chocolate, I will hold my tongue while in your country regarding your complicit role in World War II. Regards, American Brian Williams
