Monday, February 25, 2008
a few final photos
"Forsyth's Close", a street off the Royal Mile and the closest thing I found to "Forsythe" in Edinburgh, a posed picture of my silly traveling companions, and the sun setting behind the Walter Scott monument on Princes Street.
quaint and adorable
A happy bagpiper performing along the Royal Mile, my artsy shot of some pretty rooftops, and "the world's end" - a very cute pub also located on the Royal Mile but whose hour-long wait forced us to move on without enjoying its quaint atmosphere.
Edinburgh Castle and the Royal Mile
Posing in front of the entrance to the castle, a view of Arthur's Seat, and two pictures of the lovely Royal Mile (my favorite street!).
one lovely day in Edinburgh
So, I forgot that I had in fact taken pictures in Edinburgh last weekend and they are actually pretty nice! The day was lovely, as you can tell, which made all the buildings glisten. The Royal Mile was packed with people but we still managed to walk all the way down and all the way back up! There was also the Edinburgh museum where we saw Dolly the sheep (stuffed, of course) and the Edinburgh Castle which had a lovely view of Arthur's Seat (a large mountain in Edinburgh). The following four are pictures of: Princes Street, the restaurant where J.K. Rowling frequented during the years she wrote the Harry Potter series, Dolly the sheep, and Edinburgh Castle.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Keeping busy in good auld St. Andrews
I'm marveling right now at the realization that tomorrow begins my 4th week in Scotland. Wow! As evidenced by the fact that I have not updated my blog in two weeks (for that, I am deeply sorry!), and true to my nature, I have been keeping myself very busy lately between classes and extracurricular activities.
My two classes started up two weeks ago and my tutorials (discussion seminars) started last week. I'm really enjoying all of them! My Political Philosophy class builds nicely on the Christ College seminar I took last semester, Conservatism, in which we discussed a little of John Rawls' philosophy of political liberalism. In this new class, we started off reading Rawls' A Theory of Justice and, over the course of the term, we will read various critiques of his theory. I'm glad that the professor does not seem to be a total Rawlsian but, rather, is very aware of those criticisms which threaten to undermine Rawls' theory. This coming week we will read Robert Nozick from his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia. So far what I've read has been a bit dull but maybe he'll improve. :-)
My other class, Philosophy and Public Affairs, has been quite fascinating. It is all about international justice and world poverty. Some of the questions we are investigating include: Does justice involve both negative and positive duties? Is the global institutional order guilty of a major injustice against the world's poor? What is a human right? Is global poverty actually a human rights-violation? It is SO interesting and very much along the lines of topics I might like to study in law school (if that's where I end up after Valpo).
Outside of class and when I'm not reading (which is a lot of the time!), I have been getting involved in various Christian groups on campus. I am in a wonderful Bible study for university students that meets on Tuesday evenings at the home of the two leaders, a lovely Scottish couple called the Stirlings. I met them at Holy Trinity, the church I attend on Sunday mornings and at which I am helping lead a teen-age Sunday school class. The Bible study is a co-ed group, but we break off after some social time into single-sex groups. We're studying key chapters in the Gospel of John for the next 9 or 10 weeks. Very exciting! Also, I am singing in the Gospel Choir on Wednesday afternoons and attending the Christian Union meetings (kind of like Campus Crusade or Celebrate) on Friday nights. I met a wonderful group of Christians in my dorm whom I eat with at most meals and who also lead a Bible study during the week. I probably won't be able to attend it every week, but I did go this past week and they are studying Philippians, one of my favorite epistles!
Last weekend I went to Edinburgh to stay with a Scottish family and, unfortunately, it was less than spectacular. At orientation, our program leaders had made it out to be this great cultural experience but it seemed like the family we stayed with - a mother and two daughters whom we rarely saw during our two nights at their house - weren't very interested in giving us one. I did enjoy a nice walk down and back up the Royal Mile and Princes Street, as well as a look at the Edinburgh Castle and the Art Gallery on Saturday but, beyond that, we did not have much to do because we (those students staying in Edinburgh) were pretty much dropped off in the city without any planned activities. Needless to say, after that uneventful and disappointing weekend, I was quite happy to be back in lovely St. Andrews, my "home" until June.
This week will be packed as well. Classes, reading, Bible study, choir, and more. I plan to go to Ballroom Dance lessons on Thursday night for the first time. That should be fun! Also, I'm rehearsing for a small musical concert with some friends in my residence hall as part of "Forgiveness Fortnight" - two weeks of Christian outreach events on campus. Additionally, I am firming up my plans for spring break (March 29-April 14) during which I am traveling with some of my American friends, Caroline and Mirelle, to a few well-known Scottish towns - namely Inverness, Loch Ness, Stirling, and Glasgow - for a few days before Caroline and I fly to visit friends in Germany. So far we have purchased our Scotland rail and bus tickets. Now we need to buy plane tickets and book hostel accommodations. It should be a lot of fun and we will certainly get to see a good portion of beautiful Scotland in our 4 days of traveling around from town to town.
Unfortunately, I don't have any new pictures to put up yet but I promise to have some more after next weekend when I go to Perth for a day. Thanks again to everyone for the notes, valentines, emails, facebook messages, skype calls, IMs, and prayers over the past few weeks. I appreciate them so much! Even though I am enjoying my time here and getting to know many nice people, I do miss you all tremendously and the various forms of contact make me feel closer to you. Keep it up!
Cheers!
My two classes started up two weeks ago and my tutorials (discussion seminars) started last week. I'm really enjoying all of them! My Political Philosophy class builds nicely on the Christ College seminar I took last semester, Conservatism, in which we discussed a little of John Rawls' philosophy of political liberalism. In this new class, we started off reading Rawls' A Theory of Justice and, over the course of the term, we will read various critiques of his theory. I'm glad that the professor does not seem to be a total Rawlsian but, rather, is very aware of those criticisms which threaten to undermine Rawls' theory. This coming week we will read Robert Nozick from his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia. So far what I've read has been a bit dull but maybe he'll improve. :-)
My other class, Philosophy and Public Affairs, has been quite fascinating. It is all about international justice and world poverty. Some of the questions we are investigating include: Does justice involve both negative and positive duties? Is the global institutional order guilty of a major injustice against the world's poor? What is a human right? Is global poverty actually a human rights-violation? It is SO interesting and very much along the lines of topics I might like to study in law school (if that's where I end up after Valpo).
Outside of class and when I'm not reading (which is a lot of the time!), I have been getting involved in various Christian groups on campus. I am in a wonderful Bible study for university students that meets on Tuesday evenings at the home of the two leaders, a lovely Scottish couple called the Stirlings. I met them at Holy Trinity, the church I attend on Sunday mornings and at which I am helping lead a teen-age Sunday school class. The Bible study is a co-ed group, but we break off after some social time into single-sex groups. We're studying key chapters in the Gospel of John for the next 9 or 10 weeks. Very exciting! Also, I am singing in the Gospel Choir on Wednesday afternoons and attending the Christian Union meetings (kind of like Campus Crusade or Celebrate) on Friday nights. I met a wonderful group of Christians in my dorm whom I eat with at most meals and who also lead a Bible study during the week. I probably won't be able to attend it every week, but I did go this past week and they are studying Philippians, one of my favorite epistles!
Last weekend I went to Edinburgh to stay with a Scottish family and, unfortunately, it was less than spectacular. At orientation, our program leaders had made it out to be this great cultural experience but it seemed like the family we stayed with - a mother and two daughters whom we rarely saw during our two nights at their house - weren't very interested in giving us one. I did enjoy a nice walk down and back up the Royal Mile and Princes Street, as well as a look at the Edinburgh Castle and the Art Gallery on Saturday but, beyond that, we did not have much to do because we (those students staying in Edinburgh) were pretty much dropped off in the city without any planned activities. Needless to say, after that uneventful and disappointing weekend, I was quite happy to be back in lovely St. Andrews, my "home" until June.
This week will be packed as well. Classes, reading, Bible study, choir, and more. I plan to go to Ballroom Dance lessons on Thursday night for the first time. That should be fun! Also, I'm rehearsing for a small musical concert with some friends in my residence hall as part of "Forgiveness Fortnight" - two weeks of Christian outreach events on campus. Additionally, I am firming up my plans for spring break (March 29-April 14) during which I am traveling with some of my American friends, Caroline and Mirelle, to a few well-known Scottish towns - namely Inverness, Loch Ness, Stirling, and Glasgow - for a few days before Caroline and I fly to visit friends in Germany. So far we have purchased our Scotland rail and bus tickets. Now we need to buy plane tickets and book hostel accommodations. It should be a lot of fun and we will certainly get to see a good portion of beautiful Scotland in our 4 days of traveling around from town to town.
Unfortunately, I don't have any new pictures to put up yet but I promise to have some more after next weekend when I go to Perth for a day. Thanks again to everyone for the notes, valentines, emails, facebook messages, skype calls, IMs, and prayers over the past few weeks. I appreciate them so much! Even though I am enjoying my time here and getting to know many nice people, I do miss you all tremendously and the various forms of contact make me feel closer to you. Keep it up!
Cheers!
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Scottish dancing and eating before week #2 begins!
Last night's ceilidh (kay-lee) dancing was a blast! It was so much fun. Even though it was aimed primarily at international students, there were some Scottish guys and girls kind of "imported" (we joked) for the night. They were moving from partner/group to partner/group and helping the new people learn the dances. I danced several of them and didn't do too terribly.
One Scottish guy came over to me and my girlfriends at one point and asked, "Would it help if I said I know what I'm doing?" We readily accepted his invitation and danced an 8-person dance with him. He was my partner and it was quite a swinging/spinning type of dance. He swung me so hard! At one point, you have to spin around for 16 counts and you have to look straight at your partner to avoid getting dizzy! Then, a few dances later, he was my partner again and we did more spinning. It was so exhilarating! I was quite hot and sweaty by the end of it but it was well worth the effort.
In between dancing sessions, there was a buffet dinner. They served a very limited selection: haggis, vegetarian haggis, mashed potatoes, turnips, and gravy. Before I left for Scotland last weekend, I had been refusing to eat haggis in Scotland since my diet has almost become vegetarian in the last couple years and I don't really like the sound of sheep brains. (Yes, that is what haggis is: sheep brains and oats and vegetables.) But when the moment of truth came, I caved. Or, well, I gathered up my courage and my adventurous spirit and ate it. Not even the vegetarian haggis but the REAL haggis. That's right: I did it! :) And it wasn't too bad. The texture was weird, but the flavor was good so you just had to forget what exactly you were eating. ;)
All in all, it was a very cultural evening. Scottish dancing, Scottish accents, Scottish food, Scottish music (bagpipes and all), and Scottish attire (a few guys were wearing kilts!). My pictures aren't great so you'll just have to take my word for it that it was a pretty spectacular event. More of this kind of entertainment to come, I hope!
In other news, I visited Holy Trinity church in the center of town this morning and it was a great experience. I met up with some friends of friends - the Egan family - and had a lovely chat with them after the service. They have three adorable young girls, whom they homeschool, so we had a lot to talk about! They hooked me up with a Tuesday night Bible study as well as a girl who knows about the Christian Union on campus and even a volunteer babysitting job on Thursday mornings for kids of postgrad families studying at St. Andrews (like the Egans, though their girls don't attend the Thursday morning group). So, all in all, it was a very productive, informative, and enjoyable day. Now for a new week of classes, socializing, studying, and activities. Prayers would be appreciated as I work out my new schedule and routine!
One Scottish guy came over to me and my girlfriends at one point and asked, "Would it help if I said I know what I'm doing?" We readily accepted his invitation and danced an 8-person dance with him. He was my partner and it was quite a swinging/spinning type of dance. He swung me so hard! At one point, you have to spin around for 16 counts and you have to look straight at your partner to avoid getting dizzy! Then, a few dances later, he was my partner again and we did more spinning. It was so exhilarating! I was quite hot and sweaty by the end of it but it was well worth the effort.
In between dancing sessions, there was a buffet dinner. They served a very limited selection: haggis, vegetarian haggis, mashed potatoes, turnips, and gravy. Before I left for Scotland last weekend, I had been refusing to eat haggis in Scotland since my diet has almost become vegetarian in the last couple years and I don't really like the sound of sheep brains. (Yes, that is what haggis is: sheep brains and oats and vegetables.) But when the moment of truth came, I caved. Or, well, I gathered up my courage and my adventurous spirit and ate it. Not even the vegetarian haggis but the REAL haggis. That's right: I did it! :) And it wasn't too bad. The texture was weird, but the flavor was good so you just had to forget what exactly you were eating. ;)
All in all, it was a very cultural evening. Scottish dancing, Scottish accents, Scottish food, Scottish music (bagpipes and all), and Scottish attire (a few guys were wearing kilts!). My pictures aren't great so you'll just have to take my word for it that it was a pretty spectacular event. More of this kind of entertainment to come, I hope!
In other news, I visited Holy Trinity church in the center of town this morning and it was a great experience. I met up with some friends of friends - the Egan family - and had a lovely chat with them after the service. They have three adorable young girls, whom they homeschool, so we had a lot to talk about! They hooked me up with a Tuesday night Bible study as well as a girl who knows about the Christian Union on campus and even a volunteer babysitting job on Thursday mornings for kids of postgrad families studying at St. Andrews (like the Egans, though their girls don't attend the Thursday morning group). So, all in all, it was a very productive, informative, and enjoyable day. Now for a new week of classes, socializing, studying, and activities. Prayers would be appreciated as I work out my new schedule and routine!
Saturday, February 9, 2008
another perfect day in St. Andrews
Two sunny days in a row! It doesn't happen very often here so me and some friends decided to take a few hours to explore the cathedral ruins, St. Andrews pier, the Fife coastal walk, the castle ruins, and an adorable little cafe on North Street. The afternoon was absolutely sublime!
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