Field Trips part whatever

We had a field trip for class today.  We went to the towns of Kirkcaldy and then to Dunfermline.  Both are in the Kingdom of Fife. So we stayed pretty close to home.  Dunfermline is the ancient royal capital of Scotland and Kirkcaldy is the home of linoleum.  Yes, really.

I suppose I should start with the linoleum.  It was invented way back when by a guy from somewhere in England.  It doesn't really matter where or who, cause he let his patent lapse.  An enterprising Scot by the name of Nairn bought it up and started his factory in Kirkcaldy in Fife.  Linoleum quickly became a major industry in the town and eventually it was exported everywhere.

In the post industrial age(the 1960's and 1970's) it was no longer feasible to make and export real Kirkcaldy linoleum around the world and the factories went out of business and eventually were demolished.  Except for one.  There's still one linoleum factory in Kirkcaldy going strong.  When the wind is right you can smell the linseed oil from the factory. 

The museum has machines and patterns from the old factories.  I mean it's not the ONLY thing that the museum has.  Adam Smith lived there too.  One of the more famous sons of the area.  One panel had the headline "Local man writes international best-seller."  I thought that fun.  Hey, if you write a book that basically changes the world's idea of economics, someone will remember you from your hometown.
This is one of the more famous items in the museum.  It was made by a linoleum factory worker.  It's a carving of a Portuguese cork plantation.  They used good Portuguese cork in the manufacture of the tiles.

So after tea and cake in the Cafe Weymss(they used to make the pottery there too) we headed to the old capital.
It's not only the old capital, but also the home of the first Carnegie Library.  Which we got to see.  Andrew Carnegie was a son of Dunfermline.  So when he gave his money away, his hometown was the first to benefit.
Quite a pretty place.  Very impressive.  But it kinda had to be.  The cathedral, not the library.

 I don't get this gravestone at all.  Did he/she take it with them?  Is it a crest or fancy monogram?  No matter what it is, it's strange.  Maybe this guy is trying to reconcile God and Money?  Anyway I thought it the most interesting memorial there.  Sadly, the Victorians just didn't do creepy gravestones. 

I don't quite understand the advertisement for Robert.  Assuming it's like the statues and obelisks of Egypt with the names on them, so you'd KNOW this was the guy to praise.  Just seems like an odd placement. 

Cuteness!

There are signs around St. Andrews that PROMISE there are seals around.  And you can see them.  I hadn't yet.  Mysterious creatures, these seals.
I figured that I'd probably miss out on seeing real, live, wild seals in my sojourn here.  I'd seen seals before.  In zoos and aquariums.  So, it's not like it was the only chance I'd ever have.
But coming back from the field trip(Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline) I stopped at the fish and chips shop and then walked home via the harbor and East Sands.
It's my favorite walk.
I love to watch the waves break and the colors of the sea shift with the light. (Okay full disclosure, the first photo is near the golf course and on West Sands.  But it still counts as beach since that's where I took it a few days ago and it's a great sunset shot)

 This one is actually East Sands and today. 

I walked past the little bridge of the harbor and noticed that there seemed to be an addition to the short hill into the harbor.
I did a double take and yes, it was a seal.  A real, live, wild seal.  A baby one, at that!  There were signs to not touch him/her, cause he/she was waiting for Mom to come back with dinner.  And, they bite.
So I have seen a real seal in the wild.  And it is adorable!
See?

The walking dead and loyal dogs

I don't really know if the dead walk at Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh.  I could imagine they do.  It's sort of a spooky place.  It's old enough.  Sandwiched behind the Flodden Wall and the Old Town. 
I finally found it after one day at my internship at NMS.  I bet when they built the church and planted the first few people there it was easy to find.  Now...a bit harder.  It's hidden behind bars and a computer repair store.
I had a hell of a time finding the statue too.  As a friend of mine said 'he's quite wee.'  It is a small statue, but it's not exactly hidden.  Apparently I was just not paying attention.

But once I figured out the church(sorry kirk)yard it was fun.  A bit creepy.  Especially this one memorial.

Well, I assume it's someone's memorial.  It could be real.

Not sure if it was a good thing that when I saw this the first thing I thought of was 'oh I know someone who would think that's so cool'.  He did, in case you needed to know.  I took more photos, mostly 'cause he asked.  But I did find the decorations interesting.  Especially when you could read the years.  It's very specific to a time period.  Like anything it has it's fashions.  I like the ones with wings best, but the pirate theme is topical, and it's always nice to see the gravedigger(I guess) represented.

 

Most people know the story of the loyal little dog known as Greyfriars Bobby.  If not, well, he was a Skye Terrier who along with his master lived in the area.  His master died suddenly and Bobby spent the next 14 years at his grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard.   Bobby and Jock both have gravestones in the cemetary.  But the dog is the draw.  It's why most people know the church and want to see it.
http://www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/Venues/Monuments/Greyfriars-Bobby.aspx

Even if it's not all true(really 14 years? Skye terriers don't usually live that long) it's not unusual for a dog to mourn.  It was also his turf.  So to speak. His headstone says it all really.  "Let his loyalty and devotion be a lesson to us all."  Perhaps we should learn a little from a loyal little dog who inspires to this day.

Hogmanay

One serious advantage of staying in Scotland for the holiday was the opportunity to attend the New Year's Eve party in Edinburgh.
Known as Hogmanay in Scotland(this link explains why in part) it's a major party. http://www.rampantscotland.com/know/blknow12.htm
The Edinburgh Hogmanay is world famous.  For good reasons.  Some of the reason are the music, the venues, and the fireworks from the Castle.

It was a great party.  It was jammed with people, 80,000 of us in a few streets in the center of town. 
As you can see...

And only 5 arrests!  As one woman said to me, explaining why "We're Scottish."  Yes, the alcohol flows.  And there are police.  But overall, it's amazingly civilized and friendly and fun.  My backpack was open and someone made a point of telling me.  In New York, I probably would have been robbed. 

Even with all the pushy-shovy happening most people are very chill about it.  It happens.  We are all going the same way, this is how it has to be. 

Edinburgh's Hogmanay is the best known.  There is a concert in the garden,(this year the Pet Shop Boys were the headliners) a street festival, a Keilidh, a torch procession, fireworks, and even a carnival.  It's recommended you get a hotel or something early.  Or live nearby.  If you want to go to the events, be warned, some sell out quickly.  This year the Keilidh did and the concert.  If you don't get to go to those, no worries, there are stages set up in the street festival.  And someone will start dancing and you'll get pulled into the circle.  Honest.

Fiddler's Bid is a folk group from Shetland that played on the Scottish stage.  Good music.  The accents were tough to understand though.    After we listened and danced to their set we moved on to the Rewinder stage which was the DJ and VJ set up.  The stage was set up on the Mound, so you had to head toward Old Town with a great view of the Castle.  This is a view of the party thanks to the BBC.  The Mound is in the upper left hand.   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-25567276

Which was the place to be.  Well, the three of us thought so. 

We ended up dancing to British club music with thousands of other people in the cobblestone streets. The view of the midnight fireworks was excellent.  My photos don't really do it justice.  Sorry 'bout that.

A wild party.  But fun, friendly, and hopeful.  All these people from all over the world doing the same thing in the same place and just having a good time.  People you'll never see again, but it didn't matter then.

Case in point... I met a girl from Mexico waiting in line at the toilets.  Had a great conversation with her for 5 minutes.  The funny part was some Scottish guy offered her 25 pounds to cut in line in front of her.  We both agreed that wasn't happening.  There are lines that cannot be crossed.

If you do one New Year's celebration in your whole life, this is the one.  Have dinner in a Scottish pub(mulled wine is recommended) ride the carnival rides, find a spot to dance the night away, look after your friends, sing Auld Lang Syne at the top of your lungs, and kiss a stranger at midnight.  You'll never regret it.
Happy New Year!  Make it a good one.  I hope it's blessed, happy, hopeful, and filled with wonder.

Opinion

It is my considered opinion that you should go to The Elephant House on Chamber Street in Edinburgh for 4 reasons.
1.  The decor.  There are Elephants!  All over. Who doesn't like elephants?  Little ones, big ones, posters, chairs, wooden and ceramic elephants.

2. The food's good. I recommend the tea and the stromboli.  Maybe not together, you understand...but still.
3. If you read or heard about this book series called Harry Potter than you might be interested in seeing the place.  Since it's 'the birthplace of Harry Potter.'  It says so on the window.  They even sell postcards of J.K. Rowling working in the back.
4. Because the graffiti in the bathrooms is about as unique as it is possible to be. My apologies for the fuzzy shot.  I figure you can get the gist of it.  That's only one small part of one stall in the ladies room.

  

Field trips,

First of all, apologies.  I haven't been very diligent about blogging.  Again there's no real excuse.  I just forget or get sucked into e-mail.
I'll try to be better.
So, we've gone a few class field trips.  One was to the National Gallery Scotland storage facility and then to their conservation labs.  I have to say that was fun.  I like storage for museums.  After all I was the one who organized the Nooks and Crannies tour of the Furniture Storage Center at Yale.  Ah, original Stickley and art deco.
The highlight for me in the conservation tour was seeing the curator studio for the paintings.  The curator was cleaning a Cezanne.  In fact she was cleaning this Cezanne.  http://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/artists-a-z/C/2913/artist_name/Paul%20C%C3%A9zanne/record_id/2488

It's going on loan to the Prado, so it needs to be taken care of before shipping.
It was just sitting there on the easel.  I could have touched it!  I had never been that close to a masterpiece.  I breathed on it.  It was one of those spine tingling moments.

And I recognized it right off.  Oh I screwed up my identification of the artist at first.  I do that.  I get Cezanne and Gauguin confused for some reason.  But it took me back to art history 101.  As soon as I saw the mountain, I knew.  Apparently some lessons from Dr. Dixon sunk in.  It was seriously cool.

But the best part was the Monet.  It wasn't even on an easel!  It was on a table.  Ah Claude.  Just sitting there! It was scheduled for some cleaning.  I just love Monet.  I couldn't believe I was so close to one of his masterpieces in a non-gallery setting.
It's really hard to describe how thrilling it was.  Just amazing.  It was like being in a sacred presence. I wish I had a photo of the lab.

We also went to the Black Watch Castle and Museum.  As well as the Ferguson Gallery and the Perth Museum and Art Gallery.
I liked the Black Watch.  I have a fondness for the regiment.  It's not just the tartan.  Although I like that too.  They used it liberally throughout the museum...

My great aunt once told me that an uncle of hers served.  I just wish I remembered his name.  I saw a bunch of Milnes in the honor roll of the regiment and a few family names like George, Alexander and David.  Plus the Black Watch was pretty local in this part of Scotland.  The men from Fife, Angus and Perth signed up.  But there were a few from Forfar, where one side of the family came from.  The odds were good one of them was in the book.  This was the book from after WWI. 

They had newer stuff too.  Found this in the post war galleries.  Hmm, where have I heard about these cards?

After we left the Black Watch we went to Perth.  The museum there has a combination of stuff.  Natural history, social history, decorative arts, and paintings.
In an interesting coincidence I found someone I knew.  Sort of.

It's my dad!  Well, his name anyway. And as soon as I saw it I heard his voice.  I knew exactly what he'd say if he was there.  "Hey that's me!  There I am!"  Made me smile.  But it's hard too. I know he'd love to visit and be so proud that I was at this university so near where his parents came from.  I miss him. 
But we saw the stores in Perth too.  Lots of fun.  I had another encounter with home, as the museum has a dinosaur footprint from CT.  Actually it has one of the Connecticut state fossil footprints.  I recognized the footprint and the dino name before I saw the Connecticut tag on the label.
This was one of my favorite moments.  The museum is closing for a few months so some items are being sent on temporary exhibit around Perth.

I'm assuming they will pack them first.  There were other oddities.  Such as these.  I can't help but feel that was a terribly uncomfortable bike to ride.  And that dog/fox/whatever has a very sappy look on its face.  It's hard to tell with the horn, but there was no good angle for a photo.  Amazing what you find in storage.

 

Rainbows and ice cream

I had to go into Edinburgh for a meeting at the National Museum Scotland(NMS) for my project placement meeting recently.
Part of the program I'm in, requires you to choose an internship and work for the year.  I chose the Scottish Life Archives, that's part of the National Museum.

I checked out the Mary, Queen of Scots exhibition.  It was really interesting.  I recommend going to it, if you can(hurry it closes soon!)  I think my favorite object were the pendants.  One was a poodle and the other was an elephant. There were nice, sort of everyday kinds of jewelry.

Since the day was amazing, I followed a classmate's advice and went up to the roof terrace after my meeting, and boy was I glad I did.
There were rainbows all over Edinburgh.  There weren't brief, washed out rainbows.  This was vivid and with a perfect arch disappearing into the cloud bank and re-emerging.  After seeing it I understood why people believe it leads somewhere.  I don't remember seeing a rainbow that vivid. You saw all the colors and the progression. 

I won't say I followed the rainbow, but after I left the museum I wandered toward Edinburgh Castle and ended up on the Greenmarket, which is behind the Castle.  I was thrilled actually, because another classmate had told me about this gelato place, called Mary's Milk Bar.  I will say the gelato is amazing.

I had the rose and dark chocolate with another scoop of Peruvian 64% dark chocolate.  This woman knows what she's doing with gelato.  There are no words for how good this stuff is.  All I can say is if you are around Edinburgh, go.  Hell, I'd make a special trip.

I knew this place was strange

you know with the accents and all.  But what is this?  Has the International Statute of Secrecy been lifted?
Can it be that you can now play Quidditch openly?

You can in certain universities that have a team.  Apparently St. Andrews does.  AND they play in the World Cup.

My sound group was heading over to view more parts of the instrument collections when we saw this....I do not know who won or if it's practice.  But it was fun to see.

News and views

I know it's been a while.  I don't have any real excuse, like I was studying or working on an essay(although some of that is true.)
I did work on an essay. 2500 words max.  I chose the topic Research and Scholarship as an important function in museums.  I know it was shocking.  I hope it was good, but I'm not the most important opinion in this equation.  I got 2300 words out of it, and could have written way more on the programmic or archival part.  Again shocking.  Apparently, I was not that out of practice.

And I have been studying.  Mostly for the essay. 

Well, for Scotland news it's pretty cool, still.  I haven't been really homesick.  I do miss certain parts of home.  Modern Pizza, my bed, my paycheck...yeah that one I really miss.  Also fish with friends and going apple picking. 

Even though I haven't left St. Andrews to go touring I have explored a lot of it.  I think I have found all the second hand shops in this city.  There are a lot of them.  I had fish and chips and Indian food.  Not the same day though. I baked for class, and that was well received.  My chocolate hazelnut biscotti. 

I went to the 'golf' side of town.  The Old Course, the golf museum, and I saw West Sands.  I also went to the aquarium.  It's small, and the displays are dated, but they do a good job overall.  They have a small shark tank and seals and penguins.  The Amazon area is well done, except for the models of the animals.  They are oddly positioned.  But the highlight were the meerkats.  They are impossibly cute.  I don't know why the aquarium has desert animals, but I didn't care.

Last week I walked to the Botanic Garden.  That was nice.  I really liked that.  Lots of paths.  Their herb garden was cool, and they even had apple and pear trees there.

I walked the Fife Coastal Path on Sunday.  Went pretty far down. Great views out to sea. 

Tomorrow for school we go to the National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh.  I'm really looking forward to it.  I love Edinburgh and haven't been to the National museum yet.

So these are a few views.  The first one is my view on Sunday finishing my paper.  I was doing citations, so celebrating a bit early, but I deserved it.  The second one is a shot from the apple orchard at the Botanic Garden.  I walked on the pier this week and the sea was acting up.  Lots of fun to see.  Cold when you got wet!  And the final two are views on the Fife Coastal Path. 

Vehicle for photos

So really this is just a vehicle for me sharing photos.  Oh there will be the rare informative moment, such as I am all ready for Red Sox post season baseball.  In my sparkly hat, my navy blue hoodie and my Wakefield t-shirt.
But I also wanted to share views from the North Sea.

There was a storm last night, and this morning.  I don't know if it came in from the North Sea or from land.  But it was wild and wooly.  Cold too.  These are some views from yesterday on my way home via the Fife Coastal Path.  I do love that walk.  The first one is the famous pier.  From my view at the top of the hill and the Church of St. Mary's on the Rock.  The second is toward the Castle, and the third is the edge of the cliffs. And the last one is the East Sands beach at high tide.