Something For Everyone

Kinda a random addition other than its on Loch Ness. I guess you have to bring your own sheets to stay in this hotel.

Loch Ness and the Castle

Here again are some pictures of the Loch and Urquhart Castle. As well as a picture of Nicole searching for Nessie. See if you can find her in her blue sweat shirt.

The Highlands

Here are some pics of the scenery and of Nicole enjoying the scenery.

The Highlands May be the Greatest Place on Earth

I will include a few separate posts about our trip to Scotland because I want to caption the pictures. This post is just narrative.

Glasgow, Scotland is an interesting place. It was really the birthplace of the industrial revolution, being the home of James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine. It is now a former industrial town looking for an identity in the computer age. The town is not as majestic, at least that's what I have heard, as Edinburgh. It is charming in its own right though. The Clyde River runs through the town and is where the name Clydesdale for the horses comes from. They actually have some living in one of the many public city parks. There is a restaurant there (also in Edinburgh) called The Mussel Inn that is phenomenal. As a person from a Gulf state I thought I had had the best oysters the world has to offer. I was very wrong. The ones that I had, fresh from the frigid waters off the coast of Scotland were simply amazing.

People of Ireland rejoice! Although Irish have a reputation for being pugnacious drunks, I think the people of Glasgow have them beaten. We saw a bunch of people get arrested, guys outside a bar punching each other, and of course the Harry Potter hecklers. Yes there we were standing on Argyle street in a que about 150 people deep and every car that drove by had something clever to yell at us. But, Nicole got her book.

Onward to the Highlands.

We took a coach tour (bus) of the Highlands and to Loch Ness and Inverness, the Capitol of the Scottish Highlands. I will attach some pictures but words cannot describe the beauty of the rolling hills, mountains, and rivers. In many fields the remains of long fallen walls dotted the countryside cutting a straight line through an otherwise asymmetric landscape. There are easily more sheep than people. At times the hillsides are a brilliant purple color from the blooming heather. At other times they are various shades of green and yellow from the grasses and grains growing on them.

The history of the area, as many people know, is bathed in bloodshed. Clan wars, viking invasions, English incursions, and civil wars all took place on this lush landscape. It is really amazing to think of all the history that has taken place. I can imagine those sheep, fields, and decaying brick walls could all tell very fascinating stories.

Our tour through the Highlands was highlighted by our trip to Loch Ness. The lake is cold. It is deeper than the North Sea. It is also very choppy. Since it is so deep, the water is very dark. So, every wave holds the promise to be Nessie until it crests and the white foam betrays the imagination. Also Castle Urquhart stands over looking the deepest point of the Loch. It is really a fantastic setting.

I also ate haggis. For those of you uninitiated, its basically sheep guts chopped up with oats and baked. Its actually better than it sounds, but its not really that good. It was mostly just a way to use an entire sheep, as it also used to be baked in a sheep's stomach.

Scotland was great, I would say if you have the chance to either go to Scotland, England, or Ireland, choose Scotland.

Stay tuned for pics.

Cheers

And thus our heroes return to London...

Here is part of the gang returning to the train station after attending the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. From top to bottom they are: Chaz, Kevin, Nicole, and Kirsten. I am taking the picture and Kristen and Christy had already returned to Cambridge.

First, I must say, there are no Harry Potter spoilers contained within this blog. Secondly, and of less importance, I am sure, Nicole and I got to meet both Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia.

Both men were very friendly. They genuinely seemed to be without pretense or any arrogance at all. Its funny because we would never get to meet either of them at home, so we had to come to England to meet members of our own Supreme Court. We did not get a chance to take a picture with either of them. Scalia is notoriously anti-recordings, but Roberts seemed amenable. Unfortunately, he was called away by the staff as I was tapping him on the shoulder to get a photo.

Chief Justice Roberts was there to be named an Honorary Master Bencher of the Middle Temple. The Middle Temple holds its connection with the United States in very high regard. A number of benchers of the Middle Temple signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Sir. Walter Raleigh and Sir. Francis Drake, as I mentioned previously, were also of the Middle Temple and very much associated with the exploration of the Americas. It also helps that England and the United States have essentially the same legal system. In this vein, a number of Chief Justices of the United States Supreme Court have been made Honorary Benchers. Chief Justice Roberts is now among those. He was very humorous in both his speeches and in casual conversation.

When I met Justice Scalia, I was in awe. To someone such as myself, he is a rock star. I acted like a 12 year old girl meeting Justin Timberlake or something. I gushed praises upon him; telling him I am a follower of his judicial ethos, how enjoyable his dissents were, and how I wished he were more in the majority than the minority. Unlike when I met a certain other Judge, who shall remain nameless (she may have taught Nicole etiquette), who believed it was a privilege just to be in her presence, Justice Scalia was very gracious and thanked me and told me that he wrote his dissents for the future. He always knows the right things to say.

After a little more gushing and lushing (the champagne was very nice) it was off to dinner. At the meal, we befriended Eugene, a Barrister of the Middle Temple. I know his last name, but in respect, I will keep it to myself. Afterwards, Eugene invited us to his favorite London pub for a couple of pints. Then we returned to Cambridge on the last train of the night. It was an amazing experience and we met a number of nice people.

Well, stay tuned tomorrow for details about our trip to Scotland. There may be a picture of Nessy involved...

Cheers

* I don't know why blogspot is jamming this all together, I put spaces between the paragraphs. Sorry.

Out and About Part II

Outside of Cambridge toward a small village, there is a cemetary dedicated to the American airmen stationed over here from World War II. All of the pictures today are from my visit to the cemetary. Nicole had a bout with some allergies so she did not make it. The photos are of a gentleman named Frank Litton from Colorado, who flew out of Cambridge and never returned. The pictures of the angel and the bombers is from the ceiling in the small chapel at the cemetary. The final one pretty much speaks for itself.

This cemetary is certainly modest when compared to some of the ones in France, but, it is impressive none the less to see American troops honored on foreign soil. It certainly does not seem like there is even a chance of that in this day and time.

I got a haircut today. I was not going to get one while in England, because Dale in Oxford cuts my hair for $12. But, since I am going to dine with Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia tomorrow, I thought I should get one (i.e. Nicole told me I had to get one). We are very much looking forward to going back to the Middle Temple. It is a magnificant place that is full of history.

This weekend we are going to Scotland to tour the Highlands and see Loch Ness. Well, I am at least, Nicole is going to go to Scotland and buy Harry Potter. I fear that although she will be there with me in body; she will not be there in mind. Of course I will report on the sightseeing part of the trip next week.

Cheers

Londinium

Lots of people ask me, "Jeremy, how do you decide what pictures go on the blog and which ones don't?" I reply, "Sure, I could put a photo of Big Ben up there, but then Big Ben is not really that interesting. So, I put up pictures that interest me and thusly should interest other people." That should explain why you see before you a picture of a rock under glass, me posed to look as if I am wearing a helmet, an innocuous table, Nicole and a Beefeater (well that one is pretty touristy thing), and a bit of masonry.

These are of course from our trip to London, and since I named this post Londinium, its probably best to start from the end. Londinium is of course the Roman name for London (how clever). The picture of the bit of masonry is none other than the original Roman city wall. It is now located on the grounds of the Tower of London. That is also where this Beefeater that posed with Nicole was. These guys are amazing, they are all former military (other than Navy). They give tours and such. They are very informative and funny. Sorry no photos of the Crown jewels, photography was forbidden. Photography is however permitted at the British Museum, which is where the two pictures behind glass were taken (what a great segue, I personally think the segues have been sublime in this particular piece).

The picture of me and the helmet (Celtic, not Viking) is just me being silly. Nicole and I actually had the idea at the same time and so there it is. We are often quite good like that. The other picture is one of the two coolest things I have ever personally seen (the other is also on the page but we shall get to that in a bit). It is the Rosetta Stone. Arguably, the greatest archelogical discovery in history because it allowed the translations of hieroglyphics. Its discovery is also very interesting... If you don't know it, you should look it up.

The other picture, of the table with fruit and lemonade on it is the other coolest thing I have ever seen. It is from the Middle Temple (kinda like a guild/country club for lawyers and certain others since the middle ages). Under the table cloth is a table made out of the hatch of the Golden Hind. That was Sir. Francis Drake's ship when he was the first captain to circumnavigate the globe (Magellan died before he made it all the way around). Seriously, how cool is that? Ok, you're right, Nicole felt the same way. Still though, its a little cool.

Thats about it as far as the tour of London is concerned. By the way, we will get all of those other touristy pictures developed and bring them with us when we come to visit. We also got to see Spamalot (totally hilarious, go see it) and Les Miserables (for reactions see my story about the Golden Hind and exchange Les Miserables for Golden Hind and transpose my name with Nicole's)(I'll put it like this, if I hadn't had to go to the bathroom during the first act, I would have fallen asleep).

Speaking of the French, (again with the segues, I must, at this point, pat myself on the back) they are lame. Our professor, Mr. Hopkins is very fond of saying, "Paris is great except for the French." I feel the same way about London. London is great, except for the French. They seem to like to stand in doorways, push their ways through crowds, and smell bad. They are uncivilized. They wear clothes that are a mixture of Mad Max, the 1980s, and some runway in Paris. It is a shame that inorder to save the world from the Nazi menace, the US and UK had to save France as well.

I guess thats enough for now.

Cheers

Technical Difficulties

Web-land has just experienced its first technical difficulties with my previous post. I feel like I now know how a parent feels when their child loses their first tooth or something. Hopefully, I have solved it. I had to take the pics off of the side bar and insert them normally. Fingers crossed!

Out and About

I thought since its about the middle of the trip, some observations were in order. First a note- I am trying something different with the pictures. they are now on the right hand column to keep the posts smaller. They are of Kings College here in Cambridge (more on that later) and a couple from the Cambridge Botanical Garden.

Lets talk about the bathrooms here (I am sure many are suprised it took me this long to bring this topic up). Almost every sink has a different faucet for hot and cold water. The cold is frigid and the hot is scalding. It makes washing one's hands quite difficult. Paper towels to dry ones hands are also a rare commodity, opting instead for the air driers. The toilets have very deep basins with little water in them initially. This would lead one to believe that they are in to the whole low-flow thing to conserve water. That would be a mistake because upon the instant of flushing a great tidal surge comes from some unknown place with a teriffic swishing noise.

Also in the realm of food, somethings translate well and others don't. From our end I can tell you this, the Irish Stew at Fenians in Jackson tastes quite like the Irish Stew in Ireland, so I recommend checking it out. The English do very well with hamburgers, pizza, nachos, and many other typical American foods. Chicken wings however are lost in translation. They are often tasty but not really what we would consider "traditional" back home. At one place, the hot wings tasted like they were covered in marinara sauce. Which is not a bad way to eat chicken though it was unexpected.

Nicole points out another thing the English do exceptionally better than we do... sandwiches. They sell them pre-packaged like they do in gas stations back home. In contrst to back home where these sandwiches are to be avoided, everyone eats them here. They are very good also. The more mundane flavors are BLT and Club. Many are more extravagant. Some contain seafood, prawns, salmon, and the like (we have avoided these).

Around Cambridge is very nice. A couple of days ago I went to the Botanical Gardens. They were very interesting. Lots of flowers, trees, and plants. In one place they were even growing sugar peas and squash. They also had a hot house which had pineapples, limes, and cacti. That was an odd sight in England. Yesterday, we went to see the King's College Choir. The chapel is an amazing gothic structure made up of basically stone and stained glass. They had some of the most intricate stained glasses I have ever seen. The choir sang wonderfully, but the service was difficult to understand because of the echo off of the stone. I can only imagine how that place looks decked out for Christmas. We are starting to explore Cambridge and finding it well worth exploring.

Cheerio

St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin is... Anglican!?!

Our trip to Dublin was fantastic. Nicole and I agree the only problem with it (other than the hostel maybe) is that we only had three days there. We spent the whole of our time in Dublin and were not able to go see the rest of the island, which is a shame because it gets exemplary reviews also.

First the ONE negative. DON'T STAY IN HOSTEL'S. If you think dirty hippies in the States are bad, throw them in with Euro-trash and thats pretty much the clientele. Our room was Spartan to say the best. We did however have a shower and about 50 wall power outlets (why unkempt hippies have that much electronic gagetry, I do not know) which is better than our room here in Cambridge. The thing that really soured us on the hostel was the Frenchman that repeatedly tried to enter our room. After his fourth attempt at entering, I finally yelled at him to leave us alone. To which he replied, "Sorry.' Thats all that needs to be said about the hostel experience.

We got to do a lot in Dublin. Here is a short list: National Museum, National Gallery, City Wide Bus Tour, Old Jameson Distillery, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Temple Bar Area, Riverdance, Phoenix Park, and the Dublin Zoo.

Dublin was founded by Vikings in the 10th Century. Eventually the English began to exert more and more control over it and by the reign of the Normans, it was basically an English territory. George III (yes that one) exerted a great deal of control over Ireland, as well as successive monarchs. Ireland became independant in 1921 after a series of bloody uprisings. Most of the rebels are now remembered as heroes and most of the English infrastructure has been renamed to show that. Then they went and sold their souls to the EU devil, and gave up many rights that sovereign goverments enjoy.

The National Gallery had pretty much typical art gallery stuff. Some notable artists featured were (and please pardon my spelling): Carravaggio, Rembrandt, El Greco, Titian, Picasso, Monet, Rubens. The National Museum was pretty amazing. It included lots of gold the ancient Gaelic peoples buried as offerings to whatever gods lived in the peat bogs. It also had a number of Viking things including weapons and armor. The best part though was they had 4 guys that died centuries ago and were left in the bogs that became mummified. They didn't have the whole of any of them and they looked kinda like wallet leather. But still, how many dead guys does the Smithsonian have?

The zoo was also amazing. Unlike here at home, the tigers and leopards are kept apart from the crowd by a 6 inch thick piece of plexi-glass. This allowed for some extreme closeups, and a thorougly amazed Nicole. Also, the Dublin zoo is known as the most fertile zoo in the world so many of the animals had babies. We got to see a baby elephant, gorilla, African wild piglets, and a number of others.

On a side note there was also a pro-life rally going on in the middle of Dublin on Saturday. Apparently abortion is illegal in Ireland, and they want the Prime Minister to keep his promise to make sure it remains that way. No comment, just an interesting aside.

Near where the rally was taking place there is a 500+ foot Millennium Spire which was actually built in 2003. The city payed out the nose for it but it was said to be a self cleaning monument. The Dublin city council paid 40K Euros to clean it last month. I have included that in my pictures.

Finally, we get to St. Patrick's Cathedral, which is Anglican. There is no Catholic Cathedral in the city of Dublin. Its a long story and I have rambled for a while already. While in the cathedral, we found uncle Caesar's plaque honoring him. They also had some very beautiful stained glass. It is an amazing structure, but if you want to see Mary, you had better stick with the St. Patrick's in NYC.

Happy Independence Day from the Mother Land

Our very pro American professor today said that mentioning the phrase "July 4th" is treason. He did however signal appreciation for our return to the "lawful allegiance" by being here in England. He was joking on both counts. We actually have plans for the celebration. A pub here on the street we all live on is having a party that lasts until midnight. The pub is apparently owned by some of the former owners of TGI Fridays. I was going to try to mastermind a cook out before the Snug decided to profit from our patrotism in a foreign land.

In honor of the day here are some of my favorite lines from the Declaration of Independence.

"When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evidences a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government , and to provide new Guards for their future security."

"A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

and of course

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

Cheers!

Bristol, Bath, and Stonehenge

Our great adventure of driving a car in England is now over. Nicole and I returned the car to the rental place yesterday with no damage. The car came very near going back to the rental office on the back of a recovery vehicle. Needless to say, I have cancelled our car in Scotland.

In no uncertain terms, the English drive like madmen. They have such a lovely country, but they drive too fast and erraticly to allow any enjoyment. I have little doubt that the average English driver, if dropped into a NASCAR on race day, would finish in the top ten. They are not afraid to put you into a wall. Further, it takes a special kind of insanity to drive a motorcycle over here. Often they ride either way on the dividing line in the middle of traffic at very high speeds.

The English road system is obviously ancient. Many of the paths follow old Roman routes and most others were built for a time in which heavy traffic referred to the size of ones horse. Also, the population of England is 60 million in a land area the size of California. All of these elements come together to form a web of single lane streets for two way traffic, poorly marked city areas, sharp curves, steep elevations, and of course, the crazy drivers. I do not miss my driving experience. Neither does Nicole, although she operated as an excellent navigator.

Driving did give us the opportunity to explore Bristol, the birthplace of America. Bristol is a port town set in a natural harbor where a great deal of trading and exploring ventures set out. We got to go to the British Museum of Empire and Commonwealth. Nicole and I were very interested to see that in the 1950s there was a Bristol Bus Boycott, similar to the one in Montgomery. Bristol is nicknamed the birthplace of America because many of the ships to and from the new world called it home. It was also the launching ground for John Cabot.

Next we went to Bath. For a history nerd like myself, it was spectacular. The Roman baths were very interesting, but the water tasted a bit metallic. After 3 hours touring the Roman Baths, we went to the Museum of Costume. It was lame. It was kinda like the first ladies' exhibit at the Smithsonian, but none of the clothes had a famous connection, they were just clothes... Nicole loved it.

Finally, we visited Stonehenge. It rises out of the English countryside, adding something of a skyline to a rural setting. Surrounded by hosts of guardian sheep (and the ropes put up by the English trust), the gray towering stone strikes a great contrast to the sloping verdant landscape. Today it still raises more questions than can be answered.

Our trip out west was magnificent (minus the car thing). We look forward this weekend to going to Ireland.