"love and kindness; may tears clear my blindness"

I am really late in writing this but SCOTLAND WAS WONDERFULAMAZINGFANTASTICINCREDIBLE. Friday woke me up at about 4 AM to catch an early train to Pitlochry with Andrew, Dylan, Jodi, Liz, and Kelsey, where we climbed to our beautiful little hostel at the top of a hill. It was about a 15 minute walk and the weather changed about 15 times. It's Oregon weather on crack. Anyway, that evening we saw an awesome fiddle concert of this guy named Pete Clark, joined by a guitarist and keyboardist/accordionist playing traditional Scottish music. It was really laid back and intimate and beautiful, out in the cafe area with everyone drinking tea and wine. Then we played a random trivia game we found at the hostel till the wee hours.

Early again Saturday morning we got up to catch the train to Glasgow where we met up with the rest of the group and toured the Glasgow school of Art. It was rad. I wouldn't have noticed all the architectural stuff if it weren't for our tour guide, but this guy Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed it, and he basically turned everything upside down and played with our heads a lot, by having a lot of natural light on the lowest floors and making the top floors seem really dark and dungeony with big support arches making it seem like they were holding up a lot of weight... BUT THEY WEREN'T. OOOOH SNAP. Anyway Glasgow was really city-y and dirty but kinda cool, and everything food and drink wise was ridiculously cheap. There were actually two University of Glasgow students who did an exchange year at Lewis & Clark last year who met up with us at a bar and hung out for a bit.

Sunday we were up early again to go to EDINBUUURRGGGHGHHHHHGHGHGHGHH best place ever. We walked up the Royal Mile with Philip Parr, our theatre teacher, to the castle where I went on a tour, and then me and a few others climbed up Arthur's Seat, which is like... this hill.. with trails... and it's beautiful. It's so so so windy at the top but you can see for miles and miles. Then we got dinner, hung out at the hostel for a while because we were exhausted, then went to this little pub like 3 doors down from the hostel where this little Asian man who was actually Scottish but whatever was doing a traditional folk music concert and OHMAN best night of my life ever. It was sooooo much fun. Everyone there knew each other, everyone was dancing, they got us all involved and dancing, the music was great, everyone knew all the songs and made me wish I did too, and the folk singer interspered his music with pop songs, and I talked to so many people I feel like i actually made friends, like, they didn't want us to leave! So Jodi and I are going back over the last weekend of spring break. holler!

Monday we got up early (again?!?!?! how can that be?!?!) and toured the Lake District of England on the way back home. Keswick, Grasmere and Windermere, but we only spent any real time in Keswick - saw some English countryside and ate some Chinese fooooood (what you want? and den? and den? and den and den and den?) - and got back at about 11 pm absolutely exhausted. End o' story. I'm too lazy to blog. Bye.

PS. Dear reader, if you ever find yourself on the London Underground, watch people's eyeballs. They do this really weird thing if they happen to be looking out the window as the train is slowing to a stop or moving out of a station where they go back and forth really fast. Way freaky. Check it out. Preferably without being too creepy about it.