Remember this picture from January? Well, i took another one last night at ten past ten so you can see how light it stays (as you can see from my Weegie Weather widgets over there in the sidebar, the sun sets at about 10:00 these days).
Oh, and that weird floating light in the sky? That's the reflection of the light in my room, not a UFO :)
I have been soooo busy lately: dissertation, work, and friends. There is too much to tell from the past ten days or so (and frankly very little of it is particularly interesting), so i will just say that i spent yesterday (Spring Bank Holiday/Whitsun Bank Holiday/Memorial Day) in Kelvingrove Park. This time i took a photo of my resulting farmer tan before it fades:
Debbie said, 'God, Judith, you really need to get some sleeveless tops.'
Wow, i have had a really busy week; although looking back on it, it doesn't seem like i did much at all.
Monday: May Bank Holiday. I spent the day avoiding work and wandering in city center.
Tuesday: I met with my Latin professor to continue translating the Life of Ariald.
Wednesday: I went to Blair Castle (located in tiny Blair Atholl in Perthshire) with Scott and Helena. According to the woman who guards the front door of the castle (a stickler, if i have ever seen one) Blair is not a family name (hmmmm). It is rather an old Gaelic word meaning a flat area or plain. The family that owns the castle is named Murray, but i found it suspicious that they wore a tartan that strongly resembles the Blair tartan:
Anyway, it was a beautiful day, and we spent a lot of time roaming the grounds once we had done the tour through the castle itself. There is no photography allowed in the castle, which is a total bummer. It was full of weaponry and deer antlers, and the tour honestly seemed never-ending. There are a bunch of photos of the grounds on Flickr as usual.
Thursday: I spent most of the day with Debbie getting sunburnt in the Botanic Gardens. Yes, sunburnt in Glasgow! I tried to take a picture of my farmer tan, but it didn't come out well enough.
Friday: I worked at an actual job for 3.5 hours in the morning. That was tiring. I had to make a mail merge and stuff envelopes. Phew.
I have Debbie to thank for the job; her father's partner Linda works in Recruitment & Admissions at the university, and she desperately needed someone who could stick labels straightly and stuff envelopes correctly. You might be surprised at how difficult it is to find someone who meets those qualifications. It's a casual job; she'll call me when she needs me, but money's money.
After doing that, i met with my Latin professor again. Then i went home and went to sleep.
Another trip to Edinburgh!
Scott kindly invited me to go along with him, his friend Natalie (whom i have met before), and his aunt Kris (whose name might be spelled 'Chris') on Friday. We walked up the Royal Mile to the castle and then paid a lot of money to go wandering inside it. It was pretty interesting, but very little of it is medieval at this point. Most of the things we saw dated from the eighteenth century, particularly the war prison, which was used during the American War of Independence. There was a cute little dog graveyard complete with headstones commemorating regimental dogs with names like Scamp and Tippy Top. 
After the castle, we had lunch at Deacon Brodie's Tavern, then we headed down to Princes Street for some wandering and shopping. At one point, Kris and i were sitting in a McDonald's waiting for Scott and Natalie to get finished buying Rangers paraphernalia, and a man from Dallas, Texas started talking to us. It turns out that he lives in Edinburgh because his two children go to school there. They are grown kids in college, but he said if he wasn't there with them, they would 'go off the rails'. Going off the rails seemed to mean that his beautiful daughter would get a boyfriend (she's so beautiful she's prone to this derailment, apparently). Back in Dallas, things are more restricted, and people only get married once, whereas in the UK people break up over nothing at all. The whole conversation was very strange; it ranged from loose morals to illegal immigration in a matter of moments, and it ended with the man giving me a tract about 'The Gospel of your Salvation'. *Sigh*
After that, we went on a hunt for some weird shoes made by Vibram. I had read about them, and i knew that the John Lewis in Edinburgh was supposed to be the only place in Scotland where they are available. We found them, and they were weird. Purchases were not made, but i recommend clicking the link to see the full weirdness (i just don't feel like linking a picture).
Our last adventure in Edinburgh was finding a restaurant called The Ship recommended by a friend of Scott. It turned out to be in Leith, and after some protracted lost getting, we had a wonderful dinner. It's definitely worth the very short jaunt out to Leith, but i would find out exactly how to get there before you go ;)
By the time we got home, we had been out for almost 13 hours, and i think we were all ready to collapse. It was a lovely day, though, and well worth the exhaustion.
There are (only) a few more photos on Flickr.
Yeah, so i went to Edinburgh today just for the heck of it. It's only about an hour by train, and i felt like getting out of Glasgow for a minute or two. I went by myself, because that's just how anti-social i can be.
So, i spent about three and a half hours wandering around rather slowly. I took some pictures outside St John's Church, but i couldn't go in because there was a wedding taking place. I also took a picture of some lovely spring flowers in Princes Street Gardens and the obligatory photo of the Walter Scott Monument. I'm not even sure i know what Walter Scott did, but they sure do have a lot of statues of him in Scotland.
I also took a quick look in the National Galleries of Scotland. They have some nice portraits and whatnot, but i totally skipped the impressionists exhibit on the upper floor. I should make it clear here that i only went to the National Gallery Complex, not the other bits. Looking at the website now, the other bits might be more interesting.
It was kind of a gloomy, slightly rainy day, but people were still eating ice cream bought outside the Galleries. I considered it for a moment, but i decided i would rather have a Marks & Spencer sandwich on the train home. So i did.
See the photos on Flickr.
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