Isle of Skye

We went on a three day tour of the Isle of Skye. On the way we visited Culloden, Iverness, swam with Nessie in the Loch Ness (4 degrees C), and had good times all around in the Highlands.

Culloden is the site of Bonnie Prince Charlie's defeat, and the end of the Jacobite movement. Basically, it was Highlanders vs the Brits and Lowland Scots, though a little more complicated. At the end of the battle, every enemy combatant was stabbed and clubbed to death, Gallic and the bagpipes were outlawed, and the British actively tried to eradicate Highland culture. There's a famous song about a MacCleod from Skye, who returned from fighting on the British side at Culloden, to find his home burned and his family turned out, by the very people he fought with. All he then owned is the Red Coat he fought in, and the King's shilling he received to fight. One reason there are so many Scots in North America today, is that to escape the British, and be able to continue to practice their culture, many Highlanders emigrated away.

I won't go into too much more detail, but suffice it to say the battle was a massacre. The Highlanders tried to charge through a bog on relatively level terrain, and they started almost a kilometer away from the other line. They had gone undefeated before that because they stayed in forested, hilled areas.

Here is a view of the field. You can't see it, but it's a bog that will soak your foot with a step off of the path. The flag is the British line as seen from the Jacobite line. I've zoomed in, plus, that flag pole of about about 25 feet high.

There were lots of grave markers for the various clans. I couldn't find MacKenzie's, despite an extensive search.

Here is a picture of Kintail: the area where MacKenzies lived and held sway

These are pictures of Eilean Donan Castle: it is the most photographed Castle in Scotland, and was also MacKenzie home base for several hundred years.

Aaaah, a proud MacKenzie in front of the Castle.

 And a lovely Becca in front of Loch Ness

 This is my favourite photograph of the trip. It's from a hike we did on Skye.

And here is Glen Coe. Campbells massacred the MacDonalds here, even though a couple weeks before the Mac's had welcomed them into their homes to save them from a freak snowstorm. Many Scots still spit when they here the name Campbell.

Glasgow

Glasgow,

We took a bus in through the night to get there Saturday morning. The extra £11 for a bed on the bus would have been  totally worth it. Glasgow is a beautiful city, and in contrast to London, it reminded me of N. American cities, in that it has streets on a grid, smells less, and has wider roads. It still does have that European charm though, with ancient cathedrals, splendid architecture, and statues everywhere, in bronze and marble. Here is Wellington: he's not very popular with the Scots (he tried to reduce rights of the poor), so students here place a traffic cone on his head. I'm not sure if the police gave up, and if this is the same traffic cone from when my parents were here, or not.

We had breakfast at Disa's, went to a cathedral, a NECROPOLIS with John Knox, shopping, saw some pipers, and had a blast. I think the highlight of our whole trip though, was the Scottish dance party, called a ceilidh, at the University of Glasgow. It made me wish I owned a kilt.

So Much To Do, So Little Time

Well, we've had some camera problems and it has been a while since we posted. Many of you know we've been in Scotland, but this first post is a sort of make up post, from before we left. Enjoy:

Protests can be fun:
We went down to see a protest called 'Capitalism is Crisis' at St. Paul's cathedral, that has received much media attention. It's a tent city. Our favourite bit was the out of tune piano made available for folks to jam on.

Also, in response to media attacks, a protest leader assured the crowd that the church was doing just as well as ever, despite hosting an encampment on it's porch, in terms of admission sales. Most people cheered. One lady was furious though, and yelled, "down with all profits!". Which I thought was very amusing. I suppose only because I must be heartless.

Many people here are in hard times, and a lot of sympathy is given to the protest generally. The common perception is that they have no unified ideology more specific than 'we need change', nor common voice. From what we have seen, this is true.

St. Paul's Cathedral

We had another great weekend. What did we do this time....

We went to the Victoria and Albert Museum again. This time we went to the Asian exhibits. This is samurai armor, and I thought it was really cool. They had masks, and I think it would be quite intimidating to have an army of people with snarling masks coming at you.

The garden outside Kensington Palace.

St. Paul's Cathedral. One of my top two buildings in London. It was so impressive.

This is me trying to feed the birds outside St. Paul's. Unfortunately, there were no birds. First time ever there wasn't an overabundance of pigeons. It's probably because I had no tuppence, or bread, and they knew it.

Dave on the Millenium Bridge. On one side is St. Paul's (all lit up), and on the other side is the Tate Modern Museum and the Globe Theater.

The building the Tate Modern was in used to be a big power station, but was abandoned in the 80's. It was converted into a museum of modern art in 2000. The Millenium Bridge was built to connect this museum with the city of London.

Now we're off to work again. We both have full weeks of work, so it should be good.

Classy music

Classical music is more prevalent here. Our home tube station always plays classical music, and so we love coming home. And buskers play classical music quite often. There are often buskers in the hallways of the tube stations, and it definitely just adds to the experience as the music echoes throughout the underground.

Here is a string quintet we watched for a while at Covent Gardens.

Walking Tour

We took a walking tour of the center of London. It was fun; we had a very entertaining tour guide who told us lots of stories about the buildings and characters of London.

A Sundial. Looks like it must have been about 2:00.

The Citadel. The name reminded me of Edmonton, but this Citadel had a much different purpose than putting on plays. This is a military training building which is mostly underground. There is a large network of tunnels underneath London for communications, civil defense and military tunnels.

The road leading up to Buckingham Palace is red, so that the red carpet doesn't need to be laid every time the Queen comes home.

Us.