Jerusalem, Jerusalem!

  This has taken me quite a long time to post. The 2 weeks since Easter break have been incredibly busy for pretty much everyone here. But now I find myself with a free moment.
  The last two weeks of Lent (24 March to 8 April) was St Andrews' scheduled spring/Easter break. Needless to say, all of us JSAs took trips we would never have the opportunity to again. My trip began in Rome on the first Saturday, 24 March. The flight to Rome was fine and through my window-side seat, Italy literally appeared golden, the sun setting over its green hills and the Mediterranean. Everything was going well, and I couldn't help but think my trip blessed. On my cab ride to Sant'Anselmo, the Benedictine seminary I stayed in to visit Br Cassian, however, my trip appeared doomed. After landing, I walked with my duffel to the taxi stand. I was ambushed, though, before I reached it by a man who seemed, in all honesty, to be a cab-driver. He proceeded to tell me that where I wanted to go would be very cheap and he led me to his car parked in a sea of taxis.

An obelisk so old the
Israelites leaving Egypt
might have seen it

  My first clue should have been when he muttered to himself that he had got another fine. I thought nothing of it, though, and got into the car. He told me to sit in the front seat. Everything was going well until he stopped on the side of the highway to plug in the address I gave him. It was here that I noticed that this 'taxi' had no ticker. He was no taxi driver. Having watched the movie 'Taken' a few weeks before, I couldn't help but think I was being kidnapped. Or at least scammed.
  It was the latter. He tried to charge me the extravagant amount of 75 euros for the trip that should have cost 40. I still ended up paying too much, but I was able to talk him down.
  After this, my stay in Rome went incredibly well. On Sunday, I went to Mass at St Peter's with my friend Tom from Holy Cross and we church-hopped around Rome. He was able to show me his favorites and then some. On the other days, I went to the Vatican Museums, the Palatine Museums, the Colosseum, St Peter's again, a lot more churches, and various gelaterias.
  One note about the churches: there are literally churches steps away form each other and any one of them anywhere else in the world would be world famous. In Rome, though, they are par for the course, as they say.
  My trip to the airport after four and a half days in Rome was uneventful compared to my trip from it. This was because I had Br Cassian with me.

The Pantheon

  For just over the second half of the break, Br Cassian and I traveled to the Holy Land. Our plane got in just after 3am. With our rented car, we promptly got lost making our way up to Nazareth, where we would spend our first two nights. The thing about Israeli roads is that they are not clearly marked; and the thing about Googlemaps is that its directions for Israel are incredibly specific. Their directions give the impression that everything in Israel is incredibly well-marked that even an idiot could find it. Despite what you may think of me, these overly specific directions were of little help at best, the roads and even highways leading into Nazareth and Jerusalem being vaguely marked.

The Vatican

  However, without much incident, we did make it into Nazareth just in time to catch our hostel's free walking tour of the old city. We were incredibly glad at this, because without it we would have gotten even more lost on foot than we did in the car. The tour showed us a few cites of the city, suggested some more, and gave Br Cassian and I a few ideas of where we might eat.
After the tour, we explored the city on our own, spending perhaps the most time at the Basilica of the Annunciation, where the angel appeared to Mary according to tradition. The Basilica, like most major churches in the Holy Land, seems to have been built in the 70's, and as such it is rather ugly. Nonetheless, it is a very prayerful place and we were glad to have found it.
  The next day we went up to the Sea of Galilee (more a lake than anything) and went to the Mt of the Beatitudes, the chapel of the Primacy of Peter, Mt Tabor where the Transfiguration happened, and the Church of the Multiplication of the Fish and the Loaves, a Benedictine-run church and monastery that is the dependent house of where we stayed in Jerusalem.

Grotto of the Basilica
of the Annunciation

Leaving Nazareth after Mass in Arabic on Palm Sunday at the Basilica, we drove down to Jerusalem and again got lost, only finding our way by speeding after another Budget rental car to our drop-off point there.
  We then caught a cab, a licit cab, to Dormition Abbey om Mt Zion where we stayed for Holy Week (after they graciously cancelled my reservation at the Armenian Guesthouse in the Old City).

First thing worth taking a
picture of in Jerusalem

  Jerusalem is really inexpressible. There are tourists everywhere, and 'tour guides' willing to lead them around the city to boot – much to our annoyance, but (except for the Way of the Cross we walked on Good Friday) they do not detract from the atmosphere of history and the huge events that took place there.

Western Wall

  We explored the various holy sites and churches that Jerusalem and the surrounding area, including the Mount of Olives, have to offer. We even went to the Israel Museum, which has millennia-old archaeological artifacts tracing the history of the Holy Land from before man came to occupy the area. They also have a to-scale model of Jerusalem as it may have looked is Jesus's day, complete with the Temple and Golgotha.
  The last few days in Jerusalem, the Triduum, Br Cassian and I took it easy, because on Good Friday night, after the Way of the Cross and a long nap, we passed the night in Vigil at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where both Calvary and His tomb are. It was interesting to see both the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Catholic, who share the church with the Roman Catholics, liturgies there. There is some animosity between the 2 groups, though. At one point, every altar needing to be incensed, the Armenian and Orthodox deacons met, and, instead of ignoring each other and stepping aside, they played chicken, incensing each other until one gave up.

The tomb at night

  After the night in the Holy Sepulcher, it was Holy Saturday, and the Roman Catholics prepared for the Easter Vigil at 7.30am. After a three-hour long Mass (considering it was in Latin it could have been much longer, but there was no homily and they did speed baptizing), both of us went to our respective beds and passed out for the day.
  On Easter Sunday, after Mass and two big meals, it was time for me to get to the airport 7 hours ahead of time so that I could pass the security that, as I had been told, would take a while. This is the one disappointment I have of the trip. Both times at the airport, I was neither detained for very long nor subjected to the incessant and repeated questioning by different airport and governmental authorities. If that is my one regret about this trip, though, I don't think I can really complain.

'Oh, how civilized!'

I ran on the beach yesterday morning. It was kind of like the opening scene of 'Chariots of Fire':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-7Vu7cqB20

On another note, I was in the grocery store the other day and this old man and I started talking. When he learned that I'm studying English, he exclaimed, 'Oh, how civilized!'

To use the words of Luke Skywalker...

If there's a bright center to the university, I live in the dorm that it's farthest from.

'Now you're ready to be a king' – Day-Trip to Edinburgh

Robert Bruce and William Wallace guard the castle entrance

     This Monday, a few friends from home and I went into Edinburgh (here they pronounce it Edin-bruh), the capital of the land to the north. Taking the bus, it was about a 2.5 hour ride from here to Edinburgh, with many (beautiful) stop along the way. The bus seemed to halt in the middle of the country-side to let people on. As we got closer to the city and once we were in Edinburgh proper, the stops seemed a lot more logical.

The 6.5 ton Mons Meg can fire up to 2 miles

View from the castle of the First of Forth and North Sea.
St Andrews is on the piece of land jutting out into the Sea.

     Once there, not really having any plan except to wander around and go wherever we thought might be cool, we walked about the downtown area for a bit, slowly making our way to the impressive looking castle perched upon one a huge rock face rising up in the middle of the city. It was a long walk up (and kind of expensive once there), but it was worth it. The castle itself is still completely intact, and there remain certain ceremonies that are held almost daily (such as the cannon fire, that shoots off at 1pm each day, except Sundays, Good Friday, and Christmas; and the annual military tattoo each August). There is even a governor of the castle, who still lives in the governor's residence in the castle itself. No one is allowed in there. There are also several military regiments whose headquarters are there. The castle itself is like a little village, with roads winding all around the buildings and its own chapel, St Margaret's Chapel that was once converted in the 19th century into a gunpowder store-room. At the top of the castle, in addition to having the best view, are the crown jewels and the honors, made obsolete when the kingdoms of England and Scotland were united in, I think, the 1600s. They were very cool to see, mainly because among them is a sword easily four feet long. Also there is the Stone of Destiny, or Stone of Scone, that every documented King of Scotland has been crowned on, starting with Kenneth MacAlpin and going all the way to Elizabeth II. It was taken to England some years ago, but in the 1950s some university students tried to steal it from its place in Westminster Abbey. They dropped it and it broke in half. They failed to mention this on the tour, and it has since been repaired, but you can see where it was broken. The burglars were caught but the stone itself was returned to Scotland some years later, under the provision that every future monarch of the UK be crowned sitting on it.

View from King Arthur's Seat

     After the castle, at the behest of my visitors, we sought out the Elephant House, an outrageously over-priced café where they say JK Rowling started the Harry Potter series.
     From there, we tried to go to Holyrood Palace, the Queen's official residence in Scotland. We arrived too late to get in, so we decided instead to climb to King Arthur's seat, the highest point in Edinburgh from which you can see the entire city and the surrounding Firth of Forth and North Sea.
     It was all very fun to see all these things and hang out with my friends, but by the time we got back to St Andrews, after another 2.5 hour bus ride, we were so tired from walking all day that we passed out.

Of Kilts

     This weekend was the black tie DRA Ball. As I live in DRA, I attended. The dance itself wasn't that much fun (even though there was free food and ice cream), but we did all wear kilts – all us men, that is.
     Putting on a kilt is strange, pretty much only for that fact that I kind of felt like I was wearing a dress. To put on a kilt, you have to unclasp both aprons – one under and one over – from their buckles, put the pleats to your back and re-clasp it a little above your belly-button. I made the mistake of not putting on my dress shirt first, so, after donning the kilt for a few seconds, I realized that I had to begin again, this time with my dress shirt on. There is no hope of tucking it in once it's all clasped.
     So, once you have the kilt on, there are a number of small things that need to go into it for it to look formal and black tie worthy. After getting on the kilt itself, you slip on above-knee white socks. On those, just below the knees, you place what are called garter flashes. The ones I had essentially consisted of an elastic band fitted with 2 felt rectangles cut in an inverted 'V' at the ends. Once those are on, you fold the socks over themselves so that only the ends of the garter flashes are showing. Then come the shoes. Though they don't look it, they feel a bit like bowling shoes and have incredible long black laces that, once slid through the eyelets of the shoe, come up at your ankle, twist around for a while and then are tied like a normal shoe on your shin.
     After that, you're pretty much ready to go after you've done a few more, even smaller things. You put on the bow tie (unfortunately a clip-on), the vest, and the jacket. Then, the finishing touch is a small knife called a skean dhu that slips into your right sock on the outside of your leg. This was by far the most fun part of the kilt ensemble. Too bad the knives didn't come out of their sheaths... on second thought, it's probably better that it doesn't.
     After all that, we met at our friend TJ's room and were there until bused to where the ball. The ball was held in a converted barn where you can imagine a prom being held. The music was all right, but the live band stopped at about 11.30 and after that it was just techno.
     All in all, it was a pretty good night, although I didn't enjoy having to dissemble the kilt when I got home as I really wanted to go to bed.

Kilts

Of Loch Ness

     Yesterday, a group of us JSAs and full-time students took a university-sponsored day trip up into the southern Highlands to see, among other things, Loch Ness.
     Our trip began at 8am, but since all of my friends and I live in DRA, we had to wake up significantly earlier as it's about a 20 minute walk into town from here. So, waking up in darkness, the 10 or so of us walked into town and boarded our bus (run by Haggis Tours - 'Wild and Sexy') and commandeered the back of the bus. Everyone on the bus was a St Andrews student, but since the bus fit about 40 people, we made up over a fourth of it and were easily the most obnoxious people there, besides our driver Tony, an Italian Scot very knowledgeable about Scottish history.

Dunkeld Cathedral

     Our first stop was Dunkeld ('Fort Keld'). Dunkeld is the sight of Birnam Wood, made famous by Shakespeare's Scottish play, in which it was told Macbeth that he would be king until the trees of Birnam Wood "remove to Dunsinane." We stayed there for about 30 minutes, got a look at the cathedral and the River Tay and then moved on.
     At this point it was still sunny, but as we drove further north, clouds moved in and our bus was subject to bouts of snow and rain. Despite this and his constant warnings to us that some of the roads we would be taking might be closed, Tony only drove the bus with one hand while he fiddled with the CDs or told us more Scottish lore through the malfunctioning microphone or tried to fix the defroster.
     All was fine in the end, though.

Our Tour Bus

     From Dunkeld we made several stops along the mountain roads to get a look at the views or explore paths leading to rivers and streams that eventually wend their way to one or more of the 30,000 bodies of water in Scotland. It was commented at one point that the water looks like Guinness, which it does. This is because of a root that, with each passing rainfall, leaks into the water and stains it with this very dark brown color that, I think, looks like Guinness.
Eventually, after passing through Birnam Wood, a few towns, and the mountainous highlands, we arrived at Fort Augustus, situated at the southwest end of the famous loch.
     It was beautiful there.
     We purchased our £11 Loch Ness cruise tickets. When we hopped on board the boat, it was overcast. But, as we pulled out into the loch itself, the sun appeared, followed quickly by snow.

A dammed up loch on one of our many stops up

     As soon as we were in the middle of the Loch, an electronic voice began to speak at us, telling us all the facts about the lake, how deep it is at its deepest (over 800 feet – prime depth for a monster, I'd say), how it was formed (by a glacier, one of three lochs formed that way), and various other bits of history, including the caves in which outlaws hid centuries ago. Unfortunately, we saw no monster (our tour was only an hour so we didn't see the whole loch. I think Nessie might have been hiding the the incredibly dark cloud about 100 yards in front of us when we turned back), even when we tried to lure it out with an apple and then a cookie.

A river with some ice flow on one of our stops

The River Tay

Commandos' Memorial

What Loch Ness would have looked like thousands of years ago

A former Benedictine Abbey on Loch Ness

Loch Ness

The Week Rolls On

The healthy tree next to Mary Queen of Scots'

     Things have been going rather well thus far. I am starting to get involved in a few clubs (sporting clubs) and societies (academic clubs) in addition to my classes, including the Rifle Club, the Catholic Society, and the Outdoor Society, to name a few. They have socials and events throughout the week in addition to the regular meetings. In the UK, in fact, no university has scheduled classes on Wednesday afternoons specifically so that clubs and other sport groups can meet.
     However, I did not go to the rifle range today, because a friend's friend is in town from Barcelona for a few days. We walked around the town for a little while before going into St Mary's College and the King James VI Library. This library, though small, is well over 400 hundred years old and is lined with many old, somewhat elegant-looking books. A veritable treasure-trove, in my opinion, if only because it is so old.

Mary Queen of Scots' Tree

    In the courtyard, what I would call St Mary's Quad, are two trees. One of these trees was planted back in the day by Mary Queen of Scots. The tree, equally as poor as the Queen, is withering and has to be supported by several wooden beams.  The other tree, I don't know how long it has been there, is very healthy and green and tall and would be good for climbing if it isn't frowned upon.

     I have yet to explore the city outside of the three main streets and the university buildings but I plan to soon. More exploration this weekend.