The Longest Weekend Ever...

I probably shouldn't complain, but I must say, a four day weekend with nothing to do but homework (ok, and a castle visit) can be rather dull. Fortunately, the homework was interesting, the castle was beautiful, and I managed to find many other ways to procrastinate (i.e. lots of bad American tv...)! I'll be glad when classes start again tomorrow though.

On Friday, we visited Linlithgow Palace (I promise I'll put up pictures soon! I mean it this time...), which is about an hour and a half away by train. It's right outside a cute little town, and the castle itself is on the banks of a beautiful loch, with absolutely amazing views in every direction. The best part about the castle is that you can basically go everywhere--from the kitchens in the basement, to the royal apartments, to the highest watchtower. It's not terribly touristy--there are plaques that label everything, but there aren't cheesy reconstructions of what it would have looked like, just the remains of the castle itself, which are impressive enough. My favorite part may have been that in one wing, the upper floors had fallen out so you could see up to the next level, which had a fireplace that looked like it was just floating halfway up the wall with no floor. It was kind of amusing. The view from the top of the tower was incredible, and I could see all the way to the mountains to the northwest of us (yes, apparently Scotland has actual mountains--who knew?). It was a sunny day for the most part, so it was really a great time to be there. It's hardly advertised at all, but if you're ever in Scotland, it's well worth a trip!

Yesterday we went to the Scottish equivalent of the Student Activities Fair, and of course I signed up for the various dance clubs. Hopefully that will be a good way to finally meet some people who aren't from Colgate! Ballroom in particular sounds like it will be a lot of fun, so I can't wait for it to start.

Other than that, I've been buried in Gnostic gospels for most of the day. Confusing, but really cool. I may be the only one who feels that way in class tomorrow though...I also did some more translations for my Greek New Testament course--NT Greek is sooooo much simpler! I love it. I don't miss the optative one bit...

Back to Greek...

~L