Our Trip to The Burn

Most of us were pretty excited to get away for a weekend. After spending what felt like ages in Glasgow (and yet was only about 5 days), a trip to the Scottish Highlands sounded pretty good. Some time away from our massive hill and bars would do us (and our livers) some good. So Professor Ivy Schweitzer (our Dartmouth mom for the term) packed us into a coach and we were off to Edzell.

where we were headed

I woke up in a daze, as I usually do when I sleep on long bus trips. But I woke up pretty quickly when I saw where we had arrived. The house/mansion/emporium was massive and seemed to be never ending. We walked into the foyer and were greeted by a jolly, rotund Scotsman who gave us a brief history of the house and the family who owned it (a more in depth history Here). He then showed us to our rooms,

which were equally awesome and seemingly perfect. While Henry and Joe proceeded to hold a Federer-v-Nadal-esque ping pong series in the game room, I walked around the property with some of the other people in our group. The grounds seemed never ending, complete with a croquet/soccer field,tennis court, labyrinth

(that was not as cool as it sounded), farm animals and a giant river. So basically, it was the Garden of Eden. With a tennis court.

this. with a tennis court

Accompanying us on this trip were our own personal lecturers, Alan Riach and Andrew Hook. They informed us of all things Scottish Lit based, including an in depth look at Scottish monarchal history and a study of the poetry of Robert Burns and Lewis Grassic Gibbons (whose actual name is James Leslie Mitchell). For a good part of the 2 days we spent there, we learned the ins and outs of Scottish life and writing, getting a crash course on all things Scottish Lit based. Professor Riach was particularly amazing. While he was a pretty awful scary story teller (to sum up the scariest part of his “scary” story: once, I was with a dude smoking a cigarette, and we heard some people talking in the woods. Yea. That was it) he seemed like one of those people who just knew everything. About everything. It was probably the beard.

All knowing

We also took a couple trips to other places in the Scottish Highlands. First we visited Dunnotar Castle, which was astonishing.

The castle

The view from outside the castle was amazing but I was more amazed with the inside. How these people lived there with no heat in the winter blows my mind. But then I remembered that these were also the kind of people who locked 167 people into a 10x10 room for 3 weeks with no food (true story!). These stone cold men obviously weren’t the type to complain about their accommodations.

might have helped

We also visited Edzell Castle, which was far less cool and castle-like than Dunnotar, but it had some badass peacocks. The only mildly interesting thing about this castle was the ghost of the owner’s wife who they thought was dead but was really in a coma. Some guy tried to steal her ring and woke her up with a nice hack to the index finger. Confused, bleeding, and terrified, she tried to get back into her house. But the security guards didn’t believe that she was alive again and she bled to death in the cold in a nearby field. Talk about top notch security.

"Sorry,we are gonna need to see some ID, ghost lady"

Next on our trip was a stop at the Lewis Grassic Gibbon center, where all things Lewis Grassic Gibbon converge. The center had pictures, poems, books and even a movie about Lewis Grassic Gibbon, along with snack food and witty Christmas cards. They even claimed to have the real skeleton of the person who one of his stories was based on. Now, I hate to question the head honchos at the Lewis Grassic Gibbon center, but If my bones look like that…..well then my bones would be plastic. But, it wasn’t like there were many archeologists and literary historians breaking down the doors of the Lewis Grassic Gibbon center looking for the truth and nothing but the truth. So we’ll just play along. Play on Lewis Grassic Gibbon center. Play on.

"No seriously guys, I'm a real skeleton"

After all of this, Professor Schweitzer piled us into the bus again and on we rode through the countryside of Scotland back to our humble abodes back in Glasgow. On the ride back, we got a great view of the landscape. And of a lot of sheep. No seriously. Like, a ton of sheep. It was a great trip though and a good way to get out of the city and see the rest of Scotland. Kind of made me love Scotland that much more.

So much FSP love