July 7th- Caledonia and the North Day 3

July 7th 2012

Weatherwise: It was a bit cloudy, and later rained a lot. How much? At the level that if a Southern Californian were there, he would whine, and automatically go on facebook then update his status to "OMFG IT'S POURING!" 

Anyways, today I woke up at 8:30 A.M. showered and proceeded to eat a British breakfast for champions again..(for those whom are wondering what this is. Refer to my previous blog post July 6th) only this time I ended up eating it with my close friends. After breakfast, I boarded the coach (bus) with Jason, Katharine, Sesenu etc. to the Scottish National Gallery. Needless to say I think the art geek in me fangirled and screamed in joy...not because this was my first museum trip in Europe...but .....the Scottish National Gallery has works by the greats including Tizziano Vecellio (Titian), Leonardo Da Vinci, Rembrandt Van Rijn (Rembrandt), Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (Michelangelo for short), Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (Raphael) for short and so many more. If that wasn't enough to fangirl about here's an awesome fact about British Museums. For anyone who visits United Kingdom, it's free entrance to national museums >:) so essentially you get to see works by the greats without spending a pence (penny)! 

The cherry on top of this visit? My professor, Thomas Newbolt was going to give a tour of his favorite works, how to analyze and look at art, the spirituality of the works, and so forth. Basically a long- indepth analysis on the history of art, what techniques can you learn, how does the theoretical come into play with the technique of art....etc.

So what I learned in a nutshell at the museum because quite honestly even for me everything he said was so meta that it was a bit overwhelming to take all at once. 

Despite the fact that he suggested that we look at a few pieces each visit rather than look at every piece.....I'm an opportunist so I will try to look at every work. Alas the problem with this is I don't have the same amount of time to appreciate the same works; thus, by the time I write this blog, I do not believe I will remember everything about all of the artworks I've seen. So while I can say I've seen the artwork, I did not truly see the paintings the way a true artist would see them :[ 

2. What Thomas said to do: look at the painting first from the far back...then walk up to it in the middle...and get closer....your perspective changes based on WHERE and HOW you look at the painting. Some paintings will seem incredibly distorted (via subject and background) and will not make sense unless you step further away. That's because some paintings were meant to be looked that way. Most of these had subjects related to god, so the idea is the painting is magnified in size to glorify aspects of holiness, and bring you the subject back into reality (aka make you realize that you're pretty much insignificant compared to the painting.). 

3. The subject is not painted (esp. during the italian renaissance or before the italian renaissance) without its relationship to the painter being understood. (goes back to point 2. making you realize you're human when you stare at the majestic nature of a painting.)

4. Cezzane used multiple eye levels to create paintings that seemed believable yet were perspective wise illogical. It's an illusion trick where you draw objects and make it look like they're coming out at you despite the fact that they're far by increasing the scale of the object closer to the viewer or decreasing the object further from the viewer.

Ok art geek moment over.....anyways my friends went to check out the rest of Edinburgh while I checked out the rest of the gallery. Afterwards, I was afraid of getting lost so I ended up following a group of random PKPers, and we ended up at The Elephant House, the cafe where J.K. Rowling first created the Harry Potter series. 

The entrance to The elephant house.

For those whom are wondering: J.K. Rowling actually started out fairly poor, like she was actually WRITING the harry potter series on napkins...although it's said that she first started the series at The Elephant House, in reality she wrote in many different cafes in Edinburgh. Still cool to see that the tagline of the place was "Birthplace of Harry Potter." I didn't buy anything at the Elephant House though I do regret not at least getting a pastry or a coffee. Oh well. 

Afterwards, we ended up at "Mum's Great Comfort Food." I was hoping this place had Haggis....sadly it did not BUT it does have great British food. So in total the group I was with got 4 meals and split them between 6 people. We ordered the Herby Pork sausage some type of mash (mash potatoes) and carmelized gravy, Venison (deer) with the Moroccan mash, and red currant pie, Pumpkin and Sage pie, and the St. Giles Ale and Steak pie. Haha this was my first time trying deer and I actually thought it was pretty good. It's quite lean. Overall I enjoyed it despite the fact that well British cuisine in general tends to be a little dry. Afterwards we walked back, and I visited a few shops (Poundsland....wow totally the dollar tree of UK) with surprisingly decent quality, and a few other shops to get some souviners. Haha sadly I did not buy a kilt, although if I go again I will get one for some of my guy friends. On a random note I also saw a Scottish lass (man) dressed in traditional attire playing bagpipes. That was amazing! 

Cute menu

Venison stew with Morrocan mash. Amazing British comfort food :)

A Scotsman with his bagpipes making a ton of pounds from tourists.

Afterwards, I headed back and rested for a few hours. Then after that I caught up with Sesenu, Jason, Casey, and Katharine and we headed off to Royal Oak Pub because we wanted to go to a pub that had live music while we drank. Only one small problem with this. Oh my god this pub was PACKED and CRAMMED to the point that we couldn't even move once we got in so we decided to walk around and check out the other pubs in the rain. We couldn't find other pubs that weren't so packed so we went back to the Banshee's Labyrinth. I got a coke mixed with Scotch and we sat down, changed the jukebox, listened to music, and played billiards with a few Scots.  Wow I suck at Billiards to the point that I think I need to start playing Billiards soon....to at least not knock the white cue ball off the pool table...oh right I forgot that we then ended the night by dancing to more dubstep and heavy metal..

Banshee Labyrinth entrance..inside yes it is quite the labyrinth with rooms staircases etc everywhere

One of the rooms inside the Banshee Labyrinth with Casey and Katharine.

Wow needless to say even though I didn't do as much as I did the other few days, I think the day overall was amazing :). Sigh it's too bad it's my last night in Edinburgh though :[. In these few days Caledonia has grown on me as a second home, and honestly I will miss Scotland quite a lot. Caledonia, please wait for me. One day I will come back to you, and see you again. It's not a goodbye as much as a see you later.

Today, instead of ending this blog with words of looking forward tomorrow, I thought I'd end this blog about my experience of Caledonia in Dougie Mclean's words,

               "Let me tell you that I love you, and I think about you all the time. Caledonia you're calling me, now I'm coming home. But if I should become a stranger you know that would make me more than sad. Caledonia's been everything I've ever had." 

Until next time, Cheers!

Tina Lin