Jedburgh Abbey

From some of the pics it may seem that all of the abbeys look the same, but that isn't the case. This is Jedburgh abbey, which we thought was the second most impressive of the string of four abbeys. It is set on a hill and has an imposing presence.



To give you a bit of perspective we put Kelli in this pic in front of one of the main walls to the cathedral portion.



As always, plenty of spiral staircases (they loved these things)!



Here is a model of what the original would have looked like. It was a pretty impressive compound, especially considering that there was four of these within a 55 mile trek.



This place even had a sewage system! You have to be impressed with that. These monks think of everything.

Kelso Abbey

This abbey was pretty ruined, much more than the others. We were glad it was the first one we went to. It was a good warm up...no extra miles to walk or stairs to climb!


This part was cool, but definitely not original.

Melrose Abbey

Though this was the last major abbey we saw I will start with it because it was in the town we stayed. Just two blocks from our hotel was Melrose Abbey, which turned out to be by far the most impressive of the ruins.



Melrose is nothing short of massive. In ruins like these you often find no roof, a general structure remaining so that you can try to imagine what it looked like, and maybe a couple of really old tombstones. Melrose on the other hand had a roof covering part of the building, as well as a spiral staircase going all the way to the top so that you could look out over the whole place. Not only that, but as you will see below, there were still sculptures remaining - which is unheard of in a ruin like this. Melrose was evidently an impressive display of detail by John Morow from France (who evidently was brought up as an expert stone mason). The detail that still exists is staggering, including a bag-pipe playing pig near the top of one of the walls!



Above you can see the portion of the nave without the roof and the foothills in the backdrop with low cloud cover. It was an unusual day with the weather (well, not that unusual!), but we were able to stay dry for most of our time here. Below you see how large of a building it was. Ever since we got here I have said that if Scotland's cathedrals were still in tact no one would have ever heard of Notre Dame (but I digress).



Below you can see some of the statutes atop the buttresses. There were a couple of these on that side and some in the inner part of the abbey (of Peter and Paul).



The graveyard had some pretty cool looking crosses, this being one of our favorites.

An interesting tree...

I saw this tree on the grounds of Dryburgh Abbey.
Up close, it looks like its wrapped in ribbons...with the rest of the tree trying to bust through the seams. Part of me wanted to pull strips of the bark off to see what happened, but I just took some pictures instead!

Melrose

I thought it fitting that our first post after the post on driving should be where we stayed. We've had decent luck when we've picked new places to stay in Scotland, and this was one of the best. We stayed in Melrose, a tiny town in Scotland that has benefited from being a tourist destination because of its famous abbey (by far the most impressive of the four main abbeys in that region).

For instance, Melrose is absolutely tiny, but has at least 4 nice hotels in town and 4 to 5 nice restaurants (pretty unusual for a town of its size). There was also some nice shopping places, and, more to Kelli's and my interests, coffee shops! We sat under an overhang while it drizzled out and enjoyed watching the towns-people hurry about trying not to get wet.



Here is a shot down the main street of the town, away from the main square area.



This was a particularly exciting discovery! My body seemed to steer itself towards the book shop without knowing it was there. I made a great cheap purchase as well.



All in all, Melrose is a great little town. I think the Southern part of Scotland has more cool towns than the North does. We went through a lot of towns with more than just character (though plenty of that), but actually had a lot of substance to them. We look forward to going back and hitting up some of the towns we were only able to drive through.

Driving to, in, and on the Borders.

I did a lot of driving over the weekend. Driving in Scotland is always interesting, but especially so when you head off the beaten track a bit. As you will see, we were on a lot of one-track roads where you pray that no one will be coming the other direction. We did have a moment when an SUV had to back up about 20 yards to a point where they could pull up on the grass a bit so that we could get by.



We also had some problems with random road closings. We've never had too hard a time getting around, but this trip was filled with some of the worst signed areas I've ever been in. We would stay on the road we were supposed to take and it would change directions without offering any signage to explain this oddity. We spent a lot of time with a map out taking tiny little "b" roads (which I'm convinced stands for "Bad") trying to get back to a main road somewhere.



What you've never short of when driving around Scotland is beauty. We really like these old bridges, and they seem to have them everywhere.





At one point we were driving down a road and saw a sign that said "Welcome to England," which we thought was a bit odd. As we drove we seemed to dart in and out of Scotland and England until we saw this welcome sign back to Scotland. I've never driven down to England before!



Pictures can't do justice to the kind of roads we were on. It was like a commercial for a high end sports car weaving around hairpin turns for about an hour the first day we were down there. In order to keep this blog from being too long, we've decided to show you some pics of random distractions (lawn mowing, our car, and some of the sights we saw along the way) Enjoy!

Smell the apples

OK, we're about to begin a super long blogging sequence, detailing our adventure to the south of Scotland. There was so much to see in 3 days; however, we did manage to savour the moments. I thought I'd begin with these pictures I took at Jedburgh Abbey. I saw the apple trees on the outskirts of the Abbey grounds, and as I approached the trees I could actually smell the apples from about 2 metres away! It was a cool moment...in the rain of course.

New Office Space

As some of you know, the month after we got back to Scotland was a bit crazy. We immediately went out of town after we got back for a little R and R, and then I found out I had to pack up my office because they were moving me, and then Kent came into town for his viva. In the end, it all worked out well. We had a blast on the West Coast, I like my new office, and it was great seeing Kent and being with him as he finished up.

We thought that this would be a good time (since we are currently out of town and have scheduled this post to post when we were gone), to give a brief update about my progress and new office. Sometimes we forget why we're out here in the first place!

Here is the building I am in. We sit on high street right when it turns into College Bounds. This is one of the original old Aberdeen streets (as you will see from the cobblestone) and is the main street running through the University. My window is the window at the very top on the left.



Here is the view from inside my office looking out that same window you just saw. It is nice having a window. For the last 3 years I've only had a skylight, so it is nice to watch the rain, see the trees blow around in the breeze, etc.



Here is the view if you look out my window to the left...



...here is the view if you look to the right.



This is where you find me most days, around 8:30 most mornings and leaving around 4:30 most days. My progress has been steady, which is encouraging. I just handed in another section this week, which is always exciting, and I wrote it really quickly (we'll see how good it is). My current goal is to have a rough draft of the dissertation done before we go home for Christmas break. This is possible, but will mean some serious work between now and then. I want to finish my last chapter by mid-September, and then go back and do some serious edits on the second to last chapter.



At this stage of the game it is a difficult balance to say all that you need to say, and to say it in less than 100,000 words. Not as easy as one might think. Fortunately, God has been extremely gracious to us in the whole process, and I am still excited and motivated with the whole thing. For many people that isn't the case. That being said, we are starting, more and more, to think about where God will lead us next, and in the midst of it all trying to make sure we are very present here in Aberdeen this year, enjoying the time we know we'll have here.

Isle of Staffa

Today is our anniversary!!! 4 years and she's not quite sick of me (an impressive accomplishment no doubt). For that reason, we are on the road to a little getaway in the boarders. We will be exploring a bit of Southern Scotland taking a little tour of the famous Abbey ruins there. Should be fun.

It is somewhat fitting that I am doing this post today. This is the last post from our last trip, and is about a funny little island named Staffa. The reason this is fitting is that it was once bought by a wealthy American gentleman for his wife on their anniversay. She ended up giving it to the National Trust for Scotland (I think she was thinking diamonds rather than odd geological formation).

Basically, Staffa is where Superman feels at home. The way the island was formed made portions of it into pillar like sections squeezed together like a Q-bert board (someone must have thought of that too....come on...).



We were able to walk around on the island a bit and go into the famous Fingal's cave. There was some odd mythology about it, but I can't really remember any of it.



The top of Staffa looked like any other island. You can see the little boat we took out to it floating next to the shore down below. Kelli and I walked around the island a bit, and were amazed at how odd it seemed on the side and how normal it was on top.







On the backside of the island I saw this incredible view of the cliffs going into the ocean. It was truly a beautiful place and so random. They say that it is similar to the giants causeway in Ireland, and could possibly be connected in some way geologically. I personally think Superman built this.

Castle Stalker

Kelli and I stopped over at the lookout over Castle Stalker. They had recently (I believe) added a nice gift shop and cafe, and so we had some coffee and did a bit of reading/journaling. There are a couple of interesting facts about Castle Stalker: First, I have been here before.

Almost 12 years to the month Alison and I took a long bus, and then another bus, and then hiked out to Castle Stalker. Why Castle Stalker, an almost unheard of castle with no significant history or tours? The answer to that question is also our second interesting fact: Castle Stalker was the castle in Monte Python and the Holy Grail with all of the virgins...and I wanted to see it. I didn't have a lot planned for my trip to Scotland after my Freshman year of College, but that was high up on my list.

Rather than hiking down some odd country road chasing sheep, Kelli and I were able to enjoy the view from afar. Alison and I realized when we arrive 12 years ago, after our long travels, that Castle Stalker is in the middle of a loch, hence the new lookout point. This time was a bit more satisfying.




They had a great little cafe there with some good coffee and nice views. Kelli and I grabbed a seat by the window and enjoyed some of the afternoon rain from indoors.



Oddly, Castle Stalker is still privately owned and is even livable (in the back portion). How would you like to live there? Random.

Inverlocky Castle

Scrabble

Kelli and I are about to go downtown to enjoy a drink and some Saturday reading at our favorite coffee shop here in Aberdeen. As we ready out things, I thought it would be fitting to post some picks of our last time there.

The last time we went, Kelli and I found ourselves with a lot of time on our hands and not enough reading material (I forgot to bring something). Fortunately, there are a bunch of games available to play, so we went head to head in some scrabble.



Kelli won the round with her odd ability to use two letters and somehow get double word scores.

Since we were out enjoying a bit of a date night, we threw in some serious coffee and desert. Kelli got a soy hazelnut latte, and we split a crepe with chocolate, ice cream and peanut butter...mmmmmmmmm.