Hey guys, sorry it has been so long since I last posted, but life has been interesting over the last week or so. Last weekend we went to St. Andrews, the home of Golf, some beautiful ruins and an amazing amount of water both falling on and surrounding the city. ( it is on the North Sea in case you were unsure what I meant… it didn’t float away or anything). Anyway there is an album devoted to that trip on my Flickr account (which is now the only link of the side of the page). It was exquisitely beautiful and at times may have rivaled anything else I have ever seen. It was odd though, to see people living amongst such history. The ruins of the cathedral are actually a grave yard now, and it was a little unsettling to see graves that were only a few years old, right next to graves that were over a hundred years old. While we were there we saw a wedding party, and it made a really interesting statement that this couple was starting their life together in ruins that were over a thousand years old.
On Sunday we went to Glamis Castle which is where MacBeth is supposed to have happened, but it didn’t. We started the day off a little later than we wanted to, which sucked because it meant we had to book it to the bus station which was about a 20 minute walk away. We get there and have about 10 minutes left til we have to catch the bus so I go to get a drink and something to read on the bus, and while I am in the shop, the bus comes and leaves. This is a span of about 3 minutes, at the main hub, on a Sunday morning. Everyone else got on the bus and before they realized I wasn’t there they were out of the station and on their way. So I got to spend 20 pounds on a cab up to the castle, which was kind of funny because I got there a good 30 or 40 minutes before everyone else got there. It was really nice to get to spend a little bit of time in such a beautiful place by myself. People say the Smokie Mountains are beautiful, and they certainly are, but it seems like any time you are remotely in nature up here it is far more beautiful and seemingly untouched than anywhere I have seen in the states. Maybe its the air, or the way the ground feels, but I have never been happier in nature than I am here.
Anyway everyone got there finally and we started to make our way around the grounds to the walled garden which, sadly was a walled fielthat used to be a garden. It was spectacularly nothing. It was litterally a field in a wall with a small green house on the other side that you couldn’t get to. The Italian gardens and the Pineiary were much better. In one of the areas there was actually a Giant Red Wood that had been transplanted over there from California, and it was massive. We saw Highland Cattle, and Grouses (which we innitially thought were pheasants). We then made it around to the castle, which was amazingly beautiful. It has been built over the course of about 600 years and started as an old hunting lodge. It was spectacular, though it had nothing on the castles in Germany. After that we made it back home and pretty much went home to bed, we were spent.
On the domestic front however, classes have started and I already have 3 projects, but I am psyched about all of them and I think I’ma rock’em all. I have a typography project that I think I am going to do on Victorian Typography or on Web typography, I have a design contest that I am doing which I am doing a campaign that hopes to “Bring back Spam” (should be interesting to say the least), and I finally have a poster project that is for a hypothetical compendium of miscillany called “8 Things you didn’t know about…” one side is a promo poster and the other side is a taste of what would be inside. I am doing “8 things you didn’t know about tea” I think it will be lots and lots of fun.
This weekend we are going to Glasgow which should be tons and tons of fun. I’m sure there will be plenty of pics from that!
It’s the end of the world as we know it… and I feel fine,
Josh
