a vegetarian on a meat eating island.
Hello my loved ones,
It’s been a little while since I dropped a line. Everyone seems to be settled in back in the states, my family is adjusting to each of their new homes. My mom is living out in the hills of Forestville in a home where she can relax and paint, my dad is living in Cotati with his fiancée and her daughter, my brother is living with friends in Santa Rosa and my sister is living in Portland while teaching 3rd grade in Washington. This is the longest I have gone without seeing all of them. I have been in London for the past month living with Natalie and Ben, the lovely ones I met first while couch surfing. They made me feel at home and I enjoyed every moment with them. It’s funny how thanks to the Internet you end up really making friends for life. They are the most loving couple I have ever been around and every conversation we had I learned from. It was a tough limbo period of this trip to just wander around London with nothing that I had to do but I felt that London taught me so much and it will always be one of my homes.
During this last week I met up with the Arcadia University Study Abroad Program in Edinburgh. We stayed at The Carlton and I met five others going to Aberdeen and GSA, all of us from the states. I represented the west coast. Everyone else was from the South, East and Midwest. All of them very nice, I became friends with two guys Tim and August, both are attending GSA. We were set up with a home stay in Sterling, Scotland. The boys got a lovely older couple and I had a woman named Margaret. She was 76 and wonderful, but she couldn’t seem get over the fact that I didn’t eat meat. She even tried to offer me a keesh with bacon bits inside it. But then she realized that vegetarian meant you just don’t eat anything that ever had a head except for a head of lettuce. She was really wonderful and spoiled me. I learned all about her life born and raised in Sterling. We also did touristy things and I got to see the Told Town Jail (with an enthusiastic performance), The Sterling Castle and the William Wallace Monument. Apparently, they hate the movie Braveheart here. Apparently Wallace was 6ft 7in and they were ashamed of Mel Gibson being cast the part. I got to see the original battle sword and it was longer then I am. I was impressed by the giant dents it had.
And now I am here, in Glasgow, finally. I’m living in the student housing with five other people, three girls and two boys. They are all nice and one is from Southern California, but I am the oldest of the bunch. I have spent the past few days wandering around Glasgow and journeying through the Famous Mackintosh Building, the main building for Glasgow School of Art. It is beautiful and if you don’t know who Charles Rennie Mackintosh is, you should look him up because his architecture was beyond his time (born in 1868) and absolutely amazing. He collaborated with his wife Margaret Macdonald, her sister Frances and her husband Herbert McNair. Their work is like a mixture from Japan and European Art Nouveau to traditional Scottish Architecture. The Glasgow School of Art is considered his masterpiece. I plan on taking lots of photos to share with you.
Today I went to the Necropolis, which is a large old graveyard on the largest hill in Glasgow. I took a few pictures and some video footage; it was so beautiful and comforting. It was nice to just sit above the city with all of the elder souls looking down at the traffic and listening to the noises of the world moving around. I felt miles from nowhere and yet in the middle of it all…much love to all of you.
Cheers,
Sierra
It’s been a little while since I dropped a line. Everyone seems to be settled in back in the states, my family is adjusting to each of their new homes. My mom is living out in the hills of Forestville in a home where she can relax and paint, my dad is living in Cotati with his fiancée and her daughter, my brother is living with friends in Santa Rosa and my sister is living in Portland while teaching 3rd grade in Washington. This is the longest I have gone without seeing all of them. I have been in London for the past month living with Natalie and Ben, the lovely ones I met first while couch surfing. They made me feel at home and I enjoyed every moment with them. It’s funny how thanks to the Internet you end up really making friends for life. They are the most loving couple I have ever been around and every conversation we had I learned from. It was a tough limbo period of this trip to just wander around London with nothing that I had to do but I felt that London taught me so much and it will always be one of my homes.
During this last week I met up with the Arcadia University Study Abroad Program in Edinburgh. We stayed at The Carlton and I met five others going to Aberdeen and GSA, all of us from the states. I represented the west coast. Everyone else was from the South, East and Midwest. All of them very nice, I became friends with two guys Tim and August, both are attending GSA. We were set up with a home stay in Sterling, Scotland. The boys got a lovely older couple and I had a woman named Margaret. She was 76 and wonderful, but she couldn’t seem get over the fact that I didn’t eat meat. She even tried to offer me a keesh with bacon bits inside it. But then she realized that vegetarian meant you just don’t eat anything that ever had a head except for a head of lettuce. She was really wonderful and spoiled me. I learned all about her life born and raised in Sterling. We also did touristy things and I got to see the Told Town Jail (with an enthusiastic performance), The Sterling Castle and the William Wallace Monument. Apparently, they hate the movie Braveheart here. Apparently Wallace was 6ft 7in and they were ashamed of Mel Gibson being cast the part. I got to see the original battle sword and it was longer then I am. I was impressed by the giant dents it had.
And now I am here, in Glasgow, finally. I’m living in the student housing with five other people, three girls and two boys. They are all nice and one is from Southern California, but I am the oldest of the bunch. I have spent the past few days wandering around Glasgow and journeying through the Famous Mackintosh Building, the main building for Glasgow School of Art. It is beautiful and if you don’t know who Charles Rennie Mackintosh is, you should look him up because his architecture was beyond his time (born in 1868) and absolutely amazing. He collaborated with his wife Margaret Macdonald, her sister Frances and her husband Herbert McNair. Their work is like a mixture from Japan and European Art Nouveau to traditional Scottish Architecture. The Glasgow School of Art is considered his masterpiece. I plan on taking lots of photos to share with you.
Today I went to the Necropolis, which is a large old graveyard on the largest hill in Glasgow. I took a few pictures and some video footage; it was so beautiful and comforting. It was nice to just sit above the city with all of the elder souls looking down at the traffic and listening to the noises of the world moving around. I felt miles from nowhere and yet in the middle of it all…much love to all of you.
Cheers,
Sierra
posted by s.s. at 4:25 PM
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