Scottish Adventure '12 Part II: Isle of Arran

Scotland, Day 4: Isle of Arran (17th November 2012)

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you" - A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Although my memory has gone a little rusty by this time, I easily recall Isle of Arran as the highlight of my Scottish escapade - a day well spent on an enchanting island in the company of two of my most favorite people - Rudmila and Intisar. I was already a little glum that I did not have enough time to visit the famous Scottish highlands or see the beauty of Inverness or Glen Coe, and hence when the opportunity to spend a day in the Isle of Arran presented itself in the form of a trip organized by the study abroad organization of the University of Glasgow, I was beside myself with excitement.

View from the ferry: Start/end of a rainbow

The Isle of Arran is the largest island in the Firth of Clyde, and the seventh largest island in Scotland. Our trip was a day-long excursion involving a bus ride from Glasgow and a short ferry journey to the island. Intisar had arrived in Glasgow the night before, and the three of us literally had to wake up at the crack of dawn to make it on time for the bus. Once we were on board the MV Caledonian Isles ferry and had a decent breakfast to quell our starving stomachs and caffeine to stir our sleepy minds, we were finally awake and ready for the day. It was absolutely freezing on the deck of the ferry, but the stunning beauty that engulfed us made the chillingly windy ferry ride totally worth it!

Brodick Castle Gardens

Freshwater stream

The Isle of Arran is such a breathtakingly beautiful place - the ruggedly mountainous landscape looming around us and the untarnished natural surroundings were a refreshing change from the canopy of urban jungle and suburban towns that we usually find ourselves in. Freshwater streams ran down the mountains, and Highland cattle lounged idly on the rough plains. The weather was surprisingly pleasant for a winter day, I was glad we could take advantage of it. The bus took us around various spots throughout the island, and we had time to get off at each spot and explore a little bit before moving on to the next destination. Our first destination within the Isle of Arran was Brodick Castle. We walked around the gardens and visited the store, but since the castle itself was undergoing some reconstruction we could not enter the building. Next we stopped by the Arran Distillery in Lochranza before moving on to Lochranza Castle. My favorite spots were the rocky beaches spread across the Isle - we stopped at a number of them and took pictures. Looking out of the window during the bus rides, I was truly mesmerized by the rough and colorful beauty of the mountainous backdrop, sparsely populated countryside and splendid beaches. We stopped for lunch at a small inn where we gobbled down as many sandwiches as we could, hungry from all the walking yet loving every minute of it.

Dusk was almost approaching when we arrived at our last destination, a small hotel next to a beach that I really cannot recall the name of. We watched the sky turn crimson orange with the setting sun, and finally headed off to the embark on the returning ferry just before it started getting dark. It was one of those days you always cherish and remember - we drank from freshwater streams, all three of us slipped on rocks and fell, watched baby seals jump near the shore and enjoyed the splendor of the setting sun near the beach. And of course, best friends make the experience much, much more memorable!

After all, even time is a social construct

Here's the thing about being a Mount Holyoke student: you never have enough time. As soon as my study abroad experience ended and I flew back to the United States for a fresh start and my junior year at Mount Holyoke, I soon came to realize that I would never have enough time on my hands to continue writing this blog. Once I became preoccupied with academics and various other activities, it was difficult to regain or even dream of all the leisurely time (and space) I had enjoyed in the United Kingdom!

Anyway, looking back at the motto with which I started writing this blog: it is never too late. So I'm picking up from where I had stopped, even though there has been quite a long gap!

Keep Calm and Get Oan Wae It: Scottish Adventure '12 Part I: Glasgow

Scotland, Days 1-3: Glasgow (14^th-16^th November 2012)

"Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life." - Mark Twain

I could not be happier that instead of spending a meager weekend in Scotland as initially planned, I was able to immerse myself in the fascinating culture and mesmerizing beauty of Scotland for almost an entire week. Classes were suspended since it was Reading Week at Royal Holloway, and I decided to make the most out of it and visit Rudmila, one of my best friends from Mount Holyoke, who is currently studying abroad at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Upon my arrival in Glasgow, it did not entirely feel like I had just stepped into another country, yet in some queer ways it did. It was quite early in the afternoon, yet the sun had set and the city was already in its nighttime attire. As we meandered into the bustling city center lined with shopping malls and myriad other stores, cafes and restaurants, I heard notes of the traditional Scottish bagpipe drifting towards me – it was then that it sunk in that I was in Scotland! We spent the rest of the evening wandering around the streets as Rudmila pointed out the numerous landmarks around the city center. After a wonderful dinner catching up on each others’ adventures so far, we retired early and went back to her dormitory, more because I wanted to avoid hauling  my carry-on suitcase around town rather than because I was worn out after my long train journey!

Glasgow City Center at night

My second day in Glasgow was a crisp, beautiful day – not as chilly as the previous day yet much colder when compared to the current temperature in London. However, the sun was up and it was a perfect day to go out and explore the city! Alas, although I myself was on temporary holiday, it was a Thursday and Rudmila had classes to attend. I was fascinated to discover that she was taking a lesson in learning to play the bagpipe - she could not have picked a better way to take home a slice of Scottish culture with her when this term is over! Since I was pretty much a stranger in this city and hours of daylight in good old United Kingdom were diminishing with every passing day, we did not get around to much exploring that day but just took more in of the vibrant city center and wandered around the numerous shopping arcades in the town square. I also got a taste of Glasgow’s famously dynamic nightlife as Rudmila and her friends took me to a Student Union party at night!

              

Lessons learnt/points noted that day:

 1. There is a statue of Adam Smith, the Father of modern economics, almost around every street corner in Glasgow (needless to clarify, he is probably the most distinguished alumna of the University of Glasgow!).

 2. Men in tartan kilts are not a myth but actually a commonplace sight in Scotland!

Day 3 reflected more of what I had expected Scottish weather to be like – a damp and overcast day with periodical bouts of rainfall every few hours. It wasn’t, however, enough to dampen our spirits since we had both by then pretty much become accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of British/Scottish weather. Rudmila did not have any lectures, so that morning she showed me around the campus of the University of Glasgow at the West End of the city. The West End of Glasgow has a trendy atmosphere, packed with numerous pubs, bars and quaint cafes. One of the oldest university campuses in the English-speaking world, the magnificent main building is an impressive structure that appropriately mirrors its heritage as one of the oldest university buildings in the United Kingdom. I was spellbound by the grandeur of old Scottish architecture, and thrilled to visit the famous Hunterian Galleries, which I had previously only seen in pictures. After Rudmila’s elaborate and extremely informative tour of the university campus (I must say she is indeed a fantastic tour guide!), we took the Glasgow subway to the city center since I wanted to visit the Clyde Riverside. One of the most curious things about Glasgow is its subway system – compared to the intricate subway maps I’m accustomed to after frequenting London and New York City, the sight of Glasgow’s tiny oval-shaped subway map struck me as hilarious yet absolutely adorable. The train literally goes around in a circle with fifteen stops, and it’s a tiny orange train which looks like it’s a character straight out of an animated cartoon film! It was dusk by the time we reached the Clyde Riverside, and the brilliantly lit bridges all across the river were a charming sight at night. Despite the freezing rain and forceful wind cutting through our skin and bones, we braved a walk to Glasgow Green, a park located on the north bank of the River Clyde. Next up we embarked on a search for the Clyde Auditorium, an iconic Glasgow landmark more commonly known as the Armadillo due to its structure. It took us quite some time and numerous detours to find it, but we finally did! By the end of the day we were supremely proud of ourselves for managing to visit every major tourist spot in Glasgow without being deterred by the cascading downpour. J

           

             The University of Glasgow Main Building                                      The Hunterian Galleries

 

Glasgow Subway Map!

Clyde Auditorium/ Armadillo

Lessons learnt/ points noted that day:
 1. Our lives would not be half of what it is without access to the ingenious technological masterpiece that is Google maps on our smartphones.
 2. Never wear ballet flats on a November day out in the UK again. Ever.
 3. Glasgow is THE city when it comes to cheap yet amazing food options!
 4.  I was pretty much under the impression that the Scottish accent is incredibly attractive. Two days in, I kind of don’t feel the same way anymore…

All in all, my short stay in Glasgow has been memorable in every way. Thank you Rudmila Salek for making it possible :)

Windsor on a sunny Sunday

“What a beautiful, sunny morning. It makes you happy to be alive.” – Takayuki Ikkaku

During brunch one fine Sunday morning, my friends and I arrived at a spontaneous decision to make a trip to Windsor, which is approximately a 20 minute train journey from the station closest to Royal Holloway. It was a magnificent, sunny day, and being as sunshine-deprived as we are in England, we pounced on the one glorious day which came our way. The town of Windsor, a small, quaint suburban town located in the county of Berkshire in South-East England, is the location of the famous Windsor Castle, one of the official residences of the Royal Family of Britain and the largest inhabited castle in the world. Upon our arrival in Windsor, we headed straight for the Castle, which is a 5 minute walk from the station itself. Although we chose not take the guided tour inside the Castle, we took ample time to walk around the grounds – the Castle is ancient but has been wonderfully maintained over the years, and teeming with international tourists. Although I was extremely impressed by the medieval exterior architecture, I’m sure we would’ve gotten a much better historical perspective on the Castle if we had taken the guided tour. Oh well…

Apart from the Castle, the town of Windsor itself is a great tourist destination, ideal for day-trips. It is a typical English town, with a small shopping area and lined with numerous cafes and pubs. My friends and I got rather distracted as we surfed through the numerous stores and shopping outlets (girls will be girls!), but when we were exhausted from all the window shopping we retired to a charming little coffee shop and sipped our mochas and cappuccinos before heading down to the Windsor Riverfront. On the other side of Windsor across the River Thames lies the town of Eton, home of the esteemed Eton College. We sat along the riverside for a long part of the afternoon, admiring the gorgeous sunset views and occasionally feeding the ducks and geese populating the bank.

Even though we didn’t cover as much of the town of Windsor as I would have liked (we didn’t enter the Castle or visit Windsor Great Park) on that day, I had a great time with my Royal Holloway buddies. Maybe I’ll come back one day to do what I had left unfinished!

London Calling

"One thing about London is that when you step out into the night, it swallows you." - Sebastian Faulks, Engleby

Here’s the thing:

I’m in love with London.

London is my wonderland - I’m constantly amazed by how captivating, diverse and alive this city can be. There is so much to do, so much to explore and so much to discover – I don’t believe I’ll ever get bored or tired of it. It is true that living in and around London is a tremendous strain on a typical college student’s budget – four months here have almost exhausted my entire bank balance – but so much of it has been worth it. Before I came to London, I had pictured something similar to New York City. A sprawling metropolis bustling with people. All kinds of people. Skyscrapers. A busy, fast-paced lifestyle. It is very easy and in fact quite common to draw that analogy between London and New York, yet in myriad big and small ways, these two cities are very different from one another and unique.

In a word, London is classy - magnificent Victorian architecture and streets crawling with well-dressed, prim and proper pedestrians add to the majestic charm of the city. On a typical weekday you can see the roads bustling with tourists and sightseers; places like Oxford Street and Knightsbridge teem with happy shoppers around the clock while areas such as Canary Wharf and Victoria are alive with business and commercial activity. As the sun sets the city lights up brilliantly all around, transforming the landscape as the dynamic London nightlife begins. Pubs fill up around every street corner and people flock into the numerous bars around London town. Like any other newbie in the city of London, I did all the tourist-y things that there are to do, visiting the traditional tourist spots that everyone must visit while they’re in London – Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, the London Eye, Tower Bridge, British Museum, Oxford Street and many others. After almost four months, all that was new and fascinating at first has become much more familiar, close to my heart. London has definitely grown on me.

Charing Cross Station

Travelling around London could not be more convenient – getting from one end of the city to another is just a matter of minutes with the London Underground System. Personally, I love hopping on board the red double-decked London buses and watching the city flow by around me from one of the front seats on the upper deck. You can also hire bicycles from Barclays Cycle Hire points all around the city for as cheap as £1 an hour!

Trafalgar Square, looking towards Whitehall

The thing that I love most about London is that there is a surprise around every corner. You never know what you will stumble upon while taking a casual stroll on the streets – there are interesting odd-spots almost everywhere you go. When the weather is pleasant, there’s nothing like a walk around Westminster. Last Monday I spent my afternoon roaming the streets on my own without a sense of purpose, exploring the South Bank Christmas Market. Although I passed by the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament for the umpteenth time, I did not feel that the charm had faded away. The subtle beauty and invigorating atmosphere never fails to mesmerize me.

This city persistently does and will continue to blow me away.

Red telephone booth - a defining feature of London

Clouds

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky." - Rabindranath Tagore

One of the essentials that I make it a point to put into my handbag every time I leave the house is my obnoxious lime green umbrella – we’ve all heard of the dismal, dreary British weather. Part of me had assumed that maybe it’s an exaggerated myth and perhaps it would not be raining all the time after all. And surely enough it doesn’t rain ALL the time, but it is safe to expect showers at least for a while at some point during the day, and definitely on the sunniest of days when you would least expect it to. I’ve never experienced weather that’s more unpredictable, more unsure of itself than in England. Only this Friday, it was pouring as I walked into my 9am lecture, and looking through the classroom window after just a few minutes I watched the rain cease and observed snowflakes starting to drift around. My professor pulled down the shutters and I didn’t see anymore, but when I stepped out of the building an hour and a half later, I was blinded by dazzling sunlight and there was no sign of the rain or snow that had occurred only a couple of hours ago.

The following is a famous excerpt from Bleak House by Charles Dickens that expresses in a fine manner the typical weather in dreary Britain. To be fair, there are days when the sun is high up and everything is absolutely gorgeous, but that’s a different story…

"Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little ’prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds. 

Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time — as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look. 

The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln’s Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.” ― Charles Dickens, Bleak House

I did not take this picture myself, but this pretty much explains it

Royal Holloway

“The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it's all that matters.” ― Audrey Hepburn

When I arrived at Royal Holloway in September 2012, I was terribly homesick. Clearly, a month and a half spent at home in Bangladesh was not enough. It felt like I was obliged to leave the comfort of home too soon, and this time I wasn’t even heading to my second home in South Hadley, MA, but to a completely new country and culture. Don’t get me wrong though – I was tremendously excited at the prospect of embarking on Study Abroad, Take 2. I didn’t have second thoughts, I had no misgivings. I just wasn’t as ready yet.

However, my first week at Royal Holloway was so incredibly busy that I soon abandoned my miseries. I came to realize that the British take their “Freshers’ Week” extremely seriously – and by that I don’t mean that they go out of their way to settle in and make themselves at home at their new university. I simply mean that the British believe in party-ing their homesickness/apprehension away. There were events going on all day, every day – informal socials, karaoke nights, live music, dance parties – you name it. As days flew by and lectures commenced, I began to settle in, met some wonderful people and slowly became acclimatized to the fresh environment, dismal British weather as well as the vibrant social environment here – there’s definitely much more to do when you’re living around the city and attending a large co-ed university. My time here has been nothing similar my two years so far at Mount Holyoke – a small, all-women’s liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Let’s just say that although I have had an incredible experience at Royal Holloway, there’s no place like Mount Holyoke, or as we fondly call it – MoHome.  I couldn’t be happier that I took advantage of this cultural experience – this semester has been an incredible, transformative journey for me.

It’s taken a while for me to adjust here, not in terms of settling in but in terms of ‘speaking British’ - such as adapting to saying ‘lift’ instead of ‘elevator’, ‘sofa’ instead of ‘couch’, or ‘lecturer’ instead of ‘professor’. Fish and chips have become my staple diet. The academic workload has not been nearly as demanding as the things we do at Mount Holyoke, which I’m thankful for as it has given me more time to enjoy and immerse myself in this brand new world. I’ve enjoyed myself studying British politics and European foreign policy, minus the intense pressure that leads to sleepless nights and frenzied weekends. Fewer nights have been spent toiling on essays in the library and more out with friends in English pubs or London streets or just in one of the numerous spots to chill around the Royal Holloway campus. Several trips have been made far and wide across the United Kingdom. This has been a good semester. A great one. No regrets!

Founders Building, Royal Holloway - the building I lived in this semester

A typical night at Crosslands Bar, Royal Holloway