Ola from Portugal

Having finally finished my course and turned in my dissertation. (whew).  I am taking some time off for travel before heading back to the states.  I had a lovely long weekend in Denmark, stayed with my host family and caught up with some friends.  I also visited York and stayed with a friend from school!  Such a pretty little town and so much fun! 

Now I am in Portugal, volunteering on an organic farm.  Quinta de Cadafez is about two and a half hours north of Lisbon, up in the mountains.  It is very remote, a forty five minute climb up the mountain to the nearest village, Cepos, which is so small that there is not even a convenience store there!  On the farm, I have been staking tomatoes, watering the garden, weeding the stone wall terraces and cleaning the pool.  I have also taken over the kitchen during a couple days to preserve the veg that comes out of the garden faster than we can eat it.  This week I made fig jam, applesauce, pumpkin butter, pumpkin chutney and pumpkin soup. 

There are two other volunteers just now, a Belgian girl was here the first week but now it is me, another American and a Swede.  The owner does not spend too much time on the Quinta, so it is usually just us and any guests staying in the cottages.  We are supervised by a very rotund rottweiler called Max, who looks terribly ferocious, but is really just a teddy bear.  And there are five cats õf varying tameness.  I have named my favorite kittten, Buddha.~

It gets really hot here during the days, often up to the mid thirties.  I don´t know the conversion offhand, but it is HOT.  So we siesta in the afternoons either at the pool or hiking to the waterfall to cool off.  And it really gets chilly at night.  (thanks for the sleeping bag, Lauren).

I will be here til the middle of October.  I am hoping to get a bus to Porto and then head down the coast back to Lisbon before I fly back to Edinburgh and then it´s homeward bound by Halloween!!!!

I´ve been getting to internet about once a week!  I would love to hear from you!  xo.

So, it's been a while...

Hello,

Somehow the summer is getting away from me and it's been two months since I updated any news!  It's been really busy here and so much fun!  I went to a crazy hippy music festival in the middle of nowhere in June.  We camped next to a field of highland cows.  I've been to Falkland Palace in Fife.  And I went to Glasgow to go museum-ing and strolling around the city.

Mom, Dad and Jeff came to visit in June.  We had SUCH a good time.  They flew into Edinburgh and rented a car and came back to St Andrews with me.  We spent a day strolling around town, seeing the cathedral and the beaches and watching the Princess Bride.  Then we drove up to Inverness through Speyside, and stopped at Glenfiddich and a really amazing castle on the coast south of Aberdeen.  Then we drove up to the tippy top of Scotland and got a ferry to Orkney.  It was incredible up there - old standing stones and prehistoric villages and lovely little fishing villages.  After Orkney, we drove down the west coast and stopped in Mallaig, which was absolutely gorgeous.  It's the area where they filmed Harry Potter, very dramatic and stunning.  Also the B and B there had Bernese mountain dogs, which was a big plus.  We ended up in Edinburgh and I was so sad that they had to go back home!

There they are (teeny tiny) outside of Doune Castle - where Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed.

Two weeks ago, my friend Erica came to visit.  We took the train and ferry over to the Isle of Arran on the west coast.  It was so beautiful.  The island was bigger than we expected with lots of mountains and walks.  We went hiking and ate smoked fish and slept 10 hours a night in our cozy B and B.  We even saw seals.  It was the perfect dissertation escape.  Then we went to Edinburgh and stayed with a friend from school and had such a good time exploring the city.

So, when not out exploring Scotland, I've been writing my dissertation.  It's on street art and its move into galleries and museums.  It's actually a lot of fun to write.  I've been interviewing curators and even a graffiti artist from Brooklyn.  I have started getting the urge to spray paint stuff, which I am trying to control.  I've got nearly half a draft at this point and it's due at the end of August, so I am on schedule.

I am also still going to Dundee for work, although I'm about to go on strike if  they don't start paying me as promised.  I also am going to Belfast next week for two nights.  I've never been to Ireland and it's just so close that I can't pass it up.

The end of my masters course is approaching so quickly now.  I'm writing as many job applications as I can  to museums and galleries anywhere and everywhere (except parts of middle America).  But if nothing comes through in the next couple weeks (even an interview), I'm planning to spend the majority of September traveling.  I'm thinking of Portugal right now, after a year in Scotland, sun and warmth sound blissful.  Then somehow I'll collect my belongings and get myself to Erie, PA, or at least a nearby airport!

Whew, that is an epic post!  So much to report, though.  I'd love to hear from you, too.  I miss everyone at home!!!  Take care. xo.

Work? What?

So in the midst of all the fun and excitement, I've finished the taught part of my degree!!!  I turned in my last assignment and started reading for my dissertation.  I've wrapped up the exhibition, we took it down yesterday and I finished up the educational programming, too - a kitchen chemistry family day and a lecture series - whew!

Despite all my issues with the course (and there have been MANY), I think it has been worthwhile over all.  We finished up the semester with a trip to a stately house near Edinburgh. In addition to the lovely lawn sculpture that you see below, we had a tour, a few lectures and really excellent cake.

 

For the last class, we were assigned group presentations on a particular theme of what might be the most important function of a museum.  I think our instructors expected a serious debate... but it was an ungraded assignment on the last day of class.  My group won debate and the chocolate prize with our argument of why museums are a "secular cathedral of inspiration."  How anyone was meant to take that seriously, I will never know - we wore pope hats, did a mime routine and even worked in Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition.  

It was a proud day.

Travels and Visitors

It has been so busy around here, in the best possible way!  Two weeks ago, I flew to Florence for a long weekend with Aunt Sue, Toby, Laura, John, Tom and Shawna.  Florence was stunning:  it was warm and sunny and filled with gorgeous narrow streets and beautiful piazzas.  It was so fantastic to get to see family, too!  We stayed in a really lovely apartment, right in the middle of Florence.  We went marketing and window-shopping and walked all over the city.  I saw the Uffizi, which was really amazing and Pitti Palace's gardens and the Duomo, too.  Really just strolling through the city is like being in an art museum.

 

I would never have left Florence if not for Becky's visit.  One day after I got back to Scotland, Becky came to visit for three days.  She booked a layover on the way to Thailand!  We had a fantastic visit, working a bit and hanging around St. Andrew's.  She got to revisit some of her favorites in St. Andrews, like the chip shop, and we went to Eurovision party!!!  It was so much fun to have her here, I don't think I've giggled so much in ages!  I think Becks has all the photos, but here's proof that she was here.

Next it will be my family here and then Erica!!! Can't wait.

May Dip

I saw the sun rise over the North Sea on May 1st.   However, I  was completely distracted from the scenery by the spectacle of hundreds of St. Andrews students huddling around bonfires and then racing into freezing water polar bear style, in a tradition known as May Dip.  It was a new experience of welcoming spring.  I'm glad I went and I am not in any hurry to repeat it.  It took hour for my toes to recover from the icy shock.  Here we are sprinting for the water at low tide, yikes!

Field Trip!!!

I went with my class up to Newtonmore last week, to see the Highland Folk Museum.  It's about two square miles dotted with historical buildings that were either built on-site, or moved from surrounding areas.  It was a gorgeous spot,  all mountains and pine trees and fresh air.  It will be even more spectacular when the heather blooms.

The scenery on the way into the highlands was lost on  me because I couldn't keep my eyes open. I slept on the bus the whole way there and just opened my eyes as we pulled into the little town.  It was a crazy moment of deja vu because we passed the little tea shop that Aimee and I had visited in January, right after our car broke down!  Such adventures.

At any rate, the Highland Folk Museum was quite the experience.  They had a farm, shetland ponies, an old church, a turn of the century school house and a 19th century thatched cottage.  There was also a settlement called a township, which immediately conjured up very different images, but turned out to be a reconstruction of a 17-18th century highland settlement. 

There were re-enactors there.  Check out the beard on the man in the photo below.  Amazing thing:  the re-enactors were all from Ohio - so bizarre.  The best parts of the day though, besides getting a trip, were the dress up and the peat fires.

Here I am practicing my penmanship in the school house.  

 We might be post-grads, but dress up never gets dull.

 Can you see the beard?  I have a suspicion that it's dyed....  

Also seemed quite out of place with the mid-western accents.

I smelled like peat fire for the rest of the day.

Such a fun trip and really great for catching up on sleep, I napped the whole way back, too!  Other news from St. Andrews. I turned in two really mammoth portfolios last week on my internship and my exhibition.  I also gave a gallery tour for Elements of Genius this Monday and just today did a presentation in class about my internship.  Whew.  Am really looking forward to seeing Aunt Sue, Toby, Laura and Tommy in Florence in a few weeks, and then Miss Rebecca Kate will be visiting.  Spring is flying!

Hope you are doing well.  I'd love to hear from you!

xo

A Holiday in Spain

I spent last week in gorgeous, sunny Barcelona.  I went with a few friends from school, we got a small apartment in the center of the city and spent the week sitting in sunny placas, looking at art, searching out Gaudi buildings and drinking sangria.  It was a brilliant spring break.

My favorite part of the trip was visiting Park Guell, which has been on my list for a while.  Gaudi designed it as a small self sufficient community compound, but it ended up as a city park.  It has fairy tale buildings and amazing mosaics!  It was so nice to be there in the spring especially, with everything blooming.

We also went to see Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia, which was pretty stunning.  The best part was taking the elevator up to the top of one of the spires.  I could see the construction work, and also had a great view of the city.

The older cathedrals were wonderful, as well.

We took a tram up Montjuic to see the Olympic Stadium, the Catalan Art Museum and the Miro Foundation.  Look at the blue sky!!!

Most of the time, I was in the old part of the city, which was really gorgeous.  All old balconies covered in laundry and narrow pedestrian streets.  There was amazing food.  When we didn't go out for tapas or paella, we shopped at the big market on La Rambla and cooked in our apartment. I ate lots of fresh veg and chorizo and strawberries and gelato.  This was just around the corner from the apartment:

A couple times we walked down to the beach or marina to sit in the sun for a while.  There was an amazing collection of sailboats!

I'm back in Scotland now, using the last week of my spring break to finish up a project that's due next week.  Sadly, my tan is already disappearing.  But Barcelona was incredible, I think I want to go back to Spain, maybe Seville or Toledo?!  Also, there thousands more photos on facebook, if you care to have a look!  Hope you are well.

Adios, amigos!