Living in a city is a new experience for me. I enjoy it, but every once in a while I get the urge to get out to somewhere less busy, less populated, and less city-like. My first real trip out (other than for rugby matches) was to Linlithgow Palace, where most of the Stewart kings lived and where Mary, Queen of Scots was born. I went by bus with a few friends on a Wednesday afternoon, and it was fantastic. The palace is in a park, on a loch (Scottish for lake). The whole place was very pretty, and we had great Scottish weather: to quote the movie Braveheart, "The rain is coming straight down, or slightly to the side, like." There was fog and mist and rain, all of which added to a kind of eerie majestic feeling about the palace and its grounds. There were boats there, too, which made me happy and think of summer.

The Palace was a great experience (and free, thanks to Emily's thoughtful Christmas present!), and the town of Linlithgow a good change from the bustle of Edinburgh. My friends and I stopped in a nice little café for lunch and then poked around town a bit before catching the bus back to Edinburgh. All in all, it was a day well-spent; it also made me realise that there is much more to Scotland than the city of Edinburgh - a very important realisation.

Currently, I am writing an essay on how external factors (i.e., politics, current events, famines, etc) influenced Gaelic poetry. My essay is focused on the Highland clearances of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (to make way for the more profitable sheep farms) and the ensuing waves of emigration from Scotland, events which sparked massive amounts of poems and songs, some of which are still sung today. It doesn't sound terribly exciting, but I love it. I'm hoping to finish this essay this afternoon so I can start my next one, a history essay comparing and contrasting the three types of Celtic peoples who lived in Scotland in the early medieval period - the Picts, the Gaels, and the Britons.

Sláinte mhath!