everybody fits in here!

so i think i mentioned before that my principal wanted me to take down my awesome shoot for the moon bulletin board. which i was a little sad about. but i did a little nosing around the internet for generic bulletin board ideas and found this one i thought was cute. especially given some of the meanness we've had in 4th grade this year (isn't it a little early for cattiness? i think so...)


now that i think about it... it probably would have been easier to do a poster and draw on the puzzle pieces with marker... unfortunately that is not what i did - i cut out all those pieces from construction paper. next time.

also, by the way, today was the first day back after vaca... i was kind of dreading it but in honesty, once i was there it was just like it always is. i kind of love it and the kids kind of drive me crazy. we're sort of working on this idea of a "english club" only it's a club they don't want to be in because it meets during recess every thursday... and they have to sit in class with me and speak english. it's a ploy to get them to stop speaking spanish in class. i'll let you know how it works out.

little devils

so. well, it's been a few weeks now, and we've had some ups and downs. of course i'm the new teacher, and they're trying to test me a little bit - to see how far they can push me. and until last week i had felt like we were making improvements in a lot of ways. i felt like i had a better idea of how much we could cover in a class and what kinds of things we could do. and i sort of felt like they were starting to behave a little bit better.

well. my director had visited my "good" class a while ago. she had some really good feedback for me, but generally she thought i was doing pretty well, that i had a good rapport with the kids. she gave me some pointers and we arranged for her to visit my other class a few days later. my "bad" class.

so she shows up. and generally her thing is "don't even pay attention to me. this is your class, i'm not going to interrupt or try to contribute unless you ask me to". well it was near the end of the class and i had just handed out some quizzes. then i was trying to get everyone's attention to say a few more things and then off to recess. "trying" being the operative word in that sentence. they had actually started completely ignoring me. walking around, having their own conversations, general chaos. so she asks if she can say something. she actually yelled at my class. this is not how pan-american students behave. you are disrespecting your teacher. you're not listening. you're not being kind (some kids were kind of harassing other students to find out how they did on the quiz).

so i finished the class and the students left. and we talked. i was really, really frustrated. and thank god she was completely helpful and supportive. i continue to be frustrated, despite the fact that the behavior has generally improved since that incident. and somehow i still like my job. hmmm.

now yesterday i made my first student cry. oh yes. in my "good" class we were working in groups on a set of tasks about the book we're reading (the cricket in times square). most of the groups are mostly staying on task. one group of three boys (couldn't be avoided - we have more boys than girls in fourth grade) were being generally loud, disruptive, disturbing other groups, throwing bits of eraser (a very popular activity in fourth grade), a dictionary was thrown and ripped. after i had repeatedly talked with the group, tried to get them focused, asked them to quiet down, stop throwing things, i told them they were all getting conduct warnings.

these warnings need to be signed by myself and the student, and then brought home to be signed by the parents. at the end of class i wrote them and handed them out. two of the kids were clearly not happy (not that i think they were sorry about the behavior, they just didn't want to have to tell their parents). but the third. he's generally a good kid. talks to much and doesn't always pay attention. but mostly good. he actually starts crying when i give him the warning. sobbing on his chair. so i try to talk with him about how he was behaving, what did he think about the way he behaved, was that appropriate classroom behavior? he wouldn't talk.

then at recess i was accosted by a mob of my students - from both classes - they had the explanation. S. had told them that it was all F.'s fault - he had thrown things and ripped the dictionary - A. didn't deserve a warning, he's a good student. obviously i explained that this was not up for negotiation, but some of them still kept trying. slightly flustered, i figured it would be best to go speak with the pedagogue. i explained everything and she called the parents to explain before the kids got home. and that was that.

so story time is over (wow, this is a pretty long post). i'll leave you with a couple of pictures from my classrooms.


my 4A classroom. this is my homeroom. i did the rainbow bulletin board seen here. it's covered with their "mind maps".


i have the same board in 4B.


and this one i'm pretty proud of: in my homeroom again it says "shoot for the moon- even if you miss you'll land among the stars" and i have all of their names written on little stars. so cute. :P

bad habits

it's amazing how quickly bad habits develop...


now, i like dogs. i like pets. it's nice to have a little companionship sometimes, someone to chill and watch tv with who never talks when you're trying to hear something. and chili and brownie are sweeties. but.

so i've spent 3 nights in my new place now. the dogs were in and out of my room the first night, checking things out while i unpacked, licking my elbows, you know, dog stuff. the second night chili was lying in bed with me watching tv. it got late. he slept over. i knew that he would want to get out in the morning when rocio got up - they get fed in the morning, and get let outside. so i didn't sleep that great, because i kind of knew at some point i would have to let him out. so i did. what happened next was what i wasn't expecting.

my first morning here, the dogs hung out in the living room after rocio and matias left and until i got up. my second morning after chili had slept with me, i hear scratching and whining outside my bedroom door when they left. so i open up and *both* dogs jump into bed with me. it's a little bed. and they're pretty solid, sausage shaped dogs. it was crowded.

last night i had no dogs in my bed. but i was woken up by - scratching and whining at my door. in an effort to break a bad habit before it took root i ignored them, thinking they would eventually get bored and go hang out in the living room. this continued for THREE HOURS (from about 7:30 to 10:30 - yes, i'm that lazy).

they were *ecstatic* to see me when i opened the door. i made some coffee and now the three of us are back in bed watching tv... and it's crowded...

santa ana

so i'm here... moved into my new pad in santa ana. so far, so good. i moved in last night. my room is a little bit smaller than i remembered from when i saw the place a week ago... but it's fine. i just don't have a desk, which i had gotten pretty used to in my other place. so we went on a mission today to see if i could find something... but no luck.

spent my morning chilling at home with the dogs. they're pretty fun. one of them is actually curled up on my bed with me right now (his mom calls him a traitor!) chili and brownie:


the rest of the house is super cute too. there are sofas in the living room!!! which is pretty exciting. but no tv there... but i have one in my room, so i guess that's pretty good.



so yeah, things are pretty good. i start going to school next week, for new teacher orientation and what-not. the kids start back on february 11th. until then i'm laying low, and trying to figure out all this teaching stuff.

:)

possibly not a surprise...

but yesterday i quit my job. i had been planning to line up something else before i put in my notice, but since i'm supposed to give a bimester's notice (which is two months - but i can't give notice halfway through a bimester) it just wasn't going to be possible. i'm looking to teach in a bilingual high school next year, and they're not really hiring at this point. they still have another month of class and then they have almost 2 months off. so my last day at the instituto britanico will be december 14th. then i'll be hanging out at the beach for a week. and then coming home for a couple of weeks. hopefully by then i'll have a job lined up. that's the plan anyway.

in other news i just paid my first cell phone bill, which i had been waiting patiently for, since i wasn't really sure how much i was really using it (but it seemed like a lot). well, they don't really mail bills here - because they don't really mail anything (i mean my "address" is from this store, 100 meters south, 400 meters west....). so basically you get a text message that tells you it's time to pay your bill. and you either go to a supermarket or pharmacy (these are the places you pay your bills - everything, phone, internet, electricity, water...) or depending on your bank you can pay online. well i had a friend help me set up my online banking yesterday, because apparently my bank does online bill pay (all my utilities are included in my rent, so i don't ever deal with that). entered my phone number and my information came up. my bill was ¢4,545. a little less than $10. :P

and the last thing i have for today is a picture. of things that come in plastic packages. i was terribly amused by this when i first arrived, but really it's for the best here. because they don't really do recycling (at least not very much of it) it's probably better that they have things in plastic bags instead of bottles and jars - less garbage. so here we have: spaghetti sauce, salsa, sour cream, mayonnaise, and ketchup.

i never get to go anywhere...

so as promised i finally have a couple of pictures from panama. and one from puerto viejo (on the right). i actually hope to have some more from puerto viejo soon. i think i wrote about swimming out to this massive coral/rock thing, well, i'm waiting for those photos from a friend.

anyhow. these are some of the dolphins we saw (yeah, dolphins!) they were just sort of swimming around in this bay. it was pretty cool. i didn't really get many good pictures (most of them were just of water, or the tip of a fin) but this is one of the good ones. i think you can tell that they are dolphins and not sharks...


the other picture i have is of the place we had lunch at. i think bocas del toro is such a cool place. i mean, it's basically a set of islands, and everywhere has a dock, and all of the restaurants and bars and stuff have little docks and you can sit by the water... so after seeing dolphins, hanging at a beautiful island beach, and cruising around in a speed boat, we had lunch at this cool place. man, i love bocas.


not sure what my next plans are, still trying to work out work stuff... i'm hoping to get a new job next year working in a bilingual high school. of course the complication is that i need to give a "bimester" notice (that's a two month session here - it's kind of spanglish, not a real word in english) at my current job and that's by the end of next week. i've sent resumes to a few schools that i'm interested in, and i know one of them actually called my current school (which didn't go over that well with my boss - who does that? calls your current employer?) but i haven't heard anything else. the thing is, there's a high liklihood that i will get a job at another school. but it might not be until closer to the end of the school year (which is december here - they run on southern hemisphere school schedules for the most part). so do i put in my notice now so that i'm actually available for another job? or what? let's have some opinions please!!!!

beach binge

and finally an update! this "beach binge" as i've decided to call does seem pretty far in the past at this point... my tan has faded... there's no sand in the bottoms of my bags anymore... but here's what we did:


so like i said before there was a long weekend - perfect for beach going. then we decided it would be easy to maintain a tan just by spending a short weekend at the beach. and then some friends were going to my *favorite* beach. then it was a long weekend *again* (public holiday season in CR). so yeah. i have only a couple of pictures to share... i didn't end up taking all that many.


this tree was actually right on the beach in cahuita. i wasn't trekking in the woods to get this picture. i was standing directly under this tree. it was pretty cool. there were about 4 little monkeys crawling around, eating fruit, and dropping the pits on the tourists. luckily no one was injured in the taking of this photo.

the last picture i'll share is from montezuma. and yes, i've posted pictures of montezuma before. because i thought when i went there the first time that it was the best beach and the coolest town i had visited. and when we were going to go back i was a little worried that i might change my mind. that i just hadn't seen enough beaches yet. but no. it was just as amazing as i remember. and i still think it's my favorite.


so i might be off to panama next weekend. my visa is up, and though my director seems to think it won't be a big deal if i go a little over, i'd rather not risk it. so i'm trying to finagle some days off... hopefully.

vargas araya

so yeah, it's been a while since i've posted... but i do have some pictures of my new place in vargas araya. it's actually pretty massive - i share with two other american guys (and possibly some panamanian is moving into this little room which i was sure was a closet for a few weeks? but anyway...). in fact last week, on the day of the virgin of the angels - the patron saint of costa rica and a national non-working holiday for nearly everyone, we had a big roast dinner at my house with loads of people from work. which i don't have any photos of... but jasmine does... maybe another time...

so this is the kitchen - with a full size stove *and* a microwave. but no blender.

the living room slash dining room. sadly there is no sofa. so if all three of us want to watch tv (which though it looks to be about 100 years old, still works remarkably well) then one person gets the "comfy" chair (which only looks comfy, but isn't), one gets the uncomfortable chair, and the other gets one of the dining room chairs. not really designed for home theater. but there is free cable and a dvd player>

and finally our garden. it's a little over-run by palm-like plants, but there are some benches and the sounds of a rushing stream (it actually runs under the patio, but whatever).

so yeah. that's my place. no photos of my room because even though i've been here for a while it still is mostly "organized" into bags that i used to transport it all from my old place to this place. yeah. i haven't really unpacked everything.

so we're on a bit of a beach binge at the moment. went to cahuita two weekends ago because there was a long weekend. went jaco last weekend to maintain our tans. going to montezuma this weekend because some other people we know are going. going somewhere the weekend following because there's another long weekend. after that i'm definitely staying put for an entire weekend. i'm exhausted.

:P

the crater shirt

just a sort of interesting aside, something that just occurred to me recently. every time i go to a volcano i seem to be wearing the same hooded white shirt. exhibit A:


my first volcano ever - haleakala volcano on the island of maui in hawaii. after this we rode bikes down the road that led up to the crater - not my favorite thing i did in hawaii, but an experience none-the-less.

actually - i'm not sure if this counts, but the next volcano i *saw* was arenal volcano in costa rica. this happens to be an active volcano, so we didn't actually go to the crater, we just hiked around near the base of the volcano. which is why i've just decided to change the name of this post from "the volcano shirt" to "the crater shirt". i don't have any pictures of myself at this volcano, but i'm pretty certain i wasn't wearing the shirt.


after that i went to ometepe island in nicaragua, which is formed by two volcanoes. this is most definitely my least favorite volcano EVER (in my life-long experience of 4). not only was it a grueling, spirit-crushing hike to the crater. but when we actually got to the crater (which is now filled with water) it was so foggy that you couldn't even tell that you were there. i may look happy enough in this photo, but i was DEFINITELY not.


so i was a little leery of volcanoes after that (and rightfully so, i think). but i was persuaded to visit poas volcano, which is near to san jose. to reach the crater of this volcano i only had to sit on a bus for a couple of hours and walk about 15 minutes along a paved path. no problemo. it was actually kind of fun. aside from the whole sulfur smell... this volcano, while not ACTIVE active like arenal (no lava shooting out of it) is still sort of bubbling and spitting muck. apparently it still has the potential of erupting.

so yeah, volcanoes.

safe and sound

so i'm here!


i did have a sort of hectic travel day, but since i was a first class passenger i got to cut to the front of lines and drink for free. so far the weather has been great here, sunny every day, no rain. i'm working on my tan (it's the rainy season in costa rica - i haven't been to the beach in forever) so yeah. i'm here. trying to see everyone and get all the things i've been missing (cheese, all-day sunshine, target, lotions and potions that i understand the use of).

where i live

a few photos from our apartment... finally.

this is our street. it's very quiet. there's a bus stop. not very exciting. but there you have it.

our living room. we've actually moved the furniture around a little bit. the one restriction is where the cable comes in for the television, so we're limited as to where we can put the giant hutch/cabinet thing on which the tv rests. so this is what we've settled on for now.

here is our little kitchen. it has a microwave, which is more than we had in our place in quepos. it's not really set up that great either... i have a tendency to hit my head on the cabinets when i'm at the sink. and once i got a big bruise on my hip from hitting the counter when i stood up from crouching in front of the fridge.

a room so small it can really only contain my bed. oh well. it's comfy, but the window opens out onto the stairs outside the apartment and i can hear everything that goes on in the apartment across the way. everything. and there's a big closet. what more could a girl need...

ah, the patio. the most exciting part of the whole place. the plants really make it a lot nicer. this is where i do most of my tanning - between the hours of 10:30 and 12:30. it's also nice to sit out there and get a little natural light even when there isn't direct sun. it's our only source of natural light in the apartment.

the other beaches (more photos)

so here are a bunch of photos from the beaches we traveled through and to after the course ended. (when in theory i should have been looking for a job).

somehow this is the only picture i have of our house in quepos... i thought about taking some pictures when we first moved in, but never did. this is me the morning of our departure from quepos, still dressed from the night before, packing my bag and preparing to run to the bus station.

our first beach destination: montezuma. the building you can see (yes, the one right on the beach) is the hostel we stayed at. downstairs there was a restaurant and upstairs were the rooms. there was also a balcony area where we could sit and stare out at the ocean. before we found out that we could light fires on the beach.

this is the waterfall we hiked out to see in montezuma. hike is maybe too strong of a word... there was a short path and then we were pretty much walking along the edge of this river/stream and climbing all over the rocks. eventually we came to this waterfall - which was beautiful and spent some time there diving off the rocks into the pool and just kind of chilling.

here we all are, camped out on the beach in front of our fire one night. this was before we had the brilliant idea to dig out these little recliner shapes in the sand and cover them with the sarongs. we also had progressively bigger fires. as you do.

it may not look like much, but this was our super great snorkeling spot at playa ocotal. there was one beach (play ocotal) and another nearby beach (the name of which escapes me now) and between them was this rocky bit sort of jutting out into the ocean. there was this little sort of sheltered area where we got in. we saw a blowfish, some other crazy fish i don't know the names of, some stingrays... all very cool.

our last beach destination. since we didn't really spend that much time lying on the beach while we were at playa del coco (we were snorkeling and tooling around on the scooter), i spent a good deal of time in tamarindo trying to top off my tan. and here is one of the fabulous sunsets that finished off a day at the beach.

so very soon i'll be headed back to costa rica. though i'll be living in san jose and might not be able to get to the beach as often as last time, i'm still looking forward to it. i know everyone's been saying how mild the winter has been here in the northeast, but i've been freezing since i got back. in fact i'm shivering as i type. looking forward to more temperate climates. i may put up one more set of photos before i go... the couple days in the mountains and the volcano. but we'll see how the rest of my to do list goes...

*our* beach - manuel antonio

so pretty much every saturday and sunday most of us went to the beach. and why not - just a 15 minute bus ride away is the town of manuel antonio - where there is a nice public beach and a beautiful national park. and it only cost 105 colones (about 20 cents) to get there. the ultimate cheap weekend trip. plus lots of beach side restaurants and bars with 2 for 1 happy hour specials. :)

here i am surfing. it was my second attempt ever (i had tried it in hawaii too) - but it was a little bit different. in hawaii we were out kind of far and i actually had to paddle quite a bit and then was assisted with a little shove from the instructor. in manuel antonio we were about chest deep in the water and basically we were just lying on the boards and when the wave came the instructor would shove us off and tell us to stand up. kind of strange, but still fun. i definitely got more bruises on this attempt - but my arms and shoulders weren't as sore after.

this is one of the beaches inside of the national park. i actually only went to the park on one day (it cost $7 to get in!!!) during the whole time i was there. but the beaches inside the park were even nicer than the public beach. and the waves were a little gentler so you didn't have to swim out as far to not get knocked over while swimming around.

this is the group that i hiked around the park with - left to right: ryan the lion (there was more than one ryan), me, lesley, mark, and matt. basically all we were doing was hiking through the trails and finding beaches. every time we found a new beach we stopped for a while, had a swim, sat in the sun, and then moved on to the next beach. i did get a little sore from all that hiking around - i'm clearly not in the shape that i used to be and it's been a while since i've done any hiking. but the beaches were worth it.

this is one of the animals that was wandering around the national park. i'm not really sure what it is. it kind of looks like a raccoon and lemur mix. i can't remember what it was called in spanish. but it's not something i'd ever heard of before. kind of weird.

and here is a sunset on the public beach. what more can i say... :)

quepos pictures - for a start

so we're finally up and running with the new computer at home. i've been going a little crazy trying to get my stuff all organized once again, but i've finally got some pictures ready to post. this first batch of pictures are of quepos, the town i was living in during my course.


this is the main street of quepos, such as it is... a pretty small town


here's a view of quepos from the road on the hill which leads to manuel antonio - the next town over, a much more touristy (and picturesque) place.


and finally some views of the coastline in quepos - not really nice for swimming or beaches though.



so more pictures to come. i'm trying to divide my time evenly between sending and uploading pictures, christmas shopping, figuring out my future, and spending time with my family. but hopefully in the next couple of days i'll put some more pictures up.

hang loose redux

i've long since recovered from the frustration of losing my post at the shipboard internet center... and i'm not really 100% sure of what i was planning on saying anymore. so instead i'll just post a few more pictures from hawaii as a reminder to "just hang loose".


towards the end of the cruise there was a shift change for some of the crew. and we finally got a cabin steward who knew how to make towel animals. which of course is one of the more amusing things about cruises. we also got a bunny. but out of a 7 day cruise, 2 towel animals does not an extra tip earn.


the zipline in kauai was probably one of the cooler things i've done in my life. here's meg en route across the zipline. the guy in the blue shirt works for the zipline company. but he was once a mere vacationer who never went home and found this job. he's my hero. plus he's from nashua and says he would like to open a zip course in north conway someday. i'm so there. :)


on the last day of the cruise we did some "scenic cruising" past the napali coast on kauai. which was amazing and beautiful. and perhaps due to the proximity of the bar to our viewing spot on deck i took about 100 pictures that all look relatively the same. but none-the-less it was cool.


the sunset on waikiki beach. sadly it's never really an *amazing* sunset in hawaii because as the air gets cooler the clouds pretty much always move in or something. so no crystal clear sunset, but still really nice.

hawaii is definitely somewhere i could see myself being happy for a while. it's beautiful, warm, there aren't any of those bad things that i hate, and the people are nice. but alas - i'm off to costa rica in less than 2 weeks. hopefully i have a similar reaction... and hopefully my spanish improves.

maui wowie (but not what you're thinking)

today was our second day in maui. it's been absolutely amazing, so beautiful. yesterday we took a trip to molokini, which is a crater island off one of the volcanoes of the island. from above the island has a crescent shape which shelters a great spot for snorkeling. we spent the morning exploring this spot and we have tons of photos.... which unfortunately are on the underwater camera and therefore NOT available for our immediate viewing pleasure (who knew digital cameras would make me so impatient?).


turtles!
after we left molokini basically we did some cruising around. and our pal captain doug opened up the bar.... the open bar.... :) i managed to ruin my careful tanning system by standing on deck in my suit drinking free vodka cranberries for a couple of hours... but what are you gonna do? we did get to see some turtles swimming near the boat - above is my best picture (which is admittedly not that good).


maui downhill bicycle
today meg and i did the downhill biking safari. now many of you might know how i feel about bikes.... for those of you who don't - i don't like them. living in japan and riding my flippin bike to work every day sort of turned me off of them. but this was an opportunity to ride a bike down a VOLCANO. (almost) no pedalling required. and the views were amazing - they said we had one of the clearest days that they've had in a while. but it was still a little bit scary.... careeening around those hairpin turns... trying not turn too far left (into oncoming traffic) or too far right (over the edge). it was exhilarating and beautful and i'll never do it again.

i'm quite excited that tomorrow i will try surfing for the very first time. i imagine in my mind that i will be quite a natural at surfing and possibly join the pro circuit in leiu of a traditional job. but we'll see how that goes. my immediate goals is to not get too badly sunburned the day before my massage. :)

aloha cousins!

i am in hawaii, cruising like a millionaire (except that i'm staying in one of the practically underwater cabins, but whatever) and having a blast. :) today is our first full day on the ship and we are docked at hilo on "the big island".

we arrived in hawaii on thursday evening after a long LONG day of traveling (i had two stopovers, the rest of my family only had one). it was all we could do to stay awake through dinner (hawaii is 6 hours behind the east coast). but i did make one great discovery at the ubiquitous "abc" stores (there's one about every block in honolulu) - they carry onigiri, which are these fabulous japanese snacks, basically rice and some sort of filling (salmon, tuna...) wrapped in seaweed and absolutely delicious.


waikiki at sunrise
friday morning was probably the earliest i've ever woken up on vacation... i was awake from about 3 or 4 am - dozing when i could. but we all got up and decided to head down to the beach for sunrise. unfortunately we were on the wrong side of the island to actually see the sun rising up over the ocean, but we still had a nice view of waikiki and diamond head.

we hit the beach pretty early and started the tanning (burning) process. i'm happy to say that i'm NOT sunburned (yet) and am well on my way to a deep, dark hawaiian tan (hopefully). by noon time we were pretty much done on the beach (we were there by like 8am) so we had some lunch and did some relaxing.


germaine's luau
friday night we went to germaines luau. basically a huge buffet of traditional hawaiian foods - such as the roast pig and poi and lomi-lomi. then there was a fabulous show of many different kinds of island dances. we saw some from hawaii, tahiti, new zealand (who knew?), and samoa. oh, and did i mention the drink tickets? ;P tropical (and your average run of the mill drinks as well) drinks and both meg and i purchased the souvenir germaine's glass (which only cost one ticket to refill - the same as the little cups). good times had by all.

saturday we hit the honolulu zoo which was nice. and then it was down to the port to board the ship. our rooms are actually really cute and the beds are super comfy. this morning i even woke up at a somewhat normal time (not normal for me, but there are people who wake up at 5:30am, right?). so before i know it i'll be on hawaii time... and looking tan like a native... maybe...

scotland photos

here is but a wee sampling of the photos i took in scotland... i may have gone a little crazy, but i love castles and stone buildings.


edinburgh castle - this is just one of about FORTY photos i took of the castle. most of them nearly identical to this one. i just love how it's perched on the cliffs. and the sun is shining in this one. not that it rained every day... just most of them (at least a little).

william wallace cow - there was some sort of art cow exhibition going on all throughout edinburgh. everywhere you went there were cows, painted with maps on them, painted to look like a feild of flowers, etc. they were everywhere. some of them were cool, but this guy was by far my favorite: perched high upon mercat cross in front of st. giles cathedral. william wallace. cow.

edinburgh palace - i didn't actually get to go in to the palace. the day we went down there it was closed off for some kind of award ceremony. i couldn't even really get a good photo. this one is the view of the palace from the top of calton hill.

greyfriars bobby - at first i thought this was such a cute little statue. and the fact that he had his own bar (pictured behind the statue) was kind of cool. but the (abbreviated) story is that after his master died he stayed by his grave until he also died (which was a long time after). such a cute story. and a cute statue... i was mildly obsessed.

me and jill at uruqhart castle on loch ness - since we were at loch ness with jill's parents, i have lots of pictures of the two of us there. it turned out to be a beautiful day after we waited out the rainstorm that began on our way to loch ness.

uruqhart castle - so amazing. of course i love castles. and even though this one is pretty skeletal (though not compared to elgin castle), it is probably my favorite that i saw on this trip. plus there are lots of stories about saints and picts and crazy highland folk. such a cool place, and all on the edge of the famed loch.

elgin cathedral - i'm told this cathedral was the reason that elgin was granted city status, though it's not so big a place. it's quite old and it was destroyed not by some large enemy, but by some feuding scotsmen. watch out - they're a wild bunch. i just wish they had restored some of the stained glass...

rosslyn chapel - of da vinci code fame. i was fascinated to see this place, which the book describes as being filled with intricate carvings and varied pre-christian, christian, and masonic symbols. it really was quite cool, and though filled with tourists (some of the annoying and irritating variety) i had a good time. took many pictures, none of which really do the place justice.