Hiking, William Wallace and the Most Scottish Kid ever

Five days, probably time for another one of these. There's also a fair amount to report here. Where to start?

Wallace Monument, from a distance

How 'bout all he hiking we've been up to? Good thing I brought those boots with me, 'cuz the kids on my floor take full advantage of the hills and woods surrounding campus. Last week we hiked up the hill to the William Wallace Monument, about half a mile off campus. I'll put some pictures up, since describing a tower is kind of redundant. It was built in the 1880's and is modeled after gothic design, and is located near Stirling in honor of the early Battle of Stirling Bridge, which Wallace won, and the later Battle of Stirling Castle, which Robert the Bruce won and which secured Scottish independence for a few centuries (and this sentence doesn't count as describing a tower since it describes tower history). Anyway, we took a good crowd up and got a picture with a man dressed as one of Wallace's men (which was actually kind of weird, you know, that he was just walking around this park at four on a thursday. Come to think of it, I'm not sure he worked there. Creep.)

Freedom!

Inside the tower and up countless flights of spiral stairs (or was it all one continuous spiral?) we learned about William Wallace, who was protector of Scotland following the death of Alexander III. Fun fact, Wallace carried a four foot long sword on display in the monument (if you can't picture four feet, it's the height of a child. No, a bigger child.) Because of this and his remaining bones (his four limbs were buried in the four corners of Scotland after he was beheaded in London) they estimate Wallace's height at about six foot six, making him three inches taller than me, his fellow Wallace, with what I imagine to be about two hundred extra pounds of muscle. The view from the top was easily the best part; you could see all the way to Edinburgh, which isn't particularly close).

Me mimicking a statue of William Wallace. Any resemblance?

One of the views from Wallace Monument

Since then, we've also been on two night hikes in the woods adjacent to campus. On the first, Lewis and I found an abandoned (and let's be honest, totally haunted) house in the woods. The next night we went back with a crowed, but couldn't find it. That's right, Loyola. This school borders on woods that change every night, forbidden forest style. UP. YO. GAME. Still, that night we did see three, count 'em, THREE (3) shooting stars. So a pretty good times for this former scout.
I have had the first day of classes for two of my classes so far; Scottish Literature and Medieval to Renaissance Literature, the latter being a lecture this morning. One interesting thing about being an English major here is that I have to read three  books a week, which I'm sure will be good for me as a writer. This week, the three include The Odyssey and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which makes me feel like I'm in senior year of high school with boy, Mr. Wagner, all over again. I'm also reading one called Beside the Ocean of Time for Scottish Lit, and I must say, it's terrific. It's by George MacKay Brown, and you should definitely check it out.
One final thing, before I end this ramble. Remember Stuart from that last blog post? He's been declared the Most Scottish Kid we know. In addition to knowing his way around Stirling post-pub visit, he pretty much sealed the deal with the sentence "My uncle is one of the top five pipers in the world." Yeah. And he plays the traditional drums that accompany bagpipes. One more thing; his clan? McLeod. WE'RE RELATED. So naturally we take turns ragging on people and coming up with slogans for White Strike (a cider so trashy it's a pound seventy-five for a Liter). I'm personally between "When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose," and "White Strike, Black Out." In any case, it's like The Blitz in your mouth, and I'll make sure to send home a bottle. Oh, he also broke some bad news to me, that I must now relay to Thomas Graham (whose name keeps coming up in this blog): Jack Daniels is distilled after a Welsh Recipe, not Scots or Irish. Looks like we gotta switch to Johnny Walker, bro (which is distilled ten minutes from this kid's house, again, the MOST Scottish.)

Stuart, The Most Scottish Kid

In other news we found out why my Charlie Bronson prison workout is appropriate and why the dorms look this way; the housing system at this university is modeled after Swiss prisons. I feel safe. Anyway, all is well here, and we're enjoying a day of rain. Tomorrow we plan to go hiking. Until then.