Monday 10. October- Sunday 16. October
This week has really been rainy and stormy. The first days were wet
and slushy. At the same time weather was very fine in Denmark with
sunshine and mild temperatures. Now it is better here and the trees
still have beautiful colours.
Nothing much happened the first days of the week. We screened some
absolutely odd films Wednesday, some Dadaistic
and surrealistic films which didn't make any sense at all and basically
was a waste of time. Maybe you have heard of or seen An
Andalusian Dog by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. It is
quite funny and very strange playing with taboos and like a stream
of consciences you find in dreams or just associative thoughts. There
are ants coming out of a mans hand, a man suddenly gets a woman's
armpit hair as a moustache! Basically it a love story between a man
and a woman and they fighting and quarrel all the time. There are
all sorts of strange fantasies and things in their room as f.ex. rotten
mules at the piano, arm and hands shaking a bottle through the door
and so on. Really weird, really odd.
Our screening in French cinema Thursday was interrupted by a fire
alarm. I guess it was a test because there was no fire! But everybody
had to get out and all classes were interrupted or cancelled, so I
just went home.
Friday was a real films day with first some Czech film introduced
by Guy from the class.We saw a Czech film called Closely
Observed Trains. It was an excellent opportunity to see
films from a country I am not used to see film from (except the sweet
Kolya
you maybe remember about the Czech musician who suddenly gets a foster
child.
We, in the French cinema class at least, are all keen on these Friday
arrangements where each close one or two films of special interest
and introduce them (I am planning doing something on Dogma next year).
It a nice way to be social, see unknown films and get knowledge and
discuss films and be together.
After the screening some of us spontaneously drank espresso at Guido's
place. Guido is from Italy and lives very close to me in Marchmont.
Dean, Li Wei, Chris and I met at his place discussing the film and
just talked about the study. That is really what matter and it is
so important. I really hope people are in for doing these events.
Unfortunately I had to leave because I was going to see a very good
and moving documentary from South Africa "The
man who stole my mothers face".
Saturday was the big trip day. Finally I got the chance to go out
of Edinburgh. I have not been claustrophobic until now, because the
town is so beautiful and you can easily get out to green areas and
spacey neighbough hoods. But with ISC
we went on a trip to the little village Falkland which has a nice
renaissance palace where Mary Queen of Scots and several James and
Charles (all kings of England and/or Scotland) has lived. Now there
is a keeper (egentlig vogter) there (it has been a tradition for many
years to have a keeper of the palace looking after the buildings and
land) living with his family and therefore many of the rooms are at
the same time open to the public and private home for the keeper.
Unfortunately is it forbidden to takes photos inside and many of the
rooms are also quite dark, so you will have to do with the beautiful
scenes from the outside, the garden, the orchard and the castle itself
as well as the village (when my USB- problems are solved)
For those of you who are familiar with the very small village Nyord
close to Møn in DK there is some kind of the same spirit and
atmosphere in Falkland. Falkland too is closely built and the narrow
alleys and street go up and down. The houses are built in different
levels as in Nyord. Falkland is certainly bigger and more noisy (although
there is much quit) than Nyord, but there are some similarities.
After the village and palace we climbed East Lomond
Hill just outside Falkland (Falkland is about an hours
drive north from Edinburgh in the Kingdom of Fife, Fife is a region).
The area is very interesting with East and West Lomond Hill of "just"
400-500 metres, a nice little walk up the hill, not particularly difficult
or exhausting. There are mountains of over 1000 m in Scotland and
if I get the chance to go to Isle of Arran I will probably do Goat
Fell at 874 m).
It was nice to sit at the top looking beyond the landscape and Falkland.
Suddenly within 2 minutes everything got misty and foggy. The fog
like came over the landscape in big drifting flakes.
Downtown Falkland it was clear but it just shows how very quickly
the weather changes over here.
This part of Scotland I think mainly is a combination of farmland
and hills/mountains surrounding the fields, villages and small towns
in the valleys. It it pretty much as Funen (Fyn) in some parts, some
parts of the roads are lined with stone fences or stone walls surrounding
old meadows with oak trees, beeches (bøg) and thicket (buskads).
It is the same as driving along the walls of Knuthenborg Park for
those of you who remember that (and Knuthenborg Estate indeed is inspired
from English gardens and parks)
There are big areas of heather (lyng) with thickets of small birch
(dværgbirk) and wild juniper berry (enebær).
Some narrow roads in the country side with high beeches along the
roads and slopes down toward a stream are just like driving at Falster
or Lolland. And yet suddenly you see the hills or mountains as it
is according to Danish conditions, in the distance and it is certainly
not a Danish landscape.
So the soft, rounded, brown green grass mountains are what really
make the difference.
Well I'll go out and get my Sunday paper. See you next week.