Glasgow

The weather on this day was rather grey and dull, with some occasional drizzle - as the Scottish weather forecast had promised. So, we did not feel very much like sightseeing, but our group leader had a packed programme for us: 

• first stop: Glasgow Cathedral
• second stop: Scotland Street School Museum
• third stop: Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
• fourth stop: Glasgow City Chambers

There isn't anything really interesting to say about Glasgow Cathedral. The best was our guide in traditional Scottish tartan kilt, he was very well informed:

The Street School Museum 

was much more interesting. It was planned and built by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a Sottish Jugendstil architect. Some features of the building reminded me of Henry van de Velde, who lived and worked in Thuringia for some time.
The school was closed in the 1970ies and luckily survived as a museum, so pupils and teachers can see what it was like going to school about 100 years ago.

European teachers posing in British school uniforms

 cooking lessons, for girls only

housekeeping class room

Writing exercise during World War II

We were a bit too tall for the small benches :)

Time went by so fast, before we could explore every room and read every piece of information and captures our bus driver expected us back to take us to our next destination:

Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum

OH, NO - not another museum - we thought. We would rather have preferred walking through the city, going shopping, for example. But just for curiosity we "popped" in to have a short look. So, believe it or not, the museum turned out to be really impressive. Maybe it did not display the most famous artists, but a lot of the paintings I liked very much, and the building itself was amazing! 
Besides that, it had just started to rain outside - so walking in the city would not be too funny anyway...

 

 

The last "culture stop" of the day was at the

Glasgow City Chambers

Time to sneak away and finally go shopping in the city - we only wanted to take a short look into the entrance hall ...

But what did we find inside the building?! We really did not expect such luxury, rich decor with gold and marble - it was just incredible - of course we stayed for the guided tour! We said, we can go shopping everywhere, the shops and chain stores are the same anywhere in the world, but there is only one Glasgow City Chambers!

 

Today Glasgow has about 595,000 inhabitants and is the biggest Scottish city and after London and Birmingham the third largest city of the United Kingdom. In the late 19th and early 20th century it had more than one million inhabitants. Today the Greater Glasgow Urban Area  has about 1,750,500 inhabitants.

Near Glasgow plenty of coal and iron ore were found, the town became an industrial centre. Ship building and trade earned Glasgow the title "Second City of the British Empire". The industrial revolution made Glasgow to one of the richest cities in the world at that time. You can still see this richness and wealth when you look at the decorations in the City Chambers - it is just amazing.
But Glasgow went through harsh times. After Word War I and the Great Depression it had lost a lot of its former wealth.
Nowadays Glaswegians work hard to restore some the former splendor. In the City Chambers is has always been there.

Me - posing in the Lord Mayor's Seat in the Council Chamber

A huge banqueting hall can host lots of people and it can be booked by the public

Gallery with paintings of all Gaswegian Mayors

At the end of the day we even had some time for shopping, I decided for the cheap option, window shopping!

Well, this is the post about my Sottish experience.

Summarisingly, I can say, first of all I met a lot of wonderful & inspiring new people.

Then I learned a lot of new methods I can well use in the class room.

Last but not least, Scotland is such an amazing country - I am definitely going to come back one day.

St Andrews

The autumn holidays in Thuringia are nearly over and I'm very glad I managed to complete my blog about my teachers' course in Scotland.


There are still two interesting excursions to write about. The one I start with today was a trip to

St Andrews. 

For all fans of the ROYAL FAMILY that must "ring a bell with you": It is the place where William & Kate fell in love while they both were studying at the university, which is the third oldest university in the English-speaking world, the oldest one in Scotland and one of Britain's most prestigious.
If you like, you can visit the website of the university: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/

St Andrews is also known worldwide as the "home of golf".The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews was founded in 1754.
Personally, I cannot imagine studying in such a small and quaint town. (St Andrews has about 17,000 inhabitants + 7,800 students in 2012) But, who knows - maybe they have a lot of hidden student clubs? Somewhere William & Kate must have met! 

 
 

 

Oldest golf course of the world

George Heriot's School in Edinburgh

 Open Doors at Heriot's School

One day our group of teachers went on walking tour through Edingburgh. She was very well informed and gave us such useful bits of information as where Joanne K. Rowling REALLY wrote her Harry Potter books and she informed us about the open doors at a very prestigious school in town.

So, some of us decided to take a closer look at this school. There we met a couple of friendly senior students who were willing to show us around and patiently answered our questions. Unfortunately, it was not possible to have a look at the class rooms, but we saw the chapel, the board room, one of the staff rooms, and the gym with all its state-of-the-art equipment.

Have a look yourself. Don't they look posh in their school uniforms? For more information about the school, go to its website via this link: http://www.george-heriots.com/

... looks more like a castle than a school

The gate house - entrance to the school's premises

View from the school yard to Edinburgh Castle

My colleague is interviewing  a student

Seat of the school board president

The school board is responsible for the finances, among other things

Staff room

This modern class room belongs to the gym section

 If you think of this school for your children later - here you can check the costs ...

http://www.george-heriots.com/admissions/financial/fees

Edingburgh Military Tattoo

One of the most amazing parts (my opinion of course!) of the Edinburgh festival weeks is an event which is called the 
"ROYAL EDINBURGH MILITARY TATTOO" and takes place on the Esplanade in front of Edinburgh Castle.
I had already booked my ticket for a performance earlier this year - just after I got the OK from the EU that I can take part in the course. The performances are all sold out, every evening about 10,000 people watch the performance which is a mix of traditional Scottish bagpipe music, traditional dancing - military bands and show groups from different countries take part: Last August I saw performers from Scotland and England of course, but also artists from Korea, Brazil, and New Zealand were there.

All in all about 1,000 performers take part in the performance. In this video you can see how all of them arrive at the esplanade by bus:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=191869264324867

Of course I took lots of my own pictures which I'm going to show you here. They are in the order I took them during the day: in the morning I went to the esplanade with my English friends who visited me for one day, then I have photos of the way to the castle before the TATTOO and of course picture of the performance itself.

Main entrance to the arena

Edinburgh Castle

Walking though the town to get to the arena, very well organised - see the huge structure of the grand stand

Approaching the main entrance

CHEERS! a glass of whisky to the success of the show

And this video shows this year's whole performance in one minute

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=198050503706743

Edinburgh Festival

On reason why I chose this course at the beginning of August was that it took place during the time of the EDINBURGH FESTIVAL http://www.eif.co.uk/ - one of the most famous festivals not only in Scotland but all over Britain. Every year more than 2 million visitors come for these three weeks in August and September.
They can see various performances of music from theatre, opera, jazz, dance, modern and a lot more.
At the same time the EDINBURGH FRINGE https://www.edfringe.com/ takes place - a festival of street art, theatre, music, and other life shows in pubs for "free" - of course donations are always welcome!

The town is very crowded at that time, but it is still worth visiting. The photos can show you only a small glimpse of the whole thing:

Bagpiper in the Royal Mile

Most viewers felt a bit embarrassed for that guy...

The audience have to join in the fun - the little boy did a good job

They walk through the town to promote their performances in the evening

 The FRINGE:

The world's largest arts festival with over 40,000 performances and more than 2,500 shows packed into 250 venues across the city.

This band performed in a converted church...

...which looks more like a pub now

While the band were playing he was painting the guests

Promotion for the local Warhammer shop

Throughout the year there are even more festivals in Edinburgh. The next important takes place at the end of this year, it is called HOGMANAY - but I'm NOT going to tell you what this is in this blog - if you are curious, follow this link maybe you can find out yourself:

http://www.edinburghfestivals.co.uk/