Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Eric Conway: Day 1 on United Kingdom Tour of Morgan Choir - Edinburgh, Scotland









































Dr. Eric Conway writes:

This year, the Morgan State University Choir is touring the United Kingdom including Scotland and England.

The choir was scheduled to leave on Sunday, May 19, 2019, less than twenty-four hours after Morgan's Spring 2019 commencement ceremony.  The weather was stunningly beautiful for an international departure.   Our flight was scheduled to depart from the Washington area Dulles airport.  We flew, for the first time for everyone, on the Irish airline, Aer Lingus, since we were flying through Dublin, Ireland airport to Scotland.  Most were surprised to have such an early scheduled transcontinental flight, departing at 5:20 PM (most redeye flights leave later).  Departure went smoothly, everyone making the flight without incident.  

Travel days to destinations with markedly different weather is always an issue for tourists.  When we left Baltimore, the temperature was almost eighty degrees F.  When we arrive at our transfer location of Dublin Ireland at 5AM in the morning, the temperature was a seemingly frigid forty-five degrees F.  I had warned the group about temperatures on this tour being about fifteen degrees cooler than Baltimore, but on Sunday, the Baltimore weather warmer than average and Ireland was colder than average, making for a larger dichotomy.  A few were concerned with the fact that the plane that took us from Dublin to Edinburgh, was not a jet, but a "propeller" plane.  This short one hour flight was very surprisingly smooth.  

We arrived into Edinburgh on Monday morning, with two of our group of forty, having to file a claim for luggage that did not make it to our final Edinburgh. Our guide for the tour, Janet Sayers, was at the airport to meet us with a big smile and huge sign welcoming us to Scotland.

Typically, due to all hotels having afternoon check-in times, we immediately have scheduled tours of local sites before arriving to our hotel.  These tours are always grueling due to limited or no sleep on the plane during our travel day.  

Upon arrival, we drove to the largest city in Scotland, Glasgow, about an hour drive from the Edinburgh with a population of approximately seven hundred thousand.  One could immediately see how old many buildings were, compared to our relative young country of the United States.  Many of the buildings in Glasgow were adorned with contemporary Art displayed on the buildings which was a stark contrast to the Brutalist “blocky” architectural style of the city.

We first visited Glasgow Cathedral, oldest cathedral in Scotland and the oldest building in Glasgow & part of the church of Scotland denomination. We then drove to the National Transportation Museum of Scotland, where we had we had a very timely and tasty meal. I had a typically Scottish meal of Shepherd’s pie, a potpie dish of lamb on the bottom and potatoes on the top.

From the cathedral we visited Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum.  We were surprised at the quality and eclectic collection of this museum.  Original works of Picasso, Rembrandt, Renoir, Dali, Matisse, and hundreds of other masters were displayed in this gallery.  In addition to the original painting, an array of historic natural animal statues and historic artifacts were also on display.  All museums in Scotland are free to the public encouraging all to engage in seeing fine art!  We also noticed that unlike in the US, we were able to take photos of all art in the museum, and even get close enough to touch any thing without any scolding from gallery guards. Perhaps we should try this model in the US if we want Art to be more important in our society.

From the gallery, we went to the National Piping Centre, a building dedicated to the history of the Scottish bagpipe, the item most foreigners associate with Scotland.  We were greeted by a bagpiper playing for us as we entered the facility - to get us in the Scottish spirit.  After a short history from the museum employee, we were given a lesson on how to play a bagpipe, and given the opportunity to actually play a bagpipe.  What a difficult task!  Like many things in life, playing the bagpipe may appear effortless, but is tremendously difficult, to maintain an even sound while actually making music.  See photos and videos of several choir members attempting to play the bagpipe.

After the Piping museum, we returned to Edinburgh to check in to our hotel, eat our welcome dinner, and retire to our rooms to recover from the exhausting first day in Scotland.

EC

Entering Piping Museum by Genuine Scottish bagpiper:


Conway attempts to play bagpipe:

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