Feel The Burn

As I mentioned in my last post, this Monday morning I got up bright and early and met 28 (or so) of my classmates at school, where we boarded two minibuses and headed north. 

From the website:

It was gifted in 1948 to Goodenough College by the late Mr & Mrs Herbert Russell in memory of their son James, who was killed in action in 1944 aged 21. The Burn is a holiday and study centre for students, graduates and academic staff from around the world.

The house, built in 1791 and now completely modernised, consists of a large drawing room, dining room, library, TV room, indoor games room and has 18 bedrooms and 1 flat. It is centrally heated throughout and during your stay you can look forward to quality cooking with the best home grown ingredients - Chef's Corner.

Standing in 190 acres of park and woodland on the banks of the River North Esk, The Burn affords peace and relaxation for holidays and study in excellent accommodation at low cost, subsidised by the generous Russell legacy.

This little building, separate from the main building, was where eight of us girls stayed, which was pretty awesome, even if we had to go outside for breakfast, because it had more bathrooms per person than the main building (where the bathrooms were undergoing renovation). 

Candice and Kate standing by the main entrance...

Some casual Ming Vases 

I can't quite remember what this building was (they mentioned it when they were talking about previous years visits, but we were too far behind the main group to head the explanation again - I think it was some kind of hunting 'hut' or something).

Some other (shorter) people were able to get the entire circle in the frame of their cameras... but unless I was willing to lie on the ground, that wasn't gonna work for me.

The majority of the photos I took were from a walk we took the first day there, where six of us managed to fall so far behind (taking pictures) on the way back that we managed to miss a turn that the rest of the group took. We were not lost, however, and easily retraced our way back to the house. However, when we arrived we realized that we were the only ones there and were just trying to decide what to do when we spotted one of our lecturers running up - when they realized we had missed the turn, he had run all the way back to attempt to catch up with us - but only managed to catch up to us when we had already arrived back at the house.

But we didn't get lost. The rest of the group did.

Okay, this was really cool (and apparently a one-of-a-kind structure). It was a tunnel built to move cattle from the upper part of the estate to the lower without disturbing guests, and has two air vents along its length.

I got really, really excited when I saw the holly tree.

A really fun trip. Not necessarily the most academically vigorous exercise of my life, but a great deal of fun. It was reading week this week, so we didn't have class (even for those who did not go on the trip) so its not like my learning suffered from my attendance. Lots of bonding and fun activities, and a good chance to hang out with people I had not yet had the opportunity to spend time with!

Plus it was gorgeous. 

We returned Wednesday after several very full days, stopping briefly in Dundee at the headquarters of Scottish publishing house DC Thomson (the house behind famous magazine Beano), where we were given a tour of the actual printing presses, as well as a talk on the operation of the house and a tour of the magazine offices. 

It was very cool, and I was geeking out pretty hard the entire time.