Friday, February 3, 2012

Up Helly Aa

I just realized that Up Helly Aa was yesterday, and I missed it!  Ack!

Up Helly Aa is a big festival that happens up in Shetland on February 2, to mark the end of the Yule season and the coming of spring.  All the men dress up as Vikings and parade through the town, finally throwing torches onto a replica Viking longship.  Shetland was a possession of Norway until the 1400s and many of the inhabitants are of Viking descent, hence all the Viking-related activities.  I'd love to go up there and see it sometime, but I've heard that the festival in Lerwick (the capital of Shetland) is such a big deal that it's invite-only.

I had my first real week of teaching this week, and it went reasonably well.  We still fell short of the alotted class time by about 10 minutes, but I'm sure we'll find a way to fill the whole 50 minutes next time.

Cheers, y'all.
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