A weekend in Insch promised ...well, I didn't really know what it promised, other than an inability to think of it without calling it "Hedwig and the Angry Insch." My homestay this weekend turned out not even to be in Insch, but on 1,200 acres of farmland in a rural area. As farms go, this one was a bit misleading. See, most farms don't have mansions. Or large hedged gardens. Or 13 foot-long snooker tables (like pool, but better).

The weekend, in short, was an amazing experience. I, along with Keith, a junior from Claremont McKenna, stayed with the Burnet's (Calum and Roberta) at a house which had been passed down in Calum's family for 7 generations. A quick sketch of the house. After parking the car, you walk into a small hallway, where you can either enter the library, which includes vellum-bound books from the 1700s, or go up the stairs into the main hallway, where you are quickly surrounded by two behemoth canines--Fred and Barney (yes, after the Flintstones). Fred is a year-old Great Dane who can't control his drool; Barney is the wiser, more in control German Shepard who is still able to take down Fred in a fight. Both love to sniff you and lean against you till you lose your balance. In short, you can't help loving them (hell, I had a chunk taken out of my leg at age 10 by a dog and i'm saying this).

The hallway is more a great hall than anything else, with the walls adorned with massive paintings that deserve space in a museum--Calum is still working on tracking down the history of each one. To the left of the hallway is the main entrance that leads out to the front lawn, where you look across hundreds of the Burnet's acres--when it snowed while I was there, the entire landscape seemed to be smothered in white, except for a green field in the distance that stubbornly refused to yield to the powder that was floating down for hours. Across from the main entrance in the hallway are the main stairs, leading to all the bedrooms, and next to the stairs is the entrance to the basement, where the magnificent snooker table is housed (more on that later).

The rest of the house is less impressive, but just as splendidly comfortable--a cozy kitchen with a massive stove that is a recreation of something from centuries past, and a large living room with the basics, including couches and a TV that constantly spewed out the works of Matt Groening.

The Burnets have five children, the youngest 19, with all of them out of the house at the time. Keith and I got the opportunity to learn snooker from Andrew, the eldest, as he was on his way from Edinburgh to a nearby ski resort to try and take advantage of the snowfall.

Before we met them, Keith and I were warned by the host who was in charge of all the other host families that they were the ones with the "odd" house. She was right, if by "odd" she meant "fucking amazing." I think Keith and I were guilty of bragging a bit too much about our circumstances to the other students who were staying in the area, and they all loved the house too when they came over for tea and snooker (how British!) on Saturday evening.

To be continued tomorrow in part two....