So today I had my first lab class. They call them 'practicals' but they serve the same purpose- once a week for 2 hours, cram a bunch of kids into a room to do a lab protocol and work out some sort of analysis at the end. Today I had the practical for ENV5T5, the environmental field and techniques class. The subject today was water quality analysis. Charlene and I were barely prepared for the class, and rather nervous because back at umd and other universities in the US, science labs are very strict. You have to be there within the first 5 or 10 minutes (depending on the class) or you get kicked out, you have to have all the materials or you get kicked out, you have to be very precise about the protocol, and any questions are usually diverted, causing everyone to sort of just he said she said their way through the lab. Usually there are about 30 kids to one graduate student Teaching Assistant in 1 lab room and most people rush their way through until lab is finally over.
However, when we got there, most people were borrowing lab coats from the front of the room without any trouble, and there were 4 (!) instructors floating around. There were 40-50 kids in the room, but with 4 instructors, and so the ratio was much higher than at umd. In addition, the head instructor went through all of the procedures very clearly, and was very flexible when charlene and I told him we didn't have the worksheet to fill out. He told us to just write it in our notebooks and fill in the real one later to hand in at the end of the semester. When we split up into groups we cycled through a few procedures, all supervised by an instructor. They pretty much held our hands if we wanted them to. They also are way less precise about their measurements, and expect a lot less technical skills. Then again, they could be giving us false hope and next week we will come out sweating and dripping in chemicals.
Another interesting thing I learned about education here is that tuition is highly subsidized by the government for Scotland residents. It's as if they pay in state tuition for an already (relatively) cheap education. My friend from class pays 1,500 a year for school because she is a scottish resident. And that is common. I guess it makes sense-Scotland is not that big, neither is the UK. It was just very surprising.
So far the classes have not been too challenging, but it is very clear that everything they learn is very cumulative. At least from what I have seen of the Environmental science department, the schedule is pretty much set for you for all 4 years. You take pretty much the same classes with the same kids for all 4 years. At umd, an environmental science is interdisciplinary- we take classes from all different departments. My 4 years of classes probably is unique to me. Although their are some required classes, mostly you just pick from a list of possible classes. Since everyone is taking a different set of classes, they can't hold you accountable for as much for each class. Here, it is a pretty set schedule that accumulates over time and so the material is cumulative because everyone is on the same page.
Another difference is this group project I am part of. So far we have spent about 9 hours working on it outside of class, collecting data, meeting with our supervisor and having group meetings etc. At umd, a group research project like this could very well happen, but some class time would be allotted to complete it. However, because I spend about 3/5 the amount of time in class here than at umd, there is more work outside of class.
Thus far, I am finding my classes to be an appropriate amount of work for what I wanted. I wanted to be able to get something out of them, get credit for them, and feel like I learned something, but at the same time I wanted to have free time to devote to getting to know the country and meeting people and traveling. Thus far it has worked out pretty well. The work load really picks up in November, but until then I am feelin great.
reading writing rithmetic,
Amanda
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Oktoberfest plus
HIGHLIGHTS:
Thurs--> weird but delicious indian food dinner buffet
Fri--> planes trains and automobiles to Munich, south african friends
Sat--> Oktoberfest activities
Sunday--> planes trains and automobiles back to stirling, pork buns
Monday--> hiked an oncampus hill for a group project
Tuesday--> first radio show! and school and naps and international friends
Wednesday--> field work for class
Picture link: http://picasaweb.google.com/106047267595190685755/GlasgowAndMunich#
Hallo! Yet another late night post, so I apologize in advance on the typos that will probably occur. In the style of Frauline Maria, let's start at the very beginning, it's a very good place to start. When you read you being with ABC when you sing you begin with Do Re Me. When you go to Munich you begin with a bus at 6am. Quickly before I move into the Munich Oktoberfest weekend, I want to talk about our Thursday night dinner. We had heard that UK-ers love Indian food, so we went into town for an indian dinner buffet. Someone recommended a place to us, but we accidentally went to the place across the street. We came in to an empty room with semi trendy decor, and one indian man with highlighted hair sitting across the room, half asleep with a fork in his hand. As soon as we came in he told us to come sit by him. creepy. we didn't detect any immediate threat and so we sat in the booth next to his. Pretty sure he was drunk, or maybe just really tired, it was hard to tell, but he gave us his business card (which included his mobile number- naturally) and signed the back with a 10% discount for take-out orders in the future. We happily accepted and spent the rest of the night stuffing our faces with indian food. We were the only ones there so the waiter gave us a tour of each course on the buffet before we ate. the food was really good!
After our feast we packed for our trip and tried to get some sleep for our big adventure. Friday morning we woke up really early to take all the public transportation needed to get to Munich. This started with a bus that we picked up on campus that took us to the train station in stirling. I tried to buy a bus ticket with a 10 pound note and the bus driver threw it snarkily at the front of the bus. rude. should have known it was a foreshadow for the rest of our traveling endeavors that day. The bus was late by the way, and it took us all around Bridge of Allan before taking us through Stirling to the train station. We hurried off the bus and ran to the train station, with just enough time to miss the train. Luckily the next one was in 15 minutes so we got a quick breakfast and waited at the platform. We took the train to Edinburgh, where we caught a bus to the airport. At the airport we made it to our Ryan Air gate. We were totally early and one of the first people there. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for, and Ryan Air was totally disorganized and inefficient. There are no assigned seats, so you get on the plane in the order that you are in line. Unfortunately for us, they arbitrarily picked where the line started and it wasn't near where we were waiting so we weren't at the front. After about 1o minutes they told us the flight was delayed an hour. Not wanting to risk losing our spot in line, we decided to just take a nap on the floor in our spot in line. We woke up 45 mintues later to people trampling us. We got decent seats on the plane after all, and everyone clapped when we landed, as it was something we were all surprised happened so smoothly. We flew into Memmingen, a city outside of Munich (that's how RyanAir keeps their fares low) and when we were landing I couldn't see the airport and i actually thought we were just landing on a farm field. During the decent I saw sooo many solar panels! I knew Germany was big on solar power so it was fun to actually see it. They had hugggeee solar farms. So once in memmingen we took a bus to the train station, where we took a train to Munich, and a subway to the town where the hotel was. On the bus to munich, the bus driver was selling beer out of a cooler so we bought one to share to kick off oktoberfest right. The hotel was in a part of the city called Solln. It was really pretty and not touristy at all. Apparently it used to be an artsy district and now is more residential. Cute bakeries galore. Perfect for chocolate croissants for breakfast. We had to sneak into the hotel room because we had a single room under my name for 3 people. Char and Calla snuck upstairs while i waited to check in, and then after the lady went back downstairs they snuck into the room.
It was nice to be in a non-touristy part of town, but we quickly discovered that it meant that less people spoke english. Charlene whipped out some really awesome quickly learned german that got us through enough to get solid directions, but it was challenging.
We checked out the map and decided to get some dinner down town. We took a short bus to the subway, which they call the S-Bahn. Public transportation there is very curious- it is all on the honor system. So you don't actually have to pay. But they have people who go around every once in a while and check tickets and you get a fine if you get caught. we didn't run into any of those people, but we played it safe and bought tickets. It was only 5 euro for a whole day of any type of transportation so we figured it was worth it. So after navigated the subway system, we emerged from the damp staircase into Marienplatz square. Epic. We had no idea the famous glockenspiel was going to be the first thing we saw. It was beautful. It was rainy and dark so all the lights reflected off the streets.
We walked around for a little bit, purchased a bigger bag with a good zipper that would fit my camera, and then settled on eating food at Marienplatz to people watch. At this point we were pretty starving because we had been travelling all day and never really had any proper meals. We sat down at an outside table under an umbrella because it was raining. We ordered 'drei beirs' and received 3 1Liter mugs of weisn beer. So big. We ordered 2 dishes to split between the three of us.
We got macaroni and cheese with crispy onion straw type things (recommended by the waitor- we didn't know what it was going to be until it arrived) and some sort of german meat combo dish. It had Bavarian white sausage, sauerkraut, other sausage, and what tasted and looked like hotdog loaf. It was all pretty delicious (though we would have eaten anything at that point) except for the Bavarian white sausage. It was a disturbing color and texture, and to make matters worse, no one gave us the memo that you are not supposed to eat the skin. grotesque. Some oldish dudes sat down at the table next to us and so we made friends with them. They were from South Africa and spent the week in Germany. We were talking about how germany is so into solar power and they were saying how the environmental science in south africa is kind of fucked (pardon my french). They said how they aren't allowed to sell energy back to the grid, which is one of the great things about solar power when there is a surplus. They were friendly and interesting and we had a good time.
After we finished our meals and beers we walked around for a new place. We found a place tucked in an alley with a tree covered in string lights. Inside it was warm and filled with locals all drinking and having a good time.
This is when we noticed how prevalent leiderhosen and drindl (beer maid dress) were. Not just the oktoberfestians at the train station, but even the locals were all decked out. We thought it would be stereotypical to assume people would be wearing that kind of stuff but it was everywhere! 
We enjoyed the atmosphere, got a half liter of beer this time, and got some apple streudel to share. We made our way home after that to prepare for Saturday's events.
Saturday morning we left the hotel (very sneakily) around 830, got some chocolate croissants at the nearby bakery and set out for the oktoberfest grounds. we opted for a cab because it was raining and we wanted to get there early (we heard the lines start reallly early and if you want to get into a tent you have to get in line). Luckily just saying 'please take us to oktoberfest' worked well enough (char's awesome german skills came in handy again) and we waltzed right in. At 930 am covered in rain we couldn't really see everything, but we saw people in a line/clump so we joined them. Before no time we were in a tent and seated! Turned out it was the traditional tent, and as it was the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest, there was lots of fun traditional music, dancers, outfits, and decor.
As the tent filled up, we found out our table was reserved for a party later so we joined forces with the people next to us and made some friends. 
They were from germany and australia and were finishing up their oktoberfest experience. We ordered some food with our beer, because I saw something that looked like matzah balls. Turns out it was some sort of weird gelatinous potato ball. crazy germans. 
We wanted to experience some of the other tents, but people recommended we wait because when they fill up they don't let anyone in. So we hung around and drank liters of beer, had some food and enjoyed ourselves. Around 3pm we made some moves to walk around and see the rest of the grounds. We took some weird pictures, accidentally stepped in horse shit, and ate some delicious crepes. We tried to get into another tent but it was filled and so we sat outside at a table and made friends with some people who had room. That is pretty much how things worked at oktoberfest. If there is an open seat, become friends with the person nearest to it and BAM you have a place to enjoy the festivities. One was swiss, one was french, and the others were too far away for me to talk to. We got some water (which we got made fun of for-RUDE- we need to hydrate) and then walked around a little more.
After some souvenir shopping and a stop at the tourist information center at the train station, we made our way to nymphenburg, another part of the city. Apparently it is a really nice part of town, but it was dark by the time we got there so we didn't see much. With full bladders and hungry stomachs we found our oasis in the rainy mess that was our day. Sushi. A miso soup, and 3 sushi rolls later we were mended and ready to head back to oktoberfest. At night the grounds are more carnival-y, with rides and souvenir stands etc.
Above is a picture of these cookie heart things that the girls wear and the boys buy for their lady loves. They say cute german phrases on them like i love you and cheers.
All of the rides were pretty extreme and barfy so we rode the ferris wheel and took some fun pictures from the top.
We made our way to one of the beer tents that was still open and after roaming the entire perimeter, finally found a table. 
It was nothing like the first tent we went to. Everyone was standing on the benches or tables, singing german drinking songs and waving their beers. If you're pretty sure it is a bad idea to stand on a bench, with wet shoes, surrounded by drunk singing people, you are right. we witnessed 1 bench collapse, and 2 wipe outs. and that was just in our immediate vicinity in about an hour. It was quite entertaining. We met some french dudes who were kissing each other. Kind of adorable. The tents all close at 11 so we made our way home. We got kind of lost and stopped to pee at a burger king (terrible decision- some girl almost puked on me), but finally made it to the hotel and crashed.
Sunday we spent nearly the whole day traveling. Nine stages of transportation i believe. A bus to a train to another train to a bus to a plane to a bus to the terminal to a bus to a train to a cab. exhausting. We ordered chinese food, which i spilled the majority of on my floor (my room still faintly smells of chowmein) but did manage to find and devour pork buns!
Monday was back to classes, and after lectures charlene, me, and our 2 other group members set out to work on our project. The project is for our environmental techniques class. The subject is Balancing biodiversity and productivity in managed broad-leafed woodlands. Our field work involves taking assorted forestry measurements of 10 10x10 plots in different wooded areas on campus. So monday afternoon we took a walk to determine where our 10 plots would be. We got to go to parts of campus charlene and i didn't even know existed. It was quite a hike though! about 4k, and a lot of it uphill. The grounds are so beautiful. Streams, fields with sheep, stone walls and gates, wet trees, fuzzy moss and droopy ferns, and the view from the top was incredible.
Monday night we had indian food from a bag from the grocery store. A complete delicious meal with 4 types of chicken, naan bread, rice, and fried onion ball things.
Later we met with Aristea, the girl who we are doing our radio show with. Turns out there was a mistake in the schedule and our shows were put at the same time but we decided to just join forces. She is from Athens, Greece and is really nice. As it turns out, our taste in music blends really well, and so I think the show will go smoothly. She came over to my place and we talked about how the first show was going to go.
Tuesday morning, bright and early at 9am we met Aristea at the radio station to start the show. Of course we had trouble- the key didn't fit so we were late to start, but we purposefully didn't tell anyone about our first show because we knew we would run into problems like that. Other than that the show when really well and i am looking forward to more. I am still trying to figure out how to download the show. When I do I will let you know.
Tuesday I also accidentally took a 4 hours nap. It was only supposed to be 1.5 hours but I accidentally set my alarm to non-army/24 hour time. It felt good though. We met up with some friends later, and then called it a night after the karaoke we set out to do was closing up and the place we wanted to go after was closed entirely.
Today (wednesday) we did the actual field work for the project. We worked from 1030-12, and 1-4:00ish. It was a long day of rainy field work.
At the end we were cold and wet and hungry, but we felt accomplished. If we did everything right we are done with the data collection part of the project and all we have to do is analyze and present. The word analyze reminds me- they spell things different here, and I knew that they would, but the American way is starting to look wrong. Like the word colour or programme.
I think I am going to start a running list of all the fun wildlife i have seen here because while walking on campus one morning I saw a stote! http://www.wildlifebritain.com/images/pht/weasel_ssm.jpg
That's all for now folks. Thanks for reading!
Love and leiderhosen,
Amanda
Thurs--> weird but delicious indian food dinner buffet
Fri--> planes trains and automobiles to Munich, south african friends
Sat--> Oktoberfest activities
Sunday--> planes trains and automobiles back to stirling, pork buns
Monday--> hiked an oncampus hill for a group project
Tuesday--> first radio show! and school and naps and international friends
Wednesday--> field work for class
Picture link: http://picasaweb.google.com/106047267595190685755/GlasgowAndMunich#
Hallo! Yet another late night post, so I apologize in advance on the typos that will probably occur. In the style of Frauline Maria, let's start at the very beginning, it's a very good place to start. When you read you being with ABC when you sing you begin with Do Re Me. When you go to Munich you begin with a bus at 6am. Quickly before I move into the Munich Oktoberfest weekend, I want to talk about our Thursday night dinner. We had heard that UK-ers love Indian food, so we went into town for an indian dinner buffet. Someone recommended a place to us, but we accidentally went to the place across the street. We came in to an empty room with semi trendy decor, and one indian man with highlighted hair sitting across the room, half asleep with a fork in his hand. As soon as we came in he told us to come sit by him. creepy. we didn't detect any immediate threat and so we sat in the booth next to his. Pretty sure he was drunk, or maybe just really tired, it was hard to tell, but he gave us his business card (which included his mobile number- naturally) and signed the back with a 10% discount for take-out orders in the future. We happily accepted and spent the rest of the night stuffing our faces with indian food. We were the only ones there so the waiter gave us a tour of each course on the buffet before we ate. the food was really good!
After our feast we packed for our trip and tried to get some sleep for our big adventure. Friday morning we woke up really early to take all the public transportation needed to get to Munich. This started with a bus that we picked up on campus that took us to the train station in stirling. I tried to buy a bus ticket with a 10 pound note and the bus driver threw it snarkily at the front of the bus. rude. should have known it was a foreshadow for the rest of our traveling endeavors that day. The bus was late by the way, and it took us all around Bridge of Allan before taking us through Stirling to the train station. We hurried off the bus and ran to the train station, with just enough time to miss the train. Luckily the next one was in 15 minutes so we got a quick breakfast and waited at the platform. We took the train to Edinburgh, where we caught a bus to the airport. At the airport we made it to our Ryan Air gate. We were totally early and one of the first people there. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for, and Ryan Air was totally disorganized and inefficient. There are no assigned seats, so you get on the plane in the order that you are in line. Unfortunately for us, they arbitrarily picked where the line started and it wasn't near where we were waiting so we weren't at the front. After about 1o minutes they told us the flight was delayed an hour. Not wanting to risk losing our spot in line, we decided to just take a nap on the floor in our spot in line. We woke up 45 mintues later to people trampling us. We got decent seats on the plane after all, and everyone clapped when we landed, as it was something we were all surprised happened so smoothly. We flew into Memmingen, a city outside of Munich (that's how RyanAir keeps their fares low) and when we were landing I couldn't see the airport and i actually thought we were just landing on a farm field. During the decent I saw sooo many solar panels! I knew Germany was big on solar power so it was fun to actually see it. They had hugggeee solar farms. So once in memmingen we took a bus to the train station, where we took a train to Munich, and a subway to the town where the hotel was. On the bus to munich, the bus driver was selling beer out of a cooler so we bought one to share to kick off oktoberfest right. The hotel was in a part of the city called Solln. It was really pretty and not touristy at all. Apparently it used to be an artsy district and now is more residential. Cute bakeries galore. Perfect for chocolate croissants for breakfast. We had to sneak into the hotel room because we had a single room under my name for 3 people. Char and Calla snuck upstairs while i waited to check in, and then after the lady went back downstairs they snuck into the room.
It was nice to be in a non-touristy part of town, but we quickly discovered that it meant that less people spoke english. Charlene whipped out some really awesome quickly learned german that got us through enough to get solid directions, but it was challenging.We checked out the map and decided to get some dinner down town. We took a short bus to the subway, which they call the S-Bahn. Public transportation there is very curious- it is all on the honor system. So you don't actually have to pay. But they have people who go around every once in a while and check tickets and you get a fine if you get caught. we didn't run into any of those people, but we played it safe and bought tickets. It was only 5 euro for a whole day of any type of transportation so we figured it was worth it. So after navigated the subway system, we emerged from the damp staircase into Marienplatz square. Epic. We had no idea the famous glockenspiel was going to be the first thing we saw. It was beautful. It was rainy and dark so all the lights reflected off the streets.
We walked around for a little bit, purchased a bigger bag with a good zipper that would fit my camera, and then settled on eating food at Marienplatz to people watch. At this point we were pretty starving because we had been travelling all day and never really had any proper meals. We sat down at an outside table under an umbrella because it was raining. We ordered 'drei beirs' and received 3 1Liter mugs of weisn beer. So big. We ordered 2 dishes to split between the three of us.
We got macaroni and cheese with crispy onion straw type things (recommended by the waitor- we didn't know what it was going to be until it arrived) and some sort of german meat combo dish. It had Bavarian white sausage, sauerkraut, other sausage, and what tasted and looked like hotdog loaf. It was all pretty delicious (though we would have eaten anything at that point) except for the Bavarian white sausage. It was a disturbing color and texture, and to make matters worse, no one gave us the memo that you are not supposed to eat the skin. grotesque. Some oldish dudes sat down at the table next to us and so we made friends with them. They were from South Africa and spent the week in Germany. We were talking about how germany is so into solar power and they were saying how the environmental science in south africa is kind of fucked (pardon my french). They said how they aren't allowed to sell energy back to the grid, which is one of the great things about solar power when there is a surplus. They were friendly and interesting and we had a good time.After we finished our meals and beers we walked around for a new place. We found a place tucked in an alley with a tree covered in string lights. Inside it was warm and filled with locals all drinking and having a good time.
This is when we noticed how prevalent leiderhosen and drindl (beer maid dress) were. Not just the oktoberfestians at the train station, but even the locals were all decked out. We thought it would be stereotypical to assume people would be wearing that kind of stuff but it was everywhere! 
We enjoyed the atmosphere, got a half liter of beer this time, and got some apple streudel to share. We made our way home after that to prepare for Saturday's events.Saturday morning we left the hotel (very sneakily) around 830, got some chocolate croissants at the nearby bakery and set out for the oktoberfest grounds. we opted for a cab because it was raining and we wanted to get there early (we heard the lines start reallly early and if you want to get into a tent you have to get in line). Luckily just saying 'please take us to oktoberfest' worked well enough (char's awesome german skills came in handy again) and we waltzed right in. At 930 am covered in rain we couldn't really see everything, but we saw people in a line/clump so we joined them. Before no time we were in a tent and seated! Turned out it was the traditional tent, and as it was the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest, there was lots of fun traditional music, dancers, outfits, and decor.
As the tent filled up, we found out our table was reserved for a party later so we joined forces with the people next to us and made some friends. 
They were from germany and australia and were finishing up their oktoberfest experience. We ordered some food with our beer, because I saw something that looked like matzah balls. Turns out it was some sort of weird gelatinous potato ball. crazy germans. 
We wanted to experience some of the other tents, but people recommended we wait because when they fill up they don't let anyone in. So we hung around and drank liters of beer, had some food and enjoyed ourselves. Around 3pm we made some moves to walk around and see the rest of the grounds. We took some weird pictures, accidentally stepped in horse shit, and ate some delicious crepes. We tried to get into another tent but it was filled and so we sat outside at a table and made friends with some people who had room. That is pretty much how things worked at oktoberfest. If there is an open seat, become friends with the person nearest to it and BAM you have a place to enjoy the festivities. One was swiss, one was french, and the others were too far away for me to talk to. We got some water (which we got made fun of for-RUDE- we need to hydrate) and then walked around a little more.
After some souvenir shopping and a stop at the tourist information center at the train station, we made our way to nymphenburg, another part of the city. Apparently it is a really nice part of town, but it was dark by the time we got there so we didn't see much. With full bladders and hungry stomachs we found our oasis in the rainy mess that was our day. Sushi. A miso soup, and 3 sushi rolls later we were mended and ready to head back to oktoberfest. At night the grounds are more carnival-y, with rides and souvenir stands etc.
Above is a picture of these cookie heart things that the girls wear and the boys buy for their lady loves. They say cute german phrases on them like i love you and cheers.All of the rides were pretty extreme and barfy so we rode the ferris wheel and took some fun pictures from the top.
We made our way to one of the beer tents that was still open and after roaming the entire perimeter, finally found a table. 
It was nothing like the first tent we went to. Everyone was standing on the benches or tables, singing german drinking songs and waving their beers. If you're pretty sure it is a bad idea to stand on a bench, with wet shoes, surrounded by drunk singing people, you are right. we witnessed 1 bench collapse, and 2 wipe outs. and that was just in our immediate vicinity in about an hour. It was quite entertaining. We met some french dudes who were kissing each other. Kind of adorable. The tents all close at 11 so we made our way home. We got kind of lost and stopped to pee at a burger king (terrible decision- some girl almost puked on me), but finally made it to the hotel and crashed.Sunday we spent nearly the whole day traveling. Nine stages of transportation i believe. A bus to a train to another train to a bus to a plane to a bus to the terminal to a bus to a train to a cab. exhausting. We ordered chinese food, which i spilled the majority of on my floor (my room still faintly smells of chowmein) but did manage to find and devour pork buns!
Monday was back to classes, and after lectures charlene, me, and our 2 other group members set out to work on our project. The project is for our environmental techniques class. The subject is Balancing biodiversity and productivity in managed broad-leafed woodlands. Our field work involves taking assorted forestry measurements of 10 10x10 plots in different wooded areas on campus. So monday afternoon we took a walk to determine where our 10 plots would be. We got to go to parts of campus charlene and i didn't even know existed. It was quite a hike though! about 4k, and a lot of it uphill. The grounds are so beautiful. Streams, fields with sheep, stone walls and gates, wet trees, fuzzy moss and droopy ferns, and the view from the top was incredible.
Monday night we had indian food from a bag from the grocery store. A complete delicious meal with 4 types of chicken, naan bread, rice, and fried onion ball things.
Later we met with Aristea, the girl who we are doing our radio show with. Turns out there was a mistake in the schedule and our shows were put at the same time but we decided to just join forces. She is from Athens, Greece and is really nice. As it turns out, our taste in music blends really well, and so I think the show will go smoothly. She came over to my place and we talked about how the first show was going to go.
Tuesday morning, bright and early at 9am we met Aristea at the radio station to start the show. Of course we had trouble- the key didn't fit so we were late to start, but we purposefully didn't tell anyone about our first show because we knew we would run into problems like that. Other than that the show when really well and i am looking forward to more. I am still trying to figure out how to download the show. When I do I will let you know.
Tuesday I also accidentally took a 4 hours nap. It was only supposed to be 1.5 hours but I accidentally set my alarm to non-army/24 hour time. It felt good though. We met up with some friends later, and then called it a night after the karaoke we set out to do was closing up and the place we wanted to go after was closed entirely.
Today (wednesday) we did the actual field work for the project. We worked from 1030-12, and 1-4:00ish. It was a long day of rainy field work.
At the end we were cold and wet and hungry, but we felt accomplished. If we did everything right we are done with the data collection part of the project and all we have to do is analyze and present. The word analyze reminds me- they spell things different here, and I knew that they would, but the American way is starting to look wrong. Like the word colour or programme.
I think I am going to start a running list of all the fun wildlife i have seen here because while walking on campus one morning I saw a stote! http://www.wildlifebritain.com/images/pht/weasel_ssm.jpg
That's all for now folks. Thanks for reading!
Love and leiderhosen,
Amanda
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Just a Wednesday
Today wasn't as eventful as other days have been here, but I think that is because things are starting to slow down. However, it was still noteworthy. We had class in the morning, made a tiny sandwich because we have run out of food, and went on our first laundry adventure. Surprise surprise, just like at umd, if you wait too long to move your stuff out of the wash someone will put it on the nasty washing machine top. oh well. we finished the movie Watchmen while we were waiting. Lot's of endings, pretty heavy, solid soundtrack. Tricia told me if I liked the book I wouldnt like the movie, but I haven't read it so i wasn't offended by the movie.
Around 3 we headed over to the radio station where they were having a 'give it a go session.' Basically it was a chance for people to actually try out radio etc. When we walked in, however, there was a 4 piece band playing live on air. It was one guy on acoustic guitar and vocals, one on acoustic bass, one on djembe/higher vocals, and one on the fiddle. It was awesome scottish gyspy folk. Total swoon. We later found out the name of the band is Emelle (http://www.myspace.com/emellebros) and three of them are gypsy brothers, and the fiddle guy is an honorary brother who plays fiddle and produces the music. They were so great we decided to see them later on when they were playing in the student union.
Also while at the station we found out that there was a mix up somewhere and they gave our timeslot to someone else. Fortunately that someone else is a nice greek girl who agreed to doing the show all together. Should be interesting because we can barely understand each other. Our show was going to be We're Not Rednecks, but I dont know if we can do that now because she doesn't know what a redneck is. Anway, it will be fun to make a new friend and hear her music!
After the radio station we had a snack and saw Emelle play again at the union. I am really into their sound. They are from Edinburgh, and they reference a place that we visited in their song. It was a great surprise to have seen them today. Hopefully it won't be the last.
Later in the night Lexy came over and brought her Oracle cards (similar to tarot cards). She read char's first, then calla, then me, and then i was bold enough to channel my psychic abilities to read her cards. The cards are set up in a certain way, and then you read the description from the corresponding book and based on their position it applies to you differently. It was really fun, and if I choose to believe it, I think it would be pretty accurate. It basically said I have had years worth of an artistic block, and I need to get out there and be creative in order to tie up loose ends and be happy. I buy that. I've had the desire to create or learn an instrument or something. I am hoping that the free time that I will have this semester because class hours are so much less than I am used to that I will be able to fulfill that goal. I will keep you updated on my creative endeavors. One of the cool cards that calla got (she is graduating at the end of this semester so most of her cards applied to that) was of the gatekeeper. The description said something about how a gate is just a gate, until someone guards it does it become desirable and worth attempting to cross through. I think that was pretty cool. The book said some weird stuff too however. It was describing letting loose, and suggested reading a good book, dancing in front of the computer screen after winning a game, and to add something sporty, playing golf and pretending to soar away on the ball. If you weren't sure by now if the person who wrote the book was a little nerdy, i think that list of things to do to have a good time should probably seal the deal. I am not sure if I buy into all of it, but it does feel pretty cultural to be talking about faeries. The celtic vibe is all around, in the towering hills on the outskirts of campus.
Other new update: got a 4th roommate. A guy named nubol (i think) moved into the room that mark switched out of. He seems kind of shy, but it might just be the language barrier. He is from Kazakhstan. Should be an interesting semester!
That's all to report for now. This weekend: MUNICH OR BUST
love and faeries,
Amanda
Around 3 we headed over to the radio station where they were having a 'give it a go session.' Basically it was a chance for people to actually try out radio etc. When we walked in, however, there was a 4 piece band playing live on air. It was one guy on acoustic guitar and vocals, one on acoustic bass, one on djembe/higher vocals, and one on the fiddle. It was awesome scottish gyspy folk. Total swoon. We later found out the name of the band is Emelle (http://www.myspace.com/emellebros) and three of them are gypsy brothers, and the fiddle guy is an honorary brother who plays fiddle and produces the music. They were so great we decided to see them later on when they were playing in the student union.
Also while at the station we found out that there was a mix up somewhere and they gave our timeslot to someone else. Fortunately that someone else is a nice greek girl who agreed to doing the show all together. Should be interesting because we can barely understand each other. Our show was going to be We're Not Rednecks, but I dont know if we can do that now because she doesn't know what a redneck is. Anway, it will be fun to make a new friend and hear her music!
After the radio station we had a snack and saw Emelle play again at the union. I am really into their sound. They are from Edinburgh, and they reference a place that we visited in their song. It was a great surprise to have seen them today. Hopefully it won't be the last.
Later in the night Lexy came over and brought her Oracle cards (similar to tarot cards). She read char's first, then calla, then me, and then i was bold enough to channel my psychic abilities to read her cards. The cards are set up in a certain way, and then you read the description from the corresponding book and based on their position it applies to you differently. It was really fun, and if I choose to believe it, I think it would be pretty accurate. It basically said I have had years worth of an artistic block, and I need to get out there and be creative in order to tie up loose ends and be happy. I buy that. I've had the desire to create or learn an instrument or something. I am hoping that the free time that I will have this semester because class hours are so much less than I am used to that I will be able to fulfill that goal. I will keep you updated on my creative endeavors. One of the cool cards that calla got (she is graduating at the end of this semester so most of her cards applied to that) was of the gatekeeper. The description said something about how a gate is just a gate, until someone guards it does it become desirable and worth attempting to cross through. I think that was pretty cool. The book said some weird stuff too however. It was describing letting loose, and suggested reading a good book, dancing in front of the computer screen after winning a game, and to add something sporty, playing golf and pretending to soar away on the ball. If you weren't sure by now if the person who wrote the book was a little nerdy, i think that list of things to do to have a good time should probably seal the deal. I am not sure if I buy into all of it, but it does feel pretty cultural to be talking about faeries. The celtic vibe is all around, in the towering hills on the outskirts of campus.
Other new update: got a 4th roommate. A guy named nubol (i think) moved into the room that mark switched out of. He seems kind of shy, but it might just be the language barrier. He is from Kazakhstan. Should be an interesting semester!
That's all to report for now. This weekend: MUNICH OR BUST
love and faeries,
Amanda
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Post completed and updated: STIRLING, EDINBURGH, GLASGOW
Hello again! VERY busy last few days. This weekend char/calla and I went to Edinburgh! It was our first trip to the city (besides our flight in) and it was so wonderful!
New addition to the blog: highlights section! I realize that I have been loading you with lots of details, mostly because I am selfishly trying to include every detail so it is recorded, but I know that sometimes you just want the cliffnotes version. Plus you can always read the lengthy stuff later. SO, on with it then.
HIGHLIGHTS:
FRI--> got a time slot for an oncampus radio show, booked flights for oktoberfest in munich, hung out with international students
SAT--> trained to edinburgh, ate really good food, visited the weave mill, walked aimlessly, saw 3 bands at a small venue in oldtown/west end edinburgh, first hostel experience
SUNDAY--> climbed 287 stairs to the top of Scott's Monument, Edinburgh Castle, Tea and brunch at the hub cafe, camera obscura
MONDAY--> radio training session
TUESDAY--> Dum Dum Girls/MGMT in Glasgow
PICTURE ALBUM LINK: http://picasaweb.google.com/106047267595190685755/Scotland2StirlingEdinburgh#
Ok. so for those who want the gory details. here goes.
Friday we slept in a bit and woke up to take a run around the loch. It seemed unreal to go for a jog on campus and for it to be around the LOCH. The weather was nice and i was a beautiful path. We ate lunch and then headed to the atrium to meet cph (a kid from our program). We were going to hike to the william wallace monument but it would't have been open for long enough once we got there so we decided to save it for later. Instead we went straight to the travel agency in the atrium to book a hostel for Edinburgh (for this weekend) and possibly book oktoberfest. While char was waiting with Maik (the really adorable german man at unicorn travel) I went to the media office to hand in our money and forms to sign up for a radio show. And guess what, we got one! Tuesdays from 9-11 am streaming on the internet! Very exciting. There was no audition process. no screening process. no indie kids judging you on your taste in music. just, pay the club fee, pick a time you can fit and and come to a training! Our first show will be Tuesday Sept 28th.----Since I wrote this post the first time we went to the training session for the radio station and I learned that you have 1 week after the airing to listen to the show, and in that time you can illegally download it, but its againts copyright so it would only be for personal use, and for my mom etc. So i am not going to advertise downloading on fb but i'm sure those of you who are dedicated enough to be reading this could be included under 'for personal use.'---
So I went back to the travel agency and we booked a flight to and from Munich for next weekend for oktoberfest. weird that half of oktoberfest is in september. Pretty excited. It will be our most expensive flight hopefully, on account of the short notice, distance, and the fact that its munich's busiest time. After the travel agency we went home to work out some other plans and expectations for traveling this semester. We are thinking of spending either our fall break or our exam study week doing a berlin/prague/budapest week. I can't wait! I have heard amazing things about those three places in particular so I am looking forward to making this plan and sticking to it. Later in the night, randomly, someone told us about some snowboarding thing going on at one of the academic buildings. Turns out they pumped in a bunch of snow onto a small steep slope and let kids do tricks off of industrial materials. Drew a decent sized crowd. There was an MC and big lights and music and food carts. totally random.
Later we rounded up our international student friends and got together to hang out and go into town. It was really fun to dance and hang out. We went to a place called Cape which played one of charlene and my favorite songs by The Darkness. After we ended up at Fubar (the place I hate) because people weren't ready to leave when cape closed at 1. On our way back to our flat on campus, we approached what seemed to be a very flat human. There was a student layin flat out on his back in the grass outside of one of the buildings. We went over because we were curious, and to make sure he was ok. He was able to sit up, but he wasn't really answering our questions. At first it was sort of silly and then we started to get concerned. We found his ID and learned his name was Fraser. Fraser did not know where he was. Fraser was very cold. Fraser was very drunk. So I went to find someone to help us out. At Stirling they don't have desk assistants like at UMD, instead they have porters, which are full time employees who do everything. (Sidenote- our porter is Ann and she is superwoman. she has a drawer full of anything you would want. a lightbuld drawer. a sponge drawer. you name it she can solve it or arrange for it to be solved.) Anyway, I found some porter, and told him there was a very drunk student over on the grass. He had a VERY thick scottish accent, so much so that I understood maybe 10% of what he was saying. and then all of a sudden it just clicked for me and i understood every word. He said something along the lines of, 'Ah yes, fraser. he was one of my residents last year. he thinks this is still his flat. I will call his hall assistant. Oh no he will be fine. Students these days are callin ambulances and wastin their time. Them kids think they're deein, but they're just steamin! Next time you see someone layin drunk like that, just give em a kick and throw a wee bit a grahss on em. save you the hassle.' I took the phrase 'they think they're deein, but they're just steamin' to mean they think they are dying, but they are just drunk! Rather hilarious. But still sort of unsettling haha. Anyway, someone came to claim Fraser and we headed home.
In the morning we threw together some semblance of a weekend bag (I wrote the halfsies blog entry) and jumped a bus to the train station in stirling. We got some delicious breakfast at the cafe while we waited for the train to edinburgh. The tickets were only 8 pounds and included a same day return ticket. Once in the city, we trekked to check in at the hostel which was just north of the center of the city. For anyone planning to travel to Edinburgh, the hostel was called Edinburgh Central. Not as central as we would have wanted but not too far, on Leith and Annandale. Clean. Nice people. It was too early to check in but we packed light enough that we could carry our stuff around no problem and so we just set out to explore.
Earlier on the train we made a list of things we wanted to do based on charlene's guidebook and so we attempted to hit those places first. We walked for hours. And I mean hours. and up and down hills. We went to the castle (closing too soon for us to get our moneys worth), the camera obscura museum (last show was 5 min before we got there- website: http://www.camera-obscura.co.uk/), the Sir Walter Scott Monument to climb the tower (closed in 2 minutes). It was frustrating but we took it as a good chance to explore the city and devise a tight plan for sunday. We did get to check out the Tartan weaving mill however. It was pretty cool. Lots of touristy things but some cool scottish wool sweaters and a working weaving mill and stuff on display. See picasa album for more pictures.
For lunch we ate at a pub. We ordered 3 meals and planned to eat a third of each and pass it around. We waited for what felt like forever for our food. We got a steak and ale pie, which is like a self supported chicken pot pie but with brisket-like meat inside. We also got vegetable tagine, which was made of veggies in a red possibly curry ish sauce. the third was traditional fish and chips with mint pea mash. When the food finally came, we just sort of acknowledged each others hunger and dove in. We finished it so quickly that the woman at the table next to us said 'So you like english food.' We were confused by the question until we realized that we had just devoured all 3 plates in too short of a time period to not be classified as fat americans. oh well. we had a good laugh, paid the check, and left there pretty quickly.
We walked around looking for some of the bars and restaurants on our to do list, which were sort of far away from where we were. On the way to the area near the University of Edinburgh, we ran into a band performing in a square. One drummer, one guitarist and one freaking awesome bagpiper were rocking out and drawing quite a crowd. They were so fun to watch and passionate. I took a bunch of pictures, but this one you can see all of them.
The first place we tried closed, but we stumbled on a place called bannermans. Turns out they were having a line up of 3 "best of scottish indierock" bands play later that night so we left to get some food somewhere else and planned to return later for the show. I assume we must have done something between our americanlike feast and our quest for more food, but honestly i can't remember haha. Anyway, we killed some time at a place called Under the Stairs. It was a cozy lowlit place below street level with comfy chairs and pretty people. We got baked brie and a drink. Char got Fruli, a strawberry beer, and Calla and I got Viru, an estonian beer. They had some cool candles in big glass mugs.
We left around 745 because doors were at 8 and we didnt know how true to that time they would be or how packed it would be. Turned out that was really loose, because the didn't go on until around 10 and there were very few people in the room. We killed some time by talking and ordering a guiness and sharing a panini three ways. I made friends with a girl at the bar who was actually the girlfriend of the bassist in one of the bands. She was nice and gave me the low down on the surrounding area.
The three bands playing were: Scrap Brain, some shitty band I never found out the name of, and Deco Arcade. Scrap Brain was excellent. At first I was skeptical, but then I was diggin it. The band was made up of a pretty talented drummer, a bassist, and a rockstar frontwoman vocalist. She clearly had been practicing her moves in her bedroom, but she was so rockstar. They had great energy. Reminded me of The Gossip a bit.
The second band was so horrible i wont even go into it. The third band, the one that the girl was associated with, was good at what they did, I just didn't happen to be into it. It was sort of Linkin Park/Story of the Year. Interesting about the show: It was in a room off of the bar which was clearly just for shows decorated with cool posters and vinyls etc on the walls and ceiling. It was pretty small but with very few people in the audience. Also interesting was that when we paid the entrance fee they asked which band we wanted it to go to. I of course just said the one that the girl at the bar was associated with, but later tried to change my answer because I found out they weren't just taking a survey, but allocating the entrance fees proportionately.
After the show we walked through the Univ of Edinburgh area, found some late night chicken shawarma, and made the long trek back to the hostel. When we got there there were 2 people sleeping already so we went downstairs to get out some energy. We gave our families a call, which was soo great because I caught my family at Yom Kippur so they were all together. When we went upstairs we had a serious case of the giggles, but finally fell asleep. The hostel was really nice and hotel like. There were only 2 other people in our room (besides the 3 of us). I had a top bunk.
--SO it's Tuesday night now and I went back to finish this post and found so many errors. I was half asleep when I was writing before. So update from Saturday night on activate:
Sunday morning we woke up around 10 and checked out, and walked around to find a bite to eat. Pretty much the only place open with breakfast was this italian place. The service was TERRIBLE to the point that I think they were hating on us because we were Americans. We ordered some filled hot rolls, which were basically breakfast sandwiches. Not bad, but once again the service was just absolute crap. We left sort of pissed but walked it off on our way to the scott monument.
It was 287 steps to the top, but worth an awesome view of the city.
Walter Scott was an influential scottish novelist and poet (he wrote Ivanhoe) and when he died they erected a giant memorial in his honor. The tower had 64 characters from his stories incorporated into the architecture.
After the monument we ventured to the Edinburgh Castle, which was pretty close by, but up a giant hill (obviously, no one builds a castle somewhere convenient to get to). The castle was pretty castley. We walked around, read some information about it's history, took some pictures, did a free whisky tasting in the gift shop, saw the crown jewels, and an exhibit on prisoners of war. What I learned: Scotland had a few too many infant kings/queens, and there was a pet cemetery for the deceased dogs of soldiers.
We left the castle for some food (who's surprised) and ended up at the Hub. It is a converted church into the center for cultural things in edinburgh. they have a banquet hall and a concert hall and a little cafe where we had tea and a bite to eat. Probably the best food so far. The 3 of us split 2 dishes: 1-Salmon and gruyere fritata 2- chorizo and potato in some delicious sauce with a poached egg on top. WHOA. really delicious.
The meal gave us enough energy to hike back up the royal mile (the street coming down from the castle that royals used to trot down for ceremonies-now some what of a tourist trap with lots of shopping and food) to Camera Obscura. Camera obscura is a 5 floor museum of optical illusions. The main event is a giant pinhole camera that allows you to project a live view of the city onto a concave projection slate in a dark room. Camera obscura means dark chamber. basically, there is a mirror at a 45 deg angle at the top of a tower that is covered on 3 sides, and picks up a reflection of the city below, and travels through a series of lenses until it reaches the projection table in a dark room. The mirror can be rotated to see a 360 live view of the city, with moving people and everything.
If you can read the sign in the photo above it may be a better description. But that's not where the awesomenes ended. There were 5 floors of awesome optical illusions and interactive fun. There were those static columns where if you put your hand on them the lightning comes to your hands, mc escher sketches and magic eye pictures (which i finally figured out how to do it-all these years i was seeing an inverted image. finally did it right). There were also cool things with lights and mirrors, including an infinity room (a room with lights and mirrors on both sides so it looked infinite, a vortex tunnel (a room that is just a metal bridge going through the middle of a cylindrical room that rotated around you. almost barfed), and a room that when shown on a tv made one person look tiny and the other like a giant. So much fun.
We felt pretty accomplished and so we head to the train station for the return trip. The night before someone confused our tinfoil wrapped chicken shwarma for something called tablet, which she recommended we try, so we bought some for the ride home. turned out to be like really intense fudge (the only 3 ingredients were sugar, condensed milk, and butter). Too intense for me but fun to try because it's scottish. While on the train home all three of us fell asleep at some point, and woke up 5 minutes before our stop feeling like we had entered some sort of 4th dimension. Somehow it felt like time had disappeared. We all could have sworn we were only on the train for twenty minutes when it had been 40.
When we got back to campus we went to an information session put on by our favorite place, unicorn travel, and went home to eat some dinner. I tried muligitawny from a can. Later I video chatted with my brother and mom (and kitty) and passed out.
Monday morning we had our first ENV5t5 lecture. It was about experimental techniques. Once again, nothing terribly new, but all very well organized and well explained. We went back home for our usual turkey cheese avocado sandwiches and kept busy until 7 when we had a training session for the radio station. The people were really nice and welcoming. It sounds like it will be a fun time. They only broadcast on the internet so the rules are less strict. Char Calla and i are looking forward to meeting people and doing the show. Wednesday they are a having a 'give it a go session/party' which should be fun. After the meeting we made some dinner and watched the first half of Watchmen with 2 other study abroaders. It was great so far, but we got tired to we split for bed and promised to finish it soon.
Today (Tuesday) we had 1 lecture (would usually have 2 but it was cancelled this week), came back for lunch, and then got ready to go to GLASGOW for DUM DUM GIRLS/MGMT show. We got a train ticket for 6.90 and head out around 3. Once there we made our way to the place where we had to pick up the tickets and continued towards the venue. We stopped at a mcdonalds on the way because we figured we should try it once. Slightly different selection, slightly fancier inside, but still sort of gross. However, I got a mint mcflurry with pieces of aero bar (my favorite candy here) blended into it. Now thats a mcflurry. Jason told me they were way better than american mcflurries. So right. So worth the tummy ache later. We made it to the venue and waited in line for a little over an hour. Once inside we made it to the second row of standing people in front of the stage. They made me check my camera because it was considered a professional camera and therefore wasn't allowed inside. The venue was pretty cool. It's called the barrowlands. Just a big high ceilinged room with a stage in the front. The show was pretty good, but a lot of annoying teenagers pushing and spilling things on us. I like MGMT but not that much, so we ended up leaving the overwhelming front center for the wings. The openers, Dum Dum girls were pretty bad. They had sort of a beachboys surf rock vibe (because of the clean drums and effect on the guitar) but most of their songs were similar to their other songs and were like 2 chords with a repeating drum beat and lyrics on loop. Plus one of the girls looked miserable.
We made it out in time to catch the train back so we didn't have to pay for another ticker (round trip for 6.90 is pretty sweet). And now here I am. Finally finishing this blogpost. Next step: putting pictures on facebook.
one other random thing: their library is really nice. apparently it is all new. All the books seem really accessible (because they aren't strewn across 9 libraries on 3 campuses like at umd) and the technology is all pretty new. they have these awesome 'pods' that are circular couch benches with a huge touch screen computer in the middle. It's cool that I am actually looking forward to using the libraries.
That's all for now. Oh and i figured out the proper goodbye:
Cheers!
-Amanda
New addition to the blog: highlights section! I realize that I have been loading you with lots of details, mostly because I am selfishly trying to include every detail so it is recorded, but I know that sometimes you just want the cliffnotes version. Plus you can always read the lengthy stuff later. SO, on with it then.
HIGHLIGHTS:
FRI--> got a time slot for an oncampus radio show, booked flights for oktoberfest in munich, hung out with international students
SAT--> trained to edinburgh, ate really good food, visited the weave mill, walked aimlessly, saw 3 bands at a small venue in oldtown/west end edinburgh, first hostel experience
SUNDAY--> climbed 287 stairs to the top of Scott's Monument, Edinburgh Castle, Tea and brunch at the hub cafe, camera obscura
MONDAY--> radio training session
TUESDAY--> Dum Dum Girls/MGMT in Glasgow
PICTURE ALBUM LINK: http://picasaweb.google.com/106047267595190685755/Scotland2StirlingEdinburgh#
Ok. so for those who want the gory details. here goes.
Friday we slept in a bit and woke up to take a run around the loch. It seemed unreal to go for a jog on campus and for it to be around the LOCH. The weather was nice and i was a beautiful path. We ate lunch and then headed to the atrium to meet cph (a kid from our program). We were going to hike to the william wallace monument but it would't have been open for long enough once we got there so we decided to save it for later. Instead we went straight to the travel agency in the atrium to book a hostel for Edinburgh (for this weekend) and possibly book oktoberfest. While char was waiting with Maik (the really adorable german man at unicorn travel) I went to the media office to hand in our money and forms to sign up for a radio show. And guess what, we got one! Tuesdays from 9-11 am streaming on the internet! Very exciting. There was no audition process. no screening process. no indie kids judging you on your taste in music. just, pay the club fee, pick a time you can fit and and come to a training! Our first show will be Tuesday Sept 28th.----Since I wrote this post the first time we went to the training session for the radio station and I learned that you have 1 week after the airing to listen to the show, and in that time you can illegally download it, but its againts copyright so it would only be for personal use, and for my mom etc. So i am not going to advertise downloading on fb but i'm sure those of you who are dedicated enough to be reading this could be included under 'for personal use.'---
So I went back to the travel agency and we booked a flight to and from Munich for next weekend for oktoberfest. weird that half of oktoberfest is in september. Pretty excited. It will be our most expensive flight hopefully, on account of the short notice, distance, and the fact that its munich's busiest time. After the travel agency we went home to work out some other plans and expectations for traveling this semester. We are thinking of spending either our fall break or our exam study week doing a berlin/prague/budapest week. I can't wait! I have heard amazing things about those three places in particular so I am looking forward to making this plan and sticking to it. Later in the night, randomly, someone told us about some snowboarding thing going on at one of the academic buildings. Turns out they pumped in a bunch of snow onto a small steep slope and let kids do tricks off of industrial materials. Drew a decent sized crowd. There was an MC and big lights and music and food carts. totally random.
Later we rounded up our international student friends and got together to hang out and go into town. It was really fun to dance and hang out. We went to a place called Cape which played one of charlene and my favorite songs by The Darkness. After we ended up at Fubar (the place I hate) because people weren't ready to leave when cape closed at 1. On our way back to our flat on campus, we approached what seemed to be a very flat human. There was a student layin flat out on his back in the grass outside of one of the buildings. We went over because we were curious, and to make sure he was ok. He was able to sit up, but he wasn't really answering our questions. At first it was sort of silly and then we started to get concerned. We found his ID and learned his name was Fraser. Fraser did not know where he was. Fraser was very cold. Fraser was very drunk. So I went to find someone to help us out. At Stirling they don't have desk assistants like at UMD, instead they have porters, which are full time employees who do everything. (Sidenote- our porter is Ann and she is superwoman. she has a drawer full of anything you would want. a lightbuld drawer. a sponge drawer. you name it she can solve it or arrange for it to be solved.) Anyway, I found some porter, and told him there was a very drunk student over on the grass. He had a VERY thick scottish accent, so much so that I understood maybe 10% of what he was saying. and then all of a sudden it just clicked for me and i understood every word. He said something along the lines of, 'Ah yes, fraser. he was one of my residents last year. he thinks this is still his flat. I will call his hall assistant. Oh no he will be fine. Students these days are callin ambulances and wastin their time. Them kids think they're deein, but they're just steamin! Next time you see someone layin drunk like that, just give em a kick and throw a wee bit a grahss on em. save you the hassle.' I took the phrase 'they think they're deein, but they're just steamin' to mean they think they are dying, but they are just drunk! Rather hilarious. But still sort of unsettling haha. Anyway, someone came to claim Fraser and we headed home.
In the morning we threw together some semblance of a weekend bag (I wrote the halfsies blog entry) and jumped a bus to the train station in stirling. We got some delicious breakfast at the cafe while we waited for the train to edinburgh. The tickets were only 8 pounds and included a same day return ticket. Once in the city, we trekked to check in at the hostel which was just north of the center of the city. For anyone planning to travel to Edinburgh, the hostel was called Edinburgh Central. Not as central as we would have wanted but not too far, on Leith and Annandale. Clean. Nice people. It was too early to check in but we packed light enough that we could carry our stuff around no problem and so we just set out to explore.
Earlier on the train we made a list of things we wanted to do based on charlene's guidebook and so we attempted to hit those places first. We walked for hours. And I mean hours. and up and down hills. We went to the castle (closing too soon for us to get our moneys worth), the camera obscura museum (last show was 5 min before we got there- website: http://www.camera-obscura.co.uk/), the Sir Walter Scott Monument to climb the tower (closed in 2 minutes). It was frustrating but we took it as a good chance to explore the city and devise a tight plan for sunday. We did get to check out the Tartan weaving mill however. It was pretty cool. Lots of touristy things but some cool scottish wool sweaters and a working weaving mill and stuff on display. See picasa album for more pictures.
For lunch we ate at a pub. We ordered 3 meals and planned to eat a third of each and pass it around. We waited for what felt like forever for our food. We got a steak and ale pie, which is like a self supported chicken pot pie but with brisket-like meat inside. We also got vegetable tagine, which was made of veggies in a red possibly curry ish sauce. the third was traditional fish and chips with mint pea mash. When the food finally came, we just sort of acknowledged each others hunger and dove in. We finished it so quickly that the woman at the table next to us said 'So you like english food.' We were confused by the question until we realized that we had just devoured all 3 plates in too short of a time period to not be classified as fat americans. oh well. we had a good laugh, paid the check, and left there pretty quickly.
We walked around looking for some of the bars and restaurants on our to do list, which were sort of far away from where we were. On the way to the area near the University of Edinburgh, we ran into a band performing in a square. One drummer, one guitarist and one freaking awesome bagpiper were rocking out and drawing quite a crowd. They were so fun to watch and passionate. I took a bunch of pictures, but this one you can see all of them.
The first place we tried closed, but we stumbled on a place called bannermans. Turns out they were having a line up of 3 "best of scottish indierock" bands play later that night so we left to get some food somewhere else and planned to return later for the show. I assume we must have done something between our americanlike feast and our quest for more food, but honestly i can't remember haha. Anyway, we killed some time at a place called Under the Stairs. It was a cozy lowlit place below street level with comfy chairs and pretty people. We got baked brie and a drink. Char got Fruli, a strawberry beer, and Calla and I got Viru, an estonian beer. They had some cool candles in big glass mugs.We left around 745 because doors were at 8 and we didnt know how true to that time they would be or how packed it would be. Turned out that was really loose, because the didn't go on until around 10 and there were very few people in the room. We killed some time by talking and ordering a guiness and sharing a panini three ways. I made friends with a girl at the bar who was actually the girlfriend of the bassist in one of the bands. She was nice and gave me the low down on the surrounding area.
The three bands playing were: Scrap Brain, some shitty band I never found out the name of, and Deco Arcade. Scrap Brain was excellent. At first I was skeptical, but then I was diggin it. The band was made up of a pretty talented drummer, a bassist, and a rockstar frontwoman vocalist. She clearly had been practicing her moves in her bedroom, but she was so rockstar. They had great energy. Reminded me of The Gossip a bit.
The second band was so horrible i wont even go into it. The third band, the one that the girl was associated with, was good at what they did, I just didn't happen to be into it. It was sort of Linkin Park/Story of the Year. Interesting about the show: It was in a room off of the bar which was clearly just for shows decorated with cool posters and vinyls etc on the walls and ceiling. It was pretty small but with very few people in the audience. Also interesting was that when we paid the entrance fee they asked which band we wanted it to go to. I of course just said the one that the girl at the bar was associated with, but later tried to change my answer because I found out they weren't just taking a survey, but allocating the entrance fees proportionately.After the show we walked through the Univ of Edinburgh area, found some late night chicken shawarma, and made the long trek back to the hostel. When we got there there were 2 people sleeping already so we went downstairs to get out some energy. We gave our families a call, which was soo great because I caught my family at Yom Kippur so they were all together. When we went upstairs we had a serious case of the giggles, but finally fell asleep. The hostel was really nice and hotel like. There were only 2 other people in our room (besides the 3 of us). I had a top bunk.
--SO it's Tuesday night now and I went back to finish this post and found so many errors. I was half asleep when I was writing before. So update from Saturday night on activate:
Sunday morning we woke up around 10 and checked out, and walked around to find a bite to eat. Pretty much the only place open with breakfast was this italian place. The service was TERRIBLE to the point that I think they were hating on us because we were Americans. We ordered some filled hot rolls, which were basically breakfast sandwiches. Not bad, but once again the service was just absolute crap. We left sort of pissed but walked it off on our way to the scott monument.
It was 287 steps to the top, but worth an awesome view of the city.
Walter Scott was an influential scottish novelist and poet (he wrote Ivanhoe) and when he died they erected a giant memorial in his honor. The tower had 64 characters from his stories incorporated into the architecture.After the monument we ventured to the Edinburgh Castle, which was pretty close by, but up a giant hill (obviously, no one builds a castle somewhere convenient to get to). The castle was pretty castley. We walked around, read some information about it's history, took some pictures, did a free whisky tasting in the gift shop, saw the crown jewels, and an exhibit on prisoners of war. What I learned: Scotland had a few too many infant kings/queens, and there was a pet cemetery for the deceased dogs of soldiers.
We left the castle for some food (who's surprised) and ended up at the Hub. It is a converted church into the center for cultural things in edinburgh. they have a banquet hall and a concert hall and a little cafe where we had tea and a bite to eat. Probably the best food so far. The 3 of us split 2 dishes: 1-Salmon and gruyere fritata 2- chorizo and potato in some delicious sauce with a poached egg on top. WHOA. really delicious.
The meal gave us enough energy to hike back up the royal mile (the street coming down from the castle that royals used to trot down for ceremonies-now some what of a tourist trap with lots of shopping and food) to Camera Obscura. Camera obscura is a 5 floor museum of optical illusions. The main event is a giant pinhole camera that allows you to project a live view of the city onto a concave projection slate in a dark room. Camera obscura means dark chamber. basically, there is a mirror at a 45 deg angle at the top of a tower that is covered on 3 sides, and picks up a reflection of the city below, and travels through a series of lenses until it reaches the projection table in a dark room. The mirror can be rotated to see a 360 live view of the city, with moving people and everything.
If you can read the sign in the photo above it may be a better description. But that's not where the awesomenes ended. There were 5 floors of awesome optical illusions and interactive fun. There were those static columns where if you put your hand on them the lightning comes to your hands, mc escher sketches and magic eye pictures (which i finally figured out how to do it-all these years i was seeing an inverted image. finally did it right). There were also cool things with lights and mirrors, including an infinity room (a room with lights and mirrors on both sides so it looked infinite, a vortex tunnel (a room that is just a metal bridge going through the middle of a cylindrical room that rotated around you. almost barfed), and a room that when shown on a tv made one person look tiny and the other like a giant. So much fun.
We felt pretty accomplished and so we head to the train station for the return trip. The night before someone confused our tinfoil wrapped chicken shwarma for something called tablet, which she recommended we try, so we bought some for the ride home. turned out to be like really intense fudge (the only 3 ingredients were sugar, condensed milk, and butter). Too intense for me but fun to try because it's scottish. While on the train home all three of us fell asleep at some point, and woke up 5 minutes before our stop feeling like we had entered some sort of 4th dimension. Somehow it felt like time had disappeared. We all could have sworn we were only on the train for twenty minutes when it had been 40.
When we got back to campus we went to an information session put on by our favorite place, unicorn travel, and went home to eat some dinner. I tried muligitawny from a can. Later I video chatted with my brother and mom (and kitty) and passed out.
Monday morning we had our first ENV5t5 lecture. It was about experimental techniques. Once again, nothing terribly new, but all very well organized and well explained. We went back home for our usual turkey cheese avocado sandwiches and kept busy until 7 when we had a training session for the radio station. The people were really nice and welcoming. It sounds like it will be a fun time. They only broadcast on the internet so the rules are less strict. Char Calla and i are looking forward to meeting people and doing the show. Wednesday they are a having a 'give it a go session/party' which should be fun. After the meeting we made some dinner and watched the first half of Watchmen with 2 other study abroaders. It was great so far, but we got tired to we split for bed and promised to finish it soon.
Today (Tuesday) we had 1 lecture (would usually have 2 but it was cancelled this week), came back for lunch, and then got ready to go to GLASGOW for DUM DUM GIRLS/MGMT show. We got a train ticket for 6.90 and head out around 3. Once there we made our way to the place where we had to pick up the tickets and continued towards the venue. We stopped at a mcdonalds on the way because we figured we should try it once. Slightly different selection, slightly fancier inside, but still sort of gross. However, I got a mint mcflurry with pieces of aero bar (my favorite candy here) blended into it. Now thats a mcflurry. Jason told me they were way better than american mcflurries. So right. So worth the tummy ache later. We made it to the venue and waited in line for a little over an hour. Once inside we made it to the second row of standing people in front of the stage. They made me check my camera because it was considered a professional camera and therefore wasn't allowed inside. The venue was pretty cool. It's called the barrowlands. Just a big high ceilinged room with a stage in the front. The show was pretty good, but a lot of annoying teenagers pushing and spilling things on us. I like MGMT but not that much, so we ended up leaving the overwhelming front center for the wings. The openers, Dum Dum girls were pretty bad. They had sort of a beachboys surf rock vibe (because of the clean drums and effect on the guitar) but most of their songs were similar to their other songs and were like 2 chords with a repeating drum beat and lyrics on loop. Plus one of the girls looked miserable.
We made it out in time to catch the train back so we didn't have to pay for another ticker (round trip for 6.90 is pretty sweet). And now here I am. Finally finishing this blogpost. Next step: putting pictures on facebook.
one other random thing: their library is really nice. apparently it is all new. All the books seem really accessible (because they aren't strewn across 9 libraries on 3 campuses like at umd) and the technology is all pretty new. they have these awesome 'pods' that are circular couch benches with a huge touch screen computer in the middle. It's cool that I am actually looking forward to using the libraries.
That's all for now. Oh and i figured out the proper goodbye:
Cheers!
-Amanda
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Halfsies
Hey kilt fans
So let's see. Thursday and Friday. Ah yes. So Thursday is when we actually started classes. We went to ENV5t5, which is an environmental science field and lab technique class. It was packed with anxious students, mostly 3rd years. The professor was going on about the syllabus (which they call class handouts-officially, not just casually) and emphasizing how this is an honors class and how you have to buckle down. Charlene and I started to worry, but later found out that honors just refers to 3rd and 4th year of "uni" when your grades actually count towards your degree. We have a group project in that class, so we met Sara and Stuart, who are also in one of our later classes, and joined a group with them. We are going to be working on a research project on managing woodland biodiversity throughout the semester.
So between classes, char and I shared a egg and cress sandwich (which was actually just egg salad don't be fooled) and a bagel with pastrami and cheese on it (repeat performance) and walked around until our next class, which we had with calla and the two new friends from env5t5. The afternoon class was ENV5A5 which is a environmental policy and management class. It was just a lecture, but the professor was really good. She was really clear and well organized and it made for a really pleasant hour. It had been stuff I had mostly already learned, but had never been taught in such a clear and logical way. I was looking forward to the next lecture until someone said that the class has rotating lecturers so we wont have her again for another few weeks.
After class we went to Unicorn Travel, which is a travel agency in the atrium. Super convenient. The guy who helped us out, Mike (which is what is nametag says, but he spells it Maik) is an adorable middleaged german man who speaks with a typical higher pitched german accent. He was super knowledgeable and really really nice, and helped us out a lot. He gave us information on historic stirling and helped us decide to go to Edinburgh this weekend and Oktoberfest next weekend(yes, it is odd that half of oktoberfest is in september)! We came back the next day and did all the booking, and we are all signed up! we just need a hostel for munich! I will repeat that, EDINBURGH THIS WEEKEND AND OKTOBERFEST IN MUNICH NEXT WEEKEND. I was so pumped after the meeting, really itchin with the travel bug. Can't wait to update you on that!
After a snack we went into town to fix char and calla's phones. I poked around a second hand store and then we went to the mall to check out some cheap pirate gear for a theme night at a bar that my flatmate invited us to later. Luckily, they got their phones all sorted out so now we can communicate by something other than gchat. should make coordinating a lot easier. We came back to campus and had dinner and then headed out to hit up a radio station meeting and an open mic night that char/calla's roommate tom was performing at. We walked into the radio station to some dude performing in the front, which was very confusing because we thought it was an information session. But it turned out ok, and everyone seemed pretty nice. Similar to WMUC at umd but a lot less up their own arses. On the way out we met a guy named Austin and invited us to come to the open mic night. Turns out he's a first year from Oregon who actually is here as a full time student indefinitely. So weird that we are his freshman year, ya know? As in he has nothing to compare his experience to, and when he looks back at his freshman year we will be what he did in those first few vulnerable weeks. weird. Anyway, the open mic night was at the union chaplaincy, so everyone was really nice and interested to know which church i go to and if we wanted to join their group. I just said I was jewish and they left me alone, haha. But everyone was really nice and friendly. We scrounged up some weird snackage and listened through a few really terrible performers all in anticipation of Tom playing his BAGPIPES! When he finally went on it was so magical. He was keeping the beat by stomping his foot and marching around, it was awesome. People were stopping by the room to pop their heads in because it was so good. I had no idea how hard that instrument is! He looked like he was about to pass out by the end from all the blowing into it, and he played each note with his fingers. I thought all the skipping around notes was something the bagpipe just magically did on its own.
Afterwords we hung out and went to the pirate themed party. We weren't really excited about going out, but we didn't have friday classes (because we got our classes successfully switched) and really like dressing up for themes so we did it. It was at a bar in town called Fubar. It is basically that sort of skeezy dance bar that most college towns have. Everyone goes crazy over it but its actually terrible. It was crowded, the flow was terrible, it was expensive, and everyone was rude. We ended up just finding an empty dancefloor downstairs where it was slightly more low key and dancing to more rock-ish music. When we had our fill we took a cab back and crashed around 2.
Right now we are getting ready to leave for edinburgh so I will leave you with that halfsies post for now and make this blogpost less lame later. I have some more pictures to put up and I will tell you about friday and the weekend in Edinburgh when i return. Happy weekend, everyone! and g'mar chatimah tovah.
Love and travel bugs,
Amanda
So let's see. Thursday and Friday. Ah yes. So Thursday is when we actually started classes. We went to ENV5t5, which is an environmental science field and lab technique class. It was packed with anxious students, mostly 3rd years. The professor was going on about the syllabus (which they call class handouts-officially, not just casually) and emphasizing how this is an honors class and how you have to buckle down. Charlene and I started to worry, but later found out that honors just refers to 3rd and 4th year of "uni" when your grades actually count towards your degree. We have a group project in that class, so we met Sara and Stuart, who are also in one of our later classes, and joined a group with them. We are going to be working on a research project on managing woodland biodiversity throughout the semester.
So between classes, char and I shared a egg and cress sandwich (which was actually just egg salad don't be fooled) and a bagel with pastrami and cheese on it (repeat performance) and walked around until our next class, which we had with calla and the two new friends from env5t5. The afternoon class was ENV5A5 which is a environmental policy and management class. It was just a lecture, but the professor was really good. She was really clear and well organized and it made for a really pleasant hour. It had been stuff I had mostly already learned, but had never been taught in such a clear and logical way. I was looking forward to the next lecture until someone said that the class has rotating lecturers so we wont have her again for another few weeks.
After class we went to Unicorn Travel, which is a travel agency in the atrium. Super convenient. The guy who helped us out, Mike (which is what is nametag says, but he spells it Maik) is an adorable middleaged german man who speaks with a typical higher pitched german accent. He was super knowledgeable and really really nice, and helped us out a lot. He gave us information on historic stirling and helped us decide to go to Edinburgh this weekend and Oktoberfest next weekend(yes, it is odd that half of oktoberfest is in september)! We came back the next day and did all the booking, and we are all signed up! we just need a hostel for munich! I will repeat that, EDINBURGH THIS WEEKEND AND OKTOBERFEST IN MUNICH NEXT WEEKEND. I was so pumped after the meeting, really itchin with the travel bug. Can't wait to update you on that!
After a snack we went into town to fix char and calla's phones. I poked around a second hand store and then we went to the mall to check out some cheap pirate gear for a theme night at a bar that my flatmate invited us to later. Luckily, they got their phones all sorted out so now we can communicate by something other than gchat. should make coordinating a lot easier. We came back to campus and had dinner and then headed out to hit up a radio station meeting and an open mic night that char/calla's roommate tom was performing at. We walked into the radio station to some dude performing in the front, which was very confusing because we thought it was an information session. But it turned out ok, and everyone seemed pretty nice. Similar to WMUC at umd but a lot less up their own arses. On the way out we met a guy named Austin and invited us to come to the open mic night. Turns out he's a first year from Oregon who actually is here as a full time student indefinitely. So weird that we are his freshman year, ya know? As in he has nothing to compare his experience to, and when he looks back at his freshman year we will be what he did in those first few vulnerable weeks. weird. Anyway, the open mic night was at the union chaplaincy, so everyone was really nice and interested to know which church i go to and if we wanted to join their group. I just said I was jewish and they left me alone, haha. But everyone was really nice and friendly. We scrounged up some weird snackage and listened through a few really terrible performers all in anticipation of Tom playing his BAGPIPES! When he finally went on it was so magical. He was keeping the beat by stomping his foot and marching around, it was awesome. People were stopping by the room to pop their heads in because it was so good. I had no idea how hard that instrument is! He looked like he was about to pass out by the end from all the blowing into it, and he played each note with his fingers. I thought all the skipping around notes was something the bagpipe just magically did on its own.
Afterwords we hung out and went to the pirate themed party. We weren't really excited about going out, but we didn't have friday classes (because we got our classes successfully switched) and really like dressing up for themes so we did it. It was at a bar in town called Fubar. It is basically that sort of skeezy dance bar that most college towns have. Everyone goes crazy over it but its actually terrible. It was crowded, the flow was terrible, it was expensive, and everyone was rude. We ended up just finding an empty dancefloor downstairs where it was slightly more low key and dancing to more rock-ish music. When we had our fill we took a cab back and crashed around 2.
Right now we are getting ready to leave for edinburgh so I will leave you with that halfsies post for now and make this blogpost less lame later. I have some more pictures to put up and I will tell you about friday and the weekend in Edinburgh when i return. Happy weekend, everyone! and g'mar chatimah tovah.
Love and travel bugs,
Amanda
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
last days before classes start
So I want to start out by saying thank you to those who left me comments! It is so fun to read them! Keep 'em coming!
So it has become pretty clear that I will have to update about every two days or so, unless things slow down, because I begin to forget things after that. Let me start with Monday because that is where I left you off. Last entry was pretty detailed, but I seemed to get good feedback so I'm gonna keep trying to fill you in. Extra goody for this issue of lochedupabroad: pictures! See end for link.
So after a failed attempt to wake up early (on account of rain and what I think still might be jet lag and/or laziness) and conquer the class schedule problem and hike the wallace monument (which overlooks campus), char, calla and I decided to make moves towards the atrium for lunch and orientation thangs. We got to check out the freebie fayre (got some popcorn, a bottle opener, and some discount booklets. not bad.) Since we still didn't have any groceries and we were already there, we explored one of the other on campus dining options for lunch. On the bottom floor of the atrium is a dining hall type eatery called Haldanes (after one of the founders of the university, I believe). Food was pretty cheap and very hearty. We had the "classic combination platter," or basically the nonvegetarian hotmeal option. It was broccoli (delicious), potatoes (also delicious), chicken with gravy (not bad but a little dry), and chicken and lentil soup (sort of like baby food but also delicious). Jason would be happy to know that I tried the lemon fanta. VERY delicious. The meal was reallly filling.
After lunch we headed upstairs to the study abroad student orientation meeting. We learned how to read the class schedules (an impossible system) and how to register for our seminars (discussion/tutorial sessions). The meeting facilitator was Beth Shotton, the international/study abroad advisor. She seems really nice and approachable, and I am sure I will be bombarding her in the future with random concerns. She has a pretty interesting back story actually. As I understood it, she was born in Kansas, studied abroad at Stirling, met a guy, came back to get her masters at Stirling, and got married in Prague to the guy she met while studying abroad there (arich are you dying right now?). Since then she has been working at the university and has acquired a very interesting kansas/scotland accent. very cool.
They also had a speaker who has been a professor in the US and Scotland tell us about the differences between university learning here and at home. It was pretty helpful and interesting actually. I learned that professors have to report to an external education board that has the authority to tell them to rewrite their tests if something is unfair. That means there is a lot less flexibility for the professors to just decide to do whatever they want, which can be a problem sometimes in classes I've been in in the past. On the other hand, lectures are not very interactive, and they put a lot more emphasis on independent study and hold you accountable for reading assignments. I will let you know how true this is for my classes when I've adjusted to them. Right now I am registered for 3 classes at 5 credits each (which is worth the same as a normal semester at umd).I am currently registered for aquaculture, conservation biology, and environmental science field and lab techniques. Hopefully soon I will be switching out of aquaculture for an environmental policy and management class because the former conflicts with my 2nd class and the latter doesn't meet on fridays (good for traveling).
So after the meeting we went back to the apartment. We planned a trip to the grocery store to get some food for the apartment so we didn't have to keep buying food. We went to Tesco in town, which is a grocery store chain. It was pretty standard. Some of the product names were slightly different. Some that I can think of now are: angel soft toilet paper=andrex, bounty=plenty, frosted flakes=frosties, and eggplant had some funny name that I can't remember. We also discovered that here, what we know as a milky way is called a mars bar, and what we know as a three musketeer is called a milky way. very confusing but delicious nonetheless. Another confusing thing was when we went to get deli meat, we asked for a pound and a half and she responded in a scottish accent with the question "in weight or in money." A reasonable question, if I had expected it or could understand here (scotland is on the british pound for currency). Anyway, we got it in weight and slowly made our way to the checkout. Ended up being pretty fairly priced for the first big shop. Barsky, I kept thinking of that picture of you on your first grocery store trip in italy and how much harder it must have been!
The grocery store itself was pretty overwhelming, but the hardest part was carrying everything back to the apt. we took a bus but we had soo much stuff. we later learned the best way to get around this is to get a ride from someone, or get a group of about 5 people to get a cab (which are usually van size) and split the cost, which would end up being a pound or 2 a person. totally worth it. will have to look into it.
We were so exhausted from the trek that we heated up some frozen pizza for dinner and got ready to go out. Charlene/Calla's next door neighbors were having a get together so we went over to hang out for a while. At some point, i got up to go back to charlenes to look something up on the computer real quick. About a minute after I sat down at the computer, a drunk dude waltzed into the apartment and into charlene's room. I was alarmed, but soon realized he was drunk and confused. I told him that this wasn't his flat but he didnt seem phased. He then proceeded to take off his shirt, which I decided was no longer surprising and started to be scary (don't worry this story ends well). So I went out of charlenes room to distance myself and calla comes down the hall because she saw the kid (later known as kevin) walk into the apartment. Well, like any gentlemanly scot, he helped himself to charlene's bed and made himself comfortable. gross. calla and i tried to explain to him how he was in the wrong place and that he needed to leave. With very little success, we went next door to call for reinforcements. Luckily, char/calla's roommate tom, an actual scottish gentleman, came to the rescue and coerced the fool out of the room. When Kevin finally realized what was going on, he let tom escort him out. From here on is only heresay, but quite hilarious. So tom helped him home, even though kevin did not know where his home was. All of a sudden kevin jets off into the night, without realizing tom still has his keys. But since tom is a gentleman, he chased after kevin so he could have his keys and finally deduced where kevin lived. turns out kevin lives in the same building, same apt, same room, just one stairwell over. He accidentally went up the wrong steps and ended up in char's room. Tom solved the mystery and made sure he was safe and sound. The best part is I live one tower over from charlene. Turns out Kevin is my next door neighbor, though i am sure he remembers very little of it. It was surely interesting, but I am hoping that once classes start these freshman start to slow down. Not sure I can tolerate all their drunken tomfoolery all semester.
Later we left the flat to check out the bar in the atrium. It was low key and pretty cozy and so we hung out there. Here is where Craig (he wants you to pronounce it crayg) enters the picture. Craig was a drunken (whose surprised) graduate who sat down to have a chat. He had an awesome scottish accent and kept saying really funny drunken scottish things. He kept yelling 'Ey Fred!' to one of the guys that was working and would ask him questions i.e. 'Ey Fred! Whats me last name?' Very entertaining. We ended up running into some other study abroad students and so we hung out with them and made plans to hang out during the day sometime. Enter Lydia and Lexy (see picture link for faces).
Tuesday we woke up and made ourselves some delicious breakfast with our new groceries (this is where the pictures start from) and got ready to head into town to pick up some bedding and take some awesome touristy pictures.
We needed and wanted some pictures of stirling but didn't want to seem too touristy, so we figured if we did it all at once we would get it over with. The pictures of Stirling on the album are all from this day. We walked on the bridge that William Wallace fought on, enjoyed the scenery, and walked into town.
We met up with my flatmate mike who was nice enough to help us out in the mall and give us a ride back to campus. I took the rest of the afternoon to finish unpacking and make my bed and clean up a bit. For dinner we made sandwiches; turkey, cheddar, and avocado on thick bread with fruits and veggies. The fruit seems a lot less genetically modified here. Smaller and fresher tasting.
We were very proud so we took some pictures. After dinner we showered and coordinated to have a few other study abroad students over. See pictures for details. It was a fun night. I have a feeling we will be hanging out as a group again. Still no sign of the last roommate, by the way.
SO. Wednesday was the first day of classes and charlene and I had a 9am-1pm class. We woke up early so we would have time to find our classroom. Well, we got there to find the classroom didn't exist. Skipped right over the number. We asked someone who looked important enough and he actually took us to our professor. We met him (Dr. Kim Jauncey), and he told us that PK9 actually doesn't exist. Now picture this in an accent 'We actually expanded some of our laboratories and they absorbed some of the other classrooms so they don't exist anymore." How very hogwarts of them. Well, we didn't have to go to class so all was well. And now we know which room to go to. With all the time in the world we decided to hand in our forms to switch classes and headed back to the apartment. My body wasn't used to waking up that early and so while fixing a problem with my itunes i fell into a coma and could not be woken. I don't even remember falling asleep. When I woke up I uploaded the pictures and then went over to their place to have lunch. We had sandwiches again, but we were lucky enough to hear some bagpipes off in the distance! It was so magical. It felt so scottish. I was really excited to hear my first bagpipes, and it was so much better than I could have imagined. They were off in the distance, and they played for a long time. It was so authentic and natural. Wonderful. I can't wait to see it upclose.
After lunch we went back to tesco to grab a few odds and ends. When we got back to campus we walked around and explored places we hadn't been before and took some more pictures. On the link you can see how beautiful and naturey the campus is.
We spent some time apart doing random things at our own flats and then I came back latter to make dinner. We had turkey nuggets shaped like dinosaurs, broccoli, and mash (mashed potatoes that we added onions and garlic to.) So good. The rest of the night was relaxed, did some video chatting, and here I am. I promised myself I would go to bed before midnight. well its 1:48 now so I guess that didn't happen. Tomorrow I will hopefully have real class, and so I will tell you how it goes. Also on the agenda for tomorrow is a stop at the open mic at the atrium where Tom (char/calla's flatmate) will be playing his bagpipe(!) and a look see at the radio station meeting.
Until next time, enjoy these photos <--click the word
I still haven't mastered my camera, so please ignore the lack of focus in some of the pictures. The pictures include some of campus, some of stirling city centre, my dorm room, our yummy meals, and some new friends.
As for the decision on whether to sign my entries or not, I remember how Alanna used to sign her abroad emails with a relevant phrase and her name. i.e., love and gelato, Alanna. I think I am going to try that because I enjoyed reading it so much. SO
Love and bagpipes,
Amanda
So it has become pretty clear that I will have to update about every two days or so, unless things slow down, because I begin to forget things after that. Let me start with Monday because that is where I left you off. Last entry was pretty detailed, but I seemed to get good feedback so I'm gonna keep trying to fill you in. Extra goody for this issue of lochedupabroad: pictures! See end for link.
So after a failed attempt to wake up early (on account of rain and what I think still might be jet lag and/or laziness) and conquer the class schedule problem and hike the wallace monument (which overlooks campus), char, calla and I decided to make moves towards the atrium for lunch and orientation thangs. We got to check out the freebie fayre (got some popcorn, a bottle opener, and some discount booklets. not bad.) Since we still didn't have any groceries and we were already there, we explored one of the other on campus dining options for lunch. On the bottom floor of the atrium is a dining hall type eatery called Haldanes (after one of the founders of the university, I believe). Food was pretty cheap and very hearty. We had the "classic combination platter," or basically the nonvegetarian hotmeal option. It was broccoli (delicious), potatoes (also delicious), chicken with gravy (not bad but a little dry), and chicken and lentil soup (sort of like baby food but also delicious). Jason would be happy to know that I tried the lemon fanta. VERY delicious. The meal was reallly filling.
After lunch we headed upstairs to the study abroad student orientation meeting. We learned how to read the class schedules (an impossible system) and how to register for our seminars (discussion/tutorial sessions). The meeting facilitator was Beth Shotton, the international/study abroad advisor. She seems really nice and approachable, and I am sure I will be bombarding her in the future with random concerns. She has a pretty interesting back story actually. As I understood it, she was born in Kansas, studied abroad at Stirling, met a guy, came back to get her masters at Stirling, and got married in Prague to the guy she met while studying abroad there (arich are you dying right now?). Since then she has been working at the university and has acquired a very interesting kansas/scotland accent. very cool.
They also had a speaker who has been a professor in the US and Scotland tell us about the differences between university learning here and at home. It was pretty helpful and interesting actually. I learned that professors have to report to an external education board that has the authority to tell them to rewrite their tests if something is unfair. That means there is a lot less flexibility for the professors to just decide to do whatever they want, which can be a problem sometimes in classes I've been in in the past. On the other hand, lectures are not very interactive, and they put a lot more emphasis on independent study and hold you accountable for reading assignments. I will let you know how true this is for my classes when I've adjusted to them. Right now I am registered for 3 classes at 5 credits each (which is worth the same as a normal semester at umd).I am currently registered for aquaculture, conservation biology, and environmental science field and lab techniques. Hopefully soon I will be switching out of aquaculture for an environmental policy and management class because the former conflicts with my 2nd class and the latter doesn't meet on fridays (good for traveling).
So after the meeting we went back to the apartment. We planned a trip to the grocery store to get some food for the apartment so we didn't have to keep buying food. We went to Tesco in town, which is a grocery store chain. It was pretty standard. Some of the product names were slightly different. Some that I can think of now are: angel soft toilet paper=andrex, bounty=plenty, frosted flakes=frosties, and eggplant had some funny name that I can't remember. We also discovered that here, what we know as a milky way is called a mars bar, and what we know as a three musketeer is called a milky way. very confusing but delicious nonetheless. Another confusing thing was when we went to get deli meat, we asked for a pound and a half and she responded in a scottish accent with the question "in weight or in money." A reasonable question, if I had expected it or could understand here (scotland is on the british pound for currency). Anyway, we got it in weight and slowly made our way to the checkout. Ended up being pretty fairly priced for the first big shop. Barsky, I kept thinking of that picture of you on your first grocery store trip in italy and how much harder it must have been!
The grocery store itself was pretty overwhelming, but the hardest part was carrying everything back to the apt. we took a bus but we had soo much stuff. we later learned the best way to get around this is to get a ride from someone, or get a group of about 5 people to get a cab (which are usually van size) and split the cost, which would end up being a pound or 2 a person. totally worth it. will have to look into it.
We were so exhausted from the trek that we heated up some frozen pizza for dinner and got ready to go out. Charlene/Calla's next door neighbors were having a get together so we went over to hang out for a while. At some point, i got up to go back to charlenes to look something up on the computer real quick. About a minute after I sat down at the computer, a drunk dude waltzed into the apartment and into charlene's room. I was alarmed, but soon realized he was drunk and confused. I told him that this wasn't his flat but he didnt seem phased. He then proceeded to take off his shirt, which I decided was no longer surprising and started to be scary (don't worry this story ends well). So I went out of charlenes room to distance myself and calla comes down the hall because she saw the kid (later known as kevin) walk into the apartment. Well, like any gentlemanly scot, he helped himself to charlene's bed and made himself comfortable. gross. calla and i tried to explain to him how he was in the wrong place and that he needed to leave. With very little success, we went next door to call for reinforcements. Luckily, char/calla's roommate tom, an actual scottish gentleman, came to the rescue and coerced the fool out of the room. When Kevin finally realized what was going on, he let tom escort him out. From here on is only heresay, but quite hilarious. So tom helped him home, even though kevin did not know where his home was. All of a sudden kevin jets off into the night, without realizing tom still has his keys. But since tom is a gentleman, he chased after kevin so he could have his keys and finally deduced where kevin lived. turns out kevin lives in the same building, same apt, same room, just one stairwell over. He accidentally went up the wrong steps and ended up in char's room. Tom solved the mystery and made sure he was safe and sound. The best part is I live one tower over from charlene. Turns out Kevin is my next door neighbor, though i am sure he remembers very little of it. It was surely interesting, but I am hoping that once classes start these freshman start to slow down. Not sure I can tolerate all their drunken tomfoolery all semester.
Later we left the flat to check out the bar in the atrium. It was low key and pretty cozy and so we hung out there. Here is where Craig (he wants you to pronounce it crayg) enters the picture. Craig was a drunken (whose surprised) graduate who sat down to have a chat. He had an awesome scottish accent and kept saying really funny drunken scottish things. He kept yelling 'Ey Fred!' to one of the guys that was working and would ask him questions i.e. 'Ey Fred! Whats me last name?' Very entertaining. We ended up running into some other study abroad students and so we hung out with them and made plans to hang out during the day sometime. Enter Lydia and Lexy (see picture link for faces).
Tuesday we woke up and made ourselves some delicious breakfast with our new groceries (this is where the pictures start from) and got ready to head into town to pick up some bedding and take some awesome touristy pictures.
We needed and wanted some pictures of stirling but didn't want to seem too touristy, so we figured if we did it all at once we would get it over with. The pictures of Stirling on the album are all from this day. We walked on the bridge that William Wallace fought on, enjoyed the scenery, and walked into town.
We met up with my flatmate mike who was nice enough to help us out in the mall and give us a ride back to campus. I took the rest of the afternoon to finish unpacking and make my bed and clean up a bit. For dinner we made sandwiches; turkey, cheddar, and avocado on thick bread with fruits and veggies. The fruit seems a lot less genetically modified here. Smaller and fresher tasting.
We were very proud so we took some pictures. After dinner we showered and coordinated to have a few other study abroad students over. See pictures for details. It was a fun night. I have a feeling we will be hanging out as a group again. Still no sign of the last roommate, by the way.
SO. Wednesday was the first day of classes and charlene and I had a 9am-1pm class. We woke up early so we would have time to find our classroom. Well, we got there to find the classroom didn't exist. Skipped right over the number. We asked someone who looked important enough and he actually took us to our professor. We met him (Dr. Kim Jauncey), and he told us that PK9 actually doesn't exist. Now picture this in an accent 'We actually expanded some of our laboratories and they absorbed some of the other classrooms so they don't exist anymore." How very hogwarts of them. Well, we didn't have to go to class so all was well. And now we know which room to go to. With all the time in the world we decided to hand in our forms to switch classes and headed back to the apartment. My body wasn't used to waking up that early and so while fixing a problem with my itunes i fell into a coma and could not be woken. I don't even remember falling asleep. When I woke up I uploaded the pictures and then went over to their place to have lunch. We had sandwiches again, but we were lucky enough to hear some bagpipes off in the distance! It was so magical. It felt so scottish. I was really excited to hear my first bagpipes, and it was so much better than I could have imagined. They were off in the distance, and they played for a long time. It was so authentic and natural. Wonderful. I can't wait to see it upclose.
After lunch we went back to tesco to grab a few odds and ends. When we got back to campus we walked around and explored places we hadn't been before and took some more pictures. On the link you can see how beautiful and naturey the campus is.
We spent some time apart doing random things at our own flats and then I came back latter to make dinner. We had turkey nuggets shaped like dinosaurs, broccoli, and mash (mashed potatoes that we added onions and garlic to.) So good. The rest of the night was relaxed, did some video chatting, and here I am. I promised myself I would go to bed before midnight. well its 1:48 now so I guess that didn't happen. Tomorrow I will hopefully have real class, and so I will tell you how it goes. Also on the agenda for tomorrow is a stop at the open mic at the atrium where Tom (char/calla's flatmate) will be playing his bagpipe(!) and a look see at the radio station meeting.
Until next time, enjoy these photos <--click the word
I still haven't mastered my camera, so please ignore the lack of focus in some of the pictures. The pictures include some of campus, some of stirling city centre, my dorm room, our yummy meals, and some new friends.
As for the decision on whether to sign my entries or not, I remember how Alanna used to sign her abroad emails with a relevant phrase and her name. i.e., love and gelato, Alanna. I think I am going to try that because I enjoyed reading it so much. SO
Love and bagpipes,
Amanda
Sunday, September 12, 2010
first post in scotland!
I made it! It's pretty late here (2:03am to be exact) but I really wanted to write because I am worried that if I let too much time pass I will start to forget what has been happening, and since I haven't started journalling yet, I want to have it all on record. So I apologize for those who are just browsing because I posted this on facebook. I realize that not everyone will be as die-hard of a fan as my mom is and won't want to know every detail, but I do want to have some sort of record so just bear with me.
So I guess I will just start with the airport! Everything ended up being fine, but I did run into issues pretty much every step of the way. I had to take stuff out of my bag because it was too heavy (paying extra wasn't enough- they wouldn't take it over a certain weight), there was airplane traffic around hethrow so we had to circle around before landing, which meant we cut it realllly close for our connecting flight, and of course they had to scan my bag a few times at security and run a test on my liquids (which took up time we didnt have), and then my bag got stuck at hethrow so I didn't get it until this afternoon (sunday), the visa situation was confusing, but everything ended up fine. we made the connecting flight, we ended up not having to get a visa, and my bag was delivered so I didn't have to carry it! Silver lining!
Anyway, so we got picked up from the airport by a university shuttle system. The ride from edinburgh to campus was about 45 minutes long. It was Charlene and I and 2 bulgarian girls. The driver was really nice and had a pretty interesting past driving buses for awesome tours through morocco and owning campsites and bed and breakfasts etc. The drive was beautiful! It was pretty sunny, and awesome countryside landscapes- lots of sheep and cows etc. Soon we were driving through the town near campus, Bridge of Allen. Cute and quaint. It reminded me a lot of Dublin. Really nice houses. We drove by a wedding- women in bright pink gowns and the men in- you guess it- KILTS! first kilt spotting. fortunately it wasn't a windy day. So Bridge of Allen is on one side of campus, and Stirling is on the other.
The campus is beautiful. There is a loch on campus with swans and a place to rent canoes, as well as a bridge over it that takes you right into the student union building (the atrium). The atrium has a ton of stuff- a bookstore, a school store type thing (sweatshirt and school supplies etc), a library, an eatery, some sort of art exhibition that I need to explore further, a cafe, and apparently a restaurant and bar downstairs (campus bar- can you believe it). There are also some lecture halls as well as smaller classrooms and multipurpose rooms. I have yet to see the whole building, but it's pretty much the center of campus. Oh! There is also a convenience/liquor store in the union. Crazy. I bought some hard cider and they didn't card me! Brilliant! (After rereading this I should clarify that I am absolutely of age here, it was just exciting to not be carded because people never believe I am 21 in the states.) But anyway, the shuttle guy dropped us off and we made our way to our building carrying all of our stuff (minus my huge bag which was stuck in hethrow) and went to the reception to collect our keys and check in. We eventually found our apartments. Charlene and I are in the same building, but different stairwells, but really close by. We are actually both on the 3rd floor, but they aren't connected. You have to go down the stairs and around the corner, and back up her stairs. But they are adjacent and really close. There was no one in my apartment and I had very little to unpack so we went to Charlene's where we coincidentally bumped into one of her roommates in the stairwell. Her roommate's name is Calla- she is studying abroad here for the semester from Canada. She is in her 5th year, so slightly older. The three of us get along really well, and are the same page about everything so far, and are getting excited to travel on the weekends. One of charlene's other roommates, Jordan, was there as well. He is a first year from manchester. He's on the tennis team here (sports are REALLY big). I was able to talk to my dad a few time on the phone to check in etc which was nice. The 4 of us hung out and ordered some pizza because we were too tired to walk into town (about a 45 minute walk) and didn't know about the restuarant in the union yet. Later we met a girl who hadn't really met anyone yet so we hung out at char/calla/jordan's place (my roommates were still m.i.a. at this point). We decided to go out on the town. We took a cab into the Stirling city centre, just got out where the cab driver dropped us off and went into the bar that he recommended. It was an australian themed bar. It was sort of an older crowd, but it might just be that I am used to college park bars where everyone is underage. But there was an outdoor seating area so we bought a round of pints (i feel so scottish) and sat outside. 4/5 of us were drinking so we decided to go to take turns buying rounds and going to a different bar for each round. The city is pretty small but swarming with students and locals (i assume) and so it was fun to walk around and people watch. Everyone was pretty dressed up, which was funny because all I had were the clothes in my carry on. I borrowed a shirt from calla, threw on a scarf and called it casual pub attire. We went to a few other places throughout the night and ended at one that was more of a dance club. for those of you who watched Skins, it was reminiscent of some of the clubs they went to, but less rave-y. The bathroom had cool mirror tiles. Maybe this is too detailed haha. We ended up getting back pretty late and I slept at Char's because I didn't want to be alone on my first night (still no sign of the roommies).
This morning (sunday) we woke up comfortably late, got dressed etc and went to the atrium (student union for those of you who aren't paying close attention) for some food. On the way there we ran into Calla who had received word that there was an international student orientation lecture in a half hour, so we grabbed a bagel sandwich at the atrium food area and went to the meeting. It was short because we will have another one tomorrow. We asked a few questions and got our ID cards etc. There were about 150? maybe? international students there. maybe more. Between 100 and 250 for sure. A lot from the US and Europe. But it was a mix of study abroad, exchange students, and international students who will be there for all 4 years.
I'm actually having trouble remembering the order of what else happened today, which means it's good I opted to stay up and write this down before I forget more. But in some order, we showered, I recovered my bag, i unpacked a little, we went into the town of stirling (by bus this time) to walk around and eat dinner, I videochatted with the fam (parents+jason+kitty as well as grammy+zayda+aunt maris+aunt val+the beautiful alanna) and hung out with char/calla/jordan's most recent roommate Tom. It great to see everyone over video and wish grammy a happy 80th birthday! For dinner we went to the Corn Exchange in town, which advertised 2 meals for 9.99 pounds. I had beef chili pie with mash and vegetables (chili on a crust with mashed leeks and salad on the side). It was warm and yummy. Since then I was able to talk to a few friends online and finally finish this blog post.
I apologize for the insane detail and lack of thought provoking cultural observations. One cultural observation I have noticed, however, is that men are way more affectionate (? i guess that's the word I would use) with each other. At the club I saw a man kiss another guy's nipple just while joking around. They were like laughing and talking loud and high fiving and then he lifted his shirt and the guy licked his nipple! Overshare of the night for you. Please excuse me, I suppose my discretion has been completely depleted by 3:13 am. It really is time for bed for me. Tomorrow we plan to wake up early to make our class schedules and hike to the William Wallace monument which overlooks the campus. Plus there is more orienatation, grocery shopping to do, and a plan to have some international students over to hang out and meet people.
oh last thing before i forget, i did meet 2 of my apartment-mates. Their names are mark and mike, though mike goes by his last name, which is escaping me at the moment. Mike plays gaelic footbol (soccer, keep in mind) which he said is like rugby+soccer with hands and feet, a round ball, and a weird goal system. I will definitely have to go watch one of this games. The other is Mark, who is a bio major and an olympic weightlifter, which I assume is a type of weightlifting because he wasn't bursting at the seams with muscles or anything (not to razz him or anything, maybe he just hides it well haha). They are 18 and 19, but both 2nd years. They seem nice, but they went out tonight and so I haven't seen much of them. Here's hoping that the other ones move in soon so I can meet them.
Alright, I really should go to bed. Thanks for following, and I will update again soon, and hopefully add some pictures! I'm not going to edit this now, so sorry if there are incomprehensible mistakes I will catch them later.
-Amanda
(can't decide if i should sign my posts. decision is tbd.)
So I guess I will just start with the airport! Everything ended up being fine, but I did run into issues pretty much every step of the way. I had to take stuff out of my bag because it was too heavy (paying extra wasn't enough- they wouldn't take it over a certain weight), there was airplane traffic around hethrow so we had to circle around before landing, which meant we cut it realllly close for our connecting flight, and of course they had to scan my bag a few times at security and run a test on my liquids (which took up time we didnt have), and then my bag got stuck at hethrow so I didn't get it until this afternoon (sunday), the visa situation was confusing, but everything ended up fine. we made the connecting flight, we ended up not having to get a visa, and my bag was delivered so I didn't have to carry it! Silver lining!
Anyway, so we got picked up from the airport by a university shuttle system. The ride from edinburgh to campus was about 45 minutes long. It was Charlene and I and 2 bulgarian girls. The driver was really nice and had a pretty interesting past driving buses for awesome tours through morocco and owning campsites and bed and breakfasts etc. The drive was beautiful! It was pretty sunny, and awesome countryside landscapes- lots of sheep and cows etc. Soon we were driving through the town near campus, Bridge of Allen. Cute and quaint. It reminded me a lot of Dublin. Really nice houses. We drove by a wedding- women in bright pink gowns and the men in- you guess it- KILTS! first kilt spotting. fortunately it wasn't a windy day. So Bridge of Allen is on one side of campus, and Stirling is on the other.
The campus is beautiful. There is a loch on campus with swans and a place to rent canoes, as well as a bridge over it that takes you right into the student union building (the atrium). The atrium has a ton of stuff- a bookstore, a school store type thing (sweatshirt and school supplies etc), a library, an eatery, some sort of art exhibition that I need to explore further, a cafe, and apparently a restaurant and bar downstairs (campus bar- can you believe it). There are also some lecture halls as well as smaller classrooms and multipurpose rooms. I have yet to see the whole building, but it's pretty much the center of campus. Oh! There is also a convenience/liquor store in the union. Crazy. I bought some hard cider and they didn't card me! Brilliant! (After rereading this I should clarify that I am absolutely of age here, it was just exciting to not be carded because people never believe I am 21 in the states.) But anyway, the shuttle guy dropped us off and we made our way to our building carrying all of our stuff (minus my huge bag which was stuck in hethrow) and went to the reception to collect our keys and check in. We eventually found our apartments. Charlene and I are in the same building, but different stairwells, but really close by. We are actually both on the 3rd floor, but they aren't connected. You have to go down the stairs and around the corner, and back up her stairs. But they are adjacent and really close. There was no one in my apartment and I had very little to unpack so we went to Charlene's where we coincidentally bumped into one of her roommates in the stairwell. Her roommate's name is Calla- she is studying abroad here for the semester from Canada. She is in her 5th year, so slightly older. The three of us get along really well, and are the same page about everything so far, and are getting excited to travel on the weekends. One of charlene's other roommates, Jordan, was there as well. He is a first year from manchester. He's on the tennis team here (sports are REALLY big). I was able to talk to my dad a few time on the phone to check in etc which was nice. The 4 of us hung out and ordered some pizza because we were too tired to walk into town (about a 45 minute walk) and didn't know about the restuarant in the union yet. Later we met a girl who hadn't really met anyone yet so we hung out at char/calla/jordan's place (my roommates were still m.i.a. at this point). We decided to go out on the town. We took a cab into the Stirling city centre, just got out where the cab driver dropped us off and went into the bar that he recommended. It was an australian themed bar. It was sort of an older crowd, but it might just be that I am used to college park bars where everyone is underage. But there was an outdoor seating area so we bought a round of pints (i feel so scottish) and sat outside. 4/5 of us were drinking so we decided to go to take turns buying rounds and going to a different bar for each round. The city is pretty small but swarming with students and locals (i assume) and so it was fun to walk around and people watch. Everyone was pretty dressed up, which was funny because all I had were the clothes in my carry on. I borrowed a shirt from calla, threw on a scarf and called it casual pub attire. We went to a few other places throughout the night and ended at one that was more of a dance club. for those of you who watched Skins, it was reminiscent of some of the clubs they went to, but less rave-y. The bathroom had cool mirror tiles. Maybe this is too detailed haha. We ended up getting back pretty late and I slept at Char's because I didn't want to be alone on my first night (still no sign of the roommies).
This morning (sunday) we woke up comfortably late, got dressed etc and went to the atrium (student union for those of you who aren't paying close attention) for some food. On the way there we ran into Calla who had received word that there was an international student orientation lecture in a half hour, so we grabbed a bagel sandwich at the atrium food area and went to the meeting. It was short because we will have another one tomorrow. We asked a few questions and got our ID cards etc. There were about 150? maybe? international students there. maybe more. Between 100 and 250 for sure. A lot from the US and Europe. But it was a mix of study abroad, exchange students, and international students who will be there for all 4 years.
I'm actually having trouble remembering the order of what else happened today, which means it's good I opted to stay up and write this down before I forget more. But in some order, we showered, I recovered my bag, i unpacked a little, we went into the town of stirling (by bus this time) to walk around and eat dinner, I videochatted with the fam (parents+jason+kitty as well as grammy+zayda+aunt maris+aunt val+the beautiful alanna) and hung out with char/calla/jordan's most recent roommate Tom. It great to see everyone over video and wish grammy a happy 80th birthday! For dinner we went to the Corn Exchange in town, which advertised 2 meals for 9.99 pounds. I had beef chili pie with mash and vegetables (chili on a crust with mashed leeks and salad on the side). It was warm and yummy. Since then I was able to talk to a few friends online and finally finish this blog post.
I apologize for the insane detail and lack of thought provoking cultural observations. One cultural observation I have noticed, however, is that men are way more affectionate (? i guess that's the word I would use) with each other. At the club I saw a man kiss another guy's nipple just while joking around. They were like laughing and talking loud and high fiving and then he lifted his shirt and the guy licked his nipple! Overshare of the night for you. Please excuse me, I suppose my discretion has been completely depleted by 3:13 am. It really is time for bed for me. Tomorrow we plan to wake up early to make our class schedules and hike to the William Wallace monument which overlooks the campus. Plus there is more orienatation, grocery shopping to do, and a plan to have some international students over to hang out and meet people.
oh last thing before i forget, i did meet 2 of my apartment-mates. Their names are mark and mike, though mike goes by his last name, which is escaping me at the moment. Mike plays gaelic footbol (soccer, keep in mind) which he said is like rugby+soccer with hands and feet, a round ball, and a weird goal system. I will definitely have to go watch one of this games. The other is Mark, who is a bio major and an olympic weightlifter, which I assume is a type of weightlifting because he wasn't bursting at the seams with muscles or anything (not to razz him or anything, maybe he just hides it well haha). They are 18 and 19, but both 2nd years. They seem nice, but they went out tonight and so I haven't seen much of them. Here's hoping that the other ones move in soon so I can meet them.
Alright, I really should go to bed. Thanks for following, and I will update again soon, and hopefully add some pictures! I'm not going to edit this now, so sorry if there are incomprehensible mistakes I will catch them later.
-Amanda
(can't decide if i should sign my posts. decision is tbd.)
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
T minus 48
"'And then he repeated, very slowly and very seriously, 'Please...draw me a sheep...'In the face of an overpowering mystery, you don't dare disobey. Absurd as it seemed, a thousand miles from all inhabited regions, and in danger of death, I took a scrap of paper and a pen out of my pocket. But then I remembered that I had mostly studied geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar, and I told the little fellow (rather closely) that I didn't know how to draw.
He replied, 'That doesn't matter. Draw me a sheep.'"
-The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
In less that 48 hours I will be on a flight to Scotland. The day came so quickly. After I've said goodbye to more than a dozen family members and friends over the past week, I return to a room full of towering piles of things to pack and things to not pack. I am trying to focus on those grassy knolls that await me in the UK. I am trying to not give in to (though maybe the idea is that I should give in to) the overpowering mystery of what in the hell awaits me in the next few months. I've booked my flight, prepared my visa, checked documents, made copies of documents, made copies of copies, and filed those copies into tightly zippered pouches. I can prepare zippered pouches until I turn blue in the face, but the reality is that I will never be able to imagine what I will know as reality in those quickly approaching 48 hours.
Later in the passage above, the Little Prince accepts the picture of a box with three holes as an adequate drawing of a sheep. He sees the potential of the unknown as a perfect solution to his sheep problem. I have just an inkling, just 3 holes worth, of an idea of what my semester in Scotland and beyond will be like. But I think that's enough for now. I have such a mix of emotions, on the eve-eve of departure, but I am doing my best to accept the sheepbox and just do it. Just going to get on that plane with Charlene (my roommate and official partner in crime for scotland adventures 2010) and when we get off we will be in freaking Scotland.
While there, I will do my best to update this blog with happenings, both mundane and exceptional, with relative frequency. It will also give me a chance to start writing again, because as it's made pretty clear in this jumble of thoughts and words and ramblings, I need the practice. As for now, I need to stop trying to make sense of my thoughts and start packing. Adios for now. (note to self: find out how scots say goodbye. I have a feeling it's not adios.)
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