Last full day in London

This morning I got up early and went to the Starbucks by church for breakfast before the service. I know, I caved in to Starbucks, but it was convenient... Alex met me there and we went to church at All Souls, which was great.

After that we walked around Hyde Park (it was another nice day, still cold) and went to Speaker's Corner where we heard one guy talking about how it's important to dance and laugh all the time and another guy talking about the war, among other things. So that was interesting. I liked the Princess Diana Memorial in Hyde Park, it's basically a circle with running water inside. We walked along the lake to Kensington Gardens where we saw the palace and people racing model sailboats.

After Hyde Park we went to the Tower of London, which was cool. Last time I was there we didn't get to spend a lot of time there so I was glad we had a few hours. We started by taking a free tour given by one of the Yeoman Warders. One cool thing he said was that the Yeoman Warders live in the Tower with their families if they have one, and that since he's a Yeoman Warder his sons and their kids and all of the generations after them can get married and baptised in the church in the Tower which I thought was really cool. There was a lot of stuff to look at in the Tower so we felt like we got our money's worth.

We didn't know what to do after the Tower because all the museums were closed so we went to church again at Holy Trinity Brompton, which was interesting.

After church we met up with Eva for dinner at a Mexican place that's like Chipotle, but not quite as good. We sat around and talked then I went back to Eva's place with her which is where I am now.

My flight leaves earlier than I thought tomorrow (it leaves at 2, I thought my bus to the airport left at 2), so I might just do Westminster Abbey tomorrow morning then go to the airport from there. If I have time I might stop by the Victoria and Albert Museum as well. It'll be nice to get back to Edinburgh early though so I can finish some work for this upcoming week and upload pictures!

Second day in London:

I'm really tired so I'm going to try to make this quick. I just don't want to forget what I did today (the days are blurring together).

The weather today was freezing but really beautiful. Clear blue skies all day, so my pictures of the city from today look much better than the ones I took yesterday. This morning Alex and I met at 9:00 at St. Paul's Cathedral. It was expensive to get in, but worth it. It's pretty amazing, I guess it has the 2nd largest dome in the world (behind St. Peter's). The whole building was beautiful and huge. We climbed a million (it felt like a million...) steps to get to the different levels of the dome. There were 2 outside levels with awesome views of the city and one inside which was called the Whispering Gallery because it was a mezzanine around the edge of the dome and if you whispered into the wall on one side someone on the other side can hear it. We tried it and we think it worked but it was hard to tell because there were a few other people up there. We went at a good time though; it didn't get too crowded until we went into the crypt towards the end.

After we did St. Paul's Alex and Eva went to the football match so I was on my own for the afternoon. I did the free walking tour which was excellent. It covered a ton of places and I learned a lot of new information and the guide had some really good stories. I met some people too so I wasn't just hanging out by myself....

After the tour I went to the British Museum. I hadn't eaten yet (it was 3:00), so I went to the cafe and got lunch, which I ate while I read the section in my guidebook about the museum. The museum is enormous, and there was absolutely no way I would be able to even come close to seeing everything in a few hours so I decided just to walk through the whole place and just kind of take in what I could. Highlights included the Rosetta Stone, some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the marble from the Parthenon. It was funny seeing that in particular because I remember when we were in Greece the Greeks were really mad that the British still had that marble. They're still trying to get it back. As I was walking around I couldn't help thinking about what the people must have felt like when they found all this stuff. For example, there was a big terrapin (turtle for you people not from Maryland...) made out of jade that someone found at the bottom of a well in China (I think). Like how cool would that be?

After the museum I just started walking around. I ended up at King's Cross and I tried to find platform 9 3/4 (they have a sign that says it and half a baggage cart sticking out of the wall) but I couldn't find it. I know the sign and baggage cart isn't at the actual 9 3/4 but I couldn't find it anywhere. Oh well, no Hogwarts Express for me....

I started walking back towards Eva after that and the timing worked out well because they got back pretty much just as I was getting to the underground. The three of us went to dinner at a pizza place which was good, then went back to Eva's to hang out until it was a respectable time to go out. We went to a bar at the UCL student center with 3 other girls from Wash U that are studying here.

Tomorrow: All Souls, Hyde Park, the Tower of London, whatever else I can fit in

London so far

I had quite an interesting first night and day in London. My flight last night was delayed an hour and half so we took off at the time that we were supposed to be landing. I didn't end up getting to Gatwick til about 10 pm, so I had missed my bus to London (which left at 9:45). I took a bus to transfer to the north terminal where the bus to London leaves from, and got my ticket changed to the next bus, which left at 10:45. That bus ride was about an hour and 15 minutes long so I got to the city around midnight, and I was really worried that the trains would stop running before I could get to my destination. I got on the tube and did one transfer, then miraculously got to my next train 2 minutes before it was supposed to leave, and it was the last one of the night. I would have had to call a cab if I had missed that train so that was really lucky.

This morning Alex and I walked around. First we went to the Burough Market, a big indoor/outdoor market with lots of food stalls. Then we walked along the river a bit to the Globe Theater, Millennium Bridge (the bridge that got destroyed by dementors in one of the Harry Potter movies...), and across the river to the main sites. We walked to Trafalgar Square and ran into the Portrait Gallery just to find the famous painting of Shakespeare, which was very easily found. On our way to Buckingham Palace we saw the Horse Guards Parade Grounds. The horses were just standing there but there were a lot of them and I thought it looked cool. Then after crossing through St. James's Park we arrived at Buckingham Palace. We were there just before the changing of the guard was going to start so we decided to wait and see it, but then we changed our minds because I've already seen it and Alex can go back a different day.

We had a little over half an hour to find the departure point for our trip to Stonehenge and we thought that would be plenty of time, but we could not find it. It was pretty terrible. We were on the right street but the description of the place where we were supposed to go wasn't very good so we were really confused. We speed-walked up and down Victoria Street trying to find this bus but we just couldn't find it. It got to 12:30 (when we were supposed to get picked up), and we had just about given up when the bus pulled up right in front of us. We were relieved.

2 hours, some rain, some hail, and some snow later, we arrived to beautiful weather at Stonehenge. It was freezing but there was a clear blue sky which we definitely did not think would happen. It was way cooler than I thought it would be; it's just very impressive. We did the audio guides so that was good to get some information on it. The bus left about an hour and a half later, and we arrived back in London at about 6:30.

We were going to meet Eva for dinner but she was going out so we went to a really cheap pub for food, walked around a little more, then split up for the night, so now I'm back in Eva's room.

Tomorrow I think we're all going to St. Paul's Cathedral, then a free 3-hour walking tour (like the one I did in Edinburgh). Alex and Eva are going to a football match that I couldn't get a ticket to tomorrow afternoon so I'm going to go to the British Museum to check that out. Sunday is church at All Soul's, Hyde Park (and Speaker's Corner), the Tower of London, and whatever else we have time for. I'll probably go to Westminster Abby and maybe another museum Monday morning before I leave.

Pictures coming when I get back!

London Tomorrow

Yesterday was a pretty normal (i.e. dull) day of classes. I had a lot of work to get done afterwards to get ready for classes on Thursday and since I won't be doing any work this weekend, so naturally last night I went to a movie. A bunch of us saw Avatar in 3d. I wasn't thrilled by the actual plot or acting but it was pretty incredible to see. Apparently it was one of the most expensive movies ever made and it's pretty obvious why; the special effects are amazing. We got back from that around midnight, then I did a little work and went to bed.

I slept late this morning so I only had about 3 hours before my riding lesson to get stuff done. I went to the public library and got a library card, then checked out 2 guidebooks for London which I will read on the plane and bus tomorrow (on my way to London...). Then I went to the campus library and printed out a bunch of travel documents and stuff. A quick run to the bank and store brought me to 3:00, so it was time for my riding lesson.

I rode a horse named Donald. He was really young, only about 7 or 8, and he acted his age. He threw his head a lot, wouldn't bend at all and bucked at the canter, but it was fun. The problem I'm running into is that here people ride in a more "dressage" seat, which is sitting straight up and really sitting deep in the saddle. This is the exact opposite of the "hunter" seat which is what I ride at home, and is pretty predominant in the US. There's just no way I'm ever going to be able to ride the way my trainer here wants me to, it's just so totally different and I'm only riding once a week. I really don't want to start riding like that anyway though, or I'll get laughed out of the ring when I go back to riding in the US...

After my lesson I did laundry, reading for classes tomorrow, and just got stuff ready for London. I'm leaving tomorrow after classes. The flight takes about an hour and half, there's an hour and 15 minute transfer from the airport to the city, then about a half hour tube ride to where I'm staying, so it'll be a long journey. I don't have any real plans yet except that we're going to Stonehenge on Friday and I'm doing the free tour of London on Saturday morning (the same company we did the free tour of Edinburgh with). Other than that I'll just be seeing the sites and walking around.

Haggis tastes like Swedish meatballs

Tonight was Burns' Night. It's a celebration of Robert Burns, a famous poet that Scotland is very proud of. Basically it's just a night to celebrate all things Scottish. My small group leader had a big get together at his apartment for it, and about 20 people went. We had the traditional meal, haggis with neeps (turnips) and tatties (potatoes), and then desserts and other stuff that people brought. We drank Irn Bru (a really popular Scottish soda kind of thing) and had Scottish music playing in the background.

Haggis, for those of you who don't know, is sort of a national dish of Scotland. It's the lungs, liver, and heart of a sheep ground up and mixed with herbs and spices, then cooked in a sheep's stomach. Appetizing, no? It was actually pretty good, it just tastes like meatballs. You can't think about what you're eating though. Here's a picture of me trying haggis for the first time:

Another tradition on Burns' Night is to read poetry. Don, our small group leader, did it. He read 2 poems by Burns and one by "The World's Worst Poet," William McGonagall (that's what he's known as). The Burns ones were incomprehensible between the writing style and Don's Scottish accent, but they sounded so cool. Here's "Ode to a Haggis," by Robert Burns:

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great Chieftan o’ the Puddin-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang’s my arm

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
You pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o’need
While thro’ your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead

His knife see Rustic-labour dight,
An’ cut you up wi’ ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reeking, rich!

Then, horn for horn they stretch an’ strive,
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive
Bethankit hums

Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi’ perfect sconner,
Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither’d rash
His spindle-shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro’ bluidy flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll mak it whissle;
An’ legs, an’ arms an’ heads will sned,
Like taps o’ thrissle

Ye pow’rs wha mak mankind your care,
An’ dish them out their bill o’fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu’ pray’r,
Gie her a Haggis!

So yeah, completely incomprehensible, especially when read with a Scottish accent. The poem by the Worst Poet in the World was hilariously terrible. It was his best known poem, called The Tay Bridge Disaster. Look it up, it's just so terrible. He has some other ones too that are equally as hilarious.

Oh, we also said a grace that was written by Robert Burns:

Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.

The Americans needed a translation.

Other things that I did today were.... nothing. I mean I did some reading but not nearly as much as I wanted to, especially considering I won't be here this weekend. I did buy tickets to Spain though, and booked the hostels!

Glasgow

The morning started off meeting at 8:30 and walking to the bus station. We got there on time and without too much trouble so that was good. The bus ride took about an hour and 15 minutes, and it was through some beautiful scenery- mountains, green grass, and sheep. Fog started to roll in which gave it a very ethereal feeling.We arrived at 9:15, and made our way to George Square, the main square in the city:

The tourist office is on that square so we stopped in there to get some information, then we went to the City Chambers, but that was closed (it was Saturday). We were really sad about that because apparently the inside looks awesome (google "Glasgow City Chambers"). There was a general consensus that we needed coffee (or hot chocolate in Semmes and my case), so we went searching for a place. Eventually we settled on Costa Coffee, which yes, is a chain, but it looked popular and we were tired of looking.

We decided not to go into the Museum of Modern Art, thinking we would return to it later, but we didn't. I don't think anybody was too upset about that.

We passed through Merchant City on our way south to the river. Merchant City is a bustling, urban shopping street. Pretty cool. Eventually we managed to find the River Clyde, and we walked along that on our way to the Glasgow Green.

The Glasgow Green is exactly what it sounds like: a big green park (located in Glasgow...). I'm always surprised by how green the grass is here this time of year.

So we walked through that, then on the other side was the People's Palace, a museum of Glasgow. That was a cool building, and we spent some time in there. On our way out we took pictures of the cool fountain, then headed north to the Barras (getting only a little lost along the way).

The Barras is a big flea market that takes place on weekends. There are stalls outside and inside, and it was a pretty busy place. We looked around for a while, then got lunch at a sketchy little place. We all got Scottish meals and felt our life expectancies drop by 5 years.

After that we walked through the Barras some more, then went north again to the Necropolis. The Necropolis is a big hill with an awesome graveyard on it. At the base of the Necropolis is the Glasgow Cathedral, St. Mungo's Museum, and Provand's Lordship.

We went to the Necropolis first. It was a very beautiful graveyard, and had some famous Scottish people buried in it. We could see blue skies and a beautiful sunset in the distance, but not over the graveyard. It was huge, so we spent a lot of time walking around that, then we headed back down the hill to the Cathedral.

The Cathedral was awesome. So beautiful. Apparently it was the only cathedral in Scotland to survive the Reformation. It was amazing, definitely stands up to some of the cathedrals in Italy and France. I thought the downstairs was the coolest part though. It had St. Mungo's tomb, and the whole corridor just looked so cool with the arches.

Upstairs:

Downstairs:

After the cathedral we went next door to St. Mungo's Museum of Religious Life and Art, and wandered around that for a while. There were a lot of cool artifacts in there but here's one of them:

It was 4:00 by that time and all the museums closed at 5 so we quickly went next door and wandered around Provand's Lordship, the oldest house in Glasgow. It was a neat house, I thought the layout was intriguing. Low ceilings, all stone, very cool.

At 4:30 we started walking back towards George Square, then a little more north of that to the Royal Concert Hall for some free music. Glasgow is having their Celtic Connections Festival this week so we went to this free event where some bands played music. We saw 2 groups. The first group was a brother and sister; neither of them could have been over 15. They were a big crowd pleaser. After them were this other group and they were pretty terrible, so Maeghan and I left to look at the booths outside the exhibition hall.

At about 6 we went on a search for a place to eat dinner. We wandered around for a while, finding places then deciding not to eat there.

We found this pub but some people didnt want to eat at a pub. Then we found an Italian place and got as far as through the doors, then some people decided they didn't want to eat there. Then we found another pub that was the same kind of thing as the first pub, but more expensive. So we went back to the first place we found, but it was full. So we went back to the more expensive pub. Phew. We all felt better when we finally sat down and got some food. It was good food, and that was the end of our tour of Glasgow.

We got back to the bus station with no problems. I dozed for most of the bus ride back, but I remember one of the passengers singing a few times... We arrived back in good ol' Edinburgh around 9:30. It was good to be home!

As always, there are tons of pictures on my facebook.

I probably won't update again tonight because I'm not anticipating anything unusual happening today. I'll probably just work on homework and go to church. The rest of this week will be spent planning my trip to London (leaving on Thursday, coming back Monday), and finalizing a trip to Spain (Barcelona and Madrid).

My weekend schedule has changed a surprising amount since I posted it 2 days ago so here's the updated one:

Jan. 28-Feb. 1: London (and Stonehenge)

Feb. 6- Feb. 7: Pony trekking and maybe Rosslyn Chapel?

Feb. 13- Feb. 14: 2-day tour of Scotland

Feb. 19-Feb. 22: Sarah and Alex visiting

Feb. 25- March 1: Spain (Barcelona and Madrid)

March 5- March 8: Family visiting

March 11- March 15: Alex visiting?

March 19- March 26: Dillon visiting

Then a few weeks of traveling around Europe for Spring Break!

Great day in Glasgow

I'm too tired to do a full update tonight, but I'll do one tomorrow morning with pictures and everything. Basically it was an awesome day and everything went smoothly and we saw everything we wanted to see and the timing worked out great. Stay tuned for tales of museums, cathedrals, graveyards, local music, and a near cut-throat search for a place to eat dinner...

A relaxing day

I slept in til 11 which was awesome, then spent an hour trying to find places online to watch The Office and 30 Rock (found The Office- not worth the effort). When I finally got the energy to get out of bed I planned our trip to Glasgow tomorrow, which should be awesome. Then I went for a run in the Meadows (a big park close to my building) and felt less lazy.

After a shower and lunch I ran a few errands, figured out how to print stuff at the library, then came back and relaxed and ate dinner.

Tonight was the large group meeting for the Christian Union so Lauren and I went to that. It was great! Just like Overflow (the Christian group I used to go to at Wash U), even down to the awkward opening from the hosts. It was really great, and I met 3 new people that are awesome. One of them was actually a girl I went up Arthur's Seat with so that was random. Lauren had to go print stuff at the library afterwards but the 3 other girls and I went to an awesome little restaurant for hot chocolate and conversation. It was a good night!

Leaving on a bus for Glasgow tomorrow at 9 am, returning at 9 pm. The trip takes about an hour and 20 minutes so that's not bad at all. The people that I went up Arthur's Seat with are also going tomorrow (they're there for the weekend) so maybe we'll run into them.

Here's my schedule for the rest of my weekends up to Spring Break:

Jan 29-Feb 1: London

Feb 6-Feb 7: Tour of Scotland

Feb 13: Lindisfare/Holy Island with the International Student Center

Feb 19-Feb 22: Sarah and Alex visiting

Feb 25- March 1: Spain

March 6: Loch Lomond and family visiting

March 11- March 15: Linlithgow Palace w/ ISC

March 19- March 26: Dillon visiting

Then Spring Break and who knows what I'll be doing...

Classes and clubs

Thursdays are my worst day as far as classes go. I have 2 lectures and 2 tutorials, but they're mostly all an hour apart from each other, resulting in awkward time gaps. I had society and politics first, which was good, then an hour break so I went to the library to do some reading for my history tutorial.

Then I had my society and politics tutorial. I like my tutor, she's very knowledgeable and nice. We talked about our project ideas, and it was funny seeing the differences between Scottish students and international students. All of the international students had detailed paragraphs written about our projects ideas (which apparently were all too complicated anyway so we had to reduce the scale of our projects), while the Scottish students hadn't even started thinking about it. They told us at orientation that things like that would probably happen but it was still interesting seeing the differences. I'm still refining my project idea but essentially I'll be looking at the differences in identity markers (how people define their identity) between Scottish students and international students.

I went back to my flat for the next hour break and ate lunch, then I went to my history tutorial. The tutor that we'll normally have is the main professor for our class which is cool, but he had a meeting today so we had a different guy instead. I wish we could keep that guy because he is much more animated than the professor that we'll normally have. Oh well.

Usually after the history tutorial I'll have history lecture, but since the professor got called to that meeting the class was canceled, which is awesome.

I went grocery shopping after class, then hung out at my flat until tonight, when we went out to a club and had a great time.

This weekend we are planning a trip to Glasgow. We wanted to go to St. Andrews with the International Student Center but the tickets sold out on Monday before we got them. Then more tickets went on sale yesterday, and we still didn't get any... Apparently campus security thought the International Student Center was staging a silent protest because so many people were standing in line outside the building to get tickets. But anyway, sounds like we're going to Glasgow instead. The 2-day tour of Scotland that we want to do in a few weeks goes to St. Andrews so it all works out. It's a good weekend to go to Glasgow because they're having their Winter Festival now, and Glasgow is supposedly a big cultural center in Scotland so that should be awesome.

Now that the novelty of living here has worn off, I'll probably stop writing blog posts everyday, because they're getting progressively less interesting.

First riding lesson

This morning I went back to the National Museum of Scotland because I had to look at a certain exhibit (Scotland: A Changing Nation) for my history tutorial tomorrow. I think I'm going to go back to the museum a few more times. It's enormous and a really good museum, plus it's free and close to where I live.

After that I went back to my flat and got some work done, then went to the bank, bought some groceries, ate lunch, and went to my first riding lesson here.

We met at the informatics building at 3, then drove about 45 minutes to the barn. It was cool being in a British car, listening to British radio, driving through the Scottish countryside. We got to the barn (very nice, by the way), got ready to ride, then went to the ring (they have 2 indoor rings). The lesson before us was running late so we waited a little, then the horses for our lesson weren't there so we had to wait for them. The wrong horses were brought up (they were more for the beginner level, not advanced which is what we were) but we rode them anyway. They said that it's not usually that crazy but it was fine, we still rode for almost the full hour.

I was on a horse called Sid. Before the lesson people were talking about how crazy this horse is, then I rode him... He wasn't really crazy, just fast and he kept his head up which is obnoxious because it makes the rider pretty ineffective. I got him moving decently though so it was fine.

I really liked the trainer. She started off the lesson by just having us walk/trot around for 5 minutes without instruction to get a feel of our horses. Then we each said what we liked about the horse and what we wanted to work on, and she said that my observations about Sid were exactly right and what she would have said, which was a confidence boost.

I rode pretty well considering the horse, and I felt like I was at or above the level of the other riders. People that are at my level or above me are on the teams (competitive teams that you have to try out for at the beginning of the year), so even the advanced lesson isn't super advanced.

The trainer is really good. She focused more on us getting the horses to do better than focusing on our positions, which is perfect for an advanced lesson. We all know how to ride so lessons get boring if the trainer just focuses on our position, but she really focused on training the horses and doing movements for suppleness and stuff. It's an eventing barn so I'm going to learn a little dressage which is helpful. She was upset that the wrong horses were brought up because she said that at our level we shouldn't have to be training the horses, so I think in the future the lessons will go more smoothly and we'll have nice horses.

We didn't jump which was a huuuge bummer. Apparently the teams jump a lot more at their lessons than the rest of the riders do (they get 2 hour lessons), but I hope I get to jump at least a little bit while I'm here... Overall it was fun and I'm happy with the way I rode. It was great to ride again!

M & Ms taste different here

I bought a pack of M & Ms and the chocolate tastes completely different. Lame.

Anyway... class today was pretty normal. I think society/politics and history will overlap a lot, which is good. It's cool to get different perspectives on the same things. The lecturer in society and politics today was Tom Devine, who's a prominent Scottish historian. We had some of his readings in history too.

I had my first real philosophy class today (last week was really short and just administrative stuff). It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It's 2 hours long so I thought it would be terrible but the professor is good, and he uses powerpoint slides. I've never had a philosophy class that uses slides and it's incredibly helpful. The class is a good mix between lecture and discussion (not that I followed any of the discussion...) and as long as I stay focused it shouldn't feel too long. It's only once a week so I'm done with that til next Tuesday.

After those classes I went back to my flat for lunch, started searching for a sleeping bag to use next weekend, ate some weird M & Ms, and started reading for my classes on Thursday.

I hung out in my flat finishing up reading and losing to Dillon in online Scrabble, then I was going to go out with some friends when my flat mates decided to watch a movie. I was really tired so I decided to watch the movie instead of go out. So we watched a movie, then I decided that I did actually want to go out, so I called my friends to see what they were doing and they still hadn't left, so I started watching a second movie with my flat mates. Finally people got motivated and we went out, and had a fun night at a bar with karaoke.

Tomorrow I'm going to go back to the National Museum of Scotland to check out an exhibit I have to see before my history tutorial on Thursday, then I'm going to try to get a ton of reading done, then a riding lesson! Hopefully that goes well...

The sun is too bright

I still don't believe all the talk about Scottish weather being dreary all the time. Today was absolutely beautiful. Blue skies all day, I even had a t-shirt on outside all morning without a jacket and was completely comfortable (I put on a light jacket later and was fine for the rest of the day). The sun was literally too bright for comfort because it stays on the horizon all day, so even at noon it's right in your eyes. That made it very difficult to take pictures.

Nevertheless, I took many pictures this morning. Since it was such a beautiful morning, I decided to hike up Calton Hill. It's a hill kind of in the middle of the city with a few monuments and things on top. It has a lovely view of the city and the shore, so here are a few pictures and videos. There are more pictures on my facebook, as usual:

Dugald Stewart Monument with the castle and city in the background:

Looking toward Arthur's Seat:

The half-finished Parthenon:

Nelson Monument and Parthenon:

Palace

Here are a few videos from different vantage points on Calton Hill if you're interested:

There's a graveyard with a lot of famous people buried in it right below Calton Hill, so I went in there too:

Some graves with Calton Hill in the background:

There are more pictures of the graveyard on facebook, like of David Hume's tomb for example, but I don't feel like uploading anymore.

After that little excursion I went to the library to try and figure out how it works. It took about an hour to figure out exactly where everything is, how to login to the computers, how to work the book checkout/return machines, and stuff like that, but eventually I figured out enough to get the books I needed from the HUB (High Use Book section) and do the reading I need for class tomorrow. I spent a few hours at the library, then went grocery shopping, then went back to my flat to try to get some more reading done.

At 5 I tried to get a ticket to go to St. Andrews with the International Student Center but there were already so many people lined up that I didn't bother. A bunch of my friends didn't get tickets either so we're going to go somewhere else this weekend, maybe Rosslyn Chapel or Glasgow. We also decided on a 2-day tour of Scotland that we're going to do in a few weeks. I wanted to do the 3-day tour, which includes the Isle of Skye, but it's cheaper to do the 2-day tour. Plus the 2-day tour goes to St. Andrews so that worked out.

I tried to get more reading done after the ticket fiasco but I was too preoccupied with making alternative plans for this weekend so I gave up on work. At 7:30 Lauren and I met people and walked over to small group. It was fun, and we're looking forward to going back next week for Burns' Night, which is a big celebration of Robert Burns. Basically everyone sits around, listens to Scottish music, eats haggis, reads poetry, and gets drunk if you're into that... So it'll be nice to have a place to celebrate without having to drink.

So overall it was a good day. Not really looking forward to class tomorrow or the massive amount of work I have to do tomorrow night and Wednesday to get ready for tutorials and class on Thursday (I have to have a proposal for my major research project in Society and Politics done by Thursday...).

Museum and Church

This morning I woke up nice and late (about 11), got ready, then went for a walk. I decided to take pictures of my route to class from my flat, so here you go:

I leave my building, turn right, and go up these steps to Chamber's Street:

After the stairs, I cross Chamber's Street (where the black car is), and go up that street straight ahead:

Then I go through this underpass (Wash U has an underpass too, so it's just like home...):

Turn right and go up this ramp:

Around the corner...:

And then I'm in the main square of the campus. To my left (not in the picture), is Potterrow, one of the student centers. To my right (in the next 2 pictures) is a big square. For classes, I just keep walking straight ahead:

To my right as I walk to class is a big square with McEwan Hall and...:

...Teviot, the main student building:

I keep walking straight and the Dugald Stewart Building, where I have metaphysics, is on the left:

Keep walking and Appleton Towers, where I have Society and Politics, is on the left:

A little farther down on the left is the William Roberston Building, where I have history:

So that's it for my classes, but I kept walking and taking pictures, so here are some more things. After I pass the big square with Teviot, George Square is on my right as I walk to class. It's a lovely grassy square, and this isn't a very good picture of it:

Around the corner of George's Square is the main library. The outside looks like a parking garage but it's pretty nice inside. The bottom floor was just redone and it looks fantastic, then the 6 floors or so above that are mediocre (and undergoing rehab). It's a really huge library. There are millions of desks for studying and computers, but I'm disappointed that there aren't comfy chairs to just sit and read, which Wash U's library has an abundance of. The cafe downstairs has them, but I didn't see any on the other floors. For pictures of inside the library, visit this website: http://www.lib.ed.ac.uk/sites/getting_in.shtml. It's a virtual tour of the library, and you can click through the different pages of pictures by clicking the link at the bottom of each page. The first couple "stops" are of the main floor which is very nice. Anyway, here's a picture of the outside:
Behind the library is the Meadows, which is a huge park. It's really nice. I'm sure when the trees are in bloom it's really pretty. There were people running and playing ball games and stuff when I went this morning. The whole back wall of the library has tons of windows that overlook the Meadows so that's nice. Here are a few pictures of that and a quick video:

After my walk, about 15 of us went to the National Museum of Scotland, which is on Chamber's Street. It's enormous and we didn't even come close to seeing it all. Here's a picture of half of it (there are 2 buildings connected, you can't see the 2nd building in this picture):

We split up into 2 groups and our group decided to take a free tour, which I thought was a helpful overview of the history of Scotland and some of the important stuff in the museum. I'll definitely go back there a few times to see more stuff, especially since it's free and like 2 seconds away from my building.

You can go up to the roof for a nice view of the city. Here are a few pictures from that, and there are more on my facebook in The Edinburgh Album:



After the museum I went back to my flat, ate, and worked on this blog post. Then later, Lauren and I went to church. We went to Charlotte Chapel, in New Town. The evening service is more contemporary and we chose that church partially because they have a program where international students can be set up to have a "host family," where they can hang out, get food, relax, that kind of thing. We really liked the church! I loved the singing and the sermon was good. It was very cool worshiping in a different country. I emailed them about getting into the host family thing so we'll see if that happens. I definitely want to go back to the church though, it was great.

Penguins and Volcanoes

Today was much more eventful than yesterday. I got up at 8 this morning to go to the zoo. About 50 of us met in front of the International Student Center to take the bus over to the zoo (about 2 1/2 miles outside of the city). When we got there, it was cold and rainy and there was nobody there except us. Alison and I wandered around and didn't see anyone else for most of the time. The weather was bad at the beginning and a lot of the animals weren't out, but the zoo was really beautiful. It's built on a hill with a stunning view of the snowy mountains and the valley below.

The penguins were probably the highlight of the visit (other than the scenery). The Edinburgh Zoo has the largest penguin pool in the world, and there are A LOT of penguins. One of those penguins is Sir Nils Olav, a king penguin, who is an honorary colonel-in-chief of the King's Guard in the Norwegian army. There's also a penguin that's only several months old and he looks ridiculous. Grey and fluffy. Every day at 2:15 there's a Penguin Parade, when the penguins are let out of their pen to go for a stroll, but since we got to the zoo early we didn't want to sit around for and extra 2 hours waiting for the parade. We were disappointed though, because that sounded cool. Look it up on youtube, it's quite cute.

There are a few pictures from the zoo on my facebook, but here are a few as well:

The bus ride back from the zoo was fun because it went through New Town a bit. I've really only seen Princes Street in New Town so it was fun seeing more of it. The weather was so lovely when we got back that I decided it would be a good time to go up Arthur's Seat, a huge extinct volcano in the middle of Edinburgh. You can see it from anywhere in the city and it looks awesome. None of my friends wanted to go because they thought it would be too cold or icy, so I decided to go by myself. Luckily, as I was leaving my building, I heard 2 girls talking about how they were about to go up Arthur's seat so I asked if I could join them. We had a group of about 12 and we walked toward the volcano.

The hike up to the top was rough because it's pretty treacherous to begin with, then you add ice and it was slow going. We all made it though and the view was phenomenal. Absolutely amazing. I put a ton of pictures on my faceboook so you can look at pictures there (please do! It was amazing!), but here are a few videos I took at different points along the climb to give you an idea (refresh the page if the videos don't work when you press play):

Now where do we go?:

It's getting bigger as we get closer:

Getting ready to climb:

Do we need to go higher? It's pretty right here:

Almost there:

The very top:

And finally, here are some pictures of me :-):

Remember to check out the pictures on my facebook!

From the top you can see the ocean, the Firth of Forth, the castle, the palace, mountains, and every other landmark. The sunset from up there must be amazing. It sets right behind the mountains. I'm definitely doing that when it gets warmer! We spent plenty of time at the top, then we climbed back down which wasn't as bad as we thought it would be.

I went back to my flat after that (stopping at the grocery store on the way), took a shower, ate dinner (I was starving. I didn't have lunch when I got back from the zoo then I climbed a mountain), and wrote this blog. I walked/hiked for like 8 hours today so I'm pretty exhausted but I might go to The Big Cheese tonight. The Big Cheese is held weekly at a bar on campus and they play really cheesy music from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. How could that not be fun? We'll see how I feel in a few hours.

Tomorrow we're going to the National Gallery of Scotland and I will finally do some reading for class next week! Maybe.

If you didn't read this post you wouldn't be missing anything

Nothing too exciting happened today except that I slept from 1 am to 10 am without waking up, which is amazing. I don't think I've slept through a night without waking up in at least 3 years. I did eventually wake up and went to a lecture by the Registrar General which was interesting, but he talked about the exact same stuff we talked about in history yesterday. Oh well.

After that Lauren and I went to the Writer's Museum to learn all about Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Burns, and Sir Walter Scott, 3 natives of Edinburgh, a fact that Edinburgh is very proud of. The museum is free, and it's in an old building that used to be one of the nicest residences in Edinburgh, so the building itself is pretty cool. It was good that we went because Burns' Night is January 15, so we learned a bit about him. One weird thing that happened was I opened the guest book in the museum, like where you can write your name, a note, and where you're from, and the first entry I saw was a girl from Holland, Michigan...

After that Lauren had class so I went into a couple little shops on Nicolson, like a used book store, an art store, and a regular book store. Then I went grocery shopping and went back to my flat. All my flat mates were there so I made lunch and sat with them for a while.

Then I just did some planning for London, hung out in my flat, made some dinner, nothing

exciting.

Since this was such a boring blog post, here are some fun facts:

Facts about the University of Edinburgh
- Currently ranked the 20^th university in the world by the THE-QS World University Rankings
- Founded in 1582
- Has the oldest purpose-built student union building in the world (Teviot)
- Some famous alumni: David Hume, Charles Darwin, Gordon Brown, 9 nobel prize winners, 2 signers of the American Declaration of Independence, Alexander Graham Bell, J.M. Barrie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Adam Smith, Chris Hoy, Eric Liddell, and more…

Some important facts about Scotland:
- There are no graham crackers here
- There is no Hershey’s chocolate here

Zoo tomorrow, maybe I'll get attacked by a bear. That would make for a more interesting blog post.

Being a tourist

Last night I decided to hang around my flat, but since nobody was here, I just cleaned the whole thing. It was so gross, I can’t even explain. I took out 6 big garbage bags of trash and recycling (some of which have been in the flat since last term), washed dishes, vacuumed, and swept, and now it looks great. I decided that would be a good time to get a video of the flat since it will never be that clean again, so here’s a video walk-through of my flat:

It feels great to have it clean, and now I think we’ll all keep it cleaner than it was.

My first class today, Society and Politics, was very interesting. The lecturer was David McCrone, who is the Co-Director of The Institute of Governance, which is apparently a big deal. His lecture was pretty cool. It was about what Scotland is exactly, from a sociological viewpoint. It was a good introduction to the Scottish way of thinking.

After lecture I explored Potterrow, one of the student centers. It has a school store, a café, a few bars, that kind of thing. I went back to my flat and talked with my flat mates for awhile, then was going to do the reading for my class that afternoon, but decided to take pictures of the city instead. A good choice? Yes.

The weather was really nice. 40s, blue skies, gorgeous. I pretty much just did the route that the tour did yesterday, with a couple other streets. The pictures are on facebook. If you can’t access my facebook let me know and I’ll figure out a way for you to see them. Read the captions because they explain stuff. Tip: It’s easier to cycle through the pictures by clicking on each picture to go to the next one rather than clicking the “Next” button. Here’s a sample:

There will be many, many more pictures to come, but that’s a good start. I had a really nice walk. It was great to explore some new areas. I really liked exploring all of Greyfriar’s Kirk (famous, really old graveyard). All the graves are so old, I didn’t see anything more recent than the mid- 1800s. It’s beautiful and sad and haunting at the same time. I also found a really cool street and path that goes all the way around Castle Rock. What an impressive castle. I tried to capture it in pictures and videos but you just can’t. So you should all come visit me so you can see it for yourselves!

After my jaunt about the city I met some people for lunch at Palmyra, a delicious Lebanese café. I had a hummus falafel wrap with tahina sauce (it tasted just like yours Mom), which was great. When we left the restaurant, the temperature had dropped at least 10 degrees and it was flurrying. Turns out weather in Edinburgh is just like weather in St. Louis…

I went back to my flat determined to do the reading for my next class but it turned out that I didn’t actually have any reading that I had to do today! So I uploaded pictures instead.

My second and last class of the day was history. It wasn’t exactly riveting, but it was kind of interesting. We talked about population, birth, death, marriage, etc. rates in Scotland over the past few centuries. The cool thing about it is that the lecturer kept talking about how important the Registrar General’s job is and how all this information comes from him and stuff, and I get to hear the Registrar General talk tomorrow for my society and politics class! That was a cool coincidence.

After class I went back to my flat to get some stuff organized, plan some travels, and just hang out, which is what I'm still doing now.

Tomorrow we're going to the Writer's Museum, on Saturday the zoo, and Sunday the Royal Museum and Museum of Scotland.

Tom Riddle's grave and a failed pub crawl

Hello everyone, thanks for reading my blog!

This morning we woke up to a grey, cold, snowy morning. A few texts were exchanged and we decided to continue with our plans to do the 3 hour walking tour. The tour met at the Starbucks by our building, and there were about 50 people there for it. There were 2 tour guides so we split up, and our tour group had about 25 people or so (10 of them were from our group). Our guide's name was Ronnie, and he was great. It was a fantastic tour. It covered all the important stuff with humor and historical information.

Our plan was to take a ton of pictures but it was such a dreary day (and several people still don't have cameras as they are packed in lost luggage) that we decided to take pictures on a different day. I took a few (see below), then gave up.

We saw the inspiration for Tom Riddle's name (from Harry Potter). There's a famous graveyard (Greyfriar's Kirk) just below the windows of the Elephant House where JK Rowling sat to write the first few Harry Potter novels, and in the graveyard is the grave of Tom Riddle. There were graves with names of other Harry Potter characters too, like McGonagall. We also saw the original Hogwarts- the building that supposedly inspired JK Rowling (also visible from the Elephant House). It's a school called the George Herriott school. We saw a lot of great places, heard a lot of great information, and had a great time.

The City Chambers

The National Library and the oldest lead equestrian statue in Europe

The Castle

The window of the Elephant House where JK Rowling sat to write (and where we ate dinner the other night). It overlooks the castle, the graveyard, and the school.

After the tour we wandered around Princes Street for a bit (where a lot of clothes stores are), then went back to our respective flats to thaw. I did some reading for classes tomorrow, talked to people on Gchat, and hung out with my flat mates.

I went to the equestrian club pub crawl at 8. I decided just to go to the first bar and not to the crawl for a number of reasons that I will not mention here, but I had a good time at the first bar. I learned a lot about the club and the barn where they ride. There are about 150 people in the club, and about 50 ride each week. The barn where they ride is the barn where the British Olympic team rides apparently, so it's quite nice. The club has 4 competitive teams, and they're very, very good. I think they said they're the best in the UK. The barn is 40 minutes to an hour away, but that's the same as the barn at Wash U so I'm used to that. The thing I don't like is that the students at the barn tack up the horse for you, and untack them after the lesson so all we do is show up and ride. I hate that. It's really nice to have time to spend with your horse before the lesson and kind of get to know them a bit before you get on. I guess it saves over an hour of time but I want to spend as much time at a barn as possible! Oh well, at least I'll get to ride occasionally. I probably won't get to ride every week because there are so many riders, but I'm signed up for the first advanced lesson next Wednesday. Hopefully it goes well, but I'm kind of worried.

It's only 10 pm here so I'm not sure what I'm doing for the rest of the night, but I'm exhausted so I might just hang out here in my flat and try to get to bed at a reasonable hour. I have class tomorrow but tutorials don't start until next week so I just have 2 hours of class (at 10-10:50 and 15:00-15:50). Very nice.

First day of classes and folk music

First I'll just say some general stuff about classes, like how things are done differently here than in the US. One of the big differences is that, in the lower level classes at least (like 1st and 2nd year), there's no set professor. Any given class might have 5-10 lecturers, and each will speak on their topic of expertise. To keep a sense of cohesion in the course, there's a course organizer, who keeps track of all the administrative stuff. In addition to the lecturers and the course organizer, there are usually tutors, who are like TAs in America.

Another big difference is assigned work. In most classes, you get a big reading list for each class, and you just kind of choose a couple and read those. There's no main text for the course so I don't have to buy any books. Instead, all the readings are either online or in the library.

The grading system is also quite different. It’s very, very difficult to get an A, and an A is 70% or above. Passing is 40%. There are also very few grades in each class. None of my classes have more than 2 graded things (Either 2 papers or 1 paper and a final exam).

Ok now for the specific classes. The first one I had was Scotland: Society and Politics from 10-10:50. We got a thick course book with all the info like tutorial schedules, reading lists, that kind of thing. There are a couple lecturers but the two that were there today both seemed good. They both have Scottish accents but they're completely comprehensible, which is nice. In addition to having that class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I also have a tutorial for it on Thursdays, and 4 guest lectures on certain Fridays. The first lecturer, on this Friday, is Duncan Macniven, who's Scotland's Register General. Apparently a pretty important guy. This should be a fun class because the paper is a research project about an area of Scotland. In our tutorials we go out and gather data and stuff; it should be pretty cool.

The second class I had was Metaphysics of the Mind. Usually that's from 11:10-1 but today we ended at about 11:45 which was nice. It's definitely going to be a hard class because I don't remember much from other philosophy courses that I've taken, but the professor seems good. He's also Scottish, a pretty young guy, so he should be interesting. It's an upper level class so he's the only professor. It's a fairly small class, about 25 students. We went over some of the main concepts that we should know (dualism, the identity theory of mind, consciousness, and functionalism), which I've learned about several times before, but I don't remember anything. So that will be a hard class. I sat with 2 other international students. One was from Georgia and the other goes to American University (Mormor- He doesn't know Emily Poor but he's heard of her). A lot of the readings that are assigned in that class are written by Wash U professors.

After metaphysics I was exhausted because I didn’t fall asleep until about 3:30 last night, so I went back to my flat to take a nap. When I woke up I went to Princes Street to get some cash, then met Daryl (the guy from Wash U) for lunch. We went to Elephant and Bagels which I guess is run by the same company that runs the Elephant House, where we went for dinner the other night. Elephants and Bagels was good, it’s a little café with tons of different bagel sandwich options.

After lunch I had Scottish History Since 1914. That was another larger lecture class, and again, we just did administrative stuff today. That’s from 3-4 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I have a tutorial for it on Thursdays. Half the class was spent telling us how to use the library online resources, which was immensely helpful. It’s pretty much the same thing as the Wash U library, but since almost all of my readings are online it’s pretty important.

I went back to my room after class and signed up for my history tutorial, and I got one on Thursday, so I officially only have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays (except for those couple guest lectures for society and politics which are on Fridays). I hung out in the flat for a while, showered, then went to dinner with my flat mates.

We went to dinner at a place called Frankenstein’s which is a 3-story bar all decked out in Halloween/Frankenstein themed things. Every Tuesday it has Free Food Tuesdays for students where if you buy a drink you get a free dinner. So I got a student card, bought a drink, and got a free hamburger and chips (fries…). It was fun hanging out with my flat mates and we had a good time.

By the time we finished dinner it was about time for me to meet the small group at Starbucks, so I headed over to the Royal Mile. Nobody was there, so I asked the baristas if there was another Starbucks on the Royal Mile, and there was, so I walked down there. It was quite a walk, all the way at the other end of the Royal Mile, but no one was there either! So I don’t know what happened but I had a long, uphill walk back to my flat. I sent a facebook message to one of the leaders; I probably just went to the wrong Starbucks. (Don’t worry, it’s not all sad. Keep reading).

Instead of going back to my flat I went to the Wash U girl’s flat and there were like 6 people hanging out in there so I stayed. One of the girl’s friends knew about a pub with folk music on Tuesday nights so we decided to go check that out. We found the building, but when we went in it was just a small pub and no music. Apparently the girl found out about this place from an email, and the email said to ask the bartender where the music is. Sketchy…. So we asked the bartender and he led us through a locked door, down a really sketchy flight of stairs, and through another locked door to a room where a group of people were just sitting around fiddling. Not, apparently, a place for spectators.

So we were left wondering what to do. Luckily, one of my friends who went to Edinburgh to study abroad a few semesters ago told me about this place called Sandy Bells (http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/edinburgh/pubguide/sandybells.html), which I later read about in guide books. It’s a pub with live folk music every night, so we decided to head over there and it was a great success. We got drinks, listened to awesome live folk music (see video below), and talked. A couple people called friends to meet us there and we ended up with like a 10 person group.

The biggest success of the night was when I found out that one of the Wash U girl’s flat mates is a Christian! We knew each other didn’t drink back home, and we were talking, and I think I asked why she didn’t drink or something, and she started her answer off with “Well I was leading a Bible study…” and I interrupted her and was like “LET’S GO TO THE CHRISTIAN UNION TOGETHER!” and she was like “YOU’RE A CHRISTIAN?!” and we both literally shouted in the middle of this pub. After we explained to our friends that we were bonding and not dying, I told her about the small group so we’re going to do that together, and she had already looked up churches in the area so we’re going to check some out, and basically it was just awesome. We were both so excited to find another Christian. It’s funny because if I had met up with the small group at Starbucks I might have not been back in time to go on the folk music excursion, and who knows if we ever would have found out that we’re both Christians. And here’s the weird part (Mormor pay attention), she goes to American University and knows Emily Poor!

So that night was pretty awesome. Tomorrow a bunch of us are going to do the free, 3- hour walking tour, then who knows what excitement will ensue. Most likely it will entail reading for classes on Thursday.