Ack!

It seems like the closer I get to the end of term, the faster time goes by! I can't believe I'll be home on Friday. I'm really excited to be back and see everyone, but leaving Scotland will be sad. I really like St. Andrews and all the people I've met here.
Kelsey left this morning for London, making her the first of our "inner circle" to leave St. Andrews. The parting was not without tears, but it was a little easier for me since she goes to UVa and will therefore be fifteen minutes away from me for all of next year! We're already planning a trip to visit some of the others.
But for now, I have to keep this brief, as I have two exams tomorrow and have not studied sufficiently for either! Hence the title-- ack!

Andrew Melville Ball

The University of St. Andrews has another interesting tradition, one that it seems to share with only Oxford and Cambridge-- each year is punctuated periodically with a remarkably high number of formal balls. One friend of mine, Alex, says he has gone to ten since the start of the year. In addition to large, school-wide balls, each residential hall has at least one a year, sometimes two, and almost every student society has a formal event for their members. The cost ranges from 45 pounds for the May Ball, the largest one which is occurring tonight, to free, like the Andrew Melville Christmas Ball which was held last term.

On Friday, we had the Andrew Melville May Ball, which cost two pounds for Melville residents and five pounds for guests. At such a low cost, I wasn't expecting too much. I decided to go anyway because it would be a fun chance to hang out with my friends from my hall, especially since I don't have too much time left with them all.

My low expectations were completely blown away. The ball was absolutely amazing. The theme for the night was "The Great Gatsby", and the organizers outdid themselves in setting up the venue. The ball took place in Younger Hall, the music building, which provided a perfect setting. The ceiling was draped in cloth banners and a full band was set up on the stage at one end. As you entered the ball, a greeter welcomed you at the door and handed each person a rose, an unexpected, but nice touch. Each person also got two free drinks from the bar, something my first year friends took almost immediate advantage of.

One of the highlights of the night for me, however, was the Texas Hold 'Em poker tournament that had been arranged as part of the ball. Set up around the edges of the dance floor, the tournament started with four different tables of eight people. As the number playing shrank, they consolidated to a single table. Now, as I did not make it that far, I have no idea who won, but I did managed to accomplish my goals for the evening. Not being the best at poker, I went into the game hoping to do two things-- 1- Win at least one hand and 2- Avoid being the first person eliminated at my table. I did managed to win a hand (yes, only one, unfortunately) on a nice set of three nines. On top of that, not only was I not the first person eliminated from the table, but I in fact beat out five of the eight of us, making it so far that I was moved to another table when enough people from my own were eliminated, thanks to a high-stakes hand where three people were all in (the fourth person, the only one who was not down to his last chip, won the hand, knocking out all three at once). I also stayed in the tournament longer than both Mark and Kelsey, something I might rub in for a little while longer.

I finished the tournament just in time to enjoy the last song from the band, which had spent the first two hours or so of the ball playing swing and foxtrot music, to which a surprising number of people knew how to dance. Lessons had been given earlier in the week at Melville, but as not many people attended, I wasn't expecting such a high number of people on the dance floor. Overall, if was a really fun atmosphere. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the music and the ball, and it was a nice way to end the last week of classes. Those two pounds were well spent!

Unfortunately, we are now in revision week, the week between the end of classes and the beginning of exams. I don't quite understand why a whole week is necessary. At home, we take almost twice as many classes a term and only get a single reading day at a time. Here, people can take a max of three courses a semester and yet require a whole week to review? It seems a little ridiculous. I don't even know what to do with myself with this much time.

The May Dip

Wow, I've become very bad at updating this, and for that, I apologize. Since spring break, I have had at least one paper due a week, so a lot of my time has been devoted to that. However, this week I got to participate in one of the University's time-honored traditions and possibly one of the best nights of my life, so I figured an update on that would be in order.

The May Dip has been a tradition at St. Andrews since I don't know when; with a University this old, there are a lot of traditions. The tradition itself is quite simple. On May 1st each year at dawn, hundreds of University students head to Castle Sands, the beach in the center of St. Andrews, in order to take a dip in the North Sea. This is supposed to cleanse you of any academic "sins", which supposedly make a student fail all their courses. Now this sounds like a chilly and rather unappealing tradition, but in reality, it's quite an experience, mostly because students spend the night before having parties and bonfires on all three of St. Andrews' beaches before finally converging on Castle Sands at 3 or 4am. Before I get into it, however, I should probably describe how I approached the night.

On May 1st, I had two essays due. As of Thursday, one was completed. The other, much longer one did not have a word on paper, although my research for it was done. Because Thursday is my busy day in terms of classes, I wasn't going to be able to start the 3000 word assignment until after dinner. On top of that, I had promised to go to a pub quiz that night to help Steph, as the quiz was a fundraiser for an autistic boy she volunteers with. Needless to say, there was a strong possibility I wasn't making it to the Dip, or at least to any of the fun that proceeds it. However, there are times when I impress even myself with my efficiency when focused. After scarfing down dinner at record speed, I managed to crank out 500 words before the pub quiz, which also ended up being a lot of fun. While we didn't win, my team (Tomas, Steph and myself) definitely beat the other team of our friends (Kelsey, Neil and Hannah), so we were content.

I made it back to my hall at 10:30 and settled in to work. From 10:30 to 2 am, I managed to finish another 2000 words and to improve the 500 I had already put down, as about half of that was... less than adequate, to put it nicely. With that much under my belt, I felt I deserved a break and headed out to West Sands where my friends from Andrew Melville were having a beach party. It had been raining for the past day and a half and rained most of the following day, but that night was absolutely perfect. I had to walk half a mile or so down the beach to meet everyone, and it was a fantastic night to be out. Stars were everywhere, since St. Andrews is pretty small and doesn't have a lot of light pollution and the moon was huge. It was one of the nicest walks I've had since I got here, and I've been doing quite a bit of walking.

The beach party itself was a lot of fun. Pretty much all of my friends from my hall were there, and they had both a bonfire and a barbecue going, making it very much the stereotypical beach party. Throughout the semester, we've slowly been growing closer and closer to people in our hall, and hanging out with them at the beach was one of those moments when I'm reminded that we really are part of the group now, in a way we weren't when we first got here.

Eventually the sky started to lighten up a bit and it was time to make our way to Castle Sands. I'm not completely sure why that beach was chosen as the correct one from which to jump into the ocean. To begin with, it's the smallest. On top of that, as you can see in the picture here, it's backed by cliffs, meaning that there's only one way to get up or down. Not an easy task with hundreds of students all trying to do the same thing. Lastly, it's the rockiest of all the beaches, with rough, grainy sand and rows upon rows of submerged rocks (one of which later met with my knee in an unfortunate and painful collision). All of this seems like a poor choice, particularly with drunken students added to the mix. (For the record, I was not among the drunken ones. Jumping into the sea in that state just seemed like another poor choice.)

But I guess tradition is tradition, and we wouldn't want to miss out on participating in our one semester here. So at four am on May 1st, Steph, Kelsey and I were joined by Tomas in running into the North Sea. For anyone who ever considers doing this, I will warn you right now-- however cold you think it's going to be, it is worse. I actually screamed when I hit the water because of the temperature. To make matters worse, I was with people who insisted we actually submerge ourselves in the water. Our friends on the shore, who had already gone in, were standing there laughing at our obvious pain as we paddled around for a bit trying not to lose feeling in our limbs. And even better, as we went to get out, we had to climb up on a ledge of submerged rock to reach the shore again. As Steph and I climbed up and tried to gain our balance, Tomas came over and grabbed our hands. To help? Nope. He, being the gentleman that he is, took that opportunity to shove us both back into the water, and unfortunately had enough balance not to follow as we tried to pull him with us.

When we did finally make it out, we were cold to the point that sand against our feet burned. Thankfully, there was a bonfire only a few short steps away, and our friends had been holding towels for us, so we were soon back to a relatively normal temperature. After warming up, we headed back to our hall still soaked and shivering at five in the morning, backed by one of the best sunrises I have ever seen.

I realize looking back at what I've written that it doesn't seem like that much of an experience, and certainly not one that I would be convinced I'll remember forever. But it was, and I am. It was an awesome night, simply because we got to spend most of it with friends. Despite smashing my knee on underwater rocks and feeling possibly the coldest water I've ever been in in my life, given the choice, I would do everything again. It's an experience that I think is uniquely St. Andrews and part of the reason I love it here.

And, for the record, I think the paper turned out relatively well. I even managed to get it in an hour early.

I'm back!

I made it back from my continental adventures! I apologize for not updating this sooner, but it's been a busy week. My family was here at the beginning, then my friend and I had our joint birthday party, and then I had a paper due today! Now that that's out of the way, I'm hoping to be able to get up some notes about how the trip went. My journal entries about it are excessively long, sometimes in excess of thirty pages a city (albeit in a small journal, but still), so I don't think I'll be transferring all of that to here. But I will start putting up some shorter discussions of where we went and what we saw and all that.

In the meantime, about 2/3 of my photographs have been posted! I had to put them up on Facebook- most other photo sites have excessive restrictions on how many photos you can post in what timeframe, and Facebook was just easier. If you don't have a Facebook, you can email me and I will try sharing the album with you. Having not done that before, I'm not sure how it works, but supposedly it is possible.

Other than that, look forward to some travel stories soon!

Spring!

So it's been awhile since I've written, mostly because I haven't actually been in Scotland for the past week or so. I left here on the 13th to go back to the United States for my Model United Nations Conference, which took place the week of the 16th. I got to spend a few days at home for a nice break before going into the city. It was also really convenient that Mark had the same flight home as I did, so I had someone else to ride with on the train and bus to the airport. Since we had to leave St. Andrews at quarter to six in the morning to catch our train, Mark and I actually ended up staying up all night watching movies and helping him pack. He's a very last minute type of person, as he started packing around 2am.

It's interesting to come back after a week or so to find St. Andrews in full bloom for spring. It's not particularly warm here, and still very windy, but flowers have appeared everywhere. There are large patches of crocuses and daffodils all over the place, which is really pretty with all the old buildings. Students are really great about not taking them as well. At UVa, there are usually signs next to the tulips saying not to pick them, but I haven't seen anything like that here. Maybe because there's so many it doesn't matter! It's a really big contrast to how brown things still are at home.

The conference itself was a lot of fun. It's nice to have friends like the ones I have on staff- it's possible for me to go almost a year without talking to them but still have them run over to give me a hug when I show up in the hotel. They're very low maintenance. It's great. Possibly the only downside to the week was the complete lack of sleep I suffered. Unfortunately, when we have 71 college student to take care of 2500 high school students, it's a lot of responsibility. A big part of this is trying to stay on the good side of the hotel, so we arrange and run our own security patrols on the floors that have our students on them. It was really effective this year, with a record low number of noise complaints, but it was also exhausting, as security shifts keep us up really late. Then we have to be up before our students as well, in order to be in our conference rooms before them to get everything set up. So over the end of the week when students were there, I think I averaged 4 or so hours of sleep a night.

But the funny part is that even when we had a chance to sleep more, most of us wouldn't take it. Instead, we spent the time hanging out in the Penthouse, where our Executive Staff lives, in order to spend more time with each other. It's actually very interesting how close to people you can get in a week or so, even if you didn't know each other beforehand. Of course, we also spend a ridiculous amount of time together, so I guess it does make sense.

When the conference was over, Dad actually came down to spend the day with me, since my flight didn't leave until ten that night. We spent most of the day at the Museum of Natural History. It's a huge museum, and we didn't really get a chance to read too much of the material, because we were trying to see everything at least briefly. The Butterfly Conservatory was probably one of the coolest parts. We got to go into a room filled with butterflies and walk around to see them all. There were hundreds of them and all really close, since it wasn't a very big room. Dad and I managed to get some great photographs. After the museum, we walked through Central Park to the Carnegie Deli for dinner, then went for a quick drive through Battery Park before heading to the airport.

At this point, I was beyond exhausted. Thankfully, on the way home, I had three seats to myself on the airplane, so I slept the entire time, not even waking up for food. I've also been sleeping a lot since I got back, and think I'm finally back to normal. Which is good, because I leave this weekend for Germany and my Easter Break trip! Hopefully I'll be able to update throughout the trip, but we'll have to see. None of us are planning on bringing our laptops, so it will depend on what kind of internet setup the hostels have. Either way, I know I'll end up giving a full report eventually. I'm so excited!

St. Andrews Culture

So I've been here a few weeks now, and I'm finally starting to get friends among the full time students in my hall. It was difficult, as they tend to be somewhat grouped into cliques, especially the people who live in my block. Andrew Melville Hall, my dorm, is separated into 5 blocks of rooms, A-E. I live in A block, where the top floor is eight girls and the rest of the floors are boys. And everyone here is always together. A block is actually known throughout Melville by the other blocks as being very insular.

Now I'm not sure if the reason it's taken me this long to get to know them is because it took them awhile for them to open up to us new kids, or if it's just that I was intimidated by how close they all are, but I'm finally starting to be more comfortable around them and hang out with them more. Partially, I think I have Mark to thank for this. About two weeks ago, I went out with Mark, my friend from Model UN, Stephanie and Kelsey. While we were out, one of Mark's friends, Harry, from Northern Ireland came over. It turns out that he lives in A block, and he ended up spending the rest of the night out with us. Since then, it's almost like we've gotten the seal of approval from the rest of A block. The ones that are in my class are more likely to sit with me or ask me to sit with them. They've invited us to go out with them. Steph and I sat with them at dinner. And they're all really nice. I'm glad we've finally "broken in" to A block, as Steph, Kelsey and I joked. I guess it was a combination of the two factors I mentioned above- them being so close to each other already and us being intimidated. It took both sides a little while to open up. But it's nice to be making more friends among the full-time St. Andrews students, rather than just the JSAs.

Although I love my JSA friends as well. Kelsey, Steph and I have pretty much become joined at the hip in a lot of ways. Hannah too, but to a lesser degree only because she doesn't live in Andrew Melville. We joke that we're the three musketeers and Hannah is our D'Artagnan. We're definitely closer to each other than to the other JSAs, which is good since the four of us are spending our Easter Break traveling together. It's coming up quickly and we're all really excited. We managed to narrow down the places we wanted to go to a manageable number, so we'll be spending about two weeks in three separate countries. I'm sure I'll be writing all about it then.

We're also slowly starting to adjust to the culture of St. Andrews. Surprisingly for us, there aren't that many actual Scottish students here. There are a good number, of course, but less than we expected. We found out that University of St. Andrews is actually known colloquially as "The English University of Scotland", because so many students come from England. Quite a few are also from Northern Ireland, like Mark and Harry. We're starting to pick up on the differences is accents, which is good. Then we can avoid making mistakes like that of another JSA, Brian, who told one of the A block girls, Tatum, that he thought she was "the epitome of an English woman", only to find out that Tatum is from Northern Ireland. Needless to say, Brian was slightly embarrassed. We're also starting to get more phrases that we don't use in the US. One of my favorites is saying "half seven" or "half three" instead of seven-thirty or three-thirty. That's one that we all picked up on relatively quickly and use ourselves now. It's shorter and easier to type when texting. I also like the word "knackered", meaning exhausted. Although you also have to be careful when using British terms-- if you say them in an accent, like one JSA always does "by accident", you tend to get made fun of.

A torchlight procession

Well, this weekend was highly uneventful, especially compared to last weekend. I'm not even sure I could tell you what I did the past few days (but here's a hint: it wasn't much). Today was an interesting day though, because we got to participate in a University tradition that occurs only once every three years. This year, a new Rector of the University was elected. They are chosen directly by the students to serve as the head of the University Court (the supreme governing body of the University) for three years. In the past, people as varied as Rudyard Kipling, Andrew Carnegie, J.M. Barrie and John Stuart Mill have been elected to the position. Originally, the person elected was supposed to be one of "great national or international distinction who would be installed with much celebration but was seldom seen again in St Andrews", according to the school website, but this has changed over time, especially since the 1960s. Today, the student body aims to elect a person who will promote their interests to the University Court. Our new Rector, Kevin Dunion, will take on the role tomorrow after an official ceremony, but today marked the fun part of the tradition.

The day before their installation, the new Rector arrives at the University, traditionally in some spectacular or odd manner. In the past, methods have been as varied as the Rector getting himself shipped by post or riding up onto the beach in a historical landing vessel from World War II. Famous comedian and former Rector John Cleese apparently arrived carrying a pig. I still haven't gotten the full story on that. (He later went on to dramatically change the post of Rector, making changes such as making the role of Assessor, who can act in the Rector's stead in meetings, into a position for a student, elected by the whole student body. This granted direct access and representation to the student body for the first time in over 500 years). Kevin arrived today pedaling a vintage bicycle ice cream cart from Janetta's Ice Cream Parlor in St. Andrews. He brought some ice cream to hand out, and was even dressed in a red apron and straw hat over a white shirt and black slacks. After his arrival, he participated in the Rectorial Drag, where he rides around town from pub to pub in a carriage drawn by students. Along the way, he is met in these pubs by students of the university, in order to spend some time with the people who have elected him.

Later at night, there is a torchlight procession from the center of the school down to the pier that stretches out into the North Sea. The procession was quite a sight, with hundreds of students showing up. Most of them were wearing the traditional St. Andrews robes, with red for Arts and Sciences students and black for Divinity students. The robes are interesting, as they are worn differently for each class. Freshmen wear them normally, but as you progress through years, you wear your robes further and further off your shoulders, so seniors wind up with theirs around their elbows. My friends and I were originally packed into the middle of the crowd, but Kelsey and I managed to sneak around the side up to the front. We weren't fast enough to get a torch, as there were very few, but as we walked in the procession, we both spotted broken torches on the ground and snatched those up. Once we had them lit off of other people's torches, you couldn't even tell they were broken. As our torches put us in the minority, we were a novelty. I don't even know how many people borrowed our torches to take a picture for the night. And even more pictures were taken of us by people we don't know. Events like that gave the night a really strong feeling of unity among the university students, which I'm sure is the main purpose of the procession. It was definitely worth being here for.

Tomorrow is the official Rectorial Installation, which my professors keep joking sounds like a painful medical procedure. It's actually just the ceremony that instates Kevin into his role for the next three years. The event is free to attend, but it has limited seating, so I decided to leave the tickets for students that actually go here. Instead, I'm taking advantage of the fact that all afternoon classes are cancelled by going with three friends to the University Travel Services, the travel agent just for students, to talk to them about our plans for spring break. The four of us have planned out a trip for our two week Easter Break that looks to be absolutely fantastic. I have to leave a bit early because Mom and Dad will be coming to Scotland to visit me during that time, but before I come back here to see them, the plan is to go to Germany, Austria and Italy-- Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Venice and Rome. After I leave, the girls are continuing on to Florence and Sienna, then flying back out of Pisa, but I'll be there for most of the trip.

We are really excited. The four of us all did separate research on transportation methods, and we've gotten the whole trip planned for a few hundred dollars. And that's without any help from the travel services people. Tomorrow, we're going to see if they can get us even better deals than the ones we've found, so with any luck, our trip will cost even less. It's going to be great to actually see the mainland, because while I've been to Europe before, I've never left the British Isles and Ireland. Getting to see some of the rest of it was one of my goals for the term.

Ye’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road...

And I'll be in Scotland before ye!

Well, it looks like I got that part right, although I certainly didn't take the low road to get here. The song "Loch Lomond" is supposedly about a Jacobite Highlander who was captured and sentenced to be executed, while a younger soldier who had fought alongside him was to be released back to Scotland as a messenger. Therefore, the younger soldier was going to take the "high road", the physical road to Scotland while the older soldier was to take the "low road", the spirit path through the underworld, back to his homeland.

If there's one thing Scots are proud of, it's how long they were able to keep the English out of their country despite the massive inequality in their sizes and populations. Our first stop on our trip to Loch Lomond highlighted this very well, when we went to Stirling to see the Wallace Monument. The tribute to William Wallace, who fought against Edward I of England and was played by Mel Gibson in the movie Braveheart, is a massive building on top of the hill Abbey Craig, near the site of Wallace's defeat of an English army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. Tony did a dramatic retelling of the battle, complete with a fake English accent for the English soldiers, as we were on top of the Craig, where he could indicate the site of the battle. It was pretty amusing, especially since he referred to any generic English soldier as Nigel. It also really highlighted the difference between Scottish and English accents when he was imitating the other.

After the Wallace Monument, we drove through Stirling and passed Stirling Castle and a statue of Robert the Bruce, the original Braveheart. Robert became King Robert I of Scotland following the Wars of Independence against Edward I of England. According to legend, the Bruce always wanted to go on the Crusades, but was unable to. At the end of his life as he lay dying, his closest friend and advisor, Sir James Douglas or "The Black Douglas", came to him to tell the King that he was going on the Crusades and the Bruce begged him to take him along. Since he was dying, this was impossible, but Douglas agreed to take his heart along, and used it and the legend of the King as a way to rally his troops against a Moorish army in Granada. Tony told us that the Scottish Crusaders were highly outnumbered by the Moors, so Douglas rode back and forth in front of his troops, inspiring them to fight before leading the charge. He had the Bruce's heart in an iron box on a chain, and as he charged the enemy, he whirled it over his head before loosing it at the Moors and shouting, "Lead on, Brave heart, lead on!" I have heard different versions of this story, and am not sure what is true, but at the very least, the Bruce's heart did travel to Moorish Granada with the Crusaders, and is to this day buried in a separate place than the rest of his body.

From the Wallace Monument and Stirling, we moved on to Doune Castle, famous for being one of the two castles where filming took place for Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Doune Castle was the location for numerous scenes, such as the taunting scene with the French, the "Camelot" song and dance routine, parts of the Castle Anthrax segment and the wedding disrupted by Sir Lancelot. We were only there for ten minutes or so, because Loch Lomond is quite a distance from St. Andrews and we had to keep going.

We made one more stop before reaching Loch Lomond, stopping at Loch Katrine. The steamship Sir Walter Scott makes trips around the loch on a regular basis, making it the only steamer still in regular use. It wasn't out on the loch when we were there, since it's being refurbished to use biofuels rather than a wood furnace. Scotland is really far ahead in this whole "green sustainability" movement.

Finally, we drove the rest of the way straight to Loch Lomond, listening to the song on repeat until we sang along sufficiently well for Tony to turn it off. I never realized how large it actually is. We were at one of its narrow points and it was still almost a mile wide. It gets up to five miles across! The day had started off as sunny, but when we got to Loch Lomond it turned into what I like to think of as "Scotland weather". The sun disappeared behind the clouds and it turned windy. Mist started creeping down the mountains across the loch, shielding their tops from view. It was beautiful, in a kind of wild and gray way.

I walked by myself along the edge of the loch for awhile and I have one thing to say about the landscape. After seeing it myself, it comes as no surprise to me that there are so many stories of fairies and giants and things of that nature that come from Scotland. There's no bare dirt anywhere, and there are random patches of moss all over the place. If one of those patches had lifted up and a fairy or leprechaun came climbing out, I'm not even sure I would have been surprised. It just feels like that kind of place. But perhaps that's just me. Even without that feeling though, it's a beautiful place to visit. I'm glad we made it to Loch Lomond-- we almost stopped at Loch Katrine to take a boat ride on The Lady of the Lake rather than continuing onwards, but since it was the Loch Lomond day tour, we eventually decided that we had to make it to the loch.

It was a fun but very tiring weekend, as both trips got back almost two hours later than they were supposed to. But it was very much worth it. Seeing some of the rest of Scotland was great. I might make a few more weekend trips with friends, because I'd still like to see more (like Loch Ness!), but if I don't get around to it, at least I've seen quite a bit more than just St. Andrews!

Highlands, Take Two

Alright, so more details about my trip. We left St. Andrews at about 10am and got back at 7pm, almost two hours after our scheduled time. The reason for this is that our very enthusiastic tour guide, Tony, didn't seem to have an actual itinerary. Quite a few times during our trip he commented, "Well, I haven't been this way in awhile, so why don't we pop over this way to see such-and-such?" It was very entertaining though, because Tony kept up an almost constant stream of information about the areas we were going through and different sites.

We started by traveling north to Dundee and then down to Perth, crossing over and then following the Tay River. On the way, we passed Discovery Point, where the Discovery, a ship used to explore the Antarctic in 1901-1904 is kept in Dundee. We also passed the site of the Tay Bridge Disaster, where a train went off its tracks into the river as the bridge collapsed in 1897. According to Tony, this event was immortalized in a poem by William Topaz McGonagall, popularly known as Scotland's worst poet. Having read the poem (which can be found here- http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/poems/pgdisaster.htm), I'm inclined to agree with him.

Our first stop was in Dunkeld, which happens to lie in Birnam Wood, of Macbeth fame. I was excited to be in Macbeth country, since it's my favorite of Shakespeare's tragedies, but we were really only there to use the "loo" before heading into the woods for a walk. We were going to The Hermitage, a national trust site that was originally owned and managed by the Duke of, of all things, Atholl. Today, the area is public property and the Duke's "folly", or a building built with no purpose other than entertainment, is open for people to view. It's a very small building in the woods with only two rooms. Called Ossian's Hall, to celebrate the blind poet Ossian, the building has a balcony looking out over a medium-sized waterfall. Next to the building is a small wooden bridge over the waterfall, apparently built by one of the Duke's nephews as a birthday present. The Hermitage is also home to a 194 foot tall Douglas Fir, one of the largest trees in Britain.

After we walked through the Hermitage, we stopped at a monument to the Black Watch. Apparently the Black Watch is known throughout the world, but in Scotland, its reputation can be either good or bad depending on who you are talking to. It was created as a way for the English to have someone keeping an eye on the rebellious Highland clans of Scotland, and participated in numerous conflicts with them. Thus, some people in Scotland see them as traitors and murderers, while others look upon them as having provided protection.

From the monument, we drove onwards to Loch Tay and Kenmore, the town next to it. Loch Tay is home to the Scottish Crannog Centre, so we got a quick peek at a Crannog, which is "a type of ancient loch-dwelling found throughout Scotland and Ireland dating from 5,000 years ago. Many crannogs were built out in the water as defensive homesteads and represented symbols of power and wealth", according to the Centre. The demonstration crannog was a small, man-made island just big enough to hold a stone hut. It apparently was a reproduction of an Iron Age one. Pretty clever way to keep out wild animals, I have to say. Kenmore, the town next to Loch Tay, has the oldest inn in Scotland, as well as, unsurprisingly, a golf course.

Then came the highlight of the day for many people- a tour of the Glenturret distillery, the oldest whisky distillery in Scotland. There they produce Glenturret single malt, which is also one of the ingredients in The Famous Grouse blended whisky. The tour took us through every step in making whisky, and also explained what you are looking for when you smell or taste a whisky. It was interesting to see how little goes to waste in the making of whisky. For example, after the barley it is made from is used in the whisky, it is then used again as cattle feed. No wonder the Scots make such a profit from whisky.

The day ended with one final stop, at what was once a Roman fort, over two thousand years ago. Today, there are no real remnants of the fort left except for a series of short but steep hills running across a plain. These hills were constructed by the Romans in order to slow down Pictish attackers. I didn't test it, but my friend Neil ran up and down a few and attested to their ability to tire people out. It's hard to comprehend a time period like that-- over two thousand years. I was discussing it with Reuben, a JSA from Norway, and we had to agree that in comparison to some of the things we were seeing that day, the United States is an absolute baby. Everything here is just so old. You can tell by looking at the land, especially in the Lowlands-- people have been living there and cultivating it for such a long time that it shows through in small things like where the trees are and how the fences run. At least that's the feeling I get.

And now, off to bed, because it's late here. I'll update you on my trip to Loch Lomond tomorrow, hopefully. I've been doing a lot of work for class and everything lately, so we'll see if I get to it.

Failte don Ghàidhealtachd (Welcome to the Highlands)

So today, the main part of my day was spent taking a tour of the Scottish Highlands (or Hielans, as people with a heavy accent pronounce it). Scotland is divided almost in half into the Lowlands, where St. Andrews is, and the Highlands, the mountainous northern area. Obviously, even though Scotland is not that big of a country, this is too big an area to cover in one day so we got just a taste of what the region is like by traveling along the edge of it. Unfortunately, I have to head to bed now before my trip tomorrow, but I will post a full update of what happened as soon as possible. It was a really fun trip and I have a lot to say about it, including that I got to see Birnam Wood (of Macbeth fame). But for now, sleep. I managed to go running before my trip today and hope to do the same tomorrow, so it will be an early morning!

Disability

I finally begin to see why people in the U.S. are overly politically correct and why we have so many words to describe conditions in order to avoid offending people. We had to submit a health form to the school last week in order to be covered under the National Health Services here if anything happens to us. Then today, I get an email that reads as follows:

Hi Amanda,

We are currently updating our files and noticed that you have recently
changed your disability Status. I am taking this opportunity to remind
you there is assistance available to you if it is required. If you
would like to make an appointment to come and meet one of the disability
advisers please let me know.

Many thanks,
Helen

It took me a second to figure out what on earth they were talking about before I realized that by "disability", they meant diabetes, as I obviously had to include it on my health form. I've never thought of it as a disability before, and still don't think it is. In the U.S., no one would ever refer to it as such, for fear of offending me. But here, people are less cautious, and getting that email today highlighted this as one of the biggest differences that I've encountered thus far. No one at home would ever offer me a "disability adviser", and for that, I suppose I can only be glad. I never thought I would appreciate our overly PC society, but I suppose I'd rather put up with that than with referred to as disabled. I'm still not really sure how to react.

It comes in pitchers?

I can't believe it's been a week since I last wrote. I guess I've been spending so much time adjusting to life here that I haven't even realized how much time is going by. The second week of classes is almost over, and it definitely seems like nothing I can't handle in terms of academics. The only thing that might be a problem is time management. The way courses work here, we spend a lot less time per week in class, but have a great deal more reading to do outside of class. In order to make sure we actually get everything we need to done, a few of my friends and I have come up with a system to kind of check in on each other and make sure we set goals for ourselves on what we want to accomplish. For instance, I've been trying to go for a run at least a few times a week. Since everyone here knows this, they check in with me at lunch or dinner to see if I went running that day. It's actually really effective, knowing that you have people looking out for you. We also make library and study dates together with the same effect.

Even though I've only been here two weeks or so, I've found quite a few people who I've been getting along with really well. They're all very open and friendly, intelligent and motivated. As I've already explained, they're great at checking in on each other and making sure everything is going well. On top of that though, they're a lot of fun to hang out with. We've made some fun discoveries, such as finding out that a pub near us serves Long Island Iced Tea by the pitcher. Does this seem like a poor choice to anyone else? We thought it was, so Kelsey, James and I decided to order it one night to test. Turns out it's actually not too bad. I think making it in a pitcher allows the bartender to mix in a high proportion of Coke, so it's less alcoholic by volume and ends up being safe. It's definitely a good deal though. The whole pitcher is seven pounds (the money kind, not the weight kind), and comes to about nine drinks total, making it a great choice if you want a drink that lasts long enough to talk over but isn't too expensive.

We've also found a great little cafe in town, where the coffee is so good that I'll even drink it. I hate coffee, but I took the chance of trying it at this place and was immediately hooked. True, it was a mocha rather than a cup of black coffee or something of that sort, but it was fantastic. They also served absolutely fantastic scones. I think Kelsey, Stephanie, Hannah and I spent about an hour and a half over coffee there. It's a very welcoming place, and, since it's not part of a chain, we got to feel good about ourselves for supporting local business.

Apart from having found people to hang out with, I've also been enjoying having a lot of time to myself. Like I said, I've been going for runs, and usually spend at least an hour a day walking. The town is not very big, but it's so quaint that I can't help enjoying it the same no matter how many times I see it. And yes, I'm sure some of you are laughing at me for using a work like quaint, but I'm not sure how else to describe it.

I'm also really excited to see more of the rest of Scotland. This weekend, I'm signed up to go on two separate trips, one to the Highlands and one to Loch Lomond. I'm not sure exactly what these two trips entail, but at the very least I know the words to the song! I'll be sure to let you all know how the weekend goes. For now, I'm off to bed! Those 9am classes ruin all my fun.

Snow?

Well, so much for the St. Andrews Bubble. It snowed for most of the day today, ending up with about two inches total. And of course, I forgot my camera when I went out, so I didn't get to take any pictures of the snow. I'll have to steal some off the other students later. I feel bad for anyone who was planning on golfing today, but the students are having a blast. A lot of people from my hall skipped all their classes today so that they had more time to play in the snow, building a huge fort outside the front entrance to Andrew Melville. There are now fleets of snowmen overrunning St. Andrews, to the point where someone even built one on the fringes of the cemetery near the cathedral ruins. I also passed through multiple snowball fights and whaled my friend James in the side with a good one. My dorm even got bombarded by the residents of New Hall, the next dorm over, who stormed the front door when someone opened it and attacked. Apparently the fort was less than effective.

Other than the snow, not much has been happening here. The Societies Fair was yesterday, where all the student organizations gather together to try to get new members. I actually ended up missing it because I forgot it was yesterday, but I've found enough friends in my dorm that went, so I plan to just follow them to anything that sounds like it would be to my liking. For instance, the St. Andrews Whiskey Tasting Society had an event tonight at the Old Course Hotel. Unfortunately, James and I were unable to attend due to our lack of semi-formal clothing, but this is an issue we intend to remedy as soon as possible. We'll not let a little thing like clothing get in our way. Whiskey might not be my thing, but hey, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Scotland, learn to drink Scotch. Especially when you can get free samples from hundred pound bottles of whiskey by paying a four pound entry fee for the night! That's a deal, especially when your entry fee is donated entirely to charity. How could I pass up helping people like that? Apparently local distilleries donate bottles to the Society, since it raises money for charity.

However, since we were lacking the correct clothes for whiskey night, James and I went along with some other friends for ballroom dancing. When we arrived, that was canceled due to the snow, so we wandered around St. Andrews, awkwardly walked through a private party in a bar and generally had a good time. The JSAs (Junior Semester Abroad) in my hall have tended to band together. For example, tonight I hung out with Katherine, a girl from Austin who is in my Scottish History class, Stephanie (Mt. Holyoke College), Sarah (not sure, but here on a program with... Baylor? Butler? Update later), James (William & Mary) and Kelsey (UVA!!!!). I think it's mostly because all the people in our hall have been here for a semester already. They have their friends, and while they're nice enough, they're less likely to come knocking on your door on their way out to see if you want to go. JSAs will do that, because they don't have set groups of friends already. But we'll have to see how it progresses as the term continues. I've found people I like, so hopefully that's enough! I have people to go out with and eat with, so I'm happy. Kelsey and I have even bonded over the fact that we'll never complain about Newcomb Dining Hall food again. Oh St. Andrews...

Old Course

Well, I did it! I finally made it over to the St. Andrews Links yesterday after class and spent an hour or two wandering the courses and looking around. Unfortunately, this leaves me with a confession to make-- I have absolutely no idea what courses I was walking on or how they progress. I couldn't for the life of me tell you if I was on the Old Course, the New Course or one of the many other courses they've put in at St. Andrews. Actually, that's not completely true. I can tell you that at one point I walked past the start of the New Course, since that's the only sign I saw the whole time. Other than that, I couldn't give directions to save my life. I usually didn't even know what direction people were teeing from. Maybe I should go back later with a map or something...

Regardless, it was a really pleasant walk. The course (whichever one I was on, I think it was more than one) is very well cared for and looks like it would be great to play on. Except for the wind. I'm sure that quite a few people have hit shots on that course that would have been perfect only to have a sudden gust come up and mess it up. There were quite a few people out yesterday, even though it's not exactly golf season. They're lucky that St. Andrews has what the locals call the "St. Andrews Bubble", where there is very little precipitation year round. From town, I can see hills covered in snow or rainstorms, but it all misses here due to some unique weather patterns. So even though summer is the more popular time for golfers, they can actually come year round and still expect to be able to play.

Golf tourism does a lot for St. Andrews, although I think it also affects some of the people that live here kind of negatively. I've met a few people who seem to have come here hoping that practicing on the Old Course at the home of golf would help them be better players and eventually make a living at it. It seems almost like they are looking for the history of the place to somehow infect them and make them famous. Unfortunately, this isn't really realistic and I think a lot of them end up disappointed, since St. Andrews doesn't offer too many other opportunities. It would be interesting to see what it's like here in the summer, when people are here for shorter periods of time to visit, rather than to make their future here.

One day down!

My first day of classes is over and done with, and I managed to escape any and all major problems! I made it to all classes early and even found people I already knew in them!

My first class, sustainable development, is held at nine am, much earlier than I am used to. However, it is also only five minutes from my hall. I was really excited to discover this, as the majority of classes are in town, a good 20+ minute walk from my hall. While such a long walk would definitely have helped me wake up before my first class, it would have really discouraged me to come back to my hall for lunch in between classes, leading me to either go hungry or spend money on food in town. On top of that, it seems like the class should be interesting, although today's lecturer was a tiny bit repetitive. He kept going on and on about how important it was the the SD program was interdisciplinary and how happy he was to see that it has grown so much in its first few years. Of course, since the responsibility of forming the program in the first place seemed like it had been dumped on his shoulders as a surprise, I suppose I can forgive him for being so excited. At least enough to be nicer than the guy in front of me who was drawing a heavily sarcastic and somewhat rude flowchart of our professor's personality. At the very least, the professor seems approachable and friendly, both positives when I have to ask for a week off of classes in order to staff the NHSMUN conference in March. We didn't actually start into any material today, but rather got an overview of what the course would be like.

My next class wasn't until two, but it was held in town so I left about forty minutes in advance to make sure I could find it. Katherine, another JSA (Junior Semester Abroad) student in my hall, is also in the class, and when we arrived, it seemed like most of the students in attendance were JSAs. I suppose this isn't surprising, considering that it's a Scottish history class and we all opted to study abroad in Scotland, but I hadn't really thought about it. We were in this class for a grand total of about fifteen minutes, during which the professor ran through fundamental questions the class aimed to answer and then let us go. It was a stark contrast to my first class, where the professor also gave us an intro but took the whole hour in which to do so. I hope that my Scottish history class remains this efficient, because on Thursdays I have my film studies class immediately following it and could use a few extra minutes to get from one to the other.

After my class let out so early, I had extra time and ended up finding myself in what could only be one of my favorite places-- a bookstore. There's not too many of them here, but I found one today that is absolutely fantastic. It's a tiny, tiny shop crammed onto the corner of Market Street, staffed by a very friendly old Scottish man and selling only second hand books. The whole shop could barely fit the five people in there looking at books. We had to keep edging around one another, trying not to knock anything over. I managed not to buy anything today, but I'm sure I'll end up back there, if only to talk to the shopkeeper. I would love to own a bookstore, but I'm not sure I could actually part with selling any of my stock. Everything looks so interesting!

And, another plus for the day-- I was actually able to eat all of a meal served by my dining hall! This is the first time since I've gotten here that I've been able to do that! It wasn't fantastic and it wasn't much, but perhaps, just perhaps, I'll make it through the semester without starving or spending way too much money on food. After all, it would be much better spent on books.

Registration complete!

Well, I'm officially registered for all my classes now! I met with the film studies head of department yesterday morning and had no problem getting her permission to take the honours level course. Apparently they just need to talk to us about what the class will involve and see what kind of history we have with the topic. Since my film studies class is about social and political factors affecting international film industries, my two majors meant that it was pretty much the perfect choice for me. In addition to that, I'm signed up to take an intro Scottish history class and a class in the sustainability department. I'm not quite sure what to expect from that last one, since it's apparently taught by professors from across the school's departments on how sustainable development practices affect their different areas. It sounds like it could either be fascinating or mindnumbing, but either way I'm hoping to apply it to my Foreign Affairs major.

The speeches we got during orientation were pretty general, mostly about study habits and how to find student services. The one really interesting part was from the University Travel Services, offering weekend trips to tour Scotland and talking to us about how to find travel deals. Apparently they're the school's own travel agency, and since they get no commission from selling us tickets, their goal is just to provide us with the cheapest travel options possible. Hopefully I'll get a chance to take advantage of that! The weekend day trips they have are really affordable. Right now, they're offering a highlands tour and a visit to Loch Lomond. I can't decide which one I want to go on, so perhaps I'll try both!

I also watched a rugby game today. The Six Nations tournament, with England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Italy and France, has started, and everyone here is really excited about it. Rugby has a lot in common with football, but is much more continuous. I think I could grow to like it more that football once I understand it more, simply because it has less downtime. Even when a player with the ball is tackled, the game goes on. In fact, his fellow teammates have to protect him from losing the ball to the opposition, even though he is on the ground. Mark and James, another exchange student from William and Mary, were trying to explain to me how rugby players don't get hurt during the game, but I don't understand it. It's a pretty brutal sport, and most of the time they have no padding at all. The forwards even have to tape their ears down so they don't lose them in play! But the game today was a lot of fun to watch. Ireland beat France, despite having been down briefly in the first half. Apparently both teams did better than England and Italy, who had played what one of Mark's friends refered to as a "travesty of a game". The tournament continues tomorrow, and I'm not sure how long after that. I'm sure the pubs will all have it advertised.

I'm not sure I'll do much tomorrow other than getting ready for class Monday, so look for another update then to hear how my first day goes!

First Days

Well, Mark could definitely use some work as a tour guide. He did show me around the entire school, and therefore the town since they're very much mixed together, but was pretty much unable to identify any school buildings unless they held biology classrooms. Thankfully, I had gotten a map of town with school buildings identified on it when I arrived at my hall, so the tour from today combined with that should give me enough knowledge to find all my classes.

St. Andrews is really pretty, full of stone buildings and cobblestone streets. It's build on a peninsula in the North Sea, so it's surrounded by beaches on three sides. Castle Sands is the beach on the tip of the peninsula, so named because of the castle ruins that top the cliffs above the beach. Mark didn't seem to know much about the castle or the cathedral ruins that are next to them, so I'm guess I'm going to have to figure it out for myself. Apparently it's possible to tour them, but I've been told it's expensive. If I have the money for it at the end of the semester, perhaps I'll go. Or I'll just hop the fence one night and see what I can find. (Just kidding, Mom). The town itself is not very big, but it's packed with stores and restaurants crowding over narrow streets. All I can say is that it's a good thing people here don't have the American fondness for overly large cars, or they'd never be able to get around.

After we explored town for awhile, Mark invited Claire and me to join him for dinner at his house. Considering the food at my hall, I readily accepted, although once we got to his house, I began to doubt if this was the right idea. Apparently Mark is vegetarian but hates vegetables. Because of this, he spent all of last year living on pizza, but has decided to learn to cook this term. The original plan was to make sweet potato and spinach curry, but this fell through rapidly due to a lack of spinach and only one sweet potato. Needless to say, we had to creatively interpret the recipe. I think what we ended up with could only be called potato and sweet potato curry, and surprised all of us with its edibility. Although we might have overdone it with the chili peppers, I can still say our dinner was probably a good sight better than what my hall was serving that night.

Mark, Claire, Mark's roommate Tomas and I ended up playing video games for awhile after dinner, but then decided to meet up with Claire's flatmates to go out. I ordered my first legal drink! Well, second, I suppose, since I got one on the flight home from India last summer. But it was my first visit to a pub! We actually ended up going to three pubs, including the one located in the school's student union. It's interesting that I can not only drink legally here, but that no one even gives a thought to carding the students. I have to say I'm beginning to wonder if drinking would be less of an issue in college at home if we had a lower drinking age. I'll have to research this semester to see what I think.

Once we got out of the pubs, Mark, Tomas and I had a very interesting encounter with one of the managers of The Raisin, a pub that we had visited earlier that is apparently very popular with the students. Claire and her flatmates had gone off to go to a house party, while I went with Mark and Tomas so Mark could, unsurprisingly, get pizza. While at the pizza place, James, a manager of The Raisin came over and started talking to us. I get the feeling he's lonely in St. Andrews. A student here told me that everyone in the town is either over 65 or under 25, because you're either here to retire or you're here for school. It's a very accurate statement, but unfortunately James doesn't fit into either of these categories. He's about the same age as the students, but I think came here to play golf before getting injured. But to make a long story short, and also because I'm not sure how this happened, since my attention was on stealing Mark's pizza, the three of us ended up going back with James to hang out at his flat. While we weren't there very long, since it was getting kind of late, James told the three of us that if we were at The Raisin the next day at 2:45 the next afternoon, he'd give all of us and up to three friends of ours free lunch! Not bad for a first night out!

The lunch was actually really good too-- I just got back from it. Brits overcook their burgers, but who cares? Free food is free food!

The weather turned bad again when we got out of lunch, but I did get a chance to go to Tesco, the supermarket, and get some emergency food to keep in my room. I don't really have much to do this week, since classes don't start until Monday, but tomorrow is the first actual day of orientation. We have a few speeches to go to about living and studying in St. Andrews and then we finish registering for classes on Friday. I have to meet with an advisor to make sure that I'm capable of taking an "honours level" class here. I'm not sure what they're going to ask, but I'm sure I'll be fine. I only need to get one class approved, since the other ones I've selected are "subhonours level" and don't need to be pre-approved. I'll admit that I'm a huge dork in that I want classes to start up again, but I'll temper it by saying that I want to have more to do. Walking around town and exploring gets cold after awhile!

My room, Andrew Melville Hall

My first view of Scotland was absolutely nothing like the tourist pictures of rolling green fields. In fact, from the windows of the airplane, it was almost completely black and white-- black trees silhouetted against white ground. This was a surprise, as everyone I've heard from says it snows very little in Scotland, but it was quite a sight to fly into. When we landed and were picked up by our shuttle service, though, we got to see just how variable the weather here is. Every five or ten minutes during the drive, the weather changed from snow to sun to hail and back again.

It did that all afternoon, so unfortunately I haven't had an opportunity to go out and explore. I settled on using yesterday afternoon to get set up in my room and to look around my hall. I've discovered two things for sure so far. First, my dorm is hideously ugly on the outside, but the inside is actually pretty comfortable. Second, the "St. Andrews Diet" Mom and I were joking about when we found out I get less than three meals a day is most likely going to be a reality.

To start with the first one, let me explain what my dorm looks like. It was built to resemble a frigate or gunship or something of the sort, and actually does a remarkable job of it. V-shaped, it looks like two ships sailing away from each other. It apparently won an architectural design prize and is definitely distinctive, but it is unfailingly ugly. I can only hope it grows on me as I spend more time in it. And I suppose I can take comfort in the fact that it was designed to look like something cool, as opposed to the dorm next to mine which was modeled on a Swedish prison. It has guard towers and everything!

The inside of my dorm is much more attractive, and surprisingly comfortable. The rooms are not large, but they are large enough, and the three kitchens for student use (on days when we don't have three meals scheduled) look very nice, although I haven't used them yet. The people in my hall seem nice enough, and I ended up watching a movie with two of them last night. It'll be interesting to be living with mostly first years again, especially once my hallmates get back. Most students are still on break following their exams, but should be back by this weekend. I'm looking forward to it, especially since I've been told the food gets much better once they're here.

And it could definitely use the improvement. Based on what I've tried so far, I may not be eating much this semester, because the food is definitely suspect. Even while eating it, it's difficult to identify what it is, making me think that it won't be too hard to end up on an involuntary "St. Andrews Diet" this semester. I'll have to make a run to the grocery store for some emergency rations to keep in my room, especially because they serve food for only a half hour at each meal, making my chances of missing a meal much higher.

In fact, I already slept through both breakfast and lunch today. Even though I hadn't slept much on the plane, I lived through all of yesterday and went to bed at a normal time here to try to readjust my clock. Unfortunately, I then slept until 1pm, so I'm not sure how much it helped. But for now, I'm on my way out. Claire, a girl I flew in with yesterday, and I are meeting up with my friend Mark. Mark is a full time student here, and a fellow staffer on my Model UN conference, so he's promised to show us around since the weather is better today. Hopefully I'll be able to get some food too!

Manchester Airport Gate 03B

Quick update. The Manchester Airport efficiency I was praising earlier almost failed me as myself and the other eight people on my flight to Edinburgh nearly missed it entirely. After our flight was delayed, it was quite some time before the gate was announced. We were to leave from gate 03. This alone was an adventure, as gate 03 is at the far end of the terminal through an emergency exit/fire door and down three near-deserted hallways and one flight of stairs. Upon arriving, I reunited with Paul and Diane, whom I had lost in security earlier, and we settled in with the few other people who were down there to wait for an announcement. After a bit, Paul suddenly leaped up from his seat.

At this point, the rest of us realized what Paul already had-- our flight was flashing a red "Final Boarding Call" on the flight listing screen and none of us had heard a single announcement directing us to board. Since there's not many of us, we gathered into a nervous little group to wonder what was going on. Were we in the wrong place? Did we miss announcements? At this point, it's important to indicate that we were directed to gate 03. In the area around us, there were gates 03A-03F, but no gate labeled just 03, so to us, it seemed entirely possible that we had ended up in the wrong place. Unfortunately, there also was not a single worker in sight. When one finally appeared, we immediately jumped him to see if he knew what was going on, only to find out he had nothing to do with our flight and didn't know. As he made a call to try to find out, a gate door (03B) opened to reveal that 1. we were not in the wrong place, 2. the nine of us in the room constituted the entire passenger list for our flight and 3. the staff had simply neglected to make a boarding call before changing the announcement board.

So actually, I take back what I said about the Manchester efficient failing. In reality, they were only being too efficient this time. So efficient that they were ready to take off well before we were.

Manchester Airport

There are a few things no one tells you before you study abroad. One is how much work it is just to get there. There are so many things to do before going, I'm sure I've forgotten some. And to top it all off, I'm still not completely sure on a lot of details. For instance, I know how I'm getting to school once we land in Edinburgh, but I have no idea what to do following that. I'm sure I can just sit around and look forlorn until someone comes to help me, but I'd rather not. No one wants to be that girl.

To make matters worse, my supposedly internationally compatible phone keeps telling me my service in unavailable. It detects five bars of service, but keeps flipping the from blue (go ahead, make a call) to gray (Haha, got you! Sorry you can't connect). Maybe next time I should go with Chad and Alltel, despite my love for the AT&T commercial with the Techno Twins. At least I can get a global SIM card within the next few days and get everything worked out.

On the plus side, I've already met two other Americans on my flight that are going to St. Andrews for the semester, and I seem to be far more on top of things that they are. But perhaps that is only because I seem to be having an easier time understanding the British people that are shuffling us through this airport.

Manchester Airport staff is very efficient. Upon our arrival, they had two people waiting, one to handle transfers and one for people who had reached their final destination. Diane, Phil and I were the only transfers, which made it easy enough for the people working, as we were all going to the same place. We were handed from person to person, with each walking or driving us exactly where we needed to go. All in all, it was highly efficient, although I appreciate this fact slightly less now that my flight is delayed due to weather and I have more time to sit around and struggle not to fall asleep. At least I can sit here and bask in one fact- everyone around me has an accent. I'm in love already.

I'm also slightly amused by the fact that even though it's not even 10am here, I'm highly tempted to go buy a drink. Why? Because I can.

However, since it would probably only aid in allowing my sleep deprivation to overcome me, I suppose I will wait until a more reasonable hour. For now I will simply eavesdrop subtly on the people around me and enjoy hearing them talk. I'm easy to amuse.