A Trista Briefing

Hey All!
Just wanted to make a short note that I survived Spring Break! I had an amazing time! We started off in Nice, France and then went to Cinque Terre, Italy then to Pisa and Rome and then Florence, before flying back from Nice again. I loved France and Italy. It was very nice for most of the time. I took lots of trains and hundreds of pictures. Flat Addie also made the trip with me! We had a great time! ;) More to come later but I have some laundry to finish up now!
~Trista

Edinburgh, Stirling, and Rosslyn- Museums, Castles, and Chapels

So I just got the Greece blog written up so I better do this weekend too while I’m at it. It was a really short week since we didn’t have class on Monday and we are done for the week on Thursday. But I did have a really fun Modern World paper to do last week, so I was glad when the weekend was back. On Friday we had a trip into Edinburgh for British History to the National Museum. We had a short assignment and did a tour. It was 5 different levels with different themes and even a really cool roof top that we could get to the top for a unique view of the Edinburgh skyline.
On Saturday we had organized a group of 18 of us to go to Stirling Castle. I took my first train ride there. It wasn’t all that exciting but it felt funny because my seat didn’t face the same direction as the train was going. For the most part the weather while we’ve been in Scotland, well besides starting out cold, has been pretty nice when we’ve been out and about. This weekend it thought it had to get back at us or something and was rather dark and rainy on this Saturday. The visibility was not very good, which was sad because there were some cool hills in the distance and the Wallace Monument that we could vaguely see. Since we have a British History paper due this week about a place in Scotland we visited we all decided it would be a good idea to wait for the tour that started at 1 p.m. Stirling Castle isn’t as big as the one in Edinburgh, but has lots of history. I really like the Great Hall which reminded me of doing Madrigal dinners as they had the banner with the unicorn and a head table complete with two big thrones. Also in the Great Hall they held a short act of the “Murder of the Black Wallace” which was really funny with all the audience participation. We were known as the people from the ‘colonies’. The kitchens were also interesting to look at. They are placed off from the Great Hall near the wall. It is located there because it would be more convenient to throw a pot of hot oil onto the enemies that way. The kitchens were set up with models which were neat to look at. We grabbed some food before heading to the train station again.
On Sunday Kristin, John, Steve, and I went to Rosslyn Chapel for service and to check it out. During the week you can pay admission to see this extraordinary chapel that is featured in ‘The DaVinci Code’, but if you go to the Sunday service you can stay and look at it for free. It was snowing that morning! We got a taxi to Rosslyn and arrived early and ended up having to wait outside until 10:30. It was really cold to be in dress clothes and shoes, but we didn’t really have a choice at that point. When we got in I was very surprised at how small the chapel area really was compared to its otherwise grandeur. The pews fit 2 to 3 people! I didn’t think it was going to be a smaller congregation than at home or River Falls, but I was wrong. It is the Scottish Episcopalian Congregation. They were really friendly and we met some ladies that used to be host parents for WIS. There was so much detail to take in. All stone the masonry work was spectacular. Lots of symbols and depictions of the nativity, seven deadly sins, and Latin sayings. We couldn’t take pictures inside the chapel, but you can see some of it online I believe. The outside, besides being cold, was covered with scaffolding as they are working to restore it. It had a complete roof over it, which has helped to dry it out a lot we were told. We get to a walkway in the scaffolding at the level of the roof. We stopped in a small café before we left Rosslyn as we had to wait for the next bus back to Dalkeith.
This week I have a load of homework to work on before we can leave on Thursday for Ireland! I’m going on an Ireland South Paddywagon Tour and we are pretty excited for that. Spring break will be here before I know it too! So lots to look forward to!

Greece!

Finishing up classes by lunchtime on Thursday, February 26th started off our first extended weekend. We had checked in for our flight the night before already and were really excited! I was traveling to Athens, Greece with friends, Brittney, Steve, John, Jenny, and Ben.
We were moving two time zones over and looking forward to some more sun in Athens. I had pulled out my pages on Greece from the ‘Lets Go Europe’ book and on the plane Ben sat next to a guy who travels from London to Greece every week for work and lives in Athens. He was able to make suggestions and notes for us. We got out of the airport in Athens probably around 2 a.m. and got a bus to get into the City Centre. On the bus we also met a Greek man that helped to tell us where we were going and even walked us down to the area we needed to be. Also gave us some good warnings like how drivers don’t respect pedestrians like they do in the UK and they’ll run you over. I’d say that was good advice!
We didn’t have anything booked for that night because we weren’t sure what we would be able to work out with arriving at that time. We called our hostel and there was room for us to get in that night. Now we just had to find it. This was interesting as there weren’t many buses running at the time and we didn’t really understand much of the Greek routes anyways. So we had been told that you can hail taxis, the yellow ones. We tried that but none of them went that way, or so they said. So we had the map from my ‘Lets Go’ and we walked around Athens hoping we wouldn’t have to find a park bench. Eventually we talked to some police who pointed out Damareos Street that we were looking for… we were actually very close by this point. We found the green door that marked our hostel.
Pagration Youth Hostel was in my ‘Lets Go’ book and the way they have their accommodations marked it was ranked a 1- which is the cheapest and even says, “prepare for things to go bump in the night”. For a first hostel experience, it was rather crude, but it worked for only 10 Euros a night. All six of us were in the same room, we had a balcony, we did get blankets and a sheet, and showers were 50 cents for 7-minutes of hot water. The first night, well if it qualifies as a night since we went to bed after 4 a.m., I heard our windows rattle whenever something went by on the street below. But, the next nights I moved away from the window and it wasn’t too bad, or we were really tired. I think what really attracted us to booking this hostel is when the boys saw that travelers could stay on the roof if they had a sleeping bag when they were full. I’m glad we got beds, because it would have been rather cold and the rooftop would be hard. We did hang out there one night though to enjoy it. We had been hearing how you meet some interesting characters in hostels from all over. Found this out to be true! The hostel is owned by an older Greek man and his wife, but we mostly saw Mario, nicknamed Michigan Man (similar to the Michelin Man??). He was the one who checked people in and out and was around. He claimed to be from Michigan and I don’t think he’s been in Athens for too long. We questioned his being from Michigan when was off on his geography of where Wisconsin and Minnesota were in relation to Michigan.
When we got out of the hostel on Friday we just wanted to get familiarized with the city and visit the Acropolis. When looking at the Temple of Zeus a girl came up to us and recognized us as being from the Midwest, she is from Chicago but working in Frankfort, Germany and was visiting Greece for the weekend. She was able to tell us that the Acropolis was closed for the next two days due to a strike! It would be open again on Sunday, so that became the new plan. That day we also saw Hadrian’s Arch and the Panathenaic Stadium, a marble stadium that the site of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. We walked on their High Street and stopped in various shops. It reminded me of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh but with the Parthenon instead of a Castle.
At lunch we discovered crepes. We went to Crepes of the World where they have salty and sweet crepes. On this occasion I actually got a baguette, but each entrée was themed on a country. They put meats and cheese in some of them and the sweet ones were Nutella and fruits and such. For being Greece, not France, there were several other crepe places that we saw around. I did get one another night at Crepa Crepa. We decided we want to start the chain up back home because it was amazing! At Crepa Crepa there were over 60 choices for the sweet and another 60 for the salty. I got one called Judy- strawberries, nutella, vanilla cream, and cookie. It was AMAZING! Brittney even had one with ice cream in it.
While exploring we found some different views of the Acropolis that we could enjoy while not being able to get in. One was a path with a painted sign that pointed saying ‘Acropolis’ and led us up a path between different buildings and houses. Here we actually found “Catopolis”, it was almost like the calf barn! There were actually a lot of stray animals in Athens. Cats all over in this area, and dogs around too! We also found a view from the Filopappou Hill which was a fun hike that we took with our new friend, Jack the dog. On our way back through the city we noticed a place for cruises and ferries. We stopped in to check out a possible trip out to some Greek island. We had two choices that would leave tomorrow morning. One to Santorini, the island where ‘Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’ was filmed with black sand beaches, or a three-island cruise to Poros, Hydra, and Aegina. They were comparable in price but the Santorini one was staying over on the island for a night and since we already had our hostel booked for the rest of the trip we went with the day trip to Hydra, Egina, and Pious. Where would also get to see more. We booked it and were going to meet at the Athens Gate Hotel the next morning at 7:40 for the bus to the port.
For dinner we found a Greek restaurant on the way back. We had fun communicating through another English-speaking customer because the ladies working there only knew Greek. We got to try some real Gyros and Pitas. It was very good! I didn’t realize that Gyro is actually the meat that goes into the pita. Gyro meat is on the spit and turns around then is shaved off. I tried a chicken one and a pork one.
Saturday was my birthday and I was spending it on a cruise to some Greek islands! How cool is that!? On the cruise we met up again with our friend from Chicago! Her name we learned is Angela and she is now Facebook friends with us all and shared some traveling stories with us.
On the boat they had a couple of activities going on. We went down to the lowest deck for traditional Greek dancing at 10:30. We watched the first round then Brittney and I joined in for the second one. Meanwhile, they had to mention it was my birthday so I got sung to in front of everybody!
The first island, Hydra, we went to was probably my favorite. It was just a small island that didn’t even have cars! But they do have lots of donkeys and ponies! I realized how much these little communities rely on tourism! That and fishing keeps them alive. At the first island I bought myself a sort of birthday gift. In one shop they had a stack of beautiful prints. They are painting of different islands done by art students from the Athens University that come out and have a competition. The one I liked is of an island, whose name I don’t recall mainly because it was very not English-sounding, that the saleslady grew up on and is very beautiful with flowers. It’s on canvas so I can’t wait to bring it back and frame it and hopefully keep it forever! I thought it was a pretty good souvenir. I pet some of the donkeys that they had right off the port ready to give you a ride for 10 Euros…”it very beautiful half-hour ride” I was told.
When we boarded we were served lunch. I don’t have any idea what it was! It was kind of like some type of quiche but had some strange vegetable/mushroom/something from the sea in it. Then we started cruising to the next one. Poroas was a very small island and we didn’t spend too much time there. We did notice the grills out where they wanted you to tried grilled octopus!
We ended with just less than two hours at Aegina, a bigger island. They had a really cute harbor with lots of fishing boats of various sizes. We got ice cream and walked to the beach. It had been a partly sunny day and probably in the upper 50s or so. I just stuck my toes into the Mediterranean, but John and Steve actually went in! We had some traditional Greek Ozou and said cheers with “Opa!” before leaving.
The sunset was absolutely gorgeous as we started off for Athens again. Got a few pictures of it and then my camera battery was done! I was glad I made it all day though with it because I took lots! It was a great 20th birthday especially when I got a call from home on the way back to the hostel that evening. J
Sunday the Acropolis was open again, and Sunday is free admission! We joined the crowd of tourists to see the Parthenon, Temple of Athena Nike, and Theater of Dionysos. Again we saw all the stray dogs even on the top of the Acropolis! We also went to Agora, which was Athens marketplace back in the time of Hercules. ;) There we saw the Hephaesteion temple, the Stoa of Attalos and the Roman Agora. We could hear the buzz of the streets below and headed there next. We found a crowded and busy flea market. We had gyros for lunch again and then went to the National Gardens and Parliament. You could get pictures taken with the traditionally dressed soldiers guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Brittney, Jenny, and I went to get a picture taken, but I made the mistake of trying to stand on his left side. The guard slammed down his gun and we all jumped and I had to go to the other side. In the National Gardens and all around the city we kept seeing kids in costumes. It was actually Carnaval for before the Greek Orthodox Church starts Lent.
We got in a small siesta back at the hostel before we went out for dinner and decided to walk up Fillopappou Hill again for a night view of Athens. We stayed on the hill for some time enjoying the great scene and I tried to get my night setting to work, but it always is better first-hand than captured on camera.

Different Scotlands

Lately in our Scottish Culture and Globalisation classes we have been talking, well obviously, about globalization and the diversity of Scotland. There is more to Scotland than the ideas we maybe came with in our heads of red-haired Scottish men in kilts, playing bagpipes, eating haggis and drinking whisky. Our professor, Gerry Mooney, took us to his home city of Glasgow to illustrate this and show us a very different Scotland. On Friday, February 20th we all got on a bus and took a field trip there. We met up with Gerry in Glasgow and he directed the driver as he gave us a tour of the city. Glasgow is very different than the Edinburgh we have been hanging out in. Edinburgh is a much older city with the old stone buildings and castle on a hill. We were shown the rough parts of Glasgow… we saw the poor housing situations and trash scattering around some of the streets and lots. It was a bit of a sociology lesson that day. They used to have lots of shipyards and built many ships, now we only saw one ship being built for the military.
Gerry is a big supporter of the Celtic Football Club, which of course is soccer. We got a tour of their stadium and learned about the team’s history. There are about six students from our group that are actually from the UW-Superior soccer team so they had already been there for a game. There are two teams in Glasgow, the Celtics and the Rangers and there are a lot of very strong feelings between them. When they play against each other they leave 100 seats between the supporters. Catholics are related more closely to the Celtic team and the Protestants are correlated with the Rangers. The Celtic team is pronounced with a soft ‘c’, do not make this mistake, and they have a relationship with Ireland and many fans from there. We also got time in their gift shop and they had a lot of what I’ve come to know as a “Sydney” green.
After that we got time to explore some of the city’s museums, we went to the Museum of Transportation, which was neat. They had many displays of old street scenes, cars, caravans, bikes, boats, motorcycles, and even the Queen’s sleeper coach and a police van. We also got dropped off in the City Centre, which is a nicer district with lots of shops. Gerry suggested to us the Horseshoe Pub where we had a very good dinner. On the way our bus had an alarm problem, I think the sensors in the emergency exits were bad or something so we went most of the way back with it beeping, but switched buses in the middle.
We decided to check out the Edinburgh Zoo on Saturday. We took the bus in that morning and took a quick stop at a Greggs, a pastry shop that has really good donuts, baguettes, and pasties. I really like that place! Then we bought day passes for the bus, because we had to catch a different bus to get to the zoo then. The zoo is on the other end of the city than where we usually end up in. There is a great point over by the zebras that gives a wonderful view of Edinburgh. The zoo was really nice. Favorite part and they are famous for their Penguin Parade. At 2:15 they have this parade for the volunteer penguins to strut along the path in front of the crowd. It is so funny because they don’t get rounded up at all, just open the gate and at 2:15 they start waddling out. There was a group of 7 king penguins that came out for us. One of their penguins is knighted even! Another cool animal that I’d never seen before was the pygmy hippo. It was this funny shaped blubbery thing that resembled a hippopotamus but they spend more time on land and live more solitary lives.
On Sunday, Brittney and I spent the day with our host family. Dale and Neille picked us up from Dalkeith and we headed to the Scottish borders. We drove about an hour south to Melrose and Dale, Brittney, and I took a tour of Melrose Abbey. We even got the headphone set for the self-guided tour. I learned a lot about the monks and the different parts of the now ruined monastery. Melrose Abbey is also the legendary burial place of Robert the Bruce’s heart. On the way back out of Melrose we stopped at Scott’s View, which Sir Walter Scott’s favorite place to view the three big hills and valleys between two towns. The story is that he would always take a break there to enjoy the gorgeous view and when he died the funeral processional was going between those two towns and the horses stopped at that viewpoint just as they had always done for Scott. Then we went to the Wallace Monument, Wallace is considered the biggest war hero of Scotland. Dale and Neille know a lot of history and about Scotland. We took some of the farm roads rather than the highway on our trip through the Borders, because again, it is a very different part of Scotland. The Borders is made up of rolling hills that are spotted with hundreds of sheep. It is called the Borders because it is the part that comes before you hit the England line. The area, because of the agriculture, was a wealthy part of Scotland and there are other abbeys and castles around, but all in ruins after being invaded by the English and rebuilt and attacked again. We went back into Edinburgh to have dinner at Catri and Andrew’s, Dale and Neille’s daughter and family. She made us spaghetti with salad and garlic bread. Finlay was still shy and Ailee was sick, so didn’t join us. We also had dessert and tea! The first British tea I had! I didn’t even know I liked tea but it was pretty good with some milk and sugar.
This week my clan, MacDonald, has… dinner duty! So that will keep me out of trouble for the week. We have to go to the kitchen at 4:30 to help Naomi finish everything and set it all up. We then serve and clean up at the end. We try to get out by 7:00. I’m excited to get some quizzes and a paper out of the way so we can leave for Athens, Greece on Thursday!!! There are six of us going, Jenny, Brittney, John, Steve, Ben and me. It will be interesting as our first time out of Scotland! And without a common language! Since we aren’t scheduled to fly in until 1 am we haven’t booked a hostel for that night. So I’m not sure if we are gonna end up sleeping at the airport or on the roof of our hostel yet! I think there is a hotel connected to the airport too. We were hoping for some warm weather in Greece but the forecast looks like its going to be in the 50s. I think the new scenery will be very nice anyways. And… I get to celebrate my 20th birthday there!!!

Just a Weekend in Scotland

We had a beautiful weekend! There was a house trip to St. Andrew’s planned for Friday. We took a bus about an hour and a half to St. Andrews, Scotland. It is an old university town on the North Sea. It is the “Birthplace of Golf” and home to the ruins of a cathedral and castle with a beautiful location right on the shore. We were pretty much given the day with a flexible schedule to explore on our own. We started off at the cathedral. Not much is still standing but there is a tower that we had admittance to. The spiraling staircase was lots of fun… as we imagined being monks! At the top is and observatory with a great view of the town and sea. It had snowed the morning before, but there was more than we had in Dalkeith. The day was given the name of “Where the snow meets the sand…” It was a sunny day and even with the snow it was gorgeous. For lunch I had packed a PB&J lunch with an apple and chocolate digestive biscuits and my friends, Jenny and Brittney, and I shared a park bench overlooking the North Sea. Before we could get in the castle we had time to walk on the pier and on the beach. We saw lots of people with dogs, mallard ducks, and even some swans! We also went out on some rocky juts by the castle. It was hard to traverse with the seaweed that grew on it. We finally got into the gift store by the castle and then got our admittance to check out the ruins there. The castle was really fun. I thought it would be the perfect fort to play in if you were little… but turns out its pretty fun when you are nearly 20 too! There were some secret crawl spaces and even a mine and countermine underground. It doesn’t look like too much in the pictures, but there really was a lot to still look at and rooms to get into (or imagine sometimes). After the castle exploration, we wandered into the St. Andrew’s University Museum- they had some fun interactive exhibits and it was cool to see what some of the student traditions that they have were, like walking down the pier and raisin weekend. We walked down to where we were meeting our bus, but still had some time. We discovered some rocks in the water with a pathway/wall to it. The tide was coming up, but the rocks gave us new angle to view St. Andrew’s. Brittney got hit by a wave walking back from the rocks and my friend, Kelly misjudged some waves jumping from one part of the rocks to the other… but I made it back dry!
Saturday and Sunday was spent in Edinburgh. Saturday was a lot of checking out shops and trying stuff on. The trends here are different than the styles I would say I usually try. Lots of dark colored tights with dresses and boots. But it was fun to look around. Sunday I went on a hike. Okay… so we climbed up Arthur’s Seat and Holyrood Park. It’s an old volcano in Edinburgh (the castle is also built on an old volcano). I definitely broke in my hiking boots after St. Andrews and this hike! I climbed it with Kristin, Kelly, Jenny, John, Steve, and Brittney. There are trails all over this mountain! I looked it up and it’s 823 ft- I’m not sure if that exactly qualifies it for a mountain but maybe big rocky hill and cliff? We first went up on the Arthur’s Seat part before heading up the higher point. It was some rough terrain but very rewarding! On top we could see all of Edinburgh, the Firth of Forth (body of water that empties into the North Sea), the Firth Road Bridge we had gone over the day we went to St. Andrews, and the Highlands in the distance. It was really windy at the top, but we enjoyed it.
I am downloading pictures to Photobucket because I think that BlogSpot is linked to it and it takes a long time to download all of them individually onto here. There is probably an easier way that I haven’t found out yet.
I was happy to spend this weekend fairly cheaply after this past week. I’ve been planning trips and spending money on flights and tours. Our first extended weekend starts the 26th of February and goes over my birthday! There is a group of six of us heading to Athens, Greece for it! Then we got our tickets for spring break booked. We are flying to Nice, France. It is in the Riviera and one of the girls, Jonelle, has some friends studying there who offered to show us around and let us stay for two nights. They actually live in Antinibes. Then we are planning to move into Italy and there is soo much to see there! We also booked a Paddy Wagon Tour of South Ireland. A three-day trip that will take us from Dublin and loop around the Cliffs of Moher and the Blarney Stone.
Last week Thursday we celebrated Robert Burns, a very famous Scottish poet, by having a traditional Burns celebration and dinner. Robbie Burns actually had his birthday on January 25th already but we celebrated anyways with haggis, neeps, and tatties. Which if you don’t know what that is… you probably don’t want to know! For real! Okay… haggis- traditional dish…look it up sometime…, neeps- turnips, and tatties- pretty much mashed potatoes. I ate it. It wasn’t even that bad when you mixed the haggis into the tatties and neeps. Then we had cranachan for dessert… a cream, oatmeal, whisky dessert with raspberries on top. It was deceiving looking like cool whip but really not being all that sweet.
Well I'm going to try and figure out some picture stuff... Hope everything is going great in Wisconsin/Florida/Colorado/Texas... and Happy Late Valentine's Day!

Blog #2 in Scotland

We are just starting our second week of classes. I am taking History 210: Modern World, Engl 241: Human Issues in Literature, British History, and Scottish Culture and Globalisation. The Modern World class is with a professor who teaches at Stout. The Literature class is with a professor from River Falls. I’ve never taken her before but she is very nice and seems like a fun professor. British History is with a Scottish Professor and we only have that with her once a week. Culture and Globalisation is taught by two Scottish professors and we start out as a big group for a powerpoint and lecture after lunch on Mondays, and then we split into two groups for discussions and peer presentations. We also get to go on a trip to Glasgow for the class on Feb. 20th. These are some the only history classes I’ve taken so far for college and hopefully the last ones too. I guess I’m just not big into reading history books that get assigned to do for homework. We don’t have classes on Fridays ever, so on Thursday (2/5) lots of us went into Edinburgh for the evening. Back in the States “Thirsty Thursday” is a common term on campuses, but when we went out in Edinburgh it we realized that it was pretty quiet compared to the weekends there. The agenda we had was a pub crawl. Over thirty of us took the bus in to take on this challenge. It started at World’s End where we got a map and where we’d have to return at the end of the night for our ‘free’ t-shirts. We were aiming to finish before midnight so we wouldn’t have to take the night bus back. Then we realized just how much walking was involved in this task. I think we walked over 40 minutes to go from the second place to the third. We had broken into smaller groups. When were working our way through them we realized that we were not going to make it through them all in this one night if we were to make the bus, but we were determined to finish it. Just a quick synopsis of the night would be all the stamps we had to get at each place, a walk through the ‘meadows’, karaoke, and finally free t-shirts! We were able to catch the night bus just fine and when we got back to the house we learned that we were the only group to finish it! The others got mixed up on some streets and came back before the buses stopped running. The next day our group proudly wore our new shirts and some bragging went on.
Friday we had a couple of mandatory events at the house so we all stuck around here for the weekend. One of the big things we had to figure out was what we wanted to do with our first extended weekend, Feb. 26- March 2, also over my birthday! Jenny, Brittney, John, Dan, and I spent a lot of time in the computer lab looking up rates for different destinations. We were looking at France, Spain, Italy, and Greece. We finally booked a flight to Athens, Greece! It was very exciting and I know Mom got a phone call from the credit card company too that night! But we are all very excited for it!
I was contacted by my host family over the past week and Saturday was the Host Family Brunch. Brittney (from Bemidji State) and I were assigned to a family in Edinburgh. On Saturday we met Dale and her daughter, Catri, and Catri’s children- Ailiedh (Ay-lee), 8, and Finlay, 5. Finlay was really shy the whole time, Ailedh is a very active 8-year old. Dale has been in Scotland since 1973 with her husband, Neille (Neal), who is a doctor. Catri and her husband had been living in Scottsdale, Arizona for the past 9 years but recently moved back to Scotland. It sounds like they just got into their house. After the brunch Catri had to take Finlay to a birthday party, but Dale and her granddaughter, Aileidh, were planning to go to the Potrait Gallery of Scotland. She invited Brittney and me to join them and since we didn’t really have other plans we decided to take a bus in to meet them there. It was actually very interesting to see the different portraits of Scottish figures from modern medical surgeons and musicians, to Robert Burns. Dale knew a lot about many of the pieces and told us about them. Aileidh also did very well as we even listened to someone speak about the ‘Potrait of the Month’. Brittney and I stayed in Edinburgh after that and checked out a few souvenir stores and stuff like that.
Sunday Kristin, Jenny, Brittney, and I decided to go into Edinburgh for the ‘Car Boot Sale’ going on in the parking garage of St. James Square. First off, the trunk of your car is called a ‘boot’ here. So it was kind of like everyone was running little garage sales outside of their ‘boots’ in the 4th level of the parking garage. It was a lot of fun. Lots of it was junky, some were antique book collectors or electronics and different stuff. I found a small clutch type bag for only 50 pence and a curling iron for 2 pounds. It was really fun to check everything out though. After the sale ended at 1, we continued shopping around St. James Mall and Princes Street and the Royal Mile. It began to snow some again Sunday evening.
I used some of my Monday morning to make up for lost sleep over the weekend. We have a trip to St. Andrew’s, the birthplace of golf and home to a cathedral and a university, coming up on Friday. In our Scottish Culture and Globalisation class we’ve been talking about the differences between the United Kindom and Scotland from the U.S. We have also started talking about devolution, or those who both oppose and support Scotland becoming an independent nation. Some of the differences we’ve been noticing are the dependence on public transportation (lots of people don’t even own cars and 95% of the population is within a 5-minute walk to a bus stop), language- both accents (understanding about every third word from some locals!) and the way we use words (toilets rather than bathroom, ginger/coke for soda/pop, and you hear some curse words used more openly than you would at home), and the level of surveillance (there are about 8 cameras on the bus its called CCTV and is in restaurants and stores too). Much of Scotland has been watching America as we went through the election process. Even my friend Kelly’s young host brother asked, “How do you like your new President?” It doesn’t sound like many people were fond of Bush over here, but are looking forward to seeing what Obama will do for us. We are also learning how important football and rugby are to our Professor Mooney and many Scots, oh and whisky too! There are actually six students here from the UW-Superior soccer team so a bunch of the guys went to a Celtics game in Glasgow over the weekend. They said it wasn’t the best as games go, but the cheering and energy at the game never let up. They also saw quite a few people taken out by security for getting out of hand.
Well we I’m doing laundry for the first time since being here, really fun sharing those few machines with so many people! We also had a fire drill, but I guess it wasn’t a schedule drill but a girl doing her chores of mopping got the water a little to hot and steamy and set it off. I’m music sharing with my roommate right now, but should go download my Modern World readings soon. So till later…

Getting over the jet lag!

We made it! After a long flight across the pond we made it to Edinburgh on Thursday (1/29) morning! There were a bunch of us from the program on the flight and we ended up making a pretty big pile of luggage at EDI while we waited for more flights to come in and for our 12:15 bus. We made it through customs and I got my first stamp in my passport (exciting!) around 9:30 am in our new time zone. In our camped out location I probably got the most sleep of the whole journey and I knew that we were going to be allowed to sleep until late that night (or actually early the next morning!). Our new professors and faculty met up with us and we found our bus to take us to Dalkeith.
We parked in front of our new home and were greeted by a true Scotsman greeted us in a traditional kilt and costume and played the bagpipes as we gathered together all our bags. We got into the entrance way and were passed a key for our new rooms. I have three roommates, Jonelle from UWRF, Angie from UW-W, and Kari from UW-S. We have room 111- a long room with high ceilings, four big windows looking at the entrance, lawn, and side, and a secret closet… dubbed ‘the beer fridge’ by the last couple groups residing here. That day we were split into our ‘clans’, groups of students with about 8 or 9 of us in them for different activities and jobs that we will doing throughout the semester. I’m in the MacDonald clan and we did a little orientation and some tours of the house and grounds that evening before we decided to check out the town.
Friday we had some more introductory activities and got to know our faculty and staff. All of them seem very nice and I think the courses should be interesting. Saturday we finally got to leave Dalkeith for a day in Edinburgh, learning how to use the Lothian buses and visiting the Edinburgh Castle. When you get into the gates of the castle you realize how big it is! Many of the buildings now hold displays and serve as museums or memorials. There were amazing views of Edinburgh from the castle that sits on the highest point in the city. We stayed until things were closing down and the sun was setting- around 4:30! A group of us walked the Royal Mile where my friend and I found some lambswool tartan scarves and then we got dinner at Deacon Brodie’s. After dinner we walked down to Princes Street, a very popular street in the city filled with shops, Waverly Station, and the Scots Monument. We walked back up to the Royal Mile and met in front of the St. Giles Cathedral to meet up for with more students for a Haunted Tour of Edinburgh. Our tour guide told us many stories and cleared up some myths and legends for us too. We walked to the cemetery where Bobby the Skye terrier sat at his master’s grave for 14 years! And then she cleared it up that it was the wrong grave and the monument was erected by American Bobby the terrier lovers and Disney made the story into a film. We also were able to walk into the part of the graveyard that is locked to the public because of strange happenings and suspicions of a poltergeist. We stood inside of the Black Mausoleum and the tour guide claims that some people come out with strange scratch marks, bruises, and she even had six tourists knocked out one time. It was cold and creepy and one girl in our group swore something whispered in her ear when no one was there and another felt a tight squeeze at her side when no one was there. I got some stories and history of Edinburgh from it and a good spooky rush but was glad to get out and not find any marks!
On Sunday our clans competed against each other in a version of the ‘Amazing Race’ around Edinburgh. We got to use the buses on our own and find different monuments, streets, shopping centers, museums, and landmarks as we went. We did some good planning on the bus ride over and got some of our bonus questions figured out when we talked with a local on the bus. It was really fun and got us familiar with the town. We ended up at the St. James Center where we made a stop at Orange to pick up our SIM cards for the (ghetto) phones we were given. Then we got some lunch and checked out the mall. We all found something at Poundland, pretty much a Dollar Tree but everything is a Pound instead! Then I browsed at some other stores that had some really cute fun stuff and shoes and boots and sparkly bags, but ‘I need to save my money for trips’, I told myself! Lol! So I took some pictures instead! When we got back to the Dalkeith House I tried out my new phone that somehow ended up eating my credit after I talked to Mom for like 5 minutes! So I had her call the payphone later. We had a Ceilidh in the Dining Hall that evening. Ceilidh is a Gaelic word that you say like ‘Cay-lee’ and is a bunch of traditional dances. We had a professional Celidh caller teach us four different dances and it was so much fun! It was also the warmest we had all gotten in the Palace so far. When we had a break finally I had to run upstairs to take off my Cuddle Duds from the day in Edinburgh! After the Ceilidh we went to Mayson’s where they had the Super Bowl on for us. I didn’t stay for the whole thing though because it was really late when you figure that we are six hours ahead of you guys! It was starting to flurry just a little that evening.
Monday starts off our week of classes and we woke up to about an inch of snow (okay…a couple centimeters it would be). We also have a host family reception this coming weekend, so hopefully they found enough families for us all! We also want to go to Edinburgh again sometime soon. But I’ll try and keep you up-to-speed when I can! ;)