Castles can contain cool ceilings.

For example...

This is a picture of the ceiling in one of the rooms in Stirling Castle. Yesterday I went on a day trip to Stirling with Brandon - after mass confusion over who was and wasn't actually going. Brandon and Richie had planned this trip, but 9:45 came around and Richie wasn't answering calls or texts. Brandon tried calling him for the next few HOURS with no reply, and by this point we were getting worried. It's normal for someone to sleep in past 10, but not exactly normal for them to not contact you until 4 pm. Funnily enough, Richie had been getting all of Brandon's texts and calls throughout the day, but couldn't reply to them because his little pay-as-you-go phone was out of minutes and texts. Turns out he just wasn't feeling well.

We took a taxi to Waverly Station, whereupon I entered my first train station ever, to take my first train ride ever. My flatmate Katy (from Manchester, England) was literally shocked when I mentioned I'd never been on a train. For my first train experience, I'd say it went pretty well. We bought our tickets around 10:30 (9.40 pounds for a round trip ticket; around $15.) and saw a train was leaving at 10:33, so we ran. We made it, and I settled in for the ~1 hour ride to Stirling.

I was lucky in that it was a nice, sunny day, opposed to the rainy-icy-snow-sleet that Edinburgh received on Friday night. Our tentative itinerary for the day was lunch, Church of the Holy Rude, and Stirling Castle. Seems pretty do-able, right? We wandered a bit, looking for a place to eat, and settled on Beanscene, a cafe/coffeeshop chain in the UK. The hot chocolate was decent... but Caribou's is better. We then trekked up an icy slope (Stirling had apparently got more snow than sleet on Friday...and for some reason people keep putting castles on hills.) to get to our first stop, the Church of the Holy Rude. 

The Church was founded in 1129 and is the second oldest building in Stirling, though it was rebuilt in the 15th century after being destroyed by a fire. It has original stained glass from the 15th century, which we were hoping to see. Sadly the church isn't open to visitors until May 1st, so I'm hoping to go back. From there, we continued through the churchyard on a snow-filled "path" (random footprints in 4-5 inches of snow = path) to Stirling Castle.

Stirling Castle

It was very Castle-y, with the Queen's Bedchamber, the Queen's Inner Room, the Queen's Outer Room, the Queen's Sitting Room, the Queen's Standing Room, the Queen's Basket-weaving Room, the Queen's Bagpipe-Playing Room, and... you get the point. There were many rooms!

The Queen's Bedchamber

The Queen's Inner Hall

Part of the Great Hall

Don't let my joking fool you, though. I am forever in awe of the history behind every building I vist in Scotland. I mean, Mary, Queen of Scots, was crowned in this chapel in 1543: 

After seeing the castle, we made our way to a coffeeshop (much better hot chocolate here than at Beanscene. I'm keeping tabs on hot chocolate quality at all of these, don't worry.) before heading on the train back to Edinburgh. Our first train was cancelled due to a signaling problem, but we only had to wait 10-15 minutes for another one. This train was packed. There must have been a football or rugby game last night, because there were several seemingly-intoxicated young men, standing near the front of the train, randomly singing and shouting. A man sitting down several rows away would occasionally join in by yelling in a strange voice. It was an interesting journey. My proud moment of the night was navigating from the train station to my flat by myself. Though it is easy once you find the main road, the trick is... finding the main road. 

I'll update this in a few days about my birthday and my friends and I's new local pub (something is grammatically wrong there..).    

A List of Things and Other News

1. You have to pay extra to get whipped cream on hot chocolate at most coffee shops. What is up with this. Someone recommended a good hot chocolate mix though, so I'll have to track it down.

2. Class ending times are more of a suggestion. My bio class goes from 10 to 10:50. Today, at about 10:55, the lecturer, without breaking stride or glancing at the clock, simply said he had another topic to go through. None of the students even blinked. Even more surprisingly, no one was trying to pack up and leave. They just kept diligently listening and taking notes for the next 10 minutes or so. At Gustavus for a 9 am class, at 9:47 the notebooks go away, and at 9:49 we are all practically on our feet, leaning forward as if it helps us get out the door.

Also, people taking notes on their computer here AREN'T ON FACEBOOK. Shocking, right?

3. Nutella on toast is delicious. I don't know why it's legal to eat this for breakfast,  but eat it for breakfast I shall.

4. The library is 100% full 100% of the time. It's crazy. I guess that happens with a student population of 30,000.

5. Edinburgh takes their essays seriously:

"Use the question as your ‘title’: if you give your essay some other (more exciting or personalised) title, you may find yourself unhelpfully distracted away from answering your question!"

God forbid we have exciting titles!

Side note, this past Saturday was the trip to St. Andrews. It was so much fun, but also quite cold! The international student centre provided transportation and then we were free to wander. We saw the churchyard, castle ruins, Museum of St. Andrews, and stopped in a few nice places to eat. I'll just throw a bunch of pictures at you now...

(this is not my picture)

Brandon, Hilary, and Paige

Michael, Paige, Cassandra, myself, Hilary, Ali, and Brandon (this is also not my picture)

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Walking, Walking, Everywhere.

Just a small update...Classes started on Monday! I'm taking three classes here:

• Genes and Gene Action 2
• Intermediate German Language
• Celtic Civilisation 1b

I've had first meetings for all of them, and they don't seem too bad. The only challenge will be determining what to read. The UK university system is set up where for humanities classes, you receive large book lists for class, instead of the professor explicitly telling you what to read. You're supposed to use the library and read things you think will be useful, using the book list as a guide. Neither my Celtic Civ class nor my Genes class has a "standard" book, so that will be something to get used to. Another difference is that you have relatively few assignments: I have one "course problem" for Genes, one other assignment, and then the final exam. For Celtic Civ, I have an <1800 word source analysis, a 1800-2000 word paper, and a final exam. My earliest assignment is due mid-February, which is definitely a change from nightly work back at Gustavus. 

I did the math, and estimated that I'm walking 3+ miles every day.

0.5 mile route I take to class each day

I walk this route to/from George's Square, which houses all of the humanities classes, at least two times a day. My Genes class meets at the King's Buildings (the science and engineering campus), which is two miles south of where I live. To get there, I walk to George's and take the free shuttle bus down to Kings. Gone are the days of leaving at 8:53 for a 9 am class like at Gustavus: with walking to George's square and then taking the bus, I'm out the door by 8:45 at the earliest! The nice thing about Edinburgh is that everything IS so close. If I need something at the grocery store, it's an easy five/ten minute walk away.

On Saturday, the International Student Centre is taking students on a day-trip to St. Andrews. My friend is buying me a ticket today (mainly for transportation). Even though I have so much more in Edinburgh to explore, I can't wait to spend a day in that area! St. Andrews is about an hour northeast of Edinburgh.

Also, something somewhat unique to the University of Edinburgh is "innovative learning week", which basically means we have no class from February 18-22. 

My flat is not flat.

It's true. It also happens to be at the top of the building where it's located, New Arthur Place.

I moved into my flat on Friday around 3 pm with 4 or so other people from my program, after some morning orientation activities. We were saved by a nice young gentleman who just happened to be passing by. He graciously lugged our 50-pound suitcases up flights of stairs to our flats, simply because he "had nothing better to do". My flat is different than most others in that one bedroom and the common area/kitchen are on the ground level, and then a flight of stairs leads up to 3 other bedrooms and the bathroom. The doors seem to be the opposite of here: they start closing slowly... and then slam shut. No exceptions. One of my flatmates was already there, Camille from the south of France, who is very nice!

Here's what my room is like. Nothing special yet; I'm still getting organized and unpacking/finding places for things. It's a nice size though! I was greeted with the university bedding pack, which I soon discarded for sheets that didn't feel like paper.

After that, I'd arranged with a group of people to head out shopping for food and other necessities. I got the college staples: bread, peanut butter, pasta, and apples. Probably set for life now. Ate food at an Indian place that we all went to, thinking it'd be cheap. The menu outside advertised a 3-course meal special for 8.75. Not too bad. After ordering and eating, we got our check, did some math, and found he charged us 13.75. Apparently the special was from the OTHER menu. What silly Americans we were, not asking to see the hidden second menu.

On Saturday, it seemed like most people headed over to the farmer's market! It was just beneath the castle.

It was your typical farmer's market, with breads, vegetables, jams, meats, cheeses, and some other things. After wandering around here for a bit some of us headed up to see Edinburgh Castle. We wanted a tour, but after seeing the queue (yeah UK words!) for tickets we reconsidered. However, still got a great view of the city.

myself, Brandon, and Ali

Kate, myself, Hilary, Brandon, and Cassandra

We then spent the entire day out walking, wandering, and shopping a bit. After literally walking from 10-4:30, I can't tell you how nice it was to come back to my flat and sit down! Some other pictures from the day:

Today I went to the societies fair (basically the same as the organization fair back at Gustavus) and then got my schedule rearranged a bit. I'll talk more about classes next time since this is getting pretty long! Classes do start tomorrow though, my first one is at 2 pm. Did some more wandering and I'm now fairly confident I can navigate around the city centre! And find my way back home...

I'm off now to make dinner/hang out with a bunch of people from my program who live in a flat about 5-10 minutes away. Hopefully you've been enjoying these updates. I miss home, and my friends back home (skype sometime? yes? yes.) but I'm looking forward to making a new home and new friends over here!

Orientation woooo

Hey everyone,

I hope you are all doing well! I arrived to Edinburgh at around 7:30 on Wednesday and then took a bus with the rest of the group flight (~40 people?) to Apex international Hotel. At about 9:30 everyone went downstairs for tea and coffee, where I had the chance to get to know a few people and make plans for later that day. The only planned event was at 3 pm, a lunch/dinner with some orientation information. At around 11:30, a large group of us headed out to do some wandering. The weather couldn’t have been nicer - about 45 and sunny. 

This is what I like to call "Lost in Edinburgh":

A view from the street of the hotel:

We set off to find some of the university buildings in George's square, and were successful... eventually. After walking around for a few hours, we had the dinner, learned things about the city and university, and were again set free. It should be noted that all of us had been awake for roughly 24 hours by now. Later that night, around 5, some of us went to a pub and had drinks and chatted for while. Even though 5 pm felt like midnight. Since Edinburgh is further (farther?) north, it gets dark around 3:30, and light around 8 or 8:30 even. Most people crashed around 8 pm or earlier. 

I'll just even more briefly summarize today, since I have to be up at 7 tomorrow! Today we had breakfast at the hotel, and orientation activities until 2 or so. After that, we had a bus tour through Edinburgh, which was great! Albeit a bit drizzly. It was nice to start learning the names and locations of roads a bit better, since we'll be on our own after tomorrow. 

One spot we climbed up to on the tour (Not much of a view since it was quite misty):

After the tour, most of us went to get cheap mobile phones. Kind of sad, but once I got my phone I started to feel more like a "real person" in Edinburgh. Being able to contact my new friends is a great feeling. The shop probably didn't know what was happening as it was inundated with 40 Americans though. The Edinburgh residents unfortunate enough to be stuck behind us all in line looked rather angry... After the tour, a lot of us went to hang out in a pub a little down the street. IFSA-Butler students ended up taking the whole back room, with probably about 20 of us in there.

Anyway, tomorrow afternoon I move into my flat! The name of the flat is New Arthur Place, and I'm living with 3 other girls, none of whom I know yet. I probably won't have internet for awhile since it needs to be set up in the flat, so it may be awhile before my next update.

-Emily

Greetings, humans

Hello family, friends, and facebook stalkers!

I don't typically keep up on blogs or journals very well, but I hope I'll be able to keep you updated on some of my experiences this semester.

Some travel details:
Tomorrow at 7 am I leave for the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. My flight from Minneapolis to Newark, NJ leaves at 11 am, and then my flight from Newark to Edinburgh leaves at 7:40 pm Eastern time. It's about a 7 hour flight, so with the 6 hour time change I'll get to Edinburgh at 7:30 am GMT on Wednesday, or 1:30 am for all of you back home. The weather forecast predicts a sunny 45 degree day (Don't worry, Nut House. I've already checked the weather three times and have it bookmarked...). Once I arrive, my program (IFSA-Butler) will provide transportation to the orientation hotel, Apex International. I'll stay there with my program for a few days for orientation, and then move into my flat on Saturday! I'll get you guys more details on that later.


side-note, I cut off my hair...

 See you across the pond.