Day 22

Articulate, the game of champions. I think more of my blog is about this game than Scotland! Seriously though. What a game. Funny part is, we are playing it so much that a lot of the cards keep coming up and we have played that specific word over and over again - let's just say it makes the game go a little quicker.

Anyway - started this friday off with my good ol' fashion breakfast of some oats + pecan cereal, a peanut butter and banana sandwich, an orange and some green tea... breakfast of champions. Not too shortly after, it was 4pm. Oh, whew, almost forgot I watched law abiding citizen on my computer! Great great movie! I recommend. I was going to say, breakfast then 4pm, that is not good at all... So after that Marc Jordan and I hopped on a bus to Jewel, which was a good hour away... in hopes of picking up some golf clubs. Well, we all got a club - there is a huge grass meadow/park dealio in front of our flats, and it is actually a public golf course. Not really a golf course, more of like a pitch and putt.. all the greens are pretty close to each other and you go back and forth. Yet, it is free, and a place to hit golf balls.

After we got the clubs we went into the "ASDA superstore" ... ASDA is basically Walmart, and superstore means superstore. So we entered this jungle of products and macheted through with our golf clubs. I ended up getting a lot of stocking up kind of food, frozen chicken, frozen shrimp, 2 boxes of mash potato flakes, huge lunch meats, etc. We hopped back on a few busses until we reached our humble abodes. For dinner I made some delicious chicken pasta, omnomnom. Always a favorite...

That night, Sogol, Taryn, Emily, Noel, Hillary, Lewis, Dave, Shahab and I played some articulate. Ok not some, a lot. It was great, we probably played 5 or 6 games. A few were guys vs girls, in which, obviously, the guys proved victorious over and over again ;). Mwahahah.

OH YEAH, I don't know why this just hit me now, but back in between breakfast and the movie, I fiiiiiinally cleaned up my room. I still basically had my stuff in piles on my desk, refusing to be put away. It looks pretty nice and simple now, and I like it that way. Back on track, after articulate I came back up to my flat thinking I was about to go to bed...

I open my door only to find 10 people inside having a mini flat party type deal. I wasn't complaining though, I was quickly bombarded with drinks, I had one or two, nothing too crazy. I was back for not more then 10 minutes and then jordan marc and paige come walking through the door! The more the merrier. They came back with food from Pablo! Our favorite "Burgers, Pizza & Kebab's" man. No but really. One night I found myself in there and simply asked him if he was better than the shop up the road, he said of course my friend! I just wanted some fries, or chips as they call them, I saw they were already cooked in the deep fryer, and I told him if he made me new fries I would bring everyone in there. So he did, and then about 8 more people ordered food. From that day on Jordan Marc and I always go in and say hi to him. He gives us huge amounts of food now, and discounted! A friendship was born. Back to the flat, I brought up the game where you both stand about arms length apart, with your hands up and your feet planted. Object of the game being to hit the other guys hands, first one to move at all from their planted feet position loses. Great game, especially when you are playing with a bunch of drunk people (needless to say, I had a bit of an unfair advantage). Anyway, everyone seemed to love it and there was 3 separate games going on at once at one point in time. Well, it's the weekend now... time for relaxation and some golf :)

Day 21

3 weeks. I have been in Scotland for 3 weeks. Wow. If I hadn't been keeping track with this blog, or if calendars had never been invented - I could have been tricked into believing I have been here for 3 months. The things I have done in these 3 weeks. The people I have built relationships with. Everything. It is truly incredible. I feel like some of these people I'm with have been my best best friends for half my life. What's funnier is that I am almost positive everyone feels the same way. What a great experience.

Today I woke up a little late, 1230, and for some reason I couldn't stop eating! Ha, not really blog worthy, but damn I literally ate probably 3 meals before 3pm. Crazy stuff. Anyway, come 5pm Jordan, Marc and I decided to go to "The Scotch Whisky Experience", which is a tourist-aimed educational/fun/eventful kinda dealio. Basically, we sat in a barrel, it went around tracks very slowly... and we went through each stage that the whisky would have gone through... there was a bit of information as we drifted through each part. After the ride section was over, there was some reading to do - then off to the tasting. There are 4 different main whisky regions in Scotland; you have the Lowlands, which has a grainy/cereal/biscutty kind of flavoring, the Highlands, which has a flowery/perfumey kind of flavoring, Speyside, which has a fruit flavoring, and Islay, which has a smokey flavoring. Obviously none of the whiskys actually tasted like their flavorings, except Islay, that definitely tastes like you are drinking bonfire smoke. Nonetheless, it was great learning about all the different types and how it is distilled etc etc... the picture you see is the collection of a Claive Vidiz's whisky bottles, he has hundreds upon hundreds. The collection grew quite famous and makes would send him limited edition bottles, specially made bottles - one in particular that stood out to me was a full chess set, each piece containing some scotch! It was quite impressive... the most expensive bottle he has was bought in I believe 1984 in New York, purchased at the time for $1000, it is said to be worth just over $33000 now! Not a bad investment if you ask me. None of the bottles have ever been opened. It is pretty funny because some of the whisky bottles actual amount of liquid have fallen a bit, they say it's due to small cracks in the corks - letting some of the whisky evaporate into vapor over time. We got to keep our whisky testing glasses, with instructions on how to properly taste the whisky, I feel like an astute whisky connoisseur now (not really).

When I got home I checked my emails and talked to my Dad for a bit about the findings from our family linage! Pretty cool stuff! It dated back to the 1300's and we now have found out that not only is King Edward I of England my 19th grandfather, but King Henry IV of England was my 18th grandfather on the other side! Along with his father, the Duke of Lancaster and so on down the list... not bad! We have been trying to trace it back for years now it seems, finally some answers. Very interesting, probably even more for my aunts and dad, they get to see who their aunts, uncles, and grandfather/mothers were - some they never were able to meet.

To wrap things up tonight I headed over to Benny and Dave's, Amy showed up a bit later and we all hungout for a bit. Then we started up a game of 2vs2 articulate, quite possibly my favorite board game in existence now (sorry pictionary). That was a ton of fun, as always. We were all literally dying of laughter by the end of it. I have yet to have a even remotely boring time playing that game... I highly recommend getting it.

Welp, looks like I am going to call it a night, disco iceskating is on the agenda tomorrow night... bahaha... hopefully I'll be able to pick up a golf club or two to pitch around the "golf course" outside of my flat as well! Until next time...

Day 18-20

The view from Arthur's Seat...

I am getting bad at doing this everyday eh..? Well, let me think back, Monday and Tuesday were pretty laid back days - I went to class Monday, it was cancelled. Meaning I had a full 7 day weekend. :) Not too shabby. It was also Robert Burns Day, which is a holiday here in Scotland. It is suppose to be celebrated with haggis and whiskey, so we kind of did that, well, at least we celebrated... it was fun, we all were hanging out in the Wrights houses, then headed to the Golf tavern and met up with some more people. A group of us went out to Binny Mulligans after that for some live music. Pretty good night, got in pretty late and that gave me a late start on Tuesday, but worth it!

(This last picture is taken standing outside our building, Arthur's Seat is in the distance)

Tuesday was a really laid back day, got some bank stuff squared away and went to the pound stretch and salvation army with Jordan and Marc. We all got some random stuff, I got an air freshener for the room, a non-stick frying pan, and a door gym! Ha! That'll save me some money instead of a gym membership, this thing actually works pretty well... not a bad investment at all. I usually take it easy on Tuesdays because Wednesday is my big school day, so I did, and unfortunately I missed a fun night out at Citizen Smiths, but that's ok. There will be more...

Wednesday was a very eventful day. It started out with my 730am wake up call for Cognitive Neuroscience at 9 in the morning... yipppppie! Wow, that class was a joke today! There was a PhD student teaching a section on the visual system because apparently that is his expertise... if so, I don't know what to think. Luckily I learned everything he was TRYING to teach in a sensation and perception class last year at state. This guy literally had no idea what he was talking about, it was as if someone who really had no idea what any of this meant went up with a powerpoint and sort of mumbled sentences and pointed. Everyone had the most blank and confused looks on their faces I felt quite bad. At one point he literally said the phrase "well, this pathway has different cells and different things happen then this pathway"... that was his explanation of the two different pathways for rods and cones in our brain. I want to write that on the test and see what they say about it. That was probably the easiest part of the lecture too and he managed to make it down right incomprehensible. Half the things he just kept saying we will get to them later, when obviously they were meant for now as they were in this lectures powerpoint notes... BAH! Alright, done ranting. After class got out I had my tutorial for it, we watched an hour long presentation of visual disorders. A man who couldn't recognize faces, and another who could only recognize faces. Pretty interesting cases. The rest was on visual neglect, and ironically I had seen the exact same video with the exact same old lady Peggy on more than one occasion back at state. Seems like a lot of repetition is going to be going on this year.

After class I went back for a quick break in between my next class, Scottish Culture and Society. I met up with Jordan and Marc to go to class - and somehow we got the idea to hike Arthur's Seat instead? Pretty randomly if I recall... I said as long as I was back by 4, it was 12:30, it supposedly takes and hour and a half there and hour and a half back. 3:30, that was pushing it. But we went for it. By the time we actually left the flat it was almost 1, we got to the bottom of Arthur's seat around 1:50. The mountain was ready to be conquered. We started hiking up it at what seemed to be top speed, took a couple more direct, and steep, short cut routes. Before you know it we were almost to the top. By this time there were a good 40-50MPH winds hitting us, luckily they were blowing us into the mountain, and not away from it. These were no joke, you could almost, literally, fall into the wind and have it hold you up. When we got to the very top and even along the way, the sights were amazing. It was surreal up there, you could see everything... there was snow covered mountains in one direction, towering buildings in another, keep going onto the grasslands, and then a long endless pool of water in the last... I definitely will be visiting here more often.

When we got down it was only about 2:30... we flew up this mountain! So, getting our Wednesday travel bug we headed to the train station to see what we could put on the agenda. The possibilities were really endless (besides the money issue), so, being our neighboring huge city, we settled on a night out in Glascow. We also walked around a whole part of Edinburgh I have never been too, pretty cool, I am getting the hang of the streets now. After a quick bite to eat at a local sandwich shop Gregg's (cheap and delicious)... we headed back to the flats. I had about 10 minutes to grab my stuff and go to my next class...

The next class flew by, being only an hour, and when I got back I saw the gathering of people who were ready to venture into Glascow with us. Jordan, Marc, Kyle, Jaime, Amy, Taryn and I headed out... we went to a bar called King Tut Wah Wah Hut! Haha, what a name... we went there for some live music and drinks, but we ended up hanging out by the extremely small billiards table shooting some pool and tossing back some 2-pint King Tut's (which we had to put 5 pound deposits on... the glasses that is). We left around 10 and walked around some of Glascow, went into some little Chinese place and Pizza parlor next to it, got a quick bite to eat and talked for a bit. The train ride home was an hour and a half of non-stop hilariousness. I'd even say it was as fun as the whole night put together. Every on the train had to think we were out of our minds, if they only knew we were sober...

I'm off to bed. Who knows what tomorrow has in store...

Day 12-17

Quite an adventure I had this last weekend...

So, I have some catching up to do.

When I left off I was in the middle of trying to get my classes together and what not. Well, I have all of that pretty much figured out now - I'm taking that easy Scottish Culture and Society class, Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. Those won't be so easy. But extremely rewarding nonetheless. My Cognitive Neuroscience teacher is great, we had a talk after class because I had to talk to her about taking the course and all that due to the prerequisite differences. She is actually talking to her husband now, who is a professor at Edinburgh University, about me helping him with his research lab. He runs a rat lab on learning and memory, this would be great for me to get in because I have experience with human labs, but not any animal labs thus far.

After my day death of school (9am-6pm) got out Wednesday I met up with some friends and started the night early. We had a mini beer pong tourney and friends over at Jordans place. It was all a lot of fun (and i'm still undefeated), then we headed out for the night. Jordan, Marc, Jaime, Paige and I met up with Shannon and Rebecca at a place called Binny Mulligans - A famous Scottish Pub. The atmosphere there was great, so good that I tried my luck with a 1-pound slot pull, to no avail, of course. Live music and loud chatter filled the place, we all had a great time talking and hanging out.

Needless to say I slept in a bit after that long day, I woke up at about 2:30PM with Marc knocking on my door. I just remember "We have a car, get up, pack your bags, we're going to France"... and that's all I needed to hear. Next thing I know Jordan, Marc, Paige and I are in a little Ford Fiesta rental ready to embark on quite an adventure. Our ferry to France leaves the port of Dover (which is on the very very bottom of the UK) at 1:30AM, we leave Edinburgh around 5:30PM. From the start it was a race against time, with a series of construction zones combined with multiple pit stops and gas fill ups we found ourselves a mere 20 miles outside of Dover around 1AM. The gas tank reads 0 miles to empty, but time is running out, we decided to make the quick stop and fill up then hit the road ASAP. We fly into the port around 1:10. We made it! After 7+ hours of driving and wondering if we were going to make it here in time, we made it... so we thought. Customs had a little problem with Marc's passport not having a UK entry stamp and felt the need to interrogate us for a good 10 minutes. Just long enough so that when we pulled into the ferry loading gate at 1:17, we missed the 15 minute mark that apparently was needed to board the ship. What a let down. The next ship leaves at 7am, I guess it is time to get some sleep...

We drove to a nearby 24 hour Testco (kind of like walmart), got some food then headed to the car. Mind you, this is a very very small car. Needless to say, no one slept a wink. So off we go again heading to the port, this time, an hour and half before we needed too. Once we got on the massive ferry of 9 decks in all, we immediately hit the ''horizontal lounge'' for some shuteye. We got to France around 10am and found our way to a nearby shopping plaza. I pulled out 80 Euros for the journey and got my first espresso and croissant from a nearby cafe. Paris here we come... 280KM away.

Who would have known that a measly 20KM away from Paris our tire blows out! What luck, so, on the spare goes and we putt-putt into Paris... slightly dismayed and ready to go we ditch the car in a carpark and set off to find the sights. We walked around for a good hour or two before we ended up finding where we wanted to go, a crepe stand! No not really, but we did stop at a crepe stand before heading to the arc de triumph, I got a chocolat crepe, it was delicious, but so sweet. After devouring that, we headed to the arc. There were sights all around us as we walked there, magnificent buildings and the Eiffel tower off in the distance. The Arc de Triumph was great, it was kind of funny at first, because here this giant monument sits in the middle of a huge round-about, there are no crosswalks or anything to get to it, yet we see people walking around it and on top of it! How the hell do we get there?! It took us a while, but we found the underground tunnel that led us to our prize. The view from up top was amazing. I took a set of pictures including panoramics of both sides. What a view...

By the time we left everyone was starving, so we wandered the streets looking for a good place to eat. Apparently we picked the wrong street though, everything was high priced over our heads and we begrudgingly settled on a little sweets/bakery kinda shop. I got a ham/cheese croissant, which was quite good. The shop keepers couldn't speak english and I am sure were making fun of us, but I think one of them liked me or wanted to fatten me up, because she threw in an extra 5 little sweet donut puff pastries.. on we went ;)

There are things to see everywhere, the Opera house, Churches, Parliament buildings, Statues... absolutely terrible driving... no but really, France has probably the most unorganized yet efficient driving system. Everyone has the right away, honk, swerve, drive across traffic, just don't hit anyone. I am still amazed we were able to dash across the streets without being pummeled... anyway, while we were at the Arc, Jordan and Paige looked up hostels for us to stay in. As we are now on 2 hours of sleep, day 2. They found a place that was nearby, yet again, so we thought. A 200 mile hike! At least it felt like that, everyone was so exhausted and we all had our backpacks the whole day. But I mean, this was a lonnnng journey, Marc even stopped to change into his running shoes - smart man. We finally made it to the hostel, and they were out of rooms. The guy gave us the option of waiting for an hour for a reservation that was suppose to show up, if they didn't, the rooms were ours, I didn't care, I was already sleeping in the corner. Turns out, we weren't able to stay there, but we found another hostel close to the Eiffle tower for 17 euros each. Not bad at all, we took the metro nearby then a taxi to our destination, the 3 ducks. The guy at the counter was pretty impressive, quickly shuffling from language to language as people from all over tried to book rooms. We were able to get ours, oh yeah, sheets cost 7 euros, 3.50 deposit, don't you steal our sheets! We said screw it, this trip is costing enough already, when we ended up getting to our room there was someones stuff already in one of the four beds! A little mexican man, so we thought, judging from the spanish books on the bed. A quick talk with the guy up front and he was outta there, poor Pablo (he got rebooked to a different room, we aren't that cruel). A quick cat nap and then off to the tower! It was pretty breathtaking up close and personal, every hour a vast amount of strobe-like lights go off like clockwork. Giving everyone within a 100 yard radius seizures. After we had enough we walked around late-night Paris then called it a night.

We missed breakfast at 8am (nice alarm Marc), it's bordering 930 now and raining. We still need a tire. To the free internet we go, looking up the rental car places number in hopes insurance covers blown out tires. They didn't. Anyway, we got some food from a local shop and decided it was dumb for all 4 of us to go tire hunting. I guess I got the good end of the deal as Marc and I were off the Louvre while Paige and Jordan were off to find a tire.

Before we made it to the Louvre, Marc and I walked around the city a bit more. We popped into a colossal-pillared building that turned out to be a church. It had high vaulted ceilings with statues and brilliant architecture throughout... only to be topped by the Louvre's! WOW. Just like out of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, there was the top of the glass pyramid that holds centuries of art. It was enormous, statues every which way we looked. I couldn't stop clicking my camera, I went through 2 batteries in less then 2 hours. Every ceiling had amazing frescos and paintings strewed against them. I said hi to Monna Lisa, and tangoed with the Venus de Milo. What an experience. I was encompassed by beauty, portrayed in so many different ways. There were ancient Mayan statues, statues from extinct African tribes, sarcophagus', paintings from every country, ancient scriptures, hieroglyphics, parts of broken templates, weapons throughout the ages... I could go on. What's funnier is what they let me bring into this masterpiece of art, the sign directly outside of the x-ray scanner and security says "no food, no drinks, etc".. this is when I remembered I had half a bottle of rum in my backpack! I quickly took it out and asked the security guard, "would you like me to throw this away?" as there was a trash can next to me. He gave me a jovial laugh and hand wave while saying "oh no no it's ok." Resulting in me walking around the Louvre with a half bottle of rum in my backpack... now who can say they have done that? All in all, quite the trip.

But it's not over yet, we made one last journey to the Eiffel tower, ate one last meal... then headed out. We drove like the wind, again in a race against time to make the ferry, it was about 8pm, the ferry left at 1130. And yet again, we found ourselves just outside about to run out of gas. This time, we chanced it, running on fumes and the will of the car gods we made it to the ferry! The ferry people were waiting for us, when we pulled up, they called us by name, we quickly got ushered through customs and then had a car waiting for us to follow to the boat. On we went. Thank god, the next ferry wasn't until 11am the next morning. We rummaged around the boat, got dinner (or whatever meal it was), and then tried to get some shuteye. When we got off the ferry, we went the wrong direction - mind you, still on 0 miles to empty. Found two closed gas stations, and decided to head back in the right direction to hopefully make it to the gas station we filled up at on the way to the ferry. We stopped at a gas station just before then, only to find out they only took chip debit cards, which is the type used throughout europe and the UK. Paige had 7 pounds left on hers... That's all we needed to get us to the next gas station. We made it there! YES. What a relief. Now our tank is filled and we are on our way... next stop Edinburgh.

What a journey...

6 Tanks of Gas for a Roadtrip to France: 240 pounds/ 3 = 80 pounds

Food for the roadtrip: 15 pounds

Ferry to France: 12 pounds

First Espresso ever w/Croissant (in France): 2 Euro

Crepes (chocolat and ham/egg/cheese): 7 Euros

Saucisse + Fritas: 6.50 Euros

Fritas: 2 Euros

Croissant w/ham/cheese: 3.50 Euro

6 Hours in the Lourve: 9.50 Euro

Up the Arc de Triumph: 5.50 Euro

Seeing the Eifle Tower 4 times: Free

Staying in a little hostel one night to get my only real sleep on the trip: 20 Euro

Parking in Paris: 15 Euro

Getting a flat tire 20 miles from Paris: To be announced...

Having a ridiculous roadtrip/experience: Priceless

Day 10/11

I'm just going to start out by saying damn I am tired! Classes have started and it has been stressful, especially since the class I just left is probably the most boring thing I've ever experienced. Time to switch.

Anyway, as I was saying before, my sunday was definitely a lazy day. Didn't do too much, watched a movie called trainspotting with friends at Benny + Daves, pretty intense movie. It was based in Edinburgh, the opening scene was actually on the main street here, Princes street - I probably walk it every other day if not more. After that I went and watched the chargers game, or at least 3 quarters, the tavern closed before the game was over! Damn you time differences.

Monday was a good day though, woke up and started it off by going to Edinburgh castle! What a place... it is much much bigger than Stirling castle. But ironically enough, a lot of the history that I read in Edinburgh castle referenced Stirling! Apparently Stirling is where almost all the kings were crowned, and a whole ordeal with the crown jewels happened there... it is a pretty historic place - and we had no idea! Yes, Edinburgh castle, quite a sight. There were magnificent views of the city from the edges of the castle, you can really see a ways out there. We picked out a few more places to visit that we saw out in the distance. I'm sure that will be sooner then later.

After the castle I had my first class, Cognitive Psychology. It was interesting, more so because it was inside of a church! Who has classes inside churches?! Especially about a science such as this one, I guess the whole science vs religion thing isn't a big deal here. It was a good class though, all about language and how we use it and how it is processed etc etc... the professor was very nice, even though she said "ehm" instead of "um", I held back my smiles. ;)

Then I finished off my day with a giant adventure to find plastic cups and ping pong balls with a group of friends, which we failed at. Well, sorta, we found plastic cups that were a little smaller and clear, rather than the normal red cups. And Benny found a ping pong ball under his freezer. So we were able to scrap up the necessary pieces to play you know what. Which, I am still undefeated at, 18-0 now... with 4 trolls, poor poor girls... :) Very fun day!

Day 8/Day 9

So i'm going to cheat a little and throw two days in one here... luckily day 8 was extremely uneventful until night time, but day 9 made up for it.

On Friday I didn't really get started until about 8pm. Until then I was on the computer just squaring some things away and talking to a few friends about music for hours. But when nightfall came it became time for a pub crawl! My first Scotland pub crawl. It was a pretty fun night, a pretty big group of us, around 15 I want to say, went out to this pub crawl. We were able to walk around parts of Edinburgh and check out 5 different pubs. I think the pub crawl itself was a scam, but the night was fun. After it ended half of us headed back to Dave and Benny's to relax and hang out.

I ended up going to bed around 330am that night, and unfortunately enough, had a 7am wake up alarm for the train ride to Stirling the next day! We had a big group planned to go, but of course people will always bail when something is that early. So 9 of us ended up heading out to Stirling. It was actually a lot of fun, the first thing we did was walk up and see Stirling castle. On the way up to the castle we walked through an enormous graveyard and numerous architecture masterpieces; of churches, inns and monuments. Once we got to the castle it was about 9 pounds to go in, Sogol and I found the brilliant idea of getting an "explorer pass" for 12.40 pounds. This lets us go to 3 castles for that one time fee. Seeing that Edinburgh castle is right next door, 11 pounds alone, and neither of us have been there yet. This was a very prosperous decision :). Anyway, the castle was pretty cool - there was tons of history about how 140 Scotsman defended Stirling against the strong English army... there was even a set of cannons left out to display. The museum upstairs displayed the rest of the Scottish weapons and battle galore. About half way through exploring the castle a giant rainbow seemed to stem from one end of it and go into the town. I was able to get some great shots with the landscape and the rainbow, if only I could have found the gold.

After the castle we ate and walked around town for a bit. The next stop was the Wallace monument, aka the braveheart monument. This is what is captured in the picture. It is absolutely huge, built on the tallest piece of land in the province. It was a great hike just to get up to it, Jordan and I decided to try and scale the side of it, and succeeded rapidly and momentarily until we realized this was a terrible idea in the rain with nothing really to put our feet on ;). We enjoyed the sights for a bit up there, then headed exploring through the nearby woods (also where this picture was taken).

Then we headed to an old bridge, where apparently the battle was fought! It was the battle of 1297 if my memory serves me correctly, pretty insane to be standing on that same part of the world where an epic battle in history went down, ya know? Afterwards we headed to the grocery for some quick snacks before the train ride back. Which, Jordan and I missed, and headed to a nearby pub until the next train arrived.

We got back around 8pm, and now I am officially exhausted. Yet sleeping isn't allowed here, we met up with a group of friends, hung out for a while and then all headed to Shannon and Rebeccas house for a little get together with close friends. Great night! I pushed hard to play beer pong (which apparently doesn't even exist here), and we were able to scrap up some necessities, although not the best (only one ping pong ball, and 12 oz cups vs 16 oz cups), it worked. Everyone had a great time, I went *ahem* undefeated ;), and the night was a success. Jordan, Dave and I walked back instead of the whole taxi thing, we had great conversation about everything regarding life and humans from the moment we left until deep into the wee hours of the morning. Hence, I just woke up at 230pm today. Sunday, the day of rest, I can deal with that.

Day 7

Today was a very filled day. I started out by walking over to merchinson campus to figure out my classes... the line was too long so I ended up just going to the computer lab and figuring it out myself. Great schedule, M T W classes, two of them are pretty serious classes but then the 3rd is counting as an upper division GE - Scottish Culture and Society. Everyone is saying it is the easiest class possible, and we take 3 trips during the trimester, to the castle, distillery, and possibly Glascow for the third? Regardless, it should be a good time, I'd say about half the international students are taking it as well. My other two classes are molecular biology and cognitive psychology. They both have tutorials and proctorials along with the lectures, to help you integrate and learn the material better. It would be too bad though.

After I got all that taken care of Sogol and I headed out to get bank accounts. I am now officially a member of the Royal Bank of Scotland. They were so professional about setting up the accounts, it was pretty good stuff. Then, yes, I finally got a phone! What a deal! Haha, I think I am literally the last person to. It was definitely a different experience without a phone, it had its plus and minuses. We then met up with Emily, Noel, Jordan, Kyle, and Taryn at a place called Shakespeares to have some lunch. I had some Italian Chicken, not bad. Sogol, Jordan, Taryn and I stayed out while the rest of the group went back in. We walked around Princes street and ran into the national museum of art. Strolled around that and checked out all the famous Scottish, Irish and English pieces. After that we headed up to the Royal Mile, I don't really know the whole story, but apparently the royal family of something or another stayed in one of the castles at the end of it. There is landmarks and grand buildings everywhere you can look over here. About halfway down the mile there was a bar which has 212 different types of whiskey, 212! Ranging from 5 years to dirt old. We all got a different kind and had a quick drink.

On our way back we ran into a sign that said "Free Ghost Tour 7pm nightly"! I looked at my watch, 6:55... we had to do it, right? It was us 4, 7 people in total, and a man who was no taller then 5'5'' leading the tour. He had an odd sense of humor and stories were more funny than horrifying, as the sign stated, we quickly realized we were on a tour of wasting our time. I am still wondering if these tales were true as he claimed they would be at the start of the tour, stories of people getting hung and then coming back to life... people having an inn where they killed you and sold your body... etc etc. He did tell us about all the old fashion torture devices though, they were pretty intense. Not to be too graphic, but the worst one was probably the hungry rat put on your stomach with a cage around him so he can't go anywhere but down - that is pretty intense.

By the time we got back it was about 8:30pm, I was literally in my room for probably 5 minutes before I hear the doorbell go off. Apparently it is time to go see a comedy! It started at 9, Jaime, Jordan, Marc and I jumped in a cab and flew over to a local standup comedy club. We met up with Benny, Roman, Shannon and Becca there. There were 5 acts in all, I'd say 3/5 were pretty damn funny - the other two, well, I literally felt myself catching some zzz's while they were attempting to humor us. One of the one's I am talking about was so bad that the next comedian actually spent more time making fun of her than doing his own act! All in all, great experience, I heard accents from all around Scotland, from the Northeast to the South, to who knows where. When the show was over, Sogol told me her and a few others were at a place called Witherspoons on George's street - the entertainment street. We headed that way to join them. As we walked in we weren't really sure what we were going into, it looked like an elegant ball room with high ceilings and sculptures. It turned out to be a giant cafeteria for drinking! There was a decent sized group of us now, Jordan and I got a pitcher of "The Godfather", basically Jack + Coke with a liquor and a few 99p brews. After a hour or two we headed back home, not before we stopped in a local food shop - I resisted and a few of us made pasta in the wee hours of the morning. Now it is time to do it all again...

Day 6

I woke up with a strange desire to book a plane ticket. Little did I know I would be doing just that a few hours later, after talking with my friends we all agreed that it would be Ireland for St. Pattys! I quickly got assurance from a few friends and we all booked tickets together, getting the last few seats on an 8am departure on the 17th from Ediburgh to Dublin... with a return flight at 630am on the 18th. Looks like that will be an all nighter! Luckily for us, no more then an hour later prices skyrocketed for plane tickets to Ireland! Almost doubling then, who knows what they are at now. A few more friends will book them in the near future, but it looks like we are going to have a pretty good group heading next door for some St Patrick adventures. There is a festival going on from the 12th to the 17th there, we will be catching the grand finale. Word is that the streets of Dublin are overflowing with people, I can't wait.

I am officially a Napier University student today. Matriculation went very smoothly, they did have a very funny way of bringing us through a line. We all sat in computer chairs about about 4 rows of computers, then slowly snaked our way up to the front at about 3 seats at a time. I felt like I was playing musical chairs. Unfortunately they couldn't have a more confusing class registration system, I am going to go to an advisor tomorrow morning hopefully... what's worse is that 1 of the 3 classes I was planning on taking is not offered during this trimester any longer. Time to improvise.

I wanted to get a phone and open a bank account today. I went to the bank only to find I needed to bring a proof of residence with me... so off to find a phone. Most phones are about 10 pounds, the pay as you go is called a "top up", you can do it in 10/15/20 pounds. 1 minute of phone call costs 20p, and 1 text costs 10p. So knowing how much I text, I wanted to find an unlimited texting plan. I actually found some company who for 15 pounds will give you 300 minutes and unlimited texting, its a month-to-month contract. This is a great deal, so I went for it - only to find out I needed a bank account to pay with! Oh what chain of events...

Now it is approaching night, a group of friends and I decided to go bowling. When we got to the alley it was a 40 minute wait, and it was 11 pounds for 2 games of bowling. Quite a rip-off if you ask me, so we debated it and also found that for 10 pounds its unlimited bowling on fridays... everyone agreed that that was in fact the best plan of action. Now off to the movies which was directly next door, unfortunately there wasn't much to choose from as almost everyone has seen all the movies that posed any value. We ended up with a group of 12 or so after some went home and went to Benny + Dave's. Played a few games of articulate and virtual telephone and had some good laughs, all around good times but a generally quiet night tonight. Tomorrow it looks as if we are going to the jazz club? I think that is what it is called, apparently they have a pretty good performer coming on at midnight. . . until then, cheers. ;)

Day 5

yyyyuuummm. Not a bad way to start off my morning, with some good ol' fish and chips. Probably the best fren- I mean chips, I have ever had! The fish was delicious as well... as you can see I even took a bite of it before the picture :P

I was planning on going and walking the royal mile with a few friends, but I got a phone call from Dave saying that my luggage has been found! And that I needed to be in my room when it arrived, otherwise they would take it back! Not wanting to risk that... my day was pretty much over. Off to my room.

Once I got my bag I didn't know what to do with it. I have been living on such a meager supply for the last week that this surplus of clothes was overwhelming. So I decided to try and take a nap... until I was woken up about 30 minutes later by a pack of hungry international students, who all wanted to get, yeah you guessed it, fish and chips. I wasn't very hungry at the time, but as I was awake now, off I went. We walked to a supposedly great fish and chips little shop, I didn't get anything, but I did try haggis! It wasn't too bad, but if I have it again I will definitely put sauce on it. It tasted like dry and salty meat loaf. An experience nonetheless. I ended up making pizza and unpacking after we got back.

Come 10pm I went and met up with everyone at the golf tavern. Had a great time there, and around midnight or so about 7 of us headed out to a nearby club, Cabernet Voultaire. The line was around the corner, but shortly we were inside, with pounding drum and beat music encompassing every step. We stayed for a few hours then headed back home. Off to become an official Napier University student the next morning...

Day 4

I had orientation today, there are several campuses and to get to about 5/6 of them a bus is needed. So some flatmates and I headed out with some more internationals. It was fun just being in a group with all of the North American international students (the Europeans had an earlier orientation). Everyone seemed to get along really well and I met a few new people as well. I almost know all the North American international students now. Great group! This picture is out of the window of the Craiglockart campus.

Anyway, classes seem to be pretty easy... I will get a 4 or 5 day weekend, or at least 4 or 5 days off. You only need a 40% mark to "pass", a 65% mark gives you merits, and a 75% mark is the highest range with distinctions. The man who ran the orientation was extremely nice and threw in some witty jokes from time to time. And to top it off when he called out our names he said "Eric James McDermott, oh that is a fine Irish name!" Haha!

After we were done we went to ASDA, which is basically walmart. Identically. It even had a McDonalds inside. Stocked up on some food! YUM. Also picked up some socks and other necessities. ASDA is about a 20 minute bus away. I am starting to really see how important the public transportation system is here. What sucks is walking from the bus stop to home with all your groceries! My elbow sockets almost ripped out.

When we got back it was almost 8, we all got ready and then headed to Benny and Daves for pregaming for the night. It was Amy's birthday at midnight. We planned to gather everyone and then go to a club, but it ended up just being a mini-club at their flat! What is funnier is, Benny and I split a bottle of Tequila and some Mexican beers. So much for the Scotch and Guinness.

Day 3

Apparently this is the most photographed statue in the world. It is said that when this dog's owner died he laid by his grave until he too, died. Quite a cool story if you ask me. Anyway, I started this day late yet again, 1pm, bleh. Hopefully tomorrow will jolt me out of this sleep because I am waking up around 9am to go to orientation. This will be the first day I will actually see the campus. Should be pretty fun. Hopefully I will get a phone and some other necessities afterwards as well. Or even better, my suitcase.

Today was a lot of fun though, started out by meeting up with Jacob, Dave, Amy, and Jaime for a late lunch around 3ish. We walked to a different part of town, took in some sights and ended up at a pizzaria. Delicious, but expensive, but damn what isn't expensive here? I really feel like everything is the exact same price if it were in american dollars, but it's 1.7x american dollars! I'm going to go broke very fast at this rate... We were probably talking for a good 3 hours inside the pizzaria, everyone had some good flowing conversation. It was great. After that we headed to the Elephant House, where J.K. Rowling sat down and wrote Harry Potter. I guess I touched the chair she was in? Possibly, who knows. She based Hogwarts off a university in Scotland, which you could plainly see outside the window. Pretty interesting stuff if you ask me.

We then headed back, but ended up talking in the street for an hour or two. Then it was off to the Tavern to meet up with some more people. The New England game was on, watched the end of that. Green Bay came on and I was excited, until they went down 14-0. We all left after that with a group of 13 now. Off to Benny and Dave's from some more articulate. It was a ton of fun and my team ended up coming out on top ;). Afterwards we played a game called visual telephone, essentially the game of telephone except everyone starts with a phrase, passes the card to the next person and they draw it, then the next person writes what they think it is, and so on. It got absolutely hilarious. We were all dying of laughter at the end when we went through the progression of the cards. Definitely a new favorite game.

Anyway, great day - heading off to bed early tonight.

Hopefully a productive day lies in store tomorrow.

Day 2

I got a late start yesterday, woke up at about 130pm, not to happy about it. I actually got a late start today as well, since it is 119pm right now. GAH. I'm going to blame it on the jetlag or the lack of an alarm clock. But damn, what a waste of the day already. The sun goes down around 4 here. So this sleeping in isn't gonna cut it! Anyway, last night I met up with Benny and Dave for a beer then we met up with a bigger group of the people I was hanging out with the first night. Benny and Dave live together, Benny is from Canada and Dave is from Scotland. Jacob and Shahab live together and are from Canada. Shannon and Rebecca live together and are from Canada. Angela and Daniel live together and are from Canada. And Art is from Texas, but he left to go back home last night. Damn - I felt like I was on repeat there for a second. We all went and saw Daybreakers at the local theatre, some movie about vampires having 95% of the world's population, they were running out of blood, yadda yadda - I don't think this movie was intended to be a comedy, but wow, bad bad movie. Wait for HBO for this one, and for someone to pay you to watch it. But it was all in good fun, we had a good time laughing at it.

Afterwards we went back to Daniel and Angelas flat, played a game called articulate, it's basically pictionary but without the drawing. You try and describe whatever word you have as fast as possible in about 30 seconds. The more words you can get, the more spaces you move. It's quite a fun game, although apparently the cards are from the 70-80's, making the people category a tough one. Definitely a fun game though. We played that until about 2 then talked and watched some videos of the New Years here in Edinburgh. Ended up getting in around 4am. Not a bad day at all, hmm maybe that is why I got the late start today...

Meeting up with Jaime, Jacob and Dave for lunch today. I was trying to get people and see the castle today, but that can be saved for an earlier day! Hopefully I will go get some necessities today, as this whole not having my suitcase thing is becoming quite a drag as my low number of supplies quickly ran out. 3 pairs of socks, 1 pair of underwear and no t-shirts or toiletries is no way to live in scotland, but hey, at least I have my jackets.

Day 1

Well, after about 25 or so hours of traveling, 4 different planes, a lost bag and a cancelled flight - I arrived in Edinburgh. The actual travel experience wasn't all bad though, I met about 8 people also traveling to Edinburgh in the midst of the cancelled flight chaos. We hungout with some beers in the Amsterdam airport, a few of us actually ended up booking the same flights to Edinburgh through London City and are planning a night out in the near future.

When I arrived in Edinburgh I was picked up by the welcome service, I walked to the right side of the car to get in, as usual -- only to soon remember that the steering wheel is now on that side. Then on the way to my flat, the driver and I were talking (or more like I was going into deep states of concentration to try and understand what he was saying!), he had the thickest Scottish accent I have ever heard in my life. Some sentences were blended together like one long word. It was a good learning experience though, no better to start anywhere but the hardest, right?

I got to my flat soon thereafter, I live on the very top floor, with a great view over looking Scotlands oldest public golf course. Ok, it's actually just a giant piece of flat ground covered in snow at the moment, but, so I am told. Anyway, I live with two other guys, Rob - who is from Canada, and Malcom - from Ireland. They seem like pretty stand up guys so far, we chatted a bit before we started the nights festivities.

Off to the Old Golf Tavern, which is LITERALLY next door to my dorm complex. It is in between the two Wrights house buildings. I guess they were intent on showing us a good time when they built this place. When I arrived at about 11pm, there were probably 40 international students @ the pub drinking. I quickly mingled around meeting as many people as I could in the time being. I ran into Dave, who set up this event and who I have been in contact with asking questions before I arrived in Scotland. Then I saw Jaime! The only person I knew before Scotland, we shared some stories and laughs and then we met up with Dave and a few others. Throughout the rest of the night we went for a walk through the golf course in the snow, then headed to a popular place which serves "chips and cheese" - french fries with cheese on top. I didn't get them at the time, but I am sure I will soon enough. After that a group of 15 or so of us went to a nearby flat to hangout and spend the rest of the night until we got back to our flats.

I think it is already safe to say I am going to have a great time here. I have met a solid group of people my first night out, and am looking forward to what awaits.

... If I only could get my damn suitcase

And it begins...

This is how I am starting this journey.

With an empty suitcase and an open mind.

The suitcase will be filled in no time at all, but my mind has much learning to do. Living completely out on my own in a different country, knowing next to no one - there is so much to learn. I cannot seem to stop pondering the possibilities of just my first few steps into Scotland. What will it be like? Who will I meet? Who am I even living with? There are so many unanswered questions awaiting me.

As I am approaching my last hours in the US, the reality of my adventure is inching ever forward. The possibilities are endless, as well as the opportunities to learn. In school, through the environment, through people and my self. I am so excited to embark on this life changing experience... St. Augustine put it best when he said "the world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page."

There is so much out there to see. The unknown is calling my name.