50th Birthday Parties, Weddings, and Arthur's Seat

Sorry it has been so long since my last post, it feels like these past two weeks have been a complete whirlwind of events.

Last Saturday night, one of our new English friends decided he was going to take us on a tour of Edinburgh so we could see all the different night life options we had to choose from. We all thought it would be a great idea seeing that we had no idea where to go, and our program directors certainly weren't going to explain the nightlife and condone our party habits. When he arrived to pick us up, he informed us that he was taking us to his friend's father's 50th birthday party. At first, we were all very against it, complaining that it would be so awkward to walk into a stranger's house for a party. Eventually, he convinced us, and we began our 30 minute walk to "New Town", the part of the city that was most recently built (and by recently, we're talking 19th century new). We walked up to this beautiful town house and began to get a little excited to see what true Scottish parties were like and meet a few of the locals. However, with one boy and 8 American girls, we still found the situation to be very uncomfortable. Once we stepped into the Disco themed party, all of our fears vanished as the birthday boy himself greeted us and welcomed us to Edinburgh. He encouraged us to join in all of the festivities and could not have been more welcoming. It was a great cultural experience! Nothing says Scotland like a twelve year old taking a double shot of whiskey with his mom!

We also took a trip and explored Edinburgh Castle, a mid evil castle built in the center of the city.

Edinburgh Castle

Two of my flatmates, Sarah (Manchester) and Tara (Berlin)

 

We all shared this Haggis dish, a traditional Scottish dish. It is made of Sheep organs and oats and cooked in a sheep's stomach and served with whiskey sauce. Needless to say, I did not enjoy it, but I am happy I tried.

On Tuesday, Haly finally arrived after staying home for her brothers wedding. We had a day together until I traveled back over the pond and returned to Newtown for a wedding! It was great to see my family again (although, I didn't even miss them yet) and be able to grab anything and everything American that we couldn't find abroad. The weekend was filled with wedding activities from the rehearsal lunch (which morphed into a rehearsal dinner), 6AM wake up call for hair and makeup (unfortunately, it really did take us that long to get ready), pictures, and party time!!

The bride, Sarah, my family (minus Will) and my cousins!

The familyyy

Missing Willey

After packing my bag with pringles, goldfish, oreos, and ping pong balls (no one over here has ever heard of beer pong so we are bringing it to the UK!) I returned to Edinburgh for my first day of classes. The classes are very different and much more independent than at home so we'll see how that goes. I am taking two economics courses (eeek) and a European History class.


Today, Haly and I hiked Arthur's Seat. It was absolutely beautiful with panoramic views of the city, but much more difficult than I imagined. By the time we got to the top I had shed two layers and was sweating! I had finally remembered to grab a rain jacket (after getting caught in the rain almost everyday this week without one) and, of course, the sun stayed out all afternoon.
This weekend I go to Shap for a homestay. I will be staying with a family there and learning about their daily life and family traditions.

Here are a few photos from our hike

This is Arthur's Seat, at the very top of the mountain

Getting Settled

It has been a long couple of days! We took off from JFK airport on Tuesday night. The airport was a disaster! It took about an hour and a half just at the bag drop line, luckily for me it was so crazy they didn't charge people for overweight luggage! After racing through security and down the terminal with several other passengers, we find that they have delayed the flight. Thankfully, we did not miss our connection in London (where there happens to be about 10 different terminals, a 20 minute bus ride and 7 different security checkpoints).

When we arrived in Edinburgh, the IFSA Butler program staff were there to greet us and bring us to our orientation at the Apex international hotel in the grassmarket district. We spent two days there going through orientation, which consisted of very long discussions about the differences in the educational systems and what to expect during our next four months. We had a guest speaker, a Scottish policeman, who talked to us about safety. He was a riot and only made me more excited for my next few months. He began his lecture by saying "Welcome to Scotland, the home of the gingers. Gingers, welcome home, and blondes, you are just gingers in disguise." We also had the opportunity to meet everyone in the program, including students that will be studying at the University of Stirling, Glasgow, and St. Andrews. I also ran into a boy i graduated from high school with! He is in the same program and will be in Edinburgh for the remainder of the semester!

At orientation, we learned about the five stages of culture shock:

1. The honeymoon stage: This stage began far before I even arrived in Edinburgh, while I was packing and getting extremely excited for what lies ahead. It continued into Orientation, meeting everyone, and participating in several city tours and exploring Edinburgh. I was able to meet one of my flatmates at this time, Candace from California. She is a Waterpolo player at Claremont McKenna College and is super nice. The honeymoon stage quickly ended as we transitioned from our hotel to our flats.

2. The distress stage: We had just been dropped off on the side of the road hauling all of our luggage with no idea where our flats were located. We were given our address, mine being 3/4/5 Hermit's Croft, however we had no idea what any of the numbers ment. Luckily we ran into the two cutest little Scottish boys (both gingers) and they helped us find our accommodations. Next came the unpacking! our flats were furnished, however there were no hangers, linens, bedding, or utensils. We set off to find everything we needed, hoping to come across a target or something similar, however that was not the case. Although it was a Friday, everything in Edinburgh closes early and we found there were very few stores still open. We set off first thing the next morning and found ourselves taking a 30 minute public bus ride to Ikea and stocked up. However, Ikea is no target, and we still had several things on the list to find. After a full day of running around the city and dropping a lot of pounds, I was very fed up with the city and found myself wishing I was back home and able to go to Target! I decided that I will make my millions by opening a target (or something similar) in the UK! I also learned very quickly that no matter the whether when you leave your building, you must carry an umbrella or rain jacket. It was a beautifully Saturday morning (and let me say beautiful in Scottish terms is much different than beautiful in America, at least weather wise). When I say beautiful, it was about 60 degrees and cloudy, but still very bright with no hint that it may rain. by the time we walked about 5 minutes, it began to pour!

3. Re-integration: Upon returning from hours of shopping, I cam home to find that two of my roommates had moved into the flat. Tara is a first year at the University of Edinburgh and comes all the way from Berlin, Germany. She studied at boarding school at St. Andrews and is very independent for a freshmen (she even moved herself in alone!) there is no way I was moving myself into Vanderbilt my freshman year! Sarah is also a first year from Manchester and she arrived shortly after with her parents. They had a full car packed with everything, which reminded me much more of American college freshman. Immediately, she put her father to work rearranging her room and fixing everything in the flat (such a help)! It made me think of my own dad and how much he would be bitching at me and my mother if it was us! They are both studying at Edinburgh all four years.
After meeting the roommates and getting to know them, I fully unpacked and set up my room. It made me feel so much better once I got organized.

Here is a picture of my room and our building ....

Devin and Aly (girls from Vandy) and our new friend Katie (who is staying for the whole year!) from Davidson (and happens to be from CT as well, what a small world!) and me are going on a tour of the campus today and a ghost tour of the city tonight. Hopefully the weather holds out as it has yet to rain today!! Haly gets here on Tuesday and we are so excited for everyone to finally be here!

This week is "Freshers" week at the university, which is a week long orientation for the first year students with over 20 activities to choose from a day! As visiting students, we are invited to participate as well! Last night was a pub crawl throughout the city and we got to mingle with new people while checking out new pubs. How cool is it that their orientation revolves around drinking (much better than the icebreakers we have in the US). I will keep you all posted on the activities that are to come in the next couple of days!
Unfortunately, there have been no royal sightings thus far!

P.S. Check out some pictures of the city from me tours!

 A few views of old town

 Arthur's seat is in the background. It is an inactive volcano that sits on the edge of the city. There are many different hiking trails up it and I am sure we will be there one day this week.

 This is the Holyroodhouse Palace, or The Queen's Palace. This is where the Queen stays while she is in Edinburgh. There is a special flag that flies above the palace if the Queen is there! (Note: this is a beautiful day in Scotland!)

 This is Edinburgh Castle built in the 15th century. It is located in the center of the city. Edinburgh was built around the castle.

 Although you can't really see it, this is the Balmoral Hotel, also known as the Harry Potter Hotel because it is the hotel that J.K. Rowling checked into to write the last chapter or the final Harry Potter book. Upon leaving, she signed the forhead of a statue in her room. It reads "JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (552) on 11th Jan 2007".  It now costs 1,000 pounds a night to stay in the exact room!

Failure to Pack

Hello! For those of you that don't know, I am heading to Edinburgh, Scotland to study abroad for the semester at the University of Edinburgh. I am beyond thrilled to be given this experience and get to explore Scotland, the United Kingdom, and hopefully more of Europe throughout the next 4 months.

I'm sorry, did I say I was going to the University of Edinburgh?? I meant to say I will be attending Hogwarts this fall.

I hope to keep you all informed of the adventures that will take place and (hopefully) all the royalty sightings that I see in the next 4 months. My goal for this blog is to actually type words and prevent it from becoming a collage of photographs, however, I am an engineer for a reason!

My flight takes off from JFK airport in approximately 6 hours and I have yet to finish my packing. Trying to fit my wardrobe into two suitcases is nearly impossible, but I am determined to do so. How do you choose which shirts to leave behind?? Of course, I couldn't have picked a warm place to study in so all I'd have to bring is shorts, t-shirts, and some bathing suits.

Well, it is now T- 5 hours and 58 minutes to take off. I will talk to you from the other side of the pond!