Burn's Night

Edina! Scotia's darling seat!
All hail thy palaces and tow'rs,
Where once, beneath a Monarch's feet,
Sat Legislation's sov'reign pow'rs:
From marking wildly scatt'red flow'rs,
As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd,
And singing, lone, the lingering hours,
I shelter in they honour'd shade.

-Robert Burns

As some of you know, Monday was Robert Burns' Night, celebrated with poetry, haggis, and whisky the world over. The bit of poetry above is from Burns' Address to Edinburgh
First of all, how funny is it that he refers to Edinburgh as Edina? Let's all take a moment and compare Edina, MN and Edinburgh, UK. Different. But I digress. There were several ceilidhs (pronounced kay-lees) around campus, but we decided to not attend. None of us were feeling like going to a big event and the Whisky Society is hosting a Burns ceilidh this upcoming Sunday, so nothing lost. A friend and I did, however, go to Sandy Bell's to have a dram in the dear poet's honor and to hear some live folk music (be sure to check out the link). This pub has quite the reputation for being an excellent place to hear live sessions, and it certainly lived up to that reputation. The pub itself was pretty small and the session very informal. It seemed like a group of friends who just gathered there several nights a week and played whatever they felt like. Unfortunately my friend and I were seated kind of around the corner from the group, so we didn't really get to watch them, but the sounded great. At one point a man began to sing a ballad type song (reminiscent of Archie Fisher) with little to no accompaniment. As he sang, the whole pub became quiet save a woman seated at the bar who was softly singing harmony. It was like something straight out of a movie, and it was absolutely beautiful.

St Andrews

I was lucky enough (after standing in line for an hour) to get a ticket for the day trip to St. Andrews this past Saturday. We left on a cold, rainy morning for what would turn out to be an even colder, rainier day. Though we wouldn't have minded some sun, my fellow travelers and I agreed it almost seemed more fitting to tour the Scottish countryside in the mist and rain. Regardless of the weather, St. Andrews was beautiful - lots of gorgeous, mossy ruins to explore (though many required payment to explore the inside, which we opted out of), stony beaches, and of course the...ahem...Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews:

We spent the first part of the day wandering the ruins of the cathedral and the kirkyard. True to my upbringing, I took many pictures of interesting gravestones, which you can see in the full album.




After that we headed to take a quick look at the golf course, saw some rich men playing golf, as well as the beaches across the road where the opening sequence of Chariots of Fire was filmed. (It was wrongly credited in the film, but now you know - that beach is in St Andrews) We then moved on to the very quaint city museum, housed in an old estate, and then onto lunch, one of my favorite parts of any trip. After resting our feet and satisfying our grumbling bellies, we continued on to poke around the castle and some more beaches. For the rest of the afternoon we simply walked around the city (which is tiny), ducking into little shops and laughing at all the silly golf clothes for sale.All in all it was really nice to get out the city and see other parts of Scotland. Hopefully I'll get to do much more of that soon, although I think I'm going to have to wait for spring to head up north. You can see the rest of my pictures from the trip here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=145423&id=500102627&l=ee3b42518f

Foodstuffs: cont'd

A quick Scottish culinary update - I've checked Smoky Bacon off of my crisps flavors to try. They actually tasted just like bacon, which is both delicious and a little alarming all at the same time. Theoretically I should adore these chips since they combine two of my loves: bacon and potatoes. Still, meat-flavored potato chips are just such a new frontier, it might take some getting used to. When purchasing these, I chose to forgo the Prawn Cocktail flavor. No thank you...The one I want to try next is Worcestershire Sauce, I anticipate great things.

I also had my first sausages and mash this evening. John, they were in fact listed as sausages and mash, not bangers. Whatever you want to call them, they were delicious. Four little links of tender, flavorful sausage atop lots of creamy mashed potatoes with plenty of dark gravy. Yum yum yum. We ate a pub just down the road from our flat tonight. Judging by my meal and the looks of the dishes of my compatriots, we will definitely be returning.

p.s. The beer pictured is Tenets, what seems to be a pretty common Scottish ale. Quite tasty though. One of those glasses was the pint I drank in honor of Dad and John's birthdays. Cheers!

Foodstuffs

The other day while talking to John and Hannah they asked me if I had tried any of the bizarre flavors of crisps here or the digestive biscuits. I had not - until today. Due to the curiosity of those back home and my penchant for snacking/eating in general, I've decided to devote occasional posts to my exploits involving food here.

Number 1: The crisps. I was aware of the many different flavors of crisps (many of them meat-based) but had not yet sampled them. The grocery store was really crazy today, so I didn't have time to closely examine the offerings and weigh my options. I quickly grabbed two bags that were on sale, Mature Cheddar and Red Onion and Salt and Vinegar. Neither terribly exciting, in fact I'm pretty sure they sell this brand in America. But hey, I've got to start somewhere, right? I've seen quite a few cheddar and onion varieties about, so it seems they're quite popular, and for good reason. I found them to be quite tasty. The flavors subtle, but still interesting. Neither too cheesy nor too onion-y.


Number 2: Nutella. Now obviously we have Nutella at home, but the jar it comes in here struck me as much more aesthetically pleasing. It's also glass, which means it will probably be recycled as a drinking glass once it's delicious contents are emptied. Also, one of the American's who lived here last term left a recipe for Nutella hot chocolate. mmmm...



Number 3: The infamous digestive biscuits. To be honest, I was a bit perplexed by this concept. They always looked tasty enough, but I've never really associated digestion aids with dessert. John and Hannah told me to try this kind specifically. They were very good and, as you can see, full of "wheat & wholemeal goodness". They pretty much tasted like what they are, some kind of oat or wheat cookie with chocolate on top. For those of you interested in texture, they were softer, not mushy but certainly not crunchy.



This last picture is of nothing remarkable food-wise, but I was playing with my new-ish camera while eating a grilled cheese for lunch and thought this one came out quite nice looking. Take it for what you will.

One week and counting

I have survived my first week! Not only that, but I managed to have some fun as well. I must admit, amid all the stress and preparations of getting here and settled, I had sort of forgotten about homework. Alas, that part of my life has begun again, and how. We started translating a speech by Lysias in Greek and have been reading some medieval texts in Literature, parts of which may as well be in Greek since they're written in Old Scots. oof.

To the right is a picture I caught tonight of the moon outside my window. It was a gorgeous sunny day today and rather felt like springtime. Though I fear I've been lulled into a false sense of security weather-wise, it's certainly nicer than being in Minnesota right now. Really anything would be nicer than Minnesota this time of year. It really hasn't rained very much here, and when it has it's been very light. After the shocking cold snap at the beginning of last week, the weather has returned to what seems like normal for Scotland in January. It's been right under 40F the last couple days, which feels quite warm, but then there's the wind. Oh my goodness the wind. I've never experienced anything like it. It just cuts right through to your very bones. And I've given up on my hair looking presentable once I've ventured outside. Luckily the untamed look seems to be in style here.

Here are a couple of other pictures. The first is the Bedlam Theater, where many student productions are put on, and the second is the courtyard in George's Square, the area of campus where my classes are.

The grass is so green here! You can see what I mean about it looking like springtime.

I also got to experience some of the nightlife here during my first weekend and went out to a pub or two with some new friends. Nothing too wild though (don't worry mom). I also got to taste my first fish and chips on the way home Friday night. Scrumptious. This weekend (if I can get a ticket) I'm hoping to go on a day trip with the International Student Centre to St. Andrews. If I do get go, I'll be sure to take lots of pictures to share. Also, if the weather's nice, one of my flatmates and I made tentative plans to climb Arthur's Seat. We'll see if that actually happens...

Well I'm off to bed now. I've got my first Greek quiz tomorrow. The first quiz with a new professor is always a little nerve wracking, let alone one in Greek, so wish me luck!

A Castle and Some Chickens

Yesterday evening a couple friends and I walked up the Royal Mile to Edinburgh Castle. I got a few pictures of it lit up at night. We're planning to go back Friday afternoon and explore inside, so hopefully I'll have some picture to put up afterward. It certainly was beautiful and I can't wait to see more of it.

I've been able to settle into my room a little bit more the past few days. It's starting to feel a bit homier. It also helps that I finally did a big grocery shopping trip and now have happy, full cabinets. I made a very exciting discovery the other day when I was looking out onto the courtyard behind my building. There are CHICKENS living there! I made more sense once I looked at the map and realized the buildings behind me are Veterinary Science buildings. There were three of them (all very lovely) trekking about in the snow this afternoon. It was a very grand looking chicken expedition.

Well I'm going to try and get some reading done and scrounge up some supper. A little bit later a friend of mine from Macalester and I are going to check out The Water of Life Society, a student club devoted to learning about and sampling different kinds of whisky (they spell it without the 'e' here) from all over Scotland. After all, when in Rome...

p.s.

The fire alarm went off again tonight. awesome.

Finally! Some pictures

I had a long break today between my first class and a meeting with my Director of Studies, so after eating a quick lunch I decided to walk around the city and try and take some picture without looking too much like a tourist. Some of them, like the one at left are just of pretty buildings and churches around town. I have no clue what they actually are


This is one of the building toward the center of campus, I don't know much about it because our tour guide the first day was kind of a dud and a mumbler. In addition to housing some of the graduate programs (maybe) it's also where they host large campus events like reunions and such.



Walking on toward city center and the Royal Mile, I stumbled across the Central Library and the National Library of Scotland, which judging from the lobby is also something of a very impressive museum with lots of free exhibits. Definitely something I'll be investigating in the future. I poked around the Central Library a little bit and there was this interesting installation of tiles in the stairwell and also the engraving at the top of the front door says, "Let there be light"

Speaking of libraries...this is Teviot Row
It's kind of like the campus center and houses at least five campus bars including The Library Bar. I haven't been yet, but I'll try to provide a full report when I do make it.

While on the Royal Mile I went into one of the many, many tacky Scotland/Edinburgh gift stores. They had these beautiful lambswool scarves on sale for just a couple of pounds each. I went ahead and bought two because somehow in packing, I forgot to bring any of my warm, heavy scarves. Here's one of the scarves I acquired today:
It still kind of smells like sheep...hopefully I can fix that somehow. The other one I bought isn't as thick and is a very pretty sage green color. Other highlights of this store include: countless shirts and coffee mugs and shot glasses with cartoons of Nessie on them, miniature playable bagpipes (Daddy, I'm looking at you. Mom, how much will you pay me to not bring these home with me?), and when I was at the cash register I thought it was odd that they had Red Hot Chili Peppers CD's on display until I noticed they were in fact by the Red Hot Chili Pipers. Which is of course another matter entirely.

On the left

Prior to arriving, I had been think a lot about the differences between the UK and the US, trying to prepare myself as best I could. However, there are tons of little things that never even occurred to me. Everything in the grocery store is just different enough to made shopping a bit tricky. When cooking some rice, I borrowed a measuring cup from my flatmate thinking "one cup rice, two cups water" and then looked down to find metric markings. I'm going to have to do some serious conversions if I want to do any baking here, otherwise it could be quite disastrous.

One of the things that really caught me off guard was that people tend to walk on the left as well as drive on the left. It totally makes sense, but I never would have thought about it before. However, a lot of time there seems to be no rhyme or reason to how people walk on the sidewalk and the streets. I think that system is called "people are oblivious". It's one I've noticed the world over.

Fire alarms, books, and a pub

This will be my third night in Edinburgh and the fire alarm in my building has gone off two of those three. Last night, as mentioned in the last post, it went off a little after 1 in the morning and tonight it went off around 11:30. Grrr...

On a happier note, I'm starting to get a better grasp of the neighborhood around my flat and the University. I walked around a bit in between my classes and successfully found the student association shop where I loaded up on notebooks and the like. I also got almost all of my textbooks for the term. The Uni doesn't have it's own bookstore but rather a local store called Blackwell's carries the books for the university classes. It was kind of nice buying my books from an actual shop instead of some gross university bookstore with all the books stacked up in a maze.

It's been nice walking around the city, but a little embarrassed to admit that I'm already really sore from walking everywhere. I suppose it comes from being quite lazy and sedentary over winter break. We'll see which gives out first, my knees or my shoes. Hopefully the latter, they're much easier to replace.

I had my first Scottish dining experience last night. Two friends and I went out for dinner at a pub on the Royal Mile. I got a Scottish hamburger (I'm not sure what made it Scottish, but there was definitely a difference) and a Scottish blonde ale, both of which were quite tasty. A woman at the table next to us ordered what appeared to be sausages and mash and it looked so delicious I almost ordered that instead. Next time perhaps...Though I think it's going to be a while before I'm going to be able to bring myself to try haggis.

Lectures

I had my first classes today and all in all they went pretty well. I had minimal trouble finding all the rooms and had plenty of time to spare. First was Greek. I was really nervous for this one because I know I'm not quite at the same spot as the other students and have never been terribly confident of my Greek skills. But I think it's going to be okay. The professor is so incredibly English, he almost wasn't real. He was a delightful combination of a slightly stuffy Englishman and a completely dorky Classics professor. We have Greek again tomorrow so we already had an assignment. It was kind of rough going, but hopefully that was just because I'm a bit rusty.

Scottish literature seems like it's going to be pretty good as well. It will be focusing on the Scottish sense of self and identity is portrayed through literature. Looks like it's going to be a whirlwind tour though, starting with some Medieval works and ending with the 20th century. I also met a really nice German exchange student in that class. We bonded for a few minutes about how wimpy the British are when it comes to snow and the cold.

Greek World is by far my biggest class. It's held in a lecture hall that seats around 300 people I think. It wasn't nearly full for this class, but is still easily the largest class I've ever taken. Looks like it's going to be fun though.

And so it begins...

Well after months of fretting, too few hours of sleep, 12 hours on planes, 7 hours in airports, and one very sleepy shuttle ride I made it! Considering all the things that could have gone wrong with the trip (and trust me, I considered all of them) the journey was pretty smooth and painless. I was very, very lucky that none of my flights were canceled or delayed due to the snow that is everywhere, it seems that I can't escape it no matter where I go. I wasn't able to sleep as much as I would have liked on the plane rides, but I sat next to nice and/or silent (which is almost as good if not better) people on all of them and the food was pretty tasty. So I survived my first international flight!
When I arrived in Edinburgh (pronounced here as "Eh-din-bra", sort of flipping the r) I got my bags pretty quickly and then went over to the University welcome counter which was full of very friendly people who chatted with me, gave me some water (I was so thirsty I almost hugged her when she did) and lots of useful maps and info packets, and helped me get a spot on the shuttle to the University.
I met two other international students while I was waiting, one from Maryland who goes to Wash U and one from Virginia who goes to Brown. The guy from Brown lives in my building as does another girl from Brown who I met on the shuttle. After lugging our luggage up the stairs (the lift was broken, figures) the three of us went to lunch at a little coffee/tea/sandwich shop around the corner from our building. It was quite tasty and pretty cheap - a good place to know about.

Here are some pictures of my room before I unpacked:

Even though it may not look like it, the room is pretty nice and spacious as far as university housing goes. My only complaint is that the heat automatically turns off thirty minutes after you turn it on.

My windows look out onto what seems to be the courtyard of another building and have a pretty nice view:


hmmm...I was just interrupted by the fire alarm going off. While we were all out waiting on the sidewalk in our pajamas (it's 1:00am) one of my flatmates informed me that the alarm goes off at least once a week usually. Oh boy.

All of my flatmates seem quite nice. There's Alex who's from Connecticut and goes to Fordham, Salomi (no clue if that's spelled right, probably not) who's a first-year here from Glasgow, and Olivia who's also a first-year and is from Dundee. Salomi and Olivia both lived here last year and seem to get on really well, which is a good sign I suppose.

Classes, or lectures rather, start tomorrow. I have all three of mine on Monday. Greek meets on MTWR mornings, Greek World meets MTR, and Scottish Literature meets MWF. I'm a little bit nervous for Greek, but luckily the girl from Brown, Alison, who I've spent quite a bit of time with so far, is a classical languages major and offered to help me if I needed it. I plan to take her up on her offer. Well I suppose I should probably try to get to sleep. I haven't noticed much problem with jet lag except in the late evening. I get really tired around 8 or 9 and fall asleep for an hour or two and then can't fall back asleep for a while. Hopefully this won't be a problem long.

I should have a large part of Tuesday afternoon free, so I'm hoping to walk around the city more and take some pictures. We walked up to the Royal Mile today and I got to see a lot more of the city. Yesterday I really only saw the part right around my flat. I must say, Edinburgh is even more beautiful that I imagined. It probably helps that it was sunny today, but still. All of the cobblestone alleys and winding streets and gorgeous old buildings. It seems like it's going to be a really fun city to explore and get to know.

So think happy thoughts for me as I try to find my classes (I think I know where I'm going) and adjust to getting back into the rhythm of school. I'll try to write more soon.