Scottish Highlands!

Yesterday I went on a guided day tour of the Scottish Highlands. Our ultimate destination was Loch Ness, but we made lots of little stops along the way and traveled through a beautiful area of the Highlands called Glencoe. It was with a company called "Rabbie's Trail Burners" (for Rabbie Burns, the Scottish poet) and the tour was 12 hours! I had to get up at 7:30, which was hard since I had only managed to fall asleep around 5am. On my way to meet the tour group, I planned to stop by the coffeehouse near my flat to wake myself up, but was surprised to find that apparently coffeehouses here aren't open before 8am! Thankfully, Starbucks was open. I know some people hate Starbucks, but all I'm saying is if it weren't for that grande mocha I probably wouldn't have made it through the day. So Starbucks, you're all right in my book!

Our first stop was at a loch (their word for lake). I can't remember the name of it. This one was smaller than Loch Ness, but was very pretty!

Along the way to Loch Ness our driver made a bunch of quick stops at scenic places where he thought we might like to take pictures:

Finally, we arrived at a tiny town (population: about 500) that calls itself the "Gateway to Loch Ness" since Loch Ness borders it. Here we got an hour to walk around and eat lunch. These are the pictures I took of the loch itself:

On the drive back from Loch Ness we made several more quick stops at scenic spots to take some pictures. One of the stops was at a very old Scottish kirk (their word for church) and graveyard on top of a hill that had great views.

Some other stops along the way:

The tour guide was AWESOME. His name was Ali (pronounced like Allie), short for Alistair, and he was relatively young and just very cool. He did make some groan-worthy puns, but he knew everything about Scotland's history and was an interesting person to talk to.

Went to Glasgow yesterday!

As mentioned previously, I have to find things to do to fill the time between now and when I go home. So yesterday morning I took a bus to lovely Glasgow.

 On the way to the bus stop. Foggy Edinburgh!

I feel like it was about time that I went there, considering it's only a little over an hour away by bus and is, by all accounts, an awesome city. I really didn't get that full a picture of it since I was only there for about 7 hours, but I'll be going back there in February for a Spoon concert, which, side note, I am REALLY excited about. Spoon concert in an intimate venue the day after my 21st birthday sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. But I digress.

Anyway, a friend of mine who has been to Glasgow had explained that there's not a whole lot of tourist-y attractions there (such as in the way Edinburgh has the castle, palace, etc.). They do, however, have good shopping, which is what I did. Before I came to the UK, I looked forward to going clothes shopping here because I've always thought of European clothing as stylish and chic, but oh LORD are clothes expensive here. It's ridiculous! Basically my day of shopping really wasn't very successful because any time I found something I remotely liked, I would look at the price tag and think "I could easily find something like this back home for much less, and I go home in a week". But even so, unsuccessfully shopping in Glasgow is better than sitting in my flat in Edinburgh with nothing to do!


Pictures of Glasgow:

Next week I think I might go on a tour of the Highlands. I will update if I do!

Two More Weeks!

It's hard to believe the semester is almost over! I fly home in less than two weeks. Lectures and tutorials are over; exam time has begun. Believe or not, though, I have no exams at all this semester. Which seems like a great thing, and it is great right now, but it means that all of my exams are at the end of the year. That's going to be especially stressful considering the fact that exams in the UK are worth so much more of your overall grade than in the US. So I would much rather have my exams spread out. What's particularly annoying is that one of my classes- Edinburgh in Fiction- is only a semester-long class and I took it this semester, and yet the exam is at the end of the year. It makes no sense!

The upside, of course, is the free time I have for these next two weeks. Unfortunately, my abundance of free time is not shared by most of my friends, who do in fact have exams right now. So I'll just have to amuse myself for two weeks. I plan to take a day trip to Glasgow at some point this week (bus tickets to Glasgow are ridiculously cheap), and possibly elsewhere on separate days.

That's all for now I suppose, more later!

Only a month left!

Hi again!

Coursework is pretty heavy at the moment; I have 3 essays due in the next 2 weeks. Next Monday (as in, a week from tomorrow), my second British History essay is due, as well as my first Edinburgh in Fiction essay. My professor in the latter class gave us a little treat in that there is no class or reading for this week- instead, it's 'Essay Completion Week'. No such luck for British History; we still have the regular 3 lectures and our tutorial. The following Monday, my second English Literature 2 essay is due.

Last night (Saturday night) was really nice. Kate and I made brownies and watched the first two episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I haven't seen for years and hadn't realized how much I missed.

On a completely unrelated note, I recently learned about an annual charity hitchhike from the UK to either Morocco or Prague, and have decided I really, really want to do it. Basically, it benefits an organization called Link Community Development (http://www.lcdinternational.org/). They work in Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, South Africa, and Uganda, striving to 'improve access to quality education and promote the wellbeing of young people in rural communities'. The annual Hitch starts in England and Wales (people can start their hitchhike from wherever they are in the UK), and from there participants hitchhike to either Morocco (the original destination, and obviously the longer one) or Prague (this destination was added for people who didn't have enough time to devote to hitchhiking all the way to Morocco). At this point I'm leaning towards Prague, simply because I would be doing this over Spring Break, which I also need to devote to studying since all of my exams are worth HALF of my grade.

It's Halloween tomorrow!

It's Halloween tomorrow! I went out with some friends Wednesday night in costume, which is when I took the above picture, but since not everyone else was in costume we didn't get the full experience. So tomorrow will be my first proper Edinburgh Halloween experience. I'm excited! I think Halloween is probably my favorite holiday. For one thing, it's right in the thick of autumn, which is my favorite season. And it's really the only holiday I can think of that it celebrated at nighttime- which, being a night person, works for me.

Pictures to follow, hopefully!

At last, another entry

I suppose I could blame my lack of updates over the past month on the amount of reading I've had to do for my courses, but I've also been avoiding writing a new entry because so much has happened that the thought of trying to sum up my new life in any sort of succinct way seems a daunting task. But here we go! I've decided to break it down into sections:

My Flat:
I live in a university-owned flat called New Arthur Place with four other girls; two Scottish girls (Trisha and Caroline), an English girl (Kate), and another American (Cora). We're on the fifth floor, and our flat is somewhat unique compared to other flats in New Arthur Place in that it takes up two floors. I really like the location; it's right next to the student societies center, Pleasance, which, in addition being the typical spot for societies to meet, has a bar and a cabaret venue where comedy nights are apparently held every Tuesday.

New Arthur Place is also only a 5-10 minute walk from George Square, which is where all of my classes are held, and it's close to so many cool places while at the same time being away enough from the action that we don't have to deal with tons of noise at night (i.e. one block of university flats is directly above a bar...I don't envy them!)

Note: All of these pictures were taken on move-in day, which is why everything is so bare. Trust me, everything looks much more 'lived-in' now :)

Our kitchen!

 

My Courses:
I'm taking three courses, which to an American sounds like very little, but is actually a full course load here as courses are more intensive in the UK and require far more reading outside of class. The three classes I'm taking this semester are:
1) English Literature 2: a full-year module, normally taken in the second year. Because English literature classes are so popular here, you're only allowed to take one course at a time from third year (called Honours courses), so I'm taking this in addition to my Honours course. I chose the second year module because the first year covers mainly medieval and renaissance literature, whereas the second year continues chronologically and covers the period of literature I'm more interested in; specifically, the rise of the novel in the eighteenth and nineteenth centures.
2) Edinburgh in Fiction/Fiction in Edinburgh: my third-year Honours literature course. Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit that not only was this not my first choice, I really only enrolled in it because it was the only one that had space left, since visiting students don't have priority for classes. But it is a pretty cool concept; discovering a new city in person while you're discovering through literature. And this week we're reading The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which I've always wanted to read. So maybe it'll end up being fortuitous that I wound up in this class! Also, this one is only a semester-long course.
3) British History 1: This, in addition to English Lit 2, is a full-year course. Not only does this complement my studies of British literature well, but I've always wanted to take a British history course- and where better to take it than in Great Britain?

In the spring, my Edinburgh in Fiction course will be replaced by "Shakespeare: Modes and Genres" which I am SO excited for, as I am a huge Shakespeare freak.