Last Tuesday was Mardi Gras, and on Mardi Gras in the UK, they eat pancakes. No one has yet explained this to me, but it is Pancake Day. So we went over to a British friend's flat and he made us pancakes! With nutella on top. Of course.
Wednesday we went to a bar called Three Sisters for free food day! Three Sisters has this card you can buy for 3 pounds, and then with that card, you get free food from them every Wednesday and also 2 pound drinks from them every night. It's well worth it.
The past few weekends it's been beautiful weatherwise here, but this past weekend it snowed on Saturday. It was too warm to really stick on the ground, but it was too cold for me. I've been spoiled by this mild Scotland winter, I don't know what I'm going to do next year when I'm back in Chicago. We went out to the Farmer's Market on Saturday anyway, because the burgers there are absolutely delicious. I haven't really been up to anything exciting lately, except tonight was ChocSoc and we made ice cream sundaes. It was just in time, I had been craving ice cream like crazy. I just wish they had peanut butter here. I mean, they do have it, but it's not popular.
Last night me, Becca and Julia booked our flight to Amsterdam, we're going at the end of April, we're leaving on Easter, actually. So that should be interesting, how many people can say they've been to Amsterdam on Easter? I'm really excited just to be going somewhere else in Europe. I've also never been anywhere where I couldn't speak the language, even though I know everyone will speak English anyway.
My family gets here on Friday! Friday night, rather late, actually. I'm really really excited to see them and show them around Edinburgh. On Sunday, we're going on a Highlands bus trip. We're actually going to Loch Lomond, where I've been, but we get to go on a boat there. It also takes us to Stirling Castle. I'm really glad they're going to get to see the Highlands while they're here. It's so beautiful.
This week is my second to last week of class, and then Spring Break and then "finals". It's in quotes because I only have essays, and they're all due April 22nd. Should be an interesting month. Ugh. I've gotten all my midterm essays back by now. One I didn't do so well on, but the other two I'm fine with the grades I got. It's just so jarring because grades in the 50s (American B, British C) and 60s (American A, British B) are good here. It's so weird. And no one gets As. It's pretty much impossible. They just don't give them out. There is certainly no such thing as grade inflation here. They're harsh. I mean, it's the 8th ranked University in Europe, so I guess getting a B here is actually sort of good. I'm happy with it, even though I usually get A's on papers.
The other thing I've been dealing with lately is trying to change my flight to get back home earlier. I had to book a late May flight when I booked back in November, because they made you book it after all the exams were done, just in case. But I don't have any exams, so I can go home a lot earlier. Except the flights from London to Chicago don't start until May 9th, on the airline I have to use. And they're always at 11:00AM (and also only on certain days), so that makes it hard to find a flight from Edinburgh to London on the same day, especially when the morning flights all booked for some reason! Grrr. I'm still working on it, we'll see. I wanted to come back earlier than the ticket I currently hold (for May 29th) to see my lovely boyfriend and to start work a little earlier, since I desperately need to go back to work after a semester off.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Argyll Forest Trip
This weekend was the IFSA-Butler Argyll Forest trip, I just got back around noon today. We left on Friday, drove west past Glasgow and then our buses (coach buses) got onto a ferry to go across a Loch! They didn't tell us this ahead of time and we were all really excited and confused, we pulled up to the ferry and weren't sure if we personally were getting on the ferry or if the whole bus was. The whole bus did! And lots of other cars. It was cool. Then we drove through the mountains (although it was dark, we couldn't see much) along windy, small roads. I'm surprised the big coach buses made it. We got to our hostel, which was built in the 1800s by a wealthy family for a summer home. It looks sort of like a castle, I'll post pictures at the end of the post. We got assigned rooms, which were just basic hostel rooms with bunk beds. The bathroom was downstairs, and reminded me of shower houses you use when you go camping, with lots of toilet stalls and shower stalls. They fed us a good meat and potatoes meal with chocolate cake for dessert, that was so good, we were massively hungry.
Then it was time for the night hike! They told us to bring lots of warm clothes, but it actually wasn't too cold. We chose to go on the night hike that was Level Two, out of three levels of intensity. First they had us following and holding on to a rope, yelling back at the people behind us when to switch sides of the rope because of trees in the way and stuff. That was pretty fun. But then we started going up and up, eventually on our right was a drop off of at least 20 feet. Keep in mind it was pitch black. Our leader in front had a flashlight, but because we were in the back we didn't get the light from it. We were trying not to use the flashlight Becca brought because we thought that was cheating, but by this time we were using it because Becca had slammed her shin into a stair and Tara had fallen in a ditch. If we didn't have a flashlight I don't honestly know if we all would have made it in one piece. So that was dangerous. We did make it though. After getting back, we didn't want to go to bed right away because it was still early, so we found a really cool room in the back of the building to hang out in. It had a ping pong table and the whole building sort of felt like you could go to Narnia at any moment, so we began calling that room Narnia, much to the probable confusion of everyone around us, haha.
I slept really well that night and we had breakfast, a hot and cold course. They wanted to feed us well for the day's activities, which were sort of randomly assigned. I wanted caving and canoeing, but I got rappelling and canoeing. Rappelling wasn't even a listed option in the email they sent out, and I was sort of nervous. First up, we met our leader for our activities, Graeme (say grey-um). He was a pretty cool guy, he took us canoeing in the morning. Most of us had been before, but he told us the basics and off we went (in our super attractive red waterproof pants). We were on a really big Loch, it was very calm and in between two mountain ranges with the beautiful morning mist on them. I wish I could have brought my camera on the activities but I was afraid it would get broken or something, and that would have been terrible. Anyway, Graeme had us play all these canoeing games, first we had to maneuver our canoe in a figure eight around a pier, and then we had to race each other while doing that, but first we had to spin around ten times and run to our canoes. It was intense and impossible to shove all 4 canoes around the pier at the same time, ha. Then he had us stand up in our canoes! We pretended we were on gondolas, it was scary at first cause I really didn't want to fall in, it was rather cold. But we did it, it was fun. He also had brought hot chocolate for us, so we had a break and drank that. Then he had us limbo under some branches while in our canoes, and finally we had to figure out a way to paddle the canoe while both people in the canoe touched both paddles with both hands. By this time, we had switched canoe partners so we made a new friend doing this, ha.
We had a lunch break with sandwiches and soup back at the hostel and then it was rappelling time. We had two other leaders with us for this, one girl from Edinburgh and another one who kept singing a lot and was a lot of fun. They took us to their indoor rock climbing room and we learned how the ropes work and practiced climbing in there. It was sort of scary. I'm not really that afraid of heights, but it is scary anyway. It's hard for me to find a good way to climb on those indoor ones, sometimes I get stuck and frustrated. But it's all very safe, we had helmets and harnesses on. Once you get to the top, you rappel down. So you grab the rope that's holding you, letting go of the wall (which is scary!) and bounce down, hitting your feet on the wall like you're sort of walking down. That's my favorite part, the going down part. So fun. We also learned how to hold the rope while another person is climbing, you attach it to yourself (well, actually, your harness) so you are the weight in the pulley system. It's cool.
Then we trekked outside to a 50 foot cliff. There were two options to get up it, an easier one and a harder one. I chose the easier one since I had never done this before and get frustrated easily, ha. But I managed to get up the easier one, it had sort of stairs. But I used my hands a lot and they got dirty with leaves and stuff. So then after we get up there, it's time to rappel down. We practiced indoors this different kind of pulley system where you control your rope, so the rope slides through your hands but there's a person at the top with another rope you're attached to, just in case. This is what we were doing down the 50 foot cliff. So when it was my turn I climbed down where Graeme was and got attached to the rope, and he handed me the other one. They then have you back up so your heels are just over the edge. This is the scariest part. Just imagine it. Eeeee! I had to hold on to Graeme's shoulder to get in the right spot, it's just so nerve wracking. So then, once you're on the edge, you just lower yourself down, using the rope and your feet like you're walking down the cliff. And you sort of bounce on and off it, one time my feet slipped off the wall and it was scary, but you're on a rope so it's not like you're going to fall. I did it twice, it was so much fun! I don't have any pictures of this either, unfortunately, but one of the girls in my group took some and is supposed to find me on Facebook, so I might have one of me rappelling soon.
We went back to the hostel, had tea and cake and then I went on a walk with some girls, that's where the pictures of the mountains are from. Dinner was chicken curry, which I'm not too keen on, but it was pretty good. There was a screening of Braveheart in the common room, of course, but we just hung out in Narnia until it was time for bed, ha. We left early this morning after breakfast, and stopped at Loch Lomond (yes, the one from the song) to take some pictures. We got back to Edinburgh at about 12:30pm, which is nice. I've had time to hang out in my room and do some homework. Anyway, the trip was a lot of fun, we were really lucky to be able to do this. IFSA also gave us some nice hoodies, so that was another exciting thing, ha. Sorry this entry was so long, but I hope at least it's interesting!
Then it was time for the night hike! They told us to bring lots of warm clothes, but it actually wasn't too cold. We chose to go on the night hike that was Level Two, out of three levels of intensity. First they had us following and holding on to a rope, yelling back at the people behind us when to switch sides of the rope because of trees in the way and stuff. That was pretty fun. But then we started going up and up, eventually on our right was a drop off of at least 20 feet. Keep in mind it was pitch black. Our leader in front had a flashlight, but because we were in the back we didn't get the light from it. We were trying not to use the flashlight Becca brought because we thought that was cheating, but by this time we were using it because Becca had slammed her shin into a stair and Tara had fallen in a ditch. If we didn't have a flashlight I don't honestly know if we all would have made it in one piece. So that was dangerous. We did make it though. After getting back, we didn't want to go to bed right away because it was still early, so we found a really cool room in the back of the building to hang out in. It had a ping pong table and the whole building sort of felt like you could go to Narnia at any moment, so we began calling that room Narnia, much to the probable confusion of everyone around us, haha.
I slept really well that night and we had breakfast, a hot and cold course. They wanted to feed us well for the day's activities, which were sort of randomly assigned. I wanted caving and canoeing, but I got rappelling and canoeing. Rappelling wasn't even a listed option in the email they sent out, and I was sort of nervous. First up, we met our leader for our activities, Graeme (say grey-um). He was a pretty cool guy, he took us canoeing in the morning. Most of us had been before, but he told us the basics and off we went (in our super attractive red waterproof pants). We were on a really big Loch, it was very calm and in between two mountain ranges with the beautiful morning mist on them. I wish I could have brought my camera on the activities but I was afraid it would get broken or something, and that would have been terrible. Anyway, Graeme had us play all these canoeing games, first we had to maneuver our canoe in a figure eight around a pier, and then we had to race each other while doing that, but first we had to spin around ten times and run to our canoes. It was intense and impossible to shove all 4 canoes around the pier at the same time, ha. Then he had us stand up in our canoes! We pretended we were on gondolas, it was scary at first cause I really didn't want to fall in, it was rather cold. But we did it, it was fun. He also had brought hot chocolate for us, so we had a break and drank that. Then he had us limbo under some branches while in our canoes, and finally we had to figure out a way to paddle the canoe while both people in the canoe touched both paddles with both hands. By this time, we had switched canoe partners so we made a new friend doing this, ha.
We had a lunch break with sandwiches and soup back at the hostel and then it was rappelling time. We had two other leaders with us for this, one girl from Edinburgh and another one who kept singing a lot and was a lot of fun. They took us to their indoor rock climbing room and we learned how the ropes work and practiced climbing in there. It was sort of scary. I'm not really that afraid of heights, but it is scary anyway. It's hard for me to find a good way to climb on those indoor ones, sometimes I get stuck and frustrated. But it's all very safe, we had helmets and harnesses on. Once you get to the top, you rappel down. So you grab the rope that's holding you, letting go of the wall (which is scary!) and bounce down, hitting your feet on the wall like you're sort of walking down. That's my favorite part, the going down part. So fun. We also learned how to hold the rope while another person is climbing, you attach it to yourself (well, actually, your harness) so you are the weight in the pulley system. It's cool.
Then we trekked outside to a 50 foot cliff. There were two options to get up it, an easier one and a harder one. I chose the easier one since I had never done this before and get frustrated easily, ha. But I managed to get up the easier one, it had sort of stairs. But I used my hands a lot and they got dirty with leaves and stuff. So then after we get up there, it's time to rappel down. We practiced indoors this different kind of pulley system where you control your rope, so the rope slides through your hands but there's a person at the top with another rope you're attached to, just in case. This is what we were doing down the 50 foot cliff. So when it was my turn I climbed down where Graeme was and got attached to the rope, and he handed me the other one. They then have you back up so your heels are just over the edge. This is the scariest part. Just imagine it. Eeeee! I had to hold on to Graeme's shoulder to get in the right spot, it's just so nerve wracking. So then, once you're on the edge, you just lower yourself down, using the rope and your feet like you're walking down the cliff. And you sort of bounce on and off it, one time my feet slipped off the wall and it was scary, but you're on a rope so it's not like you're going to fall. I did it twice, it was so much fun! I don't have any pictures of this either, unfortunately, but one of the girls in my group took some and is supposed to find me on Facebook, so I might have one of me rappelling soon.
We went back to the hostel, had tea and cake and then I went on a walk with some girls, that's where the pictures of the mountains are from. Dinner was chicken curry, which I'm not too keen on, but it was pretty good. There was a screening of Braveheart in the common room, of course, but we just hung out in Narnia until it was time for bed, ha. We left early this morning after breakfast, and stopped at Loch Lomond (yes, the one from the song) to take some pictures. We got back to Edinburgh at about 12:30pm, which is nice. I've had time to hang out in my room and do some homework. Anyway, the trip was a lot of fun, we were really lucky to be able to do this. IFSA also gave us some nice hoodies, so that was another exciting thing, ha. Sorry this entry was so long, but I hope at least it's interesting!
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| The hostel we stayed in |
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| View of the mountains |
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| Loch Lomond |
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| Me rappelling!!! |
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| On the shores of Loch Lomond |
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
I think it may be Spring. Knock on wood! (or just "touch wood", if you're British)
So I did end up getting rather sick, I lost my voice for a while there. I'm feeling a lot better now though. And I didn't let it stop me from having a lovely weekend. Friday night my friend Julia came over to the dorms and we got some Chinese food and watched TV and movies all night. It was great. I had sweet and sour chicken, and it was pretty much the same as at home. Saturday morning me, Julia and Becca went to the Farmer's Market that's right next to the castle, and I took some pictures of the castle. I'll post them at the end of this entry. Anyway, the Farmer's Market is every Saturday, and they had amazing food. We had burgers and hot chocolate. What a combo, I know, ha. The burger had cheese and onions on it and tasted wonderful. As did the hot chocolate, it was "luxury" hot chocolate, haha. It had marshmallows and whipped cream on it. Yum. There was also a jam stand, with literally every kind of jam you could think of. I tried Strawberry Jam with Vanilla. I already have some jam to make my PB and J (quick note: they really don't do peanut butter here, or at least they're not as into it as we are. Sad. They're missing out), otherwise I would have bought some. I also don't really cook for myself, seeing as I have a meal plan. Becca got some caramel shortbread while we were there too, and I tried some, it was really good. The shortbread here is so, so good. Love it.
After the Farmer's Market, we decided to climb Arthur's Seat because it was such a nice day out. It hasn't rained here for like 4 days! Trust me, that's amazing. Arthur's Seat is a dormant volcano located just behind the dorms I live in. It was quite a feat to climb up, and I think we may have taken the more intense way up. I bundled up for the climb, expecting it to be really cold at the top, but I got pretty sweaty on the climb up and had to take my coat off. We finally got to the top, and it was so, so windy. Arthur's Seat is shaped like a sitting cat, so when we got to the top we were on the hindquarters of the cat. That part was grassy. I sort of wanted to have a picnic up there. Except the wind is incredible.When we got up there I realized my Wellies had broken on the climb up. Broken in a few places actually. I was rather upset, because they were 30 pounds ($48) and I had only had them for about 2 months. They're still sort of wearable, but I went and bought some sturdier boots on Sunday, because we have our IFSA-Butler Argyll Forest trip this weekend, and it's an outdoorsy-type trip where we'll be hiking and such in the highlands.
Anyway, the head of the cat that is Arthur's Seat is more rocky, and has a marker telling you how far away things are and in which direction they are. We decided to go down a different way than which we climbed up, because the way we came up had no railing and was rather steep and slightly scary. Also my friend Becca is afraid of heights, but she wanted to prove she could climb to the top, ha. She made it and actually did really well! =] The way we took down was less intense and more of a path. Also it took us right by the ruins of a 13th century church, which was pretty cool. The view while we were climbing up and down was beautiful. You can see all of Edinburgh, and the sea. Everything is so pretty. And green. We came down right by Holyrood Palace (Arthur's Seat is in Holyrood Park), where the Queen stays when she is in Edinburgh (which is only for a few weeks in the year). We're planning on touring that when my parents come to visit in a few weeks. The palace is right by the Scottish Parliament building, a rather new and modern building that is quite controversial because of it's modern and interesting design. I think I like it though. We will probably also tour that when my family comes to visit. The Scottish got their own parliament in 2000, the first time they had had one in 300 years or something like that. Their parliament handles domestic issues such as healthcare, but the government down in London handles all foreign affairs.
We walked back home up the Royal Mile, it was a lot of walking in one day. But I think that was the night the dining hall had cheesecake with graham cracker crust. So that was our reward. We had been told before they didn't have graham crackers here, but this proves they do. Sunday we went shopping for boots, and on the way saw a lot of green on people's shirts. Apparently Scotland was playing Ireland in rugby. But there must be a lot of Irish supporters here, for some reason. This rugby tournament called 6 nations is going on right now, it's a tournament between Ireland, England, Scotland, Italy, France and Wales. I really haven't been following it, but it's always going on during the weekends and the pubs are always crawling with older men being quite drunk because of it.
After the Farmer's Market, we decided to climb Arthur's Seat because it was such a nice day out. It hasn't rained here for like 4 days! Trust me, that's amazing. Arthur's Seat is a dormant volcano located just behind the dorms I live in. It was quite a feat to climb up, and I think we may have taken the more intense way up. I bundled up for the climb, expecting it to be really cold at the top, but I got pretty sweaty on the climb up and had to take my coat off. We finally got to the top, and it was so, so windy. Arthur's Seat is shaped like a sitting cat, so when we got to the top we were on the hindquarters of the cat. That part was grassy. I sort of wanted to have a picnic up there. Except the wind is incredible.When we got up there I realized my Wellies had broken on the climb up. Broken in a few places actually. I was rather upset, because they were 30 pounds ($48) and I had only had them for about 2 months. They're still sort of wearable, but I went and bought some sturdier boots on Sunday, because we have our IFSA-Butler Argyll Forest trip this weekend, and it's an outdoorsy-type trip where we'll be hiking and such in the highlands.
Anyway, the head of the cat that is Arthur's Seat is more rocky, and has a marker telling you how far away things are and in which direction they are. We decided to go down a different way than which we climbed up, because the way we came up had no railing and was rather steep and slightly scary. Also my friend Becca is afraid of heights, but she wanted to prove she could climb to the top, ha. She made it and actually did really well! =] The way we took down was less intense and more of a path. Also it took us right by the ruins of a 13th century church, which was pretty cool. The view while we were climbing up and down was beautiful. You can see all of Edinburgh, and the sea. Everything is so pretty. And green. We came down right by Holyrood Palace (Arthur's Seat is in Holyrood Park), where the Queen stays when she is in Edinburgh (which is only for a few weeks in the year). We're planning on touring that when my parents come to visit in a few weeks. The palace is right by the Scottish Parliament building, a rather new and modern building that is quite controversial because of it's modern and interesting design. I think I like it though. We will probably also tour that when my family comes to visit. The Scottish got their own parliament in 2000, the first time they had had one in 300 years or something like that. Their parliament handles domestic issues such as healthcare, but the government down in London handles all foreign affairs.
We walked back home up the Royal Mile, it was a lot of walking in one day. But I think that was the night the dining hall had cheesecake with graham cracker crust. So that was our reward. We had been told before they didn't have graham crackers here, but this proves they do. Sunday we went shopping for boots, and on the way saw a lot of green on people's shirts. Apparently Scotland was playing Ireland in rugby. But there must be a lot of Irish supporters here, for some reason. This rugby tournament called 6 nations is going on right now, it's a tournament between Ireland, England, Scotland, Italy, France and Wales. I really haven't been following it, but it's always going on during the weekends and the pubs are always crawling with older men being quite drunk because of it.
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| Edinburgh Castle, which is also built on a dormant volcano |
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| Arthur's Seat! We climbed that =] |
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| View of Edinburgh and the sea |
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| That's the dorms! Taken from about halfway up Arthur's Seat. |
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| Broken Wellies =[ |
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| View from the top |
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| Ruins of the old Church |
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| Scottish Parliament building (part of it) |
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