13 Reasons I Don't Get Work Done in Scotland...

I don't really like studying or writing papers, well that's kind of a lie, sometimes I like writing papers, just not on a days notice or in the middle of the night or when I have no clue what I'm talking about. Those three things describe me writing papers this week....But, when all of my notes and school supplies and computer and paper writing locations are all in order I'm good to go. At Baylor I have three main places where I study and write papers: Common Grounds, a great little coffee shop right next to Campus, Panera, a great restaurant/cafe not near campus, and the library.

All of these places have a few things in common:

1. They serve coffee, at Panera you can drink as much coffee as you want, and the library has free coffee at 11:00pm when the coffee shop closes.

2. They open before 8am and close after 6pm. The library is open 24 hours a day.

3. I can go to any of these places and be sure I'm going to be able to find a seat.

4. I can go to any of these places and be sure I'm going to be able to find a place to plug my computer in.

5. Between these three places I can sit inside or outside, hide and not see anyone at all, or run into everyone I know all at the same time.

6. They have Internet access...and it's reliable.

and sometimes I would wake up really really early and go to Starbucks because my roommate worked there!

So, props to Waco and Baylor for catering to my study needs!

Over the past few days, all I've done is research and write papers, which is why I'm writing this blog about it :-) and I've made a little list....

Reasons I Can't Study in Edinburgh:
1. I walked past four coffee shops and they were all swarming with people and there was no where to sit down...

2. Shouldn't I be making friends and exploring this great city while I'm here?

3. I'd rather write a blog than write a paper about indigenous people in lowland south America.

4. Someone told me the library has asbestos....I still go, but I'm kind of scared.

5. You aren't allowed to take hot drinks into the library because you might spill burning coffee on someone.

6. When its freezing outside its hard to leave the warmth of my room. When its nice outside its hard to go inside and study.

7. We have to pay a LOT of money to print things out here...maybe they're just trying to go green.

8. The library closes at midnight, most coffee shops close at 6 or 7.

9. Until last week, I hadn't written a paper in 5 months!

10. I don't like studying in my room, but here my bedroom is the only place in the flat to get Internet, so I have to work at my desk in my room.

11. I like to wake up really early and go somewhere to study, nope, no where to go here before 8.

12. This is my senior year and I'm just ready to be DONE with this school thing :-)

13. If you had to choose between planning a trip to Paris or writing a paper what would you choose?

This is me day dreaming about Paris!!!!!


speaking of writing papers, I have to write 1000 more words for my essay about democratization, yuck....

A Jaunt to Dublin!

This blog is rather long..sorry...but I split it up into three days, so you can read them like chapters of a book if you'd like :-)

Day One
I went to Dublin last weekend! I went with my friend Katie, another exchange student from New York. When we bought our plane tickets, I was looking forward to going to Dublin, but I wasn’t extremely excited, I think, really just because I didn’t know anything about Ireland, except, Leprechauns, four leaf clovers, and St. Patrick’s day.

I was leaving early on Friday morning, and by the time, Tuesday rolled around, the travel bug in me, had kicked in, and I was ready to go! Katie has class on Fridays, so she would take the later flight, but I left really early on Friday morning. I think this was the first time, that I ever travelled completely on my own. I left my flat at 5:00 in the morning and walked to Waverly Bridge, but of course, I walked to the wrong bridge, but I stopped a lady and asked for directions, and she ran across the street with me and told me exactly how to get to the bus! I made it just in time and rode to the airport. I was flying on RyanAir, which most of you probably know about, but they are known for having extremely cheap tickets, but not usually good service, and things usually seem to go wrong. I was praying everything was in order and would run smoothly. Everything was great, we even made it to Dublin ten minutes early! They announced at the end of our flight, preceded by a recording a bugle, like we were at a horse race or something. I got off the plane and didn’t know where I was going, so I went to the bus counter and the lady told me I could take a bus to the city centre for 2 Euros. Sounded good to me, I got on, and got off when everyone else did, hoping that was the right stop. In Edinburgh everyone is really helpful about giving directions and turns out they are possibly even more helpful in Dublin. I was given a great free map at a little kiosk and given directions to my hostel before I could even stop and ask anyone.

I spent the day really just wandering around the city. Katie and I had made some plans of what we would do on Saturday and Sunday, so I just decided to try and learn the lay out of the city and find some fun things to do. I went to Grafton Street, a really busy pedestrian street with clothing stores and restaurants. The street was lined with guitar players, singers, mimes, clowns, people selling flowers, people selling photographs, live human statues, a man playing cardboard boxes, a group of African drummers, it was a lot of fun. If you’ve ever seen the movie Once, it’s set on Grafton Street.

Everything in Dublin was really expensive, more expensive than Edinburgh, so I stopped at a cheap little kebab place for lunch and then went to St. John’s park. Growing up around the equator and now being in Texas, I had never experienced fall before. I walked into this beautiful park where all of the leaves were all different shades of gold, red and orange. In the middle of the park there was a perfect pond with ducks, swans, and a stone footbridge.

I’ve always loved museums, so I decided to go find the Natural History Museum. It was kind of far away, but I found it!...and then I saw the sign that said, “Museum currently closed for renovation”…just my luck. But, the archeology display was moved to another building and it was free to get in. By the time I got to the museum, I kind of just wanted to sit down, my backpack was kind of heavy, and my feet had never really fully recovered from the wet tennis shoes at the Lake District, well for that matter, my feet have just never really fully recovered from being in Scotland! I must have looked confused or tired when I walked into the museum because a janitor or guard came over with a big smile and asked me something. The Irish accent was much harder to understand at times, than the Scottish accent is. He gave me a map of the museum and said a bunch of stuff I couldn’t understand, so I just smiled, nodded and said thank you.

(Christs Church Cathedral)

The most interesting and disturbing thing they had on display were these bog bodies. They’re human bodies, corpses from hundreds of years ago that have been found in bogs around Ireland. I guess somehow they can learn a lot about the culture and history of the time through the bodies and stuff. I’ve seen skeletons before and that’s pretty normal, but this was not the same. Even stranger, there was a girl sitting on a bench sketching them. Don’t worry, I did not sketch or take pictures of any of them!

I wandered around the city for the rest of the afternoon and then went back to Grafton street to a café to read and write in my journal. I hadn’t actually seen my room at the hostel yet, but I didn’t think I wanted to just be sitting in my bunk bed for hours waiting for Katie to get in. Dublin has so many cute little café’s, its really just a beautiful city. A little Irish lady was sitting at a table next to me, and when she was getting ready to leave she started talking to me, telling me about her trip to the US, her niece in Jamaica, our lady of Guadalupe, antique stores, and what I should do in Ireland. She left the café and then came in a minute later to warn me that she had just seen a man wearing a gorilla suit! Poor lady! Haha. Our hostel turned out to be really nice! There were only six people in our room, and Katie got there just as I was going to sleep.

Day Two


On Saturday we woke up, ate our complimentary breakfast, and went to find the Guinness Storehouse. Katie and I are both not really Guinness drinkers, but we figured, when in Ireland do as the Irish do?.....I didn’t know that beer was such a big deal, but this storehouse was basically a museum all about how Guinness got started, how they make it, the advertising. Learning about the advertising was my favorite part, oh, and also Guinness makes the Guinness Book of World Records. Makes sense, but I had never thought about it before.
We got kind of lost on the way back from the Storehouse and found a great little pub for lunch, it wasn’t a touristy place at all, which was really nice.

In the afternoon we went to tour the Dublin Castle. I have seen a few castles since being in Scotland, but they’ve really just been ruins of castles. The Dublin Castle is actually now called a palace, it used to be a castle, but then in burned down. It’s an operating government building and we got to see the big room where they inaugurate the president of Ireland. I wish I knew more about the history of Ireland, but it was really interesting to hear about the Castle/Palace. They took us underground to see some ruins of the castle and the moat. It was really cool to see something that’s been around for so long. The tour guide pointed out a waterway that they had tried to block off with bricks during the 1300's because they were trying to keep the black death out of the city! For some reason I always think that historical sights like that should be out in the middle of nowhere, but Dublin was settled by the Vikings and there have been people living there since then!(hopefully thats right, correct me if I'm wrong)
We wandered around the city for a bit, went to some tour shops and decided we should go find out hotel. Yes, hotel, not hostel. We stayed at a Travelodge which was really nice. We had to take the bus to get there, but when we got to the hotel I felt like I was back in the states, except this room was probably nicer than most hotels I would stay in. We had our own bathroom, a mirror and a TV! I don’t know if I’ve talked about the TV licenses in Scotland yet, but basically, you have to pay to have a TV, so nobody has them.
(a leprechaun on Grafton Street)

Day 3
We had a list of thing we wanted to see on Sunday. On Saturday we went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but it was closed to the public for a graduation. On Sunday they were having an Evensong service, we didn’t know what that was, but we thought we’d try to catch it. We wanted to go see Trinity College because it was supposed to be really pretty, and its where the Book of Kell’s was. I also wanted to show Katie the beautiful park, and Katie wanted to find the post office where some revolution had happened in 1916. The only problem was we didn’t really know what had happened at the post office, or where it was.

We started our day by going to a little café to get a muffin and juice, the Travelodge didn’t have complimentary breakfast. Once again, we were delightfully surprised by this little café. After breakfast we went to find Trinity College. The campus was really nice, very collegiate, and quite different from the University of Edinburgh. The University of Edinburgh is kind of spread out throughout the city, but Trinity College has a real campus feel, it was really nice. The collegiate feel and fall weather reminded of the movie Mona Lisa Smile. I told Katie and she said that the movie was actually based on the university she attends in New York! And I was a slightly jealous for a second J We didn’t go see the Book of Kells, because it was pretty expensive, and so far we had been having a great time on our Dublin trip without paying for very much. And also, we didn’t know what the Book of Kells was. According to Wikipedia its an illuminated manuscript in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was transcribed by Celtic monks ca. 800.

All day long we were kind of trying to find the Post Office, Katie thought it might be next to this park, but she wasn’t sure. We wanted to go that service at St. Patricks Cathedral so we started the hike to that side of town. On the way there, we passed a little Cathedral that said ‘free admission’ so of course we stopped to take a look. It was really pretty, and like everything else, had been around for a LONG time! The man working at the front desk showed us around the inside of the church and gave us a little art history lesson about all of the different symbols and stuff in the church. That’s the stuff that I really enjoy, learning about all the iconography and history of the places(that’s probably not very cool to say :-]). We made it to St. Patrick’s Cathedral just in time for the service, we were excited that it might involve a choir, and it did! It also involved a lot of sitting, standing, reciting and us being a little confused. After the choir sang some songs and someone read some passages from the Bible a lady got up and started reading a paper about Jonathan Swift. He’s the writer of Gulliver’s Travels and also attended Trinity College. The lady didn’t seem to be speaking very highly of Swift, didn’t mention God or the Bible at all, and then just kind of abruptly ended. It was interesting, but I was confused. I am glad we went, the choir and the cathedral were both beautiful.

We were still in search of the Post Office, so we went to find that park where she thought it might be. After a very long time, and getting completely different directions from at least four different people, we found the park and the painted doors of Dublin, not the Post Office. In Dublin there are a few streets where all of the buildings doors are painted all different colors, I love bright colorful things, so it was cool! But still no Post Office. Finally, we asked a guard about the Post Office and he told us where it, which was not any where close to where we were thinking it was. We decided we’d go check in to our hostel and then go find it. The hostel we were staying at Sunday night was considerably less expensive than where we had stayed the past two nights, so we knew we shouldn’t expect too much. But once again, it wasn’t too bad, it reminded me of being at camp. It was just a big room with a bunch of bunk beds. We were going to have to wake up at four in the morning anyway to go to the airport, so it didn’t need to be that nice.
(Lounge area at the hostel, pretty cool)
The Post Office ended up being basically in the City Centre, right where I had been let off the bus when I arrived in Dublin, I just didn’t know the big fancy building with giant columns was the General Post Office. We were glad to finally find it! And thanks to the internet, we can all know why its important.

"Built in 1818 halfway along O'Connell Street (formerly Sackville street), the GPO (right) became a symbol of the 1916 Easter Rising. Members of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army seized the building on Easter Monday and Patrick Pearse read out the Proclamation of the Irish Republic from its steps. Inside the building is a sculpture of the legendary Irish warrior Cuchulainn, dedicated to those who died for their part in the Easter Rising. " http://www.dublintourist.com/details/general_post_office_gpo.shtml

It was night time, but it was still relatively early and we didn’t want to go back to the hostel. The weather was really nice, it was a little chilly but not too windy so we decided to walk around and try to find a coffee shop. The part of Dublin that we were in now was not really touristy, and being a Sunday night we were having trouble finding a coffee shop. But I was not going to give up. We walked for probably almost an hour, and crossed over the Liffey River, which was beautiful at night! So, of course I stopped and took a lot of pictures. Right next to the bridge we found a little Italian restaurant that served coffee and dessert. We didn’t look in any kind of condition to be going to a fancy restaurant but we wanted to find a place to go inside and sit. We walked in, and the very proper, polite waiter asked if we had reservations, haha, reservations?? No! But he seated us, we both ordered hot chocolate and shared a piece of cake. Everyone else in the restaurant was dressed really nice and eating three or four course meals. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten at a restaurant where they bring the courses out at different times. The waiter brought out what was possibly the best hot chocolate in the world. It was the perfect way to end our time in Dublin. We sat in the restaurant for a really really long time, enjoying the hot chocolate, it wasn’t regular hot chocolate made from milk or water, it was literally like drinking chocolate. After that we went and sat next to the Liffey River for a little bit, relaxing. I feel like most people probably would have gone out to a club or something like that during a weekend in Dublin, but that’s not really my style, and this really was the perfect way to end our trip!

We went back to the hostel to try to sleep for a few hours, the hostel cost 7 Euros, but we had to pay 2 Euros for a blanket, which we didn’t want to pay for. I thought it wouldn’t be that cold, but it was. I don’t think either of us slept very much because it was so cold, but we were definitely up and ready to go at 4! The flight back to Edinburgh went just as smoothly as the last flight. Except, we got in line to board the plane and after standing in it for about ten minutes I saw that it was for Bratislava! I’ve kind of always wanted to go to the wrong place on an airplane…but going to Bratislava on a Monday morning and missing Philosophy of Religion probably would have been bad. We got on the right flight to Edinburgh, and this time, half way through the flight, RyanAir started playing this music over the intercom that sounded like we were at a carnival, so strange!
(Monday morning, back in Edinburgh!)

I’m going to Paris a week from today! That should be really fun! I can’t wait! I think I’ve wanted to go to Paris since I knew what Paris was, but didn’t think I’d ever actually get to go. I’m going with Katie again, she speaks a little bit of French, which will be good, because I don’t speak a word of French! I’ll be spending most of the first day in Paris by myself again, which will be interesting not knowing the language. It will be a true adventure!

Completion of last blog: Story about the Scramble and the Falling Man

I said I would update this blog, sorry it took me a little longer than I though it would. Also, sorry about all the detail, if you know me, you know I don’t particularly like detail, so if this wasn’t my blog, I probably wouldn’t actually read all of it. I’ll tell you, the good part is at the bottom, but the rest is fun too. :-)

On Sunday we decided to do a little hill walking, a group had gone the day before and hiked for about 8 hours, but thankfully for me, we were going to be able to go for that long because we had to catch the bus at 5. I didn’t really know how I would handle this “hillwalking.” I always think hiking through hills and mountains seems like a great idea, until I’m actually doing it. The last time I had done any really hill walking was in Ecuador and with the way my memory works, things usually seem easier and more appealing in my memory than at the actual time they’re happening. The morning was cold and wet, I was a little nervous because I only had my wet gross tennis shoes with me. Thankfully one of the very nice mountaineering girls let me borrow her hiking boots, which completely saved the day!

We started out on our trek to the hills. We got to a little sign that said ‘foot path’ and thought, well this must be the path that we take. It took us through a sheep pasture, and when one of the guys jumped over the fence we heard a completely terrifying yell from a lady, apparently the owner of this pasture. So, we quickly ran down out of the pasture and found a different path. The hike began with what seemed like miles of stone steps going up the hill. This was the point where I remembered that I didn’t really actually like hiking. Being passed by 70 year old ladies is quite a humbling experience. But we all made it to the top, where a beautiful, slightly mysterious lake greeted us. It was really cold and windy, but we kind of all wanted to jump in and go for a swim…then we though….hypothermia, and reconsidered. After resting for a few minutes we were off to find the “scramble.” Just like everything else I do here, haha, I didn’t know what a scramble was, but I was excited. The only problem was, thick fog was setting in, and we couldn’t even see the rest of the hill. After some searching we found the rocky path to the scramble. Apparently everyone else in the Lake District also thought it would be a good idea to come climb the scramble that day and there was a line of people going up the narrow steep route. I was ready for this though, this was more my kind of thing than the hillwalking, well at least I thought. I like the climbing, but I also like the security of a rope and harness and knowing that I’m not going to fall off the side of a steep, rocky cliff.

Everything was going fine, everyone was moving slowly because there were so many people and the rocks were a little bit slippery. For a instant I had a horrible thought, “If one person falls backwards, they’ll fall on the next person, and there’ll be a domino effect all the way down this scramble…awesome…” But once you’re half way up, there’s no turning back, so I just stopped thinking. Also, it wasn’t as scary as it could have been, because we were really up in the clouds and couldn’t see the ground from where we were. We got to one tricky bit where everyone was going one-by-one, this was obviously what was slowing everyone down. There was a group of older hillwalkers right in front of us, who were going up the tricky bit. You can see it in the picture, you can barely see a man in the fog climbing up the rock. When I say older, I mean probably mid to late 70’s, which is quite impressive, but maybe not completely safe. All of a sudden we heard a man screaming and see him falling backwards. Probably one of the scariest few seconds I’ve experienced. There was a man behind him going up that tricky little bit, and thankfully somehow he caught the old man in front of him. Everything was silent for a second, and then, another man yelled, “Bloody hell, he’s cracked his head wide open!”(pardon my French) This is not what you want to hear on the side of a mountain! I didn’t know what to do, we couldn’t actually see the man. Turns out there was a doctor just behind us, so he climbed up to take a look, his head wasn’t actually cracked wide open, head injuries just bleed a lot! And, thankfully everyone had cell phone reception, so they were able to call mountain rescue. He was bleeding pretty bad and was obviously very shaken up, but it looked like he was going to be ok! Now, we all had to continue up the scramble, going over the bit where he had just fallen.....we all made it up safe. A few hours later on in the day when we finished our walk and were on the way to the pub, we ran into an ambulance. The driver said that they were still working on getting the man down the hill really slowly, but they thought he was going to be ok!

Mountaineering at the Lake District

Since I've been here I have met a few Americans who studied abroad here for a semester and then decided to come back to get their masters, some who came as freshers or just to get their masters. At first I thought that was kind of a strange thing to do, why choose randomly to leave your home in the US and move to Scotland for 1-4 years. In the past week, I think I've started to see why. I know I have a slight obsession with going new places, seeing new things, meeting new people and Scotland hasn't let me down. I really think that if I weren't about to graduate I would probably just stay for a whole year, but dont worry everyone, I will be back at Baylor in the Spring...and Summer ready to graduate! And then who knows, maybe I'll end up back in Scotland at some point in the future. :-)

Lets see, if you read my last post you know that I decided to join the Mountaineering Club. Last Wednesday afternoon a group of about twenty of us went to the little seaside town of Aberdour. Aberdour is about a 45 minute trainride from Edinburgh. We all met up at one of the university buildings and walked to the trainstation. Honestly, even if I wouldn't have climbed anything at all that day, going to the trainstation and riding on the train would have made me a happy camper. The trainstation in Edinburgh was really big and busy, it reminded me of an airport, which I loved. I was really excited about the whole train ride thing, but I just kept thinking to myself, BE cool, haha, everyone here rides on the train and its not really a big deal at all. And it just so happens that Aberdour has won awards in the past for having the prettiest train station. When we arrived in Aberdour I felt like I had stepped back in time, it looked like something right out of Anne of Green Gables(even though thats in Canada). We stepped out onto the platform lined with flower pots and hanging baskets overflowing with colorful flowers and walked through the quiet little town until we got to the seaside where the big cliff was where we would climb. There were a lot of us there that didn't really know what we were doing, which seems to cause a little bit of a predicament when climbing, but hopefully soon, I won't have to worry about that. Thankfully a couple of guys let me climb with them! Climbing on a crisp clear afternoon, looking out across the water, seeing Edinburgh in the distance was definitely something I will never forget.


Over the weekend we went to the Lake District down in England. I didn't know where we were going or what exactly we would be doing but I was excited. When I came to Scotland, I didnt exactly come prepared at all to go climbing anything. Friday before we left I decided I should probably invest in a pair of hiking boots if I was going to be doing very much hiking while I'm here. In Texas if I ever go hiking anywhere its most likely over 70 degrees outside and I where Chacos, but I left my Chacos back in Texas...So, I went down to Princes Street, where all the shopping takes place, and went in search of.....my third pair of shoes( I may have a slight problem with buying shoes). I found a nice pair of boots and was set to go. I got back to my flat and checked the nice little mountaineering club chat page and someone said that hiking boots would not be necessary this weekend, just my luck! I decided to just take tennis shoes and maybe I'd return the boots. I got my backpack and everything and ran down the stairs into a downpour. The whole time I've been in Scotland it's kind of drizzled, but never really rained. But there was nothing I could do, I had to catch the bus in time, so I ran in the rain, with my not waterproof backpack and not waterproof jacket. Thankfully, everyone else was kind of wet too. So, thats how my trip started, cold, and wet, and now my nice waterproof boots were sitting in my bedroom, while my tennis shoes were on my feet completely soaked. It took about four hours to get to the Lake District and when we got there it was about eleven at night. The bus dropped us off and we set off to find the campgrounds. Most of the mountaineering club knows how to do this whole camping, climbing thing, and they all have lots of gadgets and handy little things like, stoves and flashlights and tents and sleeping mats....things I didnt bring to Scotland. But thankfully someone let me borrow a sleeping bag and the club had a tent for us to borrow. It had also rained earlier that day at the Lakes District so we had to cross some very deep, large, freezing cold puddles. I thought my toes might fall off, but it was fun, it seems like thats just the way camping is supposed to be. With the help of some nice guys we got our tent all set up and got a few hours of sleep. On Saturday I went climbing, I'll spare you the details, but it was really fun! On sunday I went hillwalking which was pretty intense and a little scary! I won't post the story right now, cause I'm just trying to get this blog written, but in the next couple of days I'll go back and rewrite this bit. The story involved climbing up steep rocks and a really close call....don't worry it wasn't me.

I have one more real semester until I graduate and in the past week while sitting in my philosophy class and political science class I decided that they were both pretty pointless. But on the bright side my crazy philosophy class is still keeping me entertained. Yesterday I was very suprised when my professor walked in wearing a nice tweed blazer, since the past classes he wore sweaters with holes all over. But the tweed blazed was actually just hiding his sweater vest that looked like it had been chewed up by a gerbil. After an hour and a half of discussing eternity, he asked us what we thought eternity meant. One girl in the class said she thought of eternity as being like an old man with a beard sitting under a tree for a really long time....the idea that the Bible is credible, that God exists, that all Christianity isn't bogus is too hard to believe....but humans living forever just sitting under trees growing beard for millions of years does make sense??? These are the things that I retain from my philosophy classes, makes me a little frustrated.

I went to my Indigenous People of Lowland South America class today. I am really enjoying it so far, just like my other classes, I don't really see how it will be relevant at all in life, but it's really interesting. I guess if I ever go live with a remote tribe in the Amazon I will be better off now that I was prior to the class. And, lets be honest, of course I would go live with a remote tribe in the Amazon.

Today when I was walking to the library I passed a girl sitting in a metal cage wearing a neon orange prison uniform, it was some kind of campaign against Guantanamo bay. I really wanted to take a picture of the girl sitting in the cage, but I didn't think she would like that very much.

I'm posting this blog kind of incomplete sorry, I'm in Dublin right now! :-) waiting for my friend Katie to get here! I'll go back and try to improve the blog, sorry if its sloppy, read it now, and then read it um...in about 3 days and it'll be better.

In Search of Nessie

Its October! and I think autumn has come to Edinburgh. For the past week I've been trying to figure out if I have been freezing or sick. When I was sitting in my room with the heater on full blast, wearing four shirts, a fleece, leggings, sweatpants and two pairs of socks I decided I was sick and also.....freezing.

Last Saturday I went up north to the land filled with mountains, glens and lochs.My flatmate Meredith, our friend Katie, and I found a cheap one-day highland tour online, hoped it wasn't some kind of scam and bought our tickets. As you know, we walk everywhere here, so Meredith and I left our flat early on a cold Saturday morning and walked to the Royal Mile to meet Katie and catch our tour bus. This was really the first time I had ever been on any kind of organized group tour kind of thing and I was a little skeptical. Well, one time I went on a bus tour of San Jose, Costa Rica in the rain, but not really by choice, just because our flight had been cancelled.

The tour began with our tour guide/driver asking the bus where we were all from. There were no Scottish people, but there were people from everywhere else in the world! He told us that we would be travelling about 400 miles on our journey which would take us through many different glens and by lochs throughout the day. He told us about all the battles that had been fought and the different ruling clans. I'm not very good at remembering details when it comes to history, but it was very interesting. Our first stop was at a little tourist trap where we could buy coffee or a kilt for about $1000. But we spotted a Heilan Coo, this long haired highland cow, and took a picture! Hopefully while I'm here, I'll find one in its native habitat, not just one standing behind a fence, next to a sign of a heilan coo....

Our big stop for the day was at Loch Ness, where we stopped for a few hours to tour the castle and take a boat ride across the loch. Our tour guide told us all about the Loch Ness monster sightings, apparently the first person recorded seeing Nessie was a missionary on the Loch. The water is very deep and COLD and almost black. I'm not going to lie, I was keeping my eye out for any kind of suspicious movement in the water, but no Nessie spotting for me that day. Too bad, some sporting company or something is giving a prize to anyone who can prove they have seen her(yes, Nessie is a girl)

The Castle Urquhart is right on the shores of Loch Ness, and while most of it was just a skeleton of the castle, there was more to see and explore than at the castle in St. Andrews. In the castles and in a lot of buildings here in Scotland, they use really steep spiral staircases. We'll see if I can survive the next two months in Scotland without falling down one of these spiral staircases. Our tour guide told us a lot of pointless facts, those are the ones I tend to remember, like that Bob Dylan owns an estate in the highlands, Madonna and Guy Ritchie almost bought a castle on Loch Ness, and apparently one of the Dukes in the highlands is actually South African(kind of like the movie King Ralph, its a great film!). All in all, my trip to highlands was great, the scenery was beautiful, and I'm really glad I got to learn more about Scotland!

This is apparently the worlds smallest lighthouse.

Being here in Scotland has been a great opportunity to try some new things and not be committed to a lot of different things! I absolutely love Baylor, but its nice to not be running to meetings and work and class all the time(haha, I'm probably not actually that busy at Baylor) but in the past week I went to a Capoeira class, the Swahili club, and rock climbing.

I had never even heard of Capoeira and just got kind of forced in to going with a friend. Apparently its a "folk art that ritualizes movement from martial arts, games, and dance." We got into the class and I found out that it was going to involve fighting, dancing and singing, and then the instructor said that I shouldn't be wearing jeans and that they'd probably rip. I almost just got up and left, but I endured the 2 hour lesson. At first it seemed pretty normal, until the band walked in and started playing music and the instructor started singing...still not too weird...and then the whole class started chanting in Portuguese, umm....wierd. It reminded me of the time Ana and I went to the Hare Krishna place in Ecuador, but I don't think this is like that at all. The instructor made us find partners and practice kicking and ducking, all in time with the music. I knew this wouldn't be good, I've never been good at any kind of contact sports because I either get hurt, or hurt people, but usually, I'm the one doing the injuring, and capoeira wasn't any different...I kicked a girl right in the head, it was really bad, I think I almost gave her a concussion, she was nice about it, but I think she was a little upset...I mean, I would be upset too! She sat out and I got a different partner, and almost kicked him in the head about three times. They might not want me to ever go back to Capoeira but it was really fun, I might go back this week. Sorry, no pictures of me attempting the strange dance fighting. At the end of the class they made us all stand in a circle and dance fight with eachother, I was mortified...but I was pushed into the middle of the circle and had to go up against the instructor, I think I just kind of jumped around and kicked like a monkey while he did handstands and kicks and cartwheels around me.

Swahili club is something that I already know I'm going to miss when I leave Scotland! I was really surprised, we were split up into "beginners" and "advanced", I went with advanced, even though I haven't spoken any Swahili in over a year. I was definitely one of the worst in the class. Every time the teacher asked me a question, I started to respond in spanish. But I figure it'll be a good chance for me to learn from everyone else! After learning how to buy stamps at the post office and how to reserve a hotel room we went to the Bongo Club where an African band was playing. It was great, kind of African, kind of like salsa. Almost everyone in the place was obviously African, who would have guessed that there would be this random Bongo Club in Scotland!

I had been thinking about joining the Hillwalking club, but then I heard about the Mountaineering club. If you've spent any time with me at all, you probably know that I really like to climb things, so I thought I'd go along with the mountaineering club on a climb on Saturday. Well, the weather ended up being really bad on Saturday and I missed the climb, but I did find some people to go climbing with on Sunday! We went to Traprain Law, a hill about 45 minutes outside of Edinburgh. It was my first time to climb outside and I was really excited. We drove out into the middle of nowhere and parked on the side of a narrow road, next to an open field and walked down a little foot path. The smell of manure was absolutely eye-wateringly horrendous! We climbed over a little stone wall into a sheep pasture and went to climb the big rock! It was about 10 on Sunday morning, the sky was clear and we were the only people there, except for the farmer in the field. Oh, and on the way we passed a truck hauling brussel sprouts, just something I had never seen before:-).

We got to a good place to start climbing and the four people I was with got out their harnesses and ropes and carabiners and helmets and all of these other little gadgets that I had never seen before, I was getting a little nervous! But they were really helpful and taught me what everything was for. We climbed for hours and it was a lot of fun! A little bit more scary than climbing the rock wall at the SLC at Baylor, but totally worth it! How many times do you get the chance to go climbing in Scotland? Hopefully I'll get the chance to do some more climbing while I'm here.

Once again, Monday has come, and I'm reminded that I'm here for school...I really just remembered this morning, two hours before Philosophy, and scrambled to research our topic before class started, but it was fine. Basically what I learned today was that my philosophy professor thinks that: while God is omnipotent, if part of my nature is being human, God is not able to turn me into a crocodile or a bird, even if I really wanted to be a crocodile or a bird. But I think last year my East Asian Philosophy professor told me I could be a rats liver...I think I'd rather be a crocodile.

On Thursday I got kicked out of my Spanish literature class. The professor said there were too many people in the class, so no visiting students allowed. This was after five minutes of sitting in class, the second week of class, after doing all of the reading and actually being prepared for class. What's the difference between culture shock and thinking that sometimes people just don't do things in a very efficient way? Couldn't that have been figured out before the second week of class??? She said, maybe you can join the Spanish Newspaper Article class, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave right now. After talking to like five different people I found an anthropology class to take, I'll start tomorrow, after missing the first two weeks of class. I'll let you know how it goes. :-)

I joined a Christian small group a couple weeks ago through the Christian Union at the university. I'm really glad to have found out about it, and I'm really excited to get to know my small group better! It's really a blessing to be able to have Christian friends and fellowship when I'm far away.

I didn't really go on any adventures on my own last week, like the search for the castle, or going up the crag, hopefully this week I'll find some kind of adventure to go on. I've been too much of a wimp to face the cold. I tried to sit outside in a park and read the other day, but I only lasted about ten minutes. I did buy a plane ticket to Dublin and to Paris! That should be an adventure, since I don't really know anything about Dublin or speak any french.

I think that's all for now. I've been here for a little over three weeks now, which means I have a little more than two months left. I feel like its probably going to go by really fast, and I think I'm going to miss it when I'm gone. But I guess, better to miss it, than not to miss it at all. :-)

A Wee Tale of Greyfriars Bobby

In my last blog I wrote about going to Greyfriars Bobby, a pub here in Edinburgh, and said that I would tell the story of Greyfriars Bobby. So here it is :-) I didn't write the story,sorry, I didnt feel like practicing my creative writing skills on a saturday night.

In the early 1800's a man called John Gray, a gardener, arrived in Edinburgh with his wife and son looking for work. The weather was cold, however, and the ground was hard, so there were no gardening jobs available. He took what work he could find, and became a member of the Edinburgh Police Force - a Constable. As a condition of his job, John Gray was required to have a dog. He bought a Skye Terrier and named him Bobby (Bobby was the nickname for Constables in the Police Force). Bobby became a beloved and loyal companion.

Unfortunately, after a few years as a policeman, John Gray became ill with tuberculosis, and died in February 1958. He was buried in old Greyfriars Kirkyard (Churchyard) in an unremarkable grave with no gravestone. For the next fourteen years, Bobby sat and kept guard over his master's grave. He left the grave only for food, waiting patiently until the one o'clock gun was sounded, when he visited the cafe at 5/6 Greyfriar's Place which he used to frequent with his master. There the owners (who changed over the years) would feed him his dinner. The last owner to feed Bobby, John Traill, had a special dish made for him (engraved "Bobby's Dinner Dish").The gardener and keeper of Greyfriars, James Brown, tried often to remove Bobby from the Kirkyard, but finally gave up and provided a shelter instead, by placing sacking beneath two tablestones at the side of John Gray’s grave.

In 1867 a bye-law was passed that required dogs to be licensed or destroyed. Sir William Chambers (The Lord Provost of Edinburgh) paid Bobby's licence himself, and presented him with a collar with the brass inscription "Greyfriars Bobby from the Lord Provost 1867 licensed".
The people of Edinburgh looked after the faithful Bobby while he watched over his master.
Greyfriars Bobby, Scotland's most famous dog, is not forgotton. Bobby's grave can be found in Greyfriars Kirkyard, about 75 yards from John Gray's grave. Theheadstone is engraved with these words: "Greyfriars Bobby - died 14th January 1872 - aged 16 years - Let his loyalty and devotion be a lesson to us all".


http://www.findoutaboutdogs.com/Greyfriars_Bobby.html