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. :-)