Hi friend! How are you? I hope you are well......and enjoying college football (you don't know how lucky you are being able to enjoy football Saturdays). I heard the weather is starting to turn back in Iowa. It is rainier and colder every day here as well, so my big purchase of the day - Wellies (Wellington rain boots since I refuse to have my feet soaked and freezing any longer...I'm putting my frostbitten foot down).
I have a ton to catch you up on - so here goes nothing.
My Scottish friend who lives just north of Edinburgh invited me out to stay with her and her family two Friday nights ago. The following day her daughter was having a 3rd birthday party, so they were so amazing to invite me to share in their family time. I can't tell you how nice it was to relax in front of the television on Friday evening. I don't really watch that much TV in the States (as most of my friends can attest to since I'm always hopelessly clueless on pop culture), but not having a television even available if you did want to watch it is very different than simply choosing not to turn it on. I don't know if this is available in the States, but if you can find Outnumbered - watch it. You won't be disappointed with this somewhat improv British comedy sitcom. The next morning I got to visit Perth due to a last-minute party shoe swap the birthday girl needed, so my friend's husband took the girls shopping while I toured the John Duncan Ferguson gallery. Without going into too much detail, he is the most famous painter from Perth and part of the Scottish Colourist group. His oil paintings are reminiscent of the impressionist style that he was exposed to upon moving to Paris around 1920. He was married to Margaret Morris, a dancer who became quite famous for her sort of new-age method of movement that honestly just reminded me of that scene in Music Man with "One Grecian Urn, Two Grecian Urn". The pictures I was allowed to take of the paintings I really liked...so a picture of a picture...after signing my life away that I am not going to commercially reproduce my shoddy copies of his works are on Picasa if you're interested!
https://picasaweb.google.com/100003400901805538894/Perth?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPWj0M7rnsbBKg&feat=directlink
On Sunday evening of that same weekend, my Canadian friend hosted Thanksgiving dinner for a bunch of people from my program. Now I realize you might be scratching your head saying, "Wait, I thought Thanksgiving isn't until the end of November?" Well, my friend, I'm not afraid to admit that I also had absolutely no idea Canada has a Thanksgiving. It's the second Monday in October. Apparently they have the same tradition of eating turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc. as in the US, but it's to celebrate a good harvest instead of having any of the US historical connotation...obviously. So this was a new one for me in terms of celebrating T-day in October, but additionally in terms of the noticeable lack of meat on the table. My friend is vegan, so she and her family cooked a vegan meal for everyone that was delicious....just not quite as coma inducing as my usual tryptophan-laden turkey meal accompanied by excessive amounts of pumpkin pie. Enter Irish cider stage right. Clubbing after Thanksgiving dinner.....on a Sunday....the place was packed (?)....most unique T-day I've ever had. Well done Meghan.
https://picasaweb.google.com/100003400901805538894/ThanksgivingCanadianStyle?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCP3Q76TAtKCrgwE&feat=directlink
Now for those of you shaking your head in dismay at the thought of me perhaps not being prepared for or missing class due to clubbing on a Sunday, you'll be happy to note that my professor had canceled class for the following day. Which allows me to segue into a brief note about my program here! I really like all of the material we are analyzing and I am definitely learning something new every day. I'm embarrassed to admit this is the least amount of class I've ever taken. We only have three classes per week, each only two hours long, bringing me to the grand total of 6 hours per week.....cake walk I know. However, I have tons of reading per class - usually somewhere around 150 pages, so my off-time is spent preparing and hoofing it from point A to point B. Seriously, it's amazing how much time one can spend walking if you have no other option. The bus is not convenient to the Uni from my residence and would not save that much time - so, I walk. Everywhere. Anyway, my Monday class is International Climate Change Law with an absolutely brilliant professor, Navraj Singh Ghaleigh, who is teaching us about the complex climate change regime made up of treaties, Conference of the Parties decisions, and soft law instruments. Just this past Monday I had one of those out of body moments where your head feels like it's going to explode when he was taking us through the COP places and years and what each stood for in rapid succession. It's been incredibly interesting so far to learn about the different options available for carbon emissions reductions, and I think by the end of the course we will have studied the Clean Development Mechanism under Kyoto quite extensively - his major research area.
My Tuesday class is Comparative Environmental Law, so looking at different national laws for Protected Areas, Environmental Impact Assessments, Land Use rights, Forestry, etc. and international treaty provisions that may be applicable or mandate national law-making in that area. I loved the land use class in which we had a guest speaker from the International Institute for Environment and Development. He sparked interesting thoughts about land use rights from a developing country, primarily those in Africa, perspective that are involve customary collective rights and communal management - very outside the realm of normal for registration/ownership-obsessed westerners. Hopefully I can do some work with this organization next semester or in the summer. And finally, my Thursday class is International Environmental Law with Alan Boyle - human rights expert and international lawyer who argues in front of the International Court of Justice quite frequently. How the judges understand him is beyond me though thanks to his thick Northern Irish accent - I had to move to the front of the room so I could hear him fully and watch his mouth shaping words after missing an inordinate amount of content in the first class. It's shameful how many people I still can't understand sometimes given the fact that I'm a native English speaker - my Turkish friend laughs and thanks me for making her feel better that it's not just her who can't understand the thick brogues, but I'm sure she is beginning to wonder what's wrong with me....as she should. Pathetic. I'm going to blame it on my bad hearing....Grandpa Toby's legacy lives on....
So there you have it. I won't write any more about my program since I'm only a month and a half in, and my program director basically looked at me like I was insane for already having ideas about my dissertation topic. On par with what seems to be a pretty relaxed pace in comparison to the States, people don't really start thinking about what they want to write until very late Dec./early second semester....which makes me light-headed and nauseated with anxiety at the thought of not having my ideas in line by then. So I'm just going to keep talking to agricultural/environmental/land use/rural development people and try to figure out the narrow scope I want to pursue next summer. More to come on that front.
For now, I have to sign off as it's very late here. Very quickly though, funny story about applying for a job. So I was toying with the idea of picking up a part-timer at a pub close to my house. It's a busy pub on the Royal Mile, so I went there one Tuesday night to check it out and ask if the position was still open. So I order a pint and sit down at the bar to watch the Scotland v. Spain soccer match, and as sports will do, I am soon agonizing over missed goals and wimpy Spanish attempts at getting fouls with the guy to my left. In chatting with him, he and his wife were down from the Highlands for the week on holiday but had to return by the end of the week because he is a Gaelic singer - how cool is that? Well, since he knew I was a student he bought me a pint in his next round, so I was now two pints in and hadn't asked about the job yet. I was just about to finish and make my inquiry as the game ended (Scotland sadly losing), when all of a sudden this gigantic horsefly swoops in and lands inside my pint glass. Staring at this monstrosity with a horrified look, the bartender catches my gaze, deftly takes a coaster and slips it on the top of the glass to take it away. Then of course, he pours me a replacement pint. So Gaelic guy leaves and I'm now three pints in when the traditional music starts. Wonderful accordions, hand organs, violin, etc. It was very stereotypical Scotland, and I was loving it. So in watching the band to my right, the couple on the right starts chatting with me. Turns out they are from Ireland, over on holiday, and in finding out I'm a student, the guy insists on buying my next two rounds of Guinness. So there I left, five pints to the worse, too embarrassed at having been there for so long to even think about talking to the bartender, and no job.
Hope your week is going great! Take care, will write again soon!
Cheers,
Beth
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
How many times?
It's funny how many new foods, drinks, stores, events, etc. you try for the first time when you move somewhere different. It may be a one-timer, as was the pickled herring I tried on Saturday, or it may, despite all your best efforts, be a multiplicitous occurrence. Allow me to elaborate.
1 - the number of times I've experienced a live rugby match now. Last Friday, my flatmate and I took the bus to the unnecessarily gigantic rugby stadium where Edinburgh was facing off against Munster (Irish team). Watching a sport where you don't understand the rules is pretty hilarious, especially when they do the craziest things - like actually kick the ball out of bounds on purpose. Turns out (based on seeing this happen repeatedly) that they mark where the ball goes out of bounds as where the team in possession throws it in bounds to restart play. I sort of missed that the first couple times around since was more focused on the fans almost getting taken out by the ball being punted right into the crowd ("now there's a souvenir for a lucky fan"), which I found out later one may have been my other flatmate's friend who was fiddling around on his phone and looked up only as she was diving out of the path of the oncoming ball. I have to say it was a great experiment in learning how to read social cues, such as when you should be either ecstatic or pissed about something happening on the field. All of a sudden there would be broad grumblings of "brilliant, that was fantastic" or the sarcastic "well done, Ref" by the guy immediately behind us in response to a foul call. Seeing as I couldn't tell one way or the other whether it was a good call or play, I would look around confusedly and try to clap or boo when the time was right. Turns out the guy behind us was for the Munster team....so I was actually cheering for the wrong team for a good chunk of the game. For how violent soccer (or football to the rest of the world - very hard to transition to using that label instead) matches get over here, however, rugby is surprisingly calm in the stands. An example, Munster scored a try (like a touchdown in football) and one out of their many incredibly vocal fans actually pulled out an Irish flag on a pole and started waving it around (Irish pride is huge throughout the UK)....having worked for the Raiders, I fully expected him to be mobbed and wheeled out on a stretcher circa the 2007 KC Chiefs game, but everyone left him pretty well alone. Maybe it's because there is so much aggression on the field they don't feel they need to knock each other out as opposed fans. While Edinburgh did pull out the win, I left disappointingly empty-handed thanks to the inept moose mascot in charge of the t-shirt gun. He sort of sauntered over after a hefty amount of halftime had already passed. His helper then spent half the time trying to stuff his oversized moose finger into the trigger of the gun, and then two out of the four he managed to launch before the team reappeared had been packed so sloppily that they unraveled and sort of fell onto the first three rows. Due to serious spatial misplacement by the moose, three of the four went to the far left side of the crowd before they figured out the projectiles needed to be packed tighter into the barrel, so I remember thinking, "oh my gosh, that one is going to peg me in nose" as the moose moved toward our center section. As I sort of half shielded my face in preparation, the moose let fire and the last shirt shot out, literally rebounding off the back wall of the stadium to either biff someone on the back of the head or unravel upon impact. I can't say for sure as I was still ducking up front.
2 - the number of times I have now taken a journey by train. The first was the Newcastle debacle, but this Saturday I took the train up to Dundee, north of Edinburgh by an hour and 15 min. ride. Infuriatingly, I almost missed my train again, but this time it was not my fault (other than not allowing enough time for me to be an idiot and not know where I was going). The sign pointing to where the travel & ticket center was said to go down this flight of stairs. So I went down. No sign at the bottom directing me further. I was hurrying at this point - I think it was 8 min. til my train was set to depart and I still had to get my tickets from the kiosk - and it appeared I had put myself squarely into the parking area. So I walked alongside the building that had all these doors with covered windows and no sign of life inside, thinking that maybe if I rounded the corner at the end the entrance would magically appear. No dice. So I hurried over to a woman in an official looking outfit (remembering to avoid scruffy commoners when asking for advice now), and she told me to just go back to where I came from and take a right. A right?! I walked back toward the stairs, saw a sign from that direction saying travel & ticket center with an arrow pointing ahead, but where the heck was I supposed to turn right? Turns out, you have to walk under the stairs and then it was literally a Harry Potter moment - this huge train terminal appeared out of nowhere. Thankfully, an orange vested worker was shouting for confused passengers for my train, so I made it after sprinting to the train at the far end of Track 16 (how I was supposed to know there was a difference between the train cars sitting at the front v. the back of Track 16 is beyond me). Dundee was charming - having planned to arrive a little early, I went to their museum that was premiering an exhibition of photos taken over the last century of Queen Elizabeth II. The whole royalty thing is just so interesting and foreign to me, so I wandered through the rooms progressing from her inauguration to pictures of her holding her newborns. Then, I was fortunate to have lunch with a rural development contact to talk about dissertation ideas, so it turned out to be a really great day. I'll figure these trains out soon enough.
3 - is the number of events I managed to see during the Doors Open Day two weekends ago. The City of Edinburgh obviously has tons of historical places that attract visitors from all over the world. But some of them are not open regularly for visitors or had maybe stopped after the summer tourist season was over. So this local group organizes this weekend for free entry at a bunch of locations. My flatmate and I first went out to the Water of Leith Conservation Trust educational center. The River Leith runs through Edinburgh out to the sea, along which a 12 mile trail has been maintained. We walked on maybe a mile of it and turned back...slackers. But in the process, we happened along what I immediately thought was a gypsy camp because of all the ramshackle sheds and tarps laying around in roughly sectioned off areas. In fact, it was a community garden where people could buy plots and store their gardening tools. Much more logical than a gypsy camp set in Edinburgh proper. We then tried to tour the John Knox House adjoined to the Storytelling Museum on the Royal Mile, but apparently "free entry" doesn't mean free entry sans ticket in some cases. Though they were free, you still had to call and reserve tickets to actually go inside the house - annoyed. So, we saw the gift shop and the outside, then moved on to the really important stuff, like eating fish & chips. The next day we toured these vaults that were built into the bridge joining Old Town and New Town back in the late 1700s. Originally, they were intended for storing shop inventory, but since they planned ahead so well and forgot to use leak resistant surfacing material, they were unusable by the above store owners and ended up being used as slum dwellings instead. Tiny rooms the size of a kitchen would have housed 20+ people, which led to rampant disease and death. The guide said if you went to live in those vaults, the average life expectancy was 18 months....not years, months!!! So after being abandoned for a couple centuries, an ex-international rugby player decided to restore the vaults for tourism and personally dug out 18 truckloads of stone and filth. They reeked of mold/dankness, and I totally fell for the cleverly placed scare props (rat and skeleton), but they were neat to see. Amazingly, or perhaps not, he was able to make a pub out of the ones closest to street level - The Caves.
5 - the number of times I had to repeat myself at the drugstore, every time changing what I thought might be the name of the chest cough medicine Lynn, our house cleaning lady, told me to get. The ladies just stared at me blankly, until finally the pharmacist came out from the back and was like, "do you mean Covonia?" He then laughed at me when I got excited that he had figured it out...I forgot that kind of goes along with his profession as a pharmacist, the whole knowing brands of medicine and which symptoms they match. Fail.
12 - the number of times I've almost stepped in dogshit. Excuse my language. It's everywhere. There is either no rule against leaving it in the middle of the very traveled sidewalk, or people just casually ignore the rule and there is not enough public consensus against it to shame them into changing. For a pedestrian society, it seems counter-intuitive and cruel as it is only a matter of time before that shit ends up on my shoe.
25 - how many times I've trudged up the hill toward school, pain in my chest and knee from the steep climb, and wished I had my car. However, I would instantly be killed in head-on collision since I still can't figure out which way the cars are going to be coming and which way to look when I get to the intersection. So I'm that really obvious, pathetic tourist who just keeps looking both ways frantically and doing that indecisive toe dance, one on one off back up back down, before making a run for it and inevitably almost getting clipped by a speeding car coming from the opposite way I thought it would be.
100 - the number of times I've wished I didn't have the world's most uncomfortable mattress and a bed frame that squeaks violently every time I even think about turning over, which unfortunately has to be a regular occurrence since my hip can only take springs digging into it for so long.
1000 - the number of times I have tripped on the uneven sidewalk squares, curbs, mini steps into offices/shops, door frames, winding staircases, the third flight of stairs to my flat. I've discovered I cannot do anything more complex than walk if I want to proceed trip-free. Texting - out of the question. I almost bit the dust one day on a relatively level sidewalk right in front of a busy cafe window. I resisted the urge to look back at the culprit and pull the whole "where did that giant cavern in the sidewalk that made me trip instead of my own clumsiness go?" routine. Two days later I majorly biffed it coming out of a store carrying my new drying rack, which could have been really unpleasant seeing as it's metal and has all sorts of gaps where my various limbs could have gotten stuck. I didn't look down to see the mini step at the exit. Thus, my foot was only halfway on it, so when I stepped down my toe hit the ground three inches below and my heel sort of slid down to meet it, jarring my upper body forward slightly and causing me to let out a high-pitched, overly dramatic exclamation. These four old Scottish people standing to the side window gazing looked at me like I was insane, so I gave them an "oops" and scuttled off.
I hope you are well! Thanks for reading, friend! Have been battling this chest cough for over a week now, so sorry it's been awhile. This whole go to the doctor anytime, it's free thing hasn't really sunk in yet. If you want to see pictures from this post - go to https://picasaweb.google.com/100003400901805538894/DoorsOpenDayRugbyDundee?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCOeZmqi826-2eA&feat=directlink
Take care, will write again soon!
Cheers,
Beth
1 - the number of times I've experienced a live rugby match now. Last Friday, my flatmate and I took the bus to the unnecessarily gigantic rugby stadium where Edinburgh was facing off against Munster (Irish team). Watching a sport where you don't understand the rules is pretty hilarious, especially when they do the craziest things - like actually kick the ball out of bounds on purpose. Turns out (based on seeing this happen repeatedly) that they mark where the ball goes out of bounds as where the team in possession throws it in bounds to restart play. I sort of missed that the first couple times around since was more focused on the fans almost getting taken out by the ball being punted right into the crowd ("now there's a souvenir for a lucky fan"), which I found out later one may have been my other flatmate's friend who was fiddling around on his phone and looked up only as she was diving out of the path of the oncoming ball. I have to say it was a great experiment in learning how to read social cues, such as when you should be either ecstatic or pissed about something happening on the field. All of a sudden there would be broad grumblings of "brilliant, that was fantastic" or the sarcastic "well done, Ref" by the guy immediately behind us in response to a foul call. Seeing as I couldn't tell one way or the other whether it was a good call or play, I would look around confusedly and try to clap or boo when the time was right. Turns out the guy behind us was for the Munster team....so I was actually cheering for the wrong team for a good chunk of the game. For how violent soccer (or football to the rest of the world - very hard to transition to using that label instead) matches get over here, however, rugby is surprisingly calm in the stands. An example, Munster scored a try (like a touchdown in football) and one out of their many incredibly vocal fans actually pulled out an Irish flag on a pole and started waving it around (Irish pride is huge throughout the UK)....having worked for the Raiders, I fully expected him to be mobbed and wheeled out on a stretcher circa the 2007 KC Chiefs game, but everyone left him pretty well alone. Maybe it's because there is so much aggression on the field they don't feel they need to knock each other out as opposed fans. While Edinburgh did pull out the win, I left disappointingly empty-handed thanks to the inept moose mascot in charge of the t-shirt gun. He sort of sauntered over after a hefty amount of halftime had already passed. His helper then spent half the time trying to stuff his oversized moose finger into the trigger of the gun, and then two out of the four he managed to launch before the team reappeared had been packed so sloppily that they unraveled and sort of fell onto the first three rows. Due to serious spatial misplacement by the moose, three of the four went to the far left side of the crowd before they figured out the projectiles needed to be packed tighter into the barrel, so I remember thinking, "oh my gosh, that one is going to peg me in nose" as the moose moved toward our center section. As I sort of half shielded my face in preparation, the moose let fire and the last shirt shot out, literally rebounding off the back wall of the stadium to either biff someone on the back of the head or unravel upon impact. I can't say for sure as I was still ducking up front.
2 - the number of times I have now taken a journey by train. The first was the Newcastle debacle, but this Saturday I took the train up to Dundee, north of Edinburgh by an hour and 15 min. ride. Infuriatingly, I almost missed my train again, but this time it was not my fault (other than not allowing enough time for me to be an idiot and not know where I was going). The sign pointing to where the travel & ticket center was said to go down this flight of stairs. So I went down. No sign at the bottom directing me further. I was hurrying at this point - I think it was 8 min. til my train was set to depart and I still had to get my tickets from the kiosk - and it appeared I had put myself squarely into the parking area. So I walked alongside the building that had all these doors with covered windows and no sign of life inside, thinking that maybe if I rounded the corner at the end the entrance would magically appear. No dice. So I hurried over to a woman in an official looking outfit (remembering to avoid scruffy commoners when asking for advice now), and she told me to just go back to where I came from and take a right. A right?! I walked back toward the stairs, saw a sign from that direction saying travel & ticket center with an arrow pointing ahead, but where the heck was I supposed to turn right? Turns out, you have to walk under the stairs and then it was literally a Harry Potter moment - this huge train terminal appeared out of nowhere. Thankfully, an orange vested worker was shouting for confused passengers for my train, so I made it after sprinting to the train at the far end of Track 16 (how I was supposed to know there was a difference between the train cars sitting at the front v. the back of Track 16 is beyond me). Dundee was charming - having planned to arrive a little early, I went to their museum that was premiering an exhibition of photos taken over the last century of Queen Elizabeth II. The whole royalty thing is just so interesting and foreign to me, so I wandered through the rooms progressing from her inauguration to pictures of her holding her newborns. Then, I was fortunate to have lunch with a rural development contact to talk about dissertation ideas, so it turned out to be a really great day. I'll figure these trains out soon enough.
3 - is the number of events I managed to see during the Doors Open Day two weekends ago. The City of Edinburgh obviously has tons of historical places that attract visitors from all over the world. But some of them are not open regularly for visitors or had maybe stopped after the summer tourist season was over. So this local group organizes this weekend for free entry at a bunch of locations. My flatmate and I first went out to the Water of Leith Conservation Trust educational center. The River Leith runs through Edinburgh out to the sea, along which a 12 mile trail has been maintained. We walked on maybe a mile of it and turned back...slackers. But in the process, we happened along what I immediately thought was a gypsy camp because of all the ramshackle sheds and tarps laying around in roughly sectioned off areas. In fact, it was a community garden where people could buy plots and store their gardening tools. Much more logical than a gypsy camp set in Edinburgh proper. We then tried to tour the John Knox House adjoined to the Storytelling Museum on the Royal Mile, but apparently "free entry" doesn't mean free entry sans ticket in some cases. Though they were free, you still had to call and reserve tickets to actually go inside the house - annoyed. So, we saw the gift shop and the outside, then moved on to the really important stuff, like eating fish & chips. The next day we toured these vaults that were built into the bridge joining Old Town and New Town back in the late 1700s. Originally, they were intended for storing shop inventory, but since they planned ahead so well and forgot to use leak resistant surfacing material, they were unusable by the above store owners and ended up being used as slum dwellings instead. Tiny rooms the size of a kitchen would have housed 20+ people, which led to rampant disease and death. The guide said if you went to live in those vaults, the average life expectancy was 18 months....not years, months!!! So after being abandoned for a couple centuries, an ex-international rugby player decided to restore the vaults for tourism and personally dug out 18 truckloads of stone and filth. They reeked of mold/dankness, and I totally fell for the cleverly placed scare props (rat and skeleton), but they were neat to see. Amazingly, or perhaps not, he was able to make a pub out of the ones closest to street level - The Caves.
5 - the number of times I had to repeat myself at the drugstore, every time changing what I thought might be the name of the chest cough medicine Lynn, our house cleaning lady, told me to get. The ladies just stared at me blankly, until finally the pharmacist came out from the back and was like, "do you mean Covonia?" He then laughed at me when I got excited that he had figured it out...I forgot that kind of goes along with his profession as a pharmacist, the whole knowing brands of medicine and which symptoms they match. Fail.
12 - the number of times I've almost stepped in dogshit. Excuse my language. It's everywhere. There is either no rule against leaving it in the middle of the very traveled sidewalk, or people just casually ignore the rule and there is not enough public consensus against it to shame them into changing. For a pedestrian society, it seems counter-intuitive and cruel as it is only a matter of time before that shit ends up on my shoe.
25 - how many times I've trudged up the hill toward school, pain in my chest and knee from the steep climb, and wished I had my car. However, I would instantly be killed in head-on collision since I still can't figure out which way the cars are going to be coming and which way to look when I get to the intersection. So I'm that really obvious, pathetic tourist who just keeps looking both ways frantically and doing that indecisive toe dance, one on one off back up back down, before making a run for it and inevitably almost getting clipped by a speeding car coming from the opposite way I thought it would be.
100 - the number of times I've wished I didn't have the world's most uncomfortable mattress and a bed frame that squeaks violently every time I even think about turning over, which unfortunately has to be a regular occurrence since my hip can only take springs digging into it for so long.
1000 - the number of times I have tripped on the uneven sidewalk squares, curbs, mini steps into offices/shops, door frames, winding staircases, the third flight of stairs to my flat. I've discovered I cannot do anything more complex than walk if I want to proceed trip-free. Texting - out of the question. I almost bit the dust one day on a relatively level sidewalk right in front of a busy cafe window. I resisted the urge to look back at the culprit and pull the whole "where did that giant cavern in the sidewalk that made me trip instead of my own clumsiness go?" routine. Two days later I majorly biffed it coming out of a store carrying my new drying rack, which could have been really unpleasant seeing as it's metal and has all sorts of gaps where my various limbs could have gotten stuck. I didn't look down to see the mini step at the exit. Thus, my foot was only halfway on it, so when I stepped down my toe hit the ground three inches below and my heel sort of slid down to meet it, jarring my upper body forward slightly and causing me to let out a high-pitched, overly dramatic exclamation. These four old Scottish people standing to the side window gazing looked at me like I was insane, so I gave them an "oops" and scuttled off.
I hope you are well! Thanks for reading, friend! Have been battling this chest cough for over a week now, so sorry it's been awhile. This whole go to the doctor anytime, it's free thing hasn't really sunk in yet. If you want to see pictures from this post - go to https://picasaweb.google.com/100003400901805538894/DoorsOpenDayRugbyDundee?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCOeZmqi826-2eA&feat=directlink
Take care, will write again soon!
Cheers,
Beth
Friday, September 23, 2011
Photos on Picasa
Finally figured out how to allow you to see photos!
https://picasaweb.google.com/100003400901805538894/September232011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCMCG0f7I1obxlwE&feat=directlink
Cheers!
https://picasaweb.google.com/100003400901805538894/September232011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCMCG0f7I1obxlwE&feat=directlink
Cheers!
Lessons Learned
After almost two weeks in this country, here is the knowledge I can impart upon future visitors.
#1 - If you going to visit Edinburgh, NEVER, EVER, EVER take a train out of Haymarket station. Especially if you live very close to Waverley station or want to be anywhere near the actual center of the city. Though things may appear close on the map, it may actually be a good 45 min. to an hour walk from your accommodations and you will miss your train.
#2 - Whilst you are searching for said station, or really any landmark, and are lost, frantic, and profusely sweating due to the 25 quid you are about to waste if you don't catch your train which is leaving in 7 min., DO NOT ask some rando worker driving a service van at 6:53 in the morning for directions. He will "take a piss on you" as the infinitely more credible banker informed me when I had to again ask for directions after the service van guy's directions led me back to where I started. Next step - find and annihilate service van guy.
#3 - When you finally find the train station and approach the ticket office, do not take it personally when the ticket guy takes one look at you, says "oh great, this is going to be a story," and shrugs off your disastrous morning without giving you the free ticket on the next train you know you deserve. They handle frantic, poor tourists all the time who have missed their train for any number of reasons. This was the pep talk I had to give myself as I tried to calm down with music and coffee on the train ride I had purchased yet again down to Newcastle.
#4 - Absolutely do not leave Edinburgh without climbing Arthur's Seat. It's the extinct volcano looming above the city that will offer amazing views and an exhilarating walk. Do not, however, go without an umbrella or raincoat - you will get rained on anywhere from four to seven times. It's Edinburgh. Also, do not go with a rock climbing enthusiast who prefers to take the "hard" way, where you literally climb on your hands and knees up the rocks, if you intend to take a pleasant Sunday stroll. The "easy" way is to follow Holyrood road around the base to the eastern side and walk up the grassy slope. My friend Dan and I went around to approach the summit from the western side - enough said.
#5 - Do not stay down on Holyrood near the Scottish Parliament building (ugliest building known to man that went 10x over budget) or the Queen's Palace. You risk being assaulted by a drunk/high/insane person who will talk at you in an indecipherable Scottish accent, attempt to kick your friend in the groin and block your entrance into your building, all the while managing to not drop a noodle of the pasta dinner he is devouring. The police will have to take statements, disrupting your night by at least 30 min., and they will never find out who the person was unless by some stroke of luck you happen to be right in front of a CCTV camera. American lawyers, get ready for this one. They have cameras all over the city that they can just play back in court and convict someone because of the facial identification technology. Evidence what?
#6 - Do not be surprised if you are totally restricted from entering a building (in this case, the law library) for the ENTIRE WEEKEND as a security measure for the Princess' swearing-in ceremony as the new Chancellor of the University on Monday. Princess Beatrice (Fergie's daughter - remember those hideous hats she and her sister were sporting at the royal wedding?!) is our new Chancellor apparently. What connection she has to Edinburgh I have no idea, but nevertheless, there are tents all over the law school and I have to get my readings for next Tuesday by 5:00 today, otherwise I will be out of luck.
#7 - Make sure to revel in all of the glorious contrasts between your "normal" and life in Edinburgh/the UK at large. You just may end up drinking four cups of tea per day, saying cheers to everyone instead of thanks, watching cricket (weirdest sport I've ever encountered - aside from curling), and taking class in a room that appears as though it has not been renovated since the 1950s and requires entering from only one specific door, climbing two flights of stairs, going outside on a balcony to another entrance and climbing another set of stairs to get to it (who says law schools have to have modern facilities and easily accessible, large classrooms?).
More to come, thanks for reading friend! Hope all is well with you!
Cheers, Beth
#1 - If you going to visit Edinburgh, NEVER, EVER, EVER take a train out of Haymarket station. Especially if you live very close to Waverley station or want to be anywhere near the actual center of the city. Though things may appear close on the map, it may actually be a good 45 min. to an hour walk from your accommodations and you will miss your train.
#2 - Whilst you are searching for said station, or really any landmark, and are lost, frantic, and profusely sweating due to the 25 quid you are about to waste if you don't catch your train which is leaving in 7 min., DO NOT ask some rando worker driving a service van at 6:53 in the morning for directions. He will "take a piss on you" as the infinitely more credible banker informed me when I had to again ask for directions after the service van guy's directions led me back to where I started. Next step - find and annihilate service van guy.
#3 - When you finally find the train station and approach the ticket office, do not take it personally when the ticket guy takes one look at you, says "oh great, this is going to be a story," and shrugs off your disastrous morning without giving you the free ticket on the next train you know you deserve. They handle frantic, poor tourists all the time who have missed their train for any number of reasons. This was the pep talk I had to give myself as I tried to calm down with music and coffee on the train ride I had purchased yet again down to Newcastle.
#4 - Absolutely do not leave Edinburgh without climbing Arthur's Seat. It's the extinct volcano looming above the city that will offer amazing views and an exhilarating walk. Do not, however, go without an umbrella or raincoat - you will get rained on anywhere from four to seven times. It's Edinburgh. Also, do not go with a rock climbing enthusiast who prefers to take the "hard" way, where you literally climb on your hands and knees up the rocks, if you intend to take a pleasant Sunday stroll. The "easy" way is to follow Holyrood road around the base to the eastern side and walk up the grassy slope. My friend Dan and I went around to approach the summit from the western side - enough said.
#5 - Do not stay down on Holyrood near the Scottish Parliament building (ugliest building known to man that went 10x over budget) or the Queen's Palace. You risk being assaulted by a drunk/high/insane person who will talk at you in an indecipherable Scottish accent, attempt to kick your friend in the groin and block your entrance into your building, all the while managing to not drop a noodle of the pasta dinner he is devouring. The police will have to take statements, disrupting your night by at least 30 min., and they will never find out who the person was unless by some stroke of luck you happen to be right in front of a CCTV camera. American lawyers, get ready for this one. They have cameras all over the city that they can just play back in court and convict someone because of the facial identification technology. Evidence what?
#6 - Do not be surprised if you are totally restricted from entering a building (in this case, the law library) for the ENTIRE WEEKEND as a security measure for the Princess' swearing-in ceremony as the new Chancellor of the University on Monday. Princess Beatrice (Fergie's daughter - remember those hideous hats she and her sister were sporting at the royal wedding?!) is our new Chancellor apparently. What connection she has to Edinburgh I have no idea, but nevertheless, there are tents all over the law school and I have to get my readings for next Tuesday by 5:00 today, otherwise I will be out of luck.
#7 - Make sure to revel in all of the glorious contrasts between your "normal" and life in Edinburgh/the UK at large. You just may end up drinking four cups of tea per day, saying cheers to everyone instead of thanks, watching cricket (weirdest sport I've ever encountered - aside from curling), and taking class in a room that appears as though it has not been renovated since the 1950s and requires entering from only one specific door, climbing two flights of stairs, going outside on a balcony to another entrance and climbing another set of stairs to get to it (who says law schools have to have modern facilities and easily accessible, large classrooms?).
More to come, thanks for reading friend! Hope all is well with you!
Cheers, Beth
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
First Encounters
Hello Friends!
Or perhaps I should say "Hi'ya!" This is the way almost every Scottish person has greeted me since I arrived in Edinburgh, to which I of course awkwardly do a "uh, hi" and ask some question that leaves them staring at me blankly like I'm from outer space. For example, my new Indian roommate and I were searching for the postgraduate office building and the map was fairly unhelpful. So we tried the door of the building where it appeared to be located - locked. So we proceeded to the next door which had a placard stating it is the Career Office, but we figured we would just ask someone in there for directions. First, the entryway was dilapidated and, judging by the state of the walls, it was either in the process of being renovated or had just been cleared of an infestation of rabid raccoons. So we said a tentative hello, nobody answered, but in peering into the first room, there sat three very unpleasant-looking men who most certainly could not have helped anyone with their career. I asked politely where the postgraduate office was, one sneered, "I think it's in the library...that 12 story tall building just down the way." Okay, aside from the not-so-subtle dig at us for not being able to find this apparently looming tower that nobody with half a brain can miss, his advice was total crap since that wasn't even the right building. Fail. I'm going to blame that unfortunate interaction on the Scottish propensity for drinking any night of the week. They all looked really hungover, particularly the one guy who did not even lift his head off the table when I asked my question. Add in the fact that there is even more incentive for them to drink mid-week right now with the international rugby cup going on (don't worry if you didn't realize this monumental event was happening - I had no clue until I arrived here and every sidewalk blackboard outside a pub is advertising their showing of the next rugby match) and therein lies the most logical explanation.
Everyone else has been really nice. Tonight the same roommate and I went to a free dinner for international students, and I tried my first haggis (lamb liver in the form of like a pate mixed with a grain of some sort). It sounds so disgusting, but I LOVED IT! I don't know what that says about my tastebuds, seeing as I don't like normal stuff like onions, but I thought it has a good flavor and not a gross texture. Little did I know this meal was to be followed by a ceilidh (those traditional Scottish/Irish partner dances they do at weddings - pronounced "kaylee"), so thankfully the haggis portion was small. Talk about a workout! Not to mention I felt like I was going to catch an elbow in the teeth at any second since there were a thousand people stuffed into a small space swinging and twirling. My dance partner from Northern Ireland was not very adept at his role, so we just sort of stomped back and forth with his hands on my shoulders as the overly anxious undergrad in a kilt was shouting into the microphone to do. Then, he would twirl me on the shouting man's command...let's just say the song seemed interminable and they made us do it twice. I got so dizzy I was certain I was going to get disoriented and think backward was forward, thereby crushing the pocket person of a girl behind me. However, it was really fun in the end. Especially when we got to do the one where you prance around in a circle with 6 people, and then do the skip toward each other, stomp stomp. Yeah, I was sweating profusely...of course.
Flight went well. Apparently, other countries don't trust each other's security checks. I had to go through security with my carry-on in Iceland, then again in Manchester after I had already been checked in Minneapolis. Upon landing at Edinburgh, an ill-fated stop in the bathroom on my way to customs led to me being ABSOLUTE LAST IN LINE behind one thousand asian students who had landed at the same time I did and over an hour wait in the "queue." So, thirteen and a half hours after leaving the States, I met my friend in the arrivals gate and had a lovely short evening chatting with her and her husband before I crashed for twelve hours straight! My jet lag is pretty much over, although I couldn't tell whether that's what prompted my nap today or the gale force winds that almost knocked me off my feet all day as I was walking around campus. High winds projected for tomorrow and then back to normal (rain and chilliness with brief glimpses of blue sky) apparently.
Will write again soon! Cheers everyone, Dooley :)
Or perhaps I should say "Hi'ya!" This is the way almost every Scottish person has greeted me since I arrived in Edinburgh, to which I of course awkwardly do a "uh, hi" and ask some question that leaves them staring at me blankly like I'm from outer space. For example, my new Indian roommate and I were searching for the postgraduate office building and the map was fairly unhelpful. So we tried the door of the building where it appeared to be located - locked. So we proceeded to the next door which had a placard stating it is the Career Office, but we figured we would just ask someone in there for directions. First, the entryway was dilapidated and, judging by the state of the walls, it was either in the process of being renovated or had just been cleared of an infestation of rabid raccoons. So we said a tentative hello, nobody answered, but in peering into the first room, there sat three very unpleasant-looking men who most certainly could not have helped anyone with their career. I asked politely where the postgraduate office was, one sneered, "I think it's in the library...that 12 story tall building just down the way." Okay, aside from the not-so-subtle dig at us for not being able to find this apparently looming tower that nobody with half a brain can miss, his advice was total crap since that wasn't even the right building. Fail. I'm going to blame that unfortunate interaction on the Scottish propensity for drinking any night of the week. They all looked really hungover, particularly the one guy who did not even lift his head off the table when I asked my question. Add in the fact that there is even more incentive for them to drink mid-week right now with the international rugby cup going on (don't worry if you didn't realize this monumental event was happening - I had no clue until I arrived here and every sidewalk blackboard outside a pub is advertising their showing of the next rugby match) and therein lies the most logical explanation.
Everyone else has been really nice. Tonight the same roommate and I went to a free dinner for international students, and I tried my first haggis (lamb liver in the form of like a pate mixed with a grain of some sort). It sounds so disgusting, but I LOVED IT! I don't know what that says about my tastebuds, seeing as I don't like normal stuff like onions, but I thought it has a good flavor and not a gross texture. Little did I know this meal was to be followed by a ceilidh (those traditional Scottish/Irish partner dances they do at weddings - pronounced "kaylee"), so thankfully the haggis portion was small. Talk about a workout! Not to mention I felt like I was going to catch an elbow in the teeth at any second since there were a thousand people stuffed into a small space swinging and twirling. My dance partner from Northern Ireland was not very adept at his role, so we just sort of stomped back and forth with his hands on my shoulders as the overly anxious undergrad in a kilt was shouting into the microphone to do. Then, he would twirl me on the shouting man's command...let's just say the song seemed interminable and they made us do it twice. I got so dizzy I was certain I was going to get disoriented and think backward was forward, thereby crushing the pocket person of a girl behind me. However, it was really fun in the end. Especially when we got to do the one where you prance around in a circle with 6 people, and then do the skip toward each other, stomp stomp. Yeah, I was sweating profusely...of course.
Flight went well. Apparently, other countries don't trust each other's security checks. I had to go through security with my carry-on in Iceland, then again in Manchester after I had already been checked in Minneapolis. Upon landing at Edinburgh, an ill-fated stop in the bathroom on my way to customs led to me being ABSOLUTE LAST IN LINE behind one thousand asian students who had landed at the same time I did and over an hour wait in the "queue." So, thirteen and a half hours after leaving the States, I met my friend in the arrivals gate and had a lovely short evening chatting with her and her husband before I crashed for twelve hours straight! My jet lag is pretty much over, although I couldn't tell whether that's what prompted my nap today or the gale force winds that almost knocked me off my feet all day as I was walking around campus. High winds projected for tomorrow and then back to normal (rain and chilliness with brief glimpses of blue sky) apparently.
Will write again soon! Cheers everyone, Dooley :)
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