Monday, November 30th, 2009: Fat sheep, fatter seagulls, and a day of Little Mupp and Judd

November 30th was St Andrew’s day, so Rebecca and I decided to take a train trip up to St. Andrew’s for a little ‘get-away’—it was honestly one of the best days I’ve had in weeks!

The majority of the reason for the trip was to visit a friend of a friend—one of my sorority sisters, Colleen Castle, sent me an email in the beginning of the year letting me know she had a good friend studying at St. Andrew’s University, Judd Kennedy, and gave me his contact information to get in touch with him. It took me about a month to contact him—and then another month to actually plan a trip to visit him. It was another one of those ‘pull out my calendar, pick a day, and officially pencil it in’ type trips—because otherwise I knew I wouldn’t do it!!

Rebecca Manias came with me—and I couldn’t have had a better traveling buddy!! We took the train from Edinburgh at 1130am and arrived roughly an hour later at St. Andrew’s. It wasn’t exactly what we were expecting…essentially, it’s a town with three streets!! Much MUCH smaller than Edinburgh (and this is still quite the understatement). We met Judd at the bus station (St. Andrew’s is so small they don’t have their own train station—we had to take the train into Leuchar’s—or as Rebecca calls it ‘Ludacris’—and then bus it in to the city centre). Then we embarked on our afternoon!

The weather was spectacular (minus the fact that it had to have been below freezing with a biting wind). We visited the ruins of the old cathedral and the castle. We went down in one of the mines under the castle ruins, which involved a 3 foot high tunnel, filled with creepy orange slugs and a dripping slimy liquid. Now, this is hard to navigate without touching the walls, especially if you’re almost 6 feet tall in 3-inch heeled knee boots. You will all be relieved to know I managed along well—but take a good look at the pictures and you’ll see I wasn’t exaggerating!

One thing I noticed that was a bit odd was the excessive amount of wells throughout the city…note the picture of me ‘falling into one’ ☺ All of them were covered, so I suppose one couldn’t literally fall in…but I wondered what it would have been like 300 years ago and if perhaps people fell in then every once and a while…or maybe thrown in for punishment?!

We had dinner at a little Indian restaurant in the heart of town and mini Becks and I caught the 830pm train back (by the grace of God might I add!!) We were running late—aka, we took a cab at 8:23pm from the city centre to catch the 830pm train—not a brilliant move on our part. When we go there, we were sure we had missed the train, until we were informed that train was running 14 minutes late!!! Conclusion: we caught the train right in the nick of time, picked up some M&S mousse upon arrival back at Waverly station, and called it a fantastic day!!

Middle of Mo'vember Reflections

Time has passed quickly and I have found myself living in Edinburgh for 2 months now. In some ways it feels like I have been here forever and in others, it feels like I just arrived. I began new classes three weeks ago-ended Public Health and Health Inequalities and Economics of Health Policy and began Globalization and Public Health. I have turned in my first two assignments and am working on my Final Assessments due in December. I don't know where the time has gone! So many people told me that this year would fly and to be honest, I was skeptical upon first arrival. Yet, judging the way the past two months have flown, I can easily begin to see that the rest of this year will fly by as well, adding to my archive of memories.

I am making the adjustment to "academic life" better as time goes by, but there I still go through sporadic periods of "why the heck am I here?!" I have been frustrated by what I sometimes perceive as a rather close-minded outlook in my programme and courses. It seems that in many ways, the course curriculum is very geared towards one side of an issue and teaching is based from that particular standpoint, versus showing both sides of an argument equally and letting students formulate their own views and perspectives. On that note though, I have been challenged to be able to better defend my views and re-evaluate why I believe what I do.

Two months have gone by and I feel like I have fallen short of so many of the goals I had for the semester. Still on the to-do list is:
-Make it to a Toastmaster's Meeting
-Make a trip out of the country
-Get involved with volunteering: am working on getting involved with the British Red Cross
-Go to a Ceilidh: but I will be going to two on Nov 30th and Dec 5th!
-Find a church that I really like: have been to several, but none that fit quite like King of Kings (my home church in New Jersey)
-Buy a new flute and start playing again!

I may have found a new hobby. One of my bestfriends, Rebecca (my Canadian neighbor), is an avid rock-climber and she took me to the climbing wall at the gym two weeks ago. I LOVED it. I've never been before, but had a great time and thought I actually did well for a first-timer. Will have to get some pictures to post.

PS-This month is "Movmeber"-which is a charity event where men grow mustaches or beards to raise money for men's health. So show your support and grow a 'stache!

Glasgow with ARK and Nichole of NC

Today I finally made it to Glasgow. Have been meaning to get there for some time now and figured if I didn't just put it on the calendar, I would never go! [This seems to be my tendency with many things: thus, please note that if you want to make plans with me, it is IMPERATIVE I actually write down the date in my day runner-or it may not happen. Unfortunately, some of you may know this side of me all too well...but this year I am resolving to work on this!!]

Andy and his friend from NC, Nichole, came with me. We caught the train from Edinburgh Waverly Station and got into Glasgow around 1130am. The day was filled with shopping, good food, and a visit to the Glasgow Cathedral. After we saw the cathedral, we explored the enormous necropolis behind it. The necropolis was set upon a large hill overlooking the city. We got up there right around 330pm, which was perfect for that eerie-almost-sun-down atmosphere.

PS- my camera battery was dead, so pictures are limited from this trip