Abbeys

Hello! Today we toured around different abbeys south of Edinburgh near the England boarder.  We saw lots of different abbeys and towns today! All of the abbeys that we saw are ruins.  They all were attacked during the Protestant Reformation (thinking back to world history classes, this was the time when Henry VIII (the King of England with six different wives) decided he would become Protestant because the Catholic Church didn't allow divorce) in the 1500s, which is why they are in ruins.  Nonetheless, they all were really pretty.

First, we headed to Jedburgh Abbey.  This is an Augustine Abbey (meaning St. Augustine) and was home to lots of Canons (think a cross breed of a priest and monk) back in the day.  Since it was extremely windy today and rained on and off for most of the day, nobody was there but us.  So, we had the abbey all to ourselves.

Here's Jedburgh Abbey.

This is the inside archway area.  It was really cool looking.

Here I am with a Canon (please excuse my hair.  It was really windy and I just kind of gave up on it. Unlike my new friend here, I don't have a hood that can hide my wind-swept look.)

After we left Jedburgh, we headed to Kelso, to visit the next abbey.  The wind and rain was the worst at this point, so our visit to Kelso and Kelso Abbey was short lived.  The town was really cute, but it would have looked a whole lot better sans driving rain and hurricane force winds. 

Here's Kelso Abbey.

This is Flood Castle which is located in Kelso.  Unfortunately, this is as close to it as we could get.

Once we recovered from nearly being blown away, we headed toward Dryburgh Abbey (and actually as the name insinuates it was dry(er anyway) in Dryburgh).  This abbey is famous for being the burial place of Sir Walter Scott (famous Scottish writer, poet, and playwright (he was also a lawyer and very involved within the political life of Scotland).  His most popular work is called Waverley which is basically a historic novel).  On the way to the abbey, we stopped at Scott's View Point.

This was Sir Walter Scott's favorite view.  He wrote in his will that on his way to being buried at the abbey, we wanted the funeral procession to stop at this point, so that he could see his favorite view one more time before his burial.  It was a really pretty view.  You could see the hills and the River Tweed.

Dryburgh Abbey was also empty even though the weather was improving.  This abbey was really cool to see too.  

Here's Dryburgh Abbey.

I was really excited because there were sheep sitting right behind the abbey, so I could get really close.  Isn't the lamb adorable?  I got about as close as Mama sheep would let me.  I was really excited.

After Dryburgh, we went to the town of Melrose to see our last abbey of the day.  This abbey is famous for a fun reason (at least I find it fun).  Robert the Bruce's heart is buried here.  He ordered that when he died, his heart be cut from his body and buried at Melrose Abbey, which he had helped to get built.  Nobody is really sure where in the abbey his heart is buried, but it's thought to be where the alter used to stand.

Here is Melrose Abbey.  It sits in a really pretty location surrounded by hills.

Our final destination of the day, was to Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott's home. 

Here's Abbotsford.  It kind of looked like a mini-castle.

On our drive back to Edinburgh, we decided to take the scenic route and head over to the east coast of Scotland.  In true Scottish fashion, the weather had improved by this point (it was still really windy though) and turned out to be a beautiful day.

The ocean looked really pretty.  Especially with the new and improved weather that moved in.

This is Tantallon Castle.  We saw it as we made our way back to Edinburgh.

We haven't quit planned what we're going to see tomorrow.  We may drive to another castle, go to Glasgow or something else.  I'm sure that it will be a good day though!

Castle, Castle, Oban

Hello everyone! Today was a long and productive day for me and my parents.  We made our way to Oban this morning, which is on the West Coast of Scotland about 3 hours away from Edinburgh.  Along the way we saw all kinds of great things including lochs and castles.

On our way up to Oban, we took the long way through Glasgow and past several different castles and lochs.  First, we stopped at Loch Lomond.  Actually, we stopped at the same Loch Lomond stop that we stopped at on the way back from Camp Hellhole.  It brought back so many not so pleasant memories, but it was nice to see Loch Lomond again sans 4 bus loads of people. In fact, my parents and I were the only people out on the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lomond (this was probably due to the fact that it was pouring at this point).

Here's Loch Lomond.  As you can see, it was kind of hazy and rainy at the time.

After visiting Loch Lomond, we got back on the road toward Oban (I would just like to add that my Dad's driving is actually really good over here.  He hasn't messed up the whole lane thing at all yet.  I'm very impressed considering how much driving around we had done this week).  The next town that we came to was Inveraray which sits on Loch Fynn.  This town was adorable.  All of the buildings were white washed and the entire town sat on this little piece of land that jutted out into the loch.

Here is Inveraray.  You can see some pretty mean looking clouds hanging over the town.  

This is a picture from Inveraray looking out at Loch Fynn.  (Honestly, I just liked the pictured, which is why I added it in here.)

Before leaving Inveraray (where Neil Munro was born.  Evidently he is Scottish writer, but I had no idea who he was.  I had to look it up, but every town sign said "the birthplace of Neil Munro" on it) we saw Inveraray Castle. 

This castle was the home of the Duke of Argyll back in the day. 

Then, we continued on our drive to Oban.  The next stop we came to was Kilchurn Castle.  This castle, like Urquhart and St. Andrews, was in ruins.  It sits out on Loch Awe on it's own little island.

Here is Kilchurn Castle!

Next, we made our way up to Oban.  Before heading into town, we stopped at Dunstaffnage (try saying that 3 times fast) Castle.  This one sits on the Firth of Lorne a little ways outside of Oban.  It also is partially in ruins, but it still looked really cool.  Plus, by this point, the rain had stopped. 

Here is Dunstaffnage Castle.

After our photo-op at Dunstaffnage Castle, we made our way into the town of Oban.  Oban (which is a Gaelic (Scottish traditional, tribal sort of language) for The Little Bay)  is a small town that sits of the Firth of Lorne, which heads out to sea.  Most people visit it because it has ferries that run to the various Isles (like Mull and Iona) around the Western Coast of Scotland.  And most importantly, it may be the cutest town ever.   All of the buildings are painted fun colors, the flowers were blooming and the people are all really nice.  

The first thing we did when we got into town, was make our way up the tiny winding roads to the top of a hill that over looks Oban.  Up at the top of this hill is McCaig's Tower.  It's this coliseum type monument that overlooks the Loch of Lorne and central Oban.

Here's McCaig's Tower.

Here is the view of Oban from the tower.

These are some houses by the tower.  All of the flowers were blooming and everything just looked really pretty.

Once we finished taking pictures, we headed down the hill to central Oban. We walked around by the water and looked at the shops and the views.

Here's a view of Oban!

Then, we headed back to Edinburgh.  Today was a great day.  We saw lots of fun things and I really liked Oban.  I plan on visiting Oban again in the near future when I'll have more time to throughly explore the city.  Tomorrow we're heading down south of Edinburgh to visit some famous abbeys and see some other little towns. It should be a lot of fun!

Grave Dogs and Cloned Sheep...also known as Edinburgh

Hello everyone! My Spring Break continued today with a trip into Edinburgh.  We started at the bottom of the castle and made our way up to the Royal Mile and into castle.  It was really nice to see Edinburgh again.  All of the daffodils were blooming and everything looked really pretty, plus I saw some new things.

All of the flowers were blooming around the castle.  It was gorgeous! 

Once we made it to the top of the hill, we walked toward the castle.  It was really busy today.  There were a lot of school groups visiting, but the sun started to come out and made the views really pretty.  It was nice to see the castle again, but I still stand by the fact that Stirling Castle is far superior to Edinburgh Castle (which may be because I'm slightly biased).  Why is this? Well, Edinburgh Castle is very military, whereas Stirling is more royal home-y.  Also, Stirling Castle isn't over run with people in the off season.  But it was still really cool to visit Edinburgh Castle again and the crown jewels and whatnot.

After the castle, we walked down part of the Royal Mile and went into some of the shops.  I got a tartan wool scarf for pretty cheap (I was excited because I wanted something that had Scottish tartan on it even if I won't be able to wear it until next winter).  Then, we headed towards the Elephant House so that my parents could see where Harry Potter was written.  We also stopped by the statue of Greyfriars Bobby.

This is Greyfriars Bobby.  He has a really cute story.  The story goes that a man who was a police officer had a very loyal dog named Bobby.  When the owner died, Bobby followed the line of mourners all the way to the cemetery (Greyfriars) where he watched his owner be buried.  After the funeral was over, he refused to leave.  So, Bobby stayed in the cemetery by his masters side for 14 years until he died.  The local people got really into this and went to visit him and gave him food.  He's known for being the most famous dog in Scotland.

Then, we headed to the Scottish National Museum.  The exhibits there were really nice.  We saw the tomb of Mary Queen of Scots and all kinds of other stuff, like a guillotine type machine called the Maiden that cut peoples heads off back in the day.  We also saw Dolly the cloned sheep.

Here is the stuffed Dolly. Dolly is the first successful clone of an animal.  

After the museum we headed back to the car and drove around Hollyrood House and Scottish Parliament before heading back to the hotel.  It was a really fun day in Edinburgh! Tomorrow we're heading to the little sea town of Oban.  I've been wanting to go to Oban for a while now, so I'm extremely excited to visit it!

St. Andrews

Hello! Today was another great day in Scotland.  We went to St. Andrews for the day.  We got up this morning, checked out of our hotel (we're now staying in Edinburgh for the rest of our trip, but I'll explain about the hotel later) and headed to St. Andrews.  For those of you who aren't golf-y (like me) here is a little bit of history on St. Andrews.  St. Andrews is thought to be the birthplace of golf. (Nobody really knows where it originated, but most people think it was invented in St. Andrews.) The golf course is the oldest golf course in the world. (Fun fact, ever wonder why golf courses has 18 holes?  Well, it's because the St. Andrews golf course could perfectly fit 18 holes on their course.)

When we got into the city, he headed straight for the Old Golf Course and the Royal and Ancient Club House (for those of you who don't know, my Dad is a really big golf fan, and coming to St. Andrews is like a holy pilgrimage for golf lovers).  The golf course was really pretty (this is from the perspective of someone who is not very golf-y.  You could see the beach and the ocean from the 18th hole (which is the most famous hole because of it's views of the Royal and Ancient Club House).

Here is the 18th hole and the Royal and Ancient Club House. (It's called the Royal and Ancient because only men are allowed in (women can only go in 2 days out of the year, during St. Andrews Day and the Women's British Open) which makes them Royal snobs.  And all of the men in there are Ancient.  Thus, the Royal and Ancient....granted this probably isn't true, but it's my theory.)

Here is the bridge which is famous.  It's called the Swilken Bridge.

I really just wanted a picture of a golfer on the golf course.  This one was really funny because he was so bad at golf (even to my novice eyes).  This is funny because you're supposed to be a pretty good golfer in order to play at St. Andrews...well somehow this guy made the cut.

This is a picture of the town from the beach.

After the golf course, we headed to the castle and the abbey.  They castle was kind of like Urquhart, the castle we saw yesterday.  It was really cool.  Nobody was there while we were, so we had the whole castle to ourselves.

Here's the St. Andrews Castle.  It has a lot of history involving the Catholics and Protestants and the Protestant reformation. (Things about burning people at the stake and tearing things down, you know the norm for religious reformations.)

Here is the inside of the castle.  You can see my parents sitting off to the left.

After we toured the castle, we went to see the abbey.  It is the ruins from an abbey that was said to contain some of the remains of St. Andrew (nobody knows if they're still there or not).  It was really pretty.  It had a cemetery around what still remains of the abbey.

Here is the abbey.

Once we finished looking around the abbey, we got on the road to Edinburgh.  On the way to Edinburgh, we stopped in Dunfirmline, a town outside of Edinburgh, to see the abbey where Robert the Bruce is buried.  The town itself was really nice.  We didn't have a lot of time to look around it, because everything was closing, but I'd really like to go back.  

Here is the abbey.  At the top of the tower it says "King Robert the Bruce".  I thought that was really cool.

After visiting the abbey, we went to our hotel (the Edinburgh Marriott by the airport) and let me just say it's awesome.  I get free wifi and we get access to "the Executive Room" where they have free food! They have dessert type stuff, cokes, chips, coffee, etc.  I'm a happy camper.  Tomorrow we're going into Edinburgh and are going to look around the city.  It should be fun!

  

I Found Nessie!

Hello everyone! Today was a really fun day.  We left the hotel this morning and headed up to Inverness.  Incase you were wondering, Inverness is at the Northern end of Scotland by sea.  It was about a 3 hour drive from Stirling to Inverness.  The drive was really pretty.  It was my first time in the official Highlands of Scotland and the landscape was beautiful.

Once we arrived in Inverness, we headed for Loch Ness.  Within 10 minutes of reaching Loch Ness (I think this is really talented personally) I found the Loch Ness Monster!  The mystery is now solved.  For anyone who doesn't know, the Loch Ness Monster (referred to as Nessie) is a dinosaur type monster that is said to inhabit the waters of Loch Ness.

Here I am with Nessie!

After enjoying the very touristy shop that sat along side Nessie, we continued around Loch Ness towards Urquhart Castle.  This castle is one that is ruins, but sits along Loch Ness and is really pretty.  We were lucky, because we got there right before all of the tour buses.  So, there weren't many people there.  Before going down to the castle, we watched an 8 minute movie about the history of the castle complete with dramatic interpretations.  It was great. (Note, at this gift shop I managed to convince my parents that I needed a Coo hat.  So, I am now the proud owner of a Coo hat.  See, I knew I would get one before leaving Scotland.)

Here is the castle!

Here we are at the castle.

This is from the top of one of the tower this.  And that's Loch Ness (sans monster) in the background.

After we explored the castle, we headed back towards Inverness.  Along the way, we stopped at another tourist stop to enjoy more Nessie paraphernalia.  Once, we got  back into Inverness, we went to the Inverness Castle.  It was really pretty and had great views of Inverness.  After looking around the castle, we got on the road back to Stirling since it was a pretty long drive.

This is the Palace in Inverness.

Tonight, I too my parents to my favorite fish and chips place for dinner, before coming back to the hotel.  Tomorrow, we're going to St. Andrews!

I also found another Nessie, but I somehow think this one may be fake...

Day 1 of Spring Break: Stirling

Hello everyone! Today was my first day of Spring Break.  I got up early this morning so that  I could take a train in to Edinburgh to meet my parents at the airport.  This was no easy task.  My goal was to be at the airport by 9:20 when my parent's flight arrived. (I should explain that I needed to leave early because the bus from the University to the train takes about 10-20 minutes depending on the bus, the train from Stirling to Edinburgh is about 50 minutes, and the bus from the train station to the airport takes 30 minutes.)   First, I couldn't take the original train that I wanted, because there isn't a bus that leaves from campus before 7:00 (I wanted to take a train that left at 7:15).  So, I regrouped and tried for a train at 7:39.  Well, that train didn't work our either.  Evidently that train doesn't run on Saturdays. (ScotRail, you need to update your online timetables because there definitely is train that leaves on Saturdays at 7:39.)  So, I ended up on a train at 8:05 which kind of made me worry about my master plan of being at the airport by 9:20.  It actually all worked out.  While boarding the train, I found a friend from one of my seminars who was also going to the airport to pick up his parents.  So, I had a travel buddy and we managed to get the AirLink bus to the airport and arrive by exactly 9:20.  This was a good thing.

After I met my parents, we quickly discovered the one of the suitcases didn't make it's way from Heathrow (London) to Edinburgh (I find this strange considering bag number 1 did make it).  So, we had to be back at the airport by 12 to pick up the bag that was on one of the next flights out of Heathrow.  Thus, we headed to find our rental car.  This was an interesting process.  The first car that they gave us was a stick shift (we asked for an automatic).  Once we finally had the right car, we drove around trying to find the hotel that we're staying at that's close to the airport in Edinburgh.  Problem number 1 with this was that when I turned on the GPS (they gave us one to use at the car rental place) the voice started shouting at me in French.  I figured out how tot change it to English, but then we discovered that the road we needed was blocked off.  So, we ended up back at the airport to wait for our luggage. 

Once we finally had our luggage, we headed for Stirling.  This went a lot more smoothly.  My Dad drove, and I was very impressed with his UK driving skills, being on the wrong side of the road and everything.  When we got into Stirling, we went to Tesco to buy lunch before heading up to the castle.  We toured around the castle for a while then headed to the William Wallace monument.  We discovered that at the William Wallace monument, you actually have to park at the bottom of the hill and can’t just drive up.  So, we admired it from afar. 

Then, we headed for the University.  I showed my parents around campus and managed to squeeze them in to my tiny dorm room.  (They were very impressed by how small my room is. )  Afterwards, we checked into our hotel in Dunblane (a town close to Stirling) and went back into Stirling for dinner at the Filling Station.  Now, we're back at the hotel and getting ready to watch the Butler vs. Florida game!  Let's hope they play good again tonight.  Tomorrow we're heading up into the Highlands to Loch Ness and Inverness.  It should be a fun day! 

From the Sweet Sixteen to the Elite Eight

Hello! Well, my night yesterday (or early this morning. It all depends on how you look at it.) was a lot of fun.  The Butler vs. Wisconsin game began at 2:15 a.m. my name.  Needless to say, keeping myself awake until then was a little bit of a challenge.  But I was determined, no matter how tired I was, to make it through the game.  So, after trying many tactics (including studying, watching videos online, eating Ramen, and making lists of things to pack over Spring Break) the time finally approached to meet up with my friends to watch the game.  One of my friends here, Katelin, goes to Butler too, so we talked the rest of our friends into watching the game with us.  It was a great game.  Yes, I felt like I was sleepwalking, but the game was great! Totally worth staying up until 5:00 a.m. to watch them win (I'm just saying, I probably would not be so ok with staying up until 5:00 a.m. if they lost.).

Here are Katelin and me showing out Butler pride. You can tell we look kind of tired.

This is a lovely picture taken by Dana of us realizing that we made it to the Elite Eight.

At about 5:00 a.m. I finally made my way to bed.  I got some good hours of sleep before getting up to go to my EUC lecture.  This class was interesting today (mainly because I was somehow miraculously coherent during it).  First, I had a new professor today.  She was a woman (this may seem like a simple fact, but I pondered this throughout a good portion of the lecture).  She also had a weird accent that I guess was Czech (again, another mystery.  I deduced that she was Czech since we're currently studying a Czech film.)  Mystery Woman was ok.  After making my super intense timeline about Czechoslovakia, her lecture of Czech history just wasn't that exciting.  I felt pretty awesome that I knew exactly what events she was talking about though (I patted myself on the back for that one).  

After class today, I met my friends for lunch.  It was our last group meal together before Spring Break (they're going to Italy over break and I'm touring around Scotland with my parents who are currently traveling to Edinburgh).  Then, I went back and took a nap before working some on my essays.  Tonight, we order pizza and I came back to my room to pack.  

Tomorrow I'm meeting my parents at the Edinburgh Airport! (I'm taking a train into Edinburgh and then a bus to the airport tomorrow morning.)  I'm really excited to see them and show them around Stirling tomorrow! I'm sure they'll be exhausted, but we have a lot planned.  I'm really looking forward to it!

A Walk Around the Loch

Hello everyone! Since I didn't have classes today, my day mainly consisted of writing essays.  It was another pretty day here in Scotland (no rain or anything!) so my friends and I decided to take a walk around the loch on campus and find someplace to eat lunch.  After our adventure last night, we decided it would be nice to see the loch in the daylight.  We found a cement block thing by the water and ate our lunch there.  (I got to feed some of the bread from my sandwich to some ducks!)  And since it was so nice out, I took lots of pictures.

This is a picture of the William Wallace Monument.  I thought it looked pretty during our walk around the loch.

This is the view we had during our picnic.  The loch is actually a lot bigger than it looks.

This is just a pretty view of the hills in the distance.  

The rest of my day was pretty much dedicated to essays.  However, my night is not over yet.  I'm going to my friend, Katelin's, flat at 1:30 (am) and we're going to watch the Butler game (even though I'm doing this tonight, I'll blog about it tomorrow because I'm going to want to get to bed when this game is over with at 4:00 am).  All I have to say is that they better win! I won't be happy if I stayed up to watch them play for nothing! 

Shake-Bar and the Night Walk

Hello everyone! Today was a fun day not counting my last night.  I was in the middle of the best sleep ever when the fire alarm goes off (I honestly probably would have been dead asleep until my alarm went off if it weren't for the stupid fire alarm).  I thought that it would probably stop right away, so I put on my coat and shoes really slowly.  Just my luck, it went off for a 1/2 an hour. It was ridiculous.  In my snails pace it took me to vacate the building, I forgot to put on jeans.  So, I stood outside in my pajama shorts.  It was not fun.  Then, going to sleep afterwards was not the easiest thing to do either.  It was really annoying

This morning I finished my pictures of Flat Joshua in order to send him back to the US. So, I compiled all of my Flat Joshua pictures into a Word Doc and went to the library to print it off.  Well, I expected this to be an easy task...it wasn't.  First, let me just say that printing here is kind of ridiculous.  This I already knew from past experience, but color printing is insane.  When you print something off, you have to first find a computer at the library (which is not an easy task, but usually if you wait around long enough you'll find one), then you go through the whole selecting your printer options. After you send your document to the printer you have to go to the printer, login to the computer by the printer and "release" your items to be printed.  If that wasn't complicated enough, I learned today that there is exactly 1 color printer on campus and it is a scavenger hunt to figure out which one it is.  After trying 4 printers, I finally asked a librarian for help.  She had no idea which printer was the color printer either (which kind of made me feel better, but I mean come on, it's your job librarian), but she helped me find it.  Once I finally figures out how to log on to that printer (you had to actually login to the printer itself) I finally printed off my pages.  I now know how to print in color at the library.

Just on a side note, I put Flat Joshua in a kilt.  I'm pretty proud of my craftsmanship.  I made it out of Pound Store napkins.

After my printer adventure, I worked on my essay for a while and ate lunch.  Then, I met my friends to go into town. First, I went to the post office and mailed Flat Joshua.  That was another interesting experience. It only cost me 1 pound and 80 pence to send him back (and that was for a small package).  I thought that was really cheap, so fingers crossed he makes it back to West Terrace.  Also, I had to fill out a customs form to stick on the package.  I think the man at the post office who helped me thought I was crazy.  I asked him if paper counted as something that was inside the package, he gave me a "duh" look and said "aye" (Scottish for "yes"...I think he thought I was really dumb).  So, paper person was definitely on my customs form.  I'm sure customs will have fun with that one.

Once I had successfully mailed Flat Joshua, my friends and I went to Shakebar.  Shakebar is a place in Stirling that sells milkshakes and smoothies.  We have tried to go there many times, but it's always been closed (stores here usually close at about 5:00 except on Thursdays which is "late night shopping" which means they close of 8:00...some late night shopping).  They have hundreds of flavors of shakes.  The lady behind the counter said that Nutella is their best-selling flavor so I got a Nutella milkshake. It was wonderful. 

Here I am enjoying my milkshake. (I have no idea what I'm looking at in this picture, but whatever.  I also now have a loyalty card for Shakebar.)

Here is Shakebar.  It's kind of hole-in-the-wall place, but it was really good!

We sat on some benches outside of Shakebar to enjoy our milkshakes.  This is when we noticed that there were people dancing and singing in the middle of the street up ahead.  It was kind of strange, but we eventually figured out that they were doing some sort of Christian performance.  Then, they went around and started talking to people.  We were sitting there talking about how awkward they were, when we were approached by two of them.  (We kind of had it coming.  I mean we were sitting pretty close to where they had their performance thing.)  It was kind of funny, because they completely flipped out (in a good way) when they found out we were American.  Evidently, they are part of a Christian travelling performance organization of 18 to 28 year-olds out of Boston. They are travelling around the UK doing their performance and telling people about Jesus. They said that they were just really happy to hear American accents.  We sat and talked to them for a while.  They were really nice.

Then, we headed to Tesco and back to campus where I made pork chops for dinner.  (They were really good.)  After dinner, we decided to take a break from the essays for a while and go for a walk around the loch.  It was really pretty.

Here's a picture from a bench that we found by the loch.  You can see the castle on campus in the background.

Along the way, we discovered that there were lots of frogs on the path.  We had to be really careful not to step on any, but Dana took it upon herself to rescue those in danger.  After, our walk I went back to work on my essays.  Spring Break is getting close and these need to be done! 

Tomorrow should be a long, but interesting day.  We're planning on going for another walk to take a break from our essays because none of us have class tomorrow due to a teacher strike (evidently it isn't a big deal.  It's only a one day thing.  Now, I get an extra day to work on my essays).  Then, Katelin and I are staying up to watch the Butler game at 2 am (they better win, or I'm not going to be happy that I stayed up for it, but I have faith in Bulldogs).  

My UK Chip Observations

Hello everyone! Today was pretty uneventful for me.  I had my seminar this morning with Snape.  There were a grand total of 4 people in that seminar today...and 3 of those people weren't in seminar lat week to hear that it's not required to attend LEI seminars.  I'm sure that the seminar after Spring Break is sure to be interesting... and empty.

After my seminar, I had a PMA lecture.  We talked about Scottish Parliament.  This lecture probably would have been pretty interesting, if I didn't have a kid wheezing in the seat behind me.  Every time British Unibrow would get to something important, Wheezy would start up and be really annoying.  Wheezy greatly inhibited my relationship with Scottish Parliament. I was not happy.

The rest of the day, I pretty much just worked on essays.  (Even though Wheezy distracted me from Scottish Parliament, we got our relationship back on track when I started writing my PMA essay.  After abandoning my first love, Czechoslovakian history, I have now moved on to have a complete library about Scottish Parliament in my room.  I also recently discovered that you can only check 10 books out from the library at a time, so I have to finish my PMA paper before I can start on my affair with Germany, Year Zero for EUC.)  Then, I had dinner (a hodgepodge combination of pasta) before getting back to my essay.  Tomorrow I plan on going into town and just working on essays. Thus, the pattern of my life leading up to Spring Break continues.

I've noticed while I've been over here, that they sell really weird chip (or crisps as they are called here) flavors.  First, Walkers are the main chip brand here (whereas it's Lays or Frito-Lays back home).  So, I did some research, because the Walkers logo looks suspiciously similar to the Lays logo.  And it turns out they are both owned by Frito-Lay.  Why the name is different, I can't figure it out.  But anyways, the flavors they have here are crazy.

From the top going right, are Salt & Vinegar, Smoky Bacon, Marmite, Prawn Cocktail, Roasted Chicken, and Cheese & Onion. (Note: they also have Salted even though it isn't shown here.)

Now, some of these flavors can be translated over into American terms, even though they taste different.  Salt & Vinegar are probably the most popular chips here.  Which, I like because they're really isn't a large variety of Salt & Vinegar chips back home and they're one of my favorites.  This is one of the chip flavors that's better over here (off topic a little, Doritos over here are 10 times better than in the US.  They aren't greasy like they are back home).  Cheese & Onion is just Sour Cream and Onion.  These are pretty good too, but they're different from the US.  And the Salted are just like regular Lays.  It's the meat flavored chips that creep me out.  I haven't tried Smokey Bacon, Prawn Cocktail, or Roast Chicken.  They all kind of freak me out.  Chips shouldn't taste like meat in my opinion.  And these are all popular flavors (they also have Worcestershire flavored) that you can find in vending machines everywhere.  It's just really strange to me.

My Presentation and the Discovery of UK Mac and Cheese

Hello everyone! I had an extremely productive day today. First off, I had my presentation this morning.  It went great (sigh of relief)! I was mainly really nervous because this movie honestly made minimal sense to me and also you know the fact that I'm American (and the Scottish do very different presentations than Americans).  Well, I'm happy to report that my presentation was a hit.  I'll be honest, I felt a whole lot better about my presentation when the kid who did his presentation before mine only described what happened in his movie clip (the Scottish really need to learn some good old American presentation skills).  At least I did real live research (I'm sure there was a history class studying Czechoslovakia who was not very happy with me considering I checked out every book from the library.) The Phd student seemed happy with it. I got a "great job" from her which she hasn't given anybody else yet and a "I really don't have anything else to add to that" (needless to say, there was a smile on my face).  Plus, I'm still really proud of my history of Czechoslovakia in World War II timeline.  Just one thing to mark off my list of things to do before Spring Break (EUC presentation- check).

After my class, I went back to my room and finished my LEI essay that's due tomorrow, before going to my LEI class. Snape didn't lecture today, we had somebody new.  She is one of the sports studies professors on campus (because we had a lecture on if sport is a part of leisure).  The only way I can describe this woman is that she reminded me of my middle school PE teacher right down to the manly clothes and cropped haircut. (Honestly, when she walked into the lecture hall I had flashbacks to middle school gym class accompanied by the soundtrack of Psycho.)  She was really nice and very enthusiastic, but I just have bad memories.  Her lecture was pretty good, I just don't really have an interest in sports (unless it's Butler Basketball of course...which while we're on the topic, why does that game on Thursday have to be at 9:55 (eastern time)?  That is 2 am my time...and yet my friend Katelin and I have convinced ourselves that it's our duty to Butler to watch it.  We'll see if it happens).  But she actually had clips and activities and things, which makes PE teacher's lecture number 2 (right after Elton's) on the list of least painful 2 hour LEI lectures.

After class, I went back to my room and edited my essay before going to the library and printing it off.  Then, I took it to turn it in.  I swear turning in essays here is the sketchiest thing ever.  I had to put my essay is this little slot in the wall by the marketing office. I probably wouldn't have put it in there, except it said "turn in LEI essays here" on a sheet of paper right next to the slot, so I determined it was ok (Turn in LEI essay- check).

I made a discovery today.  Kraft Macaroni and Cheese does exist here, but it does not sing "the blue box blues".  The box is red...that should honestly be a sin. Kraft Mac and Cheese is supposed to come in a blue box! And it's not even a nice looking red box; it's ugly. I would like to know that marketing strategy behind making the box red in the UK instead of blue.  I'm still not really convinced it's the American Kraft (because no other Kraft products are sold over here).  It's just ridiculous.

Here is the Kraft box. It didn't taste right either (we had it for dinner). This might be the most disappointing discovery since I arrived in Scotland (which I guess means I'm doing pretty good, but honestly it was really disappointing). 

Tomorrow I have 2 classes and then it's back to the books for me.  I need to pump out 2 more essays (I have both essays due on the Tuesday after Spring Break and obviously I don't want to have to worry about those while my parents are here) before Spring Break.