The Isle of My Mom (Skye)

This weekend I went to the Isle of Skye. I went with the International Student Society with at least 100 other international students. The weekend started at 8am when we met at the main gate on campus to get on the bus. We started our journey and stopped at this pretty lake thing with mountains around it. The mountains had snow on top of them! It was pretty cold.

As we continued into the highlands, the mountains got bigger, the sun came out, and the views out the windows became awesomely awesome! As we kept going, the driver and student leading us on the trip let us stop at all these view points to take pictures.

Around lunch time we stopped at this cute little town called Fort William.

We wandered around and found this amazing soap store called the Highland Soap Company. The lady who owns the store makes all of the soap and lotion herself a couple miles outside of the town. We went up and down the street and found some lunch at a little cafe. After spending a lot of time in the soap shop and running back to the bus because we were 5 minutes late, we continued farther into the highlands.

Out of the bus window I saw a bunch of pine trees. Some of them were the normal green, but others were a more yellow color. It didn't seem like there was any reasonable organization of the trees. It wasn't like they were all in a cluster in an area without water. It looked more like aliens had turned some of the trees a different color to write out a message or something.

Our last stop before we reached the Island was at Eilean Donan Castle. This was one of the classic castles that you see when you Google "Scotland" and was just as pretty in person. We didn't get the chance to go into the castle because it costs money and we didn't have enough money to make it worth the short time we were there.
When we finally got to the island and to Portree, where our hostel was, the sun was starting to set. With the weather being as beautiful as it was, we got to see the sunset over the Cullin mountain range.

We also got to see the row of colorful houses that are on all the Isle of Skye websites and books and stuff. It was weird seeing the houses in person and not just on post cards or wikipedia.

After a night of rain, a sports bar, and "Snakes and Ladders" we decided to only sleep a little bit so we could see the sunrise. It wasn't terrible since the sun didn't start coming up until close to 7:30am.

It was raining when we left the hostel, but as the sun started to rise, the rain stopped, and the sky turned pink. It was such a pretty morning!

As the sun kept coming up we wandered up to this little clearing where the highland games are played! It was by a cliff, so we had a great view for the rest of the morning.

We left the island around 10 and began to head back through the highlands. Our first stop before crossing back over was a little fishing town, Uig. It was the only place with a store open on a Sunday. It was connected to a gas station but they had postcards!

After a couple hours on the bus we stopped by a little town next to Loch Ness. I didn't see the monster, but I have faith she was there.

Around 7pm we got back on campus. I wish we had had more time to spend on the island, but I'm glad I got to see the highlands and the sun set and rise on Skye. Overall, it was definitely a fun trip. Now it's time to recover before Paris on Thursday!

6 Ways to Spot an American in Glasgow

1. We use backpacks instead of oversized purses.

2. We wear sneakers in 40 degree weather instead of tiny sandals with no support.

3. We try desperately to walk on the right side of the sidewalk and the stairs and then get stuck behind the slow people in front of us.

4. We wear pants (most of the time).

5. We don't stop in the middle of a busy sidewalk to light a cigarette.

6. We don't blow smoke in people's faces because it doesn't occur to us that they might not appreciate it.

more to come.....

Dinner and a Movie

Last night a small group of us went out to dinner, dessert, and a movie! It started off just being Megan, Aldonza, and myself at dinner. We went to this place Ketchup on Ashton Lane. It was a burger place with some really weird options for burgers ("Who Killed Bambi?"). They make their own ketchup too. It has a bit of lemon and pepper in it.

Then we went to get dessert at this coffee place and were joined by Robert and Brad. It was a cute place with some awesome looking cakes and drinks. I had a realllly chocolate-y milkshake at dinner so I didn't get anything, but Megan's cake looked amazing!

Brad is from Scotland and has a car, so then the 5 of us drove over to the theater. It was my first time being in a car in Scotland that wasn't a taxi. It was pretty strange...

So we got to City Center and walked over to the movie theater. This place was huge! Stories and stories high. We got there, picked up our tickets and went to the theater. The theater itself was really big too! Bigger than any of the theaters that I've been in. We saw "The Social Network" (the movie about facebook). It was a really good movie, but I think the preview was so amazing that it set our expectations really high.

It was a little sad seeing the shots of Harvard, made me miss Boston, but that was only in the first few minutes.

It was nice to get out of my room last night especially since I'll be working on my papers for the rest of the weekend...

Some Real Scottish Weather

Hello 7 people who read this blog. I haven't done anything particularly fun since my last entry, but I have experienced some delightful Scottish weather. It has been cloudy for days. Not too much rain yet, but I suspect it will rain soon. It's very strange waking up, looking out the window and seeing a sheet of white. That sight is only really exciting when it is white because of snow. Clouds are just kind of boring. I have a bad feeling it will be cloudy for most of the rest of my semester, but a girl can dream, right?

Archeology Field Trip

Yesterday I went on a field trip for my Archeology class. We went to Kilmartin Glen which has a lot of really old rocks and tombs and carvings and stuff. It was really cool.

On one of the fields there was an old tomb covered by a large pile of rocks. Archeologists created an entrance and an exit which we got to walk through. Of course I didn't see any skeletons or anything, but they might have still been in there, in other parts of the tomb, I have no idea.

Then we walked over to this big rock circles and one of them had a little grave thing in it too. It of course didn't have a body in there, but you could totally see where it would have been.

Then we went over to this old fort and walked up to the top of the hill where the King would've lived. There was another level about halfway up the hill that the workers and people would've lived. There were etchings and stuff on some rocks and a footprint next to it. What we were able to see what a cast of the originals because they were trying to preserve them.

Apart from the 2 and a half hour drive each way, it was a lot of fun and we had great weather (which is clear from the pictures). There is another field trip in November, so fingers crossed for another good day!

A Low Key Week

I've realized that I only update this blog after big trips, and that doesn't seem right because that's only a small fraction of how I'm spending my time here.

This week was pretty low key. I had my normal classes, lectures and tutorials. I had my bagpiping lesson on Monday. I'm learning how to play grace notes which are used when a note is supposed to be played multiple times in a row. I've been trying to practice but since it's loud I'm only able to during the day which causes some problems when I'm at class and out of my room.

My Archeology class is starting to talk about the Neolithic Age and the Bronze Age and pottery and graves and ceremonies and stuff. It's pretty cool stuff. I especially like learning about the graves and burial rituals, but at the same time I feel very weird about the idea of a bunch of archeologists going and digging up people's graves and studying them. These people, years and years ago, buried pottery, tools, and other artifacts to bring with them into the afterlife and now they're being put in museums. It just doesn't seem completely right.

I don't have classes on Wednesday so I spent the morning in a cute tea room with Julia enjoying scones and porridge and the afternoon skyping with friends (including the future Mrs. Couillard).

Today I had my bagpiping lecture. The teacher explained different types of marches and the structure of the march (A B A C). He also played the lowland bagpipe which, unlike the highland bagpipe, has a pump instead of a mouth piece for getting the air into the bag. It tunes to an A instead of a B flat so it can be easily played with other instruments.

Later tonight I met up with Megan and Colleen to make our plans for....wait for it....our trip to Paris! We also got tickets to the Isle of Skye through the International Student Society, so October will be filled with adventures!

A Rainy Weekend in London

This weekend I finally went on a real trip! I went to London. I met up with my friend Harrison from high school and he, Megan, and I saw the sites! Well, we saw some of the sites, London is a really big city for only 2 and a half days there.

Let's start from the beginning. I had to wake up at 2:30 am on Friday morning. When I went into the kitchen to get breakfast I ran into my flat-mate who was just coming in for the night. It was very strange. After a 45 minute bus ride I made it to the airport. After getting through a much easier security process than in America, I had to walk through a giant duty-free store before getting to a main lounge area where everyone waits together, regardless of their flight.

The flight itself was so different than any flight I've ever been on. First of all, there are no assigned seats. Secondly, the flight attendants are like Vanna White. They strut down the aisle selling cigarettes or lottery tickets. Also, when the flight landed on time, trumpets blared and there was an announcement about how we were on another on-time flight!

When I got to the airport I asked someone for directions to my bus and could've sworn I saw Prince Charles sitting there. That was just 1 of at least 3 times I thought I saw him. Once I got off the bus I made my way to the underground, got an Oyster card (I now have subway cards from 4 different cities!), and went to the hostel.

After Harrison and I met up, we got a traditional English Breakfast and some much needed coffee. Next we went over to Harrods, the biggest department store ever!! There is this big Egyptian Escalator area with fancy decorated walls and statues and stuff. There is also an entire section dedicated to toys, another for Christmas, one for pets (and a pet spa, coming soon!) etc.

Buckingham Palace was next on our list! It was raining so the guards were standing in their little houses instead of outside of them. The one we were focusing on kept swaying, so much for standing perfectly still! Then we wandered over to Piccadilly Circus to look around before continuing on to Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. The Abbey was closed but looked at the outside and got some good shots of Big Ben.

On Saturday Megan was with us and we began our weekend of tourist attractions! We took the underground to the Westminster Cathedral. It was really beautiful. On the inside the bottom half was "recently" re-done, decorated, and fancy! The top half was still the really old dark brick. It was cool to see the transition between the "new" and old.

Then, back to Buckingham Palace! The weather was still amazing so we had a great morning for the changing of the guard. I had no idea how elaborate the whole process was! They closed off the streets around the palace and groups of guards marched in either playing instruments, riding horses, or just plain marching. Then the band played some songs within the fenced in area before they all marched back out!

After the changing of the guard we went back to Westminster Abbey (which was closed again!) before continuing on to Portobello Market in the Notting Hill (where we're pretty sure Keira Knightly's house was in Love Actually) area. It was probably the coolest thing we did. There were booths set up along the street selling almost anything you could think of! There were prints, antiques, clothes, jewelry, furniture, and Robert Downey Jr!

After dinner we finally found platform 9 3/4! We had tried to find it about 4 times before we finally asked someone who knew where it was. It was very exciting!

On Sunday morning we went to the Tower Bridge and took a bunch of pictures. We were also lucky to be there when a tall boat went through so we saw the bridge open up and then close too. Then we wandered over to St. Paul's Cathedral and Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. We had lunch at this "American" place which tried so hard, but wasn't nearly as good as real American places. I never thought American's could be snobby about their food. Mexicans can be snobby, Italians can be snobby, but Americans? Megan and Harrison said that their burgers were not very good though. Oh well, I enjoyed the milkshake.

After looking at art at the National Gallery, Megan and I went back to Harrods until it was time for our bus to leave for the airport and then we came back to school!