Don't worry, I'm alive!

GLENCOE As my sister was just admiring my blog dedication, I didn't want to get too fargone with my procrastination! Also should reassure those who knew of my hiking/camping trip over the weekend that I actually did make it back to Edinburgh in one piece! Nothing exciting has happened since i've been back, just class(and the realization that i'm already behind on reading since i ran away all weeekend, so a lot of library). SO i'll just do a little recap of my weekend adventures... I headed out Friday night with EUMC (edin uni mountaineering club) to go camping in Glencoe, which is in the Western Highlands. We got there pretty late, just in time to set up tent in the dark and slightly damp (good think i forgot a torch - aka flashlight) and head off to the pub down the road for a pint before bed. This was a rather posh camping experience compared to the usual for eumc. We stayed at an actual campsite with bathrooms and showers, and there was a hotel with pub down the road a ways. Usually they wild camp... we'll see how I get along with that, I was quite fine this time even though i'm no pro camper, i'm outdoorsy enough. I was extremely happy to have the showers though after Saturday...
^good pic of almost the whole ridge
Saturday we went to the end of this mountain range to hike along the Aonach Eagach Ridge. It's pretty advanced walking (what they call hiking here really) with a fair amount of scrambling along the ridge (scrambling is the level between walking and climbing, not steep enough to need ropes, but still rigorous climbing). I was ecstatic to have just invested in some better hiking boots - more ankle support and waterproof! Since this was probably the most intense hike (aside from oyster dome sarah, but that was due to the unprepared aspect haha) i've ever done in my life. It was one of those things where you're climbing up and you wonder why on earth you decided to do this, but then you reach the top and it's all worth it. In this case there was about 5 "tops" before the actual peak, since it was quite a long ridge (10 km in total i believe). The scrambling was awesome, a little scary at times since it was pretty exposed, but as long as your careful and take things slow it's really no problem. The views were indescribable, even the massive amounts of pics i tried to take don't do the landscape justice. I really had a great time, and only kind of aggravated on the way down since it was really hard on my knee.
at the top-->

<--heading down (the actual village of Glencoe is right on that loch)

Further down our path became a stream!-->

We had left at 9 am and didn't get back to the campsite till 5 pm, so then there was just enough time to shower (i would have felt extremely bad for my tent mate anna if i wouldnt have gotten that shower haha) and head to the pub for dinner. Then there was even a band that played and we had a eumc freshers vs committee member "boat race"(i'll spare you all the details, but just know that it didn't involve a boat, or water for that matter...) i got to act as a fresher, lucky me, and we of course lost to the older and more experience (at cheating) members. This night i again kicked myself for not bringing a torch...i probably would have had a bit of difficulty finding my tent even with the light...(but in my defense, there were a lot of tents!)

Sunday, alas, was rainy. Some hardcore people attempted to go climbing, some went running (crazy girls went running, - Rachel: How long have you guys been running [as they showed up soaking at the cafe we were at]? Claire: Only 3 hours - and not just running as you think of it, no no, running things like i walked on saturday, running UP the mountains), and some(including myself) decided to try to stay semi-dry by walking down to the town and going to a cafe for tea and yummy things like scones and gingerbread. Despite the rain, it was still beautiful, the cafe had huge windows and all a photo gallery of local artists work. Also allowed my legs (and arms for that matter) to recover... still a bit sore lol. Unfortunately taking down the tents in the rain was not so fun, especially with the midgies (Robin and Carole how dare you not warn me of the dreaded midgies!) For those non-Brits, midgies are like a cross between gnats and mosquitos... gnats that bite and swarm you... ARGH.

But, moral of the story, i made it back to my flat safe and sound, if not a little damp and midgie bitten. It was a great weekend, beautiful scenery and fun people (who were only slightly intimidating with their camping gear for every month of the year and special cookers and equipment galore... rachel has much to learn in the art of camping outside the realm of wi sandbars and bluffs). I'm glad i went, tomorrow we're either going climbing in aberdour, a nearby sea cliff area, if it's nice out, or indoor if it's not.

Hope you all enjoy the pics, i tried to put up a lot gabby ; )

~R

Monkey-see, Monkey-do

I climbed today! YAY! I can do it *sigh of relief*

Basically I have no class on Wednesdays now, so I spent the day running errands (went to 5 different second hand bookshops and only found 2 of 10 books...grrr) and then went to my EUMC meeting at 1pm. I signed up for the weekend trip - we're going to Glencoe. We'll be camping out fri and sat night(i've met a girl who said she had an extra space in her tent, now just have to find a sleeping bag) and walking/climbing all day Saturday. I don't know if I'll climb cause you have to have your own gear... I might try to rent some. Otherwise I'll just stick to walking for this trip and keep practicing indoors for now.

After the meeting we went to Leith (area of edinburgh) to this indoor climbing wall called Alien Rock. It was really cool, all these different walls built inside this old church. They set us up in groups of 3, one person who had experience belaying and could show the others the ropes, and then we just go on whatever walls we wanted. It was really fun. I think I climbed about 5 walls - my arms are going to be sore tomorrow! I think I've learned a lot already, but just basics, and I'm sure it will be totally different on actual rock face! (I kept telling the guys i was climbing with how i'll get out on the rock and be like "where's the pink grip?!(aka the easiest one, they have different color coded grips for how easy - big and indented - it is)" We tried climbing one wall that had more sudo-actual rock face texture, but i was only able to get 2/3 of the way up... I'll definitely need some practice! We stayed there for a couple hrs and then took the bus back, overall very fun trip - met some new people and hung out more with the 2 german girls i met on sunday. They are very funny and always ask me how to say things. (and on that note my chinese flatmate was reading the paper this morning and asked me what "tramp" meant... that was an interesting explanation lol)

~R

p.s. i had a guy from florida tell me he could notice my wi accent... hmph... i thought i'd escaped that ridicule for just general "american"... oh well

1st day of class, 1st day of confusion

Well, today went well more or less. Could have done with a little less frustration, but oh well - live and learn, right? The day started out very well with my celtic lit class. Small, only about 15 people, topics sound really interesting (we switch off lecture, discussion, lecture, discussion dealing with both medieval welsh lit and early irish lit... awesome). Plus there are a lot of international students who are in the same situation as me (not having celtic civ background), so i feel much more at ease.

The trouble started when i went on to my scottish lit class. This turned out to be a huge lecture, whose form i found out would be 2 lectures with both scottish lit and english lit students getting the same broad english lecture, then friday lecture would be on a specific text for each area, and then a tutorial (discussion section) as well. Not that this wasn't a little offputting itself, but as i looked over the lecture topics they seemed to highly resemble those of my freshmen year english lit traditions course at NU... bottom line = no way northwestern would give me credit for this class which was like one i took for a PRErequisite to declare my english major. So i went to talk with my DOS... conversation as follows:
DOS: Well why did you register for this class in the first place, you are qualified for honors level english courses here.
Me: I wasn't aware of that, no one told me. I just chose from what was offered on the visiting student prospectus.
DOS: Well we should have talked about this last week.
Me: *in head* WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME THIS LAST WEEK.
ARGH

Anyways, it's all over and done with now... it just created a bit of a hassle with me running around trying to figure out which honors level courses to take (out of the ones which were still open) and talking to this poor frazzled lady who probably wanted to shoot me. But it's all worked out now(hopefully) SO now i'm taking the following: Celtic Lit still, 20th C. Feminist Fictions (in which we're watching Pretty Woman, sweeeeeet), and Medieval Dream Vision(we'll see how this turns out, its on Thurs...). Since scottish lit was all year, i also added a course called celtic revival lit next semester - this should be perfect since i'm not taking the second part of celtic lit that would cover the more modern texts.

Unfortunately because of all this confusion i ended up missing the first class meeting for the feminist course... i tried to go late, but got lost in the building (which is a huge maze-like tower, currently under construction) and had to give up eventually. Especially frustrating since the honors levels courses only meet once a week (for 2 hrs) and then have a weekly tutorial, that i would have signed up for had i been at class... i guess being a freshmen again definitely has its ups and downs!

Ok, sorry i had to release some frustration on the blog. Hope most of you non-avid Rachel blog checkers skipped over upon seeing no pretty pictures ; )

Off to start reading my first (and only until i find a cheaper used bookstore) book, Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber.

~R

Count down to class time

I've been busy taking advantage of this last weekend before class starts, thought i'd give a little weekend update. The rest of Friday was very fun, went to the first Create Society meeting where we made pencil holders and mini stained glass window things (sounds ridiculously cheesy, but i thought this arts and crafty thing, and they also have a creative writing group, would be good during the year for a little fun stress relief!). Then Friday night we had a flat dinner party which was awesome. We made tacos (i had all veggie taco, haven't found a place to get that great meat substitute mom and sarah) and then caitlyn brought biscuits for desert. It was good getting to sit down with everyone for a first and chat a bit. That night we went to a sake and sumo night put on by the japanese society (see pic for display of ridiculous sumo skill of rachel and pa - i lost...but only 2-3! i held my own).

Saturday was taken up by a pretty much all day intro meeting to People & Planet. It was really fun. They had lunch for us that was all organic, veggie, and free trade, and the girl who brought it runs a fair trade cafe in the basement of our student center on fridays. They said she needs help preparing food, so i might volunteer for that - work on my cooking skills and learn new recipes! They also had speakers ranging from a guy from green peace who talked about non violent action to our university rector mark ballard who is a green party mp on the scottish parliament. It was all in all a very interesting day, and i think im going to get involved in the environmental area of the group helping on the uk campaign called stop global climate chaos.

Sunday I had my first taste of the scottish highlands! I went on the mountaineering club's freshers week trip to Glen Clova, which is just on the southern edge of the highlands to the east. It was a great day! I didn't actually climb cause i went on a walk that ended up being 15 km (it took over 5 hrs) and we hiked all the way up to Ben Tirran, which was 896 meters high! At the top we were completely surrounded by mist (even though at the bottom it was only partly cloudy and the weather was pretty nice). It was so fun though, so many sheep and we even saw a mountain hare speeding across the terrain. The sheep were really funny in the mist. When we took a break upon reaching the cairn atop Ben Tirran a mom with her 2 lambs kept coming close to us, then running away a bit, basically circling around till they got scared and ran off entirely. It was hilarious... maybe you had to be there haha. Anyways, i met some really nice people and have officially joined the club now. On Wednesday i'm going a short trip to this nearby quarry where I'll get climb a bit, hopefully it goes well! Otherwise there's an indoor wall in nearby leith where i can get some more experience before actual rockface = )

Today has been fairly low-key (though i'm surprisingly unsore from yesterday's activity!); it's "autumn holiday" so class starts tomorrow. I went exploring to find where my classes are and theyre all pretty much in the same square, so that's convenient. I'm looking forward to my classes, can't wait to see how they are! I have all three tomorrow since monday's lectures were moved to tuesday. Even then it's just 11-1, and 4-5. My australian flatmate thinks this schedule system is weird cause at her uni they have all their classes on one or two days, for hrs at a time, and then that's it. I think that would be hard to handle, but she says she likes it better that way. I think I'd fall asleep, or at least get major a.d.d.!

Hope classes are starting well for everyone back in the states!

~R

Beautiful Edinburgh

So i just got back from a run (it's sunny out again yay!) and was inspired by the beautiful scenery and of course by the fact that i actually have internet to finally upload some pics! None from this morning sadly, carrying a camera while running just doesn't work. But I ran around behind Arthur's Seat, and in this pic i was running down at the bottom end of that valley. There's a little lake (st margaret's loch) where there's tons of HUGE swans. It was so beautiful, and there's also ruins of a small chapel up on the hillside above it. For those of you who know how truly dorky i am with things like that, you know how much i was in heaven ; )

it starts...

The rain has arrived. Now i am experiencing the true scottish weather huh? It was pouring on our way to the library, my feet are soaked... which is sad cause i wore my stuff to go to the gym after and now i'll be all squidgy! (i would say lol but according to miss katie koralesky i say it too much LOL katie)

Well, even though the weather is dreary today it was beautiful all day yesterday. I went to this huge park called the meadows and played football with some guy friends (liz and mary and courtney came, but they just cheered from the sidelines and ducked when the ball came their way haha). It was tons of fun, good to kick the ball around again - though i was quite atrocious at times, a little rusty after 2 years apparently. It was so amazing to be playing around in a park, surrounded by others playing rugyby and "aussie rules" (australian football, crazy to watch!), with a big cathedral and arthur's seat as backdrop. Definitely a wow moment.

Ok so i just wanted to blog quick since im at the library anyways, because... drum roll please... they sent the email saying internet is now activated in my room! YAY! I'm planning on getting that all sorted out tonight, so now i'll be able to blog and check/write email more often and go on aim, possibly check into this whole skype dealy too (cheap internet calling, those of you who miss my beautiful voice should dl it and then we can talk for free!)

Back into the rain!

~R

Wednesday, the day of many choices...

Hello hello! Back at the library again and so much to share!

After i posted last, i spent the rest of the day hiking arthur's seat, this huge crag that is the remains of an old volcano. It was amazing! The views were spectacular. You can see the whole city from the top, now i have a much better picture of edinburgh in my head!

Yesterday we had nothing official to do, so Liz and I walked to find the neighborhood where we were told we could get cheap but fresh fruits and veggies. It was awesome, many cute little organic grocery shops and lots of boutiques. We also found out it's the area many upperclassmen have flats. Very fun adventure.
<--me, Julie, Liz
Next we went to the freshers week trade fair where lots of local businesses come and have booths and give away free stuff - we love free stuff! Pens and posters and post its, yipee! (That would have cost me about $10 otherwise!)

Last night we were going to go on a freshers week pub crawl, but it ended up getting canceled or something so we just went on our own! Julie took us to a fun "old man's pub" that had a nice atmosphere and we watched a thing on tv about freddie mercury (they showed the clip from radio ga ga at live aid and i thought of robin!) we ended the night at this little club right downt he street from my flat. it was great, not very crowded, and we just danced all night - pretty much till the place closed at 3! We met some really funny scandinavian oil riggers named odon and horvar (between the accent and the name itself i had to have him repeat that like 3 times... lol).

Courtney, me, Mary, P.A.

Today has been pretty hectic. They're having a huge sports fair and society (what they call clubs) fair for the freshers. Everything looks so fun! I think I'm going to try mountaineering for sure, great way to explore scotland and learn something new! And then it might be fun to join the "sub aqua" club to get some diving in - they have some great wreck dives up in northern scotland dad. It will be pretty chilly though! Archery would be cool, they had a set up and let you try it - i got worse with every shot i took lol. But i think i'll have to pass on that (every sport club has around $15 joining fee, and plus there's the time issue) They held the sport fair at the gym, so we got a tour while we were there and it's a really nice facility - tons more machines than at northwestern! Then we went to the societies fair, and omg there were so many!!! There's everything from a wine society to english lit society - politics, the arts, hobbies, everything! I need to look over all the pamphlets i picked up, but i think i am for sure going to join one called People and the Planet - they do all kind of things campaigning for the environment, human rights, and poverty issues. I'll also probably join the lit one and this arts and creative writing one. Most of them just meet once a week, so it won't be too time consuming. It will be interesting to see how my schedule actually turns out once class starts!

Speaking of class, i met with my DOS (director of studies) to confirm my classes the other day. I'm officially taking celtic lit, scottish lit, and architectural history. I'm super excited for all of them. I have class every day of the week, but only one on friday that only goes till 12 so that will be nice. And i don't have class before 11 = )
<-- Teviot (our union) on L, McEwan Hall center

Ok, that's it for now, miss you all!

oooh and by the way, the weather is still amazing! sunny and beautiful (watch now im jinxing it) but it is still cold at night in my room especially, looking forwards to the flannel sheets from mom! they dont turn on the heaters till october brrrrrrrr

~R

p.s. in regards to my mobile number, thanks to mom and carole's corrections, you have to dial 011 44 before the 7962639484 part.

Jetlag recovery day 6

Hello everyone! Sorry I am not being a good blogger, but alas, i am still without internet even though I moved into my flat on Saturday. The resnet here sucks, there's a whole email registration process you have to go through before theyll connect your computer, so bare with me! Right now i'm at the university library using internet for free, yay, no more internet cafes! Quite a bit has happened since i blogged last so i'll just give some highlights:
*mary king's close - trekked through the underground neighborhood that was covered up when they built the new chambers of commerce. no one wanted to live there due to ghost stories attribute to all the people who died there when the plague struck. pretty creepy, but the actual tour wasn't scary at all.
*holyrood palace - beautiful little palace right next too arthur's seat, where mary queen of scots was held prisoner by queen elizabeth before eventual beheading... very impressive collection of artifacts from queen mary, as well as a huge portrait gallery of british royalty and a special exhibit for the current queen elizabeth's 80th bday. amazingly beautiful abbey at the back, again, can't wait to post some pics! that also wont be possible till me own computers up and running.
*lunch at howie's - arcadia treated us to one last free meal on fri afternoon at this really nice restaurant howie's. it was a three course meal and i got veggie haggis for my main dish! it was soooooo goood! i don't know how it would be at a lesser quality restaurant, but this place was amazing. i highly enjoyed it (oh and for those of you who thought remaining veg in scotland would be hard, let me tell you its the opposite - there's more to eat here than back in wi for sure!)
*snakes on a plane! - yes i gave in to the hype and went to see snakes on a plane, and let me tell you it was awesome. for one, the theater was saw it at was crazy - huge seats and buzzers by the seat so you could order drinks during the show. and then samuel l jackson was totally kickass, i will save details (mom you would definitely not like it)
*Ok, then the next thing is a big one - moving in on Saturday. Liz and i shared a cab over and, without any help because we are amazing strong women, managed to lug our bags up to our flat (which was thankfully only 2 flights of stairs up). Now, how to describe the flat..... it's definitely not what any of us expected. It's a lot more like a dorm, and i have 11 other flat mates, not just 3! It's set up in a big L with the kithchen and common area adjoined at the corner of the L. The set up is rather cold and has a very anti-social feel, but all of our flatmates are very nice so we're going to do our best to make use of the common area and make the environment a little more friendly! Oh, and the bathrooms are highly unimpressive. One toilet in teh same area as a little stall shower (as i told mom its a lot like a head on a ship for those of you boat people) So if anyones in the shower good luck going to the bathroom. 4 of us share one toilet/shower. It's really not that bad though, I hope im not making it seem too terrible. It's just not what we imagined,which often happens, and Liz and I freaked out a little at first, but we're getting used to it now! It's me, Liz, 3 other american girls, 2 swedish girls, one english girl, one girl from hong kong, and a girl from rome! Pretty awesome, I haven't gotten a chance to really talk with everyone yet, so we're going to plan a dinner flat warming party so we can all chat and get to know eachother. Pretty much our stairway (one corner of kincaid's court, which is a big square shaped building with a courtyard in the middle) is all the international students.

Well, i think i've typed a ton for now, we've pretty much been settling in since Saturday - there's been a lot to buy to settle in, which was kind of crazy and frustrating, especially since everything is so expensive here! (about double) And buying everything from dishes to toilet paper to pens and hangers was abit overwhelming! But we're just about all settled in now and all is well. All this week is fresher's week so we have a lot of events to attend and all that. I'll write more about it later, gotta go to a free lunch at the mosque now!

love and warm wishes from scotland!

~R

i'm here!!!

^view from our hotel room
Hi everyone!

I am happy to say i have officially made it to ediburgh - safe, happy, and totally loving it thus far! The flight over went very well - except they confescated my burt's bees in london = ( But other than that it was fine, slept almost the whole way. I managed to successfully make it to the hotel on my own, with my 2 humongous duffles, and when i arrived there was already a group of people waiting in the lobby together (since it was 10 am at this time and our rooms wouldn't be ready till 2). So we all went out to get a coffee together and then went back and just sat in the lobby chatting. It was actually probably a good thing we had to wait so long cause that way we were able to get to know eachother a bit right away. Everyone is very nice, and I even met new people from Northwestern (there's 8 of us!).

After getting all checked in - I'm ironically sharing a room with Liz, who is one of my flatmates and one of the six all year students as well (he is pretty much awesome and we get along so well, very lucky for us!) - we all went to dinner and then out to a pub for drinks. It was a very fun first night, and great to see my friends Julie and P.A. who are my good friends from back at school who are also doing the program.

Today we had Aracadia orientation in the morning and then they took us on a tour of the campus - which is just right in the city, so amazing. Then Julie too me and another girl Courtney (also super nice and a year student!) to get cell phones. That was really exciting, now people can get a hold of me! The number is: (044) 7962-639484 ... at least I'm pretty sure that's what you dial before, the 044, if it doesnt work i'll check it out to make certain.

Ok, Liz and i are just at an internet cafe now and we have to go meet up with julie and courtney to get dinner before we meet up with the group to go on an undergrount tour - spooky! I'll try to post again soon, but can't guarantee i'll get a chance before saturday when we move into our flat and i get the internet set up.

EDINBURGH IS AMAZING AND SOOO BEAUTIFUL, can't wait to post pictures!

~R

Farewell America

Well the last couple days have flown by... I can't even believe it! I am just writing quick since it is getting pretty late and I must get up early tomorrow. Packing 2 days before leaving really turned out ok, just some slight freak out moments that were soon qualmed by my wonderful mother. We managed to load all of my stuff into 2 (i admit, quite large) duffle bags. Then I just have a small carry on and that's it! Quite reasonable for a year's packing I think!

My flight leaves tomorrow at 11 am, I'm flying from Lax to Chicago and then straight on to London where it will be just a short flight to Edinburgh. I'm excited, but of course nervous now that it's actually the night before/morning that I'm leaving... I've never flown out of the country by myself before! Just a little nervous about customs : / I'm sure it will all be fine though (just think happy thoughts for me, cross your fingers for no terrorist threats, weather problems, etc to make things complicated).

Signing off for now, but just wanted to add a final note to say a HUGE thank you to everyone in La Crosse who made my last weeks so fun and memorable - especially the Gibbs, Langes, and my own fam. Love you all!!!

~R

(p.s. i've already set the clock on this as Scotland time, in case anyone's confused, i'm not really still up at 7 in the morning!)