Saturday

I did some new things today, so I thought that called for a post.

First of all, I should note that last night was rather stressful because I didn't realize until I saw the completed station schedule that I couldn't make it to a 1-3am radio show like I can at home. I didn't take into account that I'm living off campus without a car this semester, and buses don't run that late. So I was basically Facebook messaging the program director (who was very nice and helpful by the way) all night, trying to figure out what to do, since none of the other open times worked for me. Finally, a slot opened up at 1-3pm on Tuesdays, and I was so happy that I was actually going to be able to do a show in Scotland. On Monday, I'm planning to sit in on an exec member's show to see how the station equipment works, though I don't think it will be too different from the Doobie.

Anyway, after being relieved from that stressful situation, I wanted to take Saturday day off. I meant to get up early and exercise, but then I got on Facebook and saw a Tim Hortons ad, which made me really want a donut, so I decided to go on a walk to find a bakery instead. Surprisingly bakeries are rather difficult to locate in Stirling, even though I've seen a ton in other Scottish cities (apparently, there's a Krispy Kreme in Edinburgh, but I obviously didn't have time to go there). There is a Greggs in the city center, which is a weird little chain that sells baked goods like pasties and Scotch pies and donuts, but I wanted to find a real bakery.

Scotch pies are tiny pies with sheep meat in them, and they are very bad for you which means they taste very good.

I finally found We <3 Cake, but it was very tiny, and there were no doughnuts, so I just got a Mars crispy cake, which I assume requires melting down a Mars bar. It's basically just a rice krispie treat with chocolate in and on it. Scotland knows how to do rice krispie treats, man.

Speaking of desserts, I had an Empire Biscuit a few days ago at the Starbucks on campus, and it was basically a Pop Tart made from two sugar cookies with jam in between and white icing on top. WHAT A GREAT IDEA.

Actually, now would be a good time to describe the different kinds of sweets that I have been seeing at all the cafes and bakeries in Scotland.

Mars Crispy Cakes

Empire Biscuits 

(often they don't have nearly this much icing, which is sad)

Caramel Shortbread Bar (also called a Million Dollar Bar)

I tried to make these at Denison once, but the caramel came out as toffee. The bottom level is shortbread, followed by layers of caramel and chocolate.

Shortbread in general is a big Scottish thing, so there are also peppermint shortbread bars, which are like the caramel ones except with a layer of peppermint creme instead of caramel.

The most common donut here is the yumyum, which I think is kind of like a cruller, but I haven't had one yet.

I haven't had rocky road bars yet either, but they have them at the Starbucks. They're a combination of mashed ginger snaps, chocolate candies and marshmallows.

Actually ginger snaps are a big deal here in themselves. I've seen a lot of them, although they are usually called ginger biscuits. By the way, people do actually say "cookies" here in certain cases, not just biscuits.

Tablet is also a thing. It's hard like maple syrup candy but tastes more like really sugary fudge. It's made of sugar, butter, and condensed milk.

There are more I can't remember right now, but a lot of them involve shortbread. 

Anyway, other things happened today besides baked goods. I stopped by the 20 Rocks bar that I've been wanting to go to, and I found out it's also a restaurant. There's a stage where live bands play every night, and they have some cool rock memorabilia on the walls. Definitely going to go back there at some point.

Check out all the famous people on the walls.

I walked around the back roads in Stirling and stumbled onto a really pretty view of the city, which you can see from a little public playground. I want to go back there and take pictures. Stirling is actually very easy to navigate, even though the layout isn't in conventional blocks (of course, neither is Pittsburgh).

I wandered back to the center of town and had lunch at NY Slice, which is the best pizza I've had in Scotland. It wasn't the absolute best pizza I've ever had, but it was good thin-crust pizza and more like what I'm used to at home. I'm picky about pizza.

I also had time to go to one of the used book stores, which is actually a thrift shop where the proceeds go to charity. So I felt a little better about spending money on records there. I got a couple Bay City Rollers albums (which are kind of impossible to locate in the US), Steve Winwood's Roll With It (which I've been trying to find for a while), and Argus by Wishbone Ash (which was a rather serendipitous find).

After that, I walked up to Europa Music, a really good record store where I (finally!) got Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and Paul Simon's Graceland, as well as a Bay City Rollers record with cool pull-out posters and Too-Rye-Ay by Dexy's Midnight Runners. When the cashier saw the BCR record, she told me that when she was little and BCR were really popular, her mom would stitch tartan on the sides of her jeans for her so she'd look like the band. So cute!

I've found that carrying cash causes me to buy less, so that's a good tip for the future. I have to be careful that I don't get too many records while I'm here because I do have to get them all home on the plane. I think that when I leave, I'm just going to have to make hard decisions about stuff to give away so there's room for my souvenirs. Probably not going to come in under the weight limit again though...

The one bad thing about today is that I didn't get much any reading done like I wanted to, but I have most of tomorrow for that. The only thing I'm doing on Sunday is going to the Alanwater Brewery in the evening for a meeting of the university's Craft Beer Society. I'm hoping we get to tour the place.

Song of the Day (because most of this post was about bakeries; also idk what this video is, but it was the best sound quality version of the song on youtube):

Rugby and Other Activities

I just feel like I should be updating this blog, so here is a disjointed post about a few major points in my life abroad thus far.

I've been practicing with the women's rugby team, and they are super nice, fun people (on a side note, Stirling is a very friendly city; everyone I've met here has made me feel comfortable talking to them). So far, the practices have been really fun and a lot more mini-game oriented than the ones at Denison, with mostly fun little conditioners and a few regular drills. Although I think that's just because we are trying to get the new people into it before we make them do anything too hard. We had a try it out session today, and I hope all the new rookies come back because they did a good job and put real effort into their first day. Except nobody seems to call them rookies here, and there don't appear to be any rookie challenges or making the rookies carry the pads or anything like that. No fair to those of us who had to be rookies, man.

Anyway, I'm excited for the game prep practice next Tuesday because I get to lift and scrum again. Although the scrum sled here has a ton of big concrete chunks on it, whereas Denison's changes weight with the number of people standing on it, so I'm not sure how much I am going to like pushing a super-heavy sled all the time. They also have these big cylindrical punching bag things they call "sausages," and I'm still not totally sure how I am supposed to tackle them. But it looks fun because it seems like you basically end up bouncing off of it when it hits the ground.

I feel like I wasn't really doing my best in practice today, which is embarrassing because I've been playing for a while. For example, I was doing a rucking drill we do all the time at home, and it took me forever to remember, "oh yeah, I need to power step into the pad." Pathetic. I always forget to do the most obvious stuff. Although I am making a serious effort to be more aggressive and to remember to launch up quickly on defense.
That said, I really want to play well in the game on Wednesday. Hopefully St. Andrews isn't a super hard team to beat so I can sort of ease back into things, seeing as how I haven't actually played a game since October. At least finally visiting St. Andrews will be fun in itself, and maybe we'll hang out there a bit and social.

There's also a local Stirling County women's club that practices on Fridays, and a few of the university players are on it and invited me to check it out this week. Right now, I'm thinking that I probably won't join the team because I believe their games are on Saturdays, and I want to be free to go places on the weekends. But I'm going to try training with them at least once.

In other news, I signed up for a show on Air3, the university's radio station. I didn't give them a lot of options on my schedule (partly because my Mondays are packed and I want weekends off) so I'm a little worried I won't get a slot. But if they put me in a last resort 3-5am show, that would actually be great because then people at home can listen, since that's like 10pm-12am for them. Originally, I actually wasn't even planning to do a show here, but I might as well if there's an opportunity. I don't even have to try out!

Also relating to radio, I'm thinking of going to the National Student Radio Conference over spring break, which is great  for people like me who are seriously interested in a career in radio. I've never heard of anything like it at home (although they probably exist in some state far away from where I live), but it sounds like the perfect opportunity, especially because the school subsidizes part of the cost. And it will be really interesting to go to a conference in a different country. Although part of me is thinking maybe I should use my week off to travel Europe, since a lot of people I know are going to Spain or Italy or wherever during their breaks. But I didn't really have any concrete plans, besides possibly going to London, which I can still do in late May when my classes are over. Oh yeah, I don't think I mentioned that I get the vast majority of May off for finals, which are mostly going to be done in the second week. Hooray for travel time!
But overall, the conference seems like too good of a chance to pass up, and I'm really excited to meet other students who are interested in radio and to hopefully make some connections with stations and broadcasting corporations overseas.

On another note, I'm not sure I still want to join the mountaineering club because it's more expensive than I anticipated, and I think there's more serious mountain climbing than just hiking involved. I really want to go to the places they're going though (Isle of Skye, Shetland, Glencoe, etc.), so I'm still considering it.

With all this other stuff going on, I'm actually a little concerned that I'm not worrying about school enough. But there are no pop quizzes or weekly papers or anything like that, so I don't really have anything to focus on right now besides my reading assignments. I hope that nothing creeps up on me.

Oh, and fun fact: Apparently people don't say "the mall" here? I called the Thistles shopping center "the mall," and some girls on the team were like, "that's so American: the mall." I'm pretty sure I've heard some people here call it that, but maybe I'm wrong.

Song of the Day (just hangin' out right now, gettin' used to a schedule):

Classes and Rugabugs

I'm going to start off this post with a major coup we accomplished last night: Myrthe doesn't like peanut butter because nobody in Europe seems to understand why peanut butter is such a perfect invention. But we made her try Reese's cups, and she liked them. Mission accomplished.

I got up super early at 7am to finish my reading for my two classes today, but I honestly could have waited another couple days because both lectures ended up regurgitating exactly what I had read. And since there was no participation aspect, I didn't need to prove that I already knew it, so it was kind of boring hearing them re-explain the pretty obvious information I'd just learned. I guess it's good to know now that I can wait to have the homework done by Wednesday, when the seminars/tutorials are, because that's when we are supposed to actually discuss the reading.

The lectures today were pretty boring, but that might have just been because I'd already read or knew most of what they said. This was especially true of the film class because it was all about the structure of narratives, which besides being super basic, I'd had a whole class on just last semester. But I think the film class will be pretty interesting once we get into deeper stuff, and the English class should get better as well because it's about taking a linguistic approach to literature, which isn't something I've done very much of before.
It didn't help that two of the four lecturers (there were two in each class) today weren't very engaging, so I spaced a lot. I hope I grow to like them more as the semester goes on. They don't have Scottish accents though, so that automatically makes them less fun to listen to, just sayin'.

There was an hour break between the film class and the movie screening, during which I went to the student union for the Clubs and Societies Fayre. I signed up for a few emailing lists, including the radio station, the craft beer society, the international society, and the rock society, which were all ones I had been interested in initially. I still need to pay a membership fee to officially join the clubs, and I think there's just one flat fee of five pounds that lets you join them all. Rugby will be a little harder because I have to pay for a sports union membership and a specific club membership, but it shouldn't be too ridiculously expensive in the end.

Anyway, the movie screening was of Casablanca, which was good, of course, and I'd seen it before. But I didn't know what to take notes on exactly, since today was pretty introductory. All I really noticed in relation to the class material was that every single one of the loose ends got tied up and there was a romance and a happy ending, as typically happens in classical films. I also noted how pro-America the film's ideology is because everyone in that movie wants to go to America and everyone is all about how great America will be and knows the Allies will win the war. But that was pretty much it. I mostly just enjoyed watching it. Maybe we'll talk more on Wednesday about what we were supposed to notice.

Since the movie ended earlier than the designated screening period, I had about two hours before my first rugby practice with the University of Stirling women's team. I de-tagged all my new rugby stuff and molded my mouthguard (which they apparently call "gum shields" here) before the team captain Iona picked me up at my apartment. She's really nice, and besides the school's team, she plays a for a separate, very high-level rugby club and a netball team, so she's very experienced.
Apparently, the university team is in need of a prop, so it's perfect that I'm there. We had a meeting at the Stirling County Rugby Club, so I got to meet some of the other players, who all seemed nice and friendly. One of them wants to give me the rugby nickname "Gandalf," because my last name is almost "unicorn" which she said is magical and Gandalf is magical. It's a little odd responding to a rugby name, since I've never had one before, but she is being very consistent with it, so it might stick. We'll see. I'm alright with it though cuz Gandalf is a boss name.

The practice wasn't as organized as what I'm used to at Denison, but Iona told me that normally they are more organized. She also said they only practice things like unopposed and scrumming and lifts on Tuesdays during "game prep" practices, because Wednesdays are game days. That's also really different for me, since Denison games are on Saturdays, but Wednesday is good because I want to travel on weekends. I do have to work things out with my tutorial teachers so I can play though.

Mondays and Fridays are just for skill drills, which I assume normally include things like rucking and tackling with the pads, although today we just played some conditioning games like touch rugby to get back into the swing of things for the new season. Iona told me that a lot of the players aren't very experienced, and there weren't nearly as many as at a Denison practice, so it was different playing with such a small group of totally new people, doing different things and even different stretches I'd never heard of. They also have different signals that I have to learn, like when the scrum half throws the ball out, they call "push" instead of "ball's out" or "launch up" to signal the defending side to run up. We also practiced at night, which felt really strange but is good because my film screenings wouldn't allow me to make a 4pm practice. There were lots of little kid rugby teams playing on the fields next to us, and that was kind of cool to see them getting into the sport already. I'd actually never seen kids that young playing rugby before.

Unfortunately, the team has trouble with everyone showing up to practices, so hopefully we can recruit a lot of people tomorrow at the sports clubs involvement fair, because the team could be in danger of folding next year if they don't get enough consistent players. I'm going to help them run the booth in the student union, which should be a good opportunity to get to know the other players, and I will do my best to help get people to sign up. The team is having a try-it-out day for the new recruits next Monday, which will be fun because we get to set up stations with rugby drills for them to do. I think I'm going to like playing with this team, and it will be interesting to find out all the different ways they do they things.

Song of the Day (because I really am right now, after all this stuff):

Two Full Days

The last couple of days have been totally packed with activities, starting at 6am on Saturday when Stephanie and I got up to catch our 7:15 train to Edinburgh. We were going on an Arcadia-run day trip to the Borderlands. On our way from the Edinburgh Waverley train station to the Arcadia study center, Stephanie recognized a friend from her home university crossing the street, and at the same time, I saw that her friend was walking with my friend Moriah from Denison. It was so weird, but awesome, that they had happened to meet each other at St. Andrews and that we all happened to be going on the same day trip. The four of us ended up hanging out together in a group with another one of their friends from St. Andrews.

The tour consisted of riding around on a coach (we weren't supposed to call it a bus because it has seat belts), and our guide Gavin was the most entertaining tour guide ever. He was from Alloa, which is very close to Stirling, so he pretended to be offended that we hadn't been there.
Our first stop was at the Rosslyn Chapel, which was built in the 15th century. It's most famous for being featured in The Da Vinci Code, and for that reason, it became a major tourism spot right after the movie came out. The lady who gave us our tour of the chapel was really nice and knowledgeable. She said that there are meanings for all of the intricate carvings on the walls, but some of them are largely speculation because the records about their meanings were destroyed during the iconoclasm of the Protestant Reformation. Some of the carvings were even vandalized beyond recognition. It's still a really beautiful church though, and a lot of people have added things onto it and tried to restore it throughout its history. We were told that, before the restoration team sealed the walls with cement, they used to be a light shade of pink, which is the natural color of the sandstone in the Borderlands.

An example of the red fields we saw, which are so colored because of the sandstone that made the original  walls of the chapel pink (not my photo)

And the current inside of Rosslyn Chapel

And the outside

After visiting the chapel, we headed to Melrose, and I tried to take some pictures of the lovely scenery along the way.

Which was hard to do on the coach.

At Melrose, we saw the ruins of an old abbey. For ruins, they were still pretty amazing because of how huge they were.

People included for scale

The view from the top of the abbey

Walking back from the bathrooms actually provided the best view.

Melrose was a really cute little town. I bought a brie and cranberry sandwich there for lunch, which is apparently a very delicious Scottish thing. I also tried a lemon bar and a Booster candy bar, which has a really good crunchy chocolate center. My bottle of water was kind of funny because it was "tropical" flavored, but the brand was Purely Scottish Water. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think there's anything tropical about Scottish water.

On our way to Dryburgh Abbey, we stopped at the Leaderfoot Viaduct, which Gavin said is next to two other bridges. Moriah asked where they third bridge was, and he said we were standing on it. None of us had realized that, so we all felt kind of dumb.

Leaderfoot Viaduct: obviously a bridge

Dryburgh Abbey was another collection of ruins, but they were cool too. Sir Walter Scott's grave was the highlight there.

Scott's Grave

Dryburgh Abbey

The last stop was Scott's View, where Sir Walter Scott liked to go to be inspired. After his death, his horses still stopped automatically at the spot because they knew, out of habit, that he loved to stop there. It's really gorgeous, and there are no pictures that do it justice.

It was hard to take a good photo there because the vista was too huge to fit in the frame.

When we arrived back in Edinburgh, we all decided to hang out a bit before leaving the city. We stopped at an Indian restaurant for dinner, then at the Elephant House restaurant where JK Rowling started writing Harry Potter and where I got some awesome shortbread (another famous Scottish thing). Finally we went to Whistlebinkies, which is a pub that has live music every night. They had a cool blues band, and it was super busy, so we had to sit at a table next to some crazy ladies having an awkward bachelorette party. 

We decided that we should meet up again later and visit each others' schools. I really want to see St. Andrews some weekend because they made it sound like so much fun.

The thing I want to see most is St. Andrews's beach. (not my photo)

On Sunday morning, I woke up and immediately wanted to go outside because I saw how blue the sky was. I was sad that I had reading to do instead, but then I found out that my flatmates were planning to go hiking in the massive hills around Stirling. I decided that I couldn't miss out on that, especially on such a beautiful day. Although it was really tiring, it was totally worth it to see the hills and the views from them. Everywhere I turned was a great photo opportunity, and I came away with a ton of pictures. Here are a few of my favorites:

We got a little lost on our way back down the hills, but it allowed me to take some more great pictures. Also, my tennis shoes didn't have the best traction (although I avoided falling over!) and were totally muddy at the end, so I had to wash them in the shower. If I'm going to be doing any more hiking, I seriously need to get some hiking boots.

So now I'm taking a break from homework. I feel like I'm not very social because I'm always working on something instead of hanging out in the kitchen with everyone else. But I really need to focus on my reading, since I have the first meeting of two of my classes tomorrow, and I want to start off on the right foot. I did come in for Olivia's happy birthday song and cake, and then we watched a few episodes of Dr. Who, which is one of her favorite shows. 

It's been a great day, but I guess my punishment for not working during most of it is having to finish my reading instead of sleeping. Oh well.

Song of the Day (because of all the hiking):

P.S. Here are few corrections to my last posts: 

1) Monty Python was also partially filmed at Stalker Castle, not just Doune.

2) Princess Street is actually called Princes Street. I'd never actually seen it spelled out until my second time in Edinburgh, but they sound the same, don't they?

A Sunshine Day

(All of my blog entries are becoming song titles. I guess this is not a particularly creative period for me.)

Since the day before had been so miserably snowy and freezing-rainy, of course yesterday had to be absolutely beautiful. After enduring the awful weather, I had actually been hoping that this would happen, though I was surprised when it did. Almost all of the snow was melted by the time I left the flat. The nice thing about my experience with Scotland's weather is that when the weather is good, it's amazing.

I spent most of the day with Olivia and Myrthe, who are from Wisconsin and Holland respectively, and are the only people in my 6-man flat who aren't with Arcadia's program. We went to the Freebie Fayre (actually spelled olde-timey like that) in the student union, but there weren't very many booths and nothing was actually free except for the flyers advertising events and discount nights at restaurants and clubs. The three of us bought tickets for the Fubar club that night, since they were only 4 pounds. I had never been to a club before, but I'd heard that British clubs are different than American clubs in that, thankfully, the dancing isn't just a lot of grinding, so I felt more comfortable going to my first one here.

I also got an advertisement for this bar called 20rocks, which has a lot of discounts and fun event nights related to music and live bands. It looks really cool and generally more my style than a club, so I'm excited to go sometime.

Later that day, I tried to work on my homework, but I just fell asleep for an hour, and by the time I woke up, it was dinner. So I ate with Olivia and Myrthe, and we had a really good conversation and even discussed plans for dinners and doing other fun stuff in the future, so I'm glad I have some more friends to hang out with now.

The three of us went to the Fubar at ten, when they opened, and we hung out a little bit, waiting for people to show up. We got some 1 pound drinks, which turned out to just be shots (they were pretty good though because they were apple flavored and kind of sugary sour). Eventually, we figured out that everyone was buying their wristbands and then leaving to come back later. That seemed kind of weird because the club was only open until 3am, but we decided to leave and come back later too. When we got back at around midnight, the place was totally packed. A lot of the kids there seemed pretty young, like 17 and 18. I was sort of surprised to learn that it was pretty much the same thing as a Denison dance, except way more people and therefore a lot hotter and harder to move around. I guess I had some fun, but I was pretty tired, and I didn't really care for a that much of the music. They played a weird mix of songs that ranged from the late 90s/early 2000s to last year (and for the most part  they weren't the songs I would have expected). I liked some of the songs and tried to dance the whole time, but I tend to get bored at dances, especially if I don't really love most of the music or know that many people there, so I was ready to go after the first hour. I did like hanging out with Olivia and Myrthe though, so that much was worth it. We finally left at 2am because we all had class the next day.

I actually wasn't too tired when I got up this morning, and I think the really great weather, which was even better than yesterday's, helped me want to get up. I had a class at 10, and I was glad to find that the buses come frequently enough in the morning that you're not likely to miss class if you live off-campus. I only had one class today, which was a lecture about Scottish literature and history. Today was just an overview of the periods of Scottish history we're going to look at. It seems like we're mostly going to examine Scotland's resistance to and acceptance of Anglicization ever since they joined England to form Great Britain in 1707. I really like history, and I found the information new and interesting, so I think I'm going to enjoy this class. The lecturer also seems nice, and I think he's a pretty engaging lecturer, although that's partly because I really enjoy listening to his Scottish accent. I'm glad that I like him so far because he's going to lead the tutorial discussions, which are basically seminars wherein the students can ask questions and discuss the material instead of just listening like in a lecture.

I was kind of surprised that there were a few adults in the class, but I guess that's because I'm used to Denison where everyone is an undergrad and we're almost all average-aged college students. The lecture format didn't bother me as much as I was worried it might, probably because there wasn't an overwhelming number of people (no more than 30) and because the lecture was only fifty minutes long (I hadn't had a fifty minute class since last spring, so that was nice). And I didn't feel like I had to talk. I could just take notes and listen. I'm glad I'll have a chance to participate in the tutorial on Wednesday though because I did get some ideas of things during the lecture that I wanted to discuss. Although I wish that participation counted as part of the grade here. Sadly, only the final papers and exams do.

After class, I went to the student union to buy a University of Stirling sticker for my car and a shirt for my sister. While I was there, I met some people advertising a lunch program run by the Christian Union, and I was glad that they came to me in this way because I had been wondering if Stirling had a Christian group that I could join. I met some really nice people there, and they invited me to their Bible study and weekly meeting next week, which I'm excited about. They are a pretty big organization, so I think I'll be able to make some friends there.

I feel like next week is going to super busy, since it will be my first full week of classes, and I'm planning to go to rugby practice (they call it "training" here), the Christian group, and check out some other clubs like the Rock Society (because they go to concerts and have music-related events), the Air3 radio station (because I want to see how they run their station), the Nature Society (because they do hikes around Stirling and are walking to Dunblane next week), the Craft Beer Society (yes, that exists, they're going to a local brewery next week which sounds interesting), the Fencing Club (to check it out with Olivia, though we probably won't stick with it), and the International Society (to meet other students from around the world). I definitely won't stay with all of the groups, but they have these "Try It Out" sessions during the first couple weeks, where you can just show up for a special event with the club to see if you like it. And you aren't at all obligated to come back. It seems like a really good idea, and I wish the clubs at Denison would do something like that. I mostly just want to use the sessions as opportunities to meet people and do something fun and relaxing.

That's all for now. I have to work on my weekend reading since I'm going to the Borderlands tomorrow. My friend Stephanie is staying in my room tonight so she won't have to take a taxi from campus to the train station at 6am tomorrow, and we'll just walk from here instead. I'm really excited to see other parts of Scotland besides Stirling and Edinburgh, so I'm glad that Arcadia offers us the opportunity. I'm also planning to go to the Isle of Skye, where the famous Eilean Donan Castle is, over spring break with Olivia and Myrthe. There's so much fun stuff coming up, I hope I can focus on studying these next few months!

Song of the Day:

I used to be so into this song in like 10th grade.

Out in the Cold Rain and Snow

I woke up too early, and in my half-asleep state, I thought it was snowing. I told myself I was wrong because yesterday's weather had been great. So I went back to sleep and then woke up again an hour later to this:

I was not excited to go out in it (and later it turned into freezing rain which was worse), but I had more Stuff To Do, so I put on my boots and headed to Tesco to get some groceries. I also wanted Command Strips, which I had not been able to find at the last four or so stores that I tried (note to all people visiting Scotland in the future: bring your own Command Strips). They didn't have them, but when I tried to do the self-checkout with my groceries, it didn't want to take my credit card. I had to get an employee to swipe it for me because credit cards in Scotland use chips instead of the swipe method. So anytime I want to use my credit card, it's kind of a struggle because you have to let them know right away that there's no chip and then the cashier has to do some manual stuff and see your ID and then try swiping it like five different ways before it works. I'm not sure why there isn't just one uniform way to use credit cards, but the younger cashiers get really flustered when you don't have a chip because they are not prepared for that kind of a drastic change today. I had a conversation about it with the lady who works at the student union shop, and she said it's because people are like sheep and they don't think outside of their little world, haha. She was a fun person to complain about stupid little things with.

Anyway, I mailed my postcards and then went to the library to look for some of my weekly readings. Unlike at Denison, the professors want you to find the articles yourself, so instead of posting them in PDF's for you on Blackboard, you have to go looking on an online database or in the library. I wouldn't have had a huge problem with this except for the fact that I didn't really understand how to navigate the library yet, so it took me way too long to find only two books. I was kind of glad that they had the articles in books though because it meant I didn't have to use any of my print money.

After getting the books, I wandered around campus to find all my classrooms, which are unfortunately really far apart. During this expedition, I discovered that my boots are not waterproof, and by the end, my feet were totally wet and freezing cold. So I had to walk through the slush in my already soaked shoes to buy some rain boots at Sainsbury's (and some Command Strips, hooray!). They have ugly pink bows on the side and look kind of like they're made for little girls, but my options were extremely limited. I was just glad to be able to walk back home with dry feet.

I didn't have time to go change before the bus tour though, so I just had to deal with it for the time being. I still had some fun on the tour, especially seeing Dunblane and the Dunblane Cathedral, which is this really beautiful 7th century church that is still in use today. While I was there, I bought a couple funny little books with facts about Scotland and quotes by Scots.

My favorite part of the trip was seeing the mailbox that was painted gold after Andy Murray won in the summer Olympics. I'd heard about the mailbox, but I didn't know it was so close or that we were going to see it. Apparently, because Andy Murray lives in Dunblane, right next to Stirling, he sometimes practices tennis at the university.

Our bus tour guides were two university students. One of them said it was his first time leading a tour, and it definitely seemed like it. He had a script with some interesting facts that would have been better if he hadn't glossed over them, saying they were "really boring." I did learn that there's a castle in the nearby village of Doune where Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed. I kind of want to visit that one sometime.

Doune Castle

Also, I learned that the premiere of Braveheart was held at the macrobert arts centre (officially spelled with no caps), which is the theater on the University of Stirling's campus.

There was a funny part of the tour where they mentioned Loch Lomond (which isn't very close at all, so I'm not sure why they brought it up), and then they played a weird, Michael Bolton type version of "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" over the bus loudspeaker.

At the end of the tour, we were supposed to go in the Wallace Monument, but it was closed, which was just as well because I'd already seen it, and it was probably terribly cold and nasty up there in the snow. So instead, the bus driver offered to drive us past some Scottish Highland Cows, which people got really excited about. They also got excited every time we drove past some sheep, even though I'm sure lots of them see plenty of sheep at home (I know I see a lot in Ohio). I was excited too though because highland cows are really adorable and very sweet, and I'd never seen one in person before. We couldn't see them up close from the road, since they were hanging out in the back of their pasture, but I'm glad I know where they are now so I can come back in better weather.

After another busy day, I really wanted go to bed early, but I had to go to the fitness centre at 8:30pm for induction, which is basically a short tour where they make you sign a waiver and show you how the equipment works. It was all pretty straightforward, though the guy who showed us around was really nice, and I got to see how great Stirling's fitness centre is. Supposedly, the Scottish national rugby team works out there sometimes, and as I said before, Andy Murray uses the courts, so everything must be top of the line. It actually made me excited to work out, especially after having to use Denison's mostly broken machines for the past three years.

By the way, while I was on campus, I discovered that the little grocery store in the student union sells some American candy for a reasonable price. You can actually buy a king size pack of Reese's for about 65p. I have no idea how I never noticed that before. They sell pretty much every kind of candy there, and it's not outrageously priced.

Anyway, tomorrow is my last day of no classes before the weekend, so I need to start on my reading for next week. Not sure what's going to happen tomorrow, but hopefully I'll have something to write about.

Song of the Day (in the title again):

Takin' Care of Business

Today was very productive, although I was almost afraid it wouldn't be because much of it involved wandering around the mall with my Arcadia friend Stephanie, who lives in my old building.

Stephanie and I first went to the train station to buy tickets to Edinburgh, where we need to meet the Arcadia staff before we head off to the Borderlands this weekend. The lady at the counter told us that the price will be the same if we buy them the day of the trip (though train tickets are usually cheaper in the UK if you buy them way ahead of time), so she said we should wait until then. That was the entire point of heading into town, so after that we decided to check out the Thistles Shopping Centre for fun.

It's a magical place, I guess.

At the Thistles, I managed to find a sports equipment store, which I think might have been an outlet because everything had marked-down price stickers. I bought a pair of rugby shorts, spandex shorts, black and green socks (Stirling's colors), a mouthguard that you don't need to mold (awesome), a super cheap but huge water bottle, and some new cleats that were on sale for like 25 pounds. I really love how in this country you can just walk into a sports store and find rugby stuff. I saw an entire bin of rugby balls, and it reminded me that the last time I tried to buy a ball in the U.S., they had to drag their only one out of the storage room.

This is the local Stirling club, not the University's, unless those are combined somehow. I'm excited to play anyway, I'm glad to hear that they changed their practice times, so I won't have to miss one for my class film screenings. The team practices at a local rugby club field, which will be nice because I won't have to take a bus to campus for practice (although I still might need a bus to get there, not sure).

We wandered around the mall trying to find a place that served soup (because I just really wanted soup), and ultimately ate lunch at the mall's equivalent of a food court, which is basically a little cafeteria line with a lot of comfort foods like meat and potatoes. I had a cup of lentil soup and a Coronation Chicken Sandwich, which I thought was a mix between chicken and egg salad. I found out later that it's just a certain kind of chicken salad with a special blend of [seven] herbs and spices and mayo, but it looks yellow like egg salad, probably because of the secret spices.

Coronation Chicken Sandwich: Sounds Fancy, Needs Capitalization.

We also stopped at Primark, which is kind of a mix between Forever 21 and H&M and sells juniors clothing in the style of those stores for really cheap. They also have a little section with some sheets and curtains sorts of things, and I bought a memory foam pillow for only 8 pounds because the pillow that the university provided has been used a hundred times and, as a result, is flat as a pancake.

Speaking of which, it's National Pancake Day in the UK, and I have not yet been able to eat a pancake. Stirling needs a Bob Evans.

Anyway, I also bought some cool black and white spotted sunglasses at Primark, and then we went to the candy store that sells American candy at outrageous prices. It was oddly exciting to see all the candy from home that I suddenly realized they don't sell here. It was also amazing to me how much they charge for some pretty crappy varieties of candy, like Mr. Goodbars and those awful Dippin' Dot candies. Who is honestly paying two pounds and over for these things? I was complaining about it rather loudly, so the cashier was probably annoyed, but whatever. Also, she got mad if you tried to take pictures in the store.

I was surprised to see that they had Brach's candy corn, which I can't even find in the U.S. in February, though I wish I could. I also asked if they had my other favorite candy that nobody else likes: Necco wafers, and of course that was the one thing they didn't stock.

I saw some pretty weird, but interesting candy like a chocolate GPS and Blackberry and this chocolate bar made with that Irn-Bru soft drink (pronounced "iron brew") that everyone here likes. People tell me it tastes like bubblegum, but I think it's more like orange/mango-flavored gum. 

I really want to call it "irn-BARRR-bru." Emphasis on the BARR.

I also had my first Cadbury cream egg today, which was way too sugary and gave me a slight headache. That is saying something because I normally love overly sugary things. Although I did like it, I would have been better able to handle a smaller one.

I ended up buying Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey... FUDGE. It's really interesting because it's kind of like if you diluted whiskey with sugar and butter, which is surprisingly pleasant if you like whiskey (which I've found I apparently do?). Some of my flatmates tried it, and one hated it because, well, it tastes like whiskey. I kind of want to learn how to make the fudge so I can perfect the recipe and make it more widely appealing. 

Also, the tin it came in makes a cool pencil cup, which was about half of my reason for buying it.

I feel the need to mention that at Marks & Spencer (where they don't sell marshmallow fluff, by the way, though I have seen it at Sainsbury's), we saw some product related to Where's Waldo?, but they call it Where's Wally? here. I'm not sure why they felt the need to change that, but apparently, the books were made by a British guy, so Where's Wally? is the original name. I guess Waldo is a more common name in the U.S. than Wally? I don't here either of them very often, but I'm sure they did some extensive marketing tests that justify it.

A calendar of torture.

Once we were done at the mall, we went back to campus, and I got the spinach and milk that I'd left in the fridge before I moved. The same students I met on my first day at the University were in the kitchen making pancakes for National Pancake Day. They're really fun people, and I'm going to miss living with them.

Stephanie and I also went to the student bookstore to buy our books for class. The lady at the cash register was very helpful with telling us which ones we actually needed as opposed to which ones were more supplementary. My bill came in at about 104 pounds, which was frustrating largely because I couldn't buy anything used, although they do buy your books back from you at the end of the semester. Maybe they were just out of used copies of literally everything I needed. Normally I'd shop for used books online, but I didn't have the time to wait for them to come in because I didn't find out what books I needed until yesterday. Unfortunately, one class required me to get about seven books. They were mostly paperback novels, and there are also a bunch of other readings that I have to dig up throughout the semester. I hope they put them on Succeed (which  is basically Blackboard), but I don't know if that will happen. There are also long lists of suggested readings that worry me because you're not actually supposed to read them all, and I don't know which parts of which ones to look at. But I'm going to figure out which subjects interest me the most and then just read the books on those so I can start outlining my essays. 

Speaking of which, the good news about finals is that I only have to write papers for all my classes except one. The bad news is that that one is has an essay-based exam to be completed in three hours. Ugh, my least favorite kind of assessment. I'm also a little worried by the fact that each class only has two assessments, each worth 50% of the final grade, but at least they are papers for the most part, so I don't have to relearn everything at the end. I really need to start reading soon, and I really don't want to at all.

By the by, I feel like every time I say "little" or "small" I should say "wee" because people here use that word A LOT. You'd think it's just a stereotype, but everyone does it. 

Um, what else? My wristlet strap broke, so now it's just a regular wallet. My bookbag strap broke too, but since it's an over the shoulder bag, I hooked the broken side to the top handles, and that's been working well enough. And I managed to get some internationally-approved stamps on campus, so I didn't have to trek out to the post office in order to mail my postcards.

So that's basically all. It's been both a fun and fruitful day, and tomorrow I'm planning to walk through my classrooms so I know where everything is. I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about having much larger classes, where we're even not supposed to talk, but the smaller group tutorials should help.

Song of the Day (which you should've already guessed):

Better Living

Today can pretty much be summed up in one sentence:

I MOVED INTO AN APARTMENT!!!!!

It was actually the only housing they had open, but it's what I was hoping for, since I heard it's quiet here. I am very, very happy now.
And as it turns out, I already knew like half of the people living in this flat from orientation, and the others whom I hadn't met are very nice too. The room is definitely quieter, which was my #1 reason for moving. I can hear the cars going by, but that doesn't bother me at all, especially not when compared to screaming party kids. And the kitchen is clean with a fridge that actually works (you seriously had to see the old common room kitchen to believe how bad it was; piles of dirty dishes in the still water sink, and there was a mysterious spoon on the counter covered in something green and gross which totally discouraged me from using the toaster behind it). My room is also bigger, or at least appears to be, and everything (ie the furniture and the carpet) is much newer and cleaner. I can also control my heating, so it's not a sauna like my other room was. The only real drawback is that we are responsible for collectively paying for electricity here, but I think we are going to talk to Arcadia about getting reimbursed for that. We're also not right on campus, but the commute is only 5 to 10 minutes, depending on which bus you take. And it's easy because the bus stop is right across the road, and buses come by about every ten minutes. I think this will prove a good starter lesson in teaching me how to commute.

Other than that it wasn't the most eventful day. I mean, the actual moving was pretty eventful because I got up at 8am to talk to residential services, got transferred right away, then had to pack everything up in my room and call a taxi to take me to the apartment off-campus, then go to the concierge to get my key, carry my bags upstairs, and unpack everything again. But after that, I got to relax and hang out with my flatmates before we left for another orientation presentation. I also signed up for my tutorials, which are supplementary to the lectures and consist of about an hour of group discussion. This made me realize that I really need to get my books and start reading them pretty darn soon. But I was only able to access the syllabuses today, so I must not be behind on things.

Anyway, there's not much else to talk about today that would be very interesting, so I'm just going to work on adding stuff to my agenda book now.

Song of the Day (Because I'm finally starting to get into the groove of things):

A Lot to a Little

Wow, I've been having way more trouble finding time to write than I thought I would. I don't know how much I can remember from the past few days, but I'll try to fit in all the interesting parts.

So on Friday, we all visited the Wallace Monument, which is a tower built on top of Abbey Craig (a really big hill). You can see it from pretty much anywhere in Stirling. There's actually a really good view of it from campus because it's just a short walk from the base of the hill to the university entrance. The monument opened in 1869, so there's no elevator, just a narrow spiral staircase with various little rooms on the way up (one of them had some busts of famous Scots, and there was one of the poet Robert Burns donated by Andrew Carnegie, who we all know was devoutly Scottish, ie. CMU's team the Tartans). But the view at the top is really great, and you can see the whole university campus from there. Actually it seems like most of Scotland's highlights are great views, haha.

This is pretty accurately what it looks like in person. It's really striking how it sticks out above the trees.

On a side note, our host families packed us lunch every day we lived with them, and for some reason, I'm really fascinated by the concept of putting butter on sandwiches. Everyone here seems to put a combination of butter and meat or butter and cheese on their sandwiches. It's not that I've never heard of buttering your sandwich, but literally everyone in my orientation group was given a butter-sandwich by their host parents for lunch, so it's apparently a really common thing.  I'm sure some of you don't find this odd at all, but  I personally just found it surprising because I've rarely encountered it at home, and I feel like all of the health nuts I know would find it disgusting. I was alright with it though. It's just one of those little cultural things I hadn't expected.

After looking at the monument, we walked to the University of Stirling and looked around. The campus isn't very big, but it's a little more spread out than Denison. I found my dorm room, which is virtually a closet, but it didn't seem quite as small once I put all my stuff in it (it's much easier to unpack two suitcases compared to a entire car full of stuff for college). And there's a sink right in the room, which is convenient for getting ready in the morning. The kitchen isn't too far away (although it's messier than even the kitchens I've seen at Denison), and the bathrooms are interesting because they're split up into several one-room deals down the hall. Like there is one room with just a toilet and sink, then another room a few doors down with two showers, and then a third with a bath tub. There are about three of each of these units per floor. I'm a little worried about having to wait in line for a shower in the morning, but we'll see how that works out.

My main concern turned out to be the noise issue. I've been saying that I'm living in the Scottish Shorney because the freshmen are SO LOUD, and the noise resonates. The weird thing is that the sound is only bad on my side of the hall. My friend across the hall doesn't have nearly the same problem, and I suspect that's because the building is a C-shape, so the rooms with windows facing the inside of the C get the echo effect.
Also, the walls are cinder block, and something about cinder block carries sound like no other, as I learned during my time in Kappa Sigma. Yet the important difference is that Kappa Sig is generally a very quiet place with no parties, whereas this is freshman housing.
Anyway, the result of this was that I couldn't sleep until about 2am the other night because of the constant yelling and music. I couldn't even focus on reading or any other activities, it was so bad. I know that supposedly it's only like that on weekends, but there are still things like Wasted Wednesday and Thirsty Thursday, and I don't want to take my chances. Partying just isn't my scene, and I want to be able to sleep and study in my room whenever. Tomorrow, I'm going to try talking to residential services and see if I can convince them to let me move. I would most like to live in the off-campus apartments (which are supposedly very quiet and which I didn't have the foresight to sign up for the in the first place), but even a room on the other side of the same building would be better.

Although they're loud, there are nice people here. I ran into some full-time students who live in my building, and they invited me to come to lunch with them and then to go into town, where we visited a few charity shops, a bookstore that was like a British Barnes & Noble, Primark which is basically Forever 21, Marks and Spencer which is a little like a Super Target, and a cool candy store that sells both British and American candy (for a high price, might I add). We ran into this guy on the street who tried to sell us a "monk rock" CD, and he had some bizarre sales pitch with weird compliments, and he said I looked like Jennifer Aniston. Dude has clearly never seen Jennifer Aniston. But he was hilarious, so we all enjoyed that.
I actually spent the whole afternoon with this group of students, and they were surprisingly inclusive and actually talked to me and took me to fun places rather than just leaving me tagging along the whole time. I really appreciated that. If I do end up moving, I hope they don't think it's because of them, because they're really nice and I like them a lot, even though they're crazy freshmen. ;)

Anyway, if I move, I'm going to have to lug some extra some stuff with me because my friend's host mom took us to the British home store and Sainsbury's in town to get some basic groceries and room stuff. I bought some beans, soup, bread, apples, and milk, as well as a couple wall decorations and some really nice but cheap dishes and silverware. I also found Skippy peanut butter, which was exciting. And yes, I do have to mention peanut butter in every single post.

It's that important.

So moving on to today, I was comparatively less active than I've been throughout the past week. I got up at 10am and went to get lunch at the Starbucks on campus (which is something nice that we don't have at Denison), and I got some water which is only about 35 pence at the student grocery store. All bottled water should be that cheap. Actually everything there is surprisingly cheap, and that's also where I got an Ethernet cord for 1.50. The internet on campus is weird because there's wifi in places like the student union, but in the dorms you have to use an Ethernet connection. I've been struggling with trying to use the campus network, until today when I finally got a hold of an IT guy who told me that my computer has been automatically directing me to the wrong network on the log-in screen. So he typed in the right one, and everything was fine. Ugh, such a big hassle for such a tiny problem.

After that, I tried going on a campus tour, but the guides didn't show up. So hopefully I already know where everything I need to find is. Then I did some mandatory orientation presentation and waited in line for way too long to get my student ID card. While in line, I met some girls from Norway, which I want to note is my second favorite accent (next to Scottish and tied with Swedish and Finnish). I also headed over to the fitness center to sign up for a discounted membership, which for some reason I can't activate until I show up at the gym for some induction thing at 8:30 at night. Um, okay.
So I think everything is as ready as it can be for now. I've spent the rest of the day trying to relax in my room and watch some movies. But I feel kind of antisocial because I suddenly don't have anything to do but sit in my room. I figure I'll start doing more once I start rugby and maybe find some other clubs. I got an email saying that the rugby team's first practice is on the 18th, so that will give me time to get new cleats (which I need anyway) and shorts and spandex.

It's kind of loud right now at 9pm, and people aren't even partying. I think part of the reason for that is that there are no RA's here, so there's nobody to tell anyone to shut up, and the porter downstairs probably doesn't hear it or particularly care anyway.

One of the girls on my hall invited me to come with her and the rest of the international students on my floor to a club. I might go just to be social, considering that I probably won't be able to sleep anyway, but it's also possible that I will be too tired to do anything by the time they leave (I'm guessing that will be at 11). If it gets too crazy, I'll catch a taxi back to campus. I have their number in my phone. Always be prepared.

Le Song of Today (because it's the first time I've had an afternoon to relax):

Too Much To Talk About

I've been having a lot of trouble finding the time to blog about what I've been doing, since I've been so busy doing it.  So, again, I’ll have to recap the last couple of days in one post.

On Wednesday morning, we had to pack up all our things and check out of the hotel before 9am, which wasn't too bad.  I accidentally packed my camera though, so, unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures from that day.  But that was alright because we spent most of our time at Arcadia’s study center talking about important stuff we needed to know about going to the University of Stirling. Even though I already knew how different the academic system was from my own research, it was still pretty scary to hear about the specifics.  Apparently, the grading system goes by percentages, but it’s essentially impossible to get a 90% or over because essays at that level are considered academic journal material. So the average score is around 60%, which would be awful in the U.S., but isn't really that bad here. It seems kind of ridiculous and mean to have an unattainable percentage that points out how imperfect your writing is. I mean, what is the point of having a grade that nobody is going to receive anyway? I guess some people might be encouraged by it to do better, but personally, it would just make me feel awful. 

However, the program directors told us that most students do just as well in Scotland as they do at home, and I hope that’s true for me. I’m still not extremely confident in my ability to write a twenty page paper that counts for literally half of my grade, since I have never written one that long before.

There are aspects of the system that I like, however. For example, two of my classes only meet once a week for about fifty minutes, and I have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, totally free. I also get to choose when I want to schedule my tutorial classes, which are kind of supplements to the regular lectures that allow you to ask questions and discuss the material with other students and a teacher, since you aren't supposed to ask questions during the lecture.  Focusing your knowledge on one main thing is also big at British universities, so you get to focus your final paper on something very specific that interests you, although I have a lot of freedom to do that a lot at Denison too, so that’s not totally different for me.  I've heard that you should look up past essay exams at the start of the semester and then start planning your essay right away based on those prompts.  This worries me a bit because, even though the prompts are always almost exactly the same every year, I do not love timed essays, even if I do get three hours.

I think the main reason I'm so apprehensive of the new system is that I'm so used to the way I do things at my own school and don't want to change my habits. But I know that I’m a good student and that I have good writing skills, so even if I don't do quite as well as usual here, I don’t think I will totally fail. I just have to stay up on the reading and writing, and maybe I can even get my papers done way ahead of time.  Apparently, we only have about eleven weeks of class total, and we get the majority of May off for exams, so hopefully I can finish everything early and use that extra time to travel.

On a somewhat related note, the guy who gave us the academic presentation is from South Carolina, but I would never have guessed because his mannerisms seem so British and he has a really strong, rather British accent that he's developed from living here for so long. Moreover, the other Americans who work for the program have slight Scottish accents, which is also interesting. I highly doubt that I'll gain an accent in only four months, but I think I'll at least get better at understanding the thicker accents that I hear.

There was also a presentation about what to expect when living on campus, which wasn't very in depth but was encouraging after the unnerving description of the academics. I found out that I can actually get a discount on gym membership, and since Stirling has a huge, world class gym where the national rugby team has practiced, it should be worth the extra money anyway. I’m also considering joining the University’s women’s rugby club. I’ll have to buy new cleats, spandex, and rugby shorts, but there are a few stores that sell rugby equipment around here, so it should be easier to find everything than it is in the U.S. I’m going to make sure the team actually has a spring season before I buy anything though. I hope they do because I’m really excited to play again and to meet people. Plus, traveling with the rugby team will help me see more of Scotland, so I’ll have an opportunity to go places I might not make it to otherwise.

Anyway, after the presentations, we had some free time for lunch, and I went with some other people to a cheap Indian restaurant, which actually had pretty good food for the price.  After that, we went on a short walking tour of Edinburgh and saw some interesting things like the Greyfriars Cemetery, which is supposedly the most haunted cemetery in the world. I was excited to go there because I'd seen it on Ghost Adventures, a terrible, yet often hilarious show. The cemetery wasn't scary at all, at least in the daytime, although I know you can sign up for ghost hunts at night. It's also associated with a cute, kind of sad story about a little dog called Greyfriars Bobby. After the owner died, the dog waited on his master's grave in Greyfriars every day for him to come back until he eventually died too. I was told that the story isn't true, but there's a statue of the dog and a grave at the entrance where he is supposedly buried.

I've also heard there's a gravestone in Greyfriars that says "Tom Riddle," and that JK Rowling was inspired by it when she was wandering the cemetery as she was writing Harry Potter. The Elephant House where she wrote the first book is right down the road from Greyfriars, but we didn't get to eat there. Our tour guide took us past it and the National Library of Scotland, which contains every book ever published in the UK and has tons of floors that stretch beneath the building. We also saw St. Giles Cathedral and Holyrood Palace where the Queen stays when she visits Scotland. I was frustrated not having my camera with me, but I'll definitely return to Edinburgh at some point, at least to see the National Museum and the underground vaults, so I can take pictures then.  

Holyrood Palace

At the end of the tour, we headed back to the hotel, from which we finally departed for Stirling. When we got there, we met up with our host families, and I ended up staying in a house with two other study abroad students, which made staying with a host family much less awkward. The first thing I noticed when we met the family was that they had a Bichon Frise, and I found out his name was Leo, which is almost Rio, the name of my aunt's Bichon. The family has been really nice so far, although I find it hard to understand what Frances, our host mom, is saying sometimes because she has a surprisingly thick accent and talks very quickly, adding lots of extra words and phrases like "aye," and "right then, that's good." For our first dinner at the house, we ate chicken burgers with baked beans, french fries, and Heinz ketchup. I really enjoyed talking over dinner with Sarah and Bailey, who are other study abroad students I'm living with.

After dinner, we watched TV and found out that Britain broadcasts a lot of American TV shows, way more than I realized the last time I was here. I even found a broadcast of NHL Tonight (though they don't actually have NHL Network), and the moment I turned it on, they were recapping the Penguins vs. Islanders game. After I watched that, we found The King's Speech on TV and talked with our host sister Staci, who's sixteen, about her favorite shows. She watches all of the same reality shows that most American teenagers watch and knows a lot about American pop culture. She's really nice and fun to talk to, and she also told us about the shopping in Stirling and this store called Americandy that sells all kinds of American sweets that you can't buy here normally. I'm definitely making it a point to find that place, although I'll bet everything is stupidly expensive. I also found out there's a record store in Stirling called Europa Music, and it has great reviews online. I'm putting that on my list of must-sees, as well.

We stayed up pretty late talking to Staci, (we still haven't officially met her older sister Stephanie, though she did say hi to us while she was walking through the living room once), so the next day I got tired kind of early. We had cereal for breakfast and then went to visit the Smith Museum, which is dedicated the history of Stirling. It's really small, but I took a lot of pictures anyway to make up for the other day. Afterward, we walked up the hill into town and all the way to Stirling Castle at the end of the road. It was definitely bigger than Edinburgh's, probably because it was used to house royalty rather than just serving as a military post. The views from Stirling are really great, but different than Edinburgh's because Stirling is so rural. Instead of a ton of buildings, we saw more green fields and the snow-covered Highlands in the distance, which were awesome. I really hope I get the chance to get closer to them.

(obviously not my pictures)

The most interesting thing about Stirling Castle is that there's a courtyard that served as the lion's den, meaning that when the royal family received a lion as a gift (which was common in the Middle Ages), they would keep it there.

When we left the castle, we received free Historic Scotland calendars and key chains that had a picture of a famous tapestry from the castle on them. It's from a set of tapestries about a unicorn hunt, which are actually currently at the Met in New York, but they had reproductions hanging in the castle. I learned that together they tell the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. It's cool to read about the symbols used in ancient paintings and tapestries and how the people who lived back then would have immediately recognized the hidden meanings that seem so obscure to us today.

By the way, the unicorn is the official animal of Scotland, and the red lion also pops up a lot too because it's on the alternate flag of Scotland:

The next thing we were supposed to do was visit the Old Jail, but it was closed for some reason, so we all went bowling instead. I was too tired to care much about bowling and honestly would have preferred going to the jail. After the game was over, Bailey, Sarah, and I called our host mom and had her pick us up at the bowling alley.

When we got home, we had mince and tatties, which is a traditional Scottish meal that basically consists of ground beef, carrots, onions, and potatoes (tatties). The potatoes were really good and perfectly cooked. Our host mom told us that we're having lasagna for dinner tomorrow, which is exciting, although I'm also looking forward to cooking my own food when I move into the University.

That's about everything that happened today. Tomorrow we're going to see the Wallace Monument and then to check out the rooms we'll be moving into on Saturday.

Song of the Day (because we're in the country now):

More Tennessee than Scotland, but still.