My Semester In Scotland

Thursday Feb 28 I boarded a plane bound for London. The only plans in concrete were where I was staying for the night. For the first time in my life, I planned my own plane tickets, hotel reservations and what I was going to do when I got to my destination. Looking back at it, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Day 1

So I landed in London at 22:30 and then proceeded to take a hour long train and then finally a ten minute tube ride to my hostel. It was a beautiful old victorian home that had been turned into a great little place to stay. It was clean, safe and best off it had free breakfast. The next morning I got up and hit the city early. I started at St. James’ Cathedral. I actually found it to be more beautiful than Westminster Abby (later that day). There was a sign outside the building that said there had a been a church at that location since 604A.D. Crazy! Next I took the tube to see London Bridge. As I got closer to the bridge, it was this plain road across the river. Nothing special about it and I was all confused. I looked down the river to see the famous Tower Bridge which was the one I was actually looking for. I walked across it and took all sorts of pictures looking at it and then from it looking down the river. It was beautiful. The hostel I was staying at had all sorts of free maps so I took one. As Im standing on the Tower Bridge, I pulled out my map and said to myself.. what next? I decided to head to Westminster and check out the House of Parliament and Westminster Abby. Again, down into the tube (good thing I bought the day pass) and popped up out of the underground station looking up at Big Ben. Of course I have seen pictures of it in history books but to actually see the clock and the House of Parliament in person was just amazing. As I walked around the outside of the building I came across the fancy entrance where all the important people get to go into. I went up to one of the guards and asked if they did tours of the building. She informed me that unless I had a family member who worked in there I could not get in. Disappointed I started to walk away when she said to me, “We do have a live debate in the House of Commons today if you want to go to it.” My face lit up. She brought me through security where I was practically strip searched and then was lucky enough to stand in line for forty five minutes. Finally I was brought up a winding staircase through one of the towers of the building where I went through another metal detector… just in case they missed my 9mm on the first time through. I then proceeded into the big room known better as the House of Commons. It was the most moving thing I did on my trip. If you know me well, I am very active in my student government at home where I have served as Vice President of the student body and parliamentarian. During that position I had to familiarize myself with parliamentary procedure which I got to see put into action during my trip to London. Even better, the topic was a good one. They were discussing who should be monitoring the internet and movies put out for the public. One side argued that it should be the government while the other side thought it should be a private company. It was so much fun.

I then got in touch with the three girls I knew who were also in London. We met up for lunch in a little cafe and all proceeded to go to Madam Tussaud’s Wax Museum. It was the neatest place. It had statues of so many famous people. I saw everyone from the Beatles to the Pope to Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Queen to Sameuel Jackson and many many more. After the wax museum we went to the British Museum where I saw the Rosetta Stone! There was everything from pieces of the Parthenon to art from Greece to Egyptian mummies. It was overwhelming all the artifacts that was there. I could have spend two days there. Now mind you this was all done Friday. That night I went out for some Thai food and crashed in my hostel. An exhausting day one.

Day 2

Yet another early morning and crazy busy day. I started with the National Gallery which was yet another very overwhelming place. For each artists I mention there was one room full of each of their work; Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh, Seurat, Da Vinci and many more. I saw Sunflowers by Van Gogh, Bathers at Asni√®res by Seurat, Bathers at La Grenouill√®re by Monet, The Virgin of the Rocks by Da Vinci and so many others! It was breathtaking. After spending hours there I had lunch in the middle of St. James park which is situated directly in front of Buckingham Palace. I slipped on my iPod and just relaxed for a while taking in everything. From there I went to the mounted guards house where I took some pictures of the uniformed British guards. It was better than nothing since I missed the changing of the guards that morning. Next I moved on to Harrods where I purchased the most expensive gelato of my life and was looking for a nice wool coat which is popular over here. I found a beautiful one until I looked at the price… it was 999 pounds! Thats $2,000!! I quickly left there and headed to the London Eye where I took the largest ferris wheel ride of my life. Each capsule like room carried up to fifteen people and it went high above the city. I went during sunset and I got some great pictures of the House of Parliament and looking down the river both East and West. It was beautiful. Finally that night I went to Victoria where I saw Wicked. The seats were amazing… fourth from the balcony. All of the actors and actresses did a great job and the pit orchestra sounded wonderful. My only complaint was that the audience didn’t laugh at half of the jokes made in the play. I was the only one laughing and found myself looking like an idiot. Oh well… I had fun!

Sunday morning I woke up early… again… and caught a train from Liverpool St. to Stansted Airport 45 minutes away. Unfortunately the Liverpool station was closed due to construction and I had to take a bus to the next station which put me thirty minutes behind schedule. I squeeked into the flight terminal just in time and was the third to last person to board the plane. It was a close one but the flight was great and as we decsended into Edinburgh I had a flashback of how excited I was when I did the exact same flight pattern one month before when I was flying into Edinburgh to start my four and a half month journey there. It was a great feeling to look back at how much I had done since I had gotten here and it just reminded me how fortunate I was to be experiencing such an amazing time in my life.

This weekend has been packed full of fun. Friday I went shopping with a few friends downtown. The first stop was the Edinburgh Woolen Store. It has been so cold here that I had wanted to buy a scarf. There were so many to choose from… unfortunately many of them were pink or purple or very bright. Not quite my style. I found a very nice black and white cashmere one. It makes all the difference when the wind is howling at a nice calm 40 mph. It has been so strong at times that you cant move any further forward and it just pushes you back. Its nuts. Saturday was an afternoon trip to the Edinburgh zoo. It is situated on the side of a hill outside of town and overlooks the city. There was everything from six different species of monkeys to hippos to deer (like Ive never seen one of those) to my favorite… penguins! There were hundreds of penguins. We ended up closing the park and found us all by ourselves alone in the middle of the penguin exhibit. Ooops! That night I went to the cinemas and saw Definitely, Maybe. It was of course a chick flick but a decent one. Now I’m sure your asking yourself… what exciting thing did he do Sunday? Well today I am doing laundry and studying as electrifying as that sounds. I am looking forward to my London trip this upcoming weekend. I will be flying down Thursday night out of Edinburgh and meeting a few friends there. We are planning to take in some of the sights and go see the show Wicked. I am so excited. I will be sure to post all the details when I get back next Sunday.¬†

By popular demand (my mother) I have been asked to post these two funny little stories. They both demonstrate some interesting cultural differences between the US and Scotland.

Short Story #1 – Before I came on my trip I received many publications from Napier about my housing situation including many rules and regulations that were different between the US and Scotland. I opened the housing lease and a pamphlet fell out that said “Don’t forget to buy a TV license”. I said to my family… I need a license to watch TV??? What am I getting myself into? Sure enough, this past week I just got a letter in the mail telling me that I was being investigated by the UK government for not owning a TV license at my place of residence. It was very official looking and described exactly what the rules were and that if I did not buy a license I would be fined 1,000 pounds! Come to find out after looking into the law more carefully, the license is merely the cost of connecting to the cable jack in my room. It stands in place of having to pay a Comcast or other cable company. I called the TV licensing department and informed them that I did not have a TV and they said they would drop the investigation. The part you should know is that every student at Napier received one of these letters and we all get to be lucky enough to call and dispute the investigation. Crazy!

Short Story #2 – During orientation week we had a housing meeting where we had to sign our lease and collect our keys. During the presentation we got the normal… don’t play with fire extinguishers, don’t tamper with smoke detectors etc. etc. The next slide was titled “Unacceptable Behaviors”. One of the bullet points of the slide said… Don’t be anti-social… you will be fined heavily!! At this point I’m thinking you have got to be kidding me. Every American student in the room looked at each other as if to say this has got to be a joke. There is no way they can fine you for being in your room alone and not socializing. So one brave soul raises his hand and asked… would you please define antisocial behavior? The woman giving the lecture looked at him funny and replied that antisocial behavior is being loud and disruptive when you were drunk or having a party at 3AM when other residents were trying to sleep. All of the Americans at one time went Oh! Again the woman looked puzzled and asked what we thought antisocial was. Someone shouted out what the American meaning of antisocial was. We all had a good laugh at that one and still from day to day will say to a fellow roommate who has been in their room a while to not be antisocial or we might have to fine them heavily!