Saturday, January 7, 2012

Kickin' it in Kilts

The Edinburgh Castle!
These past few days have been crazy! We had orientation pretty much all day Thursday and Friday and then we took a bus tour of Glasgow and a day trip to Edinburgh. I’ll see if I can remember everything that’s happened... although I’m sure I’ll forget something.

Orientation began with a general “Welcome to Glasgow!” presentation. Everyone has so much Glaswegian pride here, it’s great! They always boast about how they’ve basically “invented everything that all you Americans think we don’t have!” The major one I can remember is the television. During orientation they also talked a lot about registering for classes, which is apparently a huge ordeal because they’ve just put in this new system that classifies all exchange students as first-years, meaning we can’t enroll in basically any of the classes. I’ve spent most of my free time recently emailing professors asking for permission to enroll in their classes... fingers crossed everything works out!! Especially since classes start on Monday. Woops?

Orientation also turned out to be a great way to meet people. I’ve met people from all over the world; Australia, France, Italy, Canada, Argentina, some native Scots, and even people from Wisconsin. We’ve been hanging out/eating/wandering around together, and it’s been really interesting to hear about how much different other countries are than what I’m used to!

Glasgow Green - the oldest public park in Glasgow

Prior to the bus tour, I hadn’t really seen much of Glasgow besides what I walk through on my walk to campus: the Botanic Gardens and Byers Road. The bus tour took us all around Glasgow! There are so many parks and fountains, and the buildings are a mixture of modern and old Gothic style.  It’s beautiful! After the bus tour I did some shopping and got more essential items, aka Band-Aids (or plasters, as they’re known here) for my now-blistered feet, and stopped at Starbucks :). They offer different drinks here than they do at home, but it’s still just as delicious!!


The Queen's Palace
Today we went to Edinburgh, and it was AMAZING. Glasgow has a couple of smaller castles, but the Edinburgh Castle is huge and just mind-blowing to look at.  We also saw the Queen’s Palace, Scottish Parliament, and tons of shops!  They really are serious about their kilts here, let me tell you. We must have passed at least 20 stores that specialized in kiltmaking.  In almost every shop we walked into they were playing bagpipe/Scottish remixes of pop songs. In one store they were even playing Ke$ha!! We mostly walked around the Old City because the New City was full of higher-end shops. I just loved looking at all of the architecture and castles. It’s seriously so amazing.


Much to my surprise, I found a Disney store in Edinburgh! Not that I went in it or anything, but I felt it necessary to take a picture. I just can't get away from Disney no matter how far I go... 

Scottish Parliament (left) and some of the tenements 
The Elephant House, where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter!
Bridge connecting the New City and the Old City
Well, I suppose now I should go figure out my class schedule. I’ll put up more pictures on my facebook if you want to see more! Love you!!

Mel

PS - Title credit goes to the one and only Britne Goldstein!

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