"The Tower? The Tower! Rapunzel! Rapunzel"

Stairs down to the Edinburgh train station

First off, a fun fact that Lindsey pointed out to me on the train to Stirling this morning.  Scottish people, unlike Americans, do not give direct answers.  If you ask a Scottish person a question, even one as simple as "hey where is this pub?" or "do you know how to get to the train station?" they tend to keep talking to you until you stop them.  This has been illustrated by the fact that any time I ask for directions (which is often) I somehow end up in a detailed description of why I love California and how I ended up in Edinburgh.  Now usually this is not a problem, like when I went to buy my train tickets to London and I had a lovely conversation with the teller about how much harder American money is than Scottish because in America the sales tax ensures that you never know how much you're paying until you check.  However there are times, such as when I'm sitting in a cafe doing homework or shivering outside in the cold that the Scottish need to make conversation is slightly inconvenient.


Just an observation.

Thursday was our second day in Parliament and this time we got to go to the first minister "question time."  For those of you unfamiliar with question time it is basically a required period once a week when the first minister (the equivalent of the prime minister in the UK) must submit himself to the rest of Parliament to answer questions about the state of the government.  After witnessing this practice in action on Thursday I have to say that question time is by far one of my favorite things any government does.  It's fantastic.  It's basically an excuse for the opposition parties to drill into the first minister and put him on the defensive.  And for those who say that the British are unemotional and detached, seriously go to question time, it's like a football game.  The opposition party will jeer and boo at the things the first minister says and everyone basically just argues their positions for an hour and a half.  Favorite quote of this particular question time: "Well that was just bloody rubbish.  You didn't answer my question at all."  Seriously most fantastic thing ever.

"Build Me Up Buttercup" is now officially my jam

Thursday night a bunch of us ended up at this pub called Biddy Mulligans (so Scottish I know) which may be my new favorite place to go.  The place was really close to my flat and they played the best assortment of music.
If you have never danced to "ABBA's "dancing queen" in a pub you have not lived. They also had karaoke there which was a little intimidating at first but after a few drinks I was convinced to participate.  Luckily I had Daniel and Lindsey with me for support.

On Saturday a bunch of us decided to go to Stirling for the day.  Stirling is the sight of James VI's coronation, Mary Queen of Scots childhood home and the location of one of William Wallace's a.k.a Braveheart's major victories.  We got up early and took the train to Stirling.  Its about an hour away and I have to say that if it was possible to travel by train everywhere I would totally do it.  They're just so fun and easy. Once we got to Stirling we walked around a creepy cemetery for a while (I still don't understand why there are pyramids and obelisks all over medieval British cemeteries but for some reason there are) Then we got tickets to go to the castle which was much more substantial and awesome than I originally thought. Stirling castle had all these really cool tunnels and nooks that you could explore.  I really felt like I was living a scene from Braveheart or Lord of the Rings or something. Pretty epic.

Stirling Castle Great Hall

Us in front of the statue of Sir Robert the Bruce

After walking around the castle for a few hours (in the freezing cold weather I might add-I've really started building up my endurance) we spent the rest of the day just chilling in a pub and then did a little shopping in a local mall (Scottish malls are shockingly similar to American ones, definitely a nice little homesickness cure).

ClamShells amazing fried food display

Our final stop for the night was a restaurant called ClamShells.  ClamShells is basically this incredible place on the royal mile in Edinburgh where all they serve is fried food.  Like seriously, just fried food.  They have fried cheeseburgers, fried apples, fried mars bars (a Scottish specialty and my choice for the evening) and basically anything else you can think of.  And, on top of that, they let you bring in any other type of food you want and they'll fry it for you!!!!  

"The Trouble With Poet is How Do You Know Its Deceased?"

First of all I want to inform you all that after losing my sense of smell, sounding like a man all week and excessive self-medication I am no longer sick.  Thank god.  It was a such a downer being in one of the most incredible cities in the world and unable to get out of bed without coughing up a lung.

Anyways, illness aside its been a pretty exciting few days.  Sunday I was still a little sick, but I managed to drag myself out of bed and make it across the bridge into new town so that I could see a little more of the city and run some errands.  For those of you who don't know the city of Edinburgh is divided into old town and new town.  Old town has been around since like the foundation of Scotland and new town started growing in the late 18th century so it really isn't that new, but I guess in Scotland the standards of age are slightly different than we're used to in America.  Now when I say divided I don't mean divided by just a little street or sign or anything.  Edinburgh old town and new town are separated by a huge ravine (which is now where the trains travel through) and beautiful parks on either side.  The only way to get across to either old town or new town is to cross one of the beautiful bridges that spans the length of the ravine.  Once over the bridge you're in the other part of town.

View of new town from old town and the train station below

 I live in old town Scotland about five minutes from the center of the university.  From what I've seen the entirety of the University of Edinburgh is in old town.  Also in old town is Parliament (where I'll be working), the Queen's palace at Holyrood, Arthur's seat, the Edinburgh castle and most of the more famous tourist sites.  However, new town has a lot to offer too.  Its much more modern with better known stores and it still has plenty of amazing places to see.

Sunday night I met some friends at one of the pubs to watch the football games.  A surprising amount of Scottish pubs were showing the games (probably because of all the Americans in Edinburgh) which was very exciting.  Unfortunately however a vast amount of people in these pubs were also Packers fans which was quite depressing considering my current anger towards all things Green Bay. We were joined for the football watching by two of our friends from Spain who found the whole experience very amusing.  Both of them kept making comments about how many breaks were in the game and couldnt understand why the players didn't "just play straight through" a quarter.  Of course we all enjoyed their comments and did our best to set them straight.

Proof I ate Haggis!!!!

Monday I had class in the morning which was a struggle considering I was still hacking and unable to talk, but I managed to get through that and spent the rest of my afternoon sleeping off my pain.  That night I felt good enough to attend the traditional Burns Supper I had rsvped to the week before. 

Now, the details of a Burns Supper definitely require some explanation.  Robert Burns is Scotland's most famous poet (and the inspiration for the title of my blog)  and they basically idolize him so every year in his honor they hold a "Burns Supper" which is a traditional Scottish meal interspersed with poetry and cultural experiences. Pretty much every international student's dream.  We got tickets through one of our teachers and a bunch of us from the program went to the dinner.  Once there I immediately felt out of place given my lack of a kilt, ability to bagpipe, or knowledge of whiskey brands.  However it was out of place in a good way and the whole experience was simply fantastic.  We toasted, recited traditional scottish poetry, ate haggis, neeps and tatties, listened to a fifteen minute toast to women in power (clearly one of my favorite parts of the evening) and just had a long night of drinking, eating, and fun all in honor of Robert Burns.  Before I went to the meal one of my English friends told me that it was the Scots way of brainwashing people to be obsessed with Burns, and maybe she was right because it totally worked.  I am a huge Robert Burns fan now ;)

Tuesday we had class in the morning and then went to Parliament for the first time! Our program just had a normal tour of the building, but at the end we got to sit in on one of the committee meetings of the day.  This was both a good and bad experience.  Good because we got to see the process up close and really experience the type of stuff we're going to be working on once we start our parliamentary internships.  Bad because the committee meeting was on finance and once I hear the words revenue, interest rate and savings accounts I'm already fading, but add a recent illness, scottish accents, and a hot room and I'm gone.  The whole thing was filmed for the Scottish version of C-span so lets just hope that me struggling to not fall asleep didn't air to the entirety of the Scottish population...

Today we went to the National Gallery of Art where I saw some amazing paintings including ones by Vermeer, Botticelli, Raphael and DaVinci.   Apparently the DaVinci one had been stolen from the museum a couple years back and now has all this added high tech security around it.  I totally had a Thomas Crown Affair moment trying to figure out all the tricks to protecting it but in the end I figured art theft was just a bit out of my league...

That's all for now but I hope you all made it through this insanely long post!

P.S.- those paying attention may have noticed I've taken to giving my posts titles from movie quotes that I think fit.  Extra points to whoever can tell me what movie this tricky one is from! (hint its not really a movie but a movie musical ;)

"Life Moves Pretty Fast, if You Dont Stop And Look Around Once In A While You May Miss It"

So I've been in Edinburgh a little over a week now but it already feels like much longer.

On Wednesday we had class in the morning.  The class was Scottish Society and Culture and is taught by this fantastic man named Paddy who could easily pass for Santa Claus considering the size of his tummy and length of his beard.  After class everyone in the program went to the People's Museum of Scotland.  This may sound cool but if you are ever in Edinburgh I advise you to skip it.  The entire place is filled with creepy fake people who look like real ones out of the corner of your eye and freak you out when you turn around quickly.... Fortunately however we discovered the activities room that was fully equipped with enough coloring supplies to make me forget about the scary fake people around me.

Coloring in the Activities Room

Wednesday night was the USC pub crawl for all the students studying abroad in Edinburgh.  This event is possibly one of the best USC activities I have ever been to. Basically our adviser hired this Edinburgh writer to give us a "literary tour" of the city punctuated by brief stops in various pubs.  The tour was incredible and the guide knew so many great stories about some of Edinburgh's most famous writers.  I saw the building where Sir Walter Scott carved his initials, the place where Arthur Conan Doyle was inspired to create Sherlock Holmes and the building where J.M. Barry studied while living in Edinburgh.  I also got my first taste of what our tour guide called "The Scottish Drunk" when a random 70-year-old man came up to me and told me not to tell his daughter that he thought I was prettier than her......I clearly did not have a response and proceeded to run and hide behind Lindsey. 

After the tour we went to a really nice dinner where our adviser told us "Order whatever you want, appetizers, dessert, drinks, USC's paying for all of it."  Now obviously if you say something like this to a bunch of hungry college students you can't exactly expect self-control so needless to say 4 appetizers, 2 bottles of wine, 1 main dish and 6 desserts later I think we all felt like we got our money's worth or at least put our tuition to good use...

Molly and I taking advantage of USC's lovely generosity

On Thursday we toured the Scotland National Library with our program.  Obviously I love libraries so I was already excited about this activity but it turns out the Scotland National Library is much more spectacular than anything I could have imagined.  It's one of those really old fancy buildings that you just know has been there forever. I'm pretty sure that our tour guide was very worried that all the loud Americans were going to destroy priceless artifacts and thus removed us of all possible liquids and writing tools that we could use to ruin some piece of history. 

Thursday night we had our whiskey tasting which was quite the experience.  Martin, our activities leader takes his whiskey quite seriously which means that he was rather appalled that my whiskey knowledge was limited to Jack Daniels.  He set out to correct that immediately and thus somehow I ended up sipping a "whiskey neat" (a.k.a no ice) and swirling it around in my glass to test the quality.  It really stinks I don't like whiskey more cause I definitely feel that if I did I would be leaving Edinburgh as quite the expert.

I had big plans to tour the city this weekend and see all the sites that I haven't been able to visit yet, unfortunately however it seems my body is rebelling against my decision to live in freezing temperatures and I've been sick the past few days.  Obviously being sick sucks in general, but it especially sucks when you have the entire landscape of Scotland outside your window and you cant find the energy to get out of bed.  I did manage to make it to Tesco (the Scottish grocery store) today and got some medicine so hopefully ill be feeling better tomorrow.  Some of my friends are planning to go to a pub and watch some of the football games and obviously i would be very sad if i missed that.

Talk to you guys again soon!

"The Stuff That Dreams Are Made of"

The past few days have been getting increasingly colder but they've also been getting increasingly more exciting so I'm doing my best to ignore the cold and just live up being in Scotland! Of course that strategy would be a lot easier if there weren't Scottish people running around acting like it's eighty degrees outside.  Seriously.  The other day I saw a girl wearing shorts! I mean i know the sun is out and that's rare and everything but come on...

Anyways, cold aside I've been having an amazing few days! Monday was my orientation and I can already tell that this program is going to be one of the best experiences of my life.  Of course I was a little concerned when I left Monday morning, because up until that point the only thing I'd heard about what I needed to do was "show up at 10 a.m. on Monday the 17th."  This wasn't nearly enough information for me to be happy, but considering I'm on the other side of the world I didn't really complain.  So on Monday morning Lindsey and I headed over to the government building where we were supposed to meet.  We of course got lost along the way but fortunately we wound up in a children's nursery where they were very friendly and spoke slowly so we could understand where we were going.  We finally made it to the orientation and that's when the fun started.

Me outside the government office on my first day of school!

There are 22 people in my program from all over the United States.  We have a lot of northeastern students, a couple from Ol' Miss and even one who goes to school in Canada. Everyone is so nice and I'm looking forward to getting to know them all.  After we settled in and drank the (very welcome) customary tea and biscuits the orientation began.  Basically the way my program's set up we have five weeks of class, then a two week transition period, then our internship with the parliament begins for ten weeks. However, since this is an election year (which is pretty fortunate for us considering elections in the UK usually only happen once every five years) once Parliament dissolves we start campaigning with our MSP for his or her reelection.  Words cannot describe how excited I am for the political internship part of my program to begin.

For now I'm taking Scottish Society and Culture, Scottish Politics and Politics of the UK, and all three classes are really interesting and fun.  The only downside is that since we're only taking class for five weeks the classes are very fast-paced and intense.   It's only my first day and I already have two midterm assignments due in two weeks!

After orientation we had a break for lunch so a bunch of us headed out together.  We ate yummy Italian food and I discovered that in Scotland it is not obligatory to tip waiters, cab drivers, or anyone unless you truly consider the service to be exceptional.  Instead, in Scotland, the wages of service employees is simply more.  Considering I had been tipping for the past few days I was both slightly embarrassed and very glad to know this information. 

After lunch we had our first class, Politics of the UK.  It was really interesting and made me really happy that I had taken A.P. Government in high school since I had a basic knowledge of UK politics and thus everything was much easier to understand.  After class I went to get my student ID card and got to walk through the University of Edinburgh campus for the first time.  All I can say is that this is hands down the most beautiful city I've ever been to.  The campus looked like something out of Harry Potter (and considering the amount of inspiration J.K. Rowling got from Edinburgh it its very possible that this was something out of Harry Potter) and all of the beauty definitely made my travels significantly slower and slightly more hazardous to others.

Later that night I met up at one of the local pubs with some of the people from my program.  It was pretty funny to see the expression on some of the Scottish people's face when a bunch of loud Americans showed up.  I never really thought that American's were that loud, but after comparing our table with the tables of other normal people it was pretty clear where the stereotype comes from.  It was really fun getting to know everyone and later that night we all went out together so I got to see more of the city and meet some interesting people.  One of the girls in my program, Emily, is an ADPi from Villanova which we got very excited about when we discovered and were probably slightly obnoxious about it for the rest of the night.  Another guy, Jake, is from Rome, Georgia which I never expected, and we quickly bonded over our mutual southern heritage (although just for the record he is much more southern than me and actually has an accent).

Today I had class in the morning and then we met our 'activities mentor," a really cool graduate student from Germany who's job is to basically take us on cultural experiences in Edinburgh in the afternoons.  Tomorrow we're going to the National Library and Thursday night we are doing a whiskey tasting!

So as of right now everything's looking pretty good.  I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow or any day after that but its just so exciting to be here in a completely new place living a life I always dreamed about but never thought I'd actually get to experience.  I cant wait to see what the next few days bring but knowing Scotland they definitely wont be boring!

"I've Always Depended on the Kindness of Strangers"

So I've been in Edinburgh for 3 days now and I already love the city.  You can walk everywhere, there are pubs on every street corner, the stores are so much more unique and fun than anything in America and the people are some of the nicest I have ever met.

I landed in Edinburgh around 8 a.m. and since I obviously couldn't sleep on the plane  I was almost comatose by the time I got in the cab.  Fortunately my cab driver was this amazing guy who basically gave me an audio tour of the city as we drove.  Did you know that anything younger than 400 years old is considered a new building in Scotland?? Its insane, the United States didn't even exist 400 years ago! The friendly cab driver also told me his life story.   Apparently he runs a successful golf tour company in Scotland (he named all these famous golf courses that I obviously had never heard of, so I don't think I represented America's golf enthusiasm well, oops) and this company is very profitable for him, but he drives a cab because he loves meeting people and traveling around the city.  I was in awe.  Like seriously can you picture a cab driver in L.A. or New York that just does it for fun??


Once I got to my flat I realized I had no idea where I was going so I wandered around with my massive suitcase for five minutes until a construction worker at the building next door took pity on me and asked if I knew where I was going.  When I tell him what I'm looking for, he kindly takes my biggest suitcase from me and walks me the block to the accommodation office.  Seriously, favorite person ever.

After dragging all my bags up two flights of stairs (hardest thing I've ever done), trying my key in the wrong flat door for ten minutes and struggling with the door handle on mine (the handles all open the other way here which is very weird) I managed to make it into my flat.  It's a five-person flat and we all have single rooms and share a common area, kitchen and bathroom.  I love it, and my flatmates are all so nice.  Heather is from Yorkshire, Alex from Glasgow, Emily from some place in England that I currently can't remember and Victoria is from Miami. They had all arrived before me and were nice enough to take me to some of the local stores to get the necessities.

My room!

                                                              

I pretty much spent all of my first day in Edinburgh sleeping as I am totally not one of those people that can pretend jet lag is all mental and just ignore it (Julia Nethero I'm looking at you), but that night I ended up hanging out with a lot of American students from all over the country.  The plan was to go to a party the international society was throwing, but I was so excited about the 18 year-old drinking age I didn't actually think I needed an ID to get into the pubs since I'm obviously 18.  Like clockwork I was asked for my id as soon as we got to the door.  So after walking all the way to Malone's Pub I was forced to turn around and go back to my flat because of a rookie mistake.  I was a bit upset, but luckily I had made friends with the Americans and they were nice enough to walk me back.

That night, about half an hour after I fell asleep, I awoke to the scariest sound ever.  It turns out someone had pulled the fire alarm and we had to exit the building.  Needless to say I was quite grumpy as it turns out that anytime a fire alarm goes off in Scotland the fire department is legally required to come and check it out.  Can you imagine if the LAPD had to come every time a fire alarm went off at USC?? I think we'd all be arrested.  But the fire department arrived in like under five minutes which I found very impressive but apparently is pretty standard, and the firefighters were once again SO nice.  They actually thanked us for waiting on them! I was in shock considering we were the ones who made them get out of bed at one in the morning.

On Tuesday I got up late and then met up with Lindsey to do a little shopping.  Her roommate Hannah took us to PoundStretcher, a.k.a the best store ever.  It pretty much saved me as far as room supplies go.  We then went to the grocery store where Lindsey and I bought our first ever bottle of wine.  It was great handing the cashier my ID that says under 21 all over it and it not mattering!  Unfortunately however, on my walk back one of my bags split and the wine broke all over the sidewalk :(  However a random guy on the street saw it all happen and came over and helped me clean up and then threw the bag away for me. Just another example of how nice Scottish people are.

So after the minor wine incident Lindsay and I went to dinner at this really yummy tapas place where we were given a free meatball dish by the waiter.  Clearly Scotland knows the way to my heart.
That night I went out with Lindsey's flatmate Hannah and some of the guys from across the hall.  It was an incredibly fun night and I was introduced to Scottish cider (my new favorite drink), British dance clubs (so packed and awesome), and cheesey chips with gravy ( fries smothered in cheese and covered in gravy, I am now addicted).

All in all its been a pretty incredible two days.  I cant wait to start my program on Monday but until then I'm looking forward to more Scottish adventures!!!

"A Tale Never Loses In The Telling"

Tonight is my last night in America so I felt it was an appropriate time to start my study abroad blog. If all goes well this time tomorrow ill be on a plane headed for Edinburgh!!!

Originally I planned on being very productive today. I wanted to run all those last minute errands that I still needed to do before I left.  However, I probably should have realized that starting a trip that is supposed to be a spontaneous and wild adventure with a detailed plan would never work. Of course those thoughts never occurred to me until I woke up this morning to find the ground still covered with eight inches of snow.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of snow in Atlanta allow me to educate you.  In Atlanta it snows at most twice a year, and when it snows it usually doesn't reach more than 2 or 3 inches.  Because of this severe lack of winter weather the city of Atlanta has decided that snowplows are a useless investment and it is more cost effective to not clear the roads and just allow the city to shut down for a day.  Now, when I was in school here this was great.  Even the mere threat of snow would warrant school and work to be canceled and I could spend the day sleeping, eating and watching T.V. However, the snowstorm that hit on Monday was not quite that enjoyable.  Apparently this is the most snow the city has had in a decade and the department of transportation has thus requested that everyone stay off the roads and inside the house.  So, alas, for the past two days I have been literally trapped inside my home.

Now, the Gorelick house is a stressful place to be before any trip, so you can only imagine the sheer magnitude of anxiety caused by preparing me for my 4 month stay in Scotland.  Considering that no one could leave the house escape the chaos, I have to give a big shout-out to my mom and dad for not killing me nor each other during our two day incarceration. Fortunately no deaths occurred in the preparation for my departure and somehow (I'm still not really sure how we did it) my mom and I managed to pack an entire 4 months worth of clothes into one bag.

 So now here I am, obviously unable to sleep because of the massive amount of emotions running through me.  I'm so excited to leave, but I'm also so sad to be saying goodbye to everyone for so long! I just cant believe that its finally time for me to leave and that this time tomorrow I'll be in an entirely different country! Hopefully after my ten hours of flying I'll still be this excited, but considering my inability to sleep on planes I have my doubts.

Anyways this post is far too long considering i havent even left for the airport yet (lets hope that goes well, you never know considering the precarious state of the non-snowplowed Atlanta roads), but hopefully ya'll made it through!

I'll write again soon from across the pond(!!)