"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!