Land of the Highland Cows, Loch Ness, Scotch, and Cashmere

Guid eenin!

One of the gorgeous views while on the train

No I didn't just horribly misspell good evening, but that's how the Scots speak! :) I've just spent about two half days and a night in EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND! I still have to pinch myself once in a while to make sure I'm not dreaming...but I'm not! God is so amazing, he's giving me opportunities of a lifetime like studying a year at York, and getting to travel all over! Just hopping on a train for less than 3 hours gets me to another country!!

      
                                                                                  

Edinburgh Central Youth Hostel

My study abroad program, UCEAP, put together a Scottish Thanksgiving and Ceildh event for all the UC American students studying abroad in the UK/Ireland. They even paid for our hostel, dinner, and reimbursed a little for our travel to Edinburgh with Scottish pounds!

Dustin and I arrived at our hostel with enough time to check out a pub before the Thanksgiving event. Being the first hostel experience for me, I was expecting the worst with the movie Taken being illustrated into a hostel!! It definitely wasn't bad and was decent accomodation! We just dropped off our things and went to the Elm Bar, not too far from our hostel to order a Scottish lager each, Tennents. I'm definitely not a drinker and have no experience from the States, so I had only managed to dent my drink before Dustin helped me 
finish it! Whoops! 

Soon enough, we went back to the hostel to get ready to be picked up in style by the Big Red Buses provided for us! The actual venue is called the Castle Hub, because it's really close to the Edinburgh Castle. It's used for lots of major events and was very fancy! I also caught up with some friends from UCI and others I met from orientation. Dustin and I got to try another traditional Scottish drink, the Drambuie. It's a liquer made with aged whiskeys, honey, and a secret recipe of herbs and spices. It's suppose to be "the drink that satisfies." Oh my, it was very very strong and full of flavor, so in the long run it was a nice experience, but not enough for me to try it again...

Iris, Lilla, Michelle, and I

                         Dustin and I tasting our Drambuie

We had a really nice Thanksgiving Dinner with turkey, chestnut and apricot stuffing, buttered string beans, boiled potatoes, sweet potato mash, bread, and gravy. Dessert was a chocolate tart with cream and raspberry coulis. 

After that, the program went straight into the traditional Scottish dances, the Ceidlhs! We usually need a partner or two to go to the dancefloor and await directions on how to perform each dance! It was really chaotic since there were over a hundred students bouncing about to something they have never done! You end up swinging with many many different partners, sweating a lot, but all in all, having a big hoot of a time doing Scottish dances! 





 Dancing the Ceidlhs! 








We called it a night afterwards but I woke up really early at 7:30am so that I could eat breakfast quickly, then explore the Royal Mile with Dustin. Nothing was really open until 9:30-10am and we were celebrating Armistice Day (Veteran's Day) in Scotland! They have many people in Scottish uniform, memorial services going on, and many red poppies. After searching a bit for Royal Mile (famous tourist street in Edinburgh), we were able to visit some tourist shops so I was able to pick up mini scotch whiskey bottles, a small bottle of Drambuie for the housemates, malt whiskey fudge, scottish terrier shaped walkers shortbread, an Edinburgh t-shirt, and postcards! FINALLY, we reached Edinburgh castle! That was a very exciting moment because Dustin and I didn't really have a plan to explore because we had so little time before our 10:55am train, but we found the Royal Mile, saw some sights, AND saw the castle! It was absolutely breath-taking! I really hope to see more castles, but it was so wonderful to see my first one in Scotland! 

View of the city from the castle! 

                              
                                   

Edinburgh Castle




Weather: A bit frosty but bearable!

All in all, a wonderful short trip to Scotland, wish I could have saw more of Scotland! Nevertheless, many more adventures to come, so stay tuned! :) Continuing to thank my Father up above for the blessings in my life, never cease to thank and praise him!!

Guid night an sweit dreams

Cheers!

xxx

It's Week 5 and I'm Stayin' Alive!

Sorry for a really late update, but a lot has been going on lately! Classes are definitely picking up with lab practicals to attend, mice to dissect, blood samples to examine, and species to compare. We got to tour the technology facility in the Biology department and saw a lot of expensive equipment worth over £600,000!! I would not want to be that student who brings a cup of water in the limited access rooms...and you know what would happen next.  

<---My partner Jacyln from Singapore and I in our lab coats


I also bought a lot of flashcards, markers, and other supplies to start on that study grind since my India trip will be stealing half my revision time away from me! I'm hoping to use those flashcards whenever I have free time in India (how little it may be...) At York Uni, every 1st and 2nd year student is assigned a tutorial group with a lecturer to learn study/research skills, so I was able to join one for this year. I have a German lecturer, Dr. Julia Ferrari, who also teaches one of the modules I'm in so it's a great chance to get to know one of my lecturers personally! I of course assumed she was Italian...but she told me everyone assumes that as well haha. She's a very good lecturer and has high expectations in our tutorial group (of about 3-4 students). We've already had to do a short presentation on bacterial symbionts, and now I have an essay due Monday for it as well! I'm at a bit of a disadvantage from the other more experienced English students, so I'm going to have to work harder to achieve good marks/feedback from Dr.Julia.


Secret Santa: My lovely housemates and I picked secret santa out of Emma's peter pan hat this week so we have until Week 10 to get presents for our secret santas! We recently did a housemate walk to the closest pub to our college, Charles XII. The food was really cheap and not bad quality! Drinks weren't too expensive either, so I can imagine why the pub was packed to the brim. I'm still not a fan of alcohol, but minuscule amounts in drinks like flavored ciders I like! It tastes like soda to me :)

Emma's mum came from Manchester to see Emma and brought Marieke, Emma, and I to the York Designer Outlets for half a day to walk around and get lunch! We had yummy bagels, mcflurries, but didn't get too much shopping done. It was a good bonding experience anyways and were too afraid to shop for our secret santats together since we can't tell each other! haha. We did see one of the most horrendous works of dresses ever though....

 

                Nao in the nurse's room

Another day when I had a day off, I took my housemate Nao to the St John's Hospital near the city centre because he sprained his ankle badly from football. He could barely walk by himself so we took the taxi together. We had to wait two hours to get Xrays and his ankle examined...but get this, EVERYTHING WAS FREE! They even let him borrow crutches for free as well! Perks of a NHS!

Emma and I have been going to weekly Tuesday Christian Union (CU) meetings for small group and it's been great! We've looked into passages of Luke about God showing his power and remembering everything points to God's power. We've each received this AMAZING little book to study Luke with friends and share the gospel with them! We're hoping to get some of our housemates involved to just share about our faith together.

http://uncover.org.uk/start

Weather update: a couple weeks ago IT SNOWED FOR A NIGHT! in OCTOBER!!! WOW. I was flabbergasted. and yes my face is so timely covered with a snowflake.

Other that that, it's been quite windy and chilly. Today was just an exception and we had a bit of sunshine! It gets very dark by 4pm as well...yikes!

This coming weekend I'll be heading off to Edinburgh for two half days and a night with Dustin, a friend from UCEAP who also studies at York. Next blog update will be that hopefully! :)

Cheers!

xxx