Term Two In Full Swing!

So our new arrivals for the second term of SUISS arrived yesterday, and us older kids, or six-weekers got to finally meet everyone at the arrival party last night. The fact that there are now twice as many of us has changed things a lot. There used to be a very intimate feeling to the SUISS program since there were like 30 of us all together, but now, it's hard to remember whose in the program and who isn't, who you've met and who you haven't.

I haven't quite connected with the second term students the way I have with my friends from first time, although it's only been one night. But I think it's a little harder to relate to them and there seems to be this new bond between the six weekers because we all went through an experience together, and the new people are going through that experience now.

I've always known that friends are about quality and not quantity, so if I walk out of here in three weeks with just the friends I have now, and no more, that will really mean something. But I'm staying open, there are some who seem genuinely cool. So we shall see what develops.

After the welcome reception we invited everyone out to the Brass Monkey, the place where we famously spent our first night together in Scotland, but we were taking a MUCH larger group and when we got there, the place was full. I've never seen more than 5 people in there and last night Brass Monkey was filled to the brim. We felt like such lame students for dragging everyone out in the cold wet Scotland night to a place that had no room for us, but then we quickly rerouted to the Pear Tree, where we hung out after the last day of class, and that seemed to work out for everyone, because there was a ton of space for everyone to fit.

Leading everyone to the Pear Tree really brought back memories of being on the Orientation Steering Committee (OSC) at Cornell. It made me miss being a part of that program, running around with a small group of great friends, trying to manage tons and tons of new students, all while not entirely sure you have any idea what your doing, but it seems to work out anyway in the end.

This whole experience is just like being back in college again for me. I'm living in a dorm, sharing a bathroom, and a barefoot minute walk away from all of the people I want to see or talk to.

And today I had that other aspect of the college experience, once again, the first day of class. This time I'm taking creative writing, which I LOVE, it's my heart, soul and passion in life! It's what I feel like I was meant to do. I'm not entirely sure what to expect from my class just yet, since we only had one session and it was cut short by a library tour (that I skipped, not bcause I'm being bad, but because I'd already done it). I was really hoping for a hardcore advanced creative writing class, and I'm not so sure that I'll get that here. I also haven't quite gaged just how helpful my tutor will be yet. I'm a little doubtful about the whole thing right now, especially because I have some surprising people in my class, but I'm going to stay optimistic. I came here to write, and I'm going to write, whether I write in a great class or not, I'm going to write.

In the land of exciting things to do and experience in Edinburgh, I have two new ones for you.

The first was a visit by Courtney, Nora, Jen and I to Hula, a fruit smoothie, juice bar that has great tasting smoothies, vegan chocolate, and a back sitting room full of shoes.







I kid you not! I don't know what we enjoyed more, the smoothies, or the fact that they had a whole room devoted to shoes. It was the most random thing ever.

We also purchased tickets for Mary King's Close, an underground tour of a portion of the old town of Edinburgh that now exists beneath The Royal Mile, said to be full of hauntings and also tells the story of the plague when it hit Scotland. It was a pretty cool tour, much nicer than the Auld Reekies, and much more historical in it's nature, though the tour guide had a talent for scarring my group. She was able to get Nora with a simple "boo" and had me jump backwards with a squeaky rat toy.

One of the creepiest parts of the tour was seeing the plague doctors. They wore these long bird beak type masks that gave them the appearance of Freddy Kreuger or some demon coming to take the plague victims to their graves. But the actual purpose of the mask was to keep herbs in, so that the doctors (believing if they smelled good things at all times) would be safe from falling victim to the plague. I couldn't take any pictures inside the close, but we had a really great time in the gift shop!


Nora and me as a plague doctor.

Besides plague doctor masks, you could also buy plague doctor puppet dolls, except that they looked more like a combination of a penguin and a witch and we started calling them pengwitches. They were really fun to play with too.


Pengwitch coming for Nora.


Going for Courtney...


Finding a real witch to play with...



The weather has been a bit schizo today. We've had everything from wind, to rain, to cloudy, to sunny, to cold, to extremely warm. It was sort of perfect when I walked home today and then it rained suddenly, but now the sky is doing something really beautiful. So I'll end the blog with these pics of Edinburgh's sky, after the rain.

St. Giles Cathedral and Bye Bye Laura!!!!

So Friday afternoon Laura and I decided to walk around Edinburgh and explore something we might have missed and wanted to see. After our second visit to Kalpna's vegetarian Indian Buffet (mmmmmm) we went to visit The Writer's Museum full of documents pictures exhibits and actual items owned by three of Scotland's most important writers, Robert Burns (he wrote the song we all sing on New Year's Eve), Sir Walter Scott (creator of Ivanhoe) and also Robert Louis Stevenson who wrote Treasure Island.



Afterwards, we took a sunny stroll around the Royal Mile, sitting in the Mercat Center, and then we realized, we had never gone inside St. Gile's Cathedral. It was amazing in there. Laura said that the cathedrals in Spain were very similar to this, so she wasn't as impressed, but I had never been inside a cathedral like St. Giles' before.























Inside Thistle Chapel were members of the Order of the Thistle have prayer with H.M. the Queen who is also the head of the order.












After we finished our tour of the cathedral, we sat outside on the Royal Mile enjoying the afternoon sun and we even saw Mark, our old walking tour guide go by with a brand new set of tourists.





We finished the afternoon with a stroll down the Royal Mile and another walk back to Pollock Halls via Arthur's Seat and finished the night with another kick-ass ceilidh. I think we are finally getting the hang of these dances, and now guys wearing kilts are asking us to dance on a regular basis, so we can all stop taking turns being the guy, which is great!






On Saturday, those of us remaining in Scotland went to visit the People's Museum of Edinburgh, where we got to learn some of the more social history of Edinburgh's inhabitants since the 1700's.







We followed up with another lunch at Susie's. Everyone loves Susie's even the carnivores:-) And then Laura, super sweetie that she is, treated everyone to coffee at Black Medicine as her farewell gift to us.


Sad Laura!

The rest of the day was spent resting (this trip doesn't really give you a chance to sleep) and helping Laura pack.

We had a great night out first at Sandy Bells, where we got to listen to this really beautiful folk group. I really liked it there even though the owner was being a bit pissy with us because half of our group wasn't drinking. Oh well. Then we tried to find a dance club, not so easy in Edinburgh since most places either have a huge cover charge, or they are too crowded and full of skeazy people. We ended up at some place called Faith which was really fun for awhile despite being full to the brim of Hen parties, but when the fullness of the crowd became such that you could no longer dance or move your body comfortably, we headed out home to hang out and avoid sleeping.

So it's Sunday, and I'm kind of exhausted, and sad because Laura finally went back to Spain. I will have to find some excuse to go visit her in Spain now.



And thus, I should be working on my paper for modernism...we'll see how that goes;)