random Edinburgh memory

List-ing

List of the last few things I want to do before I leave Scotland:

1. Walk through the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh.
2. Have coffee at the Elephant House, the so-called "birthplace of Harry Potter."
3. Visit Mary King's Close.
4. Dance at a ceilidh. (pronounced kay-lee)

Scottish education system vs. American education system

Back in December, I read an interesting article in the NY Times about how many American students are opting to begin their undergrad careers overseas, since the cost to attend at private university is much lower than in the U.S. Scotland's prestigious universities at St. Andrew's and yes, Edinburgh! were heavily included in the piece, as was how their education systems differed from the states. Here, students specialize in a degree fairly early and are not expected to take a wide range of liberal arts classes. It also mentioned how Scottish universities expect students to know where they're headed and to be "intellectually independent," according to the article.

Well as my semester draws to a close, I can report that this article is pretty accurate. There are few assignments - I wrote four essays for three classes during the semester - but they are heavily weighted in my final grade. (Two of the essays were worth 40 percent; the other two were each worth 25 percent.) Professors here, like the article mentioned, don't provide much feedback. I'm been attempting to study for my final exams, which are clumped together toward the end of the exam period, and frankly I'm not exactly sure what to study for some of them. For two of my classes, they did provide some guidance for what to expect, yet for my Scottish history class, they more or less are feeding us to the wolves. My only hope is studying for the next few weeks will hopefully provide me some kind of background knowledge to bullshit my way to a C. I'm not expecting my grades to be all that extraordinary, (I mean I know I'm not going to be a social worker or a Scottish historian) - I just hope I pass all my classes with some semblance of grades that don't embarrass me.

Things I Miss About Boston.

1. The porch at the Otherside Cafe.
2. Buying sun-dried tomato hummus @ Trader Joe's.
3. Symphony Sushi.
3. seeing shows @ the Middle East.
4. These guys.

...to be continued...

Aaaannddd I'm back!

[Above: Alissa's head in Portobello Market, London]

I got back from sunny, beautiful Barcelona and equally sunny, though admittedly not as beautiful, Alicante, where I learned that Barcelona is actually not considered part of Spain, it's part of an area called Catalonia, which apparently is its own autonomous community. I suppose I can relate - this sounds somewhat similar to the relationship between Scotland and England. In any case, the five days I spent traveling through that part of the world have been the most relaxing and amazing times of my life. Alicante I could give or take - there wasn't much there. But Barcelona was certainly the life of the party and I wish I could've stayed there longer to explore more. While there, we mostly stuck around the same area, though we (Kate and I) did do Fat Tire bike tour, which while informative and fun, wasn't nearly as interesting as the Fat Tire tour Alissa and I did in Berlin. Which brings me the longer portion of my spring break travels - Berlin, Prague, London (again), and Dublin. Out of every city, I think I might be in love with Prague the most, the city's architecture was very neo-Classical in design and gave off a very romantic feel. While there, we did plenty of touristy sightseeing, including stops at the Charles Bridge and Dancing House. Berlin had a lot more interesting museums and monuments though and I really became fascinated by the history there, especially the stuff about the Cold War and the Berlin Wall. I was really surprised by how much I didn't know about that part of human history, and I was honestly moved when I stood in front of a portion of the Wall and our tour guide explained how many people died just by trying to leave East Germany. London was an interesting time because I had already seen it (pretty recently I might add), so I wasn't as impressed by all the famous buildings and whatnot ... that's not saying I still didn't have a good time. For one thing, I finally made it to the Top Man flagship store in Oxford Circus, which was obviously amazing. They literally had almost every item I've ever seen on the website, so naturally I picked up a few polo shirts and a pair of jeans. OK and a wallet. And two more T-shirts. But seriously, I know I'll wear this stuff all the time...

Anyway, Dublin might've been my least favorite city only beacause it was probably the smallest one we visited and it reminded me a lot of Edinburgh except it looked a lot more industrial and everything was like five times more expensive. My least favorite touristy trip was definitely the Guinness Storehouse because a) I really don't even like Guinness all that much, and b) it was basically a hugh advertisement for the beer. I thought it was pretty hysterical they had an entire section devoted to every marketing campaign and commercial they've made since the '50s, when obviously the entire building is a marketing campaign. Definitely not worth the 11 euro it cost to get in. But whatever. You do it once, realize it was a waste of time and money, and then you don't do it again.

I was home in Edinburgh for one night and then it was off to Alicante. (As previously mentioned above.) I am so glad I was able to take the trips that I did - I learned a lot about different parts of the world and it's amazing that even simple things like watching the sunset on the Charles Bridge or eating a Spanish tortilla for the first time, actually give you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Now I'm back in Edinburgh, haven't really been doing all that much over these past few days, other than grocery shopping and topping up my phone. I plan on starting the revision process at some point this weekend, but because my first exam isn't until May 14, I guess I'm dragging my feet a little. I really do want to do well on these exams, mostly because my grades for my essays haven't been all that impressive. At least the only exam (I think) I have to be really worried about is naturally, the bane of my existence: Early Modern Scottish History. This is the only class where the professors didn't really try to give you a sense of what might be on the exam, and of the course, it also happens to be the class that covered the most material. At least with my other two courses, I'm only expected to know half of what we learned. Anyway, I have to get my act together soon, but for now, I'm taking it easy.

Today marks the official 30 day countdown until when I go home, which, when you think about it, isn't really all that long. Four weeks is nothing and I expect them to go by pretty fast, especially when I expect to spend a lot of that time studying, packing, and trying to find last-minute gifts for my family. I'm suddenly filled with guilt that I didn't get my mom anything in Prague - her mother is from the Czech Republic and I didn't even think of it at the time - but hopefully I'll find something nice, albeit less meaningful, in Edinburgh.

spring break broke.

I haven't updated in almost three weeks because I've been traveling around Europe.

Much to tell.

Too tired to tell it right now.

Waking up at 3 a.m. tomorrow morning to head to Alicante.

Will update thoroughly upon my return.