the school and scotland

whew so it's only been a week, but it's felt like a loooong time. i guess that's cause we didn't have much class last week and we spent most of the time in scotland. now that we go to class every day i think time will pass by much more quickly.







cambridge is really pretty. it's like something out of a victorian novel, what with the ivy and the well-kept lawns.

sheep! except they weren't that cute and they were pretty annoying. -__-

this is the trossachs/highlands of scotland, and this is the path we had to hike up. there was mud everywhere...my socks were pretty much completely brown after i got back. it was about an hour long hike up, but it was all worth it because of the view.

the view.

the elephant house - apparently this is where j.k. rowling first scrawled out harry potter onto a napkin. it was actually a really nice cafe on top of that. =P

part of edinburgh. the orangey building in the front is the national gallery of scotland, which was very cool. lots of pretty pictures. it helped that one of the TAs here is a medieval art history major, and she gave us a nice informative tour.
edinburgh castle. very forboding, indeed. it cost too much to enter though (about $20), so i opted for the cafes and pubs.
fountains abbey, where we stopped by on the way back. it was incredibly...sublime and peaceful. nerd that i am, it also reminded me of something out of a video game. this was also about the time my camera battery died, so i couldn't take too many pictures of the place...=(

i really liked edinburgh. the city wasn't too big so that you could walk everywhere, and it was full of little cafes and pubs. it was fun just sitting around in a cafe and writing. although at night, the pubs and clubs were good stuff too. i blew most of my money on food and alcohol. =) aand i went clubbing for the first time! first time was at this club called cabaret-voltaire, which was kind of this stony, old/classic looking place that was playing weird techno music the night we went. and these two guys came up and hugged me for some reason. hm. the bartender there made an amazing amaretto sour, though. second time i went clubbing was at this other club called the city, where it looked really modern. they had two rooms, a small one which played american music such as 'sweet home alabama' and 'footloose'...which is not really clubbing music at all. or mainstream music for that matter (the club was supposed to play mainstream music). they had a large room too where they played weird euro-techno-funk. it was odd. and they had these smoke machines that sprayed crappy smelling smoke what seemed like every 30 seconds. but! i guess true to their euro-techno style, they played 'what is love'!! haha i got a huge kick out of that.

scotland was a ton of fun! it's a shame that we have to start going to class every day, though the structure will probably be good for me. it feels kind of strange to be studying here, but i guess that's the point of the program. excited for london this weekend too. it's too bad that i'll only be there for 2 days...there's so much to see! alright, more updates later!