Hey, wait a second… I thought it wasn’t supposed to snow in Scotland! Apparently, this is the first time in 17 years that there has been snow in December… So, while Minneapolis experienced its first snowfall-free March on records, Edinburgh gets a massive snowfall. The prediction is snow every day for the next week. WOOOO! I hope everything gets cleared out by the time Chelsea and I are meant to fly to London. After a morning of steel-grey skies, the sun is beginning to peek out, and the sky has [...]

This entry will be another interruption of the regularly scheduled programming. This has been the hardest month and a half of my young life. It is not that I do not love Edinburgh with all my heart, because I love it here, and I love being here, and I love my friends here, and the way the sun shines in the late afternoon, and how the leaves are still golden, and how the crags and Arthur’s Seat stand over the city, but the distance from my home is quickly becoming [...]

Today, Chelsea and I decided to go to Glasgow to go shopping because we felt like we didn’t really have any clothes. It was a lovely trip, and we had a fantastic time and went to a delightful restaurant. It was also really fun to spend all day with Chelsea. It’s been nice getting to know people… especially when we have a lot in common. We stopped each other from spending way too much money, but I probably spent more than I should have. I looked at my finances today, [...]

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the library lately, because I have two 3000 word essays due in the 3 weeks, a 2000 word essay due next week (but half of it is a transcription that I’ve got mostly done already), and a rather large portfolio for Archaeology due on 3 December. Heavy stuff, my friends. Surprised that I’ve already started working? Yeah, I am too. But let’s consider how in the Scottish uni system, my finals are worth 50-60% of my grade, and these essays are worth [...]

The subject of this post is from a graffito on our campus, which I particularly enjoy. I’m not going to do multiple back entries. I’m just going to condense everything right here right now. The week after the highlands, as you can imagine from my last post, was a scary blur. I went out with my friends most nights, and tried to focus as much as possible on work the rest of the time. That Saturday, I was incredibly excited because we were taking a field trip, and I haven’t [...]

Now, when I last left you, dear readers, I was about to embark on a journey to the Scottish Highlands. We left on a Friday morning at 7:45 am from campus, so all most of us wanted to do on the bus was sleep. However, our very enthusiastic tour guide only left us in quiet for a few minutes before we started hearing all about the landscape around us. I was so conflicted because on one hand, I was so sleepy, but on the other, I did not want to [...]

I’m going to start this post out on a serious note, and then move on to the goings on in my life. This week, with all of the terrorist threats, Butler sent us a ton of emails and urged us to register with the American Consulate. Normally, I tend not to take things too seriously, but I decided to register right away, because I plan on traveling a lot. I’m pretty sure that most of the places I want to go are not really huge spots. Some of the other [...]

Here’s the skinny on my classes for the rest of the semester: 1) Archaeology of Scotland: Sounds really interesting. Includes a field trip. However, I was a little disappointed to find out that all of the cool Roman stuff happens second semester, when I shall, sadly, be back in the US of A. Nevertheless, our course organizer was pretty cool, and today’s lecturer showed up and taught class in a leather motorcycle jacket. We’re starting off with a study of Scotland’s post-glacial environment, so I zoned out a little as [...]

I have lately been thinking of myself as two people. Scottish Claudia and American Claudia. Scottish Claudia is INFINITELY cooler. In America, I fall prey to the temptation of wearing sweatpants and sweatshirts to class all the time, and if not that, jeans and a T shirt or hoodie. Here, I don’t even have a hoodie, and I have maybe two t-shirts. I also don’t own any sneakers. I shouldn’t be defining myself by possessions here, but I feel like it actually makes a huge difference in my life. I [...]

So I wanted this entry to be focused on pictures, but it’s not letting me upload any, so you’ll have to use your imagination until I put up a link to an album. I feel like I have, for the most part, been carpe-ing the diem. However, I am incredibly exhausted at this point, and I think a lot of the other students are as well. I remember back to Welcome Week of freshman year, how much I wanted to just start classes and have a routine with set places [...]

It seems that everywhere I go, I am drawn into conversation about the American higher education system. People are baffled by a number of things related to the aforementioned. Nobody can imagine that I have friends who pay $50,000 every year to go to school, and they wonder how anybody manages to pay back loans. In Denmark, Johan told me that not only is school free, students get paid an allowance every month to cover living expenses. It seems to be relatively similar in both Sweden and in Holland (though, [...]

After spending some time in London, I prepared to train it to my final destination: Edinburgh. Getting onto the tube during rush hour was quite the experience. I was smashed like a sardine into the train, and I felt like such a jerk to be taking up as much space as I was.  I ended up getting there just 10 min before the train to Edinburgh left, but I got on and it was all okay. Leaving London was actually really sad, even though I was really excited to get [...]

I know that having a blog for a study abroad trip is pretty cliche, but I’m doing it anyway. I will be spending my fall 2010 semester at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. “Why Scotland?” you might ask. Because I love dreary, rainy, cold places. I do choose, after all, to attend the University of Minnesota on a regular basis. But seriously, when I was probably in fifth or sixth grade, I read some historical fiction book about Mary, Queen of Scots. From there on out, I read everything [...]