I know I’m supposed to be studying in Copenhagen, and writing about Denmark, and being in Denmark, but as I’ve realized this past week, a significant portion of my semester abroad is going to take place outside of Copenhagen, and even outside of Denmark. The way my program works is that every third week is a travel week of some kind, and every core course (mine is biomedicine) goes on a long study tour somewhere during one of the first…
It’s been a busy couple of months, but it’s finally the last week of classes here. My last class is on Friday, and then I’m free for a whole month before the exam session begins. Even though it’s been a long time, this semester seems to have flown by. In less than two months I’ll be going back to the States, leaving Edinburgh – the city which has become my home. It feels weird, being around students who are only…
It’s almost the end of February and I don’t where the time is going. At the University of Edinburgh, I’m lucky because my classes end on April 3rd – how crazy is that? But it also means I have a ton of papers and presentations to do in a very short amount of time. I think that’s part of the reason we have a week off, for no particular reason, in the middle of February. Like the calm before the storm….
It’s February now and the only thing to be said for the weather is at least I’m not drowning in snow. It has snowed here a few times, much to my surprise, off and on, but more off than on. Down here, in lowland Edinburgh along the coast, the snow doesn’t really stick and we’re far more likely to have rain. We certainly don’t miss out on the cold though! While all my friends back in the Northeast are struggling…
It’s now December, which means that winter has officially settled on the city, which means drinking more tea and whiskey to warm up. Fortunately, there are plenty of tea shops and pubs to accommodate pretty much everyone in the city, even if every person spontaneously decided to get tea or whiskey at the exact same moment. Scotland really likes its tea and whiskey. I’ve become addicted to tea and biscuits, which I think is a promising sign of assimilating to…
There are things to be said for living in the north — winter, snow, getting to enjoy the seasons, etc. — but one of the perks is not the sun playing hard to get. Fall came and went here in about two weeks, leaving the barren month that is November. No longer autumn, not yet winter and not much to look forward to, except Thanksgiving, which is always to be looked forward to. But the time between Halloween and Thanksgiving…
I had thought that by this time in my exchange I would 1. stop feeling like I needed to do everything yesterday, and 2. stop taking touristy pictures with my phone every time I see a neat vista of the city. I was wrong on both counts. I still feel like I should be doing something every minute of every day, even knowing I have a year in this fabulous country, and I still take pictures with my phone each…
Somehow, this is only my fourth day in Scotland, but it feels like I’ve been here for a long time, even though the days have flown by. I arrived Tuesday morning expecting it to be at least drizzling, if not pouring rain. It is raining in the United Kingdom, after all, and it rains here constantly if everything I had ever heard is correct. Apparently it is not true, because four days later, I have yet to see a single…
The Doric Dictionary I chose to study abroad in Scotland expecting to find it vaguely similar to America—after all, Britain and the U.S. were once one in the same, weren’t they? Both countries speak English, and both generally enjoy meat, potatoes, and beer. I knew that Scotland would be different from home, but I never expected to experience the culture shock that awaited me in the rainy, windy, and beautiful city of Edinburgh. The grocery stores are miniature, with teeny bags of flour…