I am still alive!

Ok once again, I ignored this thing for probably longer than I should have. This time for slightly different reasons than last time, but I ignored it none the less. The camping trip for Guy Fawkes night was fun, although I did not actually end up getting to camp, as the mountaineering club was more out of sleeping bags than they thought. But still it was a lovely trip up a mountain in the dark, fireworks and fun, then sliding back down a mountain in the dark.

The following Thursday (6th) was the Fencing Fancy Dress party. Meaning we got dressed up (as close to formal as we could), went and saw the new Bond movie :), and then ended the night by going to a pub (of course) and then to one the fencer's flats. Yes I was in a skirt, yes, there are pictures.... somewhere :)

Next point of interest would be Saturday, when International Society went to St. Andrews. It was absolutely freezing that day. The bus we were on had something malfunctioning with the defroster, and Wyoming and I were sitting close enough to the front that I knew the whole trip that the man could hardly see out the windshield.... not a good feeling. Anyways, we got to see the St. Andrews Castle, the Cathedral ruins, and lots of the college buildings, as well as the ocean and the harbor, it was really cold, but fun. We ended the day at the William Wallace pub with Maria and another of her friends from Germany, as well as a few other international students.

Nothing else of any real note happened until Thursday. I of course had classes and clubs and pubs in there, but at this point all of that is fairly routine at this point hehehe. Anyways Thursday was the international society whisky tasting. They gave us samples of 5 different Scottish Whiskys and told us information about the distilleries and the whiskys themselves. This may give me ideas on what to get my faja for a souvenir.

Thursday night started the reason that I haven't written in so long. That reason being food poisoning/they really don't know/mystery death stomach thing. This ended up being an absolutely HORRID week. This is the kind of illness that you hope that if you ever get it again that it just kills you and gets it over with. Was hardly eating or drinking anything for 5 days, and what I was getting down wasn't staying in my system long. Before everything was over with I had been to the ER, the campus clinic 3 times, the hospital proper for 48 hours, and the campus medical clinic again. This marks the first time I have ever been to a hospital because I was sick, as well as the first time I have been admitted to a hospital as far as I am aware. But anyways I have to say that the National Health System is fairly well amazing. Because after all of the stuff I mentioned above... 24 hrs on an IV, 4 rounds of blood work, (total of 8 holes in my arms between blood work, IV, and failed blood work attempts) and tests on nearly everything they can run tests on, I was out a whole 10 pounds for 2 prescriptions they had given me in the midst of it all.

Anyways, I am alive surprisingly enough. Not too much worse for the wear. About 10 kilo's (20 pounds) lighter on the semester (Don't know exactly how much was the rest the semester and how much was last week, but 10 kilo's regardless). I have a much greater understanding of the National Health Service, and a greater appreciation for staying out of hospitals. I also believe that I will have a fear of stomach aches for the rest of my life. Other than that... mostly still kind of puny and pathetic, and sleeping way too much, but it is a VAST improvement over last week.

I was fortunate enough to have very understanding professors, since I technically had an essay and a project report due, however, they got moved to this coming week instead :) Also on the school work note, I have thus far received a 2C (B) on my soils project report, a 2B (B+) on my Politics midterm.... and then my shining achievement, and i think the one bright spot in my horrid week mentioned above.... My environmental policy and planning project report, we got a 1C (A) on the group part and I got a 1B (better A) on the individual part.... giving me a 1B over all... in a system that RARELY gives 1As (A+) ... I was very excited, and the instructor seemed pleased even if a little shocked.

Anyways, last night I went to a (late) flat warming party for some of my classmates/karate-mates....required 2 naps thru the course of the day in order to be able to pull it off (I wasn't joking when I said I was still puny and pathetic)... it was a lot of fun. Everyone was glad to see I was still alive, it made me feel loved :)

Other than a practical that I need to make up from last week classes are pretty well done.... i have 3 project reports/essays to hand in still, and then 3 exams, and then I guess I am done .... kind of frightening. Right before I got sick, there was a definite change in my way of thinking that took me a while to catch on to, but I went from "I cant believe I am in Scotland" to "I need to do this when I get back home." ... Kind of sobering change in thinking. But, all good things must come to an end at some point, and in less than a month I will be back in the cowboy state. This means that if any of you out there are desperately wanting something as a souvenir, tell me now or forever hold your peace. And no, don't just assume that I know you want something, or that I know what you want... I have realized time and time again walking thru souvenir shops, that I have no idea what anyone wants. So please, tell me!!! Anyways, pictures will come later when I have enough pictures again to be worth posting.... other then that I will try to keep up with this a little better for the last few weeks that I am here! Take care!

Busy Weeks and Fall Break - LONG post

Scotland, America, England, Wyoming, Me, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Kansas all dressed up at the International Ceilidh...

A view of a Ceilidh from above

Outside the Guinness Storehouse, Museum, and Brewery

A view of the "Rock of Cashel"

A view FROM the Rock of Cashel

Me kissing the Blarney Stone... note how far away the ground is to the left of me

A true Irish Rainbow, outside of the Blarney Castle

A lighthouse from the beach near Youghal

A typical Irish street outside of our hostel in Cork

Hungarian Parlament building, one of the 2 tallest buildings in the Budapest City center, the other being the Bascilica. They are 96 meters tall... no other buildings are allowed to be taller than the Parlament, so they have no sky scrapers

Hero's Square Budapest

Hello all!!! It has been two weeks since you guys have heard from me. Yes, I am alive and doing well. However it has been a busy several weeks. The week of the 20th was midterm week. Meaning the whole previous five weeks of hanging around and doing nearly nothing for school came to a screeching halt. I had an in class essay test for my politics class. I had one project report due during the week break, and another (half group, half individual) project report due the Monday following break. All of this means that I had about 25% of my grade in every single class due that week. And no idea what I was doing for any of it.

The courses here have me baffled. First of all due to the "nothing ... nothing... nothing... nothing ... EVERYTHING.... nothing" aspect to the course work cycle...... Secondly, the majority of the concepts covered in my environmental science classes are review, but they still kill me. Wyoming has backed me up on this. Probably 75% of the lecture material are things we have covered in classes at Wyoming. Third year students here have never had a soils class, or a plant ID course, or a reclamation course. All of these I have had. However, the way they apply the knowledge is done in a way that has both Wyoming and I absolutely baffled when it comes to our reports. Its very valuable way of doing things, but knowing that I have more background than my classmates, and I am still clueless really concerns me. One of the project reports I turned in was on coal mine reclamation. It wasn't the usual "tell us how coal mine reclamation is completed" sort of report. This was go out to a reclaimed coal mine, dig holes sample soils, look at the soil profile, do a vegetation inventory, take soil home, analyze it in the lab, and tell us if the reclamation was successful. REALLY good thing to do... but very intimidating.

Now on to the second reason why you haven't heard from me in two weeks. The thing known here as the "study break". Technically its a week after midterm to catch up on the course preparation you put aside to write reports and study for midterms. In reality it is like a fall version of spring break. Wyoming and I went to Ireland, and I proceeded from Ireland to Hungary to visit Agi. Ryanair, although annoying, is a wonderful concept.

Ireland was amazing, even with the lack of planning that went into the trip. We had planned to plan... however, midterm kind of killed that idea... so we honestly only had even made hostel reservations for the first night there. Little did we know that we had arrived on a bank holiday weekend, which was called for a jazz festival, and that this would kind of kink our original intentions. Anyways I will give you hopefully the readers digest version of the week, and what I saw and did.

Dublin was rainy when we got there. We were not major fans of the hostel, mostly due to very rude staff. We did some lovely night sightseeing since we knew we had limited time. We found an amazing Italian food restaurant... yes Italian... as we came to learn throughout the week traditional Irish cuisine is something you have for lunch, as most places stop serving food and focus on the drink starting about 3:30. Trinity college campus is even beautiful at night. We then went to a Latin mass at St. Mary's Pro Cathedral. We have visited the Guinness Storehouse and Museum (yes Jared you will be getting pictures). As well as Dublin Castle. Oh and the classic Irish Pub, O'Neills, which correlates to the O'Neils that we have in Stirling (we are beginning to like the name as far as pubs go). And as Wyoming and I decided when I just asked her what else we did in Dublin, we mostly just wandered around, which meant we saw alot, just not the inside of alot.

From Dublin we took a bus to Cashel, which is a rather obscure town halfway between Dublin and Cork, but they had a hostel with 2 available beds. (Remember, lack of planning ahead) However, it was a really neat thing to see a smaller Irish town, it was very nice hostel (we got upgraded to a twin room, which meant we didn't have to share with anyone!!) The rock of Cashel is the major sightseeing point of Cashel, other then that its just a really small quaint Irish town.

From Cashel we moved on to Cork, which is really pretty, to depart for Blarney. Blarney was amazing, the castle grounds were beautiful. The castle was cool, and then of course you get to hang upside down over absolutely nothingness to kiss the Blarney stone. We then proceeded to get the bus time table messed up, since we had no idea that Monday bus schedules on bank holiday weekends = Sunday bus schedules. So we ended up killing some time with Irish Coffees in a Blarney pub, with live Irish music and some really amazing locals. We were actually kind of disappointed when the bus was about to come. That evening we had some amazing Indian food (once again Irish cuisine is to be consumed for lunch).... and were trying to find some live music, and failed horribly, but did find some pretty cool bartenders.

The next day we went to Youghal (apparently pronounced yole, not yogel) ... to see the beach, which is where the concept of tide was ingrained into Wyoming and I first hand. Youghal town proper is built up from the beach (good idea)... which leaves limited places to get off of the beach (bad idea)... As she and I were walking along we started realizing "wow, i think the water is closer to these rocks than it was this morning" .... sure enough... we were nearly going to have to start swimming before we got up off the beach.... We then came back to mess up yet another bus schedule... which resulted in us wandering around Cork, and finding St Peter and Paul's Cathedral, which has to be the most impressive church I have ever seen.

The last stop of the Ireland adventure was Kilkenny... supposedly one of the "most beautiful towns in Ireland".... we find contention... not that Kilkenny isn't pretty... just this was not the most successful leg of our journey... Dark lostness, sprained ankle for Wyoming, horrid trek for food and ice by me, followed the next day by torrential downpour of the very cold (it was snowing in Dublin) variety... etc... it just wasn't working out for us. But it could have ended much worse, and we made it out, so all is good. We then proceeded to spend the night in the Dublin Airport since Wyoming's flight was so early back to Scotland. We learned to play canasta, from 2 Canadians, who thought we were British, which at this point might be a compliment... I haven't decided yet.

Then after way too much time, it was on to Hungary. I went to a Halloween party in the dorms with Agi on Thursday night... was introduced to "Bison Grass Vodka" it has another name but i don't remember it... I only remember the bison grass part because they actually have a piece of grass in the bottle. Then the next day Agi took me to a Hungarian market, and the Basilica, where St. Steven's Right hand is kept... before she had to go to a meeting. Which left me wandering Budapest by myself. I THINK i saw Buda castle, and the Buda palace. At Buda Palace I over heard a hungarian giving some Japanese guys a tour, in english, and learned some really cool things. I managed to order food.... I asked for water and kept getting asked if i wanted it in a glass.... which I thought was a no brainer... turns out you have to specify if you want tap water, so i got a bottle of sparkling water, and a glass... oops... and Goulash soup... I then somehow made my way through the metro system to Hero's Square, where they have statues of all their kings... Agi was late enough getting done with her meeting that I was beginning to get nervous (just a little.... ok maybe alot)... When she did finally get back we went to the Spa, and then to a club for a Halloween party. Just FYI bars in Hungary don't close until like 4 or 5 in the morning (we didn't stay that long thank goodness)....

Anyways that was my adventures in a nutshell... if you want more details feel free to ask. I then came home and proceeded to finish the last project report of that round, I should really get going on round 2 here shortly. I think I will be doing some very cold wet camping tomorrow with some friends, we will have to see how that goes. But other than that this week should be fairly uneventful. Here is fingers crossed for the election turnout!!!!