Winding Down

Internship:

My Internship!

 My internship experience was pretty awesome. I loved being in a place where everyone got along with everyone. There was always something going on and even though we were busy all the time there was always something funny or amusing going on in the office to lighten everyone's mood. I learned a lot about office dynamic, even the little things make people happy, and lots more. I had a lot of fun working with the Partners on their projects, I also enjoyed working with the client contacts and writing letters to creditors and debtors. There is a lot to do and learn in an insolvency agency and I'm so glad that I could have this opportunity to intern here!

Classes:

Craiglockhart Campus

I took my last and only exam/test on Monday, the day that the buses started running regularly so that we could actually get to campus on time for the exam. I took two classes at Edinburgh Napier University, Brand Management and Modern Scottish History (1707 - 1914). Both classes only had two assignments, a paper and a test. I kept asking myself when they would stop pulling my leg and actually give me homework and papers and assignments. It never happened. There was so many times the bus made me late to class, but the main transportation around here is bus, so the professors don't bat an eye when a student walks in 25 minutes late. My classes were a nice break from my internship but didn't take up much of my time because the readings and the two assignments only took up a max of an hour a week. It was a nice reprieve from Albion classes which I will be going back to the third week of Albion!

Living on my own:

My Flat door

My flat is a ten to fifteen minute walk from Princes Street and from there its a short walk to the Royal Mile. I love our location because we have a bar right downstairs, a restaurant on the other side, and a grocer right across the street. Its very convenient and accessible to get things here, once you figure out where you can find them. In backwards land, pretzels are in the polish section of a supermarket and chocolate chips and food coloring are very difficult to find. There are many things that we cannot find here and this is because we are in the UK and they don't have all the amenities that we are used to in the USA because its expensive to ship things here. Pasta, chicken, hamburgers, frozen veggies, chicken casserole, and copious amounts of garlic powder got me through this semester abroad. Now back to the treadmill!



I hope you have had a swell time reading my blog about my semester abroad. I have had a great time experiencing all that I can in the wonderful capital of Scotland. I will definitely miss seeing the Edinburgh Castle every day. It has become a regular occurrence and I will definitely miss all of the history that I learned about in my class. The things I have valued most about being over here are; learning the history of the city I live in, my internship experience, and being able to live on my own in a strange city. I'm excited to come back to America and see my friends and reconnect. I'm nervous that everyone has changed over the semester and I will come back and nothing will be the same. I am also nervous that I won't know anyone on campus and will look like a first year. I hope I'm not mistaken for one of those! I leave early Monday morning for home (fingers crossed) and hopefully I will be on American soil around 5pm on Monday! Can't wait to see you all and adjust back to Eastern Standard Time.

Sunday Church Exploration #9

The church on Cannongate called Cannongate Kirk is where her Royal Majesty attends when she is Edinburgh. This interested Em and I so we decided to go a couple weeks ago. It was considerably the shortest service we ever attended. There were a lot of plaques on the wall commemorating where Kings or Queens had sat in the past. We sat in King James IV's row, I felt really important! We went to the family service so that we could go to lunch afterward and still have some afternoon left to do our own thing. So going to the family service was a no brainier because it was earlier in the day. What we didn't know was the service was only 30 minutes long with a short and to the point sermon. It was pretty awesome!

Sunday Church Exploration #8

St John's Episcopalian Church

I should probably go back and take a picture of the inside because do you see all of those windows? There are even more on the sides and the back but all of those windows are stained glass. Intricate detail on all of the stained glass, it was absolutely gorgeous inside. I have already been in an Episcopalian church but this one was different because they lite the Advent candle! I love Christmas time and I'm glad that I can go to church to see the Advent Candles and the atmosphere of Christmas. My brother gets here tomorrow so I'm going to try and stay warm! Can't wait to show him around :)

CLOSED

A snow storm has closed down the entire city of Edinburgh for the past couple of days. It started snowing on Saturday night and by Sunday Edinburgh Council didn't know what to do. But instead of staff getting in gritting lorries and salting the roads for safe driving come Monday morning, Edinburgh Council decided it didn't want to pay its drivers overtime so they waited for Monday morning. Not a good idea. By Monday morning it had been snowing for a solid 36 hours. There was at least 4 inches of snow on the ground and everyone was pretty much going crazy. Scotland, if there is one thing you need to do better on is handle snow. Edinburgh Airport has been closed from Monday to Thursday so they can have proper time to deice the runway (take a lesson from Detroit, deice the runway in three hours, not three days). Emily was in Rome this weekend and her flight was Monday, she eventually found her way back via Dublin and Glasgow and a train.

I get to work on Monday morning and listen as the stories start flying from the office ladies. Three double decker buses on Fredrick (my street) were seen going sideways up the road because of the snow. All the schools are closed which does not make PG a happy camper, "its only going to get worse, my kids need their education." No one in the office except for me have proper shoe attire to walk in the snow, so I am the gopher made to go get the milk and coffee because we are out, down at the local co-op. Walking there takes ages even in my wellies, not on account of me walking slow but on account of everyone else not knowing how to walk at all. The sidewalks aren't shoveled so the strip right next to the buildings where it emanates heat is the only place everyone and their mums can walk on. Which you would think would leave the rest of the sidewalk free, well you are wrong, there must be dozens of people lined up along the roads waiting for non existent buses.

Looking on the website when I get back to the office, most of the buses are not running today, if they are running they are running partial routes, and no trains out of Edinburgh (but Glasgow trains are coming in). Some of my office mates are stuck in little towns right outside of Edinburgh because of the train/bus situation. During lunch half the office left to go try and find wellies so they can survive in the wilds of Edinburgh. They come back 2 hours later spouting off stories about having to walk the whole of Princes(s) street looking for wellies and only have 45 minutes of walking against the crowd do they discover Office where they have wellies. Everyone comes back with a pair of them but only after waiting in the queue for over 30 minutes to pay.

A look at Old Town from Princes St

The way these guys are bundled up makes me think of The Christmas Story because my office mates have literally never seen this much snow. There must be 6 or 7 inches of snow and the town has literally gone crazy. One of the office ladies who I walk home with sometimes because she lives a couple rows down says she has the perfect way to get back today instead of walking we will sledge down the hill taking turn on the sledge. I laughed because I knew if going uphill in snow was difficult, going down hill (and not slipping) would be even more difficult. I enjoyed her idea because we would then have an excuse to be snowy instead of having to tell the embarrassing story of our fall. Even though the snow has caused problems there is always a bright side, like how beautiful the snow looks on the castle. It brightens my day, every time I walk to work and see the pristine Castle just sitting there.

One last thing before I drift off. Another thing that Scotland needs to be better on in the snow is the Royal Mail. The office and the flat only just today received their first mail all week (office mail was piled high) and only just yesterday did the Royal Mail pick up the mail across the street and at the office. It astounds me that some days you just don't get your mail in the UK, compared to America posties here are wimps. Snow is not horrible its pretty much the best thing, winter is my favourite season because of hot chocolate, Christmas, Thanksgiving, snow, gathering around a warm fire, sledding and many more! I can't wait for Sean to be here so we can revel in the awkwardness of how Scotland handles snow and see all the cool places!

Sunday Church Exploration #7

Looking through the cemetery at St Cuthberts.

I went to sleep Saturday night wondering which church I would end up at. Sunday morning and I discovered myself here at St Cuthberts Parish Church at the end of Princes St. Snow covered everything and while walking to church I discovered many hidden slush puddles, however I did make it to church just in time to hear the bells ring. It was an awesome sound to hear while walking up to this massive church. The thing that drew me to this church is probably the fact that is situated right below the castle in a cemetery. There are many old gravestones and I could have probably looked around more if it wasn't for church starting! It was the first advent Sunday, to commemorate we sang songs that remind me of Christmas like "Come O Come Emmanuel". 

The inside of this church had an intimate feeling yet was rather large and had a balcony for more seating. I really enjoyed the sermon and feel of the church. If I had more Sundays to explore churches in Scotland I definitely would go back to St Cuthbert's again. The history surrounding the church was impressive, there was a sign by the church that told some of the history, saying that there had been a church on this location since the early 1100s. Seeing as the church rests right below Edinburgh Castle there has been considerable damage done to the church every time there was a fight fought at the Castle. The thing that impressed me the most though was that every time the church was knocked down, they would always rebuild, always. The sermon was delivered by the outgoing student and was quite fun to listen to. He used different voices to grab your attention and once he had it he didn't let go. There is a lot I took to heart during his sermon. Needless to say I will always appreciate St Cuthberts as an awesome church even with half the congregation snowed in!

Sunday Church Exploration #6

Woah. Talk about lucky. I went to church here, at La Sagrada Familia. The entire service was in Catilian and it would have probably helped if we had grabbed the pamphlet that explained some things that were going on in English. But we didn't see the English Pamphlet until after the service was over. Because I didn't actually know what was going on in the service I basically just reveled in the architecture and the blatant tourists that took pictures during the service! The spires were so huge and gorgeous. The sight was just jaw dropping. It was quiet surreal to be in the church at the service and to actually accept communion at La Sagrada Familia. Woah is right.

Barcelona*

Barcelona* was an awesome trip filled with culture and history. We arrived Friday night and after getting to the city centre we wandered around a street called La Rambla til we decided that we should find our hostel so we don't get pick pocketed. After finding our hostel (which was a cute little place a few blocks from La Rambla) we put our stuff in our lockers and headed out into the night to enjoy the sights and sounds of the busy Catalonian city. We passed quite a few restaurants that were hopping at 2300 which was strange to us. There was awesome music coming from one of the dance clubs we passed, playing Latin dance music.

The way was so narrow that I could almost touch!

After getting a good nights sleep (as good as you can get in a busy hostel room) we planned out our day over breakfast. There was a free walking tour around the Gothic quarter of Barcelona* that we had planned and then...we would see where the wind took us. While packing for the weekend we looked at the weather and were really excited to see weather above 10 degrees C but Saturday was a very rainy day and the walking tour plans did not include staying indoors. Either way the tour through the Gothic Barrio was very interesting and our guide (who was apparently Swedish) did well to inform us of our surroundings and what historic happenings went on here. At the end of the tour we ended at a bar where we could get 1euro sangria's. Needless to say we could not pass that opportunity up to have a cultural drink!

The market we found

On our tour we met a couple in their 60s from the States, but had been living in Germany for the past couple of years. We bonded with them and so after the tour we decided to get lunch together! The restaurant we decided to go to was nice inside and it served tapas. Our guide told us a trick with tapas bars (go in order the patatas bravas and if they are good order more, if not move on) so this is what we did as well. The patatas bravas were delicious but instead of ordering more we decided to get the check and head over to the hopping pizza place right around the corner. Food in Barcelona* is all good and I wish I could go back to just eat more food! Once lunch was done we decided to walk around the little shops and a market we found off of La Rambla that had some cool nick-knacks and food before we had to be back to the bar for our cooking class!

Our cooking instructor

Our cooking class was so much fun we had a delicious range of tapas and then the cook of the bar came out and showed us how to make seafood paella. Our teacher was from Argentina and spoke really fast so what I did was just watch what he was doing, I got a lot more out of it then listening to what he said. While the paella was simmering and the rice was finishing cooking we got another lesson. We learned how to make Sangria's (a little bit of this, a little bit of that) which consisted of brandy, red wine, half a cup of sugar, fresh cut fruit, Fanta Lemon, and some orange juice. It was delicious.

 

View of Barcelona* from Park Guell

Sunday after checking out of our hostel we got a day pass on the metro and went to lots of different places including Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, and the Mediterranean Sea! Even though it was cold and windy and people on the beach were bundled up in coats and scarfs Em and I still went in to the sea just so we could say we had been! Park Guell was designed by the architect that also designed Sagrada Familia. There was a great view from the top of the park and delightful walking trails. All in all a wonderful weekend away from the windy, cold city of Edinburgh.
*Please add an exaggerated 'kissing hand explosion" hand gesture.