Saturday visit to Dunnottar Castle (Continuation of Previous Post)

Greetings again -
Below are more pictures from visiting the castle:

Dunnottar Castle was a nearly impregnable fortress originally build over 700 years ago. William Wallace, Mary Queen of Scots, and the future King Charles II all graced the castle with their presence over the years. Several hundred years ago, a small garrison held out against a British army for eight months and saved the Scottish Crown Jewels.

Here's the keep, the most intact part of the ruined castle:
The remaining walls of the ruined city with the North Sea in the background:
Simply amazing coastal scenery:
Hay fields cover the countryside 1/2 mile inside the coast:

Saturday visit to Dunnottar Castle

Hello Everyone –

Hope you’re all having a wonderful Sunday afternoon. It’s been an eventful weekend here in Scotland.

First of all, I want to say thank you to all of the kind encouragement and good wishes several of you have posted in comments over the past week. I apologize for taking a while to respond to some of your comments, and I’ll try to respond quicker in the future.

My sister Patricia posted a question a few days ago asking about “pound coins.” The currency here is quite different from the US – money is based on the “Pound” instead of the dollar. One pound is worth about two U.S. dollars. For instance, a loaf of bread that would cost $2 in the US costs about 1 pound here. People carry around lots of coins here, particularly the “1 Pound coin.” It’s just a gold-colored coin worth 1 pound. Paper bills are used for increments of 5 pounds, 10 pounds, 20 pounds, etc. I’ll try to post a few pictures soon of the different types of money here.

Yesterday I went with some new friends to visit the Dunnottar Castle ruins in Stonehaven, Scotland. With classes starting this week and Rotary club visits nearing, this weekend made for a perfect opportunity to see the countryside before things get busy. It’s only about 15 miles from the city, so we took the bus to Stonehaven and then walked several miles to the castle. The coastal highlands scenery was absolutely breathtaking! I truly see now why they call this area the “Highlands.” My new friends and I were from different cultures around the world, but the breathtaking scenery seemed to unite us as we stood in awe of nature’s astounding beauty. Pictures and captions are attached below and in the next post.

The Crew (left to right): Kersti from Norway, Sylvia and Nick from Bulgaria, Bharet from India, and Marat from Kazakhstan.



The view overlooking the town of Stonhaven:

The coastal highlands on the way to the castle:
Nick, Sylvia, and me relaxing next to the coast:
The scenery left me awestruck:
Only five pictures can be attached to each post, so I'll attach additional pictures in another post above.

Thanks!

Such a Beautiful Day!

Hello All!

Such a wonderful day today here in Aberdeen. Blue skies and weather in the mid 50's - what else can one ask for! :) It's been a beautiful birthday today. Here's what I've been up to the past two days:


Here's a picture of the outside of King's College, the building where my classes will be:
Here's another picture of King's College. There's actually a courtyard through the center gate the leads to offices, lecture halls, and the business school:

Yesterday, Tuesday, September 18:

Yesterday I went to registration at the post-grad business school. The graduate business school is housed in King's College, the oldest past of the university. The original building was constructed around 1495, though the inside has been renovated many times. Pictures of the outside are attached above. The Scottish Parliament was actually housed in this building in the late 20th century. This hall now functions as a lecture hall, and students apparently can respond during lectures using the debate microphones at each desk.

Because I'll be studying here for nine months doing "Independent Studies in Business Administration," no one at the university had been able to tell me exactly what classes I should/could take. All my questions were finally answered yesteday, and I think everything will work great even though the outcome wasn't exactly as expected.

The MBA and Graduate Business programs are very structured here, and students take compulsory modules during the fall and spring semesters. Therefore, all of the MBA students are in the same classes. So yesterday, they told me that I could either take the standard first semester MBA module, or not take any graduate business classes.

I was a slightly dissapointed not to have the flexibility to take several cultural undergraduate electives, but some exciting news came along. Through simply completing the standand fall and spring MBA modules, I'll leave here in May with a Post-graduate Diploma in Business Administration (just 3 months shy of a complete MBA). So, I'll essentially be taking classes as an MBA student here. I also have the option of taking all undergraduate electives during the spring semester and passing on this option. I'll make this decision in January. Of course, I'll always remain focused on fulfilling my duties as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar.

After registration I picked up my student ID card and then stopped downtown on the way home to fix my UK phone and pick up a few housekeeping items. If any of you need to call me directly, you can reach me at 779-917-6839. To call from the US using a calling card, dial 011-44-779-917-6839.

Today, Wednesday, September 19:

Today was great! The weather was sunny today, so walked to campus this morning to attend the all-day induction/orientation for MBA students. Induction was filled with general information and guest speekers. International students make up a huge percentage of the graduate business school. I've met other students so far from Bulgaria, Columbia, Britain, Ghana, and of course Scotland. I met a guy also named Nick from Bulgaria who completed the last two years of his undergraduate degree at the university in Washington state. We got along well and have much in common, and we're already making plans to explore the Scottish countryside.

After returning home from induction, my roommate Marat (from Kazakhstan) had a very nice birthday present for me. Inside a little box were two very nice looking cufflinks formed from the University of Aberdeen's official crest (sort of a shield). It was a wonderful gift. I celebrated my birthday with family back home before leaving, so today was like icing on the cake!

I'm off for now, but I'll post again soon. Cheers!

Monday's Recap

Here's a picture of the River Dee
Below is the coastline looking south Here's the coastline looking north
Awesome rainbow!
Here's a picture of one of the people surfing - Crazy cold!

Good Morning All -

I slept well last night and am in high spirits today. I'm excited to go register for classes later today!

Yesterday was full of fun exploring. While walking to campus in the morning, I ran into a girl from Chicago also studying here. She's the first American I've run into here. After helping her find the building she was looking for, I took the bus downtown and applied for a bank account at the Hilifax Royal Bank of Scotland. Because of national security procedures, it will take 2-3 weeks to open the account.

Next I went to the Vodafone store and purchased a UK sim card to put in my cell phone. Using it, I'll have a UK number and can make local calls cheaply. However, it's not working correctly and I'll have to go back today to get it fixed. Once it's up and working, I'll post that number.

After that I walked around and explored the many shops and shopping centers in the downtown area. It's amazing how many little nooks and crannies this city has - something that appears to be an alley often leads to several hidden shops. The city's population is very diverse, and there seem to be as many internationals as there are Scottish here. Everyone has been quite kind so far. The phrase "Cheers" is used quite a bit and seems to carry many different meanings here. From what I've picked up, it can mean a friendly "Ok," a friendly "Hello," or a friendly "Goodbye," or even "Thanks."

After exploring downtown I dropped my backpack back and the room and set off on foot to walk to the beach. On the way to the beach I walked along the River Dee. I beleive a few of the pictures above show a bridge over the river and houses on the other side. It took much longer than I thought, but it was well worth it. Luckily, the rain stopped for a few hours while I walked along the beach. There were actually a few people surfing in the water! CRAZY! It was around 40-45 degrees outside, and I can only imagine how cold the ocean would be.

After a three hour walk along the beach, I came back and found that a flatmate had moved in. He's also 22 and is from Kazakhstan. He's a business grad student like myself, but he's studying petroleum exploration and enterprise management. Apparently the oil industry is quite large in Kazakhstan, and he's looking forward to studying here in the oil capital of Europe. He seems very nice, and we had a nice little dinner last night and talked about life. It seems that this experience will provide opportunities to build friendships with people from countries all around, not just Scotland. It's just us two so far in a six-bedroom flat, so I'm wondering if we'll have more roommates coming in.

I'm off to head to campus for registration. Have a wonderful day and thanks for checking in!

Best wishes -

Sunday's Adventures

So after sleeping in until 1:30 in the afternoon, I got up and discovered that British Airways had delivered my luggage to the main office overnight. Happy day!

Now that I had my warm coats and rain jacket, I took off on the bus and explored the city center for a while. Then I found a grocery store called Morrison's. Grocery shopping in Scotland was an eye opener. It took me several minutes to figure out how to free a shopping cart. There's a picture above of the locking mechanism. Finally, I realized that you have to slide a pound coin into a slot in the gray lock to unlatch it. After you finish shopping and reattach the cart in the station, it pops back out your pound coin. Shopping was another interesting experience, as Scottish grocery stores are arranged very differently from stores in the states. I'll go into more details on that later though.

It rained pretty much the whole day, and I quickly realized how much I took having a car for granted. Hauling groceries to the bus stop and onto the bus in the rain wasn't much fun, although the Danish girls at the bus stop couldn't stop laughing at how many "packages" I had. :) Live and learn - next time I'll just buy a few groceries at a time.

After getting back, I dried off and cooked some chicken noodle soup. Around 10 pm, I decided to check out the downtown area. I took the bus again downtown to check out the pub that the University's student organization runs, which is called the "Union." It's somewhat shocking to see the freshers sipping drinks, as the legal drinking age here is 18. After that, I walked to a dance club and socialized with some other students for a little while before walking home.

That was all for Sunday... Tune in soon for Monday's update!

First Impact

The past three days have truly swung by, and I've already had many amazing and eye opening experiences. I'll break the days into seperate entries to make it easier to follow.

Saturday

Above are some photos of my cozy little bedroom and kitchen. It's a six bedroom flat, but no one else has moved in yet. As you can see, my desk is a little messy with all of the papers I've been handed upon arrival.

The flat's located in a building complex called Hector Boece Court, which is part of the Hillhead Residence Complex. Much of Hillhead is comprised of student dorms where the "Freshers" (freshmen) live, with the rest of the complex consisting of self-catered flats like mine. Hillhead is approximately a 30 minute walk from campus, but a double decker bus comes every 30 minutes that runs between here and campus.

After nearly 24 hours of travelling, I slept pretty hard on Saturday night and didn't wake up until 1:30 pm on Sunday. The 6-hour jetlag has my sleep patterns acting weird, and I haven't really been hungry as a result.

That's all from Saturday, but see the next entry for Sunday's experiences!

Take care!

Arrived Safely and Moved In!

Greetings from Aberdeen!

I've arrived safely in Aberdeen and have moved into my university flat. Two out of the three bags I checked arrived as scheduled, and British Airways will hopefully deliver my last piece of luggage within the next few days. I can't beleive that I'm actually here in Scotland! It seems like just a few weeks ago Kay Castles and Tom Sartor were encouraging me to apply.

Right now it's 3 pm here (9am in Kilgore) and I'm running on 3 hours of sleep over the past 24 hours. I'll sleep well tonight! ;) It's around 48 degrees outside right now, but it feels much colder beacuse of the rain that started a few hours ago. A few veteran students have told me that it's usually very beautiful this time of the year, so I'm looking forward to seeing the countryside.

I'm glad to be finished travelling, but the journey has only just begun. Thank you Rotary for making this trip a reality!

Best wishes -

And I'm Off!

Aberdeen here I come.

I'll post again when I've arrived in Scotland!

Best wishes -