Adventures of an Adventurer: Endless Adventures Make Unforgettable Memories

Hello all, I hope all of my readers are enjoying this gorgeous fall as much as I am. The weather is just in time for me to really start craving some warm coffee. And as expensive as life is here, their coffees are quite cheap, which could possibly make it the most dangerous aspect of traveling here. Also, here's a neat little tid bit, the Scots say skinny mocha; it's not that it's really that weird, but I've asked for a mocha with nonfat milk every time and they give me the 'gosh, she's a foreigner' look and correct me EVERY TIME!

Today I got lost for the first time on campus. I had previously scoped out the entire campus and ran across this room that definitely looked like it had been a Senate room, and there can only be one on a campus right? Wrong. I had gone to the NEW one instead of the old one for class. I guess that's what I get for studying abroad in a place that's cool enough to have two senate rooms.

This past weekend started off pretty crazy. A couple of my flatmates and I decided that pancakes were in order for Saturday morning, the catch: no milk. So, what's a poor college kid to do? Grab my Bailey's and use it as a substitute! Not going to lie, those were absolutely delicious. Our next venture that day sent us to a gorgeous little village called Stonehaven just 20 minutes away from Aberdeen. Our main focus: Dunnottar Castle and a fish and chips shop. What makes the castle here so unique is that it's practically its own island, and it's right alone the coast of the North Sea, I don't think the view could have been better! When we walked back into town we stopped at the restaurant, The Bay, which was awarded the best fish and chips shop in the UK; needless to say, it was amazing. As we were eating we witnessed this continuous line outside of the next-door ice cream shop, and even though we were full to the hilt, we couldn't help but test it for ourselves. It was definitely worth the wait- I got a flavor called Scottish Token (which is like a more brittle vanilla fudge), which I devoured happily :)

The next day my flatmate, Savannah and I set out at 5:30 AM to begin our excursion to Ben Nevis- the tallest 'mountain' in the UK. I put it in quotes because it was more like a hill elevation wise, a mere 4,409 feet tall. However, I rudely underestimated its difficulty- the entire hike up was basically large stone stairs (it ended up more like lunges for me though!) After the fact, I discovered that it was an ancient volcano, which made sense because the top 1/4 of the hike was completely comprised of small stones. All in all we covered about 10 vertical miles that day. We were able to hike it on a rarely sunny day, which was a blessing! One of the neatest parts was seeing all of the cute sheep roaming around the hillside. A side note about my experience on the eastern side of Scotland (where Ben Nevis is located)- there they speak Gaelic as well as English, so all of the signs have both languages!

Continuing on I was able to do my very first geoarchaeological dig at the site of Bennachie. It was the site of an old farming community from the early 1800s. My partner and I dug a test pit to analyze the soils and compare them to other test pits in order to identify how the landscape was used back in the day. Our data is actually going to be used in the research project, which I think is pretty exciting- we even found a cute lil piece of ceramic in our pit :)

A couple of random side notes before I wrap this blog up: I've discovered that few people have middle names in the UK, let alone a fair portion of mainland Europe, to me that just seems absolutely crazy! Less strange, and more exciting though, is Aberdeen's plethora of pubs with quiz nights. It's some good fun where you can win prizes, and make some friends, as well as have a good excuse to go out on a Monday :)

And here's my last notable thing. I was watching Netflix last night and came across an American movie and while I was watching it a guy got out on the right side of the vehicle. All was normal until I realized that he hadn't been the one driving- I was actually THINKING that the driver was going to be on the right side of the car. I think this is probably my first truly notable cultural impact that I somehow got into my brain. Along with that I've learned not to say, 'What's your major?' but instead 'What are you studying?'- and never say that you're a sophomore, because to them it's 2nd year. You don't say you're going to class, but that you're going to Uni, and finally it's not, 'Where are you from?', but 'Where abouts are you from?

Well, that's about the craziness of the last week in a nutshell. Word has it that Scotland's supposed to have its worst winter here in quite some time so we'll see if it lives up to it.

Blog to you soon,
Emily