Sunday Shenanigans

Continuing to bring you up to speed...I woke up Sunday and Linsey invited me to come along that afternoon to her ultimate frisbee practice. I have only played very rarely and am pretty terrible but apparently this was the first practice of the year when they invite all of the freshman out so I agreed to go. It was weird participating in a formal sport practice again but I was actually better than many of the people who showed up (telling you how terrible they were, not that I was good by any stretch). I played for the better part of 3 hours and despite getting schooled for most of that time by the people who actually knew what they were doing, I had a blast.

Time for the more interesting part. Just next to the piece of pitch we were practicing on I noticed 10 Scots playing american flag football. What?!?! My general impression was that everyone in Europe hated american football so I sauntered up to them to see what was going on. Turns out they are all natives who just happened to pick up the game for on reason or another and play in the park every Sunday. Not only did they invite me to join in, they invited me out to watch some of the NFL games that night (sadly, no Steelers game was on). I was floored. When I had asked my flatmates earlier in the week whether any of the pubs in the city would play NFL football on TV they laughed at me and said that was the most ridiculous question I could have asked. A bit nervous about fitting in with a huge group like that, I still went out to a pub called the Pear Tree.

Here's the part where I describe one of the biggest revelations of my travels so far: dudes everywhere hang out in exactly the same way. From the time we are little we compete in every way we can come up with, for stupid reasons, and when we're not competing we interact with each other solely by ripping on each other in the most brutal of ways...and we love doing it. I walked into the pub having come straight from a store I was passing (not having a car has made me have to be ab it more organized about my trips out) and so I had my bookbag with me to carry the groceries. I hadn't even said hi when Steve, the guy who had originally invited me out, goes "There's Jason the American, got a big night of studying to do in the pub, do ya mate? I don't know how you do it back in the states but here we take our sports seriously and don't allow distractions. So help me God if there are books in that bag you better turn right back around". It was a great ice breaker and said in a friendly way and while the ladies might not understand this, to have him jab at me made me feel like part of the group immediately. I spent the rest of the night bantering with the group, making fun of them for everything from drinking wine in a Scottish pub while watching the NFL to actually considering buying a Vick jersey's and was ripped on in turn for my ridiculous American accent. Who would have thought that less than a week in I would randomly find a bunch of Scots to watch the NFL with every Sunday? Bloody Brilliant.

Bringing you up to speed

Here's a wee (great word) run down of the things I've been up to since I got here. I arrived last weds safe and sound and stayed for the night at the house of a wonderful friend of a friend named Sarah. She had been unbelievably helpful in the run up to my trip and even more so when she offered to let me crash on her couch for my first night in town. She's a UVA grad and now a veterinary student in Edinburgh. Obviously very jetlagged I didn't do much that night and spend the whole next day running errands (use of that word is solely for you, Griswald). One of the top reasons why traveling in Europe is so much better than in the states? I bought a new cell phone and a month long plan with a local Edinburgh number for 25 pounds...beautiful. Another reason? Fish and chips (see the picture up on facebook). Fish and chips from a real UK chippie for 5 pounds might be the greatest price-to-food-enjoyment ratio I've ever experienced, with a close second being a Doner Kebab at 3 am in Germany.

That evening one of my flatmates was nice enough to come pick me up so I didn't have to drag my luggage onto a city bus and took me over to the flat I'll be staying in for the next 5 weeks. Its very close to the University of Edinburgh and is right in the middle of where many of the students stay as well as being 2 blocks from one of the biggest parks in the city. The flatmates have been amazing and adopted me into their family as if I had been here for years. For your reference, here's the rundown of my roommates:

Blair: the one who picked me up, 4th year medical student, rugby player extraordinaire, and a great guy
Rae: 4th year medical student, member of the triathlon club
Craig; 4th year medical student, and ALSO an member of the triathlon club
Lisa: Law student, and ANOTHER member of the triathlon club
Linsey: Grad student in even management, tremendous ultimate player (getting the idea that, just like in Charlottesville, I'm living with a bunch of people who are much smarter, more talented, and more athletic than I am?)

I came in on a great night as many of the 4th year's had just finished their rotation and taken the equivalent of a SHELF exam and we're going out that night. We left the flat without me unpacking or even really knowing my own address and were out until 430 am. Pubs here shut down at 1 am but there are clubs open until 3 or 4, though I have yet to really understand the difference between the two. It seems like the clubs are the only places that play dance music and many of them are underground (literally, meaning requiring a flight of stairs down to them) but other than that I have no idea why one is allowed to stay open later while the other is not. You will all be proud to know that I pulled out some of the all time great american white boy dance moves with some of the medical students that I had just met, though I'm not sure many of them will speak to me ever again because of it.

Friday was spent wandering the city and finding my way out to the hospital where I am working, and I headed out Friday night with Sarah to the local vet student pub. They give discounts specifically to vet students, which leaves me wondering why there aren't medical student bars back in the states. Can we get on this? It was a great night, a bit calmer than the previous in a much needed way.

Saturday I woke up and decided to hike up Arthur's seat (the pictures up on facebook). Edinburgh is built with 7 large hills surrounding it and this is one of the biggest. The entire area around it has been turned into a park and outside of some roads that wind around it, it is unspoiled. There are few paths making it a difficult 800 m climb to the top but being in the middle of such an amazing city it provides views to challenge anything I've ever seen from Mt. Washington. It is very close to the firth of forth though and without any other mountains to cut the wind the top of it bears the full brunt of the wind off of the sea. Several times at the top I almost was blown off of my feet, and I have a video to post (as soon as my internet connection will quit timing out) that shows just how crazy it was. The trip was well worth it though, and I spent more than 2 hours at the top eating lunch and creating my masterpiece (again see the facebook photos). There is a spot about 200 yards from the top of the summit where a great number of small stones are just lying on a field, and tourists obviously come up there to leave things like their initials behind. After watching a group of college kids outline the body of one of their friends with rocks like a chalk outline in some gangster flick (including, of course, full male genitalia and a urine stream) I decided I had to leave a bit of home behind and what better way to do it than with a Steelers symbol? They responded promptly by losing this past weekend which leads me to believe it was a mistake.

Saturday night was Rae's birthday party at our flat and consisted of a tremendous pot luck dinner as well as a trip to a pub called The Three Sisters. I made chicken nachos for the dinner and was treated to some amazing cooking, as well as a never empty glass of wine. The Three Sisters is apparently a common stopping place for bachelorette and bachelor parties and is part pub part club. The outside has a huge area with tables and umbrellas, as well as a running grille (even until close) and all in all is very class. The inside was almost identical to Three on Eighties night (for the UVA kids) or a combination of Boomerangs and Cumpies (for the Pitt kids). Great times all around.

Its bed time, more to come later including my sunday shenanigans, how I met a whole group of guys to watch the NFL wit last night, and my first day at the clinic.

The Beginning

Welcome! So I've been in Edinburgh for about 5 days now and its been amazing. I managed to get very lucky and find not only a wonderful person to crash with the first night in town, but I've also gotten a room in the perfect flat. Its with 5 other graduate students at the University of Edinburgh (3 medical students, 1 law, 1 event planning/management) and they are already treating me as one of their own. I got to the flat about 830 pm on Thursday and my introduction to the apartment went something like this: "Here's your room, kitchen is there, shower is there, living room is over there. There's a chore wheel on the fridge that you're already on. We've just finished our exams today so you have 20 minutes to change and you're coming out with us." We were out until 430 am.

More to come later, including a run down of my first day at work (tomorrow)