I have just finished my first week at the University of Edinburgh! It was a great week and I am really enjoying my classes despite having to adjust to the British educational system, which I have found to be drastically different from the American system. As my Scottish History "tutor" (or TA) put it, British professors do not do nearly as much hand-holding as educators in the states. My grades are based completely on one essay and a lengthy final exam sometime in May, so I have a lot to look forward to!
My first day proved to be very typical for an American visiting student as I left and hour early only to find the building of my first class about 45 minutes later after a very nice Australian man led me through the city to the building. I then walked (or really ran) aimlessly through an extremely complicated building that probably had not really been renovated for a hundred years. This made it extremely difficult to find one very small room entitled Ewing (like everything else) in this giant, unmarked place. I arrived 20 minutes late to a class of eight British Art History majors and totally proved every American stereotype to be true as I barged in clueless and completely out of breath. I was totally embarrassed, but the professor was really understanding about it, and the part of the class that I actually made was really interesting.
The rest of the week went really well. The classes are great and the professors and the students here are really intelligent, interesting people. So far I have been really impressed with how patient and friendly Scottish people are, and they have made my transition that much easier. The first school sponsored event for visiting students was a pizza party at the union where I immediately met other lost Americans. They are also great, and I have spent a lot of time getting to know them as well as some Scottish people who we were buddied up with us by the university. After the pizza party, the buddies organized an awesome pub crawl/city tour to get us acquainted with Edinburgh. It was really memorable and a fantastic way to kick off the semester.
Last night I went to a ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) which is a traditional Scottish dance. It is basically a live band (mostly fiddles) and really lively partner and line dancing. It was pretty much a rowdier version of that dance scene out of Pride and Prejudice where everyone switches partners and spins around a lot. There were professional ceilidh dancers in kilts as well as Scottish students who were dressed traditionally and told us they had been doing these dances since they were three years old! They helped us to learn each of the dances, which were actually really easy to pick up. Even though they were easy to learn, the dances each lasted about 15 minutes so that every couple (and there were about a hundred people there) had their turn. It was actually a pretty intense workout which I had been warned about previously, but definitely was not prepared for. The dance was so much fun and definitely the highlight of "freshers week".
dancing at the ceilidh
This morning I decided to finally get motivated and went to the Centre for Sport and Exercise, which appears to be just another really old stone building from the outside, but is actually really nice and modern inside. I would argue that it definitely surpasses the Lifetime in Skokie, Illinois. Apparently all the world renowned rugby players and footballers come from all over to train there, which I think is pretty amazing. I did my usual 2.5 incline at level 5 on the treadmill but for some reason it felt shockingly easy for having taking about two weeks off of running. After about 10 minutes I realized that it was set on kilometers per hour..duh.
Despite some easily avoided wrong turns and treadmill mishaps, I am really loving this city. Edinburgh has a really unique personality that I already love and I am so excited to keep meeting people and trying new Scottish things. As is inscribed on the exit doors of many of the Edinburgh pubs, cheers and haste ye back!
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