Then up the road came Ed MacKeen with half the town of Aberdeen.

I need a break from the seven hours I've just spent studying European environmental policies, so I thought writing an update on my trip to Aberdeen would be a good use of time.

Friday: Mary arrived late Friday morning to spend the day in Edinburgh before we left for Aberdeen early the next morning. We grabbed lunch and walked along the Royal Mile before I had to go to an academic conference on the European Union. Mary used the time to explore Edinburgh and hike down to Leith to purchase an Hiberians FC sweatshirt - the Hibs are her football (soccer) team of choice. After my conference, Mary napped and I did some research on Aberdeen before we enjoyed a long dinner at an Italian restaurant on the Royal Mile. Friday was also Robert Burns Night, so we enjoyed watching all of the couples - men in kilts, of course - heading to various parties via the Royal Mile. The university was throwing a ceilidh in honor of Burns Night, so Mary and I went with some of my friends to grab a drink before heading to the ceilidh. When we arrived at the ceilidh it seemed as if it would be a lot of fun - a traditional band, everyone dancing, and every guy in the room in a kilt (and in the first 3 weeks I was in in Edinburgh I counted exactly three people in kilts) - but the fire alarm went off just as we were about to join in on the dancing, and after 20 minutes of waiting outside in a cold drizzle, Mary and I decided to head back to my flat and get a good night's rest before catching the first bus to Aberdeen.

Saturday: After some confusion as to which bus was ours (who would expect there to be 5 buses leaving for Perth in a 10 minutes span?) Mary and I finally got on our way. The Scottish countryside is beautiful, but I found the river Tay and the ocean to be the most impressive. I was a bit nervous about Aberdeen, what if I had a bad first impression of the place I'd built up so much in my mind? When we arrived in Aberdeen, though, I was just more startled by its size than anything. Aberdeen is home to 200,000 people but it seemed far larger to me than Edinburgh, home to nearly 450,000. Aberdeen is also called "The Granite City" - and I don't think any name could be more accurate. Every building is made out of granite - which had this overall stunning affect and made the city look extremely clean. Mary and I grabbed lunch and made our way to our hostel which was in this beautiful old house, made out of granite, of course.

After lunch we set out in search of 33 Charlotte Street (where my great-great grandparents lived before immigration to Canada) and the Kirks of St. Nicholas and St. Clement (where various ancestors were baptized and married). Charlotte Street was only a short walk from our hostel and we easily found number 33 ... or at least where it would have been. At some point the house was torn down and replaced with a factory, but I, of course, had to get a picture in front of where it had stood (and one under the Charlotte Street sign, for good measure).



The Kirk of St. Nicholas was easy to find - it's the main Church in the city, but St. Clement was shut down some years ago and was not to be found on any maps.


After hitting all the stops on the Ettershank family tour, we exlpored downtown Aberdeen and ended up at the Maritime Museum, which was really interesting (although I think I'm still partial to the Halifax Maritime Museum). We set off in search of the Fish Market, but found that it was actually just a market selling fish - not a tourist attraction. We grabbed an early dinner at a pub on Union Street where an extremely large group of (seemingly drunk) women were celebrating a 40th birthday. To me, a 40th birth lunch out should involve a nice meal and maybe a cake - but in Aberdeen it apparently involves dressing your friend up in a ridiculous outfit (complete with very large underwear, a blonde wig, a lightup pink cowgirl hat, and stickers that say 40! all over) and making her do ridiculous things. The women did seem to get a kick out of making Mary and I laugh at their friend and even gave us a piece of their cake.

After dinner Mary and I headed back to the hostel and took a power nap (a 3 hour bus ride starting at sunrise tires you out) before heading out. We were in search of a dive bar, but never seemed to find the right one. The most popular bar theme? Churches converted into bars. Along Union Street (Aberdeen's main strip), we counted five churches converted into bars or clubs. We finally settled on a pub where every imaginable surface (except the table and bars tops) was covered in red corduroy and caught up on each other's lives while listening to a large group of 30+ guys recount the Aberdeen FC's tragic loss the Hearts (from Edinburgh). As Mary is a huge Hibs fan (also from Aberdeen, the Hearts' fierce rival) and I have decided to be an Aberdeen fan, so we empathized with their heartbreak - and enjoyed their rousing choruses of football songs and cheers.

We were both exhausted so left for our hostel relatively early, and encountered an extremely amusing - but also thought provoking - moment. The Act of Union, the idea of Scottish independence, and Scottish-English politics and relations are huge issues in Scotland, and the main focus of of Scottish Government and Politics course. Now I've met many Scots who believe in Scottish Independence here, but I haven't met all that many who profess a seething hatred of the English. But when Mary and I were on the way back to our hostel, we encountered three women, most likely in their late 40s who had been drinking their night away, and had stumbled upon the British Heart Foundation building? Their reaction to seeing the word British? The kept yelling "@#$%ing English!!" and one was spitting at the building (despite it being across the street). I do support the Scandinavian Model, but I still have a lot of research I need to do in the area of devolution and Scottish independence to feel like I fully grasp the topic. Still, it was fascinating to me to see such an open display of hatred towards the English. After arriving back at the hostel, Mary and I stayed up for awhile and did a lot more catching up, reflecting on our page year, and speculating about the future.



Sunday: We had to catch the 10:35 bus back to Edinburgh, but we got up early so we could enjoy a nice, long breakfast along Union Street. Our bus ride home offered more beautiful scenery. After arriving back in Edinburgh we grabbed lunch and then spent Mary's last few hours in the city enjoying the rare sunshine.

I guess the one thing I learned from the trip to Aberdeen is that I want to go back. 24 hours isn't nearly enough time in one place. I want to do some research at the libraries and historical societies on my family, and apparently the city's archives has a relatively extensive collection on Sir Alexander Lyon, Lord Provost of Aberdeen (my great-grandmother's first cousin) which I really want to check out. I would also like to find a way to get out to Echt and Skene in Aberdeenshire, where my ancestors lived before moving into the city. I plan on going back in the spring - during the time when the gardens at Balmoral Castle are open to the public.


For now, though, I need to get to bed! Tomorrow and Thursday I have tutorials and then Thursday evening we leave for Venice!

Making plans

Trip plans are starting to fall into place for the rest of the semester - here's what is set, as of now:

- Aberdeen: next weekend with Mary Swick
- Venice: for Carnvial with my flatmates
- Dublin: for St. Patrick's day with Rachael McMillan and friends from Edinburgh
- Paris
- Berlin
- Athens: all with Caroline on a long spring-break trip
- London: to visit Mary at some point during the semester
- Valencia, Spain (hopefully): to visit Caroline


Otherwise I, desperately, want to visit Sweden, but haven't made plans yet. There are a few other places I'd like to see - namely Morocco, the Isle of Skye, and the Shetland Islands, but it all depends on money and when my finals fall.



Readings for my classes have been keeping me busy, but last night we had a flat-warming party at our place - here's a picture of the four of us that live in 13/5:

Edinburgh Photographs

It was a beautiful, sunny day in Edinburgh today so after my Environmental Politics tutorial I set out to explore some more of Old Town and take some pictures.  I've uploaded an album to my picasa site linked in the post below, but here is one of my favourites:

Mein Deutsch ist sehr schlecht, auf Englisch? Bitte?

Deutschland, the Motherland (or at least one of mine) was the destination of my first European travel adventure. I spent my three days there with my friend Liesel, a fellow German and member of my Page Class, who was finishing up 11 days backpacking through Germany and the Czech Republic. I expected that I would love Germany, but I didn't expect that I would love Germany. As Liesel and I wandered through the streets of Munich on Thursday we both agreed that if we learned one thing from the trip, it was that we both wanted to see more of the country.

The trip also gave me a chance to try out my, very limited, German language skills. I took 4 years of the language from 7th-10th grades, and had a very love-hate relationship with it - always depending on my teacher. I decided to give it another shot in college, and took Elementary Germany I last fall and was stunned that it turned out to be my favorite class of college so far. Unfortunately I could only fit one semester in, but continue to have the urge to learn more when I get the chance. While my vocabulary is quite dismal I managed to order food (and beer), buy tickets, hail a cab, and ask for directions all in German. Although I didn't always understand the answers, and had to ask for an English answer by explaining (in German) that my German was very bad, it felt good to at least try out speaking it to native speakers, other than my professors, for the the first. With that, here is a run-down of the trip:

Wednesday: I left a cold and rainy Edinburgh to catch my flight to Munich and was surprised how easily all of my traveling went - until I got into Munich. I had trouble finding (what I thought was) my hostel, but I asked an elderly German man where the street was and he answered me in German - and I understood! To make a long story short, in the rush to make plans with Liesel I had written down the wrong hostel, but a couple of hours (and a trip to the Deutsches Museum) later, we finally found one another. Liesel had met Shawn and Bri, both from the States and studying in Copenhagen for the year, and we spent that evening and half of our next day with them. We got dinner and a beer at a student brewery in the city. For those that don't know, I've been following a relatively-vegetarian diet while I am at school. I still eat fish and seafood, and will eat meet if it inconveniences for me not to, but I try and avoid meat as much as possible, especially red meat and pork products, but in Germany I embraced Bavarian food and ate a total of 5 different wursts in 3 days - and I must say, they were delicious! I don't plan on going back to eating meat, but I was very glad I ate wursts while was in Germany. After dinner, we met up with Zach, who Shawn and Bri were staying with, and he spent the rest of the night showing us around the city.

Thursday: Liesel and I woke up early to get a start on our tourist-day. We started out with a pretzel (for me) and a wurst sandwich (for Liesel) from a platz vendor. We wandered around Marienplatz, ducking into some cathedrals. We caught the Glockenspiel play and were excited that there was a group of children who were set up to sing after the Glockenspiel - but were very disappointed when they turned out to be American children singing in English. We weren't the only disappointed ones, the man standing next to me turned to his wife and sarcastically said (in German) - "They are singing in English? Super!" and the couple turned and left. From there Liesel and I just wandered most of the rest of the afternoon, through the platzs and some parks. I can't really name everything we saw, but everything was absolutely beautiful and so historic.

After all of our wandering, we met up with Bri and Shawn for an early dinner at the Haufbrauhaus. We all ordered the HB beer and very german meals - for me, more wurst; for Liesel and Shawn schnitzel, and for Bri (who wasn't quite hungry enough for a full dinner) apple strudel. We enjoyed the om-pa band and people watching before Liesel and I had to leave to catch our train to Frankfurt. On the train, we ended sitting up by an extremely intoxicated 17 year old that didn't speak any English and who either didn't mind, or was too drunk to tell, how broken and poor my German was, so I tried to talk to him for awhile. He was apparently on a gap year and was enjoying Munich and all of its beer; he also thought it was, for some reason, hilarious that Liesel and I were from the states. When we finally ran out of things to talk about, and when he, in all of his drunkenness and in being seventeen, began to just get annoying we moved into the dining car and napped for most of the rest of the long train ride. We met up with a friend of Liesel's at our layover in Mannhiem and then continued onto Frankfurt where we went almost straight to bed upon our arrival.






Friday: Liesel had an early morning flight to catch, so I slept in a bit and then spent my morning/afternoon wondering around Frankfurt. I didn't love Frankfurt nearly as much as I loved Munich, but there was the perfect amount of things to see for the small amount of time I had to see there. I wondered through the platzes getting a rindwurst and a nutella crepe from street vendors. I went into a few cathedrals and walked across the river.





Then comes the tricky, not fun part. I had asked one of the hostel workers how to get to the Hahn airport and he gave me directions and showed me the map and everything. But when I went to the information desk at the airport and asked where the ryanair check-in was, the man just shook his head and explained that ryanair flew out of the other airport - which was an hour and a half away and which the bus only ran to every hour - the hostel worker had sent me to the wrong place and I didn't have enough time to make my flight! After a momentary freak out I checked ryanair's website and found that I couldn't get anything with them until Monday, so I gritted my teeth and handed over a nearly week's worth of my summer wages from my checking account for the next flight to Edinburgh. Then things got more complicated. My flight to Amsterdam was delayed more than an hour and a half - and I missed my connection to Edinburgh. After dealing with about half a dozen KLM service reps I finally had a hotel room, paid for by KLM, for the night and a seat on the first flight to Edinburgh in the morning. I ate a late dinner in the hotel, also paid for by KLM, and watched a bit of The Parent Trap (in Dutch) on TV before falling asleep. Finally this morning I caught my 9:30 flight to Edinburgh and made it back to my flat!

Although I wish I had had more time in Germany, it also felt wonderful to be back in Edinburgh - I really love this city. Today I also made travel plans for 2 of the next three weekends. Next Friday morning - Saturday evening I'll be in Aberdeen, finding my roots and doing some research on my ancestors. Then the first weekend in February I'll be going to Venice for Carnival with my flat mates!

Guten Abend!

Tomorrow.

In 24 hours I'll be somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean to begin my five months in Europe. On one hand I'm not ready to leave home, two weeks isn't nearly enough time - but on the other, I'm ridiculously excited for Edinburgh. Instead of writing, I need to be packing, so to sum up what I'm looking forward to, here is a picture of Edinburgh: