So it dawns on me that I set up this blog several days before I left and have yet to post anything. This dawns on me because every now and then I see this page and theres a line on my dashboard that says "No posts yet--Get Blogging!" Hey google plus advice-- piss off! I don't need some voice from across the sea telling me what to do with my time; that's what I have a mother for. Anyway, this blog is set up to chronicle my travels or whatever since I have a very bad memory compounded by the fact that Foster's is cheaper than water in our campus run store. Did I mention that this campus runs a liquor store, a club and a bar? But enough about breakfast, I'll come back to that later. This blog really got set up because Loyola never e-mailed me back about becoming a student blogger. Apparently somebody warned them. But, as Tyler Perry's Madea once said, "I can do internet all by myself." Anyway, this post title is a reference to Hadrian's Wall, built by the Romans to keep the Scottish (at the time, Picts) from wreaking havoc on Roman conquered England and Wales (incidentally this is often considered to be the last efficiently run Italian contracting job). The blog title itself is a reference to the Legend of Korra, and together I think those titles prove that while I know a great deal about history, at heart I will never leave my parents' basement. With that, let's talk about Scotland.
I flew in this past Saturday, and got to my room and as I'm unpacking I open the window to get some sunlight, which is funny since they don't have that here. In fact, the Scots don't have a word for sunlight since most of them live their whole lives without seeing it. It was sunny a few days ago and my friend Gordon (from Glasgow) was completely disoriented. We're telling him he dreamt the whole thing so he can cope with it. What I did see out my window was, and I kid you not, a golf course and a castle. So I'm definitely in Scotland, or Disney's getting really aggressive with their theme park placement. I took a walk after I got unpacked, and I was alone since I didn't know anybody here and had fallen asleep for an hour or two from the jet lag. Except I wasn't alone because on the way out of campus was Graham construction. And then two minutes down the hill was Graham dairy. Thomas, are you following me, bro? Cuz I've got a floor if you wanna crash.
Our floor is largely American, which is pretty comical. We outnumber the Scottish kids something like 3 to 2, and we've been talking about opening up an Embassy in our kitchen, since it's just loud American 20 somethings drinking with Scottish 18 year olds. After re-reading that sentence, I'll admit that I have no idea what happens in an Embassy. The hall itself, AK Davidson isn't bad, though a bit old. All of the student housing here looks like it belongs in the former Soviet bloc, and there is indeed an East and West Wing. Guess which one they put all the Americans in, Aaron Sorkin? We've all had a good time so far and the Scots are lovely. To name a few; there's Lewis, another English student and now a fellow nerf assassin, Gordon, who has been proclaimed my son and who let me borrow his computer early on since I lied earlier when quoting Madea. There's Evie, terrified of spiders but very sweet, Heather who I run into mornings, Scott (who is indeed a Scot) the quiet kid of the bunch of us, and Stuart the cut-up, and Lucy, a girl we've adopted from East Wing. These are of course weak descriptions, but I've got limited space, so give me a freaking break. There are too many Americans to name here, so maybe I'll do a post later just introducing people on the floor, or maybe I'll just make you guess who I'm talking about. There are, after all, two American Amys and two American Toms (although the other one is technically Czech.)
Before I go, a few words (as if I could ever write just a few words) on cultural differences. I believe I mentioned that this is a wet campus, which is surprising most of all in that it's not a big deal here. Eighteen year olds can drink in the open, so if anyone ever got into trouble we'd call for help and sae them instead of leaving them when we're running from the cops. Ya feel bad yet, American colleges? They sell Stella Artois over here for cheap, and it's called wife-beater, since that's what wife-beaters drink here. Gordon asked me what wife-beaters drink in America and I said "A lot." Can you believe we pay top dollar to import what the trailer trash drinks over here? They also freaked out when I pulled out a pocket knife to cut a Mars Bar (yes, they have 'em here) in half, as apparently knife crime is bad here and knife possession is an arrest (thank you to a very drunk Gordon for explaining this to me). Perhaps the strangest cultural difference is the schooling itself, though, as the majority of your studies are made up of independent studies. In fact, while at Loyola I would attend at least two classes a day for what comes to somewhere between two and five hours of class a day, here I have four class periods in a week, for a total of six hours of class per week. It does average out though, as reading homework in a given week probably falls just north of ten hours (it doesn't help that I read slowly, or that number would be much smaller). I had a class this morning that was cancelled, and my next class falls Friday at four. So I will be free for well over 48 hours now. Prepare yourselves, Stirling. One final difference I think is worth mentioning is that Four-Loco (or something close) is alive and well in the land of the Scots, and in multiple forms. There's something called Dragon, which is an energy drink with a bit less alcohol than the loco, but there's also something called Buckfast--a caffeinated tonic wine that tastes like oil (yeah, one time I drank oil. I was preparing for the role of Greased Lightning.) Both seem dangerous, but only the Scottish kids themselves are actually having a hard time handling them, by which I mean Lewis and Gordon, who both already have good Buckfast stories (and bad Buckfast hangovers). At 18, though, who could really blame them?
There is much more that merits mentioning, but this is already waaay too long a post, so I'll fill in the blanks later. More to follow whether you want it or not, I promise, and with pictures too! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going on a bus tour of the city of Stirling, and hopefully to a good fish and chippies shop. Bye.
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