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Robin Hood and Snow!

2/5/2009

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I spent the past week in Nottingham.

I went to visit a very dear childhood friend who goes to Uni there. She's a few years younger than me and we've known each other since we were babies in India. We used to run around and play make believe games and colour together when we were kids. The last time I saw her was when I was fifteen. Now we're both grown up and its amazing how much the same we still are and yet, how different we are from who we were as kids.

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I had the most amazing time with her. We went to see the Nottingham Castle last Thursday. It's a lovely place; we walked around it taking pictures with my (semi-broken) digital camera. We also took a tour of the caves. This was fun as the tour guide told us stories of what the caves were used for and how they came in handy during the English Civil War. They were quite pretty. We also saw the statue of Robin Hood (the statue doesn't make him out to be as handsome as the films and cartoons do).

We walked around Nottingham City on the next day, and did a bit of shopping. I finally got myself a pair of skinny jeans and some nice boots to go with it!
We went into Beeston which is right next to my friend's halls of residence. It used to be a place where they kept bees. Hence the name. There were some cool shops over there as well.

On Sunday evening, it started to snow and when we woke up on Monday everything was white! It was so pretty to see so much snow. It kept snowing all throughout Monday as well. There was enough snow for people to make plenty of snowmen all around the University Campus.  That evening we went sledging on the slopes on campus and we had a snowball fight with three random guys who dared to challenge us. I'd like to say we "won", but really, I don't even know how that would be determined.

While we were sledging a bit later on, one of the girls twisted her ankle and she had to be taken to A&E (Accident and Emergency) at the hospital. It took us quite a while to get there, but she was glad when they told her it wasn't broken after they X-rayed it.

I, sadly, didn't get to build a snowman because of that. We vowed to get up early the next day and build one. We were up at seven the next morning, but when we went outside to build our snowman, we saw that all the snow had turned to ice. Which went crunch, crunch underneath our feet as we walked in it. It was such a surprise because it still looked like snow form afar, but instead of being soft and fluffy, it was hard and crunchy.

I attended a few of my friend's lectures at Nottingham Uni. She studies psychology, so most of them were quite interesting.

We went out partying on one of the nights and that was fun as well.

I got back to St Andrews this afternoon. My train from Nottingham left at 7:23 in the morning and it was snowing again when we woke up at five. The taxi had a bit of trouble getting to the train station, but in the end it got there on time and I was able to catch my train.
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Train in the Snow at Doncaster

The train moved along quite slowly, because of the snow on the tracks, I suppose.  It was a little late getting to my connecting station and I realised I had missed the connection. I was about to try and figure out were the Information desk was when I hear another guy ask some people about the next train to Doncaster, which was where I had to be as well. So I went with him to Information, and they told us to just take the next train that goes there and it shouldn't be a problem because of the weather. We did that. At Doncaster, I saw him again and it turned out that we had to catch the same next train as well. This train was delayed by 20 minutes, so we stood on the cold snowy platform and ended up waiting for ages. They kept pushing the time the train was expected at, back by a few minutes every so often.
Tired of waiting, we both got something to eat and decided to take the next train going in the direction we needed to go.  Which is what we did. We got the train, and managed to get to his station, where the train terminated. He helped me to find the correct platform to catch the next train to Edinburgh and helped me with my  bags, which I had one too many of. We enjoyed talking about the snowy weather and attempting to do the crossword puzzle in the newspaper while we were on the train.
I don't suppose I'll see him again, but he was nice.

At Edinburgh, I got out and did a little window shopping and then caught the next train to Leuchars. I reached St Andrews in the late afternoon and was so happy to be back in my room. I had missed it a lot.
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The Real Begining

9/23/2008

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Ok, so, I know this is long overdue, but I've been busy/tired/without internet access for the past few days. This is going to be a long entry, so, here goes.

To begin, my train journey from London to Edinburgh was quite nice. It was cool to see the countryside along the way. There was a bunch of girls in the same compartment as me who were traveling to Edinburgh together. They were quite loud, but all I remember from their conversations was this one girl saying "Oh my God, that is so cool" in a British accent over and over again.  It was most interesting.
Then there's the guy who was sitting next to me. He seemed really nice at first, but later on every time he would feel a sneeze coming on, he would pinch his nose shut, thereby not really allowing himself to sneeze. I'm pretty sue that stopping a sneeze like that can do some significant damage to your sinuses.
When I got out on to the station at Edinburgh, I figured I was too tired to drag both my bags to the hotel. So I kept one of them at the station at the place that allows you to store your bags there for a fee.  It was a good choice as the road to the hotel was a winding uphill road and one heavy suitcase and a backpack was more than enough.

Our orientation was lovely. There are six other UC students beside myself who are studying in St Andrews as well. The first evening we walked down to the EAP study center and then had dinner with the programme directors at really nice restaurant. The food choices were lovely and our director ordered wine for us too. I was able to have a really nice three course meal. In the evening the bunch of us went to a pub. But we were all so tired that we went back to the hotel quite early.
The next day we had our orientation information session at the study center in the morning. They told us all about what we should and should not do and gave us some information we needed. We were on our own for lunch and the seven of us went to a pub for lunch.
After lunch we went to see the Edinburgh Castle. There was a guided tour where the guide took us all around the castle and told us cool and interesting things about it. After that we walked all the way to the other end of town to begin our hike up to Arthur's seat. Which is the highest point of the hills formed by an extinct volcano. It was a relatively easy hike, but quite tiring when you haven't done much more than sit in front of a computer for the past month and a half. I have a video of me at the top.
 We had dinner again that evening at an Italian restaurant and I felt like I could get used to having a glass of wine at dinner everyday ;-). Some of us went to a pub again, I didn't have anything this time, frankly, I'm not really confident enough to order my own alcoholic beverage.They had free live music later on by this Scottish indie band. I stayed to listen, but not for too long, I went back by 11 pm.

My next entry will (hopefully) be about my journey to St Andrews and my first few days here. But right now I gotta go to lunch.

UPDATE: Pictures of Edinburgh are now up!

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More of London

9/18/2008

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On Tuesday, I went sightseeing around London with my cousin, again. It was nice to be back in the city, it felt as lovely as ever. It was a bit windy and chilly, more so than last time.

We did a lot of walking this time. We went to Westminster, saw Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. We walked to the Tate Modern. The Tate Modern was nice, they had some interesting pieces of art there.
From there we walked across the Millennium Bridge towards St. Paul's Cathedral.  Then we took a bus to London Bridge. From there, we took the lovely walk, along the Thames, all the way up to Tower Bridge.  Walking by the river meant we felt the cold and wind even more, but it wasn't too bad. Then we walked across Tower Bridge and around the Tower of London. It all looked very impressive.  To borrow my cousin's words "Tower Bridge is the prettiest bridge in London".

I am a bit tired now. Tonight is my last night down here. I leave bright and early tomorrow to take the train from King's Cross to Edinburgh.  I'm a bit excited and a bit nervous. I have to go put my stuff in order now. So, I have to say goodbye.

Oh wait! I almost forgot. I have more pictures! Right Here.


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Around Town...

9/11/2008

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I've spent the last two days sightseeing in London Town. It's been pretty amazing. It was lovely to actually see the places in person, when I'd only seen them in pictures or on TV before.

Buckingham Palace was lovely. I saw part of the Changing of the Guard there yesterday morning. It was quite cool. The gates of the Palace are massive. I mean, you would expect palace gates to be massive but actually seeing them left quite an impression.
The parks are lovely too. I walked through Green Park and Hyde Park and they seem like lovely places to take a contemplative walk or even to go for a morning jog, which quite a few people were doing.
Trafalgar Square was another place that struck me as being huge. The sun was playing hide and seek when we were there and I kept having to take off and put on my coat.
I also Saw Piccadilly Circus and the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of Natural History, which were quite nice too.

London definitely seems like an amazing place. It feels rather familiar although I'm not sure exactly why that is. It could be because something about it reminds me of Mumbai; like the architecture of some buildings, the trains and train stations, the fact that traffic moves on the left. It could also be because I've lived in London in my imagination before. I'd even looked at pictures of it when I was younger and imagined myself there. It definitely lived up to all that I'd imagined it to be and was in some ways even more impressive.

I'm not done seeing this lovely city yet, I'm going to visit a few more places in the next few days and I'll be sure to write about them too.

In the meantime,  here are some pictures for you to enjoy!
Let me know what you think of them and I'd love to hear anything else you might have to say or ask.


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    Clarissa D

    I'm a college student from UC Davis. I spent my junior year   studying abroad at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. These are my adventures.




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