Coming to you from the land of no presidential debates

It is glorious! Supposedly a couple of American students reserved the television downstairs in the common area from 2-4 a.m. this morning to watch Barak and John try to be presidential. Of course there was wonder if it would happen, but fortunately John got back on the campaign horse and flew south to the land suffering from no petrol. Becky, invest in a bike!

Luckily, I was dreaming happy thoughts at these times and did not go down to watch. I am sure they didn't say anything earth shattering, and much to the dismay of the media I was right. Oh how the media suffers.

Instead what I did last night was to determine if I was eligible for a public library card here in Edinburgh, and luck of the Irish, I am. So, this morning I went around the corner and got me a public library card, and checked out some non-required reading.

This of course makes me want to post some of my favorite library quotes:

"A circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge;" - Richard Brinsley Sheridan

"A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone." - Jo Godwin

And perhaps my favorite: "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." - Jorge Luis Borges

I have decided that I need to read the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, because he taught here at the University and currently lives in Edinburgh. So, just in case I run into him I want to at least say I read the first book in the series. If I like it, then it is on to the others.

Some of you may be disappointed that this post is not about my bedroom. It is coming. Not to worry. I am also going to hike Arthur's Seat tomorrow after church, meaning I will have a post from that activity. So much to blog about so little time.

And because every post should have a picture, I include this one. This is the world's largest memorial to a writer, the writer who got this one, Sir Walter Scott. One interesting fact, the architect, George Kemp, of this modest monument was a local, and one foggy evening while working, he stumbled into a canal and drowned. There are stairs that you can climb up (for a small fee of course) to get great views of the city. I will have to look into that.

Scott Monument

Travesty

So I just got online to watch the Daily Show, to get my fix of the real news, and to my dismay and horror, full episodes are not available for individuals across the pond. I only hope YouTube can save me now. If you have any other suggestions, that won't get me in trouble with the University of Edinburgh, let me know. The best part about a blog, I can complain and those people who care, i.e. those who read my blog, feel my pain.

Where I Live

I can't take another minute of reading, so what better way to relax then to stare at a computer screen while I blog about Edinburgh. This will officially finish me off for the day, and then I will rest my wee head on my wee pillow for a wee bit of sleep. I am disappointed that I have not yet heard any Scot use the word wee.

I live on the Royal Mile. The Mile is divided into 4 different areas. The top most part of the street is called Castlehill, which if you can't tell by it's name is where Edinburgh Castle is.

I took this picture from "the Mound" which is what they call the hill that the School of Divinity sits on. Supposedly in the winter this street is a bear to get up and down because of the ice. I can walk to the Castle from where I live in about a minute. This is the closet to Royalty I have ever been.

The next area of the Royal Mile is called Lawnmarket, and this is where I live. This area was once the setting for a linen market. The use of the word "lawn" is actually a corruption of the French term for linen "Laon".*

This the entrance to Milne's Court which is where my dorm is. The University of Edinburgh bought this property and refurbished for student housing. My room is practically right above this tunnel on the seventh floor. Something that is not so great when inebriated individuals decide to pass on through at night. Luckily there haven't been many since I arrived, and as the tourist season winds down, it will probably get quiter, unless students decide to take the tourist's place.

If you are standing at the entrance of the tunnel above and turn around this is what you see. This church (commonly referred to as "The Hub") was built in 1845 as an assembly hall for the Church of Scotland. Today it is the headquarter for the Edinburgh Festival Centre.

The road that you see running next to the church is the one you follow to get to the Castle.

If you continue on through Milne's Court you exit onto the mound and come down on the side of the School of Divinity. This is a picture of the back side of Milne's Court and the stairs that you come down. I don't need a gym membership because of the all of the walking and stairclimbing that I do.


This is the building where the School of Divinity is housed. Pretty impressive. I hope it inspires divine thoughts.

If you continue down from the back of Milne's Court you eventually hit Prince's street. Once of the main shopping and thourough fairs of Edinburgh. That will have to be for another day. This picture was taken not far from where Princes street is looking back at the Mound. The tall point spire is of the church, and you can see part of the School of Divinity. I obviously need to work on my photography skills.
Come back soon for more pictures of the dorm and a tour of my wee bedroom. I am sure you won't want to miss it, literally, you blink and you have missed my room.


* I have to give a shout out to my friends Ned and Diane and Christina who supplied me with the tour guides that provided most of the factual information contained in this post. Thank you!

The Trip Across the Pond

The journey started out well. The speeches were great, the mayor gave me the key to the city, small children held hands and sang "It's a Small World".

Me, Chrys and the Bags - look closely at the bags because after giving them over to the airlines in SLC on Friday morning, I would not see them again until late Monday evening.

I checked in fine no worries, got to my gate, no problem, an hour and a half before the flight was supposed to leave they tell us because of weather problems in Chicago our flight would be delayed two hours. So much for my two hour layover in Chicago.

So I missed my connecting flight to Manchester, I tried to make it onto a later flight that evening to Heathrow, but to no avail meaning I spent the night in Chicago, with the hundred of thousands of other people stranded in Ohare.

Luckily the next morning I asked to be dropped off at the international terminal, thinking that was the terminal I would be flying out of. If not, I would have been stuck in the traffic trying to get into Ohare. Something that wasn't going to happen because the closed off all traffic to the airport because of flooding. Creating even more problems for people trying to get out of Chicago.

I'll I can say, is that being in Ohare that Saturday was the closest I have been to being in a flood situation. There were runways shut down because they were flooded, and I hope the pictures below show just a little of what was happening between some of the terminals. I ended up taking pictures next to a pilot from United and he said he had never seen anything like this before.



I was able to get rebooked on a flight to Heathrow that left at 4:00 p.m. Saturday afternoon, we didn't leave until 5:30 p.m. because of the weather. I landed in Heathrow at 7:00 a.m. London time, and caught a flight to Edinburgh at 11:05 a.m. putting me into Edinburgh at 12:25 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. So I arrived pretty much a day later then I should have.

One interesting fact about Heathrow, they do not post gate information for a flight until 30 or 40 minutes before the flight is scheduled to leave. I wonder if that is something they started after September 11th.

Once I arrived in Edinburgh I watched the luggage carousel with hope, but alas it was in vain. Not completely unexpected. There were three other individuals there who had flown with me from Chicago and their baggage was also not there. So we submitted the claims and then parted ways.

The one good thing about not receiving my baggage until late Monday night, it was delivered to my dorm and I did not have to carry it up to my dorm from where the taxi cab let me out.

This post pretty much brings me up to where I can start blogging about Edinburgh. But that is going to have to wait until either tomorrow or Wednesday. I need to finish the reading for my first class tomorrow. I have to remember that I am student first, blogging extraordinaire second, much to the sadness of my fervent readers.

Cheers!

My Own Private Idaho

Unfortunately, there was no River Phoenix, although had he been there, it definitely would have been similar to an Elvis sighting, and probably in the National Enquirer the next day, and I would be $30,000 dollars richer for having sold them my photos.

After being in UT for only a couple of day, I traveled north to ID to see my brothers that live there. Had a great time, hanging with my niece Rowan, who is terribly cute. I don't have a lot of pictures of my own from this time because I had not yet purchased my new digital camera. So I graciously say thank you to those family members who shared with me. We had a family reunion while I was there. All of us together, an amazing feat, plus we were all wearing our square ice cream scoop shirts, the one claim to fame for Swan Valley, that and the fact the Dick Cheney does a lot of fly fishing here, and I think he is probably doing it on our (the American public's) tab. There is government excess that John McCain can take care of.

My shirt was of course a lovely color of orange - a fun fact about me, orange is my favorite color - mostly because orange is the new pink

I also did some hiking near my Grandparents. I really do find Swan Valley to be one of the loveliest places on earth. We hiked up a canyon to reach a couple of lakes. This picture is testimony to the beauty of southeast Idaho:

and A River Runs Through It

I have often wondered if it is possible to talk for an entire day just using lines from movies. There are four film references in this blog. Kudos to you if you properly identify them all.

Leaving DC - almost like leaving Las Vegas

Which when you consider the news of our nation's capital lately, it really is one big gamble.


This is Hornsby and Shelby giving me some goodbye love. These are the two dogs that I lived with for the past five years. I think they would like Scotland, mostly because of all that fur.

First I drove across the country with my little sister and brother. Love them, but three days in a car packed with personal belongings is enough to make somebody not want to get in a car for a while afterwards.

The Disclaimer and Naming

So here it is. The long awaited blog from me. I find the first post of any blog usually has a disclaimer by the author asking that nobody be disappointed in their blog. I am going to start out by saying this blog is going to rock! You will want to book mark it and read it every day, just in case I throw up a new tidbit of information for your reading enjoyment.

I have been thinking about what I would title my blog since about May. It is not easy knowing what to name a blog. I asked a lot of people for suggestions, before finally settling on international chaos. The name of the blog was chosen for two reasons 1) international anarchy was taken and 2) I am studying international law here in Scotland, and for many lawyers, international law is described as anarchy and chaos, which is what makes international law (and international lawyers) sexy!

So, with that out of the way, let's get down to blogging the heroic tales of survival and endurance of an American in Scotland.