Haggis Is Actually Delicious

hag•gis |ˈhagis|
noun ( pl. same)

A Scottish dish consisting of a sheep's or calf's offal mixed with suet, oatmeal, and seasoning and boiled in a bag, traditionally one made from the animal's stomach.



Feb. 15-21

Not much exciting happened this week in class. I did go back to the doctor on Sunday and got more medicine, which was great. Every time I talk to one of you grown-ups (here's looking at you, Mom), you ask me if I go to class at all.

Of course I do. Attendance is actually mandatory. And not the kinda-sorta-not-really mandatory it is on campus, but legit mandatory. If we miss class, they drop our final grade by a letter. So yeah, I go to class. I just assumed you weren't interested in themes in British philosophy or macroeconomics. Let me know if you are.

On Friday, we got up early to catch our train to Edinburgh. Trains, in case you don't know, are super fun. More leg room than planes, beautiful views, a "quiet carriage" for those of us who want to go back to bed and THERE'S A TROLLEY JUST LIKE HARRY POTTER!!! It was awesome. Joey, Jerry and I got there around 2:30 and walked down to our hostel, which was unfortunately in the new part of town. After that we walked up the hill to a place right by the Castle, on the Royal Mile and did a whiskey tour. It cost £10, but believe me when I say it was so WORTH it. We took a little Disney theme park kinda ride through a museum that explained how scotch whiskey is made and then we did a whiskey tasting and saw the biggest scotch whiskey collection in the world. I'm pretty much an expert now. You should be proud, Mommy.

After that, we met Coleen at the train station (she took a later train because she had class), dropped her stuff off at the hostel and grabbed dinner. Joey ordered haggis and let me try some. It actually was pretty delicious. I thought for sure it was going to be gross for some reason, but it wasn't. It was actually delicious. I highly recommend it.

That night we walked down the Royal Mile and went in a few pubs/clubs that had bands, but we pretty much called it an early night because the next morning we got up early for...

THE HIGHLANDS TOUR!

which was fantastic! Words cannot begin to describe how beautiful it was. One of the guys actually said that the scenery was "breathtaking as sh*t." That's the what the picture at the beginning is from, the breathtaking mountains. It was awesome. And our tour guide/bus driver was hilarious. He would say things like, "There's a history of people climbing the mountain and running back down naked," or "Don't cross the road or you'll die," and "Look happy, like you're having fun, so all the other tour guides will feel like losers." It was a lot of fun and he knew a lot about everything. If you're ever in Scotland, I highly recommend it. We eventually made our way up to Loch Ness, which was pretty cool. The picture is of me about to feed Jerry to the monster.

We got back to Edinburgh at like 8pm on Saturday night and Dan, Cooper and Lauren (I went to Manchester with them) texted me because they were in town, so we met them at the bar in our hostel and then went out to a club. I'm still not sure if it was a gay club or not, but there were a lot of guys dressed like girls and girls dressed like tramps. It was weird. Maybe it was just a lot of stag and hen parties. Either way, we didn't stay very long and got the heck outta there when creepy people started dancing too close to us.

Sunday morning we got up early-ish, checked out of the hostel and went up to Edinburgh Castle. We literally could have spent an entire day there; it was so cool! Inside there were a bunch of different museums, a cafe called "The Redcoat" that we all agreed we couldn't possibly eat at and the Royal jewels of Scotland, which were pretty sweet. We forced ourselves to leave in time to go to the Elephant House though, the "birthplace" of Harry Potter. The service was kinda slow, but it had a good atmosphere, good food and a great view, so it was okay.

We had to leave in a hurry, but we made it to our train on time. Unfortunately, our train didn't have room for us. Lesson learned: don't book unreserved seats. We managed to get on the next train though, so there was only a short delay.

And Mom, I'm really sorry, but I did talk to some strangers in Scotland. But don't worry, I'm fiiiiine. And I promise I won't do it again. Ever.

Do You Mind?

This week ends like last week did, with me sick. But I shouldn't give the ending away so early, I know.

Feb. 8-14

On Monday I had an essay due for my Accountancy in the UK course at 2:15, so I spent most of the day finishing that up. I felt so bad for my professors because I wrote it and I thought it was super boring. I can't imagine reading 20 copies of the same thing. I fell asleep early that night because I'm super cool and I was still recovering from being so sick the last few days.

The highlight of Tuesday was that all the lights in our flat stopped working for a while. So, yeah, that was great. See how exciting being abroad is, Mom? We're CRAZY! Always getting dressed in the dark and stuff!

Wednesday was awesome because we had a fire drill during class. My class is on the ground floor, so you would think that we just walk outside during a fire drill. No, that would be much too easy. If the building were actually on fire, the fire would have already thought of that and would wait by the front door for us. So we go down the stairs to the basement and then back up a different set of stairs to the street level to outsmart that crafty fire. ND wins again.

Thursday was a good day because it was my friend Lizzie's 21st birthday. She has an internship here in London, so a group of us girls met her after she got off work and went to a great fish and chips place near where she works called The Golden Hind. Nicolle and Coleen are in the picture. I don't get the name and it looked a little sketch when we walked in, but it was delicious! I got cod (the fish was HUGE) and we all shared chips. We had them with salt and vinegar, which is how the locals do it. It was all quite delicious. The man serving us brought out about a gallon of ketchup because he knows how "the Americans love ketchup on everything." About halfway through dinner, we were getting a little loud. Not loud like yelling and singing but more like telling bad jokes and taking funny picutres and laughing. We had been seated down in the basement and were by ourselves, so we didn't really think too much of it, but suddenly we hear:

DO YOU MIND?!? YOU'RE BEING EXCEEDINGLY RUDE!

Apparently, an older couple had been seated behind us and took offense to our celebrations of Lizzie's birthday. The best part was how Lizzie reacted. These people were maybe 10 feet from us, tops, and Lizzie got really offended. She started telling us in a conversational tone (that they could hear) how rude THEY were and how the man seemed so much older than the woman so she must be his mistress, etc. etc. This was after a few bottles of birthday wine with dinner, of course, and they really had overreacted, but it was still HILARIOUS. All in all, I would consider it a pretty successful evening.

On Friday a few people were still recovering from the birthday madness so we all stayed in and watched the Holy Grail because Lizzie had never seen it. Our rector loaned it to us and we all watched it over in one of the boys rooms and ate Pringles and crisps (look at how British I am!) and Cadbury. It was a really nice night in.

Saturday most of kids who were in town got up earlyish and took the tube out to Kew Gardens (the end of the line) to watch a rugby game between the London Welsh and the Bedford Blues. It was pretty awesome. I stood by Ric (our rector) and a boy who plays on the rugby team at ND so between the two of them I could actually figure out what was happening most of the time. It was a LOT of fun and it may be my new favorite sport. Unfortunately, I got home that afternoon and went straight to bed. I had relapsed! Fever, sore throat, the works. I stayed in bed through Sunday.

Will Kate go back to the doctor?
Does Ric ever get his movie back?
And why does it always rain on days I leave my umbrella at home?

Find out next time on I Promise I Won't Talk to Strangers!

Kate Has Her First Experience with NHS

Don't get excited by the title of this post, that part doesn't come until the almost-end anyways.

Feb 1-7

My Accountancy in the UK class didn't meet on Monday, so I had the whole afternoon free, which was pretty sweet. I walked down along the river from school to Tate Britain with a friend. Or at least, that was the plan. You see, we were required to go look at a painting there for my Images class. Unfortunately, we got Tate Britain and Tate Modern confused. We decided to go check out Tate Modern, since we were there, which ended up being a pretty good choice. I'm normally not very big on modern art, but I had a really good time. Some stuff was a little out there, but most of it was very cool. We saw Marilyn Diptych, which was pretty sweet. We spent a couple hours there and I managed to resist buying anything in the gift shop, so I was pretty proud of myself.

After, we rode the tube to Brick Lane because word on the street is that's where all the best Indian food is. It was kinda sketchy, but delicious. When you first walk out of the tube station, you're like, "this is it??" But the key is to walk a few blocks, then you really get there. Everywhere you look there are guys trying to lure you into restaurants for sweet "deals." Two guys almost got in a fight over us; it was crazy! I'm not really sure what I ate for dinner, but it was delicious and we got an Indian beer, Cobra, with it, so I felt pretty awesome.

Tuesdays are always fun because we have tea in the library during lunch. At the London Center (where we take classes) on Tuesdays there is mass on the top floor and tea in the library between 1200-1245, when we have our lunch break. The tea and biscuits (cookies - crazy Brits!) are free, so you can guess which event draws more students. It's not a bad lunch if you forget to bring something and everyone whose anyone is there, of course. It's probably one of my favorite things about the program. This Tuesday we made plans at tea to meet after class and go to the Sir John Soane Museum. On the first Tuesday of every month there's a special candlelight opening in the evening which is supposed to be awesome. So after my ethnic conflict class ended at 215 I went home to take a break before that. Unfortunately, I got very sleepy and just passed out at about 330. Little did I know I would barely get out of bed again until Sunday!

I could hardly sleep Tuesday night and what had started as a tickle in my throat turned into excruciating pain and a fever. I put off going to the doctor until the Advil could no longer bring my fever down because I was afraid of the dirty, hippie, socialist health care mess. It was with no small amount of trepidation that I made the necessary calls to the insurance and located a doctor. Following a short but hellish tube ride (tube + sick ≠ fun), I was shown by a very polite receptionist to a very nice waiting room, where I waited only a few minutes before being met by the doctor himself. No nurses asking the same questions over and over, no extra waiting in some tiny exam room. Dr. Edwards took me to his office, which had an exam table in the corner, and treated me like an honest to goodness grown up. It was awesome. Apparently I had a fever of 39°, which is about 102° F, so maybe everything just seemed extra awesome. He told me I had tonsillitis and hooked me up with penicillin, ibuprofen, paracetamol (pain killer) and some throat spray. I was convinced he was Jesus. As much as I wanted to hate the nationalized health care, I can't. It was fantastic.

I felt better almost immediately, but didn't feel recovered enough for the outside world (maybe because my awesome roommate rented Green Street and Pride and Prejudice for me) until Sunday night, when we went to the Exmouth Arms and City Pride for the Super Bowl watch. Everyone started out at Exmouth Arms (they did £1.50 drinks for us) and then ended up at City Pride because it was less crowded and the cool bartender was working.

Don't worry Mom, I'm all better now, and I won't talk to strangers.