Germany

Germany……hmmmm wow what did I do?! Gosh I can’t remember, I must’ve drank WAY too much German beer. Hahaha totally kidding. Well, it was my first trip flying Ryanair, the really really cheap European flight service which is a gift from God. It’s more expensive for me to fly from Manhattan to KC than it is for me to fly to Germany or Paris….I love Europe. I went to Germany to visit my friend Johannes, who was a friend of mine from highschool who was a foreign exchange student during my sophomore year. Anyways, my round trip tickets to Germany were 12 pounds total. Yes. I was actually wondering if I’d be taking an actual plane or if they would just catapult me across Euorpe. Well, I got to the airport and it turns out to be a legitimate plane! It would’ve been a pleasant flight over had there not been two drunk French guys aboard. They honestly slightly scared me, they kept getting up and wandering around the plane drunk. The flight attendants kept having to come over and tell them to stay in their seats and settle down. Well if that wasn’t enough, when the pilot came on to say we’d be beginning our descent and everyone was buckled back up, even the attendants, one of the guys got up and started running towards the front of the plane. I don’t know about you all, but when someone gets up when everyone is supposed to be seated and started bolting for the front of the plane, you kinda freak out. Well, I did anyways. Thankfully one of the flight attendants flew out of their seat to chase after him, and turns out he needed to use the bathroom…again.

After that super fun flight I landed in Memmingen airport and got through security to face many many German signs. Awesome. I eventually found Johannes and we began to head to his hometown of Kaufbeauren in Bavaria. Thankfully they drive on the correct side of the road in Germany, but the autobahn is pretty scary to drive on as no speed limits exist! Johannes gave me a tour of the city centre which is like a town from a story book! The big town hall, with the fountain the middle of the cobbled street, all the shops painted different colors of pastel shades. It was such a pretty little town! After this, we went to his house where I got to meet the rest of his family. His mom speaks English, and so does his dad and brother, but not quite as well as Johannes. His littlest brother is around 10 years old and speaks only German, and even though I could not understand anything he said to me, he was still the most entertaining kid I’ve ever met! I loved hanging out with him. I was shown many books, and all of his toys in his room…in German…and he loved every minute of showing me all of his stuff, which made it even more fun for me to see him so excited about showing me all of his things.

the centre of the town of Kaufbeauren

Later that night we went to a marching band festival. In Bavaria at least, most towns have their own marching band, made of members of all ages. Johannes is in his town’s marching band and they had a two different contests the weekend I was there. The one I went to Friday night was more a concert band style concert. They even had judges that held up numbers after they were done playing them, ranking them on different categories from 1-10. Well…since this was in Germany, everyone spoke in German, so I just clapped when everyone else clapped and pretended I could understand what was being said before each band came on. I think I got the numbers 6-9 down though, those were said a lot! It was still really neat to see!

On Saturday we got up and ate breakfast, which usually consists of lots of different breads and cheese and meat if you want. I ate the different breads of course! They were so good! And…Johannes’ mom makes all of the jam that they use, so I definitely ate that up. It was amazing. She gave me her recipe…hopefully I can recreate it. My track record of cooking doesn’t provide a promising outcome though. We shall see! After breakfast I went with Johannes to his friends’ wedding. It was in an absolutely gorgeous Catholic church. They obviously didn’t need to spend any money on decorations, the church stood on it’s own. Johannes and his friend also wore traditional Bavarian outfits to the wedding. I was informed that this was not usual attire for weddings, but that they had just felt like wearing them and asked their friend getting married if it would be all right. Haha it was pretty entertaining. The entire wedding was also in German of course, but it was a catholic mass so I sort of kind of new a little bit where we were in the ceremony…but overall..I honestly had no clue haha. But none the less it was fun to witness!

After the wedding we went back to Johanne’s house where his mom made Schnitzel for dinner…it was sooo good! Then after we left to go see Neuschwanstein castle…the castle that Disney based their castle off of! It’s situated right near the start of the Alps, so it makes a for a pretty much breathtaking view, and tons of beautiful scenery around it. We went and looked around near the castle and also at some lakes nearby, one being “Swan Lake”. I still have no idea if the ballet was based off of that lake…I should google that. Anyways, it was a great day out as well, so it made for a perfect time to wander around some Germany forests and mountainous areas.

On Sunday we got up and had the glorious bread and jam breakfast again : ) I could live off of baguettes and jam…as you will also notice when I write my blog on my trip to Paris. Baguettes are the world’s greatest food. Hands down. After breakfast we went on a bike ride around Kaufbeauren up to this really old church...that was built around 1100. That is OLD. It was a gorgeous Sunday morning and the bike ride was through these fields that reminded me of Kansas. It was such a nice bike ride! Sunday afternoon I went to watch a Bavarian music festival parade that Johanne’s marching band was marching in. It was definitely a cultural experience! It was very German…of course…and definitely really interesting and fun to watch! I’ve never watched a German parade, just American ones…and this was pretty cool. Not only did they have these guys who played really long horn looking things, but they had girls doing flips down the street and girls playing volleyball…while walking forward. Impressive. The costumes were all very traditional as well. I also got to go in to a German beer tent. One German beer mug seriously must hold 8 beer cans…maybe more. I don’t even know.

After the music festival we drove to Munich where I got to explore the town for a while. Definitely a beautiful city with lots of great buildings and gorgeous churches…such as every city in Europe I’ve noticed, though! Also, the Munich soccer (football) team had just gotten back earlier in the day from winning a big game, and so all the fans were still around singing drunk German soccer songs…hahaha also very entertaining. That pretty much marks the end of my German adventure. The next day I just did some last minute souvenir shopping and was driven back to the airport by Johannes’ mom. It was a great trip and I’m really glad I could go visit! I definitely hope to make it back there some day : )

London!

So, this past weekend, myself, Cati, Jonathan and Forrest took an adventure into London. We decided to take the overnight bus (just like Harry Potter) that left Friday night and got into London around 7 am Saturday morning. I think the best part was when we boarded the bus, the driver asked only us if we had any alcohol because it wasn’t allowed on, to which Forrest responded, “Not Yet!” That overnight bus was definitely not as fun as the one Harry was on. It was rather miserable actually haha. Nonetheless, it was worth it! Once we arrived, we decided to attempt to find our hostel. The public transportation system is extremely handy in London, as you can get just about anywhere by hopping onto a bus. A creepy old man who randomly started talking to me actually sent us in the right direction…who knew? Well our hostel ended up being really nice, so that was a relief. The weather was really nice during the day on Saturday…it was sunny and warm, which has been quite rare here I’ve come to realize. That being sad, we decided to start our London excursion by starting out in Hyde Park. I think Forrest had the ultimate tourist outfit….grey sweatpants, a maroon Goofy sweatshirt, and a backpack. Classic. So, we walked through the park, saw the Princess Diana Fountain Memorial, the Peter Pan statue, and ended up on the other side of the park near Kensington Palace. We walked around the gardens there, which were absolutely beautiful. Being the cheap college students we are, we decided to save our money and not go into Kensington Palace but instead take jumping pictures by this “Physical Energy” statue…

After this, we went to see the Albert Monument and then walked on down towards Buckingham Palace. The park outside Buckingham palace is really nice place, as well as the gardens just outside of the palace. Of course there were the palace guards standing outside, doing possibly the most boring job in the world in my opinion. Then there was a policeman with a huge gun. Apparently the guards in the red coats and tall black hats aren’t very intimidating…

We then proceeded to go eat lunch…in the food court of the train station. We don’t’ need to experience expensive cultural London food….cheap Subway and McDonalds are cultural enough for us! After lunch we decided to go see how much tickets to ‘Wicked’ would be and if they had any left for the show later that night. Well…we ended up getting 6o pound tickets for 25..so I’d say that was a steal! We then decided to spend some of the afternoon looking for Abbey Road. Might I add that I had pretty much navigated us around town using a map and a handy bus map…considering my history and following maps and directions, I was doing a pretty decent job! Well…we waited at this so called bus stop that would take us to abbey road for an hour….the bus was supposed to come every 7-10 minutes. Lies. All lies. We gave up and decided to head to King’s Cross Station to see the one and only Platform 9 ¾ ! (Or, according to Forrest...Pier 3 ½). I naturally ran in there quite quickly with my Gryffindor scarf ready for the picture, and we couldn’t find it! I definitely did NOT want to be that American tourist that asked for directions to Platform 9 ¾….so we just kept looking and finally saw a group of people snapping pictures at something…and finally found it…

After we left, the usual rain shower began, harder than usual, so that was not so fun. Thank goodness we were just heading to dinner and then to go see ‘Wicked’. We ate at a pizza buffet…again in the train station food court, and it was amazing! I can’t remember the last time I had pizza…let alone a buffet…ahh how I miss America sometimes lol. After dinner we went to ‘Wicked’. It was absolutely amazing! The best musical I’ve ever seen by far. We had great seats and the music, sets, costumes, dancing, lighting, and everything was just unbelievable! Even the guys loved it…and so did Cati…who hates musicals. So it was definitely worth the money and probably the highlight of the trip for me.

This next bit is oh so entertaining…our attempt to return to our hostel for the evening. Well, you’d assume that we’d just go the exact same way we did that morning, right? No, I thought I’d be smart and attempt to get us there quicker. BAD IDEA. I got us on the wrong bus….but we didn’t realize it until the bus began to slow down and the loud speaker called “This bus terminates here”…hmmm we don’t know where ‘here’ is. So, we get off the bus…it’s raining…it’s dark…we have no idea where we are in relation to our hostel…and we’re kind of in the ghetto of London. Yep, I slightly began to freak out. After wandering around in the rain talking to people who didn’t speak English about taxis, we finally found a cab company who got us back to our hostel…that was actually only a few minutes away. Hey, at least we made it. That’s what matters.

Our stay in the hostel was quite nice…for the four of us we got a room of four with bunk beds…like camp! Haha. Breakfast in the morning was decent as well. Unfortunately, when we woke up, we realized it was raining…and the weather online said rain was in the forecast all day until about 7 pm. Great. The day we saved for sightseeing for the big stuff, it decides to rain. So after some wandering around on buses for a good hour or so and getting sort of lost..we decided to head to Harrod’s…the department store that sells a hair clip for 500 pound. This is naturally my kind of store! Haha. We first went into Burberry down the street, and we got some death glares walking in. We obviously did not look worthy enough to be setting foot inside their store. They even gave us plastic bags to put our umbrellas in so they didn’t ‘drip on the floor’. After that fun little excursion we made it into Harrods and looked around for a while. I’m pretty sure the candy store was our favorite. It literally looked like the candy store in your mind when you think of what you’d like a candy store to look like as a child. Following this, we found some lunch and afterwards decided to just suck it up and go out and ‘soak in’ all the sight seeing we could (Pun completely intended). Just as we go to our first destination, the tower of London, the rain started to subside and stayed that way for the rest of the day! Perfect timing. We walked along the tower bridge (They totally named the wrong “London Bridge”..because it’s pretty lame… the ‘Tower Bridge’ should definitely be the official London Bridge). Then we went towards the London Eye and walked along the river to see Big Ben and the Parliament Building. We saw Westminster Abbey and where Gordon Brown lives (though as I type this, the UK is voting on whether or not they will let him live there a bit longer…). Then we got on the bus to head back to our hostel to get our stuff to head home….the boys then noticed a huge sports store, so naturally we had to get off and look around. I must admit, it was a pretty awesome store, 6 floors I believe. Once we got back on the bus we went to the hostel to grab our stuff, and then set out to try and accomplish one more thing…finding Abbey Road! We wandered around a bit and tried to ask for directions and didn’t really get a very good response but eventually found Abbey Road. Obviously the picture in the Beatle’s Album cover is in one particular spot…and Abbey Road is a road that extends for more than a block…so we had no idea which way to go. Thankfully someone could blatantly tell that we were completely lost and stopped to asked if we needed help finding anything. The guy ended up being from California studying music in London and pointed us in the right direction. Thank goodness for him otherwise we never would’ve found it! So the last thing we did before we left London was get the best picture of the trip…

We then quickly got a bus back into town and ran and took some night pictures of London. It was incredible; London lit up at night is definitely a sight to see. It was sort of surreal taking pictures on a bridge overlooking the city of London at night. I feel so luck to be experiencing all of these things! I have definitely had such a blast here and am sad that I have to leave it all behind in just one month! But I definitely miss everyone back home so I am excited for that.

So the bus trip back from London was even worse than the way there but again, definitely worth it! I think the best part about Sunday was that we were so tired already that everything was absolutely hilarious and so even if it did rain all day, it wouldn’t have bothered us. This was definitely one of the most fun weekends I’ve had here and I wish we would’ve had more time. London is definitely on the top of my list of places to return to someday!

On an entirely different note, I was at a BBQ the other day and there were donuts on the table, so I asked for one, and the guy said "Well aren't you the stereotype!" GREAT.

Used to Tornadoes disrupting my travel plans...NOT Volcanoes.

Welll again it's been a while since I've updated! I've really only taken one big trip since my last update. During our spring break I traveled to Newcastle, England where I stayed the parents of a girl who plays golf for K-State! Small world right? Anyways, I left the Thursday before our break and ended up getting there late because my train was delayed because someone had been hit and killed at one of the stations my train was going through. Yeah and on the train they apologized at every stop for the inconvenience....really? They also said sorry for the inconvenience, there was a casualty...as if we had a right to be mad about that. Oh well, anyways, my train from Edinburgh to Newcastle was really great! The view was spectacular! The train rode right along the coast the whole time, I mean I literally could look out my window and we were on the edge of a cliff looking over the ocean. When I was on the train it was around sunset, so the views were spectacular! I made it to Newcastle eventually where Malcomb and Helen were waiting to pick me up. I stayed with them until the following Wednesday and it was a blast! They took me all sorts of places in and around Newcastle. I went to this little island called Holy Island, to some other small towns around the coast, and to Alnwick castle where they filmed the first flying lesson in Harry Potter.

In front of the Castle on Holy Island

Helen gave me all sorts of fun sweets to try. I am now obsessed with scones and crumpets. She also gave me some cookbooks to start cooking...I've been getting better! I also drank more tea that week than I have in my entire life. I will be purchasing a tea pot to bring home...I am now a big fan of tea and scones :) I ate at this Italian restaurant which was amazing. I've never had any Italian quite like it. Olive Garden doesn't even hold a flame to this stuff. They also took me to a big mall in Newcastle called the Metro Center. It was huge and SO CROWDED! I've been to Chicago around Christmas time and this mall was crazier than that. Though everything in general seemed very crowded to me. Then Helen and Malcomb pointed out to me that England is in fact smaller than Kansas. Kansas has somewhere around 2.5 million people...England has around 60 million people. I now understand. I was there over Easter and went to church with a family friend of Helen and Malcomb's. After church we had a traditional easter dinner with roast, tons and tons of vegetables and yorkshire pudding. It was DELICIOUS. And they said they have that meal just about every Sunday. I wish we had Easter meals every Sunday! I also received two huge chocolate Easter Eggs...they don't do Easter baskets here but instead give each other these huge Cadburry Chocolate easter eggs. They're also pretty much amazing as well. It was definitely a great Easter! The next few days we did some more traveling around. We went to Hexham where we went to this amazing abbey called Hexham Abbey. I also got to go see Hadrian's wall which was really neat to see! It was really great just being able to get some homecooking for a week and sleep in a real bed in a real house :) I was sad to leave!

Standing on part of Hadrian's Wall

Sooooo since then nothing too exciting has gone on other than I've been working on some essays I have to turn in. I know. I'm mad I actually have to do schoolwork...what gives?? Oh yeah I guess the whole ICLEAND VOLCANIC ERUPTION has been quite the buzz kill here. I mean this thing just starts erupting out of nowhere in ICELAND and shuts down all traffic in EUROPE. Of course. Of course, right as my planned flight trips are starting to get all situated. And the worst part is, you can't see any of this ash cloud they claim is disrupting the atmosphere! I mean if it's gonna cause so much chaos, I at least want a sweet picture of me standing outside with volcanic ash surrounding me. But no, the skies are clear and blue. They said the last time this happened was in 1862 and it erupted for 2 years or something. Wellll that's no good now is it?! I'm supposed to be on a plane this Friday morning to Ireland. As of now the flights aren't cancelled...but they are up until Wednesday. Looks like I better find a decent swimsuit cause we might be swimming on over to the land of the Irish.

Here's a picture of the lovely eruption...

"Wild and Sexy!" - Haggis Tour

So this past weekend was probably one of the best weekends I’ve had so far! Myself, Cati, Shannon, and Ellie all went on a “Haggis Tour”! Great name I know, and the side of the bus says “Wild and Sexy” and the other side says “Gorgeous”. Perfectly fitting for us girls naturally :)

So anyways, we left Friday morning very early so we could make sure we got sweet spots on the bus…which we did; right behind our lovely 24 year old tour guide from Stirling, Dan. We started off on our adventure and headed out and our first stop was to meet “Hamish” the highland cow. Lovely thing it was. Lots of hair, big horns, ya know.

Then we passed through Ft. William, saw Ben Nevis, and headed off to some more photo stop points. It started to rain a wee bit J and so we took a tour through Ben Nevis Whiskey Distillery. It smelled like vomit. No really, it did. The guy that ran the place basically said the Americans don’t know how to drink whiskey, that they don’t drink it for the ‘taste’ and are missing out on some great whiskey. Hmmm…as if we weren’t already aware of that haha. Oh he also basically said they ship all the crappy whiskey to the states and keep the good stuff for themselves. Just thought you whiskey lovers should know that. Anyways, we also took a stop at a location where Dan the tour guide told me they were filming some Harry Potter that day….FAKE OUT. I was so disappointed. I even had my scarf on hand so I could run on set to try and blend in! I told Dan this and he told me I would look like a “some Scottish name” that I can’t quite remember….and when I asked what it meant he said “idiot”. Haha GREAT. But don’t worry, Dan wasn’t being mean, we were his favorites, I’m sure of it. Here’s a picture from that location...

We ended that evening in Loch Ness, where we stayed in a hostel Friday and Saturday night. We went to a pub for dinner in the local town…which is VERY small. And we got a lot of weird looks from the locals in the pub, it was the first time I felt like I was seriously being stared at in a negative way for being American haha. But the food was good! After that our tour went to this little building and a local Scotsman was there to demonstrate to us how the Scottish clans lived in the highlands back in the day. It is unbelievably interesting and amazing to say the least. They would live in groups of up to 20 in little tiny hut things, and only shower maybe one a year (shower meaning wash their face). They wore the same outfit all year and brought in the animals at night to escape the cold…so there were 20 people plus animals and more in their houses. Their kilts can seriously function about a billion different ways it’s crazy. After being shown their weapons, I would rather get shot in the face 10 times then ever come across the things they used to kill people. Let’s just say for the guys, wearing a cup would do nothing for you, it’d probably make the killing process worse. The guy demonstrating these weapons scared me a few times in the too….

The next morning we headed out to start our journey to the Isle of Skye. First though, we stopped at the Eilean Donan Castle where they filmed some of the James Bond movies, and more importantly…Made of Honor!

We then drove on and ended up in the capital of Skye; Portree. Situated in a little harbor, it’s a very picturesque city with brightly colored houses along the water (story about why to come later).

We ate at this little café and we ate some amazing food for very cheap…gotta love that! We then went shopping around the area and got back on the bus. Dan told us that the tour usually stops there and turns around…but he said that was lame and that he knew of a spot that he wanted to take us all. I’m definitely glad he did, because you really didn’t see much of Skye from Portree, and where Dan took us ended up being one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been! As we traveled up to the lookout spot, the ocean came into view with all the hills and mountains in the background. It was unreal. One of those moments where you just kinda have to remind yourself that you’re really truly in Scotland! It was awesome, what I saw I’d only seen on postcards and on google images…never thought I’d see such amazing sights in person. The only scary part was the road he took our “Wild and Sexy” bus on…I literally thought we were just gonna fall over the edge. But Dan knows whats up, and he got us there safely! (He drives like my dad, so those of you that know how that is can understand why I was so nervous.) When we finally got to our destination, I thought I was in a painting. You looked out over the edge of the cliff on to monstrous green hills, an amazing blue sky with white fluffy clouds, and a blue ocean. We decided that seeing this one location itself in person was worth all the money we spent on this entire trip…it was that amazing! (my parents might disagree with that statement….seeing one location for the amount of tuition, I’ll try to fit a few more things in before I come home J ) haha. Anyways, we then decided to climb up this “little” hill that we saw that Dan told us was the best look out spot and that you could see everything from the top. Well…that LITTLE hill was not so little. Just when you thought you were at the top, another hill continuing up appeared. I thought I was in shape. I was wrong. Anyways, we made it to the top and the view was even better! We took some jumping pictures of course!

After this trip, we went back to the hostel on Loch Ness and spent our last night there. The next morning we got up and drove on to stop on the shores of Loch Ness and the gift shop. This is probably the best gift shop ever! Everything you don’t need, yet everything you want is in this place! It’s great stuff I tell ya. I bought a loch ness coffee mug. It’s awesome. Nessie’s neck is the handle, and her head connects to the top of the mug while the rest of her body is the bottom of the mug. Love it. After this we really just made a few other stops; the battle site of Culloden and some other places before we made it back home. Needless to say it was a great day! We even got to clean our Haggis Tour bus……hah oh what fun. Cleaning the windows with Windex only reminded me of what awaits me at work when I arrive home…But the cleaning did get us a free ride home! Oh the things we do to save a few pounds. (aka DOLLARS for you non Scottish knowing folk.)

P.S. So Dan told us LOTS of really awesome Scottish stories. I have them written down so I don’t forget, but to add them to this post would make this ridiculously long. SO keep an eye out for upcoming updates with some fun Scottish stories!

It's Just a Flesh Wound!

Welllll lots has gone on here in good ole' stirling and its surrounding areas these past few days. My mom came up Friday, had a little flight trouble but she made it here! Long story short, I'll put it this way: She was supposed to fly out of KC to Newark, then Newark to Edinburgh...she ended up flying out of Omaha to Newark, then Newark to London, then London to Edinburgh...getting here about half a day later...but hey I didn't have to get up as early to go meet her at the airport :) No I was glad she made it, they were telling her she might not have gotten here till yesterday!

Saturday we went to Doune Castle, which is where 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' was filmed! It was a great day outside, so it was fun to explore that. The town of Doune is sooo cute and small too! Definitely a stereotypical Scottish town. It was so quiet when we got there, and wondered where everyone was, then we heard a whistle and some cheering...so everyone must've been at the local 'football' game. I fell on the way up to the castle and totally busted my face open and just started bleeding like crazy everywhere...to which I just shouted out to everyone, "IT'S JUST A FLESH WOUND!!!" haha only joking...that never happened, so please don't be concerned for my face. Here is a picture of us galloping up towards the castle...we could not find any coconuts. That is a true statement.

On the way back we sat in front of a lovely Scotsman on the little bus. He had definitely been having some fun at the Doune pubs before getting on. He told me I was gorgeous, stunning, and beautiful, and asked if American men thought this as well (given my current relationship status, need I answer that question?? lol joking)...Oh and he also said I was definitely a 9 out of 10 (shoot...I don't settle for anything less than perfect, come on! hahah) Well, this was all very nice of him to say, except for the fact that he was plastered and he was talking so fast and drunken that I couldn't make out any word he said! My mom couldn't understand either. Cati was our interpreter. The guy asked me if I was french, since Cati was having to tell me what he was saying...to which I replied quite loudly "FRENCH?!" (so hopefully there weren't any French on board that bus). Anyways, he then proceeded to tell me that even though he has a girlfriend, he would have my hand in marriage. After he got off the bus and we started to take off, he ran along the side of it, jumped up and kissed my window. The guy in front of us turned around and said "We're not all like that ya know". hahah it was great. Uncomfortable and awkward, but none the less great! ha

Yesterday we took a tour of the Highlands, we went to Glencoe, Loch Ness, and drove through Inverness. There are some spectacular views! Everything is even more amazing in person. Here are some pictures from Glencoe....

and Loch Ness...no we didn't see 'Nessie'. I was hoping, cause I'd take the money that you'd for sure get for getting a picture of it!

St. Andrews

I finally made it to the one place I wanted to visit...St. Andrews. The birthplace of golf! Since it's a rather small town and they have no train station, we had to go by bus. After meeting an oh so lovely bus driver...(not) and having a rather scary charter bus drive, we made it to St. Andrews. We first went to eat at a local pub on their main street, where the bar tender asked Cati if she would like "chips" with her meal. Of course, we've already figured out that chips are fries, but since she hestitated for maybe a second, the guy looked at her and said "would you like fries with that" in an attempted American accent. Thank you. But the guy was actually nice so we couldn't be too offended! Anyways, lunch was great and we headed to the castle, which they were closing down to take a lunch break, so we headed off to the beach! We took some pretty awesome pictures I've gotta say. I think we've got sort of a jumping theme going on, I'll have to think of some new ones here soon... But the views are amazing! I've never seen such a beautiful place. It really was unbelievable!

Anyways, we went out to this little sand bar thing to take some pictures...and we were having so much fun that we did not realize the tide rising and surrounding our little "island". Before we know it, we were pretty much trapped out in the North Sea. Ok, so it wasn't that life threatening...but we were kinda trapped and had to figure out how to run through the water to get back to some dry land.

After that adventure we made it to the golf course which is just off the beach. We walked around there for a bit and took some pictures on the "Old Course". That was pretty awesome to be on as well. So many people have golf there, it was just incredible! We ventured into the gift shop to spend all sorts of money on souvenirs of course :)

Then we managed to get back to the castle where the views were even more spectacular. The castle isn't much of a castle anymore but of just ruins. But none the less it was really cool to explore. Especially the mine shafts underneath....not so much. I definitely was anticipating either the walls to cave in on top of us or some guy with a saw to run out in a mask. Needless to say we were all anxious to get out of there.

We took some more jumping pics in the castle as well...we had a blast. Definitely the most fun trip I've had so far!

After that we made it to the cathedral and climbed the "tower"....to what I assumed heaven because we walked SO many winding stairs. My thighs were burning by the time we got to the top we basically almost all collapsed once we reached it. But again...of course it had some amazing views....

To end our trip, we ended up in a little ice cream parlor where we had the BEST sundae I've ever had in my life... a Banoffee Sundae. Its basically bananas, toffee, vanilla ice cream, whip cream..and amazingness.

Our trip was definitely my favorite place I've been so far. I loved the small town feel and the great scenery...and of course the golf course! We will definitely be making a trip or two back there...hopefully to play some golf!

Polo!...(and I'm not referring to Ralph Lauren clothing)

I had a polo lesson yesterday. As in polo on horses. Ya know...where you ride around in the awesome helmets swinging a stick trying to hit the ball. Personally I've only ever seen it played in movies, so I felt sort of like royalty when I got on the horse. I actually got on the horse quite easily...getting off I got stuck halfway down and basically was laying draped over this big brown horse with my head crushed into its huge side. The instructor just looked at me and asked if I was alright....no sir, I'm not alright, can you not see my face is sticking into the side of the horse right now and i can't move? I didn't actually say that...especially since my instructor was a 23 year old English guy who I'd definitely pay the 30 pound weekly lesson fee if it were him that would be teaching the lessons. But he's not..oh well. Anyways, the other instructor there, an older man was describing the equipment used for the game. He was showing us the stick. Apparently that's what it's called; the 'stick'. To which he quickly added, "The Americans call it a mallet. They are wrong. The Americans are often...wrong." After this I started singing our national anthem. Only joking...I kept quiet and didn't saying anything naturally haha. But anyways, I've decided I do love riding horses...except when they move their head around and you can't control it and it looks as if they're trying to bite your foot off...that's not so cool. But other than that, the whole evening was very fun learning how to sort of play. We only learned to ride, and then learned how to use the stick and hit the ball...we didn't actually put two and two together. You have to pay more to come back for that...so I guess that will be the end of my polo career! haha. But I actually do have this new desire to buy a horse some day so I can just ride it around wherever I want. Yep.

Oh, random note...my New Hollywood Cinema professor is going to be gone for the next two weeks. Where's he going?? Oh yes, he will be in the audience at the Academy Awards. NICE.

Is it bad that when I type all of this, in my mind I'm hearing both English and Scottish accents say everything??? Oh no...

Some American Pride!

Well it's been a few days since I've updated, so I thought I'd so now. I haven't been anywhere unbelievably exciting since my last post, but I've had a lot of interesting conversations with some people over the last few days. I think my favorite have been the German guys I met trying to understand what baton twirling is...so they added me on facebook to watch the videos and it is now to them called the "stick dance". Also, I had someone from Glasgow ask me how my batons (while pronouncing them BA-tons) were doing and if they could see them sometime...haha that was different but hilarious.

The other night I was with all of my roommates watching the USA/Canada hockey game I learned some intersting things about Scotland and the UK. It's interesting to hear how different major historical things are perceived in different countries...the differences in reactions to 9/11 compared to my views and their views...the differences in the death of Princess Diana. It's just intriguing to hear how they reacted. I think the best question asked was how the US reacted to Michael Jackson's death....ha.ha.ha. While of course I am the first one to admit of my huge love for MJ, I had to tell them truth of how every one of our tv channels was Michael Jackson watch 24/7 for 2 months straight. The were quite surprised at that, though they also said it was a big deal here...just didn't go on as long as ours apparently did.

Also, I knew Scotland hated England...but i didn't know they HATED England. I mean...there's shirts being printed right now in relation to the South Africa World Cup coming up that say "Anybody But England"...basically since Scotland didn't qualify, they're cheering for anyone but England...and they play the US first ironically! But supposedly these shirts are being looked at because there are some who think they're racist! I couldn't believe that. I don't know, maybe I'm being naive, but I can't quite see how that's being racist.....but what do I know? So anyways, there's some elections coming up here in Scotland that are gonna be a pretty big deal here in May and June. They're voting on trying to get complete independence from England...but here's the kicker, you can't actually vote "no". To put it easily, you can basically vote for " a little change", "moderate change", or "complete independence from england". Which is what everyone wants here anyways I guess. So the UK consists of Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, and Whales....and apparently they all don't like England that much, but especially Scotland doesn't. From how my roommates described it, it kinda seems like England is running some sort of little dictatorship over here!..to which my roommates agreed to that statement.

I also learned the in the UK, Catholic schools are paid for by the government....as in the government FUNDS the catholic schools....so none of the kids have to pay to attend. I found that very very interesting.

Another thing that I've come to learn...I've become very protective of my country. I thought about this today and try to relate when I explain this:

- When you hear someone talking about your friend...you get defensive right? It's almost as if you get this feeling where your blood kinda boils and you just kinda wanna just start shouting out all the good things about your friend.

- So then the same goes for when you hear someone bash a club or group or organization your a part of...or have good friends in. The same feeling occurs...you want to protect them.

- And then the same goes when someone starts bad mouthing your school or university...(aka also known as the KU/K-State banter haha just trying to make it relatable)...so you start going back and forth as to why your school is better...because you have pride in your school and you think it's the best..you know it's the best!

- Then the same thing goes for when someone stereotypes or makes fun of your town or state...you immediately become defensive and try to fix the image they have in their mind. Because you're proud of it and all the people that live there...even if some of those people are from the 'school down the road', because they're still in your state...which you're still proud of.

- And then there's our country...when someone tries to say something about your country...the same feeling happens. It doesn't matter if someone from your country is from the school you hate, or the club or organization your'e not fond of...or friends with the person that you don't particularly like...because everyone is now part of this category...everyone is a part of your country and you have pride in that and want to protect it's image because in your mind it's the best place to be!

I just kind of came to that realization tonight...it's not super deep or well though out, but I found it interesting how the same feeling can happen on such a small level, and then the next moment you're getting the same thing and trying to defend the entire country. I think it's great that we can all be "rivals" within different groups back home...but the second someone tries to bring down our country, we all come together.

So not so much interesting random facts of what I've learned...but just some things I've really actually have come to learn in just the few weeks of being here.

Edinburgh Castle, Harry Potter, and Awesome Hats

So today we ventured back to the fabulous city of Edinburgh, I do recommend it to all of you if you ever get the chance. GREAT touristy stuff, lots of great food, and castles. Well, we started off our day in the castle, needless to say you do a lot of walking around outside and it wasn't the warmest of days, so that was a little bit of a bummer. But there were definitely tons of cool stuff inside. We saw the Scottish crown jewels...you couldn't take pictures in there so I had to take some mental snapshots of those. Important people back then wore some pretty snazzy stuff let me tell ya! I mean, here I thought our twirling outfits were covered in rhinestones...they just don't compare now. After taking some awesome photographs within areas of the castle (which might have been offensive to some onlookers), but hey when you have sweet life size fake people acting out some awesome historical events...you just have to seize the moment and jump in it with them! I mean you're only here once, right??

After that we went to an awesome little underground pub where I had some fish and chips again...I'm obsessed. There were about 15 tvs in this place and each one had on the Chelsea vs. Manchester City "football" game on. Man I've never been exposed to so much soccer in my life. I think my favorite parts are when they try and trip each other...it makes the game so much more exciting. But seriously, I think I might be actually starting to enjoy watching that sport....

Then, my favorite part of the day...we went to The Elephant House, which is where J.K. Rowling created the most awesome book series of ALL TIME. Yes. I was there. In my Gryffindor scarf and all. I will post a picture so you can see it and believe it. I looked awesome. I also had some awesome caramel apple pie there. I will most likely revisit this great little cafe.

I also purchased an entire purple scottish kilt outfit...kilt, sash, and hat. I just need my matching knee high socks and I'm set. It's pretty legit. I've totally got Halloween covered next fall now. I would put up a picture of it, but I have yet to put the whole outfit on together...so for now I will just put up the picture of me in the hat that I walked around in most of the day. Did I look like a tourist??? Not at all..come on...I was in that sweet Scottish hat. I totally fit in and looked solid.

Some things I learned:

- If I ever have a child and take him/her to a Scottish castle when he/she is around the age of 2 and put them in a backpack type thing to carry around...I'm definitely going to make sure their facing out instead of my back. I don't know, but we kinda figured that the kid had to have been mad that all day they had to stare at their dad's back. His ticket better have been free.

- Walking around in a Gryffindor scarf in Edinburgh all day is just as fun as it sounds.

- Walking around in a Scottish hat all day is even better than it sounds.

- I'm starting to love the bag pipes...especially when stores have on bagpipe cds that are playing contemporary American hits. LOVE IT.

- Don't buy 2 for 5 pound cds...they won't work. Why I didn't figure that out before the purchase...we'll never know.

- I love the candy here. Dang it.

- Everything I buy is purple. No seriously. I think I might have a problem.

Some Tatties and Television Drama

So I made mince and tatties today!! My first pretty much legit cooked meal ever...and it was a Scottish dish! It's basically some meat, gravy, onions, and then mashed potatoes (or tatties). It was actually REALLY good. I'm excited to make it for people back home :)

Well after a weeks full of classes, I can honestly say I enjoy them...and have no idea what to expect. I still can't tell if I actually need to read the material. Yeah they "suggest" or "encourage" it, but can I pass if I don't?? They should really let me know these things, I mean shoot I'm not here to study let's be honest! I'm here to travel! I basically need to know how much I can slack off and still get by. Goodness my father would be extremely upset with me for making that comment, so naturally I'm going to make that comment online where he can easily find it.

My classes are actually interesting, for each of my 3 classes, I have one lecture a week, one movie screening, and one seminar. So in my Television Drama seminar yesterday, (with the awesome older stereotypical British professor) we had to all introduce ourselves. Turns out, my professor has been to Kansas! And apparently he went to some seminars or conventions or something in Kansas. Then he went on to talk about how we were each going to sign up for a seminar to start off and lead once during the semester. He then went on to say that they do "this" back in the states, he then leaned over looked at me and said slightly chuckling, "so we should expect you to be really good at this!" And by this he means public speaking...starting off a seminar and leading a discussion. Is that just an American thing?? Either way, I can twirl in fron of 50,000 people, but make me open my mouth and project words in front of a room full of 12 people?? I want to throw up. I thought I was going to faint introducing myself and where I was from. But hey...it's all good ya wanna know why?? Because I get to talk about SOAP OPERAS...which we all know America has a great selection to choose from. So we'll see how that goes!

I also had my "induction" for the gym today. What I learned:

How to turn on a treadmill

How to make the treadmill go faster

How to turn off the treadmill

How to use the leg press

...need I go on?

Their gym actually is pretty cool....unbelievably small compared to the rec, but their equipment is really up to date and nice. AND I can rent a badminton court to practice baton! That was interesting trying to explain what I was wanting...but still, I'm glad I have a place to practice...if I feel the need to :) They really have so many sports facilities to use, it's pretty great. Tons of clubs too that are easy to get involved in. I joined the polo club! I have my first lesson next Wednesday... OH YES.

Tomorrow we're heading to Edinburgh again...such a great city...another busy weekend!

CHEERS!

FOAM PARTY

Well...I attended my first foam party last night. It was the party to end "freshers week". The only foam party's I've heard about are from my friends who did spring break in Mexico, so I knew I was in for a treat ha. Basically it is how it sounds...a foam party! The dance floor was covered in foam, the techno remixed music is crankin, and foam is being blasted out of these "foam guns" above everyone. It's great! There were also very many interesting sights and smells on the dance floor as well haha...I will just refrain from elaborating on that. Before I left, my roommates had said "don't drown in the foam"...little did I know they were actually serious. Oh my goodness, we literally couldn't breathe at one point ha. They literally just pour foam on you...and when you can't move and have foam in your mouth, up your nose, and in your eyes, it makes for a rather difficult time. But it was great!!! Definitely glad I went.

So I've been to all of my classes now..finally in the full swing of academic learning, oh it feels so great..haha. So the classes I'm in are quite interesting.

1. Reading Film and Television : Taught by two professors from England. The guy professor is awesome...has the classic British sense of humor and I love it. Basically we talk about films and TV and watch them. Not bad, eh?

2. Television Drama: Ok so imagine an older British professor dressed in all black talking in the calming yet sophisticated British accent to a group of students...yep that's my professor. Again, love the man. We're watching all British TV in this class so that should be interesting.

3. New Hollywood Cinema: This is taught by young looking man from England. He also seems really cool, sure knows his stuff...as well as his American history. It's so different learning about your culture from someone in a different culture. I'm really looking forward to this class actually, it's all really interesting and I am really interested to hear his perspective on everything. Again, we talk about films and watch them. LOVE IT.

Other than that, not much has occurred so not much else to say!

Some things I've learned:

~ The sweat pants, hoodie, and ball cap look to class..totally unacceptable here. Not sure I will be able to make through the semester. What I wear out for a nice evening dinner on the weekend..I have to wear to class now. Awesome.

~ Earlier I wasn't concerned about staying fit while over here considering I can't cook and everything's in smaller portions...but today I found an amazing place in their union that serves awesome home cooked food for a great price. Dang it, now I have to pay to join their gym.

~ The accent that has given me the hardest time in terms of trying to understand them...polish.

~ PB and J does not exist here...meaning they don't make it. It obviously exists if I make it, but they don't eat it here. They eat beans on toast.

~ I'm listening to JLS right now. The awesome boy band from England again. Yep. You're jealous.

Some William Wallace and British Academy Awards

So today we decided to head up to the Wallace Monument. It is really just right off our campus, but took a little bit to find it. Of course we assumed that since we could see it, we could easily find how to get up there. Wrong. But after some walking we eventually found it and headed up the steep hill to get there. It is really amazing! We went inside to look at the Wallace Sword and all the other interesting things they had in there. There was so much history to take in it was almost overwhelming! (Makes me wish I paid a bit more attention in history class back in highschool...) The views from the top of the monument were unreal! You could see for miles and it was just a perfect day to go...sunny and clear. Then we decided to take some awesome pictures in front of the monument. We started a trend for all the other foreigners that were there when we took our "jumping pictures" in front of it. Yep, we're just that cool.

I also just got done watching the British Academy Awards. It was obviously a lot like our Academy Awards except that "The Hurt Locker" won SOO many over AVATAR! Personally, I couldn't believe it. I was quite disappointed. I was sure James Cameron would win best director and that Avatar would win best film. Wrong again. Oh well, hopefully it runs away with all the wins at our Academy Awards. Kristen Stewart won Rising Star and of course was very awkward accepting her award. Prince William was there and presented and award...(that was lovely to watch I must say). I think the best part was when Mickey Rourke got up on stage and the first thing he said when he looked out was "Well, I can't see that far" and proceeded to read the prompter in a very awkward Mickey Rourke like way with one eye closed and leaning forward. Haha it was great.

This week will be my first full scheduled week. I finally have all my classes situated and will officially start all of them this week! I am very excited. I will be taking Reading Film and Television, New Hollywood Cinema, and Television Drama. For each class I have a separate screening where I watch some movie or tv show, and then a seminar. I think I can deal with that! So I'm really anxious to get all of that going finally!

Some random things I've experienced today:

- While asking a person on top of the Wallace Monument to take our picture, we said about three words and his friend goes "Oh, they're American". Great.

- Lays potato chips make "crisps" here and have some really really odd flavors such has "Turkey and Stuffing". Apparently they had a contest once to get a new flavor and some of the finalists were "Fish and Chips" and "Cajun Squirrel". My roommate said the Cajun Squirrel flavor was actually really good....

- Mountain Dew does not exist here, therefore Diet Mountain Dew does not exist here, therefore I am not sure I will make it. Soooo guess I'll be giving up mountain dew for lent! :)

- Lucky Charms (my favorite cereal) has been banned here. Reason??? They were worried about it being too unhealthy. Again, was I suprised? Not so much.

- I tried the Scotland "national drink" thing or their soda...it's called Irn Bru...it's actually pretty good! Doesn't take like anything I've had before but it's kinda fruity... on the can it says "Bru'd in Scotland to a secret recipe for over 100 years". Legit stuff I tell ya.

Edinburgh...

So today a group of us went to Edinburgh, and it was definitely a fun day! And of course the fun started before we even got there...trying to use the train. I definitely felt like Mr. Weasley in the Harry Potter films when he's trying to figure out how to get through the gate of the train station...yep. That was me today. But I eventually figured it out.

Edinburgh is definitely a beautiful city with some amazing architecture. It's got all the touristy shops you can imagine too...you can find a scottish flag or kilt every 3 stores. Of course we stopped by the Disney store where we just couldn't resist picking up a Mickey Mouse dressed in a kilt playing the bag pipes. I mean come on, that was a necessary buy for sure.

So since I still can't figure out how to watch any sort of tv on my computer here, I decided to purchase the British version of "The Office", which I hear is quite humorous so I hope that can entertain me for a while! Oh, and I couldn't resist buying my beloved "Alvin and the Chipmunks" movie. It was a bargain. 3 pounds. Enough said.

I feel like we did so much walking around Princes Street and the Royal Mile and yet I feel like we could spend a whole week walking around just those 2 streets and still not get to everything! The Royal Mile was my favorite I think. It definitely has an "old" feeling to it with the cobbled streets and old looking buildings and lots and lots of pubs. It is definitely a place I will be going back to explore some more!

Some more things I experienced this week:

- You have to pay to use the restroom at places...yes. Pay. I walked towards the sign only to come upon a gate that looks exactly like the one I walk through to get into our recreation center on campus back home. Never did I assume our rec complex and the rest room would use the same type of security set up.

- When people in Edinburgh ask whereabouts your from...don't stay Stirling...they won't believe you.

- The bagpipes are awesome...especially when two of them are playing harmony. I'm starting my hunt for the best bagpipe cd in Scotland.

- I saw some kilts that were more expensive than my prom dress...scratch that...more expensive than all my formal dresses from highschool combined. Who knew?

- I saw a Scottie dog today wearing a red plaid outfit. Totally Scotland. Love it.

- A little kid yelled "Charlie!" on the train yesterday and I had a tough time refraining from busting out laughing...

Alright, so about this "Silent Disco" or "Headphone" party I attended the other night...it was SO fun! K-State needs to plan these sort of events for their freshman...though the whole no drinking until you're 21 kind of ruins it all, considering the disco was held in Stirling's student union's very own night club. Basically we just went gave a deposit for the headphones, and everyone was just singing and dancing to two different D.J.'s. You could go on either channel...they love their Michael Jackson that's for sure! Also, heard some "Jump Around" which reminded me of our sporting events and they just really love techno. But it was really a lot of fun!

Other than that, nothing too exciting has happened other than I ate fish and chips today which was quite amazing. Oh and tonight I played pictionary with my flat mates....I'm not even good at that game in America. I think the best was when they drew the topics I had made up such as "Tool Academy", "Beer Fest", and "The Jonas Brothers". It was quite entertaining watching them draw those out.

Sort of a short one today but I did learn some new things once again:

- At some grocery stores you must insert a pound into a machine to get a shopping cart (I had thought some old lady was trying to rip me off by trying to make me pay her to take her cart from her)

- Apparently in the UK there's a song that people sing to memorize the colors of the rainbow?? (Or I just missed that day in class in elementary school...)

-I think it's impossible for Americans NOT to look like Americans in a foreign country. The backpack gives it away.

So...the past few days have been pretty interesting, finding my around and all. We made it down to their mall and basically shopped for a while at their "Pound Store" (basically our dollar tree)...which I never thought I'd love that place so much! I basically got everything there I needed. After, I bought an awesome cd at their store...a band called JLS. They're from England and are pretty big here right now. For any of you that know me well enough you will not be surprised when you hear them...just type in "JLS 'One Shot' music video on youtube. That will say it all :)

After that the mall's alarm system went off and some scottish automated voice said "This is an emergency" and no one would let anyone in their stores anymore so we had to leave and a firetruck came. Guess we'll never know what happened! We also went to this interesting store where they just had a bunch of catalogues you looked through, found what you wanted, then went and told the lady at the counter the number for it, and they gave you a ticket to wait for your order number to be called, then they gave it to you. Pretty cool, but also different.

Today we had a bus tour of Stirling and the surrounding areas. We went to Dunblane, saw their cathedral, to Stirling castle, and then to their municipal building. There, a young boy in a kilt playing the bag pipes greeted us as we walked in to meet the mayor or "provost". They had all sorts of little snacks for us inside this really nice room and people serving all sorts of alcohol to us in wine glasses, beer, wine, and even orange juice haha which of course I had. Our tour guide on the bus was pretty funny. He is a student at the University and Irish and said it was the "blind leading the blind" cause he hadn't been around in the city much in the past four years...awesome.

Some random things I've learned:

- buses here have seat belts...I almost asked if they were kidding when they said "buckle up" on the bus. I guess the like to be safe here in Scotland.

- The sink has 2 faucets, one hot, and one cold. So basically I have to decide when I'm washing my face whether or not I want to burn it off, or freeze it.

- I have yet to see any big awesome houses...they're all smaller and really close together. I've only seen some big castles.

- Our bus tour guide said not to try and capture the ducks in the "loch" on campus since supposedly some Chinese students were thrown out of campus for doing so one time...the tour guide then went on to say "They probably wanted to eat them." And then I thought "ummmm I don't think you can say that...especially since there's some on our bus"... haha. Yea, and people were worried about me saying something stupid!

- They seem to serve all food in smaller portions than I'm used to, and I wasn't the only one who noticed that. Again, should I be surprised??

SOO I made it to Scotland! I’ve been here about 3 days now and each day has been very very different. My flights were fine, except the 2 hour delay ON the plane before we took off for Scotland. I guess our antenna broke, and they needed to fix it otherwise, our radar would not function and we would get lost over the ocean…so I was definitely ok with waiting. I also loved that I could walk as fast as I wanted all over the airport and no one would be yelling at me from behind to slow down…

When I got to the University they basically handed me my key and sent me off to find my way to my little cottage in the woods. The first day was pretty rough I’m not gonna lie, I basically had no where to go and no one to go anywhere with and it was 1 in the afternoon and felt like 8 pm. My roommates are great, all from Scotland and are in their fourth years or just graduated. Liam, Kim, Claire, and Jaimie are their names. They’ve been extremely helpful with giving me shopping tips to where I need to visit.

The next day was better as I met some girls from America at our orientation stuff that started Sunday. I met 2 girls from UMASS, 1 from Kentucky (who hates KU which is awesome), 1 from Ohio (Indians fan, also great), and some from New Jersey and Minnesota (apparently the show Jersey Shore is a horrible representation of New Jersey people…who knew?? haha) That night I met some people from London and Scotland who we talked to for a while at the university’s bar in their union. They like a lot of American things really, the music and shows and such. I was asked if I own a gun….and that American football is confusing because they “stop and start all the time and it doesn’t make sense”. But they like baseball even though they don’t get it, but they love the atmosphere of eating and drinking beer haha. They actually did know what a baton twirler was and they had quite an excited reaction when they found out I was one (as they all made their own impression with their hands of what they thought it looked like haha)

Today went better as I got to meet even more people and learn more about the university, and tonight we’ve got some trivia quiz game thing at the bar so that might be fun! but I don’t want to blab too long so here’s some main points of things I learned.

- Diet coke has 1 calorie in it…(aka America lies to us)

- Automatic doors on campus do not open as you approach them

- Some guys don’t wear anything under their kilts because it is “F***in’ Roastin’ under there”.

- Everything seems to be in smaller portions at the grocery store…why does this not surprise me.

- Fanny does not mean what it does in America but here is a female reproductive body part…(to which my roommate said was quite taken aback when she was at Disney world and heard lots of moms talking about their “fanny packs”

- Just because I’m not driving does not mean it will not affect me…when looking for cars, you have to look in different directions for cars because while you might think it’s clear…it’s definitely not.

- -Stirling is a school known for its sports…”so there’s no reason for you not to be fit here”. (Thank you, I can only guess which students you were directing that towards)

That’s all I've got for now!