The back of my Scottish £5 note looks like a map of Middle Earth. No joke

Last weekend, I forged a new experience: my first real trip while abroad. On Friday night, eight friends and I packed our bags and took the night bus to a new nation! Well, sort of. We went to the capital of the centuries-old, quasi-self-governing nation of Scotland: Edinburgh (pronunciation rhymes with Greensboro). Ah Edinburgh. Home to centuries-old, jaw-dropping architecture, volcanic mountains that rise austerely from the city like calvary soldiers amongst armies of infantry, manly-sounding accents, and yes, throngs of well-off Americans treating the city like a Disney World with alcohol (and plenty of companies willing to make money off of them). I had a good weekend there, but not a great one. I was glad I went, but also realized that I made a few mistakes along the way that hampered my enjoyment of the weekend and cost me a fair amount of money. Did things go horribly wrong? Simply put, no. But they did go just wrong enough to leave me wondering after the trip about what might have been.

 Perhaps this story starts last Monday night, at around 8 p.m. or so when I got out my computer to work on my British politics essay that was due this Monday. Long story short, I didn’t, choosing instead to look up flight prices to random European destinations for a couple hours. I did similar things the next three nights so that by the time I left on Friday, I’d done the research I needed to, but none of the writing. Now, I’d always planned to take the train ride back to London to finish writing my essay (I have an uncanny work ethic on buses, trains, and planes—I once wrote a 10-page essay almost exclusively in airports), but I’d hoped to be at least a bit further along than I was. So throughout the weekend, I kept trying to make time to work on the essay because I had the sneaking suspicion that I wasn’t going to be able to finish it on the ride back (my suspicion was right). I’ve never been one to freak out about schoolwork, but this failed procrastination on my part did put me a little on edge.

If I was on edge at first, the night bus surely didn’t help. As I referenced in my earlier blog, I knew what I was getting myself into. I’ve been on enough Megabus rides to know that they’re not comfortable for extended periods, and enough night trains to know that they’re not conducive to restful sleep. I wasn’t exactly coming onto the bus well rested, either; I had yet to fully recover from watching the Duke game until 4 a.m. that week. So when I got off the bus after a hard-fought four hours of sleep, I wasn’t feeling my best self. I was functional and able to appreciate the beauty of the city as we walked around that day, but looking back on it, I wasn’t really in the best state to engage in a full day of walking and sightseeing. This had a number of small effects. I was slightly more irritable, less willing to go on the half-planned adventures that so often form the highlights of our travel experiences, and more likely to go along with the rest of the group. Consequently, when the group wanted to go on a “free” walking tour of the city that the hostel recommended, I readily consented.

The waling tour ended up being really interesting, even if it wasn’t exactly free, but perhaps it ended up being our tragic flaw. Our tour guide recommended a pub crawl that night, which was advertised as a trip through six of Edinburgh’s best pubs, with six free drinks for only £12. I was a bit skeptical, as I had bookmarked a few pubs that my Scotland guidebook recommended. Yet I didn’t think to speak up or talk about possible alternatives to the pub crawl. So as members of our group started buying their tickets, I was more or less forced to buy mine. The pub crawl, as you might have guessed, wasn’t much of one. Maybe one of the places we went to could qualify as a pub, the drinks weren’t really free, and the only non-Americans we met were the people leading us around and some creepy Scottish guys looking to get lucky with adventurous American girls. By 10:30, it was clear that we’d spent £12 for two mediocre drinks and a night effectively shielded from anything that could be considered authentic Edinburgh. Sensing a long night ahead of us, I started lobbying friends to cut our losses and head back to the hostel, and after an hour most of us did just that.

To my great satisfaction, we ended up wandering around the hostel and finding a lounge room with a record player, and spent the rest of the night singing along to Simon & Garfunkel tunes. I got a good night’s sleep and woke up on Sunday ready for the day. Most of the group went to explore Edinburgh Castle, but about five of us decided to hike up Arthur’s Seat, a mountain that overlooks Edinburgh (pictures coming soon). It was loads of fun, and a nice break from trying to keep up with a dozen people in a new city. We took the train back that afternoon and I made some great headway on my paper ended up switching prompts for my paper about halfway through, only finishing minutes before the paper was due on Monday. I felt good about the paper I did turn in, though.

So what did I learn from the weekend? First, I have to get my work done. Second, while the night bus is certainly cheaper, it’s not always the best option. Third, I shouldn’t be afraid to break off from the group and do my own thing. Fourth, it’s better to trust the guidebook, which is in the business of enabling me to have good travel experiences, than the free tour guide, who is in the business of getting unwitting college students to give him money. Finally, I’m not always going to have the best weekends travelling, but as long as I learn from my experiences, I’ll be okay.

Musings from the Night Bus

I’m not exactly sure where I’m writing this blog post from right now. It’s just after 3 a.m. and I’m on a night bus going from London to Edinburgh, Scotland. The bus left about four hours ago, so that should put us squarely in the middle of nowhere by now. There’s actually a nice view from the highway, which appears to be on some sort of hill, down into some sleepy towns with their orange bulbs of light off in the distance. Anyway, I was able to get about half an hour of sleep about an hour ago, and I’m hoping that after I’m finished writing I can nod off until the morning. I often take the night train to and from Chapel Hill, and I’ve learned that as long as you don’t expect to get more than four hours of sleep the ride really isn’t that bad. The same principle seems in play on this bus.

Tonight will actually mark the third time in third time in four nights that I’ll be up past 4 a.m.; I’ve fallen victim to the beck and call of my American interests. I took advantage of not having class until mid-afternoon on Wednesday to stay up and watch the State of the Union on Tuesday night. I’d planned to watch an online recording at a later date, but a couple friends convinced me that it would be fun to watch and keep up with the Twitterverse in real time. A couple thoughts on the speech: Agenda-wise, I was really excited about the universal preschool proposal, as well as the threat of executive action on climate change. I think we often underestimate how important early childhood education really is, and it’s a great place for government to step in and provide opportunities for all its citizens.

 Wednesday night, of course, was the Duke game. Four out of the five of us in the flat stayed up for the game, which started at 2 a.m. our time. Though we lost, I had a lot of fun watching with my flatmates. We had this moment of Zen where, after twenty minutes of cricket and rugby commercials, we realized we were streaming an American basketball game on an Australian ESPN station while we were in England. As far as the game went, it was nice to see the Heels play well together, and I quite liked the small lineup. Hopefully we can use this game to start to turn the season around. I’m skeptical, but it could certainly happen.

Now, to a couple weeks ago! Two Saturdays ago, we went on a day hike to Box Hill in Surrey. It was an hour train ride south of London, and as you’ll see from the photos, it was absolutely stunning. We got there late morning, and as soon as we got to the trailhead we began this quick ascent to a hill overlooking one of the most picturesque English towns I’ve seen. The views only got better from that, and we ended up hiking until about 6 p.m. on an 8-mile loop. The hike was relatively strenuous—a lot of steep descents and quick ascents, but I luckily wore my boots and did fine. The views were well worth all of that walking—in one day we got to see quaint villages from hilltops, walk through a medieval village, overlook a picturesque vista at sunset, and go rolling down a hill. There were hardly any tourists, just ourselves, some of the locals, and nature. It was a great change of pace to get out and go hiking, especially on terrain like that. I think one of my biggest regrets of college is how little I’ve hiked and gotten out into nature. I love the Piedmont area, and we’re only a couple hours away from the Appalachians, but somehow I’ve only explored trails on very rare occasions. It’s amazing how busy we can make ourselves in college.

A week from Wednesday, I was able to go to the England-Brazil friendly soccer match at Wembley stadium with six people from my program. I found out about the match and purchased tickets in November, so I’d been looking forward to it for a while. It was a great time—Wembley is a dream of stadium, and I was able to see some of the best players in the world face each other. Even though we had nosebleed seats, the view of the pitch was great, and the match was an exciting 2-1 victory for England. I was lucky to sit next to a friend who knows a lot more about European soccer than I do, so he was able to help me recognize the players. Even though we sung “My Country ‘Tis of  Thee” for about half of “God Save the Queen,” and my soccer discourse has substantial room for improvement, I felt like just another Londoner that night, supporting his national team play a match of soccer. Perhaps I’ll start calling it “football” one of these days.

National Anthems of England and Brazil

I told my friend I needed a picture for Mom...

All of us at Wembley!

Beautiful Box Hill. Photo courtesy of Emily Palmer, if she's reading ( :

Mickelham Village near Box Hill. Photo also from Emily Palmer.

Sunset from the hike.

Wembley again, with my new fake glasses from Primark!

I heard no mention of Punxsutawney Phil yesterday. Weird.

I promise I haven’t forgotten about you, my lovely readers; I’ve just been busy! I’m writing today from UNC’s Winston House, in their main conference room. The room is half-elliptical, and I’m sitting at a desk in the very center of the room, looking out at the windows that peer into Bedford Square. I feel powerful, important, like a CEO or a senator or a president. Maybe I need to remodel my room back home… Anyway, I’ve had a great week and a half since I last wrote. I promised last blog that I’d talk about my internship and classes, so I’ll do that below, as well as recount my amazing trip to Box Hill yesterday.

First, my classes. I touched on this in an earlier post, but I’m in contemporary British politics, British history post-1850, and the London art-world. All classes meet once a week for two-and-a-half hours, so they can get quite long. The British politics course has perhaps been the most disappointing. We’ve spent most of the classes just discussing the state of British politics and what’s likely to happen in the future. It’s a lot of fun, and certainly something I’ve been known to do for hours when it comes to American or Israeli politics, but hardly feel like I’m learning anything in class beyond what I can read on the Guardian or glean from my textbook. Still, I feel like I’ve learned a lot about the system from my book, and each new thing I learn helps me understand British culture and how they approach the questions of justice, duty, and efficiency. My British history course has been good so far—the professor is incredibly knowledgeable and more sympathetic to Marxist views of history than my history teachers in high school, so it’s been interesting to hear her perspective on things. (To my friends and family members worried about that last statement, no, I don’t identify as a Marxist. My views are probably closest to John Rawls’ liberal egalitarianism at this point.) My art class has been phenomenal. We’ve held class at the National Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery, and Tate Modern so far, and I’m learning a lot about how art is conceived in today’s society. It’s a lot more complex that I thought it was, but I feel just a little more confident trying to interpret modern art, and that’s really what counts, right?

As for my internship, I love it. It’s really more than I could’ve ever asked for. I work for a London-based non-profit called World Jewish Relief, an organization that mostly funds programs that give aid and build capacity for Jewish communities in the former Soviet Union, especially Ukraine. I work in the campaigns department, which was just started six months ago in an attempt to broaden WJR’s reach beyond just asking people for money. We have a robust staff of two, including myself, so there’s a lot we’re working to improve on. We don’t have much of a structure yet for what we want WJR’s campaigns team to look like, but I’m really appreciating the challenge of building this institution nearly from scratch. My supervisor has been phenomenal; he’s included me in much of the decision-making process since I’ve been there, and really seems to trust and value my input. He threw me into the fire my first week working on the launch of the IF Campaign, a UK-wide campaign to end global hunger (if you haven’t seen the video or signed up, you really need to check it out). I was calling Parliamentary offices for my first two days in an attempt to get Members of Parliament to come to a faith breakfast at Parliament that WJR was hosting, and I actually succeeded in getting a couple Parliamentary staff members to attend! At the Parliamentary faith breakfast, I was able to meet an MP and a Lord, which I for one thought was pretty cool. It’s not every week that you get to meet some of the most powerful people in the country.

Since the campaign launch, I’ve been in meetings and getting acquainted with the office. My supervisor, Richard, gave me my first big project: evaluating the IF Campaign section of the WJR website and implementing any changes I think are necessary. I finished my report on Thursday and I’m going to work with the IT staff member next week to see what’s possible to change. I just feel so lucky that I get to use my creativity and analytical skills on my job—I’m excited for what I’ll get the chance to accomplish in the months ahead.

Other than that, there’s not too much else to report. I know I said I’d talk about Box Hill, but this blog is probably already long enough as is. I’ll talk about it next post! Before I conclude, though, I just want to posit a general reflection on life over the past two weeks: I’m starting settle in to life here. I no longer feel compelled to see everything and spend every non-planned moment exploring London and the surrounding country. While some of the people on my program went to a play on Tuesday night, I stayed in and caught up work, and I felt good about that decision. I realize that I’m not going to see everything there is to see and have enough time for reflection, school work, and friends, and I’m perfectly okay with sacrificing the former for the latter. I know I’ll be healthier and happier because of it.

Well, it’s been a long blog post, but you’ve made it through! Mazel tov, and be on the lookout for my next post and pictures from Box Hill coming up soon.