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.

I suddenly have a newfound appreciation for the Nick movie "Snow Day"

I write tonight, fully into my internship and my classes, in a rare moment of relaxation from the hectic pace of London life, or at least life on this program. Though I’ve been busy, I couldn’t have asked for a better four days. On Sunday, everyone in our program went to Greenwich amidst a giant snowstorm (well, maybe not giant, but definitely the biggest one that I’ve been a part of). Greenwich, I believe, used to be a small rural town outside of London, but it was absorbed as London grew. From our time there on Sunday, I got the sense of a posh suburban town, replete with quaint shops, a small downtown area, and plenty of park space. It was nice, and while I’ve loved my time in London so far, I still enjoyed getting out into nature and roaming about vast open spaces.

I find it amazing that a snowy day seems to bring out the kid in all of us. I got in constant snowball fights, slid around the ice, and even got down in the snow and made my first snow angel! Not coincidentally, I had some of the most fun that day as I’ve had in months. It seems that we often forget some of the simplest pleasures in life: games with friends, enjoying the outdoors, laughing at ourselves, smiling too much. Amidst everything else I’m doing this semester, I hope I can find some days to just goof off and marvel at the beauty of existing in the moment.

After I got back to Chapel Hill, one of my best friends from Chapel Hill, Meg, got in from Oxford, and crashed in my flat for three nights en route to Amsterdam for another study abroad program. While she was here, our mutual friend Isaac often stopped by the flat with his friend Elston. Isaac is another Chapel Hill person who was in London for a few days as part of his post-grad intercontinental adventures, and Elston is an actual Londoner who became friendly with Isaac when he studied in Chapel Hill for a semester. None of us had seen much of each other last semester, so the visit turned into a reunion of sorts—lots of catching up and filling in, an endless supply of new stories, and some old ones thrown in for good measure. We did a lot of fun things over the last few days, but I think the essence of Meg and Isaac’s stay for me was summed up in a moment on Monday night.

Per my flatmates’ suggestion, we had gone to a fish-and-chips-type restaurant in Bloomsbury. There, we ended up in a secluded booth with a solitary candle in the middle. I was just finishing off a phenomenal English beer, and the end of some story swapping saw a quick break in conversation. I was full with good food, and I was feeling especially close to these three people to whom I had opened up about my goals, fears, and shortcomings. I looked around the table wearing this sly smile on my face, knowing that years down the road, I’d remember this night, and knowing that I was lucky to share my life, at least for the time being, with the people sitting in that very booth. I think one of the great things about being abroad is that I’ve some time and perspective to look at my life back home without being distracted by being there. Sometimes, I’ve found that I maybe have been coming up short when I thought I was doing fine, but in moments like the one in the booth, I found that I had something special in something that can be as ubiquitous as friendship. And that means a lot.

Heading up to the Royal Observatory!

Self-explanatory.

Under the ship in Greenwich.

Snow in Greenwich!

More snow.

My wonderful crew.

Yes, I ran around London with my weird toe shoes. Yes, it was awesome.

I’ve faced a few dilemmas in my first week in London, the biggest of which have been whether to renew my subscription to the New York Times and whether to sign up for a gym membership. My parents graciously got me a subscription for my birthday this summer, which unfortunately expired one week before leaving on the phone. I figured I’d stretch out my ten free articles for as long as possible, and then save my money to pick up a subscription here. I ran out of articles after two days. So, after talking with my boss and an English friend (and some of my own research, of course) I decided to follow the Guardian, a left-leaning “broadsheet” here with a free website. I’ve been really impressed with its articles and analysis (some of my Facebook friends may have noticed my occasional Guardian postings over the last few days), and I’ve used the Guardian to follow much of the Algerian hostage crisis and EU referendum fiasco. But I still missed waking up with Paul Krugman, Nate Silver, Nick Kristof, et al, and once the President came out with his gun safety initiative, I gave in to Mr. Sulzberger & co and purchased a subscription for another year. While I would have liked the experience of seeing the world solely through British eyes, I figure I’m enough of a political junkie to keep up with both the Guardian and the New York Times during the semester.

As for the gym membership, I’d been going back and forth between paying 100 pounds to get access to the YMCA gym for three months and running regularly. I don’t run much, but I’ve learned to enjoy it ever since I started crushing on a runner in high school (I’m sorry to say that that tactic failed). After experiencing the London cold for a few days, and realizing that I could hardly be outside for more than 15 minutes at a time, I talked with my parents earlier in the week and resigned myself to sign up at the YMCA on Friday. Yet before I left, I decided that I might as well give running a shot—if I hated it or got too cold, I could just come back and sign up later. So I layered up, strapped on my Vibram toe-shoes, and ventured out into the cold. What followed was one of the coolest runs I’ve taken. I hardly felt the cold and ran all the way up to Regents Park, a gargantuan public park in Northwest London. Walking around the perfectly-manicured trees, I realized that this is what studying abroad is really about: stepping out of my comfort zone (in this case, buildings with central heating) and doing something that may not turn out well. I wasn’t going to cocoon myself in the gym anymore—it’s going to be way too much fun to explore the parks and sites of London on foot. The runs might be scary at first, but if they work out, this ethereal London world may become a little less daunting.

So if these dilemmas tested my willingness to integrate myself into British culture, I guess ended up a bit split. I couldn’t tear myself from the American-based newspaper I’ve grown to love, but I avoided the allure of the all-too-American gym and made a commitment to exploring the city outside. All bets are off, though, once I start my internship on Monday.

I'm pretty sure my bed is tilted more degrees than the temperature outside

From Monday:

I realize that my first two blog posts have been a bit heavy and esoteric, so I’m going write this one a bit more newsy and off-the-cuff. I write tonight from my somewhat-precariously tilted bed, three floors above ground level, on Bedford Place in Bloomsbury. Aside from the slight tilt in the floor level, I’ve been really impressed with the flat—great location and relatively spacious for the London address. If I lived in a place with this much room and this good of a view (if you look the right way, you can see Russell Square) in New York, I’d be a happy man. For whatever reason, I find myself starting to turn the corner on the third day of new experiences, from Leadershape to Birthright, and today was no different. I went on a shopping excursion alone today for some toiletries, and managed not to get lost. The processes that molded my formidable mental map of DC last summer are at work again, and I currently know my way around a few streets near the flat. I bought a 6-pound map today that’s at least 100 pages thick and covers just about all of Greater London, so I plan on carrying that around with me a lot.

It snowed today! It didn’t snow very hard, and the snow didn’t stick, but when you’ve only seen it snowing twice before in your life, any type of snow is a big deal. It’s just amazing to look out the window and see little specks of white fluttering across your view. Nature can be so cool sometimes.

Finally, I changed around my course schedule since I’ve been here, so I’m now taking classes on British politics, British history, and the London art world. I’d been signed up for a literature course, but I realized that I didn’t want to spend too much time in London reading Shakespeare and Dickens, and I might as well use class to get to all the art museums my aunt keeps telling me about. That’s about all from today, but I’ll check in soon! 

Musings from Up in the Air

            The Delta flight tracker shows that the plane is just crossing the Georgia-South Carolina border as I write, but as I peer out the window to my left (I’m ever thankful to my mother for booking me this window seat), the cloud cover has blanketed any view of the ground I might have—puffy off-white clouds that seem to roll up and down like hills and valleys miles in the sky. I won’t see American soil again until late April. These last few days have been so hectic for me: getting prescriptions, packing, saying goodbye to friends, obtaining my visa, watching crappy Carolina basketball, that I’ve hardly had time to let it sink in that I was actually leaving the States for three and a half months. So when I boarded this plane from Atlanta to Heathrow, I stepped into a hard dose of reality. I texted my mom, as always, to let her know that I was on the plane, but I realized that when the plane lands and I take my phone out, I won’t have service.  I shut off my phone, put away my father’s Kindle that I’m borrowing for the semester, and stared out the window.

I’d determined earlier today that the last song I would listen to stateside would be Crosby & Nash’s “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” So, as the announcement came to turn off all electronic devices and the creepy red-haired flight attendant who says “Smoking… is NOT allowed” while wagging her finger appeared on screen, I snuck in one last listen. The thing about the Crosby & Nash version of this song is that they take these simple, patriotic verses (“Land where my fathers died / Land of the pilgrim’s pride,” not the most unique poetry out there) strip them bare of all pomp and circumstance, strip them of all suggestion that America is awesome and the greatest country on Earth, and leave a hauntingly personal reminder that, like it or not, this is our homeland. So as I’m listening to this song, by sheer luck I catch in my field of vision an American flag fluttering on a nearby loading dock. And as I’m listening to these lyrics, “Land where my fathers died / Land of the pilgrim’s pride,” I realize that the flag in the distance is my flag, and I’m not going to see it for a few months. I realize that though I’m going to a place that speaks English, though I’m going with two dozen other members of the UNC family, I’m still venturing to a foreign place. I feel unsettled, sure, but also exhilarated and ready. As a young man of twenty, deeply entrenched and comfortable at home and in school, it’s not often that I get the chance to feel so unsettled. It’s been too long since I stepped out of my comfort zone.