Kickboxing and Cashmere

'Allo, all. There's a pigeon outside my window that has been staring in to my room at me for a solid eight or nine minutes. Just keeps pecking away at my window and cocking its head to one side or the other. That pigeon is a little like you, I suppose, peeping into my Scottish experiences. Didn't think you'd ever be compared to an city-dwelling pigeon? Well, you just were.

I finally did it, by the way - took the stereotypical 'Look I'm by a big red phonebooth!' picture. Behold.

How British.

Also, I have managed to solve a problem that has been dogging me since I arrived a little over two weeks ago. You see, for all you know, every picture of me that's been taken so far may as well have been on the same day. Well, such is not the case, but why might it seem that way? The weather here pretty consistently dictates that I wear a jaxket and scarf out whenever I leave our flat, causing me to look unchanged every time a photo is taken! So I bought a new scarf - a cashmere one, sheared and manufactured in Scotland - to alternate with my old one, so that you can tell that I didn't just take forty pictures one day and post them over a five month period.

So that covers the cashmere part of the title. But kickboxing?

O yes. So - here I was in Teviot (one of the student unions), talking to a girl from one of my classes while we waited for three other students. I was telling her how it felt weird having to make friends all over again halfway through college, so she suggested I come to her kickboxing team's social that Saturday (tonight). She also said I was free to come to kickboxing if I 'fancied it.' After being snubbed by the archery team - and then un-snubbed, apparently - I was in the market for a good workout/team experience, and so decided that I did fancy it.

It was a one and a half hour work out that definitely got me moving. First twenty minutes was all calisthenics - fast feet, push ups, high-knees, planks (all stuff I'm used to...1) - followed by about an hour of kickboxing in pairs. It was a lot of fun! I didn't think I'd get so much enjoyment out of hitting pads with boxing gloves on, but it was great haha. Our trainer would demonstrate a move/combination and have us practice it in pairs for a bit, and then give us a new one. Sooo I got to meet some new people, am attending their white t-shirt highlighter party tonight, and will certainly be making a return next week. I think I'm going to hand in my resignation to the rowing team - not that I was that heavily involved anyway. I could barely move this morning, sore as I was from kickboxing (half of which is holding the pads aka getting beat up for five minutes at a time) and being out all night.

Fun fact: John Knox, the principal founder of Presbyterianism (if memory serves from Modern European History in high school), lived in Edinburgh, and his house is now dedicated to him. Jenny Licata - if you read this - note the beard. John Knox had a beard.

As far as classes are going, I've adopted a 'work hard now so you don't have to later' approach. By this I mean that for my tutorials (small group meetings composed of eight people from out of the hundred and fifty or so from the lectures) I have to give a presentation at some point. So I opted to be the first presenter in all of my classes, meaning that I have to do a fair amount of work now, but won't have to worry about anything except essays for a while after this week.

Last night myself and two girls from my program went out for DPC - Dinner Pub Club night. But because of poor organization it ended up just being PC instead. Still, it was a good night and it was the first time I've been at a club until it shut down.

My family visit is next weekend, meaning I'll be traveling to Shap, in northern England, to stay with a woman and her son there for two days. It's a very pretty region in the Lake District, apparently - very isolated and rural. So that'll be exciting, and a nice change of scenery.

As far as long-term plans, I'm starting to think about where I'll be traveling come March/April during my three-week Spring Break. I may not have the full three weeks to travel due to essays or what not, but I'll be making an effort to get all that finished asap if possible. I'm open to suggestions from people who have been around the Continent/UK and really loved one place or another. Places I want to go for sure at some point are: Copenhagen, Istanbul, Paris, and various places in Italy (I think for Italy I might buy a multi-day rail pass and just bump around from place to place). If I could get to Istanbul I think that'd be amazing (after all, Murat gets to see our homes and culture all the time, so I'm trying to even the playing field).

All for now. Expect postcards soon. I just have to buy the international stamps.