It literally* took trains planes and automobiles to get Jordan and I started on this journey. The Orkney Isles are at the northern tip of Scotland, and though closer to scotland than Iceland or Norway, they are a far more difficult place to get to. We had to take a train from Edinburgh to Inverness, then switch trains at Inverness to go up to Thurso, then take a bus to the ferry terminal at Scrabster, then take a ferry across the Pentland Firth to the small town of Stromness on the Orkney mainland. Whew! It was exhausting, but well worth it on the ferry when the bleak yet beautiful Isles came into view. We chatted with a couple from Switzerland who were traveling all over Scotland, camping and hillwalking some of the most beautiful remote places ... read more

Hi Everybody! Sorry It's been so long since I updated- there are these silly things called exams that had to be studied for. Luckily, I did quite a bit of studying, and I think I did well. Good thing too, because unlike back in the states the exams here count for anywhere between 50 and 80% of the final grade. Anyways- Here continues the final stop of my European adventure- Prague! Early on Thursday morning we left Tubingen, traveling by train first to Stuttgart, then to Nuremburg. There we switched trains, getting on a far older model of train as we travelled to Eastern Europe. The landscape changed too from the immaculate towns of Western Germany to far more run-down and stereotypical East German and Czech towns. It was a very long train ride, and we ... read more

Hi everyone! This is the first of many blogs from my spring break adventures. I'm back in Edinburgh right now, enjoying the spring weather and the bustling city- hopefully a new blog about the festivities here will be published in a while. You'll be getting a lot of notifications about new blogs in the coming days, hopefully they won't drive you nuts! Enjoy! My journey started well enough- all flights were on time and I even arrived in Paris a few minutes earlier than expected. I struggled through the process of getting a ticket to the city center on the RER, but figured it out relatively quickly. The train ride in was interesting, a full 3 peice band- accordian, bass, guitar came into the car and played french music! It was pretty neat, and not uncommon ... read more

Castle This past weekend I went with an IFSA-Butler sponsored trip to Loch Lomond. They always do good things, though this was the first trip of the semester, which means TONS of people. It was quite a festive bunch, though slightly exhausting. To deal with the large amount of people Butler hired out an entire hostel, the Loch Lomond Youth Hostel to be specific. The Loch Lomond youth hostel is not your normal backpacking hostel though. It's a castle. An honest to god Castle out in the middle of nowhere. Converted in 1945 using relief funds contributed by American Trade Unions, it has preserved the grand feeling in all of the main rooms, conference rooms, dining rooms etc, while the rooms all became your basic hostel rooms. My favorite part architecturally was the beautiful stained glass ... read more

This weekend our program organized an expedition to York. I had missed the first program-organized trip to Inverness (but I'd already been there, so it's ok) due to a field trip, so I was really looking forward to this one. Luckily, It didn't disappoint. We took a train down, following the coast. Rowan and I had pre-booked seats together, at a table, and met some interesting people on the way down, namely, a harried mom with two adorable blonde girls, a fashion buyer from york, who told us where to go while we were there, and a bio-chem graduate student from Alabama who should have been Norwegian. He looked like it, at least. Once we arrived we had little to no idea how to get to dinner, and only about 15 minutes before it started. Luckily ... read more