Classes and Fellow Canadians

As friends at Dalhousie prepare for midterms, I have finally started my Scottish schooling. With business law on Monday and both law and archeology on Tuesday, I have not done a lot of classes, but enough to get my feet wet. I am looking forward to the archeology class as the professors seem to enjoy what they do and the course material should be interesting (hopefully). Law is terribly boring and I fight to stay awake each class. It is just getting started and I like the prof so I have hopes that it will get better. Thursday I start Environment of International Business and Friday I would be starting Intermediate Finance but won't be here for the first class (I will come back to that in a minute).

Monday I had my second tryout for the hockey club and think it went pretty well. I can't say it is comfortable for a broken spine to be hunched over for prolonged periods of time, but I do enjoy learning a new game. I tried out for the tier one team at the suggestion of one of the other players, because even if I don't make tier one, the training is better and I should make tier 2. So we will see. American football is still happening and being one of the few rookies to know the rules, I have been dubbed rookie captain. This position means nothing at all but that I now answer a lot of rookies questions about the game, count cadence and general rules.

"It's a small world after all" is the background tune every time I meet another Canadian and we somehow piece together how we know each other or talk about the places we both know so well. The reason I point this is out is that I have spent the both yesterday and today enjoying the company of my fellow Canadians. Not strangers at all however. Stu Brown who I went to school with and lived in res with in Thunder Bay has been traveling across Europe with a friend of his for the last (almost) three weeks and spent their last two days of holidays here in Glasgow. So yesterday, bearing our Team Canada jerseys, we went to a pub on Ashton Lane (little back alley lined with pubs) and today we took the train out to Stirling to see Stirling castle and the Wallace Monument. I had a pint at the William Wallace pub and thought how much Colin would enjoy this place. Even the floor was the Wallace Clan Tartan. Although I did not get to go up the tower in the monument, it was still very interesting seeing the building and statue and the area where his great battle took place. I was supposed to head back out with Stu and John tonight but have been struck with some sort of food poisoning and have been ill instead. As much as I love getting lost and not knowing a soul, it felt good to reminisce of the times in T-Bay and of all the people we know from there.

Wandering south tomorrow as I head off to Birmingham, England to see my Aunt Gail. It has been a few years and I am looking forward to catching up and also learning where she shops as she has found the most interesting gifts for us over the years. I hope to do a little souvenir shopping over the weekend as well as visiting. I am not sure of the access to the Internet so I may not blog till Monday night when I return.