Study abroad orientation week at the University of St. Andrews

Orientation was a blast. It was a lot different from Holy Cross’s orientation since we weren’t actually required to attend events, and most events served some sort of alcohol. The school actually organized pub crawls on multiple nights. There is definitely a benefit to having a drinking age of 18, and having everything within walking distance. For those studying abroad soon, be prepared, your liver will take a beating the first week.

I tried haggis for the first time at “A Taste of Scotland”. If you ignore the fact that you’re eating sheep’s stomach, it’s actually really good. I signed up for a few sports, boxing and fly fishing, on Wednesday at the “Saints Sports Fair”. Since I haven’t done either before, I figure I can only get better. Not to mention I’ll probably meet a few people along the way. There were so many events over the course of the week that even if I had wanted to go to all of them, it wouldn’t have been physically possible.

On Wednesday, we matriculated. It was a 3 hour process (3 hours of hell) that involved picking classes, verifying my visa, and filling out health forms. If you think it sounds boring, you’d be correct. In order to get into a class, you have to go to each department and have an advisor sign you into the class. It’s actually really archaic. Pretty fitting for a school that is 600 years old I guess. It really makes me appreciate the course management system at Holy Cross.

The jet lag is slowly subsiding. I still tend to wake up pretty late, and afternoon naps are becoming regular, but hopefully by next week, I’ll be on a regular schedule. I only made breakfast once this week, which is probably for the better. Out of the three meals, breakfast is by far the hardest to put down. I don’t think Jimmy Dean would approve of their version of breakfast sausage.

Lunch and dinner are actually somewhat tasty, but you only get one plate – no seconds. For all those who actually like to feel full, you’ll want to by a few snacks for the room. But I figure that if the worst part of this experience is that I only get one plate of food per meal, then this is going to be a damn good year.

Today was probably the most relaxing day I’ve had since I’ve been here. I actually took a nap on the second fairway of the Old Course this afternoon (the Old Course becomes a public park on Sundays). Since the dining hall doesn’t serve dinner on Saturday and Sunday, we went and had an American staple – Subway.

To top it off, we got our favorite bar, The Raisin, to play American Football on the TV. I foresee many a night spent at The Raisin in the future. Hopefully I’ll be getting my membership to the links this week, and with classes starting tomorrow, next week’s post should be interesting.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below and I’ll get back to you!

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