Since you are going to be doing some traveling while you’re studying abroad, you’re going to need a place to stay. There are many options out there: hotels, campgrounds, other peoples’ couches, and hostels. While hotels are nice, they are usually pretty expensive, and it can be hard to accommodate large numbers of people.

Believe it or not, there are actually websites out there that will help you rent a couch in some random person’s apartment for a night, but let’s be honest – who wants to curl up on the couch of stranger they don’t know in a foreign country.

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Classes are officially over, and all of my work is finally turned in.  I took some time over the past few days to look back on the semester, and I realized that although I’ve been here for months, there’s still plenty of things I haven’t done.  Luckily, I’ll be back for another semester, unlike most study abroad students who are only here through Christmas (thank you Holy Cross for enforcing the whole year policy).  So here they are, my New Year’s/ second semester St. Andrew’s resolutions:

1. Go out more, stress about work less – Now that I’ve gauged the workload here at St. Andrews, it’s time I see less of my computer screen and more of the town.

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The end of the semester that is… We only have about a week and a half left of class, which means all the work I’ve put off over the course of the semester needs to get done. That translates into a very ordinary week – didn’t do much other than go to class and write papers.

Since I won’t be able to provide excitement via my usual great stories, I thought I’d provide a little entertainment instead. This is a Scottish band from right outside of Edinburgh, and only about 45 minutes from St. Andrews. I’ll bet most people have heard them before and hadn’t realized where they were from. Unfortunately, due to copyrighting, I couldn’t get the actual music video up (especially unfortunate becuase I’m pretty sure the guy who wrote the lyrics on the video has some of them wong), but the music is the important part anyway.

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I headed south of Scotland for a weekend in London.  I met up with two high school friends – Andrew, who’s studying in

Tower Bridge

London, and Sara, who’s close to Amsterdam – and it was great to finally see some people from home other than the people I came to St. Andrews with.  It’s kind of funny because I’m pretty sure when we were all in high school, none of us would have thought in three years, we would be meeting up to tour London.  We had a great time, and there is a good possibility I’ll go back next semester.

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