Orientation

January 9th, 2009

I have been in Scotland for about three days now and have yet to feel jet lagged... The past two days all the international students have had orientation on campus at the Boyd Orr building. The first day of orientation consisted of some ice breakers and general information about the school. We had lunch at Queen Margaret, one of the two unions on campus. The other union is the Glasgow University Union... That afternoon we went to sign up for classes at a "supermarket session." Signing up for classes proved to be harder then expected as most of the classes I was interested in overlapped with each other. That night the international students met back on campus for a night session of finger foods and drinks in the square. Here we met the international students from Europe. We were quizzed on our knowledge of Scotland and the University, and I unfortunately barely knew a thing! After the orientation session ended we all went out to the Oran Moore Bar for our official first night out.

The second day of orientation seemed to drag on more then expected. The morning session was mainly about signing up for banks and health insurance which was not very interesting. We were given a break for lunch and then met back up around 2pm for a bus tour of Glasgow! The tour was nice and it gave everyone a chance to see different sights around the city. After the tour, I went into the city with a few people in search of a Barclays ATM. It was the first time I rode on the subway here, called the Clockwork Orange.

For dinner that evening everyone from Boston College met on Ashton Lane to eat at the restaurant called Bar Budda. This place has AMAZING pizza. I will definitely be going back there for dinner again. Our final event of orientation was a ceilidh being held at the QM. This ceilidh was by far the best experience I have had in Scotland so far. A ceilidh is a Scottish dance and it was so much fun learning the different steps. When the ceilidh finished, the union switched over to Cheesy Pop and we all stayed to dance to pop music like Ricky Martin and Spice Girls.