In Memory of Ella

Remembering Ella Keeler, who passed away on Friday morning. She was a beautiful, vibrant girl who's passion for life was awesome and infectious. Ella's friendship made such a huge impact on my time in Philadelphia and the rest of this trip will be the poorer for her loss.

Rest in peace, Ella darling. You know that we'll always love and and hold you dear in our thoughts.

Hang Jeff Davis From a Sour Apple Tree!

.... Down went McGinty to the bottom of the sea, she's my Annie, and I'm her Joe oh listen to my tale of ... WHOA.


This just a taste of one of the many songs we learned in preparation for Game Day! Well, half learned. Here's another. This one is my personal favorite - at the end of it, everyone throws toast at the cheerleaders.
"Drink a highball at nightfall, be good fellows while you may, for tomorrow may bring sorrow, so tonight, let's all be gay! Tell the story of glory, of Pennsylvania, Drink a highball and be jolly, here's a TOAST to dear old Penn!" (at this point, the aim is to throw as much toast as you can and try to hit as many cheerleaders as you can with said toast. Not going to lie, this was the best part of my weekend.)

Saturday night was the first Football game of the season; UPenn Quakers versus Villanova Wildcats. So, some of my fellow exchange students and I decided we'd go along and see what this whole Football thing is about. First, however, we needed some School Spirit. Which we got. In SPADES.

Ella, Ooffii and Me, being super full of Pride. (Ella is prepresenting instead of representing - her hoodie was actually a Penn hoodie. Just for the record) Before we left we had a bit of a pep-rally of our own, while our lovely Guides (some of the RAs from Stouffer house) made lots and lots and lots of toast. Evidence of Epic Amounts of Penn Pride:






After we were sufficiently psyched up, we headed over to Franklin Field, with our very own marching band escort. Franklin Field seats 52.5 thousand people. Needless to say, the stadium wasn't even CLOSE to being filled. (Mainly because most people are apathetic about the Quakers to say the least.)

The game itself wasn't great. Well, okay, to give you an idea - Villanova scored within 5 seconds of kickoff. But the Quakers did fight back pretty hard, and in the end we only lost 13-3. Hah.

So that wasn't spectacular, but it was a lot of fun. We did a lot of shouting, and a LOT of throwing toast.

Nico got really into the spirit of things as well, of course.


Toast is for throwing, not for eating.


Just some of the toast that was on the field after the end of the 3rd quarter Toast-Song.

Tom may LOOK like he's faking excitement but it is definitely 100% genuine.


As for Football - I'm still not entirely sure I get it, but at least I could follow the general gist of the thing. Anyways who needs to understand it when you could just stare at the boys and their very tight shorts? ;)

Next sporting event: October 2, Phillies vs Marlins. Watch this space.

The City of Brotherly Love

So, I've owed an update here for about two and a half weeks now, and haven't had the chance until now. Even now, I should probably be either sleeping or working. Here's a quick run down of my time in Philadelphia so far.

Dad and I arrived in Philadelphia on the 30th of August after a very long day of traveling. We were literally exhausted so we basically just got to our room at the VERY swanky hotel and crashed. The next day we were super productive: after the best pancakes I've *ever* had, we went to my room, matriculated, sorted a bank account, a phone and went to Ikea. Then we headed over to Delaware to have dinner with old friends from Ohio and their adorable son.

International Orientation was, as expected, pretty dull. However, spending a weekend in a room together is a surefire way to meet tons of people and make friends. There are 7 of us here from Edinburgh, and overall about 160 (or more) exchange students from all over the place. We had lectures about just about anything they could think of lecturing us on - from Sex Ed to Alcohol to how to make friends. I did skip some of these on the second day in favor of meeting with my PIP (Penn international partner) and some of her friends for lunch at one of the famous food trucks.

Jetlag kind of cramped my style for a while, but I eventually managed to shake it. The international department organized quite a bit of stuff for us - such as scavenger hunts through the city (which turned into a quest for Hoagies). We did get to discover the Gayborhood, and walked all the way down to the river... through China town, past the Liberty Bell (didn't go in, couldn't be bothered with the lines), through some parks, through the old city... Of course, I was too busy looking around to take many pictures. Philadelphia is a great city; rough around the edges, but its got a really vibrant energy to it. The pictures I did manage to take that day are few and far between, but here are a couple:


























1 - the first Hoagie of the year (from the most amazing food market), and 2, a sand statue tribute to the Phillies.

Thursday night was the first night I went out; a group of us wandered around until we found a frat party - we didn't have to go far. This was fun, and we had a good time, so we decided we'd walk around a bit and see if we could find somewhere else to go. This was also fun - walking and chatting and having a good time. Such a good time, in fact, that I didn't bother watching where I was walking, stepped off a curb and twisted my ankle. In fact, what happened is that I fractured a bone in my foot.

So, that Friday was spent at the doctor, in the hospital, and in my room in a whole lot of pain... and also pretty depressed. Dad was still around to help out, which made things a lot easier... we went food shopping and got some other stuff to put in my room. My foot got put in a walking boot by the doctor and I was given crutches (which I haven't had to use since, thank god).

I can't really remember too much specific about the following days, I suppose they involved a lot of the same - hobbling around, trying to get things accomplished, hanging out with new friends. At some point in time we all went to Convocation - the official induction of the Freshmen. The President of the University gave a pretty awful speech (she pretty much quoted someone every two seconds, and basically told all the freshmen that they didn't need to do any work), but the whole event was saved by the overarching theme of Ivy League pomp and circumstance. Actually, there was enough pomp and circumstance to turn any plebe's blood blue. After the ceremony there was a dessert reception... which would have been amazing had I been able to battle my way towards the dessert. The entire freshman class trying to cram into one tiny tent (plus transfers and exchange students) was a pretty impressive sight to behold. I've heard that the desserts were phenomenal though.

New Student Orientation week was great, even with my broken foot. There were tons of things to do all week... well, in theory at least. To be honest, we ended up just chilling out a lot. I guess people went out a lot - I managed to make it to at least one frat party that week, and even danced a little. Which, I feel, earns me a whole lot of props.

Classes started sooner than I would have liked them to - and accelerated a lot faster than I would have liked them to as well. Campus is really fun when it's packed full of people. I don't have many pictures yet because mobility's been a bit of a problem, but soon I will bring more pictures. Here's a taster though; this is where I have my Cold War history lecture. Its the oldest building on campus... probably has a lot more interesting facts about it as well but I never paid attention.

Classes are going to be tough, but the ones I've chosen all seem really interesting. I don't think I've ever been quite so busy in my life, and it seems like it's going to stay that way. But so far, its been really fun - in spite of obvious setbacks. I'm also planning tons of trips, like to New York and Boston, to see as many people and places as I can.

Its late now and I have to spend most of tomorrow working, but I'll be back soon with more and better updates: for instance, an account of my very first football game, and more silly pictures.

Speaking of, Nico has also been having a blast out here. See?

Having breakfast at XIX, the cafe up at the top of our hotel building

somewhere there's a picture of the AMAZING pancakes they had - but the coffee was awesome too.

PRETTY NEW LAPTOP

Nom nom nom. Burrito is the best hangover food.

Nico displays Penn Pride at the Football game.

Saying ByeBye to Edinburgh

Edinburgh is transformed during the Festival. At one point in time, we saw a Knight in shining armor, a pilgrim, and a gypsy all walking down the street together - and didn't look twice. The atmosphere is infectious and as long as you're not trying to get anywhere fast, its wonderful.

However, I didn't go to see the festival - I went to see my friends and to say goodbye. This had me running all over the city, literally never without somewhere to go. It was a blast.

There were parties, which were hilarious, and so much fun. Take these pictures as evidence:


My wonderful hosts and partners in crime for the weekend.


Met up with Harry and went to the Auld Hoose for Lunch, in accordance with tradition. This is where we first met and bonded over purple nail polish - and an unhealthy love for chili nachos. Omnom.


Yes, the nachos WERE that big. And no, we COULDN'T finish them. There was no physical way for two relatively small people such as ourselves to finish those off. Oof.



Partners in crime for ever. And also, SUCH sexy beasts.


Went to see Jenny while she was working at the book festival, well, while she was on her lunch break. We sat in the park off of Princes Street, lapping up the weather and the scenery, looking up at the castle and eating yummy ice cream.

Other than that, there was a lot of walking, a lot of running around, a lot of laughter... a LOT of eating.

It was a great weekend. But now I'm back, and I have a list the length of well, a very large book, of things to do and things to pack and ... more things to do, before I leave.

But tonight, I'm seeing my girls for well needed R&R and gossip session. Packing can wait.

Pre-Departure Panic

There are 11 days left before I leave for Philadelphia. Am I even remotely close to being ready? Of course not.

I mean, I've got lists coming out my ears: what to pack, what to buy when I'm there, things I need to do before I leave, things I need to do as soon as we get there... I've even got lists of lists I still need to make. The thing is that making lists is so much more fun than actually doing what the lists say to do.

Not that I'm making things easy for myself. This is my last day at work, and instead of using it constructively to email my academic advisers in Edinburgh and Philadelphia to finalize course choices, I'm spending it watching old Journey videos on youtube, laughing at their awful hair, and of course starting off this blog. Typical. However, I am confident that everything will work out according to plan - even if I literally have to beg my way onto the appropriate courses, somehow it'll work out. And of course noone's making it easy for me. What is it with Universities and making everything about 20 times more complicated than it needs to be?

Tomorrow I'm flying to Edinburgh until Tuesday to see friends and party it up before I fly across the Atlantic and someone suddenly tells me that all of a sudden, I'm too young to party. Who's brilliant idea was it to go to America before I turned 21, just wondering?

Hopefully, if my liver survives the weekend, I'll be back on Tuesday and then the packing frenzy will begin. Fitting a year's worth of stuff into two suitcases is not something I excel at. I'm also wondering if I should take just one suitcase worth of stuff and one empty one, so I have room for all the stuff I will inevitably purchase while I'm over there.

The journey begins tomorrow morning - first with saying goodbye and good riddance to Europe, then arrival in the new world. Columbus, eat your heart out. I'm excited, but also a little scared. I'm expecting to spend a good few weeks in culture shock before I fall into the swing of things. But I'm also expecting to enjoy every minute of it. Anyways, Nico will be there to look after me. ;) What could possibly go wrong?