Scotland continues to smile upon me. Today we took a trip to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, the royal palace of Scotland. It was amazingly historic. Afterwards we checked out the Scottish parliament building (strange considering I haven't see my own country's legislature...), ate a bit of French cuisine, and then we were put on a three hour train to Inverurie.
So what's there in Inverurie (in-ver-rue-ree)? Our lovely host families of course. Inverurie is a small town of about 12,000 people outside of Aberdeen. After a glorious train ride along the sparkling coast and rolling hills of Scotland we met our host families at the train station. The four of us Americans split ways and went home with our respective families. I look forward to seeing my fellow exchange fellows tomorrow; we've become fast friends over the last few days.
My host family is wonderfully Scottish. David, the father, used to work the oil business in Aberdeen but made a career change so that he could spend more time with his family. He now works with fingerprints for the police department. His wife, Alison, is an administrator at the local primary school, where she makes sure that the school runs smoothly throughout the year. They both grew up in small towns in northern Scotland and they have charming accents. For dinner we had some lovely traditional Scottish soup, named cullen skink.
They also have two children. Emma's twelve and is involved in piano, swimming, field hockey, and just about anything else you can imagine. She's excited about her first year in secondary school and has the typical preteen enthusiasm. Their son Michael is eight and plays football (soccer to you filthy Americans). He's a bit quiet around me but he seems like a smart and funny kid. The remind me a lot of home and my family. It's reassuring to be around them when I know I won't see my real family again for 7 months. I hope we become close enough in the next few days so that I can come visit them when I'm homesick.
Tomorrow we go on a tour of a whisky distillery and eat a bit of haggis! More then.
Cheers,
Jacob
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4 comments:
Jacob,
I have been enjoying your updates and am looking forward to the ones to come. I am so glad you are making connections there. Please keep writing.
Missing you and thinking of you.
Love
Mom
You old cat, you!
I have recently been scoping out this site myself to enter a new blog in. I felt it was time to end the other.. and to my surprise Mom sent me yours! You sly sly cat. Well, I certainly feel like a copy one. Yikes.. anywho... I'm glad Scotland is being good to you. That is absolutely wonderful! Hope you enjoy the Haggis. Which, by the way, sounds like the name of a nice Scottish woman.
Have fun!
-your american sister-
It sounds amazing! heh.. have you had time to build a snowman? (Just wondering) I'm glad that your family is kind. I hope you continue to have a glorious time, you crazy Scot, you. :oP
Ciao
So good to read about what you are doing in Scotland. It is nice to have a place to go and to hear from you about your life there. Keep the good work up. Your writing is great!!!!
Love you, Nanny
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