So... I'm pretty bad at this whole "correspondence" thing

Quickly! Before I leave on an 11 day hike about Scotland! Here is the summary of the last three weeks of my life:

I spent my birthday weekend recovering and taking it easy. I don't remember much about the week after; I think I just went to school. Not exactly the most exciting existance, but even in Scotland you've got to have some downtime so the exciting things still seem exciting.

The weekend after that (March 10th and 11th) was a busy one. On Saturday I got up early with my American buddies (Corey, Dave, and Kathy) and we went to a soccer match. The 4th ranked Aberdeen Dons played against the 3rd ranked Edinburgh Harts in Aberdeen. The match was amazing; we sat with the Aberdeen fans and rooted for the home team - andf they WON 1-0! I'm not a huge soccer fan but I really got into it. It's much different than any sporting events in the States... fans actually booed players off the field! It was a rowdy time.

Afterwards my friend Dom, who is a officially an honorary Texan, treated us to some delicious homemade pizza. I went to bed early that night because I had to be up at 9:00 for... SUPERTEAMS!

On Sunday I got together with six of my close friends (Corey, Dave, Amanda, Bronwyn, Hilary, and Denise) to participate in an Aberdeen University tradition: Superteams! What is Superteams, you might ask? Essentially it's a huge competition of physical ability among all the students and faculty on campus. But the fun part is you don't have to be exactly the fittest person in the world to participate - everyone gets in on the fun. So our rag tag group got together and registered as The Seven Deadly Sins, with Amanda as our Superwoman and yours truly as the Superman.

I can't say I started the day on the right foot... I set my alarm wrong and was the only one to wake up late. But never mind that! We started the day with some painful sprints (suicides to those in the know). Being Superman/woman meant only bad things - basically we had to do double what everyone else did. Sprinting in the cold Scotland air for three minutes is not fun, let me tell you.

But it was soon over, and we moved on to other events, including: go cart racing, swimming, pushing a huge van, paintballing, press ups, sit ups, wacky blow up party things, and rock climbing. Yeah, it was just as random as it sounds. It was also a metric ton of fun. We all came home absolutely beat, and a few of the more dedicated members (myself included) went to the Union Bar afterwards for a few drinks and to see if we won. Somehow we got pushed just out of the top finishers (umm... I think we were somewhere in the 40s - out of 60 teams). Oh well. It was still an absolute blast.

The rest of that week I spent frantically writing a 2,000 word easy before I left on Thursday the 15th for DUBLIN! What better time to go to Ireland than St. Patrick's Day weekend, eh? Unfortunately the Bowdens could not accompany me for this massive adventure, but I had Amanda the brave Canuck coming along. We arrived on Thursday with no place to stay for the entire weekend, but luck was on our side and we found a hostel for the night. We roamed the city before going on a pub crawl that evening. This pub crawl included my first karaoke performance ever... and let me say, Amanda and I rocked "Living on a Prayer."

The next day was inexplicably random. We strolled through St. Stephen's Green (beautiful) before bumping into a film crew doing Canada AM (basically the Good Morning America of Canada). Amanda was pretty excited. After hanging around there for a bit we continued on to St. Patricks Cathedral to pay homage to the guy who inspired all this drinking. As we arrived I saw some guys getting off a bus wearing red and black shirts with cardinals on the front.... and in a bizarre turn of events I discovered that it was the TVCC Regiment Marching Band! I had no idea that these Athens folk would be in Dublin that weekend! It truly is a small world.

Well, I have the best travel luck ever, and meeting them meant we got into St. Patrick's for free. Then we tagged along with them to the Guinness Storehouse, where we also got in for free. Not only did we skip the massive line at the Storehouse, but we also got to go up to the VIP room and were treated to a free buffet lunch, including a free pint of the dark nectar! ON TOP OF THAT, they also gave us a free bag of soveigners. So basically, I am forever indebted to the TVCC Band, who also put on an excellent show at the Storehouse and made me proud.

After leaving the band behind Amanda and I walked the streets for a while more, before heading to the Stag's Head and a couple more pubs and clubs. We took it easy on ourselves because we knew that the next day was St. Patrick's. We stayed at the hostel again and slept in a bit. Then we headed to the parade route and got some decent seats (not as good as the sitting on the top of the phonebooths - I hate that cop). The parade was a lot of fun, the theme was legends so mostly that meant fantastic stuff that looked like it had been pulled from the Labyrinth. The TVCC Band marched by, playing "Deep in the Heart of Texas" and holding up pretty Texas signs. I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a little moist around the eyes.

After the parade we played in a fountain that someone had put detergent in before heading over to an Irish dance. We did some of our trademark spinning before working our way to a pub where the rugby match was on. We killed some time there before heading to a carnival close by and riding some of the rides. We ate some dinner before we were truly ready for the pub hopping of St. Patty's.

I'll leave most of that to your imaginations. Needless to say, it was a legendary night. I met some combat engineers from Texas. I had some tequila. Amanda and I did find somewhere to sleep, and I did wake up with a long, unexplainable cut on my face. I drank more Guinness in that weekend that I had before in my entire life. I fell desperately in love with Ireland.

The trip home was long and nauseating. We made it finally and I slept. I wrote another 2,000 word essay the following week and turned it in on Friday. I found out I made an 18 (out of 20) on my first exercise. That brings us almost up to speed. Friday was our last class day before Easter Break, which is our version of Spring Break except it is three times as long. Easter Break > Spring Break by about a million.

Almost everyone I know has gone home or traveling already, and I'm going hiking in the highlands for the next 11 days. So if you don't hear from me over the next week and a half, at least I have a good excuse. It's getting late now and I've got to get my beauty sleep if I want to be ready for a long day of travel tomorrow. Please excuse any typos and the lack of pictures. I leave at 6:30 and I haven't got the time. I'll fix it when I get back, promise.

All you Texans better be enjoying the beautiful spring weather for me. August can't get here soon enough. Love to everyone I love.

Cheers,
Jacob