From the United Kingdom, with Love!

Here I sit on the train, heading back to Wigan from Edinburgh. What a week it has been here in England (and it hasn’t even been a full week yet)! I suppose I should start at the beginning. When I got to Manchester, it was 8 am here, midnight back in Idaho. Needless to say, I was just a bit tired cause sleeping on the second plane was virtually useless, even though that was exactly what everyone else was doing (although I did get to watch The Lucky One and Hunger Games on the little T.V. in the back of the chair in front of me, so it wasn’t to boring). Basically, I spent almost all of Saturday sleeping on and off cause I was way to exhausted to do anything else.

Even though I was still super tired, on Sunday I did venture out a bit to the mall so Zoe could get her glasses. The shops here are humongous, and it seems like all of the department stores here have both a café and like a mini grocery store. Its weird cause even the expensive stores are like that, which is not something you would really find back home. After shopping, it finally quit raining, which turned out to be the perfect time to take a nice long nap.

Monday was a Bank Holiday. I would describe a Bank Holiday as the governments excuse to not have to go to work for the day. They have six of these every year, and just about every shop in the country is open except government shops and banks. So, it pretty much just gives everyone a chance to go out and get all their shopping done, and of course not have to go to work. This was also the day that I got introduced to ASDA, the wanna-be Wal-Mart that just so happens to be owned by Wal-Mart International. It is probably six times bigger than the Moscow Wal-Mart, and you can even buy major appliances in it. By the end of the trip,

Tuesday was amazing! This is the day Zoe and I took the train to Edinburgh. Talk about a beautiful ride. I was like a kid looking n the window of a candy shop, and kept on annoying Zoe with my “Ooo, look at that” and “That is such an awesome view.” The countryside is just what I imagined, and more. We got to Edinburgh around 230 and spent most of the day roaming around town, looking at all of the shops (and stocking up on McLean Clan gear). I even convinced Zoe to walk up the Scottish Monument with me. For £3, you get to walk up a single, tiny stair case to four different levels. Mind you, there is one stair case in and out, so you either have to squeeze by other people or try and move up and down the levels with people coming from all directions. But, by the time you get to the top, you get an amazing view of the city. Definitely worth the money to go up!

Wednesday was the best day by far, however. This is because we went to see Edinburgh Castle. It was a bit expensive to get in, £16, but it was definitely worth the price. You get to see so many buildings from the 16^th century forward, and see the best views of the city. You also get to stand within two feet of the Scottish Crown Jewels (but you don’t get to take pictures of them, which kinda sucked…).  We also saw the American prison from the Revolution, which I thought was kinda cool, especially when you read about how after the Revolution, they let all the prisoners of war that had foreign nationalities other than American free, but they kept the Americans for years because they didn’t want them to go home and fight more.

Wednesday was also an exciting day because Jamie got to buy her very first kilt! Basically, a girl’s kilt just looks like a mini skirt with tartan colors, and isn’t anywhere near as cool looking as male kilts, but I was still excited. The only problem I had was that no one stocked McLean tartan, so if I wanted a kilts in my clan colors, I had to get it special ordered. In the end, I just got the Pride of Scotland tartan, which is a cool mix of black and purple.

And today, we did absolutely nothing except lay in bed and watch T.V. until it was time to check out of our room and get our train. Quite a nice, relaxing day, which is good cause I still feel slightly jet lagged, although that could be all the running around and climbing hundreds of stairs talking. And now, its naptime yet again, as we still have over an hour left on our train ride!

I'm Leaving, on a Jet Plane!

Here I am on my first plane ride of the day: Portland, Oregon to the Big Apple. I must admit, even though I am sitting here on a plane to Manchester, I still find it hard to believe that first of all, I am heading  to a foreign country (finally!) and second of all that I am going to be studying abroad for the next four months. It just has yet to fully sink in I suppose. I am sure, however, that it will hit about the time I start flying over the Atlantic Ocean. But then again, maybe it won’t…

This week has definitely been interesting. It seems like I spent quite a bit of time this week at Spirit Mountain Casino. Not that that is a bad thing, cause I like gambling a bit more than I probably should. Then again, there were probably a zillion more productive things that I could have actually done with my time, but that is beside the point. That was still time that I got to spend with my grandparents, which was nice. Plus, I am going to be casino-less until January, so I had to get as much in this week as I possibly could.

Other than that, I spent most of the week taking care of my great-grandma. She now has a fairly clean house, new light bulbs in three of her lights, her spare beds are made, groceries in her fridge and I got rid of the algae infestation in her fish tank. All in all, a pretty busy week. And then, I had to leave her behind and go to my grandparents’ house so they could take me to the airport at 330 this morning. Talk about difficult, for the both of us. But, after lots of hugging and tears, I made it out of there okay. And I think she was okay too, at least until she called me last night to tell me good night. Then the tears started again.

This week, I also became an expert cribbage player, if I do say so myself. One game, I was almost 30 points ahead of my grandma and my aunt. I even succeeded in beating Grandpa Giddings in two games. I won’t say how many games I lost to him though… I just have to get a bit of practice in while I’m abroad so I can really kick his but when I get back to the states. I just wish that I could count as fast as him and Aunt Toni. I swear, they just glance at the cards and can name all their points. I, on the other hand, have to go the long way of “15-2, 15-4, and a pair is 6.” One day!

Leaving at the airport was pretty hard too. Grandpa started crying, which did not help me in the slightest. I did make some new friends in the security line though. Grandma asked me if I had enough money for my trip, and I of course said “No, but you have my account number.” The people behind me just loved it, and kept talking about it almost the entire way up to the front of security.

Well, the next time I blog it will be from foreign soil, so be prepared for the start of lots of pictures, and of course the start to blogs that have a bit more adventure in them J

Hasta Europa (Until Europe)!!!!

A week for the history books!

Last Friday, I left home and started my journey to Spain with a quick 2-week pit stop in Oregon to visit with my family. And boy has it been a busy, busy week. First, Dad made me get up at 3 am in order to drive down here to Portland to visit my grandparents. We even got here before lunch time, which is way different than any other time we ever come down here.

Saturday was….interesting. I went garage sale-ing around Oregon City with my dad and his little brother, Todd. It was like taking two 3 year olds to a candy shop. I couldn’t even get my seatbelt off before they were already across the street at the sale. Not only that, but they even left me behind at a couple of garage sales that were in walking distance of each other, and next thing I know, they are two blocks away and completely clueless at the fact that I’m not standing right next to them (surprise, right?).

Best part about Sunday? Going to Grandma Reed’s house, where I get to enjoy air conditioning. Its been in the high 90s/low 100s all week, so its really nice to enjoy some cool air at her house. On Monday we went to the reservation and I got my eyes checked out (and yes, I am blind). And now I have to get glasses for reading/driving/working on computers (which pretty much means all day long). While there, we went to the casino and met up with my great aunt for lunch, which was really fun.

Yesterday and today are so relaxing! I am playing babysitter to my great-grandma, who had to get fluid taken out of her knee and a bunch of shots yesterday. I think she likes having someone here to wait on her hand and foot. But, what 87 year old wouldn’t? Today, though, my mom flew down to Portland to spend one last weekend with me before I leave, so Grandma is going to have to take care of herself for a few hours while I go meet up with her at my grandparents house.

Besides all of this, I have spent quite a bit of my time down here in Oregon expanding on my family tree that Grandpa Lockie and I have been working on for a while. I have gotten a TON of stuff, especially on my Grandma Reed's side of the family. I'm excited to get to internet so I can do research beyond whats in the bibles and other books that I have found.

Today’s countdown puts me at 10 more days until I get to Manchester, and 21 days until my study abroad program starts.

My word for the day is actually multiple words: Alemania, Suecia, Suiza. These are just three countries in Europe that I am trying to memorize to try to make sure that I can talk about other countries correctly.

A Final Week in Idaho

What a final week in Idaho it has been! To start off with, I got a super awesome surprise birthday present: my sister and brother-in-law came to visit. It was quite the week! And on top of that, the rest of my grandparents also came from Oregon to help celebrate, so our house was pretty packed, which meant Jamie got to sleep in the camper (for one night at least, but it got way too cold and I wimped out for the rest of the week). On my birthday, I had a party at my grandparents’ house. It was a lot of fun, especially since we spent the majority of the day outside playing yard games. I must admit, I really sucked at the majority of them, but was getting better by the end. Still, I think I only won one of the zillion games that I played. But, such is life, I suppose.

Since Sam and Joe were here, I spent the majority of the week with them. We did lots of shopping in Lewiston with Megan (Bud’s girlfriend), took lunch to Mom at work, and spent plenty of time at the casino (where I did fairly decent). I also got to learn how to play disc golf. I must admit, I did a very horrible job since it was my first time playing. It doesn’t help that Joe is like a disc golf master. I also was able to tie Sam at one hole, but that still was not enough to put me anywhere close to them overall. Maybe I’ll have a bit more time to practice before they come back.

The hardest part of this week was saying goodbye to all of my Idaho friends and family. On Wednesday, I worked my final day at Wal-Mart (until January at least). It was bittersweet. I won’t miss babysitting, or all those customers that are convinced that they are always correct and I am always wrong. I will however miss Adam, Justin, Sam, Brianne, Obsidian, and Vin, my electronics buddies. And I will even miss my manager Liesha, even if she is crazy about 99.9% of the time! And, of course, all my non-electronics friends!

Today, I had to say goodbye to my sister, brother-in-law, and Grandma and Grandpa Lockie. It is definitely hard to have to say goodbye to everyone. But, this is all part of growing up, right? I have to grow up and get out of my comfort zone in order to succeed in life, so this is just the beginning of that.

And a few short hours from now, I will say goodbye to Idaho, the place that I have called home for 20 years. No more clean, crisp air. No more sound of the cedar mill late into the night. No more listening to the neighbors dog howl every five minutes all night long. And no more living in a place that only has 800 people in it (in case you weren’t aware, Sevilla had well over a million!).

In my head, all I can think now is a theme song: “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toy’s-R-Us kid!” Don’t ask me why, but I do think the beginning of theme song definitely fits how I’m feeling at the moment.

5: the number of days until my 23^rd birthday. Or, as I keep telling people at work, until I have one foot in the grave I’ll be so old. I fully realize that being 23 means that I should be all adult like, but right now, I am starting to feel like I would do just about anything to go back to grade school and start over. Mom and Dad made all your decisions back then, and you never had to go out into the real world. But, that is most definitely what I will be doing during this 23^rd year, so hopefully I can come back from Spain as a full-fledged adult! (or something close to it). Unfortunately, what I wanted most for my birthday was to visit my sister in Georgia, but after trying to work our schedules closer (and keeping in account my Spain budget) it just didn’t work out. Oh well, there’s always next year, right? Here is a cute picture I found of us, though, from when we were little.

6: the number of shifts I have at Wal-Mart. For now anyways. It’s kind of a bittersweet temporary goodbye. I did end up getting my Leave of Absence approved, but am not guaranteed a position back in Electronics. But, I’m not too worried about that because I know that we are losing a couple of people between November and February so I think I might be coming back to a perfect opening. Either way, it will be weird not to be working. And I suppose I’ll admit to the fact that I will probably miss being the only girl in my department besides my department manager. Sam won’t have anyone to shoot rubber bands at anymore. Adam won’t have anyone to tease. Two unnamed others won’t have anyone to babysit them anymore. Nope, instead Brianne will be all by her lonesome with a bunch of boys!

11: the number of days left in Idaho. The number just keeps getting smaller and smaller. In this eleven days, I will still probably end up repacking at least two more times (once before my grandparents get here, and then I will probably take everything out of my bags and ask their opinion on the stuff that I am taking). But it seems like time these days is moving so much faster than it was at the beginning of the summer. Now, all of a sudden the days are gone, and I’m freaking out because I’m not entirely sure I’m ready. I also wont be able to see my baby brother again after I leave Idaho because he isn't able to take off work to come down to Oregon with everyone else. He probably thinks that 11 is the number of days until he can drive my car without me telling him no, but that is definitely not the case! I will take my keys to Spain if I have to!

25: the number of days left in the United State of America. Also kind of bittersweet. This will be the first time out of the United States, and honestly one of the first times I’ve been away from family except for the weekends spent at NACURH conferences. Luckily, since I am going to Zoe’s house before Sevilla, she will be there to help ease me into life away from mommy and daddy (and by ‘luckily’ I mean lucky for me, but probably not for her J ).

1: one last time to do everything. It is definitely weird to be doing stuff and thinking “this is the last time you will get to do this for a while.” Last week, I had one last outing with Grandma Lockie to Lewiston. Technically, Grandpa was there too, but his hearing aids were dead until we made it to Costco so that was like ¾ of the trip that he probably was not really there. Yesterday, I had one last casino run with just my mom and me. Granted, I will probably go to the casino with my grandparents this weekend, but Mom and I like to go by ourselves every once in a while. As the days get shorter, however, there will plenty more of these “one-lasts”, which is what is making this so difficult.

Spanish word of the day: seta-mushroom. (I’m practicing how to tell my host mom what I don’t like to eat!)

Sixteen days and counting!

The countdown has officially begun. In only sixteen short days, I leave Idaho to begin the greatest and most nerve-racking journey of my life: studying abroad over 5200 miles from home in Sevilla, Spain. After month of filling out paperwork, booking flights, getting my passport/visa, and generally going nuts, the time to leave is finally almost here. This is where I am at right now and what my current plans are for the next month:

For the past two weeks, I have been packing, repacking, and repacking, and repacking, and repacking my suitcases. Everyone keeps telling me to not take a lot of stuff with me, which does make perfect sense. But then when I tell them that I am only taking two bags, they look at me like I am crazy for not taking more. I’m positive that in the next two weeks, I will probably be repacking numerous more times. I keep feeling like I am forgetting something important, or that maybe I want to change the clothes that I am bringing.

Because my parents are trying to fix up/sell their house, I also have to make sure that my room is completely packed. This is on top of helping my mom paint and cleans my sister and brother’s old rooms. Needless to say, this is just one more thing to add on top of a very long list that needs to get done in the next few weeks.

On August 10^th, I am driving with my dad all the way to Portland in his Bronco. It should be a very long, interesting journey since its going to be the first time it’s gone more than to Moscow and back since he finished rebuilding it (here’s to hoping that we make it!).  Then, I get to stay at either my great-grandma’s house or my grandparent’s house on my mom’s side for the next 2 weeks. I’m excited cause we are going to drive over to the beach for the day and eat at Mo’s (who makes the world’s best clam chowder). I’ll also get to spend some quality time with them before I leave.

Then, on the 24^th of August, Grandma and Grandpa Giddings will take me to the airport and I will be on my way to Manchester, United Kingdom (with an extremely long layover in Newark, New Jersey). For ten days, I get to visit Miss Zoe Watts and see Scotland and London and buildings that were built before the 1800s and castles and, if I get my way, I might even get to see a royal or two.  I even told Zoe that I was perfectly fine spending every second of every day camped in front of Buckingham Palace, but she didn’t seem to think that was as good of an idea as I did.

Finally, on September 4^th, I will start my study abroad program with our five day orientation in Madrid, Spain before heading to my final destination, Sevilla. (For those of you who don’t know where Sevilla is, I have enclosed a map.)

I know this was a long post, but I wanted to catch everyone up on all of the happenings in my world. I will be posting occasionally so that people can hear about all the awesomeness of my travels.

Every day, I am trying to learn/re-learn a new word in Spanish. Today’s word  is asustarse: to panic (which is something that I must keep myself from doing!).