Edinburgh!!!

SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW!
 I do love the snow lol          
                        

So, for my last weekend in Scotland (which wasn't really my last weekend in Scotland, but we'll leave that be), we decided to take a trip to Edinburgh!
SO.. we woke up at 4:15am and met at the church and drove the 3 hours down to Edinburgh!! We listened to some outrageous "kids" Christmas music (which were AWFUL!!) lol.. and had some lovely banter while trying to stay awake.

When we reached Edinburgh, SNOW!!!  It had snowed, and we were absolutely excited! :} love love love. We had a great snowball fight (which was really just David and Tim trying to attack each other and "accidentally" missing and hitting someone else. There were a few dangerous times when a loose snowball ALMOST hit an older couple walking up the stairs behind us!) tons of fun!

 

 

Our first stop was the castle :} It was very lovely; great fun walking around and looking at everything like the chapel, the dungeons, the crown Jewels, and just looking out at the city beneath. BEAUTIFUL!

After about two hours in the castle!! (haha) we met up with two from our group who had stopped at guess where.... of course, STARBUCKS hahaha.. the only place to be lol. We filled up on some yummy coffee, and then headed down to the famous Edinburgh Christmas Market. Great smelling food, tons of people, and sale booths everywhere! So much fun to see all the fun items being sold; just so happened to buy Miss Bergen's Christmas present there :]p I also found a delicious, gigantic, soft pretzel which I was able to share the happiness with my friend who had never tried one.
Well, by this time, we were all pretty tired and very wet! So, we hobbled back to the cars (just so happened to run into some friends who happened to visiting Edinburgh the same day!) and jumped in ready for the warmth and comfort of the seats. Once again, great banter and some good laughter :}
When we got back, I headed over to a friend's house for some dindin, and then we all came back to the church for our Student Christmas party!!

It was great fun :} we had mulled wine (non-alcoholic), tons of christmas cookies (provided by none other than myself), pizza, and a great variety of flavored pringles. Good stuff. We also played tons of games like tinsel charades, quizzes, doughnuts on a string, and the chocolate game. So great! Earlier in the week we had gotten together for a craft night to make decorations which were lovely and hanging all around AND little note cards that were hung on the tree. well these note cards were for writing what we were thankful for God for this year. So, during the night, we wrote on the cards, and then the next day at church (during our free Student lunch!!) we read out what everyone was thankful for :} so happy.
(oh and I during that lunch mentioned above, I gave my testimony!! yeeks) ;]p
<3

CRAZY?!!! Yes, I am, and yes I did...

[Mum, Dad, I must warn you that you will freak out, but know that I was very protected and with a friend that I trust greatly <3]

SO.. as some of you may know, I was given the opportunity to go see Switchfoot live in Edinburgh on Thursday night! Well, OF COURSE I jumped on this excited to see a new part of Scotland and hear a band that used to be one of my favorites. There was a group of five of us who were planning on going together, and we were going to be driving down and then back right after the concert so that people could get to work the next morning. WELL... one of our group broke his leg and he just so happened to be our driver; well, because he could no longer go, his fiance didn't want to go without him (understandable). BUT, because he was no longer driving, our other friend couldn't go because he had to work late and wouldn't make the concert if we took a bus (buses are awful and long) AND (it's not normal for people to borrow other's cars here because of fright of crashes and craziness with insurance problems). WELL, that left me and my friend David. (OH.. and the boys decided not to tell me this until the night before, so I had to basically figure out transport and board for us)

Thursday.. quite a lovely day, I must say. I went to my first class, met with a friend, and then headed out to Starbucks where I was meeting David for our escapade. (got a free coffee from our lovely friend Mike who was supposed to go with us but couldn't because of the stupid slow buses: YUM) anywho, I showed David the plans that I had for what to do; laid them out very nicely and orderly too. We decided that the bus would be the best and cheapest way there and that we would have to stay the night in a hostel and then catch the 5:30am train the next morning in order for David to make it to work on time. We were ready, excited, and just itching to get started on our adventure.

We accidentally missed our first two buses, but hit up the third after wonding about the mall and eating a small lunch where we were kicked out of the cafe area ;] (hehe.. just because they didn't allow takeout items to be eaten in the cafe; silly silly) So we people watched instead on the balcony. Then we got onto the bus, (oh and we found some motion sickness pills for me to take before hand too!) and sat for what seemed like 5 hours (it was really only like 2.5-3 hours with a bus switch in between too). We had some great chat and learned about each other more though I don't think that I prepared David for the rest of the night with me lol... :}

When we got to Edinburgh, we easily found the club where the concert was being held.. after I took a few dozen photos (hehe; it was a very beautiful city). Well, we waited for a bit, checked out coats, and got some wonderful tap water to sooth our parched throats. Then the opening band came out: In Case of Fire.. they were most definitely a rock band. They weren't bad, but they were not what I care for. AND some of their lyrics, from what I could understand, were not that great... Well, then SWITCHFOOT came out! OH GLORY BE... they know how to put on a performance!!!!! The music was great! Jon Foreman was hilarious! He was jumping into the crowd and climbing up into the balcony... He sang right over the top of David and I, and... well, I can now say that I've tasted Jon Foreman's sweat which I still don't know if that is really cool or just absolutely disgusting because MAN was he dripping NO pouring out sweat.... (I'll leave that to you to decide) GREAT performance!!! Would definitely see them again; they were so good <3 (two encores!!!)

David and I were quite hungry after the show, so we decided to find a place to eat where we could sit down and just relax. You might not believe it, but Edinburgh really doesn't have anything open except pubs (with no food; very fascinating to me) that a person would be able to enjoy a nice sit down dinner after 10:30. So, we wondered around, looking for the people; it was SO weird!! Like NO one was out at this time, and it took us quite awhile to find where the people where. When we did finally find everyone, they were all walking away from everything.. probably because everything had just closed now that I think of it lol, but we were finally directed to a fish and chips place. They actually had a little sitting area, so we were able to sit for a bit which was nice. It was at this small shop that I had my first taste of fried HAGGIS!! and might I add: YUM! I greatly enjoyed it; I'm now excited to try cooked haggis which I guess tastes very different.
[Oh, I did forget to add that while we were looking for a place to eat, we saw two life sized metal giraffes, half of a gigantic foot, and I, might I emphasize, I danced in the middle of a round about ;]p David sadly would not join me.. which I still don't understand, but well, whatevs]

After our delicious meal, it would have made perfect sense for us to go back and find the hostel that was next to the club where the concert was, BUT we were in an adventurous mood. Instead of being sensible, we (really most of it was me.. hehe) decided to hitchhike! Why not we said; it would be the perfect time because there are two of us and we are both of different gender so we really shouldn't have to worry about anything. So, off we set walking down the streets of quiet Edinburgh sticking out our thumbs. Well, David didn't know how to do it, so I had to explain it to him and then he looked it up on his phone: HOW TO hitchhike 101.. LOL. Well, we walked a good bit and then I needed to stop and run to a toilet. Luckily, we just so happened to pass by a hotel who were nice enough to let us stop in. While we were there, David, in his wise ways, asked for some paper to write a sign saying

ABERDEEN

LIFT WELCOME

It was a great answer to prayer, for we had prayed not only to be picked up but that God would give us a sign.. not a "sign" sign but a paper or cardboard sign to use for our hitchhiking (the hitchhikers 101 guide told us that we should have a sign saying where we were wanted to go) Well, within 10mins with the sign, someone ACTUALLY pulled over!! Yeppers; so we were picked up by this lovely man who used to hitchhike when he was younger. We had some good conversations which kind of ended poorly, but you know, God works in all situations. Well, first of all he yelled at us for basically being stupid enough to try and hitchhike at 11pm in Scotland because NO ONE is awake at that time here, and for not really having a plan. THEN, he actually ended up basically calling David a BIBLE BASHER!!!! Can you believe it?! The funniest thing was that David was in NO way bashing the bible; he was simply telling him what he was doing with his life which just so happens to revolve around God. Anyway, we were dropped off in Dunfermline (our good friend, Mike's home town and the old capitol of Scotland where King Robert the Bruce and William Wallace's mother is buried)

(LeAnn, Amber, and Mum will appreciate this: a small taste of what's to come)

"Oh Dunfermline, Oh Dunfermline, how lovely are your alleys...."

Well, we were dropped off at the train station, so we looked to see when the next train to Aberdeen was.. hmm.... yeah, they didn't actually have any trains to Aberdeen which is kind of a problem, AND the waiting room wasn't opened at that time. You see, we did know a couple who lived in Dunfermline: Mike's parents, BUT it was like 12pm if not later by that time, and we didn't want to disturb them with begging or anything.. SO, we just kind of walked around the city. We saw the sites, NO people (well like 20 or so, at one some pub that was the only thing that was opened), and looked to see when the first bus was. Let's just say that we had a good while to wait yet until it came (about 5.5 hours) By this time, we were a bit tired, so we thought about where we could bed down for a bit.. Well, Dunfermline has no hostels and the hotels were not open or accepting guests at 12:30-1am, so we turned to our other options. We thought of the benches but they were in the open and spaced very far apart. Then we turned to the bus stop pavilions, but they just weren't very appealing, so we just turned down this one nice alleyway where the wind was not very strong and found a nice doorway that had an overhang just in case it rained. SO, David and I bunkered down for a few winks of sleep before continuing onward to home. Yeah.. the song up above is VERY sarcastic. It was not the best time of our lives; it was cold and uncomfortable, and literally bone chilling. But we were fine in the end, and got maybe like half an hour or 45 mins rest... All we can say is that God has now given us insight into the life of a homeless person and our hearts are filled with compassion. That kind of bone chilling does not go away easily!

So it was a lovely night roughing it, and we were SO EXCITED to see that bus in the morning. David was out as soon as his head it the seat, lol.. I dosed a bit and luckily, well it was probably God, we woke up in time to get off the bus and catch the next one just in time. We made it back to Aberdeen around 10:30am or so... David was however supposed to be at church at around 8am, so we were a bit late (and not very functional).. We stopped at Costa Coffee to pick up a hot chocolate for David because he needed a bit of energy, and God thought that he needed a bit more energy than can be found in chocolate, so his order was done wrong. David instead received a strange mixture of steamed milk, espresso, and some strangeness. LOL.. We walked to church, and talked a bit about our crazy night with people and then I walked home, ate some yummy food, and slept and slept and slept.

and slept

David on the other hand worked and worked and worked and snoozed and worked and didn't get to bed until 3am HOWEVER he slept until 4pm the next day.. I think that his schedule may be messed up for a bit lol...

Well, I think that's that.. I hope that you enjoyed and didn't freak too much! <3 love you all!!!
PRAISE THE LORD!!

xoxoxoxox

ALL HALLOWS EVE

AND IT'S A THRILLER... THRILLER NIGHT!

As some of you may have seen, I turned into a Zombie for a day (actually not on Halloween, but that Saturday), and I preformed the Michael Jackson's Thriller dance in a mall in front of a ton of innocent bystanders who were a bit confused as to why so many Zombies suddenly appeared in the middle of the day in their shopping center. It was loads of fun!! Here are some pics!

So thats that..

I turned in my first essay this week!! That was kind of stressful 'cause I didn't realize that it was due this week until last week and then I wasn't able to work on it until sunday. I was freaking out a little, but I knew that it would work itself out and it did :} I was going to try to write a poem for the LAX "holiday" english card, but I didn't finish it... I do like what I have so far, so maybe I'll make my own Christmas cards and send them out!

Tomorrow I'm going to Sterling! Sterling was the first Uni that I looked at for coming to Scotland; I'm glad that I chose Aberdeen though. It'll be nice to see what Sterling is like! I'll be sure to try and take some pictures; definitely bringing my camera! I'm going for this Christian conference to learn how to learn an Alpha meeting; I'm pretty excited about it. :} HOWEVER... it's a 3 hour drive; which I would normally be fine with especially considering the great people that I'll be with, BUT since I've gotten here, I've gotten car sick very easily (I'm pretty sure it's the way they drive; CRAZY; would NEVER drive here unless I had to).. So, I'm hoping that I don't get sick; I'll ask my friends if I can sit in the front; that usually helps.

I'll let you know how it goes!

Tomorrow is also the 5th of November!! Some of you might remember from history class that some guy tried to blow up parliament way back when, and well, it's sorta become a holiday for everyone here. There are going to be fireworks on the beach and tons of bonfires all over the city! I'm very excited and hope that we make it back from Sterling to see the works!!

Love you all!! <3

The exciting life of Sarah Pedretti at Aberdeen... "really Sarah??"

Hello my beautiful lovies!
It is simply a wonderfully awful day here in Aberdeen with the rough sea wind throwing the cold rain down to the sopping wet earth, but of course this can never get me down! It is still very beautiful even when the weather is awful.. I was even inspired to start writing a poem when I was sitting outside under an arched overhang of one of Aberdeen Uni's buildings. It was a lovely time :} Maybe if I finish it, I'll post the poem for you to see!

Shakespeare is, of course, just as clever as always with his histories plays, which could also be classified as tragedies or even chronicles.. ike, there is so much to know. Wordsworth of course always likes to creep his way into everything but now we look at poor Coleridge who happened to fall victim to opium.. hmm, but great literature did happen to come from that. By the way, did I tell you that I'm friends with his great-great-(great?)-grandson?! Very sweet guy; we have Hall Group together (Bible Study each week). Anyway, last week Friday, I had my first assignment to turn in; I'm hoping that it was received well!! Next week, I have my first essay due! =/ I should start that... hmm..

Church is great, friends are great, life is pretty good right now. You will never guess what I did this last Saturday though!!! I, Sarah Pedretti, went CLUBBING! That's right, I went out with a group of friends and danced the night away at a club :] now of course there was no drinking involved for me.. just dancing! I do love to dance. (funny thing happened though.. kind of forgot that I might need/ though maybe I just never realized that I would need id to get in lol.. well, I only had my student id and luckily there was this really nice guy who kinda knew someone from our group and he let me in. whoops! No one would believe that I had never been to a club, and we all had a really fun time!)

THIS saturday, I'm going to try to break a world record. What you ask is it? THRILLER, THRILLER NIGHT.. any clue? The Thriller flash mob!! Yep, I'll be dressing up and making up like a ZOMBIE and then dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller!! I'm very excited !} I have to find something to wear though...

I cannot for the life of me (okay, I haven't looked that hard) find any hot chocolate packets!!! I can buy a cup at a coffee shop, but I haven't seen any in a shop... :( I love hot coco! This is sad, BUT I've become quite good a making soup lol.. not that its that hard! I have Zumba tonight! yay again for dancing! okay I've probably talked you dry and sent it all to the Scotland sky, but I love you SO much!!
<3 Sarah

Life at Uni

Hey all! Sorry that I've been kind of rubbish at keeping you up to date lately.

Life at Uni (university):
Things are going very well with classes! I have only two courses that I'm taking which ends up being 5 classes within the week and a total of seven hours. (pretty simple from what I'm used to!!) It's really nice having more free time to make friends, get out and explore, and have time with God.
I love my classes too! SHAKESPEARE!!!! Oh happy day.. I really do enjoy Shakespeare, and I also have Romanticism: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Paine...
I do like the structure of the courses here. There are lectures (which are very normal) and then there are tutorials or seminars where a small group of the class meets together and discusses more indepthly the texts and literature. This is also where the small essays and presentations are given; attendance is KEY here! There is no, "you're the one paying for the class so you can show up if you want to" talk; they don't pay for their schooling!! ITS FREE! (I do think that our government should learn a little something from the Scottish way of University).
There is a load of reading that I have to do! I read one play from Shakespeare a week and then at least a good 100 pages of Romanticism from various authors. I like it, but it can be hard to focus at times. (I really do love the Library! It's such a great place to do to study)

I've also really gotten involved with Kings Community Church and the Christian Union. Kings is like my home away from home here at Aberdeen; everyone there is like family to me, and I feel very comfortable. They also really really really really really really really like their coffee... which suits me. ;] Christian Union is almost exactly like CRU.. the UK counterpart. Through both, there is a Bible study that I get to go to throughout the week besides the meetings/church on Friday and Sunday. This Saturday, I get to go to GO DAY at Dundee; it's a Christian Union conference, and I'm supper excited for it!!

Well, I better be getting to bed! I love you all SO much!! <3
Sarah

My First Adventure

Fit like? --- Oh good; just had a wee bit o' a walk from the bay. 'Tis such a fine day ta be out and about!

I got my first real taste of Scotland this weekend!
On Saturday, a few friends and I took a bus out to Stonehaven. (I learned that I really do hate the bus; got sick. Can you believe that!! I never get sick, and then I did on a silly little bus ride). Well anyway, it's a beautiful little city on the sea know for an award winning beach, great fish and chips, and Dunnottar Castle about 2 1/2 km from the city. We had a nice walk around the quaint city and bought our fish and chips; then, we sat on the beach and watched the dogs running into the sea and children throwing stones as far as they could. It was a wonderful time. Then we hiked up bluff/hill/whatever it's called and followed a very long winding trail to Dunnottar Castle. On the way we took SO many pictures! It was absolutely wonderful. We also passed a World War II memorial that was very neat to see. It had the names and battles of who and where people died. It was a beautiful time. HOWEVER, we walked so far!!!! As we were walking back to the dorms, we could barely talk because we were so tired and hurt so much. It was worth it though.

That night, I went to my very first Ceilidh (Kayley): a Scottish traditional dance; similar to a barn dance or folk dance but instead of having just a caller, a lot of times you just dance. It was AMAZING!! I was so surprised that I even had the energy to dance at all because of all the walking that I did earlier that day, but I couldn't stand still! I danced with quite a few true Scotsmen and one was even wearing a kilt!!! It was just a great time, and I met so many people.
Everyone is very open and excited to meet new people and know about you. The Ceilidh was at Kings Community church, and I ended up going to their service the next day. I had a great time worshiping and hearing the message. They also had a free lunch after, so me and my friend, Victoria, stayed for that too. We met even more people, and I ended up going to Starbucks afterward. Then we all went back to church because they have a more in depth bible study talk at night. And then... you'll never guess... we went to Starbucks AGAIN! (I got TWO free STARBUCKS coffee in ONE DAY!) Oh it was pretty exciting and very fun. I had just a wonderful time, and I think since I'm here for such a short time, I'll just start getting involved with this church.

So things are still going great! I start my classes TOMORROW!! My first class isn't until 3pm, and it's my only class of the day. So.. I'll have a nice time getting ready for everything. I'm hoping that everything will be settled soon with the bank. They froze my account for some time because of so many people opening new accounts or something silly like that. So I haven't been able to withdraw any money which is a great problem when I haven't gone grocery shopping yet and have no food and am living off of 3pounds and the generosity of my friends. But, it's all good, and I'm sure it won't be long before everything is settled.

I love you all SOOOO much!!!
Facebook me if you want to skype.
<3 Sarah

PICTURES

MY DORM

MY WALK TO CAMPUS THROUGH SEATON PARK

 (sorry these are blurry!)

CAMPUS

CHRISTIAN UNION FREE LUNCH TALK AND PERFORMANCE

INTO THE CITY