This is my travel journal from my study abroad trip to the UK and France. The names of my teachers and classmates have been changed for privacy reasons.

DAY 14- June 2
               More class. Yeah, yeah...but we went to the Taste of Scotland Show. Best. Show. Ever. And I'll tell you why, but first here's the rest of the day. My group sat in the lobby for three hours after class, writing our sketch to present tomorrow. See, it's a part of our group projects and we're supposed to write a skit about one of the books we read for class. While we were downstairs, the cleaning ladies got onto us about the state of our rooms.

               Have I mentioned this yet? We're staying in a building on campus that seems to double as a hotel in the summer. In addition to our class, there's a lot of other people here for conferences and business things and stuff I don't know about. And they have people who come in to clean the rooms every day. It's making me antsy.

               See, I understand it for things like taking out the trash and restocking the tea. But they come in and vacuum, mop, straighten things, make the beds...it makes me feel weird. Mostly because I'd rather make my own bed and pick up after myself. And I've spend the last year and a half playing the clean-up fairy for my roommates. So every time the cleaning staff shows up while I'm in my room, I feel awkward. I started hiding my dirty clothes under my bed until I forgot where I put them and panicked.

               "Oh God! Aliens took my socks!"

               Anyway, my group was sitting in the lobby, diligently working on our skit. Which means we were frantically tossing around ideas and latching on to anything that looked good. One of the cleaning ladies came by and asked if we were on the third floor. We said yes, and she proceeded to give us a weirdly calm yet stern warning to clean up our rooms. Of course, this made me panic because I thought my room was somehow too messy. As it turned out, some people's rooms were so cluttered that houskeeping had trouble getting in the door.

               ...who packed enough stuff to make a mess?!

               After that, one of the girls told me that she deliberately left her room a mess to try and get them to not clean. Weird. So then the time came for us to get on the bus and head for a particular stop. There, we waited for everyone who thinks "We're leaving in an hour!" means "Show up whenever!".

               We hopped onto another bus, which was not a double-decker, and watched as it became increasingly crowded. Everyone else breathed a sigh of relief when our class got off. We ended up in a beautiful suburb type place. Lots of nice little streets with nice little houses. And then we walked for a long time.

               "Are we there yet?"
               "No."
               "Are we there yet?"
               "No!"
               "Are we there yet?"
               "So help me, I'll turn this class around!"

               And then we came to this big nice-looking house where there was some kind of large tent set up for the show. We hovered around, feeling awkward and under-dressed, until someone started letting people in. It was packed with tables and there was a small stage and an open space on the floor. You could probably fit ten dancers at a time on that stage, and I'll get to that in a minute.

               First came dinner. It was one of those big fancy dinners with multiple forks and several courses that all the books on etiquette love to talk about. The program included not only what the evening's entertainment would be, but also what the menu was. There were some things I knew I liked and some of what I was unsure of. I tried everything they served. The first dish was paté, which turned out to be some kind of fancy spam. It wasn't half bad. They also served some kind of beef and a fruit pudding. I didn't like the pudding that much, but there was fudge later.

               Donna- What's braised mean?
               Sally- It's a way of cooking meat so it loosens it up.
               Jen- Ask Sally. She's all-knowing.
               Sally- I like food.

               I gave in and took pictures of all the food. And then I also started rearranging the flatware to take artsy pictures before everyone got annoyed with me for stealing their drinks. (Speaking of drinking, there was a bar.)

               Before the show actually started, they showed us what appeared to be a video of Scotland as produced by the board of tourism. It was a bunch of clips of various Scottish landmarks, and a group of pipers on tour. Seriously, everywhere they showed us on the video, the same group of pipers turned up as well, in perfect formation! I think someone slipped us their vacation photos.

               Then the show began, with an introduction from Scotland's Three Tenors. At one point, they began calling out countries and ask everyone from there to shout. Near the end, they asked "Anyone from England?" and the music stopped, the lights stopped, and a single searchlight came up one one lone, brave individual who raised his hand.

               "Why are you sitting all the way back there? We just wanted to say 'hello'..."

               Then everything started up again. The guys asked if there were any groups from Scotland there that night, and there was one.

               "Can someone keep an eye on the silverware at table 26?"

               And then they made sure nobody was left out.

               Host- Are there any countries here we missed?
               Our Class- Texas!
               Host- ...countries.
               Our Class- TEXAS!
               Host- ...Ladies and Gentlemen, the U.S. of A.!
               Our Class- WOOO!

               I think Dr. Thompson started it.

               The show was mostly music and dance, which was awesome all by itself. During the first act, there was a bit that required audience participation as the Tenors taught us how to dance the Gay Gordons. I'm excited to say that the rugged-looking one pulled me out for a dance. Apparently, I was following along so well that he asked me if I'd done this before, and picked me up and spun me around. The other girls in my class have dubbed me "lucky bitch" for the rest of the trip. I'm okay with this.

               There was another dance lesson in the second act, the Virginia Reel, and that time Rebecca was pulled out to dance. There was also a bit where a troupe of little girls came out and did a dance. Right before the interval [intermission], one of our hosts recited "Address to the Haggis". During the interval, we were all served haggis, although not the one the host had strangled.

               By the way, haggis is awesome.

               They did a sing-along in the second act, and I sang everything I knew the words to. (They had the words on a screen.) And for the finale, the ladies in the show asked people to come up to the dance area and sing Auld Lang Syne. I was the only person in my class to get up and sing, and I was very disappointed with my group.

               And so the show was over. I managed to get a picture with the guy I danced with, and we made our way back to the dorm. We were on our own this time, as our teachers had decided to apparate and we hadn't learned how yet. But we managed to find our way onto a bus and accidentally wandered back to campus.

               Must find out if there's a cast recording of that show. I'm hooked on Scottish folk music now.