Hot and humid day in Ottawa and finally, EXAM RESULTS!!!

So this week has been a blast. I have had such a great time getting to know Kristen's family and really feel as if I have known them for the longest time. We had a barbeque a couple of days ago for Kristen's graduation and there was A LOT of food! Yesterday we had a nice dinner and ate some of the left-overs from the party. We went for a walk with MacKenzie (Kristen's golden retriever) along the Rideau Canal. There was this tunnel on the way down to the waterway that had hundreds of spiders hanging from the ceiling, I was a little nervous walking through the tunnel. They were quite big and fat spiders too. Gave you chills walking through the tunnel! We went down to the dam of the canal and one of the doors of the dam was open quite a bit and the raging water was a site to see! Got lots of pictures and will be posting them today. I've got many pictures, so will be posting all of those as soon as I can. Kristen and I then took MacKenzie to the dog park afterwards and had a great time, but didn't stay too long because it was so hot and humid out. This morning, I woke up and Kristen and I had breakfast. Afterwards, we both decided to check our exam results. I was so nervous checking, so I had Kristen look at the grade for me. I ended up with 52 mark on the exam! Wooohooo! I passed the exam! They must have capped the exam off too because it was such a weird number to have ended up with on the written portion. Kristen says that on a re-sit examination, they usually cap off the mark that you are able to achieve. So I'm assuming that my grade was capped off. Anyway, yay that I passed! Kristen went to check her mark and her results weren't up yet but should be in the next half hour or so. Today we are going to Gatineau Park to go for a hike and then we will go canoeing later on in the day. Should be a lot of fun. I've never canoed before, so hopefully I will not tip the canoe over! If I do, I can guarantee that there will be pictures...

Exam over! Now in the land of maple syrup and poutine!

So the exam is now over and has been over for a little over a week now. Two months of studying sure prepared me for the exam and I was much more prepared than the last time. The first attempt at the exam I had barely studied because I was down in England lambing so had no time to prepare for the exam and I decided to just cram for two days and hope I would do well on the exam. This time I had plenty of time to study. Although I wasn't sure about two of the short answer questions, I managed to answer all other questions and there were two questions that were exactly the same as on previous exams that I had studied. So I was glad for that. I hopefully answered the other questions correctly, or at least get partial points for. Still waiting for results to show up on my university account. I will check on Monday to see, but most likely the grades will not be posted for another week or two knowing how fast the university is at posting grades. Kristen finished her last exam and had it on the same day and same time as I had my exam. We had about a week to do things around Edinburgh and to get her moved out of her flat. It took some time, but we managed to clean and get her all moved out. We spent the last couple of days down at my flat and left on the 25th of August for Canada. We flew into Paris, then into Montreal and then took a bus (that was an hour late, ugh!) and arrived at the Ottawa rail station where I met Kristen's parents for the first time (well, in person for the first time since I have already spoken with them on skype numerous times). I am now in Ottawa at Kristen's house and will be here for 3 weeks. The weather has not been too bad, cloudy and it rained yesterday but the temperature is nice. Not as cold as Edinburgh and definitely not as hot as Arizona! Still have to unpack but will do that later today. Will be doing plenty of site seeing while here and relaxing! Will be nice to have a vacation where I don't have to study! Hope everyone is doing well and will update soon! Sorry for the long delay in posting, but was very busy back in Edinburgh. Talk to you all soon!

Back in the UK!

After 18 hours of travel, I finally made it back to Edinburgh yesterday. I left from Phoenix to Atlanta at 7.15am and arrived into Atlanta's airport after 3 hours of air travel. I was surprised that the airport did not smell of the pungent vomit-smell that I had initially smelled the previous time I was in Atlanta. In Atlanta, I spent the next 4 hours (my layover) studying in Gate E14. Yes, I know, sounds fantabulously exciting, doesn't it? I finally left Atlanta and headed to Paris CDG airport. I began my 9 hour flight at about 5.50pm Atlanta's time. I spent 9 hours of watching movies and sleeping. I did not bother studying because I figured I would either fall asleep or get frustrated with the little room I had to put things. I arrived to Paris after the long flight and proceeded through the security check point to which I was frisked by security twice because I beeped going through the metal detectors. I'm assuming it was my button on my jeans because I had nothing else on me. I then was called back through the metal detector to remove my camera from my backpack. I thought you only had to remove laptops? For some reason, the lady made me remove my digital camera and put it on the belt separately. I had to walk through the metal detector again to get back through and of course, I beeped again. The same guy frisked me again. I was thinking, "Really? This guy just checked me not more than a minute ago and he is checking me again?". I had no problems with it, I just laughed inside. Then a lady had to check my backpack after it went through the machine. Wow, after about 15-20 minutes through security, I was finally able to walk over to my gate. There were so many leaks on the airport ceiling! They had buckets everywhere collecting the water. It was pouring outside too! I sat in the airport and waited for my flight. After 2 hours, I was able to check in and head to the plane. At first, I thought that we were going straight to the plane. However, they put us all on a bus and we drove around the airport for 15 minutes before getting to the plane. I think the plane was on the other end of the airport! Crazy! After 1.5 hours on this flight, I was finally in Edinburgh where Kristen met me at the exit! We were extremely excited to see each other! We got onto the bus and headed to the city center where we had lunch at subway and then Kristen left on a train to go to her university and study. We both have our exams tomorrow at the same exact time. Wish us both luck! Well, I should get back to studying here. Hope everyone is doing well and that the weather is nicer than Edinburgh's!