Great weekend of hiking and relaxation!

So, on Saturday, I embarked on a journey to the Argyll Forest to the west of Glasgow. I woke up around 6.40am (no fun!) and packed my hiking gear and made some sandwiches for lunch. I took the bus to Waverly train station here in Edinburgh and caught the 7.48am train to Gourock with one change in Glasgow. It took the train about an hour to get to Glasgow Central Station, from where I had to make a connecting train that continued onward to Gourock. I managed to make perfect timing and got on the connecting train within 5 minutes of arriving in Glasgow. Another hour and I was finally in Gourock. Once I alighted from the train, I made my way towards McIntray's Point (where the ferry to Hunter's Quay was). It took me about 25-30 minutes to get to the ferry. Again, perfect timing and I was on the ferry within 2 minutes of getting to the dock. I boarded the ferry along with numerous cars that also got onto the ferry. I paid for my ticket and stood on the top deck as the ferry made it's way towards Hunter's Quay across the Firth of Clyde. Apparently there are dolphins in the Firth of Clyde (according to the ticketing man), so I kept my eyes open for any signs of dolphin fins, but unfortunately I saw no such fins...

After finally arriving to Hunter's Quay, I knew I had a very long walk ahead of me to reach my destination, which was a hiking path called Puck's Glen. The distance to get there was about 5 miles and I figured it would take me a few hours to walk there. Before I started walking on the main road that I would need to take to reach Puck's Glen, I stopped into a post office/grocer. I picked up some food to go with lunch and I asked the man at the register how long it would take to walk to Puck's Glen. He said it takes about 30 min to drive there, so it would probably take 2 hours to walk there. Then, an older gentleman walked into the store and the man at the register said I was in luck, as the man that just walked into the store has walked all over this area of Scotland and knows it like the back of his hand. So the older man outlined a new path that he suggested, since it would take less time than the way I was proposing.

While he was telling me these new directions, another older gentleman walked in and overheard our conversation. He said that I was in luck as he and his wife were heading past Puck's Glen, and if I wanted a ride, I could ride with them to get there! I almost said no, but then he kept on insisting that I come along for the ride. So, I got into the car with Beth and Andy, an older couple that must have been in their late 60's early 70's. Beth was very nice and told me about Holy Loch, that we drove past. Apparently it used to be where the US Navy stayed. There was a very long wooden dock and apparently it was the dock the Americans used. Beth and Andy were heading up to Inverary to see their daughter and husband. We made it to Benmore Gardens and they dropped me off at the bus stop.

I went into the Benmore Gardens cafe to have lunch. Mom and I went into this cafe a few years ago on our Scottish trip and also went to Puck's Glen. I ate lunch and made my way to the trailhead. The first trailhead was "Black Gates" and was a trail that featured gigantic trees all along the path. The hike was absolutely amazing as the trees and ground were covered with bright green moss and vegetation. The trees towered over me and the sound of rushing water made the walk so peaceful. After the Black Gates trail, I made my way to the Puck's Glen trailhead. After a 20 min walk to get there, it began to rain. No, let me rephrase that, it began to POUR! I ran under the trees in the nearby forest and it was absolutely amazing! The rain, as it poured down to the ground, didn't touch me while I was in the forest. It was so weird to be standing under a tree and literally 2 feet in front of me it was pouring rain (and hail too)! It finally let up after about 5 minutes. I continued to make my way to the trailhead of Puck's Glen. I walked past a car with two Jack Russel Terriers that were barking their heads off at me. I finally found the trailhead to Puck's Glen and began my walk. Puck's Glen is a walk that follows a stream, and along this path are numerous waterfalls. It was so green throughout the walk! It also began to rain again, but I got my umbrella out and continued to take photos in the rain.

For lunch, I stopped by one of the larger waterfalls and ate my packed meal. After taking loads of photos, I made my way out of the glen at around 3pm. I had to walk about 1.5 miles to reach the bus stop. I caught the 4.06pm bus back to Hunter's Quay and back onto the ferry towards Gourock. After another 2 hour train journey, I made it back to Edinburgh and back into my comfortable bed. I have loads of photos to upload, and I will have them up either tonight or tomorrow. I hope everyone had a great weekend! Oh, I also have a new website I joined. I am selling my photos through Redbubble.com and you can click on the "Buy at redbubble" link below the pictures at the top of the blog. I'm only selecting photos that I think are worthy or being framed and sold, so these are my best pictures.

Another week over...a weekend of hiking now begins!

After a week of Endocrinology and Ophthalmology lectures, I'm ready to take a break. Yesterday and today were 9-5 lectures, which gets difficult to maintain enough energy to focus on the lectures as the day progresses. This is especially true when the lecturers dim the light! Dark lecture theaters make it so much more difficult to stay awake! I'm really enjoying the Ophtlamology and Endocrinology lectures from these past two weeks and have been learning lots. I've got this whole weekend to review everything that we went over this past week. I'm taking tomorrow off, as I will be catching a train to Gourock, then taking a ferry across the Firth of Clyde to Hunter's Quay and then a couple mile walk to a glen walk in the Argyll Forest. The entire walk follows a stream and there are a lot of spots with waterfalls, so I plan on taking a lot of great waterfall photos. I'm leaving on the 7.50am train and it takes two hours to get to Gourock with another transit time on the ferry, which I'm not exactly sure how long that will take. The weather hasn't been the greatest this week, which was worrying me that I wouldn't be able to go this weekend. However, I looked at the forecast today and it's supposed to me sunny and partly cloudy tomorrow. Actually, just checked again and it's supposed to rain tomorrow! No!!!!!! Well, supposed to be drizzling, so I'm still going to go. I need to get out of town and enjoy the rest of Scotland! So, if I'm going to attempt to catch this very EARLY train, I should probably get enough sleep eh? Hope you all have a fantabulously fantazing weekend and get out and do something fun (unless you are working)! Talk to you all soon and I'll post photos of my waterfall glen walk tomorrow.

Trip to Dunfermline

So yesterday, I planned a hiking trip to Dunfermline in Fife. We took the train, which was only £3.85 for a roundtrip ticket. The three of us brought study material so we could do a wee bit of studying while we were there. The train ride took only 30 min or so and when we got there, it was raining lightly and was freezing cold outside. We ventured over to the park and followed a footpath that lead to a bridge. This bridge overlooked a stream and a small waterfall and was absolutely beautiful. The rocks and trees were covered with bright green moss and it felt as if you had stepped into a fairy tale. The footpath went down towards this stream and there was even a wooden lookout tower that was covered in moss and looked out over the little glen. We continued on the path towards the abbey and there was a beautiful stone bridge that was also covered in moss. We walked over the bridge and up to the abbey and took some pictures of the abbey. After we saw the abbey, we walked over to a little cafe that the man in the museum told us to go to. Yeah, I forgot to mention that we went to a little museum before the cafe. It was just a small house with some pictures and guides. We ate lunch at this cafe and afterwards headed to a different cafe to get some studying in. We left about 2 hours later. All in all, it was a beautiful hike and I took many pictures! I'll be uploading them after I post this, so remember to check them out via the photo link on the right-hand side of the blog.

Ahh statistics, what fun you are...

So we have started our lectures for statistics and disease occurrences. I can tell you right now, I've only ever taken one stats course and I studied for exams, passed the course, and then flushed everything from my memory. Really, statistics? Statistics is my least favorite course and I find it difficult to focus during the lectures... Not fun! Then again, how do you make statistics a fun subject? We had a lecture on the clinical exam of the cat and the professor that lectured us was a cat nut! She was giving us all of these tips on how to communicate with cats and how to never scruff them. She was also saying something about when you are looking at a cat, you smile at it by blinking your eyes slowly. At the end of her lecture, she went on to tell us this story of when she went to cut a canary's toe nails.

The story goes as follows: She was talking to the owner about how a Canary's heart can dramatically increase and that there is a risk that her Canary would stress from the nail trim and die. The owner was well aware of this but still opted to have the nails trimmed since she couldn't cut them at home. So she took the canary back for the nail trim. Unable to find any proper nail trimmers for small birds, she resorted to using large toe nail trimmers that are used on dogs. She positioned the clippers on the first nail and squeezed the handles together. However, the handles stuck and the clippers slipped down the nail further. She cut the nail and quickly looked away and held the canary up. When she looked down, she had clipped the nail and missed the blood supply, but unfortunately when she raised the bird as she was clipping the nail, she popped the canary's head off! Apparently they glued the head back on and told the owner that it was the heart that failed. Oh jeez!!!

Also, she told us a story of an ostrich she knew. Apparently the ostrich caught it's lower jaw with it's claw as it was running and ripped it's own head off! Now that is shocking! We were not expecting her to tell us these stories!

New Photos!

So, in case you have not noticed, I have uploaded all of the photos from this last Christmas visit in AZ with Kristen and the family. I failed to mention that in my last post. Anyways, today our lectures were cancelled. We were supposed to have three ophthalmology lectures but apparently the lecturer has the flu. I had to be at the university for one practical though. The practical was on urinalysis, which I have done MANY times. They had the urine dip sticks out and the refractometer so that we could practice doing that, but I've done that so many times before that I didn't even bother with it. I focused more on reading the urine sediment cytology, which was much more fun than staring at urine dipsticks. We finished the practical and I caught the bus back home. I have yet to start on any notes...but eventually will. I hope the weather is warmer in AZ than here! It has been a wee bit nippy this week, but not horrible. So, on with this study thing... I hope everyone is having a good week so far. Talk to you all soon!

No Resits For Me!!!

So the university finally submitted our grades. They released the Clinical Foundations Course grades on Friday and I passed the written exam along with the suture and hand washing practical. Grades for Pathology were released today and I passed that as well. So I will have the entire summer break free without having to be back in Edinburgh to resit any of those exams! So relieved! Those were the toughest exams I've ever taken in my life and I feel so sorry for the people that didn't pass. Studying for those again will take up the entire summer break! We do have one exam before the Easter break and its a multiple choice exam that's worth 20% of the Integrated Dog and Cat course. The remaining 80% is on the exams right before we break for the summer. Hopefully that one won't be as difficult...

The weather has been getting nicer here and the days are getting longer. The sun has been out for the past few days with small bouts of rain, which isn't so bad. I started carpooling with a friend from class and it is so much nicer than riding on a bus! Plus, I get to class and have a plethora of seats to choose from rather than showing up late on the bus and having nothing but first row neck breaking seats to choose from! I've gotten my ticket to come back for Easter break and will be back in AZ for a little over a week and then heading up to Washington to see Kristin, Mike and Michelle! Then, when I'm finished with that trip, I'm going to be in Canada for two weeks to see Kristen and her family! What an amazing Easter break I have to look forward too!

I've also started physical therapy for my right shoulder now and it seems like it is getting better. The pain isn't as intense as it was before physio. The physical therapist told me that my posture is bad and that because I've been studying and sitting in a hunched position, my scapular muscles have become weakened and cannot support my shoulder like they should be. When she pressed against my scapula and told me to raise my arm, there was no pain. When she did not do that and I raised my arm, there was pain. So I have been working on my posture and doing my physio exercises as well as going to the gym and working on building up my scapular muscles and back muscles to help with posture. Hopefully this all pays off and I can go back to playing racquetball and lifting weights.

So sushi was on my mind this last week and I decided to have a go at making my own sushi rolls. The first sushi roll I made was a spicy tuna roll. I made it with too much rice though. The second roll was much better. I had three days of sushi and my rolls kept getting better and better. I've decided to hold off on making any more before I get too sick of them. I had baked haddock with a tomato sauce for dinner tonight that Kristen gave me the recipe for and it was DELICIOUS! Well, I better get going so I can get a restful sleep for tomorrow's TWO lectures! I have two dental lectures from 9am - 11am tomorrow and then finished for the day. Hope everyone is having a great week so far! Talk to you all soon!

Back in Edinburgh and attempting to get back into the study groove...

So after an amazing 3 weeks back home, I am finally back in Edinburgh. I had such an amazing time with everyone and had a great time with Kristen coming to AZ to meet the family. I took her up to Sedona and the Grand Canyon and it was so beautiful when we were there! The red rocks of Sedona and the snow / sunset combination at the Grand Canyon made for some amazing photos! I can definitely say that while I was back home, I had my filling of food! I went out to so many restaurants and had a lot of great dinners at home from mom! Sapporo was by far my favorite place that I ate because the teppanyaki table was awesome! There sure was a lot of food that came with the meal though! I was sad to leave on Thursday, I really was and I miss everyone so much.

I finally got in to Edinburgh on Friday morning 8.20am. I nearly missed my flight in New York. I got off of my first flight and made my way to Terminal 1, however, I managed to take the wrong train so I was going backwards away from terminal 1. I noticed this right away and got off of the train and got onto the right train. I made my way through security and while I was standing in line, I heard an announcement for final boarding call for flight AF023, which was my flight! Okay, so I had about 20 minutes before departure and I still hadn't made it through security, let alone up to the person checking boarding passes/tickets! I was so stressed out! I got through security and quickly put my shoes on, grabbed my laptop, coat and backpack (didn't even bother putting anything back in my backpack) and RAN to my gate. I finally got to the gate and there were about 5 flight attendants waiting at the gate looking towards me. I walked up to the ticketing desk and before I even handed over my ticket, the man said, "hello Mr. Fonza"! Wow, I've never been greeted by name at the gate before! I guess that means they were definitely holding the gate open for me! Thank god!

I made it to Paris and then on to Edinburgh with no problems. Arrived in Edinburgh at 8.20am and got through customs and made my way to baggage claim. I walked up just as I heard my last name being announced. So I walked up to the lady and confirmed that she said my name. Apparently, my baggage and the baggage of some other people was lost in transit to Edinburgh. So we had to give out our information and they said the bag would be delivered between 4-5pm or the next morning. I dropped off my backpack at the flat and took a bus down to the city. I walked around a bit, picked up some groceries and stayed out as long as I could so that I wouldn't be too tired. By the time I got home, I had been awake for over 24 hours and the lack of sleep was getting to me. The bus rides were putting me to sleep each and every time I got on. By the time I got home, made dinner and wound down from a hectic journey and busy morning, I was absolutely knackered! I went to sleep around 7.30pm and at 8.45pm I received a phone call that woke me up. It felt like I had been asleep for 5 hours when it had only been a little over an hour! I answered the phone and it was the courier with my bag. He showed up 15 minutes later and I slowly made my way to the front door, grabbed my bag, signed the device the guy had, closed the door, went back to my room and fell into bed, where I was to sleep until 12pm the next day! I guess I really needed the sleep! I was so tired the next day. Because I waited to sleep, I did not get jet lagged and was caught up on the time change by the next day.

So I am now catching up with the notes on the lectures that I missed and am halfway through. I have class tomorrow until noon, so will be able to get a lot done tomorrow. I hope everyone is having a great weekend and I miss you all already! Sorry I was unable to get to see some of you, it was a busy 3 weeks I had in AZ and did not have much time to see every person I wanted to. Hopefully I will be back in Easter, if not, I will definitely be back in the summer for a month and a half. Talk to you all soon!