And so it begins...

Hello there! Thanks for stumbling onto my little blog. This will be a way to keep track of my year studying at the University of Edinburgh and the (mis)adventures that come with it. The posts will not be pages of stories but more photo highlights (with links to various galleries) and little tidbits of information or thoughts.

I've named the blog siubhal (apparently pronounced "shu-al"), which is means "travel" or "journey" in Gaelic. I thought it fitting because this isn't only a physical journey of going to see new places and sights but also a mental and emotional journey of experiencing things that are foreign to me. By "foreign," I don't mean eating haggis or seeing lots of people in kilts (which actually isn't that common here since kilts are a highland thing and Edinburgh is in the lowlands). I use "foreign" in the sense that I've been forced to step out of my comfort zone. When I first decided to come to Scotland, lots of people (myself included) thought, "Scotland? Well, that won't be nearly as difficult/scary/unfamiliar as going to Ghana." In fact, it has been an equally, if not more, challenging adjustment here but for very different reasons. I don't want to get too deep on you here so I'll leave it at that for now.

I'll be making posts for each little trip and may throw in a random post here and there. There will be links to photo albums and many of these albums are on Facebook. You do not need to be signed in to view the albums and this is definitely not an endorsement asking you to join Facebook - it is simply a convenient place to post photos.

Map
I've put together a Google Map for all you visual learners and because I like maps. All of my trips and other points of interest in Edinburgh are (or will be) placemarked with little icons. Click the icon for more information and/or a link to a photo album (if there is one).

Email Updates
I've set up something similar to what I did for my Ghana blog so you can be notified when the blog is updated. To get an email when a new post is made, join the group at http://groups.google.com/group/siubhal. I think you can join the group no matter what email service you use (although I recommend gmail if you haven't tried it yet) but if you have any problems, please let me know.

Looking forward to sharing this year with you...

Evonne :)