Maggie’s Centre

Last night we had a scholar meeting about what we wanted to do for our Rotary Project. Last week, Lindsey, Annie, Karin and I went to go visit a cancer treatment place called Maggie’s Centre. This isn’t your typical medicinal treatment facility – it deals more with the psychological implication that patients and their families go through when they find out themselves, or a loved one has cancer. But the facility is literally right next to the hospital to make everything about their process a convenience.

As soon as you walk in the door someone greets you with a cup or tea, or coffee, or water. They have a fully open kitchen and you are allowed to hang out as long as you like. They also have a nice little library full of reading materials on books about cancer. The space is light, open and airy – you couldn’t tell if it was a cold blustery day from being in there. They offer counseling sessions, and have up to 5 psychologists there, AND walk-ins are welcome. The whole point of this place is making themselves available. They also offer make-up and wig classes; teaching women how to take care of their wigs, and after the make-up session, the women leave with a make-up back of over £200 worth of make-up. They don’t cheapen anything for these women. Of course, men are welcome too and are offered the same services as the women, well – maybe not the make-up bags:)

Well, after presenting what we saw and learned, I’m happy to say that we will be putting on a fundraiser in late May/June to raise money for some basic needs of Maggie’s Centre. I’m really excited to get to be a part of this project. Maggie’s Centre works entirely off of private donations, so they are always in need of extra funding.

Rotary has this great program called Matching Grants. The Rotary Foundation matches .50 to ever dollar that is raised for Maggie’s Centre. Our target goal I think will be around £5000.

I’ll keep everyone updated on our progress of this project, and hopefully we can set up some type of online donation if any of you would like to help us out and contribute. But I’ll let everyone know if and when that gets set up.

Here are some pictures of the centre:

/ Comments / Feb 03.10 / Uncategorized / by Robin

Stirling

So this past weekend I went to Stirling. And for those of you who don’t know about Stirling, all you need to know is that it has a castle and William Wallace’s Monument. Thats right – we’re really getting into the Braveheart Scotland now.

In the distance there’s freedom.

We had a quick look around the Castle and also made a trip over to Wallace’s Monument, but we ultimately were headed for the Highlands…

The castle was nice – and well, castley. We opted out of the tour because of time, so I don’t know too much about this castle. But I’m sure some important things happened here.

As you can see from the first picture, Wallace’s Monument was just in the distance, we dove to it (by the by, those of you who do choose to visit Stirling, I recommend having a cute Scottish guy drive you there, or at least someone with a car)

You get to climb to the top of the Monument – all 247 stairs. Its winding, its closed in, its dizzying. But there are some fun stops along the way – like WILLIAM WALLACE’S HUGE SWORD. Well, I don’t think it was his actual sword, in fact I know its not. But it was fun to take a picture by it.

Finally a bit winded, and met with more cold freezing wind, we reached the top. There were some incredible views.

We then got in the car and just drove. I didn’t really know where we were going, just to the Highlands. The most exciting thing that happened is that we came across some Highland Cattle. They are really shaggy, and some look like longhorns. But as I approached them to take an awesome picture of them and how they all were just staring at the camera facing me, they decided to suddenly ALL runaway and ruin my picture.

We pretty much drove for about an hour and half, stopped at a loch on the side of the road, ate some crackers then drove back to Glasgow. So in short I’m going to have to do the Highlands again. And maybe get out and walk a bit more next time. But at least I had this to look at during the drive.

/ Comments / Feb 02.10 / Uncategorized / by Robin

Headed back

I am on my last day of a short trip to TX. It was so good to get to see work people, old friends, and even my parents came up for the visit.

The purpose of my visit was a wedding for my friend, and I totally didn’t take my camera to the wedding. So…no pics now. Sorry.

It was very surreal to be back in Dallas for a few days. I am anxious to get back and start school up again. I have class on Thursday, and hopefully I’m in for an exciting semester.

I really am going to try to update this blog more than I had, which was about once a month. Right now the goal is once a week. I know I can do it! (Even though I didn’t post anything last week – I was in a wedding!)

And feel free to ask questions or if you want me to talk about anything in particular – let me know! I’m happy for post suggestions…

/ Comments / Jan 18.10 / Uncategorized / by Robin

2010 – We’re in the future, but right now I’m stuck in the past.

Happy 2010 everyone.

I hope its been a wonderful holiday season and merriment ringing out the old and bringing in the new.

I’ve had a great time traveling around and seeing parts of the world I never thought I would see. In December I took a trip to Israel/Palestine to visit a friend and check out the sights. This was my first time visiting the Middle East.

Sorry the pic is so small – I stole it from Facebook.

Jerusalem felt like no other city that I have ever been to. In the shelter of the walls of the old city, it really feels like you are stepping back in time. There were hardly any cars – and they couldn’t really fit anyways. You saw an occasional soldier with a gun, but other than that its just shopkeepers, vendors, and people wondering around its enclosed and winding streets. It doesn’t really feel like much has changed here, other than the fashion and a few more mobiles; Jerusalem is the first city I have been to that really has withstood the test of time. It didn’t feel ancient necessarily, just timeless. Like its always existed, and it will always be around. I really enjoyed my time there.

I also ventured out from Jerusalem to a place called Haifa, home of the famous Bahai Gardens, and to Jericho. The Bahai Gardens in Haifa are perfectly symmetrical in every way and they also pull from the three major religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Now if only we could find a way for these three to get along politically.

I spent the rest of my trip in Jericho, which was absolutely beautiful. Some have said its the ‘ass part of Palestine’ (ahem, Nader). But I really enjoyed the mountains, the people and the laid back quality to the town – despite being in a desert it did have a resort feel to it.

Jericho is home to the only gondola that is at the lowest point below sea level. So we rode that up to Temptation Mountain to go visit a monastery. The monastery was built in the side of the mountain. See:

We also did a day trip up to Bethlehem to the Church of the Nativity. Sadly my camera died at this point, and I am waiting to get those pics off another camera. So I hope you’ll just be satisfied that I did indeed visit where Jesus was born and I can’t show you. Maybe you could just have a little faith??

I spent 10 days touring around the Holy Land, and it will be an experience that I will never forget. The trip went almost without a hitch; my last day traveling was a bit more stressful than I hoped, which ended up me being questioned by the Israeli security at the Tel Aviv airport and being stripped searched. But thankfully, I am not a terrorist, and they soon found that out. I’m telling you the highly abridged version of this story, but suffice to  say I was really happy to finally leave the country.

I’m not really ready to go back anytime soon, but I wouldn’t have traded this trip for anything and I’m so glad I was able to go.

/ Comments / Jan 10.10 / Uncategorized / by Robin

It’s Been Awhile…

Sorry everyone – I know that its been a couple months since my last post. Instead of overwhelming myself with catching everyone up with my life over the past two months, I’m just going to start fresh.

I recently just got back from a trip to Israel. It was a very interesting experience, and unlike any other place I have ever visited. I’m going to keep this a short post – I’m in London at the moment to celebrate Christmas with Matt.

But I did make a video, and if you would like to see it, please click the link.

(just a warning its about 7 min long…)

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

Much Love-

Robin

/ Comments / Dec 23.09 / Uncategorized / by Robin

Two Americans living in London visit Scotland

Well, at least they did three weeks ago. My brother and his flatmate Josh, who happens to be an old family friend, caught a plane up from London and spent the 2nd weekend in October with me. I knew it was going to be fun, but I had no idea it was going to be this fun! I couldn’t have halfway planned and participated in a more fun weekend. They arrived on a Friday night and left the following Monday night.

Saturday was the fun touristy Edinburgh day. I started by cooking them some blueberry pancakes. And we were able to witness Matt not only make, but also flip the largest pancake in the world! Want proof? Well the video is too big to upload. So I can’t give you any. You’re just going to have to trust me on this one.

After stuffing ourselves with pancakes I took Matt and Josh on a small hike up to Calton Hill. You get great views of the city, but its not as challenging and time consuming as Arthur’s Seat. So any of you who want to come visit, most likely this will be one of first activities I take you on.

Don’t these pictures make you want to come visit?? There are a few more pics I want to post, although I’ll try not to get too picture happy on this post, but I can’t promise anything.

So let me give you a little back story on these columns. My first back story to Matt and Josh was incorrect, so I checked Wikipedia to get the real scoop. The columns are actually called the National Monument, and their construction was started in 1826, but they ran out of money so they didn’t finish it. The end. Its kind of funny cause it looks and feels like that it should be some ancient Roman ruins or something like that. Nope…just some columns built to look like the Parthenon. It literally drops off after the edge. But it made for some great photo ops, which I’m about to show you one of my fav. new pics of Matt and myself, being the best brother and sister duo in the world.

So next we went to do the whole tourist thing and went down the royal mile towards the castle. Before that we stopped at a great Thai restaurant called Mai Thai, and it was pretty good. All of us were too busy eating the yummy food to take any pictures.

Before we got to the castle we ran into the most awesome person I have yet to meet in Scotland. Yes it was William Wallace(well, reincarnated)! He was awesome, posing for pictures and saying the most inspiring lead-you-to-battle things that would have Gandhi fighting along side the Scots! And he also had these bad-ass HUGE swords for us to pose with, so pose we did.

So after the rousing inspiration of why Scotland and England are two different places, even though the Scots lost , we headed onto the Castle.

I just realized I didn’t get a proper shot of the castle in its entirety, but I’m sure I’ll post another picture of it in some story later on. So right now we’ll just have to deal with close up shots. One thing that is really cool about Edinburgh Castle is that it perfectly blends into the natural volcanic rock that is already there.

As you can see we had a lot of fun playing with the cannons. The rest of the castle was rather castle-y, crown jewels that were a bit on the disappointing side, a really pretty soldiers memorial museum where you couldn’t take pictures, and lots of stone. There was also a chapel at the top, where people still get married, but you have to limit your guest list to 25 people. And yes, its that small.

The rest of the day and into the night was more just of wandering around and relaxing. It was a day filled with sightseeing and lots of walking so we were all pretty pooped.

Sunday was an equally awesome day, during the day we mostly relaxed, but that night we were doing a witchery tour and then later eating at The Witchery! Pictures!

Now I should take this opportunity to tell you that most of the pictures in this post, if not all, were taken by Josh, not myself. Josh had a super fancy camera that took pretty pictures. Plus he’s talented and has a good eye. Almost as good as you, Quan. So, thank Josh for taking all these breath-taking pictures of Edinburgh.

As I said earlier we started out evening with a very entertaining Witchery tour. Our guide was very funny, and this is a cool way to learn all the cool history and stories of Edinburgh that you don’t get from general sources. Here is me and Lindsey with our guide (he’s the dead guy who’s white)

After the rousing tour of learning all the awful things they did to witches and all the awful things some citizens did back in the day (body snatchers!) we headed to our uncharacteristically late for Edinburgh dinner at the Witchery with 11PM reservations.

Whoever comes to visit me, I probably will take you here. The food is pretty decent, a little pricey, but the ambiance is what makes this place so cool. And to give you a bit of a background; when people like Jack Nicholson come to Edinburgh – they eat here.

So after we finished our meal, it was quite late so we all headed home. It was the perfect end to our Sunday.

Monday was even more lax, we went to a really cute Scottish bistro for lunch, A Room in the Town – which is also quite good, then we made our way to the Botanic Gardens. I hadn’t been before, but its really nice to know that there is a place like this where I live. The gardens are HUGE, its kind of like Central Park, only its not so central to Edinburgh. But Matt, Josh and I had a nice little walk through.

The park was really pretty. It was broken off to different sections and had quite a diverse plant selection. It also made you feel like you were in different parts of the world, like China, for instance.

So thats basically it folks. After the garden we headed back to relax and also to send Matt and Josh on their way to jolly ‘ol England to resume their British lives. It was such a fun weekend, and I’m glad to be able to share my life with two of my favorite people!

/ Comments / Oct 27.09 / Uncategorized / by Robin

Leicester pt duex

Hi everyone!
So I’m a little over-due for this post, but I had a paper due – lots of dues in my life right now.
But lets pick up where we left off!
So Leicester, which was almost 2 weeks ago at this point, continued on with Rotary filled events. After sight seeing with Janice visiting castles, monasteries, and one supposedly haunted old abbey (sorry didn’t get any pics – it was a drive by) it was on to the Leicester Space Station to meet my fellow Rotary Scholars! And guess who was there to accost us:

Yes, I can sense your surprise. Usually when you go to a space museum, these guys, ironically, are the last people that you think to see. Well and this guy:

But seriously, this space station was as silly as all of its characters. I’m not really going to call it a museum, it was more of a theme-based space park, except not really any rides, just lots of random people, some space related, some not (The Joker and Captain Jack Sparrow), walking around in costume. But it was fun.

Now on to the real reason I went to visit Leicester. It was for the RIBI (Rotary International Britain & Ireland) LINK weekend for Rotary Scholars. So I got to meet everyone studying in the UK and meet a lot of Rotarians as well. I had a wonderful time, got to meet the town Lord Mayor (who was a Rotarian)

We then had dinner and some Rotarians did a little dance for us

It was a very nice weekend, and I was excited to meet all of the scholars. A few days later we all met up again for International Night for the Portobello club. Portobello is about 15 min SE of Edinburgh, right on the shore. Its a really cute town/suburb. We all introduced ourselves and I exchanged a Levelland Rotarian Banner and got a Portobello one in exchange!

It was a very lovely time and we all learned some traditional scottish dancing. Sorry no pics cause I was busy cutting a rug! But here is a pic of the band.

Next up Matt and Josh come visit me in Edinburgh!

/ Comments / Oct 08.09 / Uncategorized / by Robin

Leicester pt 1

Its been a while since my last update – SORRY! I’m fully underway with school and Rotary so my schedule has dramatically doubled since I first got to Edinburgh. BUT enough excuses – on to Leicester!

I went to Leicester this past weekend for the RIBI (Rotary International Britain and Ireland) group, which hosted a LINK weekend for all of the scholars in-you guessed it-Britain and Ireland. I’m going to divide this into two posts so I’ll write about the first half of the trip on this one and the Rotary part on the next post.

Now for just Leicester and its wonderful amenities!

I stayed with a lovely Rotarian couple, Janice and Mike Quinn. We had a few hours to kill Saturday morning before the festivities started so Janice took me on a whirlwind tour of the area. For those of you not familiar with Leicester, which four days ago included myself – its right next to Nottingham and Sherwood Forest. That’s right – I was in the area of my namesake ROBIN HOOD, well, I really wasn’t named after Robin Hood, but it would be cool if I were. I would have to step up my vigilante game.

The first place we went to was a Monastery. It was really, really peaceful and beautiful. Janice was telling me that some pop stars would come and stay here to relax and unwind. I was thinking it would be cool to have a meltdown myself so I could stay here with the Monks. We could all sit around a make ale, or I could scribe some old books and chant. Could be fun. Well lets get on to the part you guys are interested in – the pictures!
(I’ve just learned how to play with pics in iPhoto – so I may have gotten a little carried away, but I like it)

After we left the Monastery we headed to a stately home. It looks JUST like Pride and Prejudice, and Janice and I had a ridiculously giddy conversation about Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy.

We ended my whirlwind tour at the town’s castle, well what was left of it anyway. We opted for the audio tour but there was so much annoying banter between the host and this other guy that we quickly turned it off and just walked around. So I have no idea what happened to the castle, why it is in ruins or what room is what. But I did walk through a cool tunnel!

The next part of the day is filled with Rotary adventures so I’m going to save that for the next post. But to give you a hint of the excitement to come I have two words for you: storm troopers. Well, even if that isn’t that exciting, maybe its weird enough to keep you tuned in!

/ Comments / Sep 30.09 / Uncategorized / by Robin

Arthur’s Seat

So this is what Arthur’s Seat looks like. I know this because on Sunday we (Lindsey and myself) hiked up it. It was a nice hike- steep enough to get you winded (this may also be due to the fact we were eating ice cream while we were climbing – but who can resist ice cream when its 70 degrees and sunny outside and you’re in Edinburgh?!), but we had reached the top in around 25 min. The main reason to hike Arthur’s Seat is because you probably get the most incredible views of the city. You also get to see all the volcanic rock and exciting geologic landscapes that I briefly spoke about in an earlier post. So without further adieu here are some lovely pics of the rocks and Edinburgh.

(I meant to point towards the castle, but I’m a little off.)

We went around to the other side of Arthur’s Seat and got some really nice views of the landscape and sea. There is another hill you can climb just behind Arthur’s Seat, but it looked too daunting and we were getting cold. Here is picture to show you the scale of how big this “hill” was.

See – doesn’t that look HUGE and not fun to start at around 4:30 in the afternoon? We slowly made our way back down and ended up walking through a really pretty meadow section.

After we made it to the bottom, somehow missing the trail, we came across the Scottish Parliament building that pretty much stands out from any other building in Edinburgh. I think you’ll be able to see why:

Now this is probably the most modern building in Edinburgh. The design of it isn’t bad – I like the structure of the building, but I could do with less sticks and those gun-looking pieces on the sides of the building. The architect who designed it, Enric Miralles (thanks wiki), died before its completion so it kind of feels that it was finished on a grander scale since it was his last piece of work. Or maybe it’s supposed to look that way. But most Scottish people you talk to hate the building, but I think its because they don’t think that it fits into historical aesthetic that the rest of the city offers. And I guess Scottish heritage and culture is the thing that draws a lot of people here. I mean, its pretty common to find one of these guys on the corner of any street.

/ Comments / Sep 16.09 / Uncategorized / by Robin

Hiking Hills and the Festival of Fireworks

So this is going to be a longer post because I am cramming three days, but that just means more pictures!

SATURDAY:

After waking up earlier than I would have liked on a Saturday, I went and opened a bank account. YAY! I can operate without fees in the UK now! Then I went back to the flat and went out on a drive with Ruth and Jono. We drove along the coast and drove down to a lovely town that I forgot the name of. But thats ok because I do remember the name of the next place we went because I took a pic of the sign:

And we were going to hike/climb up this:

Thats right, the North Berwick Law hill. I know it doesn’t look daunting, and it wasn’t. It was a rather pleasant walk and at the beginning we ran into a cool dog:

And Jono picked some fresh black currants (don’t worry, I figured out they were blackberries).

They were oh so yummy and fresh! A perfect little burst of natural sugar to help us continue on our way.

We easily got to the top; I was in my sherpa boots that maybe look a lot like what people wore in back in the day while trudging through the Scottish landscape:

When we got to the top it was so freaking windy! So here are some blustery photos of me at the top, a fake whale bone (not sure why that was there), some more Sottish landscape and me at the tippy top!

After we conquered Berwick’s Law we headed to check out the beach. The cold beach. The gray beach with lots of seagulls. But it was pretty and nice in that depressing Sylvia Plath kind of way. We just kind of walked around and I did see something that was really surprising: KITE SURFERS!

This girl is NOT wearing shoes and she is going to catch a cold!

OK enough beach pictures – they’re all pretty much like this. And I was ready to go home at this point in the day anyway. So lets jump to

SUNDAY:

Sunday started out even earlier that Saturday. But it was International Student Welcome day for Napier. So excitedly I went. I was probably better off just sleeping in; I had already had everything set up that they were giving advice on and I didn’t meet any one from my program. But I did meet some very nice french people and saw some Scottish dancing. I also learned that the Craiglockhart campus used to be a mental institution. CREEPY!

I skipped out of the rest of the day after my crappy 2 o’clock hamburger and headed back to Leith. That night I went with Ruth and Jono to go watch some fireworks. So to give a quick back story, Edinburgh likes to have lots of festivals. The people of Edinburgh love fireworks. May I introduce the Festival of Fireworks!

It was an incredible display of fireworks above the Edinburgh Castle synced to the Scottish Symphony. They even played “God Save the Queen.” But she didn’t even bother showing up to this glorious festival praising her. Rude.

And now that brings me to today.

MONDAY

Nothing too special. Just more walking. BUT I did come across a nice place I can visit to remind me of home:

I didn’t get to try it out yet because it was closed:(. But I promise I will soonish whenever I need that Mexican kick. I’ll finish off this post with a really pretty view of one of the streets I walked down. Yeah – I live here now:)

/ Comments / Sep 07.09 / Uncategorized / by Robin