Principles of Scottishness!

Hi all. I haven't been following any posts. I know I have a missed a lot! I miss you guys. Like Buttercup said, I have arrived now and I am finally getting my bearings! Let me run you through everything in the next lines.

Leaving
There was a mad traffic on my way to the airport. I thought I would miss my flight. Spent about 3 hrs getting there! I had a lot of mixed feelings saying goodbye to my mum! I sorely miss her.

Arrivals
My flight to Heathrow was smooth. Landed at 5.30AM and my connecting flight to Edinburgh was for 6.50. Almost missed that due to security checks. Had to jump the queue. I explained about my flight and they breezed me through. My brother is on holiday so he was with me. We had a minor ish with the groundnut sha. We poured it in an Eva bottle and it was in my brother's hand luggage. When they checked and saw what it was we were allowed to go! This was 10 mins to take off!

Edinburgh
On the flight, there were only 4 black people including my brother and I. I was terrified. thank God I wasn't by myself. We didn't have any problems though. The school meet & greet that was meeting us came about 1 hr late. We landed around 8.30 and the bus came at 12. My dad called and said we should have taken a taxi to Dundee and we should stop doing Ijebu! That woulda cost about £120!. Taking the bus from school was free. plus £10 for my brother. I told him I would rather wait.

Getting there
The scenery is gorgeous! I love the place. The journey was smooth. Lots to see. I met my faltmates finally and they were nice. My room is lovely. I finished unpacking in less than 1 hr. Thanks to my brother. The Agent cam to meet me to hand over my set of keys and all my flatmates didn't go out. All three were courteous and saw to my comfort.

Day to day
My first 2 days, I didn't see any balck person! I was worried. On getting to the City centre, I saw like 3. Do you know what it's like being the only black person in a like a 100 people gathering? Luckily my brother was always with me so I was fine.
My flat is close to every where so I have everything I need.

I have discovered a shop that sells Plantain and Okro! All the supermarkets here sell Pork. No BEEF SAUSAGES. It was annoying at first sha. But the shop that sells okro sells it. More expensive but at least I can have it now. Tesco, Asda, Lidl, Iceland, Somerfield none had beef sausages.

On the first day of Fresher's week, I saw more Africans. I couldn't believe how glad I was!
The first went by quite fast. It is my second week now. Our internet stopped working about on Wednesday. They just fixed it tonight. Apparently we had reached the limit of our subscription or something like that.

I complained but I was told the person that signed the contract has to complain himself! That is one of my flatmates, finally got him to do it. He is European so we have a mini United Nations going on!

I have registered at the jobshop, applied for my NI no, registerd with a GP etc. Also filled the council tax exemption form.

I do not have a phone yet. I don't know what to get. I have a Lyca mobile but it's not working. I can't make calls on it but I can receive. I can't even top up! Mailed them but they said they will call me on Monday. It's Induction week now so I ma quite busy so the phone is turned off. If they called, I can't retrieve the voicemail. Fired off another e-mail to them. They should call after 5 or during my break.

It was frustrating when the internet wasn't working.

Met a Nigerian lady on PHd today, she gave a pep talk about surviving the LLM. I quickly got her contacts and asked about food and Salons. She gave me contacts. So that is one less thing to worry about! I can't imagine dashing off to London every time I need my hair done or need some serious African food. She did it for SIX months before finding those people!

School
I am thinking of changing my course! I was apprehensive about telling my dad sha, since he is the one paying. He thought it was a good idea. I discovered that I can do a joint LLM for the price of 1. Only downside is, the second semester will be in France. Where I will obtain the second LLM. We will be there for about 5 months and come back to Dundee for dissertation. I am hoping I can change sha. Waiting to hear from my Professor next week. The 1st semester is the same as the course I original planned to study but instaed of staying here for 2nd semester, I get to go to another Uni and bag another degree. I guess I had better start learning French. Although we will be taught in English.

So far, it's been interesting. Everyone wants to get a distinction! You wouldn't believe how ambitious my classmates are. They are from a range of diverse cultures! There is someone form Saudi Arabia, two form Kazakstan, Thailand, Gambia, Tanzania etc. Learning new names everyday and teaching people how not to murder my name. I am loving it all though. But it is hectic. Next week will be easier though.

The Scottish Accent
It is very hard to understand! Most people speak with clear accents though. But when you do meet, the native speakers you say 'pardon' every second. Luckily, I have met only 3 people or so on the member of staff with the accent so it's not bad. Also most of our resources are on the school intranet so not too much interaction with them.

I think I have rambled on long enough! I will get to reading posts once I am through trawling through legalese. I am sooooooo glad to be back here.

Be good all. Oh, and thanks for reading till the end!

Leaving Home

Coincidentally, this is my 50th post! I thought I would have gotten here sooner. I love all your comments from my last post.

I am finally done with packing. I leave tonight! I shall miss home like crazy. I couldn't leave my room yesterday. I was hugging my pillow till I remembered my clothes with the tailor!
My friends have been great. One call almost brought on the water works. I had mini sent forth get-togethers. It was so much fun!

I went with kinky braids. It looks lovely. I have the long one with curled tips. I can pack it in any style :) I woulda put up a picture but I am yet to have a bath in case you guys smell me from the pix! :D I didn't freeze the palm oil. I got all the other items. Thanks guys

I don't want to go again o:( I am replying last minute emails etc. My flight is arriving Edinburgh around 8:30am tomorrow. School bus coming at 4:00pm. Imagine my joy when I got an email that there is an extra bus coming at 11:30am and if I would like to be booked on it! Almighty God does wonderful things. I won't have to wait all those extra hours.

On the one hand I am looking forward to school, a masters will look good on the CV afterall. On the other, hmmn. I shall miss going to work! Yes the 3rd Mainland Traffic! Imagine. I won't miss the frown lines and cursing that goes hand in hand with driving in Lagos sha! But I will miss my car, the time I spend with my sister on our way to and from work :( that is our own special moment. It is mostly just us. Listening to the news and giving our comments and arguing! Kai can we argue? The office wears, pencil skirts, all the shirts, the suits and shoes! Nothing beats a lovely shirt with pencil skirt and heels! From now its jeans and sneakers. Hmmph!

All in all, I am rambling. My flatmate just mailed that our internet has finally been fixed! I say Yay. More blogging if school time-table is favourable. The next time I post, it will be from Dundee. I am missing my family already. Unconsciously, since last week I follow everyone around with my eyes .

Even yesterday, when I went out with my friends, I was scanning the opposite traffic lane for a glimpse of my sister. She has finally started driving. Her official driver (moi) is leaving. She is doing good sha. I am looking forward to a time she will drive me round Lagos. I drove that girl for years! She used me like something else. School runs, visits, airports drops etc. I was her designated driver of choice. I will mis our bickering sef.

Let me stop before I go all maudling on you guys. Have a fab weekend. I didnt proof read. Sorry for any typos. My phones haven't stopped ringing since Monday.

Akwaaba!

Hello people, how is it all going? Hope the global recession is not affecting you too much.

The road trip was long. I knew it would be, but I wasn’t expecting it to be roughly about 12 hours! ManCee commented- if my backside would be Luscious enough to withstand the journey, I say YES.

We first had to confirm our tickets and the journey began at 9:00am. The Nigerian/Benin border was quite aggravating. Too many people at the passport queue, it was like everyone was travelling out of the country. I saw modes of transportation I thought only existed in fabled stories.

There isn’t much to see in terms of vegetation. If you were expecting forests sorry to disappoint you. There were lovely palm tree lined roads and stunning beaches in Togo. As in very stunning! We stopped for a rest in Togo. I had to use a convenience built with raffia palms as the walls, cement thingy being the lavatory itself and beach sand as the floor tiles! It was clean thank God! It also cost me 25 Cefas! I don’t know what that translates to in Naira though.

The currency exchanges were quite confusing. Cefas in Togo and Cotonou, then Cedis in Ghana and other currencies in between. One resounding theme about the whole journey was, there is very minimal difference from Nigeria in terms of food, scenery, vegetation, markets etc. Only the languages were different!

On the road, we had whole fried plantains instead of the sliced dodo we do here, fried yam, suya etc. They also do the whole barbecued turkey, chicken, gizzard ensemble that the Northerners and road travellers are famous for.

It was difficult changing Naira to Ghana Cedis as we couldn’t find bureaus changing Naira except for the Mallams at the borders. Luckily we US $ so we had money. Changing from Naira to Cedis is better though since you get better value. Thank God my sister was there she can do numbers like crazy. And she could determine which was which. I think I already mentioned the currencies were confusing. I would have been hopeless if alone!

We got to Ghana around 4:30pm. We even posed and took pictures at the Ghana/Togo border. It took us another 4 hours to enter Accra itself! The driver was quite rough, I still have aches in my joints. Right there and then, my Sis & I decided to fly back. No way were we going through that again!

Getting to the park, we asked for hotels. Luckily I had checked a few Accra hotels online and I had quite a list. The first one we checked out was a disaster! We called a few peeps that had been to Ghana before and they recommended others. The second one we went to was waaayyyyyy over-budget! We finally found a perfect one. It fitted our budget nicely, 2 minutes from the airport, central to everywhere and it even had a Woolworths beside it.

After a nice long shower, we got dressed and hit the town! They have a vibrant night life. We had a really sumptuous dinner at the House of Ovation. Not quite what we expected since the soft-sell mags here always rave about it, but the food was really good. I noticed they eat a lot of pepper, I mean very HOT food. Everything is also smaller. A bottle of Star Lager I saw was like a miniature caricature of the real thing, even smaller than the small bottle in Nigeria. I asked if it was really Star and was told yes. Also their Fanta & Coke came in 300ml bottles. I am used to the 35cl we have.

We had a long stroll and even went for the opening of a new club but they were just ending the ceremony when we got there. We finally got back to the hotel around 2:00am.

Saturday was spent leisurely. Ghanian cab drivers don’t know anywhere. If you have no idea where you are going and no address, you may find yourself being driven around in circles!

This post is getting long so I will summarise the rest.

Bought plenty Woodin Ankara at the market. There were no tickets at the airport to get back to Lagos. All the flights were full booked and the airline offices had closed!

Went online to book tickets we got two seats luckily. How wrong we were. We went to the beach to kill time and enjoy our last hours in Accra. On getting to the airport to make payment for our tickets, we were told our booking had been cancelled and the flight was already full when we made our booking, but it was not reflected on the website. The guy was quite arrogant and by then I was desperate!

We eventually bought tickets for the next flight out. Luckily there were available seats. My sister was ill. A very bad case of flu and sore throat which, I now share. My parents are blaming the road trip.

I was so glad we got those tickets! If we had waited a bit longer we would have been stranded. We had to pay penalty for them, Thank God we had enough money.

With 5 more hours to kill before departure, we just strolled round the mall, bought lunch and went back to the hotel for a shower and a mini rest. They were very nice at the hotel, we explained our situation and they allowed us stay without paying extra. I trust my Naija hotels, No Way!

Everyone kept asking if we were students and we got a lot of numbers, from the forex bureau to the information desk officer at the airport and other tourists who wanted to visit Nigeria. It was all quite amusing.

I had a blast and we are now planning our next trip although, our parents do not want to hear about it. We are definitely going! We MUST book a return ticket first to avoid any stress whatsoever!

Enjoy your week!

Back and already........

I am back. The trip to the airport was better than I thought it would be. I was dreading that trip literally. I love traveling but if I could just sleep and wake up in my destination without all the airport stress I would be thrilled. A little magic anyone?

My sister and cousin both followed me, which lessened the hassles considerably not one of them complained about how heavy my luggage was. They were very magnanimous, I know if I were in their shoes I would grumble all the way down.

My sister is one hell of a babe! She annoys me the way only younger sisters can sometimes drive one crazy but then I still wouldn't trade her for anything. I remember the start of my vacation, we had to go move her things from Kent to London. I was pissed throughout the whole process. Stress I hate. She didn't once complain about my attitude. I really wish I could be more patient like her.

On the day of my departure she took me on a mini sightseeing. I was thrilled and surprised because most of our arguments stem from the fact that I can wonder around for hours as long as I am window shopping or taking pictures, she doesn't like doing any of these. So it was really fun, for her to do that. She even indulged me in taking pictures of me whenever I asked. I even asked her if she was doing it because she will soon be rid of me and get back to her normal routine.

I wish I could put up a picture of the way she was dressed for the airport journey (She will skin me if I do) I had a good laugh along with my cousin! She was dressed like an ECOMOG soldier. She wore this crazy combat trousers and black Uggh boots, black clingy top and a rain proof hooded fur jacket!

My security screening at the airport is story for next time. Just a quick post to get back to real
life.

This post is for my sister who made my holiday what it was.

She didn't even get mad when I monopolized her computer when she finally gets an unsecured network to tap from. My cousin finally came to fix that problem sha.

I will upload some of the pictures when they have been properly edited.

Ciao!

I wrote this post yesterday but the internet at home was messing up so I saved it for later. Then I got to work and the internet wasn’t working as well. I simply packed up and I am now at one of my project sites where we are deploying VSAT, LAN etc. I told my boss I wanted to check on the workers.

Speaking of which he said I still had to explain why I didn’t resume when I was supposed to, that my ‘flu’ is not a valid reason and that I shouldn’t think because I bought him a gift I would go off easy. I knew he would say that.

I showed up for work today because I know they are not expecting me. They are sharpening their knives so they can all attack me on Monday so to lessen the jibes I came. My colleagues were all like what was I doing at work on a Friday that I should just have resumed on Monday, I smiled they are not the ones to face the bosses. Those bosses are not at work today sha. Still enjoying all the sallah break and independence hols I presume. I am a bit pissed though.

Its almost lunch time I want to eat pounded yam I have missed that meal! Something went wrong at the top had to edit.

Have a nice weekend all.