Firbush (Rob's Orientation)

Alright, so I'm a little leery of this blogging thing but I am going to give it a go.

As Sarah has mentioned I recently attended an orientation in the Southern Highlands, known as Firbush, It is a camp situated on a picturesque lake (or loch as the Scottish call it) surrounded by mountains a close to a tiny little town called Killin.
The camp started out with everyone meeting at the university at 7 am and piling into two van-buses. So here it began, it is pretty tough to initiate small talk with people that only talk about soccer(football) and the British Olympic team. Unfortunately, no one wanted to talk about the NHL or American Football so I did my best to get into conversations when I could but I couldn't help but to feel like an outcast.

Fortunately for me the feeling didn't last longer than an hour after being at the camp. The first thing we did was split into smaller groups to play team building camps that were quite challenging and I quickly became acquainted with some classmates (within 8 minutes of starting the activities I was standing in my hiking shoes on a classmates shoulders moulding my body around a tree to get through a very small hole).

Some of the other activities we did were; kayaking (including playing games of tag and kayak water polo where many people including myself flipped over), windsurfing, canoeing, gorge trekking, mountain biking, fly fishing (which I am terrible at), sailing, and a few other outdoor activities.

The other activities commenced at night, and that mainly drinking at the local bar and playing drinking Jenga at camp... what a blast... that's when you really get to know people.

So needless to say this trip was extremely beneficial for my I now know everyone in my class feel comfortable with everyone and I know some more scottish lingo, such as "nae bother mate", I will let you all figure that one out.

Well, I start my first class tomorrow and I have a rugby practice (it feels a lot like a tryout) on Tuesday with a team called Currie RFC they are in the Premier division in Scotland and said to be very competitive. Wish me luck I will need it with both.

Update you later,

Rob