10 Years Later...

On a cold wintery Chicago evening, more than 20 American college students boarded a British Airways flight bound for a life changing experience in Aberdeen, Scotland. I was one of those students in the GLCA Study Abroad program as a representative of Wabash College. I'm here to testify, it indeed impacted my life greatly in so many positive ways. It is worthy of a 10 year anniversary post on my blog.

It was January 25th when Team Wabash gathered at the airport bar watching all of the other Aberdeen-bound students showed up. We drank in honor of Brian Samuels' 21st birthday. We sized everyone up and probably looked like a real menacing group as we were the only ones drinking and judging everyone else.

Many first impressions were made in that airport. "Fanny Pack Boy" and "Doo Rag Guy" cemented their place as official tools and I made the silent decision NOT to be seen or associated with these dudes -- ever. There was the lone Depauw girl. She was not only a sub-standard individual for having attended Depauw, but let it be noted she was also a bitch. There were also delegations from Hope, Albion, Wooster, Guelph (Toronto), Alma and others.

We landed in Aberdeen, Scotland by way of London on the morning of January 26, 1996...exactly ten years ago today. And thus, it began....

The first day in Aberdeen was overwhelming to say the least. We had our orientation with Graham Tengrove, the GLCA liaison in Aberdeen, and got to mingle amongst all of the other American students in our program for the first time. We mingled amongst representatives from the various student activities at University of Aberdeen. Sailing club, basketball, football (that's soccer, you American dolts), rugby...this place had everything. Brian Samuels, Parker Lyons, Craig Miller, Brent Eaton and I all signed up for lacrosse. It was a co-ed club league and we got to learn the ins and outs of lacrosse basics and even play in games. I ended my lacrosse career with 1 goal (Samuels got the assist), 1 assist and innumerable penalties.

After the student mixer there were two American students on the year-long program that took us on a pub crawl. One of the crawl guides was Ron from Earlham. Ron was the gayest man I'd ever met and more than willing to let you know it too, not there's anything wrong with that either. We learned about 5 weeks later that Ron had effectively flunked out of Aberdeen and was forced to return to Earlham.

Let's just say the pub crawl was a little hazy. But I distinctly recall having a conversation with a girl from Alma College about half-way through the evening. Easter Break was still 3 months away (during which we had three and a half weeks to do anything we wanted) and everyone was already talking about what they were going to do and where they were going to go. The Alma girl and I talked about traveling together. Purely platonic, just geeked American students. It never came to fruition anyway, but it was comforting to get to know someone enough that you'd be willing to travel for almost a month with them. As it ended up I traveled Europe with Craig Miller. We had a blast and that trip is best left to another post of its own one day.

Long story short, I ended up crashing at the Alma girl's flat that night after the pub crawl. Seriously, nothing happened. Just sleepy time. We had an early orientation session the next morning. It was already not going to be pretty with the wicked impending hangover, but walking in after the first night there with one of the girls in our group...that's just begging for grief from your comrades. Well, we made it there and late to boot.

It was a memorable and great introduction to University of Aberdeen. From there things played out like a dream I want to relive over and over still to this day. I met so many new people, some with whom I still keep in contact, from Scotland and elsewhere. I even got to know fellow Wabash students I had never even seen, let alone met before. Some of these guys will be life-long friends of mine and for that I am grateful.

And most importantly, I met the woman who would ultimately become my wife. Yeah, that girl from Alma College (how'd you guess?). We got married in 1998 in the Wabash College chapel and have a 2 year old daughter now. I'd go do it all again and I wouldn't change a thing.