Student societies of Aberdeen University.

Aberdeen university has huge amount of different student societies that arrange various events and trips. For now I've joined the Nordic society, International society, Photography society and Climate change group.

Climate change group is very active and they have lots of cool events and trips every week (e.g. to BrewDog and Mackie's). They arrange a free film nights where they show some environmental movies and documentaries. Few weeks back they had a tree planting event where I sadly couldn't go, since I had lectures, but overall it's nice and environmental group of people who share quit the same opinions as I do.

I joined also the photography society and there's people from all different stages of photographing, since some are just starting and some are already been involved for a longer time. We meet every week and there we get some tips of how to improve our photographic skills. There's mainly things that I already know, but it's good to repeat the common mistakes that I still also make every now and then and also learn something new to be even better. They arrange some trips to nice places around Aberdeen and also one 3-day trip to mid-Scotland, which I'm really looking forward.

International society is quite big and they too arrange nice events and trips around Scotland and it's also nice since the society has lots of international people, as you would expect! They have good trips all around Scotland like Loch Ness, Edinburgh and Isle of Sky. I haven't yet been able to get tickets to Loch Ness or Edinburgh, since the tickets are sold so quickly! Hope I'll manage to get at least one of their trips. Last saturday they had a Arabian Nights party and I grabbed my camera, so here's a few pics (mainly of the belly dancers):

Other interesting societies are e.g. whiskey society and floorball society, but I haven't yet found a proper time to go to their meetings.
And last (just because my cousin wanted to see pictures of myself) here's my new Facebook profile picture:

First two weeks.

Over two weeks has already passed. It has included lots of great time with nice people. 

My roommates Calais, John, Graham, Bobby and Chris are all great. They've given me a nice welcome and I have had great time with the guys watching rugby or football, playing pool, drinking beer and talking etc...

The first week we had a ceilidh, which is a event that includes traditional Scottish dance and music. Sadly I didn't have camera with me, 'cause watching all the international students trying to learn the dance was just hilarious!

Last week I went to a trip to a local Ice Cream factory called Mackie's which was very environmental and self dependent factory. They had three wind power plants and produced their own milk/cream. (I'll add a set of photos with text later.)
The same night there was the first ever (not 100% sure about this) Reggae party in Aberdeen which I had to go and check out. During the first half to one hour there was only a few people in a quite small and cold club but luckily people started to arrive. DJ's played a nice set of old Jamaica rhythms and dancefloor was filled with people and everyone was having a good time. Party was ok, but still not anything compared to the one's I've been in Finland.

I've had a few nice walks around the campus and the surroundings especially to Seaton park which is just next to the Hillhead Halls.
Here's a few pictures from Seaton park:

St. Marchar's cathedral.

Entry to St. Marcar's

Feather in front of a playing ground.

Tree

Me at river Don.

River Don.

Leaf.

Barbed wire

Shades

St. Machar's

Here's a set of pictures taken during dark:

House under night sky.

Tall buildings.

Elphinstone hall.

Tower of King's Collage.

King's Collage.

King's Collage

Padlock.

Branch.

High Street.

Gate

High Street.

Last few days in Aberdeen have been rainy and gray and I've mostly spent my time in my flat playing guitar and editing photos. But today it wasn't raining, so I took a nice 4 hour walk around the beach and city centre. The waves on North Sea were really nice and I enjoyed the fresh air and watching  the power of sea.

Unfortunately I still haven't finished with all the photos from past weeks, so I'll add them later....

Brewdog and Glen Garioch

On tuesday we saw an ad on paper about a trip to local brewery and whiskey distillery. So, we desided to go and see if we could join them with Jari, another finish Erasmus student.
There wasn't any tickets left but fortunately there was just enough spare seats and we were able to join the tour. We met two local finnish students Miika and Ilmari and also two Erasmus students from Rovaniemi. Many people on the bus were international and actually there is lots of people from all around Europe in the University of Aberdeen.

So first we went to the Brewdog brewery on Fraserburgh. It's a small brewery and they're quite young since they've started at 2007. One of the workers showed us the equipment that they have and explained how the brewing works.

On our way to brewery.

Bitch please!

One of the workers telling us how things are done.

Grain waste.

Fermentation

Tasting.

And then while we were almost leaving the actual introducer arrived. She took us to the storage room where told the history of the label and about their products. We got to taste few of their beers, Punk, 77, Trashy Blonde, Hardcore, Zeitgeist and Tokyo*. My favorite was Zeitgeist. Brewdog has made the strongest beer in the world "The End of History" which is 55%.

Girl telling us about the beers & Zeitgeist logo in front.

Whole crew. 

Pile of brewdog.

Tactical Nuclear Penquin 32% alc.

A bottle of Penquin.

After tasting we took the bus to the Glen Garioch distillery on Oldmeldrum. It's one of the oldest distilleries in Scotland. We had a nice tour and were told the history of the distillery and the whole process of making the whiskey.

Entering the visitor centre.

Empty barrels in the room where the grains were spread
on the floor to start the process of turning starch to glucose

Tour guide telling how they used to dry the grains
with peat before.

Heater.

Mash tun.

Mash.

Wash backs.

Spirit stills.

Spirit falls.

Scottish single malt whiskey

After the tour we went back to the visitor center and got to taste some fine scottish single malt whiskey. And everybody was happy!

Tasting.

Glen Garioch from 1991.