Hello!
Well, its been a couple of weeks since I went to London, so I figure I should write this before I forget what we did there!
We left for Waverley Station to catch our train (at 8 AM!! sooo early) and when we get there it turns out I can't get my ticket because I don't have the credit card I bought it with on me (it was back in the States). So I have to buy a new ticket, which sucks, but whatever, I'm going to London! We get on the train and have a lovely ride to King's Cross Station. So, obviously we find Platform 9 3/4!!




















Then we get to our hostel (my first European hostel experience - not at all like the movie...) and its really nice! But kind of awkward since there are 5 of us in a 6 person bedroom, so we have one random person in our room. Meet Roy - Irishman who keeps telling us about his family but is strangely never with them. Curious. Anyways we embark on a mission to find this tea place in Notting Hill that Mallory found, and it took us AGES. The guy at the restaurant could not give a direction to save his life. So, by default, we got a very roundabout tour of Notting Hill. Which was very nice, but not at all expected. We get to the tea place, and it is TOTALLY worth it! Such good treats and tea...yum!
Then we go down by the Thames to start our walking/pub tour, which coincidentally was led by a man from Wisconsin (huh?) But it was so much fun and we stopped at some really cool pubs! Also, at a "bangers" stand, we meet the infamous Pete (and his relatively normal friend). After trying to lure us on his "personal pub tour," he just decides to follow along on our tour. Which Wisconsin man totally saw haha! Finally we lose them after they were distracted by people dressed up like pirates by a replica ship, only to run into them AGAIN at the fish and chips shop we went to after the tour. After watching him consume a HUGE "fried banger" (basically the most disgusting thing I've ever seen), we parted ways and went back to the hostel.

The next morning we wake up bright and early (way too early) because breakfast (if you can call it that...) ended at nine a.m. We head off to Buckingham Palace for the Changing of the Guard! We got a good place to stand, and coincidentally met like, every American person in London. There were a cute couple from Ohio, one from Chicago, and Mallory even found a fellow Arkansan! The changing of the guard itself was kind of anti climactic. It was exciting to see the uniforms, but you can't really tell what they are doing and they just kind of march around. But now I can say that I saw it!
We headed over to see the Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey next. We decided to go into Westminster Abbey (which is freaking nine pounds!!! so expensive), and it was probably the coolest thing that I did in London! There are SO many famous people buried there (Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Charles Darwin, ah so many!) and there is just so much history! We took some awesome audio tours, very informative haha.


Then we planned to head over to St. Paul's Cathedral, which apparently has amazing views of the city if you climb to the top. We also were starving, but we had apparently wandered into the deserted part (of the MIDDLE of the city, on a SATURDAY) of London and there was nothing open!! We finally find a little subway with one guy working it, and sit out on the cold curb to eat. With pidgeons and cigarette butts. Awesome.
So when we get to St. Paul's we find out its another eight pounds, so Sarah, Caitlin, and I decide to go to the Tower of London instead. It was so cool! We got a tour with a Beefeater, and then we saw the Crown Jewels. Oh lord, and were those some jewels!! Jewels doesn't even do the collection justice - there were robes, and numerous crowns and sceptres, and enough gold eating ware to make you go crazy (there was a punch bowl that we were seriously convinced was a bathtub). We also saw where Anne Boleyn and lots of other famous people got beheaded, the ravens of the tower (apparently when they leave, the tower will fall), traitor's gate, and a torture exhibit (which was not nearly as exciting as it sounds). You also get a really good view of Tower Bridge, which is so beautiful!
We went to dinner in a nice restaurant, where I yet again had bad beef (they just don't know how to cook it here!). Then we went to meet Corey and Jon, who are studying in London! We start out in Convent Garden, and the club there had a 12 pound cover! So we went to Leicester Square (I think), where there were a ton of clubs. And ALL of them had a huge cover, like 15 or 20 pounds! So we found a kind of sketchy one that said the girls could get in for free (ah the benefits of being female). So we hung out there for a while, and then we had to take a bus back since the tube stops running at 12 (what kind of a system is that, anyway??). So we waited forever in the rain for a bus, and then trekked it back to the hostel. Moral of the story: London is fun, but expensive and rainy.
The next morning (still raining), we head off to the British Museum. So cool - when you walk in the first thing you see is the Rosetta Stone! I really enjoyed this one, although I think that everyone else was a little too tired to go museum wandering. After that we went to Harrod's! Seriously, I didn't even look at the clothes. The food section is SO amazing I could not leave it! They had everything you could ever think of, meat, exotic fruits, pastries, and the desserts...oh my god. There was a separate room just for the chocolate! There was a huge gelato place that had the best looking, huge sundaes, and the bakery had the prettiest cakes ever. So, of course we are excited and plan to carefully select a dessert to eat. I got 2 chocolate foures and a mint chocolate cupcake, and was pumped. But as soon as we go to eat it, we get a security guard in our faces telling us that we aren't allowed to! In the FOOD COURT! So, sadly, we sat on the steps outside in the rain and ate our desserts. Tragic.

After that we headed to the airport and back to Edinburgh! I loved London, but I was happy to be back...London was so big, it made me appreciate Edinburgh so much more. And traveling is exhausting!

Next time I'll put up some pictures from my trip to the Highlands!

I Feel Like a Real Person Again

So, now that I've finally settled in and started classes, I feel like I'm actually living here rather than just visiting for a while! My classes are great and so interesting (plus there are only three of them, which is great haha)! I'm taking Celtic Civilisation (see, I've even started spelling like them!), Modern Scottish History, and Irish in Scotland since 1800. It seems like they will all be really good, but the workload is a bit strange. Instead of just giving you a syllabus with pages to read, for each class there is a reading list of about 15-20 books that you could read "as you feel you should." Its a bit stressful actually, since I'm so used to being told exactly what is expected of me!

I've started exploring the city a bit more too, and I'm loving it even more! There is so much to see and do here, I feel like I could never do it all! There are tons of museums and historical places that I would love to check out. Meeting the occasional colorful person is also interesting as well, as evidenced by the old man who ran into us last night at 1 in the morning, and proceeded to hit on my flatmate and tell us about his war experiences. There were also the guys who told us they were Finnish reindeer farmers, yet they had suspiciously Scottish accents...I guess they thought that since I was American I would believe anything.

Speaking of Scottish accents, I'm getting better at understanding them, but put me in a crowded bar with lots of noise, and I always feel bad that every other word out of my mouth is "WHAT??" I can't even understand bartenders half the time to see how much my drink is haha. But I'm picking it up slowly, and have even started saying things like "cash machine," "queue," and "hob" instead of ATM, line, and stove. I also went to a ceilidh, which was SOO amazing and fun! I only did two dances, since obviously I didn't know what I was doing, but it was so high energy and exhausting! There are couple dances (which Sarah and I attempted and pretty much failed) and group dances (which I was a little better at). And yes, there were plenty of men in kilts dancing :)

Yesterday I took a day trip to St. Andrews, and it was so beautiful! Besides the fact that it was cold and windy, we had a great time exploring the ruins of St. Andrew's Castle and Cathedral, and climbing up the never ending staircase of St. Rules Tower to get spectacular views. We even went down into a "mine," which is an underground tunnel in the castle. It was gross, muddy, and I had to bend over halfway to get into it, but it was pretty awesome. We also saw the golf course and the club (which had an abundance of things saying "members only" - I think they might be a bit snobby lol) and walked around the whole town (which wasn't hard since it consists of about four streets). The drive there and back was great too, since I haven't actually seen much of Scotland except for Edinburgh. We went over the bridge spanning the Firth of Forth and drove through Fife, passing Loch Leven, Loch Leven Castle, Cupar, and a lot of sheep and cows. It was pretty beautiful :)

Well since my camera ran out of batteries, I will try and steal my friend's pictures and put some up later. I'm going to London this weekend, so hopefully I'll have some stories and pictures from there as well! Cheers!

My Own Internet!

Hello! I finally have internet in my room (it was quite a battle to acquire it, I assure you). So, I feel semi settled in now that I have been in one place for more than two days! My flatmates are lovely, one is an American and the other three are Scottish. Two are from Aberdeen and knew each other in high school, and the other is from the Western Isles. They are SO sweet and have been helping me out so much (I didn't even have a bowl to eat my soup in until Lauren lent me one!). Its fun to talk to them and occasionally stumble across miscommunications - we were talking about sharing some expenses for the flat, and one casually said that we should "get a kitty." I was, of course, not opposed to getting a cat, but it was a little puzzling. Apparently it means that we start a jar that everyone puts a little money in that we can buy basic stuff with. And they laugh at me when I say things like "sweats" (joggers) and "pants" (underwear!). Apparently even "buzz cut" is funny, I haven't figured out why yet though. I've even picked up some Gaelic (pronounced "Gallic," who knew?), like Failte gu Alba (welcome to Scotland), Slainte (their equivalent to "cheers"), and ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee, its a traditional dance and gathering...I hope to go to one soon!).

Fresher's Week, the University of Edinburgh's equivalent to New Student Week, has been amazing so far! I went to "International Day," which was a welcome ceremony for all the international students and workshops about things that we may need to know. We were even "piped in" to McEwan Hall, so we could just follow the sound of the bagpipes down the street! I went to a session called "British English for Americans" that detailed things like how we should say "mobile" instead of "cell phone," and that "fanny" doesn't mean quite what it means in the States (its actually a rather vulgar word for the female anatomy). But the most shocking thing to me is the atmosphere here! Most of the popular events that the University throws are huge parties with alocohol readily available! Even in the convocation speeches the President of the University acknowledged that Fresher's Week is about getting "pissed" and having fun (what a departure from the attitude towards New Student Week at Northwestern). My flat threw a pub crawl that started at 630 (way too early for me! I'm used to going out at 12 in Chicago!).

There is so much more to write, but I can't organize everything! Here are some pictures I took while walking around the city...

This is Arthur's Seat, which was right behind the halls where I stayed for my orientation.

McEwan Hall is the main auditorium used by the University - its where everyone eventually graduates. Its beautiful inside!

The National Museum of Scotland! I plan to go there before I leave.

























This is Greyfriar's Kirk, which was the place where, essentially, the Scottish Covenanters kicked off the English Civil War and Cromwell's reign.

















This is just a really cool view from Greyfriar's Kirkyard - there is no shortage of scenery like this in Edinburgh, it's SO beautiful!








This is the grave of Greyfriar's Bobby. He was a little dog who, when his master died, sat on his grave until he died himself! He's somewhat of a legend, and even has a pub named for him!



























My first glimpse of the castle from Greyfriar's Kirkyard!































The Royal Mile! Also an example of European street signs and why it is so hard to get around if you're American haha.

Tolbooth Church, the highest point in the city center. It's not a church anymore, its the center of the international festival held here in the summer and is now referred to as "The Hub."

































The Scottish Whiskey Experience - gonna have to check this one out for sure!






























I saw this outside the Castle and thought it was hilarious!


























One of the views from the Castle - this picture doesn't do it justice because its absolutely beautiful!























The Walter Scott Memorial, so pretty!






































Entering the Castle!




























The Farmer's Market with the Castle in the background! The Market is a bunch of stands that people from the city and the countryside will set up to sell SUCH good food - fruit, vegetables, wine, cheese, hot chocolate, meat, you name it! I got some really good strawberries!

Whirlwind!

Whew, I am finally here and semi settled! But it was quite a journey to get here...

Jess and Alberto drove me to the airport (the awesome people that they are) and it hadn't really sunk in yet that I was about to board a plane taking me across the country. I did have the sense to make my last American cd that I heard The Little Mermaid, but other than that I was pretty relaxed about the whole deal. At 6:30 pm I got on the plane, which was the HUGEST plane I've ever seen (it was called an AirBus for God's sake). My preconceptions of a larger seat that would lean back so that I could sleep quickly disappeared. It was about the same size as any Southwest flight I would take to Chicago. I settled in to enjoy the private TV and try to sleep (which didn't go so well). I arrived in Manchester after 7 hours of flying and very little sleep at 8 in the morning there, and ran into another girl on my program who basically saved my life by helping me through customs. Although customs was much more relaxed than I was expecting: basically he asked me what I was doing in the UK, stamped my passport, and sent me on my way. Immediately I was impressed by how nice everyone was! A man personally followed us up the stairs to show us where to go, and the customs man was having a genial conversation with us! I may have been blinded by the awesome accent, but it seemed like a good place to be! We went upstairs and I ordered my first legal drink just for the heck of it (just an Irish coffee, it was 8 am after all). We then boarded a very small plane - we actually had to walk outside to get to it, like a movie - and embarked on the short trip to Edinburgh! The only flight attendent was a Scottish woman, and I had NO idea what she was saying half the time...an indication of what was to come...

Once in Edinburgh we ran into another girl on our program, and shared a cab into the city. The first experience of driving on the wrong side of the road was rather terrifying, but I got used to it pretty fast. However, I'm still not used to watching for cars coming at me from what seems like nowhere, but hopefully I'll master that soon before I kill myself. We headed to the residence halls, where we were staying for our program orientation, and hung around for a while before we got into our rooms. My first foray into the city to buy a new cell phone was amazing! The city is absolutely beautiful, and it just seems so OLD! I'm totally fascinated by this place, and I can't wait to explore it more! We got a cab driver who thought we were amusing and loved saying things in his thick Scottish accent that we couldn't understand, such as murder (mirrrrrdirrrrr) and police (pahlis), and he taught us the right way to say Edinburgh (EdinburrrrUH). When I originally said Edin"burroh" he told me that a "burro" is a Mexican mule, and that was offensive. At the phone store, the guy selling me my phone asked me about the election, and when I said that I was an Obama supporter, he told me he was glad because "we're getting a little tired of you Americans and your current president." He also went on about how American presidents USED to be smart, like Kennedy and Reagan (I know, two very different examples) and how we should get back on track.

Well, since I don't have internet yet in my flat, I'm using the Wi-Fi at a cafe and I'm losing batteries!! I will write more later, but that was pretty much my first day in Edinburgh! Pictures soon too....