First days in Edinburgh

I made it to Edinburgh on Saturday. The trip was pretty uneventful, which I guess is good, even though I do really like mishaps while traveling. When I got to the university housing to pick up my key, the girl helping with Freshers Week told me I was at the wrong office and the office I was supposed to be at was 5 minutes down the road, so I trekked down the road in the rainy cold with my three suitcases, down the stairs and found where I was supposed to be. Thankfully a nice Slovakian student helped me carry my stuff up the stairs, but he told me I had TOO much stuff...opps, a semester is a long time to pack for!

Sunday we had an International Welcome Day. I met a lot of people from all over Europe and a lot of Americans. Our Welcome Ceremony was held in this giant old Hall, McEwan hall. Apparently its where they have graduation, it looks kind of like a cathedral, with giant murals on the walls and stained glass windows.

Sunday I also went to my first ceilidh(pronounced kaylee). I went with my flatmate Sammy and her twin sister Kristen. They are both from Inverness(where the loch ness monster is from) up in the highlands so they had done the whole ceilidh thing before. We walked in to a big dance hall with a band on one side, they were all dressed up in plaid, and one man was playing the bagpipes. When the music started playing an old man told us to find partners and told us how to do the dances, it was kind of like squaredancing, but really just mass chaos and confusion, people twirling around, legs and arms flying, but it was a lot of fun!

Today I went with Sammy and my other flatmate Meredith to go on a campus tour, but it ended up being a disappointment and we left after a few minutes. Instead we went to a giant poster sale to buy posters for our rooms. We hung out in the HUB, which is like the SUB at Baylor, but here there are like three different buildings that are kind of like student union buildings, there are so many different buildings, hopefully some day I'll figure them all out. In the HUB there is a place to just hang out, a little coffee/pastry stand, a grocery store/bookstore, chaplaincy office, a game room and a pub, all in one building, oh and a big dance hall with a disco balll upstairs.

Sammy and her sister took Meredith and I,(Meredith is from Brooklyn) to the Royal Mile. The Royal Mile is the road where the Edinburgh castle and the parliment building both are. It was really beautiful, cobblestone roads lined with old stone buildings all squeezed right next to eachother, and lots of little alley ways. I forgot my camera, but I know I'll go back soon and take pictures. Really, when I thought of what Scotland might look like, this is pretty much what I imagined it would look like, but none of it has been a disappointment yet.

I still need to get settled a little, I found the grocery store yesterday, I dont think they have giant grocery stores like in the states, which is fine with me! Hopefully I'll get a cell phone and internet set up in my flat pretty soon.