edinburgh, at last.

I forgot in my last entry to describe taking the tube during rush hour, which was quite the experience. I was smashed like a sardine into the train, and I felt like such a jerk to be taking up as much space as I was. Oh well, it’s not like I had tried to take so much on in a crowd at any other time, and there was really no other option for getting to the train. I ended up getting there just 10 min before the train left, but I got on and it was all okay. I got to Edinburgh and hauled my crap up some giant hills to get to the orientation hotel. Straightaway, I met some pretty nice people, but I unfortunately missed the free sandwiches. Boo! We walked around the city until dinner. My camera ran out of battery for the first time on the trip, which was incredibly sad.

The hotel beds were so amazing after hostel beds/couches/air mattresses, that I slept all night and barely managed to wake up in the morning in time for breakfast. I love English breakfast. Whoever thought of eating baked beans in the morning was truly a god among men. The rest of the day was orientation stuff, the highlight of which was the Captain of Edinburgh police talking to us. He looked sort of like Craig Ferguson and pretty much spent the entire time cracking jokes about how much he liked drinking, and how much Edinburghers like drinking. But he also did have some important information for us. Today, we had another guest speaker, a member of the Scottish Parliament, who was equally as hilarious. She told a girl that she should marry her grandson, and invited a guy to come with her to an Edinburgh Hibernians football match next weekend. Everybody was INCREDIBLY jealous of the guy. That exchange led to her promising to make the attempt to get us a group rate for a game in the future so that we could all go.

When everything was done, I went out shopping with some girls. That wasn’t particularly exciting. That brings us to now… I hear people singing Don’t Stop Believin’ out the window… I bet it’s kids from this program. I am surprised that they could be drunk enough by 9 pm… but I feel like a lot of people came here solely to party. I need to get better so I can join in. I think I may have a sinus infection rather than a cold, but I don’t want to see a doctor about it or anything, because I hate taking antibiotics for something minor. I haven’t really gone out at all yet, because I just don’t want to make anything worse. So tonight, I came back the earliest yet, at like, 7 pm and just crawled into bed after I repacked all my stuff to move into my flat tomorrow. I just feel pretty gross, and it sucks because Fresher’s Week is a non-stop week of events and I don’t want to have to miss anything! I’m thinking about just going to sleep, and I’ll write a more introspective and less narrative entry later.