Hill-Walking, Reflections on Safety, Costco, Working Hard, Hardly Working, Not Necessarily in that Order

I haven't written in what feels like ages. Oh well, I guess I'll make up for lack of quantity with some high quality blogging. I'm going to start this post out on a serious note, and then move on to the goings on in my life. Also, I apologize for the weird layout of this post. I'm not sure what's up with that. Here goes...

This week, with all of the terrorist threats, Butler sent us a ton of emails and urged us to register with the American Consulate. Normally, I tend not to take things too seriously, but I decided to register right away, because I plan on travelling as much as possible, even with these warnings. I'm pretty sure that most of the places I want to go are not really huge spots. Some of the other Butler kids and I have talked about whether we think there is really any sort of threat or not, and it seems like most people are kind of worried, but still proceeding with plans anyway (my friend Liz is going to Paris this weekend, and other people had already purchased tickets for upcoming weekends to various places). While I don't feel really personally threatened or anything, the volume of information we've been receiving about safety and travelling are really making me consider safety in my travel plans a lot more. Not only did we get emails from all of the Butler people here, we got one from the director of IFSA Butler. I feel like there's not so much we can do differently, and I'm not going to lie, I am very American. I open my mouth, and people know I am American as soon as I say one word. If I travel, I'll be travelling with a group of American students, and there's really very little I can do about that. I try not to draw attention to myself, but I feel like I'm very bad at sinking into a crowd, especially because of my tendency towards brightly colored hats. I don't know where this train of thought is headed... just thought I should probably remark on how seriously Butler is encouraging us to take these travel alerts. Okay, enough of that, and back to your regularly scheduled blog programming.

Since my return from England, and realizing that time moves very quickly here, I've been working on getting myself to do things more frequently. Tuesday was our Butler reunion dinner, which was fun (mmm free food!), but I've just decided that I'm not going to go absolutely day-by-day here because I have been spending a lot of time doing school work (that's a surprise!), so things have been pretty low-key. So, the highlights of the last week and a half:

Wednesday: Getting lost, chilling out, emerging victorious!
Wednesday provided me with much excitement. I had my first tutorial, for Scotland and Orality, and I was a little nervous because I wasn't sure if we were going to be quizzed on the reading or what, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. Our tutor is very warm, friendly, and laid-back, so I think it is going to be a good experience. Starting next week, I'm moved back to Thursday tutorials, because they ended up unable to cancel the date as there was one girl who couldn't make it on a Wednesday. This means that the tutorial will probably consist of me, two other students, and our tutor. After that, my friend and I decided that we should go to the travel "fayre" that Butler was having at their offices, which are located in the New Town (relatively new... it's Georgian. I will write an entry just talking about Edinburgh itself sometime in the very near future), which is a good distance from where our classes are. Having only a vague notion that Rutland Square was on the west side of New Town, we set off, and walked for a long time, eventually (after a call to my roommate for help, and randomly deciding to walk down an alley that fortuitously led into the square) made it to the Butler office. The travel fayre turned out not to be so helpful, as I am pretty savvy at researching destinations and travel options on the Internet, but there were sweets, and a guy to tell us about travel within Scotland, which was actually helpful. When we left, my friend realized that we could have come a much easier way, and went back that way, but I had to do some shopping on Prince's Street, so I went back the way we came. I was looking for a sweater or sweatshirt, which led me to H&M, where I came out with a belt and some hairclips. Oops.

I hustled back to Old Town, to leave my books and stuff in my flat before I went back to the campus area for the Classics Society Pub Crawl, starting at our patron pub, the Greenmantle, where we are always presented with very free food and very low-cost beverages. I started the night out classy with a glass of wine, fried food (it seems like everything is deep-fried here, which is why I tend to do my own cooking as much as possible!), and Haribo gummies (they are HUGE here. every store has a big display of Haribo, which is pretty funny to me). I spent a delightful hour or so with the few people who had shown up at the beginning (Who starts a pub crawl at 6 pm?!?), before I had to go to a different pub to meet up with my flatmates for the Hermit's Croft charity pub quiz. I got there before the rest of the team, so I tried to stake out an area, which was hard, since the pub was terrible and had no more than five tables. We ended up sitting on the floor, which was not particularly comfortable, but oh well. We were presented with a sheet of aluminum foil and the paper for our answers, and the pub quiz began. Our team consisted of me, flatmate Katherine, flatmate Caroline, her boyfriend Liam, and two other girls from HC, Jess and Becky. We stole a team name from a team that had won the FreshAir pub quiz during Freshers' Week: Quiz in my Pants. They told us to use the aluminum foil to make a sculpture incorporating sport and veg(etable), so Becky suggested we make a man benchpressing a carrot or courgette or cucumber. Somehow, I became in charge of making the guy, and we ended up with a lovely little sculpture.

The team was an excellent combination of talents, because we ended up coming in second (1st place in the sculpture category with 9.5/10!!!) and we won a box of variety chocolates. We went back to our flat to celebrate (by eating the chocolate, yum!), and ended up giving most of it away, which was probably a good thing.

Friday: Harvest Festival and a Lovely Dinner
On Tuesday, Ying, Sarah, and I had decided that we would have dinner together at my place and class things up a little bit. I decided I would make a roast pork loin with rosemary, accompanied by a spinach salad and roast sweet potatoes with sage and rosemary. I'd already bought the pork when Ying decided she didn't want to go out since she'd be busy all weekend (sadness), so I invited my flatmates to join our dinner party. But, I have gotten ahead of myself. In the afternoon, I went to the Harvest Festival and learned about various environmental programmes in Scotland, as well as some of the different groups on campus. I wanted to go to a talk about sustainable food, but it didn't happen at the time it was supposed to happen, so I settled for my piece of free pie and then left to go shopping to buy some plates and a roasting pan. All of this was achieved at Poundland, and our plates, as you will see shortly, are quite fashionable. At Poundland, we had our first real unintelligible Scottish experience. A lady kept talking to us, and we were trying to hold up the conversation, but we really,really couldn't understand most of what she was saying. Something about being a bookbinder, but then they moved it to Harvard. I was trying to ask questions, but I'm not sure she understood me either. It's amazing how much difficulty there can be between people speaking the same language...

I started cooking and dinner was ready a little late, but it was okay, because it was DELICIOUS.

I am an amazing chef, and modest too. It was a very nice evening, and then Sarah and I decided we would go out to the Hive, which is a club on the Cowgate. However, we couldn't find it, and in the end, we decided that we're boring, so we went back to her room at Pollock Halls and watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It was an entirely worth while choice, and I was so tired by the end of the movie that I got home and fell asleep right away.

Scottish Party Lifestyle
Saturday was a pretty laid-back day in the daytime. I got a little work done, tidied my room, hung out with my flatmates in the kitchen for a while. Katherine and I walked around looking for dinner for a while, but mostly just ended up exploring, because we didn't find anything that we deemed cheap and tasty enough. I stopped at the store to pick up some ciders to take to a friend's birthday party later that night. Sarah was going to come to the party but had work to do, so I went over to the party myself. I got there before my friend who knows the hosts much better than I do, so it was a little awkward, but I was talking to this guy, Yuri, whom I had met last time these people had a party. Fun fact: Yuri was on the Austrian National Basketball team, but now he is getting his PhD (I think) in mathematics. Later, Yuri's flatmate Anthony, who is getting his PhD in classics (but Greek stuff, not Latin) showed up, and we all talked for a while. I had promised Katherine that I would go up Arthur's Seat with her on Sunday morning, so I left fairly early and went home and slept.


Sunday: Muddy Sunday
I woke up later than I meant to, and woke Katherine up to go up Arthur's Seat. She had not realized that I actually wanted to do it. So, we got our act together and went outside. No sooner had we walked out the door than the sky opened and burst forth with torrential rain. No, I'm exaggerating. It was just a cold drizzle, so it was pretty unpleasant, but we were committed to doing some hill-walking. We couldn't figure out where the easy path was, so we started walking up some stairs on the side of the hill. These stairs just so happened to terminate at a random point, leaving no path to follow. However, there was a lovely view of the Salisbury Crags

and of the city as a whole.

So, naturally, we decided it would be a great idea to climb up the rock face and see if there was another path at the level ground that we could see probably 30 feet above us.That is the view looking down from when we found the path at the top that actually did exist. So, we walked until we saw more people walking, and then followed them to what we thought was the top, but was not actually the top. There's a little grassy area between the three peaks, and so we had to walk across it to get to the highest peak on Arthur's Seat. While we were doing that, we saw all the messages that people had written with rocks they found, and we decided to add our own.


At this point, I realized that I was supposed to meet my friend LeeAnn at 1 to make a pilgrimage to Costco, and that we would never make it back down on time, and I didn't have my phone. Oops. So, we went up to the summit and had a grand old time looking all around the city and the surrounding areas, and trying to point out the buildings we knew. There's a map sort of thing that tells you what the big things in the distance are, and how far away they are. We were trying to figure out if we could actually see some of the things in the longer distances, but we still aren't sure.

Then I had a go at trying to pull the sword out of the stone...


On the way back down, we tried to go the "easy way" and failed miserably, facing the choice of sliding down a bunch of rocks or going back up and trying again. We ended up walking down the really steep stairs that go straight down the face of the mountain, and we were puzzled by the people who kept passing us at faster speeds, because we were afraid of falling and dying. It was SO slippery, because it was raining, and the steps are really uneven, and there's nothing to hold on to. It was pretty much my nightmare, but we made it down okay, and then we hustled home so I could get a hold of LeeAnn and tell her I'd be late.

I showered, then ran to the bus stop, where a nice man helped us figure out how to take a bus other than the one we'd planned to take that wouldn't be coming for a while. We were concerned that my card wouldn't work for European Costco, but oh, did it work. After shopping at Tesco Metro for the last month, Costco was heavenly. I ended up not really buying too much because I knew I couldn't carry a lot, but I was pretty proud of myself for purchasing liquor at Costco on my own. The checkout guy was really friendly, and amused that we were Americans at Costco in Edinburgh buying large quantities of liquor. Then, we had hotdogs. It was divine. Mmmmmm...


The Week
It's been a good week, but a busy week. I've been in the library getting things done quite a bit these last several days. You have to do a lot of reading here. A lot a lot. And you actually have to do it. It's been absolutely gorgeous, for the most part, all week, so I have been doing my reading outside and breaking it up with short strolls. Lovely. Tuesday was my first archaeology tutorial, and it turned out just fine. My tutor is nice, and I met an Aussie named Hannah who is quite lively, and I think we will get along very well. Wednesday I did more work, and then decided to go to the Edinburgh CouchSurfing meetup, which was a good plan. Something interesting was pointed out to me as we were all talking about having out of the ordinary names... my name is cool because I can just change the accent and pretend I come from pretty much anywhere in the world. I don't feel like too many names can go entirely unaltered in spelling and general pronunciation throughout so many languages. So, maybe I'll pretend to be German for a while. I was responsible and didn't go dancing afterward, but we were at the pub until they kicked us out just after 1. I forgot how many people you meet at once when you go to CS events! That brings us to today: I got SO much done today. I was proud of myself. After all my classes were done, I went to Spanish Society, because somehow, Ying, who does not speak Spanish, is the president of the society. There was free food. Mmmm. I met a girl from Italy, and a girl called Camille from New Zealand. We hung out for a while after the meeting, and then I went back to my flat to cook up some salmon with Katherine. We blasted Disney music and Motown while cooking, and it was a generally good time.

Now that you're all caught up, I am going to go to bed, because tomorrow I have to meet the bus at 7:30 to go to the Highlands!!! I'm going to go catch the Loch Ness Monster, you betcha.

the rundown: class, flatmates, friends, and the weather

I'm almost done with classes for the week. It's just this last one at 4:10 on a Thursday that stands in the way of my weekend (not that I have any huge plans or anything. I'm going to Shap, a place of which I only have the slightest notion of a corresponding geographical location, for my family homestay). So, here's the skinny on my classes for the rest of the semester:

1) Archaeology of Scotland (MTh (9:00-9:50): Sounds really interesting. Includes a field trip. However, I was a little disappointed to find out that all of the cool Roman stuff happens second semester, when I shall, sadly, be back in the US of A toiling away at my actual degree. Nevertheless, our course organizer was pretty cool, and today's lecturer showed up and taught class in a leather motorcycle jacket. We're starting off with a study of Scotland's post-glacial environment, so I zoned out a little as I am quite familiar with the basic information our lecturer was giving us on the retreat of glaciers after the last ice age, techniques for learning about past environments (ice cores, pollen analysis), and the Gulf Stream's influence on the climate of Great Britain. Hooray, geology, issues in the environment, and meteorology for teaching me things I can feel smart knowing in my life now! The only bother about this class is going to be the large number of essays (okay, mini-essays) that we have to write after each tutorial, plus a museum project, plus a final. At least I know that it's going to be interesting, so the writing should not be too much of a pain.

2) Scotland and Orality (MTuTh 4:10-5:00): I think this is going to be my favorite class. Our course organizer (almost nobody is called a professor in these parts) is delightfully Scottish, and the material is extremely interesting. In just two classes we have already listened to clips of "diddling," rap from the late 80's, and a passionate Southern preacher. Diddling is a sort of singing where, well, you diddle. Instead of singing words, you sing a melody using syllables generally similar to "diddley do." I thought it was pretty sweet. Maybe I should take it up as a hobby for myself, though I guess you still need to be able to carry a tune to diddle. I've already got a few books I need to make time to peruse as background reading (Oh no, I am voluntarily doing unnecessary reading? Is the world coming to an end?!). I'm so excited for the opportunity to learn about and actually do some fieldwork later in the semester. Interesting tidbit about this class: only six people of the 40 or so in the lecture are not visiting students. Weird, right?

3) The City of Rome (MTu 5:10-6:00): This is my token actual-progress-towards-a-degree class. I had been hoping to take Early Vergil and get some Latin language out of the way, but it was not in the cards. I couldn't take Cicero the Advocate and Scotland and Orality, so naturally, I picked Scotland and Orality. If you know me in a Latin-related context, you probably know my contempt for our dear friend Cicero. So, the normal organizer of this class, Lucy Grig, is on maternity leave, which is too bad, because I guess that Dr. Nicholson knows her in some capacity. I am sort of worried that the class is maybe a little too archaeologically focused for somebody who lacks any archaeological experience, such as myself, to be able to enjoy it. I was thinking about transferring to a class about the Severan Dynasty, because Elagabulus was a really interesting figure, but I had already signed up for my archaeology tutorial at a time that conflicted with the lecture, so that idea went out the window. In any case, I will make the best of this class since the material is so interesting, and it's half-seminar. I am sort of nervous for when it will be my turn to lead a seminar. I haven't had to do anything like that at Minnesota, and I am quite worried that I will come up short. I do not even know what my assigned topic will be yet, so I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

So, there you have it, my schedule in all its glory (and no class on Fridays!). I also have no class Wednesdays and a lot of free time every other day, but I am pretty much spending it in the way most students here seem to spend their time: in the library. There is so much reading that needs to be done for all of my classes. I had to take a break before I fell asleep in a textbook about Roman archaeology, so naturally I decided to blog.

Yesterday, was an excellent day. I woke up, read as much as I could in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo before I felt like I should probably be doing some work, then I talked to my roommate, Kaisa, who is from Ukraine, and we discussed our backgrounds. Up until now, I had barely spoken three words to Kaisa, who pretty much keeps to herself in her room (we can't really keep our doors open, so it's easy to stay in your room). Caroline, Katherine, and I spend a lot of time talking in the kitchen, and I feel like I've gotten to know them pretty well, and they are both really fun (though, in entirely different ways). We're planning to start cooking weekly "family" meals in the flat, which is going to be fun. But, I digress...back to Kaisa, it turns out that though she came from the Ukraine, her family is Bulgarian, and she regrets having not been able to communicate very well with her great grandmother, who didn't speak any Russian at all. She shared some of this amazing sheep's cheese from her grandparents farm, and it was sooo delicious. She explained that very nearly everybody in Bulgaria as well as in the Ukraine has sheep and makes their own version of this cheese, and she doesn't know what she's going to do when she runs out of her supply, because she eats it every single day.

We talked about going to the places we are from, and how you feel something, even if you're not in the particular town in which your ancestors lived. She went to Bulgaria this summer, and I went to Sweden, and it was cool to talk about connecting with our cultures. We both had this feeling in our respective destinations, of coming home, even though neither of us can understand the language of those countries. We also talked about how much we both want to learn more about our ancestry and collect the family stories. Since her ancestors moved around a lot and crossed borders, there is a lot of documentation, so they've been able to construct a pretty good family tree. For all of the times I have become interested in genealogy, I feel like I know almost nothing about anybody in my family before my grandparents. I've heard so many family stories, but I can't piece them together and keep track of the cast of characters or anything. This conversation reminded me that I probably owe a lot of people letters from Edinburgh, so I'll try to get around to that relatively soon.

At night, I hung out with the ClassicsSoc at a pub for a few hours, enjoying the free food that comes with pub sponsorship (I really wish that clubs at Minnesota could a)be sponsored by bars, b)meet at bars, and c)get drink specials at those bars due to sponsorship. I think Classics Club could get a lot more members if we could have events such as "drinking free wine and playing toga frisbee in the park." Anyway, after the pub needed more space for a Spanish language conversation group, we decided to hit up Teviot (one of the Student Union buildings), where we enjoyed cheap beverages and conversation ranging from which British TV shows I had to watch, which American TV shows are awesome, Stephen Fry, American Football, and whether I could be considered the replacement for the cool American exchange student (conclusion: yes).

We also played the game where you have a sticker on your head with a name and you have to ask yes or no questions to guess who you are. Everybody thought it was hilarious when I ended up with Sarah Palin, and when I was pretty sure I'd figured it out, my clincher question (in my full-on Sarah Palin accent, as Middlebrookers reading this might remember with a tinge of annoyance from election season) was, "Can I see Russia from my house?" After that, I became Elton John, and it took me FOREVER to figure out who I was knowing that my person was British, a singer, somebody Americans would know, alive, and possibly in a movie or two. In fact, I couldn't do it until somebody, frustrated with my inability to guess, shouted "YOU'RE GAY!!!!" That did it nicely as a hint, haha.

I figured I better go home because I had a 9 am lecture, and everybody was trying to stop me from leaving, but oh, I value my sleep. Unfortunately, I left a little too late in the lull in the rain, and it started pouring as I walked home jacketless, umbrellaless, and in ballet flats. My hat and the flannel shirt I was wearing were still wet this morning when I checked on them. Oh, Scotland, you and your rain! It's been raining all day today, too. Somehow, the city seems almost more beautiful in the rain, though. The old buildings fit right into the grey of the sky, and Arthur's Seat looming on the horizon under steel-colored clouds is such a striking image that I kind of stop and gape for a minute or two nearly every time I look in that direction. The other day, there was still sunlight even with the big dark clouds over Arthur's Seat, and it was one of the most fantastic vistas I have experienced in my young life. I wished that I had my film camera with me. Actually, I could have even gone for my silly digital point-and-shoot, which had run out of battery earlier in the day. I still need to climb Arthur's Seat, but I just don't want to get caught in bad weather on the way up. Obviously, I should do it sooner rather than later, since the further towards winter we get, the less likely I am to be comfortable. Naturally, we'll climb up on 5 Nov, no matter what the weather, so that we can see all of the fireworks and bonfires over the city for Guy Fawkes' Day!

Okay, that's enough procrastination... I really didn't mean for this entry to get any longer than a basic picture of my classes, and here I've gone and written a novel. I have 20 min til my next class, so that's not really enough time to do much of anything. I hate that lag time between classes or meetings that you feel just becomes wasted time. I'm in the library, which I'd assume should be quiet, but they're doing construction, so I keep hearing jackhammers, which sort of eliminates the purpose of going to the library for a peaceful and quiet place to study. Ah! It stopped raining, so I can use my 20 min to walk around in the Meadows, which is the city park. Excellent.

Scottish Things, More Observations, and the Pope

So I wanted this entry to be focused on pictures, but it's not letting me upload any, so you'll have to use your imagination until I put up a link to an album.

I feel like I have, for the most part, been carpe-ing the diem. However, I am incredibly exhausted at this point in Freshers' Week, and I think a lot of the other students are as well. Right now, I am so tired that all I want to do is go to sleep, and it's only 11:20 PM and I got plenty of sleep last night. I remember back to Welcome Week of freshman year, how much I wanted to just start classes and have a routine with set places to go every day, and I think a lot of people here are starting to get that feeling, including my flatmate, Caroline. To give a point of comparison to anybody reading this who experienced Welcome Week, Freshers' Week is like Welcome Week on speed. Since the drinking age in the UK is 18, almost all of the events involve alcohol in some way, and for the first several nights, there were at least 3 Uni-sponsored parties to choose from every night. In the next few nights, that will be the case as well, but the last two nights have been pretty relaxed.

In the first two days of Freshers' Week, I went to my first ceilidh, which is a traditional Scottish dance (pronounced like kay-lee). It was so much unlike anything I have ever done in my life, and it was probably one of the most fun! I had asked one of my flatmates, who is also American, if she wanted to come with me, since it was probably going to be a good way to meet people, and there was free Scottish Yummies (more details on that in a second), but she didn't want to come, because she doesn't like dancing, so I headed off by myself. That was certainly a run-on sentence, but I don't care. When I was waiting in line to get into Teviot, one of the student union buildings, I started talking with a group of girls in front of me, and we ended up hanging out at the evening's events. First, we waited in an enormous line for our share of the free food, of which the main attraction was, you guessed it, haggis.

Now, I had been dreading the eventual moment when I was going to have to eat haggis, since I had come all this way to Scotland, but when I started to smell the food, it did not seem like a bad idea at all. Also, I was not (and still am not, really) entirely sure what haggis is. I've heard that you just have not to think of what it is (just like hot dogs), and it will be okay. I was imagining a sausage-like food of a nasty creamy or stomach-y color, but it just looks like ground beef. So, I got my plate with my haggis, stovies, tatties, and maybe some other kind of food but I can't really remember what anything was called, and we all sat down. Here's the kicker: haggis is DELICIOUS. It's kind of spicy, and warm and comfort food-y, and just really yummy. As are stovies (I think it's some sort of root vegetable mashup stuff), and tatties (mashed potatoes). Haggis really just reminded me of shepherd's pie. mmmmmmm. So, with that conquered, I went on to my next authentically Scottish experience, the ceilidh.

There were so many people crammed into the room, and we had had to sneak in, since it was full. Anyway, I guess a ceilidh is sort of like country dancing, because there's a lot of swinging your partner round and round involved, and everybody's kind of in a line. The wonderful thing is that in all of that swinging round, you meet loads of folks in a night. I could tell that the two Scottish girls who were in my group were a little frustrated with the rest of us for not catching on too quickly to how certain dances went, but we were all having fun, even if we were doing it wrong. There was one that I felt I was doing okay at, but then when we switched partners and I was dancing with this one guy who seemed to be an expert, my self-confidence failed a little. Then, we went back to dancing in a big group and it was good again! The ceilidh band had fun playing a tune that I assume must have been from the Full Monty, because they had the lads all dancing for the lasses, and one guy ripped off his shirt at the end (it was pretty funny, see the photo for the awkwardness of the whole event).

I was still feeling a little sick at that point in time, so when the band took a break, a girl whom I had met during the dance, Holly, and I went to go get water. We ended up sitting in the bar talking for an hour or so, when I decided I should go home and sleep and Holly went back to the ceilidh. This was a good choice, because I felt a LOT better in the morning, and I've been feeling much better all week, and I think I'm pretty much as good as new.

So much has been going on that I can't really remember what day anything happened, but at some point between Sunday and Monday, I went to Edinburgh Castle. I was pretty excited about seeing Mary, Queen of Scots' chambers, and just in general seeing the castle. It was as cool as I had hoped! The castle is a mish-mosh of buildings from various time periods and monarchs, all the way up to the present day. It houses an active regiment, and affords some gorgeous views of the city and the Firth of Forth. Luckily, it was another beautiful day, and at that point, I still hadn't experienced any of the bad weather for which Scotland is rather well known. I spent so much time around the castle that I lost all of the people with whom I had come, so I meandered back to my flat at Hermit's Croft and took part in later day activities.

On Monday, there was a West Coast Swing taster session. I was so jazzed to be able to dance again. Of course, it was all incredibly simple and we didn't get to do any free dancing or anything, but it was still nice. That reminds me... I think I forgot to go to the swing dancing tonight. Whoops. There's a social dance tomorrow night, I think. Otherwise, there are a lot of venues for swing dancing around the city. After that, the main event was the Headphones Party. Again, none of my flatmates wanted to go, but a girl from my program met up with me, and we went. It started late, which caused us to be the first to show up, which was super awkward, but then, the whole point of a headphones party is pretty awkward. Everybody gets a headset, and the radio station DJs from like 9 pm to 3 am, with two channels to choose from. So, it's a "quiet" dance. It was hilarious to take off my headphones and just watch everybody rocking out, or sing along to Don't Stop Believin', or do the YMCA with no music. I'm so glad I went, because we met a cool third year and a PhD student who invited us to their house party this weekend, so we'll get to meet some more people who are our own age. I didn't get to bed until like, 5 am. It was sort of crazy for me, since usually I go to bed at around 10 and I value my sleep like gold.

The next day, of course, I ended up sleeping til noon or so, went to more Freshers' Week activities, met a ton of people, and then went to a concert with Caroline and some of her friends. I think I've heard of the Futureheads before, but they're really big here. The show was just nuts. I ended up seeing my friend from the Butler program, Ying, and meeting some of her friends. We walked back to Hermit's Croft, and then Caroline came home and informed me that I should go to the party a few floors down. I'd been planning to go to sleep and I didn't have any alcohol, but I went with them anyway. I always forget how awkward it is to go to a party and not drink, but it ended up being really cool because I met even more people from the building. There are so many nice people here! I met a girl, Zoe, who said I was the first NICE American that she had met at the Uni, and she said that her roommates seemed not to like her, and they didn't try to talk to her at all, or said they couldn't understand when she talked. I was actually doing a pretty good job following her, which was sort of impressive when one considers my inability to comprehend accents, and how she was pretty far gone while this conversation was happening.

I decided to go to home at around 3 am, and naturally, went on Facebook. I tried to talk to the Jeffers, but Mom told him to tell me to go to bed, so I did. I woke up, went to my international student meeting, and then nothing remarkable or exciting happened until yesterday night, when we (my roommate Katherine and fellow Barringtonian Katherine Woodrow)went to a pub quiz. It was... interesting. We couldn't understand half of what the quizmaster guy was saying because they were playing music, the sound system was awful, and he had a really thick accent. Our team was really dysfunctional, and I feel like an answer didn't get written down about half the time. Also, one girl kept just yelling "TENEREIF" (as in the place in the Canary Islands), which was very strange. Needless to say, we did not do too well. It was, however, a good time when all was said and done.

This morning, I felt so exhausted that I decided to get caught up on Mad Men rather than going out and doing things. That is, until I remembered the Pope was coming to Edinburgh. Now, I have no particular interest in the Pope or Catholicism, and those of you who know me well know that I quite actively disagree with most of the man's policies, beliefs, and general mores, and I certainly don't approve of his past Nazism, but I really wanted to see the Popemobile. Don't ask me why, but I think it's super awesome that there is actually something called a "popemobile." I would like a bulletproof "Claudiamobile" and to have somebody to drive me around in it. So, Katherine and I trekked down to Princes' Street as fast as we could, and caught most of the parade leading up to the Papal visit. There were so many tiny bagpipers, it was absolutely adorable. It got pretty chilly in the half hour between the end of that and the arrival of the Pope, but he finally rode past, and I caught a glimpse of the fabled popemobile, so I left happy.

We went shopping more after that, and I bought a brita-type pitcher for water, and we finally got some knives. We got home, but went back out to the poster sale to spruce up our barren rooms. I may have gone a little bit overboard, but I feel so much happier with covered walls. I have to figure out how I'll get my new posters back to America when the semester is over. I certainly don't want to get rid of them, because they're cool, and they came out to something around $5 each. I can't figure out the exact conversion rate for the moment, but $5 is pretty close to the cost, I think.

When we got home, we decided to drink the Irn Bru we had purchased earlier. I've been attempting to make a vlog episode all day, but the sound seems to be desynchronized with the video on my camera, which is disappointing! Basically, Irn Bru is this beverage that is so bad for you they don't sell it in the US, which is really saying something about it. Caroline tells me that they are known for their controversial ad campaigns. Irn Bru tastes sort of like bubblegum mixed with cola, but not really. It's just really, really sweet. And also bright orange, but it doesn't taste like orange. I can't decide if I like it or if I hate it. It's just soooo sweet. It certainly improved when paired with a sandwich. Maybe I'll have it again later.

I meant to go to a chocolate party tonight, but we left too late, and missed out on all the chocolate. I thought about going to a ceilidh, but I was really tired so I just came back to my flat and decided to catch up on my blogging. Tomorrow there is the freeshop, where I'm hoping to obtain a bicycle, some dishes, and maybe a towel hanger or something. It's also picnic day for many societies I'd like to join, so I'll have to pick and choose wisely. I was thinking about going to play with the rugby team, but I don't think I'm going to do it. I don't really have proper athletic shoes or anything, plus I don't feel like getting beat up. I had a go at archery the other day, and the guy told me I did pretty well and I should come back to have another go on Monday, so if it doesn't interfere with class, I'll probably do that.

Speaking of classes, it turns out that Early Vergil is not being offered, and Cicero the Advocate conflicts with Scotland and Orality, the folk history class I really want to take. So, I enrolled in "City of Rome," which looks really interesting, but is only general Classics, and not Latin. This means that I'll have to take one more Latin course at the U when I get back, but that's not a big deal, 'cause I'd have had to take a classics class otherwise. Here's the observation part: they've been telling us that we'll probably get 60's-70's as grades, because you start from zero and work up here, whereas in the US you go from 100 down. Now, I thought this was going to be horrible, but one of the girls I was talking to today said she thought it would be horrible the US way, because you'd be under so much pressure. The UK way, anything you do is an achievement, and so it's easier/more rewarding to have grades that way. I had never even thought about that. In the US it's about taking away points/punishing the student for doing something wrong, and in the UK it's about earning marks for doing things properly. Interesting.

My fingers are actually cramping so I'm going to sign off on this one!