rain rain go away

yesterday i experienced the first typical edinburgh rainy day... it was miserable. the whole day was foggy and damp, there was no real down pour, just a constant misting so absolutely everything gets damp and cold and... miserable. luckily lydia and i found this great organic diner with great lunch deals called "suzies whole foods diner". classes went well on monday and tuesday, today i have completely off, so I took the opportunity to sleep until 1.

library lovin

ah, its been quite the week! I unfortunately got sick... again. this time it was more of a hacking cough issue, and i lost my voice along the way. im finally gaining my voice back and thanks to nasty cherry cough syrup i've been keeping my lungs in my chest.
I'm in the library right now, I just finished my coursework for my first Intro to Politics and IR tutorial on monday morning. Tutorials are basically small group sessions where we get more assigned work (in addition to lecture readings) and talk about what happened in our lectures. One class just took me 2 hours to finish, so I have a feeling I will be spending LOTS of time in the library this year... but that's okay, I don't need a social life. and anyway, I've been staying in a lot recently just because of being sick and broke, but after this weekend hopefully I will be feeling 100% again!
I still haven't met that many people from my particular dorm yet, but I spend most of my free time in Lydia's dorm because thats where everyone I know lives, and they all think I live there so its fine... Lydia, Sophia and I taught the brits and scots and others how to play beruit/beer pong the other night, so now they all love it and always want to play. If anyone loves me enough to ship me some bags of solo cups I would greatly appreciate it, they don't sell them here and we resort to using taller, thinner, clear plastic pint cups... its just not the same. I promise I will put some pictures of my room up soon. how is everybody at home??

dont worry, its not swine

im sick! its called "Fresher's Flu" here, basically everyone gets it after the first week from not sleeping enough, but im glad i got it earlier, before classes start up. the picture by the way is from the top of the highest point in Edinburgh called Arthur's Seat. its this incredibly steep mountain ish thing that sits right behind my dorm complex, which me and a friend decided to climb at 6 30 yesterday morning (probably why I got sick later that day...) and it was absolutely breathtaking. I still don't have a roommate, classes start on Monday and she's missed all of the orientation and welcome events so I don't know what her deal is... other than being sick its been a lot of fun here so far. I spend most of my time with Lydia and her hallmate Sophia who is American but has lived in Russia and London all of her life, shes very nice and took care of me last night when I wasn't feeling well. I've also been hanging with a boy I met while waiting at my Director of Studies office named Charlie, hes from texas, we climbed the mountain together. I've been trying to meet people in my dorm more now, the girl and two boys that live right around my room are quite nice, i've yet to go out with them at night but i hope too soon!

STILL NO ROOMMATE

i think its day 3? day 4? im not sure, the jet lag/going out at night is very tiring and confusing but so far its been good fun. I got my course load sorted out today, i ONLY have classes on mondays and fridays so that will be really nice for getting a job and studying time etc. the way classes work here is you have two 50 minute lectures per week per class and then you have "tutorials" which you schedule at your own accord with smaller groups of students to ask and answer questions etc. I'm taking econ 1, intro to politics and IR, and international law and im quite excited for it to begin.
ive got my room all decorated, i had a party in it last night so its kind of a mess right now, i will try and post some pictures of it soon when i get things clean up a bit. or a wee bit as they say here. but the best part is they actually say it allll the time. everything is a "wee bit"

and so it begins

well i arrived safely! After landing in Edinburgh, I took the bus with a bunch of uni students to my dorm, where I fortunately ran into Lydia and her parents (for those of you who dont know, Lydia was my good friend from St. George's). With the help of a very cute boy from Seattle I found my room, which was, and still is, lacking in the roomate department. apparently some students move in later in the week, although "move in" is officially over. or she could be a no-show and in that case i will most likely be getting a different roommate then the one who is supposed to be here now. So because of this delay in roommate-ness, I have decided to fully unpack, and rearrange the room because living out of a suitcase for the past two days was not fun... I do however have my own bathroom and shower, which is verrrrry nice.
last night was the first official night of "freshers week" which is basically lots of organized drinking and clubbing... last night was a bittt overwhelming so Lydia and I opted out for tonight, she's asleep in my bed right now... I cant sleep though... so the first days were a bit hectic, but im sure things will settle down soon!

The final countdown...

4 days til departure and I'm already packed! this is a tester just to make sure people can read the blog... I will update it again once I arrive in Edinburgh!