I ♥ 4/6!

Introducing my lovely, sweet, hilarious flatmates!

MICHELLE

Also affectionately known as MAMA-CHELLE!
Our resident mum, she yells at us about our
dirty dishes and sticky tabletops.
She's always "so tiredddd."

AMAL

He loves noodles. 

He really does.

:)

DIANE





Two words:

MOTHERWELL MEASURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

JAMIE

Jeremiah? Jeremy? Jimmy?  

He has a lovely collection of bright and colorful socks 

and laughs at my veggie burgers.

He often "can't be bothered." 

KIM


From Cali! Hella sweet and has really cute clothes hehe. Fellow Pretty Little Liars lover. I guess I can overlook that she's Team Edward.... 

CHARLIE

I currently owe him a cake. 

Damn.  

Because 

He plays a mean guitar :)

About wearing a watch:

"I don't want to know the time....all the time....you know?"

HEATHER


She plans great, and I mean great, flat bonding sessions.
(Exhibit A: bucket, questionable liquid in said bucket,
and tons of colorful straws...).
We share the same love for The OC and TOPSHOP!!!!!

Edit:
She likes extremely tall Australian men. 

VUONG

Our resident chef!

Laughs at my attempts to cook. 

Sad face :(

"You can do so much with the power of the telephone.......yeah......telephones.....amazing..."

LAURA

Also from the States but lived in Germany!
She is an absolutely amazing drawer.
She really like tomatoes and mozzarella cheese hehe 

ELLIOT

My neighbor!!! His room kicks my room's ass.

He probably hates my taste in music ("AMERICANO!!") 

SYLVESTER ALABASTER (???)

We are getting a new flatmate! I have no idea who he is or what he looks like AND for the life of me I cannot remember his real name, Alistair. 

"Don't call my name, don't call my name, Alabaster....."

Freshers Week

Today marks the end Freshers Week: " a week of nonstop partying" as my IFSA-Butler orientation coordinator informed us. I kicked off the week by joining my friend Rachel and her flatmates for a night out. We first tried to get into the "Welcome to Fabulous Edinburgh" welcome party but the queue (people don't say "line" here) was way too long so we were herded off to Medina, a nearby club. There were not many people there and no one was doing anything so of course we had to start the party: 

credits: Rebeka

Us squeezed around a table. The ceiling and walls were trippy!
credits: Rebekah

After a bit, we decided to brave the cold and rain and made it into the Welcome Party. The amount of people in one are was insane. To create a mental image, imagine the best First Fridays you've ever been to times 34 and lots of swooping colored lights and fog.

Aside from all the partying, there were also a ton of events to go to, including a Glee Dance Party, tons of pub and coffee crawls, a chocolate party, concerts, tours, BBQs and picnics, and theatre performances. I didn't make it to everything (impossible) but had lots of fun at the things I did go to:

At a ceilidh (traditional Scottish dancing) in McEwan Hall. 

Me cheesing with a ceilidh pro!

Kim, Stephany, and Carolyn at the Chocolate Party. Rather lackluster party
(Dodd has spoiled me) but still yummy!

Stephany and I found Robert the Moose!!!

Apart from official Freshers Week events, there also many other exciting things to see and do. One particular highlight was seeing Pope Benedict XVI!! It was the first time a pontiff had visited the UK since Pope John Paul II in 1982. 

Everyone waiting for the Pope.

There he is in his POPEMOBILE!! Very exciting.

Another fun event was going to see the Hibernian vs Hamilton football match in the Hibernian stadium in Edinburgh. My friend Caitlin and I even got to take a picture with some of the players! It ended up being 1:1 but it was great watching the game surrounded by a bunch of passionate European fans. Trust me, oh were they passionate. 

Me and Caitlin! Clearly we had to support them... :)

The Hibs warming up.

In action

A sad event was my phone breaking. I completely lost the trackball and so I can only make calls and text people (but can't read texts) by sticking my finger in the hole (TWSS). Which all would be fine except I can't turn the alarm off so I have to pull the battery for certain hours. Fun stuff.

Pretty banged up, too, huh?

Classes start tomorrow! I'm taking History of Art, Healthy & Society, and Scottish Literature all of which I am excited about, being the nerd I am. Well, I'll leave this with one final picture:

Edinburgh Castle at a distance

Cheerio! 

America vs. Scotland

These are initial impressions, of course:

1) America is so wasteful! 

Here, if you go to the supermarket late at night, if the grapes you want are gone, they're gone. Supermarkets are very empty if you go late or even midday. I mean, I haven't made it in the morning (are you kidding me) but I'm assuming that there are more items at the start of the day. Also, there is no toilet paper provided in dorm bathrooms and paper towels are quite rare. The custodian will only remove one bag of trash for you and there are recycling bins everywhere, even on the streets. The shower in our flat has limited hot water. Things come in smaller packages. The heat is not on 24/7 and many shops close pretty early (think Williams hours) even though Edinburgh is a large city.

2) Scotland is far more environmentally conscious! 

It is now enforced by law that people in Scotland must utilize only environmentally friendly lightbulbs. Each outlet has its own off/on switch. Chicken and beef are labeled as free range and hormone free. I was skeptical at first because those labels do not necessarily mean that cows are able to frolic to their hearts content in lush green fields as appropriately sized chickens contently cluck away. But, today I had a chat with my flatmate Michelle who comes from a Scottish farm. She was shocked to learn that many, many animals in America are subjected to harsh and inhumane conditions (think Food Inc.). Many food products are locally grown and sold. Additionally, many supermarkets do not supply plastic bags; customers simply bring their own totes!

America, I think you've got some work to do.

credit: google images

First days in Edinburgh

Edinburgh at sunrise.

Goodbye America, hello United Kingdom! I wasn't planning on keeping a travel blog because I often start things and never finish them (oh hey there "sewing" project in 5th grade, how ya doing last semester's reading?) but there's so many things that I never want to forget! So, armed with my point-and-shoot (thanks one day of Photography Club), I thought I would at least try. That is my motto for my time abroad: to try new things and say "yes" to things. Don't let your mind go to the gutter. Life enriching things! Hence, Rule #76. No excuses! Go backpacking in a different country every weekend! Talk to that old Scottish man in the pub! Get lost (for a little bit! See below.)! 

These first days have been spent with my fellow IFSA-Butler program students in the Apex International Hotel. The very first day, we arrived at the hotel around 8:30 am and everyone was exhausted and jet lagged. As room keys were distributed in small groups, starting at 1:30pm or so, people slowly started to disperse. Alas, who was left until the very last aka 4:30pm because of a computer problem? Me and my roommate Anna. When we got our keys, we were so happy we wanted to do this:

credit: google images

But we actually did this:

Edinburgh is an incredibly beautiful city. I especially love it because this is where the love of my life JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books. Dork Alert!!! But seriously, you can imagine my excitement when one of the first places I discovered as we wandered around was The Elephant House, the coffee shop where Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book:

A very excited me.

We also saw the super expensive hotel where Rowling finished the Half-Blood Prince, the homes of Alexander Graham Bell, Robert Louis Stevenson, some important general whose name I don't remember, and the guy who discovered chloroform. There are also two super old buildings that date back to before Columbus sailed the ocean blue (in 1492! The only year I can remember...) The grave of the famous dog Greyfriars Bobby (who slept by his dead master's grave for 14 years) was also pointed out to us. It's also exciting to note that in this graveyard is a headstone labeled Tom Riddle. He Who Must Not Be Named, anyone? 

All the Harry Potter lust aside, the Edinburgh Castle is also very impressive. It's located on top of a massive hill and is definitely a great help in locating where you are around the city. This is a must for a girl who still needs a GPS to go to the mall from her house. 

The Edinburgh Castle

For some reason, I thought I had massive amounts to write but can't really think of anymore at the moment...I'm exhausted! This may be because my friend Rachel and I got very lost while walking back home after an exciting trip to IKEA with Danielle. We later discovered that we had walked about 5 times more than we needed to in a humongous loop lugging our bags and sweating and getting blisters. We were not pleased. Especially when we finally made it back in time to see all the rest of the freshers leaving Kincaid's Court (aka Kinky Court...ah the sweet sounds of debauchery that is coming through my window) in a huge mass for the Cowgate Pub Crawl. So instead we went grocery shopping! 

Rachel braving the haggis (on top of mash). It was very interesting tasting. I'm not sure if it's a good interesting.

Life in Edinburgh is exciting and also weird. I'm getting used to the accent, which varies a lot. My American accent is turning into mush. It's definitely hard starting from scratch--not having a lot of material things, no groceries, no Williams entries...I couldn't find any shampoo or sponges in the market and only Rachel could find the crackers (and "jelly" is not pb&j jelly!).  I'm currently now in my new "flat" and not at all unpacked and haven't met any of my flatmates yet. I'm bracing myself for an epic Fresher's Week...I think this is going to be an amazing semester!