Being a tourist

Last night I decided to hang around my flat, but since nobody was here, I just cleaned the whole thing. It was so gross, I can’t even explain. I took out 6 big garbage bags of trash and recycling (some of which have been in the flat since last term), washed dishes, vacuumed, and swept, and now it looks great. I decided that would be a good time to get a video of the flat since it will never be that clean again, so here’s a video walk-through of my flat:

It feels great to have it clean, and now I think we’ll all keep it cleaner than it was.

My first class today, Society and Politics, was very interesting. The lecturer was David McCrone, who is the Co-Director of The Institute of Governance, which is apparently a big deal. His lecture was pretty cool. It was about what Scotland is exactly, from a sociological viewpoint. It was a good introduction to the Scottish way of thinking.

After lecture I explored Potterrow, one of the student centers. It has a school store, a café, a few bars, that kind of thing. I went back to my flat and talked with my flat mates for awhile, then was going to do the reading for my class that afternoon, but decided to take pictures of the city instead. A good choice? Yes.

The weather was really nice. 40s, blue skies, gorgeous. I pretty much just did the route that the tour did yesterday, with a couple other streets. The pictures are on facebook. If you can’t access my facebook let me know and I’ll figure out a way for you to see them. Read the captions because they explain stuff. Tip: It’s easier to cycle through the pictures by clicking on each picture to go to the next one rather than clicking the “Next” button. Here’s a sample:

There will be many, many more pictures to come, but that’s a good start. I had a really nice walk. It was great to explore some new areas. I really liked exploring all of Greyfriar’s Kirk (famous, really old graveyard). All the graves are so old, I didn’t see anything more recent than the mid- 1800s. It’s beautiful and sad and haunting at the same time. I also found a really cool street and path that goes all the way around Castle Rock. What an impressive castle. I tried to capture it in pictures and videos but you just can’t. So you should all come visit me so you can see it for yourselves!

After my jaunt about the city I met some people for lunch at Palmyra, a delicious Lebanese café. I had a hummus falafel wrap with tahina sauce (it tasted just like yours Mom), which was great. When we left the restaurant, the temperature had dropped at least 10 degrees and it was flurrying. Turns out weather in Edinburgh is just like weather in St. Louis…

I went back to my flat determined to do the reading for my next class but it turned out that I didn’t actually have any reading that I had to do today! So I uploaded pictures instead.

My second and last class of the day was history. It wasn’t exactly riveting, but it was kind of interesting. We talked about population, birth, death, marriage, etc. rates in Scotland over the past few centuries. The cool thing about it is that the lecturer kept talking about how important the Registrar General’s job is and how all this information comes from him and stuff, and I get to hear the Registrar General talk tomorrow for my society and politics class! That was a cool coincidence.

After class I went back to my flat to get some stuff organized, plan some travels, and just hang out, which is what I'm still doing now.

Tomorrow we're going to the Writer's Museum, on Saturday the zoo, and Sunday the Royal Museum and Museum of Scotland.