So starting at the beginning...
This morning flights from London to Edinburgh were getting canceled because of weather, but my flight miraculously wasn't canceled. Unfortunately, my flight to London was delayed, likely resulting in me missing the only flight to Edinburgh.
So I was a little worried when I got to Dulles. There were no problems with checking my bags or security (other than long lines), and I got to my gate about an hour before the originally scheduled departure time. Somehow the flight to London wasn't as delayed as they thought it would be, and we landed at Heathrow at 7:20. The flight over there was interesting because I could have sworn I was sitting next to Jason Bateman (an actor), and I basically spent the whole flight (well, not really) deciding whether or not I should ask him if he was, but I decided that it didn't look quite like him, just really, really close so I didn't ask. I couldn't sleep at all on the plane so I'm exhausted now. The food was good though.
It took about 15 minutes for me to get off the plane, and the flight to Edinburgh left at 8:55! So I walked as fast as I could through Heathrow, did a bus transfer to terminal 1, went through like 5 lines, and made it to the gate at 8:35! Amazing!
So I arrived in Edinburgh. It was snowing really, really hard when we landed. I got off the plane and went to get my bag and was met by the University of Edinburgh welcoming committee. They had nice welcoming bags and bottles of water, which I was extremely thankful for since I was still parched after my dash through Heathrow. I got my bag (thank goodness it got there), then sat and talked with other internationals for about an hour waiting for enough people to arrive that we could fill the bus/van thing. The first 2 people I met were from Virginia and Missouri. Strange.
Eventually we had enough people to fill the 15 passenger bus/van thing and we all went outside. It had turned into an absolutely gorgeous day. Sunny, cloudless, about 32 degrees F, no wind. Very nice. We trudged out to the bus in the snow and the driver started loading our bags. He was like "You can get on now" and all 15 of us (all from the US) went to the right side of the van. The driver was like "No, you get in on this side," and continued loading bags. We all went back over to that side and stared stupidly at the side of the van. Where was the door? All we could see was the driver's door. I'm proud to say that I was the one that eventually realized that in Scotland, the driver is on the right... so the door we were looking at wasn't the driver's door.... Not our finest moment. The first of many Scotland fails, I'm sure.
So we all got on the bus and at first we were all talking to each other, but as we got closer to the city we stopped talking so we could look at the scenery. Soon the only noise was the strange radio station on the bus that played everything from Brittany Spears to Bon Jovi. The city is so beautiful! There are mountains (hills) everywhere, and driving towards Edinburgh you can see towering Arthur's Seat and the Sallisbury Crags behind the steeples of Edinburgh. Gorgeous.
Eventually we all got to our respective stops, and I was the only one at Kincaid's Court. I went to the office and got my keys and welcome packet, and took the elevator up to my room (thank goodness for the elevator, we're 5 floors up). When I got to my flat, one of my flat mates, Mairi was there with her boyfriend Christian. Mairi is a 3rd year student studying abroad for the whole year, from San Francisco. Christian is Norwegian and he basically told me all about Norway for the rest of the night. He's from near Bergen.
The flat is very old and very dirty, but somehow nice. We have 4 singles, 2 bathrooms (1 shower), 2 huge storage closets, and a large kitchen and sitting area. We have the corner flat so our kitchen/living area is bigger than some of the other ones. My room was somewhat dirty because the girl that lived there last semester (a study abroad junior from Texas), left a few days later than she was supposed to so the cleaning lady hasn't come yet. I ended up vacuuming the whole room later with an ancient vacuum that barely works and smells weird, but my room looks much better now. Apparently the girl that was here last semester was just awful. I've heard a lot of stories already and she sounds terrible. My flat mates seem very relieved to have me instead of her.
I dumped my stuff in my room then talked with Mairi for a while. Soon the 2nd flat mate arrived- her name is Cerys and she's from Scotland. We talked for a few hours then I went shopping before I lost the daylight. I wanted to go shopping with the other Wash U girls that are here but they weren't in their flat when I knocked so I went by myself, which worked out better.
I walked to new Edinburgh, which is where a lot of the nicer stores are, and I wandered around for a while looking for the bank atm that I wanted and admiring the scenery. It's really a gorgeous place. It's strange because it's definitely a city, complete with traffic congestion, packed sidewalks, and homeless people, but everywhere you look there's either a mountain or a beautiful building. It's lovely.
Eventually I found the right ATM, got some money, and went to the phone store. I got a pay-as-you-go sim card with the intention of putting it in my regular phone, but I guess my phone is "locked" to only one service and you need a code to unlock it. Rather than go through the hassle of fixing that I'll probably just get a cheap phone for about 10 pounds here.
After getting the sim card I went to Pound Saver and bought all my bedding and toiletries for very cheap. That was great.
After that I went back to my flat and the third flat mate, Abby, from England, had arrived. I dumped my stuff outside my door then we all talked for a few more hours. All of them are very, very nice. They're great, but they all really like to party and we'll probably be having parties in our flat so we'll see how that goes. They're also not very clean... I don't know, I'm sure it will be fine.
After we talked I went to an international students welcoming (free pizza), but the pizza was gone by the time I got there. I saw some people I had met earlier so we talked, and were shortly joined by some more people. We were all Americans, and it's funny because whenever we hear where someone goes to school we ask if they know such and such, and almost without fail, they do know them. Small world.
We left that pretty quickly and walked around the campus a bit, then they went back to go to bed (jet-lagged) and I went grocery shopping. After shopping I decided to wander around the city a bit and got lost which was fun. I had a map in my purse so I could have used it but it's more fun to get lost. The city is also beautiful at night, by the way.
So I wandered for a while then went back to the flat where Mairi, Chris, Cerys, and Abby were getting ready to go out to party. There was pizza and good conversation, and we talked for a few hours while they were drinking. It's great talking to kids like this. They're all smart and well rounded and we can have great conversations about pretty much anything from psychology to religion.
They left for their party and I opted to stay behind and organize my room since I was falling asleep. I worked on my room for a bit, then my flat mates came back to drink more before going out to a club. I was video chatting with Dillon so they got to say hi to him. I talked with Dillon for awhile after they left, then I wrote this blog entry!
Now I need to finish a few things before I go to bed, which needs to happen very soon. It's 11:30 pm here now. Tomorrow is orientation from 11 til like 3 I think. I'll put up pictures of my flat eventually! I want to finish setting up my room first.
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