I'm not very good at updating this

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I might not update a lot but I swear I have an excuse! I think I've had the plague for the last week and half and really haven't done much besides go to class and sleep. For example, today, on my day off, instead of running the millions of errands I had to I slept a full night, got up and made lunch and then went back to sleep until the late afternoon. I don't want to go to the doctor because, well I just don't, so hopefully I'll be better soon. I think it's just because the weather here is the worst thing in the whole world and when it's not hurricane-ing it's probably the end of the world. But before I got sick I had a lot of fun!

Last week was the week of birthdays. Two of my flat mates had birthdays right before school started so we had a little late party for them. Our first flat party! It was great and it's even better because here, while we have RAs, they literally do nothing and the only rules for the flat (I'm totally serious too) is that we must vacuum our floors before room inspections. So we had a party, first we had a flat dinner and got papa johns. Scotland loves pizza, especially crappy American take out pizza. Here dominoes is amazing and subway is a sit down restaurant. But Papa Johns is great no matter where you are. After dinner people came over, lots of Americans and people from near by flats. The party was themed (of course, it's our new favorite thing to do in our flat) as a toga party. It was so much fun! Toga parties are another thing that is great no matter where you are. The funniest part of the night was when these two German guys insisted that we make them hot chocolate but we didn't have any. So one of my ingenious flat mates melted real chocolate and added it to boiled milk on the stove. But then the Germans wanted whipped cream, something else we didn't have. So I whipped some cream and made whipped cream. It was really funny and probably the strangest thing I've ever done at a party or probably will ever do. After the party we everyone went to a club across the street from my flat and some even went in togas. It was also my friend Diana's birthday and went to this little American retaurant. It was really fun but there was a group of people there that seemed to be having a party. At least they had a magician with them that was doing tricks. I've never seen so many people over the age of 4 enjoy a magician as much as these people did. Since then I've been to sick to go out except for last night where I went to a really fun bar with my flat mates and a flat upstairs. It was really awesome because it was two stories high but the second floor only had a floor around the outside of it so the middle was just empty space. It was very cool. Scotland is very strange with their bars and clubs. Since Edinburgh has the most bars per block of anywhere in the UK there seems to be a mad scramble to turn anything into a bar or club. For example, down the street from my flat there is a club called Faith and it's an old church.

I have done some other things too. I went to the modern art gallery which was awesome! It was storming really bad the day I went so the ride there was horrible but it was on a free bus that goes to a bunch of art galleries! I've been to lots of cute little cafes of which there are a lot of. Also, my friends and I have made it a habit of going into fudge shops and taking free samples whenever we can, usually most days of the week. There are so many fudge shops it's very easy to do! I haven't joined any clubs yet because the ones I want to be in haven't updated for this semester yet and I don't think they've started. Not that I could sing right now anyway, I can barely talk. But I'll get around to it eventually. School has really gotten going now so I have homework and reading and things. The Uni library is by far the worst thing in the world. I don't think they use the dewy decimal system because it really just doesn't make sense. First some books will be lettered and then have numbers but some just have numbers and other just have numbers but nothing is in order. There will be 3 copies of a book and two are in normal places but one is somewhere random. And since we don't use text books it is cut throat to get do your readings in the library. Before I came I was warned that Uni students spend their lives in the library, well it's true because they're looking for books and it takes a life time to find them. Some of my classes post readings online which is alright but it's hard to read things online. My favorite is for one of my classes the readings are all stored in someone's office and you have to go there and find them in a filing cabin ate. It's so strange!

But my classes are going really well and now I've started tutorials. Every class has tutorials no matter what it is, and they're basically discussion classes which are just as annoying as at UConn. I always thought that UK students, especially university students worked really hard and were way more advanced than US students. But after being here, I see that that was definitely a lie. They're worse! While students generally go to class more than at home they don't pay attention at all. The main difference is that the professors don't put up with it. One day in my 9 am class the prof made us (about 200 people) stand up and do stretches because she saw too many people sleeping. In another class people read pleasure books during lecture. That class, geomorphology is sooo dry it's not at all what I expected. Well it is a little but right now all we're doing is physics equations. At least the prof knows we don't like it and always asks how we liked the last lecture before he starts a new one and apologizes for it being so boring at the end. And yes Jenna, people do have really thick accents and sometimes it's really hard to understand them! It's pretty weird in classes though because there are apparently 45902368 different lectures for each course and you never know which one you'll get on what day. It's a surprise each class! For my Social and Cultural Geography class the first professor is Scottish but she's pretty easy to understand. The other lecturer is for Belfast and you can tell she isn't Scottish but it's a very strange accent and I spent most of her first class just trying to figure out what she was saying and where she was from. I have no idea where my Geomorphology professor is from but he's not British or American. He looks just like the detective guy from Law and Order CI but he might be from somewhere around the Mediterranean. Wherever he is from you can't understand a word he says. One day I was in the geography department (a large castle down the street from my school) and I couldn't find the bathroom. I saw my prof there and asked here where it was. I think I either startled him or he was shocked that a student was actually talking to him because it took him a second to compose himself after fumbling around to even try to answer my question. Then he just mumbled something about the stairs then said no it was somewhere else and trailed off and walked away. Luckily I found it myself. My last class is definitely the best and is taught by an 80 year old English guy. The best part of that class is the tutorial though. There are only 4 people in it including me and the prof talks the whole time. In that class there is another American, Augustus (even though he's Gus that's what the prof calls him), Rachel a Scottish girl, and Jimmy some middle aged rugby player looking Scottish guy. Jimmy likes to talk a lot and go to the pub before class and I guess he thinks we understand him but I don't even think Rachel does. That class is also funny because the prof can't remember our names besides Gus. Last class he kept shouting (he's very loud when he talks) that Melissa should answer the question but he was pointing at Rachel and Jimmy wouldn't stop talking. That happened yesterday.

After class my friends and I had a flat dinner at my place which we do every week at a different person's flat. Gus came and we had a great time! I made Indian-ish food (rice and turkey and veggies in sauce) and it was a lot of fun. My flat is very nice because everyone always cooks together and we hang out and it's very homey. We don't have a TV so there are always lots of magazines around that we share. A bunch of us decided to get a gym member ship despite it being nearly $100 for a semester. Supposedly the gym is wonderful and every treadmill has it's own TV! It's also funny because my flat mates always find websites where you can watch TV. It's hard to do that here in the UK because most shows are American and you can only watch them online from the US. But we watch a lot of movies and I even went out to the movies too! The theatre was really big and pretty cheap. It's great because on Wednesdays you get two for one price tickets with my phone service. I'm not sure how it works but I think you just show the movie people your phone and you get in for really cheap! I'm lucky to be in such a student friendly city because every where you go there are discounts.

This coming weekend is Family Stay (eek) in England. I'll be in Shap area in a town called Penrith. It's very small but a lot of people from my program will be there so hopefully I wont be there alone! This Thursday is Burns Night. It's Robert Burn's birthday and a national holiday! (Robert Burns is a Scottish poet and Scotland just loves him... actually all Scottish people talk about are their famous people and inventions, I think I know them all by heart now.) I'm going to the school's party where there is food (haggis, meeps, and something else with a funny name) and there is a ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) aka a Scottish dance/party! For Burns Night everyone eats haggis and other gross food and drinks whiskey. It should be interesting to say the least. Next week Aunt Nancy and Uncle Jonathan will be here and then pretty soon it'll be the end of term (which is only the second week in March) and I'll have had lots of visitors and I will have been here for half of the time! I've been here for about 3 weeks but it seems like I've lived here my whole live. Edinburgh is a very livable city. It's strange that it reminds me a lot of UConn. While it's not in the woods, the classes are similar and the people are the same. It's like if UConn was actually in a city it would be just like Uni. The city is very beautiful and it's very fun and safe. I'm not very homesick because it's just like my home already. I just wish all my friends were here too!

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