Busy, busy, busy

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This has been a very long but fun week! My mom has been here since Sunday morning and it's been hectic ever since way before then. This past weekend my flat had another party. This one was far lamer than the last which was really great. We were going to make it themed (blast from the past) because we decided that all our parties would be themed but we just didn't coordinate everything well. The facebook group said nothing about the theme and no one in the flat could find costumes (mine was awesome though... a 60s mod polka dot mini dress). But I did go with Liz and Devon to Asda which is basically the Wal-mart of the UK. Actually it is owned by Wal-mart. We all felt really guilty being there especially when the bus ride took 40 minutes for no reason at all. But, in the Wal-mart style we got food for the flat dinner, decorations, drinks, and party supplies for just 24 pounds. But then no one showed up. We did have a guest visit from Adam Ramsey (one of the guys running for student president) whom about half of my flat mates have a crush on. But he came in the afternoon to campaign but we just made him come in for tea. He said he'd come to our party but never showed... lame. The party was fun even if it was small and it was Liz's brother's first night in town (he goes to some school near Boston) but then I had to clean up. I wasn't going to let my mom see what a horrible mess we made (even though she saw it a little)! So I got maybe 2 hours of sleep and then went to the airport just to find out that the plane was way late despite the internet telling me otherwise before I left for the 6:30 am bus.

So I waited in the airport for a while and the plane finally showed up with my mom safe and sound! I'm not really sure what we did the first day because I was so freaking exhausted I thought I might die. Wait no, we walked around so much I thought my feet were going to fall off. That's what we did! On Monday I had classes all day so my mom did stuff around town and somehow managed not to get lost which I thought would be a certainty. Since then we've seen the castle (very nice but it was basically lots and lots of war memorials and no castle like stuff), dynamic earth (AWESOME and about the history of the earth and population and stuff that I love), lots and lots of walking around, some shopping (I finally finished getting the stuff I wanted to send to Jackie and the pi phi package... that's coming home with Sean girls so make sure to harass him after spring break), and more walking. We went grocery shopping and my mom saw the palace and I did lots of studying. It's so annoying that the stuff I have to read is always online but my tutor can't be bothered to post it until like the day before. Tomorrow we were going to go to St. Andrews or Stirling but it's kind of a pain to get there and I think the weather will be bad. So we're going to stay in Edinburgh and see Britannia and some other stuff. And my mom tried haggis and Scottish beer. I was surprised. Since her hotel is a little far away from my flat we don't do too much at night because it's too hard to get back and forth and there is no good bus between the places. My street is really old so it's kind of under ground. Not really but it's a little hard to explain. I live right in the center of Old Town which was the first part of Edinburgh. The medieval town was built upwards to stay in the city walls so there are lots of bridges and stuff over roads. Then the city got really gross like most old cities did and got the plague. But unlike most cities Edinburgh had the bright idea of sealing off certain roads to quarantine people... and then never opening them back up. So my street is one of the few that wasn't sealed off but is really old but the streets around it were sealed off so you have to walk up these huge hills to get to any other part of town. There is a church at the top of the road/mountain outside my flat that has the floor taken up and glass put over so you can look down and see the old streets (now called vaults) but it's closed for renovation or something. But it's so weird because you walk up the road and you're really walking over buildings and streets that are just paved over (some buildings actually come up through the ground and people have offices below the ground! So anyway... no bus drives around my road because it's hard to get to and narrow.

So anyway, that's about it. Doing lots of touristy stuff right now and going to do them all again in about a week with Sean and Melissa (roomie from last semester who's living in Italy). I'm going to Glasgow with Meg and Diana on Saturday and we're spending the night which should be really fun! Hopefully I'll like Glasgow a little more this time. I have another lab due on Monday. I think I passes my other one... I think. If not it doesn't matter because even though they're graded they don't count for my grade. It's very annoying. This one is about glaciers and I have to trace this really grainy picture of a glacier and then color it and make a scale and scale bar. Basically it's like it's 1976 all over again and GIS isn't invented. Heaven forbid any of my classes here touch on topics from others. My classes and professors are so close minded it's like whatever their topic of experience is, that's the only one that matters and they know best. It doesn't matter that people stopped drawing maps at least 50 years ago and now only use computers. I spent all last semester learning how to get maps on computers and color code them to the land type and making scale bars and now I have to go back to 1894 and draw them? My prof has only even mention GIS once in class and it seemed like it pained him greatly to do so. I just don't see why they wouldn't show us the bigger picture and the connections that geography has within itself. I mean c'mon that's kinda the whole point! Okay sorry, geography rant. I also have two big papers coming up on the 8th and 9th that I need to do before (at least mostly!) Sean gets here. I'm gonna work my little heart out next week and hopefully get most of my work done so I don't have to study like I did when my mom was here. The semester is over in a month from today so it's getting to be work time! I'm just really worried about being bogged down with work when I have visitors. Possibly wont go to Glasgow now that I think about it... we'll see.

Well that's all for now, hopefully by my next update I'll have some trips really planned for spring break. It's looking like it'll be Ireland, Italy, and the Chez Republic! I miss everyone very much and I'm sure everyone at UConn is getting ready for spring break... hahaha one week, I have 5.

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Comments

[Nancy]

Thoughts
We've been thinking about you and your Mom all week, so it was great to hear what you've been doing. The big question is... did she have a deep-fried Mars bar???? We loved reading about our visit, too. We have such wonderful memories of the whirlwind weekend. Let us know when your e-mail is working again.