Yay! We're finally here in Scotland, the land of bagpipes, kilts, and the deep-fried Mars bar. It's so awesome to be here. The city is gorgeous, and the weather is usually fairly tolerable. Haha - most days it rains a bit, but this weekend has been nice and sunny - around 15 degrees.
We're just about settled in at Uni (or "college" for you Americans). It's Freshers Week -- so it's basically an endless string of parties and events. Everything is aimed towards students, so we've been pretty busy. We've been on a tour of the Castle, which was wonderful! And the Catholic Students' Union is pretty active on campus. So we've been to a couple Wine and Cheese parties after Mass. But more about them later. Haha.
And then, because the drinking age is 18, there are club nights and themed parties hosted every night on campus, and in Teviot (one of the Student Union buildings, above) there are about 7 (?) bars. It's actually a bit funny, I think, how popular the Student Association sponsored events are. I mean - we queued for almost 3 hours waiting to get into a party at Teviot!
Besides Uni, the city of Edinburgh is incredibly amazing. We are still in awe of the impressive medieval architecture of the Old Town. It feels so surreal to be waking to the flat, and see the Edinburgh Castle in the distance. It feels like were in a Harry Potter book. Hope I get Gryffindor!
Our lectures start on Monday, and I'm a bit nervous. The British grading system is pretty different. I'm not an expert on it, but I think a 70% translates to an A (?), and 40% is a Pass. So we'll see about that one.
We're both taking Latin and Classical Archaeology together. Zach is taking Greek and Sarah has History of Architecture. So that should be fun...
As for cultural differences - there are so many to talk about. But you have to know this now. This really freaked Sarah out: THEY DON'T REFRIGERATE EGGS! What?!??! We couldn't find them in the grocery for ages - until we spotted them next to the bagels in the bread aisle. On the shelf. Room temp. Hmmm.
Until next,
Zach and Sarah
3 comments:
I feel your pain about the eggs, but in a different way! The eggs here are refrigerated... but milk isn't!!! Yes, milk. People buy milk in cartones ("bricks" in English slang) off the shelf next to bread or whatever else. They can last for MONTHS without being opened! Once opened they do have to be refrigerated, but before that... not at all! How strange! You could buy milk in June and drink it in September!
I love your blog! =)
Oh, and I love you too I guess... ;)
They don't refrigerate the eggs in NZ either. That kinda blew my mind.
And I'm trying to understand why I didn't know about your blog until now. Unacceptable.
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