Today was quite lovely. The sun was shining, the winds were only a 9 out of 10 instead of their usual hurricane level, and it didn't rain a drop! Scots always talk about the weather; it's a habit now. Started the morning with a nice run around the mountain, Arthur's Seat. I love seeing the families, the dogs and the baby strollers, enjoying the weekend. Every day here kind of feels like the weekend, though, since I really don't spend much time in class; I design my own schedule. Walking around today, I realized how immersed I really feel in this city.
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| This calm, beautiful butterfly let me take its picture for a good minute |
I spent some time studying in the library with Alex and learned about how animals process communication in the same way that humans do, but our brain capacity and vocal abilities allowed us to develop such a complicated language system. I've got a ton of reading to do, but I am honestly enjoying it. I picked excellent classes.
I also finally met my new flatmate! Her name is Katy, she's from Manchester, and the four of us all get along very well. We went on our first flat outing together tonight- Chocolate House Building from the Chocolate Society (ChocSoc). It was delicious, fun, and free! Our creation was amazing, if I do say so myself. And then we got to eat it all after the judging. My group got second with our outdoorsy forest dwelling. The ChocSoc, strangely, is run solely by a group of Bulgarians. Smarties (not to be confused with American nasty chalky Smarties), aren't as good as M&Ms, but I did discover that I like Nutella (which we used as glue). The sprinkle-covered chocolate disks and the chocolate biscuits, pictured below, were my favorites.
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| From left to right: Katy, me, Gemma, Camille- the ladies of flat 5/7 |
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| This picture makes my mouth water! Ice cream cone turrets, Jaffa cake palm trees, biscuit lounge chairs, and Haribo gummy people |
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| Interior view- a sprinkle table, biscuit bed, and marshmallow couch. Back path lined with Smarties |
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| Our team- 4 Californians, a French girl, and two Brits |
Camille has been helping me improve my French as I help her with her English. She thinks it's funny that I can't speak French without raising my voice a few octaves. My favorite word so far is "anana", meaning pineapple. My throaty "ch" sound and my r's still need work... But my Scottish accent has been improving, so I guess I can't expect to perfect
all of my language skills.
Spent a calm night alone with my new best friend- BBC online. Their programs, or should I say programmes, are really great. I watched one about a choir competition between amateur choirs made up of employees of different big companies in Britain, like Royal Mail. The people are so... genuine. I understood about 70% of the jokes in the stand-up comedy routines, caught up on my world news, and then explored some live music performances.
Alex and I booked our plan tickets to Dublin! We'll be gone for a weekend in October. I've never lived life so... fully before. It's invigorating.
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