29

With my sporadic updates, I seem to have missed some of the finer points of previous evenings out. Certainly so far, most of the "culture" I've witnessed has been drunken messes.

Point One: the Chav
This adorable image does not do the sheer monstrosity of chav culture justice. One night during Freshers' Week we decided to explore Grassmarket and ended up lost somewhere in the city. We stumbled upon a club having a foam party that we had seen advertised around campus. Against my best wishes, we entered. We might as well have been entire the final circle of hell, otherwise known as chav heaven.

There was not a single guy in the entire club whose hair was not gelled. There were a few almost-restrained hairdos, but for the most part the spikes were out of control. Not to mention the wife beaters, fake tans, pierced ears, and "I know I'm sexy" looks. And that's just the boys.

The female species of chav is a separate story. Often in the littlest amount of clothing still deemed to be on the safe side of public nudity, the women (few in number to the men) frolicked in the foam in the most provocative manner possible. Seriously, it is never acceptable to wear stripper shoes, hotpants, and a bikini top in public without being mistaken for a cheap whore -- especially in Scottish weather! How did your mothers ever let you out the house?

Were that not bad enough, we can't forget that this was a foam party. There is nothing quite as filthy as a foam party, especially for stupid drunks. With foam shooting all over the place, the floor becomes a mess of slippery dirt. People take these sorts of things to mean that it's time to take off more clothing. Please, leave it on in the future. There are things I don't need to see out there.

We tried to make the best of this nightmare (after all, we did pay to get in). Dancing was a no-go after various creepy men (did I mention they were mostly over the age of 30?) tried to squeeze their way in. I will never be that desperate. Never. I secretly hope that a certain few of the people there are genetic dead-ends. The intelligence of the human race would actually increase.

But enough about that disaster.

Point Two: the Alcoholic

If you are beyond trashed and puking at 8pm, you might just be an alcoholic. If you wake up and a have a pint because you "don't like being sober," you might just be an alcoholic. If you consistently introduce yourself to others, only to hear "We've met four times already," you might just be an alcoholic.

This country has a serious, serious drinking problem. I've been here for two weeks and have seen all of the above, in addition to the more standard stupid drunk activities. We watched a man attempt to punch a bouncer after being thrown out of a club. And subsequently watched him be arrested. I have seen people throwing dozens of glass bottles out of windows, for the sheer pleasure of watching the glass break and scatter (never mind what it looks like the next day).

More irritating is the noise. Every night. All night. I'm a heavy sleeper and I'm used to city noises, but this takes the cake. As a write it sounds like several dozen men are singing drinking songs outside my window. There is always shouting, screaming, and glass breaking. I can only how irritating that would be for anyone who either doesn't go out, or is a light sleeper. I know most of my roommates have taken to sleeping with earplugs. It's crazy!

Seriously though. Why would anyone ever stop reading the Mr. Men books? This is the best re-discovery of my time in Edinburgh so far! The camera cord is still a no-go. I'm officially using Mr. Men to illustrate my points in the future. Why did I not think of this before?

28

I've just finished my first week of classes. I'm not entirely sure if that's good or bad though, based on the amount of work I'm going to have to do in the near future.

At some point last weekend I managed to lose my voice. That of course morphed into full-on fresher's flu. This blog really needs photos, so I have thoughtfully found one to represent my state over the past few days.

Pathetic looking and sounding pretty much sums it up. I've made my way through an entire box of tissues and bottle of cough medicine. The tissues were Mr. Men ones too - I'm sad to see them gone. If I'm going to need tissues I might as well have happy ones! The new box has boring white ones.

Anyway, I'm just about recovered, which is excellent news. I had all three of my classes this week and am slightly daunted. The system here is really independent. All my professors have essentially given me giant lists of books and told me to read some of them for each week. It's absolutely not what I'm familiar with, and that makes me nervous. On top of that people in my classes seem fairly on the ball. In one of them we were shown pictures and asked to identify the people. I had no clue who any of them were (though I did recognize a few of the names, to my credit). It probably didn't help that I was the only person hacking up a lung and constantly blowing my nose. Chances are I just passed on my cold to a significant number of people. Sorry!

I'm settling in rather well otherwise. I've actually managed to sleep well in my bed for more that two hours (except the night where I spill cough medicine everywhere). I've even cooked meals that weren't disasters (though I'll admit most of my fridge space is taken with condiments and beverages). I learned how to properly defrost frozen items. I've been picking up a paper most days and sitting down to read it with lunch (it makes me feel smart). I'm even trying the crosswords and sudoku.

I've been mostly staying in during the evenings (sickness + alcohol = disaster). Tonight the windsurfing club was having a pub crawl, so I went to that. It was Hawaiian-themed, and they tied us together (to turn it into a three-legged pub crawl). I ended up in a group of three, which was a bit of a disaster. But fun. I really liked the people, so hopefully I'll see them again.

27

Well I made it to Edinburgh in one piece. Unfortunetly I left the cord that lets me upload pictures to my computer back in Atlanta, so this will be a picture-free post (as will all my entires until the cord arrives in my mailbox courtesy mom and dad).

Anyway. The three of us arrived a bit over a week ago (not last Wednesday, but the one before) and spent some quality time arguing over what I would be needing for my apartment and so forth. We did fine with that, but generally failed in the department of finding good food. We had a great meal at the Tower, a restaurant above the New Museum of Scotland. Fantastic fish pie.

I moved in last Saturday. I'm living in University housing, in a flat with 4 roommates. My room is generically boring and pathetic looking (minus about 15 photos on the wall) with a pale blue sheet set provided (seriously, I hate baby blue). So far, I have yet to actually have a single good night of sleep on the bizarre lump of a pillow I have, even after stuffing sweatshirts, scarves, and towels underneath it. I'll keep hoping though.

My roommates are an interesting mix (all nice at least!). There is one English girl (from York) who's fairly funky and loves to party. The other three are Americans: one is from Connecticut (I like her a lot, she's probably the most like me - the only difference being that she's not signing up for any clubs and stuff at all. I just find that strange. Whatever.); one is from near Chicago (she's a really nice girl, though not into going out really at all. International Relations major too. I haven't seen her all that much really); one is from the Midwest, which should say a lot in itself (she never stops talking and shares things that don't need sharing. terrible fashion sense. my greatest desire so far is to give her a total makeover. her goal is to find a boy while here, which should be interesting to watch. never really went out before coming here from some godforsaken school in iowa or something. ew.)

But what do I really think? Haha. We do all get along though, and everyone is actually really nice. We had a roommate dinner on our first night together (and actually managed to make pasta disgusting --- apparently there are switches to turn on ranges over here). I've been hanging out with the Connecticut one mostly. Fresher's Week really only seems to encompass excessive amounts of drinking at obscene hours for most people. I've been to bars and clubs, but (disappointingly) haven't spent time at a pub (not for lack of hinting that's how I'd like to spend my night either). I'll make it happen later. Other than that, there are tons of events going on. I was nearly crushed to death attempting to get on a tour of the castle. It was interesting to see and a good way to meet more people. Every other interesting thing I've tried to take part in has not happened. Everything fills up at least an hour early. I am just not dedicated enough to get up at 8am to go to the zoo at 10.30 or stand in line for 3 hours for a ghost tour. What kind of lives do you people lead that this is a worthwhile enterprise?

Instead I spend my time getting up early, arguing with my bank, running into the walls in my apartment because the lights are still off, and staring at my toast when all I really want is some delicious bacon before heading back to bed about 4 hours later. Mornings have never been my forte to say the least.

Evenings have been interesting. People start going out at about 8.30pm, which is beyond early. It's just bizarre. What's the fun in going somewhere when it's empty? We've been to places that were fun, places that were pathetic, places with horrible DJs, places with fantastic DJs (it's all mostly techno though, not that it bothers me), places with drunken Scots trying to talk to me (seriously, I cannot understand at all), places far far away from where we were trying to get, places full of everything bad in the human race (I pray for genetic dead-ends), expensive places, and even the occasional cheap place. The unions have more bars that should be respectable for university-owned property. It's all interesting.

Most of the people I've met so far have actually been Americans (many of whom I'm embaressed to be seen with). Failing that, they're usually English. I've even met a fair amount of Scandinavians. Still hunting for the elusive Scot though. Seriously, do they all hide together in some secret society? The only ones I've met en-masse are family, at a giant lunch my aunt had. I actually have three cousins studying in Edinburgh at the moment too, and one of them drove all of us there. It's strange to see so many people that I'm actually related to. Really nice though. Hopefully I'll see some of them again before leaving in December.

I've got my classes all sorted out and am sort of waiting for them to start. There's only so many times I can actually go out in one week before I have to start sleeping again. It's a night off tonight for me. Maybe a bad choice, with it being Friday and everything, but it feels wonderful to lounge for a while. I've signed up for a couple of organizations (we'll see what I actually end up doing). I'm hoping to windsurf while I'm here (provide I don't freeze immediately upon contact with Scottish waters). I may try to get a bartending job depending on what my schedule looks like. Right now I only have three days of classes.

I should probably spend the free time working on my cooking time-management. I've had several unfortunate issues so far owing to the fact that I don't start cooking until I'm actually hungry. How was I supposed to know how long it takes a baked potato to cook? I've eaten baked and sweet potatos semi-raw and failed at defrosting chicken breasts. Actually, there's not much in my fridge besides condiments at the moment. I've already eaten my way through a bag of frozen peas. There's some lentil pie in the freezer, but it tastes a bit funny and I'm not sure why. Cooking is hard when skills are limited. I can roast things, saute things, and cook pasta. That's about it. I'm going to chalk it up to a failure for mom here. Thanks a lot mom for being such a great teacher (seriously, I need help - I'm dreading the inevitable future of pasta and handfuls of frozen peas).

It's been an interesting start.