One Month Anniversary

So tonight marks the one month anniversary since I've been gone. I think it's been a pretty good first month, excluding the first week or so where I wanted to puke every time I thought about going to school. But I'd like to think it's been a success so far -- we got to see some Fringe shows, explore Edinburgh, eat good food, I made friends (well I think so at least!), and everything seems like it may finally be settling into place, which is a good feeling, though I'm probably jinxing it now. I still miss friends and family and everything else back in Seattle, but I've really enjoyed the time spent here so far. Can't wait to see what the coming months bring!

The past days haven't been too exciting, since I've had to go to school and what not. So I've mostly just been hanging around the flat, doing homework, and going on runs. Today, though, was pretty good. We walked to this music store after lunch (School gets out at 12:35 every Friday) and then while my dad looked at another car to buy, I walked down that nice trail I've been raving about and finally took some pictures. The sun was out and the air warm, so it was a close-to perfect atmosphere. Other than that, nothing too exciting has been happening. Just soaking up the Scottish life, I suppose :)

One more thing -- apparently it's totally normal at schools in the UK to have prefects, head boys/girls (both of whom where badges on their ties), houses, house captains, and competitions and such to earn house points. And the house with the most house points at the end of the year gets a trophy and a bunch of prizes. I feel really stupid now, thinking that all of that stuff was only in Harry Potter. I'm still amused by it though. I guess I'm an easy person to amuse.

Hopefully more interesting things will happen that I can post about. I mean, lots of things happen at school and such but I find that there's really no point of posting them on here since most people probably wouldn't care. Bye for now!

Discoveries Galore

So my father and I have made quite a few discoveries and tried out some new things in the past few days, so that's what this post will be about.

Saturday for lunch we ventured to a café called The Engine Shed, where they bake organic bread and other goodies and dish out some delicious food. Then we went to Arthur's Seat, the seemingly random giant mound rising on the outskirts of Edinburgh (it's actually an extinct volcano, my father informed me). It's really pretty, with all of these "lochs" and trails and birds and greenery. And what a view there is! Unfortunately I didn't take my camera, but we're bound to go back there at some point for some good snapshots. Saturday, embarrassingly, I also discovered how out of shape I am (hiking up Arthur's Seat... I was breathing slightly harder than usual :/) and the wonder of muesli. It's seriously one of my new favorite foods now. As if all of this weren't enough, back at the flat, my dad realized that the Water of Leith Walkway, which only goes for about 1/4 mile in one direction before hitting the street, extends the other way, following the river. What a trail it is! Walking along it, you'd think you were in the middle of the country. It's green, quiet, lined with trees and flowers, and right along the river the entire way. It goes for a mile before reaching the street, and then continues for nine more miles (we only went about 1.5 along it). Once again, I forgot to bring my camera so I couldn't take pictures of it. But it's a lot like the Burke-Gilman trail in Seattle, but narrower and without as many people. And much windier and by a river.

Lastly, I finished my book, The Secret Life of Bees, which I really, really enjoyed (I read it in less than 24 hours).

Sunday followed with more fun. We went out to breakfast at Urban Angel, another restaurant that focuses on local, organic, fair trade, seasonal food -- you know, all of the good hippie Pacific Northwest stuff :). Then we hung around and I went running on the Water of Leith Walkway (Day 1 of regaining my fitness), then hung around some more, then ordered pizza from an Italian restaurant called Zanzero. It was quite delicious as well, which is good since we weren't sure if we could have a good pizza place to rely on when home-cooked dinners fail.

Today unfortunately wasn't so much of a discovery day, seeing as I had school, and I usually don't discover many interesting things during that time. Although I did start my first Self-Study Chemistry class, and I learned some new things. Yay!

Much to my dismay, the homework load is calling my name, and it's best if I don't leave it be. I'll be back when more exciting things occur, but I have no idea when that will be. Hopefully soon, because school is slowly killing me.

Internet!

Finally, finally, FINALLY we have internet connection in our flat! Everything finally got sorted out last night, after three weeks of going to cafés and using the library's computers. I can tell you, I will never take the internet for granted again. It was really quite an ordeal!

Nothing's really going on here so I'll keep this a short post so I don't bore the socks off of whoever is reading this. One interesting thing that happened yesterday was this kid in the year below me, Dale, came up to me and said, "You know, you're the first American I've seen that's not fat!" I just laughed. It's actually kind of sad, that we actually have built up a reputation like that internationally... and I've gotten other comments as well saying how I'm not like the typical "American," whatever that's supposed to be. Ah well.

Today I do some homework and just chill. Looks like another rainy day ahead of us. Of all the cities in the world, we go to the one that has almost identical weather to Seattle.

Some Pictures!

So here are a few pictures of our flat and the view from the flat, just to give you all an idea of what it looks like :) I'd post more but I actually have barely taken any... I'll work on that.

We're back at that café (called Tea Tree Tea) since we still don't have internet. It's supposed to be arriving tomorrow, but then again, they also said it would be at the house by last Monday, so I'm not counting on it.

Anyway, so more updates from across the lake. Still getting adjusted to some things... like seeing people make out in the hallways (definitely didn't get that at HNA!) and sometimes the accents are still a bit hard to understand. I think people think I'm deaf because I ask them to repeat what they're saying, sometimes multiple times. Oops. But otherwise life is pretty dandy here. It is a bit odd not to be at HNA right now, especially when I'm still getting the emails for orchestra and volunteer opportunities and such, and everyone on Facebook is talking about their essays and annoying teachers and whatever else.

One thing I was worried about here was the whole "green" scheme -- if we'd find organic food, if we'd have local food, if there would be a farmers market, if there's recycling, if there's compost, and so on. Luckily, we have been able to find local and organic food, and there's a nice farmers market every Saturday just a few minutes walk away from here. However, none of it is as widespread as in Seattle. We have to drive twenty minutes to an organic food place, where we drop off our compost (no regular compost here is probably the number one killer). But we've done pretty well otherwise. There's a ton of fair trade products everywhere. There's a really awesome fair trade store close by to us, with fair trade everything, pretty much (we buy our peanut butter and dried fruit from there :D).

We've also been lucky enough to see two Fringe shows: Sweeney Todd, and Pappy's Fun Club's World Record Attempt: 200 Sketches in One Hour. Sweeney Todd was good, especially for a high school production, but perhaps not the most memorable of shows. Pappy's Fun Club, on the other hand, was the funniest show. Ever. It's about these four guys (Tom, Brendan, Ben, and Matthew) who attempt to break the record of 200 sketches in an hour. It's super hard to describe the hilarity of it, but if you're curious you can check out their website here.

So that's really it! I'll be back to update more when there's more going on in my life... But for now, I'll just have to deal with the homework load ahead of me. Yay.

First One!

So, despite the fact that we still don't have internet at our flat (I'm in this really sweet café with free wi-fi right now), I decided to start my blog. It's been nearly three weeks since I've been here, so I'll try to keep this short and sweet.

We spent our first night in a hotel, then moved into our home the day after we arrived. It's in a really nice, quiet area called Dean Village. Our balcony overlooks a small river called Water of Leith, and all of the streets around us are cobblestone. However, just a five minute walk and you arrive in downtown Edinburgh. Go for a twenty minute walk and you'll be at my school, a huge building that looks like it should be in Epcot in Disneyworld. So we're in quite a convenient location.

The first week was pretty much spent shopping for the necessary accessories for our flat -- pillows, food, you get the idea. We did go on some excursions, like Stirling Castle and St. Andrews, the most amazing small town ever. Also hit some adorable seaside towns that I want to move into right now.

I was pretty much a nervous wreck the night before school started and the morning of the first day. My dad said I was a lovely shade of green as I walked to school. But I survived, and I've survived nearly two weeks of it. It's quite interesting, transferring from an all-girls, Catholic high school to a public one in an entirely different country. First off, the school is very diverse. I've met people from Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Germany, and England (but that's not much of a surprise). At my table in Registration (which is Homeroom), there's a girl who was born in Korea, another who lived in Italy until she was ten, and another who is observing Ramadan right now. I really enjoy the diversity, because that's something I feel that Holy Names was lacking.

The class I'm taking are: English, Spanish, Modern Studies (Study of governments. Right now we're studying Scottish Parliament and devolution), Maths, Chemistry (Self-study since they ran out of room in the class), and Personal and Social Development/Education, where we do Community Service on Wednesdays and talk about issues pertaining to our age group on Mondays (today we talked about drinking laws and such). It's all been a lot of fun so far, and everyone's been extremely kind to me and helpful, which is wonderful. Also helps that everyone has amazing accents!

Well we're leaving the café now so dinner can be cooked and eaten, but I will be back to update more. Hopefully we'll get internet by Thursday!

And I'm sorry if this is really boring. I have trouble being concise, as I was informed in my Modern Studies essay :]