Week 1

Hey everybody!

I've actually been in Edinburgh for almost a whole week! It still feels so crazy, but I'm having a great time so far!

I left Chicago late Friday night (January 9). Another student from Iowa was also on my flight. It was nice to know I'd have someone to travel with. Luckily, we were able to make it out on time before too much snow came in. The pilot introduced himself and I swear he said his name was David Bowie. The girl sitting next to me and I thought that was pretty cool. On the plane, everyone had their own personal television so you could pick from a selection of movies, TV shows, music to watch or listen to. It definitely made the flight go pretty fast. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get much sleep. We arrived in London on Saturday morning and were supposed to have a 3 hour layover at Heathrow, but when we got there, they said the plane we were supposed to be taking was running late due to bad weather and we wouldn't be leaving until another 4 hours after the time we were originally supposed to leave. Fortunately, the plane came in earlier than expected so we didn't have to wait around for too much longer. When we got to Edinburgh, there was a welcoming service from the University that was there to direct us to the shuttle that would take us to our residences. I'm staying in the Pollock Halls, which are their version of college dorms. My room is pretty decent. I have a double bed and my own bathroom. It kind of looks like a (kind of worn) hotel room. There is a dining hall and store on the premise. It's about a 15 minute walk to campus, but I'm hoping the more I get used to it, the shorter it will seem. I dropped of my luggage and decided to go to the visiting student pizza party at Teviot, one of the student unions. By the time I got there, all the pizza was gone, but I got a drink from the bar and socialized with some people there. Two girls from Iowa who had gotten there earlier introduced me to the people they met. After the party, we decided to walk around a bit and check out a local pub. We also stopped to get food and I got fried pizza. It sounds weird but was pretty good.

Sunday was the orientation for visiting students. They had us all in a lecture hall and talked to us about the University and living in Edinburgh. They had a visiting American who got here in September come and talk about what it was like adjusting to the city. They also divided us into groups and took us on a tour of the main part of campus. Our group was led by a visiting student from Singapore who had arrived in September. She seemed to know more about the pubs surrounding campus than actual school buildings, haha. After the orientation, myself and Ashley, another student from Iowa who is also staying in the Pollock Halls,and some kids we met the night before, decided we wanted to get our phones. We walked down to Princes Street, the main shopping area that divides Old and New Towns. We had met some kids who came through the Butler Program and had arrived earlier in the week. They gave us advice on where to get the best deals on phones, so the whole thing was pretty easy. After that, we came back and ate our first meal in the Pollock Halls. It was ok, nothing too special. The dining hall is under construction so everyone is kind of squeezed into a small area, so meal times can be pretty hectic. We spent the rest of the night trying to sort things out with our laptops and the internet which has been a pretty stressful experience. I wasn't able to finally get internet in my room until Thursday night.

Monday was our first day of classes. I only had one class which wasn't until 4:00 but I decided to wake up early to get some breakfast and head over to campus. I had to make a meeting with my advisor or as they call it here, director of studies or DoS for short, and I also wanted to walk around campus and get a better idea of where everything was. I decided to walk up the Royal Mile but I came down a different way and ended up getting kind of turned around but I was able to make it back in time for class and I only had to whip out my map once. My class was Scottish Ethnology which is basically Scottish Culture. Its a lecture class with what seems like mostly visiting students. It seems like it will be interesting.

Tuesday, I had to wake up early. My English class Subjectivity, Modernity, and the Novel starts at 9:00. It was kind of intimidating. It's a third year class, so it's smaller and more discussion based. There were 25 of us, but the professor split us up into two different sections so for the rest of the semester there will only be 12 or 13 of us. I'm hoping I will be able to keep up with everyone not being too used to the system. After that class, I met with my DoS. We didn't talk for long, but he seems nice. Later I had my Scottish History since 1914 class. He just talked about the class and good resources for things. I'm thinking I might try and change that class to something else. I'm thinking there will probably be overlap between that and Ethnology so I think it would be interesting to try something else. There is a sociology class about popular music that a friend of mine is in that seems pretty interesting. After that, I had Ethnology again. When that was done, we ate dinner and a bunch of us decided to check out the International Student Center's pub night at one of the local pubs. It ended up being pretty fun! I ran into a few familiar faces and we did karaoke.

Wednesday I didn't have classes, so I slept in. I met the guy that comes to clean my room. They clean it once a week and empty the trash everyday. He seemed nice, but I didn't realize he was coming so I was pretty startled when he showed up. It was nice to have a day to sleep in since I'd been pretty busy everyday since I'd gotten here. I did eventually wake up to go on the International Student Center's tour of historic Edinburgh which was pretty neat. Unfortunately, it didn't start until 3:30 and it gets fairly dark around 4:00 or 4:30 here so we couldn't take many pictures, but the stuff was still cool to see and it was nice to walk around town and get more acclimated. That night, some of us hung out in the lounge of Ashley's dorm and met a real Scottish person! It was cool, since none of us have really befriended any British kids yet. It's been hard coming in second semester when a lot of people already have their friends and people don't socialize as much in the Pollock Halls as they do in the dorms at home. The girl's name was Rhona and she was real nice. She talked to us for awhile and answered a bunch of our questions and taught us some Scottish slang. It turns out she's in my Scottish Ethnology class. We made plans to hang out Thursday night.

Thursday, I went to the "Refreshers Fair." The first years here are referred to as "freshers" so the fair was basically for new students to walk around and see different societies students can get involved in. I ran into some people I knew there and we checked out some of the different societies. Then, I had Scottish History and Scottish Ethnology. It turns out some kids Ashley knew from Iowa were traveling around Europe and were in the Scotland so they came down to Edinburgh and we all hung out. We went out to a club in town and went dancing. It was a lot of fun! Rhona was supposed to come and introduce us to some of her Scottish friends, but she wasn't feeling well. I'm hoping we'll get to meet them soon though.

Today I didn't have class, but was awoken by the cleaning guy again. I had a meeting with my English professor to discuss the readings and structure of the class. He was very nice and assured me that if I kept up with the reading, I should be able to keep up with everyone. After that, I went to Blackwell's which is right across from campus and supplies many of the University's books. It pretty much looked like the overseas version of Borders. I got the anthology I needed for my English class. From there, I walked down to Princes Street again to explore and bought a new scarf to help shield the wind.

Tomorrow I'm thinking we might go to a football match which seems like it will be pretty exciting! Or there was talk of climbing up to the top of Arthur's Seat. Both seem like interesting possibilities.

So far, things have been going really well! The people I've met are pretty cool and I'm looking forward to meeting some more interesting people. The weather has not been too bad. When we first got here, it was windy and rainy which proved to be a pretty bad combination, but ever since the weekend, it's been pretty nice. It's windy but doesn't get colder than 30 degrees which isn't exactly warm, but definitely nicer than the negative degree weather in the Midwest right now! Sorry guys, I hope you're keeping warm! And it rains here and there, but never for very long or very hard (knock on wood). One thing that's been really difficult is learning how to cross the street. It sounds simple enough, but not here! With the windy streets of Old Town and cars driving on the wrong side of the road, it's definately difficult to remember where to look to make sure you won't get hit by a double decker bus! But anyways, the city is beautiful! So much history and culture and beautiful architecture. I've been telling everyone that it's basically like living in Harry Potter land. Haha. JK Rowling lives and wrote the book here and we've been told that she drew inspiration from many things around the city. I think this is going to be a really awesome opportunity to grow personally and academically.

I'll try to update this at least once a week. If you want to reach me, the best way is probably by email: edward-mccully@uiowa.edu. I'm also on Skype: ned.mccully, or a Facebook message is always nice!

Hope everyone is doing well at home! I'd love to hear from you!