Edinburgh

I've been here for about three weeks now and things are, by and large, going very well. Edinburgh is a charming city. Wonderfully walkable, beautiful, and friendly. There is also a lovely, easily hikeable hill/mountain called Arthur's Seat just a few minutes walk from my residence. A view from the Seat:
And the view from my room:
Classes are going well. It's really amazing to have so many people around who are interested in language. So many talks and classes and so much research. It's a bit overwhelming, but in a very good way. The other people in my program and I get along really well too. There are 8.5 of us: 1 from Jamaica via London, 1 from Scotland, .5 other Brit (part time student), 2 from the US (including me), 1 from Germany, 1 from Kosovo, 1 from Spain (the Basque Country), and 1 from South Africa. We've started a tradition of a dinner together every other week. I'm quite looking forward to getting to know them all better. The people I share a kitchen with are also great. And I am actually meeting some Scottish and British people; especially in the British Sign Language club/class I joined. Couldn't ask for much more than that!
A few more observations about life and uni in the UK:
1) They eat very strange flavors of chips/crisps here. For example: roast chicken, prawn (shrimp) cocktail, and, best of all, lamb and mint. Ummm. Ick. And the beans on toast thing. Yeah, still don’t get that.
2) You really can't go shopping late here. The stores run out of things. Not just unusual things, I'm talking eggs and milk. It's a bit odd. And when I asked where the tofu was, the grocery store employee asked me what it was.
3) Edinburgh is expensive! Rent is cheaper than in New York, and groceries are about on par, but eating out! Whoa. Just try to do so for less than £10 ($19-$20). That's without a drink or an appetizer. Ouch.
4) The drinking age (it's 18 here) makes a big difference in university life. Not that undergrads in the US don't drink, they most certainly do, but here it's basically sanctioned by the school. The student union sells pints for £1.50. You can't even get a sandwich for that. It seems that all the club ("society" here) meetings are just not possible without beer.
5) CCTV scares me. There are cameras everywhere (well, everywhere public) recording all the time. And, apparently, some of them even talk to you. If you are say, riding your bike in a pedestrians only zone, a voice from the sky might just tell you that you need to get off. Talk about Big Brother. Creeeepy.

All in all though, Edinburgh is great. The Royal Mile (see to left) looks like it's straight out of a storybook. And I love all the accents around here. I think it's going to be a good year.
Though tonight I did watch a movie with some friends. Silly movie, but it took place in New York, on the UWS, and it did get me a bit. I might well be destined to end up back there in the long run, but right now Edinbugh is just right.

Can you say overcommited?

Well I will certainly not be bored this year. I just signed up for my classes for first semester. I hardly know what to do with myself with so many language classes to take! At Columbia I was thrilled when even one was offered. Here my entire schedule is full of them! I guess I've come to the right place. One problem though, is that I had a lot of trouble deciding which classes to take. Or, more accurately, which ones not to take. As a result, I currently have 8 classes. Clearly I am going to have to winnow that number down a bit. I guess I'll just have to see what happens the first few weeks. I do like to sleep occasionally.
And to make matters worse, or better?, I also joined four societies (clubs) yesterday. A choir (I've missed singing SO much these last few years!), a yoga society (£2.20 yoga classes instead of £10), the German Club (which is called Deutsch macht spaβ - German is fun, and I couldn't agree more), and the British Sign Language Club. So yeah. That's a lot. And I want to travel while I'm here of course.
We'll see what happens...

Scottish greetings

Hello from Edinburgh!
As I think you all know, I will be spending the next 12 months
studying in Edinburgh, Scotland. I will still be updating this blog, but since I will be in Scotland for an entire 12 months, I won't be sending out the updates as emails. I think that might get a little annoying for you all!
That said, here are a few last email musings on entering Scotland yesterday. I managed to arrive in Edinburgh sans luggage. This was not all bad as that meant I did not have to schlep my two very heavy bags from the airport. And my bags showed up this afternoon so I only had to wear the same clothes for about 72 hours. Could have been worse.
I also managed to enter the UK illegally! How did I do that, you ask? Heaven forbid you try to bring a bottle of water on a plane, but you can enter the country illegally without even trying, or knowing for that matter. What happened is this. I had a very tight connection in Manchester. And then my first flight was late. And I needed to change airlines. So when I got off the plane at Manchester, I was told to run (or at least move very quickly toward) the transfer desk. The people there had anticipated my short connection time and had my boarding pass all printed out for me. They then sent me to the front of the security line. I ran to my gate and made it with a minute or two to spare. I found it odd that I had not had my passport stamped, but I didn't worry about it too much. The flight attendant on my first flight had said I didn't need to fill out a landing card since I was only in transit in Manchester.
And then I got to Edinburgh. And walked right to the baggage claim (I did not yet know that my baggage was lost)! There was no passport control. I asked several airport employees and they all said that if no one had asked in Manchester, then it must be okay. But I was incredulous, so I kept bugging the guard at the international arrivals terminal (not the terminal I had flown into) and so he eventually got his boss. And she called the immigration people (it took nearly an hour to get someone to pick up the phone) who could not believe that what had happened had actually happened. The immigration officer's words were: "Well you have entered the country illegally, but it wasn't your fault". But I was still illegal, fault or no. After about 90 minutes she came to the exit of the immigration area and stamped my passport. And she said thank you for alerting them, as no one would have known otherwise! That said, the people at the airport were helpful. Never once did I feel abandoned. They did not know what to do about the situation, but the pursued it until it was fixed. Heaven forbid that should happen at JFK. You'd never get to talk to the immigration people! Though I also doubt you could accidentally enter the US illegally.
Off to unpack my newly arrived bags.
Cheers,
Molly