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