Almost three weeks in Scotland! I'm finally feeling like I'm getting my feet under me. I've got a pretty good group of friends, all of us international students experiencing Glasgow together. Last night we all got together for dinner to celebrate Taylor's birthday away from home. I've figured out where to buy the cheapest groceries, best times to have my meals, and have even got two trips planned. Our flat is almost full, we've still got one empty room and not one single Scottish roommate. We are a completely international flat: Canada, USA, Spain, Brazil, and Colombia! As you can imagine there's a lot of Spanish flying around as well as English.
Our building's fire detection system went haywire three days ago and provided us with a relentless high-pitched peep that went on and on for 48 hours (much to the amusement of the Caley Court security office apparently), until Holly and I went to the Accomodations Office and played them a recording of the sound! Right away the amazing and beautiful Robert Stevenson saved us by calling someone to come and at least shut the system off until it can get fixed. So, no more incessant whine, but we are without a fire alarm system in the whole building. I shut my heater off, because it smells like the wrong end of a very very old hair dryer.
Laundry is quite an ordeal in Caley Court. It's £1.60 per forty-minute wash load, and 20p for every 12 minutes in the dryer. The dryer I unfortunately chose today wasn't emitting any heat, so after I waited my 36 minutes and found my clothes cold and damp, it was another 24 in a different machine before I could go home and eat dinner! Experiencing rez life all over again at least makes me appreciate my cozy 2 bedroom apartment back home.
As fascinating as I'm sure hearing about my laundry room escapades must be, I'm actually very excited to finally be finding my center here. Mostly I can't wait to get started travelling, with only three classes to contend with at GCU. Next Friday I'm off to Paris with Holly, Shayna and Taylor for two days - lots to see and fit in before our flight home on the Sunday! I also bought a UK Railcard yesterday to save 1/3 of any train ticket to travel the UK. In November we're going to take a train to London to see the Harry Potter set at Leavesden Studios (I lose myself at movie studios... Paramount in LA was a dream come true) and probably spend the weekend seeing the sights. I hope to get up to Stirling and Falkirk in not too long, and can't wait to start planning our trip to Ireland! Things are starting to feel more like the way I thought this exchange would be like.
No comments:
Post a Comment