From moving in until today (day 3)

I met Monica and Sarah as soon as I went up to my room for the first time. After letting Geoff and mom know I got there okay, I then went down to the meet and greet, which I was not particularly up for since I had just gotten off the plane, felt disgusting, couldn't shower, and had been hit rather virulently with allergies upon disembarking. As Steve (a criminologist I met that night) said, perhaps I'm allergic to Scotland. Yesterday I felt absolutely miserable and ended up sleeping most of the day, save running to Pound Stretcher to buy towels, which of course wreaked havoc upon my sleeping schedule. The time not sleeping was spent doing laundry, talking to Geoff, looking up PhD programs, and playing Diner Dash. Yes, Diner Dash. Of all the intellectually stimulating things I could have been doing, I chose mindless gaming drivel. Don't judge as harshly as you know I normally would. I ended up not falling asleep until 6 this morning, but thanks to a previously arranged skype meeting with Geoff, I woke up at a reasonable hour regardless.

I feel much better today. I still have a little bit of drainage, but my sore throat and fatigue are gone. I walked over to Sainsbury’s to finally get some groceries, which meant going over to Princes Street. The hustle and bustle is definitely over there and not on the Royal Mile, where I live. The Royal Mile is sort of the heartstring of the old city, so it’s full of kilt, cashmere, and tweed shops. Great fun for tourists, but not where you’d expect to find any grocery or department stores. Both times I’ve been to the store I’ve seen/heard bagpipers in full regalia, which is a treat. My cousin, who got his PhD here, informs me that I will loathe bagpipes by the time I leave. I used to fall asleep to bagpipe music, so I suppose we’ll just see. I almost want to love the sound more just to spite him…

At Sainsbury’s, I discovered both a surprise and a disappointment: they do indeed carry Dr. Pepper there, in both individual bottles and in 6 packs of cans, and the pack actually costs 10p less than a 6 pack of Coke. Not less than the 6 pack of Pepsi, which was on sale for ½ off, but it’s Dr. Pepper! I wasn’t expecting to find it at my neighborhood store. I thought I’d see it every once in a while. Lucky me. The sad part about my trip was not finding Cheerios or a suitable substitute, which I had been counting on. Nestle apparently makes Cheerios over here, not General Mills, and it looked like the only kind they had at this store was the multigrain one. Anyone who knows anything about Cheerios understands that they’re just not the same. However, Nestle does make a regular oat one, so I’ll keep an eye out for it. In the meantime, if anyone wants to send me up a box, I’ll be your best friend forever and could possibly be persuaded to act irrationally on your behalf at some point in the future.

Also, I’ve learned to pay attention to suggestions on packages of food. The box of crumpets I got today recommended I put baked beans on top to have a mini-meal. I was thinking I’d put Nutella on them even though I wasn’t particularly wanting something sweet, but I listened to the box’s advice and it was actually pretty good. I’m up for any and all easy meal suggestions. I picked up a kilo of spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, a box of mac and cheese, a container of potato and leek soup, two puff pastries, pumpkin ravioli, Nutella, mini-pancakes, crumpets, salt and vinegar chips, chex cereal (sort of), three packages of Cheddars (I don’t want to run out…), chocolate coated cookies, a Crunchie bar, shampoo/conditioner, body wash, tape, and laundry detergent. It adds up when you have to carry it half a mile to your flat up a hill and three flights of stairs, but it sure doesn’t look like much when you unpack it. At least I should only have to go every week… We don’t have much fridge space and the freezer is entirely occupied by the two Californians’ stuff. Oh well. C’est la vie.

I did get to talk to Viola for a while, which was nice. We've decided to take a trip up to Loch Ness together sometime and we're going on the hike up Arthur's Seat to see the view of the city. I also signed up for curry night on Friday (who can turn down free food?) and a literary pub crawl on Saturday (no, I don't plan on crawling). Several of my roommates have strict schedules this week, but I haven't heard anything from my college. Maybe it's because I'm research and they're taught...not sure why, but I like having a free schedule. I think I'll try to register for classes tomorrow and join the coffee crawl to visit the best coffee houses in town. They're having two a day this week, so I'll go on one at some point, at least. I'm also going to grab a skype phone, so anyone who hasn't added me on skype should! That's probably quite enough for today, so now that you're caught up, I'm going to eat my Crunchie bar and either play Diner Dash or watch Thin Blue Line. If only there were heating...