Ten A.M. becomes a rather peculiar brand of early when sleep deprivation is mixed with jet-lag. I probably wouldn’t have woken up at all if it weren’t for the fact that all of the American study abroad students were put in the same buildings so I heard my flatmates getting ready to leave. We bused over to Craiglockhart campus, one of three main ones for Napier and where the orientation was going to be. Luckily it’s not where my classes are because it’s an hour walk from my flat. I may or may not have confirmed this myself in order to get a picture of it.

I didn’t get a picture on the day due the previously mentioned sleep deprivation/jet-lag combo. I don’t think it would have mattered if I remembered anyway since I’m pretty sure my camera was still buried in my bag at this point.

The real point of interest of the event, which was mostly just logistical details, was their list of 10 Things to do While in Scotland (I might have added the capitals myself. I honestly don’t remember.) I wrote them all down, but I know I at the very least omitted “do a pub crawl,” and I think I might have condensed one or two points, so my list only consists of seven.

One: Go on the Edinburgh ghost tour. I wasn’t actually aware this existed, so I’m glad they pointed it out. I do remember my mom telling that Edinburgh has portions of underground city, so that’s something I’d like to check out too.

Two: Climb Arthur’s Seat. Which can apparently get really icy, so you have to make sure it’s a nice day. Probably going to wait for the weather to get a little nicer before I think about doing that. So, the way things are going, I might not get up there at all.

Turns out I can actually see it from my window. That, along with the fact that it’s name does in fact refer to the King Arthur of legend, is the extent of my knowledge on this particular piece of geography. I can also see a tree covered in ivy from my window, but I doubt it has any significance beyond looking cool.

Three: Go to the Highlands and the West Coast. We do get two weeks off for Easter, (interesting little example of none secularization there) so that might end up happening.

Four: Try Haggis and Irn Bru. It’s nice to have haggis confirmed as something you Have To Have by actual Scottish people because you hear about it so much in the states you start to wonder if this is just something Americans obsess over. It isn’t, in case you were wondering. Irn Bru, which I’d never heard of before, is a Scottish soda. It is amazing.

It also happens to be something that defies description. The best I can say is “it tastes like Irn Bru,” which probably has every writing teacher I’ve ever had hanging their head in defeat.

Five: Go to a Ceilidh. Another thing I hadn’t heard of before. It’s a type of dance thing I know embarrassingly little about, but if I get the chance I think I’ll go.

Six: Go to the Edinburgh Beltane Fire Festival. I should probably find out when that is….

Seven: Go to a rugby and/or football match. I’m not a sports person myself, but since neither of those have anywhere near the popularity in the states that they have here, I think it’s some thing I should do anyway.

Not much happened on Monday after that, beyond almost managing to get myself lost walking back.

This is not the street I’m supposed to turn onto. This doesn’t even look like the street I’m supposed to turn onto. The only reason I went down here to begin with was because I’d been walking for awhile and it felt like I should be there already and there was a street there so hey, why not?

Tuesday I got to meet the academic advisers for my faculty (division) which consisted of the distributions of the forms we needed for matriculation (a word which is new to me) and a powerpoint about Napier University and scotland in general. The advisor giving the powerpoint presentation brought up Braveheart as one of the things people think of as quintesntially Scottish along with kilts and bagpipes. Considering I spent most of my time growing up confusing Braveheart with Die Hard, I can safely say that isn’t the case for me.

The rest of the week was spent figuring out where to buy dishes and textbook, though not all in one place. Universities here apparently don’t have their own bookstores, so there’s a chain that focuses specifically on academic texts.

I figured out the route to get here using google maps’ satilite view and I didn’t realize why it looked wrong to me until I actually walked down the path and realized their pictures had been taken back when the trees had leaves.

Then when the weekend rolled around I went on a photo adventure. I anticipate I’ll be going on a lot of photo adventures, be it at museums or, as in this case, just by wandering around random neighborhoods.

42 of my 152 photos were close ups of stone walls, if you wanted any indication of what my photo adventures tend to be like.