Edinburgh, Week 2

Heya!

I'm happy to anounce I now live with four lovely Scotts, first years in Architecture, IT, and business in Napier. They are slighly younger than me, they speak really fast, they roll the 'R' and often fight on how to pronounce words, which does not help me that much.
And it's like, in the middle of the city, in the old town. Let me translate: the location is perfect.

You see? I'm the red point. Just besides the well known castle. I'm 10min walk away from Prince's Street, the main shopping street, 1min away from 3 or 4 groceries, and 2min away from Starbucks. P-E-R-F-E-C-T.
Oh and it's 20min away in bus from my campus, which is largely bearable.

It's been two weeks now, so I'm starting to get used to the life here and I don't get lost as much as before (like, maybe once every other day, not twice each day). That being said, I still stick to my flatmates each time we go out on clubs or to the cinema, because in those tiny streets there is no way I would be able to find my way back home if I was to lose them.

That brings me to another source of amazement in my everyday life: Scots. The average temperature here is 0°C in January, around 3° in February, which would be ok if it wasn't for this terrible horrible wind. Well, Scots do not seem to fear the cold. They go out in clubs in t-shirts and crop tops, because, eh, it would be too much trouble to have to leave their coats in the checkroom - when I'm here with my biggest coat and still freezing to death. Wearing tights as a girl probably makes you weak! They do seem a bit cold, but my flatmates never got ill since I’m here… Viking blood, obviously!

But I do not spend all my time and money in clubs, I also go around and visit quite a bit, with a new German friend I met during my Scottish Culture lecture. So far I've been to Berwick, a small town in the North of Edinburgh, visit the Dirleton Castle from the 12th Century; I've been to Leith, the port of Edinburgh, to the Meadows, a big park you can see on the picture above to the South to the Castle, I spent a lot of time in Prince's Street and in the Old Town. So I'm making a bucket list to be sure not to forget to do anything.

The Bucket List:

-Visit Edinburgh Castle (We'll do it soon in my Scottish Culture & Society class)
-Visit Grassmarket
-Visit George Herio's School
-Visit the Royal Botanic Gardens
-Climb Arthur's Seat (It's a hill and I am definitively waiting until march to do this)
-Try Fish&Chips (For the reccord, I'm one of those people who hate fish)
-Have porridge
-Go to the pub
-Have an english Breakfast
-Go to the port
-Go to the National Museum of Scotland
-Visit the Zoo
-Have a walk in Prince's Street Gardens
-Have a walk in the Meadows
-Visit Giklerton Cove

What else? I'm suffering from the lack of food. Everything is really expensive compared to France and meat, especially beaf, is clearly unaffordable and also quite rare (£8.5 the single steak, uh)(Chicken is a bit easier to find). It's seems that my flatmates only eat pre-cooked and ready meals... I went to Mark & Spencer, hoping I would find some good basic food, and I was stunned to see that the 3/4 of the store was only ready meals. But don't worry, I managed to find some fine tea, pasta and rice, so there's no way I'll starve to death! (I did try some ready meals. Fresh chinese chicken noodles were ok. Beaf steak and fries really had me disapointed though)

My next article will bring a bit more details about my university and the courses i'm taking!

To be continued...