Count down to class time

I've been busy taking advantage of this last weekend before class starts, thought i'd give a little weekend update. The rest of Friday was very fun, went to the first Create Society meeting where we made pencil holders and mini stained glass window things (sounds ridiculously cheesy, but i thought this arts and crafty thing, and they also have a creative writing group, would be good during the year for a little fun stress relief!). Then Friday night we had a flat dinner party which was awesome. We made tacos (i had all veggie taco, haven't found a place to get that great meat substitute mom and sarah) and then caitlyn brought biscuits for desert. It was good getting to sit down with everyone for a first and chat a bit. That night we went to a sake and sumo night put on by the japanese society (see pic for display of ridiculous sumo skill of rachel and pa - i lost...but only 2-3! i held my own).

Saturday was taken up by a pretty much all day intro meeting to People & Planet. It was really fun. They had lunch for us that was all organic, veggie, and free trade, and the girl who brought it runs a fair trade cafe in the basement of our student center on fridays. They said she needs help preparing food, so i might volunteer for that - work on my cooking skills and learn new recipes! They also had speakers ranging from a guy from green peace who talked about non violent action to our university rector mark ballard who is a green party mp on the scottish parliament. It was all in all a very interesting day, and i think im going to get involved in the environmental area of the group helping on the uk campaign called stop global climate chaos.

Sunday I had my first taste of the scottish highlands! I went on the mountaineering club's freshers week trip to Glen Clova, which is just on the southern edge of the highlands to the east. It was a great day! I didn't actually climb cause i went on a walk that ended up being 15 km (it took over 5 hrs) and we hiked all the way up to Ben Tirran, which was 896 meters high! At the top we were completely surrounded by mist (even though at the bottom it was only partly cloudy and the weather was pretty nice). It was so fun though, so many sheep and we even saw a mountain hare speeding across the terrain. The sheep were really funny in the mist. When we took a break upon reaching the cairn atop Ben Tirran a mom with her 2 lambs kept coming close to us, then running away a bit, basically circling around till they got scared and ran off entirely. It was hilarious... maybe you had to be there haha. Anyways, i met some really nice people and have officially joined the club now. On Wednesday i'm going a short trip to this nearby quarry where I'll get climb a bit, hopefully it goes well! Otherwise there's an indoor wall in nearby leith where i can get some more experience before actual rockface = )

Today has been fairly low-key (though i'm surprisingly unsore from yesterday's activity!); it's "autumn holiday" so class starts tomorrow. I went exploring to find where my classes are and theyre all pretty much in the same square, so that's convenient. I'm looking forward to my classes, can't wait to see how they are! I have all three tomorrow since monday's lectures were moved to tuesday. Even then it's just 11-1, and 4-5. My australian flatmate thinks this schedule system is weird cause at her uni they have all their classes on one or two days, for hrs at a time, and then that's it. I think that would be hard to handle, but she says she likes it better that way. I think I'd fall asleep, or at least get major a.d.d.!

Hope classes are starting well for everyone back in the states!

~R