Jetlag recovery day 6

Hello everyone! Sorry I am not being a good blogger, but alas, i am still without internet even though I moved into my flat on Saturday. The resnet here sucks, there's a whole email registration process you have to go through before theyll connect your computer, so bare with me! Right now i'm at the university library using internet for free, yay, no more internet cafes! Quite a bit has happened since i blogged last so i'll just give some highlights:
*mary king's close - trekked through the underground neighborhood that was covered up when they built the new chambers of commerce. no one wanted to live there due to ghost stories attribute to all the people who died there when the plague struck. pretty creepy, but the actual tour wasn't scary at all.
*holyrood palace - beautiful little palace right next too arthur's seat, where mary queen of scots was held prisoner by queen elizabeth before eventual beheading... very impressive collection of artifacts from queen mary, as well as a huge portrait gallery of british royalty and a special exhibit for the current queen elizabeth's 80th bday. amazingly beautiful abbey at the back, again, can't wait to post some pics! that also wont be possible till me own computers up and running.
*lunch at howie's - arcadia treated us to one last free meal on fri afternoon at this really nice restaurant howie's. it was a three course meal and i got veggie haggis for my main dish! it was soooooo goood! i don't know how it would be at a lesser quality restaurant, but this place was amazing. i highly enjoyed it (oh and for those of you who thought remaining veg in scotland would be hard, let me tell you its the opposite - there's more to eat here than back in wi for sure!)
*snakes on a plane! - yes i gave in to the hype and went to see snakes on a plane, and let me tell you it was awesome. for one, the theater was saw it at was crazy - huge seats and buzzers by the seat so you could order drinks during the show. and then samuel l jackson was totally kickass, i will save details (mom you would definitely not like it)
*Ok, then the next thing is a big one - moving in on Saturday. Liz and i shared a cab over and, without any help because we are amazing strong women, managed to lug our bags up to our flat (which was thankfully only 2 flights of stairs up). Now, how to describe the flat..... it's definitely not what any of us expected. It's a lot more like a dorm, and i have 11 other flat mates, not just 3! It's set up in a big L with the kithchen and common area adjoined at the corner of the L. The set up is rather cold and has a very anti-social feel, but all of our flatmates are very nice so we're going to do our best to make use of the common area and make the environment a little more friendly! Oh, and the bathrooms are highly unimpressive. One toilet in teh same area as a little stall shower (as i told mom its a lot like a head on a ship for those of you boat people) So if anyones in the shower good luck going to the bathroom. 4 of us share one toilet/shower. It's really not that bad though, I hope im not making it seem too terrible. It's just not what we imagined,which often happens, and Liz and I freaked out a little at first, but we're getting used to it now! It's me, Liz, 3 other american girls, 2 swedish girls, one english girl, one girl from hong kong, and a girl from rome! Pretty awesome, I haven't gotten a chance to really talk with everyone yet, so we're going to plan a dinner flat warming party so we can all chat and get to know eachother. Pretty much our stairway (one corner of kincaid's court, which is a big square shaped building with a courtyard in the middle) is all the international students.

Well, i think i've typed a ton for now, we've pretty much been settling in since Saturday - there's been a lot to buy to settle in, which was kind of crazy and frustrating, especially since everything is so expensive here! (about double) And buying everything from dishes to toilet paper to pens and hangers was abit overwhelming! But we're just about all settled in now and all is well. All this week is fresher's week so we have a lot of events to attend and all that. I'll write more about it later, gotta go to a free lunch at the mosque now!

love and warm wishes from scotland!

~R