The past couple of days have been pretty reading intense, but I thought I'd give you an update anyway. I'll be telling you all about the stuff I've done. I guess I might sound really busy, but most of the time in between these fun things below, I was sitting in the library or my room reading. Yay.
Rainbow and fall trees while waiting for the bus...
Thursday I had lunch with Claire (the olderish one who is from Crail - say kray-eel) at a cute little French style place. I should have had a panini in memory of those from Paris a few summers ago... You can't go wrong with tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, and prosciutto on a baguette, but the French have a special touch... Anyway, after more reading, Claire and I went to the Institute of Scottish Historical Research reception, where I met (for real instead of in class) the professor I think I may end up working with for my thesis, Dr. Bill Knox. We had an interesting conversation about contemporary politics (both American and British - yay for having the BBC as my homepage!). I ended up actually correcting him about something, which I probably should have just let it got. However, I was saying it before I realized it. We were talking about Bill Clinton, and Bill (since professors are called by their first names here - weird) said something about when he was the Governor of Alabama. I got kinda confused and said something along the lines of, "Oh, you mean Arkansas." Oops.
Anyway, I also met Roger (Mason, my supervisor)'s wife, Ellen (I think). She was wearing a pair of Stuart Nye dogwood earrings, so of course I had to comment. Bill had no idea what was so cool about it, but Ellen thought I was awesome for actually recognizing this random obscure Southern jewelry designer. She from the States, which makes it slightly less random, but it was really cool to find a fellow fan.
Anyway, after the reception, we all went out to dinner at Pizza Express (quite good food, actually), and I got to know Laura, a Scottish history PhD from the California, a bit more. She is quite a cool character whom I hope to hang out with some more.
I ended up taking a taxi home on Thursday night because it was really cold. I'm going to have to save that for special occasions because it was £4 pounds for a 5 minute taxi ride. Whoa!
St. Salvator's Quad:
Friday, after spending most of the day reading, I had dinner with Bailey and Matt, which was really nice. Matt cooked a really yummy chicken parmesan. They have a lovely apartment off of one of the major streets in town (I have to say I'm really jealous), but I think they're in one of the few University managed apartments in the center of town. I would love to have lived in the center, but it would have been really difficult to do on my own. Where I am isn't perfect, but it does the job. Maybe when people come to visit, we can rent a place in town for a week or something and I can have the town experience as well as the long walk experience!
So that brings me to today. This morning, I went to town to do some shopping. I bought a mattress pad (which makes a good bit of difference - still not as good as my mattress in the states tho) and some other household stuff. I also stocked up on groceries for the week and bought some postage stamps. Also, I realized that I never want to use the self-scan at Tesco again! That thing is so finnicky, and the people who are supposed to be attending it have 16 other things to do. Urrgh. Also, the bus almost tried to ignore me on the way back. Not happy about that. Tho when I stuck my arm and shopping out in front of the bus, I think the driver got nice and awake!
It turned out to be a beautiful day (in the morning/early afternoon), so I finally decided to check out the beach in the afternoon. It was lovely. I'm posting some pictures. It was still chilly and very windy, but a great place to be/live 3 minutes from. I'm probably going to try to start jogging over there on the 'coastal path.' I dunno how far it goes, but it should be pretty!
The beach:
This evening (after an inadvertent nap), I went back into town to meet Jessica and her flatmate Katy for coffee. It was quite cold, and the place I wanted to go to wouldn't let us get wine and dessert. Lame. So we had coffee (decaf - which here is spelled with two f's - weird). Katy is a semi-local, so it was fun to get to know her. She's in the Middleastern/Central Asian conflict studies program with Jessica.
So that's what's happening in my neck of the woods! Nothing super exciting, but still fun all the same.
St. Salvator's Chapel by night:
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