Harry Potter town is Edinburgh's other name =]

I finally went to a pub last night. How strange to be able to order alcohol. And sit in a pub with my friends. It was a pretty fun time, I met some other Butler girls I hadn't met yet and there was a cover band playing while we were there. For some reason I find it sort of strange that they accept my American driver's license here as my ID. I don't know why I think it's strange. Anyway, my neighbour Becca and I have already began to plan our weekend, since we didn't get tickets to the aquarium this weekend (they were sold out by the time we got there). Next time I want to go to an ISC (International Student Centre) event, we'll have to get there super early. But yeah, about this weekend, we've decided to try and go clubbing. So we'll see how that works out since both of us can't dance to save our lives.


Today I spent most of my time reading for my Gender and Development class. Since I'm in all third year classes (unlike many of my Butler counterparts), I'll be reading quite a bit. Which is sort of alright with me since my classes are on subjects that I'm pretty interested in. I also took my first trip to the library. I wanted to figure out how to use the computers so I could print my receipt for my camera and send it to Sony tomorrow. The library here is huge. And there are actually multiple libraries. University of Edinburgh has even more students than UIC, at 28,000. 30% of that being international students. I honestly feel right at home. UIC is the third most diverse uni (university) in the U.S.
 
There was also a society fair yesterday. I went and put my name on the list for the Harry Potter society and the Cocktail Society. The Harry Potter society has a Yule Ball next week. I'm really hoping I can find some fellow nerds to go with me. Speaking of Harry Potter, guess where I had lunch yesterday after the fair? The cafe where J.K. Rowling penned the first book. It's called the Elephant House cafe. There are elephants all over inside. It's really cool. I can't wait to go back and take pictures. I had a quiche and salad. The food is really good and the coffee is supposed to be even better. It makes perfect sense that she wrote the first book there, from where we were sitting we could see Edinburgh Castle. Beautiful. I cannot wait to take a tour. I believe that's something me and my family will do when they come visit me.

 Anyway, I also got put on the Film Society's email list. They have 3 films a week, and you can see them all for like 10 pounds a semester. And they have pub quizzes about movies every month. A pub quiz is what they call bar trivia here. I'm already planning on going to two next week. Alot of the societies are putting them on and giving the money to charity. I've always, always wanted to be able to do bar trivia at home. But I can't. For obvious reasons.

 You know what's sort of not cool about the dorms/dining hall here? There's no lunch. Now, I'm not sure if British students just don't eat lunch, or maybe they all grab stuff while they're out at class? That makes a bit of sense because the dorms (where I live) are at least a 15-20 min walk from the university. So some days I've been having lunch dates with some of the girls I met through Butler (tomorrow I have one with Lauren, a fellow Harry Potter nerd) and on the days that I don't do that, I either tough it out and eat a granola bar or if I really can't make it, I grab a sandwich by myself. Maybe that's lame, but sometimes I'm super hungry and there's no one around to eat with.