Miscellaneous Entry

Last Tuesday was Mardi Gras, and on Mardi Gras in the UK, they eat pancakes. No one has yet explained this to me, but it is Pancake Day. So we went over to a British friend's flat and he made us pancakes! With nutella on top. Of course.

Wednesday we went to a bar called Three Sisters for free food day! Three Sisters has this card you can buy for 3 pounds, and then with that card, you get free food from them every Wednesday and also 2 pound drinks from them every night. It's well worth it.

The past few weekends it's been beautiful weatherwise here, but this past weekend it snowed on Saturday. It was too warm to really stick on the ground, but it was too cold for me. I've been spoiled by this mild Scotland winter, I don't know what I'm going to do next year when I'm back in Chicago. We went out to the Farmer's Market on Saturday anyway, because the burgers there are absolutely delicious. I haven't really been up to anything exciting lately, except tonight was ChocSoc and we made ice cream sundaes. It was just in time, I had been craving ice cream like crazy. I just wish they had peanut butter here. I mean, they do have it, but it's not popular.

Last night me, Becca and Julia booked our flight to Amsterdam, we're going at the end of April, we're leaving on Easter, actually. So that should be interesting, how many people can say they've been to Amsterdam on Easter? I'm really excited just to be going somewhere else in Europe. I've also never been anywhere where I couldn't speak the language, even though I know everyone will speak English anyway.

My family gets here on Friday! Friday night, rather late, actually. I'm really really excited to see them and show them around Edinburgh. On Sunday, we're going on a Highlands bus trip. We're actually going to Loch Lomond, where I've been, but we get to go on a boat there. It also takes us to Stirling Castle. I'm really glad they're going to get to see the Highlands while they're here. It's so beautiful.

This week is my second to last week of class, and then Spring Break and then "finals". It's in quotes because I only have essays, and they're all due April 22nd. Should be an interesting month. Ugh. I've gotten all my midterm essays back by now. One I didn't do so well on, but the other two I'm fine with the grades I got. It's just so jarring because grades in the 50s (American B, British C) and 60s (American A, British B) are good here. It's so weird. And no one gets As. It's pretty much impossible. They just don't give them out. There is certainly no such thing as grade inflation here. They're harsh. I mean, it's the 8th ranked University in Europe, so I guess getting a B here is actually sort of good. I'm happy with it, even though I usually get A's on papers.


The other thing I've been dealing with lately is trying to change my flight to get back home earlier. I had to book a late May flight when I booked back in November, because they made you book it after all the exams were done, just in case. But I don't have any exams, so I can go home a lot earlier. Except the flights from London to Chicago don't start until May 9th, on the airline I have to use. And they're always at 11:00AM (and also only on certain days), so that makes it hard to find a flight from Edinburgh to London on the same day, especially when the morning flights all booked for some reason! Grrr. I'm still working on it, we'll see. I wanted to come back earlier than the ticket I currently hold (for May 29th) to see my lovely boyfriend and to start work a little earlier, since I desperately need to go back to work after a semester off.