Today was an actually rainy day. Our first real one, where I woke up and the first thing I heard was drops on my window. So that's one down, a zillion left to go. Good thing I'm rather fond of rain.
So, shame on me, I haven't even properly introduced you to my surroundings. How rude. So, first of all, there's my flat. I have my own room, and there are three other single rooms in the flat, plus a kitchen/living room, a bathroom, a little entryway thing, and two big shared closets. (We don't put anything in them.) The building you can tell is pretty old, but the flat seems to have been redone recently, so it's really quite nice. The kitchen has fairly new appliances - a stovetop, an oven, a weird broiler thing that they call a "grill" (I've been making toast in it, which is incredibly energy-inefficient because you have to operate it with the door open, seriously it's in the manual, but whatever I don't really want to buy a toaster), a full-size fridge/freezer (except that for the four of us, we have way too much freezer space and not enough fridge space, so that was poor planning on the part of the fridge company), a microwave, and an electric kettle (classic UK). The bathroom is small, looks like a prison cell, and smells funky despite our nice citrus air freshener, but it's not like we spend that much time in there anyway.
Our flat is in College Wynd, one of the university-owned tenements. (Note: that word has no negative connotation here.) It's arranged into ten stairwells with ten flats off each one. In the center of the building is a cute little courtyard, which would be better if it had more plants, but no one asked me. The building is on, unfortunately, the main clubbing street in Edinburgh. This makes for extremely noisy nights, but it also means we're really right in the city center. Basically all of the really cool areas are within an easy five-minute walk. The university's campus that all of my classes are going to be on (EU has four campuses) is within about a three-minute walk. It's wonderful. There's a cool shortcut to class up a stone staircase and through a tunnel (WU underpass-style! except the art is less awesome ads and more standard graffiti).
The campus area where all my classes are is called George Square. (I think. I've heard that term used pretty loosely, and I'm not sure if it only describes the green park-ish area in the middle that I know is called George Square or is used to cover the entire campus. I think the latter.) It's a rather odd conglomeration of buildings. About a third are really old and historic and beautiful (including, fun fact, Teviot Row House, the oldest purpose-built student union building in the world, constructed from funds raised by EU students), about a third are really new and modern and beautiful, and the other third look like Eliot Hall at Wash U - yeah, the concrete box one. Fortunately, the two buildings my classes are in fall into the first two categories. Woot. Unfortunately, the library falls into the third category. But they're redoing the inside. So that's nice.
The city as a whole is, need I even say it, beautiful. Most of the buildings are really old, and a lot of the streets are cobblestone. (Side note: they say walking on cobblestones is really hard in heels. That is true. Recommend not trying it. I walked all the way to church this morning in heels - no one died, but there were some teetery moments.) There are lots of areas made entirely of little independent shops and restaurants, which are absolutely my favorite. There are also historical sites everywhere - I honestly think two-thirds of the buildings here are historical sites. My favorite things so far, nearby, are Greyfriars Kirkyard, this old church and reeeeeally old cemetery (contains the grave of one Tom Riddle - the cemetery is also close to the previously mentioned Elephant House), and the big cathedral that's about two blocks away from my flat, St. Giles. There are bells that ring there every quarter hour, and then of course that chime the hour. It's not loud enough to be annoying or distracting, just loud enough so that I hear it rather faintly in the distance and think, oh hey, I'm in Scotland. :) There's also a main-ish street that runs near my flat with lots of shops on it. It's very convenient - there are two grocery stores within a five- to ten-minute walk, as well as a drugstore, several discount stores ("Pound Stretcher" and "Pound Saver" being only two), and half a dozen charity shops (secondhand stores similar to Salvation Army, where the proceeds go to a charity - it's wonderful, they're absolutely packed with good clothes).
Princes Street is also within ten to fifteen minutes away, and that's where all the big name-brand stores are. There's a Topshop, H&M, Urban Outfitters, Zara...the list goes on. It's fun to go down there, although I haven't actually gone into any of those places yet. All in good time.
Hopefully I've given you a somewhat satisfactory introduction now to my surroundings! Tomorrow is our first day of classes, but I have nothing to do (life is hard), so I plan to do some walking around and picture-taking. Sorry I'm temporarily really boring.
It's so great right now - it's almost midnight and I have my window open and there is NO NOISE from the club strip. Oh, Sunday night. You are my new favorite.
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