More on Stirling

Hello! So, as promised I took some video of my flat/dorm.  I think everyone will really appreciate how interesting it really is.  I just wanted to note that all of the Scottish kids here think these accommodation are completely normal while every American I know here thinks that we're slumming it. Yes, they could be worse, but they aren't what we're used to.  (Also, filming this  seriously compromised any friendship potential with the people that were watching me do this who now think I'm crazy.)

I hope that this video will shed some light on Scottish living situations.  I must say I really miss my room back at good old Butler. (I miss the bathrooms too. My friend Dana said that they reminded her of the ones she uses at campsites.)

This morning my friends and I decided that we would head in to town, get some breakfast, and then go see the castle...one problem: nothing is normal on Sundays.  People here do not function before 10:00am.  We were at the bus stop ready to eat and sightsee by 9, when we discovered that the bus doesn't run until after 10 on Sundays.  Considering we had orientation at 2 today, this was a slightly tragic.  By the time our bus rolled in to Stirling it was already almost 11.  We decided to save the castle until Tuesday and just have a nice breakfast and go grocery shopping.  

We ate at this really nice place in Stirling that had a good price on brunch.  (side note: we were pretty much the only people functioning in town at this time in the morning.  People didn't start coming out until around 12.)  I had the largest plate of bacon and eggs that have ever seen with my white coffee (I'm attempting to add Scottish lingo into my everyday life now.)  Two of my friends had the traditional Scottish breakfast and did try haggis.  They said it was ok, but honestly it looked nasty.

 This is a picture of haggis that I got off of Google and is pretty accurate of what it really looked like. For those who don't know, haggis is made of sheep innards, vegetables, and oats. It's this really gross texture that I won't go into here.  My IFSA rep told us it was like meatloaf...well meatloaf, haggis is not.

After breakfast, we went to a grocery store called Tesco.  This place was the hugest grocery store ever and they had everything, but brands are really weird here.  There's things that are made my the same company as at home, but with different names.  For example they have "Walkers" potato chips that look exactly like the Lays logo and they're made by the same company, Frito Lay.  (They also have really weird chip flavors like Prawn Cocktail.  People over here eat weird things...like haggis.) I also found Scottish Ramen called Super Noodles.  Also, we found where all the people go on Sunday mornings...they go to Tesco.

After we finished shopping we went back to campus. There was an optional campus tour today that we didn't plan to take because we have already pretty much figured out campus, (It's pretty easy.  On one side of the loch are the flats/dorms and on the other are the academic buildings) but unfortunately as we walked up to our flats/dorms, (carrying our Tesco bags) we accidently got looped into joining a tour in progress because one of our IFSA friends made a big deal at dragging us in.  It was really awkward when the guide told us how to get to Tesco.  Everybody kind of eyed our bags suspiciously. 

The rest of the day pretty much was orientation stuff and nothing too exciting (I did get my student ID though).  Tomorrow I have orientation stuff all day (This really makes me feel like a Freshman all over again.  Especially the session called "getting the most out of your college experience.) But I'll try to take some more video or pictures of campus for tomorrows blog post!