Moving in to Stirling

Hello! Today I moved in to the University of Stirling. We left Edinburgh this morning and were dropped off on campus to get settled in.  Since I was nervous about meeting my roommates, I asked my IFSA representative, the one that did orientation for us in Edinburgh, if she had ever had any complaints about roommates before.  She told me that she had a student once that was in a flat with all Asian exchange students who didn't speak English very well.  She said that the girl had a good experience with them after getting used to it.  But of course after hearing this story I scared of my roommate situation. (Also, the IFSA rep told me that the reason why there are only grey squirrels in Scotland is because they ate (yes cannibalism) all of the red squirrels who are now extinct...she wasn't exactly encouraging today.)

I moved into my room and it could in fact be worse, but I will not be complaining about Butler's dorms any time again soon.  These rooms give a whole new meaning to the word cracker box.  I'll upload a video tomorrow of the whole flat (once everything is put away), so that everyone can experience Scottish flats (more like dorms).

Although the living conditions will take some getting used, the campus is really pretty. (As a side note, there are rabbits here everywhere! I see rabbits every time I go outside.  They're like the Scottish version of squirrels.) After meeting one of my 2 roommates, who is also a study abroad student from the US, my IFSA friends, my roommate (Grace), and I explored campus a little bit (pictures to follow) and headed into the city of Stirling. (note: I was extremely happy to meet roommate #1 and to see that we were both study abroad students.)

Here are the dorms.  Mine is the one on the right.

This is the loch on campus.  I actually cross a bridge over the loch to get from my dorm to the area where I have classes.

We took the bus into Stirling to do some shopping and to have lunch.  The bus ride was pretty short and the town of Stirling was awesome! It was kind of like Edinburgh except on a smaller scale.  The area that we were in was the New Town, but tomorrow we're planning on going to Stirling Castle and visit Old Town.  The area that we were in had lots of shops and places to eat.  My new favorite store "the Pound Stretcher" was kind of like a cross between Walmart and the Dollar Tree.  I found a lot of good stuff there.  Stirling has a lot of "Dollar Tree" type stores and we went to a lot of them.  I also went to this place called Argos.  You go in to the store and there are all of these catalogs lining the walls.  You look through the catalog and find the items that you want and write the code down on a piece of paper, take it to the register, pay, and then the bring your items out to you.  It was a great store! I have a take home catalog sitting on my desk actually.  

Today for lunch I tried a Scottish delicacy, and no it's not haggis.....I ate fried pizza! While this sounds really gross it actually is quite good and something that is only found in Scotland (and maybe the Fall Festival).  

This is me and my friend Katelin eating our fried pizza and "chips" This place is somewhere we will be going often (and yes Mom, Dad, and Lauren, you will be forced to try it when you come to visit).

After shopping, we went back to the University and visited each other's flats, and I met my other roommate.  He seems interesting. 

Tomorrow we're going to explore Stirling castle and then we have orientation things in the afternoon!

As requested here is a picture of most of my group.  This was taken the first day, so 2 more joined us later on.  (And yes, there is a kilt-wearing bagpiper in the background.)