I may be under your thumb, but my country isn't under England's! ...ooh, burn!

first things first

Happy 27th Birthday Greg!

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

on to posting

life sucks! ok, that is completely untrue because I am in freakin Scotland people! but, computerwise, life sucks harder than Ireland.
I know, you are all excited to hear.

1) computer lab completely closed all weekend. this coming weekend will be awful
2) lab only open from 9am-4:45pm weekdays. don't even get me started.
3)not allowed to connect any outside media such as ipods, or cameras (no pictures people, sorry)
4)I am not able to disable the popup blocker. this is the worst because it means I can't use AIM!!!! seriously. kill me now. (for you special people that I do talk to online, we will just have to use gmail chat. so all is not lost, we will just have to have latenight conversations on your end)

other than the horrible computer situation, Scotland is pretty cool.
my flight in was luckily uneventful, we flew from Dublin to London to Edinburgh, and it felt like all day. it is nothing compared to my day of flying to come home, but I am so excited to come home that I will be excited for that flight. we got settled into our flats. I still have my own room. and my roomie Alyssa and I used our bus pass and went into town. we basically just rode the bus until we were too hungry. we got off and found a 'pizza, fish, and chicken shop' and got some fish and chips. I almost got a burger and then I looked at the food, and I am pretty sure their idea of a burger is deepfried. because everything in there was battered and deepfried. I dont want a deepfried burger. gross. the fish was good though.
then we went next door to a pub and watched Ghana kick some country's butt! and everything is so cheap here! it is awesome! our professors warned us to save our money and buy stuff in Scotland, but you just don't understand until you get here and everything is cheaper! I think I will actually get to eat out some more than I have been.
and they have Strongbow here - because it is the UK! - Ireland had Bulmer's, which is Magners in the US and I will definitely look for it when I get home. but strongbow, it is just yummy...and cheap! after the game, my roomie and I started to head home and we realized we still aren't in a 24 hour town. it was 7 pm and most of the buses has stopped running at 6:30...on a saturday! sheesh! we did get on our right bus, but it makes the weekends suck more because we can't plan day trips because we have no way to get to the pick up places because the buses don't run early enough. I haven't quite figured out how I am going to fill up my weekend yet, nothing seems available.
later saturday night a group of us and one of our professors found the common room on campus and watched the US v Italy game. the italians cry everytime they get hurt. but they also scored the only US goal too. (which technically means the US has yet to score in the World Cup). one of the Italians kicked the ball the wrong way and made a goal against his own team. so the game ended 1 to 1. thanks Italy!

yesterday we took the bus all the way to the city center, and it was crazy cool. Edinburgh is possibly the oldest city I have been in. for one thing, the main road has all these posh stores on one side of the street, and then a rugged park and CASTLE on the other side! and on the side with the castle is old town. haha, old town for real. just looking at the buildings I thought I was in 16th century Scotland. old has a whole different meaning for these people.

also we got rain for the first time in 3 weeks. but it wasn't as windy cold. I have discovered that there is more to do in Edinburgh than there was in Dublin, but there is less to do in Scotland than there was in Ireland. they don't quite have the number of day tours I have been used to. my roomies and I really want to go to Loch Ness but any day trip there includes Glencoe and the Highlands, both of which we are going to see on a group field trip next monday. we are a little miffed at our professor for planning a day trip that goes right by Loch Ness but not to it. why would you do that?! Loch Ness is the one place you have to see in Scotland!!! sheesh.
we are looking into trains to a town near the Loch and then maybe a bus or something the rest of the way. there is a chance my roomie Ali and I will jump in. I may wade in. we will have to see how cold it is that day.

I come home next week! that is too exciting to really think about!