A Year at St Andrews...

Freshers Week at St Andrews was very interesting. The hall I'm staying in is called University Hall and it happens to be the hall that has the most number of social events and the freshers week hall schedule left no doubt about that. And at most events, especially the evening ones, drinks flow more freely than water (our hall is the only one with free drinks bars), so it has most definitely been interesting.  We've had an event every afternoon and every evening. The evening once are usually just large parties, with music, dancing, and drinks. The afternoon events were mostly smaller scale getting to know people things. We had ice-breaker games one afternoon, tea parties (albeit with drinks) on another, crazy golf on the putting green, a photo scavenger hunt and a few others. 

The first evening I was here, there was a "Wild Wild West" themed party. We had Ceilidh Dancing the next night, Miss Becca and a few other bands playing the following night, a "Club Tropicana" themed party the night after that, and then my favourites: Boobsoc vs. AGV pub crawl and the Friday Night Bop.

All Dressed up for Tribal Bop

Ok, so, I know this is long overdue, but I've been busy/tired/without internet access for the past few days. This is going to be a long entry, so, here goes.

To begin, my train journey from London to Edinburgh was quite nice. It was cool to see the countryside along the way. There was a bunch of girls in the same compartment as me who were traveling to Edinburgh together. They were quite loud, but all I remember from their conversations was this one girl saying "Oh my God, that is so cool" in a British accent over and over again.  It was most interesting.
Then there's the guy who was sitting next to me. He seemed really nice at first, but later on every time he would feel a sneeze coming on, he would pinch his nose shut, thereby not really allowing himself to sneeze. I'm pretty sue that stopping a sneeze like that can do some significant damage to your sinuses.
When I got out on to the station at Edinburgh, I figured I was too tired to drag both my bags to the hotel. So I kept one of them at the station at the place that allows you to store your bags there for a fee.  It was a good choice as the road to the hotel was a winding uphill road and one heavy suitcase and a backpack was more than enough.

Our orientation was lovely. There are six other UC students beside myself who are studying in St Andrews as well. The first evening we walked down to the EAP study center and then had dinner with the programme directors at really nice restaurant. The food choices were lovely and our director ordered wine for us too. I was able to have a really nice three course meal. In the evening the bunch of us went to a pub. But we were all so tired that we went back to the hotel quite early.
The next day we had our orientation information session at the study center in the morning. They told us all about what we should and should not do and gave us some information we needed. We were on our own for lunch and the seven of us went to a pub for lunch.
After lunch we went to see the Edinburgh Castle. There was a guided tour where the guide took us all around the castle and told us cool and interesting things about it. After that we walked all the way to the other end of town to begin our hike up to Arthur's seat. Which is the highest point of the hills formed by an extinct volcano. It was a relatively easy hike, but quite tiring when you haven't done much more than sit in front of a computer for the past month and a half. I have a video of me at the top.
 We had dinner again that evening at an Italian restaurant and I felt like I could get used to having a glass of wine at dinner everyday ;-). Some of us went to a pub again, I didn't have anything this time, frankly, I'm not really confident enough to order my own alcoholic beverage.They had free live music later on by this Scottish indie band. I stayed to listen, but not for too long, I went back by 11 pm.

My next entry will (hopefully) be about my journey to St Andrews and my first few days here. But right now I gotta go to lunch.

UPDATE: Pictures of Edinburgh are now up!

On Tuesday, I went sightseeing around London with my cousin, again. It was nice to be back in the city, it felt as lovely as ever. It was a bit windy and chilly, more so than last time.

We did a lot of walking this time. We went to Westminster, saw Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. We walked to the Tate Modern. The Tate Modern was nice, they had some interesting pieces of art there.
From there we walked across the Millennium Bridge towards St. Paul's Cathedral.  Then we took a bus to London Bridge. From there, we took the lovely walk, along the Thames, all the way up to Tower Bridge.  Walking by the river meant we felt the cold and wind even more, but it wasn't too bad. Then we walked across Tower Bridge and around the Tower of London. It all looked very impressive.  To borrow my cousin's words "Tower Bridge is the prettiest bridge in London".

I am a bit tired now. Tonight is my last night down here. I leave bright and early tomorrow to take the train from King's Cross to Edinburgh.  I'm a bit excited and a bit nervous. I have to go put my stuff in order now. So, I have to say goodbye.

Oh wait! I almost forgot. I have more pictures! Right Here.

I've spent the last two days sightseeing in London Town. It's been pretty amazing. It was lovely to actually see the places in person, when I'd only seen them in pictures or on TV before.

Buckingham Palace was lovely. I saw part of the Changing of the Guard there yesterday morning. It was quite cool. The gates of the Palace are massive. I mean, you would expect palace gates to be massive but actually seeing them left quite an impression.
The parks are lovely too. I walked through Green Park and Hyde Park and they seem like lovely places to take a contemplative walk or even to go for a morning jog, which quite a few people were doing.
Trafalgar Square was another place that struck me as being huge. The sun was playing hide and seek when we were there and I kept having to take off and put on my coat.
I also Saw Piccadilly Circus and the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of Natural History, which were quite nice too.

London definitely seems like an amazing place. It feels rather familiar although I'm not sure exactly why that is. It could be because something about it reminds me of Mumbai; like the architecture of some buildings, the trains and train stations, the fact that traffic moves on the left. It could also be because I've lived in London in my imagination before. I'd even looked at pictures of it when I was younger and imagined myself there. It definitely lived up to all that I'd imagined it to be and was in some ways even more impressive.

I'm not done seeing this lovely city yet, I'm going to visit a few more places in the next few days and I'll be sure to write about them too.

In the meantime,  here are some pictures for you to enjoy!
Let me know what you think of them and I'd love to hear anything else you might have to say or ask.

I'm writing now. This might not be up to my usual standard because I am still a bit jet lagged. I slept for 12 hours last night, but I'm still tired and sleepy right now.

The flights were both good. The first one had a little over an hour's delay. This meant that I had to rush a little to get to my next flight. but it was alright and I made it with time to spare. The flight was good because I managed to take a few naps on board.  The second flight was good too. It didn't start out that way tho, When I got to my seat, I saw that it was one of those near an emergency exit, and didn't have a window. I was upset, because I really like to have a window. Then I saw that there was no one in the seat right behind me, which had a window, so I moved there and I had a happy flight. Granted I had to keep the shutters down most of the time, and when we were landing in London, the sky was overcast and rainy so I barely got to see the city properly, but I still enjoyed having the window.

It was nice when I finally landed. My aunt, uncle and cousin met me at the airport  and we drove back to their place. Everything looked quite lovely. the buildings, the houses, the streets and sidewalks everything. It reminded me of Bombay quite a bit too. Especially since people here drive on the left (i.e. the right) side of the road. I felt like the streets were quite narrow compared to those in the US, but everything moves pretty smoothly. Although there is a bit more traffic than I've seen in a long time.  The trees look familiar here (unlike those in California which always looked quite alien to me and they weren't even friendly).

I'm liking it here so far. I haven't taken any pictures yet, but I will go into the city soon and I'll take some pictures there.

You can ask me anything you're curious about in the comments. I'll read and answer them.

I have to give a special shoutout to three amazing friends who made me a lovely little video postcard. Thanks guys! I loved it!