So, yeah, posting on the blog is very time consuming and I still haven't even put up pictures from Malta. But what have I been doing here in St Andrews since I got back? Well, let me tell ya, it's been exciting.
I went to a ball (fancy dance) held by St Salvator's Hall (the posh dorm) the first Friday back. We all got dressed up in fancy dresses (me, Lauren, Jamie, Laurie, and Rob - who actually lives in Sallie's), drank and then danced. I danced a ceilidh (pronounced 'kayley') with Laurie. It's Scottish country dancing, quite similar to square dancing. All Scots are forced to learn it in school, but the band calls the dances anyway because a lot of people apparently don't remember. It was difficult to get the hang of, because by the time I figured out what was going on the dance was over. But the dance was fun anyway!
Laurie and I (and a few other people) had birthdays during the inter-semester break, so that Saturday we hosted a birthday bash extravaganza. It was a lot of fun, lots of great people came and we all had a really great time. I got pissed though, because I made an AMAZING party playlist on my iPod but everyone kept changing it and messing with it. Oh well, still a good time was had by all, especially me!
Then, on Tuesday of that week, I went on a date with Paul, who I've known since September but only ever randomly saw at parties when one or the other of us was drunk. We've been seeing each other pretty regularly and now I want to leave Scotland even less than I did before. Dammit, why doesn't Edinburgh have a damn film industry??
That Thursday I went to the whisky society meeting and was egged into actually drinking all of my whiskies. I'm actually very proud now, because I can drink whisky without making a face and shuddering! As proud as I am, though, I will never drink that much whisky ever again. I had 8 drams plus two more drinks at Aikman's Bar, and I was wrecked the next day. I managed to get to my morning class and sit silently, but I slept through my afternoon class and just generally wanted to die.
That Saturday, I went to the Chemistry Society Ball with Paul and a bunch of the chemists (Graeme, Mandy, Greg, Phil, Rebecca, and on and on). It was a lot of fun, but it was ceilidh all night long. I don't know how to dance ceilidh and neither does Paul because even though he is Scottish, he lived in Germany and then went to an English boarding school. But we had a good time anyway, and EVERY SINGLE BOY WAS WEARING A KILT. I was in heaven, it was unbelievable!
However, I am no longer going to the whisky society meetings because I was drafted onto a music trivia team that also meets on Thursdays. Paul and Graeme (my academic dad), Graeme's girlfriend Mandy and Paul's flatmate Greg play music trivia at the bar where Paul works and Graeme invited me to be on the team. I know, right? How could I turn it down? Okay, so there are 80 songs and you can get 1 point for artist and 1 point for song title. Before I showed up, the chemists (they are all chem students) would place 3rd consistently with about 115 points. Last week, they were in second place by 1 point with 142, and this past Thursday they actually won by 1 and a half points. Now, they have been playing trivia every Thursday for 5 years and they had never won until this past week. You know why? Because I know that Chubby Checker sings "The Twist". Yay! I am the token American on the team (everyone else is Scottish), which suits me fine.
Last weekend, Lauren talked me into going on a Deadhead-style road trip to follow her favourite band from North Carolina who were on a UK tour. So we RENTED A CAR. And since I was the only one who could drive a manual (thanks, Dad!) I had to drive. 700 Miles. In 2 Days. At Night. In the Rain. On the WRONG Side of the Road. In the Fog at 2am. It was very stressful and exhausting. The band is very good, they are called the Avett Brothers, this is their website: http://www.theavettbrothers.com/ If you search for them on YouTube, you can find lots of clips of their live shows (I recommend the song "At the Beach"). They are very energetic and have some really wonderful songs. I knew they'd be good, that's why I agreed to go. They played in Liverpool last Friday and then Glasgow on Saturday. So we drove down there. Liverpool is 300 miles south. It took 7 hours to drive there, including the time we spent stuck in traffic. We had no lunch and no CDs. British radio is freaking awful. We bought one of the band's CDs at the show in Liverpool. And listened to it for 7 more hours while we drove up to Glasgow. It was all too much for me. We stopped for lunch in Windermere in the Lake District on the way up to Glasgow, which was nice. It's a beautiful area. Beatrix Potter lived there! But by the time we got to Glasgow, I just wanted to go to sleep. There were some other Americans who were following the band too, and so we met them on Friday and had dinner with them on Saturday. Oh yeah, we met the band after all the shows. The show in Liverpool was so small, they just stepped right off the stage after the show. While we were in Liverpool, we had considered going to the Beatles museum, but my guidebook said the museum was very whitewashed and didn't mention anything about drugs or even Yoko. Wtf? We were so exhausted from the night before that we just drove away.
Oh, I forgot to mention. Lauren's friend from Univ of North Carolina Chapel Hill came to St Andrews for the semester. Her name is Jamie Lynn and she totally rules. She came to see the Avetts with us, and also the ball at Sallie's. She's living with Lauren in a flat in town, and I frequently stop there randomly in the middle of the day to see them.
Anyway, this weekend, the Avetts were in London and so we all (me, Lauren and Jamie) flew down to see them. Crazy, I know. We decided that while we were down there, we'd go see "Equus". You know, the one where Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) gets naked. Yeah, it was great. Except I always forget that I don't like theater. Even when I went to see Spamalot, after the curtain went down and the dancing started I was like 'Oh yeah ... I dislike this stuff.' But the play was definitely good. However, the usual actor who played the other lead role was out sick and his understudy was reading from a damn script. It was crazy. But Daniel Radcliffe was definitely good in spite of that, and hopefully he'll escape the Mark Hamill curse. And then afterwards, we went to the student union of King's College for a little dancing and drinking with Lauren's friends who go to Imperial College. On Saturday we went shopping on Oxford St and Carnaby St, did some brief sightseeing at Westminster Abbey and then had dinner with another of Lauren's friends. We went to the Avett's show, which was amazing of course, and then collapsed back at the hotel. On Sunday, we ... oh yeah, we went shopping again. Except I can't afford anything here. Everything is way too damn expensive. Not only is it double the price for Americans, it is just plain more expensive. Case in point, I bought a dress in October for £25 ($50!) that I was sure would have only cost me $30 at home. In December I went to that same store in San Francisco and sure enough saw that same dress for $35. Damn.
I'm back in St Andrews now and I never want to leave it ever again. Even getting down to London is incredibly stressful. Unfortunately, spring break is in 3 weeks and we are getting kicked out of the dorms. Erica and I are thinking about just renting a car (now that we've figured out that we can) and driving around Scotland for a week. We'll have to see how expensive it is, but I haven't seen hardly any of Scotland yet, which is lame because basically I love this country. Edinburgh is in my Top 3 Favourite Cities (SF and NYC are the others, duh!).
So that's been my life for the past four weeks. Now I have to go get caught up on all my school work. Crap.
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