Currently, I can hear bagpipes playing outside my window. :)

The last few days have been fairly hectic.

While the weather in Edinburgh has been delightfully sunny for the past couple of days, we've unfortunately had to spend most of the daylight hours inside for various orientation meetings. These meetings have been mostly useful, giving us info about culture, getting mobile phones, a talk with a constable of the Lothian and Borders Police, a bus tour of the city, information about our houses, which included accepting the university accomodations and filling out registration paperwork to matriculate at the University of Edinburgh, as well as a talk by Margo McDonald, a member of the Scottish Parliament.

Yesterday we spent the day from 9 to 3 in these meetings, and then we went on our bus tour of the city. They drove us up to the castle, then to Calton Hill, where there are just the most extrodinary views of the city, and then down to Holyrood, while commenting on much of what we were passing, and telling us colorful stories.

It was concluded that the Scottish were rather intense people after hearing one story about these two men, William Burke and William Hare, who made a business in the 1800s by killing no less than 19 and potentially as many as 30 people in order to sell the bodies to the School of Anatomy for study. Eventually, to avoid consequence, Hare turned in Burke who was then tried and convicted of these murders. Burke was then hung in front of an audience of about 25,000 people. His body was then brought out into one side of the audience and cut open so that they could show his organs to the people. They then stitched him up, rolled him to the other side of the audience, and did the same thing.

But oh no, that's not all. They then used his skin for leather bags and such, and have his preserved skeleton in the anatomy museum with his hand over a leather bound book, which was of course made from him. It was a pretty intense story.

After the tour finished, about 10 of us decided to go ahead and get cell phones, and since it was thursday, the stores were still open (thursday is their big extended hours day). I managed to get a phone for 5 pounds and do a pay as you go sort of plan for pretty cheap rates, especially to the US, which was fairly exciting. We then wandered around before splitting up a bit to go grab dinner. I went with 3 others and had some good, fairly cheap indian food which was pretty exciting. We then met up again and hit up a bar, which was a lot of fun.

Today our meetings were mostly dealing with our flats that we move into tomorrow and doing some registration.

Currently I appear to be signed up to take the following classes:
British History 1
From 'Sigismunda' to 'The Hay Wain': British Art 1759-1824
Scottish Ethnology 1B

Both British History and Scottish Ethnology are both just for visiting students because they're one semester versions of full year courses that are often taken by full year students at the university, however it sounds like some of the lectures and tutorials will be with students enrolled in the full year version.

I'm hoping that all the classes will be fun and interesting. :) I will be fully confirmed in these courses after I meet with my dean of students on Sunday. Classes start on Monday which is pretty exciting.

At this point we're just enjoying the city and exploring. Tomorrow I'll finally move into my accomidations in the morning, giving me the rest of the day to do all the shopping I need to do (for things like bedding, towels, hair dryers, plates, groceries, ethernet cord, etc) which is a really exciting prospect. :)

I believe tonight the plans are just to go out and have some fun in the city.

That's all that's really been going on for the last couple of days.