In which she flies far from home...

Having left Austin for Dallas at a fairly reasonable hour, and having suffered the abysmally tedious (as much to read about as to write about) flight to London, while not having slept well enough to call it "sleep" due to a horrendous disorientation and nausea on the plane, our protagonist arrives, somewhat ruffled and bleary-eyed, in London's Heathrow airport (but very grateful for the delightfully sunny, sixty-some-odd degree weather). And now for the baffling question, "to proceed through customs at arrival, or to go to her connecting terminal?" Indecision left her waffling until a well-aimed question sent her across the airport by bus and through the highly efficient security into Terminal 5 (after an unexpectedly simple trip through Customs into said terminal, and still concerned that maybe she had made the wrong choice and her yellow duffel would be sitting, lonely and unclaimed, in the baggage area while she happily jetted off to another country).

And there opened before her...the large, new, modern airport, very much like that in Madrid, come to think of it, and packaged with more languages in a minute than in a semester. Following a people-watching layover worthy of Las Vegas, our heroine boarded yet another plane (by local time, 24 hours after leaving her home) and promptly fell asleep, to be awakened 45 minutes later at landing. She and her fellows then disembarked onto the tarmac in a lovely, bright, seventy-degree day and proceeded to the baggage claim area where she awaited, anxiously, to be reunited with a bag that may or may not have arrived. Fortunately, for her and it, it had.

Bags in tow, she presented herself to the student welcoming committee of the University, and thirty minutes later, she joined five others like herself in a van to be taken to her new residence, a four-person, six-room flat with kitchennete, living area and shared bathroom. She has so far met two of her flatmates - a freshman from Liverpool and an exchange student from Boston, and has formed no opinion of them whatsoever (except, maybe, that the Bostonian and her mother are lacking in the constitution to walk out, find a grocer and walk back, as they felt it necessary to call a taxi).

Having eaten only an energy bar since 1100 h, and it now being 1600 h, our heroine determined that another energy bar would not suffice for her dinner, and, after pushing her belongings hastily into the relatively few drawers available, she donned her walking shoes and went out to see what she could. Idiotically, she did not take her camera (so nothing will currently be done about the complaints of too many words in the previous post) Due east and one major thoroughfare over she found North/South Ridge and headed south, it being as good a direction as any. Nine minutes after departing her domicile, she had already encountered two grocers and two foodmarts (and so, she feels somewhat justified in the opinion of her flatmate's inability to reconnoiter). Furthermore, turning east yet again, she found herself confronted by King Arthur's Seat and the Salisbury Crags lit by the westering sun. Thus the idiotic forgetting of the camera.

Turning due north, she followed their line, dodging, occasionally, back to North/South Ridge to determine her position. And so she found herself in the heart of historic Edinburgh (Old Town), confronted by a castle, more cathedrals than you could count and many other such lovely building as theaters, museums and the like. She will obtain pictorial evidence of these occurrences early in the week. In her wanderings, she also came across the Firth of Forth (rather difficult to miss), though she did not approach the water (feeling, by this time, very hungry now that an hour had passed), and, rather easier to miss, by happy chance she stumbled across the Edinburgh University School of Geosciences (imagine her delight!).

Now feeling quite hungry, and, having evaluated the financial merits of dining out or paying a visit to the local Tesco, she turned her bow for the market (and found it quite overflowing with new students such as herself). So overflowing, in fact, that she has yet to obtain cutlery or a place setting. Thus, her purchases were based solely on her ability to consume them without the necessity of these objects (hummus and carrots, bread for dipping, eggs to be consumed on the bread and cooked with a happily provided fry pan, no doubt of suspect quality). Following a very long debate on what items deserved places in her basket, she returned home (escaping with only a 16 pound, 5 pence bill-which she had in exact change thanks to a very thick coffee in London) and determined with equally heavy purchases in the future, her arms are destined to be quite sore.

Now we give a brief mention of our leading lady's thoughts:

Sunrise over the Atlantic at 35,000 ft is lovely. So is morning over NE. Scotland, when the clouds are sunk into the hollows of the hills.

Edinburgh is beautiful, and the people are astoundingly friendly!

Her room is dreadfully spartan. But it's situated on the inside of the building and faces the common courtyard as opposed to the busy street, which makes it much quieter. On the other hand, it's terribly awkward because she can see everyone who goes out to smoke, particularly considering the only benches are just off to the corner of her window and down two stories. This means she cannot avoid looking down at them, and they are quite likely to look up and see her while she's working; how distracting.

It's rather chilly, and she needs to close her window (and, preferably, go to bed).

Oh yes, and she just met her third flatmate. Not sure what to think.