Sold Out...Again and Again

On Tuesday, most of the visiting students went to a mandatory meeting while the freshers headed to the introduction to their school. The visiting students filled a huge lecture hall. One of the administrators asked us if we were from different countries and kept listing ones with more and more students until she reached the US, and we filled more than half the auditorium. There were also a good number of students from Canada. We got a speech on culture adjustment so that we would be more prepared for the British grading system and style of lecturing. 


After that, we tried to get tickets for a castle tour, at which point we found out they were sold out at 9:30am, as were all the tours for the day. This was when we realized that our Fresher's pass might not be worth what we paid. We spent the afternoon at the Scottish National Museum. Though some buildings, like the castle, are expensive, all the museums are free. The museum was fantastic, perfect for a history nerd. 


Later, we headed back to Teviot for another pub quiz. This one was run by the radio station and had 9 rounds. We did a lot better, but were still stumped by specific British pop culture and history. We were in 3rd place after the 6th round, but fell to 5th by the end. I actually thought it was better that way, as the prize for 3rd was a Roger Moore blowup doll. 


Thursday, we got to the box office before 9am in hopes of getting tickets for the Zoo or the Historical Celtic Tour of Edinburgh. Alas, they were both gone by 9:15am. Instead we tried the Historical Tour of the University. Unfortunately, that was a wash as the fresher's guides (students) had not been given the material ahead of time and barely knew what was going on. Instead, we checked out the library, which has much better study space than Georgetown. 


We wandered up the main road until we reached the Royal Mile. This is where all the government buildings are and it's very tourist-y. The buildings are gorgeous there. 

There are lots of really fun street performers:

And tourist trap restaurants:

St. Giles' Cathedral:

There was one street performer who got us to stop and kept trying to build up a crowd. He spent most of his time talking though. One of his ploys was to get us to clap so more people would come over. Too bad for him, we didn't clap that loudly. So he told us to stop clapping like Scots watching golf and to clap like Americans! Which requires us to yell WOO very loudly. 

Beyond the Royal Mile is Princes Street, which is even more tourist-y, but also beautiful buildings (and a huge monument to Sir Walter Scott). 

Even though we weren't able to get into many Fresher's events, we got a feel for the city and saw a lot of it.