The Semester has officially begun...lovely

Hiya!
That's what everybody says here. Well Classes have just started, and they are a bit longer than I am used to, but I think they should be ok. I have four classes. My speech class is on tues. and thursday mornings, and my intercultural communications class are in those afternoons by the same teacher. Then I have my health and wellness class on mon. and wed. mornings. I think that is going to be my favorite class. Our Scottish class is only on monday nights and I have to serve lunch as my chore mon. and wed., so all in all not too bad a schedule. Our Scottish class is about 4 hours long, but at least our professor has a Scottish accent! There's a tad bit more homework than I was hoping for but what can ya do? As long as I keep good track of the deadlines and due dates I should be ok.

This past weekend we got a tour of the castle in Edinburgh and had our Amazing Race there the next day! The castle was awesome! The view it had was so amazing! I tried snapping a bunch of pics but you just can't capture that kind of beauty. My lens couldn't take it all in! There were tons of guys in kilts walking around playing the bagpipes, and that was pretty cool too. It was the perfect background music while we enjoyed the sweet view from on top of the castle. While we were there we also got to see the crowned jewels inside and some of the prisons and rooms of the castle.

After visiting the castle we walked around the royal mile, looking at shops and performers. There was a man with an invisible head that was pretty funny. He pulled his jacket up over his head and used a wire to prop his hat and sunglasses up so it looked like he had an invisible head. There was also a guy dressed up like brave heart, but alot of the people were scared of him haha, he was a big guy. The royal mile was super cool just because it was all part of the old town. So all the roads are still cobblestone. I still can't believe how old everything is here! Just walking past houses is so cool! A lot of them have names carved in over the front doorway, and stone walls for fences.

We got a lot more familiar with Edinburgh after the amazing race we had the next day, sunday. We walked all over princes street and the royal mile. We saw some other castles that we will have to check out later. We also saw the little coffee shop where Harry Potter was started! we think we saw the castle that they used for the movie as well, but we didn't have enough time to go hike up and see it. It is always very busy in Edinburgh, there are tons of people and traffic. I would hate driving. Everything is so close together, and you really have to watch it on the sidewalks cuz if you step right on the edge you'll either get run over or loudly honked at if they're paying good attention. It's a very lively city.

Oh and it SNOWED here yesterday!!!! We were all a little bummed cuz we had hoped we had said good bye to snow for the year, but I guess it missed us to much and had to pay us a little visit. There's still some of it on the grounds, but the streets are all clear. I went hiking the day it snowed to take some pictures cuz it was very pretty. I ended up hiking on the trails for an hour and a half, it was so beautiful!!! I found a trail that went along the river and it was so nice to get out. The snow was already melting so it was very wet, and there were big mud pits in part of the trail that I had to find my way around but it wasn't a big problem. I was very happy with how my shoes held up tho. When I got back to the main trial they were caked with mud but my feet didn't even feel wet or cold. So they worked really well for hiking.

When I got back to the house we had a travel session later that night and then we all started looking for flights for our next extended break. I really really wanted to go to Prague, but all the flights we looked at were a bit much, apparently there is something going on that weekend, so they upped all the flight prices to there. So now the group I'm traveling with is thinking about staying in Scotland and seeing something. I'm still not entirely sure on plans as of yet, but we are going to do some more searching tonight. Everyone is also trying to work on budgeting for all our trips and so it's getting a little stressful around here. I think we are all wishing we had brought more money, there is just so much to do and see it's hard to only choose a few. Oh well, we will figure it out. I'm starting to get much more comfortable and settled in, but I do still miss home every now and then. I hope you are all doing lovely and things are going great! I miss you!!!