Hello!!!

Hello Everyone!

I am finally starting the blog that I said I was going to start a couple of weeks ago!

I have been in Edinburgh for about two and a half weeks now. My flight here was pretty uneventful, which is always good. I met up with the IFSA-Butler (the program that I am going with) group in Newark. We had a very long layover in both Newark and London, so I got a chance to bond with a lot of IFSA people who were also on the group flight. The hotel we stayed at for orientation with the Butler program was very nice and right in the middle of the city, and across from some very nice pubs. The orientation was a lot of fun. We had sessions on safety in Edinburgh, the differences in the academic systems between Scotland and the US, the history of Scotland, where to get cell phones and how to open bank accounts, and of course we registered for classes. The first day we were there we had a bus tour of Edinburgh. I got some wonderful photos from some of the hills surrounding the city.















North of Edinburgh. The body of water is the Firth of Forth.




















This is a big tower on the hill where a ball is dropped from every day at 1pm at the same time that a cannon is set off at the castle, so that the boats on the firth of forth know what time it is.















This is an observatory that was built on the top of the hill, but the light pollution is so bad that it can no longer be used.















The city of Edinburgh. The big building on the top of the hill is Edinburgh Castle.















Arthur's Seat
















The Scottish Parliament building. It was designed by a Spaniard and the building is very controversial. A lot of people hate it!















Holyrood Castle. The Castle at the bottom of the Royal Mile that the Queen stays in when she is in Edinburgh.

After orientation for the IFSA-Butler program we moved into our university lodgings. They are pretty nice and I will post pictures of those soon. Then we had orientation for the University which was a lot of fun. I met so many people during tasters for societies and pub crawls and the like.

Well that's all for now. I will post more soon!!

Love always,
Lizzie