Day 2: (2/4/10) Meeting and Drinking

Not wanting to miss out on any more events, I planned ahead for day 2. I woke up at 8am, showered and ate breakfast (eggs, a flatbread apple tart thing, Rice Krispies with "semi-skimmed milk" aka 2%, a piece of bread and another café mocha) with some really nice Asians. I can't remember the girl's name, but the guy's name was Chi. I decided to sit with him after he greeted me while I was getting my food. The cafeteria ladies were nicer and helpful because they realized I was new. So for breakfast I can get a main course AND cereal or porridge (I don't think I'm brave enough to try that), a fruit (or bread) and a drink.
At around 9:30, I headed out to the Introductory Talk. I figured out the day before, it takes me about 30 minutes to walk into town. It was cool because I followed a group of people that were apparently going to the same place. Upon walking in, I looked around thinking about where I should sit. When I looked to the left, I spotted a girl sitting all alone. I thought to myself, "Well, I should definitely make some gal pals" and sat down beside her. Turns out her name is Victoria, she's an English major from NC, an hour outside Charlotte, and goes to school in Kentucky (I believe). She was really nice (and knows who Sugar Glyder is!!!!) we expressed our desires to travel, learned that we live on the same floor and decided to stick together. We both agree that British accents are AMAZING! :D The session itself was quite useful since I learned about the St Andrews travel agency place where I can get student discounts on traveling, saw who Wendy (the SSS-Student Support Services lady) is and signed up for a tour (Victoria's going too!) to Lochness near the end of the month.
Victoria and I shopped around for a while. I found some cheap brown shoes (they were on sale at a consignment shop for £4.99--about $10) and some postcards for 40p (pence, they're cents). Both of us were looking for a phone and almost found one (they apparently ran out of that cheap model). We also found Tesco and that's when I realized the place I had gone last night (although right across the street and convenient as well was probably not where I was directed last night). There I bought heavy duty tape (for my plug so it will stay on my adapter, it does not fit tight enough, but it is fixed now due to the tape), laundry detergent and Special K bars.
I decided I was not going to pay more than £9 (pounds, about $18) for a phone, since I would have to pay an extra £10 (about $20) to "top up" (put minutes on it, for pay-as-you-go), so I still haven't gotten one yet. Everyone keeps asking me for my number, so I hope I can get a phone soon. I looked online and apparently they only ship to your billing address…and only in the UK and that's not applicable to me. :(
During this time alone, I went and took a library tour and found out that although it was on my map, the town library was not the University Library… my bad :P This helpful guy who's wife apparently studies here as a post-grad showed me to the right place.
On the tour, I met Sahd from Pakistan who has been studying in New York and a girl who's name I can't remember. Sahd was delighted to hear about Zareen. The three of us went to the session about "studying and living in the UK" at 2pm. Upon leaving the session, I met up with Victoria again and we went to get our tickets for the Lochness trip.
We proceeded to the wine reception where professors were available to meet and I had my first LEGAL alcoholic drink (red wine). I met some philosophy professors and a few other people studying abroad. Wendy talked to us again and some important figures gave some interesting speeches about the university. At the end we bought our tickets to the Ceilidh festival happening the following evening.
After that, I walked back to New Hall to put my stuff down and get dinner. However, on my way back I made plans with people who happened to live in new hall with me (Carter and Amelia…I believe) to go out to a pizza place.
When I met up with the others, we all went to the Pizza Express where there were many more people that we met up with there. The wait was apparently going to be long so we walked around trying to find places that would take us in until we finally found an Italian restaurant called Bella Italia. It's so odd to see how restaurants here advertise for valentine's day. I ended up ordering a pizza, since that's what I had been expecting to begin with… It was pretty good. I sat across from a girl from Germany (who’s name I could not spell for the life of me) and met a girl named Rebecca (from some other country…I forgot now and do not want to be wrong). They were all pretty awesome.

After that, we walked back to New Hall and I went to sleep for the next day's matriculation.