Fresher’s Week is a concept that has no American equivalent, so it was very interesting to be dumped into an 8-day festival/party/friend-making session with no expectation of how it was going to go.
It started on Saturday the 6th of September with my moving into my flat! I was really excited to finally unpack my suitcases and feel at home somewhere. I always find that unpacking is one of the most relieving things ever, but maybe that’s just me. My mom was there to help me lug around my suitcases and then help my buy everything for my flat. I got to my flat about 10am and then had until 3pm to do all of my chores because that’s when the events started. I didn’t buy too much because I still didn’t know who my flat mate was or what she would be bringing with her. After the errands, I went to my first Fresher’s Week event. tge event was a “Language Café” put on by Tandem. The whole idea was that people could come and sit at a table designated to a foreign language and then practice that foreign language. There were loads of languages there and it was really cool to see so many people who were interested in practicing a foreign language. I even met some people there that I have been meeting up with and talking to regularly. That evening I went with Kirby to Jazz in the Lounge and we met a few people and had a nice time just talking. The big event that night was a concert featuring Basshunter. The line to get in – even at midnight – was several hundred people long. I’m really glad I went to a much calmer event.
The next day, the first event I wanted to go to was just after noon. This was the first event that I went to by myself, so I was nervous. It was a societies fair, so I figured I would just be talking to the people in the societies anyway. I ended up being really early, and so I waited outside. It just happened that two girls were talking next to where I was sitting. I overheard that they were Americans and that they were going to the societies fair. We ended up chatting for half and hour and going to the societies fair together. One of the girls I met, Emilie, is in two societies with me now, so I see her a lot. I left after less than an hour because there wasn’t much going on, but also there was a dialect coaching event I wanted to go to. It turns out I saw someone there from the language cafe and my flatmate was there, which was funny because neither of us knew the other would be there. The speaker had some interesting things to say and I had a good time. That evening instead of going to events I was with my mom doing more errands because her flight got cancelled and she was spending the night with me.
On Monday I checked out the trade fair, but wasn’t interested. I didn’t really do anything until the evening. I went to the Linguistics Society meet and greet. We ended up just talking for 3 hours about the referendum, international phones, Eurovision, and a lot of other things. That was one of my favorite events of the week, because I got to talk for an extended amount of time with some really cool people.
On Tuesday I looked at the Vintage Fair and was put off my the number of people there. I met up with people I met at the language cafe and who are in my Chinese class. We left and went to the Academic Fair briefly. After lunch, I went to the Scottish Country Dance workshop and it was so fun. After that I knew I was going to join the society. That night Tandem put on another cool language event, which turned out to be my favorite event the whole week. When I walked in, I got a name tag that had a place for my name, the languages I spoke, and the languages I wanted to practice. I ended up practicing mostly Spanish, which was fun. I met a lot of people who knew Spanish and/or are studying it here at Edinburgh, but interestingly only one of them was actually from a Spanish-speaking country. The event really showed how much more multilingual Europe is than the United States.
On Wednesday, I checked out the Crash-Course Ceilidh, which was cool because I had never done any Ceilidh dancing before. Luckily, it was like Scottish Country Dancing, but easier and more fun. I don’t think anything else interesting happened that day.
On Thursday morning, I met with my Personal Tutor and picked my classes, which was exciting. That was really the only academic thing I did that week, though. I went by the big societies fair and didn’t really talk with anyone, so I went back to my flat until the Linguistics Society put on a film screening of The Linguists, which is one of my favorite documentaries and is one of the things that inspired me to study linguistics. Right after that I went to the swing dance taster class and had a really good time. They do Lindy Hop here, but at the taster class they did East Coast, so that was really awesome! That evening, Kirby and I were going to go to the French society “fete,” but when we got there it looked really boring, so we tried to meet up with the North American Society for a pub crawl, but a girl we were with couldn’t get in because she’s 17, so we ended up going to the Ceilidh, which was just so much more fun than the other things would have been. Ceilidhs are probably the best type of event the school puts on, because everyone is dancing and you get to meet a bunch of people and it’s amazing.
On Friday, at the last minute, Kirby and I decided to go on the Medieval Scavenger Hunt, which meant we walked around Edinburgh for 2-3 hours looking for things like the oldest artifact in the National Museum or for Tom Riddle’s gravestone. It was a lot of fun and I got to see a lot of things I wouldn’t have known to check out. That night we went to the Big Ceilidh, which was set up like a club, but everyone was doing Ceilidh dancing and there were guys in kilts. It was the weirdest mix of things, but it was so much fun. I ran into almost everyone I had met during the week and got to talk to those people, which was great. I can’t wait to go to more Ceilidhs!
Saturday I didn’t really want to go to any of the events, and I ended up staying in talking to my flatmate’s friends who are doing their study abroad year in Lancaster and came up for the weekend.
After all that, I had Sunday to relax, do all my school supplies shopping, and get ready to actually learn things!
Fresher’s Week was really great because I met a lot of great people and I found out about a bunch of societies that I think I’ll really enjoy, but it was so long and tiring, so by the end I just wanted classes to start!
