Freshers Week and Such

In response to request(s), this will be a shorter post in order to let the skimming be a permissible form of retrieving the wanted information. So, to continue with the story:
Following the orientation in Edinburgh there was the rainy move in day where I met my college dad and we basically chatted all day, seeing as I was one of maybe two international freshers who arrived on the Wednesday. (The other was Camilla, who I have discovered is one of the funniest people in the world--she is 20, doing her fresher year here after graduating and then doing a gap year which included living with friends in France for part of it. Camilla is really tall, very model-like, and from Sweden with a reeally great accent. Just to give you all a bit of background.)
After the first night of staying in my empty block, everyone of the internationals arrived the next day and our little pre-freshers week began. There are about 19 of us, all very mixed. Like Camilla, there's Dan from Norway who is a bit older too (apparently they graduate at the 19/20 year, unlike our and the UK's 17/18/19ish year...if that makes sense. Basically they graduate a year later than we do). There's two Americans who are actually freshers (born in 1991-2 [!!]) and doing 3 years here, there's a German, several Thai/Singapore/somewhere else I can't really remember people....really just a mixed group. And our Fresher Reps were just as international.
We had three days of bonding and getting stuff together (got my phone on the first day when I was feeling proactive; sidenote: pay as you go isn't really a great choice because you are really just paying for every little thing. But mostly because Orange, the phone company with the good pay-as-you-go deals, doesn't have coverage in Castle, or really Durham that well. Dumb.) before the other freshers (the regular Brit kids) showed up on that Sunday. The weather, which is nothing if not for equality here, kindly poured on them as they moved in, just as much as it poured on us internationals. That was the point when I got a nice big coat/jacket.
Fast-forward over Freshers week--they had a timetable (not schedule, though they do say that for other things, in their funny shed-jule pronunciation) of things to do for almost every hour, which was really good because it got everyone together and doing all the same activities. There was clearly things we could miss, but it was pretty well laid out overall. Nights were basically intros to the different clubs and nightlife around Durham, such as.....Klute (wooooo, my personal favorite, where might I add, I met the Master. Of Castle. The Headmaster. That's like meeting Dumbledore in the Shrieking Shack. It just doesn't make sense.) There is also Loveshack (haven't been), Loft (okay), Studio (next to Loft), the student union's weekly Planet of Sound (Hound), which I have not gone to, and Revolver, which is going on as I speak. Many have free entrance for Castle members (definite plus) which makes it really cheap, which is of course a student's goal in life. Well, a not well-off student's goal in life.
Below is our pre-pub golf huddle and game plan time.
That was Sunday through Friday, with matriculation (dressing up in formal gowns--HP robes--and getting inducted into Durham University in the huge cathedral) on Wednesday morning, classes starting Thursday (more later), and sports starting Sunday for prep meetings.
Between all this is the 3 times a day food (not like UCLA dining halls, sorry. Though the food isn't too terrible, I just hate mushy peas, which is literally what they're called. "Mushy peas." Not just peas, no no, their texture must be emphasized to make them even more than less than appealing.) and the constantly entertaining game of comparing pronunciations, which often occurs at dinner (because of the food word issues). We say pahhsta, they say pasta (like in cat), which is just wrong. It is so wrong. And fillet! We say fillay, they say....well, fill-it. (They have blamed it on the anti-French sentiment, and we maintain it is our reward to the French for helping in the Revolutionary War.) There is taco, which is pronounced like their pasta---like saying cat in the middle. The things we say long "a"s like them (pasta), they change to "at" sounds. It's ridiculous!
That is all for now, I think. More post-snippets to follow.

(p.s. I realize that this was also very long, but there's more pictures, so I feel they cancel each other out).