Hi peeps! Thanks for coming on Friday! So sorry I couldn't spend much time with you all but I was really glad to see all of you! And thanks for all the gifts and cards. I LOVE YOU DEARIES! It's 12.37 am in Glasgow now, haha. Yeah I know I should sleep but I really wanted to get this first post up for you guys! Today, or rather yesterday, was my mum's and my second day here, so a little update from me is due! Anyway, here's my room.






Thankfully, it turned out better than the photos on the website. It's clean and most importantly, there's enough storage space and a huge table! That's a must. Can you see the winnie the pooh on the bed? Haha, yup I brought that along! :D

So basically, my room's located along a narrow corridor where there are going to be another four people, and we'll be sharing a kitchen, a toilet and two showers. I say 'going to be' because, guess what, I think I'm currently the only living person in the entire house! That's one whole building. It's because our accommdation contracts officially commence on 12 September but it doesn't hurt to arrive earlier. Anyway, that explains why I was a little freaked out earlier though I thought I wouldn't be. Haha. I kept looking through the peephole though obviously there's no one out there.

Oh yeah, below's a photo of the houses. I'm in Ochil House on level four (which made my mum curse when we had to drag my severely overburdened luggages upstairs due to the absence of a lift). Every level of each house is divided into two- the left corridor and the right one, and each one houses about five students. That's a lot of us.




My mum and I arrived on Saturday at around 10am. After checking into my accommodation, we went to my mum's hotel and then out to get daily necessities and cooking stuff, since we realised upon inspection earlier on that the kitchen's absolutely empty. Not even a cup in sight. Then finally at 5pm, we decided to return to the hall on foot, just so I would know how to walk to school and to the subway and not rely on taxis, whose meters jump like no one's business. Now, I only roughly knew where the Murano Street Student Village is and that it would take 30 minutes to walk there from the subway. Anyway, there weren't comprehensive maps available to help us, so there really wasn't any other choice but to wing it. As you must have guessed, things didn't turn out well.

Firstly, I knew we had to set off down Byres Road and we did that, just in the opposite direction. I was quite sure we were on the right track until the Queen Margaret Drive that was supposed to come next just didn't appear. Hmm... Still, I thought maybe it was another one of those cases in which the map oversimplified the network of roads and decided to continue straight. Oh look! Those yellow apartments in front look just like the flats! That must be it! By then, my mum's shoes were killing her and the heavy bags we were carrying were threatening to give us aching shoulders and backs tomorrow. I think the cold kinda numbed the pain. Thankfully. But after walking for another 5 minutes, the yellow apartments seemed to be getting further away. So we backtracked and took another turn, which did bring us to the apartments, except that we realised that they weren't the halls. Okay...

We were lost. Cannot be! We were supposed to walk straight all the way! STRAIGHT! Who gets lost walking straight??

Then I took a closer look on the map and OMG. We have been walking in the wrong direction from the start. Great. That was 20 minutes of unnecessary walking. It was nearing 6pm, the sun would be setting soon, it'd get much colder and while I was fine with backtracking and walking another 3o minutes, my mum was quite tired. Still, we had to find the way so we carried on. In the end, we more or less found our way there, though we were a little lost again towards the end and had to ask for directions. Well, all in all, the walk is quite long and it can be a scary one at odd timings. The insane wind also makes it seem longer than it actually is. It'll be easier if there are companions to walk with. Lucky me, there are another 3 Singaporean medical students in Murano! One of them, Rachel, arrived at the same time I did. In fact, she's just a minute's walk away, a walk I took when she and her parents invited me over to dinner earlier. Comforting to meet people from home here in this unfamiliar land.

So, for a summary:

Temperature outside is about 12 degrees Celsius.
I'm not sure what time the sun rises but it sets at 8 plus.
You are 7 hours ahead of us.
Though video streaming is apparently blocked in the halls, skype works here! Wheeee! :D

We're going with Rachel and her parents tomorrow to look at bank accounts and mobile line plans. At least they've got a car, so no more endless walking for me! Haha.