University life and the bad weather myth

Nevertheless, the three months went by and suddenly it was time to get on a plane to Edinburgh. Though before I could even go to the airport, there was one thing that I needed to do, but dreaded doing nonetheless – packing. One would think that 31kg is more than enough for one person, but you never know until you are forced to pack your whole life into a few suitcases. Eventually I had to accept that I have to leave my pillows behind and that it is simply not possible to take more than one book with me. After I was finally done re-packing my suitcase, I went to sleep only to wake up at 4a.m. for my 8a.m. flight from Prague. On the bright side of things, I didn’t have to fly alone since two of my classmates got accepted to the University of Edinburgh as well, which happened to be really convenient during our transfer in Cologne, where we had to spend five hours, instead of the planned three, due to delay.

Our delay wouldn’t have been a problem if we didn’t have to rush from the airport to our new home in time buy ourselves a duvet and a pillow, which weren’t provided by accommodation and some food for the day since we chose self-catered halls. We arrived to our accommodation around half past five, which means we had exactly 30 minutes to get to the store before it was closing. We realised later that maybe we did not have to rush so much because our friend proved that a person is able to sleep under a jacket with a pile of folded clothes under their head for a good few days.  

After the move-in weekend, it was time for the Welcome Week to start, which is something every fresher is excited about. I downloaded my university app in June and was eagerly waiting to attend all the events I added to my calendar, which ranged from the official welcome to new students, cheese tasting and choir auditions to a pub crawl of all places in Edinburgh that serve Czech beer. Unfortunately, I soon learned just how impossible it is to balance three meals a day, a good night sleep and all the things I want to go to, especially with a freshers’ flu, which is a fear of every person within the first month of university. However, I did not get sick due to the British weather that everyone’s been warning me about. It has only rained around five times since I arrived and most of the days have been warm and sunny. Therefore, I think it is time for us to realise that the rainy and gloomy weather in Britain (or at least in Edinburgh) is just a myth. The real problem of the Edinburgh climate is, however, the fact the Sun starts to go down around 3 in the afternoon, which is really inconvenient if you are like me and associate darkness with sleeping rather than working.

Despite early sunsets and sleepiness, I managed to successfully submit all my essays for this semester that make up 40% of my grade in each subject, so now I can move on to studying for my first semester exams, that represent the remaining 60% of my grades. Even though I have a lot of studying to do, education is not the only essential part of university life. There is a lot of activities and societies that students can join, meet new people and develop new skills. I decided to join BLOGS, which is an LGBTQ+ at the University of Edinburgh. We meet every week, usually on Tuesdays to discuss what the university can do to promote LGBTQ+ rights and make all the campuses a safe place for the community, or just have a nice evening watching movies or playing pop quizzes. I also joined one of the university choirs, with which we just performed for the first time last week.

That being said, I’ll have to end my first update here because I need to run to my choir rehearsal. I’m hoping to talk more about the academic side of things as well as the beautiful city of Edinburgh and its surroundings in my next post. For now, though, until next time!