Hiking to My Dorm

Today, I got to move into my dorm. To be perfectly honest about it: the building is butt-ugly, it's a long walk to get anywhere, there are several damages in my room, and I was very disappointed. On the bright side, I have my own room and bathroom and the kitchen that I share with six flatmates is lovely.

After getting all of my things up to my room, we decided that I needed to get out of there and went for a walk. We stopped at the Student Accommodation services (ironically, very close to my classes, unlike my dorm) to make sure there wasn't anything else available, but we Ackmans don't have that kind of luck. So we grabbed lunch at Pret and headed back to actually unpack.

Here are some pictures of my room as we found it. I'll put up more of it decorated and a room tour video (if you guys want one?) this weekend.

Later, we went grocery shopping and finished unpacking my things. We had an amazing dinner of fish and chips -- so British! 

I decided to come back to the hotel with Dad tonight because I have orientation events in the morning and I'd rather not have to make the thirty minute walk into town. 

I thought a lot about how I wanted to discuss today on the blog: whether I wanted to be truthful or make things seem magical and perfect and lovely. But I think it's important that people know that study abroad isn't always what you think it will be. Sometimes you get to your university and you don't like your dorm and it's a long walk to everywhere. But I'm hoping that I simply haven't had the time yet to fall in love with St Andrews and that once I meet some people, everything will seem better. In any case, for now, I'm trying to look on the bright side...which means looking forward to the incredible complimentary hotel breakfast tomorrow morning! x