The Flat (Round II)

Here are the promised pictures of my new flat! Sorry about the lighting - we currently only have about six hours of real daylight, so its kind of hard to capture the natural lighting. And the overhead light in my room is currently burnt out, hence the double desk lamps attempting to light the whole room (as of finishing this post, I have replaced it, but I hadn't at the time). 

Looking into my bedroom from the hall - I'm overlooking the street, but the noise isn't bad at night, and I'm kind of really used to traffic sounds all the time (I kind of find it soothing at this point TBH). 

So much storage! Actually more than I really need, which is awesome. The drawers in that dresser are so deep, it is wonderful.

DOUBLE BEEEEEEEEED *happy dances around room*

My desk has both drawers and a little weird sideways bookshelf thing - so awesome! And a second dresser! I now have an entire drawer just for my makeup. And my new chair is way comfier than my old one.

The front door of the flat, just outside the door of my room. We are on the fourth of four floors, right at the very top! There are two flats per floor in this building.

From my door into the flat. To the left, just out of the frame, is the largest bedroom, which belongs to David, the only of my roommates that is currently here. The doorway visible is to the living room.

From left to right: living room, bathroom door, smallest bedroom, and two storage closets (which, as the first one to move in, I gleefully shoved my suitcases into). 

The bathroom - small, but totally functional. Though I am really not certain how they expect you to shower without splashing with just that little bit of glass? IDK the plumbing is universally stupid in this country. The shower is electric so the hot water isn't dependant on the heat being on.

From the hallway into the living room (and dining room! With real chairs and table! Wow!). The doorway at the back there leads into the kitchen.

I need to fix that lamp shade.

Excuse the laundry.

And finally, the kitchen! Which is lovely! Nice and bright and NOT CARPETED.

Why they put the washing machines in the kitchen in this country...

Gas stove. Ah. I have no idea how to use this thing. 

Tonight I went to a quiz at Blackwells Bookshop, which was great fun. There were two teams of us publishing students, and my team, as the one lady running the quiz announced loudly, were all virgins to the Blackwells quiz. We named ourselves Jon Snow (because we know nothing) BUT we beat the other team and tied for third overall! Not bad! AND we rose up from fifth place because I correctly identified "Anne of Green Gables" in the final round (the other team also had a Canadian, but clearly Melissa is just not as awesome at being a Canadian as I am). I was really nervous I got it wrong, but as they gave more clues I was like yeah, I got this. 

So how pub quizzes (or in this case, Bookshop quizzes) work, is that you get in teams (in this case, a five person limit) and there are so many rounds of questions, usually themed. In this case, there was a round where we were given a sheet of paper with book covers, and we had to identify the book and author. Another round was focused on various literary awards. And so on. Each round contains ten questions. The final round is a "who am I" wherein clues are given, with a decreasing value of points given per clue. If you get it on the first clue 20 points, second clue 16, etc. The clues start out very obscure and then become more and more obvious. You write down your answer, and hand it in. If you get it, you get however many points, if not, you get zero. I figured out it was Anne on the second clue, when they mentioned that the author was inspired by a friend who wanted to adopt a boy but got a girl instead (the first clue and most of the second were details I really did not know... such as her birth date or the name of the first family she lived with). The other group guessed Heidi on the same clue. Jussayin. 

So I was pretty stoked about that. We didn't win, obviously, but since it was the Christmas quiz, they let us all dig through a bin of old advance copies, so we all left with a new book!

The only bad thing about my new address is that I think I will be taking the bus more - while it only takes me 12-15 min to walk to school, my new address is in the opposite direction of my old one - so my old flat was closer to downtown, the school was farther away, and my current flat is the farthest away. So while it used to take me 25-30 min to get to the Grassmarket area walking, it now takes me 50-55 min. Still not a horrible walk, but as it gets colder, I suspect my laziness will begin to win out over my cheapness (£1.50 isn't that much... its more the fact I never have change. Esp the 50p).