I knew it was going too smoothly.

To make up for signing for a decent flat on the first day in Scotland, everything else is going terribly awry.

I haven't opened a bank account because most banks that should be working with my school, according to my school's bank letter, do not work with my school. Mostly, they've been telling me to piss off. That's getting old, fast.

I don't have internet access. After being told broadband via cable was available, we were told some ghost was already using an account in our flat. And the provider wouldn't cut the ghost off for a week. Now the provider's realized that, in fact, we do not have an active line in our flat so they've booked us for installation on October 9, a week and a half away, on a day when my roommate and I are both in class all day. Wonderful.

Fortunately, I've gotten a decent cell phone that has Skype built in, making calling the US much, much easier.

I'm eating well, downing a banana almost every day while cutting back on the junk food. Alcohol is cheap and plentiful but I've been avoiding it as well. I haven't gone running yet, but that doesn't bother me much since I've been walking 3 or 4 miles a day, going into the city center, trying to sort all of the rubbish out.

The class schedule changes weekly, which is odd. We have a field trip to a team-building camp called BlueSky Experience during the last week of October. Have any teams ever been built or solidified during one of these? Not from my experience. Finals are immediately after Christmas break followed by another week off. Odd.

The toilet is flushed by revving the handle, like revving a motorcycle. The water is heated by a little electrical box inside the shower that has two temperatures: mediocre and scalding. Clothes are washed in a washer but dried by hanging them on a folding rack in front of a radiator.

What else would you folks like to know?