the exodus

As you all are aware, Edinburgh (and the UK as a whole) experienced crazy snow (by Edinburgh standards anyway) around the time everybody was trying to get back. As a result, a lot of my friends got stuck in various places for a few days. In my last few days, I wandered about the city, saw Holyrood Palace (wish I'd done that when the grounds were open), and packed and cleaned. The snow restricted what I could do, so I never made it to Craigmillar or to Roslin Chapel. Obviously, I will just have to come back, right?

In my last few days, I did Christmas shopping, went to the Christmas market with Craig (he bought me Fire Punch.... mmmmmmmmm), andLeeAnn and I hung out a few times, since we were the last few Americans left around. It was soooo depressingly sad to say goodbye to everybody. Especially when everybody was gone from my apartment... poor Katea had so many problems getting out, but at least she eventually made it. On Tuesday it was go time. I was checking my train to London compulsively... and it was cancelled. All trains to London were cancelled because of some track issues. I was a mess... After calling my mom and dad, I sent the Rigbys an email asking if I could stay with them for a night in case I left my dorm and got locked out in the event of a cancelled train. They are such wonderfully nice people, they even invited me to stay for Christmas, but I was flying out on Christmas so I had to miss out on the chance... but it was definitely nice to get home and be with my own family :) Anyway, back to my train. I got on a bus to Waverley to try and get sorted... I found out that I could take the VirginRail West Coast service that left a little later. So I ran home, got all my stuff, and got back on a bus to Waverley. I sat around for FOREVER and it was soooo cold. The train kept being delayed more and more and more. When they finally announced a track, there was a mad scramble to get on and get seats since every person trying to get to London that day was trying to get on this train. Luckily, I had gotten on in the compartment that didn't have assigned seats for booked passengers, so I was safe. Unfortunately, there was a screaming baby, and then later in the very, very, very long train ride, very annoying smallish children.

I read my book, watched I Love You Man, and tried to sleep. Finally, I got to London and managed to get to Waterloo Station, which was near Cary's flat. It was SO good to see her, since I hadn't seen her since high school!! It was about 11 by the time I got there, but we stayed up til 3 or so reminiscing and catching up on each other's lives. The next day we woke up really late and did some more sightseeing. The following may be out of order because I'm bad at remembering days, but Cary and I went to Covent Gardens, the Natural History Museum (SO COOL), the British Museum, the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, Selfridges Department Store, and the Tate Modern. We also went shopping at Primark, and went to a bar, but that did not end well for Cary's roommate, and so I ended up chilling with Cary's roommate's friend until we decided to go back.

On Christmas Eve, Cary had to get to the airport, and I was going to the Hilton at the airport, so we decided to go together by Tube. This may not have been the best choice, because of heavy luggage going on and off the tube and stuff, and we had left later than planned... we thought about trying to get a cab, but the guy advised us the tube would be faster. I was kind of worried that Cary would miss her flight, but she got there in time, hooray! I checked into the hotel and collapsed for a bit, had some tea, watched TV, and started to get sick. Yuck. I went to the airport and ate dinner at a pub there, then came back, and I couldn't sleep because I was all riled up for my flight the next day. I woke up ludicrously early, checked out, got to my terminal at the airport, and waited like an hour to check in, because business class check in was not open, so there was only one guy checking in all the business class and gold level whatever fliers. It was sooo obnoxious. I got through security with minimal problems, and then chilled out in the AA lounge until it was time to go to the gate. I had some tasty food and some more tea. I got on the plane, and maaaaan business class is nice. Except that I was starting to get really sick. So much so that I didn't really enjoy my flight too much, especially because I couldn't eat the ben and jerry's ice cream or partake of the alcohol. However, I did watch a lot of movies with the comfort of Bose noise cancelling headphones and a lot of space to recline. I couldn't sleep, though.

When I got home, I got through customs really fast and my family wasn't there yet to pick me up. When they got there, I was so glad to see them. I missed them so much in Edinburgh! I got home, and talked to my neighbors who came to say hi for a while, then we did Christmas. Everybody liked the stuff I got them, so I was really happy. Christmas dinner was amazing as usual. But I was so tired that I missed grasshopper pie, which is like the highlight of the year. I woke up the next day feeling even more sick, and more tired, and just generally gross, but at least I was home.

sleep-deprived

I just got back to my flat after staying up all night with my friends Lindsey and Sam, who had to get their taxi to the airport at 6 am. I hadn't really planned on it (you all probably know how much I like my sleep), but after drinks at Koko, I went with them back to their flat when we decided we didn't feel like going to a club or anything, and all the pubs close at 1. I am really glad I got to spend an extra few hours with them, even if the whole time we were all on the verge of tears and repeatedly saying, "This is surreal," "Going home will be so weird," "I wish I could stay in Edinburgh forever," "I know I'll be back!"

It is exhausting to wait for something like going home. I'm not going to think about the fact that in a week, it's my turn. I have a lot to pack into the next three days in Edinburgh: Holyrood Palace, Craigmillar Castle, Rosslyn Chapel, St. Giles, Portobello Beach, and walking a bit on the Water of Leith trail. I know I'll miss some of them, but my highest priorities are Holyrood and Roslin. So, I'll probably get a daypass bus thing on Sunday and do a few. I can't believe how this semester has just slipped through my fingers, leaving me with no time to say "I'll get around to (insert thing here)."

Though I have accomplished few of the things on my agenda, I'm entirely pleased with my semester. I think I'll elaborate on this thought while I am not exhausted, so I'm going to sleep. Be on the lookout for posts concerning my birthday, finals, and the trip to London and Paris!!

Being Super Classy in Paris/Back to the 'Burgh

Day two began very early. We had breakfast in the hotel's breakfast room, which was super cute, and Chelsea once more got to speak French. I was grateful for the coffee! We ate pretty fast to get to the Louvre early, before it got too crowded, and we definitely succeeded in that goal. The courtyard was nearly empty so we took a ton of pictures, and then went inside. Chelsea talked to the ticket lady, showed her our Edinburgh IDs, and managed to get us in for free, even though we weren't EU residents... she did a good job of talking to the lady, that is for sure. Pleased as punch, we decided to hit up the Mona Lisa first. This was a good choice, as we got to see it, and then like three seconds later a scary hoard of schoolchildren came in yelling and snapping cameraphone pictures. Hooligans. The Mona Lisa is also a little unimpressive. It's way smaller than you think it will be... but it was still cool anyway.

All in all, Chelsea and I spent a little over 6 hours in the Louvre. We saw everrrything. Highlights included Napoleon III's apartments (so swank) and the moat area... where there was a really weird art installation of like, two russian ladies chopping cabbage (what?). Also very cool: giant column things from an Assyrian(?) palace, and Hammurabi's code. And the awesome collection of Roman glass stuff. And erotic pottery. WOOO CNES classes for teaching me about that. We had tasty but overpriced noms in the museum cafe somewhere in the middle of our exploration of the ridiculously large museum.

After that, we went to the Musee de l'Orangerie, where they have 8 very large Monets. You go into the first room and it is just an oval with huuuuuge mural size Monets surrounding you. The second room is the same setup, different landscaping. They were just breathtaking, and beautiful, and gorgeous, and they make me wish I had a better descriptive vocabulary. I could have sat and looked for hours. We then discovered that the basement had a huuuge collection of other art, featuring a ton of Matisses, which was an especially good bonus. When we got done, we waited outside for a bit until my friend Hannah from the U, who was in Paris as part of her grand adventure across Europe, came to meet us. We went to a cafe and sipped on various coffee/tea/hotchocolate products for a bit, until Chelsea and I had to go back to our hotel to change for dinner. It was really fun to see Hannah, but I wish that we could have spent more time with her!

We put on our fancy clothes, and hopped the metro to Odeon, and then walked to the Rue Racine, where Boullion Racine was our final destination. It was a delightful Art Noveau themed restaurant. They pegged us for American quickly though, as they gave us English rather than French menus. Chelsea was upset, but I was okay with this, seeing that I do not speak any French. We took it as a good sign that nobody else in the whole restaurant was speaking English, and it was pretty crowded. We got a bottle of wine, escargot (because we had to try them!), and pumpkin chestnut soup as an appetizer. The escargot were pretty good, actually. I felt brave for trying them, but it was just like eating shellfish. You slather it in butter and garlic until you don't realize how slimy and gross what you are eating actually is. The soup was fantastic, and we both got duck confit, which was divine. I had a creme brulee for dessert, and it was so rich that I couldn't finish it. Chelsea had a very tasty hazelnut cake. We realized that 1) we were a little drunk after polishing off the bottle of wine and 2) we were by no means awake enough to go out on the town after dinner. So, Chelsea got a hold of her friend Sarah who was studying in France for the year, and we decided to meet at a cafe rather than going to a bar or club. I paid the bill (thanks Mom and Dad!), with a little scare when my card was rejected the first time I scanned it... but in the end it worked. Phew.

We found a cute little cafe (it felt sooo Parisian) and I got tea (the second cheapest menu item), while Chelsea got what turned out to literally be hot milk (the cheapest thing on the menu). Sarah was really fun, and we all sat around and talked until we had to go before the Metro stopped running for the night. We got home and pretty much fell asleep straightaway again. In the morning, we went shopping and bought sweater dresses from a boutique where the shop owner spoke not a lick of English. Chelsea was happy as a clam to have somebody who would talk to her in French without trying to switch to English at all. After that, we checked out of the hotel and took the metro to Trocadero, where there was a really nice view of the Eiffel Tower. We took some pictures, and then set off to find a reasonably priced cafe to wait for Sarah to meet us after her class was over. We found a tiny crepe place... i cannot remember the name, sadly, but it was wonderful. We should have gotten the house made cider, but we didn't. The crepes were enough! So, so tasty. Also, there was the cutest little boy, who walked in all by himself, and when his grandma came to meet him, they talked over tea? coffee? and then he paid the bill. SO CUTE. He could not have been more than 7.

Sarah, Chelsea and I had a delightful afternoon at the crepe place, until Chelsea and I decided we had better head to the Porte Maillot, where we would get the bus to the airport. We got there plenty early, and got on an earlier bus than we'd anticipated. Unfortunately, there is really nothing to do at the Beauvais airport for however many hours we were there before our flight. We also didn't realize that there wouldn't really be food for purchase past security. I bought a thing of crispy m&m's behind security when we finally got through, and they sealed them and said I couldn't open them 'til we landed. What the hell is the point of that??? I wanted food THEN not LATER. So, Chelsea and I waited and waited for an announcement that our flight was boarding. It was supposed to be leaving in like 3 minutes, when I realized that people were boarding our plane on the tarmac. The gate we were sitting at was not really a gate ,and the gate for our flight was hidden down a hallway through a secret door, so we dashed onto the plane, and like, ten minutes later we took off. Good thing I looked out the window!!

We were so exhausted and hungry that we pretty much slept the whole way back. We decided we'd go to Karen Wong's when we got back, but we had forgotten to account for the hour train from Prestwick into Glasgow to switch onto a train for Edinburgh. So, we made it back to Edinburgh a little too late to get the Karen Wong fix, so we stopped at Tesco and picked up readymade food. I fell asleep like four seconds after I got home and didn't wake up until late the next day, which I think brings us up to speed.

City of Lights- Day 1

Paris is so hyped up in literature, movies, music, everything really. I had in my mind Paris was so overhyped and wasn't actually going to be all that great. I hadn't really planned to go to Paris, but when Chelsea and I decided to go, I have to admit, I was pretty damn jazzed about it. Mainly, I was very excited to go to the Louvre... being a huge museum buff/nerd extraordinaire. When we got on the Eurostar, and emerged from the Chunnel (SO EXCITING), catching our first glimpse of France, I was a little breathless. It was our second sunrise in three days, and let me tell you, readers, sunrise over the French countryside is gorgeous. I was so tired, though, that I couldn't really do anything except poke Chelsea and say "look, pretty."

As we pulled into the terminal, I was incredibly worried that my credit card wouldn't work and I wouldn't be able to pay for our hotel, or the hotel would have lost our reservation, or I wouldn't have enough money to pay for the fancy dinner that my mom and dad sent us to eat for my birthday present (because in my head, my credit card would not work in France). I knew I had to get over it, but sometimes it is really hard for me to relieve anxiety or stop all the thoughts that swirl through my mind. We started off our time in Paris by climbing up the hill to Sacre Couer, a basilica that is the highest point in Paris. It was breathtaking. The sun was shining through the clouds and making rays of light all over the city, sprawled beneath us. But you know, even moments like that can be ruined. By gypsies. Now, I hate to be prejudiced here, but these people will stop at nothing to try and hook you. One lady literally tried to block Chelsea from continuing on the stairs.

Inside Sacre Coeur was beautiful as well, and I've been in a lot of basilicas, so I declare myself a fit judge. From there, we decided to go see the Moulin Rouge, just because it was nearby. That is one hell of a sketchy area. Every store pretty much was a really sleazy looking sex shop. So, basically we saw Moulin Rouge, and then we went to the Metro as quickly as possible to find out how to get to Montparnasse, where our hotel was. We got to the metro, and I had a little difficulty getting tickets. My card didn't work in the machine, which scared the crap out of me. In the end, I used cash and got my ten tickets. The Metro is so cute... it has tires. Awww. So we got off near the Montparnasse cemetery, and looked for famous dead people. We only found a few of the ones we were looking for, but it was so weird how packed the cemetery was. I guess that is what you have to do in a city where space is at a premium, but after the sprawling park-like atmosphere of the cemeteries in Sweden and Denmark, it was especially strange.

By then, it was about time to check into our hotel, so we found it and then waited until our room was ready. Chelsea was absolutely chuffed to be able to speak French to somebody, and we got up to our room, which was about the size of a closet. I had some serious claustrophobia issues with the bathroom, but it didn't really matter because we were only using the room for sleeping, and it was clean. After dropping our bags off, we set out again to accomplish the Hardcore Paris Sightseeing Mission™ (HPSM). I had ostensibly been in charge of picking out what we did in London, but we really left that to wandering about. Chelsea, on the other hand, was super organized and had a plan. The HPSM. We started by walking through the Luxembourg gardens, where apparently my father enjoyed playing with boats in a pond when my grandparents took the kids to France back in the day. I imagine they are much more beautiful in the summer. From there, we went to the Pantheon, which was absolutely amazing. It's basically a secular monument to France's greatest people. There is an extensive crypt, and we saw Marie Curie's tomb... among MANY others. Including Voltaire! Foucault's Pendulum is in the nave of the basilica. Super amazing physics/science geeking out occurred on my part.

Following that, we walked to Notre Dame. We were so excited when we found out that Notre Dame is free to enter (The Pantheon cost money!), so we went in and walked around. It is exceedingly beautiful. However, this volunteer lady cornered us and kept asking us Bible questions. Chelsea and I didn't really have much ability to answer most of them. Eventually, we managed to make our excuses, thank her, and continue walking through the cathedral. The rose window is one of the most awe-inspiring things I have ever seen. I have to say that I find it much easier to understand how people follow a religion when their worship takes place in a grand structure. Rather, I guess I understand how the building could inspire so much awe, especially at the time when it was built, as to really add to the whole deity power/mystique thing.

Next on the list was the Champs Elysee. I'm so glad we were there around Christmas, because it was lit up and awesome. The lights were icicle lights, but they were animated so they looked like falling stars. Sublime. The Arc D' Triomphe (did I spell any of that right?) was equally impressive, floodlit and surrounded by about a bazillion lanes of traffic as it was. Behind that, there was another huge Christmas market, and we enjoyed browsing through it on our way to Eiffel Tower. We actually had some trouble getting to the tower, and then from the tower to a metro stop that would help us get home, but first let's talk about the tower. It's actually a little disappointing. Yeah, it was really pretty all lit up at night, but in the day time, it just seems kind of pointless to me. I think the Ferris Wheel was a better World's Fair invention, personally., So, we were trying to get home, and we knew we were walking in the right direction, but we could NOT find the metro anywhere. We were starting to get a little worried, because it seemed like we were in a sketchy area. Eventually, we kept walking and found it, but then walked the wrong way out of the metro station near our hotel and got lost there. After being all turned around, we were SO hungry that we just picked up sandwiches and desserts at the grocery store and brought them back to the hotel. They were pretty tasty for being grocery store sandwiches! Yay for French food. We fell asleep FAST.

London Calling

Saturday night, naturally, we had to celebrate being done with finals... so I went out with a bunch of my friends. Unfortunately, Chelsea was sick so she didn't make it out as she was trying to sleep whatever it was off before we went to London. I made it home around midnight ish, but didn't fall asleep until sometime after 3 am (counting crows reference anybody?), which sucked since we had to leave to catch the bus at 6:15 am. So, exhausted, I woke up, grabbed my bag, and left... when I promptly realized that I had forgotten my cell phone. Oops. Ran back upstairs, then back downstairs and met Chelsea on the corner outside the Croft, and we walked up to Waverley to get on the airport bus. We got to the airport wayyyyy early. Security was a breeze, except when Chelsea realized she had forgotten to pack her toiletries in the travel friendly sizes. We had a little funeral for all the stuff she had to throw away, after trying to figure out every possible way that she could get them back somehow.

We got to our gate, then they told us the flight was going to be delayed. But then it wasn't going to be... then it was cancelled... then it was back on. EasyJet is weird. Finally, we got on the plane, and we flew into sunrise as we got to London one short hour later. After a little confusion, we ended up pretty close to my friend Osman's place, where we would be staying. On the walk from the train station to his flat, Chelsea and I started a game where we took a picture of Chelsea with any signs we saw that said Chelsea. Once, we found something that said Claudia, and we took my picture next to that... but it was at the British Museum, so it doesn't really count. Osman made us tea, and we made a gameplan for the rest of the day. We decided to walk to Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was a pretty long walk, and it was pretty cold, but I was really glad we did it. When I was in London in August, I took the tube absolutely EVERYWHERE, and so I missed the heart of the city, which was silly of me. So, we sightsaw all the way to Buckingham Palace, where Chelsea was a little disappointed that you couldn't get very close to the guards, but it was cool to see them anyway. In Hyde Park, we stumbled upon the Christmas market, which was delightful. We tried to find the statue of Peter Pan and failed miserably, and after being a bit lost, we made it to the V and A, which was super duper cool. There were some obnoxious ladies in one of the exhibits, but we got over it, and Chelsea found this one sculpture thing that a professor (adviser?) of hers said she had to see. Anyway, the whole museum was really fabulous.

The last thing we did was go to Harrod's, which is splendiferous at Christmas time. There are lights everywhere, and sooooo much decoration. And amazing toys. I almost died of amazingness in their toy sections. Plural. So many toys. So many expensive, fancy, awesome toys. And giant teddy bears. And cute guys selling weird fake snow. Yeah.

We walked back, planning to go to the giant Tesco we had seen earlier, but it turned out that it was closed at 4 on Sundays. So stupid. So, we had to go without meat for the stir fry we were going to make. We popped over to the corner market and invested in stir fry sauce and ben and jerry's, then Chelsea and I made dinner. The three of us played Scrabble over our stir fry and had an all-around lovely time.

The next day, I had been hoping to meet my dad's friend, Clare, who as you may recall, helped me out at the beginning of my odyssey by allowing me to store my bags in her office. Clare had just had a baby, and unfortunately we ended up not being able to meet, which was sad! However, Chelsea and I, walking in the direction of her office, ended up getting to see the changing of the guards, which was great fun. We then decided to walk in the vague direction of the British Museum, via the National Gallery. There were soooo many cool things in there... it was huge and a little overwhelming. We saw some Van Goghs and lots of other art that I cannot at the moment specifically recall. On the way to the British Museum, we decided to stop at hte post office to exchange money as we had heard that debit cards without electron chips tend not to work in France. This was an ordeal... we waited in line for over 45 minutes! This was especially painful when we saw the commission free Euros ATM at the train station the next day. Anyway, we had just enough time to look at the super awesome clocks, the Elgin Marbles, Rosetta Stone, Mausoleum, and some of the Far Eastern art before we had to jet to the British Library. There, I got to see the Lindisfarne Gospels, which was amazing, since we had been reading about them in Latin last year. Unfortunately, the manuscript for Alice and Wonderland was not in at the moment, but Chelsea thoroughly enjoyed seeing the Jane Austen stuff and some of the original musical compositions. In the meantime, I lent my voice to a study on pronunciation of the English language.

When the library closed, we went to King's Cross to take pictures at the silly Harry Potter platform 9 3/4 wall. We were miffed because this platform was NOT between platforms 9 and 10, and it was just a picture of bricks in a back alley wall... so tacky. We called Osman, but he had already eaten dinner, so we decided to go to a pub that had a dinner special on Fish and Chips, so we had those. Mmmmm mushy peas. When we got back to Osman's, there was a really big football match on, so Osman went to the pub to watch it with some friends. Chelsea and I showered and were pretty much asleep by the time Osman got back at the half. We were exhausted! We said our goodbyes since we were leaving so early in the morning. It was sad to say goodbye, since Osman had been so nice as a host!

We woke up ludicrously early, took the tube to King's Cross/St. Pancras, and managed to locate the Eurostar terminal. We got our passports checked, and then we were on our way to Paris!

two months later... finals and festivities

This post is the first in a series of backdated entries that will cover the events that transpired from finals week and my 21st birthday party until my return to the University of Minnesota.

Monday was my first final at Uni. Edinburgh. It had been meant to be rescheduled, and then all of a sudden we found out that the department had received special permission to hold the exam on Monday as planned. This was both good and bad news. Good: Chelsea and I didn't have to worry about the conflict with our trip to London/Paris... Bad: I hadn't really started studying at all. Luckily, we knew pretty much everything that would be on the exam. Chelsea and I ate a delightful lunch at Metropol (how had I not discovered this place earlier!?!?) before heading over to take our test. It ended up not being so bad. I forgot a guy's name that I probably should have known for one of my essays, but whatever, I am pretty sure I did okay.

Tuesday, I crammed for my City of Rome exam, that would be held Wednesday, aka my 21st birthday!! I got the exam done, and felt pretty decent about it. Strangely enough, one of the girls taking an exam in the same room (for a different class) is also a volunteer at Science Museum of Minnesota. She goes to Macalester, and we had met previously. Small world, eh? So, I went home, bought two adorable cakes from Choco-Latte (my first purchase there ever!), and got ready for my party. People started coming over and we played drinking dreidl until everybody was there and we ate some cake. It was soooo good. I was sad, though, because my dear friend Sarah was feeling under the weather, and my equally dear friend Emily had too much work to do, and so they didn't make it over. Nevertheless, we had a large cohort making its way to Koko, and when we got there, a few of my friends were waiting for us. We staked out all the good couches and the merriment began in earnest. I don't usually drink a lot, but everybody kept buying me drinks, so I was having a pretty damn good time. It was cool that my two groups of friends seemed to blend pretty well and get along. Somehow, I managed to be a rather functional human being the next day, though I did not end up walking over to Amisha's to say goodbye before she left, because it was suuper cold, and I thought we were going to see each other in London.

My friend Liz, who had missed my party because of studying (so sad) came over and ate some cake, and then Chelsea and Lindsey and I got Karen Wong's Chinese food and discovered how absolutely amazing it was (seriously way too late in the game). Somewhere in there, I studied for the archaeology exam that was in two days. I spent most of the next day cramming as well. On Saturday, Chelsea, Sam, and I congregated at Metropol before the impending doom, then waited outside the exam hall with the other bundles of nerves about to take this terrible exam. I think I did fine, in the end, but I was super mad because I was closing my booklet as the point came when you had to stay in the room til the end, so I had to wait it out. It was definitely weird to be totally done with academics at University of Edinburgh, but I was also immensely relieved that I was done with finals! It was definitely time to celebrate...

The End is Nigh! (sadly)

I bought an Advent calendar at Tesco the other day, because it had Homer Simpson on it, plus, who doesn't like waking up to a piece of chocolate every morning? However, I realized shortly thereafter that said Advent calendar is also counting down the days until I have to leave the UK for good, so, every time I open another door, I get a little bit more sad. But not really... it is just so hard to believe that I'm almost done here. I feel like I only know one part of Edinburgh really well, and there is so much I haven't gotten around to doing. Today, I thought about going to Craigmillar, but my flatmate Katherine is sick, and we were going to go together, and I didn't want to go alone. Also, my exams start on Monday, and I am thinking that I should probably be doing some serious revision (that is what they call studying/reviewing here) before then. It's 4:21 and I have only read maybe 3 pages of an article. It's been that kind of day here in the Croft(I don't know if I have explained yet that the building in which I reside is called Hermit's Croft, and I'm sure that information is necessary to make sense of much of what will be said here).

An explanation of why it was that sort of day has to take us back to Monday, after I turned in my Orality essay. All the snow was still charming and lovely, and upon my return from class, I found Caroline making Christmas decorations, and I decided to join in on the making of paper chains, while watching Elf, so obviously, I got none of my archaeology work done at all. Five hours and many Christmas songs later, we had covered the entire flat in paper chains, made more decorations out of magazine pages, and I was pretty sleepy, so I went to bed. The next day, I tried again to do some archaeology work, and succeeded in getting maybe one paper (out of six) done by the time I had to go to class at 4.


our delightful decorations!

Wednesday, I had planned to wake up super early, write some reports, and then spend Chelsea and my weekly Wednesday hangout at the Christmas market and then go to the IFSA-Butler tea. This is when things started getting hairy. I woke up late and Katherine and I ended up going to the National Museum of Scotland to do our project for archaeology. It was miserable outside. Remember my last entry, when I was so pleased with snow? Well, it was cute at first when Edinburgh had no idea how to cope with a teensy weensy (by Rochester/Chicago/Minneapolis standards) bit of snow, but after days of slippery sidewalks, everything being closed, and snow, icicles, and occasionally drainpipes falling off our building, it was starting to get really old. We got word that IFSA-Butler cancelled our afternoon tea, to which we'd really been looking forward becuase we were getting hoodies (wooo) and cupcakes (om nom nom), so Chelsea and Katherine (whose class was cancelled) and I regrouped and decided that we would meet for lunch at one of the Indian restaurants on Clerk St. After deciding that one of them was really expensive, we went to a different place, where I got amazing sweet potato/butternut squash soup and tea, which was really nice. We sat around whining about not wanting to do our archaeology papers, and when we were all done, braved the further deteriorating weather to go home. I'd planned to go to the library, but it was just really gross out and my feet were soaked. Chelsea and I decided that we would go to the carnival at night, when everything would be lit up. We ended up not going 'cause the weather was so awful.

This brings us to Thursday. Having written maybe one and a half of my reports by this time, I was starting to get a little worried, especially because the Classics Society Christmas Meal was that night and I wanted to be able to have fun. Well, in the morning we got an email saying that Monday exams were being postponed due to the inability to move furniture into exam locations and get the script books delivered (what bs!!). Normally, this would be great, but in fact, it was terrible for Chelsea and me, as our exam Monday would now be Saturday or later... awful because we had an exam Saturday already, and were leaving for London and Paris the next day. So, both of us were seething for a while, and we went to class to find that almost everybody else was just as upset. One girl had a flight back to Minnesota on the 10th, and it would cost $2000 to change it. Our course organizer told us there was really nothing we could do, so Chelsea and I were all worried and upset.

I went home, tried to write more, and managed to finish all but two and a half of my essays. I figured they'd both take a pretty significant time, so I resigned myself to the fact that I'd have to leave post-meal drinks pretty early. Dinner was so fantastic. We had it at an Italian restaurant, Ciao Roma, that seemed to have a weird pirate theme going on (I couldn't figure out why). There was a skeleton in a cage hanging from the ceiling, and dead pirate type things lying around. I kid you not. Anyway, I ended up having crostini, beef medallions with asparagus, and profiteroles. Such a good meal. So delicious. I was so full. It was really strange, because in the US, I feel like I have a much more casual relationship with a lot of my professors than the formality that is demanded here for the most part, however, I can't imagine more than a few of them joining a bunch of students for a big meal, and more, joining them in drinking.

One of the younger lecturers and a lecturer who is on maternity leave right now but had come to the dinner anyway (incidentally, the one who was supposed to be teaching one of my classes, and more incidentally, knew Oliver Nicholson!) were gossiping about students with my friends. Anyway, after the dinner, we went to a bar nearby and had convinced a number of the lecturers to come along for 'just one drink'. Admittedly, all of them did leave after the one drink (but the drinks lasted a while), but one of them stayed on past when I left, and apparently the goal of all of the students was to get him quite drunk (a plan that seemed to be working well). It was all very weird. I was having a great time until I realized it was midnight, and I announced that my carriage had turned back into a pumpkin and so I had to leave to write my essays. Craig and Veronica were trying to convince me to stay, but I resisted. However, on my way out, I was persuaded to do a tequila shot with everybody. It was hilarious, because one of the girls didn't know the proper order to take the shot (salt, tequila, lime), which is a big joke in an episode of Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but nobody else knew why I thought it was so funny. Anyway, I went home, wrote about 300 words, and then fell asleep.

I woke up around 6:30 and managed to be out of bed, writing by 7. I was hoping to have everything done and be at the library by 12:45, so I'd have plenty of time to print everything and get it turned in before we had to go to the rescheduled butler tea, which was going to be at 2:00. I actually managed to get everything done relatively quickly, until it came to getting the bibliography ready to go. Somehow, this took me an inordinate amount of time, and I was running quite late. I got to the library and started trying to print, but it wasn't working. I think that the printers won't print anything that is saved in .odf (Open document format), so I got around it. I had to print like 50 pages of reports. It was ridiculous. The University goes on about green initiatives, but all the departments insist that you turn in 2 single-sided copies of your essays. With everything all turned in, we went to tea.

Tea was lovely, but I was so exhausted at this point. The cupcakes were yummy, and I saw a lot of people I hadn't seen for ages. I hadn't seen my friend LeeAnn since our Highlands trip in early October, so it was really great to get to chat with her for a while. It was sad to pretty much be saying goodbye to everybody, and to say goodbye to Deirda and Ruth. I was really sad that Katharine wasn't there too, because I wanted to say goodbye. The three of them have been so helpful to me. I didn't expect that I would use much of the IFSA support while I was here, but it ended up being important, and they are all really fantastic people! LeeAnn and I walked back, while Chelsea, Sarah, Lindsey, and Sam walked the other way into New Town to do some shopping. LeeAnn ended up coming over for hot chocolate and more leftover pie and we just sat around talking for like two and a half hours. I was so tired, I'd planned to take a nap before the evening, but I didn't get around to it.

At 6:30, a bunch of Crofties (and Chelsea and Lindsey... pretending to be Crofties, even though they got found out pretty quickly) went on an excursion to the Winter Carnival/German Christmas Market in New Town, and some of the Croft social funds went to buying us all a ride on the Ferris wheel. Chelsea, Lindsey, Liz, Lauren, and I all went on together, and then we realized that 1) we are all sort of afraid of heights and 2) we could make the car spin around. The views from the top were amazing... all the lights and decorations in New Town were beautiful, plus Arthur's Seat and Calton Hill were beautiful in the background. We then partook of Prince's Street Punch, which was, I think mulled wine with brandy in it. It sounded pretty sketchy... and it was. I think I'll have to stand in the really long line for the real Gluwein next time I pop by the German Market (and get some spaetzle and donuts mmmmm). We checked out the whole area, and Chelsea bought a teeny nutcracker. We decided to go home after that. I was going to stop by a pup we hadn't been to yet with some of my friends, but I was so so so so so tired, that I went home, watched 30 Rock, ate dinner, and fell asleep. I slept for like 11 hours, and I was still exhausted when I woke up.

I guess essays do that to you.


the ferris wheel


Edinburgh is beautiful

Oh, also, we found out that our exam for Orality will in fact take place on Monday (which is good!), through special permission, so now I have a lot of studying to do before then. I have a strategy, so it should be okay.

OH OH OH. An exciting thing that I almost forgot... my 21st birthday is on WEDNESDAY! Not that it matters here, but it's still a big deal among my American friends, and even among my British friends, 21st birthdays seem to be worth a fuss. We're using it as an excuse to go out and blow off some steam during finals week. I think it's going to be a really fantastic time, though I'm sad that I can't celebrate with my friends at home. We'll have to do that later!

snoooooooooooooow

Hey, wait a second... I thought it wasn't supposed to snow in Scotland! Apparently, this is the first time in 17 years that there has been snow in December... So, while Minneapolis experienced its first snowfall-free March on records, Edinburgh gets a massive snowfall. The prediction is snow every day for the next week. WOOOO! I hope everything gets cleared out by the time Chelsea and I are meant to fly to London, which is not 2 weeks away, but the way that these people have been dealing with snow, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't!

After a morning of steel-grey skies, the sun is beginning to peek out, and the sky has become powder blue. It may just be the fact that I've spent the better part of the last three days reading Märchen (international folktales), but I feel like we've been dropped into fairy-world. The library looks out over the Meadows, and all of the trees are covered in snow and birds and squirrels are running around inside. The way the light is coming through the trees is just lovely. I'm sure all of this sentimental blithering is brought on by the fact that I'm in an essay crunch (okay, I have to write a conclusion, but I have 4 hours til I need to turn it in, so not that bad... but begs the question, "why are you blogging when you need to finish an essay?"), and I just want to go play in the snow.

My archaeology lecturer didn't show this morning, so we all decided to leave after waiting around for 10 minutes. Good times. I think as soon as I finish this essay, I'm going to take a break before I start on the archaeology papers. Ahhhh procrastination, why do I constantly fall prey to your wiles?

you can only cover so much territory, of course

Sometimes I get a little overwhelmed by how much goes on in my head. Right now, I'm thinking about storytelling as a mode of cultural presentation and preservation (for my essay), Julia Alvarez's memoir (which I just finished, and which ties in really nicely to the storytelling theme... I might end up using it as a source), how much I need to clean the kitchen (after Thanksgiving dinner, which was so fabulous... I will get to that later!), how nice it was to talk to my family, and how I wish I were with them, how much my grandpa would have loved to hear about my Thanksgiving enterprises, my looming exams and archaeology portfolio, and all of the things I need to do before I leave here (including: booking a hostel in Paris, figuring out when I'll leave Edinburgh for London before I go home, visiting a ton of Historic Scotland sites, going to more ceilidhs, spending as much time as possible with my friends, and probably most dauntingly: cleaning and packing up my room, the mere thought of which sends a shiver down my spine)in less than one month. There is so much that I have planned to do that I probably won't get done, but on the other hand, I have done so many more things that I had never even thought of doing!

I'm so glad to be going home in time for Christmas, okay... well, on Christmas, but I wish that I were going home with the knowledge that I'd be coming back here soon. It took me so long to settle myself and make friends and get involved with anything in Minnesota, but here, I began to feel like I belonged in a circle within four or five weeks of being at the uni. Edinburgh feels like home, except for that one little missing element of family. I know that I will come back sometime, but in my head, something says that it won't be enough to return once or twice on short vacations. Is this the beginning of a dream to move to Scotland? Perhaps it may just be... the whole darkness at 3 pm thing is a little off-putting, though. I think there are enough things to make up for that problem! There is so much to see here, and I feel like I have barely even covered a fourth of the city. I need to get out more often.

When I left home, I was already a little worried about what my first Thanksgiving away from home would be like. Would I have friends with whom I could celebrate? Would I be able to eat a Thanksgiving dinner, or would I be eating a bowl of soup? Well, let me just say that I smashed those fears: last night was the best Thanksgiving that I could possibly have had under the circumstances of the events of last week and being away from my family throughout all of this. I invited a bunch of my friends, both American and non-American, to a Thanksgiving potluck at my flat. I thought about cooking a turkey, but I decided just to go for the turkey breast, because I was pretty sure a turkey would not fit in our tiny oven, plus I have no idea how to cook a turkey. When I talked with them on Skype, Jeff and Matt wouldn't stop making fun of the Vinegar Sauce Incident™, but I assure you all that I made a dry rub for my turkey breast that turned even a non-turkey eater into an eager devourer of poultry (and it contained no vinegar)!

Naturally, I had to skip my afternoon class in order to cook the turkey if we were going to eat at a reasonable hour, so I went to my morning lecture and my morning tutorial- sidenote: this was so sad, because I LOVE the tutorial for Scotland and Orality... our tutor is so much fun, and since there were only four girls in my class, we got the business out of the way and had a generally good time the rest of the tutorial!- and then came home, did a little reading for my essay, and then cleaned and cooked.

Everybody came over, and we somehow managed to all fit around a table. I was sad because a couple of my friends had to bail at the last minute due to essays and sickness, but I felt really good about the whole dinner. I was so happy and so thankful to have so many good friends who could come to celebrate. I even invited a CouchSurfer who was from North Carolina, so I felt especially good that I provided a place for somebody who was traveling alone to come and eat Thanksgiving Dinner! I absolutely love hosting dinner parties, and this was the ultimate in uni halls dinner parties! A few of us had been planning to go to Itchy Feet, which is a once a month club night that features swing, jazz, rockabilly, and ska, and it would have been really fun but nobody was up to it after we stuffed our faces in true Thanksgiving fashion. The meal was wonderful: we had turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, two kinds of rolls, macaroni and cheese, deviled eggs, stuffing, four pumpkin pies, two apple pies, and one apple crumble... and countless bottles of wine amongst us all. We missed the yams, but it ended up being okay, because there was just SO MUCH FOOD!! I was happy to see friends from different circles getting along (though we noticed the table was almost entirely segregated with one side American and non-American) and everybody having a really good time. We made hand turkeys and wrote things for which we were thankful on the feathers, and then we hung up a bunch of them on the fridge. It was such a good night.

The night before had been the Butler Thanksgiving event, which was at a REALLY swanky restaurant, Ghillie Dhu, which is in New Town, and their banquet hall is pretty much a basilica. It was not Thanksgiving-y food, but there was roasted vegetables, and I had salmon with potato dumplings, and it was fantastic. The dessert was this raspberry shortcake kind of thing. So good. Butler is SO GOOD to us! Next week, we get to go have cupcakes and tea at their offices. mmmmmmm.

Going even further back in time, last weekend, Chelsea and I went to see the Scotland v. South Africa rugby match, on the suggestion of both my friend Emily (who ended up not being able to come, sadly!) and Deirdra and Katherine, two of the Butler program people. I am SO GLAD that we went. It was a really good way to take my mind off of things for a while, plus rugby is way better than American football. They don't really stop playing ever, plus, rugby players are (for the most part) fit beyond belief. We didn't really know what was going on, but we got totally into it and started shouting and stuff. At the beginning, when the team was coming out, they had some serious pyrotechnics, which was fab fab fabbity fab fab! Chelsea and I are pretty sure that we ended up on the stadium cam but we're not entirely sure. The Scots actually, won, which was a totally unexpected outcome, but it was a very good match and so exciting, too! Also, when the Scots got a field goal, they played "Chelsea Dagger," which 1)reminded me of home because of the Blackhawks (woooo) and 2) is Chelsea's theme song, so it was swell. They also played "I'm Gonna Be" so we had to sing along with that as well, and I do love that song!

Anyway, it was really, REALLY cold that day, plus it poured the entire time, so by the time the match was over, we were very ready to go home. I had lost one of my mittens on the bus, which made me really sad for the rest of the day because I love my mittens. I'll have to ask for new ones for Christmas, because the bus company lost and found didn't have my mitten when I asked on Monday. On the way back, we had a little confusion with finding the bus, but eventually we got on, and realized that the fuss with traffic was that a motorcade in which Princess Anne was riding was going past, and guess what? WE TOTALLY SAW HER! Pretty cool!

Moving right back along, two weeks ago, I stayed with my Dad's friend Mark's family for the weekend in Fife. They took me up to Saint Andrews, which was really beautiful (though it made me so glad that I chose Edinburgh... St. Andrews is a pretty small town), and then we went to see Due Date. I hadn't been to the cinema for a while (that's actually a lie; Emily and I had seen The Illusionist, which is a French animated film that takes place in Edinburgh, and was devastatingly gorgeously done) the previous week, but that was an arty film and didn't feel sooo much like going to the cinema, so it was really good to see a funny film. That was the night that I spoke with my grandpa for what turned out to be the last time, and filled him in on the adventures of the day, in addition to speaking to the rest of the family, which was all gathered out there.

The next day, we had breakfast and then went to Dunkeld, which is a very beautiful little town, which I think is in Perthshire. The autumn colors were in full force, and we had lovely food (mmm haggis) and went to see the Dunkeld Cathedral, which has a big ruined nave, which was pretty cool, though it was chilly. I feel privileged to have been able to see so much of Scotland! When we got home, Mark introduced me to the band Status Quo, which is huge in GB, but virtually unheard of in the USA. They were showing a concert on TV, so we watched that, and it was pretty cool. Straight up rock and roll. Dinner was lovely and wonderful (oh how I love when people cook for me!), and after dinner we watched the adorable Ava (their granddaughter) demonstrate her adorableness, until Mark drove me home in his LOTUS ESPRIT! That is one sleek car... and it goes faaaaaaaast. Katherine heard the engine roaring when Mark dropped me off outside. Pretty sweet!!

I haven't written about our adventures on Arran, but that is really the only terribly exciting thing that hasn't been involved in the catch-up. I'll get around to it later, but now I have to get back to my paper, I just needed a bit of a pleasure-writing break. There will be links to pictures and video as soon as I get them all uploaded.

PS it says I published this at 4:30 in the morning... very untrue: it is currently 1:47 pm

do you realize?

This entry will be another interruption of the regularly scheduled programming. This has been the hardest month and a half of my young life. It is not that I do not love Edinburgh with all my heart, because I love it here, and I love being here, and I love my friends here, and the way the sun shines in the late afternoon, and how the leaves are still golden, and how the crags and Arthur's Seat stand over the city, but the distance from my home is quickly becoming unbearable.

Skype, while it solves some of the problems caused by a lack of physical closeness, cannot make up for the fact that my mom cannot give me a hug. As some of you may know, my grandpa Richard died this morning, and the last month has been a roller coaster of emotion. After the first week of uncertainty and anxiety, I could breathe when he went home and he was okay. Last week, with the numbers (I hate that expression. A kidney is not made up of numbers. We are not made up of numbers. People talk about "the numbers" like they know what it means, but I am sure that we have no idea) headed in the wrong direction, he was given a very negative prognosis, and now he is gone.

It is incredibly hard for me to grasp this. When I left home, he was fine. We chatted away about the adventures on which I was about to embark, and I was certain that I would be back to see him again and share my adventures with him like he shared so many of his with me. As a matter of fact, I am taking a course called Scotland and Orality because I thought that learning about the oral tradition would help me in my recently discovered quest to piece together all of the parts of my grandfather's life. Only a few years ago did I begin to appreciate all of his stories: from growing up, from college, from his days in the merchant marine, from raising my mother and aunts, from seeing me grow up. He saw so much, and for a very brief period, I had the sense to take advantage of his experiences and learn from him. I only wish that I could go back in time, and learn to listen at an earlier age. At least I still have our correspondence. There is not much, but it is precious to me. I have a postcard on my desk that I bought this weekend in Saint Andrews. The thought is simple, the stamp is affixed, but when I was at the post office, I didn't know his ZIP code, so here it sits. I don't know what to do with it. I can't throw it away, but I don't want it here.

My dad set up a Skype account for him so that he could talk to me. We never had the chance to use it, but somebody is still signing in on the account. That unholy notification "Richard Marcus has signed in," is haunting me.

I haven't talked to my mom. I just want to give her a big hug, and I know she feels the same way, but here I am, and here she is not. Jeff said that last weekend, with everybody together, was fun, and that it helped him realize how amazing Grandpa was, and how he should strive to be more like him. Yeah, that would have been helpful. The entire family was gathered together, but I was alone, and being alone, thousands of miles away, makes this so much harder. I had no idea of the situation at any given point. The last I had heard, he had one to three months to live, but here I am two weeks later, and here he is not. I can't adjust to this idea that I will never see him again, never speak to him again, never write to him again. I take comfort in the thought that he was still lucid in our last conversation, and our last words to each other were to send love. I am reminded of the wise words of Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips:

Do You Realize - that everyone you know someday will die?
And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

His atoms will be somewhere in the universe, perhaps mingling with those previously belonging to my grandma. They are the world, and we walk amongst them.

In the memory of my Grandpa,the caper must continue, and for the memory of my Grandpa, I will continue to make it extraordinary.

remember, remember the fifth of november

Today, Chelsea and I decided to go to Glasgow to go shopping because we felt like we didn't really have any clothes. It was a lovely trip, and we had a fantastic time and went to a delightful restaurant. It was also really fun to spend all day with Chelsea. It's been nice getting to know people... especially when we have a lot in common. She's from Rochester, and it turns out that she knows a girl I knew from JCL. So anyway, we stopped each other from spending altogether way too much money, but I probably spent more than I should have.

I looked at my finances today, and it seems that I have spent way more than I budgeted myself for. I knew that would happen, which is why I put myself on a tiny budget, but I totally surpassed it. I shouldn't worry because I anticipated it, but I can't stop. And I guess, that would be the general anxiety disorder. Now that I have my schedule for next semester pretty much taken care of, I have to move on to the next issue, and money is a natural choice. Someday, I'll grow out of this problem. For now, I'm going to try not to think about it. I think it will be something of a relief to go back to a place where the money I spend is the money I spend and that is that... it doesn't fluctuate its relative worth, and I don't have to keep doing math in my head.

Back to a lighter subject, and the post title: I was really excited to be in the UK for Guy Fawkes' Day/Bonfire Night. We had decided early on in the semester that we'd climb Arthur's Seat to watch fireworks. Well, at around 5:30, it started pouring, so Liz, Katherine, and I considered just renting V For Vendetta and calling it a night. However, a bunch of my friends were going to go for it, so we hustled to put on more suitable clothing, and leave with them, but we were sort of too late. So, the three of us set off, but then Liz decided she did not have any practical clothing, so she'd sit it out. This was sad :( So, we attached to a group that was getting very drunk, decided that being around drunk people while climbing a mountain in the dark was not the best idea, and kept going ahead of them. Katherine, unfortunately, did not have the best shoes for this endeavor, and I ended up losing her when she said to go ahead and she'd catch up. Ladies and gentlemen, when in the dark, do not separate from the group. I ended up at the far end of the crags, where I had a pretty decent view of the official big fireworks. I could also see all of the fireworks going off around the city, and across the Firth of Forth in Fife (ALLITERATION WOO!!!). It was really incredible, and even though it was freezing, and wet, and gross, I'm glad I did it. I managed to get safely down, of course, I slipped and fell AFTER managing to climb down the crags, and I ended up covered in mud. Oh well. I found Katherine already back at the flat, and we had grilled cheese, hot chocolate, and I watched 30 Rock.

I don't really have any pictures from up on the crags, but it was beautiful, and now it is pretty firmly embedded in my memory, and it will be a story I can tell for a long time. I think sometimes it is better not to have a camera. I can say with confidence that I will remember the fifth of November, 2010.

Tomorrow, Katherine and I are leaving on a 7 am train to Ardrossan Harbour, whence we shall take a ferry to the Isle of Arran, which I have heard is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Here's hoping the weather improves.

Back on Sunday.

improvements, spontaneity, suggesting coconuts migrate, the best day of my life thus far, and Hallowe'en

I'm taking a moment to do a wee bit of blogging between work on my essay for City of Rome... I need a break! I've been spending a lot of time in the library lately, because I have 2 3000 word essays due in the 3 weeks, 1 2000 word essay due next week (but half of it is a transcription that I've got mostly done already), and a rather large portfolio for Archaeology due on 3 December. Heavy stuff, my friends. Surprised that I've already started working? Yeah, I am too. But let's consider how in the Scottish uni system, my finals are worth 50-60% of my grade, and these essays are worth the rest. Can't afford to have a bad day.

Now, on to the subject of this post: as my parents reminded me while I was having a Skype conversation with them last week, time is moving quickly. I haven't done a lot of the things I planned to do (and, the question of whether I actually end up making it to Dublin is very much up in the air :/), and I don't have that much time left in which to do them. So, following this conversation, I decided to get my act together and get better at balancing academia with living life to its fullest.

This brings me to a little bit of a sidebar: while I haven't crossed a lot of things off of my list of things to do in Scotland, I think I'm becoming a much better and more interesting person while I am here. My life has lacked a lot of balance up until this point; I will simply waste days, scramble to do work, and rarely get out and do things, or if I do, I go crazy doing them. For the first several weeks I was here, I didn't go out that much or make a lot of new friends, or really do much of anything (aside from my homestay and the Highlands) except go to my classes and hang out with some friends once in a while. While people were getting out around Scotland, and living it up in Edinburgh, I was just sort of adjusting and existing (not that I wasn't having a good time). My thought process was that I had all the time in the world later in the semester to do things, but I didn't really account for my essays or the sheer number of things I wanted to do.

Now, I'm learning to get my work done during the day (I pretty much live in the library), so I can go out with my friends at night. A bunch of kids from Hermit's Croft have pretty much become regulars (in a non-alcoholism way) at the Montague, the pub across the street from our flat. It's very cozy and friendly. We're actually going to their pub quiz tonight, hooray! But I have also developed a really amazing close circle of friends from ClassicsSoc (it's weird how no matter where I go, I always end up falling in with these people...), and we go dancing sometimes, or just hang out around campus.

So, back to the point. Last week, my friends and I had tried to get these tickets from the International Student Center to go to Stirling, including entry to the castle, for £7 (such a good deal), but they sold out after only one of us had managed to get to the ticket counter and buy two tickets. So, we could either pay our own way to Stirling or not go. I considered not going, but then we were going to go to Perth and go to Scone Palace because it closes for the season on 31 October, and it's supposed to be nice. However, one of our friends informed us that the ISC said that if we showed our student IDs at Stirling Castle while the ISC was there, we'd get in free, so Katherine (flatmate) and I decided to go to Stirling and meet up with some of our friends there. On Friday night, while we were looking at the guidebook for Scotland that my grandparents so kindly left behind for me, we discovered that there is a castle about 20 minutes by bus away from Stirling, in a village called Doune, that happens to be the castle used for filming nearly every castle scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail!!! Naturally, we just had to go, so we made plans to hit up Sterling, and then leave to go to Doune.

Again: I have been having trouble uploading photos to my blog, so here are links to photo albums:
Stirling: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031394&id=1135890300&l=bc618a5687
Doune: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031399&id=1135890300&l=c56f7081eb

We got to Stirling, split a tasty Cornish pasty, and then walked up to the castle, where it turned out that they would NOT let me in free with my ID, so I bought a Historic Scotland card at a steeply discounted rate (£25 woo!!) that I assume will pay for itself with visits to maybe 2 more sites, which is good because we're going to Craigmillar Castle at some point in the near future. It turned out that our timing was not synchronous with my friends, so we went on a tour of the Earl of Argyll's lodgings, which I expected would take about half an hour, but was incredibly wrong concerning this assumption.

You probably know how antsy I get about time (this was at 11:30, and we had to be on a bus by 1:55 or else our day would be entirely thrown off), and how much I have trouble paying attention to people for long periods of time, so I was pretty much freaking out when by noon, we had not even entered the lodgings, but had listened to the guy talking about every aspect of the outside of the building, up to the moulding on the windows. But, there was no way out of the tour because there were security people by the courtyard gate and stuff. So, finally inside, the house was pretty cool, but the tour guide would NOT shut up. I had a frantic texting conversation with my friend Liz, who was at this point inside the castle, expressing my doubts that we'd find them in time to meet up, and also my fear that we would never get out of the townhome tour. Finally, it was over and Katherine and I ran up to the castle and found Liz in the Chapel Royal, which was beautiful. The building, which you can see in my album, didn't really fit in... it was all fairytale building-y, as opposed to the imposing stone of the other buildings. It turned out that the palace itself is closed as they restore it to its original splendour, so I was pretty upset, but anyway, the castle was cool. There were really creepy fake people in the kitchens, but I got over it. The views of the surrounding countryside from the battlements and the outer courtyards were beautiful... stunningly so. Autumn here is just gorgeous, but this was nothing compared to the loveliness of Doune.

We caught our bus, which turned out to be way more expensive than we thought it would be (£6.70 each for a return ticket!!!), and enjoyed the ride through a rather rural area. We went over tiny stone bridges. Idyllic. The village of Doune itself was adorable, very small, and with a lot of wee boutiques, a number of which were of a bridal nature. We followed signs to the castle, and on the way there, we walked through a pasture that was the site of a wooden Roman fort (cool!), and then through the woods for a bit. This begins the part of my day that made it the best day of my life. The weather on this particular day was extremely gorgeous and perfect. Sunny, brisk, but not too cold, and the light was of that particular autumnal variety that leaves everything a little golden and makes me feel extremely happy.

We got to the castle itself, and I was just way more excited than I really should have been. The admission (covered by Historic Scotland, woo!) included an audio tour narrated by Terry Jones! It was pretty fab. Usually, I can't stand audio tours (the attention problem), but I listened to absolutely everything because it was really interesting. Doune Castle is special because it hasn't really been at all altered since the Medieval era. Also, the Duke of Albany, who owned the castle was pretty fascinating, and there's just a ton of cool history that goes with it. I'd recommend checking out at least the wikipedia article, if you're at all interested in that sort of thing. Anyway, the audio tour went through the historical stuff, and then you could listen to all the Monty Python stuff after that. So, I took an excessive amount of pictures, and you might recognize parts of the castle from the movie. Their use of space to make sets for like, 5 different castles (I think?) was really creative.

Of course, I had to run around the Great Hall (where they filmed the Camelot scene) singing the Knights of the Round Table song, and Katherine and I pretended to have coconuts outside, so now I feel like my life is a little more complete. The cool thing about the Castle was that there was just a very little bit that was off limits, and otherwise, visitors are really free to wander wherever they want in whatever order they want to go. So, we spent a long time just checking out all the nooks and crannies of the castle. My observation: this particular castle had a ludicrous number of privies. I don't think I would have liked walking around outside when they were in use...

So, from the top of the castle, we had noticed how breathtakingly scenic the surrounding area was, and decided to take a bit of a hike after the castle closed. It was still lovely, and approaching sunset, which made everything even more beautiful. So, we followed a few paths and the sound of some cows, until we ended up by the river and underneath the most yellow tree I have ever seen. Then we climbed down a precarious bank that seemed like it was really just a lot of moss, and decided it was probably a bad idea to be on it, and continued on our merry way. We saw people fishing, some dalmatians, and a family picking berries. It was like walking through a landscape painting. I have never felt so peaceful and relaxed in my life. I really can't describe it, but it really was the best day ever. We had to hustle just a little at the end to catch our bus, but otherwise, so relaxing.

We got back to Stirling, timed SO perfectly to catch a train back to Edinburgh, and then got home and I sort of threw together a really bad costume to go to the Montague's Hallowe'en party with a bunch of my friends. If you showed up in "fancy dress," you got a free glass of punch. Woo! Katherine and I had started watching an episode of "A Bit of Fry and Laurie," when I realized that the party started at 8... not 9... so I hustled out to the Pub in flip flops and a white sheet with a yellow sheet over it (yes, in Scotland in October), hoping that somebody would declare my costume to be something. It was just vaguely biblical.

At first, it was pretty slow, but more of our friends turned up as time went on, and the party got pretty hoppin'. Some man had brought a giant tub to use for bobbing for apples, and one of the bartenders talked me into being the first to try. I am not good at bobbing for apples, but my motto being, "Never say no to anything reasonable," I decided to go for it. After 3 tries, I figured I wasn't going to be getting any apples, and I was allowed to reach in and grab an apple. TASTY. Corey and Liz both managed to get apples, so clearly, I'm a failure at apple bobbing. The night progressed and Liz, Corey, and Emily all left, while Callie and I decided we'd try going to The Hive, a club that is pretty fun, but to which Callie has never been. The line was reallly long, so we decided we'd just go hang out in Callie's flat for a while. We ended up talking for a while, until I decided I was exhausted and had to go home.

So, the weird thing about Great Britain: they set their clocks back on 31 October. I knew this, but I was still a little confused as some clocks weren't set back, but my phone set itself back. What I'd like to know is how a lot of people I know managed to miss the fact that time was set back for at least TWO days. Seriously, on Tuesday morning, there were a ton of statuses on facebook like, "Showed up an hour early to my 9 am tutorial. GREAT." HOW UNOBSERVANT CAN YOU BE?!?!?! Clocks were set back for like, a full 48 hours and you somehow managed not to notice??

Okay, done with that rant. On Hallowe'en, I got some work done, chillaxed a bit, and went to find stuff to put finishing touches on my cheetah costume. I had a tunic from H&M that I'd bought on sale and decided it was entirely suitable for going out with my friends, and based my costume around that. I found some cheetah print trim and made ears on a headband, and then I did spots with black sparkly brown eyeliner. I think it looked pretty good!

Hallowe'en Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031456&id=1135890300&l=abb6355979

I met up with my friends Amisha, Sarah, and Sophie from ClassicsSoc to go to a club called Cav. They were dressed as goths, and Amisha was really upset because her hair would NOT get messed up. Sarah looked the part incredibly well, especially after the addition of a leather jacket. So my costume didn't really fit in, but that's okay :) We stopped at our friend Ben's flat on the way over, to try and convince him to come with us, but he apparently hates Hallowe'en more than any day of the year (remind you of Condrad anybody?), and said he needed to do more work for his Cicero class (ew), so we went on without him. Cav was such a good time. We hardly even had to queue, which was great. It was really, really crowded, but we found our own space for most of the night, and just had an enjoyable dancing time, until creepy guys started being creepy towards the end of the night, which ruined the mood a bit. We also kind of lost Amisha towards the end, and Sarah and I spent 20 minutes or so trying to find her, until she found us. She'd been sitting in the same place the whole time, but we had not seen her. Oh well. So, when I got home, I was exhaussssssted. Class the next day was definitely a good time... not.

Okay, this "wee break" has ended up being like an hour... oops. Back to work!

the long absence

Hey Everybody!

I'm back. So that this blog is broken up into readable chunks and in proper chronological order, please scroll down for entries covering the events of the past 3 weeks, they will be popping up in the near future. And now I shall explain why I haven't updated lately. As soon as I got back from the Highlands, I found out that my grandpa was in the hospital, and he had been there for the last 5 days, and they still didn't know what was wrong with him. For the next few days, I was really off-kilter, and so I was doing anything and everything to keep my mind off of it, but I kept coming back to how worried I was. I'm so glad that I have made a really tight network of friends here, and that my flatmates are so awesome, because I was having a really hard time for a few days, and if there hadn't been people here who I knew were there for me, I think I would have broken down a lot more.

I don't think I can leave this out of my blog, because it has really affected my experience here. Not in a bad, or a good way, but in an "oh, maybe I actually do miss being home a little bit," sort of way. I hadn't really thought about home at all, or been homesick since the first few days after I left Barrington, but I can tell you that it's been one of the hardest things in my life to be so far away from the people I love at a difficult time in our lives, and to be entirely out of control of the situation. The doctors couldn't figure out what was happening, and my mom was reliant on my aunts for information, so I was really, really out of the loop. Mom and Matt went out to see him, and I guess things weren't looking so good, but miraculously, he made a full recovery, and after I think, a week and a half (?) he was back at home. So, there you have it, my grandpa is a medical miracle (and a medical mystery worthy of Dr. House, apparently)! When I heard he was out of the hospital, I don't think I have ever been so relieved in my life.

In the midst of all this, I was starting to panic about a) my essays that are due in a few weeks and b) registration at Minnesota. Every semester I have a huge and paralyzing freakout concerning which classes I will take, and this time it was possibly worse, considering that I have only 3 more semesters left at Minnesota, and a lot of stuff to fit into that time. Scheduling karma is not kind to me, so I had to scrap a lot of my original plans in order to take things that count to my major. I think I'm okay with it now, but it was not a pleasant couple of days. Here's the kicker... I don't even register til 11/11, so I guarantee I'll probably change my mind at least 3 more times before then, and probably a few times after.

I am not too worried about my essays... I'm pretty confident in my abilities to crank them out. I just get so many thoughts running around my head when I'm researching, that it's really hard to organize everything, or even to sit down and read one thing without jumping around to a million other books. I'm pretty sure I have severe ADD, but I've been able to beat it for a long time, I don't see why now would be any different.

Okay- time for class. Remember to keep scrolling down for more updates, because they will be coming! Here's a preview: horrible field trip, the Classics Society, Edinburgh weather, classes, the visit of my (paternal) grandparents, and future travel plans! As of 28/10 at 9:46 AM CST, there is one entry below this, and it contains links to some photo albums.

down with this sort of thing

The subject of this post is from a graffito on our campus, which I particularly enjoy. I'm not going to do multiple back entries. I'm just going to condense everything right here right now.

The week after the highlands, as you can imagine from my last post, was a scary blur. I went out with my friends most nights, and tried to focus as much as possible on work the rest of the time. That Saturday, I was incredibly excited because we were taking a field trip, and I haven't been on one of those in ages and ages and ages. Unfortunately, this field trip did not turn out so well. It was 12 pounds, which is quite a chunk of change, and we got on the bus, drove to the Scottish Crannog Centre along the same route we'd taken up to the Highlands the week before, got there, and when we saw what the Centre was, I think we were all a little disappointed. It was a tiny little building, and a re-creation of a neolithic lake-dwelling. We watched a dude show us how some prehistoric tools worked, and waited for him to finally get some fire made (the most exciting part of the day, by far), and then got taken into the Crannog, where we sat in the dark while a guy talked to us for a while. After this, we were left on our own to explore. I whittled a stick down, we looked at the exhibit 3 times, and had hot chocolate, and we still had an hour and 45 minutes until the bus was coming. There was really no path to hike around anywhere, and the centre didn't really have an indoors area, so we were all sitting around outside, freezing our butts off and trying to figure out how to fill up the time til the bus left. We mostly ended up meandering around the gift shop (the only heated area) until it was time to go. I got home, and pretty much fell asleep straightaway.

On Tuesday, my grandparents came to visit. I was really excited to see them! I have class until 6 on Tuesday evenings, so I didn't get to meet up with them until seven or so. I got moderately lost on the way over (stupid Google maps!), and had to call a friend to direct me there. I finally made it, and had a nice chat with my grandmother until my grandpa came back up from the lobby. We decided to eat at an Indian restaurant, Kismot, that I had been dying to try for ages. We waited forever and a day to get our food, but filled the time talking about plays and Mad Men (I could talk about Mad Men for just about forever!). When the food finally came, we were so hungry, I could have eaten anything. But this was amazing stuff... Kismot is family owned and all of the food is made up from scratch, and let me tell you, the difference is notable. My lamb was so tender and delicately flavored. Ahh, I have not eaten such a good meal in ages.

Wednesday, we went to the National Gallery. Art is interesting, but blogging about viewing art is not interesting. Dinner at the Hotel Bonham was amazing, and accompanied by more family tales. Thursday brought us to the National Gallery and a sushi dinner (yum). On Friday, we went to Glasgow. I'd never been there before, so we got on the train and headed there with the intention of going to the Kelvingrove Gallery. When we got there, we weren't entirely sure how to get to where we were going. I was so proud of myself that on my way to the visitors' center, a man actually came up to me and asked for directions! I pride myself on blending in, and usually I can give simple directions, but knowing nothing about Glasgow, I sadly had to admit that I wasn't from there.

We had difficulty finding the bus stop, so we took the subway, which I felt sort of bad about, considering that my grandma had her hip replaced recently, which means that she doesn't have a very easy time of walking up and down stairs. Then it turned out to be a longer walk than we thought from the subway station to the museum, so I felt bad again. We finally got there, and luckily, Grandma was able to use a wheelchair to rest while we were getting around the galleries. We looked at French and Italian art, had some coffee, and then checked out the other side of the museum, where they have natural history exhibitions. When the museum closed, we went back to the train station and waited until we could get an off-peak train back to Edinburgh.

Safely back on familiar ground, we went to New Town to eat seafood at the Mussel Inn, which was delicious. Saturday, G&G went on a highlands tour, so I tried to get some work done, and then went out with my friends Chelsea, Sam, and Lindsey. It was good to be out and about, and do some dancing! I came back, and went to sleep so I could meet up with G&G for the last time on Sunday. We went to look at the outside of the Scottish National Parliament Building, which is rather controversial because it was 1)not designed by a Scot, 2) went hugely over budget, and 3) does not fit in with the atmosphere of Old Town at all. Here are a few images so you can see:
http://tinyurl.com/3xzwxsk
http://tinyurl.com/32zrqdc

The inside was closed since it was Sunday, so we went on a bus to Leith, which is right on the ocean. We had another delicious seafood meal, and we said a sad goodbye as we went our separate ways.

Tuesday, I went to the Pub Quiz at the Greenmantle Pub, where I attempted to help out the ClassicsSoc team, but ended up being quite useless aside from the few questions I actually knew the answers to, but to which nobody actually believed that I was right. Oh well, next time! It's really mostly about hanging out with the group, because they are all really nice and fun. Well, actually, a couple of the guys got into a bit of a boast-fest, so Amisha, Sarah, and I left the premises.

Speaking of the ClassicsSoc, I finally feel like I've really integrated into something here, and it's killing me that I have to leave so soon. I wish I could extend to a full year, but I know that I have to be in Minnesota for the spring if I EVER want to finish my degree. Edinburgh is amazing, but I think at the end of this, it will be time to go back home and focus on determining my area of concentration, etc. I am thinking a lot about the future and things I would like to do, and feeling more and more like I'm meant to be in the education/communication side of things than the actual science-y bit. I'm still up for learning about the science, because that's hugely important (duh), but in the long run, I don't think that's where I'll end up. I've been working on internship applications (I know, already, can you believe it? A lot are due 17 Dec, which seems ludicrously early).

Okay, enough of all this. xx

Wait a Minute! There's no Angus McLeod in North Kilttown!

For everybody's future reference: pictures from the Highlands can be seen in these two albums:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031068&id=1135890300&l=4041347ff6
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031098&id=1135890300&l=26e7e553c5

Now, when I last left you, dear readers, I was about to embark on a journey to the Scottish Highlands. We left on a Friday morning at 7:45 am from campus, so all most of us wanted to do on the bus was sleep. However, our very enthusiastic tour guide only left us in quiet for a few minutes before we started hearing all about the landscape around us. I was so conflicted because on one hand, I was so sleepy, but on the other, I did not want to miss anything. We stopped at a Wal-Mart affiliate, ASDA, in Perth to allow people to get some food, and to meet up with the buses carrying Butler students from other universities. I thought I saw a girl I knew from high school, and as it turned out, it was a girl I knew from high school. So we had a little "It's a Small World, After All" moment, as we marveled at how random it was that we happened to both be in Scotland without knowing it.

Second, we stopped at a place called the Hermitage. The story goes that an ancient Scottish bard by the name of Ossian (who was blind) lived in a hut/cave in the woods here by a waterfall, and he wrote this beautiful poetry that went undiscovered til the 1700s, when a man called James MacPherson "found" the manuscripts and translated it from Gaelic. As it would seem, this is all a bunch of crap, and MacPherson himself wrote the poetry. Not that it's bad poetry, but it would appear that it is not actually ancient, and this Ossian fellow was made up. The area was just beautiful... there was another waterfall, and an old stone bridge, and many trees. We were being hustled through, though, so I was sad that I couldn't just walk around for hours. I should figure out how to go back, maybe.

Anyhoo, following this, we stopped in an adorable town, Pitlochry, where my friend Sarah and I ate in a cute little restaurant, and then had a wander about through some of the shops before getting back to the bus. Following Pitlochry, we drove to Glenfinnan, where the Hogwarts Express from the Harry Potter movies is filmed. We climbed up a big hill that was very muddy, so I carried Sarah over a bit of it, as she wasn't wearing appropriate footwear. The train coming was actually supremely anti-climactic, but my friend Lauren and I insisted upon humming the Harry Potter theme while taking video of the train passing.

Glenfinnan was the last stop of the day until we came to Inverness, our stopping point for the night. Inverness means "Mouth of the Ness," which I didn't know until I went there, so hooray for learning stuff. A few of us walked around Inverness for a while, and then decided we would go to a pub called Hootenanny, where there's folk music every night. Drinks were very expensive, but I had the local brew, and it was pretty good. One of the girls I was with used to do Irish step dancing, and she really wanted to dance, but wouldn't do it, so she attempted to teach me the basic step thing, and we went to dance (it was embarrassing), but then this one girl who's with Butler St. Andrews came out and totally kicked some ass at dancing, allowing us to fade into the background. This whole time, there was a lady sitting by the stage, and she was really, really into the music. We're talking clapping, foot stomping, hitting the speakers, nodding her head, the whole shebang. She really wanted to dance... so, we all started dancing as well, and it was pretty gratifying to see the joy on her face as we were all flinging each other in wild do-cee-does around the dance floor. After a bit, a few of us decided we were exhausted and went back to our hostel.

In the morning, we got up nice and early to go to Culloden Battlefield, the site of the last battle fought on British soil (16 April, 1746). Background knowledge: in 1745, the Jacobites started a rebellion against William of Orange, the Protestant and(duh)non-English king of England. Bonnie Prince Charlie (aka Charles Edward Stuart) led them in the name of his father, James, who believed himself to be king of England, but was chilling in France until further notice. So, Bonnie Prince Charlie rounded up a motley crew of Highland warriors, and had a really bad idea to try to march all night and surprise the government troops (incidentally, most of these troops were Highlanders as well. A lot of mothers would send one son to each side, because everybody wanted to be on the winning side. Hence, it was a battle of brothers against brothers), whom he thought would be ragingly hungover from celebrating the birthday of their commander the night before. Now, the British were not so stupid as to get trashed the night before there was going to be a huge battle. So, in short, the Jacobites didn't make it all the way to the government camp, the government soldiers heard them coming and started chasing the Jacobites, who were forced to retreat. They caught up at Culloden, and the battle was over in about half an hour. It was entirely a massacre, which led to the Duke of Cumberland, head of government forces, to be known as "The Butcher." Culloden spelled doom for the clan system in the Highlands, as the Highland clearances went into effect, and it became illegal for clan members to wear their tartans or carry their daggers with them. This is the end of my history digression.

Anyway, Culloden was spooky. In the morning, the fog was intense, and it felt really... Scottish. The markers for where each clan fell, and the larger cairn commemorating the battle stood out, and with all of the different groups of us walking around and emerging from the mist, it was a pretty shadowy atmosphere. It kind of reminded me of Antietam in that you could sort of feel the presence of death looming around.

After this mess, we naturally needed a pick-me-up, so our tour guide popped in a Proclaimer's CD, and a number of passengers on the bus had a little bit of a sing-a-long. Okay, so the first five or so rows had a sing-a-long while the back looked on in a rather bemused fashion. Happier, we disembarked at a working sheepdog farm, where we got to see some awesome border collies in action. The highlight of this was absolutely playing with the puppies. They are soooooooo cute. I think I need to get a border collie in my life in the near future. Also a highlight: the shepherd picked up a ram by its horns (one-handedly) to get it out of the herd to let people try their hand at shearing a sheep. I was pretty awesome at it. Interesting story concerning the shepherd's wife: she was an American girl who had been on a tour of the farm, loved the demonstration and found a way to work there over the summer, and by autumn, she was married to the shepherd. Now she has a Scottish accent! This whole thing prompted one of my friends to have something of a huge crisis on the off chance that a Scottish man proposed, whether she'd say yes and move to Scotland, leaving everything in America behind, or not. I was highly amused.

We had lunch in a cute little town called Aviemore, then the buses went their separate ways to different distilleries. We went to Glenfiddich. The entire place reeked of alcohol (oh gee, I wonder why?). Fermenting stuff looks pretty gross. The distilling area looks like it belongs in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. You can't take pictures except from a raised platform above it, because as a sign notified us, it was an "explosive atmosphere." The bathrooms are supposedly the nicest in Scotland... there was a chandelier and a fireplace, with a bunch of big leather armchairs. So classy.

We stopped in Elgin on the way back (I felt like I was at home... Elgin, Inverness..)and saw the ruins of an abbey, but it was just long enough of a stop to take a few pictures and then continue on our merry way. Back in Inverness, we took naps and then got back on the bus for dinner. Mmmmmm free restaurant food! It was lovely, though we had to wait FOREVER for our food to come. I guess that it's probably hard to serve like, 150-200 rowdy college students.

This is where the evening took a turn for the more interesting. A couple friends and I decided that we would go to the karaoke bar, since it was really the only other option than Hootenanny's, because Inverness is not so big. So, we had decided that we would sing I'm Gonna Be because a) we are in Scotland and b) we know all the words and have harmonies worked out and everything, but after the imbibing of certain liquids, somebody thought it would be really funny to sing Milkshake instead... I did not think this was the best idea, but somehow I went along with it. We did NOT know the words/rhythm of any part except the chorus, and we pretty much got booed off. We are planning to redeem ourselves sometime in the future with a better song choice. On the other hand, our friend Isaac brought the house down with a rousing rendition of "Roses" by OutKast. Props to him on the rapping part, haha.

We decided to leave the karaoke place and go to Hootenanny's, but for some reason we left Hootenanny's with the intention of going back in, but as it turns out, you can't get into anywhere after midnight. This random old guy came up and asked where we were going next, and seemed to be trying to hit on one of our friends, so rather than making an attempt to get in anywhere, we decided to head back to the hostel as fast as possible, because the dude was creepy.

In the morning, we said good bye to Inverness and hello to Loch Ness. We took a cruise (soo cold) down the loch (no, sadly, I did not see Nessie), and stopped at Urquhart Castle, which, according to the brochure was "Raided. Attacked. And Blown Up!" or something to that effect. There was a trebuchet type thing that had been used in the movie Highlander, so naturally, my friend and I had to have an epic battle while screaming "THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!!!" (Side note: I fully understand if you are embarrassed to know me at this particular point in time). It was really beautiful, and we climbed about for a bit until it was time to get back on the bus. We stopped in Fort Augustus for lunch, which was rather charming, and then our last stop was at Glen Coe, the scenic location in which HIGHLANDER!!!!! amongst other films, was ... filmed. It was really beautiful, but camemy ra was very nearly dead, and we were only there to take pictures (Literally, we had 10 minutes). I absorbed the scenery, took as many photos as possible before the death of my camera, and participated in a group picture. We drove by the place where they film Hagrid's hut for the HP movies, and set off for Stirling to drop off the students from that uni. We started watching Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and it was pretty sweet timing, because as we pulled into Pollock Halls in Edinburgh, the movie ended. We all clapped at Scott's (our driver) impeccable timing, and went home to be exhausted until class the next day.

Hill-Walking, Reflections on Safety, Costco, Working Hard, Hardly Working, Not Necessarily in that Order

I haven't written in what feels like ages. Oh well, I guess I'll make up for lack of quantity with some high quality blogging. I'm going to start this post out on a serious note, and then move on to the goings on in my life. Also, I apologize for the weird layout of this post. I'm not sure what's up with that. Here goes...

This week, with all of the terrorist threats, Butler sent us a ton of emails and urged us to register with the American Consulate. Normally, I tend not to take things too seriously, but I decided to register right away, because I plan on travelling as much as possible, even with these warnings. I'm pretty sure that most of the places I want to go are not really huge spots. Some of the other Butler kids and I have talked about whether we think there is really any sort of threat or not, and it seems like most people are kind of worried, but still proceeding with plans anyway (my friend Liz is going to Paris this weekend, and other people had already purchased tickets for upcoming weekends to various places). While I don't feel really personally threatened or anything, the volume of information we've been receiving about safety and travelling are really making me consider safety in my travel plans a lot more. Not only did we get emails from all of the Butler people here, we got one from the director of IFSA Butler. I feel like there's not so much we can do differently, and I'm not going to lie, I am very American. I open my mouth, and people know I am American as soon as I say one word. If I travel, I'll be travelling with a group of American students, and there's really very little I can do about that. I try not to draw attention to myself, but I feel like I'm very bad at sinking into a crowd, especially because of my tendency towards brightly colored hats. I don't know where this train of thought is headed... just thought I should probably remark on how seriously Butler is encouraging us to take these travel alerts. Okay, enough of that, and back to your regularly scheduled blog programming.

Since my return from England, and realizing that time moves very quickly here, I've been working on getting myself to do things more frequently. Tuesday was our Butler reunion dinner, which was fun (mmm free food!), but I've just decided that I'm not going to go absolutely day-by-day here because I have been spending a lot of time doing school work (that's a surprise!), so things have been pretty low-key. So, the highlights of the last week and a half:

Wednesday: Getting lost, chilling out, emerging victorious!
Wednesday provided me with much excitement. I had my first tutorial, for Scotland and Orality, and I was a little nervous because I wasn't sure if we were going to be quizzed on the reading or what, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. Our tutor is very warm, friendly, and laid-back, so I think it is going to be a good experience. Starting next week, I'm moved back to Thursday tutorials, because they ended up unable to cancel the date as there was one girl who couldn't make it on a Wednesday. This means that the tutorial will probably consist of me, two other students, and our tutor. After that, my friend and I decided that we should go to the travel "fayre" that Butler was having at their offices, which are located in the New Town (relatively new... it's Georgian. I will write an entry just talking about Edinburgh itself sometime in the very near future), which is a good distance from where our classes are. Having only a vague notion that Rutland Square was on the west side of New Town, we set off, and walked for a long time, eventually (after a call to my roommate for help, and randomly deciding to walk down an alley that fortuitously led into the square) made it to the Butler office. The travel fayre turned out not to be so helpful, as I am pretty savvy at researching destinations and travel options on the Internet, but there were sweets, and a guy to tell us about travel within Scotland, which was actually helpful. When we left, my friend realized that we could have come a much easier way, and went back that way, but I had to do some shopping on Prince's Street, so I went back the way we came. I was looking for a sweater or sweatshirt, which led me to H&M, where I came out with a belt and some hairclips. Oops.

I hustled back to Old Town, to leave my books and stuff in my flat before I went back to the campus area for the Classics Society Pub Crawl, starting at our patron pub, the Greenmantle, where we are always presented with very free food and very low-cost beverages. I started the night out classy with a glass of wine, fried food (it seems like everything is deep-fried here, which is why I tend to do my own cooking as much as possible!), and Haribo gummies (they are HUGE here. every store has a big display of Haribo, which is pretty funny to me). I spent a delightful hour or so with the few people who had shown up at the beginning (Who starts a pub crawl at 6 pm?!?), before I had to go to a different pub to meet up with my flatmates for the Hermit's Croft charity pub quiz. I got there before the rest of the team, so I tried to stake out an area, which was hard, since the pub was terrible and had no more than five tables. We ended up sitting on the floor, which was not particularly comfortable, but oh well. We were presented with a sheet of aluminum foil and the paper for our answers, and the pub quiz began. Our team consisted of me, flatmate Katherine, flatmate Caroline, her boyfriend Liam, and two other girls from HC, Jess and Becky. We stole a team name from a team that had won the FreshAir pub quiz during Freshers' Week: Quiz in my Pants. They told us to use the aluminum foil to make a sculpture incorporating sport and veg(etable), so Becky suggested we make a man benchpressing a carrot or courgette or cucumber. Somehow, I became in charge of making the guy, and we ended up with a lovely little sculpture.

The team was an excellent combination of talents, because we ended up coming in second (1st place in the sculpture category with 9.5/10!!!) and we won a box of variety chocolates. We went back to our flat to celebrate (by eating the chocolate, yum!), and ended up giving most of it away, which was probably a good thing.

Friday: Harvest Festival and a Lovely Dinner
On Tuesday, Ying, Sarah, and I had decided that we would have dinner together at my place and class things up a little bit. I decided I would make a roast pork loin with rosemary, accompanied by a spinach salad and roast sweet potatoes with sage and rosemary. I'd already bought the pork when Ying decided she didn't want to go out since she'd be busy all weekend (sadness), so I invited my flatmates to join our dinner party. But, I have gotten ahead of myself. In the afternoon, I went to the Harvest Festival and learned about various environmental programmes in Scotland, as well as some of the different groups on campus. I wanted to go to a talk about sustainable food, but it didn't happen at the time it was supposed to happen, so I settled for my piece of free pie and then left to go shopping to buy some plates and a roasting pan. All of this was achieved at Poundland, and our plates, as you will see shortly, are quite fashionable. At Poundland, we had our first real unintelligible Scottish experience. A lady kept talking to us, and we were trying to hold up the conversation, but we really,really couldn't understand most of what she was saying. Something about being a bookbinder, but then they moved it to Harvard. I was trying to ask questions, but I'm not sure she understood me either. It's amazing how much difficulty there can be between people speaking the same language...

I started cooking and dinner was ready a little late, but it was okay, because it was DELICIOUS.

I am an amazing chef, and modest too. It was a very nice evening, and then Sarah and I decided we would go out to the Hive, which is a club on the Cowgate. However, we couldn't find it, and in the end, we decided that we're boring, so we went back to her room at Pollock Halls and watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It was an entirely worth while choice, and I was so tired by the end of the movie that I got home and fell asleep right away.

Scottish Party Lifestyle
Saturday was a pretty laid-back day in the daytime. I got a little work done, tidied my room, hung out with my flatmates in the kitchen for a while. Katherine and I walked around looking for dinner for a while, but mostly just ended up exploring, because we didn't find anything that we deemed cheap and tasty enough. I stopped at the store to pick up some ciders to take to a friend's birthday party later that night. Sarah was going to come to the party but had work to do, so I went over to the party myself. I got there before my friend who knows the hosts much better than I do, so it was a little awkward, but I was talking to this guy, Yuri, whom I had met last time these people had a party. Fun fact: Yuri was on the Austrian National Basketball team, but now he is getting his PhD (I think) in mathematics. Later, Yuri's flatmate Anthony, who is getting his PhD in classics (but Greek stuff, not Latin) showed up, and we all talked for a while. I had promised Katherine that I would go up Arthur's Seat with her on Sunday morning, so I left fairly early and went home and slept.


Sunday: Muddy Sunday
I woke up later than I meant to, and woke Katherine up to go up Arthur's Seat. She had not realized that I actually wanted to do it. So, we got our act together and went outside. No sooner had we walked out the door than the sky opened and burst forth with torrential rain. No, I'm exaggerating. It was just a cold drizzle, so it was pretty unpleasant, but we were committed to doing some hill-walking. We couldn't figure out where the easy path was, so we started walking up some stairs on the side of the hill. These stairs just so happened to terminate at a random point, leaving no path to follow. However, there was a lovely view of the Salisbury Crags

and of the city as a whole.

So, naturally, we decided it would be a great idea to climb up the rock face and see if there was another path at the level ground that we could see probably 30 feet above us.That is the view looking down from when we found the path at the top that actually did exist. So, we walked until we saw more people walking, and then followed them to what we thought was the top, but was not actually the top. There's a little grassy area between the three peaks, and so we had to walk across it to get to the highest peak on Arthur's Seat. While we were doing that, we saw all the messages that people had written with rocks they found, and we decided to add our own.


At this point, I realized that I was supposed to meet my friend LeeAnn at 1 to make a pilgrimage to Costco, and that we would never make it back down on time, and I didn't have my phone. Oops. So, we went up to the summit and had a grand old time looking all around the city and the surrounding areas, and trying to point out the buildings we knew. There's a map sort of thing that tells you what the big things in the distance are, and how far away they are. We were trying to figure out if we could actually see some of the things in the longer distances, but we still aren't sure.

Then I had a go at trying to pull the sword out of the stone...


On the way back down, we tried to go the "easy way" and failed miserably, facing the choice of sliding down a bunch of rocks or going back up and trying again. We ended up walking down the really steep stairs that go straight down the face of the mountain, and we were puzzled by the people who kept passing us at faster speeds, because we were afraid of falling and dying. It was SO slippery, because it was raining, and the steps are really uneven, and there's nothing to hold on to. It was pretty much my nightmare, but we made it down okay, and then we hustled home so I could get a hold of LeeAnn and tell her I'd be late.

I showered, then ran to the bus stop, where a nice man helped us figure out how to take a bus other than the one we'd planned to take that wouldn't be coming for a while. We were concerned that my card wouldn't work for European Costco, but oh, did it work. After shopping at Tesco Metro for the last month, Costco was heavenly. I ended up not really buying too much because I knew I couldn't carry a lot, but I was pretty proud of myself for purchasing liquor at Costco on my own. The checkout guy was really friendly, and amused that we were Americans at Costco in Edinburgh buying large quantities of liquor. Then, we had hotdogs. It was divine. Mmmmmm...


The Week
It's been a good week, but a busy week. I've been in the library getting things done quite a bit these last several days. You have to do a lot of reading here. A lot a lot. And you actually have to do it. It's been absolutely gorgeous, for the most part, all week, so I have been doing my reading outside and breaking it up with short strolls. Lovely. Tuesday was my first archaeology tutorial, and it turned out just fine. My tutor is nice, and I met an Aussie named Hannah who is quite lively, and I think we will get along very well. Wednesday I did more work, and then decided to go to the Edinburgh CouchSurfing meetup, which was a good plan. Something interesting was pointed out to me as we were all talking about having out of the ordinary names... my name is cool because I can just change the accent and pretend I come from pretty much anywhere in the world. I don't feel like too many names can go entirely unaltered in spelling and general pronunciation throughout so many languages. So, maybe I'll pretend to be German for a while. I was responsible and didn't go dancing afterward, but we were at the pub until they kicked us out just after 1. I forgot how many people you meet at once when you go to CS events! That brings us to today: I got SO much done today. I was proud of myself. After all my classes were done, I went to Spanish Society, because somehow, Ying, who does not speak Spanish, is the president of the society. There was free food. Mmmm. I met a girl from Italy, and a girl called Camille from New Zealand. We hung out for a while after the meeting, and then I went back to my flat to cook up some salmon with Katherine. We blasted Disney music and Motown while cooking, and it was a generally good time.

Now that you're all caught up, I am going to go to bed, because tomorrow I have to meet the bus at 7:30 to go to the Highlands!!! I'm going to go catch the Loch Ness Monster, you betcha.