the big smoke

October 28, 2008
LONDON.

Disclaimer: THIS IS GOING TO BE LONG. GO AHEAD, SIT DOWN AND RELAX.

So this weekend we took a pretty successful trip to London. Thursday we took the 5:15ish bus and thought we were going to be late…so that’s lesson number one. Never leave during rush hour. However, once we got there, we found that our flight had been delayed anyway, so everything ended up being fine. We flew EasyJet, which was actually nice for what it is. Our tickets were £65ish pounds round trip, which is pretty freakin sweet. After we finally arrived at London Luton, we had to find the EasyBus, which would drop us off within about ½ mile or so of our hostel. However, we had to find it in the dark, which was, to be honest, sketchy. We walked through tunnels, hedges (“I bet many a girl has gotten knocked up here…”, under bridges, along the highway, etc. We had absolutely no clue where we were going. Claire and her “grandfather” had looked up where our hostel was in reference to where we got dropped off, but we had no real map on us, so we just walked up the road until we saw the landmarks the hostel had pointed out in their email. The Brent Cross tube station. Once we found it, it was simple. The tube was literally across the street. We think we arrived sometime around 10:30pm-ish…none of us really paid attention to what time it was. We found the desk, gave them our passports, got our sheets and room number, and went to bed. However, once we actually were awake and had time to explore, we found that our hostel was absolutely massive. It was situated on four floors and included a basement with pool table, main level with (free!!) internet, a first floor with bedrooms and a common area/kitchen. The second floor had more bedrooms and the bathrooms. We spent many a hour in the common area, drinking beer, eating “dinner” usually consisting of chips and candybars and playing/reading out loud Trivial Pursuit (the old old old UK version—like before Russia was Russia and there was a West Germany) cards. Good times.


Friday began with going to the tube station and buying day passes for £5.90. We then took the Northern Line to the Tower of London where we spent £16.50 to get into the castle. Although that’s quite a bit to spend, since I pay UK taxes, I had the option of giving the “tax” money back to the castle instead of the government. For that good deed, I get free, unlimited admission to the Tower of London for a year! Once inside the tower, we jumped into a tour group and our guide (aka our “beefeater”) was adorable. We saw amazing buildings—it’s crazy to think that at some point, those were royal grounds! I walked the same path that kings and queens walked! I may have also walked on some pretty nasty ground—executions, betrayal….I guess it comes with the territory…We also saw the Crown Jewels. Uh, I can have some crazy jewlrey?!? The jewels belong to the country and the role, not necessarily the Queen herself, so I guess I’ll just have to become Queen someday. We also took a walk on Tower Bridge, what most people think of as the “London Bridge.” Thank you, Fergie, for making the rest of the world think you (and therefore all Americans ) are stupid since you danced on the Tower Bridge while singing, “London, London, London…” Thanks a lot. Aaaanyway. However, from the bridge we did see an Obama—Biden sign in a flat window above the street. I don’t know if it was an American person’s flat/office or what, but it’s interesting how the rest of the world relies on how the US is run.

After the Tower we had some quasi-amazing KFC. It was amazing mostly because we were starving. Quasi-amazing because it was really greasy and not quite as good as authentic KFC.

There’s a company in Edinburgh called NewEdinburgh which gives free walking tours during the day (it’s absolutely amazing. If you ever have the chance to take it, go for it! The guides work strictly on tips and so they literally HAVE TO give a good tour because they make what they get in tips.), and they also have a tour in London (called NewLondon…obviously). So we went on that tour. Saw an amazing dressed Asian couple. The girl had on every color imaginable and then to top it off, heeled camo boots. The guy had the best rat tail ever. Refer to my pictures. But on the tour we saw a whole lot of the city, including: the old city wall, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Millennium Bridge (aka the “wobbly bridge”), the Tate Modern Collection (aaaamazing.), the London Eye and the Priory of Scion. There was a whole lot of history lessons in there…but we were tired and I can’t remember them. After the tour, we were starving and so Claire had the genius idea of finding Chinatown and eating there. So we found this place and had an amazing traditional Chinese meal (I felt like I was in China again!! So much food, such a little bowl!) After dinner, our nightlife consisted of Trivial Pursuit, snacks and beer. It was pretty much amazing.

Saturday, we got up early and made our way to Leister Square to try to get our hands on some tickets for a play later in the day. We ended up getting tickets to Avenue Q for Saturday night, which I had never seen, but had heard from many sources that it’s ridiculously funny. So with tickets in hand, we started our sightseeing for the day.

We started off going to Piccadilly Circus. Maybe I’m just missing something, but I didn’t really see what was so great about it…but took the picture to say I was there. Claire and Anna really wanted to go to the Portrait Gallery to see the Annie Leibovitz exhibit, so we went there next. She’s famous for her photography, particularly her portraits of famous people. It was fabulous. Her portraits are really inspiring and made me really want to buy a nice camera. Some of the portraits she takes (okay, most of them) are breath-taking. Amazing. Spectacular. So it was really nice to see. Claire wasn’t so keen on the rest of the artwork there, but I decided that since we were in the National Portrait Gallery, I was going to actually look through the rest of the exhibits. I mean, lets be honest: I love art. Love making it, love looking at it, love everything about it. Of course, there are periods and genres I like more than others, but I enjoy looking at it all and appreciate its worth. The collection at the Portrait Gallery was quite spectacular. So much art! However, my favorite part of the day was definitely the Tate Modern Collection. The Tate was amazing—they have thousands of pieces of crazy good art. Famous art. Beautiful art. Ugly art. Strange art. Paintings. Portraits. Sculpture. Video. Photography. Everything! My favorites were the Cubists, Impressionists and Expressionists. Monet, Manet, Picasso, Kandinsky…it was amazing. Fabulous. My Mecca. Art to me is so fascinating—and the imagination and vision of the artists never ceases to amazing me…I can’t wait for the Louvre. I’m definitely spending the money to revisit it. And not just for the Mona Lisa. She’s kind of over-rated. I’ve seen her before. She’s mysterious. I got it. There are definitely other pieces of art I would enjoy browsing more. After the museums, we had good burgers at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen, which was really good. I had a burger topped with a portobello mushroom and it was quite tasty. They had some gooood chunky fries as well.

Next was Avenue Q at 5pm. Umm, it’s hilarious. It’s basically like a version of Sesame Street…but for adults. Some stellar song titles include “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist,” “It Sucks to Be Me,” “I’m Not Wearing Underwear Today,” and “If You Were Gay”…just to name a few…It’s quite racy, and very profane. The cd cover has a Parental Advisory sticker on it. But still, it’s HILARIOUS. After the show, we made our way back to the hostel and did what else? but play Trivial Pursuit and eat candy.

Sunday was a pretty low-key day. We started by going to a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral. We though we were going to be late; however, American slavery worked in our favor and it just happened that the night before, Daylight Savings time had ended so we were actually an hour early. The service was gorgeous. And the music was amazing. I really wanted to just sit in my seat and close my eyes so that I could focus solely on the music while the choir was singing, but I was pretty sure that people would think I was asleep. So I didn’t try that.

After the service we started touristy things and went to see Parliament/Big Ben, Westminster and Buckingham Palace. I’ve seen them all, so nothing new for me. Wasn’t really surprised at anything, no new thoughts. However, a reoccurring though is that Buckingham Palace is incredibly ugly. I recognize that it’s the house of the Queen, but I mean, gah. Get a landscaper in there. Your house is ugly, yo.

After being tourists, we went to visit my step-sister, Lynn, and her husband and two kids (Tim is the husband; Leland is their son and Frankie is their daughter). They took us to lunch at this place that had the most amazing burgers and chunky fries (yes, even better than the day before), and then took us to the Camden Market, which is this trendy, bohemian, weird…place. There were lots of different people selling a whole lot of stuff. We actually went back through the market after we parted ways with them. But after the market, Frankie decided that she would like to try to convince Tim to go for ice cream, and luckily for us, it worked. So we went to this Italian ice cream place and had the most wonderful ice cream I’ve ever had.


After parting ways with Lynn, Tim and the kids, we went back through the Camden Market, and then went back to downtown London for an organ concert at Westminster. It was given by an amazing organist. I’ll just copy parts of his bio from the program:

“Léon Charles is the Organ Scholar of Westminster Abbey. Born in 1986 into a musical family, he received his early musical training at the Purcell School of Music on a government-aided scholarship….He proceeded to hold Organ Scholarships at Canterbury Cathedral and St. John’s College, Cambridge….Whilst at St. John’s, he accompanied the choir on seven BBC Radio Broadcasts, toured Estonia, the Eastern United States, Holland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria and Hungary, and appeared on two commercial recordings….As a recitalist, Léon has performed in many venues in the UK and the USA. He is also in demand as a choral & instrumental accompanist. Recent solo engagement has included the cathedrals of Canterbury, Ely, Hereford, Lichfield, Lincoln, Westminster Abbey, The Temple Church, the Cambridge Colleges of St. John’s, Emmanuel, Magdalene & Pembroke, and appearances as part of the Wymondham & Buxton festivals. He continues to study…and is an active composer, arranger & conductor.”

He sounds like a freaking genius. Aaanways. It was amazing. The music was beautiful. Unsurprisingly, we went back and played Trivial Pursuit. Then we took showers, packed and got into bed.

Monday, we got up before the crack of dawn (aka 3am) and had left the hostel by 3:30 walking to our bus stop. It was even more sketchy in the dark at 3am than at 10pm. Who knew? Although, there were other people at the bus stop when we got there, so at least we weren’t the only crazies.

All in all, good weekend. Successful trip. I can’t wait to travel even more….

seasons change...

so it's getting cold in edinburgh. every day, anna and i, for some reason, are more and more surprised at how much colder it is than yesterday. i think i figured out why, though. because the city of edinburgh is so compact, there are no trees except for in prices street gardens, and i don't normally see those on an everyday basis. and at home, the way we can tell the seasons is by the way the flora changes. the green of the trees begins to change to oranges, yellows and browns, the grass begins to die, and the flowers of the summer begin to disappear.

edinburgh doesn't have trees, flowers, or grass.

edinburgh has buildings. stone, grey building. i don't mean to give the impression that the city isn't beautiful, because it is. there is so much history here! (speaking of the history here, we took an amazing tour the other week. stay tuned.) but there are no trees to let you know that the summer is gone, fall is definitely in full swing, and it's getting close to winter. all you have is the weather itself--and it has gotten noticeably colder over the past few weeks. a few weeks ago, you took a scarf with you just in case it got gusty. today, anna and i both wore scarves, pea jackets, i wore leggings....and we were both freezing. my nose, hands and feet were so cold. i told anna that it was straight-up december weather. but it's only mid-october. ::sigh::

so this tour i was speaking of earlier. it's called "the real mary kings close." in scotland, a close is basically an alleyway that connects a main road with another road parallel to it. this particular close, mary king's close, has been excavated in the last few decades after it was covered and a new government building was erected. also keep in mind that back in the day (i'm talking like, hundreds of years ago), people tried to stay inside the city instead of moving outside of the city, where they would have no protection and might have to pay a fee to exit and re-enter the city wall. so instead of building outward, like we do in america (there was no such thing as "living in the suburbs"), they built upward. so building could be twenty stories high, and have several of them actually underground. so, all the homes/stores/whatever underground was paved over, and forgotten about until people wanted to rediscover the old edinburgh.

a favorite saying of our “tour guide” (dressed to the nines in his 18th century garb) was "drink the beer, not the water." i've often heard of people drinking alcoholic beverages in the more rural areas of the world since water supplies are often full of little bacteria that foreigners aren't used to. in argentina, i drank coke, bottled water, and anything boiled. in china, well, i drank the beer in china. here, the water is fine now, but it didn't used to be. Nor Loch (now Princes Street Gardens) was the water supply of Edinburgh up until the point it was drained in the 1820s. at which point they found female bodies (=witches), animal carcasses (= “carriers of the plague”), and if it didn’t decompose by itself, they would have found lots and lots of poop and urine. so not exactly the cleanest water supply. hence, drink the beer, not the water. but it was an amazing tour—things you’d never know about are buried below stories of government building. and the closes are tiny—these would have been full-sized streets—and weren’t even an arms-span wide. TINY! I’m definitely going to have to take the parentals and family there when they come.

exciting plans for the weekend—we’re going to london! I’ve been before, but not since ninth grade when we went to visit my step-sister in geneva, switzerland. we were only there for about four days, which is the same amount we’ll be there. but I’m excited to start the real traveling—I say real, and mean that we’re going outside of scotland. I think I might facebook my “friend” (i've never actually met her...we are friends strictly on facebook so far) kelly who is doing bunac in london. hopefully, she'll be in town and maybe we can hit her up for some night-scene knowledge and maybe even go out with her and her friends? aaanyway. also, we hope to see a show at some point and also to visit my step-sister, lynn, who is currently living in london. maybe we'll get a free meal? we shall see.

memories...

so today while i was looking for pictures of my mom on facebook so that i could tag her in them, i decided that i should take a walk down memory lane and look at the pictures of my foot after i had my skin graft. OH. MY. GOSH. those pictures were sick. i completely understand why everyone thought i was such a lunatic for not thinking it was gross. i had forgotten how big of an area of my foot was affected, and man! that's crazy....

so just for sheer pleasure, i'm going to post a few pictures on here. enjoy. or hurl. whichever you prefer.







and now that i think of it, it's completely fitting that anna and i are planning to visit the surgeon's museum today...lots of body parts preserved in formaldehyde, surgical tools...it's gonna be great. ha!

so euro chic...

i'm a really bad poster. i realize this. however, on this ever-special, hugely monumental occasion, i thought it would be proper to actually sit down and post. now, don't get scared, because what i'm about to type is going to be a little surprising. okay, maybe not really, because i'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of girl....but still.


i just chopped all my hair off. like....OFF. not shortshortshort, as in pixie-short, but pretty darn short. if i can manage to post a picture up here, i will.



i think it's super cute...and will be especially super cute when i can play with it and once it grows out a little bit...everyone knows how new haircuts are so awkward....

okay, i'm off to the post office to buy postcard stamps!

macaroni and cheese = christmas

October 5, 2008
RUN, RASTA, RUN!!

Since my last journaling, nothing too exciting has happened. I’ve finished my job at YoungScot because they’ve used up their temping budget for the year. I made some good quasi-friends at YoungScot. Last week, everyone started to talk to me, and I’m let in on jokes and conversations and whatnot…it’s quite lovely. Martin is the IT/website guy, and sometimes his accent is a little hard to understand (big surprise there), but he’s reaaaaally nice and actually reminds me of my Uncle Woodward. Red hair, a chuckle, very friendly. Good times. The girls that sit at my desk area are hilarious as well. They include Sarah Jane, Fiona, Molly and Lois. Kyle is a boy who also sits there, but he’s very quiet and just works all day. The girls are so funny—they crack jokes all day long, cuss like mad and are just loads of fun to be around. Molly is 27, has a little one year old girl, and is pregnant and likes to make the running joke to Martin (NOT her boss at all) that she really needs a pay raise since she’ll soon have two children. Which Martin would never understand since he has no children of his own. It’s quite funny, even if it doesn’t sound so funny on paper. Lois is just a smart ass and likes to make fun of everyone. She has Yahoo as her email server but likes to pronounce it like it has the a-sound of apple and stretch out the hoo part. And Fiona is just really sweet.

So today was a good day. We slept in until about eleven, and then ate some breakfast and went to Asda, which is like Christmas. (The title comes from me seeing a Rastafarian guy running down the street to catch the bus, when I said, “Run, Rasta, run!!” and Claire thoroughly enjoyed it.) Basically, it’s a British Wal-Mart, but it was the most glorious, exciting sight that we had seen in a while when we discovered it last week. We decided it was time to buy real food that was actually sustainable and so we bought chicken, pasta, milk, bread, soups, frozen vegetables, and a whole lot of other stuff--£90 worth of stuff. We also took our friend Angela along.

I almost forgot to write about our friend Mark (slash our “un-friend Mark”). Claire, Angela and I went to the Tron last night after Anna decided to go home, and we went downstairs to use the bathroom and as we were coming out, heard music in the basement so we decided to check it out and have a dance party. As it turns out, White Heath had played earlier in the night and Mark was there. After Claire and I had danced a little, he came over and started to talk to us, where Claire mentioned that we really wished that he would quit calling us, and that it was becoming quite obnoxious. He then asked if he got our numbers last weekend, (“Yes, you did.”) and so sorry I was a little drunk on Saturday! I don’t even know how I managed to play (“Yes, we noticed.”), and oh, look! There you are ("Claire American" in his phone). Amazing. He asked us if we had made any friends yet (“No, not really.”) and so hopefully he’ll actually call us now that we’ve met sober. And apparently, White Heath plays at the Tron quite often, like every Saturday night (hopefully). So it looks like we have Saturday night plans for a while. Yay!

We made baked macaroni and cheese tonight and it was glorious. Amazing. Wonderful. Soooo good. It was nice to have some food that wasn’t foreign to us and we didn’t have to ask what it was/what was in it.

Okay, I must sleep. Tiiiiired Kate. Goodnight.

finally here!

September 27, 2008 12:24am
I THINK HOMEBOY’S STARING AT YOU…
We just got back from having a fabulous night out in the city, and currently I’m waiting for my mask to dry so that I can go to sleep without getting clay mask all over my comforter and sheets….hence the journaling. It was quite the uneventful day, except that I found out that Claire, Anna and I are eligible for YoungScot cards, which apparently will get us loads of discounts in Scotland, the UK, and Europe. Which will be real nice when we start to travel..…in March. Also, we took a ghost tour last night, given by our friend Eyebrows. It was complete crap. Rubbish.

(As a side note, I have this creepy creaking noise on/in my floorboards, right beside my bed. I’ve decided it’s an extremely nice ghost that just likes to make it known that she/he is here, and that they mean no harm.)

So tonight we tried to halfway retrace our pub crawl….but only going to three bars. And only two of the bars were on the crawl. Firstly we went to The Globe, which is where they served Snakebites (complete with the hand motion of a snake striking), which are sooooo good. A snakebite is Strongbow cider, some other kind of beer, and grenadine. It’s faaaabulous. We managed to show up on the night where the new bartender was tending…bar. He didn’t know how to make them, but they were still real good. Also, there was a homeboy who kept staring in our direction, but never quite made it over to us, which just made him look like an idiot. Although he had a Scottish accent, he was straight out of South Carolina with a button up shirt under a sweater with jeans….all he needed was some Sperrys and he’d be set to fit into the Carolinas. Aaaaanyway, then we went to this place called the Three Sisters, which was absolutely PACKED. Firstly, the place was huge. There was probably a thousand people there, easily. They had a beer garden, and there was plenty of opportunity to do some people watching, which I always love. Scottish/British/European people have the wackiest sense of style I’ve ever seen. Get an obnoxious haircut and wear the most ridiculous things you can find and you’ll fit right in. However, if you try to actually look nice and match, you’ll just look like an American, heaven forbid. At this point, I’ve stopped caring, figuring that everyone can already tell I’m from the good ole USofA, so why try to hide it and try to fit in?? There’s no point. So after that we went back up the hill to another place, who had the worst band ever there…seriously it was the worst rendition of Sweet Home Alabama I’ve ever heard. Brits don’t need to try to impersonate Southern Rock bands. It’s just a bad idea. Really.

After that, we found a Subway (yes, the UK has Subway), where we picked up some cookies and a doughnut (thanks to me…you’re welcome.), and consequently almost missed our bus. We were totally the people you think look like idiots running down the sidewalk because their bus is at the stop. Yeah, we were going at a full sprint. At least as fast as we could go after two Snakebites, a pint, and cookies. Luckily, we made it….and that brings me to the present. At my home sweet flat, ready to go to bed.

And with that…..goodnight.

finally here!

September 17, 2008

WHOA, HOLY EYEBROWS.

Today we got up around 8am to get ready, find some coffee and get to our Bunac orientation. It’s taking me FOREVER to find things in my suitcase…especially since I actually packed stuff. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in a smart manner, and so I have to go searching for everything I need to find. Including shirts, pants, sweaters….EVERYTHING. And it’s chilly here. I figured I would be able to get by with just a shirt…nope. We’re all wearing our fleeces. Also, for some odd reason, I didn’t bring simple, walking-around-town shoes. So I’m definitely going to have to find a pair of those. My black and white shoes that I wore for about two hours today rubbed horrible blisters on my feet….that’s not okay with me. I’ve decided on a couple of other things I need as well, like a belt. AND A PLACE TO LIVE. This living in a hostel thing is not gonna fly for long. It’s so hard to find things and get organized when you literally have to live out of a suitcase with ALL of your stuff in it, and keep it compact since we’ll (hopefully­) be moving into a flat soon.

However, we got a lot of stuff accomplished today and so hopefully we’ll find a place to live soon. We opened up a bank account today and called OfficeTeam, getting interviews for tomorrow. Claire, Anna and I all have interviews with them tomorrow around three. Hooooopefully, we’ll all be hired around four. haha Then we can decide what we’ll be able to afford and look for a flat. And we hope we’ll be able to actually look at flats this weekend. We’ve also explored a good bit, considering that we’ve only been here for like, a day and a half. We walked around Old Town for probably thirty minutes before orientation this morning and then up to New Town to figure out where the OfficeTeam office was this afternoon. I’m pretty much able to figure out where I am on the map and then figure out which direction we need to go in to get to wherever….all in my head. Yay! Which is quite a feat for me….but I’ve also been looking at maps of the city for a few weeks since all I did in my free time was look for flats.

Tonight Bunac had a pub greet at a pub called The Last Drop, which got its name from the fact that the last public hanging was outside of its doors back in the day. We met a few people there…some I’m not so sure that we’ll keep in touch with, but a girl name Angela was there who was also in orientation this morning. She’s from around Ottawa, Canada and is a bit awkward but really sweet in all. I think we’ll probably keep in touch with her. We also got some good tips of places to go, including a discount clothes store in Glasgow to visit. Apparently they have like £5 jeans and £6 jackets, which is pretty awesome. We decided that we needed to find a place to live…something that had a closet…before we bought any more clothes. Anna and I were proud of ourselves for having a real Scottish beer…we don’t even know what it was called, but it tasted just like Bud Light with a little bit of an aftertaste, but not bad in all.

Let’s talk about British/European fashion for a minute. We’ve noticed lots (I mean, like, TONS) of skinny jeans with horribly ugly slouchy boots (sorry Linds), lots of scarves (I expected that), and lots short-sleeved/sleeveless shirts. These people act as if it’s not like, 50 degrees outside or something. And lots of strange hairstyles. It’s crazy to see so many fashion personalities all in the same place. I’m sure we stick out like sore thumbs here. People always ask us where we’re from…but I thinks it’s either a)out of niceness, or b)they think it’s possible we could be Canadians. But I’m pretty sure everyone knows we’re North American, if not from the good ole USofA. We saw a North Carolinian at the pub and knew she was from the South by her accent and foul language. It was actually quite funny to watch.

Tomorrow I think we’re going to try to hit up some of the free museums around the Old Town before our interviews in the afternoon. The Museum of Childhood is free, as well as some others that are close. We found out very quickly that the city is very pedestrian-friendly and looks much larger on a map than it really is…which is nice. We walked to the other side of the city center in about ten minutes, and a walk to Leith is only about 20 minutes apparently (Angela was looking at flats in Leith today). Niiice. Okay, well it’s definitely bedtime for me. I’m worn slap out.

September 25, 2008

IT’S NOT COCKBURN. MORE LIKE CO-BURN….

So a lot has happened since the 17^th! We all got hired by OfficeTeam and so far Claire and I have jobs. I’m working at a non-profit youth advocacy organization called YoungScot, doing data entry. I’m entering 900+ surveys the Scottish government handed out to the youth of Scotland. It’s extremely tedious and boring, but it pays. I really like the people I work with. They’re all young (mostly under 35) and cuss like crazy. Only to them, it’s part of their everyday vocabulary and it just sounds cool and posh.

Aaaaanyway, I don’t even know what to journal about because there’s so much that’s happened in the past week and a half. We went on a free walking tour of the city, where we met Mark, who is in Edinburgh at the university. He was our tour guide and is from Manchester, England. Even though he only recognizes us by face and we’re 99.9% sure he doesn’t know ANY of our names, we consider him our friend. Haha During the tour when he found out that we’d be in the city for six months, he told us that we should come to hear his band play at the Tron, a trendy pub off High Street. We went one Saturday night where we met some guys from outside of Edinburgh who were blown away that people would come to Edinburgh, and more than that, that we were three girls coming by ourselves (“No offense or anything…” blahblahblah). Mark’s band was pretty good, and we plan on going back on this Saturday as well.

Later in the week, we went on a pub crawl put on by NewEurope (the walking tour company), which was super fun. We made several friends/acquaintances and fondly gave them all nicknames. Firstly, this guy named Craig. We named him Navy. No surprise there, he’s in the Navy. Real creative, I know. Next, this guy who looked like a tool who wore a shirt that was waaaay too tight, had a bottle of something that definitely was spiked and had about a gallon of gel in his hair…..meet Jersey. He actually ended up being really nice, but still. You can’t take away the name Jersey after it’s been dished, especially if you have your hair gelled and you still wear muscle shirts at like, 29. Sorry. Next is Israeli. Once again, to no surprise, the guy was Israeli. We also named him Sketchball. I mean, he was offering to let us “share” his drink. Ummmm, actually, if you did that in the US, you would be trying to drug me. So, no thanks. And finally, there were two guys we’re pretty sure were gay. Hence, the Lovers. All in all, we had a super time and took some awesome pictures.

So the day after the pub crawl (Saturday), we had an appointment to look at a flat a little past Grassmarket, which is a super cute part of town. So we walked to the area…we were late, but whatever. We absolutely fell in love with this flat the minute we walked into it. It was three (double!!!) bedrooms, had a kitchen, bathroom and living room (we had yet to see a flat with a living room) and was just cute!! So we left the place in love, but nervous because there was still another couple to check it out, and we had seen a couple of flats be snatched up beneath us. We left the flat at about two, and decided that we’d call Joy (the owner) by two-thirty to ask her if we could have it, and she said yes!! So we had FINALLY found a flat that we actually loved. And luckily enough, it was empty and so we were able to move in the next day. Which was amazing, because we were about to go crazy in the hostel. It was nice, but we were just ready to spread out! So now we’ve gotten to explore a new part of town. We have yet to find a big grocery store though, and so we’re basically blowing our money on meals since we’re not fixing anything at home and we eat out every night for dinner. We just haven’t had a chance to look around, and everything here closes so early! Stores are beginning to close at like, six. Which is a pain when you don’t leave work until five and then have to walk home before you can do anything. Anyway. We really like the area we live in. It’s super cute, and within walking distance of my current job, so I can’t really complain.

We’ve decided that we have a few favorite places so far:

Pub: The Last Drop—super cute bartender, amazing atmosphere and wonderful food

Restaurant: “Cute Little Italian Place”—we’ve only eaten there once, but it was REAL good.

Other Restaurant: “Soup place”—real good soup that you get a freaking huge baguette with

Tomorrow I’m going to try the sandwich shop across the street from my work that’s called Sandwich Culture. Jessica, the other Bunac-er from my work, has gotten food there quite a bit and it looks super.

Oh, also. Internet. It’s a pain right now because we don’t have it. We thought we’d just get little wireless usb plug-ins instead of getting it through the phone company, but we can’t do that because you have to pay for it by automatic debit from your checking account…which we don’t have yet and probably won’t for like, two weeks. Which would all be find and dandy, except that I would really like to skype. Particularly with my mother. Which is really hard to do when the only places with wireless are a few restaurants in the city centre…and I’d have to do it at like, eleven pm. Which would be a pain in the hiney to do since I’d have to take a taxi back to the flat. I’m just hoping that we’ll be able to work out the banking situation fairly soon and we’ll be able to internet. Soon. I would really like to be able to email and not worry that I’m going to get caught and fired at work. I don’t really think they care, but what do I know? Maybe they track all my web usage. Oh, well. Whatev.

We went on a ghost tour tonight with a Canadian (Karen? Kelly? Something with a K. We have affectionately nicknamed her Eyebrows because they’re HUGE. EDIT: Kathy is her name. However, I will continue to refer to her as Eyebrows.), and it was crap. Lots of good information, but not a good ghost tour. And the fact that we were all really tired didn’t make it any better. We were supposed to have a free pint at the end of it, but we skipped out and took the bus home instead. Tiiiiired.

Okay, it’s almost one am and I must get to sleep. Work tomorrow and I’m getting up at 7:25. Which sucks for me since I’m not a morning person. Night!

September 27, 2008 12:24am

I THINK HOMEBOY’S STARING AT YOU…

We just got back from having a fabulous night out in the city, and currently I’m waiting for my mask to dry so that I can go to sleep without getting clay mask all over my comforter and sheets….hence the journaling. It was quite the uneventful day, except that I found out that Claire, Anna and I are eligible for YoungScot cards, which apparently will get us loads of discounts in Scotland, the UK, and Europe. Which will be real nice when we start to travel..…in March. Also, we took a ghost tour last night, given by our friend Eyebrows. It was complete crap. Rubbish.

(As a side note, I have this creepy creaking noise on/in my floorboards, right beside my bed. I’ve decided it’s an extremely nice ghost that just likes to make it known that she/he is here, and that they mean no harm.)

So tonight we tried to halfway retrace our pub crawl….but only going to three bars. And only two of the bars were on the crawl. Firstly we went to The Globe, which is where they served Snakebites (complete with the hand motion of a snake striking), which are sooooo good. A snakebite is Strongbow cider, some other kind of beer, and grenadine. It’s faaaabulous. We managed to show up on the night where the new bartender was tending…bar. He didn’t know how to make them, but they were still real good. Also, there was a homeboy who kept staring in our direction, but never quite made it over to us, which just made him look like an idiot. Although he had a Scottish accent, he was straight out of South Carolina with a button up shirt under a sweater with jeans….all he needed was some Sperrys and he’d be set to fit into the Carolinas. Aaaaanyway, then we went to this place called the Three Sisters, which was absolutely PACKED. Firstly, the place was huge. There was probably a thousand people there, easily. They had a beer garden, and there was plenty of opportunity to do some people watching, which I always love. Scottish/British/European people have the wackiest sense of style I’ve ever seen. Get an obnoxious haircut and wear the most ridiculous things you can find and you’ll fit right in. However, if you try to actually look nice and match, you’ll just look like an American, heaven forbid. At this point, I’ve stopped caring, figuring that everyone can already tell I’m from the good ole USofA, so why try to hide it and try to fit in?? There’s no point. So after that we went back up the hill to another place, who had the worst band ever there…seriously it was the worst rendition of Sweet Home Alabama I’ve ever heard. Brits don’t need to try to impersonate Southern Rock bands. It’s just a bad idea. Really.

After that, we found a Subway (yes, the UK has Subway), where we picked up some cookies and a doughnut (thanks to me…you’re welcome.), and consequently almost missed our bus. We were totally the people you think look like idiots running down the sidewalk because their bus is at the stop. Yeah, we were going at a full sprint. At least as fast as we could go after two Snakebites, a pint, and cookies. Luckily, we made it….and that brings me to the present. At my home sweet flat, ready to go to bed.

And with that…..goodnight.