Attempting to Find a Kilt for Less Than £20--John's Visit

I know it seems like a long time since I posted, and I apologize. I wanted to wait until this week was over to update for two reasons- 1) John was here, and I didn't really have time to update and 2) I had two 3000 word essays due yesterday morning so I REALLY didn't have time to update. But now I'm free as a bird and can let you in on all my adventures with John.
So John landed on the 4th in Manchester, England, which is about a 30 minute drive from where my cousin, Dylan, lives, so we stayed with him and his family for the weekend. Before his flight over (which was his first flight ever) John was convinced he wouldn't be tired when he got to the UK. Because I obviously was wrong about that. He thought he'd sleep a lot on the plane too. His assumptions, of course, were wrong. Anyone who has flown over more than 2 time zones can probably attest to that lovely jet-lag we all feel, and could back me up when I told my wonderful boyfriend that he would be completely exhausted. Alas, he had to find out the hard way. This made Friday John's "nap day" and was extremely uninteresting. Saturday, though, Dylan got us tickets to a Bolton-Aston Villa home match (actually my first one at Reebok Stadium as well). The game was really cool especially because John could see what a professional football match was like. It helped that we won 3-2.

Of course, after the match we had to do the whole pub thing. There were a couple brawls regarding the match, I'm sure, outside the first pub we went to which was right across the street from the stadium. After about an hour there, we headed back to the pub in "the village" aka the little town right outside Bolton where Dylan lives. John and I ended up playing pool on their pool table, but Brits have different rules so some guy was judging us a bit. Oops. Anyway, I think it was good for John to get a glimpse into the British pub culture here, and I think he had a good time. Sunday, we caught the 9:30 train back up to Edinburgh, which allowed John to see some nice English countryside.

John on the train. Can you tell he's excited?

Sheep!

 

 

 

More sheep!

The train got us into Edinburgh at 12:30 so we got back to my flat, had some lunch, and just rested a bit more (I think all the traveling was wearing John out). We went for a walk so John could get his bearings around my flat. Monday, though, I had class in the morning and at night, so he ended up walking around the city more while I was in class. I showed him around campus and we went out to lunch with Katie to get Redbox (see my other post for details on that place). Monday night after my class, we went to Indian Extravaganza, aka the Indian/Pakistani heritage celebration at my student union. It was cool because Katie, Becca, Logan and I all got henna and there was curry and bhangra dancing, which is traditional Punjabi dancing, but usually it's set to more modern music these days. My friend back at AU, Ayal, does bhangra so I was the only one in the group who had seen it before.
Tuesday, I only had class from 4-5 pm so we decided to hit up the castle and other touristy things.

Greyfriar's Bobby was a dog that stayed by his master's grave until the little doggy died

The Castle!

Panoramic view of Edinburgh with Arthur's Seat in the background

Scottish royalty family tree

I don't know what this building is but I want to live in it

We were going to go to Prince's St and have a walkabout but it started to get super windy and rainy. I felt like I was going to fall off the side of the castle a few times. That's how bad it was. We decided to go to some touristy shops that were on the way back to my flat so John could buy some gifts for family. He also was trying to find a kilt, but the cheapest ones we could find were £25, and I was certain we could find one cheaper. We decided to keep looking for those later. Sadly because I had to work so much on my essay, we ended up staying in Tuesday night, but I had class at 11 the next day anyway. Wednesday was our walk around Prince's St. I guess it was just for John to see a new part of the city, since we didn't really need to go shopping at all. There are also a lot of monuments to people along Prince's St so he got to see those.
Nothing really too exciting happened until Friday. We first went to Selene's 22nd birthday party. She was one of the Italians I went to Loch Ness with. After hanging out there for an hour and half or so, we met up with Katie, Becca, and some other girls and ended up going to City, which was the first club I went to when I got to Edinburgh back in January. It was a little bit more fun this time but still too expensive and too many techno remixes for my taste. Let's just say that I would have preferred the Hive. John and I left at about 2 and everyone else stayed until 230 or 3, I think.
Saturday ended up being a lot of fun. We met up with friends at noon to go to the Farmer's Market--most of them were super tired from the night before, as you can imagine. It was still a lot of fun though, even though it was a bit chilly. John and I got some jam, and I again got an amazing burger. Angus with sharp Scottish cheddar and onions. It was heavenly.

All the people I went to the market with from L to R: John, Logan, Becca, Alex, Tara, and Katie

We all split up on the way home, so John and I went to a second hand store. We found kilts for £15-20!! John found one that fit and bought himself and a friend of his one. He later went back and got his other friend one. What a nice person. The problem was when he had to pack it all into his suitcase, but we (aka I) made it work ha. I also bought a really nice cashmere sweater for £10, which I can't stop wearing! It's just so comfortable. But anyway, we ended up going to the National Museum of Scotland after, seeing as it was free and inside, and we were cold.

"As long as only one hundred of us remain alive, we will never on any conditions be brought under English rule."

Map of Surname origins

Really old and cool chess set. I want a replica

Mary Queen of Scots' tomb

Guillotine. Necessary.

Covenanters! (Learning about them in my class ha)

Funeral cart

Cute whisky adverts

Plaster panels done by Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Saturday night was really relaxed and we just went to a nice Thai dinner for an early celebration of John's birthday (not til April), after which we went to the pub with Katie, Becca, and some people I've never met before. Sunday was made up entirely of me doing my essay and John packing, and then John left very very early yesterday morning. And now you guys are all caught up! Sorry for the super wordy post. I'll try to keep them a little lighter from now on. There was just so much going on. On the plus side, I have less than 2 weeks of classes left. Then it's spring break and finals. Enjoy the Ides of March, everyone!

I can see my house from up here!

This past weekend was quite a good one, though very relaxing.  Friday night, Katie and I decided to order Chinese, buy a bottle of cheap white wine, and watch movies/TV shows online all night. I ended up going home around 2, which I didn't expect to do. It was supposed to be an early night in, but we had a really fun time.  Saturday, I woke up early and worked on  my 3000 word essay, which is now finished (yay!). Katie, Becca, and I decided to go to the Edinburgh Farmer's Market around noon on Saturday, which was a really great experience.  I haven't been to a Farmer's Market in a while, and this one is right next to the castle, which gave really great photo opportunities.

Castle from the street before we got to the market

Becca and Katie. Super excited about food!

View of part of the castle from the market

The market yummmm

 So the market had everything from doughnuts to veg, like 6 meat vendors, and there was fudge and chocolate too. It was pretty awesome. We decided to get some angus burgers for lunch. They had cheddar and grilled onions on them. Basically the best thing I've had in a while. We also got amazing hot chocolate with like 1/4 cup of marshmallows in it AND whipped cream. And it was only £1.90. It was a really good deal, let me tell you. As we left, Becca got some caramel shortbread and I got probably the best chocolate croissant I've ever had. Super buttery.  Oh, I also would like to mention how many dogs I saw on Saturday. They were everywhere. The one below was probably my favorite.

There was a really weird guy in a cape. Hmmm

After the Farmer's Market, I had to meet up with a girl in the library for a project, but we decided to reconvene afterward and climb Arthur's Seat, seeing as the weather was absolutely gorgeous on Saturday.
Arthur's Seat. Extinct volcano that reaches 823 feet high (according to Wikipedia). I'm not sure how long it took us to go up, but it felt like a really long time. The way up from the west is made up of tiny, rock stairs which are windy and quite steep. I'm going to be honest, we took a lot of stops.

City of Edinburgh from the bottom of Arthur's Seat

Our Mission: To conquer that massive thing

Part-way up. That's basically Leith and the Firth of Forth

Katie with Edinburgh behind her

Becca with the Forth behind her

These are the Crags, another rock formation

It's a long way down!

Are we there yet?

On our way up, we walked past many different people. I realised that there are all sorts of people who come out when the weather's nice. There were people who were running up Arthur's Seat. Like cross-country runners. I don't get it. But there were also tourists- I heard Germans! And some guys were sitting at the top, smoking something

We also saw one guy who was just walking up by himself. There were so many people climbing, which was really cool. Now for some photos of the top!

Those big buildings in the foreground are the dorms or "Halls"

The Firth of Forth? The sea? I'm not sure

Edinburgh Castle in the middle

Did I mention that Becca's afraid of heights?

This doggy came all the way to the top! On our way down we saw more dogs going up

Dial at the top which points out landmarks and their distance from Arthur's Seat

One of the lochs in Holyrood Park

Small ginger child who didn't seem to have parents

We opted for the easier way down, seeing as those stairs terrified us enough going up. The way down also took us past some ancient ruins of and abbey circa 13th century. No big deal.

All that's left of the abbey

Becca looking super awkward

Me, trying to do my best model pose. Maybe with better clothes, it would look good

On our way home, we walked past Holyrood Palace, which is where the Queen comes to stay when she does, which is rarely.  But yeah, that's different from the castle, which was basically just a fortress with lots of cannons and dungeons and all that good stuff. It was also built a long time before the palace.  I forgot to take pictures of the palace, of course, but it's right across the street from Scottish Parliament, which I did take pictures of. It's really controversial because it's super modern with a lot of bamboo. I'm not sure what they were thinking, but it's one of those, you either like it or you hate it things.

To end, the above picture is part of the Royal Mile. The downhill portion, I suppose. The buildings are all really nice, and as you can see, the sun was going down soon, and it was after 4:30! I get really excited now when it's still light out at 5 or 5:30, seeing as when we got here, it got dark at 3:30. Can't wait for Day Light Savings time! Alright well John's coming on Friday, so there will be updates next week of all our adventures. Bis dann!!

I'm Still Alive!

Hey everyone,
I know it's been a while since my last post, so I figured I'd give you guys a quick, or maybe not so quick, update. Right now, I'm doing a mixture of homework and actual work in Olive Cafe, which is about four doors down from my flat. I've been getting more hours there recently, which is great since it gives me spending money (very necessary). John's visiting in two weeks, but I have two 3000 word essays due the day after he leaves so I'm trying to get at least one of those completely out of the way before he gets here. In the UK, they calculate papers by words, not pages, so for those of you who don't get what 3000 words is, it's about 9-10 pages. It's really not too bad, but having two due right after John visits is a huge pain in the ass. I also have two presentations while he's here, which I'll be working on during our visit with my family in England. Fun fun. I've already had two presentations, which I found went really well, so I don't think it's as hard here as everyone makes you think. We'll see how I do on my essays, though.

Now on to the fun stuff. On the 5th, I went to Dundee with my friends, Katie and Monica, for the day. It was an £8 trip, which basically just paid for transportation up there. It was a pretty small city, but we had a good walk around and went to the free McManus art gallery/museum in Dundee. There were some interesting artefacts, such as merchandise that was made in Dundee, to ancient Pict ruins from near Dundee, to a hairdryer? I'm not sure why the hairdryer was there. It was kind of weird.

Old ship in Dundee. From my class, I've learned that Dundee used to be a big trading port. Fun fact.

McManus Gallery

Albert and Victoria. They're in every museum I've been to here

Katie pondering, "What is a museum?"

Pict skeleton

 The museum also had a lot of Scottish art. It seemed most of it depicted heroic Highlanders and very "Scottish" scenes. I think there was a big patriotic artist movement linked with the Jacobites, so that probably had something to do with it. Below is my favourite painting because I just love these cows. Soooo cute.

There was one thing that struck me about Dundee. There were multiple penguin statues around the city. I'm not 100% sure why there were penguins. We were all just so excited about the penguins, that the trip to Dundee was completely worth it.

Circle of Penguins

Penguin statues on a wall surrounding a church

Enough about Dundee. Last week wasn't very exciting, but it was Chiara's 22nd birthday on the 8th. Last Friday, we threw her a big birthday party, and all of her friends came over and stayed until about 2:30 am. It was a good party, but the clean up the next day was a pain. Luckily, Wendy and I had the forethought to clean up a bit that night. After getting some work done that day, I decided to go out with Katie and her friends from IFSA-Butler, the study abroad programme that she's on. A lot of universities at home don't have good study abroad programmes of their own, I guess, so they go through ones like Butler and Arcadia, which are through other universities. So all of Katie's friends are from different universities, not just University of Illinois-Chicago. So we all met up and went to the club on campus, Potterow, which has "the Big Cheese" every Saturday night. It plays music from the 70s, 80s, and 90s (aka "cheesy" music), though I was only told it played 90s music. I was a bit disappointed on how little 90s music they played. I wanted Britney, NSync, BSB, and Spice Girls all night. Instead I got, James Brown, A-Ha, and a bit of S Club 7. It could have been better. I'm going to go back to this club called the Hive to see what their "Big Cheese" is like. Hopefully more 90s music. Last night, Katie and I went to the Chocolate Society Chocolate House Building Competition. This meant you could make any structure out of the materials provided (square cookies, nutella, peach rings, gummy bears... that sort of thing). We opted for a bridge. It was pretty bad, but neither of us are architecturally savvy. The best part was basically eating it after the competition was done.
This week I'm trying to focus on writing my essays a bit. This weekend is Lara's flatmate, Felicity's birthday. That should be fun, and I'll try to give more updates on stuff, but it's been pretty uneventful around here. Keep on truckin, everyone!