Anna Overseas

Please Do This

Save Our Old Town

You can help, even if you don't live in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh is like my home, it's the place I've asked to be taken back to should I die suddenly, it's where I've left my heart, and Old Town, the Royal Mile, is one of my favourite places there. I can't describe it to you, what it's like to walk down the street there and just soak up the history and the importance of it.

And they want to tear parts of it down.

It will take only a few minutes of your time to voice an objection to this historic area being torn down, and I ask, sincerely, that you find the time.

The deadline for voicing objections to 'Caltongate' has been extended (pdf, bottom of page 4) to the 8th of June.

Caltongateis the proposed "bold and contemporary" new development which involvesdemolishing parts of the Old Town, including tenements and listedbuildings. Please click here to find out what we stand to lose.

If the council are allowed to get away with this who knows what they'll sell off next.

Thenew development will include a 7 storey hotel, offices, almost 200flats and 100 serviced apartments, a conference centre complete with afour storey bridge and a large new public square, and not only won't bein keeping with it's surroundings but will destroy part of Edinburgh'shistory. Once it's gone we can't get it back. We may lose our WorldHeritage status.

If you can spare a few minutes, please consider objecting to the plans - anyone of any age, nationality or location can do it. You can also sign the online petition.

Thanks.

Last week I went to the Scottish International Storytelling Festival's opening night at the Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh. {That's right, my life rocks so much I have a storytelling centre in the town I live in. *grin*}

I've never really been to a 'formal' storytelling experience, and it wasn't exactly what I was thinking. I guess I had in my head the same thing they'd do at libraries, where someone would sit with a book and read aloud, and everyone would be very quiet, and it would be... odd. But I wanted to hear the stories (Tristan & Isolde, and Diarmuid Ua Duibhne & Gráinne) and was curious at the storytelling centre, so I went.

It was... nothing like what I thought it would be.

The stories were told in pairs, a man and a woman, and each were accompanied by live music. The first story was of Diarmuid and Gráinne, and of how Diarmuid had been cursed as a child from the actions of his foster father, and the ultimate story of how that fate had played out. Hearing this story told by such haunting voices, so dramatically, was beautiful and moving, and the music added so much to it. It was an hour, but it felt like only minutes.

There's this haunting quality to the voices, and a real sense that if I closed my eyes I would be able to see the whole story - Diarmuid being cursed, being granted the love spot that ended up causing all the problems with him and Finn McCool and Gráinne.

The story of Tristan and Isolde was different than the one I'm used to - I'm familair with the Authurian take on it. Throughout this whole story I was completely transfixed. It takes place at Tintagel, you see, and I couldn't stop imagining the beautiful blue waters, seeing Tristan out in the waves, picturing the cave of the druids and the way the ocean is both a lover and death to those who cast their fate upon it. When Mark casts Tristan out of Cornwall, I wondered how much of his grief was at the lost love of Isolde and how much was because of the beauty he was leaving behind.

If I'm not careful this will turn very maudlin. You may have heard - I loved Cornwall and thought it the most beautiful place I'd ever travelled, so I may be biased. *smile*

I think the British Isles have their legends because they need to capture that beauty and longing somehow, and words that describe places don't do it. Pictures that show you how beautiful Cornwall is don't give you the moving sound of the sea as it crashing through Merlin's Cave, or the way the air smells like salt and whispers. It's not enough, and so words that describe great romances, great men, strong women and deeds that defy the imagination do it for us instead.

I loved Cornwall, I'm sure that's obvious, but I never wrote about it. It was too hard in a lot of ways, because that beauty was caught up in how incredibly blue the ocean was, how the breeze that went through my hair seemed filled up with possibilities. I remember sitting on the beach and building sand castles with a cheap bucket while children shreiked and ran into the cold cold water, and then destroying the castle myself, leaving to trace of it before I left.

It was so tempting when I was there to believe in mermaids, to slip beneath the water and away from all my troubles and my cares. It was the first trip after everything had fallen apart with Kristi, my attempted flat mate, and I was still mourning for how that had fallen out. In many ways the trip was supposed to be a touch stone, to remind myself of why I travel, of why I love seeing the world, of why it was worth being sad and lonely some days because of the beauty I got to experience in it all.

In less than 12 hours I get on a plane and head back to Canada for a week. It's possible, but not probable, that I'll run into her, and have to ask myself again if this vagabond lifestyle is worth it. Some days it really feels like it isn't - I'm leaving behind more friends, good ones, in just a few months, and while other friends are settling into careers and making long-term plans, I don't even know where I'll be living in three months. It feels like it's not actually worth it at all.

And other times I look at my photos from Cornwall, and listen to the legends of this more wild land that I get to experience straight on, and I remember why it is.

One day, I'll find the mermaids, but until then, I have adventures to chase after.

* * *

I got a phone call from my parents last week. "We were worried," they said. "You haven't updated your blog in a while, we thought something had gone wrong."

I find this no end of amusing.

But no, nothing had gone wrong, I've just not been doing anything ex-pat related, and I'm trying to keep this blog mostly to that. But now things are picking up in exciting ways.

For example, this weekend was Thanksgiving. I know that people say that Thanksgiving is supposed to be about love and family and sharing your gratitude about certain things, but it's really about eating lots and lots of food until you can't move much, and then lying around and saying "Guh, so much food...." while wishing all your guest would leave so you can undo your pants because you're so bloated with food. It's great fun.

Unlike last year, where I think I ran out to KFC and had a piece of chicken, this year I did the whole nine yards: I hosted an 8 person dinner. I think I did this because I haven't felt there was enough stress in my life these past two months and I wanted to make up for it all at once. I love to cook, but there's a distinct difference between "Hey, I'm bored, let's make something complicated" and "Hey, a bunch of people I haven't cooked before should come over and let's see if I can make that work!"

The staple of Thanksgiving is twofold: Turkey (bigger than the average dog) and pumpkin pie. As a note, getting either of these things in Scotland is difficult. I should have gone haggis hunting and made some sort of meat pastie or something because it probably would have been less stressful.

Funny thing: Unless you can hunt down a store that caters to American expats, you can't find pumpkin pie in cans in the UK. (It's like molases, corn meal, and rye, I guess. There's nothing more frustrating than that blank look on someone's face two days before Turkey Day. "What's pumpkin pie spice?")

Strangely, you *can* find cooking pumpkins at this time of year. I'm told that people buy them for carving into jack-o-lanterns (what happened to the turnips from last year?), but I managed to make my own pumpkin puree. I'd love to pretend it was really really hard, but mostly it was just time consuming. Like everything else was, because I *also* couldn't find frozen pie crust, and since I had committed myself to making at least two pies (one apple, one pumpkin) I had to make those from scratch, too. In an added bonus of stress, I only own one pie plate. *bang head against wall*

It's easy around Christmas to find large birds, but I ended up having to buy a turkey breast that would feed four people, and a chicken that would feed another four people. Then I stuffed them both and tried to fit them in my oven. Then I re-adjusted my oven racks. Then I burned my hand. Then I burned my hand again when I tried a third time to adjust the oven racks. Eventually I had one bird sitting on an oven rack that was on the bottom of the oven and the other bird just a scant milimeter or two below the element on the top of the oven. Then I closed my eyes and prayed.

To add to my stress, I started freaking out about how much of the vegetables to make. I had all these people coming over: how many carrots should I cut up? How much mashed potatoes should there be? Should I make gravy? Is there enough frozen corn? And, because I'm *stupid*, I also decided (in the midst of cutting up potatoes to put in the fridge to cook the day of) that I should make home made bread. Cuz, you know, that's the sort of thing people should do the day before a major holiday: pile on stress.

All the while, I was having this major freakout. "My mother could do this with ease!" I ranted at Don while peeling carrots with a paring knife. "She can do anything! She can cook for a dozen people and make it look so easy! My mother is so much better than I am! Why did my mother not teach me how to do this all? I don't know how many carrots to chop up and this paring knife is awful and all my carrots are funny shaped and the world is coming to an end!"

Don would occasionally make the mistake of trying to talk reason into me. He's since learned. (Then he brought up this thing about his mom making apple pies and then freezing them before cooking them and how she could just pull out a pie and bake it and look so cool and I almost strangled him but at this point my hands were covered in flour and I didn't want to make a bigger mess.)

So, around 4 a.m. my time on Thanksgiving morning (I had fallen asleep all in a tizzy earlier in the evening and then woke up around 3 and decided to bake a pie right then, cuz I'm clever that way) I did what every mature and reasonable woman does when facing a crisis of carrots: I called my mother.

It's amazing how I could hear her eyes rolling, even across the entire ocean and all that land.

"You realise that I didn't start cooking for that many people when I was just 30, right? And that I usually had Thanksgiving with just family and not guests, right? And that I hated cooking for guests or having guests over because it was stressful, right? You do realise all of this, right?"

...

No, no I hadn't. She's my *mom*, she does everything perfect, right?

But yeah, crisis was averted, there were more than enough carrots, we did run out of mashed potatoes but I would have been surprised if I hadn't, and now I have enough pumpkin puree that I could make pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheese cake, pumpkin cookies and probably pumpkin pasta every night this week and still have some for Christmas. I went a bit nutty. Everything was a success, and I was surrounded by friends and my mom managed to convince me I wasn't adopted from some strange family of terminally-indept people - I obviously inherited it from my father.

Happy Thanksgiving - and I promise that more expat things are in my near future. Remember: Rome in November!

Arg. It's been such a hectic week and I'm feeling completely overwhelmed right now. I have done the foolish thing of attempting to navigate my way through the UK health care system. (Nothing seriously wrong.) It's been so incredibly aggravating... I'm sure there's perfectly logical ways of doing everything, but of course I'm not able to find them because I don't know them, and no one thinks to tell you these sorts of things. So, no one I know can help me sort this stuff, and it's been a frustrating bit of trial, error, and banging my head against a wall.

But things are better now.

I never thought I'd say I missed the Canadian health care system, but I did this week. In Canada, I would know where to go, who to talk to, and what to say. It took me three days to get that sorted here. Three freakin' days, because you need to first register with a practice, and then you can't get in to see them until the next day at the earliest, and they don't make appiontments at any point in advance.

But in brighter news, I may win a cow!

I may have bought the ice cream simply because it said "You can win a cow!" on the side...

I will name my not-yet-mine cow Cow! Cow the cow.

...

Yeah, anyway. Still sorting things for Aus. Sold a bunch of books today, and have plans to get rid of more things tomorrow. It's a very draining process. I wish that I could just do it all quickly and be done with it.

Since I complain about it an awful lot, I thought I'd share what I did at work last week.

An awful lot of nothing, as the photos will attest.

{We did this carnival at work last week where you had to play in games to win points, and the team with the most points won dinner at some restaurant I've never heard of. It was surreal and fun, but the best part was, of course, the duckies.}

Inverness worked out well - I have great photos and some wonderful stories. Sadly, I did not see Nessie. Once I'm more awake, I'll post about it.

Actually, while I'm pimping out photos, I have some great ones of the Fringe, but I'm mostly happy with this one of Don.

I have to get up in about... five hours so I can grab a train and head up to Inverness for the weekend. I'm excited - I'm going to be staying in a castle tomorrow night! This might be why I can't sleep. (Or it may be all the caffeine I consumed to not fall asleep at work, who knows.)

My plans include a boat across Loch Ness to Urquhart Castle, a trip out to an abbey that's up in that area, and a few other things that I can't quite recall, because someone other than me is actually planning the trip. Mostly at this point I know castle and really early train ride.

I am excited, even though I went through that neck of the woods when I did my trip through Skye. I just am really really tired right now...

I hear that the train ride can be quite romantic, though....

{That is, by far, the worst title I've ever come up with for a blog entry.}

I keep running into people who have either never been to the Tattoo or went once, when they were kids, and never intend to go again. I've sort of chalked this up to the same reason I can't be arsed to go back to the Waterpark at West Edmonton Mall. Of course it's there, it will always be there, and it will never, ever leave.

But I love the Tattoo. It's more fun that anything else I can imagine involving so much bagpipe music. I may love the pipes, but by about mid-August I could happily strange every busker on Princes Street, and that's not even going into the recorded stuff played in shops. But the Tattoo does pipes, like everything else, larger than life. If you ever get the chance, go.

{On the other hand, I regularly talk to people online that take "I'm going to the Tattoo! I loved it last year, I can't wait to go this year!" and think I'm talking about something to do with body art. *sigh* It's not.}

It's hard to describe the tattoo though. It's military bands doing performances for the public, which can sound kinda dry. Unless, of course, you know those military bands include the Top Secret drum corps from Switzerland, and they wear hats with white plumes. (Link is in Swiss, I assume.) I won't speculate on what's so Top Secret about a military band with drums - do they sneak up on the enemy by playing loud and entertaining beats in the dark? Their drums are all black, as are their outfits, but the sticks are white. (But, plumed hats!) Everything with them has this interesting combination of over-the-top performance and obvious skill. The plumed hats, as you can tell, did it for me, and now I want to move to Switzerland and find myself a nice young man with obviously good hand-eye coordination. (They would toss sticks between themselves to trade beats!)

This year's 'special' presentation was the Scottish Military, and the talk they gave read like a bad wikipedia article. Won't comment on it anymore than that, since if you're going to the Tattoo to learn your military history, you've got bigger problems than I can address here. It's nifty, though - they use the Castle as a projection screen for that part, while the bands play a counter-point (on the pipes, of course) and the announcer talks. Last year was about Admiral Lord Nelson, and involved a dramatic re-enactment by Highland Dancers.

(It wasn't a very good one, though - I have a hard time believing that the battle looked so neat and checkered.)

One of the best things this year was the band from New Zealand. Further proof I need to move there. {In saying that, do I have to give up my trip to Aus? I have no idea what the relationship between the two countries are...} They did Interpretive Dance during their performance. At one point they played the theme to James Bond while two trumpet players mimed out an opening gun sequence, and when they played the theme to Swan Lake the tuba players put down their instrucments to do "dying swans". At least, I think they were dying swans.... I hope they were dying swans. {Link is to a blurry photo.}

They also had a group in from China that made my heart hurt... One of the kids looked like one of my students from Jiangyan that I miss. *sigh* The demonstration of Kung-fu was great (in a performance sense - I could hear Kris rolling his eyes and making sardonic comments), and hard to photograph. Strangely, children jumping in the air with swords *move*.

I didn't love all of it - I though the gospel choir from Africa didn't lend itself well to a stadium-sized space, and I missed the little guys on bikes from last year - but I loved most of it. I wish I could go again, and I intend to at some point in the future, but like everything else I do this summer, it'll be the last time for some time, and that leaves everything a bit bitter-sweet.

The Tatto ends every year with all of the bands coming together to play while the performers dance, and although the combined music works *really* well... let's just say that "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" is not a song I needed to hear played by bagpipes! The rest worked well, as did the entire audience once again singing Auld Lang Syne.

If you're planning on going to Edinburgh, get tickets. They go quickly. I haven't sat near the front, but the 'cheap' tickets at the back are still a great view, and you won't regret it. Bring a blanket, though - it gets cool in August.

I'm disgustingly proud of this photo and felt the need to share it. I finally got to take my brand-new tripod (Thanks, Don) someplace and use it, and I got some lovely photos of St Cuthbert's Churchyard at night. Since it's usually locked up, I was very satisfied over all.

I was in the churchyard at that time of night because of the Fringe show I caught there. It was Vespers, sung in Russian, and it was beautiful. It's amazing how religious music can be so moving, no matter if you know what they're saying. It really felt like... well, like a choir of angels. I was reminded of a quote I read once in my history of Wales... "When we meet God, I'm certain he'll be speaking Welsh." I think, in the end, how faith and spirits move us is so entirely based on feelings and impressions rather than words.

Which may be why the Islamic festival left me with a bad taste in my mouth. There was a presentation yesterday on women in Islam, and it was very poorly done. I don't want to go into it too much here, but I was hoping for some real discussion and insight into the faith, the religion, the culture, and everything caught up in those things. I wanted it to talk about things that were important to women in that culture and faith. Instead, they chose two "poster-child" type women to speak about their experiences. Neither had ever lived in a different culture. At least one didn't read Arabic. Neither could answer any of the questions we had about Islam and women. Neither was a scholar. In comparison to the way the man's talk earlier in the week had been, it was frustrating. And whereas I can see why people may not want to stand up and talk about their faith in terms of questions that seem like instrusions... well, that's what it was billed as. That's what I expected from what the Mosque itself had advertised. I wanted more.

I spent a lot of time questioning things this weekend. I went to a talk about history in India and Persia, where the idea that the problems in the Middle East right now go back as far as things in Ancient Greece. That sense of divide between us and them goes back to Sparta. Points were brought up about resentment on the side of people who are "Eastern". I tried to ask if the speakers, both authors of recently-published books about the history of the region, thought this might be because the "authoratative" books on the history and culture of the area were both written by White, Middle-Class, Western, Scottish Men. I didn't get a satisfying answer.

I wasn't really surprised at that.

I was strangely surprised by something else: Who'd have thunk it: People read at Book Festivals.

I was also surprised at one other thing: My passport returned from the Home Office. If I recall correctly from the last time this happened... things will start to move rather quickly from this point on.

I am so scared.... and so excited.

It's impossible to describe Edinburgh during The Festival (also known as August). Natives either completely embrace the city, or wish they could be elsewhere. The streets are packed with too much of everything, and it's either excilerating or overwhelming.

This year, I'm so excited! (Last year, not so much.)

You can see all sorts of things during the Festival, and it all seems so common place. There are buskers everywhere, doing everything you can imagine. There's a guy sitting on Princes Street during the day who's doing busking with chess - play a six minute game of speed chess with him. It's great to watch, and he seems to be quite seriously raking in the money.

Of course, the best thing about the Festival is that odd conversations and things you'll see. I had a very odd little man (made me think of Wormtongue) come up to me and start going on about how I was the sun. Yes, I, Anna, am the sun, and he was the Earth, and he revolved around me, and I was the sun, and great, and wonderful, and the sun, and my friend Melle was the moon, and should rotate around him, who is the earth... and I said "Can I marry you?" And he stared at me, and said "Yes...." then said "See, she is the sun, whose job it is to smile and not speak", and then wandered off.

I out-weirded the weird people on the Mile. Life is good.

I think most nights of this month will end in fireworks. I'm a good 30 minute drive from the Castle, and I could watch them from my window. I love fireworks, they're great. I is happy.

I'm really looking forward to days of being on the Mile, of the crowds of insane people. I might not feel the same way after three weeks of having buses slowed down on my way home from work, but right now, the world is full of promise, and the festival is full of exciting things to do...

{Photos!}

I'm a very busy girl in the month of August, and that doesn't even factor in time spent wandering up and down the Mile, people watching and contemplating shows for the Fringe. Nor does it include the Film Festival, now that I think of it. How do people manage to do everything they want to do? I think that next year, if I am living here, I'm just going to take the whole month off and indulge in the Festival Season to its extreme.

... which is something to consider, I suppose.

Because it was asked for, here are pictures of us going to see POTC. There are fabulous babes, and corsets, and protesting.

I was thinking that the best way to get over my latest OMG I'M NOT TRAVELLING RIGHT THIS SECOND ARG! angst was to write up a bit more about my latest travels. So, I think about it a bit, and prepare to write something, then think "Oh, but I can't write it up without photos. No one will get the true wonderfulness of what I want to write without photos! Really!"

Whereas this may be true for my trip to Canada, and this is definately true for my trip to Cornwall, it doesn't actually stand up to anything I did in London most recently. But I really need to stop sitting on the computer and conquoring the world via Civ instead of doing something with the close to 200 photos on my camera. Like taking them *off* the camera.

But, London. This latest trip was a lot different than my other ones, and not just because I wasn't looking forward to the flight to Canada. It's like... well, I know London is huge, and you could live there for ten years and do something different every weekend and never get everything done. But I made such a point the first few times I was there doing the big things that were really important to me, like St Paul's and the Tower of London, that I don't really know what to do with myself when I'm there now. So it wasn't as planned a trip as usual. It was "I should see a church (I did) and take a tour (yup) and maybe do some shopping?" It wasn't terribly well planned.

It felt like what life would be like if I lived in London - yeah, sure, there's stuff to do, but it's so comfy sitting here in the hostel and not going anywhere.

I did make it to the British Musuem again, and forced myself not to spend the whole time in the room with the Elgin Marbles. It was lovely, although very hot and uncomfortable, and I think I would have enjoyed what I saw a lot more if I hadn't been so exhausted from the heat. I know I saw the Lewis chess set (and covet one deeply), but I don't remember much else in that room. I remember what I saw, with the lions and the reliefs and the hunting, but I can't remember what area it was from. It was like the heat leached everything out of me. And it's much warmer now.

I really enjoyed the trip overall, though, because it was so laid back. There was no checking of clocks and tensing about things. The only "scheduled" thing was the walking tour I went on.

I will admit that I was in an Italian restaurant when the Italian team won the World Cup. It was... um... very hard to sleep that night.

Work is about to come claim me again...

There's nothing like 24 straight hours of travel to make you realise what type of person you are. Me? I'm a very tired person.

But I'm alive again, full of stories about Canada's Okanagan Valley and about my latest trip to London, and my birthday is in two days, and I still have stuff to write about Cornwall. I can't wait to get back in the swing of things.

The wedding was lovely, and my next jaunt back to Canada is for next July, when my friend turns 30.

Must go back to work this morning....

I've been here for a year.

I don't know how the time crept up on me so quickly. I was aware of it, of course, but in a distant sort of way. End of June = One Year in Scotland. Sorta like how Christmas is really far away, and then boom it's December 21st and I've forgotten to buy presents.

And here I am.

It feels good.

I love Scotland. I love the lifestyle to which I've become accustomed here - I travel so much, I know these great people, I'm content with life in general. It seems so good right now, and I realised the other day that I'm not waiting for the other shoe to drop. I think I've come home after searching for it in other people so much. Here it is.

So, a Year in Review....

My first post on this side of the ocean was on June 21. That month I spent a lot of time doing touristy things, which makes sense since I was living on the Mile, in a hostel. I actually look back very fondly on that now, but at the time, I really thought I would go insane. Especially after I got the night job. I had such a hard time dealing with sleeping in a hostel during the day. But the people were so friendly. I occasionally run into people I met there, and although we can't always remember each other's names, we do remember each other, and where we're from. Aussie girl is working in a book store, and the other two Canadians went back to Spain after the summer. I was back there and used them to take my tour of Skye, and the person behind the counter recognized me, and that was cool.

I got a mobile phone right away, and I have to admit it was the smartest thing I did that week. I also got a mail box, which has been nice and useful but occasionally annoying. The guy behind the counter is an angel, but I wish I got more mail to justify the expense. (Yes, that was a whine, just ignore it.)

July was all about hating the heat and protests and the like. That was G8 and Make Poverty History. I managed to avoid them (still working the job that I began to loath pretty darn fast), except for the bit that I was still living on the Mile. Other than that, it was okay. That was the month I got introduced to the orangest drink in the whole world, Irn-Bru, and warned by the people I'm renting my flat through that it stains everything and never comes out. I found my flat that month, and eventually got a paycheque sorted out so I had a lot of money finally. And I had my first birthday overseas. There were deep fat fried mars bars - they really exist!

August was the month I started travelling, and fell in love. Lindsifarne I can never stop talking about, of course, as it really did feel like finding home to get there. I also ducked off to Paris for a long weekend that month, renewing my love affair with that city. That's where I cam up with the cunning plan of being an international pastry thief.... I really want to go back again, unsurprisingly. I was talking to a friend about it, and he pointed out that I want to go back everywhere. I'm so fickle, I think everywhere I visit is where I should have moved. Well, except Cardiff, which is nice enough, but really is Little Canada. I'm sure the rest of the country isn't so... Canadian.

August was also the Fringe, and Apocalypse the Music with the cow that looked like Levi. Wow, am I ever looking forward to the Fringe this year... I think I may try to book some time off and just revel in it. I suspect it's even better if you're not exhausted when wandering around.

Oh, I think July and August were both bad months for feeling homesick. It was also the month I realised I wanted juice mix *really really lots*. (Margery & Raven have both sent me some, because they rock, and Joe brought some when he came across. I have a bag I'm bringing to Canada that will come back to Scotland full of juice mix. Because I love the idea of that bag being search in customs.)

September was when I quit my job. I have never made a better choice in my life - I got paid at the latest job today and this having money thing kicks ass and takes names. That whole panic pretty much dominated the month, though. I tend to be like that. *grin* It also started my obsession with the fact that no one cooks in Scotland. Or, at least, no one bakes. *sigh* I *still* can't get a good sized bag of flour here, and when I'm really going nuts about baking I can go through three or four of the little bags in a week. (This is less annoying now that I'm all bourgeois and have my groceries delivered.) It's also when I started angsting about the weather over here. The seasons here are so weird in that they occur with enough variety to notice.

October seems to have been all about proving I am weird and random. It's when I started picking places to go out of hats, basically. And Linlithgow is still fun to say. I pondered differences between Edmonton and Edinburgh, did more touristy things, like free musuems and Holyrood Palace, sans Queen. I went to Kelso and started my goal of collection all of the Scottish Border Abbeys (just one more left!).

October was the month it dawned on me I was happy. I still occasionally feel guilty about this. Because I am weird that way.

November started with a bang: Guy Fawkes day! I still remember the cotton candy very fondly. I went down south to Glastonbury (and the World Famous Somerset Fair that no one's heard of) and saw Stonehenge and felt strangely unmoved. For Christmas I saw the Nutcracker for the first time in my life, and started going to the German Christmas market. And then people tried to teach me English. Or British. Or something.

Then December happened. There was Sinterklaas and cookies made out of bad little children (that taste yummy in chai, if you were wondering). I got all giggly about Hogmany, and popped down to London for a day just because flights were cheap and I could. Christmas Eve service was beauiful, and I remember listening to the bells at midnight and being enchanted.

The only thing that could have made it better was snow.

Hogmany brought 2005 to a close with many explosions and the kissing of many strange boys.

Good year, that one was. I give it four out of five stars.

{I'll do the last six months of this year in Scotland in another post.}

If you're wondering why I haven't written much about Tintagel and the rest of Cornwall, the reason is twofold:

1) I wrote a very lengthy email (epic length, in fact) about the trip to a friend that just proved that words do not do this trip justice. It's too beautiful.

2) I got distracted by a shiney-internet thingy.

Also, I keep forgetting to uphold any more photos to Flickr, and I think it needs photos.

But I so want to write about it, to talk about the trip to Tintagel itself, which was amazing. I don't think I'll ever forget the first glimpses of the ocean. I know I live right by the North Sea, and have sat and looked out on that water many a day, but this was so different. The water was so many shades of blue, and even from a distance you could pick out the shallows and the depths. I'd never experienced that before, and I'm almost afraid to go back, because it just can't be that perfect again.

The day we went out there was perfect - blue sky, warm sun. We took a smaller bus from Truro to Tintagel itself, and the windows were all wide open, keeping everything cool. I spent so much time with my face pressed against the window, looking at this vast expanse of water. If excitement and anticipation could have gotten me there faster, the bus would have started to fly.

Tintagel's castle stands on a cliff. I remember so clearly standing at the top of this cliff and looking out over the ocean, out into this distance and understanding why people though the world had an edge. It seems to just end. I don't think I've ever seen that before. When I looked over the edge, the wind pulling at my hair and making everything seem free, I could see how clear the water in the cove below the castle was. I could see the rocks, see the bottom of that water, even from where I was standing so far away. The blues and greens and aquamarines just seemed to blend in together.

At that moment I understood what makes the place magical to so many people. It's not Arthur or Guievere or Merlin. It's that the hand of man is so obvious on the cliff top, but looking down off the edge the power and beauty of nature will take your breath away. And nothing Arthur or Robert of Cornwall built survived beyond ruins, but the beauty of the landscape, of the ocean, endures.

I'm so excited! I just have to make it through one more day at work, and then I'm winging my way to exoctic Cornwall for a three-day weekend of looking for the sword in the stone (Tintagel), hunting up pirates (Penzance), and trying to find really big rocks (Plymouth). I cannot wait!

It's been *so long* since I travelled just because I wanted to and not for any other motive. Was chatting with a friend last night and I realised the last place I went that I just wanted to go to was York. This trip feels like a catharsis, and I cannot wait.

Right now up here the sky looks like it might be a cool day, but I believe in my soul I'll by walking along the beach in Cornwall at this time tomorrow. I will look for pretty shells and watch the ocean roll in and relax....

Be back Tuesday!

I got tickets to the Tattoo again this year! I got tickets! I did! YAY!

I don't know when they're for, but I have them! (Well, I know they're for August.) Tickets! YAY!

(Entry about Tattoo last year)

I do love being out on the water, and the trip on the Jean de la Lune today was beautiful. It was a perfectly clear day, bright and sunny, and out on the water it was cool enough to keep comfortable without being too nippy.

It was a short trip as these things go, but I really enjoyed every minute of it. I kept watch out for mermaids (I think they may be too clever to hang out in the North Sea, even in summer) and just generally enjoyed the view.

I sometimes dream about living on a ship like this one, which probably makes me sound a bit nuts. If it didn't have internet access, I might go nuts. But the idea of being out on the ocean, of being in a different place every minute, appeals to that wilder side of my nature, the part of me that really would just flip a coin and decide heads Africa, tails Asia. I want the type of freedom that I think being on a ship would give me.

I like that dream, I take it out sometimes and wonder what it would be like. I suppose I could live part of it by working on a cruise ship for a summer or two if I wanted, but I don't think that's the same thing. Working like that isn't freedom. It certainly isn't deciding that New Zealand sounds nice, maybe I'll head there this month.

I do love it, though. Maybe when I'm retired, I'll do it....

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
By John Masefield (1878-1967)

The World Cup started.

I felt the need to tell you this because, well, I've been hearing about it everywhere for weeks now and wanted to share the pain a bit. It's not that I don't care about the World Cup or anything (well, it's true, I don't, but that's not why hearing about it is bugging me) it's that I can't get away from it. Even my least-sporty, never-expressed-an-interest-in-sports friend has informed me he's going to the put tomorrow to watch the Dutch team play.

Me? I'm thinking of things to say in pubs this week that might get me maimed. As a social experience, I assure you, and not out of boredom. No, really. *grin*

Last night was Tango at the Docks, part of the Leith Festival. It was so much fun - lots of people attempting to learn how to Tango from this amazing pair of teachers. There was a gender dispairity, of course, and I was a boy once or twice, but for part of the evening I danced with this *amazing* guy to tango with. I was my usual clumsy self, but he just talked me through it and made me look like I knew what I was doing.

I also danced with a guy from Egypt, which was fun. He kept spinning me around in circles, and was trying to pretend he was looking in my eyes while staring at my breasts. So much fun. *laugh* I'd do it again in a heart beat, and not just for the cheap alcohol. Of which there was lots.

Today is the open day at the crematorium, and there's a sailing boat trip I'm hoping to taky. My day is full, and there will be many pictures. I'm hoping to end it with another cow hunt, as I still haven't gotten any from the Mile.

Oh, that reminds me: Apparently someone has stolen one of the cows. I wonder *what* one would do with it afterwards. I'm hoping it'll show up someplace weird, like in the Scottish Parliment or upside down in Holyrood or something. Ah well.

So, crematorium bound am I. But before I leave, how much maimage do you think this little gem would get me in a pub during the World Cup:

"Why the hell are we watching *soccer*? That's not a sport! I thought this was going to be football!"

I've been craving travel so much lately that I've been watching films that take places in "exotic" places I've been so I can be all nostalgic. (And pretentious, I suppose, but at least I limit my "I was there!" to close friends, some of whom were there with me.)

Last night was "Sliding Doors" so I could look longingly at parts of London and be all sad. Don't get me wrong, I'm *so* glad I'm not living there, but I loved visiting. I'm really looking forward to going back and just indulging myself in the things I couldn't do last time. I could probably go to London once every three months for the rest of my life and always have something new to do.

Then there was Shanghai.... I get really sappy when I see films that are set at least partly in Shanghai. I remember so vividly my last weekend there. There was this lovely man from Finland named Ardo that I would have followed back to Finland if I could have. We walked arm in arm up the Bund at night and sat on a patio with an amazing view of the city. It was lovely. I think of him often, although I can't quite remember what he looked like, unfortunately.

That last weekend in Shanghai was the best. I hooked up with a bunch of other expats in the hostel. We sat up till dawn one night, then crept out onto the Bund with a guitar and sang songs, like "sitting at the top of the bay". Chinese people getting up to do their morning tai chi were staring at us, but it was just fun.

My last night there, we all went out for dinner and ate lots of food, drank lots of beer ("reeb" brand, and that still makes me giggle), and laughed a lot.

I have some great pictures from that night. It was a great ending to my trip.

If you're wondering why I'm updating my blog at 9 a.m. instead of being at work, they sent me home yesterday because I was too sick. I find this hilarious, as I wasn't really that sick - I can see, and breath, and my face isn't bright red. But I was coughing a lot. It's surreal working someplace that not only doesn't want me to come in because I'm sick, but also didn't want to risk getting anyone else sick.

I *like* this job. *grin*

Cultural Differences 1: In Canada, I know approximately 23 women named Jennifer, Jen, Jenny, or some version thereof. It's a fairly common name for women around my age or a bit younger. I remember in junior high having Jennifer S, Jennfier T and Jennifer T2 all in one class, and my best friend from high school was Jenn, to differentiate her from Jen and Jen.

In Scotland, I now know 15 women named Fiona. And only 1 Jennifer.

(I'm in love with these cow photos, the whole thing is a hoot.)

This week is the start of the Leith Festival, and I've grabbed my guide and begun circling the things I want to do. As far as I can tell, I need to not only aquire a working Time Turner, but also convince my boss to let me have time off work. I want to be everywhere, all at once. There's walking tours, history talks, more music than you could possibly want to hear, lots of art exhibitions, and most of the churches are offering services and tours.

Cultural Difference 2: In Canada for festivals, they open up musuems or parliment buildings for people to go through and explore.

In Edinburgh, they are once again opening up the crematorium for people to tour.

I took this photo on Monday. I love how the rainbow sort of crashes into Arthur's Seat in the background. I also love how that drab set of brown buildings in the foreground is where I live. It used to be whiskey warehouses, and you can still see the rails where the trolleys used to go up and down, presumably to the docks. It's really ugly on the outside, but I love my flat. It's big and has window seats and has this suddenly free guest room.

So, Kristi left today, and that whole chapter has been closed. I keep thinking I should feel more than I do, but mostly I just feel a sense of "the end". It's over, there is nothing more to fret about, and yay on that. It was a gorgeous day, and I revelled in it, taking more cow photos, humming my way through the city, and kissing at least one police office and a cabby. I'm not so much happy she's gone as happy that it's over. No more of this purgatory of waiting for her to leave so that I could move on. The last three weeks have been very, very long.

But for all that I enjoyed today, I'm finding myself pondering more my trip to Australia. Had a long talk with a friend today, and it feels like the choices about Aus come down to this: I can either do something fun, or make a smart financial choice. And I'm really at the point where I have to be making those smart finacial choices. Living and working in Australia will give me enough money to support myself and have fun and see as much of that place as I can, but it won't get me ahead. It may even leave me in debt, not a clever thing to have happening when one is thinking about grad school and all that.

I hate these sorts of choices. It feels like if I don't go to Aus, I'll regret it later, but if I do go, I'll regret it later, too, when I'm eating rice and working two jobs again. And heaven knows I don't want to do that.

But on the other hand, I don't know how much of that feeling of fear is because of the amount of emotional pressure I've been under for the past six months to not go. Kristi made it really clear that she would be very unhappy if I went. That she'd feel like she missed out on things in Scotland if I left it before she did. I don't really follow that, but I can't pretend that wasn't there for all this time, and I don't know how much of my constant worries about going to Aus are simply because I have been thinking of *not* going to make life easier for her.

I think, in the end, I'm gonna go because really: if I hate it, I can leave. It's not like there's a law that says I must live a full year in Australia. I can do six months, or three, or even one if that's my fancy. But that little blue bird of financial concerns keeps twittering in my ear.

Maybe I should start buying lottery tickets. What are the taxes on lotto winnings in this country, anyway?

{More cow photos} {all the cow photos}

I have had nothing to say lately simply because my new job is taking a lot of energy out of me. But thank you for the kind emails and the like, they made me feel special. *smile*

It's been a busy week work-wise and thus rather boring in terms of blogging. Since I work for some Big Secret Government Body, I obviously can't talk about work at all, except to say that it pays better than what I've been making, and there's no air conditioning. And, it's been leaving me completely exhausted and without energy. But Saturday was fun, in that Don and I went out on a Cow Hunt.

That's right, we saddled up our bus horses and went out on the streets wild plains of Edinburgh, in search of the elusive cow. We complained bitterly that we did not have either cowbow or safarri hats, but armed with my trusty camera, we got several shots at the various cows. I understand there's about 100 of them, and I think I saw around 35. So I'm planning another outing to get more in the near future.

(Needless to say, I have the song "Cows with Guns" in my head right now.)

My understanding is this: It's a charity thing. At the end of the Cow Parade, they'll be auctioned off. I presume they'll end up in a lot of banks and similar businesses, taking up space. I can't imagine they'll end up in a lot of private homes, as they're... well... big and bovine, and not really a good conversation piece, I'd expect.

{Entire set of Cow Parade Photos}

Other than that... well, I got to see the Canadian band Arrogant Worms on Wednesday night, and that was a blast. The whole place was filled with Canadians, although I noted very few with Canadian pins, flags, decals, or shirts. I don't know why I find the behaviour so annoying, I didn't use to. I guess it's because I've only ever noticed Canadians doing it. I don't see a lot of people carefully stitching Australian flags on their luggage, or pinning New Zealand pins on their lapels, but Canadians seem to feel a need to identify themselves as Not!American.

But then, the first sentence I could speak with fluency in Chinese was "I'm not American, I'm Canadian", so really, I have no cause to say anything. But I'm getting more of a sense, I think, of how it appears to other travellers.

Ah well, enough of that. To each his own. I am curious, though, what other people think of it.

Other than that, I've got my time off sorted for my trip to Tintagel. The job allows me flexitime, which is some fancy way of saying if I work late on some days, I can take those hours out on others, and that's nice. I'm going to Cornwall for three days instead of two, and I've got it rather well planned. Exeter, Tintagel, Penzance, Land's End, Plymouth, and maybe Saint Ives. Mostly, I want to go to Penzance because I believe, in my soul, there will be pirates there, and Saint Ives because of that riddle I learned when I was a kid... You know, "When I was going to Saint Ives, I met a man with seven wives...."

I hope I don't meet anyone with seven wives. I'd be worried and start counting things, and it would all be bad.

I started the new (permanent) job today and if there's one strange thing about working there, it's the scary elevator that I swear is older than my country. It has a gate on the inside, and a gate on the outside, and you can see through it. I'm convinced it's going to lead to my death one day, but I suppose I shouldn't complain - I work in a transformed Georgian Townhouse (and I must get pics, because oh my, do I ever work in a posh neighbourhood) in the old servant's quarters, and walking up four flights of stairs several times a day is not something I'm keen on. Cuz me? Lazy.

Also, both the staff coffee machine and the photocopier are smarter than me, and beat me in epic battles today. The coffee machine takes these... *things*, and they do *things* and later on, out comes hot chocolate. I don't know how it works, but things pop out, and I'm happy.

But yeah, the place I'm working in is absolutely gorgeous. I will not bore everyone with an Edinburgh history lesson, but I will say that the area was built to impress the wealthy in the 1700s, and that I'd have to sell off significant parts of my soul in order to afford one floor in one of these town houses. There are these huge windows that dominate entire rooms, and it's beautiful. I'm really enjoying it.

I gotta say, working in a building that has that much history to it is exciting to my little Canadian mind. *grin*

In unrelated news, I'm thinking of being late to the bandwagon and making up one of those "100 things in 1000 days" lists. I have a hankering to get a bit more order into my random travelling, and having some goals with some deadlines might be helpful there. (For example, I've committed myself to going to Burning Man sometime in the next five years. Which means I may finally stop talking about it and actually do something....)

Yesterday was Mother's Day in North America. I called my mom, much to her confusion. Maybe I should call home either more often, or less...

I went to Durham on the most beautiful day to see Durham. The sky was perfectly clear, it was just warm enough to make the day good without being too hot, and although the castle was closed (and I'm still bitter!), the Cathedral wasn't very busy. I understand that they offer tours during the summer (so I may need to go back), but since they are "too far North" to get lots of tourists, the place was depressingly empty.

It's a lovely Cathedral, truly, but it has a sense of weight and heavy that the other Cathedrals I've been to (that being York and Westminster in the UK, for those keeping track) didn't seem to have. It seems to weigh really heavily, and I'm not sure how much that has to do with the colour of the stone, and how much with the construction. It's duller inside, and I get the impression that the stones haven't been scrubbed. I wonder, though, if it's not just that they used a darker stone. Hard to say.

Again, I have no pictures of the inside of the Cathedral, but then, I'm not sure they would have turned out. Even with the bright sunshine outside, it didn't seem to really come into the Cathedral very much. Again, that sense of weight, I think. It didn't have the light that Yorkminster did.

Don't get me wrong - the sense of history in this place was much stronger for me than in York. I think that it was because of the weighty-ness.

But, enough of that. I climbed the top of the tower (something I regret not doing in York), all 300-someodd steps, and the view really was spectacular. My favorite part may have been how green everything was, since I heard it snowed in Edmonton just a few days before, and I am petty about enjoying good warm weather when it's cold back in Canada. It gave some spectuacular views of the city, and the river, and I really loved Durham.

I keep comparing it to York for a lot of reasons, not the least being because of the Cathedrals. I think they were started within a couple of decades of each other, and each has a lot of important history to it regarding the Neville family, the War of the Roses, stuff like that.

One of the biggest contrasts for me, though, was the way they've treated their older sections of the city. The little streets (would they be snickleways?) in Durham wound their way up the hill to the Cathedral, with alleys dropping off into stairsways down to the river, and a real sense that this is the way the streets ran back when the Cathedral was the center of the city. York has the same sort of thing, called The Shambles, filled with cunning little shops and an open-air market. In contrast, Durham's was filled with name-brand shops, generic places I could find in any mall, and I did find that a bit disappointing. It felt, frankly, like it wasn't trying, and I wonder if that's because York is very touristed, and Durham seems not to be.

I think going back to Durham in the summer wouldn't be a mistake. I'd love to see the castle from the inside (apparently you can stay there if you book in advance - it's a student dorm during the school year, and don't you wish you lived in a Castle during Uni? I'm telling you, I wouldn't have gotten anything done, but I would have been very happy), and take the tour of the Cathedral.

...

I'm trying really hard to get across how much I loved Durham, but I don't think I'm doing a very good job. I haven't had much to say this week because there's been a lot of upheavals in my life lately. Kristi's going back to Canada at the end of the month, and I am so emotionally, physically, and financially drained from her stay here that I have no sense of perspective on it anymore. I feel like her spending the last 2 1/2 months here was a waste, not just of her time, but mine, all the energy I put into making her time here a reality for the past nine months. It's hard to be enthused about a trip I took over a week ago when everything since can be divided up into "before" and "after". The trip to Durham was before, and the writeup after, Kristi decided to walk out on several months of backstory. And whereas I can admit that living overseas is certainly not for everyone, it's very difficult right now to accept "I'm sorry" as compensation for six months of putting my life in limbo and three months of turning it upside down.

I think she made the right choice for her, don't get me wrong. But it leaves me wondering what the hell the point was, anyway.

She leaves for good in a couple of weeks, on a Wednesday. I'm planning a trip to Tintagel for that weekend. I'm telling myself she wouldn't have liked it anyway.

{all photos from Durham}

So, Durham!

The Good:

There's this Cathedral! And it's on a hill! And there are these great streets! And I got to the top of the tower (300-some odd steps)! And the choir at Evensong was freakin' devine!

The Bad:

The casle, which doubles as the university, was closed due to exams. The library is under construction and parts of it you can't get in to. Edinburgh is not actually part of "Northern England", and thus they won't let me take out books.

The Ugly:

Running up all the hills to the rail station to catch the train because Evensong ran longer than it has anywhere else (it was their short service) and I was terrified that I'd miss the train. I think I died.

Overall, it was an amazingly good trip, although the big thing I'm having raptures over right now is that Margery has not only been *in* this historically important library that has tons of things and important books and ancient texts that are actually ancient texts and not copies of them... *goes into spasms of historical excacty*

Apparently they give you special pencils in the library because you're not allowed your own pencils or pens, and these pencils won't damage the ancient texts.

And this place is a University! Why can't *I* go to University in Durham?

...

(I mean, besides the point that it's really really expensive and the stuff I really want to study they don't offer there.)

Anyway. There will be photos a bit later (gots to go pick up Kristi at the airport) and some meta-commentary about the streets of Durham, I'm sure, and some stuff about Richard III, because isn't there always stuff about Richard III when I spend too much time in Northern England?

(I was just looking at my last few blog entry titles. I'm a bit obsessed with the exclamation mark this week, aren't I?)

So, the looking for a rich sugar daddy thing didn't work out, but that's okay. I found out that if I buy my tickets in advance, the price is a lot less than it is day-of. So, I'm totally spending the day in Durham tomorrow, checking out the Cathedral (and a castle... I'm actually not sure if there's a castle in Durham, I just believe it in my soul) and spending the day just being all touristy. I'll even be there late enough to catch Evensong, which is great.

I'll look for the sugar daddy, though. Cuz really, I'm getting kinda used to being unemployed.

In unrelated questions: Does anyone know why there'd be Fireworks on Wednesday evening? I was sitting eating ice cream and chocolate at this lovely restaurant (to celebrate the new job and all that), looking out over the North Sea, when these fireworks started up. As much as I'd like to think they were in celebration of said job, I sincerely doubt it - but I don't know why they happened.

Oh well, life's mysterious and all that.

Got to head to bed. Yay Durham!

The flatmate and I went out yesterday to take a Ghost Tour. A *totally different and in no way similar* to any of the other Ghost Tours I've taken in Edinburgh.

Actually, this time I mean it. It was a lot of fun and well done, except for one minor hitch: the key broke in the Covenantor's Prison, so we didn't get a chance to go into the area with the poltergiest we went along to see. But I was pleasantly frightened of the wandering around in a graveyard at night, so it was a good evening, and we get a free tour later, presumably on a night when the key won't break.

Things are going well over all. I will admit to getting some ghoulish glee out of the fact that she's gone down to visit family for the week, thus freeing me to sit naked in my living room and eat cheesy poofs till I turn orange if that's what I want to do, but mostly it just means I feel free to do more stuff without guilt.

Like, get a job. Which, I apparently did today. Yay! Start time is a bit up in the air, but it's real work, with real money, and I'm very excited!

Going out to Durham Cathedral on Friday to celebrate. Cuz I'm all about the big monolithic religious structures.

I had a fabtabulous time at Beltane last night. I'm sore and achy (from dancing too much) and my throat is killing me (from shouting and cheering too much) and I think I managed to get a sunburn. Yay!

Seriously, though, I should preface this with I can totally see why this wouldn't be everyone's thing, and I can tell how easy it would be to go and have a horrible time. There were whole minutes that passed where I thought "Man, this is... yeah." But then I pushed myself to go out and find things and it was great.

The night starts out on the ruins up on Calton Hill. The "Green Man" is lead out, along with several other characters who do some sort of ritual (I could only see parts of it) until they light the fire. They take this ball of... something... and spin it around in circles until it catches. Once it gets going, they light a bunch of torches and start lighting the big runes and stuff behind the performers. Then, more torch bearers and drummers come out and line the ruin, getting everything up into a fever pitch before the Queen of May and her White Women appear. Then, the procession is led out and everything becomes insanely chaotic.

My understanding is they expected 12,000 people up on the Hill last night, and it was definately packed with people. It was hard to see things before I figured out what was going on. I tried to follow the procession a few times, but got crushed in the crowd, then headed towards the area with one of the stages and one of the bonfires. There was this energy in the crowd, but no one seemed to know what was going on or what to expect.

I know I missed things I would have loved, like the May pole and some of the Points (Earth, Air, and Water - I think I found Fire), but what I did see was so... wow. It was wow. *grin*

I managed to trail behind a group of drummers in orange with strange things on their backs (no idea what they were - I wonder if they just sorta showed up and did things?) to the stage that I *think* was the Fire Point. I watched them for a bit, and they were great - the drum beat just went through you, and the dancing was chaotic and fun. This one girl jumped up on stage with them and started doing some great dancing along - very bellydance like, but in this more tribal way. I'm sorry, words can't get this across at all. It was wild and crazy and chaos and fun.

Then the Procession came. Lots of torch bearers that pushed us back from the stage for the dancing on the grass. I had this constant fear of being lit on fire. By accident, of course. I'm pretty sure they don't do that on purpose, even at Beltane.

(The problem at this point is the *very* drunk people that were right in front of me. One of them was this absolute ass of a man who kept arguing with the torchbearers, with the stewards, and with anyone else around him, when he wasn't grabbing at the breasts of the women in the area. The other was this drunk girl that was encouraging him, but it was really obvious that she'd just do anything that anyone around her said. I missed a lot of things because of these two, and it was annoying, but I didn't want to move because - well, to where? I was *right* in front of the stage, and no one else was moving.)

I did the the May Queen alight to the stage, and the Green Man's attempts at grabbing her before their "wedding". I saw him sacrificed while the Queen watched, impassively. They threw his garmets of green leaves to the fire, to be burned. And then, the Queen made him reborn, not at the old Green Man, covered in summer's old clothes, but as the new Sapling, young and vital and full of energy.

He lept and danced, and it was beautiful.

Afterwards, the procession headed up to the Final fire to be lit, the huge bonfire that roared and burned above us. I missed the firelight (I went to Beltane and missed every single fire lighting!), but I got to watch the Red Men (and women! - the red beasties?) dance and do fire dancing and acrobatics. I can totally see how this could have led to orgies wild nights of dancing till dawn. The firedancing was amazing - the guy in front of me was great! (By this time, the drunken people had left. Aw, pity.) Dancing with the fire, with fire sticks, with these fire balls on chains... it was great. Everyone in this part was painted red and basically naked, including the women. The drum beat just went right through you, again, and it was... wow. It was wow.

About then is when I realised I had lost my shoe.

I'm not quite sure where I lost my shoe, or when I lost my shoe, but I did, in fact, lose a shoe. It's somewhere up on Calton Hill. I feel all Cinder-Anna like: maybe a Prince will find it and turn me into a Princess? I'd make a great Princess.

Anyway, if you see my shoe, do let me know.

Beltane was spectacular. I understand they do something for Samhuinn as well, on October 31st, down the Royal Mile.

Well, I know what I'm doing for Halloween this year.

{Pictures that are *totally not mine*, as mine didn't turn out, are here, and they are *amazing*.}

Tonight is Beltane, and I have tickets! I'm very excited!

I had never heard that Edinburgh had a world-famous Beltane celebtration on Calton hill every year, so I was pleasantly surprised to stumble on the flyers. Apparently there are dancers and hyjinks and bright colours. Since I'm easily distracted by bright colours, I'm hoping this will do something serious about my current boredom with life.

In slightly more serious news: I have job interviews lined up all next week. I decided to be a bit more proactive and stop waiting for the temp agency to get me something. According to the interview I had on Friday, I am "hot property".... Does that sound vaugely obscene to anyone else?

Will write all about Beltane, with pictures, tomorrow.

God, I had a great time at Linlithgow today! (Or, I suppose, yesterday. Why yes, I can't sleep again, why do you ask?)

I've been to Linlithgow before, of course, and loved it there, but this time Don and I were silly as Joe, Kristi, Myles and Aaron explored the castle. There are many photos, and some of them are available for you to laugh at. (I also have a video of Don and I attempting to sword fight. I scream a lot at the end. Don is mean.)

I'm gonna try to avoid gushing about Linlithgow (since I love it, and thus can), but I will write a bit about it. It's the palace where Mary Queen of Scots was born, and where Margaret Tudor waited for word of Flodden, and found out about the death of her husband. It's very pretty, and obviously not meant to be a place to hide in a seige.

It rained most of the time we were there, which was unfortunate, but heck, it's Scotland. When it doesn't rain, I get suspicious. We also got into the beautiful church just outside the palace, which I wasn't able to last time. The stained glass inside is just gorgeous, all replaced at the turn of the last century, so it has this very... in between look, between the older stuff that looks so regal and the newer stuff that just looks gaudy and overdone to me. I wish I had some photos, but I don't like to take pictures in working churches.

Everyone else ended our trip with a walk around the loch, but I bowed out - the damned plague is still dogging my every step. I hates it. But I'm feeling much better now. Really! Just... can't sleep. At all. Ever again. *sigh*

Nothing new to add on the job front. Going nuts from lack of things to do that bring in money instead of sending it out.

The first night I was in London, I did this Jack the Ripper tour, which I mentioned before.

First, and foremost: Are you in London? Are you going to London? If either of these things are true, check out London Walks. I can't remember who recommended them to me, but this is the second one of their walks I've gone on, and they are outstanding. Great fun, good value for your money, and not nearly as difficult as one would think. I wouldn't necessarily recommend them if you've got mobility issues, but if you're just lazy (like me - god, I'm lazy), they're fine. And fun! This one met in the evening just across the street from the Tower of London, and it was huge. Well over 70 people showed up, and it was a Monday. They ended up splitting the group into two, and I got this great tour leader. She had a real presence to her, and just the way she used her voice, her posture, and the area around her was just outstanding. She'd completely alter her voice when she was quoting from letters, from the police reports, or from media commentary. I wish I had caught a video of her, but sadly, I didn't.

If you're in to Jack the Ripper, this really is the tour for you. They showed where the victims were found, pointed out some of the major landmarks of the time (like Prostitute's church), and really recreated the atmosphere of the time - how dark and dingy it was, how horrible it was to be a prostitute at the time, and how incredibly shocking the murders had been. Previously, I hadn't really gotten the whole "Jack the Ripper" mystique, but now I get why it's such a big thing.

The picture here shows her standing in front of the one of the remaining fragments of the Walls of London. And this is where I'm getting confused.

See, when I think about Old Edinburgh (Auld Reekie, as it was called), I can picture it. When I walk down the Royal Mile, I can see the place where the original walls around Edinburgh ended (about half way down the Mile), protecting the city from the Evil English. I think it was the Flodden Wall, and the descriptions of the city I've heard time and again make it pretty obvious that it was hellish to live there. They had a huge number of people crammed into a very small space, and it was called Auld Reekie becuase you could smell it from several miles away. Ick ick ick, not my thing.

London, however, I'm having a hard time grasping the medeival geography of. (This is probably because I read a lot of historically based fiction, like Sharon Kay Penman's books about 12th Century England, or the reign of Richard III.) What I understand so far is that London is sort of like the English Language: It ran around and nabbed a bunch of stuff from other places and called it London. (See, like English, which robs words from other languages and calls it English. See how witty I am? *sigh* I am such a geek.) So, Westminster used to be its own place, but now is basically London. Is that right? I don't know....

Maybe I need to stop trying to learn my medeival geography from novels.

{Note to self: London Walks has a sister group called Paris Walks. Go to Paris. Take Paris Walk. Have coffee with Anne. Sounds like a good day....}

PS: I may or may not be going to Amsterdam at the beginning of May. Depends on how money works out. If I do go to Amsterdam... what should I do? I mean, other than go to the War Memorial, which is why parts of my family are going. I hadn't considered going to Amsterdam before. That's in Holland, right? They eat salt candy there, don't they? Oh well... Holland!

You know what? I'm a great marriage catch. And now I'm gonna tell you why.

I went to Jedburgh, as I said, to collect the latest in my list of ruined abbeys in Scotland and England (and to have little fits about Henry VIII, although he apparently had very little to do with the ruin of Jedburgh). It was a great trip, the abbey is lovely and very well presented, and I also checked out Mary Queen of Scot's house and the lovely little Royal Burgh of Jed. It's a great trip, and I do recommend it for a lovely half-day if that's your thing.

But really, what makes me great marriage material is that I got the urge to go out and see the Historically Significant Tree in Jedburgh, and thus I missed my 2:00 p.m. bus back to Edinburgh. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what makes me great marriage material because don't you want to be married to someone who is that flighty?

So, yes, there is this Historically Significant Tree in Jedburgh. (You think I'm making this up, don't you?) Back in 2002, the United Kingdom was celebrating Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee and found 50 Historically Significant Trees to ... make important somehow for this. Jedburgh's tree is the Capon Tree, the last tree that survives of the Great Forest of Jed. Allegedly, it's the tree that several members of the clergy travelling to the Abbey sheltered under during a storm.

They say it could be as much as 500 years old.

...

.....

Look, I know this makes me sound awful, but come on. 500 years old? That's nothing for a tree. I'm sure there are trees on my street in Edmonton that are 500 years old. I remember being a kid and looking at trees that were over a thousand years old. Call me then for your "historically significant trees".

*sigh* I know, I know, it's the UK, we have to judge things differently here. Here, 200 kilometers is long way to travel (and probably not something you'd do just for a milkshake), and there are buildings on the street I live in now that are older than the Capon Tree, and I totally respect that. But 500 year old trees? Not so much. Call me pretentious.

But, yeah. Me good marriage material. I walked the 3 kilometers out to see the 500 year old tree, took some photos, and then walked back to just miss the bus by 10 minutes. *sigh* Because I am just *that* geeky. ("Oooh, historically significant tree! I wanna see that!" "Do you have a car?" "Oh god no, I'll walk! How long could it take?")

{All my exciting photos of the Capon Tree are here}

In unrelated news, I'm also the type of geek that not only now owns a lemon zester, but actually said to someone "And it makes my life so much easier now, too!"

Please shoot me.

One thing I love about living in the UK: I hopped a train yesterday and went to Stirling so I could sit in a pub for five hours drinking cider with a friend and eating bad pub food. It was great.

I love the trains here, that I can go to Stirling for the day for about 7 pounds and it's so relaxing. No stress, just hop on the train, watch the pretty scenery go by, then hop off. I might do this more often.

Canada should really revitalise their passenger service. My understanding (picked up from various places, may be completely wrong) is that for some time here the trains were awful and no one wanted to take them. But now, they're great. I is happy.

Tomorrow I'm going to Jedburgh to see another ruined Abbey. I think, after this one, I'll have only one left in my quest to see all of the ruined border abbeys, but I'm not sure. That would be Dryburgh, which I understand is the most complete of the lot.

(Let's see... Lindisfarne, Kelso, Melrose, Jedburgh, Dryburgh.... I think that's all of them.)

Sadly, I will be going by bus.

This is what I think happened:

I had a cold. A nice, regular cold that would eventually give up and I would get better. But then, I went on the Tube in London. And, as everyone knows, the air in the Tube is its own special kind of icky. And something that I breathed in combined with my cold and transformed into some sort of plague that will eventually bring down humanity.

But before that happens, I want to write about this second trip to London.

Like I said before, seeing Big Ben when I came out of the Tube station was... wow. It really felt like that sudden shock of familiar. I knew where I was, I could get around without difficulty, and I was good. It's kind of strange the idea that I can get around a city like London without getting too terribly lost. Granted, I didn't go exploring snickleways or strange alleys, but I didn't get lost, either.

Unlike last time, I did decide to go into Westminster Abbey, and while there I took one of their guided tours. The tour was amazing, but sadly not because of the quality of the tourguide. The guide seemed so bored, like he had done this so many times he couldn't understand why anyone else would want to take the tour. On the other hand, taking the tour gets you into areas that you can't get into otherwise, like the actual tomb of Edward the Confessor. You get to spend some time wandering around in this area that is dominated by royal tombs, like Richard II and Henry III, but there was no real historical context for any of them. I mean, I know this stuff, but most people don't, and that was frustrating.

(Of course, this is where my coughing got so bad that the person leading the tour had to get me a glass of water. *sigh*)

But, putting aside the boredom of the guide (a priest of the Abbey), the building itself is outstanding. I had caught a glimpse of it the first time I went in for Evensong back in December, but seeing the whole thing was just so overwhelming. I can't even describe the size of this abbey....

It actually reminded me so much of places like Lindsifarne, or Kelso, and the ruined abbeys there. I never really got a sense of how big they would have been until I went into Westminster. These sites would have been huge, and they're all in ruins and stones now.

I'm not sure what I'd say the highlight of the tour itself was. Inside the Abbey is the tomb of Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, as well as Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. There is also some amazing stained glass, and the details of the floors, the ceilings, and the walls... well, it's amazing.

One thing, though, is the burials and the memorials throughout the Abbey. No one's buried there anymore, but for some time people were, and you walk over the stones without thinking so easily. There are memorials up to various poets, writers, artists, and actors, as well as scientists (the one to Newton is beatiful) and politicians. They cover a lot of the walls and the floors. The Bronte sisters are there, as is Lewis Carroll.

The tour ended not all that long before Evensong was to begin. This time was different than last time in that it was a guest choir, and with the time change it was still afternoon light filtering through the windows, and I was surprised at how bright it still was when we got out of the Abbey at 6. It felt like it should be dark, like there should be a hush over the world after the beautiful music and the awe-inspiring setting.

I know I've mentioned before that I'm not religious, but I do recommend Evensong at Westminster Abbey if you're ever in London. It is the most beautiful call to prayer I've attended yet, and it's very moving. It's... well, it's beautiful.

Got in from London a couple of hours ago, and I gotta say: there's no place like home. Don't get me wrong, I adored London, but I'm happy to be back in my nice little flat with my nice little bed that isn't a bunk bed in a hostel that's trying to be "indy" or something. Ew.

Today was an awful lot of Saint Paul's Cathedral. Worth every minute - I could probably have spent another couple of hours there happily. Sadly, no photos inside (same with Westminster). Whereas I get the concept of no photos in a working church (which I don't take, anyway, it strikes me as incredibly disrespectful, even if they will let you), I don't like the charging of huge admission fees (10 pounds each!) and not letting photos.

But putting that aside... I was awed. As I was with almost everything in London, even the Tube. Still no sign of the tube-riding pidgeons, but I'm heading back.

Just... not for a while. London = Very Expensive!

All the details and photos over the next few days, I'm sure.

Having a fabulous time, wish you were here!

Just another quick blog-through of my day, because everything really does deserve a full entry to itself. With pictures. And gaping awe on my part.

Hit the Tower of London. Could have easily spent the whole damned day there and not counted it a "small" day. It was amazing and fantabulous. The guided tours are great! Raven, we saw a Raven and thought of you - can't wait to show you the pic we got. I know that you've been there (of course!), but we were thinking of you a lot.

Saw London Bridge. So.Very.Cool. Also, took a river boat up the Thames.

Spent a bit of the afternoon (2 1/2 hours) looking at the Elgin Marbles. Yeah, the whole 2 1/2 hours. I have a thing for Greek Statues. I went into a swoon over a few of the things in the exhibit. I am aware there is more to the British Museum than just the one small area, but dude... it was the Elgin Marbles!

In the evening we ducked into a fabulous restaurant, spent some time in a really awful bar that tried really hard to have some theme to it, then found this surreal place in SoHo and danced until the smoke in the area drove me out. So much fun!

This place we ended up is so hard to describe. It felt like walking into something out of Alice in Wonderland, with Hooka-smoking caterpillers. (Oh, wait, my parents read this blog. Mom, Dad, anything I say that makes it sound like drugs would be a necessity to make sense of it is just for effect, really. Honest.) It seemed like being on drugs would help the whole place make more sense. Lots of very low couches and cushions scattered in various parts of the floor, the dance floor being in this weird room off the 'main' room, really different music than I was used to, and lots of people smoking. I had forgotten that the no smoking laws were only in Scotland, or I might have skipped the club entirely. My throat and lungs are killing me, but on some level - it was really worth it. I danced, and watched lots of other fun people dancing. There were mirrors in really odd places which added to the sureality.

Reminded me a bit of Paris Below. (Will link to that entry later.)

But really, having a fantabulous time, wish you were here.

Tomorrow, Saint Paul's Cathedral, maybe Les Miz, maybe the Globe Theatre, and then flying back home to sunny Edinburgh!

Did I just call Edinburgh home?

There's something very... intense about walking out of the Westminster Tube Station and seeing Big Ben. I'm certain it's not like this for other people from the UK, but when I see it, I can't help but go "Wow. I'm here." Even though I've been here before. London has this thing about it, you know?

Yesterday was a pretty packed day, today is looking like it will be as well, so of course I've been: a) unable to sleep (sleep? no thanks, I'm trying to cut back), b) sick (nothing like coughing so much during a prayer service the priest gets you a glass of water), and c) half-deaf. This was a new one, but my right ear refused to pop at all yesterday, and I was constantly staring at people in horror realising I couldn't hear them.

But, that's the bad stuff, and the day itself was outstanding and wonderful. I want to do a full writeup and all, because places like Westminster Abbey (expensive, but oh so worth it), and things like the Jack the Ripper Tour (intense) deserve as much of my full attention as I can give them.

Right now, I'm coping with a poor hostel choice (Ooh, I'll pick something with a bit of a fun-loving atmosphere this time, so Kristi can have some fun). It's not that there's anything bad about the place, it's just that I don't come to London so I can get drunk in the hostels. I just wanted a place to sleep.

Which I actually did a bit of last night. Just not nearly enough! *laugh*

I really am having a fabulous time though. The tentative plans for today include things like the Tower of London, a Thames boat, and seeing the Elgin Marbles and satisfying my fan-girly heart. Haven't planned my evening yet - it seems so far away....

I'm sick. I hate being sick. I'm not even really missing work out for it, since they ran out of work for me again. Ah well, at least I'm useful, right?

But, despite being sick, I am counting down till Monday in the wee hours of the morning. We're heading out to London for three days, two nights of crazy London Hyjinks. I've got a schedule worked out for what I want to do, and it's better than the last time because I have some clearer idea of what London is: It's not a city, it's a freakin' country all to itself, and you're not going to see it all in three days.

We're definately going to see the Elgin Marbles, we're taking another London Walk (Jack the Ripper!), going back to hear Evensong at Westminster, and checking out China Town. On my own, I'm looking forward to the Tower of London, taking a boat tour up the Thames (if I can), and probably a few other things as well. My sick-addled brain can't process everything right now.

I just want it to be Monday now! I'm sure I'll be better by then, right?

A-hah! Everyone's asleep! *jumps on computer*

Note to self: Three people, one computer... not so much. And I'm only able to get on right now because there's a bus strike today and I'm waiting for a cab to work. So tempted to just call in "too annoyed to bother".

It's been a busy week {see here}, but I managed to creep in a bit of time for myself. Very early Friday morning, I crept out of the flat whilst everyone was still asleep, and hopped the bus to Roslin, to see the famous Roslynn Chapel. I got there early enough to mostly avoid crowds, and it was fantastic.

Roslynn is an odd place, in terms of Chapels. It's completely covered in carvings in the stonework, without a single space free, and I don't recall seeing that anywhere else. A lot of the "faces" within it have real personality, and there is, of course, much speculation on what it all means.

My theory: Someone with a lot of money and a desire to be ostentatious. It's not that I don't like the theory of a secret code or hidden meanings, I just think that people are inclined to read a lot into things, and it's not always necessary.

But, Rosslyn. It's beautiful, and I think my favourite part is the ceiling. It's carved up into stars, like a canopy of heaven, and I just was awed at the idea of people doing that. I love to look up at ceilings of churches and cathedrals, mostly because I love how the ceiling supports look, but this was so different.

I want to post up photos, but I don't know how much time I have left. Maybe later. Now that I'm not doing the Con stuff anymore, I have a bit more time on my hands, and this should help. Gah, I *miss* updating my blog.

Best part about making it out to Rosslyn: I now own a mug that says "The Davinci Cod". It has a fish. I am content.

The first, and most important, things you need to know about Stirling are these:

1) You can get amazing cell phone reception on top of the Wallace Monument.

2) I am afraid of heights.

3)

What that says is "I have climbed the 246 Steps!", and damn it, I deserved that medal afterwards!

Stirling was lovely, but the rest of my week has been absolutely insane. I don't think I'll do this again. That is, have people move in, plan a massive Quest for a Con, attempt to keep work under some form of control, help with lots of outings, and then I edited out the rest of this sentence in order to keep my life sane (no, it was nothing bad). It's all just too much for one week, you know? I am, in a word, exhausted, and the week isn't over yet.

But, Stirling. We mostly just did two things: The Castle (of course), and the Wallace Monument. And not the one with Mel Gibson, but the one at the top of a very nice hill. My understanding is that it was built from public subscription, truly Of The People of Scotland. It's very well designed, with rooms every so often on the way up so you can take a break from the tiny stairs and learn a bit about Wallace. Kinda over the top, and the fact that the "Hall of Scottish Heroes" has no women in it kinda bothered me, but that's just me.

...

God, I'm really having a hard time gathering my thoughts about this. I feel like I should be gushing, you know? I went to Stirling! I climbed a monument! I've been planning this trip for months, looking forward to it, trying to coordinate my schedule with my friend in Stirling so we could at least hook up for coffee and hang out, and all I feel right now is exhausted. I want to be more supportive of Joe and Kristi and Moving To Scotland and yay and all that, but all I've got is a lot of exhaution and feeling confused by it all. I mean, to me, the moving thing wasn't that hard, and it really seems to be throwing Kristi for a huge loop. I'm finding it so hard to be supportive of her, because I can't really see what the problem is. And I feel so bad about that, like I should be better, and I just can't be. It feels like constant, never-ending stress between trying to get them into some form of "settled" enough to be comfortable, trying to plan this Con thing, trying to plan outtings around my incredibly varying work schedule, and doing all the other things that one just does when one is alive.

I mean, I loved it, but I just can't write about it right now, because I feel like I'm wasting time I should be spending doing Something More Important.

I've never felt this out of sorts about living overseas since I started it all.

I promised myself when I started this blog that I would write about the bad stuff as well as the Great Grand Adventures, and so I do express when I'm feeling out of sorts and culture shocked. Right now, I'm feeling very much "other"... I mean, I know expats who have just jumped into it with both feet, but I only know them through the internet. I was kinda expecting that, for Kristi, it wouldn't be that hard - she has me here, she's got the 'net whenever she wants it, she's been hearing about Scotland every day for months, there's someone handy to introduce her to people, help her find a job, help her with her paperwork, all that jazz, and I'm confused that it doesn't seem as easy for it. It makes me feel like... like I'm the strange one, you know? Like I never formed the right sort of attachments to notice them missing when I came here.

I don't think badly of her, by any stretch. I guess I just want to be the right sort of friend, and right now, I'm not.

So, consider this photo to be my thousand words on how great it was to be on the top of the Wallace Monument. The view, I'm telling you, is worth every step.

{Photos}

So, on the one hand, I'm not working tomorrow because they ran out of work. Again. Still. Arg.

On the other hand... I'm going to Stirling! I'm going to Stirling! YAY!

I've been attempting to get out to Stirling for months, off and on, and other than that one time I went through it and got the photo of the Passion of the Mel, I haven't made it. But now, I get to! Yay! It's like Edinburgh, with Castles and stuff, and the Wallace momument, and I can't wait.

I'm sorry, sometimes I get as giddy as a little girl.

I had this great post planned for yesterday, all about how shocking to my naive Canadian eyes the drinking laws are here, but instead I went out for deep fat fried haggis last night.

It was a blast. The streets last night around the Mile were packed with people, and we ended up in this bar at a good enough time to get some shots of "baby guiness" (tastes like China Whites), hear a tiny bit of live music, and shake hands and laugh with and kiss many many drunk boys. And this was after we'd started out with way too much giggling back at the flat.

But the highlight of the evening was heading across to the Chippy afterwards. Myles was with us and decided he needed to teach Kristi everything about Scottish food all at once, so he was babbling away at her about chippies and chippy sauce and deep fat fried this and what to trust when eating at the places and the whole nine yards.

At first we were just gonna get some Chips and Cheese, but I really wanted something deep fat fried, that was going to kill me young, and that would horrify Kristi. And the shop didn't disappoint: deep fat fried haggis.

It was... um... disgusting really really good and everyone should have some! honest! It looked like this big flat batter-covered fish type thing, and was all greasy and fatty on the inside, with a token amount of not!grease. It was an experience.

The chips that came with it were just to soak up the fat, I assure you.

The evening was fun, I'd do it again. I'll give Saint Patrick's Day in Scotland an A.

There was no green beer, though.

So, funny story.

I hang out at the University of Edinburgh a lot for various reasons. There are a lot of signs up everywhere for various call-in help centres that students can call, and one is a Gum Clinic: One for Males, one for females.

"Huh," I thought to myself. "I wonder why there would be a gum clinic divided like that. Maybe... are there different things about teeth and gums for men and women? Maybe college girls here are just more... comfortable talking about their teeth problems with another woman? I don't know."

I had this thought about once a month or so, never really thinking much about it.

Fast forward to this week. I'm still working at the medical clinic, and one of the doctors says "Ah, Anna, we all love that spark of humour you bring into our day."

I pipe up with my old standby of "Everybody loves me! I should go to an STD clinic!"

The doctor laughs, then says, "But they don't call them that... you could go to the gum clinic."

"Gum clinic?"

"Yeah... Genital and Urinary Medicine."

...

.....

........

"Oh... is that what that meant."

"What did you think it meant?"

"I just thought that people in Scotland were trying to get over that perception that everyone has really awful teeth here."

I love being a foreigner. However, I did manage to brighten everyone's day.

Joe and Kristi are here in the morning. I have no energy to get my blog sorted. So tired.

Unrelated to that: I am apparently the Travel-Rants Travel Blog of the Day today. Wow!

And I do love to travel! Just... not today. Today is sleep day of the day. *grin*

Random Fact: They do have a statue of Mel Gibson done up as William Wallace in Stirling.

Random Fact 2: It has cages put around it at night and has a lot of CCTV cameras pointed at it. Seems there were a *lot* of vanadalism attempts on it when it was first put up.

That somehow made me feel better about it.

It's kinda hard sometimes to tell how ironic all the Mel Gibson/William Wallace stuff is around here. I've seen pencil sketches of "Wallace" as Gibson, and seen people selling off replica swords from Braveheart and telling people it's a replica of Wallace's sword.

I suspect that a lot of it is just "let's fleece the tourists". But I could be wrong. I mean, Wallace is a hero, and what's wrong with appreciating that?

(This brings me back to thinking about Louis Riel, our Canadian revolutionary. I was thinking we could con Gibson into doing a biopic of Riel, right? I mean, we could change a few facts around, skip the bits that he spent in sanatarium in the US, maybe toss in some extra romance... we could call it Riel-ity Bites.)

(Yes, I waited all week to type that.)

I went through Stirling on that Skye tour I took, but didn't actually get up to the Wallace Monument itself. This statue (carved by a man who was getting heart surgery when the move came out, and felt that the movie helped his recovery, and carved this in tribute) is at the base of the hill the Monument is on. I do want to get up there, but I have a friend in Stirling I keep meaning to do it with. We just... haven't gotten around to it yet.

Ironic, isn't it? I can travel hundres of miles to see something, but can't make the hour-long journey to Stirling without adult supervision.

Two points of unrelated news:

1) Thanks for the input on the layout. I need to change at least a few things, and will be working on that later.

2) I'm taking a half day off work today to panic about Kristi and Joe, and then a half day off work tomorrow to pick up Kristi and Joe. In between, I thought I'd panic more. It'll be fun!

Really.

Kill me?

Apparently the rest of Scotland got dumped on in terms of snow over the past few days. Edinburgh, of course, got a couple of flakes and that was it, so I had no idea until I was reading the paper this morning and there were horror stories out of Glasgow and Aberdeen. So I guess I can't mock all of Scotland for not being able to handle the cold. Just Edinburgh.

I just found it really interesting. The rail service shut down in some places, and the main road between Scotland and England was closed, or so I heard.

It reminds me a lot of living in Vancouver whenever they got dumped on. Absolute chaos for two days, and then... well, everyone got over it.

Joe and Kristi are moving in on Thursday. Please watch me panic.

Interesting...

It seems Mother's Day here is earlier than it is back home. Here, it's in March, in Canada, it's in May.

I wonder if this means I have to call my mom on both days.

10 Places I want to go in Scotland Before I Leave

1. The Channel Islands: because who doesn't want to go to a place a cow is named after? Go Guernsey!

2. Rosslyn: Before the freakin' movie about the place comes out.

3. Alnwick: Because it's close to a bunch of places I want to go, and some funky castles and ruined abbeys (of course).

4. Middleham: Because I am a Richard III fangirl and want to see the place. Maybe it'll be better than that damned Richard III museum in York.

5. Jedburgh: There's a ruined border abbey there (of course), and I think if I get there I will have collected the whole set of ruined border abbeys.

6. London: I could claim this is a place I've already been, but that's like saying you've been to Canada because you hit the airport in Toronto.

7. Land's End: Because I want to see Land's End.

8. Snowdonia and Area in Wales: Purty purty mountains. I like mountains.

9. Durham: There's a Cathedral! And a castle!

10. Inverness: I want to find Nessie. We'll be good friends... until she eats me.

11. Stirling. Cuz it's Little Edinburgh. And has a big statue of Mel Gibson that they need to lock up at night to keep it from being defaced. Who wouldn't want to go to Stirling?

11 Places Other People Want Me To See Before I Leave Scotland

1. Tintagel: "It's strongly tied to the Authurian legends...."

2. Knights Tournament: "It looks cool!"

3. London: "It's London. You can't do the Britain without doing London. I think it's a low."

4. Carlisle: "Access to Hadrian's Wall." (This is where we devolved into an email discussion about how Romans are evil copy-cats.)

5. Faerie Glen (Uig): "It's very moving."

6. Iona: "It's supposed to be very peaceful."

7. Nottingham: "The Robin Hood myths, amongst other things." (This is where we devolved into an email discussion about how much people claiming Robin Hood was based off William Wallace annoys me.)

8. Middleham: "You are a Richard III fangirl."

9. Arthur's Seat: "It's got amazing views." (I've been there, though... but I'll climb it again. Really.)

10. Ravenglass: "A great deal of Roman history. Also, Raven."

11. Norwich: Okay, I wanted to go to Norwich because there are cheap airfares. When asked what I'd do there, I said "It's in the UK - there will be a castle and a cathedral, I'm certain." I was right.

5 Places I Want To Go Back To Before I Leave Scotland

1. York

2. Linlithgow

3. Lindisfarne

4. Skye

5. Bath

What's Been On My Mind

Been reading lots of travel-log type things (and getting really frustread with Ewan MacGregor's whining in "Long Way Round"), reading up on Australia and working overseas, fallen in love with a book called "Work Your Way Around The World" (with bonus paragraph on how to get a job in Antartica!). I also got a globe/beach volleyball for whapping around the flat when I get too bored.

Basically, I'm thinking lots about what I want to see, and where I want to go, and what The Future will bring.

Can't sleep: future will eat me.

I've been having troubles writing about Skye, figuring out which pictures and stories to post, and it took me a bit to figure out why. I'm so used to seeing things like ruined abbeys, fallen cathedrals, castles that don't exist anymore, and those are easy to write about. I can write about getting there, or what it looked like, or how it felt. But this tour was different, and not the least because most of the beauty is in the landscape, and not in individual places.

So, what should I say? I stayed in a place called Kyleakin, a tiny village with three pubs and a couple of youth hostels. We stayed there two nights, spending the day in between driving around Skye. They call it the "Winged Isle", but I have a hard time seeing why. I guess if you squint when you look at the map, you can see a pair of wings and the like.

What I remember most about Kyleakin was how incredibly still it was... you could hear the lap of the ocean at the coast, the way the air moved through the village, anyone coming up close to you. I remember looking up at the sky, seeing a million stars.

I remember the mountains, and the sudden realisation that I'd never seen mountains outside of Canada before. They looked odd to me, because I kept looking for familiar peaks and not seeing them. I spent a few years living in Hinton, and a summer in Japser, and it's strange to see snow-caps that aren't Roche Miette.

A lot of people have been saying to me "Your descriptions of the Highlands makes me want to go there." I'm rather torn, though.

I mean, on the one hand, I could probably go back up there and live, maybe see Loch Ness every morning. I could walk around in a town like Kyleakin, or Inverness, or any other place up there, and see the mountains every day, and look up and see the stars every night.

I suspect, though, that I'd forget to keep looking up after a few months, and that makes me sad.

But I'll go again, soon, I'm certain.

I make jokes all the time that you don't actually meet people from Edinburgh in Edinburgh, and with a bit of a stretch I could claim that the majority of my friends here in Scotland are from someplace else: Ireland, England, Australia, Canada... Very few actually Scottish people in my circle.

So meeting a very nice girl a few days ago who was actually from Scotland (Aberdeen, where the men where kilts and the sheep run in fear *grin*)was a lot of fun. Especially when she told me about her experiences in Canada.

"What drove me nuts," she said, "was when people would insist on telling me they were Scottish. 'Oh, you're Scottish? I'm Scottish too!' No, you're not. You're Canadian, and there's nothing wrong with that. I wouldn't mind be Canadian, except for the poutine. Do you all have to eat that?"

(I miss poutine -- it's french fries with cheese and gravy, except yummy.)

This ended up in a conversation about how I moved to Scotland to see boys in kilts (and they're mostly tourists, damn it!), and how people in Scotland feel when they see tourists in kilts. "It was great at first - you know, it's kinda sweet the way people want to do something Scottish when they're here."

"Yeah," said her boyfriend. "And we got money for it, when we sold them. Until they started making all the kilts in India. Now it's just annoying."

I get asked a lot when I'm here if I have Scottish ancestry. I just shrug and say, "Who knows? I'm Canadian." If I get pressed on it, I tell them we were Vandals, and we sacked Rome. I'm not terribly concerned about where my family came from, I'm more concerned about where we are right now. I don't really get the seemingly mystical connection people think they have with Scotland if their ancestors left this place behind. I mean, I get that it's interesting, but I don't really see how it's important in chosing where to go on vacation, or where to spend a year of your life.

In unrelated news, that job I worked myself out of last week? Called me back this week, and two days later, I am out of a job again. Turns out they expected me to be able to type between 10 and 15 reports a day. I type 26 to 28. They don't have enough work for me.

*sigh*

(I just gotta ask, though - how can you be from a country that makes deep fat fried mars bars, but fear poutine?)

(Oh, and for the person who asked, and didn't leave an email address for me to reply: Caledonia)

So, I had a rather lengthy and kinda tedious post about Dunkeld, which is a town I stopped in for about 30 minutes on the way to the Highlands, and after much thought decides it wasn't really interesting enough to post up. Especially when I can sum it up in a few sentences: Dunkeld is pretty, and there was a Cathedral. Also, it is near Birnam of Macbeth fame, and Alexander MacKenzie, the first Liberal Canadian Prime Minister, live there for a while. I know this, because there is a plaque. {Other photos of the lovely Dunkeld Cathedral... beautiful place, with lots of bird song.}

But mostly what I wanted to write about is the guide we had on the tour.

I went on the MacBackpackers 3-day Skye Tour, and I recommend it if you like irreverent humour, brief glimpses of history, and really loud music. It was a hoot, but if you're expecting anything of any real depth... well, it's fun!

Ewan, our guide, has his volume set permanently on 11, if you know what I mean. And I do mean that both literaly and figuratively. I ended up buying a set of earplugs on the second day because of how loud everything was on the bus. But he told some very interesting (if not precisely factually accurate) stories about Scotland, about the Highlands, about mythology and stories and legends about this amazing country I'm currently in love with.

The stories he told were all over the top and fantastical, with everything being larger than life. He told the story of Bonnie Dundee (which is now *stuck in my head* - Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can, Saddle my horses and call out my men), changing the numbers so the Jacobites come out as an even more amazing victory than they had historically. He made Bonnie Prince Charlie into much more of a hero than he was, glossing over a lot of things. He romantised the Highlands and the people from it, turned tragedies into greater ones by adding zeros, told myths and legends like facts, and overall was exactly what a good and fun tour guide should be. He told stories of Scotland like I think a lot of people want it to be. His discription of how Highlanders could fight and take out any five or so Redcoats was inspired. I have a video, you should see it.

{It's interesting to me that I like my tour guides to tell larger than life stories, but I want my historical movies to be accurate, damn it. I have no idea why this is.}

It was more than beautiful, it was fun and funny and irreverant. That's really what I want to tell you about it. I could (and will, I'm certain) wax poetic about the mountains and the bird song and Faery Glen and the waterfall that sang, and about how I loved it all. But Scotland is full of stories, not just pretty pictures and picturesque castles, and I occasionally forget that.

{Birnam Wood... apparently they really did cut down a bunch of trees, and used it to hide the numbers of their armies. I can see how it would work.}

But, damnit... William Wallace is *not* the inspiration for Robin Hood!

As I've mentioned before, I have a friend coming here to live, and another friend coming for a visit, and I'm really looking forward to both of these things because there's nothing quite as exciting as showing some place you love to someone else.

Plus, it'll be nice to "re-see" Edinburgh with fresh eyes. It's not {quite} that I've gotten blase about it, but seeing someone get excited about all the old buildings on my bus route might get me to stop reading the Metro every morning and enjoy them again.

Don't get me wrong - I adore the Castle and I love those glimpses I keep getting of the Firth of Forth, and the North Sea, from various places in the city - but eventually you get too used to seeing buildings that are older than your country, and they don't have that interest to them anymore.

So, yeah. Looking forward to seeing Kristi and Joe, and showing them Edinburgh in all her glory.

In unrelated news, it took me until today to figure out that when people on the tour were referring to Winter and their Winter Schedule, they were meaning that it's still February, and thus is Winter, and not that it is cold, because it isn't. This really did confuse me - isn't it Spring?

{I've been dreaming lately about Asia. A couple of nights ago I had a dream where I was teaching in a Japanese school. It was so vivid I had troubles waking up. Last night I had a dream where I was back in China, teaching in Jiangyan, but my old boss from the last hotel I worked in in Edmonton, Bing, was teaching Phys Ed and there was a new headmaster. It was also hard to wake up from. I think I have something on my mind.}

I'm back from the Highlands.

I don't know if you can see
The changes that have come over me
In these last few days I've been afraid
That I might drift away

I did not fall off a mountain, or drown in a Loch. The faeries in the Glen did not steal me away, and I have yet to discover that I am Anna MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, and I can never die.

Now I have moved and I've kept on moving
Proved the points that I needed proving
Lost the friends that I needed losing
Found others on the way

I put my face in an icy-cold river because I was told it would keep me young. I saw the Old Man of Storr, and stood and listened to the faery pipes as the wind blew my hair like a curtain across my eyes. I looked out on the battlefield where Bonnie Prince Charlie lost his war and led so many men to their deaths.

I have kissed the ladies and left them crying
Stolen dreams, yes there's no denying
I have traveled hard sometimes with conscience flying
Somewhere in the wind

I sipped at Drambuie while looking out over the ocean, and pondered legends and myths and tales of a land so old and ragged that the mountains are worn to softer peaks than I'm used to. I listened to tales of brave men and wild women, of those who would die fighting for a way of life, for honour, sometimes just because to stop fighting meant to die.

Oh, but let me tell you that I love you
That I think about you all the time
Caledonia you're calling me
And now I'm going home

If have fallen so deeply in love with this land, with its stories and its people and its wild landscape up north. With its castles and ruined abbeys and graveyards older than my country. With cobbled streets and roads so narrow that they have 'passing places' to avoid oncoming traffic in.

If you asked me right now, this second, to choose, to decide between this country and anyplace else in the world....

I'd pack everything I owned and go up north, to the Highlands and Islands, and live the rest of my life up there and never give a backwards glance.

Which begs the question of what the heck I'm doing planning on leaving.

So, I went to the place to buy the ticket for my tour on Friday, and they said "Did you want to leave tomorrow then?"

And I sad "Tomorrow?"

"Yeah, it's 10 pounds cheaper."

"Okay!"

So, I'm going to the Highlands tomorrow morning. Be back in three days.

I was talking last night with friends of mine about trying to get my mind around the culture here. "Is it really something very offensive if I call you English?" I asked, thinking that it really just amuses me when people assume I'm American.

"Well," said Simon, "For some people, yes."

"And if there's alcohol involved, completely," said Myles.

"But, why?" I asked. "I can't figure it out."

"We had a royal family, and they disappeared."

"And there was the battle of Culloden."

"Those were hundreds of years ago!"

"Yes, but they're still relevant today."

This all sort of came out of a conversation about tourists wearing kilts and claiming clans, and about whether or not William Wallace was a 'hero' before That Movie came out and ruined everything.

We ended up with a fascinating comparison between Wallace, pre-movie, and Louis Riel.

I won't bore you by explaining the whole Louis Riel thing. There is a wikipedia article on him which seems to be rather well done, but I can't claim to have read the whole thing. I studied Riel in school, many many times, and no longer find him interesting. I make awful (and incorrect) jokes about how Canada is dull - we had one rebellion, it lasted a weekend, and afterwards everyone went out and got drunk. But it's not *too* far off the mark, depending on which part of Canada you're from.

Riel, you see, is either a Father of Confederation (in Western Canada, where I am from, because his actions led to the creation of Manitoba and Saskatchewan as provinces), a Traitor (in Eastern Canada, because of executing Thomas Scott, and then being hanged), or a Saint (which I've been told is how he's seen in Quebec).

Canada is a country that doesn't give a lot of thought to it's Larger than Life characters like that, although everyone knows about him. There are statues to Riel, and schools named after him, but he hasn't really captured the national interest or spirit. No one's going to go out and buy a replica Louis Riel gun, for example.

I got the impression last night that this is the way things were in Scotland before That Movie. People knew about Wallace, they had some opinions about him, everyone would know who you were talking about if you mentioned him, but he hadn't really captured the national consciousness until That Movie came out, and suddenly people were speaking in bad Scottish accents in places like New York, LA and Edmonton. Some people enjoy disliking the movie, because of how historically inaccurate it is, and others enjoy watching it as an heroic tale with varying degrees of accuracy. {I recommend you read this discussion about the historical inaccuracies in Braveheart. It's fun, and funny, and very full of facts. But mostly, it's funny, as is their take on Elizabeth and The Sound of Music.}

It was suggested that if I really wanted to understand the culture here I'd have to go back in time and just watch everything for 600 years, and even then I'd probably not get it. I don't get the papers here, and why it's okay to call people NEDs and Yobs. (NED = Non-Educated Deliquent. I don't know what Yob means, but basically the same thing. They told me it's more English to call someone a Yob than a NED.) To me, for some reason, those terms are really offensive, or at least shocking to see in a newspaper. I can't believe that it's okay, here, to write that sort of thing.

Of course, in Canada, we're more concerned about offending people. We tend to fret about that a lot.

Hence, I think, why I don't care if people assume I'm American, but I'm always quick to correct them. One of the few sentences I can still remember in Chinese is "I'm not American, I'm Canadian", and in bargaining, that was always useful. People do react to me differently once they hear I'm Canada, make assumptions about what it's okay to talk to me about. I hear a lot of anti-Bush rhetoric from cab drivers.

I think, because Canada is so immigrant-heavy, we don't really know how to deal with being an immigrant. I would never assume that anyone speaking to me wasn't Canadian - I don't care where your accent is from, or what colour your skin is. Canada is full of people of various levels of immigration, whether newly 'off the boat' or been here since forever. We just sort of blend people in.

I could live here until I die, and I think I'd still be an outsider, not understanding why it's more amusing than offensive that the statue of Wallace up in Stirling looks like Mel Gibson.

I have spontaneously decided to head out to the Highlands this weekend, as I managed to work my way out of a job again.

{I have a tendancy to do this: people hire me as a temp to audio type, expecting it to take about half again as long as it actually takes me to do things, and then I just sit around and go "Is there more work now?" I hate getting paid to do nothing... so now they don't need me till Monday.} {I mention this here because I am trying to use my mind control powers to get Phil to realise he needs an amazing audio-typing asistant to move across the world with him.}

So, yeah, I thought the Highlands would be fun, and good, and there's a tour I want to take that leaves early on a Friday morning, and thus was impossible for me to take whilst working. But since I am now not working, that is where I will go.

I'm also going to Liverpool and Norwich, but that will be much later.

So, with that sudden realisation that I only have a limited amount of time (a mere seven months!) left in Scotland, I decided to do something I had been avoiding doing.

I decided to try pineapple flavoured cottage cheese.

I *like* cottage cheese, you see. I loved it back when I was in college, and would eat enough of it that when there was this cottage cheese fad diet going around, I thought I could handle it (I couldn't - only fad diet I ever tried, and never again). But cottage cheese in Canada does not come in flavours, let alone in pineapple flavours. (Sour Cream does, though, and it doesn't seem to here.) But so, when I saw it in the store today and I was hungry and not wanting anything else, I picked it up.

Which leads to the question: how do you make something generally bland and flavourless (but with fun texture!) taste awful but with pineapples?

Even the texture was all wrong. Just... ew. Ew. EW. It was awful, and with pineapple.

And that's my latest foray into attempts at food in Scotland. I don't mind tatties and neeps, I like haggis, I *love* deep fat fried mars bars, but I think I'll avoid fruit-flavoured cheese for the next little while.

First and foremost, I wonder if I'll ever stop being amused by being invited to sit down for 'tea and biscuts' instead of 'coffee and a cookie' at work. There's this wonderful combination of accents and this thing that sounds so... so... old world classy to me. It's odd.

Also, tea and biscuts are yummy. And can fix anything.

But mostly I wanted to write about the Victorians, and sarcophaguses. Sarcophagi. Sarcophagus plural. I've been seeing them in all sorts of places, and always wondered what they were, these big stone coffins that seemed so out of place in various abbeys that I went to. I usually just assumed... well, I assumed they were big stone coffins of some sort, really. And I suppose they are, but they aren't from the era I thought they were.

These things (and they keep getting stuffed in odd places... this photo is from the ruins of a leper hospital in York) are actually Roman Sarcophagus..es... From what I understand, the Victorians found them at various times, dug them up, looted through them, then dropped the empty things wherever they could be bothered to. There's quite a few of them in places throughout England and I've seen one or two in Scotland as well (Kelso comes to mind immediately... I don't recall any anywhere else right now). They're always just there, as part of the landscape, just accepted.

I am intellectually aware that the Romans were here, and I know all about Hadrian's Wall and Constantine being declared Emperor of Rome here, but I keep forgetting how far back it all goes. And whereas I know that there were civilisations in Canada just as long ago, and that there is a great deal there that I have to learn about... I don't know, it just somehow seems more overwhelming to me that the Romans were here.

(This is a huge blind spot in my education. I must do something about it.)

But here's the thing that gets me worked up:

For all that we have some knowledge because of foolish Victorians rushing in and digging things up where angels fear to tread... they wrecked things! For crying out loud, the people in York don't have a clue where these things were dug up from. They know there was a Roman graveyard someplace, that it would have been outside the Roman city walls, but other than that... not a thing.

It makes me want to scream.

I think one of the things I find very surreal about living in the UK is that I can go places I've read about, studied, or in some other way have seemed unreal to me. Places that have just existed for me in abstract concepts actually exist here.

For example, the other day I was playing Civ III (or II or something), and built the city of York, and then spent the rest of the day giggling because I had been to York.

I think the fact that I've been really ill the past few days may have had some influence on that.

Part of that being ill involves rereading a lot of my favorite books, and that's always fun, too. Rereading my copy of Sunne in Splendour, and getting to the part where the heads of Richard, Duke of York, and his son Edmund are placed up on Micklegate Bar... and I've walked through that bar, and it all becomes so much more real.

I keep meaning to write up a long post about the Museum Gardens in York, but that involves going through all my photos again, and I've been too tired to do anything of the sort. All I've been doing for the past four days is sleeping and drinking juice.

So, as I mentioned before, I have a friend who's coming over to live here, and every other day or so we have a conversation like this:

Her: Should I bring my hair dryer?

Me: Well, you'd need a plugin adapter and a voltage adapter, so it's probably better to just buy one here.

Her: Oh... what about my curling iron?

Me: Well, you'd need a plugin adapter and a voltage adapter, so it's probably just better to buy one here.

Her: Oh... what about my hair straightener?

Me: *sigh*

Her: Okay, okay... but maybe I should bring some collapsable clothes storage! And my duvet!

Me: You know, it's not the Outback. They do have stores here. It's only one bus to the Ikea, and there's a mall behind my flat.
Her: Oh... they have malls?
*sigh*

I love her like a sister, I really do, but some days I just want to scream. It's not that scary! They have *fire* here now, I'm telling ya!

But seriously, I get that she's scared and nervous and full of anticipation. I remember feeling that way myself... and that whole 'oh god, what do I pack?' freaking out thing. But it's rather surreal being on this side of it.

She thinks I'm brave because I did it myself, when I went to China.

I haven't the heart to tell her I was leaving freaking out comments in people's blogs in the hopes that *someone* would tell me if I should bring water purification tablets or if they'd sell them in China or something. (God, so green... they do bottle their water there, by the way. Or boil it.)

Thus, I don't mind her asking.

But really... there are stores. And fire. Honest.

This is all from memory, and of course may be incorrect.

Clifford's Tower is on the top of a high hill, difficult to climb. Originally it had a moat, but nothing seems to remain of it now. There are many many many stairs to the base of the tower, and several more to the top. It's not a tower like I think of them, which is tall and thin and goes up a lot higher. This is only really two stories, but with the hill underneath it, there are some spectacular views of the city.

Or, so I would believe. I'm scared witless of heights. Absolutely witless of them. (You should see me flying. Or maybe you shouldn't....) I did manage to get myself up to the top of the tower, and I will admit that it's lovely up there, but I couldn't get myself to really enjoy it. I may think I'm not going to fall - it may be impossible that I'll fall - but I believe that I'm going to go crashing to the earth and that'll be the end of it all.

I was advised against climbing to the top of York Minster after this. *smile*

Clifford's Tower has some incredibly nasty stories told of it. The first is why it's named Clifford's Tower. According to the Ghost Tour I went on, a Lord Clifford was hanged to the side of the building and left to rot.

Let's leave the image, shall we?

The other story is quite horrific: In the 11th century, there was an uprising against the Jews in York. They fled to Clifford's Tower (then called York Castle, and a tower made of wood) for protection. The leaders of the uprising demanded that the Jews renounce their faith and give up all their wordly possessions, or they'd die.

They chose to die. When the door was forced open, they found every man, woman, and child of the Jewish community dead, and everything they had brought with them burning in the center of the room. In impotent rage, they left the tower to burn, leaving the bodies to burn as well.

I took this next picture when I had safely returned to the base of the tower. I looked up and said, "Hey, it's not that high..." The people who had seen me at the top, shaking and trying not to look down, found that rather amusing.

I'm glad I went here, as it's not only pretty nifty, it's part of the English Heritage sites, so I got in for free with my membership. However, I'm not quite sure I'd recommend it to other people. It's interesting, but there's not a lot to it. It's not really big, and very little of it really survives. The view is nice, and I guess that's what you're really paying for. (It's not that expensive, if I recall correctly.)

There's quite a bit here about the Jewish Massacre. For centuries, Jews wouldn't live in the city at all, until Cromwell invited them to come back. I know there's been formal apologies and formal acceptances of those apologies. There is an official memorial stone at the base of the hill, as well.

I just can't get that image out of my head, about how hopeless (or brave, or faithful) one must be to decide to kill your child, your wife, yourself, in order to escape from a fate you think is worse than death.

This photo is me, standing at the top of the tower (obviously). My friend says to me, "My, your shoulders look strange in that photo." I said, "It's because I'm so scared I'm about to fall suddenly to my death."

I haven't had much to say over the past week or so because I've been pretty busy. I got another job through the agency, and it's fun and interesting. I've been baking for the bake sale, and doing other things. But mostly I've been sorting things out with a couple of friends that are coming here to live for a while, and it's been stressful and tense. I'm looking forward to them coming, but if I were anymore nervous about it, well... my shoulders would look funny.

I'm beginning to feel better now because I *think* everything's been sorted. Hard to say, yet, and there's still time. They'll be here in early March.

I love doing walking tours of cities.

You get to see lots of fun things you might not of otherwise, and you get lots of fun facts and can claim you got exercise. They're fun, or at least they're supposed to be. I've only been on one walking tour (back in Bath) that bored me to tears. It was free, and I felt like asking for my hour and a half back. It was a walking history lecture of the worst type - dull, uninspiring, lots of repetition. Guh.

But York was different, this is for certain. I went on two tours: The Original Ghost Walk of York, and the Snickleways Tour offered by York Walks.

The Original Ghost Walk is, allegedly, the oldest Ghost Walk in the world. Your friendly guide takes you around places in York, and tells you nifty little stories about them. Fun for the whole family... allegedly.

Really, not so much in practice.

It's not that it was dull, because it wasn't, but it was really quite weak as a ghost tour. The opening story is that old one of 'person meets an old family friend when returning home, is asked to convey love to rest of family, does so, finds out person died a week ago'. I'm sure you've all heard variations of it. None of the tales got any more interesting than that. I guess I'd say it's child-friendly, but I think teenagers would be bored. I just spent a lot of time trying not to actually roll my eyes. ("Oh, you think the stones have a reddish tinge to them? Do you think that's because of the fire that destroyed the inside?")

But the man was very friendly, I must give him that.

The other tour had a bit more meat to it, and lots of fun things, but was delivered by someone so bored of his subject matter that it was hard to find it fun. But I can't fault the content for a moment. "Snickleways" is a York-specific word that refers to the little alleys and nooks and crannies and stuff that make up the historic parts of the city. Basically, he would take us to some oddly named little street, alley, or courtyard, tell us why it has that name (maybe), a little story about it.

Lots of fun bits, like legends about scandalous priests (are there any other kind of legends about priests?), red light districts, women killing their husbands, a place where husbands would take their wives for public floggings, and places where churches were once built, but are now empty except for a few leftover graves.

He told us that, in medieval times, there were 365 pubs, 52 churches, and 7 abbeys, so there was always some way of distracting yourself. He also told us that "In York, the streets are called gates and the gates are called bars and the bars are called pubs." I suspect the last bit has been added for the tourist trade. *smile* He also talked a lot about how the city was originally divided, with those lovely images of the slaughterhouse runoff running into the River Ouse, and the refuse being tossed out windows.

The stories are all interesting, but it's hard to determine how many of them are true. Is Mad Alice Lane named after a woman who claimed she'd been driven insane by her husband after she murdered him? Or is it named after a notorious madame? Who knows, really. Places build up legends and stories so easily, especially in a city as old as York.

There are just these lovely little touches everywhere, though. York has obviously embraced the tourist trade (as a lot of cities in the UK have), and ares like the Shambles have been carefully redone to achieve what I'd call "that medeival look" - lots of cunning little shops, lots of interesting images to see, but not necessarily a lot of historic fact to them. Not that I would expect their to be, really. There is a lot more trade in incredibly good fudge than in printers and inkmakers at this point, I'm sure. They've added little touches, though, like this Little Imp in along the street where the printers used to be. He's supposed to represent the printers apprentices that would go around and spill ink or change the letters in the printing press or just generally cause mischief. It's cute. And I probably never would have noticed him (or the Minerva at the end of the street, or the cats in various poses on some of the houses) without the tour. If you have the chance, I really recommend it.

(Interesting side note: the man doing the tour had a couple of people along that he was teaching. One of them offered to help me find my way back to Micklegate Bar, since he was going that way anyway. Along the way, he was brimming full of interesting tidbits about York - about where the oldest settlements were, about why certain buildings were built the way they were, about the pub that floods so often they keep their casks in the attic instead of the cellar. It was fascinating and fun, because he was really into what he was saying. Lots of fun, can't wait till he's his own guide.)

{Other photos from the tour}

What can I tell you about York Minster that will really convey the beauty of the place?

The place is full of light. Sound echoes away, but light seems to flood from every window and corner. Walking inside, I was overwhelmed by the light that I could see. The walls are bright white, reflecting more of the light coming in from the amazing stained glass windows. I kept thinking there must be a skylight or something to bring in all the light I could see, but there isn't.

Unlike every other church and cathedral I've been in, I managed to get on a tour of the Minster, and I really recommend them if you get the chance. They're offered for free and are about an hour. The one I went on was hosted by this lovely lady (also a Yorkist, like me - we talked a bit about Richard, of course), and there were several others ongoing. The sense I had is that each person has their own way of running the tour, and each one really loves what they're doing. They describe different things, but in that way that carries you along with their enthusiasm. She pointed out all sorts of things, like the carving near one of the windows of Aristotle being (a-hem) 'ridden' by his favorite harlot (she's holding a whip and smacking him as they go along) and that the Victorians, when they did their own restoration of parts of the ceiling, replaced an image of Christ being suckled by the Virgin with one of him being bottle-fed. Which is very surreal. (She also advised that we'd have to take her word for it - it's a very high ceiling, after all.)

The result of this is that I'm full of details on the Minster. I'm quite fascinated by the wooden roof, for example. That's why it's so wide, and the ceilings so high. It's not as heavy as other churches I've been in. This lead to problems fairly early on, and those problems have continued to this day. The first bells they set in the ceiling fell, which is why the're now in the towers instead. There have been multiple fires that have lead to extensive restoration and rebuilding, most recently in 1984. Only through an amazing coincidence were they able to spare the stained glass in that fire. The whole window on that side had been repaired a few years earlier, and the fire was put out about 10 minutes before the lead would have given way, shattering the glass.

As I did with Westminster, I went to Evensong again. It's interesting to compare the two. I don't know if I can put my finger on just why, but Westminster felt much more welcoming in their Evensong than York did. Maybe it's just the way they layout the service for the non-initiated, though. I'm not familiar with Anglican rituals (my friend calls it "High Anglican"), so I'm often lost at these things. The music wasn't as nice either, but that may be because instead of an entirely adult and mixed choir, like at Westminster, it was mixed boys and men... and the boys seemed very bored. There's also that the psalm they sang was very, very, very long.

In thinking about it, I specifically remember that Westminster said prayers for other people - for those persecuted for their Christian faith in China (yes, this still happens, don't let anyone tell you differently), for those fighting in wars and those suffering and dying in poverty, and for the Queen. I don't recall that at York. I know they prayed for the Queen, but not for anyone else. I wonder if that's why I felt it less welcoming.

But there's something about listening to prayers being sung that is very moving and beautiful. The organ music was amazing, and the voices seemed to echo out into all that space and up to the ceiling. Everything was much darker and more somber than when I had been in earlier, and it was very beautiful. I do recommend making it out to an Evensong if you get out to either of these places. It's amazing, and moving.

The real beauty here is in the stained glass. I can't tell you enough about it. It seems that they still have medeival style stained glass workers in York, and they carefully remove, clean, and restore all the glass in the Minster every so often. Right now they're working on the East windows, and the west window (The Heart of York) has recently been cleaned and repaired. The entire Cathedral seems to be under constant restoration work, which means I got to the see facades when they're still bright white. (This makes up for the fact that the east facade is entirely under scaffolding at the moment.)

It just find it outstanding to think of some of this. There are people who learn how to make stained glass... and they make entire careers out of the churches and cathdrals in Europe. There are families who pass down the skills required to ring the bells in proper time for the services, volunteers who do this for their lives. There are people who put their lives into caring and maintaining and playing the amazing organs at these churches. On some level I think I should be pondering the waste of time, money, effort, support that goes into these old cathedrals. A lot of money has been spent on the restoration work, millions of pounds in donations was given when it seemed it might come tumbling down, and shouldn't that money be spent on more 'worthier' projects?

On the other hand... these buildings are works of art, are works of history, and are important in their own right, not just as churches and cathedrals, but as important parts of our past. We learn so much from examining them, and they do awe and inspire so many.

Myself included.

{All Photos of Yorkminster, including the Five Sister Window}

That might, in fact, be the worst title for anything on this site.

If you're ever wanting a fun place to get away for a few days, if you're thinking that a visit to a town that's interesting, fun, and laid back is what you want, York is the place to go. If you have a medeival-type town in England in mind, you're thinking of York. If you ever decide you want a great place to go on an interesting tour, York is the place. You want a moving Cathedral? York. You want historic city walls? York. You want a park that's full of ruins and history, and a museum that manages to talk about both the Vikings and the Romans with interesting tidbits of information? York, my friend, is the place to go.

Of course, when you're thinking of York, you might think to yourself: Self? If I'm in York anyway, I should totally go to the Richard III museum they have there. This is the city he made his home, after all. This is the place where he had his son declared Prince of Wales. This city, upon hearing of his death, that wrote in their city records "It was showed... that King Richard, late mercifully reigning upon us, was through great treason piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of the City." Why, a good Richard III museum would talk about his relationship with his brothers, how he was raised by the Kingmaker who put his brother Edward on the throne, and then joined in rebellion against him. It would talk about his relationship with Anne Neville, and how he married her after she'd become the widow of Edward of Lancaster, the heir of the other half of the War of the Roses. It would talk about his death, and genuinely look at the question: Did he kill his nephews? And thus, you would think to yourself, you should visit this museum, perhaps to find out how much of what has been said about Richard is true.

I just wrote more interesting facts in this paragraph then you would get out of that museum.

If, on the other hand, you were looking for a tabloid saying "TEDDY DEAD! Queen in Shock!" when referring to Richard's brother, and having a rather frightening looking doll made up to look like Richard, with a farce of a 'trial' going on with rather lousy voice actors, then I can totally tell you where to go. The bit where you 'confess your sins' in a book, and a recording tells you to make peace with God as Richard has had six people slain and will kill you too was... par for the course, really. It's sad and ridiculous. I was so angry and annoyed, I wanted to go back downstairs and demand my two pounds and fifty pence back. Sadly, it didn't seem worth the trouble.

I have to tell you, the visit was amazing, for the most part. It was wonderific, it was fantabulous, it was splediferous. Heck, I may just go anywhere Anne tells me to from now on, since her suggestion was so great. Exploring snickleways, touring York Minster, and the amazing Museum Park were the amazing highlights of my weekend.

I have photos. Something close to 400 of them. I'm certain you're not surprised.

Ah, York. The city so nice you want to stay an extra day to enjoy it.

So I did.

Totally worth the extra evening, the extra morning... all of it. It's a lovely city, don't let anyone tell you differently.

But I am *so* needing a nice long shower.

Remember, if you're Canadian, it's Election Day. Go vote!

To say it's been a wretched week would be, in no small way, an understatement. I won't get into the details here, as they're really boring and can be summed up as : Work Was Wretched. Hopefully, that issue has been dealt with, and I have the excitement of tomorrow to look forward to.

See, I'm following Anne's advice and heading off to York for the weekend. It's a relatively quick train journey, and then I get to see old city walls, museums, castles, likely an abbey (or two), definately a cathedral, and all sorts of things. I'm really quite excited. I'm a closet Yorkist, you see.

That is, I have a firm opinion about the War of the Roses, and who was right, and who should have been dead. I would be a card carrying member of the Richard III Society if they issued cards. (They don't... but it's a very nice newletter.) The idea that I get to be in York, that I can see what's left of Micklegate Bar, that I can... I don't know, do something all exciting and Yorkish, is making my week *so much better*. I highly recommend it.

Maybe I should just focus on city walls. I'm told they're fun to walk.

I think one of the hardest things about living overseas from close friends and family is the sense of disconnect you get from them. Yeah, I can (and do) read blogs, send postcards, and emails, but when I don't hear from someone for a while, I begin to get paranoid.

Are they mad at me? Is that why they haven't emailed me back? Have they stopped updating their blog because something has happened to them and no one's thought to tell me? That big party they're talking about... another thing I can't go to? Damn it, life sucks.

I try to combat this by sending people quickie emails - "Hey, haven't heard from you in a while, you're in my thoughts, how are you?" I'll send funky postcards, since I like getting them and figure everyone else does, too. Occasionally I will give up on that and just get someone who does return my emails to ask them what's up. When all else fails, I'll call, but I hate going that way. Not only because it costs money, but because hey -- what if Joe really does hate me and doesn't want to talk to me anymore? Wouldn't that be uncomfortable?

(No, Joe, and no, other Joe, I don't think you hate me - although dude, return an email now and then, would ya?)

Ah well. It's just a bit surreal, because if I were in Edmonton, I'd be seeing these people often enough that I wouldn't be doubting. They'd either be indicating through their presence that they liked me, or through their actions that they hate me and want me to die.

I'm mostly writing this to remind myself that I'm not the only person I know living far from home. I must remember to drop a few of them postcards, because I don't want them to think I hate them. They're in my thoughts often enough.

I just wonder how many times we put it off until tomorrow, telling ourselves they know how we feel, while the person we'd eventually get around to emailing is fretting themselves about it, whenever the thought crosses their mind.

{Why yes, today was a very long and dull day at work randomly googling people from my past - why do you ask?}

After seven months of "meaning to" stop by the cheesemongers, I finally made it there today. And I have to tell you, it really does smell funny in there. To the point where they handy-dandy sign outside offers you "Friendy service with a smell". I love Edinburgh.

Seriously, how could I not love a city that has a cheesemonger? There were approximately a million zillion types of cheese there. I brought home something Scottish. Please don't ask me what, I have no idea, there was a nice person behind the counter selling it. I'm sure there exists a universe where I don't just buy things randomly from nice people, but it's certainly not this one.

I also managed to buy some apple-brandy-something sauce. Haven't figured out what I'll do with it, but it'll have to be something yummy, I'm sure.

Edinburgh also taught me that spring can sprung in January (because my, the weather has been beautiful the past two days), and that travel sections in bookstores can become huge, epic-type explorations when you want them to be. I poked around today in one, and I think there may have been a guidebook to Edmonton (or even Vegreville, for all I know), because it seemed to have everything else. I was so frozen by the cornacopia of choices that I didn't know what to pick up, and just left it at that.

Edinburgh also taught me that waiters in Italian restaurants (especially good Italian restaurants, with Italian radio stations playing English pop music) are a lot of fun. He was a dear, a bit intense, and kept calling me ... senora? no, that's Spanish. Oh well. Something nice-sounding, as since I am a sucker I think all languages I don't understand sound lovely. (Except German. German always sounds like someone's very very angry. Or maybe I've only met very angry Germans.) But when my pasta came he gestured imperiously for the waitress to bring me pepper and parmasan, and she smiled in that way that people do when they're amused and said "Ah, Italians." Best part - she's got the lovely Italian accent thing going to.

I love this country.

I still haven't decided where my next journey is going to. I think I may just pull up the website that sells the really cheap last-minute deals (not last minute dot com, since they are not a good website, from what I understand), and just pick something at random. It strikes me as sufficiently laid back enough to satisfy my desire to be random, and a good enough deal to satisfy my desire to, you know, actually have money.

However, the best thing that Edinburgh taught me today was this: Nothing's quite so pleasant as walking into your favourite store and having the owner look up say "Anna! I missed you, how was your Christmas?"

It's nice being home, you know?

I want to tell you a story.

Once, about five years ago, my mom send my brother a care package at Christmas. It was full of CDs and presents and (I think) a video game, and just stuff that my brother would like, most of it loving wrapped by my mom. At the very top of the box, packed tightly in a tupperware container, was a big batch of my mom's absolutely world famous amazing super cookies.

My mom rocks. *grin*

But, see... when the package arrived (in Calgary, I think... maybe Quebec? My brother moved around a lot when he was in college), there were no cookies in it. Everything else was there, but my mom's famous amazing super cookies (that give you extra energy and pep!) were not there.

My mom called the post office, but there wasn't really much that could be done. After that, my mom started sending Christmas packages by courier.

I mention this story because a friend of mine came back from a trip to NorthAm yesterday, and brought me back a copy of the Director's Cut (now with more cheesecake!) of Sin City. I have been eagerily awaiting it, because I am a Sin City fangirl (and yes, I know, it's all full of violence and sex and blah blah, I don't care, Miho's in it), and was very disappointed to find out that the director's cut wasn't released here yet.

So, my friend is unpacking his suitcase, and... there's no Sin City.

Speculation:

1) Sin City is sitting on the living room floor back home, lonely and wishing to be sitting with all my other North American DVDs. He just forgot to pack it.

2) Sin City, having not been released in Zone 2, is not allowed in the UK, and so Customs seized it. (Does Customs do this? Would they leave a note? "Don't bring DVDs into Scotland, unless it's Return of the King, which we will just leave in the suitcase.")

3) Someone nabbed it from his suitcase when it was going through the airports, someplace between here and Toronto.

So, yes, I am sad. There is no Sin City to make my weekend full of exciting car chases and babes with guns, and I will just have to entertain myself instead.

But I am kind of curious as to what to do now to get it back.

In unrelated news:
Do you think it's a sign I'm spending too much time reading blogs when I've started to dream about people updating?

PS: Mom... can you send me your recipe for sugar cookies? I'm craving them now.

Is it a truism said of a lot of places that if you don't like the weather, just wait ten minutes? I'm curious, as I've heard it said about Alberta (and probably Vancouver, if I think about it), but it really lives and breathes in Edinburgh.

It's not cold by any stretch of the imagination, but the wind cuts through you like a knife. I keep forgetting that the lovely port I can see from here is the freakin' North Sea, and one would expect nasty winds coming off it. Every morning I wait for the bus just a few meters away from the windiest spot in Edinburgh, and I really felt that today.

But the rest of the day just was insane for it. It started out sunny enough that I had to close the blinds so I could read the computer screen, then it was sudden pouring rain by the buckets. Then it got super-sunny again, and we figured, yay! the rain is gone!

I suppose it was, as it started to hail a bit after that.

I just find it so strange... I mean, all weather is strange unless you're in Saskatchewan and can see it coming for miles off, but I just want... I don't know, something that feels normal for this time of year. Some snow or something. A nasty and sudden cold snap. Anything to make me feel like having my winter coat from home makes some degree of sense.

Ah well. I'm probably just out of sorts still. It's been a really wretched week, and one of the main reasons has been having the most atrocious and awful song *ever* stuck in my head for the past three days. It would be enough to turn anyone off of being happy, I think.

So, in an attempt to cheer myself up (as it hasn't only been the song, it never is, the song is just making it harder to cope with the rest), I'm planning another weekend get away.

I haven't really decided yet: London for a bit longer? Tempting... I'm pretty sure I could go to entirely different parts of London and pretend that I had never seen the place before and not feel cheated. There's a weekend package to Dublin that's tempting me. Heck, it's been such a bad week I've been considering cashing in my pennies and taking my weekend to Italy (planned for this summer) a lot earlier.

For tonight, though, I'm just getting a secret thrill out of the idea that I'm boarding the last train to Glasgow. I will never, ever get tired of taking trains anywhere.

I think it's the little things that always throw me in a new place. I can deal with the idea of being in a country where sheep outnumber people. I can deal with the idea of living in a place where everything (and I mean everything) is built on a hill. I can cope with being a foreigner.

What I cannot cope well with is popcorn.

See, I love popcorn. Hot, buttery popcorn from movie theaters is my not-so-secret vice. I have an ex-boyfriend I miss (more than one, now that I think about it) who would make me popcorn, either on the stove, in the microwave, or (eventually) in our shared popcorn maker. And man, do I miss that popcorn maker. One notable ex even bought me a specific-for-popcorn big glass bowl.

They don't... do popcorn properly in Scotland.

I found myself hooking up with a friend yesterday to finally get around to seeing the Narnia movie. (One comment only: Tilda Swinton is my master now.) Having not been to a movie despite living in a country where they host the International Festival for movies, I was quite excited. Popcorn! And moving pictures! And popcorn!

(I don't own a t.v., you see, so moving pictures are occasionally very distracting... they talk! I don't have to read to be entertained! Yay!)

So, like an excited four-year-old, I rushed off to the snack bar to buy myself some hot, buttery, gonna-kill-me-young popcorn.

"Okay," said the man behind the counter. "Salty or sweet?"

To which I responded with a graceful "Huh?"

It seems in Scotland they don't make hot, buttery, gonna-kill-you-young popcorn. Their popcorn in movie theaters is cold. And either comes salty, or sweet, like cold candied popcorn.

I was terribly heartbroken, and went with the sweet stuff.

My date for the afternoon was very understanding, and did put up with a lot of me randomly saying "But... but... the popcorn is wrong!" Occasionally I'd just stare into it, hoping that it would suddenly turn into buttery, salty, hot goodness.

Then the movie started, and I didn't care nearly so much. Because movies in Scotland start with incredibly and surreally bad advertisments.

Remember, I don't have a t.v. For all I know, these wretchedly awful advertisements are the norm here. From the really bad, stereotypically-gay PR agents in an advertisement for cell phones to the laughably horrible ads for cars, I spent most of the first 15 minutes in the darkened theater with my jaw dropped open. (Simon kindly kept lifting it up for me. He's such a nice boy.)

I don't know what it is, maybe my mind just doesn't accept advertising anymore. Unless there's a huge buzz on the 'net, I don't see ads at all outside of print media, and even then my eyes mostly just go over them. Have they always been this awful? Is it a cultural-awfulness? I have no idea.

(There were some very good ads for good causes. The one where they show a Tim Burton-esque scene while describing what childhood abuse does to someone was excellent, and the one reminding people to turn off their cells and pay attention to the road was stark and to the point. But that was about a minute out of 15. Yes, 15 minutes of ads. Then the trailers for new movies.)

This all ignores the most important part of the movie going experience: There were nice, comfortable seats, with lots and lots of legroom, and a place to put my disturbingly cold popcorn and my oversize cola product.

But really: Tilda Swintin is totally my master now.

London.

Oh, I would do it again in a heartbeat. It was amazing, even the bits where I ran into the legendary London rudeness. I loved the Tube, I loved Trafalgar Square, and I loved Westminster Abbey. Special thanks to everyone who strongly recommended I take a London Walk.

But, I'll start at the beginning. Heathrow Airport is fascinating, but not as insane as everyone says it is. (Then again, I *wasn't* getting on or off an international flight, so who am I to talk?) It has this very busy and hectic feeling to it, though, and I could tell it's one of the busiest airports in the world. Lots of people, all sorts of different cultures and languages being spoken, and I was so glad that there's a Tube station right in the airport. It was very easy to get there, and I ended up grabbing a Super Saver Day Pass and heading into London with a minimum of fuss. My only disappointment was that no pidgeons turned up on the tube, as they apparently do on a regular basis.

It was trying to get from Picadilly Circus station to Trafalgar Square that I ended up having problems. (Which is sad, really, as it's not that far.) I couldn't find a sign telling me which direction to go, and I just eventually shrugged and picked one. I picked almost exactly right (always nice), and ended up staring in awe at everything. It seems London is just... bigger than everywhere else I've been. More flashy lights, more people, more traffic. There's just so much... more to it. It's hard to explain, really, but that's just the way it is. I got that sense here a lot more than I did when I was in Shanghai, although that may be because of the areas of Shanghai I was in, rather than any difference between the two.

Trafalgar Square is also larger than life. (How can it not be?) The place was full of people milling around, tourists taking lots of photos of themselves, and just a sense of business. They were in the process of setting up for the big New Years Eve thing, I assume, since fast fences were going up, and things were being covered. Everything there is much bigger than I thought it would be... huge lions at the foot of Nelson's monument, huge amounts of pidgeons, a huge fountain with huge mermaids, and huge steps up to the National Gallery.

Sadly, you can no longer feed the pidgeons at Trafalgar Square, as they "are a nuisance and cause damage to the square", which I'd heard elsewhere but can't deny being a bit disappointed by. Oh well... I wouldn't want to be the one picking up after them.

The National Gallery itself was a delight, and I'm so glad I went. Like most museums in the UK, it's free. The theory is that the works of art belong to the people, and so everyone should be able to see them. I think this works out much better than the system back in Canada, where everything seems so expensive to enjoy.

The Gallery also offers a free tour (which I highly recommend) that goes through the various rooms, showing off specific paintings and works, explaining why they're signifigant and what's important and interesting about them. It's about an hour, and will show you five painting from various areas, as well as explaining a bit about the layout of the museum. It's like taking a very good art history class, really, with the attention to detail.

I think my favorite part, though, was that they had the painting Virgin of the Rocks. I love that painting... I remember seeing it when I was 17 and in Paris, and so now I've seen it twice and I still love the detail in it.

After that, I started heading towards Westminster. I had a plan of seeing the abbey, then doing one of the tours of the area, and then coming up with something else to do afterwards. It wasn't a very solid plan, which is good because it didn't work out that way. I had misread the times on my tour, and thought I'd be able to get it about an hour later than I could. Once I realized, I abandoned the lineup (right near the front!) to Westminster Abbey and headed towards the meeting point.

This was an excellent choice, and I cannot recommend London Walks enough. The two-hour walk was funny, fast paced, full of great historical tidbits, and just a lot of fun. My guide ended up doing these hilarious Winston Churchill impersonations. I'm sure you've all heard lots of Winston Churhill-isms. ("Winston, you're drunk!" "Yes, and you're ugly, but I'll be sober in the morning!"), and they're absolutely hilarious when done with an accent. The man doing the tour was tall and slim, and he'd puff himself right up, and hold his jacket just so, whenever he did one.

The tour talked about everything from the rule of Richard the Lion Heart being the 'break point' of British Law (everything before that is said to have been done since Time Immemorial) right up to Post World War II London. He talked about the Suffragette movement in the UK, London during the Blitz, and about the Parliment when it's opened by the Queen. He also talked about why Westminster managed to survive when so many other Abbeys were destroyed by Henry VIII. This man has an obvious love for the history of Westminster, and I understand that all the tours are like that. It was so much fun, and so interesting, leaving me wishing it hadn't ended!

So, I technically didn't get a good look inside Westminster Abbey. I say technically because after the tour was over, I decided to go to the Evensong Service held there. I'm not part of the Church of England (I'm not Christian), so I wasn't really sure what to expect.

The service was beautiful. Everyone sits in the nave at the center of the Abbey, and the choir filters in. All of the prayers are sung, and the music would ring out through the whole abbey. I can't even describe it for you. It was beautiful, and moving, and so incredibly welcoming. They write out how the service is performed, and explain what's happening and why things are done. It's so easy for a visitor to participate in it, and if you do get to London, you should take the time to go.

After that, it was rush rush rush, back to the Tube (I almost managed to get lost on the way back because I took a different station and had to change trains), back to Heathrow, and back on the plane.

All together I think I was gone about 16 hours or so. It feels on paper like I didn't do much, but I had such an amazingly time, and I never stopped moving until I got back to my flat. I bought a million postcards, and refrained from buying a Tom a t-shirt that said "My Friend went to London and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt". I got a look at the famous Horseguards from a distance (they don't move, either, and I'm sure that the job must be the worst job in the security forces), and of course I popped into the Embassy, as I've said before.

But when I got home... I went to sleep. Sleep is always good.

{The entire Flickr Photoset}

And so, it was Hogmany.

I think I've made it clear that I had a marvelous time. It was great... from the company to the food to the fireworks to the party in the street, everything was exactly what I wanted it to be. If I were to do anything different, it would be to ignore everyone who insisted we get there super-uber early, as there's really only so much entertainment a street full of people without anything to can provide for a couple of hours.

But there were amusement park rides, and we did enter the Maze of Terror. My lovely companion for the evening (that would be Myles) discovered my horrible phobia of just about anything that comes out of the dark, and I was suitably terrified. And it killed a bit of time. *grin*

The evening started with something approaching a traditional Scottish meal. There were tatties and neeps, carefully boiled so there was next to no flavour in them. Then there was haggis, also boiled, but it did have some flavour to it. Luckily, there was also copious amounts of alcohol to mask the flavour. You can never really go wrong with that, can you?

I'll skip the story where we had the clever idea of trying to move the rather large kitchen table into my not-as-large bedroom, and just mention that it a) seemed like a good idea at the time and b) was discussed while we were still sober, so I have no idea what we were thinking. I do know at one point it came down to "Well, let's have some of that good Edinburgh beer... then maybe we'll come up with a plan on how to get the table into the bedroom!" At that point, the table was stuck in the hallway, and blocking access both to the bedroom and to the bathroom, but no one ever said I was clever.

After all that (we moved the table eventually, and now it is in the other room), we decided that 7:30ish was a perfectly logical time to head out to a party that didn't start till 10, donned our sexy Scotland Is The Place hats and our Street Party wristbands and headed out into the night.

How do you describe a Street Party that had a million-zillion people at it? I've been to things like this before (I guess, kinda, not really - people huddling for warmth at the First Night in Edmonton isn't really the same thing, is it?), and it was insanely different in Edinburgh. People were laughing and carrying on, there was much singing and being silly, and some people showed up in costume. There was a Harry Potter (of course), an entire court of medieval Princesses and Knights, a trio that consisted of Batman and Robin (from the t.v. show in the 70s) and Cruella DeVille, and a rather disgruntled looking Santa, trudging along with an empty sack and a frown. There were many, many boys in kilts, some of whom may actually have been Scottish. (At least one decided to show off what he was wearing underneath the kilt. Myles wouldn't let me snap a picture.) Oh, and there was a bunny. A really big bunny. No idea what posessed anyone to do that, as he was covered in sweat by the time I ran into him, and it wasn't even 11 o'clock yet.

I guess what I can't get over was how friendly people were. I don't know what I was expecting - violence and chaos, maybe? But there was a distinct lack of it. No one was terribly stupid, at least not where I could see. People danced, they carried on, there were a million photos taken of everyone being silly, and it was just grand. Even after the actual 'entertainment' started (there were free stages set up in Princes Street, and a few things that you could buy tickets for in the actual Park itself), most of the fun was in just watching people. Myles and I hit the two big stages down on one end, then entertained ourselves for the next 45 minutes just trying to press our way through the crowds and not get seperated. Lots of gawking and people watching.

Of course, the whole point is the fireworks, at least for me. I adore them, and they really do know how to do them in Edinburgh. I had, of course, heard of the whole thing... they set off fireworks on most of the hills, and I guess you can see them from everwhere on New Years Eve. (I had friends who were at a party at their place instead, and they rushed out right before midnight to watch from the Meadows.) But seeing them bursting into life above the castle, huge displays of colour and noise, surrounded by people singing and laughing and clapping... it was so amazing. It was like being at the best party ever, and everyone was having a good time.

As the fireworks began to subside, all around me, people were singing. Some were singing the unofficial Scottish national anthem (or so Myles told me), and some were singing Auld Lang Syne, and it all just sounded wonderful together. People were shaking hands, kissing each other, laughing and hugging. Walking through the crowds afterwards, I must have kissed a dozen boys at least, and a couple of girls, too. It was just that sort of thing to do. Lots of smiles, lots of "Happy New Year!" It just felt like the best place to be, right at that moment.

{See all the photos}

Well, I ended up bailing on the jumping into the Firth.

It's kinda complicated, but it mostly involves two things:

My guide for the evening ended up ditching me and not showing back up again until 7 a.m. (No, dear, that's not a dig at you, I'm glad you had a good time, but gah! you woke me up in a tizzy!)

It would have involved walking an hour up to Princes Street from here in order to catch the bus to Queensferry, and I was so freaking knackered after all the walking I've been doing that I just couldn't psych myself up for it. So when I went to wake Myles at 8:30 and he was so obviously out of it still, I decided to screw it and went back to bed.

There's always next year, after all. It's not like Edinburgh's going anywhere.

Ah, tomorrow! Hogmany!

Apparently my plans are like this:

Myles is coming over, and we will drink the beer they make in Edinburgh, and eat haggis and tatties and neeps. We are having some debate about who will do the cooking, but he's providing the food.

Then, we will nip on out to the Street Party. Apparently we should be there early if we want to be sure to get in. I'm okay with being early. More time to be silly and fun, and think about whiskey.

Eventually, we will see fireworks, and be silly.

Afterwards, we've been invited to a party at Lucy's place, which I'm disgustingly excited about.

Then, it's off to bed for a few short hours before we jump into the Firth of Fourth, in Fife, on the First.

I'm counting down!

So, tomorrow is London Day, and I'm really excited! I know, 1 day is not enough time to see London. One day might not even be enough time to do a few things in London, but I'm really excited. It's entirely possible I'll spend the whole day in wide-eyed contemplation of the buildings, muttering to myself about how excited I am to be in London. Because I am such a touristy girl that way. *grin*

One of the things I find strange and wonderful about living in the UK is the museums. The vast majority of them are free, on theory (so I understand) that the collections belong to the people, so everyone should be able to see them. Quite a far stretch from Canada, where some museums are vastly overpriced for what you see. (Sorry, sorry, Bitter Girl here about Museums, just ignore me.)

But, yeah, I will hit at least one museum, I'm going to try and take one of the London Walks that people keep recommending to me, might cave and hit Harrod's just to say I've been, and will be hitting the Museum of the London Underground just because... well... because I'm a Neverwhere fangirl, actually. Well, and because I'm fascinated by Ghost Stations, which I suspect will be mentioned in the Underground Museum. (Ghost Stations: Abandoned metro or underground or tube or LRT or whatever stations. Saw one when I was in Paris and have been fascinated by the idea ever since. But I am odd that way.)

The big thing I must remember to do is pack a lunch. If there's one thing I've learned about going on daytrips, or even weekend trips, is bring your own food. I can sit in Trafalgar square and eat homemade bread and apple butter, and thus save myself some cash. I'll probably end up catching coffee in some cunning little coffee place, but I hate paying as much as you do for lunch in places like London, or Linlithgow, or Cardiff or anyplace else I've gone. I took some lunches with me when I was wandering around Glastonbury and the like, and it made a difference both cost-wise and energy-wise.

The only thing I'm dreading about tomorrow is the 4 a.m. wakeup call to make it to the airport for my flight. I think I'll sleep on the plane.

PS: If anyone wants postcards from London, chances are I will have purchased about 200 of them, and will be happy to pop them into the mail for you. Just drop me an email with your snail mail!

I'm used to a typical Canadian Boxing Day. I used to work in The Really Big Mall (The Biggest Mall, in fact: West Edmonton Mall), and I still have bad times when I think about working there Boxing Day. In Canada, it's a traditional major sales day, with stores slashing their Christmas prices by huge amounts. Rampaging hordes of tense shoppers go through every major store, and people are angry, out of sorts, and generally miserable.

Even when I got out of working at the Big Mall of Doom and starting working at the Big Nameless Wireless Company, I had the same sorts of problems. People were angry and tense, so they'd call in, and have major meltdowns about everything they could. The same people that could be reasonable any other day of the year would be freaking out on Boxing Day.

I was dreading going out today, but Margery needed to catch her plane. I figured it would be just the same.

I was pleasantly surprised.

Admittedly: there were people out and about, there were sales, and the mall looked busy. But not packed. Not insane. And when I walked home along the Royal Mile, almost all of the stores were empty, if not closed outright. Some of them were having major sales, but no one was really busy, and it was pleasant.

Maybe Scotland spends Boxing Day still enjoying family and friends? What a novel concept. I could really grow to like this country

I'm living in a country where they play bells at midnight on Christmas Eve.

I'm not sure if they do that back in Canada. I've never lived close enough to a church, and I can't recall the only midnight service I've been to. It was beautiful, and moving, and at the same time very isolating.

It's odd, celebrating the holidays someplace else. Add to it that I'm not Christian, but I did go to Church last night, and everything was a bit off-kilter for me to begin with. But much to my shock, they don't sing the same carols over here.

No, that's not right. They do sing them, but differently.

They translate the Germam of Silent Night to Still the Night, and the words have the same meaning to them, but are different. I can see how the translations are similar, but it was so strange.

Then there was singing Oh Little Town of Bethleham, my Christmas favorite since I learned to play it on the piano as a wee lass. The parts of the song that mean so much to me are completely different here: the tune was something I had never heard before, and I found it impossible to sing along to.

Other songs were different, too. One was a "Scottish Paraphrase", again the same music, but words that had changed enough to confuse. I think that was our While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night, or here: While Humble Shepherds Watched Their Flocks.

Oh, and they spell Noel: Nowell.

Only two songs were exactly as I recalled them: Oh come, all Ye Faithful, and Joy To the World.

The service, though, was lovely, and being in a candlelit church built in the 1400s was a very powerful experience for me. The organ at the front of the church was massive: it took up the entire front of it, with pipes at least 7' high. The choir was beautiful, in the loft above our heads. Everything was lovely.

Just... different.

In a flurry of insanity, I went out today to finish buying things for my Christmas dinner.

Note to self: Next year, don't do that.

Oh, it worked out fine. I have turkey (!), and stuffing and dressing and salad and eggs and milk and cranberries (!) and all sorts of wonderful things.

I am also panicking like a mad woman. And I'm only preparing Christmas dinner for three. Can you imagine me with more?

I was trying to remember earlier if my mother had ever panicked over Christmas meals. She may well have, but I can't remember her ever doing so. I just remember always perfectly prepared meals. Maybe mom never panicked because she knew she was a great cook. Maybe she kept her panicking to private.

Or maybe this is just further proof that I sprung, fully formed, from my father's head after a really bad headache.

This is not, in fact, the first Christmas dinner I've made. I was thinking about that today, too. That one, we had a frozen chicken, and I had completely miscalcuated how long it would take for that damned thing to thaw and cook. Everyone was so good about it, though, no one even gave me the slightest bit of hard time, even though we didn't have Christmas dinner till midnight. I think at one point the menfolk (there were two of them, three of us womenfolk, and a newborn) went out to forage for food, and came back with lots of candy and slurpees to keep everyone going till the chicken was ready.

Ah, good memories. The best thing to have for Christmas.

Who needs perfection?

I had one of those days today. You know, the ones where you feel all happy and cheerful and giggly and do fun things, just because you can.

This was my afternoon, in pictures.

I made a beeline for the German market immediately after getting off the bus. Work ended at noon today, so I had plenty of time to finally see this place during the day. It wasn't as packed as it has been when I've gone past on weekends, and I'm glad I made it out. Lots of people spending money, having fun, and riding the various rides that come with the Edinburgh Christmas Experience.

There are lots of cunning little shops that set up. I realize now that I failed to take a photo I should have, of one of the hat stores, but we'll go with what we have. The shops range from this, and places that specialize in Christmas decorations, to a place that sells rock crystal lamps, and another one that sells pirate ship cutouts for your wall - they really dance. The shops are a lot of fun, and although I'm certain that the staff is bored to tears by this point, they're all very friendly.

I stopped for two things along the way: Crepes (of course) and mulled wine. Last time I was here, I had a glass of mulled apple wine, and it was okay. The stuff I had today, though, was wonderful. Served in little cups with a lemon floating inside, it tastes just like I think mulled wine should taste. I made some of it myself this Christmas, so I was really impressed with this stuff.

The cups are pretty cute, too.

The hilight, though, for me was a bit later. I poked around in a few more of the shops, and made my way gradually towards the hat shop near the end. I've been looking for something cute for a while, but everything I tried on just looked silly on my head. But today, I hit the mother load. The reason to wait:

I'm going to Melrose Abbey tomorrow. I've got a few days off work (starting at noon today, and yay! for that) and I'm rather determined to fill them up with much stuff and things and enjoyment. Bloody-minded determination tends to get me through where angels fear to tread, and all that.

What's amusing is why I'm going to Melrose Abbey. See, when I was off in Kelso, specifically at Floors Castle, I noticed a painting there of a ruined abbey. I thought at first it was Lindisfarne, or maybe even the fallen abbey in Kelso itself, but taking a closer look, I realized it wasn't. I stared at it for a while, but there were no clues to this beautiful, romantic looking site. I finally caved and bought a guidebook just so I could look up that particular painting.

It is, of course, of Melrose Abbey.

Now that Margery's up, I have an excuse to go out there and see it with her, so that's what we're doing tomorrow.

I really do just let whim dictate my daytrips, don't I?

Just to take a break from navel-gazing about Christmas and Winter and how *woe* they are not the same here as they are back home, I wanted to tell you all a secret.

It's a very well kept secret, but I think one that needs to be revealed to the world.

Frankly: moving to another country does not automagickly make all your problems disappear.

This may not be a new concept to some of you, but the number of times I email someone, or chat with them over ICQ, or whatever, and am talking about *something* that bothers me (I don't hear from some people enough, I don't have any iced tea, I wish it would snow, whatever), I'm told the following:

But... you're in Edinburgh! That shouldn't matter!

And to those people I merrily say: Bullshit.

Living in Scotland does not make me exempt from feeling left out of things back in Edmonton. Do you think I didn't want to go to various birthday parties? That I don't wish I was going to the Wake? That I don't miss various things we used to do? Of course I do! And if you moved overseas to some place "exotic" (more on this later), you would, too.

Yes, I'm having grand adventures, and so are a lot of the other expats I read. But it doesn't mean we don't miss home. It doesn't mean we don't still have issues with things back home.

This is not another sermon that you'll read about how Living Overseas Is Not A Way To Solve Your Problems. This is... don't think that your friends/loved ones/blogging buddies suddenly don't have issues because they get to see a castle every day.

And the other thing I'd like people to remember: Where you are living right now is exotic to someone. Yes, even Saskatchewan. The number of times I've mentioned "I'm Canadian" to someone to have the excited response of "Oh my god, really? I've got distant cousins living there someplace! Do you know the Roberts Family from... from... the place in the middle, it's so flat?" Trust me, your home is exotic and exciting to someone.

I'm asked quite often why I'd want to come to Edinburgh. See, to them... it's so dull.

The last few weeks, it's been really hard for me to enjoy things. I think that's been fairly obvious, and I think the cause is that I've been too inwardly focused. Thinking about the future and pondering the past, or losing myself into well-crafted works of fiction. I tend to forget the present.

Yesterday, I reminded myself to not do that. The commute is beautiful, for all that it's long, and I forget to enjoy it when I'm wrapped up in a book.

The Castle is always silhouetted against the morning sky, dark and sinister. Sometimes there are lights on within, like flashing eyes looking out over the city. I go past it several times a day, and sometimes I forget it's there.

I pass St John's Cathedral, and the lights are always on there, flashing pink and purple through the stained glass. I love the churches here, so beautiful. I know, intellectually, that there are probably better uses for money than building huge churches, but I think they bring one closer to faith.

Edinburgh is made up of odd views, odd stores, things that make the whole city odd. Most of the buildings are brown, from age and the colour of the stone, from corrosion over time, so bright signs stand out sharply on my commute. Places like Xander's, in purple, or Baloo, in pink. Marilyn Rose has decadent red curtains in the window, and looks like the type of place where the pillows are very comfortable and there are no price tags.

Flashes of Christmas here and there. Yesterday was the first time I listened to an hour of Christmas music, at a restaurant. Old favorites I haven't heard in a long time, and thus I enjoyed them all the more. The way that every street isn't covered in bright garlands and tacky lights makes every decorated Christmas tree along the route more beautiful and unexpected.

Faith seems to have been such a strong part of the past here. I pass former churches that are now theathers, schools, libraries, bars. There's a place not too far from here that's called Holy Corner, because there are four churches, one at each corner. I wonder why, but no one can really tell me. Edinburgh has so many stories that I think the natives forget because they have no reason to remember.

I love the view from my window. Arthur's Seat and the Castle.

There is still green grass, and the snow never seems to fly, but despite all this, my midwinter will not be bleak, as long as I remember to look up.

At the risk of sounding horrible, it's the idea of spending Christmas at home with my parents that strikes me as odd. I hadn't done it for years, and did it two or three years ago and it was wonderful and fun, like a vacation from life. All those old Christmas decorations I remembered from being a kid, my stocking with my name, mom's home cooking, and the surreal experiencing of it actually snowing in BC.

You'd think to hear me talk about it that they were still living where I grew up. But we moved a lot as a child, and I think they had one house in Ottawa that I never even saw. This latest move, the one I really believe is the last one, has them happily tucked away in Nanaimo. My mother does home improvement projects while my father putters in the garden, and they take my demon cat on 'play dates'.

When I think about spending Christmas far away from 'home', I don't think about childhood Christmases where I always got a madarin orange at the bottom of my stocking. I think about Christmases where snow was a requirement and the Christmas lights twinkled from too many windows. I remember the way my mom always makes me fruit cake (which I love) and sugar cookies (which never taste right unless she uses the same cookie cutters) and mails them off to me. And these two Christmases I've now spent overseas... that's what I miss.

It's not been far away from home, or not spending Christmas with friends and loved ones. I've always been blessed in my friends, and have always been able to make some connection with them, no matter where I am. But I miss the tastes that make Christmas, I miss the way the snow crunches under your feet.

This year, I'm trying out new things. I'm baking my own sugar cookies which taste and look nothing like mom's. I'm going to make a goose, I think, and have home made cranberry sauce. I'm making my 'home' out of different tastes and flavours. I'm not trying to replace what Christmas is back in Canada, or even in Nanaimo, or Sherwood Park, or Hinton. I'm just trying something new, and accepting that nothing I can do will recreate that time I woke up to find a huge box that contained every single published Star Trek novel in it. You can't go back, you can only go forward.

And I think that's really the key to surviving a major holiday living overseas: don't try and make it like it was at home, because it won't. Try and make your own tastes, your own experiences. Your own sugar cookies, as it were.

Or, when your parents get you an Amazon.co.uk gift certificate for Christmas, try and get them to deliver everything at once, so there's a really big box of cook books instead. Like Star Trek, only different. (It's a really big box. I'm so excited!)

Being that I handle boredom about as well as your average 4-year-old, I've been trying to fill up my time between Christmas and when I go back to work in early January. It's exciting, becuase there is a lot of things to do at this time of year here (so unlike Edmonton, where there is nothing to do but shop).

So far, my exciting schedule looks a bit like this:

December 27th: Take Margery back to the aiport in Glasgow. Wave lots.
December 28th: Go to Glasgow again (maybe) to meet up with someone to do some skating.
December 29th: Day trip to London
December 30th: There's some Hogmany lead up stuff I want to do.
December 31st: Hogmany, which will involve having Myles come over to make Haggis. There is also a party I've been invited to after Hogmany. Must remember not to eat the brownies. I suspect the less said about that, the better.
January 1st: Something involving jumping into the Firth of Fourth. Must try and get that finalized.

...
Wow, I've got more figured out than I thought....

I still have to entertain myself till January 4th, though, which is when school starts up again.

Thoughts?

I keep forgetting that despite being called the United Kingdom, this place has four different countries in it, and four distinct cultures as well.

Yesterday, while wearing my Hogmanay hat, I chatted with one of the women working in the cafeteria.

"Bit early for a Hogmanay hat, isn't it?"

"Well, I got it with my ticket, and I'm so excited, and I want to wear it lots!" It's blue, with a cross on it, like the Scottish flag, with Hogmany 2006 on it. It's horribly tacky and too small to actually keep any part of my head warm. I love it.

"Ah, you're Canadian, are you?" she asked, smiling. Most people don't assume I'm Canadian, they guess I'm American. I was oddly flattered.

"Yeah, I'm just here for the year, so I'm really excited about what will likely be my only Hogmanay in Edinburgh. I've got tickets to the street party, and I'm so looking forward to the fireworks, and I'm jumping into the Firth of Forth, and anything else I can think of to cram into the four days."

"It's interesting," she said. "They do things so differently here than back home. I'm from England, and there Christmas is the big deal. There's nothing big like that for New Years."

I'll admit to being a bit boggled - England starts about an hour away from here, how different could it be? You can drive the length of the entire country in less time than it would take to drive the length of Alberta. My flight to London is going to take less time than your average flight to Vancouver. It feels like the whole country should be one little community of happiness, you know? Everyone the same because they all live so close.

Of course, sometimes 'neighbour' means "person I'd most like to see under the ground instead of on it."

It's just little things, really. The different ways of celebrating holidays, different bank notes, different accents. My Scottish notes are carefully scrutinized in Wales, but English notes are fine up here. The accents are different, in ways I'm just now beginning to hear. Word choices that are "English" now sound off to my ear, since I'm so used to hearing things in "Scottish".

I don't know where I got the idea that everyone here would be one big harmonious melting pot of sameness. It's not like seeing Toronto is anything like seeing Edmonton. I think we get these ideas when we think about different countries, different continents. We use them for shorthand in movies, in books, in stories. European = Cultured (and I keep forgetting that living in Scotland, I'm living in Europe). British = Stodgy. Scottish = Earthy. American = Brash. Canadian = Dull, but Nice.

It's just easier, isn't it? We can picture places in our head, people them with stereotypes, and tell ourselves from that if we'd like them, hate them, feel indifferent. "Oh, I don't want to go to France, all Frenchmen are unwashed and rude."

I'm rewriting the stereotypes in my head, trying to fit things in differently. I'm glad I get the chance to - not too long ago I was sitting at home wondering, thinking, dreaming, but not planning or doing anything about it.

Hogmany in Edinburgh. This is the place to do it, isn't it?

Going to London on the 29th for the day.

Still not quite sure what I'm going to do with myself. My coworkers keep giving me ideas. I keep saying "I'll just look around in awe lots, then go home."

I missed the *really* cheap fares home because I put off booking the ticket too long. Oh well, I got the super cheap fare there, and a good cheap fare back. As long as you don't factor in the taxes. The actual cost of the tickets return is 20 pounds. Not bad for an adventure, all things considered.

In related news, I just received my bright shiney new credit card.

London won't know what hit it.

That's it, I surrender. I completely surrender, I am totally culture shocked. I'm going to sit in a corner and gibber now.

It's all because I wanted to make something nice for people. I've been doing a flurry of baking: bread, cookies, crepes, multiple pies, truffles, apple butter, whatever struck my fancy. I even made the infamous egg nog (which tastes surprisingly good, after you add nutmeg). But, buying things for baking has been a bigger hassle than you can imagine. I tracked down chocolate chips (finally), managed to get some good spices, and even found someone who will sneak off to the Big Big Store On the Outskirts of Town and buy me a big bag of flour.

But no molasses. Which makes it hard to make gingerbread cookies. Really really hard. Silly me, I had the cunning idea of just asking someone where it was, incase I'd forgotten how molasses looked or something.

"What's molasses?"

I really thought they were joking. They weren't.

So, after that brief breakdown in the store ("How do you not have molasses? And chocolate chips in big bags? And big bags of flour? God, why am I living in the land where no one bakes?" - all said in my head), I picked up what I cound find (why can I find pineapple flavoured cottage cheese, but cream cheese is a problem?) and went home to do some baking. The truffles, by the way, were a big hit, as were the giraffe shaped cookies.

The big batch of culture shock came later, though. Myles and I were walking home, and for some reason the subject of candy canes came up.

"What's a Candy Cane?" he said, all innocent like.

"You're kidding."

"No, I'm not kidding. What's a candy cane?"

"I-- I-- I----"

I spent the better part of a 30 minute bus ride trying to explain this to him, occasionally saying "What do you mean, you don't have candy canes?" in a slightly more histerical tone each time.

I started adding things up in my head: I hadn't seen candy canes in the stores. I hadn't heard any Christmas music. None of the apartments in the area are tackily decked out with Christmas lights. There's no snow.

I think Scotland cancelled Christmas.

This is about the point in my mental breakdown that I go wander into the kitchen and have another rum ball.

ETA: By the way, a nice lady on the bus earlier this week assured me that molasses is treacle, but since I'm now in a state of horrified culture shock, I'm not sure this can help.

So, it's like this:

I'm free as a lark for the two weeks that the school is closed, and although I have plans for part of that (being that Christmas and Hogmanay are in the middle), I've got nutin' for the rest of the time. Even my usual gaming is on haitus until January, which leaves me with a hunk of spare time. And as we all know, I handle boredom about as well as your average four year old.

So, I was fooling around on the net, checking cheap air fares, and I found amazingly cheap flights to London. Cheaper than cheap. I would spend more money on caffeine for the flight cheap.

I got to thinking: Why not go to London for a couple of days of the holiday?

I did come up with several reasons not to, of course. I have friends coming across in March that want to go to London, and I was kinda saving it for when the get here. I should really be saving up my pennies for my get-away trip in January. I might have a miserable time. I don't know, there are always reason. I'm good that.

So, I leave it up to you. Should I go to London? And if I do... what should I do there? I mean, will going to see Big Ben by myself mean I won't enjoy it when my friends come over? Should I avoid the Crown Jewels at all costs? What are some funky and fun things that either you've done in London, or would love to do? I open my planning to you.

I think Scotland is full of Escher paintings brought to life.

Right now, I'm working at a University, and the exact campus I'm on used to be a Sanatarium for very rich people. It's beautiful... when I finally get committed, I'd like to get committed someplace where I can see both the castle and Arthur's Seat from my crazy window.

But, as one of the profs said: It makes a lovely Sanatarium. It makes a lousy place to teach.

The other day, I was trying to get from the place I was working at to the office of the Principal. Fiona even drew me a map, because it's actually that complicated. Armed with my map and a lengthy set of directions, I set off.

Now, I'm trying to get to the fourth floor. There are apparently multiple fourth floors in the main building, or so I assume being that I found an elevator (not to be confused with either of the later elevators that come into this story) and pushed "4", thinking Fiona was being a bit obsessive giving me such detailed directions. Then, of course, I got to the fourth floor... and there was only one room on it, and I had to go up a series of stairs to get to it, and above that room was the sixth floor.

So I went back down to the third floor, kinda, and walked along the hallway until I found a sign to an entirely different fourth floor, with different rooms in it, and followed those. I passed another elevator, and then looked out the window and noticed I was below ground.

I climbed up to the top of the stairs and somehow ended up in another fourth floor that seemed higher than the previous one, and at the end of a very long hallway (how big is this place, anyway?) I found the office I was looking for, grabbed the five pieces of paper I was sent for, and tried to find my way back.

This may have been more effective if I had left a trail of breadcrumbs or rocks or written little arrows on the floorboards with lipstick or something.

I went down hallways completely different than the ones that I went up, went down some stairs to end up higher than I was before, and eventually ended up outside, but at a completely different place than I had entered the building.

At least I knew where my office was from there.

I headed back up, and assured myself that, in fact, I had not been gone for a year and a day, and everyone still knew who I was, and I was not abducted by fairies for fun.

Pauline says it's that way to prevent people from escaping (that is, the committed people, not the students, although your opinion may differ).

You and I of course know the truth: It's because Scotland was founded by the Little People, and they're all about trickery. For all I know, I could go back tomorrow and it would be completely different.

I would just chalk it up to being a quirk of the campus I was on, but there are so many other buildings in Edinburgh just like that. You can't get a map of the building I was in, and I can't imagine a map of Teviot, which is a similiar building (with turrets!) at the University of Edinburgh.

I'm telling ya... they're just different here.

PS: I just burned myself on chocolate chips. Good news: I finally found chocolate chips! Bad news: It really hurts! Oh well. Chocolate chip cookies for everyone!

I had this discussion the other day, which completely confused me:

Alison: So we sent him to bed without any tea.
Me: When you say tea... do you mean like supper?
Alison: Yes, it's that meal in the evening... Breakfast, lunch, and tea.
Me: Uh-huh...
Pauline: Don't worry, Anna, it's a very English thing. The Scottish don't say that.

Which was ironically followed later in the day by hearing two boys with very thick Scottish accents talking about how they don't need their tea that night, so who cares if their parents are mad at them.

Sometimes I think Scottish people just blame every odd thing on the English to confuse me.

I learned this week that someone being "on the pull" is sorta, but not really, like being on the prowl. (There I go, defining slang with different slang again. I teach English gud.) It seems to have differen conotations depending, but refers to someone going out clubbing with the intention of a one-night stand. I think. Slang is a tricky thing, after all.

Unrelated to that, I'm confuddled at grocery shopping in the UK. I suppose it's a big cultural difference, but when I think "spaghetti", I do not think "ethnic food". So I'm forever going around in circles in the grocery stores here trying to find it. On the other hand, their "ethnic food" section seems to be much broader than the one at the store back home.

I'd kill for a good egg nog right now. Since they apparently don't do that here (unless I want to go to Starbucks, which I don't, because of the whole HaidaBucks mess), I have decided to make my own. If I never update my blog again, it's because I died of food-poisoning. And it's all Scotland's fault.

And I finally found chocolate chips and a place with a decent selection of flours. (I had a conversation once that went like this: Me: Do you carry any speciality flours? Clerk: Do you mean ones that come in vases or ones that come in pots? Me: I think I'm in the wrong place.) I still can't find a bag larger than 2 kilos, but I've contented myself with the idea that if I did, I'd have to carry a bag that's larger than 2 kilos, and that might be problematic.

(And every day I ask myself: why do I live in the land where no one cooks?)

Today I spent some time on the phone with a call center in Ireland. I must move to Ireland next... the accents are just lovely.

In an effort to remind myself that it was the afternoon, and not late evening, and I should enjoy my time spent at home today, I opened my window wide and took in the glorious rain. It still looked like evening. Ah well. I still got lots of baking done.

And to end this on a completely random note: Did you know that the " and the @ keys are reversed here from back in North America? It throws me when I get home to my laptop, and it usually takes me a few hours to go back to the "proper" way of typing.

First, if for some reason you thought I was clever and had sorted out the Expat Carnival yesterday, you were wrong... I got my dates way mixed up, and it *is* at Sheepdip this week, as the below entry now points. Sorry for any confusion, and a hattip to the wonderful Phil for getting things sorted with a nifty topic. Yay!

But, enough about that.

I am counting down with excitement to this year's Hogmany celebration. My street party passes (for my and my lovely date) arrived a few days ago, along with "wollen hats" or "beanies" or "bonnets" or whatever they call toques in this country. They're very tacky either way, and I love mine to pieces. I'm wearing it right now, as I type this, in solidarity with my snow-bound friends back in Edmonton. And I'll be nice and not mention that the grass is still a vivid green here.

I'm really excited about it, in this way that is viewed mostly with bemusement amongst my friends here. Most of them have no interest, haven't been in years, if they've been at all. They don't see why a huge celebration in Edinburgh would be of any interest to me. What they don't understand is that I'm all excited about being able to do something in December without it being a deep freeze.

Plus, you know, I haven't done anything for New Years Eve in years. Last year, I worked. The year before, I was in China. Year before that, I worked. Year before that, I spent it in a gaming store playing a minitures game. Year before that, I worked. And probably worked the year before that, too. So, being able to go out and party and listen to loud music and be crazy, followed by a huge fireworks display? Oh yeah, I'm there.

Somewhere over the past week I've agreed to go do a polar dip on January 1st. (This is being arranged by my lovely date.) I don't quite know what I was thinking, but I guess I'm jumping into the Firth of Forth. I haven't quite figured out what a firth is (they tell me it's an estuary, but who believes that?), let alone what a Forth is, but I'm sure someone will tell me. Plus, I'm jumping into it, which will be fun. I hope.

I think I'm trying to cram a lot into that time period, so if anyone else in Scotland has suggestions on what I can do between December 27th and January 4th to make sure I don't spend time moping about not going back to Edmonton for the Wake, that would be great. I'm determined to have a very good, very big time.

(For people thinking they are unaware of some strange Canadian holiday, you aren't. The Wake is a party held every year on January 1st at my friend Raven's place. It's to put the old year to rest, and it's a lot of fun. There is much yummy food, many good friends, and lots of antics, none of which sound nearly as interesting when you describe them, so I won't. Trust me, it's the most fun you can have sober, and probably a lot more fun than things I've done drunk.)

As for the whole Christmas-y thing, I still haven't heard any carols or songs being played in the stores. Well, that's not entirely true. When I was buying stamps, I did hear that stupid "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time" song briefly, but then it went away, and I was happy. I'm apparently going into all the wrong stores (or all the right ones, depending on your point of view), and even last night when I popped into a tacky touristy Scottish shop, they were playing "Brown Girl In the Rain". Not very Christmas-y at all. As it stands, I think I heard more Christmas music in China.

Oh well, I'm making up for it with lots of Christmas baking.

And, my last thought about Christmas and/or Hogmanay today is that I must get back to the German Market soon. I finally found a use for Vanilla Sugar, and now I have to go buy some. Because that's the way it works, right? You see something nifty you want, so you come up with a reason to purchase it, right?

I was planning some post about the differences between December in Edmonton and December in Edinburgh, but I got distracted by the colourful umbrellas.

And that's the thing... in Edmonton, umbrellas as a whole are dull and black and drab. Here, a dull umbrella is unusual. Yesterday, waiting for the bus, I was passed by bright blues, a fuschia one, and one that was clear with raindrops on the plastic. My chicken umbrella does not stand out here.

The one I covet, though, is the one I saw a little kid with the other day. It's a froggie one where the eyes pop up on the top. Oh, I want... too bad it's morally wrong to rob small children of things, because I haven't seen one to buy yet.

Not that I don't love my chicken umbrella. It has a special power, you see. If I remember to bring it, it doesn't rain. The days I don't have it? Pouring down in buckets.

Today is SinterKlaas, which is a Dutch holiday that I had never heard of previous to last year. This year I was gently informed I was celebrating it by having chocolate letters expressed mailed to me so they'd get here in time for the holiday. I love my friends, they're the most fun.

So, as I said, it's a Dutch holiday, and people keep trying to explain it to me as something other than "an excuse to eat chocolate letters", and this is what I've gotten out of it:

Every year, on the last of the spice ships, SinterKlaas and his friend, Black Peter, come to the Netherlands. There, they go from house to house, looking for bad children. The good children they leave this yummy cookie (which I couldn't get at the German market, but I got the other type of cookie instead) called "Peeping Newton". (That's how I say it. I'm not Dutch, I don't know what it is. Peeping Newtons.) The bad children are stuffed into Black Peter's sack, and taken far far away to be turned into the next year's batch of Peeping Newton.

It is such a disturbing little story, I can't tell you how much I enjoy it. I demand to be told it again and again and again. There's something about the idea of little wooden shoed children being turned into cookies that appeals to my dark sense of humour.

So, Happy SinterKlaas! May you get lots of Peeping Newton, chocolate letters, and specula (the other cookie, which I also don't know how to spell. Maybe it's made out of bad parents?).

I think I would smack any Canadian who called me 'hen'. But I find it amusing when British people do it.

"Hey, hen, how's it going?" I get greeted on the bus every weekday morning by Myles, a friend of mine who is currently sharing my bus ride to work.

"Is there anything else I can get you, luv?" asks the nice man with the East Indian accent at the newstand where I get my daily dose of caffeine.

"Watch where you're going, pet!" I'm reminded on a regular basis, as I tend to walk into things when reading and walking down the street at the same time. It's said with bemusement, so I keep forgetting to stop doing it.

For a while I thought this was amusing, because of course no one says anything of the sort in Canada. Then I noticed I was writing things like "dear", "sweetheart", and "sweetness" in various emails to people, and stopped being so smug about it.

It just *sounds* different. So quaint and wonderful and British. There's nothing terribly Canadian about calling someone "dear", but if you call them "pet", you're easily identifiable as from the UK.

I had home-made apple pie for breakfast this morning. I am now determined that the rest of my day will go equally well. (Plus, I am determined to brag: I made excellent apple pie last night, including the piecrust. I am, in fact, amazing. *smile*)

This week and last week have both been very postal-oriented for me. It's been a lot of fun. I signed up for two groups: PostCrossing and Inlingua Penpals, both fun ways of getting postcards from around the world. Postcards make me happy! I've sent out quite a few, and already gotten one back, so all is right in my world.

I also got a Christmas card in the mail from Australia! (Thanks, Jezz!) Which was especially fun because it left Australia on November 28th to arrive here on November 29th. I know, the time difference, but it's not like the card would have teleported! Considering that a postcard I sent a friend from France took over a month and a half to get to Canada....

Speaking of Christmas cards, I got an email from Edmonton telling me that at least one I sent arrived. This probably means I should finish up and mail the rest, but that would require less baking of apple pies and more remembering to write Christmas cards. So, we'll see. It's on the list, and the weekend is coming.

I also got my chocolate letter in the mail this week. My friend Margery (who is coming across for Christmas - yay!) sent a chocolate letter for Sinterklaas, which I still know very little about except that I get chocolate letters. She keeps trying to explain it to me, but I get distracted by "So... cookies?"

I'm very easily distracted by cookies.

Speaking of being distracted, despite apple pie thoughts to the contrary (that was a very yummy pie), I'm still a bit bleary eyed this morning. Topic for the expat carnival will be up once I'm certain I can write it in a complete sentence, without bringing up postcards or pie.

For four out of the last five days, I've found myself at the German Market. It's been an unusual experience for me, since I keep expecting Christmas to involve more snow and cold. Being able to spend an evening wandering around brightly lit stalls, looking at handmade Christmas decorations, various types of candles, some pirate ships, and the occasional breadzel is exciting and new. Yay for warmer weather!

Two nights ago, gleefully giggling over my latest cookie cutter (a camel, to go with the elephant and the giraffe-that-looks-like-a-llama from last week), I sat and drank mulled apple wine, enjoying the Christmas lights, the press of people, and the sound of many languages. German, French, English, Spanish, some Chinese, probably a lot of others I don't know the sound of. It was so incredibly pleasant, the sort of experience I always wanted when living overseas. Something just a bit like home, but not too much.

Tonight I may go back again. I've run out of reindeer sausage, and I haven't tried any of the yummy smelling crepes filled with brown sugar. And there's always room for more mulled wine...

So, yeah.

I just had handed to me on a silver platter an opportunity I want to have in about... oh, five years. And it's here, right now.

So, I could take it, and not go to Australia, not go to New Zealand. Or I could not take it, and not get this opportunity again.

*sigh* Oh look, it's that cornacopia of choices again.

It's taken me a few days to quite put my finger on it.

I've been not really feeling very Christmasy. I could say it's because it's not snowing here, but I've experienced more than one brown Christmas, and had Christmases that were positively green. So, I don't think it's that.

I could say it's because of a lack of family around, but really, not likely. I haven't lived at home in something close to a million years, and I've actually only been home for Christmas... gee, once in 7 years. Must do something about that.

I could say it's even lack of Christmasy baking, but that would be a total fabrication as I've been baking cookies and pies all weekend. And eating them. Gotta test them lots before you let other people try em, right?

No, I finally figured out why I'm not feeling the Christmas rush I usually feel.

There's no Christmas music.

I haven't heard "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" once this year. Nor have I been subjected to way too much Elvis singing "Blue Christmas". There's been no "White Christmas", either.

Is it a cultural thing? I mean, granted, I haven't been in the malls once, but I've been buying baking stuff in the grocery store, I've been in and out of all sorts of little shops buying Christmas presents, I've even looked at Christmas Trees a time or two. But, still, no Chrismas music.

I never thought I'd say that I missed it... but I kinda do. I mean, I'm glad it hasn't been running since pre-Halloween, but we're almost on December here.

I want me some "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire", damn it!

I love living in places where panic ensues because of snow.

On some level I can understand it - if you're not ready or warned, snow can be dangerous and unpredictable. Sorta like swans. But there were snow alerts and warnings all week, so having Friday turn into a snow day shouldn't have really surprised anyone.

But, by the time the snow got to this point (had been snowing for less than an hour) we got an email alert.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE BELOW SEMINAR, SCHEDULED FOR TODAY AT 1300 AT THE EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH INSTITUTE, HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO SEVERE WEATHER - APOLOGIES FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE CAUSED

It was all in bright red, too.

By the end of the day, when the snow was melting so loudy you can actually *hear* it melt, we'd received another email telling us that, due to the severe weather, there would be no afternoon pickup of the mail. (Just to clarify, that's internal pickup - I'm sure the Royal Mail went just fine.)

I got plenty of pictures, which is good, because by Saturday morning it was all gone, and I was sad.

Watch the day unfold...

It's SNOWING! Right now! I'm so HAPPY!

So, in related news:

There's a Winter Carnival here! I'm so excited... no one told me they had Winter Carnival's in Edinburgh. I mean, I knew about Hogmanay, which is their New Year's Eve thingy, but this is great! There's a Ferris Wheel and a Carousel and a Skating Rink. But, no snow.

Tonight is the lighting of the Big Tree in the Princes Street Gardens, which I'm also very excited about, and then I'm going to shop at the German Marketplace that opens up tonight, too.

I know, I'm six years old, but still. It's all nice and wonderful, right?

In kinda related news... I'm really looking forward to being in Australia at this time next year. I'm trying to decide if the shorter days are what makes me down at this time of year, or if it's the run-up to Christmas, but lately I just have no energy.

And at least in Australia I won't be hearing "Oh, it's so cold!" at +5 celcius. Because last time I checked, it was +36.

I'm gonna die.

When I was in China, and valiantly attempting to learn Chinese, the students would teach me to say something, and I'd write it phonetically on a scrap of paper. Which is why I can remember how to sing "Are you Sleeping?" in Mandarin, but can't remember how to say "My name is Anna."

Some days, though, it feels like being in China all over again.

"Okay, so how do I say this?"

"Leiceshire," says Fiona. Lester-shire, I dutifully write down.

"And this one?"

"Gloucestershire." She sighs. "It's like Leiceshire."

Gloster-shire, I write, and look at it critically. "That's an awful lot of letters. This one?"

"That's just Southampton! It's nothing special!"

English into English, indeed.

Hmm... Flickr is acting up, so I should post something before you notice what may be the big red X of doom in the boxes below this post....

I am not a dog person. I'm all happy that there are other people out there that are dog people, that like big dogs and little dogs and happy dogs and sad dogs and all that, but me? I think dogs should live out in the country some place, running free and being doggie and happy, not in the city.

I am definately in the minority here.

Fundamental Difference Between UK and Canada this week: The reactions to dogs.

Here, big dogs are all over the place in the city. Being walked without leashes. On the bus. In the stores. In the pubs. Everywhere. They're so obviously doted upon and well cared for and appreciated, and it's very strange. Back home, dogs are little, and are mostly kept indoors and out of sight, except in a few areas. I cannot imagine seeing a dog on the bus in Edmonton, except seeing eye dogs. Here, I've shared seats on the train with them.

Every once in a while, you'll pass a pub that has a sign on the door: "No dogs or children". They don't seem very busy, though.

As a collection of random thoughts:

1) I made a post about the connections between Scotland and Winnipeg over on the Canadian Expats Blog.

2) I'm having issues with NoNoNoNo. I'm working high on a hill, near nothing that qualifies for what I want to take photos of. Thus, the lack of pictures. I have something in mind for when I get home from work, though. Damn that Time Change!

3) I got a postcard in the mail yesterday from Living in the South Pacific! It's of Australia! It's purty! It is now by my computer at work, so I can bliss out about it.

Which leads me, of course, to pondering. I seem incapable of living in the now. I'm already planning and plotting for Australia, with thoughts about New Zealand afterwards. It's like I forgot to enjoy where I am, and why I'm here. It's an awful habit, and I'm constantly reminding myself that this isn't always necessary, and to enjoy where I am.

I'm having one of those days where I really really loathe Edinburgh. I mean, really loathe it.

These days are very few and far between for me, which is why I make mention of it. I mean, usually I think Edinburgh is perfect and wonderful and lovely, but today the buildings are too brown and dull, the wind too biting, the Scottish accent grates on my ears and the city smells awful. I want colour and snow and people who know what a Timbit is.

I think the common thread through all my days like this is the bus system. I get very impatient waiting. I hate 'rush hour'. I hate noisy obnoxious people on buses, and I get bus sick when the traffic is going poorly. I get miserable, and it just blossoms out to cover everything around me. Stupid buses, stupid traffic, stupid people... I want the North Sea to rise up and swallow it all, like Atlantis on a bad day.

So, I cope. Because really, who actually wants to spend the day being miserable and hating a city like Scotland? I don't do the whole "Let's count our blessings!" thing, but I do remind myself about the things I do like about Edinburgh.

When I wait for my second bus in the morning, I have an amazing view down the city straight to the North Sea. I keep forgetting that I'm right on the ocean, and every time I see it, I'm captured by its stark beauty.

At my current job, which is on a high hill, I have the most amazing view. I can see both the castle and Arthur's Seat. On a clear day, you can see for miles.

There is snow in Edmonton. There are still leaves that are green here.

Last week, I saw Stonehenge. This week, I see Nutcracker.

If I really, really think about it, I can remmeber why I love this city.

I don't know how other expats (or really other people, as I assume that everyone has days like this) copes with the desire for the world to open up and swallow the place your in, just happening to leave behind the three or four people that you couldn't live without, and all of your nice stuff, but for me, it's remembering that I have a nice flat, I have a nice city, and really, without Edinburgh, where would I put all my stuff?

I want to write about how moving Stonehenge was.

I want to write that I felt the energy of the earth, that I felt something when I walked there, that I saw something unique and wonderful in this world. I want to write that the angels wept, and that I am forever changed.

Sadly, none of this happened, so I can't.

Please, don't for one moment get me wrong. I loved it there. It was a lovely day for it, too. Cold and windy, so there weren't a lot of people out. The sky had that hint that it could rain, but it didn't. And just seeing something I've read about, I've thought about, for so much of my life... that was an experience I'll treasure.

But, no faeries carried me away for a night of dancing that lasted a hundred years, and nothing strange happened when I looked through the stones. You can't get close, except on the Solstice, and even then only if you line up for days ahead of time. They keep you on a far away trail, to the point where it's hard to really appreciate the size of the stones. And they are quite massive, of that I am certain. It was difficult to imagine how the stones would have been brought there.

Don't tell anyone this... but it was smaller than I thought it would be. Not the stones. The circle. It's not very big at all.

I've been told to go to Avesbury and see the standing stones there. You can walk through them, get close to them, and the size of the circle is what I was thinking of every time I thought of Stonehenge.

Ah well. I'll have this. And memories, and thougths, and dreams.

Just got back from Glastonbury, Bath, Wells, Stonehenge, and probably a few other places that I'll be combing out of my hair for the next week. Had a wonderful time, wish you were here. Right now, I'm tired, sore, stressed from the plane, and generally looking forward to a yummy meal and a long hot shower. Very long. The only comment I have about the whole thing is that I am now the proud owner of a chicken umbrella and rainbow coloured knee high stripey-socks.

Well, unless something drastically changes in the middle of the night, I guess I'll be buying tickets to Nutcracker tomorrow. I'll admit, I'm excited. Nutcracker! Close up and all that! I've never been. (I'd blame my parents, but I can neither remember wanting to go as a child, nor the actual opportunity to go as a child. *sigh* Another day when I can't blame life's disappointments on my parents. How will I survive?)

It's funny, though, because every month that I think "A-hah! This'll be the month I make it to Stirling!", something comes up. And I put it off, becuase it's something like 20 minutes away from here, and it's not going anywhere, and really, it's just like little Edinburght, and... and... And it's like making plans to go to Jasper when I'm in Edmonton. I'll get around to it. Some day. Honest!

I continue to count down the minutes until Glastonbury, which is confusing everyone who hears about it. It's a constant "Why would you want to do that?" Well, because of the history and legends and stuff. "Legends? About Glastonbury?" I just shake my head. Trying to explain that sort of stuff to people who are surrounded by it all the time... it's like trying to explain to someone born in Edmonton why Edmonton, as a whole, isn't a crappy city. If you haven't lived anywhere else, you probably think it is.

Over on the Canadian Expat Blog, I've written a bit about the local reaction to my trip to Glastonbury.

I think I failed to mention the bit where at least one person thinks I've lost my mind for wanting to go out there at all.

Silly British people never know what they're missing out on, not being all excited all the freaking time about their heritage.

And yes, I was terribly bored in Canadian history, why do you ask?