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 b