What's taters, precious?
I may or may not have skipped last week's promised update. To those of you left devastated as a result of my irresponsibility (everyone in the world, naturally), I send my deepest apologies. If you find yourself overwhelmed by the amount of writing but are curious enough about my life (I'm assuming you are given that you're reading this), I did a summary at the very end.
So let's pick up where I left off.
Monday (14th of February), Maggie and I made homemade pancakes with various fruits, nutella and condensed milk. The first few came out resembling Quasimodo but the rest were delicious. This plus Beauty and the Beast was a successful Valentine's day. The next day, the flatmates plus two went to see Never Let Me Go (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_%282010_film%29). It was aight. There wasn't much of a plot and it was predictable, but it did remind the viewer of how important his or her loved ones are. Wednesday, Claire had planned on taking us on an Irish pub crawl but backed out last minute so we went on a "pubs within 10 minutes of us" crawl. Side note: I love how going out on a Wednesday is completely accepted (and even expected).
That weekend (starting with Thursday), Cameron (friend and neighbor) turned 18! They threw a party, we played ruit and flipcup (home sweet home), got toasty, and went to a club. As should be the norm for all Scotsman on this day of all days, Cameron got kicked out of the club for being too drunk. The next night was a repeat of the prior one minus the birthday aspect. I don't remember too much else. Saturday was a recovery day...I remember going to a pub down the street and I think that was more or less it. Sunday, Rob, Kaitlin, Maggie, and I went to Craigmiller castle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigmillar_Castle); it was awesome! The entire thing was 100% open to exploration. Rob and I bough a couple of foam swords and are now fully prepared for some hardcore sieging.
Monday (21st), Kelsey and I went for a brief walk. The next day, Claire finally took us out. I'm really gonna miss this whole going out on weeknights thing when I get home. Wednesday featured dinner at the only pho place this side of William Wallace. The night's activities were supposed to consist of poker and cigars for the young men, and go-to-a-makeup-launch-thingy for the lovely ladies (hooray for stereotypes). We ended up postponing poker due to a last minute discovery that we lacked chips; Jake and I smoked the cigars anyway. They made me...not necessarily nostalgic, but certainly painfully aware of how fast time moves. They reminded me of home (so did the pho, actually). More specifically, of Taylor and her boyzz and girl talk. Thursday, one of John's friends had a small 18th birthday party, but the majority of the night was spent indoors. Friday, I ran up Arthur's seat again (it took about five tries):
That night, we went pub crawling and ended up picking up a couple of fried mars bars on the way home. A fusion of two gloriously unhealthy, painstakingly delicious substances, reluctantly forced into a marriage whose honeymoon rocked my tastebuds' existence. Yesterday, Kaitlin and I took the train to Linlithgow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linlithgow), a small town half an hour away from Edinburgh, famous as the birthplace of James V and Mary, Queen of Scots. It was gorgeous! We explored the castle (including the room where Mary was born), explored the town, and ate roughly $8 worth of chocolate. That night, Jake and Rob's flat (aka the flat next door) threw a Harry Potter themed party. The girls went over the top with costumes in the best way possible and we (males, if you will) did the best we could given our lack of creativity (my Grindelwald costume consisted of black clothing and a tree branch [wand]). Storming castles by day, and costume parties by night, a pretty swell time.
Today was a really boring, relaxed day. I decided to do what I typically do on a boring relaxed day: make a 12 song playlist and run around somewhere pretty. I decided to go all the way around Holyrood park (where Arthur's Seat is) as opposed to running up a random peak like I've done the past few weeks. I ended up getting lost (surprise, surprise) and found myself in a pretty residential area overlooking the North Sea. The experience has added a new criterion to the "Georgiy's ideal woman" model (note: said model doesn't actually exist). The perfect girl (ladies, start taking notes), aside from being gorgeoussmartothergenericcriteriaetc, must also have the ability to appreciate and enjoy getting lost (because inevitably, it will happen more often than necessary).
Crappy iphone picture that doesn't do where I ended up justice:
Mini-rant on school (feel free to skip):
This past week was reading week for economics majors. As a result I only had one class: a 9am on Monday, which I happened to oversleep. Womp womp. I spent close to 20ish hours reading over a five day period and ended up finishing two of the three textbooks I've been reading. Woo! However, I've come to the realization that I really don't like British textbooks. They take sides, which in a field as controversial as economics is usually a bad idea. I found myself disagreeing with a decent amount of what I read. Also, I've got my first essay due in two and a half weeks! Oh boy.
Closing thoughts (summary as mentioned above):
I still love it here! My friends are wonderful, my flatmates are wonderful, the city is still gosh-darn beautiful, AND it's been sunny the past few days! :-D This has basically been a vacation. I already find myself dreading going back home (and I love my life back home), despite still having roughly two-thirds of the trip left. The majority of this fear is fueled by how fast time goes by here. Leisure time always goes by faster, and since this has been mostly leisure, time is in overdrive. A girl I met briefly at orientation has been keeping a countdown of how many weeks are left on facebook for the opposite reason: she's unhappy here (or at least was, last time I facebook stalked her). I hope things get better for her; if I were a better person, I'd invite her along to whatever it is I do.
I eat so much here, for no reason at all. Like, I actually can't stop eating. Especially sugar: I ate roughly 10 nutella sandwiches over a three day period. Horrified with myself, I went on a three day nutella fast, and have severely limited my nutella consumption since. Nutella. I'm always, ALWAYS hungry. I can't think of a plausible explanation for this aside from a small child growing in my womb. Speaking of food, we've (flatmates) started a tradition of having one of us cook for the rest of us once a week. Antoine started off with an amazing four course dinner:
Tomorrow is John's turn, then Ethan's, then Alex's, then mine (borscht!).Also, Maggie introduced me to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and we've been going through an episode or two a night. It's like a more crude version of Seinfeld. Also, Stacey is visiting next week! It'll be nice to see a face from home. This was so unnecessarily long.
Things to look forward to this week: John's cooking, a trip to a tea and cocktail place, a trip to a high ropes course.
So let's pick up where I left off.
Monday (14th of February), Maggie and I made homemade pancakes with various fruits, nutella and condensed milk. The first few came out resembling Quasimodo but the rest were delicious. This plus Beauty and the Beast was a successful Valentine's day. The next day, the flatmates plus two went to see Never Let Me Go (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_%282010_film%29). It was aight. There wasn't much of a plot and it was predictable, but it did remind the viewer of how important his or her loved ones are. Wednesday, Claire had planned on taking us on an Irish pub crawl but backed out last minute so we went on a "pubs within 10 minutes of us" crawl. Side note: I love how going out on a Wednesday is completely accepted (and even expected).
That weekend (starting with Thursday), Cameron (friend and neighbor) turned 18! They threw a party, we played ruit and flipcup (home sweet home), got toasty, and went to a club. As should be the norm for all Scotsman on this day of all days, Cameron got kicked out of the club for being too drunk. The next night was a repeat of the prior one minus the birthday aspect. I don't remember too much else. Saturday was a recovery day...I remember going to a pub down the street and I think that was more or less it. Sunday, Rob, Kaitlin, Maggie, and I went to Craigmiller castle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigmillar_Castle); it was awesome! The entire thing was 100% open to exploration. Rob and I bough a couple of foam swords and are now fully prepared for some hardcore sieging.
Monday (21st), Kelsey and I went for a brief walk. The next day, Claire finally took us out. I'm really gonna miss this whole going out on weeknights thing when I get home. Wednesday featured dinner at the only pho place this side of William Wallace. The night's activities were supposed to consist of poker and cigars for the young men, and go-to-a-makeup-launch-thingy for the lovely ladies (hooray for stereotypes). We ended up postponing poker due to a last minute discovery that we lacked chips; Jake and I smoked the cigars anyway. They made me...not necessarily nostalgic, but certainly painfully aware of how fast time moves. They reminded me of home (so did the pho, actually). More specifically, of Taylor and her boyzz and girl talk. Thursday, one of John's friends had a small 18th birthday party, but the majority of the night was spent indoors. Friday, I ran up Arthur's seat again (it took about five tries):
That night, we went pub crawling and ended up picking up a couple of fried mars bars on the way home. A fusion of two gloriously unhealthy, painstakingly delicious substances, reluctantly forced into a marriage whose honeymoon rocked my tastebuds' existence. Yesterday, Kaitlin and I took the train to Linlithgow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linlithgow), a small town half an hour away from Edinburgh, famous as the birthplace of James V and Mary, Queen of Scots. It was gorgeous! We explored the castle (including the room where Mary was born), explored the town, and ate roughly $8 worth of chocolate. That night, Jake and Rob's flat (aka the flat next door) threw a Harry Potter themed party. The girls went over the top with costumes in the best way possible and we (males, if you will) did the best we could given our lack of creativity (my Grindelwald costume consisted of black clothing and a tree branch [wand]). Storming castles by day, and costume parties by night, a pretty swell time.
Today was a really boring, relaxed day. I decided to do what I typically do on a boring relaxed day: make a 12 song playlist and run around somewhere pretty. I decided to go all the way around Holyrood park (where Arthur's Seat is) as opposed to running up a random peak like I've done the past few weeks. I ended up getting lost (surprise, surprise) and found myself in a pretty residential area overlooking the North Sea. The experience has added a new criterion to the "Georgiy's ideal woman" model (note: said model doesn't actually exist). The perfect girl (ladies, start taking notes), aside from being gorgeoussmartothergenericcriteriaetc, must also have the ability to appreciate and enjoy getting lost (because inevitably, it will happen more often than necessary).
Crappy iphone picture that doesn't do where I ended up justice:
Mini-rant on school (feel free to skip):
This past week was reading week for economics majors. As a result I only had one class: a 9am on Monday, which I happened to oversleep. Womp womp. I spent close to 20ish hours reading over a five day period and ended up finishing two of the three textbooks I've been reading. Woo! However, I've come to the realization that I really don't like British textbooks. They take sides, which in a field as controversial as economics is usually a bad idea. I found myself disagreeing with a decent amount of what I read. Also, I've got my first essay due in two and a half weeks! Oh boy.
Closing thoughts (summary as mentioned above):
I still love it here! My friends are wonderful, my flatmates are wonderful, the city is still gosh-darn beautiful, AND it's been sunny the past few days! :-D This has basically been a vacation. I already find myself dreading going back home (and I love my life back home), despite still having roughly two-thirds of the trip left. The majority of this fear is fueled by how fast time goes by here. Leisure time always goes by faster, and since this has been mostly leisure, time is in overdrive. A girl I met briefly at orientation has been keeping a countdown of how many weeks are left on facebook for the opposite reason: she's unhappy here (or at least was, last time I facebook stalked her). I hope things get better for her; if I were a better person, I'd invite her along to whatever it is I do.
I eat so much here, for no reason at all. Like, I actually can't stop eating. Especially sugar: I ate roughly 10 nutella sandwiches over a three day period. Horrified with myself, I went on a three day nutella fast, and have severely limited my nutella consumption since. Nutella. I'm always, ALWAYS hungry. I can't think of a plausible explanation for this aside from a small child growing in my womb. Speaking of food, we've (flatmates) started a tradition of having one of us cook for the rest of us once a week. Antoine started off with an amazing four course dinner:
Tomorrow is John's turn, then Ethan's, then Alex's, then mine (borscht!).Also, Maggie introduced me to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and we've been going through an episode or two a night. It's like a more crude version of Seinfeld. Also, Stacey is visiting next week! It'll be nice to see a face from home. This was so unnecessarily long.
Things to look forward to this week: John's cooking, a trip to a tea and cocktail place, a trip to a high ropes course.