So, a few weeks back I got the book Thirteen Treasures from Simon and Shuster as part of this marvelous book give away that they do in the UK. The deal is you get a book for free and then they like you to review it so here's mine ( Read more... )

(Please note the apostrophe after the "s" because there were apparently two people named Valentine for whom this holiday is named ( Read more... )

So, we've been having a pretty cold start to February with quite a bit of snow. To save you from seeing what school looks like in snow, again, I've decided to post one of the castle. So, here's Edinburgh castle, the National Gallery, Princes Gardens and my house, in snow.


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So, January 25th is Burns Night, a celebration of the life and works of Robert Burns. Maybe best known as the writing of Auld Lang Syne he was a Scottish poet and wrote the Ode to a Haggis. As such, we celebrate with haggis, neeps and tatties. Traditional haggis is a sheep stomach filled with chopped innards, oats and flavorings. Mine was ( Read more... )

So, my mom came up to spend my last week of Christmas vacation with me and now I've finally done a lot of the tourist stuff in the area that I hadn't done previously. It's weird, you move to a place with all sorts of amazing things to see but it seems wrong to see the tourist stuff. I know people who have lived in Scotland their entire lives that ( Read more... )

New Year's Eve is huge in Scotland, they call it Hogmanay and it was a holiday before Christmas was. My friends ans I hung out at the Oz Bar and then ran outside at 30 seconds to midnight to watch the fireworks over the castle.


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Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. I drove down to Yorkshire.

Voila, the borders.


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So, as December dawned, Edinburgh geared up for it's annual Christmas festival. Half is German serving lovely potato dishes and sausages while the other half is very Scottish with mulled wine, hog rolls and shops. Complete with ferris wheel, an ice skating rink and a massive Christmas tree and my view has slightly changed.


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And then we had some more snow... this is outside the building where I have classes.


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We also went to a fish farm where they raise salmon and trout. Would have been more cool had my shoes been insulated and had any fish been visible.


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