It's Daddy time!

Sorry about the title, it's a spin off a TBTL audio drop called "It's granny time!" and I couldn't come up with anything better, really.

Anyways, this post is about my dad's visit to Edinburgh. After a rather harrowing journey here involving many missed connections, confusing building numbering conventions (finally, someone understands about the STUPID street name changes), and amounting to an extremely long two-days of travelling, my dad met me at his bread and breakfast. The accommodations were alright, although the matron could definitely have been nicer. Since I haven't dealt with many customer service people, I can't be certain that it's not a difference between Scottish and American hospitality but from what I have seen here, I think she was just crabby.

As I've mentioned before, my favorite pub here is the Greenmantle, a friendly neighborhood pub. On Thursdays, they do live folk music, so of course that's where I took my dad (after he had a chance to eat and rest, obviously). We got to hang out with my friends Sam, Megan, Alice, and Robbie. It was really nice for my dad to meet everyone who I've been talking about.

Friday, I had morning classes but my dad wasted no time in exploring on his own. After we met up, we basically walked around the Royal Mile and Princes Street Gardens, exploring the main tourist areas. That was my first time walking around there so extensively, and I'm really glad we did- it gave me a better idea of the city. To this day, I'm still discovering new areas of Edinburgh and all of them are delightful. That night, we had to do some bar-hopping, of course. We sample a few different whiskies and I had a chance to get some more of my mulled wine from the Reverie :)

My dad got some pretty good images of the city walking around on his own- this is

Edinburgh Castle.

He was pretty impressed by the old water wells in the Grassmarket area.

Saturday, we had a traditional Scottish breakfast- haggis, black pudding, a fried tomato, a tattie scone, baked beans, bacon, sausage, a hash brown, and an over-easy egg and of course, breakfast tea. It was all decent, except for the blood pudding. That was disgusting. I've had haggis a few times before this, and have actually enjoyed it. We hiked this heart-attack-on-a-plate off at Arthur's Seat, a volcano in the middle of the city. We took the steeper route up and came down the other side, where there's the ruins of an old cathedral inhabited by hermits. Fittingly, it was named after St. Anthony, the same patron saint of our home parish in Renton. Following the trail down put us at the bottom of the Royal Mile next to the Palace of Holyroodhouse (where the Queen stays when she visits Scotland) and the new Parliament building. The Parliament building is pretty controversial- it was designed by a Spanish architect who wanted to incorporate the landscape of Scotland into the design, but it ended up going way over budget and being a somewhat Louvre-ish situation (in terms of the pyramids designed my IMPei). We walked up the Royal Mile again, semi-souvenir shopping as we went. We met a really nice girl working in one shop who was also studying in Edinburgh, but at a different uni. We started to explore the castle, which lies at the top of the Royal Mile, but we decided to come back the next day to truly explore it. As we started to venture north towards New Town and St. Mary's Cathedral for vigil mass, we came across a shopping mall and I discovered my new favorite department store: John Lewis. It's like a cross between Macy's, Nordy's, and Jo-Ann Fabrics. Basically, anything I could ever want. The cathedral itself was pretty as well- one of the oldest places of worship for Catholics in the city- but it was undergoing construction to one of it's wings, so we didn't get to see all of it. Mass was nice, though, and much less rushed than my previous experience the week before. We had dinner in a rather dodgy fish and chip restaurant before heading back. We did another pub-crawl, this time with my friend Christy. She did a double-take when she realized the whisky was for me and the beer was for my dad. Apparently, I'm made of stronger stuff than she thought. This is good because I'm going home with her for Christmas and on her home island of ~1000 people, there are also 8 distilleries, making it a major whiskey-producing region of Scotland. Pretty amazing ratio, huh?

At the top of Arthur's Seat. We're at the highest point in all of Edinburgh!

The debating hall at Parliament. The part at the bottom is made from exclusively Scottish oak. One of those beams actually fell shortly after Parliament opened, interrupting a session.

Sunday, we started out with a late brunch, and continued to the castle. Dad was really fascinated by all of it. I was really fascinated by the crown jewels ;) We followed this with a tour of the Scottish Whiskey Experience. They had this weird barrel ride/ animatronic video thing that explained the distillation process. After that, they did a really good job of explaining about the different whiskey regions in Scotland and what makes them distinct, and we got to taste a whiskey from one of the regions of our choosing. My dad chose one from Islay (where Christy lives) which is reputed for really smoky, peat-y whiskeys. Too strong for my taste! This museum (?) also houses the most extensive whiskey collection ever, bought from a collector who lived in Brazil before his death. There were a TON of whiskeys in that room! We finished the night with a nice dinner at an Argentinean steakhouse in between my flat and my dad's B&B. I miss Mexican food SOO much!!!

There was an exchange of stuff- my mom had sent some new clothes (I love them!) and some food- tea (for a place that drinks tea all the time, they only have a couple kinds), peanut butter, and popcorn. I sent back some clothes and coats that I didn't think I'd need anymore. I still don't know how I'm going to get all of my stuff home...

Dad left on Monday morning, and had another tumultuous trip- ending with him sleeping in his office since Washington was hit with a snowstorm! Aggghhh the travails of travel.

For my part, I allowed myself about 5 minutes of crying/homesickness/frantic calling to my friend Audrey who is in London studying for the semester before I got myself together. It was harder than I thought to say goodbye to Dad, especially since he had brought all the news about home. It's little things like businesses closing and neighborhood gossip that you never realize you miss til you're gone. And it's not like I'm talking to them less this semester than normal. If anything, we talk on a more regular basis than when I'm in Cali. It's just knowing that I'm really far away and not just a 2-hour plane ride that really makes the difference.

And on that melancholy note... haha. It's better now- I still have a lot to look forward to this semester. More on those things to come! xxx

Spring at Scripps

I got assigned the most awesome registration slot for spring semester- Monday at 8:15 am. That's either the best or second-best time. I had already scouted out the classes that I wanted to take, carefully crafting and recrafting my schedule, molding it as if it was clay and I was a master potter. Then, I got the worst news ever: an email, sent the Friday before my registration slot, informed me that I was going to be unable to register during my awesome time slot. Luckily, my dad is SUPER AWESOME and called (because of my multiple promptings), convincing them to give me back my super awesome time.

Drumroll for my super-awesome schedule.....

Advanced Laboratory in Chemistry

A survey of advanced laboratory techniques including physical chemistry methods, analytical chemistry (especially instrumental methods), and synthesis and characterization of compounds.

Principles of Physical Chemistry

A course designed to investigate physico-chemical systems through classified thermodynamics, statistical thermodynamics, kinetics, quantum mechanics, and spectroscopy.

Race and Ethnic Relations

This course examines major concepts and theories in the study of race and ethnic relations. Attention is given to the social construction of race as it relates to interethnic conflict, immigration patterns and the intersections of class, race and gender.

A History of Social Dance

Issues of sexuality and gender, race, appropriation, religion and censorship as they emerge in the genres of social and ballroom dance. Lecture/discussion with readings, video viewing, and live performance.

and my favorite....

Typography and the Book Arts

A Scripps College Press studio course, emphasizing fundamentals of typographic design and letterpress printing. Experimental projects in book design and printing, using original texts and original graphic imagery.

This is technically an overloaded schedule, and I'll be doing gold (advanced) latin dance on top of my other CCBDC activities and have 3 jobs: half-time ochem lab TA, ochem tutor, and jsd office assistant. So, I might end up auditing the social dance class because it doesn't fulfill any major or general education requirements.

This may be an overcompensation for this semester since I feel like I have wayyyyyy too much free-time, but we'll see.

Also, I've been reading these books called the Kushiel series by Jacqueline Carey and they're set in a land called Terre d'Ange. Throughout the main characters' adventures, they're always like, "It's hard to be an exile from our beautiful country, even if it is by choice" which pretty much sums up my feelings about Scripps. I didn't even realize how perfect Scripps is for me until I left. And I can't shake this feeling that next semester is going to be AMAZING, which, quite frankly, is quite alright with me.

So, here's to the Rose Garden, beautiful dorms, Malott Commons, 5-Cs, Edmunds Ballroom, Tiernan Field House, Seal Court, sunbathing while studying on the quad, and all of my other favorite haunts in Claremont. I CANNOT WAIT to get back to you.

Scripps-tabulous

The second weekend in November, another Scrippsie came to visit me :) Maria is studying abroad in Galway, Ireland and does ballroom with me back at home.

We started out going to the Museum (I feel like I could go there a million times and do something different every time- it's not really that big, but it's really overwhelming in its non-cohesiveness) and I discovered a pretty cool rooftop level, which would have been a lot better if it hadn't been raining and super cold.

We warmed up at another favorite cafe, Press Coffee, before heading back to my flat. We ended up having dinner with one of my flatmates and her friend at my favorite pub, the Greenmantle. They have these buffalo burgers which are sooooo delish. We went for a drink (mulled wine- YUMMY!) at this posh pub called The Reverie. Here's Maria, modeling this delicious beverage:

On Saturday, we both took the train down to St. Andrews. We met up with Marissa (Nat's friend) and she showed us around. St. Andrews is a super cute, but super small, town- literally 3 streets. There is a really cool castle ruin and cathedral ruin. I especially loved the cathedral. It's also right on the coast, so there's always a sea-breeze in the air. We basically just looked around and did some shopping- there were some pretty cute Christmas markets being held that weekend.

Maria and I in front of the Castle ruins. The bishops and archbishops of St. Andrews used to live here. It was also used as a prison.

The castle, from farther away.

The Cathedral ruins. There are actually two ruins- the bigger cathedral from this picture was built after the ruin of the smaller church. The grounds are now used as a cemetary.

That's what it looked like, once upon a time.

I don't know if you can tell, but the windows are different- pointed arches vs round arches. Apparently, the cathedral took so long to build that by the time they got halfway done, the popular style of windows had changed, so they decided to continue with the new trend.

There were these pretty cool rock formation things that looked like fingers jutting out of the mainland. The tide was really low when we went, which is why we could see them. There's a site between two of them that people jump into at dawn on a certain day to rid themselves of curses.

Maria left really early on Sunday, which gave me the whole day to work on my essay for Modern Scottish History. AWESOME.

Natalie's Visit

Alrighty. It's now been almost a month since Natalie visited, so this is probably going to be a little trip down memory lane for me as well as you.

When she got here Saturday, we decided to go shopping with her friend from high school, Marissa, who studies at St. Andrews as an undergrad. We started by heading up Calton Hill. It's this hill in Edinburgh with a ton of rando monuments on the top.

Ahh yes, there we are. (L to R me, Natalie, Marissa)

This is the the National Monument on Calton Hill. Yes, it looks like it should be in Rome, and yes, it's most distinguishing feature is that it's only halfway built.

As we were walking back, I finally got a chance to hit up all the charity shops on Nicholson/Clerk. It was less fruitful than I could have wished, but I wasn't really in the mood to shop. We also went into this shop that turned out to be a surprisingly hip vintage shop. Natalie found an uber cute fur coat which we convinced her to buy.

As we stepped out of the shop, it obviously started raining and we parted ways- Nat and I back to mine for Dr. Who and siesta and Marissa to the train station to get back to St. Andrews.

That night, we went to a (rather demure) flat party at a friend of a friends, which ended up being super close to my flat. Some highlights:

(Finally, a picture of Robbie)

Beautiful Scrippsies!

Nat's favorite picture, for some reason. I guess she looks cute. I just look... awkward.

The next day we basically stayed in and did work- Natalie had a ton of essays to do and I was doing something, I think. Robbie had a roast at his flat that night, which ended up being really cool. Can you guess which plate is mine?

Answer: the Christmas one, obviously.

Monday, we went to the National Museum of Scotland and worked in my favorite cafe, Bean Scene. This was really cool because there was a tour talking about printing presses which fits in with my interest to take Typography and the Book Arts at Scripps, where we get to make our own book.

Since Natalie was taking an overnight bus, we stopped by a pub, Sandy Bells, for live folk music and a drink before dropping her off at the bus station.

Homemaker

Have you ever heard of Stumbleupon.com? It's this great site that uses parameters set by you to find random sites on the internets that might interest you. I keep getting a lot of baking and craft websites that are making me feel all homemaker-y.

So, yesterday I bit the bullet and bought 10 pounds worth of baking supplies (flour, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder) as well as a cake pan. And I made a cake, of course. A simple white cake with NUTELLA! The original recipe was for cupcakes, which probably would've worked a lot better, but cupcake tins are expensive.... the cake still turned out really yummily and I'm already starting to think about what I want to make next- I think banana bread because I have a lot of bananas ripening in my cupboard at the moment :) What a great snack to have with tea, right? yummm

Also on the schedule for this weekend:

Natalie, one of my best friends from Scripps who also lives in Seattle, is visiting me! She's studying abroad at the London School of Economics for the entire year. We've already been shopping in the charity shops on the main street next to the University. I didn't buy anything but she found a nice vintage fur coat for only 30 pounds. I love how cheap Edinburgh can be!

We're going to go to the library tomorrow when it opens to get stuff DONE and then see what happens. Robbie and a flat mate Charlie are hosting a roast dinner tomorrow night. I keep offering to bring things and getting shot down for my dishes not being "roast-y enough." SO I'm just gonna show up and eat.

Monday I have class, but only for an hour, and Natalie doesn't leave until Monday night so I have no idea what we're going to do! I think I'll probably take her to the National Museum- it's free and I haven't even been there yet.

What a fun, sexy time for me (that's a TBTL reference, btw)...xxx

LeeAnn

Even More Fantabulous

So, Saturday night definitely lived up to its potential to be awesome. Megan, Sam, Alice, and I carved pumpkins and pre-gamed then I went over to some other friends' flat (they were all dressed as lions- so cute!) before finally going to Mark and Barney's for their Halloween party. It was super fun- their flat is beautiful and they decorated it really nicely. All in all, a great night.

Sunday morning rolled around and I woke up at 10:20, realizing that because of the end (or the beginning?) of daylight savings it was only 9:20! So, I went to the store to get eggs and made a super delicious scramble with onions, bell peppers and goat cheese, and a kiwi and banana fruit salad. SO GOOD!

At 12, I went to the library which is when it opens, even though that seems really really late to me. I got a lot of work done and then came back to my flat to chill/take a break. On my way back, some older business man just started talking to me, even though I obviously had my headphones in and then gave me his card and told me if I emailed him, he would buy me a drink. It was a pretty random experience, when I all wanted to do was go home and watch some 30 Rock...

Around 7, I went over to Alice, Zoe, Katie, and __'s flat because they invited me to go out with them in their lion pride since last night was actually Halloween. I did the whole 9 yards: tail, ears, face paint, teased hair- people over here are really into face paint, as I discovered. A costume really isn't considered complete unless it includes face paint. So, we got ready and then headed over to this club, Lava Ignite, aka Cav, which was super fun! It was a huge club: the bottom floor was chart singles and the upper floor (which may or may not have been the top floor but I think I was advised never to go on the top floor- the British floor-numbering system is different so sometimes I get a little confused) was cheese, another popular British tradition. It was basically music from past decades, like boy bands and rock, etc. Sarah and I went back to her flat, where it took me ages to get the face paint off. YUCK! It also took me TWO shampoos to get all the hairspray out of my hair.

I woke up super hungry this morning and wasn't really sure what I had to eat in my flat, but then the song Tomato Soup by The Lonely Forest came on and I realized that I had tomato soup! So, I'm going to go eat now, and will hopefully be posting some lion pictures soon.

LeeAnn.xx

Fantabulous

Today was a fantastic day, which is great because yesterday turned out pretty so-so. I woke up and was almost late to class, the weather decided to start raining every time I walked outside, my head ached and my throat was sore, and going out was ok but not great.

Today, however, the weather was beautiful, so Robbie and I climbed Blackford Hill. The views are ah-mazing- we could see everything from the castle to the firth to Arthur's Seat and everything in between :) I came home and took a hot shower to warm up before watching 30 Rock while making roasted vegetables (beets, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and onions) and tuna for dinner. Delicious!!

Also, I got an email saying that the class schedule and registration times are posted for next semester- I love scheduling! It's that great time where class descriptions look really interesting before you get tired of them and find out what they're really like. Plus, I got one of the earliest registration time slots, so I'm basically guaranteed to get whatever classes I want! AND I have no class on Friday other than dance (practice + gold latin= 4 hours of ballroom) AND I don't have class until 10 on Monday/Wednesday which means I can go to team breakfast EVERY DAY! Oh my goodness, I can hardly contain my excitement. The schedule so far (and this is probably pretty final) is Advanced Lab, Physical Chemistry, Typography and the Book Arts, History of Social Dance, and Race and Ethnic Relations. Pretty cool, eh? I love liberal arts schools :)

So this day is already sounding pretty darn awesome, BUT WAIT, there's more! I got a letter from my Grandma! I still need to send her and Aunt Laurie's post card.... And Christopher's birthday card... And Nani's postcard. Oh, dear. I've really been slacking on my post :(

I'm hoping tonight lives up to the high standard the rest of the day has set- I'm going to a flat party celebrating Halloween, of course. I've already thought of and rejected about a million costume ideas. I think the winner might be "nerd"- glasses, calculator in pocket, suspenders, the works :)

It's the end of daylight savings tonight, which means this marvelous day is going to be one hour longer than a normal day. Stellar, no?

Hope your days are going similarly swimmingly :)

Love,

LeeAnn xx