Wandering the Grassy Hills

The beautiful city of Edinburgh is beginning to feel a little more like home now, after two short weeks. Yesterday I was walking in a park and a lady asked me for help finding a building, and I knew where she needed to go!...but then today I decided to take a different route home and got lost. opps.

A lot has happened since my last wall post, so I'll try to remember everything. Last Saturday the International Student Centre went on a day trip to St. Andrews. We traveled about and hour and a half to the charming little seaside city. The tour bus stopped on a random road in the city and we piled of the bus. Girl in Charge gave us all little photocopied illegible maps of St. Andrews and told us, be back by 3:30 or you have to take the train back to Edinburgh. The idea of riding a train and my love of travel mishaps did almost make me want to miss the bus, but I decided I shouldn't get left in St. Andrews on this trip, maybe next time. We went to what used to be a big castle, but now, is more the skeleton of a castle, but still very interesting and beautiful, right next to the sea. After only a few minutes Girl in Charge told us it was time to leave and to go to the cathedral and cemetery. We could see the stone spires of the cathedral off in the distance and set off behind Girl in Charge. You can see for yourself this is a mysterious place. After looking around and taking pictures we had the rest of the day to ourselves, Girl in Charge warned us one more time not to be left behind and said, its impossible to get lost in St. Andrews. So we went in search of the little St. Andrews Museum. Girl in Charge lied, you can get lost in St. Andrews, but it was ok, we just got to see more of the city, right? For lunch, we stopped at a little cafe and I got my first ever vegan sandwich, and it was pretty tasty. At a lot of little restaurants here you have to pay more to "sit in" the restaurant, so we decided to "take away" and found some benches next to a pretty church. The sidewalks were lined with flowerpots with colorful flowers, the girls I was with said it looked just like any little town in the States....didn't look like any towns in Texas to me. Apparently the scenes from Chariots of Fire where Eric Little is running on the beach were filmed on the Beach in St. Andrews, so I took a picture, unfortunately, not of me running on the beach. All in all, it was a great day and I would love to go back again to just wander and sit in a little cafe.

Unfortunately I did come to Scotland to go to university and classes finally started on Monday. I can't complain too much though, I only have three classes, two of them only meet once a week, and I don't have any class on Tuesday or Friday! My first class was Philosophy of Religion, it was wonderful, we were all crammed into a tiny classroom and our professor stumbled in, confused and looked like he hadn't showered in a few days. His sweater looked about thirty years old and had a giant rip in the elbow. Just from the looks of him I knew this would be a good semester. Whenever he started to talk he would look up at the ceiling and close his eyes. Philosophy professors are usually kind of odd, and I'm glad to see they're like that in Scotland as well.

So, for the wandering the grassy hills...if you read my last blog, you saw that I went to find the castle, so this week I decided to walk up the crag behind our flats. According to Wikipedia a crag is a steep rugged mass of rock projecting upward or outward, especially a cliff or vertical rock exposure in the north of England or in Scotland.(In case you were wondering.) The crag isn't as high or as difficult of a hike as Arthur's Seat was, but it was a great way to start off my morning. When I got to the top I could see all of Edinburgh, I wonder if people ever get tired of this city.

You can't come to Scotland and not go to a pub. I went to a pub called Greyfriars Bobby a few days ago. The pub was great, kind of dark, but cozy. There's a story behind the name, maybe I'll tell it in a later post. I decided to be daring and try the haggis. I didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't bad at all, it was just kind of like meatloaf. I think I would get it again sometime. Speaking of yummy Scottish food, I also tried sticky toffee pudding, which might be one of the best desserts I've ever had before. I think I'll have to find a recipe to take home with me.

We walk all the time here in Edinburgh, well maybe not all the time, but during freshers week we did! And because of that, my feet are killing me and I have blisters everywhere, gross...sorry. I decided I needed to go shopping for shoes, which I love! I went to Princes Street, that's where all of the clothing stores and the "mall" are. Most of the stores looked way to expensive to even go inside. The very first store I walked into I saw them, the ridiculous, bright shoes that I wanted! After walking up and down Princes Street and going into all of the stores and getting a little depressed at the outrageous prices, I went and bought my shoes. Sadly they gave me blisters too...but I still love them.

This blog is getting a little lengthy, so a couple more things really quick. I went to the Elephant House, the cafe that claims to be the "birthplace of Harry Potter." Its one of the cafes where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter.
I was walking down the street yesterday and passed a really short lady, she looked like she was from somewhere in the south pacific, and she had safteypins all over her face, like, going through her skin. It reminded me of that creepy show I watched on the discovery channel about body piercing.
I finally did laundry this morning, washing two loads and drying one cost eight dollars, I'm not sure how I feel about that. And I have clothes drying all over my room right now.