Thankful

I’m trying to get all caught up on the blog, so I thought I should write one before leaving for London on Thursday night.

I was telling my friend Molly earlier today that it’s getting a little hard to update the blogs because I feel like now, being here is just kind of life, just kind of normal. I say that, but then, I’m still constantly learning new things and doing dumb things, and having little adventures.

A few reasons why I’m thankful today, and then some wee stories :-)
-Having new friends to celebrate thanksgiving with, friends from around the world.
-Old friends and family around the world
-God’s perfect provision and care, even in far away places
-Being able to go new places, make great memories, and have lots of adventures.
-the beauty of Gods creations
-The heater in my bedroom that works really really well!
-I went to my last anthropology lecture today!

I had a successful trip to the Edinburgh Zoo with my flat mate Sammie and some friends on Saturday. We tried to go a few weeks ago, but the weather was horrible and they closed the zoo. Well, Saturday was literally freezing, and there was a tiny tiny bit of snow and ice on the ground, but we went to the zoo. I love going to the zoo, so even though it was freezing outside, I was set and ready to go. Since it was freezing a lot of the animals were inside, or sleeping, but there was still a lot to see. I made a little penguin friend. There were over 100 penguins, and one of the little guys waddled right up to the chain link fence where I was standing, so I slowly leaned down to look at him. I was wearing bright pink gloves, and anywhere my glove went, his little beak would follow. I walked down the fence a few feet, and he waddled beside me. I put my hand out to where he could reach it and he bit it! It was like playing with a little dog. I wonder if people keep penguins as pets. You’re probably not supposed to do that….

On Monday my small group and another small group from the Christian Union celebrated Thanksgiving! I was so excited, because I love thanksgiving, cooking, holidays with friends, and good food! This will be my third thanksgiving to be away from my family, which is a little sad, but Monday night ended up being a lot of fun and a proper American Thanksgiving in Scotland with friends from around the world! We had soooo much food, I mean, my family usually goes all out, but there may possibly have been more food at our gathering on Monday night! Five of us were American, so we made all the traditional foods and it turned out great. The good food was followed by sitting around in a circle and saying what we were thankful for. Which, I don’t think I’ve ever actually done with my family, and the other Americans said they had never actually done that either, but it seemed Thanksgivingy. And then someone asked a question about politics, which is what my family almost, always talks about at Thanksgiving and Christmas (not kidding). But then I said something that kind of made everyone gasp, and I feel people in the room judging me, hahaha, and I thought, oh well, I am just continuing to surprise and make people a little angry throughout Scotland. But I quickly changed the subject and catastrophe was averted.

When I was preparing for Thanksgiving dinner it was kind of like a challenge, let’s see how quickly I can get all of the ingredients I need to make these three dishes! Well, I think I went to 5 different stores, walked a lot, and accidently road the bus for an hour in the wrong direction. But, I did discover something great! Sainsbury. Whenever I leave my flat, I walk out to the road and turn right. I had never ventured to the left before, because I heard that if you go to the left too far it can be a bit dodgy. But I heard rumors of this wonderful, giant supermarket, Sainsbury. I left my flat early, early in the morning, when it was still dark and went to Sainsbury, and yes, I was amazed, it was like Kroger’s or HEB or maybe even Wal-Mart. I didn’t know anything like that existed here! I found everything I needed, except pistachio pudding mix. On the way back to my flat it was really cold outside, so I decided to take the bus. I took the one that said Princes Street, City Centre, thinking, the street that I live on, goes towards Princes Street. Well…it goes towards Princes Street, if that’s where you’re trying to go….I ended up riding on the bus for over an hour and then walking fifteen minutes back to my flat. It would have taken me about 20 minutes to walk all the way from Sainsbury. But its ok, I got to see more of Edinburgh.

Since I’ve only ridden in a car, three times since I’ve been here, I think there is a lot of Edinburgh that I don’t even know exists. Also, stores here seem kind of magical. From the outside they look really small and cramped, but then you go inside, and they’re like department stores. I don’t know how it works, but it reminds me of Harry Potter. One store, Jenner’s, sells everything in the world, I’m not sure exactly how it works, but it seems like there are different stores inside of the giant Jenner’s store. And it’s all decorated for Christmas!

This semester I have to read three books for an International Relations independent study course back at Baylor. I read one book about politics and war having to be separate from religion, one about political corruption in Africa and now I’m reading a book about socialism, written by a socialist. I have to finish it in a couple days…should be interesting. I thought I should find out more about it from the “socialism is a good idea” perspective, because that’s what a lot of people here think.

Yesterday I got stopped on the street by a man who said he was a monk. I had seen him before, but never stopped to talk to him. There are always lots of people on the street who stop you and ask for donations for things. I was with a friend and instead of ignoring him, we stopped. He gave his little introduction; he was a monk, raising money for something. I was feeling generous so I have him a little donation, and then he asked if either of us were philosophers. I said I liked philosophy and he pulled a book out of his bag. “The Science of Self Realization” by his divine grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acarya of the International Society for Krishna Conciousness. Great….I just gave money to the Hare Krishna guy...I thought he was a catholic monk! That made me kind of angry, so I said thats for the book and took it without making any extra donations. He said I could make a donation next time…um…no thanks. So, after reading about the great plans and promises of socialism, I’ll read about promoting the well-being of human society through teaching the science of Krishna consciousness….I’ve already had two people attempt to convert me in the past, didn’t happen…but I do want to read the book.

Now that I'm all caught up on the blogs, I actually have to go read and do laundry...which is always fun....Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for taking the time to read my blog!!!! :-)

Colossians 3:15-17

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

5 George Street

When I came to Scotland I didn’t really have plans of what I would do or where I would go. I kept meaning to make a list of “things to do” but I just kind of kept getting overwhelmed and thinking, I’ll just get there and live. So, that’s kind of been my strategy. I’ve gone on a few amazing trips, and I’ll go on a few more! I’ve met some really great, interesting people from all different parts of the world.

I’ve also had the opportunity to learn a little about where my ancestors came from. Back in the 1700’s Mr. Scott, my great great great great great and more grandfather left Scotland, traveled to Canada, and eventually the Scotts ended up in Texas.(this information might not all be 100% accurate, hopefully family will correct me if I'm wrong) Finding out a little more about him or where he came from was one of the few things that I did definitely indent to do when in Scotland. Surprisingly enough, Mr. Scott lived in Edinburgh, at 5 George Street, right next to St. Andrews Square, a pretty little square, all of which are only a couple blocks from the Castle Gardens and the very center of the city. I go down to this area at least a couple times a week, to go to coffee shops, get groceries, and go to church. And I always wonder what the streets looked like almost 300 years ago, what the Scotts would have been doing, and if they ever would have thought or cared about their descendant coming back to Edinburgh, to find the place where they lived and the streets on which they walked. 5 George Street where the Scott's resided apparently burned down in the 1700’s, and now there is just one big Standard Life Investment building where their home would have been, but I can still imagine them going about their every day life in the beautiful city of Edinburgh, with the same church next door and the same Edinburgh Castle in the distance.

For a few weeks I wasn’t really doing any wandering or exploring around Edinburgh, mostly because of writing essays, trying to get things done during the week because of traveling on the weekend, and bad weather. So, last week when the skies were clear and the wind was calm I thought I should go and explore a little. There are tons of little shops on little cobblestone streets here. When I first got here, I thought I should wait to go into them, ya know, leave the best till the end of my stay? Well, I decided it was time to start going into all of them. After going into some old book shops and shops with old maps and prints of the city I just decided to wander around the city. When I stopped in one of the print shops, I asked if they had prints of George St. from the 1700’s, he didn’t, but he did have a map of the city, though. There was hardly anything on George Street at that time, because it was kind of the outskirts of the city, but there was a house at 5 George Street, pretty neat!

Of course I passed some beautiful buildings and churches, but I also found a giant bridge and a nice little creek. The leaves are starting to fall off the trees now, but the leaves are still all different colors, and it still surprises me how pretty it is, being from Texas where leaves kind of just turn brown and fall off. I also found a really pretty church, with a perfect view of the castle, and a beautiful, slightly spooky cemetery. I decided to take a bunch of pictures, and then the next day I figured out that this is the church where my family got married and buried back in the 1700’s, pretty cool! I found a couple of grave markers with the last name Scott, I don’t know if we’re related, I kind of figure, being in Scotland, Scott could be a pretty common surname. My next mission is to go into the church and maybe talk a little bit to someone and find out a little more about the history of the church and stuff.

Let’s see…what else has been going on? A couple weeks ago we celebrated Guy Fawkes Night. It's an annual celebration on the evening of the 5th of November. It celebrates the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot of the 5 November, 1605 in which a number of Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, were alleged to be attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London, England.(Thanks Wikipedia) The International Student Centre had a group outing to go watch the fireworks and bonfire from Carlton Hill. I went with a couple of my friends, and as with most things with the International Centre, they kind of just walked the herd of all us international students to Carlton Hill, and then we didnt see them after that. It was a really foggy, misty night. The fireworks were really pretty and from the hill we could see all the lights and fireworks in Edinburgh. We stayed for as long as we could stand the mist and cold and then went to get hot chocolate at one of the campus pubs.

I went on a weekend away with the church I’ve been going to. The young adults/university students went to Lendrickmuir, a retreat centre kind of place about an hour north of Edinburgh. I always love these kinds of things, where you get to meet new people, study the bible, eat too much sugar, have good conversations, play outside, play cards, it was a good weekend! We talked about Job and suffering, which isn’t the happiest topic to study, but important and relevant, nonetheless. It’s always good to be reminded that God takes care of us and is in control and that life isn’t just about having fun and being happy. We did have fun though, we went on a little walk through the countryside, of course, and it was beautiful. I forgot my camera, but maybe I’ll steal my friend’s pictures to put up here. We also played this game called lion, which was kind of like a combination of capture the flag and stuck in the mud. We all dressed up in really dark clothes and went out to the woods in the dark. Thankfully, I’m pretty much blind in the dark…so that was good…I was a little bit scared, because I have been the soul cause of my team losing at capture the flag more than once. But this was much better, no flags to lose, just people to hide from. It was cold and the ground was wet, but I was determined to not get caught. I felt like I was in the army special forces crawling around on the ground, rolling down hills and hiding in fern bushes, running out to save my fellow team mates…..but I did also get caught quite a few times.

My philosophy of religion class and professor continue to completely amaze surprise and bore me, all within a two hour time span each week. My professor has managed to come to all eight of our classes wearing sweaters with holes in them, and trousers with broken zippers. I can understand the sweater thing; maybe he just needs to buy some mouse traps, or some moth balls…but the pants??? Who owns and wears multiple pairs of pants with broken zippers. One of my friends said, that “everyone has a pair of pants like that.” Haha, but you shouldn’t wear them every single day of your life!!

In Indigenous Peoples of Lowland South America we talked about Shamanism and how shamans become jaguars. Then we discussed if a shaman can ever fully become a jaguar. Then we discussed whether a jaguar could ever fully become a human, or just partially become a human. Seriously?!?!....How many of us know people that have turned into jaguars or jaguars that have turned into people? I should have my philosophy of religion professor talk to my anthropology class about a human not being able to become a crocodile, even if he really wanted to be a crocodile!

Here are a couple pictures of some of my favorite people here in Edinburgh, my Christian Union small group, and the Swahili Club. The day after I got back from Paris my small group made dinner, well Naomi and Tim, the leaders, made dinner and the rest of us brought pudding. I didn’t know what pudding was….but thanks to the internet I learned that pudding is the dessert course of a meal. I was inspired after being in Paris and eating so many crepes, so I attempted to make crepes. I’m not going to lie, after completely ruining the first batch and then actually going out and buying measuring cups and starting over, they turned out to be pretty good!

The Swahili Club had a goodbye dinner for one of the members, Sian, because she’s leaving to do PhD work in Antarctica for the next four months. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone that’s gone to Antarctica before! We went to this really good east African restaurant for dinner and had a lot of fun! I’m going to miss these guys!

Well, this blog is getting pretty long, and it’s already all scattered and covers way too much time, so I’m going to end it here and hopefully I’ll be better about blogging for the next few weeks. I’m going to London Thursday night and I’ll be there for the weekend. I’m not sure exactly what we’ll be doing, or what we’ll see, but I’m excited! The first weekend of December I’m going to Inverness, where my flat mate Sammie is from. I’m really looking forward to that! Maybe we will see snow!

This is My Life...

Some people say they’re unlucky or strange things always happen to them, that their life is like Murphy’s Law, but, seriously, mine is! In the 22 years of my life I’ve accumulated lots of great stories because of my luck, the strange things that happen to me, and the dumb things I do, like the time I got pulled over and had my car searched for drugs in Kaufman…in the words of my mom, its just one more life experience. I kind of go through phases where I have particularly bad luck, do embarrassing things, and I think right now is one of those times. I haven’t updated my blog with a regular Edinburgh kind of post in a while, that will be next. These are just a few little things that have happened lately. The first one is a slight repeat, with more detail.

I woke up on Monday morning ready for a busy, sleepless week because I was going to have to write a paper for Comparative Politics by Thursday before leaving for Paris. For some reason, I just decided to look at my Indigenous Peoples of Lowland South America syllabus to see when we were going to have a paper or something due. Well…we DID have a paper due….LAST week! This is my anthropology class that I got into two weeks late, because I was kicked out of my Spanish class. My fourth year anthropology class, in which I’m convinced I’m the only undergraduate student. An anthropology class with graduate students who know about anthropology, and me, who doesn’t know anything about the subject. Well, thankfully after a few seconds of freaking out, I figured out that I could still write the paper, I would just get 25% automatically taken off. So, instead of spending the day working on my politics paper, I would have to write an anthropology paper.

With the commotion of freaking out about my essay, I was almost late to my philosophy of religion class. Class starts at 11:10, it was 10:55, so I grabbed my pea coat off my chair and ran out the door. It takes me more than fifteen minutes to get to class, and even though I’ve been here for awhile now, when I walk really really fast like that, my legs start to get sore and kind of wobbly. I wondered what would happen if I were to just fall over on the sidewalk…I shouldn’t write that…it might actually happen to me! So, I ran into the classroom, only 3 minutes late, not bad, and then saw that there were only two other people there. Oh, yesterday was Sunday…day light savings. I was an hour early to class! But I’ve had worse class related things happen, like when I thought I was really late to class, walked in and found a seat right in the middle of the classroom, while everyone stared. Sat down, got all my books out, and then heard the bell ring, and watched everyone walk out of the classroom, because I had just walked into and sat through the last two minutes of their class period, not mine. But, anyway, since I was an hour early, I decided to go to find a computer and start figuring out what to do for my essay. I went to Appleton tower, where they have a little cafe area and a bunch of computers. I sat down at a computer and threw my backpack and pea coat down on the table. I looked down at my pea coat and thought, hmm…that’s strange, why does the inside of my pea coat look like a towel? Thats odd. Then I looked down at it again...it looks like a towel because it IS a towel! I had left my pink towel resting on my chair, and then put my pea coat over it. In the hurry of being late for class I just grabbed the pea coat and accidently, the towel and ran out the door! This is my life…

Growing up around the equator most of my life, and now being in Texas I have never experienced fall or winter before. I was just reading about the weather in Edinburgh on a travel website and it said the windy rainy weather is perfect for sitting in cozy pubs and little cafes, which may be true…but I have to walk from my flat in the ghastly weather to get to any of these places! For a few days here in Edinburgh I thought I was going to be blown away! And this was about the time my flatmate, Sammy, her sister and a couple other friends and I all decided to go to the zoo. We decided this on a Monday or Tuesday and thought, ok, we’ll go on Saturday. I was looking forward to it all week, because I love going to the zoo! Any zoo! Unless it’s a really cramped, sad zoo. Well, the week ended up being extremely windy and pretty miserable. But since the weather is kind of always like that, we walked down to Princes St. got on the bus and rode to the zoo. There weren’t very many people there, not surprising, but when we got there, the nice lady at the door said the zoo had been closed! Just our luck, we went all the way there and it was closed…so we looked around the gift shop and took a picture with the giant fuzzy penguin. We did end up going to Dynamic Earth, a really big science museum, it was fun…but I’d still like to go to the zoo. I bet by now most of the animal’s area about to start hibernating.

Also, during this extremely period I went to my Swahili club meeting, we meet on the 11th floor of David Hume Tower. There were signed in the building that said “evacuate in case of high winds.” How are we supposed to know what “high winds” are? When the building is falling over? Someone said it was because the building was poorly constructed, so something could happen to it in high winds. Someone else said the building had asbestos, and the wind could get it all stirred up in the air. I’m not sure which one I prefer to believe. Especially considering that people said the library also has asbestos, and that’s the reason its always so warm in the library, because they can’t have any kind of air ventilation blowing asbestos around the building.
This isn’t a picture or asbestos, but its mold that’s been growing above our shower, I don’t think it’s that harmful, but someone did finally come to scrape it off and paint over it last week.

My first year in college I only lived 40 minutes away from home, so I always went home to do my laundry. Since being at Baylor I’ve done laundry in the really nice residence halls, where its free, and during the summer when there is no one else you have to wait on to finish or who might steal your laundry. Well, now I’m kind of reliving freshmen year, we have a laundry room here, that uses tokens, that you have to go buy from the main office, which is not at all close. The washing machines are tiny, like everything else, and maybe they’re trying to save energy with the dryers because they don’t actually dry things. Last week I needed to do all my laundry, and this is what my room ended up looking like….they do have this really good invention, a clothes drying rack, haha, maybe I should invest in one of those…no…I’ll probably only do laundry two more time before I leave, Febreeze is a wonderful invention as well.

I had a philosophy paper due last Monday, a week after getting back from Paris. I didn’t really work on it during the week, it was the week of the elections and Guy Fox day, and just hanging out with friends. But I’ve written many a paper in less than 48 hours so, when I started researching on Friday I was pretty proud of myself. I was trying to make up for completely messing up on my anthropology paper. So, I researched online Friday, and went to the library on Saturday. I go to the library and started searching for my philosophy books, only to find out that they were in three different libraries spread out around the city. So, I thought, most of the books are at the Philosophy library, so I’ll start there. You have to have a special code to get into the building on weekends, which apparently I have, but it wouldn’t let me in. I could see people inside sitting around talking, looking at me weird…but no one would come let me in….thanks guys, I know I look like a real scary kind of person who would try to vandalize the philosophy library. So, from there I walked all the way to the New College, only to find out it is closed on weekends. How was I supposed to know that everything in the university closes on weekends? A university with thousands and thousands of students who are writing papers and researching, closes it’s buildings and libraries on the weekend? So I went back to the main library to get some books from the Special collection, oh wait, the special collection is closed to. So, I ended up getting books from the main library that weren’t really exactly what I wanted or needed, but at least I was going to hand my paper in on time, not five days late.

So, these are just a few little things that have been happening. :-) But besides the bad weather and my usual strange luck...life is good and I'm still enjoying Scotland! Thanksgiving is in a couple weeks, this will be my third Thanksgiving to be away from my family, but it should be good. I think I'm actually going to be celebrating twice! Now the trick will be trying to find all the ingredients for Sweet Potato Crunch and Watergate Salad! After Thanksgiving I go to London! oh, and I'll be trying to write essays over the next couple weeks too!

Paris, I will miss you! Day 3

Sorry it’s taken me awhile to finally get this blog up, but please forgive me; the essay writing seems to be endless.

Day 3 in Paris was just as amazing as the first two days were. Katie and I woke up early and were ready for the day. Admission to the Louvre is free the first Sunday of the month, and what do you know, that’s when we were there! We had spent a little bit of time at the Louvre on Friday night but I wanted to go back, and there were some really pretty parts of the museum that I wanted to show Katie. We left our not so nice hostel, got on the metro and went towards the Louvre. We stopped to get chocolate croissants and hot chocolate at a little café next to the Seine. I don’t really ever order hot chocolate or eat croissants, but they were pretty amazing in Paris.

A couple things that Katie and I constantly wonder about being in Europe/ the UK, almost any time we’re in a restaurant or café, it’s unclear weather customers are supposed to pay at the table, ask for the bill, wait for the bill, go up to the bar or find the cash register. Really, we never know what to do. Also, we haven’t decided what side of the sidewalk and stairwell you’re supposed to walk on. In the UK if people drive on the left side of the road, are you supposed to walk on the left side of the sidewalk? But there are British people all over the rest of Europe and people from all over the world in the UK, so really, it makes for lots of awkward dodging moments when passing people on the sidewalk.

Well, anyway, after sitting for a long time trying to decide how we were supposed to pay for our breakfast we made it to the Louvre. There is so much to see and everything is so beautiful, three days in Paris is just not enough time. Our flight was leaving that night, and we had a full day planned out so we couldn’t stay at the Louvre for too long.

(The Louvre)
My friend, Cole, told me about a walk that would be really nice from the Louvre, through the Tuileries Gardens, past the Place de la Concorde, down the Champs Elysees, to the Arc de Triomphe. Cole is the expert on France and the walk sounded perfect. Saturday in Paris had been rainy and dreary, but day three was beautiful, it wasn’t too cold and the sky was clear and blue! What a perfect day to be walking around the city.
(Jardin Des Tuileries)
The Tuileries Gardens were beautiful, I’m sure in the spring or summer they would be much more impressive, but with statues, fountains, ponds, ducks, and little cafes throughout the garden, and the Louvre off in the background I think it’s beautiful at any time of the year! After sitting by a fountain and watching the ducks and some seagull looking birds for a little while we went on to the Place de la Concorde, oh, but on the way, we found a little place to get crepes, so, of course we stopped.
(Yummy Crepes)
All of a sudden we found ourselves at an intersection, the Obélisque de Luxor in front of us, two ornate gold plated fountains on both sides, and beautiful buildings in all directions. I didn’t know where to start or what to look at first. Unfortunately, at the time, I didn’t know the significance of everything we were seeing, and since, surprise...all the signs for monuments and buildings were in French, I could only grasp general ideas of what things were. We found a placard on the ground and decided that this must have been the place where Marie Antoinette and Henry the XVI were executed. Once again, my international studies nerdyness came out a little, and I was in awe of everything, and now that I actually know that everything was, I think it’ even cooler. So, here’s a tiny history lesson, thanks to the wonderful Internet.
"The square was completed in 1763. It is actually in the shape of an octagon, and was once bordered by large moats which no longer exist. Several decades after its construction, this square was to serve as a focal point for the bloodiest political upheaval in the history of France: the French Revolution. When the hordes of revolutionaries seized power, they renamed the square Place de la Revolution, tore down the statue of Louis XV and replaced it with a guillotine. Between 1793 and 1795, more than 1300 people were beheaded in public executions, including Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Danton and Robespierre. Supplanting the guillotine is the powerful Obelisk of Luxor, a pink granite monolith that was given to the French in 1829 by the viceroy of Egypt, Mehemet Ali. The edifice, which once marked the entrance to the Amon temple at Luxor, is more than 3,300 years old and is decorated with hieroglyphics portraying the reigns of the pharaohs Ramses II and Ramses III. Gilded images on the pedestal portray the monumental task of transporting the monolith to Paris and erecting it at the square. Installed in 1833, the Obelisk — weighing 230 tons and standing 22.83 meters (75 ft) high in the center of the Place."

From there we walked down the Champs Elysees, where there are lots of expensive looking stores, but its fun to look in the window, we looked in the Louis Vuitton window and I don’t think there was anything under 700 Euros, that’s like $900, crazy! As we walked closer to the Arc de Triomphe we could see that there were little tiny people (well they just looked little tiny from far away) on the top of the Arc de Triomphe. I didn’t even know that there was anything on top or inside of the Arc de Triomphe; I just thought people went to look at it from the ground. Lucky for us, admission was free there too! So, we hurried up the really long winding stair case all the way to the top. Winding staircases seem to be really popular in Europe....maybe because they take up less space? When we were walking up the stairs we passed two American couples, they sounded Southern…I wanted to ask where they were from, but I decided being in Paris, maybe I shouldn’t bring extra attention to a bunch of American’s.

I am however, still searching to find someone, anyone, in all of Europe and the UK from Texas, but not from Baylor. haha. Maybe I should get those flag patches to put on my backpack. I could have Texas, Kenya, Tanzania, Ecuador, and Maybe Scotland, and maybe the US….hmm….that might be kind of tacky. I don’t know. Anyway, from the Arc de Triomphe it seemed like I could see the whole city. But I knew that this would be nothing compared to the Eiffel Tower. We only stayed at the top of the Arc de Triomphe for about ten minutes because we still had to get to the Eiffel Tower and we didn’t know how long we’d have to wait in line!
(View from the Arc de Triomphe)
We took a metro to a stop close to the Eiffel tower and stopped at a little place on the side of the street to grab something quick for lunch. The man working at the stand had really good English and I guess he heard me talking because he knew I was American. He told Katie she looked French, and she said, she was definitely not French and she could only speak a little bit of French. Then he clarified, no, “I said you looked French, not that you spoke French,” but he didn’t really sound like he was joking about it....we both ordered hot dogs, I don’t know why, but it sounded good. Katie said that hot dogs and sausages were apparently pretty popular in France, but then after thinking about it for a second, decided that maybe they were just trying to cater to the American tourists. When he handed us the hot dogs, he said “for the French first, for the American last.” So, in all, I was muttered at by an angry old lady with dogs, bothered by a weird guy who couldn’t take a hint and yelled at by a crazy Rastafarian man. And this seemed fitting, “for the American last.” But really, I felt welcomed and that people were friendly almost all of the time in Paris.

We went to get in line at the Eiffel tower, there were people everywhere, standing in different lines, and we didn’t know where to go. We got in one of the lines and hoped it was the right one. I thought we might have to wait for hours to get in, like waiting for the Batman ride at six flags. But it actually wasn’t that bad, I think we waited for about 45 minutes to buy our tickets. Then we figured out what the different lines were for, each side of the tower has a different line, so people can go up different sides of the tower at the same time. It just so happened that the side that we were on, was the side with an elevator! Hey, I mean, I try not to be lazy, but I wasn’t going to complain about riding an elevator up 337 feet instead of walking. The elevator kind of shot us up to the 2nd level; it was a strange feeling, like being on a roller coaster when it’s climbing up to the top just before it sends you flying down the tracks. I kept reminding myself, I’ve never heard of an elevator dropping at the Eiffel tower. Six flags on the other hand, yikes….their record isn’t so good. The 2nd level, at 337 feet already seemed really high, but we were going to keep going!

We got on another elevator and again, quickly glided to the top, it was kind of a strange feeling, being crammed into a little glass elevator with a bunch of people, all speaking different languages, but as we were getting closer to the top, everyone was just amazed, and no one was saying anything. It was kind of like being in the clouds. We got out at the top, and this was officially the highest man made structure I had ever been to the top of at 899 feet! I noticed, before we went up, that there were lots of giant pigeons waddling around, and wondered if they could make it up to the top of the Eiffel tower. I was on the lookout, but I didn’t spot any pigeons, a guy did spit off the top though, some people………I walked all the way around the deck, looking at all the places we had been, it was really cool. I did make a mental note though, “remember to tell Dad he should probably never go to the top of the Eiffel tower…or probably even the 2nd level.”
(It was homecoming weekend at Baylor so I did a Sic 'Em)
For most of the day, it had been really nice, but now it was starting to get a little windy and cold. We decided we should probably work our way back to the ground and continue with our day. Since we were both freezing we thought, first thing stop to get something hot to drink, preferably somewhere where we can get one last crepe, next go to a gift shop, and be at the metro stop by 6:30 to get to the bus stop by 7:00. This was our brilliant plan, to make it to the bus stop at 7:00 even though we really didn’t have the slightest clue what time the buses left for the airport.

We wandered around for awhile trying to find a somewhat inexpensive café with crepes…didn’t happen. So we settled on just a hot drink. We were doing alright on time, but we had kind of roamed farther away from the Eiffel tower than we thought we had, and of course every ten feet I wanted to stop and take another picture. Probably mostly because of my dilly dallying we found ourselves at the Eiffel tower with fifteen minutes to stop at a tourist shop, get crepes, buy metro tickets and get to the metro. We were going to accomplish everything and make it in time; I have positivity and self-assurance (a strengths reference for all my Baylor friends.)

So, we basically ran the whole way, I stopped at a tourist shop and Katie went to buy crepes. I caught up with her, she was still in line so I ran to buy metro tickets, oh no, where’s the ticket booth?!? What I have to use a machine, I don’t know how to do this?? But I did it, and ran back to find Katie, but she wasn’t at the crepe stand or by the metro. Ok, I’ll call her, what?!? I can’t call a UK number in France? But she could call me, we found each other and everything was ok! We had 20 minutes to make it to the bus stop…as we were getting off the metro we saw people with luggage running, so we followed them, it was like a race to the bus stop. We got there and got in line to buy our tickets only to find out that the bus for our flight wasn’t leaving for another hour! After all that….but at least we hadn’t completely missed the bus or anything tragic like that. We ended up just getting on an earlier bus to the airport with a tour group from Spain, going back to Barcelona.

Oh, I almost forgot, or maybe I’m trying to repress the scary memory…on our flight back to Scotland everything was going fine. We were greeted in English by the friendly flight attendant, and I thought, gosh how do they always know I speak English?!? And then I realized she was Scottish, opps. They played the weird Ryanair carnival sounding music and we were off. (here’s a YouTube link if you want to hear the Ryanair song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lZEVFACYAc&feature=related

The pilot sounded like he was in a hurry, but sounded pretty upbeat, He said we were going to land in about 20 minutes. Do people race planes, like they do with cars and greyhounds? Because I think Ryanair does! Everything was just fine, and then all of a sudden the plane started shaking, not just a little bit, a lot! Then the pilot got on, and quickly, but in a frightened kind of way, said, “flight attendants, take your seats.” I’ve experienced bad turbulence before, and I never like it, but this was really much worse than I’ve experienced before, and it just kept going. I just closed my eyes, prayed and sang myself a little song in my head. But obviously, we made it. Everybody was kind of shaken up, like literally people were shaking, but it was ok. And then I saw the slogan for the Prestwick Airport… “Pure Dead Brilliant” Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t really want to see the word dead in any context at the airport, especially after that kind of a flight. The bus ride to Edinburgh was about an hour and a half. I fell asleep as we were pulling away from the airport, and the next thing I knew we were back in Edinburgh.

It had been a good day, and a weekend I’ll never forget! Almost everywhere I go, I like, and want to go back, but I really, really hope I get to go back to Paris and the rest of France, maybe I’ll try to learn some French.

My next trip will be to London at the End of November. It should be different because I won’t be staying in sketchy hostels, I’ll be staying with the May’s, my friend Courtney’s family, that I’ve known since I was nine. I’m excited to see them and to go to London. I went a couple of years ago on the way to Kenya, but I was with a group of eighteen loud, singing Americans. I’ll be nice to experience the city a little more on my own. And hey, now that Obama is president, maybe they’ll be a little nicer to Americans.

Day Two: Perfect!

Today was our first full day in Paris and after a good nights rest we were ready to go!

The hotel we stayed out was really nice and even had free breakfast! I think chocolate spread is popular in France, it was right there with the jam and honey next to the croissants. I have no problem with chocolate for breakfast. Our schedule for today was Saint Chappelle, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Montmartre and the Moulin Rouge. The metro system in Paris was great; it really made things so easy! As soon as we walked up the stairs from the metro stop we were surrounded by beautiful buildings and cute little café’s on every corner. Right in front of us was Saint Chappelle, so that’s where we started. I didn’t know what it looked like; it was just one of the suggested places to go. When we walked in side my breath was literally taken away and almost brought tears to my eyes, I feel a little weird saying that, but that’s really how beautiful it was. A cathedral completely covered in stain glass windows. This was only the first stop; we walked outside and found the Palace de Justice with the words Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite written on the outside of it. I thought about how perfect it was that I was in Paris after just finishing my paper about democratization and using the French revolution as an example.

We went off to Notre Dame and ended up getting there right in time for mass. We walked around and we completely amazed, once again, by how beautiful it was. We decided to sit while mass was going on, the choir and organ were beautiful. How cool is it to be able to go to mass in Notre Dame? I didn’t really know what was going on because it was all in French and I’m not catholic…but it was still a great experience.

It ended up raining most of the day, but thankfully for us, coming from Scotland we were used to it! Everywhere we went people kept saying, oh, it’s really too bad that the weather is so bad this weekend. But the past two weeks in Scotland had been pretty absolutely miserable, wind that could literally knock an old man down, rainy, cold, oh and now it gets dark by 5, great…so a little drizzle in Paris was nothing!

We found a little café to get lunch in. The café was empty which didn’t seem like a good sign, but it was also cheap! I think every little café and restaurant I saw in Paris was nicely decorated and really cute, even this one that didn’t look like it should be particularly nice. We got ham and cheese sandwiches, but they melted the cheese on the outside of the bread. It was probably a heart attack waiting to happen, but it was really good. Our motto for the weekend was, “hey, how many times are you in Paris?” Meaning we ate a lot of cheesy things and a lot of chocolate things.

In the afternoon we went to check into our new hostel, Friends Hostel. It was definitely not as nice as the stayed the night before, as soon as we stepped off at the Metro stop I clutched onto my purse extra hard, tried to look a little intimidating and walked through a swarm of people speaking all different languages past an open air market and made it to the hostel. From there we walked about twenty minutes to Montmartre to find the Sacre Coeur. Walking through this part of Paris was definitely different than where we had been before, but I liked it, it was kind of run down, and kind of shady, kind of felt a little like home :-) wherever that is. When we got to the Sacre Coeur something else happened that I think was a little unnerving to Katie, but for me, again…possibly made me feel a little at home. We walked up the steps to the grassy area to begin our hike up to the Sacre Coeur and there were all of these men selling necklaces. We were ignoring them, but they kept talking to us and when we didn’t respond, one of them, who was apparently Jamaican started yelling at us about Jamaica and black power and telling us that Jesus was a black man. Then he said something about stupid Americans, we hadn’t even said a word, how did he know we were American?

The Sacre Coure was, just like everything else, beautiful. The view from the top of the hill, from the Sacre Coure was great; we could see what seemed like all of Paris, except I still hadn’t actually seen the Eiffel Tower yet. We went from there to the streets of Montmartre. According to Wikipedia many artists had studios or worked around the community of Montmartre such as Salvador Dalí, Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh. There are still artists who paint and will draw sketches of tourists on the street. There were lots of little shops, cafes and art museums, and crepes! We stopped and bought crepes with nutella (chocolate spread) and looked through all the shops.

When we were walking though Montmartre we passed a Mime on the street, but he wasn’t a very good mime, or a very nice mime. Obviously, I like to take pictures, so I wanted a picture of the mime. I thought 10 cents would be enough to donate to his cause; he didn’t look like he was too desperate for money. He was not happy with my 10 cents and made an ugly face, but that made me mad, so I didn’t give him any more money!

My friend Cole, who spent last spring in France told me that I had to go find the Moulin Rouge, so that was our next stop. We walked through a pretty…interesting…part of town to get to the Moulin Rouge, but I think it was worth it, its part of the history of Paris, right?

I had been in Paris for almost two days and I still hadn’t seen the Eiffel Tower or the real Arc de Triomphe, so after dinner we went to find them! I would say they were both more impressive in person than in photographs. At night the Eiffel Tower is lit up with blue lights and on the hour it twinkles like a Christmas tree!

After walking around for a long time and feeling very tired from our full day we headed back to our hostel. We were staying in a four person room, which meant we would have two roommates. When we got back to the room it turned out a guy from Pennsylvania teaching English in France was staying in our room. It was fun to hear about France from an American who had been spending time with French high schoolers in a different part of the country. He told us two days was definitely not long enough to be in Paris and that we had to come back again, it was a nice idea, but I lack the funds and time. He also told us that we were very brave to be travelling around Europe on our own, he said, “you’re really brave, even to be here right now.”(Referring to our hostel in the slightly sketchy part of town.) Our fourth roommate still hadn’t appeared, and as the three of us got ready to go to sleep we joked about being annoying and snoring, but all assured each other we were quiet sleepers. Well, at about 3:30 in the morning, the fourth roommate made himself known! His snoring sounded like a chainsaw, it took a lot of prayer and self restraint not to throw something at him! After at least an hour I finally fell asleep. So, reminder for the next hostel I say in, bring earplugs!