All I want for Christmas

Well, I'm sure you all know by this point, but I did make it home safely yesterday, around 1:30 pm, after successfully making none of my connections.  It was a really, really, really long day.  On the four-hour Newark-Denver flight I was stuck next to an enormous man (not fat, just BIG) who, in spite of the armrest, couldn't keep to his own seat.  So I was trying to sleep scrunched over to the other side, half on top of the guy who was reading a book about how twenty-something white chicks are, as a whole, the worst thing happening to this nation.  The first guy also, after drinking vodka and orange juice with his breakfast, started giving me advice on everything I was doing, including getting my carryon bag under the seat (sir, I cannot tell you how many times I have managed this all by myself) and making my connection.  That last bit turned out to be useless, because they had simply booked my flights too close together, so I missed the connection and had a two-hour layover in Denver.  Which was fine, because it gave me time to convert my poor useless ££ to $$ and buy a toothbrush and brush my teeth for the first time in a day and a half.  (Forgot mine in Edinburgh.  Fail.  Of all the things to leave.)  But I made it on the next flight and got home.

The money conversion was kind of funny.  The lady insisted that while my coins were British pounds, the notes were Scottish pounds, and therefore she couldn't convert them together and would have to charge me separate conversion fees.  I wasn't going to argue with her at that point in my day, but I had to laugh.  Really??  I'm pretty sure Scotland is Britain.  Nice try, hon.

Also: it turns out that not twenty minutes after I left Newark, there was a bomb scare and they evacuated an entire terminal.  Not my terminal, but I'm still INCREDIBLY glad I made it out of there before then.  It turned out to be a boxed computer monitor delivered (legitimately) to an American Airlines ticket counter that was emitting small amounts of radioactivity.  Win.

But anyway.  This European snow thing is turning out to be truly a nightmare.  The more I read the news and other students' Facebook statuses, the more I'm realizing how lucky it was that I got out on Sunday.  Thursday is the day they've told a lot of people, but flights are still being cancelled, and one American girl I was in Edinburgh with is stuck until Christmas.  My heart goes out to them.  By the end of the semester we're all so incredibly ready to just go home, and to be denied that is - while clearly not the worst thing that could possibly happen - really, really tough.  So all I want for Christmas is for everyone in Edinburgh to get home safely and soon.

So...I'm home safely, and this is blog post #80.  That seems like a good number to end on.  As for requests to continue blogging now that I'm home...we'll see.  :)  For now, thank you, thank you, thank you all for your support and prayers.  It was the best semester I could possibly have asked for.  I can't wait to be back at WashU in the spring, and I can't wait to be with all of you in person (wherever you are) and tell you about my adventures and hear about yours.  Merry Christmas!

All my love,
Melody

Chasing the sunset, or running away from the snowstorm

Here's how this morning went.

Edinburgh: Oooh look a snowflake.
Me: That's nice.  Let's focus on getting off the ground.
Edinburgh: You know, we're basically the last major airport open in Europe.
Me: Peer pressure.  Resist it.
Edinburgh: I see another snowflake.  There's like three now.  Maybe we should...
Me: Don't even think about it...
Edinburgh: Airport closed.
Me: NO!!!

Yes.  They closed the airport.  While I was ON the plane.  We had literally just been cleared for takeoff and Edinburgh was like, oops, sorry, just kidding, we're closing until 2:30 at least.  Wonderful.  So I sat in the airport for four hours having a mild panic attack watching the snow fall.  (1.5 hours of sleep does horror to your nerves.)  Half my friends in Edinburgh had had their flights closed indefinitely already, whether because of Heathrow or other connection places, and I REALLY did not want to join the growing number of American students stuck in Edinburgh until at least Thursday.  Fortunately, however, 2:30 came, the snow had paused, the snowplows were actually diligent in doing their job, and before Edinburgh could change its mind our flight crew hustled us onto the plane and we were the first flight out.

By the time we made it to Newark, I had gotten a little more sleep and was slightly less prone to crying/flipping out.  So the fact that I had missed my connections, along with all other flights to Denver for the night, and that I'd probably have to spend the night on an airport bench in New Jersey, was kind of whatever.  BUT.  In a highly unexpected show of American airline kindness, the lady at the desk gave me, in addition to the first flight out tomorrow, not only a hotel voucher but also free meals tonight and tomorrow morning.

So as I write this, I'm chilling on my own massive bed at the Ramada in Newark.  I've never stayed in a hotel by myself before.  I'm kind of having a party.  On the way over from the airport, I met a really sweet British-American girl from my Edinburgh flight who also got stranded, so we ate our complimentary hotel grill dinners together, which was much nicer than eating alone.  :)

Flight out at 7 in the morning, home by noon-ish.  Yay.

Love,
Melody

Dear Dad,

I don't know how you managed to fly me home without routing through London or even why it occurred to you to do so.  But I'm so, so grateful.  London Heathrow is closed now, causing thousands of delays and cancellations and disappointed people, but more relevantly leaving hundreds of my fellow abroad students stranded here in Edinburgh.  But as of now, ten hours before my flight leaves, my safe and snowless departure to the States directly from Edinburgh is GO.  Thanks for being amazing at flight-booking.  See you tomorrow night.  Love you.

Melody

Final hours

Today is my LAST DAY in Edinburgh.  Yiiiiikes.  It's so weird - I can't believe an entire semester has gone by.  I can't wait to sit in the airport and read all of my blog posts from beginning to end - WOW so much has happened.  But it ain't over till it's over - I still have one more day.

Margaret's brother is here, and my fellow American is gone.  Our flat is overrun by Canadians.  O_O  Aboot.

Yesterday I went Christmas present shopping, with moderate success.  Another American girl came over, and she, Tina and I made sugar cookies.  Then Tina created the most incredible German Christmas dinner imaginable.  Wow.  We had soup to start (my contribution), and then venison (!!!) and dumplings and red cabbage and cranberry sauce (all different dishes).  Food coma.  And then we had a packing extravaganza.  And by we I mean me, actually.

Today I'm having brunch with a couple of WashU people, hopefully stopping in to Parliament since I still haven't, catching one last view from Calton Hill, and doing some final Christmas shopping.  My plan is to sleep like four hours tonight, so I can nap on the plane rides tomorrow (TOMORROW!!!).  Fish and chips at midnight, anyone?  Awww yeah.

EXCELLENT NEWS: We have had not a single centimeter of snow accumulation.  It flurried a little bit Thursday morning, freaking us all out, but nothing since then.  Nothing.  Not a flake.  Did I say God is awesome?  Oh yeah, that's right.  He's awesome.

Summary, continued.

Favorite feeling #1: Walking down the streets of Edinburgh (and London and Paris, for that matter) and feeling, while obviously far from high-fashion, well stylish enough for Europe.  Putting on my new coat and having Tina tell me I looked very European.  Spending a whole semester being relatively well-dressed every single day.  (That is, until the arrival, on Wednesday, of a UofE hoodie that I got for free for becoming an 'international student ambassador'.  I haven't worn a sweatshirt all semester, and so I've pretty much been wearing this one constantly for the past three days.  I missed hoodies.)

Lesson I've Learned #3: There's no place like home.  I've never been the most incredibly patriotic person, and coming out of the States I was prepared for a little bit of America-bashing by others, and I wasn't sure I'd argue.  I was so ready to see this incredible outside world, in every way so much better than the States.  But you know what?  It isn't so much better.  There are things that I love here, but there are also things that I miss that I never thought I would.  (Snow shovels, for example.)  And having now had America bashed to my face on several occasions, honestly, I am sick of it.  That's my country, thanks very much.  And I'm honestly a little fond of it, problems and all.  And I really can't wait to get back.

Lesson I've Learned #4: Normal is relative.  It's all a matter of being used to something or not.  Things that I thought were SO CRAZY coming over here I now can't imagine being different.  (Cars driving on the left side of the road, for example.  It's going to take me a good number of tries to look the right way when crossing the street when I get home.)  I've had maybe a day or two recently where I went - oh my gosh I'm in SCOTLAND - but for the most part, it's pretty much just normal.  It's kind of funny now when someone from home says something to the extent of OMG I can't believe you're in SCOTLAND, that's so crazy, it must be awesome.  Yup, I'm in Scotland, I have a flat and friends and stuff and a life.  It is in fact awesome, but it's pretty much normal.

Lesson I've Learned #5: Edinburgh is the best city in the world.  Period.  I love it.  I'm going to miss it.  I'm so happy I have friends here.  I can't wait to come back.

But right now, I can't wait to go.  42 hours to home.

Love,
Melody

Exams OVER!!

YES THEY'RE DONE!!!!  I'm so happy.  So, so happy.  I had my exam this morning...it wasn't incredible, but I actually had fun writing the three mini-essays.  The questions were more fact-based than I was ready for, but I knew enough to write decent essays on a sufficient number of them.  I'm certain that I passed, and that's all that was necessary.

I just discovered how to take out my laptop battery while I have the computer plugged in, so as not to wear the battery out.  That's a win.

4 days, kids.

Love,
Melody

Best discovery of the day: BBC has entirely wiped snow off the weekend's forecast.  Not to be too prematurely optimistic, but God is awesome.  Keep praying.

Second best discovery of the day: I have to get exactly a 19% on tomorrow's exam to pass the class.

Also: I have a schedule for my final days here.  Tomorrow: exam, then hang out randomly around Edinburgh with a girl from small group (who's Northern Irish and I love her).  Thursday: Glasgow!  Surprise final trip!  Friday: cook a German Christmas dinner with my most favoritest German flatmate + teach her how to make sugar cookies.  Saturday: pack!  Eat lots of Scottish junk food!  Cry!  Stay up half the night being ridiculous!

So that's the plan.

So very, very close...

I turned in my essays yesterday!!  It was literally the most freeing feeling ever.  Last philosophy essays EVER, everyone.  And I actually enjoyed it a little.  I had a real argument in both of them, they were interesting, and I think I made my point.  Made it to the word count without any problem, and turned them in a full two hours early.  I may have skipped a little walking away from that building.  So now I'm left with my single final exam tomorrow - Scottish Studies.  I'm incredibly not excited, but really not worried, either.  Because then I will be DONE!!  And I am ready to be done, and to come home.

I'm actually really worried about getting home, though.  Sources differ about the amount of snow that's going to fall this weekend (Weather.com says 'light', BBC says 'heavy'.  This could actually just be a difference in opinion about the same amount of snow.  I believe Weather.com, but I'm worried by BBC's assessment because their kind are the ones deciding whether or not the airport stays open.), but there's a definite consensus that there will be snow falling beginning Thursday and potentially not stopping until next Wednesday.  I have little doubt that I will make it home for Christmas, but please, please pray that I get out of here Sunday morning.  That would just simplify things a LOT.  But no matter what, I just want to get home safely, if that means Sunday or Tuesday or next Friday.

Last night was my final small group of the semester!!  :(  It was really sad.  I'm going to miss everyone a lot.  But it was a fun time - we had a secret Santa gift exchange, the condition being the item had to cost less than a pound.  I put in two Chronicles of Narnia books (score from the charity shops) and got a Rubik's cube.  (It's going to be my entertainment for the trip home.  It's literally going to take me that long to solve it.)  We played some awesome games, and then for the Americans going home they had a picture of our small group from the night we went to the 'oldest pub in Scotland', and everyone wrote the sweetest notes on the back.

Now, continuing what I started a few days ago...

Lesson I've Learned #2: Prioritize
Being in Europe on a really limited budget has been a great experience.  No, seriously, it has.  Obviously, having endless money would have been awesome, but I've really learned some stuff.  Quality is totally what you make of it.  I've spent the semester shopping primarily at Lidl, the mildly dodgy German discount food store, but despite the fact that sometimes the instructions on the couscous are in languages I don't read and that the deodorant is only 69p (how can anyone make actual deodorant that cheaply??), none of it has failed me yet.  On the scale of life importance, Paris is rather high and American-brand hair products are pretty darn low.

Love,
Melody

Sweet tooth

On the way back from church today, for whatever reason, we were discussing British sweets and chocolates.  Not being a regular candy-bar-eating type, I haven't really tried anything they have over here.  My friends were dumbfounded.  So, naturally, we had to go to Tesco to begin my chocolate bar education.  Result:

SO MUCH CHOCOLATE.  So now I have before me the daunting task of consuming these candy bars.  Given the amount of time I have left, that is more than one a day.  I'm definitely going to call my flatmates in to help me on this one.

My first go was the Mars bar.  It gets a lot of hype around here (particularly with the Edinburgh delicacy, fried Mars bars...whether or not I try that before leaving remains to be determined...), so I thought I'd start with that.  It's basically our Milky Way (hence the presence of a Milky Way bar as well - it's something different here), only with British chocolate.  (Which is only slightly different.)  So, it's got chocolate nougat covered in caramel surrounded by chocolate.  It's ridiculously sweet and tastes a little bit malty.  Not quite my thing.  But now I've had it.

Woah.  I've just started looking up candy bar definitions on Wikipedia and now know more than I needed to about the origins, compositions, and similarities of numerous different US and UK chocolate bars.  This must stop.  I might fill you in later.  But being now totally sugar-hyped, I must go finish my essays.    O_O

Love,
Melody

When snow is a national crisis

It's official.  Scotland can't handle this.

Proof:

1) I saw someone shovelling snow with basically a camping shovel yesterday.  Actually, that's really the biggest thing I've seen anyone shovelling snow with.

2) The highway between Glasgow and Edinburgh has been closed for days, and the number of abandoned vehicles is in the hundreds.

3) Because of 2, the grocery stores are literally running out of food.

4) The sidewalks are totally treacherous because the snow has slightly melted, been compacted by foot traffic, and then re-frozen, creating perfect ice-skating conditions.

5) Salt, anyone?  Nope, just sand.  (Arguably the cause of 2 - apparently we have already used two months' supply of 'grit' and can no longer spare any more.)

6) They're calling in the Army to shovel the snow.  To be reinforced later by the Navy and RAF.

7) It's going to be warmer today and tomorrow.  Which should be great, because the snow is melting...but now they're issuing warnings about cracking/bursting pipes because of the massive lack of insulation anywhere.


Lol.

Keep calm and fake a British accent...or not

Ten.  (Days, that is.)

I'm in the middle of frantically writing a zillion pages of philosophy essays.  But I decided to take an M&M break and write something meaningful.

I read somewhere once that when writing travel stories, you're not supposed to neatly sum up your experiences for the reader.  No "this is what I learned" or "and that's why I loved it."  It kills the drama, or something like that.  Well, whatever.  I'm going to spend my last few days here thinking back over the awesome things I got out of studying abroad and telling you allll my favorite things about Scotland.  That way you'll have something mildly entertaining (or at least mostly non-educational) to read as a neat distraction from studying for finals, and I'll realize how much I appreciate Scotland while I'm still here.  How bout that.

Lesson I Learned #1: American accents aren't as bad as all that.  When I first got here, I was so humiliated by my accent you could barely get me to speak.  I was so ready to pick up a Scottish accent I couldn't stand it.  The first thing I realized was that no one was falling for it.  My attempts at Scots were just pathetic.  But the second thing I realized was that there is still something of a society class system in the UK, and the most immediately telling factor is your accent.  Parents send their children to private schools to get rid of standout accents.  Brits can pinpoint each other's accents in seconds, down to cities, with no trouble.  Stereotypes rage.  And I'm free from all that.  Of course, an American accent comes with all its own judgment, but it's mostly in jest, and my hometown, upbringing and educational background are my own secrets to tell.  Of course, it still shocks me a little to hear my own harsh consonants and slurred vowels.  Also, Americans are loud.  But if I keep my voice to a reasonable volume, round my o's a little more and lose a few "like"s, no one gives me a second glance.

(Also: British people are just as bad at imitating American accents as we are at faking theirs.  Example: at small group the other night, we sang happy birthday to a couple of people; however, since we'd all had too much a little bit of sugar we decided to all sing it in opposite accents.  The Americans all did relatively well, although we all had "posh London accents".  British American went something like this: "Hayyyuuppee burrrrrthdeeeeee tewwww yewwwwww...")

Love,
Melody

Making merry

Classes are over!!  I'm very pleased.  :)  I have two weeks, and in those two weeks I need to write two 3000-word essays, study for one exam, and see the rest of Edinburgh that somehow I have managed not to see yet - basically all of the museums, plus Parliament and a couple of other randos.  I've already been to the German Christmas Market twice, but I'll probably also go back to that again at least once.  It's delightful!  There's a "Winter Wonderland" portion as well, with carnival-type rides and an ice skating rink, but the market itself is my favorite part.  It's made of all these really, really cute little wooden huts, half of which sell food - all German-type stuff, sausage and pretzels and strudels and mulled wine/etc. - and the other half with tons of little kitschy trinkety things.  SO CUTE.  The last time I went it was snowing, and it was so nice.  Obviously I've been snowed on before, but this time it was just all this snow falling gently from the sky, not blasting into my face à la Dakota winters.  It was perfect.

Last night I sang in a carol service!  It was put on by the Christian Unions from all the uni's in Edinburgh and held in a beautiful old Church of Scotland parish church.  We were a proper little choir and orchestra - we had two rehearsals beforehand, and I think we actually sounded quite good.  (The audience sang along too, of course.)  It was so much fun.    I knew most of the carols already, but some were different (e.g. "O Little Town of Bethlehem" had an entirely different melody) and some I had never heard (e.g. "Once in Royal David's City", which I now sort of love).  All my flatmates came to watch.  Heart them.  And then we came home and baked Christmas cookies afterwards.  :)

Best luck on everyone's finals and whatever else.  Miss you!

Love,
Melody

London calling

Happy St. Andrew's Day!

Final trip of the semester!  London was lovely.  Tina and I went down Friday afternoon via train.  We were serenaded for the first two hours or so by a group of increasingly wasted 30-somethings, but fortunately they got off at Newcastle, leaving us in peace.  We arrived safely at London King's Cross, and after an unsuccessful attempt to see Platform 9 3/4 (it's actually there now, complete with a luggage cart half-stuck in the wall), made our way onto the famous Underground.  Our hostel was in South Kensington, a really, really nice area of the city, particularly for a hostel - it's home to a bunch of international embassies as well as the Natural History Museum.  We were quite pleased.  So after a short break, we went to Hyde Park, where they were holding a German Christmas market.  It turned out to be quite disappointing - German Christmas markets, according to Tina the German, are supposed to have lots of little stalls selling Christmasy trinkets and stuff, in addition to all the food.  This one was basically a glorified carnival, with lots of ridiculous rides.  The food was good, though.  (Fortunately, Edinburgh has a legitimate version currently on, which I get to go see tonight!)

Saturday was our biggest day.  We started at Tower Bridge (the classic one, that everybody thinks is "London Bridge") and the Tower of London, home to the crown jewels.  We didn't go into the Tower due to price, and we didn't climb the towers of the bridge due to frigidity (it was FUH-REEZING the entire weekend), but we did walk a little way across.  It was kind of funny how, like at the Arc de Triomphe, people just drove over the bridge like yeah, it's an international landmark, nbd.  So then we scurried back to the warm Tube and went to Covent Garden.  Covent Garden has a really great market all the time, and on weekends it's devoted to craftsy stuff.  Yay Christmas presents.  ;)  From there we walked through Trafalgar Square, past Downing Street (where the Prime Minister lives), and down to the square where Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster, aka the Houses of Parliament, stand facing each other.  We met up with one of my friends who's in London this semester and has an internship in Parliament.  He let us in with his VIP pass and we got basically the greatest tour of Parliament ever given.  Example: See that secret door behind the statue there?  That leads to the secret Parliament pub.  And now we're going to slip past the guards and check out these back hallways and awesome places that no one else sees.  What up.

From there we did a quick fly-by of Westminster Abbey (closed for the day even though it was only 3:30...??) and Buckingham Palace, and then went to Harrod's to check out the unaffordable splendor.  Home for a nap and out to dinner.  End Day 2.

Side note: a hilarious protest group just passed my window.  All the British students have been diligently protesting for the past month because their tuition has been increased to like £2000 or something.  Sorry, no pity.

Sunday we saw the British Museum, home to all the stuff the British Empire stole off their various colonies and/or everyone else and refuses to give back.  Examples: the Rosetta Stone, Cleopatra's mummy, and basically all the decorations from the Parthenon.  Classy.  It was really interesting.  For the rest of the afternoon and evening we walked along Oxford Street, home to lots of London's high-end stores as well as a really spectacular display of Christmas lights.  We got to see them come on, which was lovely.  Tina, who had to be back earlier than I did, left from there for the train station and I was on my own for the rest of the trip.

Monday was definitely the most exciting day.  Exciting not necessarily being good.  Three words: London Tube Strike.  The Underground services were patchy at best, and way too much of my limited time was spent navigating roundabout ways to get from one place to another.  I would have just taken the awesomely classic double-decker buses; unfortunately London is so (rightfully) proud of its Underground system that it doesn't well promote the workings of its bus system.  Also, so many other people were trying to figure it out at the same time that the website crashed.  Sweet.  I did get to see St. Paul's; unfortunately time limitations meant I then had to choose between the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham and going into Westminster Abbey.  I chose the Changing of the Guard.  Should have gone to Westminster, I know, I know.  But it'll (knock on wood) always be there, and I'm certainly going back to London sometime in the future.  And anyway, it was the Scots Guard that day, and I was feeling a little adopted Scottish pride and wanted to see them.

Train chaos continued when I got to King's Cross and discovered that due to snow in Scotland my train had been flat-out cancelled.  OH CRAP.  Fortunately I got on one half an hour later and it wasn't a big issue.  Aaaaand now there's snow here.  It's even a legitimate amount of snow, which is good because if my train had been cancelled due to half an inch I would have been mad.  Nope, it's legit - three inches, minimum.  And it is soooo beautiful.  Seriously.  This is what Christmas is supposed to look like.  I can't even tell you.  And there are Christmas lights everywhere...ohmygoodness.  The downside is that A) it's REALLY COLD and B) they have NO IDEA how to handle it.  There is seriously not a snowplow to be found in the entire city.  There are zero cars on the road and everything is being cancelled.  The airport is closed.  It's kind of hilarious, actually.  We've decided that instead of Scottish Studies today we should have a "How to Deal with Snow" class.  I'll teach it.  The Canadians can back me up.

On the bright side, this brand of cold has taught me the true meaning of the word "layering".  It is not the diehard jeans+tshirt+sweatshirt combination my dad has been promoting to me for the past twenty years.  It is not the recent trend in fashion to wear a couple of shirts on top of each other.  No, no.  Layering actually means, how many different articles of clothing is it physically possible for me to wear simultaneously?  I'm getting really good at it, too.  Today's total was solidly in the double digits.

All right, enough from me.  18 days left!

Love,
Melody

Giving thanks

First of all:
I have found success in a can.

Victory dance.

(What about all that pumpkin puree you crazily made yourself, you ask?  I used that for the pie I made Monday for our small group's Thanksgiving celebration.  I needed reinforcement for Thanksgiving Round Two.)

Happy Thanksgiving!  I actually woke up this morning in a terrible mood, for several reasons.  One: I am seriously jealous of everyone on Facebook with their "Great to be home, bleh bleh bleh" statuses.  Two: In recent news, WashU Res Life has seriously screwed me over for next semester, and, long story short, I'm going to be randomized.  Three: The omnipresence of cuddly British couples is doing a fantastic job lately of rubbing my face in the fact that I'm very, very single.  But you know what?  It's Thanksgiving.  And my life really isn't that hard.  So today I am thankful for, among all God's blessings, these things the most:

1. My wonderful family who loves me and misses me, my home which I want to go home to, and the fact that I will be there in less than a month.

2. A place to live, both now and next semester, that is safe and warm (or cool, as the case may be come May in St. Louis) and, in all reality, a really awesome place for a college student to live.

3. My awesome friends literally all over the world whom I love and am loved by and who make all my days good days.

(Of course, I'm thankful for lots of other things too, including but not limited to an incredible semester in Europe, wool sweaters, the fact that you're still reading my silly little blog, and pumpkin pies.  But those are the big ones.)

Plans for today?  I do unfortunately still have to go to class.  But as soon as that's over our flat jumps into full Thanksgiving preparation mode.  Me, Canada, and Germany are hosting dinner for two other Americans and a Brit, and as of now (2:45 pm) the only thing that's made is the pie.  (And it's not actually done yet.  It's in the oven smelling deleeeeeshous.)  I'm slightly amused by the fact that at the age of 20 I'm hosting my first Thanksgiving.  (As long as I don't turn into Monica from Friends, I'm cool with it.)  It's going to be entirely legit...except for the fact that Lidl is out of turkeys, soooo instead we're having duck.  Yeah that's right.  In addition to the duck (which is going to be a cooking adventure in and of itself), we'll have mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing (contingent upon us figuring out exactly how it is you make stuffing...), sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce (found a mini-jar hidden in a dark corner of the grocery store), rolls, green beans, pumpkin pie and brownies.  And then we'll all collapse in a food coma.  Rock it.

Pumpkin pie is out of the oven.  I am le pleased.  Ready for this?

It looks way more beautiful/less awkward in real life.  Really.

So, that's how we do Thanksgiving in foreign countries.  Now you know.

Love,
Melody

IN THE FLESH: Boyce Avenue

K so even though I had to go to the BA concert with a nasty cold last night, it was absolutely amazing.  I didn't even end up having to go by myself - my American flatmate, when I told her I was going, was like, OH I love Boyce Avenue, I was going to go but just never got a ticket.  So she tagged along, and they let her in.  Which was awesome.

It was held in Cabaret Voltaire, one of the many Edinburgh clubs/venues that is down in the depths of the old catacombs under the city.  So it was basically like our own little Boyce Avenue cave.  And I do mean little - we were SO CLOSE to the band, it was incredible.  And we were near the back.  The place wasn't even full.  Unfortunately the people that were there were mostly young teenaged couples.  Which was awkward.  And then the other half was middle-aged couples...which was even more awkward?  Well, whatever.  I felt kind of awesome for being one of the <100 people in Edinburgh cool enough to go to a Boyce Avenue concert.

The opener was Ryan Cabrera...I felt sort of bad for him.  If you're saying to yourself, "Isn't he that guy that was cool like ten years ago?", the answer is yes.  I actually knew one of the songs he played, but he only did like four.  And nobody was that into it.  We were all silently like yeah, whatever, dude, just bring out Boyce Avenue.

And then they DID.  And they were AMAZING.  Nobody was very into them at first either, which was rather mystifying.  But I was screaming (take that, sore throat), and eventually everybody else was convinced too.  I had been wondering beforehand whether they would play just their originals or some of their covers as well...they did it all.  Mostly their own, but also "Teenage Dream", "Dynamite", and "Disturbia".  My absolute favorite was "On My Way" - at the beginning Alejandro was like, "This is dedicated to all the single people in the audience.  Do we have any single people here tonight?" and literally like four of us cheered.  Awesome.  (I told you it was all couples.  Crazy Brits.)  But whatever, it was fantastic.  He went on to say he wrote the song for the girl he's going to spend the rest of his life with, who he hasn't met yet.  AWWWWW SO CUTE.  Pretty sure I almost cried.

And the rest of the concert continued in a similarly awesome fashion.  We got them out for an encore, obviously.  My flatmate and I kind of booked it out of there as soon as it was over to avoid the rush.  Unfortunately this morning I see Facebook murmurings suggesting they came out and met people afterwards, which makes me want to die a little for not having stayed.  But whatever.  I will go to another concert of theirs without hesitation with anyone who wants to go.  Seriously, next time they're within 500 miles of St. Louis I am THERE.

My camera took only awful pictures, unfortunately, given the weird lighting.  And then the batteries died on me halfway through.  But I did manage to get some decent video.  :D  All should be up on Facebook.  Enjoy.

And then my head exploded.

Arrrgh.  My head and I are not friends today.  For one thing, I have been well intellectual [note: "well + adjective" is basically the British version of "super-adjective"] the past two days.  I wrote a 2,500 word essay and did a group presentation.  (The presentation was sincerely awful.  The essay I'm actually sort of proud of.)  And my unexercised brain might be a little tired from all that.  But the kicker is that I have at last succumbed to the disgusting cold that has plagued both my flatmates off and on all semester.  Angst.  I feel gross.

So funny story.  In coming back from Paris, I managed to misplace my student ID card.  It was sincerely worrying since the last place I remembered having it was at the Palais Garnier, and I didn't necessarily remember putting it back in my bag.  I found it yesterday, but not before the following bit of embarrassment occurred.  So I've been into the library twice since I got back, the first time just to study and the second to work on our group presentation.  (Remember you need to swipe your student ID to get into this library.  Lame-o.)  The first time I got a visitor pass and everything was fine.  The second time, though, I didn't really feel like going through that again (it was kind of a complicated process) and we needed to get in to print off our presentation notes.  So we were going in through an entrance off to the side and I was like, oh, it'll be ok, I'll just have one of the other girls swipe me in.  So she did.  But of course the security guard saw us and came over and was like, ain't no way.  Apparently they are not sympathetic at all to that sort of thing.  Long story short, I got kicked out of the library.  Way cool.

Fortunately, even though the slides were on my computer, I had emailed them to one of the others that morning, so they got printed off and we made it to class on time and our presentation went fine.  (And by fine I mean terrible.  But that's beside the point.)  But now I have to go back to print off this essay and even though I have since found my ID card I'm a little nervous.  They'd better not remember me or I'm ska-rewed.

Exciting discovery of the day: next week is our last week of classes!!  WHAAAAT??!!  I am slightly stunned.  I mean, I knew the end was approaching (*cough*onemonthfromtoday*cough*) but I had no idea it was that close.  I'm also a little mad - Germany and I booked our train tickets to London leaving next Friday afternoon not realizing that she has no classes on Friday at all.  And neither of us has any at all the next week.  So we could leave six hours earlier and come back like two days later.  Soooo we're majorly hoping we can get that switched.  Because, come on, it's London.

Other realization of the day: I have to go see Stonehenge!!  That was like way up on the list of things I wanted to do while I'm here and I completely forgot about it until an hour ago.  Soooo I don't know if that's even possible or feasible as a day trip?  Probably not from here.  More like from London.  So now that needs to get planned somehow.

The rest of the day will proceed as such: print off essay, not get kicked out of library, turn in essay, buy cold medicine, go back to bed.  Cannot wait.

Love,
Melody

...but who's counting?

Dear St. Louis people,

I will see you approximately 2 months from today.  I miss you like a fool.

Dear Spearfish people,

I will see you 1 month + 2 days from today.  I'm so ready.

Love,
Melody

Mais oui Paris

I honestly don't even know where to begin.  I literally had the time of my life this weekend.  I ate my weight in baguettes and cheese, stood among enough wealth to buy a good-sized nation, made a complete fool of myself in a language I do not speak, and found out firsthand why half the world is in love with Paris.  (The other half just hasn't been there.)  Here, in brief, is how it went down.

Our home: A rented flat, located in a quiet Parisian suburb, complete with full kitchen, bed space for everyone, a hot tub and sauna, TV, couches, treadmill, skylights, bamboo floors, and down bedding.  In an area three times as nice as the best hostel, with lower prices than the cheapest.

The sights: The Eiffel Tower.  Notre Dame.  The Louvre.  Sacre Coeur.  Montmartre (the artist district).  The Moulin Rouge.  The Catacombs.  The Arc de Triomphe.  The Champs d'Elysees.  The Palace of Versailles.  The Eiffel Tower...at night.  The Palais Garnier, the Paris opera house.  Le Marais (the medieval district).

The food: Baguettes.  Croissants (pronounced 'quah-sohn') - plain, chocolate-filled, raisin-studded, almond-flavored.  Cheese, both delicious and rotting-feet-esque.  'Petit cafe creme' = three tablespoons of coffee for 1.50 Euro.  One macaron pistache.  Quiche.  More baguettes.  Occasionally even a fruit or vegetable.

The people: Sometimes sweet, like the owner of the bakery near our flat who smiled at our feeble French attempts and waved at us the next time we passed his shop.  Sometimes awful, like the other bakery owner who got crazy mad at us and was not pacified by the fact that we didn't know how to say sorry in French.  Or that we didn't really know what to be sorry for.  Sometimes awesome, like the guy who put on a puppet show on the subway.  Sometimes creepy beyond comfort.  But always entertaining.

The bad: The Musée d'Orsay, home to the art I really wanted to see, being closed on Mondays.  Never quite understanding the train ticket system.  Staying in the Louvre so long that by the time we finally got out and found lunch we were about to literally eat each other.  Getting caught in a spontaneous typhoon and having our view from Montmartre hill blocked by fog.  Walking through over a mile of catacomb tunnels six stories underground with the bones of six million people stacked neatly on either side (fun fact: I'm claustrophobic about underground tunnels like that).  The hot tub exploding all over our bathroom floor on our last night.  Not being able to see the auditorium of the opera house.  Barely making our flight home.

But really, all these things are totally eclipsed by-

The wonderful: Coming up from the subway station and gasping at the Eiffel Tower right there.  Ditto for Notre Dame, and the Arc d'Triomphe, and the Palais Garnier.  Getting into the Louvre for free.  Being in cathedrals that have borne witness to millions upon millions of prayers.  Watching the sun set over the fountains of Versailles.  Coming up from the subway station and shrieking at the Eiffel Tower lit up at night.  Shrieking again when the lights started twinkling.  Perfecting my pronunciation of the sentence, "Bonjour, parlez-vous anglais?" Looking in through the window of one of the upper boxes in the opera house and being able to see the ballerinas onstage rehearsing.  Coming home completely and utterly exhausted from such an experience.

Sorry that was all so vague and un-Melody-catastrophe-filled.  (It was a shockingly light trip for such mishaps.  I only got left behind like twice.  My luck must be improving.  And/or karma finally caught up to me.)  I am still mentally exhausted and mellowed out from so much excitement.  Thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers.  Coming home is coming up, and I couldn't be more excited to see you all.


Love,
Melody

Brief Paris update

I'm on someone else's computer and we're about to get in the hot tub in our rented flat (yeah, life is hard), so I'll make it quick.  Basically Paris is amazing and I just had like the best day of my life.  Soooo get ready to hear about that.  :)

Love,
Melody

Paris, Missouri?

No, no.  Paris, France.

It was brought to my attention that I somehow managed to leave out what we're actually doing whilst in Paris.  (No, shopping and chocolate and amazing is not the entire itinerary.  Shocking, I know.)  Sorry.  So, a little delayed, here it is:

- The Eiffel Tower.  Obviously.
- The Louvre.  See above.
- Notre Dame.  I really really want to go to a mass there, but this would require breaking away from the group and the immaculately for Sunday morning.  We'll see how it goes.
- Sacre Coeur and Montmartre.  Really cool cathedral on top of a hill, surrounded by an apparently really cool neighborhood.  Which includes the Moulin Rouge.
- The Catacombs.  I don't care so much about these...so I might skip out since I could go to Mass during the time the rest of the group will be there.
- Champs Elysees and Arc de Triomph.  Photo ops and stuff.
- Versailles.  I hope the Versailles on our itinerary is the real Versailles...there doesn't seem to be sufficient time allotted to getting there?  Further background research might be necessary.
- Palais Garnier, the Paris Opera house.  This is the opera house that Phantom of the Opera was based on!  I'm so excited!  You can expect approximately 200 pictures of this building alone.
- A Paris flea market!  Apparently these are awesome and I want to go to one.  Christmas gifts, sorted.

Um.  I think that's it.  If you know of anything else I should see, do please let me know.

Love,
Melody

I'll turn YOU into a goon

I just looked at the current weather for St. Louis.  This is me shooting you an extremely dirty look for your stupid 70º and sun.  It was so cold here today I kind of whimpered every time I stepped outside.  You'd think that since I'm from South Dakota, I could handle it.  And you're probably right, and I'm probably just being a wimp.  But seriously.  Cold here doesn't mess around.  It goes straight to your insides and makes you never want to leave your flat again.  It's a little bit of a comfort that it's snowing in Spearfish right now and I know that's something that will not happen here.  It did, however, hail today.  Not promising.

I found myself today having to explain to my German flatmate the meaning of the word "goon".  I explained that I'm really the only person I know who uses it in normal conversation, but I still couldn't quite describe it.  Then it occurred to me that it comes from that "Little Bunny Foo Foo" rhyme.  I didn't really feel like singing the song for her, so, like the internet-dependent savvy teenager young adult that I am, I YouTubed it.  And, to the utter delight of all involved, this is what I came up with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a84IowoW00w

Watch it.  Please oh please.

Oh yes, my European friend, this is a nostalgic song from my typical American childhood...accompanied by cartoon images of a bunny brutally murdering a couple dozen mice.  Just fantastic.  She was really impressed.

Anyways.  I just made a rather fantastic discovery: our trip to Paris is being headed by a type-A American wondergirl.  She just sent us all a nine-page Word document filled with maps of the Paris metro and bus systems, information on ALL the major things we want to see, a tentative schedule, detailed directions to and from each destination, and key phrases in French.  This is AWESOME!  I'll be honest, it does take the smallest bit of excitement out of it all, but on the bright side it will probably save me from being eaten alive by Paris.  But really, in case I haven't said it, I'm just super excited to have a group to go with.  Mostly because 1) I'm bound to do something ridiculous, and it's just better if there are people you know to openly laugh at you, and 2) I know approximately five French phrases, and only three of them are the least bit helpful.  Okay, and I guess I'm excited for the companionship.  :)  The group is mostly girls, so you know it's going to be SHOPPING and CHOCOLATE and AMAZING.  OHMYGOODNESS I'm excited.

Update: Tina tried to coach me in French pronunciation and I failed.  This should be a really good time.

I've been typing this post disjointedly over the last six hours or so.  In that time I also managed to correctly make my chocolate chip cookies.  After three tries since being in the UK, I have finally assembled all the necessary ingredients.  No incorrect substitutions.  And they rock my world a little bit.  These cookies are definitely my secret plan for world domination.  Don't tell anyone.   (PS Niko, you can be co-dictator with me since you co-discovered them.)

All right.  Six hours later, I have finally managed to assemble a suitable post.  Kthx.  Time to go to bed because I have a 7:30 prayer meeting in the morning.  Rock it.

3 days until Paris.

Love,
Melody

Remember, remember the fifth of November

Yesterday - as you may actually know, given the strangely large number of American Facebook statuses about it, but I definitely would not have had I not actually been here - was Guy Fawkes Day.  Also known as Bonfire Night, it commemorates the day in 1605 when a group of Catholics led by a dude named (surprisingly) Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the British Parliament, killing the king, in order to put a Catholic on the throne instead.  The plot was foiled, Guy Fawkes was tortured and killed, and now once a year all good British children burn effigies of Guy and/or the Pope (I kid you not) on top of giant bonfires.  And they set off fireworks.  So in honor of this blatantly anti-Catholic bit of British tradition, our flat climbed Calton hill to watch these fireworks.  To be honest, I didn't expect much of them, because, you know, we're American, we're like the master of fireworks with the Fourth and everything...um, wrong.  They were pretty fabulous.  And then once the main show was done there were dozens of fireworks popping up from all over the city.  It was a really beautiful view of Edinburgh as well, especially because it was at night.  And then we went to Starbucks and sat and talked.

This morning I went to St. Andrews with the American guy from my small group, Andrew, and an older man he met at church who had volunteered to take him sightseeing around Scotland.  So we spent the morning driving at leisure up the coast, stopping to see Edinburgh from across the Firth of Forth as the mist rose.  He treated us to lunch at the Anstruther Fish Bar, home to 'Scotland's Best Fish and Chips'.  They were, in fact, really, really good.  Following that we continued up to St. Andrews, where he gave us a quick overview of the town and then sat down with his book, leaving Andrew and me to explore.  It was incredibly historical, so we spent several hours going into free museums, gaping at incredibly old St. Andrews University buildings, and wandering through cathedral ruins.  We also checked out the beach where they filmed the Chariots of Fire scene and I picked up some seashells from the North Sea.  It was really quite a fun day.

Also this week: I tried Marmite for the first time!  It's the British version of Vegemite, that weird Australian thing that no one understands.  It. is. NASTY.  Ugggghhhh.  I took one bite and gagged.  Apparently it's 'yeast extract'...oh my gosh.  So disgusting.  It's just incredibly salty and...ew.  Nope.

ALSO this week: I finally baked a pumpkin!  I didn't get to do it with the jack-o-lanterns; it was too warm in our kitchen and by November 1st they had completely molded over on the inside.  So I got another one, baked half of it, and made the other half into pumpkin soup.  The soup turned out really incredibly well, actually.  I thought it was delicious.  Tina even said it was better than her mum's.  I was so proud.  :)

Paris next weekend!!  OHMYGOODNESS!!!

Love,
Melody

Even non-surprise parties can be surprising

Yesterday was a wonderful day!  I was really surprised by it.  I just kind of chilled all day, went shopping, sat in one of the incredible cathedrals for a little while and prayed over this year...and it was good.  Then for dinner, Tina (my German flatmate) had promised to make these incredible meatballs that she's made before and I'm in love with (which is really saying something, given how often I eat meat of my own volition), so she did and they were awesome.  And then a few other girls came over around 8:30 to just hang out, and one of the Wash U girls brought some blow-your-mind-amazing toffee fudge crumble something bars, and we had Oreos (I thought they didn't exist here but they DO)...and somebody else brought a birthday cake!  And they even lit candles and sang.  :)  So we sat and ate sugar and talked nonstop until 1:30.  It was kind of like a slumber party but better.  So yes, it was a good birthday.  :)

Me, the twenty-something...

It's my birthday.  :)

I tried to get up early and take myself out to coffee/breakfast before my 9:00 class.  I was up on time; the coffee shops weren't.  Incredible, right??  It was 8:30 am and nothing was open.  Finally on my fourth try, I found one that was open and so had a mocha and the best banana bread of my life while speed-walking to class.  I could taste the sugar to the point of it being almost - almost - crunchy between my teeth.  So delicious.  Planned celebration: informal get-together tonight, high tea (!!) with the flatmates sometime possibly this weekend, and Boyce Avenue concert in two weeks.  The fun does not stop.  :)

Also: I have a plane ticket to Paris and a train ticket to London!!  AAAAARRRRGGGHH EXCITEMENT!!!  Also I was invited on a day trip to St. Andrews on Saturday.  I don't really know what's there...except for the university that Prince William went to, which is, um, awesome.  Plus there must be other cool things.  I'm just generally excited for life right now.

All kinds of crazy love,
Melody

Good riddance to bad essays.

They're over they're over they're over!!  I think I had a small heart attack this afternoon when I suddenly realized I had to also print off a hard copy and turn it in in person rather than only the online submission (which I had turned in with plenty of time to spare) and so I ran to the library because that's the closest place with printers but the computers wouldn't open my files so I tried to find Macs but the library has a total of ten of them and two of them were broken and the other eight were in use so I had to run back to my flat to get my computer to change the file format and email them to myself and run back to the library to print them off with fifteen minutes until the due date/time and run to the philosophy building and sign the "I swear this is my work and only my work" paper and stuff it into the slot at 4:00 exactly.  And I hadn't showered yet so I was incredibly gross looking and I don't even want to think about how frightening I must have looked storming back and forth across campus and then of course I ran into one of my professors in the philosophy building who totally did a double take at me racing through the building like a crazy person so now he definitely knows that I'm the one who barely got their essay in on time.  Awesome.

But.  Now I've said some choice parting words to those particular essays and showered and everything and I feel so much more sane.  And...are you ready for this?...we have a new flatmate!  Crazy turnaround time, that.  She popped her head in this morning when I was in the kitchen in my pajamas and said she was looking for a new room and asked me how I liked living here, and I was honest in that it's kind of awesome, so she was convinced and moved in this afternoon!  She's American, from California, and I like her a lot.  She's bubbly, to say the least.  She goes to Scripps, she's in an a cappella group (so she also likes music lots in general), she misses home too, she's really interested in getting to know/doing stuff with the rest of us and she seems pretty down with our weirdness as a flat.  What's not to like??  Even though it could have been kind of awesome with only three of us in the flat, I kind of feel super blessed with this random turn of events.  Germany and Canada are faux-nervous at the Americans taking over the flat, but whatever.  :) 

To be honest, I was originally a little bummed because they tell you to try to hang out with locals, and if you tried to divide the number of total friends I have by those who are actually Scottish the answer would be undefined.  (Because you can't divide by zero.  Ha ha.  Get it?  Okay, it was lame, whatever.)  And I find myself hanging out with a suspiciously large number of Americans.  But that's okay.  I've met some Scottish people and they're chill.  They just don't feel like hanging out with yet another American.  And I'd rather hang out with people who legitimately want to hang out with me than seeking out Scottish people like I'm on some kind of freakish mission.  Anyway.  That's how it is.

In other news, I finally have (free!) international minutes on my phone!  Not that this really matters to most of you, because Skype is way easier and free for you as well as me and doesn't require me giving you a primer to international phone calling.  But if you really feel like you might desperately need to get ahold of me at some random time I can give you the spiel.  And my number.  You know.

I think I really need some food and possibly a nap.  Lots of love.

Will the writing never cease?

First of all: Happy 50th blog post!

Midterms are upon us, and I sit here at my desk laboriously composing philosophy essays.  Suffice it to say I am unimaginably bad at writing philosophy essays.  I'm literally fantasizing about the essays I got to write for Cognitive Neuroscience last year because even though they were difficult, at least they made sense.  I am so, repeat, so happy I decided to take both my remaining Philosophy classes here.  The prospect of being done with all of this in six weeks' time makes me absolutely giddy.  Proposed schedule for next semester: Cognitive Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Developmental Neuropsychology.  It looks tough but I am honestly excited.  (But maybe don't quote me on that come spring midterms.)

I believe that's everything of any consequence that I have to say right now.  I'm going to have to go to bed soon because as I get closer to exhausted the tone of my essay moves from intellectual to straight-up sassy and I'm not really sure my professors will go for that.  Wish me luck.

LOTS of luck.

Love,
Mel

Please read and respond!

Sorry for the inundation of posts recently.  This will be the last one for a couple of days, I promise.  I have a matter that requires your opinions as readers.  I have the opportunity to make some petty cash with this blog by using Google AdSense.  This means there would be small ads placed either at the bottom of each post or in the sidebar or both.  The ads would be related to both content of this page and your personal browsing history.  I would get some amount of money for every time the ads were viewed, as well as every time they were clicked.  NOTE: I would NOT ask you to click on the ads.  If they're really interesting and you want to, go for it.  But I would never ask you to waste your time with them for my sake.  If they get bad or obnoxious in any way, I promise to take them off.  If they would bother you as readers to be there, I won't do it to begin with.  I know how annoyed ads make me sometimes.  I don't know how much money I'd make, but from what I hear, it can definitely be worth it.  If it isn't, I'll stop.  I'd really, really like to know if this would bother you.


So, thoughts?  (You may certainly post comments anonymously if you'd like.)

Thank you so much!

Postscript

I just found out that our youngest flatmate, the Scottish freshman, moved out today!  Apparently she's gone home to wait out a year on university.  (I saw her this morning and she said nothing.  Nothing!)  So please say a little prayer for her.  I feel terrible that I didn't make her feel more welcome; not that it would have necessarily changed anything, but still.  :(

Pumpkin extravaganza, etc.

This weekend was wonderful.  After last weekend with the Botanic Garden, our flat is officially collectively getting our rears in gear and doing 'cultural things' in Edinburgh.  This weekend's goal was the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the official royal residence in Scotland.  Zomg excitement.

We meant to go Saturday, but various things occurred and it didn't work out, so we decided to go Sunday instead.  Having gotten all mentally prepared (and dressed and made-up and everything) for doing something, though, we couldn't just sit around.  Sooo we went shopping.  And that was how on Saturday afternoon I went to Topshop for the first time.  Topshop, if you don't know because you choose to fill your memory with more meaningful things than the names of women's clothing stores (*cough*weirdo*), is a highly fashionable but still relatively cheap women's store pretty much confined to the UK and New York City.  So I was kind of excited.  Just being in there made me feel really voguish.  I think I spent less than £10 in the end.  It was the experience that counted.

Our plans for Saturday night were foiled too, actually.  We tried to go to a ceilidh (basically a Scottish dance party, pronounced 'kaylee'), but when they finally opened the doors there were only ten tickets left for sale - and we were numbers ten, eleven and twelve in line.  Darn irony.  So we went to a really cute pub instead and listened to some live music and talked.  That was fun anyway.

Sunday: the palace!!  It cost a rather exorbitant amount to get in, and then (of course) you couldn't take pictures inside.  But it was really beautiful anyway.  The Queen was in Edinburgh just last month, when the Pope visited, and they had a couple of pictures of the two together standing in the very rooms we were walking through.  The decor was sumptuous but, somewhat surprisingly, tastefully sparse, relative to the small number of other castles I've seen.  Maybe they put more stuff in the rooms when the Queen is actually there.  It still made you think about how crazy it would be to be royal.  The silverware there has three thousand pieces.  What.

So after wandering around there for a while, taking some sweet pictures in the little guard booths outside, and obtaining the next clue in my ongoing scavenger hunt (yay!), we left.  I had dinner and went to church.  Church was unfortunately bad this time.  I was sort of shocked.  It was just a student thing - worship, prayer, a lesson, some free tea and biscuits; how wrong can it go?  Everything was good until the actual lesson.  We did an anonymous survey of our prayer/devotional lives, which was fun...and then the speaker proceeded to scorn our collective responses and generally tell us what worthless Christians we all were.  Um.  Excuse me?  He was speaking truth about the need for prayer and Bible study in any Christian's life, but the way he presented it was, in my opinion, frankly unacceptable.  He was borderline offensive and very patronizing.  The worst part was he's the head pastor of that church.  (And that he was American.  Way to rep it, dude.)  I was going to keep going there, but now I'm honestly thinking not.

Anyway.  Enough whining.  Finally we have come to our PUMPKIN EXTRAVAGANZA!!  When I got home from church, Germany and I decided to carve our pumpkin.  She wanted a vampire and I wanted something happy...and please forgive me if I think we came up with the cutest pumpkin ever.

He's better in real life.

So then we baked the pumpkin seeds and they were delicious and we put the innards in the fridge and then this morning I stuck them in the blender and made pumpkin puree and then made PUMPKIN SPICE LATTES.  So. Good. Oh. My. Gosh.  Not quite like Starbucks or even like Wash U, but it definitely has the right flavour.  Even if it also has some funky pumpkin stringies at the bottom.  I was ecstatic.  Germany was tolerant.  Whatever.  The best part is there's some left over for tomorrow.

And then I spent the rest of the day in the library writing my essays/getting headaches from trying to figure out the philosophy of Conceptual Role Semantics and compositionality and the analytic/synthetic distinction and my stance on all of the above.  And that is where I remain until it's time for small group in an hour.  Goody.

Love,
Melody

It's a bird, it's a plane...it's the weeks?

My time here is going soooo fast.  I have less than two months left until I fly home and I cannot believe it.  Next week is midterm, meaning I actually have stuff to do for once - a 1500-word essay for both my philosophy classes.  Ew philosophy essays.  Oh well...I've recently (as in twenty minutes ago) discovered the Education Library...delightfully quiet and light.  New study place fo sho.  I am currently theoretically drafting those essays.  More accurately, though, I'm drafting this blog post.  Priorities, people.

One of my flatmates and I went shopping yesterday!  It was so much fun - we took a bus to the part of town where all the rich people live, wearing their designer clothes and then donating them to the charity shops after like one season.  So, the part of town with the best charity shops ever.  I got two new 'jumpers' (sweaters) because I'm always cold, plus a skirt.  I'm still in need of a real winter coat, not having brought mine due to weight restrictions, but just haven't quite found anything yet.  Have found a lot of crazy vintage fur-trimmed tweed creations, but if you can picture me wearing one of those without laughing, well, kudos to you.

My twentieth birthday is a week from Tuesday...???  I kind of can't believe it.  In a philosophical sense, it's the end of an era, no longer being a teenager; in a realistic sense, I just can't believe I'm that old.  I have no plans yet.  I do happen to know that my flatmates have terrible schemes that I'm going to have to thwart somehow.  Heh heh.  As far as I'm concerned, though, the real celebration will be at the Boyce Avenue concert a couple of weeks later that I got a ticket for.  I am SO excited!!  So excited.  It's going to be AWESOME.

I have found a sufficient solution to the pumpkin problem.  While Halloween isn't nearly as big a thing here as it is in the States, they make a smallish deal of it, in my opinion mostly for the sake of the great hordes of Americans here.  Anyway.  For the past few weeks at our very favourite grocery store (Lidl, which is a German chain and sells things for ridiculously low prices) they've had a big box of 'cooking pumpkins' for sale for £1 each.  So, with the blessing of my German flatmate upon the idea of carving a pumpkin for the flat, I bought one.  We named him Alastair and he does not have a face yet.  But he will, and then when we carve him I'm going to take the little pieces of pumpkin from the eyes/mouth/etc. and bake them and make enough mashed pumpkin to make pumpkin spice lattes and then be done with it.  There's another American in my small group who's so committed to the idea of having pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving that she's going to bake an entire pumpkin herself and proceed from there.  I don't think I'm that committed.  Sorry.

Alright, enough procrastinating.  These essays are laughing at me.

Love,
Melody

Short update

Text a Toastie was pretty much awesome.  I recommend it to all small groups.  Always.  Seriously.

Also: this may or may not interest anyone at all, but I've decided this week, foodwise, is Greek Week.  My mass shopping trip this week included a lot of feta cheese, pita, tomatoes, cucumbers, yogurt, et cetera, and I'm cooking all Greek, all week.  (Said shopping trip also included my first meat purchase for myself, 500g of ground beef for moussaka.  Not going to lie, I'm a little bit scared of it.)  So far I've had a veggie gyro which was nice, and, with slightly more (read: LOTS more) effort, spanakopita.  Which was um sort of wonderful.  So.  Check back later for further success and/or failure on that.  Probably both.

Flowers, foliage and flatmates

Our flat (minus our lovely yet consistently MIA Scottish constituent)(seriously, I'm starting to wonder if she even lives with us anymore) went to the Royal Botanic Garden yesterday.  It was so much fun.  Flower season is ending, but the trees all over the gardens were changing colors, and since it hasn't rained in days (surprising, to say the least) there were crunchy leaves everywhere.  Our blooming three-way friendship means we're all becoming less concerned with keeping up appearances amongst ourselves, so we shamelessly crunched and shuffled through the leaves like little kids.  It was also 'Apple Day' at the garden, so there was a little exhibition of the ridiculously large variety of apples grown in Scotland, along with samples of some of them.  We tried all of the samples, and unanimously agreed on two points: that we hadn't thought about apples so much since elementary school/possibly ever, and that our favorite was...okay, I actually forgot the name of it.  It was some kind of Pippin, and it was crisp and mostly sweet but also a little bit tart and really delicious.  I'd never seen it in stores anyway, so it's not like I'll probably ever have the chance to buy it.  But it was good.  And the whole thing was just fun.

I really am incredibly pleased with the way our flat has worked out.  We all have our separate activities that we take part in and have friends through and run off to every once in awhile (me Christian Union, Germany archery, and Canada rugby), but then we come home and sit in the kitchen, where someone is always cooking something or other, and listen to music and chill.  Come an evening when all you want to do is make hot chocolate and watch a film, someone probably wants to do the same thing; come a night when you want to go out, generally the entire group is rallied to go with.  We're all really different, but we've meshed really well.  God's really blessed me with that.  And now we're all especially united under the common goal of going out and doing stuff in Edinburgh.  Next up is the Palace of Holyroodhouse, one of the Queen's many houses as well as the home of a lovely art gallery as well as the location of the next clue in my ongoing Edinburgh scavenger hunt.  (Did I tell you about that?  A friend from WashU set it up for me when she was in Edinburgh a week before I arrived.  I'm having ridiculous fun with it.)  The only way it could possibly get better is if we actually saw the Queen.  But somehow I don't see that happening.  I guess I'll live.

Tonight our small group is doing an outreach thing...it's called 'Text a Toastie'.  It's okay, I was confused at first too.  So the idea is that during a pre-set and pre-advertised time, we set ourselves up in a central location (i.e. my flat) with a toastie maker (aka panini grill).  People then text a given number with three things: a question they would theoretically like to ask God, their choice of toastie flavor (cheese, ham and cheese, or Nutella), and their location.  We then make their toastie and deliver it to their door within fifteen minutes.  As far as I can tell, the question is superfluous other than possibly sparking conversation at the door.  The point is to let people know about Christian Union and just generally do something nice for people.  I'm kind of excited.  I love my small group and I see this producing a lot of laughing and bonding.  Plus it's kind of a randomly neat idea.  Sweet.

All right, I'm off to the library to sit at eye level with the tops of the gorgeous trees and do some lab work/Philosophy reading.  Wish me luck.

Love,
Melody

British s'mores

We made s'mores tonight!!  My flatmates made so much fun of how excited I was.  Whatever, they're awesome.  They weren't quite as good as American s'mores, but they served their gooey chocolatey purpose.  They don't have graham crackers here (!!!), so we had to use digestives, which are these weird half-sweet, half-oaty biscuit/cookie things that the British are crazy about.  (I admit with some disgruntlement that they actually worked way better than I thought.)  The marshmallows were smaller and denser than normal ones (plus half of them were pink?), and the chocolate bar was thick and didn't break into the right size pieces.  And obviously we don't have an open flame, so we tried to roast them on forks in our grill (broiler, basically).  Predictably, that didn't work, so we put them on the digestives on the grill tray and let them get smooshy (due to the difference in consistency, they melted rather than toasted), and then put the chocolate on top to melt for a minute, and then burned our fingers pulling them out and squishing the other digestive on top.  It was all weird, but despite all of it they were totally close enough and SO delicious.  Germany, who we were attempting to expose to this uniquely North American treat, was only mildly impressed.  Oh, well, it was sort of fabulous.

This week has been massively uneventful.  This weekend is the first in almost a month where I'm not off somewhere, so I didn't spend the week up to my ears in train tickets and hostel bookings.  I got to practice harpsichord two days, which was blissful.  I kind of almost have a Bach prelude and fugue down.  Other than that, I decided I should spend my time doing some relatively productive things...I've actually started reading for my classes, finally, and I've been doing some work for my lab at home as well.  I've also started listening to NPR occasionally.  Heh heh.  It's pathetic how little I know about any news at any time, so even though it makes me feel like a dork, it's awesome to know what's going on.

I took a bunch of pictures of campus this week, but Facebook isn't letting me upload them.  I'll keep working on it.  It's kind of gorgeous here.  Just saying.

I've started getting emails about next semester!  It's so intimidating.  I register for classes in exactly a month - WHAT??  (I've totally started playing around with the registration worksheet.  That thing is just too entertaining.)  That means I have a little over two months left.  It's so weird...it still feels a little like I just got here, but I'm almost halfway through.  Yikes.  Still so much to do!

Tomorrow I'm trying my third church.  Even if this one doesn't rock my world or anything, I think I'm going to stick with it simply because I don't have that much time left and I actually know people who go to this one.  Unless it's awful.  In which case I'll go back to one I already visited.

Also tomorrow: the Royal Botanic Gardens!  Our flat is collectively on a mission to actually see the city.  I'm excited.  Flowers and fall foliage - what's not to love??

I feel like I should have cooler things to say.  Sorry.  I'll try to do more epic things in the coming days.

All my love!

More British vocab words:
pissed = drunk (NOT angry.  You can imagine the confusion this creates.)
chuffed = happy
hoover = vacuum
aubergine = eggplant
sultana = raisin

Beatlemania!

Guess what??  I now know the names of all four Beatles.  It's crazy, I know.  First and last.  Sheer madness.

But that wasn't even the best part of the weekend.  Oh, no.  Despite my misgivings about Liverpool, it was actually a pretty fun place to spend the day.  We (me and another girl and one guy, all WU students) got in late-ish Friday night after a semi-ridiculous train ride during which we had to fight for seats and occasionally had to stand in the aisles because apparently they frequently over-book that train and unless you actually reserve a seat you're out of luck.  Woo standing for two hours.  Not actually for all of that time, but for a considerable amount of it.  Ew.  Anyway.

So the first thing we did Saturday was a tour of the city in a 'Yellow Duckmarine', aka a WWII-era amphibious vehicle painted bright yellow.  They took us around the city on land and showed us everything there is to see about Liverpool, and then, to the delight of onlookers, drove straight into the water.  Best part.  So that tour gave us a good idea of what there was to see, so we could go and actually see it after.

[Favourite random sight on the tour: the office of the White Star Line, makers of the Titanic.  The tour guide pointed out the twin upper-story balconies from which, following the disaster, the owners of the line dropped the names of the survivors on slips of paper into the crowd below.  Wow.  What a picture.]

We spent way more time than I would have thought possible discovering 'the Beatles story' in an interactive exhibit complete with personal headphoned audio tours describing every. little. detail. of the Beatles' path to international stardom and subsequent fall.  It was really interesting.  Therefore I can now tell you, actually, way more about the Beatles than their names.  Go me.

Then was the Liverpool Philharmonic's 'John Lennon Songbook' performance, a journey through John Lennon's life via various songs.  It was...incredible.  I thought orchestra renditions of Beatles/Lennon songs would be ridiculous, but they were really wonderful.  The singers were good, the guy actually portraying Lennon and singing/narrating was awesome, the orchestra itself was phenomenal, and 'Imagine' at the very end brought me to tears.  It was just great.  Completely and wholly worth the £15 we paid for tickets in the very back row.

Add to that our extensive wandering, through the streets of Liverpool and into galleries and a cathedral and in search of food and souvenirs and live music and we had a really truly wonderful weekend.  Personalities grated but didn't completely clash, and all in all we survived.  First taste of England: success.

You busy this weekend?

My previous plan for the weekend was to do nothing and just hang around Edinburgh recovering from last weekend.  (Obviously this is very different from what I do most normal days...)  But then I had a class today with one of the WashU guys (actually, now I have one WU guy in both of my philosophy classes - different guy in each class), and in the middle of a terrible, terrible lecture (more on that in a minute) he asked if I was doing anything this weekend.  I said no.  He asked if I wanted to join a group trip to England somewhere.  I said sure. 

The initial plan was the Lake District (although after I told him my mud story, he expressed concern at me falling off a cliff.  Ha ha.  Unfortunately, he's probably right...).  I got super super excited about it...but then he found out that Liverpool is holding John Lennon's 70th birthday celebration.  1) It's terribly depressing to think that Saturday would be John Lennon's 70th birthday.  2) It's going to be MADNESS.  But really, it's still England, it's still going to be awesome, Liverpool is a place I should really visit, and when it boils down to it it's probably more about the people than the place, anyway.  Sooo Liverpool it is, with two of my WashU cohorts.  I'm kind of excited.  :)

This means my time to locate a new camera/fix my old one (not likely) is now reduced to tomorrow.  Sigh.

Okay, so back to the lecture thing.  I could have just completely forgotten, but I don't think I've really talked about my classes/lecturers (teachers at the university level here aren't all professors, so we're not allowed to automatically call them that.  So when I say 'lecturer' it means approximately the equivalent of professor but just not quite.).  My Philosophy of Time class is really and truly awesome.  If I've told you my lecturers are awesome, it's this guy I'm thinking of.  He's absolutely the most real-person-like philosophy person I've ever met.  In class he actually cares that we all know what's going on, he explains things in terms that make sense, and he doesn't ramble about things that don't matter.  It's wonderful.  I'm learning a lot and I'm loving it.  Example: part of Tuesday's lecture was on predestination - yes, in the Christian sense.  I'm pretty sure neither he nor half the class was Christian, but it really helped me solidify my views on the subject.  Anyway, that's off topic. 

My other philosophy class, unfortunately, is borderline horrid, a fact that has slowly been dawning on me and only just solidified today.  It's taught jointly by two very different guys.  Let e describe my first impressions of these men.  The first was a rather angry Greek man.  I spent the entire class trying to figure out who he reminded me of.  I finally figured it out: a long-haired cross between my brother and Jeff Goldblum.  Win.  Anyway, despite his intensity I think we'll get along.  He hasn't lectured yet.  The other guy is short, out of shape, has the most difficult British accent ever (The letter 't' does not exist unless it's actually the first letter of a word, and 'th' = 'f'.  So, for example, the number that I would pronounce 'thirteen' becomes 'fir-heen'.), doesn't really know how to operate PowerPoint and/or the computer in general, and I'm pretty certain has never actually seen his own slides before.  So he's constantly flicking randomly through them, stopping for a maddening two seconds to peer at the screen before switching to a different one, and then spending a maximum of ten seconds on any slide, not even beginning to sufficiently explain whatever he's talking about.  Half the lines in my notebook end in '???', and toward the end of today's lecture I pretty much just gave up and started drawing cube formations in the margins.  Whatever.

And Scottish Studies is just fine.  It's very much like the intro International Studies class I took freshman year, except instead of random Asian countries as examples, it's all Scotland.  I'm pretty sure he even cited a book I read for that class.  So that's kind of cool.  It's not the approach I was expecting, but I really like it.

That's all, friends!  Hopefully I will have photo evidence of this weekend.  If not, I'll steal some from the other two.  Woot.

How to eat fish and chips

I've had fish and chips three times since I've been in the UK.  But this weekend, on my third try, I think I finally got it right, as reinforced by observing the natives.  Here, in five simple steps, is the correct way to eat fish and chips.

1) The shop.  Ideally, you should be in a town near the ocean, or at least near water, so the fish is relatively fresh.  Note that this is really not difficult in Scotland.  But wherever you are, it seems that any good, real fish-and-chips shop is going to be mildly sketchy-looking.  It's basically a metal fast-food counter in a very small, very sparse shop.  Although fish and chips are delicious and perhaps healthier when eaten from a legitimate sit-down restaurant, this is not the legit way to do it.  Which leads us to Step 2...

2) The mindset.  What you are about to consume is really, really not good for you.  You'll be okay.  Don't think about it.  Just do it.  Not every day or anything, and probably not if you're diabetic or pregnant or at serious risk for heart attack or something.  But otherwise, yeah.  Just go for it.

3) The order.  Look for the thing that seems freshest.  If there's anything that says 'catch of the day', go for that.  Stay away from fish sticks.  Ick.  Make sure you get chips as well.  (Note: 'chips' are french fries.  You probably knew that.  But just to clarify.)  And then when they ask you if you want salt and vinegar on top, say YES.  Unless you're one of those people who don't like vinegar or salt or something.  In which case I guess you could possibly say no.  But you're missing out.  Oh, and grab a bunch of napkins and possibly a fork.

4) The location.  So now you have in your eager hands the package of deliciousness.  It might be in a nice cardboard or Styrofoam box, or it might be wrapped up in newsprint.  It doesn't matter.  It's warm and it smells good and you've got it.  Don't, I repeat don't, eat it in the shop unless it's pouring down rain (which is, admittedly, highly possible) and you absolutely can't stand to be outside.  If you followed Step 1, there should be some kind of dock or pier area relatively nearby.  Otherwise a park will suffice.  Walk there quickly because your meal is getting less crispy by the second, find a bench, sit down, look out at the cool boats coming in, politely kick the seagulls away, and appreciate it.  Briefly.

5) The eating.  The time has come.  Open up the packet of goodness, put ketchup on your chips if you were lucky enough to locate some (good luck), and proceed to devour that delectable deep-fried pile of British culture.  Yummm.  Oh, and when you're done and you've thrown your trash in the garbage can and not at the pesky seagulls, take a walk.  Good for digestion and for starting to burn off the zillion calories you've just consumed (that you're still not thinking about) and for exploring some more of the incredible country you're in.

:)

Oooohhh, you take the high road, and I'll get dropped on the side of the road...

This weekend was, without a doubt, exciting.  Not always exciting in a good way, but exciting, nevertheless.

First of all, I'll be completely honest.  I'm pretty much done with the whole travelling by myself thing.  It's just more fun with other people.  It was cool in the beginning, and I do like not having to worry about anyone but myself and just being able to do whatever I want, but it's really just too lonely.  So.  This was my last solo stint.

The trip started well: I did not miss my first bus.  Even though it was at 6:35 in the morning and I got mildly lost on my way to the bus station.  (Even though I've been there before.  Don't judge me.)  Unfortunately, I got on the bus and realized my iPod was dead.  This is BAD.  It was especially frustrating because my earbuds broke last week (!!!!) so I had to borrow some of my flatmate's, so I was really counting on the iPod working, at least.  Nope.  Okay, that's fine...I'll just...pray a lot...or something.

Okay.  Made it to Glasgow on the bus.  This was where the real trouble began.  I got on the bus, showed the driver where I needed to get off, and he was like, 'Okay, well, this is my first day on the job, so I don't really know where that is, so you'll have to yell when you want to get off.'  Um.  Yeah, okay.  Obviously I have no idea where it is either.  I probably should have said that, but it didn't seem like it would do much good, so I just let out a meek 'Okay' and walked back and found a spot as the group in the front of the bus had a good chuckle over the look on my face.  I'll make a long story slightly shorter and give you the obvious outcome of this situation: I missed the stop.  I ended up walking back the way we'd come, with another young woman who had also missed her stop, after the two of us were dumped unceremoniously by the side of the highway in the pouring rain by this bus driver who tried to make like it was our fault we didn't know where he was supposed to stop.  [Surely, Mr Bus Driver, they give you a map of the stops or something.  Somehow all the other drivers know where to stop.  Whatever.]  At least there was a nice walking path, with several meters and a fence separating us from the cars zipping by at 60+ miles per hour.  And it was right along the 'bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond', which were, actually, pretty gorgeous, even in the rain.  Ten or so minutes later, when both our Keds were soaked, we reached the other girl's destination, so I asked for directions to mine.  The lady at the desk of the Loch Lomond Lodge gave me a pity-filled look when I told her where I was headed - 'It's just over five minutes...by car,' she said.  Lovely.  So I started walking.  It took a little too long for me to realize that if the speed limit was 60 mph that meant my destination was at least five miles away.  Great.  But oh, saved - a bus stop!  Right there!  With a bus that goes to Balloch [desired destination]!  In five minutes!!  I am never this lucky!  That's right...I'm never that lucky.  Fifteen minutes later, I saw the small print that said the bus only ran that route until 27 September - it was 1 October.  Of course.  So I went back into the little village I'd just passed through, found the number for the singular taxi in said village, and got a ride to my hostel that cost me more than my round trip bus ticket.  Grrr.

And then.  I'm standing outside of this hostel that looks like a castle, wearing Keds and definitely not walking clothes (tights and a skirt - I thought I was just going to be on the bus), all soaked because it is still raining, ready to drop half of this crazy-heavy backpack of stuff...and there's a sign on the door saying the hostel is closed between the hours of 10 and 3.  It's 10:50.  OH.  Okay.  So after laughing at myself and standing there debating for a few minutes, I went into the woods, hid behind a tree, and changed clothes standing on my raincoat.  In the rain.  And then, slightly more appropriately dressed, I set off.  It was actually a fairly good day after that.  Lots of walking with a heavy backpack through incredible scenery and incredible amounts of rain.  I crashed into bed that night.

Saturday I explored Inveraray Castle, which was beautiful and historical and represented £30 million of amassed fortune by the Campbell clan.  Wow. and hiked up the hill behind it, which gave an incredible view.   I can't even describe it.  I learned a few things about Clan Campbell as well.  (Mom - ask me about it later.)  I saw the entire rest of Inveraray that evening - it literally took me ten minutes to walk slowly from one end of town to the other.  By Sunday I was tired of wandering around small towns and of walking in the rain, so I decided I wanted to do something inside for the day, which required going to a slightly larger town that had inside things to do.  Town of choice: Oban.  It turned out to not be very big and to not have many things to do inside, but by noon the sun was out and shining fiercely.  Oban is this adorable little port town, so I climbed a couple of area hills to get a good view - and it was a really good view.  Unfortunately, the second hill I climbed, though it was lovely with its Colosseum-like monument on top, was the site of my major disaster of the weekend.  Inside the Colosseum thing was a little grassy hill, which was beautiful...but it had been raining, and grass is exceedingly clever in covering up MUD.  I tried to walk down the hill...my foot slid out from under me and I found myself sliding on my butt alllll the way down.  It would have been almost - almost - fun, had I not ended up, predictably, covered in mud.  All over my shoe, up my leg, ALL over my backside, halfway up my arm...oh yeah, and completely covering my poor darling camera, which I happened to be holding in that hand.

That was the true tragedy of the weekend.  I let the mud dry, praying praying praying that it would be okay, and then this morning I gently brushed and picked and blew the dirt off all surfaces and out of cracks, and it worked!!...for half an hour.  Now it's giving me the same error message it did the last time I did this to it (at Big Break two years ago - I got sand stuck in the lens).  The end of that story was me replacing the lens for an inordinately high price.  I don't know what to do.  This is so NOT the time for me to be needing to replace my camera...but I can't spend the rest of the semester in Europe without a camera.  Plan number one is to find one of those pressurized-air things, like you use to clean keyboards, and try to blast the dust out of the lens area.  If that doesn't work, I don't know what I'll do next.  It pains me how AWFUL I am at holding on to ALL electronics.  Why why why??

I'm back home now, with my beloved flatmates, hanging out in our kitchen as usual, and it's surprisingly sweet.  What a weekend.  I'm happy!  Don't get me wrong!  It was stunningly beautiful, and I can't wait to salvage the pictures and show you.  But oh, what a weekend.

Going on holiday

Ironic that after going so long without a post, I then post two in rapid-fire succession.  Oh, well.  That's how I do.  I just wanted to let you know that I have plans for this weekend!  Here it is: early early tomorrow morning I'll be taking a bus to Balloch, West Dunbartonshire and spending the day hiking the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond.  I'll spend the night in a hostel there and then Saturday morning take another bus up to Inveraray.  Inveraray Castle, home of the Duke of Argyll and seat of Clan Campbell, is described as fairytale-like, and its grounds are supposed to be equally lovely.  So Saturday and Sunday will be spent checking out all of that, and Monday I'll bus back to Edinburgh, hopefully in time for my afternoon class.  It's going to be lovely.

Unfortunately I missed a couple of chances to travel with people.  Literally twenty minutes after I booked all of my tickets, a couple of the WashU people invited me to go on a highland day tour with them on Sunday.  Then when I informed my Canadian flatmate that I was leaving for the weekend and mentioned that she was welcome to come, she said she would like to go - unfortunately the time I'd booked my bus for didn't work for her.  It's a bummer - although solo venturing is fun, I'd really like to have travelling companions for once.  BUT the semester isn't even close to over.  It'll happen.

Side note, totally unrelated: I watched my very first James Bond movie last night!  I made an arbitrary decision to start at the very beginning, so I saw Dr. No, which I think was made in 1962.  As really old movies go, it was really not bad.  My flatmates, who ended up joining me, thought it was ridiculous, but I thought it was okay.  So now we have a date for Casino Royale.  (Side side note: "movie" is not a word, says British dictionary.  I think it wants it to be "film".  Okay, I saw my very first Bond film last night.  There we go.)