A week in November



the snow in Scotland!



So, this last week I got to finish all of my assigned class work that has been given whilst here. My two final papers were due, and they are in, and being graded, which means that my weekend has been highly stress free, I am feeling good about it.  So most of my past week was spent in class, we are almost done, I only have a week left, and even then, some of the classes aren’t going the full week (I like that). But then of course, finals come in, and they are highly frightening. Though it was a week of work, there was plenty of play to fit in, including some overseas thanksgiving celebrations, and also a quick trip over to Edinburgh for shopping and food (some other things happened as well though).

 

the apple crumble

Tuesday is when the real fun began I was sitting in the library working on a paper between classes, when... The power goes out. I thought it would pop right back on, and I would be able to finish my work, but no, then the fire alarms go off and we had to evacuate the building. Erin and I decided this would be a great time to go get some coffee or something, we walked away from campus and start realising that the whole of the west end is out. It was hilarious, so we walked to the botanic gardens, which as anyone in Scotland knows, means you need to cross a major intersection, and we did (sans lights) We ran across the street in front of twenty cars, just to have something to do. By the time the power did come back on we were very upset, we were hoping that there would be no more class that day, but no such luck, we had to go back to school and learn some more (what a disappointment). There was a high point of the Tuesday though, we went to a potlatch which they weirdly enough call a buffet (I don’t know) and we had great success with our homemade apple crumble. Though Tuesday was not ideal, we were able to have some fun as well as some learning.

Wednesday brought about mostly just class, but also a trip to Cup, my favourite tea shop, where for the first time I enjoyed their lunch menu (a tomato, mozzarella, and basil sandwich), I also tried a tea I had never heard of before, and therefore never had. It was a gunpowder tea, which was very good. It smelled like there was someone sitting in the mug smoking a cigarette, but other than that the flavour was very robust for a green tea, which made it highly delightful. Then of course the weirdest thing happened, I celebrated thanksgiving in another country, without my family.

our delicious thanksgiving dinner

Thursday came, and unfortunately I had to go to class (this has never happened to me before). One teacher did wish all her American students a happy thanksgiving though, which was very nice of her (she is married to an American so she kind of understood I guess). I had my own thanksgiving celebration with Erin. We went to our fabulous Waitrose to purchase a thanksgiving meal (which was slightly more difficult than expected). We got some turkey from their deli section, two large slices as our main part of the dinner (which worked very well, especially since I don’t know how to cook turkey, so it makes a great substitute) We also had some green beans (cooked in a microwave!) cranberry sauce (a little different) mashed potatoes (premade) apple cider (juice heated with cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg) and finally we made another delicious apple crumble for ourselves. I would consider this dinner highly successful, and I now know what to do should I ever be celebrating a major holiday in another country again, it will be something along the lines of this past thanksgiving dinner. I did get to celebrate Thanksgiving with some family though, Erin’s parents and grandparents were in town for the week, and they took us to Cafe Rouge in Merchant Square for a thanksgiving meal (though I had mussels, which wasn’t very thanksgiving-y). It was very nice though, and good to celebrate a holiday with some sort of a family since mine was in Colorado.



Christmas time in Edinburgh



Another good thing that comes with Thanksgiving is it officially becomes time to Christmas shop/celebrate! On Saturday Erin, Katie, Brittney, and I took the train over to Edinburgh for a day of Christmas shopping and general fun! It was a very eventful train ride, because it was crazy full, the train before us got cancelled due to weather (it snowed 1 ½ inches). But we made it alright, it was so pretty from the train, it looks like a winter wonderland here in Scotland! We had lunch first then wandered the Royal Mile to buy gifts for everybody’s family. Plenty of scarves and gloves were being purchased yesterday which was good. We also made a stop at a fudge store way down the Royal Mile, and enjoyed some delicious fudge. We stopped for about an hour at Starbucks because it was so cold, we had to warm up with some holiday drinks. We ended the night wandering around the Christmas market where there were a bunch of shopping and eating stalls, and also some rides, I might have to go back just to ride a ride (although Glasgow’s Christmas market has the same ride....) Overall the second to last week of school was very fun, and now I only have about three more weeks left to enjoy this country.