Winter Wonderland (part 2)

There isn't really much to say about these, just that the city is beautiful and the snow really reminded us all of that.  Enjoy! (again, most of these were taken by Lydie)

an oasis in a snowy courtyard on Cowgate early Saturday morning

 Lydie and I had already planned to go out exploring on Sunday morning, as she had never been to Edinburgh before (outside the airport), but when we woke up in the morning and saw all the snow it was even better.  Ailsa also woke up and saw the snow, so she came with us which was also a lot of fun.

view from outside the castle

buried on Bucchleuch Street

a close off the Royal Mile

The goal was to walk from the bottom of the Mile (where I live) up to the top to go to the castle.  November 30th is Saint Andrews Day, and as part of the festivities the castle was supposed to have free entry.  Unfortunately, we hit a road block.

Tourist picture! castle!

 I kid you not.  The castle was closed for "extreme weather conditions" for maybe 3 inches of snow.  Seriously, this is what it looked like while we were there:

 yeah.  It was a really nice walk anyways, so it was no big deal, but I find the Edinburgh response to snow absolutely hilarious so far.  The tourists, on the other hand, were having a great time.

building a snowman on the castle wall

On the way home we stopped at Forsyth's Tea Room in one of the closes off the Mile.  It was adorable and run by a lovely older lady who gave us some excellent shopping advice and had a fabulous apron.

eating "toasties" aka grilled sandwiches and tea for lunch 

 Later that evening Lydie wanted to see campus, so she and I walked over to George Square.  By the way, given the snow I've changed my mind.  Campus isn't Hogwarts, it's Narnia.

Later that evening we went on a ghost tour, which was really scary but also very cool!  We went down into the vaults, which are supposed to be one of the most haunted places in Britain.  I'm counting it as the start to my history revision.

Winter Wonderland (part 1)

It snowed this weekend! Actually, it's still snowing...According to Bloomburg Businessweek, this is the most widespread snow the UK has gotten since November 1993.  This makes sense, considering no one appears to be able to handle it.  We've had about 6 inches so far, and as a result the city appears to have come to a standstill.  Most classes were cancelled today (although I still had my earliest one), there's a citywide snow day for Edinburgh public schools, the airport was closed all morning, and the gym closed early so I can't go to hip-hop tonight.  To be fair, the roads are really bad-but that's probably because it's been snowing for two days and I have yet to see a plow or street sander.  Hmm.  Good job, Edinburgh City Council.

Anyways, before everyone panicked today, Lydie and I had a great time exploring the winter landscape over the weekend.  It started on Friday night with a trip to the newly-opened German Christmas Market, followed by a snowy adventure to Edinburgh Castle and back down the Mile to tea.

Again, most of these pictures were taken by Lydie.  I'm pretty sure that has something to do with why I seem to be unable to re-orient them the right way up.  Anyways, this is the ferris wheel at the Christmas Market.  There were a few rides in addition to the food and craft booths in this part of the fair, and everything looked rather magical all lit up in the distance.  In the lower part of Princes Street Gardens (where the market is located) were tons more attractions, including an ice rink.  I can't wait to go skating when I've studied for exams!

The official light ceremony and market opening were on Thursday-the lights will be up until after Hogmanay, the Edinburgh New Year's celebration.

This slide is called a Helter-Skelter.  I remember going to the Fourth of July carnival when I was little and riding similar slides (your legs go inside a sack), but I don't think they were ever shaped like a lighthouse!

It was really nice seeing Lydie-in fact, it was almost like having family there for the holiday weekend.  We didn't actually go on the carousel, but they're still my favorite!

We also both tried Haggis for the first time at the "Highland Market".  Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish made of ground mutton with oats and spices, cooked inside the stomach of the sheep.  I was a little hesitant to try it because I don't eat much meat and I've barely ever had lamb, but it was really good!  I had haggis in a baked potato, which was yummy and really warm and perfect for the cold, snowy night.  Lydie had hers the traditional way: with "neeps and tatties," or mashed potatoes and turnips.

The stalls at the market sell all kinds of awesome, kitschy Christmas decorations and crafts.  I love nutcrackers-when I was little my Dad took me to see the ballet in Boston, and we always have a nutcracker or two in the house at Christmastime.  We gave Lydie one the year she lived with us, and she told me at the market she still has it (along with her football)!

My favorite from this display was the "Highland" nutcracker, wearing a a little tartan outfit and banging a drum.  Ridiculous and so cute.

This stall was a favorite among my group!  It was selling cookies, marzipan, and fruit dipped in chocolate.  I'm not a huge fan of chocolate, but they also had white chocolate, which I love.  Most interesting was a habanero pepper dipped in chocolate!  I am definitely not brave enough to try that one yet.

In addition to the slide and carousel, there was also a "flying swings" ride.  I haven't been on one in years, and they are so much fun!  It was freezing, but we braved the winds to fly over late-night Christmas shoppers and the lit trees in the gardens.

Thanks-sharing

Although Scotland doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, I still did!  We had our celebration on Saturday since I still had classes and dance on Thursday.  I usually help Mom cook, but this was my first time doing the turkey.  Lydie, who lived with my family for a year and therefore has some experience with Thanksgiving, came to visit for the weekend from England and was a huge help.  You can also thank her for all the pictures!

 Mom emailed me instructions for roasting a turkey-Lydie and I started early in the morning so that it would have enough time to cook.  I made sure to clean out the body cavity thoroughly...but it was really gross.  I don't think I could have done it if I hadn't aced my biology dissections last year!

 In addition to the traditional turkey, I was really set on having cornbread stuffing.  Unfortunately, cornbread isn't really seen here.  After a determined search, Lydie and I tracked down cornmeal at an Indian market nearby and I made cornbread from scratch so I could make cornbread stuffing (both recipes from Martha Stewart).

 My flatmates were very helpful taste testers :)  They also cleaned the kitchen and tracked down an extra table from a friend's flat.  It was definitely a family effort.

 We also borrowed a meat thermometer from a friend, so no one would get poisoned.  Unfortunately, it never went past 160.  After almost 5 hours in the oven, we decided to just cut it and see how it looked.  I guess everything was fine...or at least, no one's gotten sick yet...

 Being the strong independant woman that I am, I whined until Sean, the only boy and one of the only three Americans (including me), carved the turkey.

 Emma is moving to the states next year, and was eager to try making pumpkin pie.  Considering she'd never even tasted it before, I was really surprised how well it turned out.

All in all, it was definitely a success.  (And very, very tasty!)  One more thing to be thankful for :)

Thanksgiving Celebrations

I'm still celebrating with Lydie, but in the meantime here's a bit from our Thanksgiving festivities:

Turkey Time!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Obviously it's not something we're celebrating here, but I'll be throwing my own celebration with some friends on Saturday.  I certainly have a lot to be thankful for: an amazing opportunity to explore, a wonderful family who supports me, and amazing friends on both sides of the Atlantic.  Now it's time to cook!
Of course, I'm also missing everyone a lot right now.  Hope your Thanksgivings are fantastic.

Dancing and other Shenanigans

Last night I went to my very first (Scottish) ball, which had a very different dress code then nineteenth century balls at home.  I had a blast-learned some new dances, got to try dancing some of the ones I've been practicing in classes, and hung out with some wonderful and hilarious people.  Best of all, while there was a wide age range, in general the average age was early twenties.  There are very few dance events at home right now where this is the case-vintage dance isn't a part of the culture for uni kids the way it is here.  Also, I got to do Mairi's Wedding, which is at this point my favorite dance.
Here are some pictures from the EUNSCDS Beginners' Dance, plus a few other pictures from classes and general social time :)

At Chocolate Soup, which is a favorite for cold days

At Thursday classes.  We ran out of chairs...

In the process of acquiring the above picture, I gave the camera to Emma...

...who proceeded to play with it.

Obviously, we all dressed up a bit more for the ball.  Someone (I can't remember who) made the comment last week that "dance is a contact sport," and I really like that.  Which is why we're all shiny in these pictures. And why a few of them have kind of an ethereal glow.  While I would like to just say we're that angelic, it was actually so hot in the hall we fogged the lens!

Socializing during the raffle.  I just wanted to demonstrate the amount of tartan present.

some of my friends-I took a bunch during intermission so that I would have some pictures to post, since I was too busy dancing the rest of the night!

forming sets for a dance, with the band at the top

My dance card! Which was really more of a book: in addition to listing the order of dances, it also had four pages with all the dances written out so we could cram in between!

This is a little unrelated, but I'd been hearing about it from some of the experienced dancers.  A few years ago they did a performance piece to a Sound of Music medley...and I found it on youtube!  It's actually really neat: