This week began with an Albert Lea reunion of sorts. Dustin Demmer, who has been traveling around Europe for the past 6 weeks, made a stop in Edinburgh! I, being the expert that I am (after 3 weeks), was designated as the Edinburgh tour guide. Dustin and his friend Jamie arrived on Monday afternoon and I met them down on the Royal Mile. (FYI there are two Parliament Squares so when you are meeting someone there be very specific) We had dinner at a pub off of Princes Street and then walked towards campus while I pointed out all of the important land marks for them to snap pictures of. I am sure that most of you know Dustin or the Demmer family so I won't go into much detail about him besides that fact that he used to cheat off of me in high school Spanish :) His friend Jamie is English so being the good Scot that I am immediately hated him (just kidding). Hopefully I will make it to London in the not too far future and Jamie will be able to return the favor by showing me all that London has to offer. It was great to catch up and I think that they had a great time in the city (even though they were here for less than 24 hrs).
The weather this week has been unreal. It has been 72 and sunny almost every day. I decided to take advantage of this weather and go for a jog through Holyrood Park. For those of you that don't know, Holyrood Park is a large park area at the back of Holyrood Palace. It has a large mountain type hill, known as Arthur's Seat, in the middle as well as a group of crags. There is a road that goes around the middle of the hill which Arthur's Seat is on known as Queens Drive. There is also another road that encircles the base of the hill and goes all the way around the park, venturing into a residential area. I started off my jog on the lower road, because who am I kidding I certainly didn't want to hike halfway up a mountain and then run. I was approximately two miles into my workout and about to enter the residential area when I noticed a map of the park and all of its paths. Thinking myself quite clever I decided to look for a path from the road I was on up to Queens Drive (thinking that I would hit Queens Drive at a lower point). And what do you know there was such a path and it began exactly where I was!! I began making my way through the trees, turned a corner on the path and saw...STAIRS...UP A MOUNTAIN...Needless to say my first thought was !@#$!#$%#$^#$%!#$%@#$^ but I had already committed to taking this path so I kept right on going. There were a cajrillion stairs!! And let us not forget that I had already ran two miles. I finally crawled to the top and as I was taking that last step I looked up expecting to see Nirvana and what did my eyes fall upon...MORE STAIRS! I eventually reached the top, stopped for a minute in order to prevent a hear attack, and then proceeded to run the 3 miles back home. (and by run 3 miles I mean run 1 and then walk the other two) Lesson learned: there are no short cuts up a mountain. Too bad I had to learn that by experience.
I will now try to give a brief description of each of my roommates so that when I refer to them in the future you will know who I am talking about. I live with two other Americans and two Chinese students. Kelley is one of the Americans and is from California. She is 28 and is getting her MSc in Performance Psychology (aka Sports Psych). She is the one who was lucky enough to experience Glasgow for 2.7 seconds with me. She and I are two peas in a pod or as she refers to us PICsquared. (partners in crime and clothing) We literally wore the same outfit two days in a row. She made me change the second time (age before beauty) :). Next comes Heather. She is from Connecticut and is getting her Phd in Art History. I don't think I need to spell out for you what a huge nerd she is. Every time we are at a party or out on the town she somehow manages to let her nerd flag fly. We try to bring her back to Earth as often as possible. Then comes Su Ling. She is from China and is studying to become an English teacher for Chinese students. (I obviously don't know what the technical term for this is) She is hilarious. Apparently Chinese girls think that Thai girls are kind of hoochy and so we make her do impressions of Thai girls all of the time. Sooooo funny! Last but not least is Feiru. I believe that she is doing her MSc in Social Work. She is great as well and is always cooking. She cooks meals every day that necessitate using every single pan that we have in the flat. I am contemplating asking her if I can pay her to cook for me too. (Sorry mom I just really suck at cooking) And these are my roommates in a nut shell.
I want to leave you with one last tidbit of information. We had a pot luck dinner last night between the two girls' flats on our floor. We had pizza, nachos, mac & cheese, baked spaghetti, and chocolate cake. I am lactose intolerant.
Good night!
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| the first set of stairs from the "top" |
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| the second set of stairs |
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| my reward for not dying :) |
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