I Tried Calling, but There Was No Answer...

A post in which I give up the anonymity of some of my friends.

Oof. My sister K has come to visit me here in the lovely city of Edinburgh. In preparation for her visit, I have been foolhardy enough to try and get ahead in my homework and prepare for exams, which I am quickly losing ground on. That is the clearest and concisest explanation I can give for leaving all 22 of you, my official followers, in the dark for so long. That, and the fact that the past few weeks have been a little bit of a roller coaster ride internally for me. I don't want to write and publish my less-than-ebullient internal monologues any more than you want to listen to them. However, all that aside, K and I have been having a wonderful time!

Thursday morning she arrived, and she went off to see Parliament while I went to class, and then we met up afterward in Parliament and watched the Themed Question and Answer session that happens every Thursday. This week's theme was primary and secondary education in Scotland, which was interesting, but they spoke quickly and still, some of their accents gave me a bit of trouble. Afterwards, we were right at Holyrood Palace, so we jaunted over there and had a jolly cold time looking through the palace, retracing Mary Queen of Scots' (where does the possessive go?! I can think of nowhere else to put it!) life.

Thursday evening, we high-tailed it to the New Town over to Rachel's flat, where Rachel and her flatmate were hosting dinner. (There were so many Thanksgiving feasts to attend - I had been invited to two others that evening, one hosted by my own flatmates. It was probably a bad of mine that I went over to the New Town instead of staying at my own flat, but Rachel had invited me a couple of weeks ago.) K and I brought an apple crumble, and together we made a party of about twelve people, all basking in the wonderful tradition of gratitude, feasting, and relationship-building that is Thanksgiving. I was sad to be away from a gigantic contingent of my family, but this was a very good substitute. I knew this before, but I'm experiencing how family be built by more than just blood ties.

Friday morning, I had to go to class again, so I was ready to go adventuring in the late morning. K and I went over to the airport where we had reserved a car. Shortly after getting in the car, we decided that we didn't want to deal with the hassle of driving on the left side of the road in a manual. So we turned in the car and hiked up Arthur's Seat instead. The day was clear but cold, which meant that our visibility was fantastic. For K, I think it was easily the highlight of her trip so far, and it was good for me to hike up the Seat again. After all, I haven't been back since my trip up there the first week of the semester. After dinner off of Princes Street, we walked to the German Christmas market in the street which just opened the day before, where I soon took my leave of K. Friday night was when there was a stake-wide ceilidh over at the Church, and K had been planning on going with me. It had been a long day, though, and she was still jet-lagged, so she retired early to catch up on sleep, and I went to the ceilidh by myself.

I love me a good ceilidh, and this one was good. Some of my Church friends were there, so I could hang out with them between dances and actually had partners that I knew this time. There is something very satisfying about dancing with a guy in a kilt. It's grand when the kilt flaps out behind the guy. I get a similar feeling when I'm twirling around in a long, flowy skirt. As we were at the ceilidh, it started snowing - first snow of the season. Absolutely magical. The dance ended around 11 pm on account of the inclement weather, but after everyone else had left, about seven or eight of us had a wee snowball fight in the parking lot. After that, we went to a chippy, and I stayed out way too late by watching Elf with the rest of our little Young Adult group. I shouldn't have, but it was totally worth it.

Wow, this is a discombobulated post. Sorry it's such a laundry-list. I'll try and do a few more pensive, image-based meditations on my experiences later when I'm not so tired and trying not to get all of these things out and onto the 'page' and recorded.

Today, I woke up comparatively early, and K and I went for a tour trip through the southern Highlands. Wow. It felt like the whole of Scotland was frosted over in spun sugar, like it was a Winter Wonderland. Today: Stirling Castle, Loch Lomond, and Ghost Tour to vaults beneath South Bridge.

Lovely days pass away so, so quickly.

Pictures to come soon.

Ceilidh Dancing

I think I might have found a new hobby: ceilidh dancing (pronounced kay-lee). It's a Scottish social event, and these particular ceilidhs are all about traditional dance. Forgive me if I have already talked about this, but it's so much fun, and it's worth mentioning again and again. You don't have to be good at this kind of dance, you just have to keep up.

I love twirling around and knowing exactly where to put my foot; I love feeling in tune with the music and the other people around me.

Do you see this?! I was there! I didn't make it into any of the photos, but I was doing this! 

I will be a dancer one day.

For more photographs, credits, and information, check out http://newscotland.org.uk/. Points if you can spot Cloud Strife wearing a kilt in at least two of the photographs on the site.

Oh wow

Wow, there is almost too much to post about (even though I haven't been filling every minute of my time with activities from Fresher's Week). Last night I joined my residence flat in pub crawling, and there were quite a few long and awkward conversations, but I got to know some of the people in my hall, or at least recognize them more easily. I still haven't quite gotten the nerve to hang out with a lot of Scottish people yet, and I seem to make a lot of friends with the other Americans, which isn't one of the main goals of being here. Anyway, in one night I amped up the number of pubs I have been to in my life, and I did there exactly what I did in Madrid - I ordered a Coke.

Today, most of my morning was spent planning for how I was going to get to Church. I had an academic meeting at 12 pm, which is right in the middle of my meetings (and it takes a while to walk to Church, let me tell you, and riding the bus isn't any quicker). I skipped the first part of Church, went to the academic meeting and ordered a taxi to take me to Church, and I had a pleasant ride with the taxi man. He was telling me a bit about the Fringe festival here and the people he gets to meet, who are mostly Japanese or Americans, and about famous people he has driven around. The most famous person he taxied, he said, was Sean Connery, and he had sat right in the seat I was sitting in! Just imagine: my rump rested where Sean Connery's rump once rested.

I had a nice time at Church, and afterwards I walked back towards my flat with two American graduates who live relatively near me. They sent me on my merry way down the street, but I took a wrong turn and got a little lost. However, with the help of one of the other Americans from my program who lives in my block of flats, I was able to get home without too much trouble.

The next major event with the ceilidh, which is like a Scottish folk-dance night. Think of square dancing. Now think of Scotland. If you can imagine, combine the two, throw in a flute, an accordion, and some kilts, and you've got a ceilidh. Okay, the steps are a lot different and involve jumping, twirling, and heel-toe, heel-toe kicks, but the principle is the same. Oh, right, and you make a lot of circles and lines. Anyway. I had some good times.

That's all I've really done, but it's been so nice being here in Scotland and hearing the accents and being with these people, if only somewhat by proximity.

P.S. I've also figured out simple things like how to open my door and which keys to use, how to get to the grocery store, how to turn off the heater in the bathroom, and how to use the shower here. Who knew that you had to press a button for water pressure and then turn the nob? Don't know how to successfully change the water temperature, though, so this is still a work in progress. It's all this day-to-day stuff that's hard to adjust to at first.

P.P.S. Although I love Scotland, I think I'm missing Spain. A lot.

I Want to be a Flamenco Dancer in My Next Life

Tonight I went to see a flamenco ballet performance of Carmen at Madrid's Teatro de Nuevo Apolo with my Italian coworker, her (American?!) friend, my German former coworker and her boyfriend.

It was fantastic. Carmen has never been one of the plays which really grabbed me, but this performance was different. The traditional score is nice, but it sort of thrusts itself upon you. This time was no different, although they mixed in traditional, Spanish flamenco music and dance. (The music was live! Real players sat behind a translucent screen towards the back of the stage.) Although I liked the scenes where there were men and women dressed in traditional flamenco dresses, my favorite scene was when the rival for Carmen's love was thrown into prison, and he danced out his passion and frustration by stepping as fast as humanly possible in a small circle.

En fin du compte, the live music and dancing were excellent. The story, though, was pretty weak, and the transitions from one scene to another incomprehensible.