Cold Cold Cold

I can take winter in Scotland; it's summer that'll drive me from this country. Low of 4 degrees Celcius last night, approximately the temperature where my blood turns solid and I lose the ability to do anything but roll on the floor and cry about how cold I am and whine about the weather. If it were March, it would be a different story, but it is almost July.

This is how truly boring my life is right now -- I've nothing more to say after my usual weather-related intro. I'm going on some trips in the next few weekends, but work takes up all my days and saps my energy for the evenings so I never do anything interesting on week nights.

So, instead, here's a few photos from Spring Break:

In Bucharest:



In and near Brasov, Romania:





Budapest:


I've picked these sort of haphazardly; I can assure you I have other, better pictures. Which I will one day upload.

New Flatmates

I realized that I've not told you much about my new flat, the one I've moved into since leaving my university student flat. I moved across town which, in Edinburgh terms, means I live about a 10 minute walk away from where I used to. My old flatmate, Rhoslyn, was kind enough to get her mom to drive me (but mostly my stuff) over the day before I left for Venice. So when I came home from that trip I went straight to my new summer home. Hah, that makes it sound posh. Actually, for a student flat it's quite nice. It's in Marchmont, a more residential but still studenty part of town. The flat's quite spacious, and has a lot of character and nice high ceilings, things my former flat sorely lacked. It's in one of the many old stone flats that are all over the city.

The human flatmate situation is in flux for the summer, with various familiar faces subletting, moving in/out, etc. However, the old stone flat buildings of Edinburgh are notoriously infested with mice. I've seen one in our flat, and while cooking dinner at my friend Katie's yesterday one just ran right across the floor while we were chatting and cooking away. Bold as brass. So I get to share my new flat with the mice, the giant spider I saw sneaking around my wellies last night, and the mildew. It's not been as frigidly cold lately, but it's been incredibly humid. So much so that the hand towel in the bathroom won't dry. Oh well. It'll be a good summer, if it ever gets here.

Now for a few pictures from my trip to Venice. See, I can follow up on my promises sometimes.

In the Plaza San Marco:


On the Grand Canal:


Near the bus station, at night:


Just an average canal. They're all over the city. Boring:


A (slightly) cooler canal:


Also, today's the longest day of the year! According to BBC Weather, today in Edinburgh, sunrise was at 4:27am and sunset is at 10:03pm. Hooray for long days! It really is bizarre to look out the window at 11:30pm and the sky will still be fairly blue. It's sort of like being a little kid again -- oh, it's getting dark outside, time for bed! However, I do like the early sunrises; they make it far easier to get out of bed at 6am to get ready for work.

June June June

Hi Everyone, just for fun I thought I'd start my entry off with an exciting complaint about the weather: It is frigid. Absolutely minging. Everything I thought winter would but shouldn't be, it is. Cold. Rainy. Windy. Incredibly miserable. It's so cold and humid the hand towel in the bathroom won't even dry. I asked someone when summer was going to get here. Referencing the few warm days had at the end of April, he said it was already gone. I can't believe I shipped my winter coat home. Actually, I can, but I regret it.

Anyway.

I've been up to nothing too exciting here, just working working working. And isn't that exciting. So I'll tell you about my trip to Venice then. I and several teammates from the rugby team went along to the Mirano (note: not Murano) 7s tournament, in a small town near Venice. The pictures are up from the tournament, with a lot of unflatering ones of us (in the light blue). We flew in Thursday morning from Liverpool and spent the afternoon toodling around the village nearby our hotel. Since the tournament was Saturday, we spent Friday, Sunday, and Monday in Venice itself. It was only 5 euros return to Venice, though on the slowest bus imagineable. Highlights of the tournament included:
-taking 2nd overall
-streaker on a bicycle
-large box of fresh fruit
-watching rugby all day, in a tournament atmosphere (which I miss from home!)
-getting to play 7s

Venice is a beautiful city. Saying that, I would never go there in the summer, for three reasons: the tourists, the smell, and the heat. It was already plenty warm and crowded when we were there, and I could tell that any warmer and the canals would smell quite a bit. Nonetheless, I had an excellent time there and would love to go back and explore more of Italy.

Being in Italy reminded me a lot of California -- it drove home really how much the southern part of the West Coast has a mediterranean climate. And of course I love the Italians. Good food, talking with your hands, not getting places on time... all things I can identify with. Ah, the motherland.Yeah, yeah, yeah... pictures to follow.

In the midst of all my working for the summer I'm trying to plan some weekends before the Edinburgh Festival rushes up in August and takes up all my time. Things have started going so fast here, since I started working. The weeks zip by as each day blends into the next, and weekends are even quicker. Before I know it it'll be time to go home. I'm finally starting to feel 'ready to go home' but I'm not ready to leave Edinburgh yet. Don't think I'll ever be really ready to leave this city, but by September I think I'll be really ready to go back home. Anyway, I'm planning trips to Paris and Dublin before I leave, and also probalby some places in England and Scotland.

Right, I need to sleep now so I can be functional at work tomorrow. I hate starting at 7.30am.

Boring Days

It's June and it's far too cold here. I've been working, a.k.a. nothing exciting's been happening. Venice was great (recap on that later), and the new flat is working out very well. Now if I just had the time to run errands!! I'll stop whinging and write you a more informative post later.