Can You Guess Where I Am? Part 4b

Yesterday/Saturday = 12 hour train ride Brasov --> Budapest
Today/Easter Sunday = Budapest
(Tomorrow/Easter Monday (argh!) = Budapest)

Right, so I didn't cover a few things in my blog last night, but they're all sort of retrospective-y things on Romania anyway. First of all, I heard two (Romanian) jokes while I was there, which I thought were funny.

First one: The parts of the body are having a meeting to decide who should be the boss. The brain says, "I should be the boss because I tell the body what to do, I coordinate the movements and I do all the thinking." The eyes disagree, and say, "We should be the boss because we perceive the world around us, figure out what's important, and gather information." The mouth chimes in: "I should be the boss because I control the information going out and communicate to the outside world." Then the butt speaks up. "I should be the boss," it says, "because when I decide to stop working, no more food can come in and the whole system shuts down." Moral of the story: Any asshole can be the boss.

Second one: Capitalism, Communism, and Socialism are having a tea party. On the day of the event, Capitalism and Communism show up, but Socialism is late. Finally, Socialism runs in, out of breath, and apologizes: "Sorry I'm late guys, I was waiting in line for meat." Capitalism says, "What's a line?" and Communism says, "What's meat?"

Well I thought they were funny. The second one is a little more Romanian, but I think the first is pretty universal. You know me and my jokes... bad and inseparable.

Anyway, Romania was an interesting country to visit; it really is a bit of a mind boggle that it is in Europe proper and the EU. It's sort of a hard country to visit, but I'm really glad I went. So much cooler than everyone else's spring break trips to Berlin, Rome, Paris, etc.

Lovely reflections on Budapest and Hungary to follow, when I've actually experienced something of the city.

Can You Guess Where I Am? Part 4

There's nothing like a refreshing 12 hour train ride to help remind you just how long a day can be. Fun.

Today was our epic journey from Romania to Hungary, via just about every single little town we could pass on the way. Add an hour or more for passport inspection at the border, twice (once by each country). Not getting hassled at the Brasov train station by some gypsy children. This girl of about 10 or so came up to us while Stephanie was buying Hungarian forint at the exchange window, but we just shook our heads and ignored her and headed for our platform. We knew it was going to be a long 20 minute wait for our train when we saw her crossing the tracks and climbing the fences across the tracks to get to us. Sigh. Not knowing any Romanian, we attempted to ward her off with shakes of the head and saying 'nu inteleg' (which means 'I don't understand'), and she finally walked off with the banana peels left over from our breakfast on the platform. Odd. We think she was offering to throw them away for us for spare change. Anyway, she finally left, but her younger brothers (we assume) came round and tried their schtick. Not as clever as their sister, they both gave up after we told them we didn't understand Romanian. Tough situation.

On the upside, we did get our own train compartment for the trip, with 8 seats and just us 3 travelers. I've never seen an actual train compartment (except in Sherlock Holmes shows on PBS) much less been in one. Rustic and 70s-tastic, but comfy. Though we did get a little stir crazy after several hours. Napping, studying, and iPod wars ensued, with me taking gold in all events: I napped the most, studied, and my iPod died first.

Needless to say we arrived in Budapest all in one piece and found our way easily to our hostel (for once!). As we were walking off the train platform, an American woman approached us and asked, "Do you speak English? Oh, yes, Canada!" commenting on the deceptively placed Canadian flag luggage tag on Stephanie's backpack. Before we could even say anything, she handed us three validated metro day tickets and told us they were good until midnight. Welcome to Budapest, indeed. Since our hostel was within walking distance, we took a joyride on the trams just to see if we could find a supermarket that was open. We didn't, but enjoyed the trip and felt like we used the tickets.

From what we've seen in our limited wander around, it looks very nice and I'm excited to be in a more... developed (is that PC to say?) country.

Looking back on Romania, I'm glad we went there first. It would be sort of a shock after seeing Budapest, since the country's so dirty and much less developed. The difference was apparent immediately as soon as we crossed into Hungary -- there wasn't trash strewn all over the place, houses were in proper shape, fields of livestock had fences around them, no horse-drawn wagons... even the bicycles looked nicer and in better shape.

Anyway, my trip here is sadly almost over, as I'm leaving to go back to London on Tuesday. I get the next couple days here (Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, wooo.... better go hang out in the Jewish Quarter...) and then returning to Edinburgh to be able to study enough for my finals. Steph and Clancey are going on to Sarajevo and Croatia, following our original itinerary. I'm glad I came along and would love to see the rest, but I'm not going to lie, I will really appreciate the 9 extra days to study.

As always, pictures to follow. :)

x

Can You Guess Where I Am? Part 3

Next Part of the Eastern European Adventure:
Transylvania

Wednesday = Bucharest --> Brasov (via train)
Thursday = Peles Castle, Rasnov, Bran Castle
Today = Brasov
(Tomorrow = 11 hour train to Budapest!)

So much to say, where to begin? Well, I'm in Brasov now, a cute little mountain city in the mountains, and a great place for trips around the area. Upon arrival on Wednesday, we congratulated ourselves on buying tickets and getting on what we thought was the right bus. As it turns out, bus lines change and we rode in a few circles and spent a few extra lei getting to the hostel for the evening. Annoying as that was, it was a lot easier than finding the place in Bucharest. We settled in and headed out for a walk around town in the evening light before treating ourselves to a nice traditional Romanian fare at a restaurant near the hostel. Appetizer, beer, and mains included, our 3 person bill came to 59 lei, or about $23. Not bad! Being the power tourists that we are, we turned in early and prepared for our castle tour the next day.

The hostel we're staying at gives minibus tours of the main castles nearby, Bran, Rasnov, and Peles. For only 60 lei, you get transportation (though not entrance) to all three. After talking to fellow travelers who said they'd spent 68 lei and two days accomplishing the same feat, we decided to take the gamble and sign up. I'm normally pretty wary of tours from the places you stay, but this was a good deal, and even included a stop at a restaurant for lunch. Anyway, on to the interesting part: the castles. The Peles Castle is a magnificent building, and was actually more of a summer palace for the royal family. Decorated in a variety of styles (Italian, German, Baroque, Hungarian, Iranian, Middle Eastern, Indian, etc.), it was a gorgeous 59 room example of royal finery and excess. Beautiful. Rasnov castle was a place of defense for the region, so it's up on a mountain, and has amazing views. It's crumbling, but still mostly intact, and even has a bit of a museum in one part. Probably my favorite castle of the three, for the views and cool stone remains. Bran was the third castle we visited, and is for some reason associated with Vlad Tepes a.k.a. Vlad the Impaler, once King of Wallachia, whom Dracula was based upon. Apparently he never actually set foot in the castle, but it's still cool. It's less impressive castle than really really cool, modest palace fort kinda place (adjectives fail me right now, sorry). The modest size of most rooms inside and white architecture made me liken it to a very very spacious Greek style house. But in a royal kind of way... Hard to explain. Anyway, back to the hostel for some food and another early evening.

Today we set out for Brasov's main drag, intending to see the interiors of the old Synagogue and the Black Church. Unfortunately, there was something going on in the Synagogue (which is only open till 1pm anyway) and since it's Good Friday most of the churches are actively in use. Kinda awkward and gauche to go busting in and snapping photos during services/prayers. Not to be deterred, we explored more of the city, and climbed some trails up to the old defense tower, the Blacksmiths' Bastion, and had some lovely italian pastries (which I ordered in a mixture of Romanian and sign language). Afterwards, more exploring, and back to the hostel to cook for ourselves again and pack up for tomorrow.

Brasov is a much more welcoming city than Bucharest, which makes sense since it is the most visited city in Romania. It's very pretty and has a lovely town square; Lonely Planet dubs it "The New Prague." Fitting. Though smaller, it actually looks how I expected Bucharest to look. Oh well. We took the right advice and ended up in the small, nice city for several days rather than the dirty capital. I'm also feeling like I stand out a little less, or maybe it's just that I'm not as stared at here. Either way, I feel slightly more comfortable. I think it's just that people are more used to foriegners.

Tomorrow's our 11 hour train trip to Budapest, so I'd best be off and charge my iPod!

Can You Guess Where I Am? Part 2

The Eastern European Adventure Begins:
Bucharest

Sunday = London
Monday = London --> Bucharest
Today = Bucharest
(Tomorrow = Bucharest --> Brasov!)

Hello All, I write to you from the Romanian capital city, Bucuresti! It's, er... nice. Doesn't seem to really have recovered from communism yet, though. I have a picture (that I'll put up later) that sums it all up: nice, old building, flanked by decent modern and ugly crumbling ones. At least the hostel here is nice and homey.

It's a very new experience for me, traveling in a country where neither I nor the people I'm with speak the language. English isn't terribly common here, and it's hard to communicate "we don't understand" with much more than a vacant pleading stare, a shrug, and a shake of the head. From my knowledge of Spanish and French, and The Lonely Planet's guide on Romanian (of which one page is ripped out -- second hand books are lovely!), I can get by enough to find the right way on the metro or point out menu items. But just barely.

Yesterday was a trip and a half. We flew from Luton (London) to Bucharest International Airport, which (I think) is the best (by which I mean most entertaining) airport I've met so far. Disembark the plane on to the two packed shuttle buses, just to drive 50ft. in a semicircle to the one gate terminal. The baggage handlers place your luggage on the carousel outside, just on the other side of the window, then run in and take it off the conveyor belt since there's too much to fit on it all at once. From that point on we began the long wander to our hostel, including plenty of faffing about with the airport buses and a lucky tip from some fellow hostelers.

Today was a grand, self-led walking tour of the city, after adventures with buying tickets at the train station. We pretty much walked Central Bucharest from south to North, starting at the House of the People/Palace of the Parliament. Onwards up through the old quarter (small, windy, crumbling cobblestone streets), into a lovely park with good people watching, then up to Piata Revolutiei with many cool and important buildings. Most interesting in Piata Revolutiei was the Cescu Church, which was gutted during the 1989 revolution. It was left vacant for awhile in remembrance of those who died in the revolution, but now a glass building lives inside of it. (That's really the only way to describe how it looks.) There are still bullet holes in the walls.

Bucharest is an interesting city. If Prague and Budapest are the first steps out of the west, one of our German hostel-mates told us, then Bucharest is the second. I would agree. There's a great disparity between rich and poor here, with a very thin gilding of posh cafes, fancy cars, nice shops, and a Hilton. However, most of the people seem fairly poor, and the city in general is in terrible shape. There are a also a ton of cars here (so lots of smog), though apparently plenty of parking -- sidewalks are not off limits and I've had to dodge more than one car on territory I'd foolishly assumed was mine.

Romanians practice the art of aggressive queuing -- if you're not within eight inches of the person in front of you, you're not in line. Takes some practice, but Clancey showed everyone up by elbowing an old man out of the way at the supermarket.

I've been told by people that Romanians are both very kind and helpful and suspicious. To be fair, we've met with as many smiles as rolled eyes -- at least we're not pissing everybody off. Couldn't even say the same for NYC.

I've been feeling a little conspicuous here, as I'm as tall as most men here and a lot fairer than most. My blonde-counter ratio is running at 13:3 (artificial:natural) even after a full day of walking around the city. Glad I brought my cap! I'll probably be wearing it a lot in the next few days.

So... what's next? Brasov: heart of Romania, Transylvania, and seated near some of the prettiest (still medieval-looking) towns in the country. Or so Lonely Planet says. They've not been wrong so far!

x

Hellooooo!! Can You Guess Where I Am? Part 1

Today! London! Tomorrow? Who knows?!

Actually, it'll still be London. The term ended a week ago, and with that came three whole weeks of FREEDOM before revision week and exams start in late April. On Sunday night, Brittany-From-UCLA arrived, and spent time with me in Edinburgh. Now we're in London for a couple of days before she flies back to sunny SoCal on Monday. Lovely to have her for a visit. Some sight-seeing, a great gig tomorrow night (The Rakes @ Brixton Academy), and just general London-town in all its rainy glory... And when Brittany leaves on Monday, I'll be off myself (not by myself, though) to Romania -- Bucharest to be exact -- for the start of a long Eastern European Adventure. Woo!

I'll catch you up on the last bit of the semester, post-Dublin. Class: wound to a close, got a good mark on my Animal Bio essay (woohoo, bioluminescence!). Rugby: gut-wrenching loss to Leeds Met Uni a week ago Wednesday, knocking us out of the BUSA playoffs. Radio: last Rhymes With Unk episode co-opted by trip to Leeds for rugby, but excellent end-of-term events anyway (Twist & Shout 2, Fresh Air Awards Dinner); also finished recording all the actors' lines for the soap. Whoopie! One of the actors asked me if I'd ever do something like the soap again, to which I replied, "Only if I was paid." 'Streuth, mate.

Anyway, that's all for now! My time on the expensive pay-by-the-minute internet is running out! More later, I promise.

This Weekend: Julia Goes to Ireland

So, how was Dublin?
Cold, with variety. And that was just the weather: wind, rain, snow, thunder & lightning, and hail all within the same 20 minute period! Mostly just wind and rain, though. God I love to whine about the weather. To be fair, it was just as cold in Edinburgh over the weekend -- hooray for cold snaps. Someone bring back global warming. In all seriousness, though, I really enjoyed Dublin and wish I'd had a full week to spend exploring the city. It's got a great mix of new and (old of several varieties) and actually feels quite a bit more European and multi-cutural than Edinburgh.

Anyway, what did I do aside from shiver and dodge from coffee bar to pub to shop?

Saturday, of course, was St. Patty's Day and the city was packed full -- of tourists. Well, there were a fair few Irish out as well, but it seems like every other person on the street was American. (Then again we're fairly conspicuous.) A quick flight from Edinburgh, and we were there by midday with enough time to settle into our accommodation, get lunch, and wander around a bit before finding a pub in which to watch the rugby.

We didn't get spots in time to see the parade passing through town, but a fantastic and exciting final 6 Nations match in which Ireland trounced Italy in a crowded and extied pub was enough on its own. Back to the hotel for a quick kip/watching the Scotland v. France game before heading out for the long night. In honor of this national holiday all the pubs were open till 2.30am. We spent some time in a pub in the city centre before heading into the Temple Bar district for more excitement. Let's just say you know it's a good pub when you stick to the floor. Not wanting to tire ourselves out for the weekend, we called it an early night and headed back around 1.30am. Here's Temple Bar by day:


Sunday we were relatively early and out for some shopping on Grafton Street (Dublin's equivalent of Princes/Rose Streets) before lunch and meeting up with the rest of the group. After collecting everyone we struck out for the Guinness Storehouse on the other side of town -- I mean, how are you going to go to Dublin and NOT see the most famous (though commercial) source of Irish pride? A very long walk later, through the wind, rain, snow, lightning, thunder, and hail, we arrived cold and dripping to wait in several lines before finally getting in.


No matter -- it was nice to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening in the museum and out of the weather. At the top of the museum there's a bar with a 360 degree view of the city, and it's absolutely lovely. A warm bus back to the city centre, tapas for a leisurely dinner, and a popular large pub, then an earlier night so we could see even more today (Monday).


Today, Monday (well, it sort of still is), we got up and out a little earlier so we could see the city before we had to leave for the airport. Realizing we probably needed a week to see all the most important sights, we opted instead for a double-decker bus tour of Dublin. Yes, a bit corny and touristy (in addition to being quite cold upstairs), it was a nice way to get to see a bunch of things that were just a little too far away for a morning's visit. But we did go by the canal! (This one's for you, Dad)


And now I'm back in Edinburgh. And tomorrow/today/Tuesday I leave for Leeds. 2.45pm. Rugby! Right, so story is, Wednesday is the quarterfinal BUSA match between us and (big rivals from last year) Leeds Met. Uni. We're spending Tuesday night so we don't have to drive down Wednesday morning, as Leeds is (I'm told) about a 6 hour drive from Edinburgh. (Better not be -- my iPod battery can't last that long anymore!) I'm not starting in the match because of my ankle, but I will be on the bench/running up and down the sidelines yelling like a maniac and wearing my super-fan cape.

Story of my ankle: in a match about 4 weeks ago I was running up to a ruck and like a daft idiot, stepped on my foot wrong and twisted my ankle up. I went to the physio, who diagnosed it as either a bad sprain or that the ligament had pulled a bit of one onf my ankle bones off. Ow. She gave me some exercies and a compression bandage for it (to keep the swelling down) and cleared me to go back to running and training last week. It's up to me as to when I'm confident enough about my ankle to go back to playing, but being on the bench for Wednesday sounds grand. It's not a full 80 minutes, which would frankly make me nervous for my ankle, but good for maybe getting a few minutes out there and supporting the team. And aside from all the rugby and traveling, I've got a busy week ahead. Better yet, it's the last week of classes!

P.S. I realized I am REALLY GOOD at taking blurry pictures.

Little Update

Quickly! I'm falling asleep here, but I thought I'd catch you (and myself) up with the past few days and a bit of the future...

First of all the rugby team won today (without my aid), so we're moving onto the next round of BUSA (the quarterfinals). It'll be a tough game, with something to prove, since we lost against the same team, Leeds Metropolitan, last year in the same round by 3 points. We've got fewer starting players injured going into the game than last year, hopefully myself included. I'll see what the physio says tomorrow; last week she said if I kept improving so quickly I could go back to training (but not playing). They're one and the same in my mind, I'll see what I can convince her of. A longer rugby recap will follow later, including the Tour in Devon, Scotland v. Ireland game, and The Knackekering of My Ankle.

I also went to a killer band night tonight, put on by none other than us at Fresh Air. It was a charity night for Comic Relief (I cannot be bothered to put in all the links, so google this stuff yourself), coordinated with something like 17 student radio stations across the country. We had some local bands perform: Nick Trepka (who gets mad props for covering The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" acoustically on the balalaika), Edinburgh's own My Tiny Robots, and the Glaswegian bands Futuro and The Hussys.

I've also found a definite place to stay if I want to stay the summer. It's with my friend, Tim, from the radio station, and one of his current flatmates. It'd be pretty convenient, as their flat is only half a block from where I live now, so I wouldn't have to move far. Yeah... I'm thinking of staying the summer here in Edinburgh. I've decided to decide at the end of March, and seeing as it's only the Ides, I've got a few days at least. If I do stay, I'll miss you... but come visit! It's much warmer and sunnier here in the summer, plus August has the Festival.

I'm off to Dublin this weekend for St. Patty's day with my friend, Stephanie who I'm going to Eastern Europe with. We both keep forgetting that our trip to Ireland is so close, since we booked it so long ago (October for her, January for me, after one of her flatmates bailed on the trip). I am very excited about our trip to Eastern Europe... it's getting closer and closer. We've had to re-route a bit, based on the best way to get to Sarajevo, so now our route goes like this: fly to Bucharest (from London), train to Brasov (middle of Romania) and spend a few days there doing day trips, a few days in Budapest where we'll hopefully be able to meet up with Jitka, a few days in Sarajevo (most direct way there is train from Budapest, so that's why we had to rearrange the trip), then to Dubrovnik (Croatia) to start off the second week of the trip, and finishing our week of relaxing in Croatia with a couple days in Zagreb and Pula before we fly back to London and catch the train back to Edinburgh. Whew! Like I said, we tried to plan it with the busy sight-seeing part of the trip first and a nice week to relax on the Dalmatian Coast second. Changing the itinerary did mean we had to cut out Vienna, but oh well. Another time.

Other travel plans in the works = a few days stint in London when Brittany-from-UCLA (that's how she'll be known in this publication from here on out) comes to visit, a few days/long weekend in June at a rugby 7s tournament in Venice, Paris oo-la-la some weekend... eventually... when I find the time, after exams. Which, by the way, is May 8th! Yes, be jealous, be very jealous!

Marching On

Er, I'm getting worse and worse at keeping you all up to date... Sorry. Anyway, I shall commence looking back through my calendar to remind myself of the past two weeks' events...

Classwise: Got my major assignments in (Bioluminescence Essay, Genetics Problem), so it's pretty much smooth sailing until the end of the semester. Our last day of classes is March 23rd, oddly enough, the same as UCLA's Winter Quarter. I must admit, I like the fact that semesters here last only one week longer than UCLA quarters. The catch is, here, we have a month-long term for exams after our three week spring break (excuse me, "Easter Holiday"). Doesn't bother me too much yet, it gives me time to catch up and study, though I might decide that I mind later.

Radiowise: As I said last time, Tenants has been pushed back to next term's broadcast, which is good news. I'm still doing my own show, Rhymes With Unk, which will probably be returning as part of a mega-show for next term's broadcast as well. Basically, the loose plans are to get a whole block of shows with my friends and combine them all into one big blob with everyone and all the features from our own shows. Both music and chat will be great. It'll likely be my friends from the shows Sweet As The Pineapple, Incence and Peppermints, The Jonny Brick Show, and Brash Air.

That's all I can think of for now. I'll get this much up and write you more later.

Happy Days

I don't know whether it's because the days are getting longer (it's no longer pitch black by 5:30!) or because the sun's been making an appearance more often recently, but the past few days have been, well, quite happy. Even yesterday, the darkest of all days, Valentine's Day.

Actually, I can pinpoint a few solid reasons for my good mood. I went into Glasgow last night to see The Hold Steady, who were absolutely amazing. The venue was packed full and the crowd was totally into it. Really, really good. I don't have a left eardrum anymore, but hey isn't that why we humans have two ears? Just in case one goes out?

Secondly, I'm writing an essay -- "Woah, this makes you happy?!" you say. "What happened to the old Julia?" Hold on a second! I'm writing an essay for my Animal Biology class on bioluminescence, isn't that cool?! Alright, well I think it's cool anyway. Giant squid, angler fish, copepods (zooplankton), crazy jellyfish, and red crustaceans, what could be better to the marine biologist? The best part is there isn't all that much conclusive research available on the topic, so at the end I can always say "...Or at least that's what we think so far. We're not really sure."

Next, the fantastic radio soap opera, Tenants, has been postponed! We're pushing the broadcast back to next term's radio broadcast, which will be starting April 23rd. Why is this good? Well, even though recording's almost finished, it gives us an extra two months to edit, add the perfect music and sound effects, and run a smashing publicity campaign. Also, none of us have the time to do any of that now. Sorry for the wait, but I guarantee it'll be worth it!

And here's the final kicker that made me the happiest: the washing machine in my building is finally fixed! I now have clean clothes and can see the floor of my room again. Wahey!

It's February?! Seriously?

Oh man, this semester is flying by quicker than I thought possible. How can it be February already? And February 8th at that? Wow. It's nearly the 6th week of class and I still feel like we've just started up after break.

Good news and bad news. Bad news: It's colder than ever. Good news: It's not raining much. Better news: It snowed last night, and there's probably more on the way! So exciting. Ok, so it all melted by mid-afternoon today, but I still managed to have two separate snowball fights.

Let's see, apart from that... what's new? Not much...? HAH, that's a lie. Let me just check my calendar for what I've been up to in the past weeks: Recording Tenants (2/3 days a week), Twist & Shout (Fresh Air fundraiser), Pig Racing (rugby fundraiser), Rugby (practice, games), Sports Union Ball, Scotland-England 6 Nations Game, Burns Dinner, and some other assorted nights out. What -- you want pictures? Details? Sigh...

Tenants: The Fresh Air Soap. Seriously.

Here, Katie and I are up to some serious recording in Nick's flat. I think we're going to put the mic on the ceiling for the next scene. We don't have any pictures of the actual recording process (yet), because, as you may have guessed, it's radio so we don't really care.


Pig Racing: Rugby fundraiser. I think the picture explains everything. No, you couldn't win the pigs themselves, bummer.


Sports Union Ball! Cutest rugby family ever. I mean FIERCEST, er, yeah.

Me and my "date"

And here's all of us:


Woo, Twist and Shout! Our 50s/60s club night fundraiser for the radio station. Great tunes, great crowd. Sadly, the glasses aren't mine.


And a lovely night out, for a friend's birthday.


If a picture's worth a thousand words, you can count this as my lengthy 8,000 word catch-up letter. Ok, what haven't I delivered on? 6 Nations: Scotland lost to England (boo) last weekend thanks to Jonny Wilkinson, the wickedly talented prat. I don't have tickets to any of the home games, but it's still great fun going to the pub to watch, especially when one half the crowd boos as the other cheers. Burns Dinner (Jan. 25th): traditional Scottish haggis, neeps, and tatties in honor of Robbie Burns. Tasty and filling! Uh, what else... Rugby games? We've had a couple of hard-fought matches in our club league, and attended a seconds team mini-tourney last weekend (rough and tough, I've never been so sore in my life). Coming up we've of course got the BUSA playoff matches starting at the end of March, but we've also entered two teams in the Scottish Universities 10s cup. More running. Yay.

Aside from all the flashy picture-worthy stuff, I've also been going to class and doing my normal show for radio station. Plus tons and tons and TONS of recording for the soap. That's about it. Did I mention recording the soap? Well, we're about 70% finished, so at least it's all paying off. Soon as that's all done I get to focus on my essays for class and leave the post-production work up to someone else (hooray!).

Coming up on the calendar (in case another lapse like this one happens again): Scotland v. Wales 6 Nations game on Saturday, Katie's birthday, a couple of concerts maybe (The Hedrons, The Hold Steady, Black Keys... depends on what I've got the time/money for), Rugby tour to Devon in a couple of weeks, essays for class (PCR for Genetics and Bioluminescence for Animal Biology), my weekly radio show (Tuesdays, 7:30-9pm GMT), and of course the fantastic Tenants Soap Opera that starts Feb. 26th on Fresh Air!

No. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Friday's lineup. Oh. Man. I think I'm going to go cry now.

Prague Pictures! And Stuff.

As promised, here are my mom's photos from our trip to Prague. Mucho fun. I've got a few more that I'll post in my "teaser" album later on. Like this one, of us and our Czech family:


Let's see, what else... Nothing much exciting has been going on here. Well, actually that's a lie. Even though the weather's pretty shite I'd be on here moaning about it a lot more if I wasn't busy. Classes have started up again (hooray?), not much to say there. I'm taking Animal Biology, Genes & Gene Action, and Oceanography. I find both Animal Bio and Oceanography really interesting, but Genetics... not so much. I'll just have to suffer through.

Sadly, Rugby's been suffering from a mixture of cancellations (due to rain -- flooded pitches aren't good) and a recent nasty bout of headaches. Grr. Yeah, running around, tackling, jumping, hitting, and otherwise getting into contact just doesn't seem like such a good idea when you have a mini-migrane.

Most of what I've been doing lately has been for the soap opera for the radio station. We've got one or two more scripts to finalize, we've held auditions, and we're about to start recording. Whew. We've done so much already, but there's still so much more to do. I don't mind, it's really really fun and the end product is going to be AWESOME. It's called Tennants, which is a pun, for those of you not familiar with Scottish student culture. The first meaning is obvious, since it's about four students living in a flat, but Tennents is also the name of a beer that lots of students drink 'cause it's cheap. It's going on air (on Fresh Air) February 26th, but it'll also be podcast. And that's about all I can tell you about it now. The rest is top secret. Oh, and someone dies in the first episode.

In other news, my radio show, Rhymes With Unk, is back on air, 7:30-9pm GMT on Tuesdays. 'Tis quite fun, and will be the same good funk punk junk crunk etc. stuff as last semester, but hopefully with a bit more zing.

Aaaaaaeeeeneeeeway, enough blather from me. It's late and I need sleep.

A Million Reasons

Hi! How are you? I hope all is well. What's new here? WELL, let me tell you...

It's 8:30am, and we've just had what must be at least the hundredth fire alarm this year. In the snow and rain and dark, because the sun still comes up just before 9. Fortunately we're already back inside and I'm back in my warm room with a nice hot cuppa. So right now, I'm thinking, Should I go to class? Or back to bed? I've got a few statements that are informing my opinion thusfar:
1) It's raining
2) and snowing
3) a the same time (!!!!)
4) Bed is warm
5) It's a half hour walk to class, the shuttle will be full and the bus costs a quid
6) There's more, I'm sure, give me a second...

I whine about the weather way too much. There is other stuff going on in my life, but it's cold and I'm a wuss. I'll tell you more this afternoon when I get back from lectures. What, I'm actually going? you ask. Of course! I've never gotten the chance to wear my rainboots (ahem, "wellies") outside without a large sign that says "IGNORE ME, I'M AN ECOLOGIST."

P.S. Here's a picture of me and my parents in Prague over break. More to follow. Also note the Goldilocks-and-3-bears-like beers in front of us: "man beer", "lady beer", and "baby beer" so we were told.

Wind Winds me UP

I don't usually mean to come on here and moan about the weather, it's just that today I do. January seems to have come in with a vengeance, it's apparently determined to make sure no one forgets the beginnings of 2007.

Speaking of which, I've decided my (temporary) New Year's Resolution is not to be cold. Every time I pile on the sweaters I always wonder 'Will I be too warm?' Then I walk out the front door and remember the folly of my words. There's no such thing as "too warm" right here right now. When the wind stops blowing, you get the same feeling as when you step off a treadmill: it seems strange that you make forward progress by moving your legs in the traditional sense. And when the rain stops falling you can't even tell, since the wind makes sure it's still flying at you from cars, rooftops, signs, trees, piles of wet leaves, and the sidewalk. Even if it were below freezing it'd be too windy for anything to ice over.

I keep expecting to wake up one day and see the headline "Wind Blows Small Child Into Traffic".

Winter Break Recap

I kept you up to date with all the stress and goings on of early December, I think. Well, it wasn’t that exciting: exams, end-of-year dinners, packing and preparing for vacation.

December 17-19: Barcelona, a quick weekend trip before the holidays kicked off properly. I met up with my friend Katie who was on a three-week stint around the contintent herself. Barcelona is an amazing city, it has hip design culture is just bursting out of its ears. Really fun, but much too short a visit. I’ve put up some pictures from my trip here.

Back to Edinburgh. My parents arrived, to spend a few days in town before taking off to Prague for Christmas. They loved it here – I mean, how can you not like a city with a castle overlooking it? I finished my Christmas shopping while they visited various sights around town and bought me dinner. It’s great going home for the weekend, but it also rocks having your parents in town.

After a taste of Auld Reekie, we set off for Prague, to spend the holiday with close family friends. We spent a week being treated like family (a.k.a. stuffed full of food) and being shown around Prague, which is another wonderful, amazing city. I didn’t take as many pictures since I’ve been there before, but I have a few up here, soon to be followed by more (as soon as my mom e-mails them to me, aHEM). Prague was definitely colder than Edinburgh, but we only got snow there for one day, which is unusual. Normally it’s quite snowy there; I’d have liked to have had a white Christmas, but a Czech Christmas is just as fun. In the Czech tradition, the big family meal of traditional soup, fried carp, and potato salad takes place on Christmas Eve. After dinner Baby Jesus brings the presents (the children have to go into another room to look out the window and see if he is coming). Eventually (surprise!) it announced that the Baby Jesus came (Oh no, you missed him! He must have come in the back door, maybe next year!). At any rate, it’s fun and a cool change from Santa Claus and his reindeer. The rest of the week was spent touring the town, and on our last night in the Czech Republic we went to a Medieval style restaurant. Let’s just say dancing on the tables, eating with your hands, fire-breathers, belly dancers, sword fighthing, and a witch hunt all made for an enjoyable evening. I’m not releasing the pictures of me and my friend belly-dancing on the tables, just so you know.

Back to Edinburgh again. My parents took off for the Highlands (bad idea, very cold), whilst I stayed in town to celebrate Hogmanay (the Scottish term for New Years). Even though the official street party celebration got called off due to high winds), I still had a good time with my man, Mark, who was in town. Depart Mark, return the parents for a few days before heading home.

And that was my holiday. I’m sad that it’s over. Now all I have to look forward to is preparing for the Britain-wide rugby playoffs and various radio projects. And classes.

Can't Be Arsed

Set aside a few hours for sometime in the future to read my soon-to-hit-the-stands holiday recap. Until then... well, I think the title says it all. I'm only writing this to let you know I'm alive and not detained in customs somewhere in the EU.

Oh, and Happy New Year! Hm, this is not the best way to start out 2007.

Exams, Finals, Over

That's right, you heard it, I'm a free woman! Now that exams are over, I don't have to think about them or worry about how I got a song stuck in my head halfway through my last exam: "The input of sunlight into aquatic ecosystems is... a tiny pony. NO, no no no, why did I write that?" The song in question is a spoof piece, called "Tiny Pony" (which you can download by clicking here), done by Tim from Narnia, one of people from Fresh Air. It's quite good, except when it comes to explaining how and why aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems differ and generally helping me on my Ecology exam.

Oh well. It's off to Barcelona for me for the weekend, if I can possibly get Ryanair to quit being so unhelpful. Long, boring, bothersome story not inserted here.

A Day in the Life of Scotland in December

Listen, I'm not kidding when I say the days getting really short. So here's a photo-blog to let you know exactly how short said instances of sun are. Tuesday, December 5th was a nice, sunny day, by Scottish winter standards. I've put on the "Date/Time" marker on the pictures so you can see exactly what it's like, as viewed from the window in my room.

6:04am.


7:18am. Still dark. (All you can see is the reflection of my curtains in the window.)












8:03am. Sunrise is scheduled for 8:24am.












9:10am. Still no sign of the sun.... Ahh, 9:43, here we go.












10:11am.











One hour later: 11:11am.

12:18pm. Finally, it's the afternoon.

1:02pm... Hey, sun....where ya going?

2:44pm. Ahem.

3:16pm. Sunset is at 3:40pm

4:16pm. Wait, seriously?

5:08pm. Pitch black again. Sigh.


I've discovered that here in Scotland the sun doesn't rise and fall; it goes side to side a few inches above the horizon. I just felt I needed to dramatize this point for you. Enjoy the sun, wherever you are on this earth thats less than 55 degrees North!

p.s. sorry for the strange formatting...

Labo(u)r of Love?

Or just two more nights' worth of insomnia? At any rate, I've put some pictures up of my time in Edinburgh so far. These two measly albums are far from complete as I've stupidly forgotten to bring my camera to a number of events, but beggars can't be choosers, can they? Also unfortunately, I've not included any pictures from my trip to The Highlands, as I'm still whittling the list of photos down (made it from 363 to 150... still got a long way to go).

September through Halloween:
http://ucla.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2110205&l=56cba&id=2507142

Halloween through December:
http://ucla.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2110286&l=62128&id=2507142

Enjoy!

Weekends

Ok, so this one isn't over yet, but I don't anticipate it getting very exciting.

These are some notes I wrote to myself last weekend about what to write in my blog for y'all:

saturday thanksgiving ceilidh (strip the willow!)
sunday's trouncing rugby victory
sunday night sky, beautiful blue colors
saw the sun again today!

I've got a general sense of what they mean, here's what I make out in translation: Last Saturday I went to a Thanksgiving lunch/Ceilidh (pronounced "kay-lee") that was hosted by the UC Study Centre here. Basically, I got to catch up with all the other California students on EAP (who I met at orientation in September) and then got to do some Scottish dancing. The Ceilidh band was made up of a fiddler, accordionist, and drummer (with just a snare), and were very nice and called the steps for us (think like in square dancing). Anyway, my favorite dance that I learned is called Strip the Willow (Shetland Style) and basically is linking arms and spinning around with each person down a long line. You're so dizzy by the end you just almost have to fall over; it's the greatest.

Last Sunday we (finally) won one of our rugby matches against a club team, Melrose, and it was by a sizeable margin. I forget what that margin was, but they didn't score (although they scratched and stomped like they expected to). As I was walking home from the pitch, I was struck by the beauty of the colors in the sky: the sun was down in the west, but there was a line of clouds sitting above the houses, making half the sky turquoise and the other half a dark navy blue. Ok, so it was only about 4:15pm, but I swear it was gorgeous. Oh, and the sun came out earlier that day, before it started raining in the rugby match.

So that sums up last weekend, but these past few days have been filled by food, mostly. Thursday night was our rugby Christmas dinner, officially, and celebration for winning SUSA, unofficially. We had a fantastic time, with dinner, drink, presents, and general debauchery. Friday, I again had an epic meal, as it was late-Thanksgiving at my friend Katie's flat. A whole bunch of people turned up, including a whole mess of Americans, (doing what we do best), bearing food. Two turkeys, two heaps of mashed potatoes, two vats of stuffing, and two pumpkin pies were there when I arrived, to which I added two pans of cornbread and a whole mess of candied sweet potatoes. And I got there early. Suffice to say a Scotland-held-American-Thanksgiving still knows no meaning of the word "moderation," which makes me happy. I did have to walk across town to find a Mexican deli to buy the cornmeal to make the cornbread, but it was SO worth it. Good food, good friends, cheap wine (hey, give us a break, we're students) all made for an enjoyable evening, with most people buggering off by about 9 to go home and sleep it off.

Today, however, I've chosen to convalesce at home as my chest cold decided to make a particularly nasty resurgence. I think I've been only been awake a total of four or five hours today, and that was just to make some tea. Hopefully I will feel well enough to get out and/or study tomorrow; exams wait for no illness.

That's all, over and out.