Why I’m not posting…

This is what my desk looks like tonight:

Yes, I am reading all of those books.  No, none of them is for ‘fun’, not even Pride & Prejudice.

Ah, end of term, in the intervening four years since we last met, how did I forget how much I loathe thee…

 

Leith Water Walk

After weeks and weeks of nothing, two posts in as many days.  How’s that for inconsistency…

I had a really good morning of yoga and studying.  So as a reward, I grabbed my coffee, my camera, my Zune, and went and got lost in New Town.  Ended the afternoon with a street performer and walked home with a battered Mars bar.  This may have been my most perfect Sunday in Scotland, yet!

 

 

Coffee, Alcohol… and food if you insist.

So today I needed to reset my head, and intended to go on one of the many ‘walks’ to be had in Edinburgh.  Unfortunately, it being a lazy Saturday and having been out at a pub until midnight like a proper post-grad I didn’t really get going until after three o’clock.  This meant that the sun was starting to set by the time I not only got my coffee but made my way to Waverley station to purchase tickets for my forthcoming trip to exotic, exciting Norwich (you all envy me, don’t you?).

I may not have managed a picturesque walk, but I did pass by nearly every place I adore heading with my friends up here, pubs and coffee houses, and the occasional restaurant as well (I maintain that as a post-grad it is perfectly acceptable to survive on coffee, chocolate and alcohol… my flatmates disagree though… they are clearly strange).

As previously promised, here is the picture of the three pubs lined up in a row (in order left to right, The Counting House, The Blind Poet, The Peartree):

I usually find myself at the Pear Tree.  If I’m not there, I’m here (sorry for the darkness of the pic… it gets dark here fast):

Okay, that turned out crappier than I thought it would, just trust me when I say that the sign behind the red and white stripey things says ‘Brass Monkey’.  It’s a pub just ’round the corner from where I live that is pretty good.

Last but not least, there’s The Jazz Bar, where I’ve been at least twice in about three weeks, and will be going again next week:

IF you like live jazz (which yours truly does) it is a fantastic place.  And it serves the best red wine I’ve had in Edinburgh thus far (Merktree Merlot, for anyone heading that way… Australian mix of merlot, shiraz, and I can’t remember how many other reds).

Also, being in a part of the world where they understand how to properly brew coffee (provided it’s not instant, ::shudders::) I have become something of a coffee addict.  And I’m a bit spoiled for choice here in Edinburgh.

These two shops are conveniently close to either the library or my classes.  Top photo is of Elephants and Bagels, a shop discovered by my mother via Google before I arrived, and sister shop to the famed Elephant House which claims to be where part of Harry Potter was penned (for the real location, check Miss Edinburgh’s comment, please!).  They do some pretty decent coffee and tea, and make fantastic bagel sandwiches (see, I do eat food!).  The bottom is The Black Medicine Coffee Shop.  They do excellent coffee, and even better tea for only £1.30 a pot.

But by far my favourite coffee shop is this tiny little place with excellent coffee, service AND food just three minutes from home:

Kilimanjaro, right there in the middle.  Blink and you’ll miss it, but very good shop.

And since my flatmates insist that woman cannot live on caffeine and alcohol alone, here are two eateries near or on the Royal Mile that I absolutely adore.

Top is Chocolate Soup… which they don’t necessarily serve (it’s a type of drink, not a soup).  They do an EXCELLENT mocha (chocolate… duh), and their soups are fantastic and very affordable.

Bottom is Clamshell.  Another blink and you will miss it shop on the Royal Mile where you can get traditional fish and chips, or chips and brown sauce (my preference), or any other number of fried foods including the beloved deep fried Mars bar, which I insist everyone must at least try here in Edinburgh.

So, I’m not going hungry or thirsty.

I am however, feeling as though I am quickly running out of time.  Only three more weeks of class, and six before I head back to the States for my only visit all year, and I still have 4000 words to write for one class.  With all the traveling and going out I’ll be doing in the next few weeks I guess I’ll need to knuckle under and get to work.

I mean, being here on a student visa, they seem to expect me to study or something…

 

Reading week, a lot of studying, and Eddie!!

Sorry for my silence the past couple weeks.  I spent all of reading week working on a paper that is my ONLY assessment for a core (read: required and very important) course; then last week I spent doing a presentation for my Theorising the Photographic Image course which involved a very close reading of, oh, an entire book.

Post-grad life, here I am!

Reading week wasn’t all bad, I have to admit.  I got to go out and do a preliminary interview with the place I’m doing my internship.  Haven’t been back because my training has been delayed until 3 December… but at least I know where I’ll be working, how to get there, and what I’ll be working with.  I also got to experience Halloween here in Edinburgh.

Being a veteran trick or treater and former substitute teacher, I was not as keen to go to the university’s Halloween party.  One, because dressing up would have involved either buying an expensive costume or paying expensive prices to get my stuff from home shipped over, and well, with all the above mentioned work, I was too damned tired and lazy.  Two, university starts at 16 – 18 here.  I really did not want to be trapped with people, the likes of whom I had been giving referrals to only a few months ago, while they got completely drunk and I watched.  Been there, done that.  Not fun.

So instead I went to the Royal Mile to watch the Samhuinn Fire Festival, put on by the Beltane Fire Society here in Edinburgh.  I’m afraid I have no pictures of the actual fire festival YET… I took my old fashioned, film camera in an attempt to get some funky long exposures.  Once I get them developed and get myself a cd of the images I’ll try to upload.

I did however encounter not only some of my classmates, but also my flatmates, all of whom were acting in a rather more outgoing and flirtatious manner than usual.  I guess this is what happens when you combine alcohol with dressing up and a Saturday night!

The night ended at a pub (of course!) which is something I always enjoy.

Last week we were all so busy that the only thing not school oriented that was done was a trip to the National Museum of Scotland with another of my flatmates:

The high point of the past two weeks though has definitely been the acquisition of tickets to see Dara O’Briain in March, AND getting to see Eddie Izzard last night in Glasgow.

Oh. My. God.

I was FIVE ROWS from the stage.  Excuse me a moment. ::deep breath:: Okay.

He went on about Spartan ninja sheep, jazz chickens, religion, wikipedia, French speaking badgers and a number of other things that made me laugh so hard that my sides STILL hurt and was just utterly, totally glorious.  Anyone who can, find a ticket somewhere, he is totally worth a drive/effort to see in person.  I really can’t gush about this enough.

The only downside was that the show ran a bit over time, and the crowd moved a bit slow, so there was a bit of a rush from Glasgow Central to the Queens Street station as my friend and I did not particularly want to spend the night out in the cold in Glasgow when we both had classes/meetings today.  But we DID in fact make it to the train in time and recap all the glorious jokes we had heard over the previous two hours plus.  Unfortunately, though, since we got back after midnight, all the shops were shut so our favourite scottish comfort food of a deep fried Mars bar was unavailable (I know it sounds gross… but damn is it one guilty pleasure…).

I’m sorry for the lack of pictures in this post.  I’ve been so busy and exhausted I just haven’t had the energy to pull out my camera.  BUT, I do have a Thanksgiving party to attend soon, and a trip down to exotic Norwich (England at last).  Plus in a few short weeks I know for sure I’ll be in London before I get my flight back to the States… and I’m hoping to get in a sneaky trip to Italy and possibly Spain.  So there should be more photos soon.

Promise!

 

Not much to see…

This isn’t going to be a very long post because I am, quite frankly, exhausted.

The trip to Loch Katrine was I would say only a 50/50 success story.  We did get there.  Eventually.  We got lost on the way up.

Twice.

The windshield wipers on the bus broke at one point, which was a serious problem because it was bucketing down most of the time (horizontal rain at a few points), and after about five hours or so in a bus, the novelty of being lost in the Highlands wears off.

I did, however, get to see lots of sheep, and got more than half way through the leg of my second sock.

We did make it there eventually, and the food at the pub/bistro on the loch while not spectacular was at least hot.  And it stopped raining long enough for us to take a short stroll ’round the lake.  Which is where I got the following.

Enjoy!

 

Why yes… I am bragging…

Look what arrived in the mail yesterday…

It’s my ticket for this: http://www.eddieizzard.com/

Hate me, my friends.  Hate me!

 

Glasgow

I don’t think I mentioned last time that I was heading to Glasgow on Saturday.

Well I was.  A group of us went, and so I took my first train ride in the UK, and finally got to see more of the country than Heathrow Airport, Edinburgh (duh), and a few sheep from the window of the plane before I nodded off.

I don’t know what I expected to find there, honestly, but I was assuming it would somehow be more industrial.  Of course, we only did the “tourist” thing, museums, bus tours, etc. So perhaps we just completely missed the “industrial” part of the city.  Have a look see:

There are a lot more museums, for sure.  And I understand (being an art major and all) that the city of Glasgow spends more on the arts every year than Edinburgh does.  So it has definitely been added to my places-to-look-for-jobs-that-will-enable-me-to-pay-off-all-my-loans list.  And aside from finding out the hard way that BBC Weather lies (hello, my name is Brenna, the human ice cube), and getting lost on the way back to the train station, at 9 o’clock at night (we circled Glasgow Central fully before we found the entrance, and then found out that at that time of night we had to leave from a different station… great fun in the dark and the cold, let me tell you!), it really was a great day.

But if I’m honest I was really glad to get ‘home’.

At least until I remembered what my workload for the week was (heavy).  But I am a post-graduate student, which means that I am a professional procrastinator.  And with a trip to Loch Katrine coming up THIS Saturday (spend five weeks not budging from my central location and now I’m traipsing all over the country… it’s great), I decided to hunker down and get some knitting done.

Those of you unfamiliar with my previous blog and completely uninterested in knitting, feel free to stop reading now.

I started a pair of Evelyn Clark’s Retro Rib Socks (ravelry link only, sorry) nearly two months ago (8 September).  But because of the “great emotional roller coaster” that was the visa process (you’re going, no you’re not, you’re going, it’ll be another two weeks… by the way, it’ll be there tomorrow), I didn’t get too terribly much done.  BUT, on Sunday, I at long last finished:

One sock.  NOW I just have to make another one (damn). Yarn is Koigu Painter’s Palette Premium Merino sock yarn in colourway P138 for anyone who’s interested, purchased at Wildfiber in Santa Monica in June.

And because knitting is so much more interesting than reading assigned readings… I knocked out my first pair of Fetching by Cheryl Niamath:

I used less than a whole skein of Knit Picks Swish DK in colourway Petal.  The only mods I made were to leave out one cable row (replaced with just another ribbing row) and to do a regular bind off rather than the picot edged one recommended.  As cold as it was just in Glasgow, I’m suspecting it will be even colder on the Loch.  And with winds that do actually head down here out of the Arctic, frilly must make way to warm!

More pictures next week.

 

Word to the wise…

If you’re an American in Edinburgh and seriously want to impress the guy in the chip shop, walk in and confidently order chips with brown sauce and an Irn-Bru (pronounced iron-brew), which is the national drink of Scotland.  It’s a soda that tastes like a slightly creamier but not overly sweet version of orange soda.

Instant kudos.  And I got way more chips than last time.

Just sayin’…

 

One month to the day

I’ve been here for one whole month.  To the day.  I’ve settled in to my accommodation, learned where to shop, signed up for and attended my classes.  Done a ton of reading (some of it interesting).  Sorted out (for now) what my dissertation will address, as well as two of the four shorter papers I will have to write before March of next year.  I’ve been to three different art exhibits, in three completely different locations which revealed exactly how small Edinburgh really is (remember, I did live in San Francisco). Gotten lost multiple times, met and befriended people from all over the globe, and learned how to make proper chai and the odd chinese or indian dish.  I have found and been to K1 Yarns.

However, I am afraid I still can’t quite shake the habit of gaping about like a fish when I pass certain things here in the city.

Try as I might I just can’t seem to ignore statues of Wellington, castles, gothic churches, cobblestone streets… and yes, I do still grin every time I pass Greyfriar’s Bobby.

I have however adapted to a number of things:

I am perfectly at ease with the fact that no matter how I dress today the weather will do something completely different from what I anticipate.

I no longer remember what it was like to be able to shower without having to prop my shampoo bottles on top of the toilet.

I am perfectly adjusted to the fact that there are men who simply wear kilts because they felt like it today, are hoping to get money off the tourists, or are on their way to a traditional/formal function.

I can pay for my groceries without holding up the queue trying to remember which is the five pence and which is the two pound coin.

I have memorized my mobile number… including all the prefixes. (HA!)

I have perfected the art of jaywalking (there are signals?  what signals? as long as there aren’t cars coming, that’s all that matters). And I have done it, across cobblestone streets, in heels. Look upon my works ye mighty and despair.

I no longer look the wrong way before crossing the street (very important, this… prevents one from getting knocked over by a bus).

I have a new and beloved addiction to coffee and tea and all things caffeinated.  I even have a frequent buyers card at The Elephant House (for any Harry Potter obsessees reading, this would be the coffee shop in which she wrote part of The Philosopher’s Stone… no that is not why I went in there) and it’s sister shop, Elephants and Bagels.

I have also, rather paradoxically, developed a higher tolerance for alcohol.

And this is extremely important, as anyone who has ever read PG Wodehouse’s Something Fresh will attest:

In most English country towns, if the public houses do not actually outnumber the inhabitants, they all do an excellent trade. It is only when they are two to one that hard times hit them and set the innkeepers blaming the Government.

PG Wodehouse, Something Fresh

I seriously thought it was merely another Wodehousian exaggeration for comedic effect.

It isn’t.

The sheer frequency of pubs here is unbelievable.

Just round the corner and down a bit there are three, the Blind Poet, the Counting House, and the Pear Tree, all right next door to one another. THREE!!!! I will have to take a picture and post it here later, because this seriously need photographic proof.

So what am I doing tonight, when I have no classes tomorrow and nothing but self-paced research to do?

I am going to yet another one.  This time to an Australian one.  Why am I going to an Australian pub in the capital of Scotland?  Well, why not?  My options (for my American friends: read “elective”) course which I travelled half way ’round the world to attend (along with my other courses, of course) meets every Monday, and there are ten of us.  And you know what?  Not a single soul in the room is British.  Not even the instructor.  She’s German.  And the Art History department borrowed her from the French department to teach a course on Photographic Theory.  The students (myself included) are predominantly American (five total, from as many different states), there are two South Africans and two Canadians.

So I figure, why not go to an Australian pub in the center of Edinburgh.

Glad to see you’re going along with me on this.

I’ll let you know how it is.

 

Not all who wander…

For as long as I can remember, my mother has had this line (from JRR Tolkein’s The Fellowship of the Ring) in its entirety as her email signature.  For all her emails.  Work, school, private… I see it every time I get an email from her.

I love it. And I’ve never lived anything so true.

I’ve spent time in Japan.  I’ve spent time in San Francisco.  I’ve up and moved to Scotland.  I have every intention of up and moving again once I finish this programme.

I am most at home when I am wandering.  It is when I feel most bien dans ma peau.

And with all the changes and the upheavals lately, I have felt very off balance.  So today I decided to fix that.  Today, I wandered.

I’d finished all my assigned reading yesterday.  I had no appointments or meetings or other demands on my time.  So, I looked up a walk through New Town, jotted down some basic guidelines on a piece of scrap paper, stuffed it in my pocket, grabbed my camera and went.

To anyone who is heading this way, I swear there is no better way to see the city than on foot.  There are just so many little details that you would normally miss on a bus or in a car (also, get on that treadmill before you come, the city is built on several hills, and you need to build up your endurance).  And being the noticing sort, and the daughter of not one but two artists, it is these very details that I feel most make the trip, and most sum up a city.  The little touches, and all the contradictions that combine to make the whole character that is each unique place.

The weather was absolutely perfect.  Bright, but a bit chilly with a northern wind and the occasional sprinkle of icy rain blown in from the Arctic Sea.  I cannot describe the felicity of wandering through the streets with the sun shining full in my face, as little ice-cold droplets of rain occasionally dropped onto my cheeks or eyelashes.  There are no words.

But I do have my camera…

They always say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but which ones?

Everyone’s experience of the world is uniquely different.  So, I’ll let you choose your own.