Sunday, December 18, 2011

The Homeland

Sunday 11th
Bright and Early this morning I hopped on a bus to Narin. It was a three and a half hour bus to Inverness then a forty five minute bus to Nairn. When got there I somehow found the B and B... although it didnt take long, the town is not all that big (and by that i mean it is tiny!) Then I walked around the town and went to the beach. My first mistake was going to a very small town on a sunday. The next one was going to a tourist town that closes down in the beginning of November.... but it was still fun. The beach was beautiful! I went to the classroom for dinner, and got a goat cheese and tomato tart and roast beef... soo yummy! The food was incredible, but the highlight of my dinner was when a super drunk girl (yes it was 6:30 at night) said to her friend (very loudly) "who is that girl who is our age, and why is she eating alone, she must be a lowlife with no friends". My waiter, who was my age, and everyone else in the bar/restaurant    heard and he came over and asked if he wanted me to tell her that i was visiting a place where my family was from. And I told him no, and he politely replied, yeah that is probably for the better, she is drunk in here often and probably actually is not going anywhere... It was great!
In the morning I woke up to a full Scottish Breakfast with black pudding and everything! Then I embarked on what I thought would be a short walk, but after forty five minutes I stopped in a farmstand to ask if I was on the right track, and they looked at me with a look i have learned to just accept, and asked if i knew how far it was... I said yeah its just down the road, and then the quickly added, yeah six miles down the road. So i turned around very very quickly. So i just wondered around the town until my bus came and started on my journey home.

Paintball

Wed 7th
Today the shinty team and some of my american friends went PAINTBALLING. It was EPIC!! I got my butt kicked... and trust me the paintballs HURT! After playing eight rounds (three hours) of various paintball games we we pooped! Then went to fish and chips and took a killer nap. Then off to my weekly Dropkicks with the shinty team.
The Ultimate crew. The five on the right are my team, and
the four on the left are the ones the beat me up!

Back upppp....

Sunday the 4th
First snow day! Rosie Maz and I celebrated by heading to St. Andrews! We had lunch at the famous Fish and Chips place. Then we hit the beach which was absolutely beautiful! We met two of Rosies friends and got some hot chocolate at a little pub. Sadly i left my phone on the bus on the way to St. Andrews so on monday Rosie and I went to Glenroth, which is in the MIDDLE of nowhere!

Saturday the 3rd
Tonight was Shinty's Christmas night out... it was UNREAL! I went to Rosie and Maz's house to get ready and then we went to a lovely BYOB curry place. We were in a back room and it was so incredible full of shinty crazyness! I was awarded Man of the Semester, which was rather exciting! Then we went out to the big cheese night at potter row (that is the student bar) it was an unreal amount of fun!

Tuesday the 29th
Tonight Leah and I went to the Nutcracker, with a pre theater meal at the lovely KFC. We needed a little american lovin' after our strictly Scottish weekend. The ballet was incredible, the story line was different, it was Matthew Bourne's rendition of the nutcracker. But it was exciting, and we felt so mature having our theater night.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Ceilidh at the Irvines

This weekend I was lucky enough to head back up to the Highlands with a friend of mine. Leah and I spent the weekend at Angus' house (he is a boy we have met in our wonderful time here). It was a great weekend of Scottishness! We had mince meat pie, took some hikes and had a grand old time! The most memorable part was the Ceilidh though. It was someone's 21st birthday, and they had a big scottish dance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trWUo_mVm6k This is a video of my favorite dance step. Pretty much someone stands up and shouts dance steps and everyone that is dancing does them. THANK GOODNESS I had a scottish partner that just dragged me around, i didn't know ANY of them!
On sunday, we played legos all morning, really taking it back to the good old days! Then we went to their local bar and did a more civilized form of Scottish dance. They were preparing for the annual Aberfeldi ball. So we got to learn the classier and fancier moves of the scottish dance. Then we took the train ride home to eat a bunch of leftover thanksgiving food.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Dear Shinty, Meet Thanksgiving!

Little Baby Turkey
Although there is not thanksgiving here, i couldn't bear the though of going a year without stuffing my face with turkey and stuffing and all the fixings, so I decided it was about time that the Edinburgh University Shinty Team got to feel a little bit of the American Love. So after my class on thursday morning i rolled up my sleeves and started de-gutting the turkeyS I got. I had to cook them separately because our oven is not big enough, but that left me time to clean our lovely flat. We borrowed a table from the downstairs boys just in time for our first arrivals. It was a WILD night! Such a blast, everyone brought food that ranged from a scottish mince to a sweet potato with marshmallow and chocolate casserole. 
Our Classy Dinner Table