From Scotland with love

Readers, if there are any left, I have returned to America! Yes, i never thought the moment would come either, but in the final days of October it did. 9 countries and countless pastries later, I landed myself back in B-town. It was strange, waiting in the airport, knowing my mom and Faith would be picking me up in Roxxy, my dear little Volvo. Suddenly, they were pulling up and I realized, that I was indeed back in kansas, though I don't remember ever clicking my heels together three times.

Throughout this blog, one of my faithful readers was my Auntie Karen. In my last part of my trip I went ot edinburgh to visit my cousin Tim, her son. So here is a little bit about the weekend...

After a forced march up these ridiculous steps in my boots with my backpack, we arrived at Tim's dorm. Edinburgh and the university of Edinburgh are both equally beautiful, old and gothic. Its not the ugly kind of gothic though, it's the cool, spooky castle kind and so many of the structures seem so grand wadhed in the charcoal-blackish color. Tim shares a dorm with three other guys and it's set up like an apartment which is nice. I met one of them, the names escape me now of basically everyone I met in Europe. Then we set off for a pub. We met up with a couple of Tim's friends. Tim forced me to drink some type of beer and I struggled to finish a pint. They on the other hand were downing dark beers. Gag! Oh I almost forget! While walking to the pub, I ran into Ben McGuiggan! Ben and I went to high school together and he and his father were walking in front of us when he heard my voice and turned around. Of course, my voice. It was all very strange, especially since I ran into Lauren Canepa in Florence.

Moving on...
That night we went out to a club called Cabaret Voltaire and we were there until three am when they kicked us out. We walked home in the pouring rain to the apartment to get some sleep. The next day we set off to see the sights of Edinburgh. We walked down the Royak Mile, saw Parliament, some statues dedicated to the great warriors of Scotland which sort of look like church altars on steroids. We saw the castle which is pretty big but didn't go inside because it cost 30£. Absurd. I don't know why Edinburgh thinks that's acceptable. At any rate, my sightseeing capacity was lowered to about three hours, so we returned to the apartment. Tim made some pasta, although didnt completely wash the soap of the pan so we slightly feared throwing up later in the day. That night we went to his friends house for a house party. There was a fun group of people there, most of them students from the university. I may or may not have drank a whole bottle of rose wine.

Sunday morning, Tim and I went to a restaurant for a full Scottish breakfast. This consists of two eggs, bacon, ham, beans, home fries, black pudding, a tomato and toast. I'm not kidding. It's amazing, except for black pudding which is kind of weird but I ate some of it anyways. Then we decided that hiking up to Arthurs Seat following this meal would be a good idea. I still claim that Tim was trying to kill me. We were trudging up this mountain with one of his friends and I felt the pastries really catching up to me. Who was this person? A mere 6 months ago I was competing at Cheerleading Nationals and now I couldn't complete a 45 minute hike up a really large hill. Oh, the joys of gaining weight in Europe and killing my lung capacity.

We made it to the top though and the views were breathtaking. The sky was the most beautiful blue and the fields and the golf courses were this rolling green. Seriously words do not do it justice. However, my iPad ran out of room for pictures so I couldn't upload them yet. When I looked out among the skyline, it was hard to imagine this would be my second to last day in Europe. It was like, look what you're seeing and all you have seen, you can go home now, but don't you dare stay away.

Every Sunday night, one of Tim's friends cooks dinner and tonight was Tim's turn. We made burgers and guacamole and it was delicious. We ate california style, when you put guac on the burgers. Go home and try it! Tim had a friend who is from France and she is basically the poster child for France is the best and no one can compare to us. Let's just say it easy to start a fight with her if youu start with "America is better than France because..."

All in all, it was a great weekend and I am so glad I got to see Tim and Edinburgh!

XO

PS... I will continue to blog if you're interested :)