Glasgow and Barcelona

Tuesday night we had intern pizza Tuesday again. I enjoy hanging out with the other interns discussing Scottish politics and gorging ourselves on Dominoes pizza. 

Wednesday morning I went to my first committee meeting. I went to the Local Government Committee Meeting which my MSP is in. I went with three other interns. They were discussing the High Hedges Bill, which as my roommate Frances calls it, is a classist bill aimed at regulating how high your hedges can grow. At work I finished briefs and some research for my MSP, which are getting easier as I figure out better ways to prepare the information. I then scribbled down all our hostel and flight information. Julianne and I left work early. We changed in the work bathroom and walked to Waverley in our concert clothes. Our friend gave us free train ticket vouchers, so we hopped on the crowded train to Glasgow. Immediately after leaving the city, everything was covered in snow. It was so cool (literally). We arrived in Glasgow at 4:15 so it was already pitch black. We grabbed crappy paninis and coffee from Cafe Nero near the Central Train Station and then walked to our hostel. The sidewalks were frozen, I don't really know how that's possible, so we slipped the whole way. We dropped our stuff off and headed straight to the concert to get in line. 

By some incredibly awesome happenstance, they split the line right at the person in front of us and made a new line, so we were right at the front of the line. When the doors opened we were second row. 

They had three opening acts. The first was Piff the Magic Dragon, a magician in a dragon suit with a chihuahua named Mr. Piffles, who put on the strangest magic act I've ever seen. "Hi, I'm Piff the Magic Dragon. I bet you know my brother, Colin." He also played the bag pipes, which were attached to his dog. The second act was Post War Years, who were good, and then Dawes who were even better. 

Then Mumford & Sons came on at 9. The curtains dropped then whipped up dramatically as they started playing "Babel". They didn't interact with the audience as much as I've seen at other concerts, but they were still incredible. The whole crowd was jumping up and down and screaming the lyrics. They were so talented too. They could all play so many instruments and all sang amazingly and harmonized and rocked out on their instruments, it was so cool. When they played "Little Lion Man" the crowd lost it and went crazy. We ended up getting squished back a few rows, but we actually were getting pushed less back there, so it was better because I don't particularly like getting pushed at concerts. 

We slipped our way back to the hostel on a post concert high and went to bed. We slept in, got breakfast at a pub, bought a sweater from Primark, and went to catch the train to the airport. We weren't in Glasgow long, but my impression was that it was a slightly dirtier, eclectic Scottish city. It had old buildings, but new ones as well. 

On the train, we passed through some of the towns my MSP represents, which was cool because I was like, "I wrote a motion about this town!" 

Our flight got delayed so we chased the sunset on the way to Barcelona. 

Barcelona was surprisingly very stressful. I forgot how hard it is to travel in a country where you don't speak the language and I experienced a little bit of culture shock. My Spanish is terrible in the first place, so it would have been hard to get around on that anyway, but it was made worse by the fact that they don't speak Spanish in Barcelona, they speak Catalan. It is a combination of Spanish and French with different spellings, so even words that I may have been able to recognize in Spanish, I couldn't decipher in Catalan. 

Coincidentally, Catalonia is trying to become independent from Spain like Scotland is from the UK, but it is unconstitutional for them to try and secede, so they can't. Whereas the UK doesn't even have a written constitution and Westminster and the Scottish Parliament have agreed on a referendum. 

When communication in Spain, I had to rely on simple incomplete sentences like, "T10 billete por favor" when buying a metro pass or "Passeig de Gracía uno uno seis por favor" when we gave up on public transportation and took a taxi. Barcelona is also huge and the metro was not excellent, so it was very stressful trying to figure out where we were going. More than once we walked the opposite direction for twenty minutes before realizing. I also learned an important travel lesson that I really should have already known: comfort > aesthetics. I wore my black Oxford shoes the whole time so my feet hurt immensely. I only had one backpack, so I only brought one pair of shoes. Another important travel lesson is to remember to eat regularly, drink water and get enough sleep. All things that are easy to forget. 

We checked into our hostel and then went to dinner. Most of the things on our Barcelona bucket list were food related. In a very Spanish style, we ate our dinner at 10 pm. It took us two hours to eat all our food and I was so full that I could barely move. We ordered paella, sangria, and churros con chocolat. The paella was perfectly spiced, the sangria tasted like cool mulled wine, and the churros con chocolat were these churro loops that came with a mug of hot, thick melted chocolate. I'm not a big churro fan, but with the chocolate it was grand. 

Paella and Sangria, I chickened out on the seafood paella and got chicken paella. 

Churros con Chocolat

One of the Gaudi buildings near our hostel

We woke up the next morning and went to Las Ramblas, the long market street in Barcelona. We went in a covered food market, which was cool. They were selling chocolates, candy, spices, and whole fish propped up on ice, gaping at you. 

We then got gelato and ate it while walking around. I branched out and got vanilla cookies gelato. Gelato is way better than ice cream. It's creamier and sweeter. 

We then thought we were walking through the Gothic Quarter. We got lunch and I ordered the only thing that had I word that I sort of recognized - formatge. Close to the French word for cheese, but no where near the Spanish word. I ended up getting a little solid baguette about the size of my thumb with a slice of cheese on it. Julianne go ta ham and blue cheese sandwich that she ended up tossing. After our unsuccessful lunch we realized we weren't in the Gothic Quarter and took the metro a few stops to get to where we intended. We stopped by the cathedral, then walked around the narrow alleyways and wove around. It was very easy to get lost, but I knew the direction we wanted to aim in, so we made it out to where we started on Las Ramblas. 

Roman walls

Catedral

Gothic Quarter

We then went to the Sagrada Familia. It was designed by Gaudi, a Spanish architect who designed many of the buildings in Barcelona in his very distinct style - lots of details and round shapes. No sharp edges on roofs or windows. It's all very 3D and rounded. The Sagrada Familia is unfinished, but is still stunningly huge. Gaudi was an ambitious guy. In Istanbul the buildings were very intricate and detailed in the decorations and paintings. I've never seen architecture where the building itself had so many intricate details built into it. My initial reaction was that it was weird, but in a good way. It was really unlike anything I've ever seen before and was my favorite part of our Friday in Barcelona. The front had doors with bible verses carved in 3D out of bronze and there were four spires and geometric carvings of people. The inside had huge spiral staircases and simple drawings on the floor. There were checkered ceilings and these huge windows. Some were stained glass and some were clear, but the way Gaudi designed it, it let so much light in. The light was very pieced and it was a cool effect. 

The other side of the Sagrada Familia looked different. Every part looked different, there wasn't really any symmetry or unifying pattern. The other side looked like the spires had uneven balls of clay dripping down them, but when you looked closely, you realize that they're tiny carvings and sculptures and the architecture is unbelievably intricate. 

Sagrada Familia

What it will look like when it's finished. The brown parts are what is existing and the white is planned. 

We were closeish to the hostel, so we decided to go back for a break before going to dinner. We checked our Facebooks on our phones. iPhones and free wifi are so great to have while traveling. We ended up falling asleep for an hour, so we also got to experience the Barcelona siesta.

We wanted to go to the beach, so we went to the coast for dinner and saw the Port of Barcelona. We stopped by a statue for a few pictures. It was hard to find food because it was all seafood, so we found an Italian place. I got an incredible pesto gnocchi. We then walked through a palm tree park near the water to get to the metro.

Columbus Statue

Lion near the statue

Port of Barcelona

We were trying to squeeze as much out of our short trip to Barcelona, so we decided to see the Arc de Triomf, a red version of the one in France. My feet hurt and I was tired and the public transportation to get there was so stressful. We had to wait 10 minutes at a metro to go one stop, then catch a tram one stop. It took us forever to find the tram, and we waited on the tram for a long time before the driver even showed up. We went two stops then switched back to the metro for one stop. When we got off the tram, I had no idea where we were and couldn't find the street names on my map. I used the most useful Spanish phrase I know, "¿Dónde está...?" to ask the only person around for directions. We walked a bit and eventually found it. We took a couple pictures then took a taxi back to the hostel. 

Arc de Triomf

On Saturday morning, we woke up early, packed, had toast and coffee at the hostel, then took the metro, funicular, and a cable car to get to a fort on top of a hill in Barcelona. I had to stumble through asking directions in Spanish a few times, but we made it to the fort overlooking Barcelona and the ocean. It was probably my favorite part of the trip. I really enjoy seeing cities from a live Google Maps perspective because you can see the whole city and get a feel for what it looks like and where it is in the world. It was so bright and sunny that it was painful because my eyes are adjusted to 24 7 darkness. But the city was beautiful. Some of my observations of Barcelona was that it was a mix between Rome, Istanbul, and Santa Barbara. Also, sexism was more prevalent there than in many places I've been before. We then made our way back to Edinburgh by cable car -> funicular -> metro -> train -> airplane  -> train to Glasgow -> train to Edinburgh -> walking. 

Gaudi building on Passeig de Gracia

You can see the Sagrada Familia from Montjuïc

From the Castell on Montjuïc 

The ocean from the Castell

It really was an incredible week. I smelled really bad by the end of it and couldn't wait to shower and do laundry. I can't believe I only have two more weeks here. This quarter went by so fast. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone, but I love it here. 

Busy Days

These past few weeks have been crazy and busy, but so much fun. We are starting to realize that we only have a few more weeks left and we are trying to make the most of the time we have left here in Edinburgh.

Last Monday Julianne and I went over to the other intern girls's house to order a pizza. We were a little nervous after our burnt cracker Pizza Hut travesty, however we ended up getting a really good veggie pizza from Dominoes that was almost like American pizza. It even came with fake ranch. We ended up hanging out and talking for awhile. It's really fun because we all get along really well and we can talk for hours about Scottish politics.

For instance, during a debate last week, the presiding officer was trying to get everyone to settle down and she was saying, "Order, order" and it got really quiet and then one of the Labour MSPs shouted "You're out of order!" and then ended up getting suspended from the debating chamber for a day.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, but it was easy to forget because we did not have the day off and no one mentioned anything about it. I'm bummed I missed the Turkey Trot, but we had a pretty good Thanksgiving anyway! On Thursday during work we went to FMQs. After work, we went to Nando's and then to class. 

After class, some of us went out to our typical pub, the Green Mantle.

Friday my research paper for class was due at 5, so I spent the whole day at work writing a ten page paper about wind energy in Scotland. I'm a big fan of renewable energy, especially when politics overlaps with the environment. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, I had emailed myself the one page I had done before Friday from my email into a temporary folder on the computer, so when I was saving it periodically, I was saving it to the temporary folder. Unfortunately, that meant that at 4:40 when I exited out of my ten page paper to email it to my professor, the file disappeared. I spent the next two hours on the phone with IT trying to recover the file and googleing how to recover temporary files, but it was gone. Luckily our professor is really nice and when I emailed her to tell her what happened, she gave me an extension until Sunday.

On Saturday Julianne spent the whole day cooking for the Thanksgiving party that we were hosting. Everyone chipped in and we had the groceries delivered to our flat. To get out of her way, Frances and I went to Starbucks near Princes Street to get seasonal coffees, watch the city life, and I restarted my long paper. We walked home a different way than we usually do so that we could stop by a Tesco's for ingredients Julianne was missing and to get pastries for a late lunch and I was reminded that I live in a foreign country. It's easy to forget when you stick to one area.

Saturday evening everyone came over for Thanksgiving dinner at our place. I like hosting events at our apartment because it's nice to have people over and also we got to keep all the leftovers and have been eating them for lunch for the past few days. The dress code was onesies, but only about half of us wore them. My room is the dining room, so that's where we ate our stuffing, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, turkey, and green beans. There were eleven of us. I invited Erik and his roommate who were sympathetic to the American's abroad during Thanksgiving dilemma. It was a lot of fun, but we are still cleaning up from it. 

Monday was one of the interns birthdays. Work on Monday was fun because we can take extended lunch breaks since there is usually less work to do and there are hardly MSPs in Parliament. So we got coffee and sat around talking before going back to work. After work, Julianne, Chantelle, and I went shopping. We went to a cute boutique that sold pins and necklaces made out of antique maps of Edinburgh. I bought two button pins that I really like. The lady kept getting confused because I kept calling them buttons, but to her they're badges. For Lori's birthday, we went to Amicus Apple, a really classy restaurant in Edinburgh. 

Tuesday was a long day as well. Some of the local councils in Scotland charge for music lessons. My MSP was speaking in a debate about that on Wednesday and needed me to write a brief and a speech for him. That was probably the most exciting thing I've done so far. It was difficult for several reasons. One being that the Scottish call music lessons 'music tuition' which confused me for a bit. Also, my MSP wanted to talk about two areas that he represented and one charged for music lessons and one did not, so I was unsure which way he wanted to argue. I ended up just including both. I also worked in a music joke. My MSP really like to play the bag pipes, so after work he showed Josh and I all the different parts of the bag pipe and then played us a few songs, which was really cool. After that, we went over to the other intern girls's house for pizza. They're names are Lori, Laurel, and Oriel so collectively we call them Loriel. We discovered that Domino's does a Two for One Tuesday deal, so we devoured two pizzas.

This Friday we have a day off for St. Andrew's Day, the patron saint of Scotland. Also the Christmas Market in Edinburgh opens up this weekend, so we are going to go check out the light show and the slides and the ice skating rink and go shopping! It should be a really fun weekend. Next week, Julianne and I are leaving work early on Wednesday to go to Glasgow for the Mumford & Sons concert. We are then flying from Glasgow to Barcelona on Thursday and we will be there until Saturday! I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully it will be sunny so we can get a little bit of Vitamin D. I saw the sun today for like a minute and a half and I couldn't tell if it was just super bright or my eyes were not used to sunshine, but it was a little painful. The sun rose at 8:15 this morning and set at 3:47. It was actually pretty sunny today, however, since I leave for work at 9 when the sun's not really up and leave work at 5. I don't see the sun much. However, I do really like walking around Edinburgh when it's dark out and all the buildings and the castle is lit up and I'm listening to my iPod. It's really a great city.

I miss you and hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Wind, Rain, Snow, and Shine

We hang out with the Scottish interns more and more. They've been telling us every week that it's going to get darker earlier and colder and we don't believe them because it's hard to believe that it could get darker earlier than 4 o'clock or colder, but it does. I've taken to wearing my onesie around the flat everyday because it's so cold. But even as we were shivering walking home from Waverley train station yesterday in the pitch black at 5 o'clock yesterday evening, my roommates and I were talking about how we don't want to leave and all the stuff we still want to do here and how we love it here so much. 

Monday after work, Oriel, Julianne, and I walked from the Parliament building up the Royal Mile, around the castle, to Usher Hall. Quick word about fashion here for those curious - almost anything goes here fashion wise. You can be super trendy or really quirky and it's really fun. The only two things that don't really go here are anything too slobby and anything not super conservative. This is interesting coming from Santa Barbara where I wear yoga pants and sweatshirts every day or tank tops and running shorts with running shoes or flip flops. So to work I mostly wear high waisted black skirts with black tights, oxford shoes, and sweaters. On the weekends when I'm not in my onesie, I'll wear boots with jeans and thick patterned sweaters. And then on top of everything you always have to wear at least one coat, if not two, a scarf, gloves, and a hat. 

Back to the interesting stuff. We went to eat at Nando's and then we got in line for the concert. We were there relatively early, so we were pretty close. There were two really tall people standing in front of me, but it wasn't too bad. Ed Sheeran is unbelievably talented. Besides being a lyrical genius and incredible with the guitar, he has a great stage presence and really interacts with the audience. He does all the music himself, so when the song is more than just him singing and playing guitar, he does all the beats and the background music himself on stage and then puts it on a loop pedal. It was absolutely incredible. For the encore he did this one song fifteen minute song that was crazy amazing. He rapped really fast for most of it, then sang, and did crazy guitar solos, and even tripped twice on stage and kept going. If you would like any recommendations for his music, I really like his acoustic stuff, so my favorite I think is "Give Me Love" (I do not recommend watching the music video however), but one of his most popular songs is "The A Team" which is also very good. If you'd like to see him do some crazy loop pedal vocals, check out "Wayfaring Stranger" and if you'd like to hear him rap, listen to "You Need Me, I Don't Need You". He is very talented though, and I'm very glad we went. They call him the "ginger genius" and I see why for sure. 

This week at work I wrote two motions and worked on a project for my MSP about city names in the region he represents. Other than that, the week was full of a lot of mochas, baguettes at the cafeteria, checking BBC news, discussing independence, and making Scottish politics jokes.

We are trying to maximize our time here, so we hopped on a train yesterday morning to Stirling. With out student rail cards it was only 6 pounds round trip. We got lunch at a pub and then explored Stirling Castle and the graveyard nearby. It was sunny, then it was windy, then it snowed, and then it rained. 

View from the castle

Stirling was very cool and I'm glad we went. Our plans for the next few weeks include a very expensive Mumford and Sons concert in Glasgow and a weekend trip to Barcelona. We also want to check out the Christmas market here, we're going to have a Thanksgiving dinner party here, we have a SNP Christmas Party, my friend Jacob's coming to visit me, and more! 

Happy birthday Grandma Donna! Also, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I wish I could celebrate at home, but I'm very thankful to be here!

Fun > Vitamin D

One thing that's really fun about everyone here is that everyone's always down to do something. I think I have a day to relax and catch up on Facebook and whatnot, but everyone's always throwing out suggestions for stuff to do. Which is great, because I feel like I'm really taking advantage of my time here! I hope so at least. 

Last weekend was our intern Halloween party. It was fun to dress up and hang out with everyone and play Halloween themed games. 

I went as a hippie!

The day after the Halloween party several of us worked up the motivation to hike Arthur's Seat. We couldn't have picked a prettier day to go. We made it all the way to the top, and the views of Edinburgh on this clear day were spectacular. 

Reppin school spirit on the top of Arthur's Seat

Monday was Guy Fawkes's Night. Some guy named Guy Fawkes tried to overthrow parliament in the 1600s so people celebrate the fact that he was unsuccessful. Fireworks go off for weeks before. On Monday the fireworks would go for a few minutes and then stop and sporadically start up again and they went the whole day. Julianne and I had gone shopping after work and we went to Primark and got fleece onesies. They're great because it's so cold here, but the only problem is that I never want to change out of it into my work clothes. So we wore our onesies while all of us watched V for Vendetta, which I had never seen before. 

My roommates and I watched the fireworks from my bedroom because it was cold outside

 

Primark Onesies

This week at work was pretty slow work wise. We finally finished up the newsletters. I also wrote one motion and one brief. The motion was about a Youth Project that received funding from the Big Lottery Fund. It was located in my MSP’s region and he wanted me to make sure I got it lodged before any of the other MSPs from that region or constituency, which I thought was interesting that he specified that he wanted to me to make sure to claim that topic for a motion before anyone else. The brief I wrote was about prison reform. My MSP wanted to ask a parliamentary question about the economic effects of building a new prison in his region. It is a women’s prison built as a part of recommendations made by a commission to improve the treatment of women prisoners and decrease the chances of someone becoming a repeat offender. 

The coolest part of the week was being at parliament for the election. I spent a lot of time at work on CNN playing around with the interactive maps with the swing states. Everyone at the parliament was extremely interested in the outcome. It may be because I am surrounded by politicians and people interested in politics, but people seemed to care a lot about the outcome and overwhelmingly supported Obama. All the parties, including the conservatives, support Obama. I checked the polls constantly and everyone discussed the issues and the candidates leading up to the election. 

That evening we tried to go to a North American Association event at the University of Edinburgh that was having lectures and coverage of the election, but it filled up very fast. So we went to a pub for a little bit, and then to one of the permanent intern's apartments to watch CNN. My plan was to only stay up until Ohio got called, but I thought that it would get called by like one or two my time, and it definitely did not. We all ended up going home at that point, still in suspense, and Julianne and I ended up staying up until 5 am our time to hear the results. We were watching it on BBC which had about a fifteen to twenty minute delay on the receipt of information, so we kept refreshing the internet at the same time. Julianne said suddenly "Obama got Ohio! He won!" So that was very exciting. 

Mondays and Fridays are relaxed days since the MSPs are in their constituencies and its only the interns in the parliament, so we get to dress down. On Friday we explored the debating chamber. 

Where the SNP MSPs sit

We went dress shopping on Friday as well for the Thanksgiving event and got to walk along the Royal Mile and Waverely bridge. This is one of my favorite views of this city. This was also at around 5 o'clock I think. 

That's the castle to the left

On Friday night, some of the interns went bowling. It was quite the adventure getting there as it was on a complete opposite side of Edinburgh that I have ever been to. I've gotten to explore the fringes of the city quite a lot this week. On Wednesday I had to go to the post office depot to pick up my Ed Sheeran tickets because I was at work when they got delivered and couldn't sign for them. I had to take a bus out to East Edinburgh. I kept asking the driver when to get off the bus, and when he told me I couldn't understand him so I just sat there for awhile until I finally figured out what he was saying. I wandered around aimlessly in the misty Edinburgh evening until I stopped the only person I saw to ask for directions. She was very friendly and walked me to the post office, which I never would have found on my own because you had to take like five left turns to spiral into the business park. It was an adventure to say the least. 

Bowling was very fun though. I haven't been in forever and I am really bad at it, but so was everyone else. Our game had a special twist on it as well because the computer kept being spastic, so sometimes people would get three or four turns in a row, or get strikes when it should have been a gutter ball. The gutter balls were especially impressive though considering we had bumpers. It was a great craic as they say though and I'm glad we went. 

Last night we had the UC wide EAP Thanksgiving event. We got lucky because it's hosted in Edinburgh. We dressed up and walked over to the Hub yesterday evening at 6 (it was already pitch black outside). The Hub is on the Royal Mile near the castle and it's this very old venue where really classy events are held. There were 200 UC students there who were studying somewhere in the UK or Ireland who had traveled to Edinburgh for the weekend. We checked our coats, which wasn't that exciting but I always feel really fancy when I check my coat. We waited in a long line to get in and when I got up to the front to get my name tag I realized the girl checking people in lived on my floor freshman year. So that was nice to see her. My name tag had my name, my school, and my program. We mingled for a bit and I ran into someone who I worked with in Santa Barbara, which was also cool. We ate dinner in the big hall. I sat with all the people from my program. We got turkey, stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes, green beans, bread, and chocolate pie. It was all very Thanksgivingy foods, but it was done in a Scottish way, if that makes sense. It was all very tasty food, but I would imagine it would be like if someone from Mexico ate at a Mexican restaurant in the United States. Technically it's Mexican food, but it has an American spin on it. 

It was also interesting because my program was definitely the most subdued. We talked about it and we think it may have something to do with the fact that we're working 40 hours a week instead of just going to uni, so we felt like we had to act more mature because we were working instead of students. It is nice though, because everyone in my program is pretty close, so it was fun to hang out with everyone. On the contrary, the other group of people I was associated with that night was the UCSB group, which was the most rowdy. At the end of the night someone even started an "Ole, ole, ole, ole, gauchos, gauchos" cheer and many a Santa Barbarans joined in. I am the sole SB rep in my program, so it was interesting to be surrounded by people from my school again. It's also funny because university stereotypes were very apparent the whole night. I did very much like being associated with the interns though. We were a small group but we have a pretty cool program I think. 

The best part of the night was definitely the ceilidh dancing (pronounced 'kaley', I don't even know what to comment about who decided to spell it like that). It is pretty similar to American folk dancing, even though it is traditional Scottish. It's not exactly the same, but it involved a lot of do-si-do ing and hooking arms with your partner and spinning them around. We danced for a couple hours and no one really knew what they were doing so everyone ran into each other a lot and spun at the wrong times and made up their own dance moves, but it was a blast. 

7 of the 9 UC Interns next to the Scottish Turkey

We stopped by one of the permanent intern's apartments super quick on our way back, just to say hi, and it was completely unnoteworthy save for the fact that in the very short time we were there we saw an MSP playing beer pong, which was pretty surreal. We all caught a cab home together, which felt like a very city like thing to do. 

This morning I woke up and had an English breakfast. Eggs and beans on toast. It's a very delicious meal that I have gotten hooked on. 

Today was a lazy day. One thing that people warned me about was how early it got dark here during the winter, but I still wasn't prepared for it. It is a very unique experience having the sun set by 4 and it be pitch black outside by a little past 5. It's definitely something to get used to. Your perception of time gets all screwed up, too. Every night we start getting ready for bed and then we realize it's only 7. That may have something to do with still adjusting to the 40 hour work week, but it's also hard to tell what time it is when it's dark all day. Edinburgh in the Fall is gorgeous for the few hours it's sunny all day though, so it's worth being Vitamin D deficient. 

The view from my bedroom window

I have some really fun stuff planned that I'm looking forward to. Tomorrow I'm going to a concert in Edinburgh with two of the other interns. We also have tentative plans to go to Stirling, as well as an intern Thanksgiving coming up. I would like to make one more trip before I head home in 6 weeks, these past two months have gone by unbelievably fast, but I'm not sure if anyone else wants to do anymore traveling, so we'll see. Even if I just spend the next 6 weeks in Edinburgh, I'd be really happy because I love this city. I really do like traveling and being constantly on the move though, so it would be nice to see some more cities. I at least want to check out Glasgow at some point, and hopefully the Highlands too! 

Going to see Ed Sheeran tomorrow! :)

 My chocolate addiction has been exacerbated by the deliciousness of Cadbury chocolate and its availability at my work. The chocolate also helps me get through the long work day, along with multiple cups of coffee. 

Amazing chocolate

In other news, today was spent attempting to clean my room and do other householdy tasks. So I didn't end up actually doing much today except procrastinating on all of that. I did get a load of laundry in. We have a washer in our kitchen that has the capacity to wash about one sweatshirt at a time. Technically it's a washer/dryer combination but it doesn't actually dry, so we hang our clothes from the ceiling to dry them. I find it somewhat amusing, especially when rouge socks jump down from the drying rack and attack someone on their way to the bathroom. 

I guess it's more environmentally friendly?

I'm looking forward to this week, and I hope everyone's Novembers are going well. Also, a very special happy 90th birthday to Grandma Kathe! I loved the pictures and I hope it was a good one!