Since I've last updated, I've been up to many typical college things, like decorating my flatmate's cabinet (with the help of my other flatmates) with very strange pictures from magazines while she was gone, making dinner for Alex so that we actually make sure to see each other during the school week, attending an awesome Slam Poetry competition (where my friend did very well!), exploring the 5-story Primark story on Princes Street and getting badly lost while simultaneously being tempted to buy one of the adorable Christmas jumpers, and of course, getting behind on my readings.
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| Roasted veggies and breaded chicken. Not pictured- veggie soup |
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| The obligatory weekly dinner picture |
But, no fear! I also went to Baking Society again- the week's highlight. We debated for awhile about what to create for National Chocolate Week, and settled on chocolate peanut butter squares. Unfortunately.... our first time around, we attempted to sidestep the double broiler and melt the chocolate in the microwave. NEVER AGAIN! It was a disaster, but I didn't want to throw away all that chocolate, so I turned it into what I called:
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| Chocolate Bana Digestive Casserole- An Accidental Masterpiece! (Digestives are plain cookies) |
Ask my mom. I have a history of showing up at events with nasty-looking desserts that nobody eats. But people really liked this one! Despite the fact that it looks like the La Brea Tar Pits.
As for the chocolate peanut butter squares, Alex begrudgingly trekked back to the grocery store, picked up more chocolate, and we used the double broiler this time. They turned out delicious, and my flatmates devoured the leftovers.
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| Before they went into the fridge |
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| The finished product, named Reeses Squares because that's exactly what they tasted like |
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| A fine spread of chocolate treats at Baking Society. But you definitely CAN have too much of a good thing... I'm still chocolate-ed out.
As a flat, we accomplished something very important on Friday night. We took Camille to an Edinburgh pub for the first time! I don't know how it's possible to be in this city for so long without going to one, as there are at least 50 within a ten block radius... But ironically, we had to go about four different pubs before we found one that had seating for us, since a football (soccer) game was on TV, so tons of people were out. We got a table at one pub and were so excited that we took a group picture... only to find out that we couldn't eat there.
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Finally, we arrived at The Advocate, where we had a great pub dinner and sang along to some live guitar music. Camille enjoyed her Scottish beer and haddock & chips. With peas. There are always peas. I had mushroom soup, perfect for a rainy day.
As we were walking to a livelier pub to hang out (the average age of The Advocate customers was about 55...), a group of American Marine Corps guys stopped us and asked us where the cool places to party are. In their stereotypical tough guy accents, they told us they were disappointed with the club scene so far in Edinburgh and thought everything was just so different than America and that people were looking at them strangely. We tried to shake them off because they were clearly moronic, but they followed us to the Brass Monkey pub. One guy spent twenty minutes talking about his high school wrestling career, another thought an Audrey Hepburn picture was Princess Diana, and the rest just kept ordering more beer. No wonder people think Americans are a bit dumb and ignorant.
But on the bright side, the Brass Monkey pub was really cool! I got a Moscow Mule in my dad's honor, since he spent what seems like years polishing his precious Moscow Mule mugs, and we enjoyed the ambiance of cool movie posters and comfy couches.
The next day, I woke up bright and early to join my Pomona friends for another adventure! This time, we headed first to Linlithgow Palace, an amazing old castle unlike any other one we've seen. It was much taller, in amazing shape, and had tons of windows (with gorgeous stained glass in the chapel) and breathtaking views. We wandered around and took pictures and pretended we were talking to Mary Queen of Scots (since she was born there) for awhile, until Jim (Tom couldn't come with us, so he sent his partner to babysit us instead) hurried us back to the bus. He doesn't seem to like us as much as Tom does... But that's okay, because we all like each other plenty.
We headed off to Falkirk Wheel, a great feat of engineering. It's basically a boat elevator that takes boats from one canal to another, separated by 80 vertical feet. It operates smoothly and almost effortlessly, using the weight of the boat and water displacement to propel around. Not a drop of water gets splashed as boatloads of people travel up and down! And, it's really cool-looking. The part you see at the end is the section where the boat is, and the horizontal stretch is the beginning of the upper canal. The first picture shows it halfway to the top, and in the second, the boat has arrived at the upper canal.
We trekked along some ancient Roman ruins and saw some of their booby traps that are amazingly still there after almost 2000 years.
Then we headed to Stirling Castle, King James V's great creation. He went overboard decorating the place with unicorns! But we had fun wandering around the lavish rooms and doing some medieval dancing. We all looked a bit silly walking around, though, because we had hold up our audio tours like phones.
I really liked what now looks like a weird alien field formation- it used to be part of the queen's garden. Again, the views were incredible.
On Saturday night, Camille made a special meal because two of her friends were visiting from France. We had salmon risotto and apple crumble for dessert. Sadly the pictures don't do the meal justice, so I won't post them. But wow. On Tuesday we're having a crepe party- stay tuned!
And now it's Sunday night again! Time to put down the camera and get out the books, unfortunately.
But to end on a happy note, watch this video that one of my Pomona friends made on Saturday. It captures the spirit of our trip very well, I think.
P.S. Ignore the weirdness of the font... I can't seem to get it to cooperate.
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