Auld Reekie

 

 Whoop de day! Back from Scotland. The house is still standing, and we have a new, really shiny tap. And it actually works!

Edinburgh was nice and I liked all the Scottish things I tried (namely whisky, haggis, oatmeal biscuits and deep fried mars) I'll just cut to the chase and post some pictures:

Right on our first morning we started out with conquering Arthur's Seat (250 m above sea level). The above picture is taken from another, more well groomed hill downtown, Calton Hill (only ca 100 m above the sea).

 

On the way up we found the ruins of an old chapel. The hill is an old volcano, so the rock was really interesting, unlike from anything I've seen before (Finland isn't terribly volcanic).

At this point (chapel ruin height) we had barely started our climb, but the view of the city was already nice. Calton Hill can be seen in the distance to the right, with a tower and a structure resembling a Greek temple on top.

I tried my best to take a picture of a crow flying. This was the best I managed.

There was a really cool craggy ridge. the path underneath it was called Radical Road, but was closed due to risk of huge rocks falling on your head, so we walked along the upper part of the ridge instead.

 

To get down from the top and to the craggy ridge we had to walk along a really zigzaggy set of stairs (marked in orange)

Tentacle cat takes care of your trash!

The Edinburgh Castle was naturally perched high on a hill.

That would be me. We are on our way to find the ocean.

And that would be the shadows of my fellow ocean searchers.

We did find the ocean, but there was always somekind of off limits harbour in the way, and we didn't care enough to find a beach, so we had a look at the mouth of the Water of Leith instead.

During a rainy day we visited Glaswgow. I didn't use the camera much that day. Glasgow was way flatter than Edinburgh, and therefore felt more like an ordinary British city in my opinion. We were good art students and visited the gallery for modern art there.

 

Some shopkeepers are simply more creative than others.

 

And last but not least a slightly retouched image of all of us, from left to right: Me, Finnish Friend (who survived Spain and will be living with us for the rest of uni), Longhaired Roomie, and Roomie (who is considerably harder to draw since she ceased wearing glasses (she had eye correction surgery))

That's all for now, if I am a good person I might post a picture of what manners of nice things I found in Edinburgh later.

Flakes

There was a light snowfall today, nothing that would stay on the ground. seems like winter's still trying to remind us of its presence, however slightly. I think it has pretty much given up already, which is all for the better, with our lousy insulation.

It makes, however, for a marvelous opportunity to spam you with some wintery photos from a couple weeks back:

 A snowy path, where might it lead. . . ?

 Oh, look! Two friends!

 

 

 Here's more sturdy fellows at their favourite game, hide and seek.

Not much further exciting things happening here, 'cept on the foody frontier. I'll do an update on that later, as the camera is downstairs, and I am, regrettably, upstairs.

Bonjour à tout le monde!

Today was a marvelously rainy Sunday. The weather was terrific for sitting inside doing nothing. A perfect day to get better. And I have literally just loitered, see, there's no treatment like loitering when it comes to colds. Good old lazing.

I'm trying to justify my not writing a beautiful picture riddled update here. But hey, I've got you something to get started with, a shot of me and roomie:

It is only very slightly photoshopped with a mousepad.

Flappety Flap

Roomie left just before 5 a.m. this morning, we'll leave the house about half past nine tomorrow morning. My bags are almost packed. Almost.

The forecast says there's possible snow over here in England next week. It is almost certainly because of us having to leave our herbs outside during the break. Sorry for that, Brits. 

Or maybe I should say Britz. . a posh and teadrinking version of Bratz? Her interests would be the weather, proper scones, damp ghosts and the weather. Her boyfriend could be Prince Charlez.

I just realized I gave away the innovation of the decade.

When I Get This Feeling. . .

Bear with me, I've literally had this in my head all afternoon and it's pretty much driving me nuts (warning, video may cause side effects. It also has a Midnight Love Potion, wow). I'm so smooth right now that everything I look at melts. And Roomie's and Longhaired Roomie's brains. And I can't see them. The brains, I mean. It must have come from the radio. We have tried to treat it with everything, but no other song seems to stick right now.

Maybe you can come up with something to replace it? I challenge you!


I beg.


.
.
.


Please? Anyone?

Green thumb

But, I don't know if I have thumbs!

Ahem.

I just planted garlic, spring onions and carrots in the garden! So in a couple of months we'll have five fresh vegetables to eat, if lucky! We had a friend (and Finnishfriend) over for lunch and cake today, as she had her birthday recently, she brought leftover christmas crackers with her, so I got to crack one for the first time.

I got a set of tiny cute screwdrivers (quite useful!) and the best joke ever:

Why do ghosts live
in the fridge?

Because it's cool

Hmmm.

Oh yeah, and green thumb reminds me on an old PC game called Green Thumb Cards (oh my god, you can apparently get it for free nowadays, we just had a trial version back then). The game was about managing a garden, you plant flowers and so on. Then you could attack your rivals' gardens with different pests, and if they had (the right kind of) pesticide they could repel the attacks. They could attack you too. What you could do was determined by the hand of cards you had. . . oh gosh, it was so good! Oh yeah, the objective with attacking another's garden was stealing their flowers, because, if I recall correctly, when you had enough of the same type of flower they became sort of "protected" and no one could steal them anymore.

Such were the days.

Wet Wet Wet

How horrible. Gaming and preparations for Christmas almost alienates me from the internet.


The web should really try harder.


Looks like there won't be a white Christmas in Southern Finland this year :< There's some hope on Wednesday and Thursday, but after that it's warming up again. Bleh.

After that you can only hope for a white new year instead.


Okay, let's think about something happier.

Like pink text.



That made my day!

Ooh-Ooh

Well, the guests left today, wishing them a safe journey and all.. or, they're probably back in Finland by now.

When I got up this morning I just wanted to go back to the warm, cozy bed. Well, I achieved stuff at school instead. I borrowed a book on Minimalism from the school library, got my essay's firtst step mindmapping done, and even started on the book.

I also watched Reservoir Dogs, and I liked it. Now I just have a hard time getting the lime coconut song from the credits out of my head.

Boink

The lurking shadow from yesterday was only a spider. It was showing off on the wall a little while later. It was the same species as the Living Room Horror, an earlier, not too pleasant aquaintance.


Tomorrow I'll write a proper update. I'll give my roomie permission to step on my toes if I don't do that. There's a lot to write about. I did, for example, eventually receive my desk today.

Now, however, it's too late to write. Notting Hill and assembling my desk and drawer ate my evening.

Double Decker

London was nice. Someone's legs are going to hurt tomorrow.


I ate Fish and Chips for the first time in my life. Quite nice, actually. We got a delicious garlic sauce instead of mayonnaise, because they were out of the latter.

I Let You Down, Margate

We ate well again. I and Roomie prepared a quite dashing dinner and a very lovely lemonsorbet. Quite refreshening. That sobert. Robert. Robert, my friends, is dead.

So it said on television.

That's today's riddle, from me to you.



Here's some pictures from Margate. As I promised. (I will try my best to put up some of my own pictures tomorrow, okay?)

Here's a picture of a puppy to soothe your wrath: