And Now, For A Limited Time Only...

Parks Road a few weeks ago when the trees still had leaves

I only have six weeks left in Oxford. Well, less than six weeks, because we still have two travel breaks left. This makes me really sad. I don't know how else to say it. I feel like it's all coming to an end just as I'm starting to understand some things about English culture. I feel like all the effort I've made to plunge into it will ultimately come to nothing because I'm leaving. I guess just looking at the end of things has always saddened me (e.g. leaving Abilene at the end of last year). It's just so frustrating because this, too, now feels like home. I'm being torn in three directions and I don't know where to turn. I've got family in each place. But suppose that's a good thing? Maybe this isn't supposed to be painful. Maybe God wants me to see how big He is, how central Christ is to my life. After all, Jesus is the reason for my families. Family. Singular. And to think... I have family celebrating Him along with me, all the way to the ends of the earth... and more and more keep joining the party, even as I type...

Immeasurably More

I sit here in the classroom at 3:30 AM on a freezing Tuesday morning with severe coffee jitters, completely amazed by our Father God, gratefully reflecting on the situation in which I currently find myself. I realize that Jesus has blessed me with people who are on fire for Him, inside and outside of this house. Tonight I helped out with St Aldates' club outreach again and, even though it's only the second time I've done it, I feel like God is helping me to be more open about my faith. This is the most evangelistic thing I've ever been a part of. If we can even give others a glimpse of the love that God gives by giving our free water bottles or tea or coffee or biscuits or conversations or hugs or high fives or whatever, if we can even plant the tiniest seed, if we can even be thin enough to allow God to show through us, to allow His glory, kindness, love, and life to flow from our fingertips and our lips, then I say: all praise be to Him who by His strength we give.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:20-21

It's Been A Week

Unfortunately, I have yet to gather the strength to finish my Spain posts (but don't worry -- it will come in time!!) Here is a summary of my past week...

CS Lewis lived here!

Monday, 20th:
Went to The Kilns, where CS Lewis lived for part of his adult life. It was quite interesting, and visiting students at the University actually live there (I wouldn't want to live there because I wouldn't want tourists tromping through my house!). Behind the house is a sort of reserve with walking paths and foresty trees and logs and it was beautiful because the leaves are changing colour.

Late Monday night/Early Tuesday morning, 20th-21st:
Anne and I decided to get involved in the club outreach ministry with our church, St Aldates. We just signed up for it and didn't even know exactly what was involved except that we were supposed to be handing out bottles of water in front of clubs in the middle of the night. It sounded so intimidating and I still cannot believe I agreed to do it, and we were both so nervous before that I don't even know how I actually ended up at the meeting place that night (it definitely wasn't on my own). We met with 5 other people who were going to do it, 4 guys and a girl. The night began with a time of prayer and then we set out. We split up into 4 and 3; I was with the group of 4 and we set up outside this club nearby. The others set up at a different one a couple streets over. All we did really was offer hot coffee and tea, bottles of water, and cookies. It was definitely a unique experience and definitely one I wouldn't trade for anything. I plan to keep doing it. Most of our offers got a warm reception, while others were simply ignored. We even got some conversations started. The question of "Why are you guys doing this?" came up quite often. At first I didn't know how to answer it, but then after thinking for a second it was obvious: we were just worshipping God in a simple way by showing love to people around us. I think it's really significant that something like this is going on because it's a very relevant way to serve the Oxford community. Night life is vibrant here (sometimes a little too lively, as evidenced by the couple of drunken fights and almost-fights). It made me kind of sad to see hundreds of young people wobbling about unsteadily, the scantily clad young women in their high heels on the cobbled driveways and the young men in their collared shirts. I think most of them were probably students. I was saddened by how many people were out getting smashed just at this one club (oh, and the ones across the street).

Thursday, 23rd:
I went to my first student cell group with St Aldates! It was so good. It's co-ed, which is a new experience for me, but a great one so far. The sort of focus for our group is evangelism, which I think is so ironic because of the club outreach I did earlier this week and the fact that that area is where I scored lowest in this "spiritual life" worksheet we did in Christian Worship the night before. It was actually only the second meeting for the group so I only missed the first one last week. We discussed what "evangelism" means and plan to get deeper as the weeks go on and eventually I think we are going to get into the practicalities of it and are going to practice it. After cell group was Risky Living, the student mid-week meeting for St Aldates. This was my third time to go and I didn't meet as many new people this time as the first two times because I was sitting with people I had just met at my cell group... Except for one guy. And this guy made me laugh because he goes, "In America... They have free refills!" And the rest of the table was in awe. Hahahaha!! Anyway, Risky is beautiful because it starts out with a meal and a lot of things can be learned and shared over a single meal. It moves into worship and then from that into the message and then prayer and worship. There are normally so many students there... I'd say probably 130ish? I may be completely wrong, but there are a LOT. It is so encouraging to have a place where there are students my age but they're not American! I love it.

"A piece of Texas in the heart of London!"

Friday, 24th:
London! Our class took a trip into the big city. This was my first time to go and from what I experienced, it was great! There were tons of manuscripts in the British Library to keep us busy for a much longer time than we had (everything from the Beatles to the Bible to the Magna Carta to da Vinci to Shakespeare to Jane Austen to Mozart...). Then we went to Westminster Palace (Big Ben, Houses of Parliament) and took a tour. Afterwards, a few of us wanted to tour Westminster Abbey but, much to our dismay (but to our wallets' rejoicing) it had just closed half an hour before. So we kind of wandered about... Through the orange leaves and lazy river of St James' Park to the official-looking Buckingham Palace. Once we got there, we realized that we needed to find something to eat... So we headed towards Trafalgar Square and had a little bit of home! We found the Texas Embassy Restaurant and it was like a little piece of Texas in my tummy. Even though it was Tex-Mex and not real Mexican, it was still so so so welcome. The most exciting part, though, was the fact that they had an ACU flag upstairs! I even signed the wall (they have this wall where people from Texas sign - I know I'm not Texan but I go to ACU... So there). Then we had only a 1 minute walk to Her Majesty's Theater... Because our show Phantom of the Opera was starting in half an hour! Haha, and when Rebekah and I went to pick up the tickets, my friend Spenser and his friend Cory who are both studying with Pepperdine in London were there and I actually had to do a double take when Spenser asked if he could take our photo for us because I didn't recognize him (and it's only been, what, two months since I've seen him). Anyway, the show was amazing! Beautiful... Pleasing to the eye and ear. Every time a scene ended I would think, "Wow, that was great - that was my favorite." Then the next one would start and I'd change my mind... And it just continued. Haha. It was so much better than I could have imagined. So much better than the movie, and I love the movie!

Before the show! So excited!!

Beautiful Big Ben and the Underground sign

Saturday, 25th:
Spenser and Cory came into Oxford and we hung out pretty much all day. We walked around town... Cornmarket, Merton College, Radcliffe Square, Eagle and Child, University Parks, ACU houses. It was a very pleasant day. I haven't had a day I could just wander about Oxford in a really long time, and this time I got to do it with an old friend from home (and his friend who is now my friend, because Facebook makes everything official, right?).

Spain: The Best and Worst of It

So, in order to quickly update y'all and give you a taste of my real blog entries to come about my past two weeks in Spain, I made a couple of lists of the best and worst things I experienced there. I tried to put them in numerical order, but it was really hard... so the numbers don't quite adequately reflect their rankings.

In Avila on our last night

Top 10 Best Things About My Spanish Experience
10. The bullfight: although the death of 6 innocent bulls is hardly my favorite thing, the whole thing is a strange experience that, overall, I enjoyed, though I never want to go to one again.
9. There were so many pastries of all kinds, sweet and savory, and gelato was delicious and just about on every corner.
8. The bike tour we took in Barcelona was absolutely awesome despite my lack of dexterity on a bicycle.
7. Not having to resort to my backup raspberry flapjack as a fill-in meal.
6. Climbing the ruins of the wall in Girona with Katherine and Rebekah while eating the best gelato I’ve ever had… as the clouds started to sprinkle rain on us.
5. All the little curly-haired, blonde kids speaking Spanish (and even the ones who weren’t blonde and curly-haired… but they were the cutest).
4. Seeing The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych painting by Bosch in the Prado.
3. Wandering around and up in the bizarre Sagrada Familia (Temple of the Sacred Family by Gaudi).
2. The olive tree groves that we drove through for over an hour while traveling from Granada to Toledo and Getafe.
1. The last night… fireworks in Avila.

Cigarette butts and graffiti

Top (Bottom) 10 Worst Things About My Spanish Experience
10. Having 4 hours to spare in Barcelona at night when all there really is to do is eat and drink.
9. Getting lost by myself in Granada (but hey, I look at the bright side sometimes: I stumbled upon a grocery store and bought Nutella with a Spanish cartoon on the jar!)
8. Many of the streets and sidewalks are cobbled, which looks cool but is killer on the ankles; plus, you can't tell where the sidewalk ends and where the street begins so you’re always dodging cars.
7. Creepy Spanish guys in the hotel who whistle at you and then knock on the door.
6. Well, this is only a bad thing for technical reasons, and if you don't speak any form of Spanish, or at least, in my case, have trouble understanding Castilian Spanish: the fact that most people don't speak (much) English.
5. There is graffiti on almost every wall unless it's some sort of monument or semi-important building.
4. People smoke cigarettes and cigars like chimneys, slowly killing themselves and everyone else.
3. One word and place: Toledo.
2. Spanish shops keep rather random hours.
1. Having to watch your bag constantly because of pickpockets.

Part 3: Edinburgh, Scotland [cont'd]

And the saga continues...

Saturday, September 20, 2008

This is definitely Scotland.

This morning we got up at 8 AM and got ready and went to the dining hall for breakfast. Toast, cereal & milk, tea/juice/coffee, just like at the Dublin hostel. Then we checked out and hopped on the 9:44 city bus to the city. We were the only ones on the top level (most city buses there I think are double deckers) so I busted out my phone and we listened to a few Chris Tomlin songs. Once at city centre, we headed to the National Gallery of Scotland. IT was free (at least, everything except the Impressionism Exhibition was). In the first area we explored, there were a lot of drawings, some paintings and photographs. There was this one photo that was actually like 40 slivers of photographs put together, because it was a scene that was photographed over a period of a year and each slice was taken at the same time of day and month so that it looked like the scene was actually vertical chunks with different season. It was called "Rhythm of the Twelvemonth" and it was by Stephen Lawson. I loved it! First of all, it was an amazing idea. Secondly, it was well done. Lastly, the scene itself was beautiful... Clouds, trees, hills. After this are we went to a higher floor that had many rooms of just paintings and sculptures. It took quite a while to get through it all, but it was worth it. There was this gorgeous oil painting (most of them were oil) of a boy in the dark blowing on a piece of lit coal. It looked so real because the boy was in darkness but you could make out his outline, and also the burning coal in front of him lit up his face with a brilliant glow, a warm and bright orange-yellow. Another one of my favorites was of the Last Supper. Jesus and eleven of the disciples were in a circle, sitting or lying down, and Judas was walking out of the room with his front in the darkness. Everyone besides him just looked so comfortable to be with Jesus... It was just really beautiful and I think it was an interesting interpretation of that event. Everyone looked like each other's best friend. I think Jesus wants us to feel that intimate with Him and with each other as a church.

The Royal Mile


The door to the toilet... obviously

Next we walked along the Royal Mile and turns out there are a lot of tourist shops on this street. We arranged a meeting place for 1:30, which was just half an hour (not everyone wanted to look at the same places). Once we'd met back up, we went down some stairs into this little cafe. There was only one lady working there and the ground floor was full (well, there were only about 6 seats in there anyway) so we went upstairs, which was where the toilet was. I only mention this because the door to it was really neat... It had the word "toilet" painted on it in like 15 different languages and colors. The place where we ate was just a little coffee table and a couch and loveseat... This upstairs portion of the cafe was actually part of another shop, we think, because behind one of the couches was a big piece of fabric and we could hear music and people from behind it. I ate a panini with cheese and tomato and a light salad. While we were waiting for our food, David played this game with us that he read about in the Encyclopedia of Immaturity (it was randomly in the National Gallery gift shop). I don't think the game ended up like it was supposed to, haha. Well, we were in a cute little place to rest. We paid downstairs, and by the counter they had a fridge with drinks in it. I saw this can of something I'd seen a couple other places in Scotland called IRN-BRU... I thought it was some kind of beer or alcoholic drink, but I was curious, so I picked it up and read the ingredients. It was just some kind of soda! The can said that it was an original Scottish drink, and I asked the lady at the counter what she thought of it and she'd never actually tried it but said that people were crazy about it there and that it wasn't available anywhere else (but much to my delight, I've found it several places in Oxford... It's becoming more popular). I just had to try it! OF COURSE. I was so excited. I popped it open, and this orange scent came wafting out, so I thought it was going to be like orange soda back home. I took a drink, and it was more like one of those orange Smarties candies, the ones rolled in the plastic... SO GOOD. I loved it and was so glad I had gotten it.

Silly Scottie

Just part of the big "hill" once we got to a higher vantage point

We kept moving on down the Royal Mile towards the palace. On the way, we noticed a couple of Christmas shops (weird). In a window of a whisky shop there was a little Scottie dog, just sitting there watching everyone pass by on the street. We saw a fudge shop called Jim Garrahy's Fudge Kitchen that had a sign over the door advertising free samples. We went in ad tried the German chocolate swirl and it was really good. It was like vanilla and chocolate together. I thought it was kind of strange that there was even such a thing as vanilla-flavored fudge. We got there right before the man in the back came out with a fresh, warm sample of the double chocolate fudge, which was even better. We decided to all chip in and buy a hunk of the first kind to share. Then we continued down the street. We passed Scottish Parliament (the new one). It was a really modern-looking building, which was in such contrast to most of the other buildings in town. We could see this huge, HUGE hill/plateau just a few hundred yards down the road that Parliament was on, but we couldn't go climb it because we weren't sure we'd have enough time to do that and also see the memorial up on the hill before we needed to catch the bus to the airport (much to David's disappointment). Okay, well, it turns out that you had to pay to get into the palace, and we didn't feel like dishing out any more money, so we just walked on and looked for the way to get up to the monuments. These were the pillars we saw off in the distance when we were up at the castle. We found a path that led up and Holly was sure it'd get us there sooner or later, and we grudgingly ascended after her. We ran into some people walking down and they said we were going the right way. So we walked up and up... We got great views of the big green hill and that side of the city, constantly changing since we kept getting higher and higher. We eventually reached the top. It wasn't all that high but it was probably the highest we'd been since the castle, and plus, this offered a 360-degree view. There was the pillar monument, which we never found out its purpose while we were there. Google informs me, however, that it was supposed to be a memorial to the Scots who died in the Napoleonic Wars, but it was never finished because many who promised to help fund it did not pay. It's called the National Monument, by the way, and this hill we were on was Calton Hill. Another monument was the Nelson Monument, which is the shape of an upturned telescope. The city observatory was also up there but it was closed for refurnishing. The other monument was the Dugald Stewart Monument; Stewart was a Scottish philosopher. We stayed up there for a little over an hour, just taking photos, talking, and resting. Then we wanted to go see St. Mary's Cathedral (or what we thought was St. Mary's) because it looked cool from up there where we were, so we walked down into the city. We were in the "New Town" part for the first time, and there was this huge, ugly black "monstrosity" (as Holly put it) of a shopping mall that we walked by. We got to St. Mary's, but it was not the cool building we thought it was. Christ went across the street to check out what the cool building was. It turned out to be some other cathedral, like St. Peter-St. Paul Cathedral or something. While he'd been gone, we were all just sitting on St. Mary's steps, and down to our right just on the sidewalk was a small group of adults, and two of the guys appeared to be in an argument. I'm pretty sure they were drunk. But there was this woman between them trying to prevent them from punching each other. We couldn't really tell whether they were serious of not, but as soon as Chris came back we left. As we were walking I took pictures of the cigarette boxes people had littered on the ground, because there were very large, varied, and blunt warnings about the harmful effects of smoking. I love how they're so honest, but it's sad that so many people still do it. At this point we didn't really have anything else in mind to do and it was only a little after 5, and we only had to catch the bus around 7 to be at the airport at a good time. So we just kind of wandered downtown. We thought we might stop by the Edinburgh Dungeon because just the name itself sounds cool .well, we walked into this place we thought was it and it seemed just like a cheesy goth gift shop. We found out that the whole big deal was just a silly ride and that the last one was at 5 anyway. We walked toward the other part of downtown to see what this one tower memorial was. It wasn't really that interesting. Mary got coffee, and then we had nothing to do.

The National Monument at the top of Calton Hill

Just hanging out and resting

We simply walked to the bridge where our bus was going to pick us up. We'd bought open return tickets when we rode into the city so we were able to go on any of the buses, and they came really often, like less than 10 minutes apart. There was one when we got there but we decided to just wait for the next one so we wouldn't have to rush on. The next one came about 2 minutes later. We got on, said goodbye to the city. At the airport we decided to eat after security, since it seemed that at the Dublin and Gatwick airports there were better options afterward. We asked a shopkeeper if there were any restaurants after security, to be sure, and they said yes. So we went through. To our dismay, there was actually only a bar and a Costa Coffee. At least the Costa Coffee had cafe sandwiches. And... IRN-BRU!!! That made up for the lack of restaurants, in my eyes anyway. So we ate. We saw on the screen before we even checked in that our flight was delayed half an hour, which would give us 10 minutes from the time it landed to the time our bus left for Oxford. Well, it got delayed even more. We most certainly weren't going to catch our bus, and we thought the next one was at 3 AM... So we were pretty bummed, but at least our tickets would still be good because they were valid 24 hours after the return departure time. Well, while we were waiting in the airport before the flight, David and Chris got into this debate involving movies, music, lyrics, and relationships. It continued on the plane, as far as I could tell. Mary, Holly, and I just talked about guys, TV, and health. I saw on the TV that was playing that there were bombings in Pakistan. Once the plane arrived, we got on. The pilot explained the reason for the delay, but all I can remember about it is that the plane that was supposed to have flown us wasn't able to for some reason, so this plane came even though it was supposed to be in Barcelona. The free magazine in the pocket in front of us was pretty interesting, since it had a lot about cities in Greece, and I'm going there for Thanksgiving break. I sat by Mary and we talked a bit about Greece and about how tired we were. This flight was the longest of all the weekend's flights at about an hour and forty-five minutes-ish. By this time we just wanted to get home, you know. We got to the airport in London and David was convinced that we were going to be able to catch our 11:15 bus... It was 11:10 when we landed. Mary and I were like, there is no way we'll catch it and there is no way we're running through the airport to try to catch it. We all just walked fast and got to where the bus should have been at about 11:18. we were upset, so we went back inside to try to ask an employee if they knew anything about when the next one was. No one knew (well, we were only able to find one who wasn't helping anyone at the moment), so we just walked through the terminal following signs to where the local bus info was, hoping there'd be something about our coach there. We fortunately found the schedule, and fortunately (even more so) the next bus was only at 1, not 3 like we'd thought. So we figure that's not a bad wait. Mary's stomach wasn't feeling well, so she found some Sprite. We just hung out in the middle there for a while Chris looked at the exchange rates, or at least we thought he was. Next thing we know, we're turning around and he's nowhere to be seen. We decided that David will walk around for a few minutes to try to find him while we girls stay by the vending machine. About 5 seconds later (David's only walked about 30 feet), we see Chris turning the wrong corner away from us, and then we all catch up with him. We went out by where we need to exit for the bus (but still inside) and sat on these chairs. Chris went downstairs to the bathroom and David and the rest of us started talking about what he and Chris were talking about. It was all very interesting and got even better when Chris got back. Soon it was almost 1 so we went outside and the bus was there. We were doing fine until the bus driver got to Chris. He said his ticket said that he was to depart at 03:15, not 23.15 like ours, so he couldn't get on this bus because it was before his confirmed boarding time unless he paid £22. he's the driver, what he says goes, is basically the way he put it. We were like, "No, his ticket says 23:15, it's just creased right on the '2' so it's really faint," but he wouldn't hear it. We didn't want to pay so we decided we'd just wait 'til the next one at 3. we got off, went back inside. But David still wanted to go back and argue about it. We didn't go back until Mary had figured out that it wouldn't work if we just did it the way the driver said to because of a date and time conflict. So we went back and she was able to (thankfully) explain to him calmly how and why he was wrong. He realized he'd made a mistake and let us all on. We went towards the back. Everyone was on the right of the aisle except for me so I wasn't able to join their continuing conversation. It was all good though because I needed to catch up on journaling. I did, and eventually I started to feel nauseous, partly from writing in a moving vehicle (especially at the back of it) and partly because the strong cleaning scent wafting from the bathroom behind me was so overwhelming. I had to stop writing and just listen to music because I didn't want to have to be rushing to the bathroom if I needed to vomit. We finally got to the Oxford bus station at about 3ish, and since it's in the city centre we had a nice brisk walk of about 20 minutes back to our houses - we walked fast so that we would warm up, because it was cold!! There were SO many people out that late at night! It was so shocking. I noticed that there were plenty of those cigarette boxes with the warnings on them lying on the ground. I also saw an IRN-BRU can on the sidewalk! I was sooooo extremely excited, you don't even know. It gave me hope! Haha. Eventually we got to our road, and ended our journey with a prayer of praise. I went right to bed. Fell asleep right away.

One of the many... but this was my favorite

The most amazing thing that God taught me was how big His love is. I got to Dublin and realized how absolutely huge it was and how many people lived there, and God loves them all enough to die to possibly have a right relationship with them. Then I got to Edinburgh, which seemed even bigger, and realized the same thing. And these were only two cities out of the entire world! And if He loves them there, and there, and here, then he is everywhere and His love is everywhere, too. It brings me yet again to Psalm 139: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me..." and I definitely felt Him with me that weekend. He's definitely opened my eyes and shown Himself to me.

That's the end... but tomorrow (a.k.a. today, since it's about 1:30 AM on Thursday right now) we go to Spain! We'll be there for two weeks. :) wish me luck.

Part 2: Edinburgh, Scotland

Continuing our story...

Friday, September 19, 2008

The view of city centre from the hill that leads to the castle

The cannons in the castle

This day started off at 3:05 AM, when we woke up in order to have time to get ready and eat before we walked to the bus stop for the Air Coach bus that left at 4:30 (our flight was at 6:30... never again, never again will I do this). Mary had brought bread, peanut butter, and apples so that's what we ate (interesting eating that at 3:30 AM...). We walked down O'Connell Street to the bus stop and said goodbye to Dublin... I was sad that we were leaving because it was such a great time... I could have totally spent more time in the museums and libraries and also would have just loved to stay in Ireland to travel out to the country. But anyhow, we got to our bus stop about half an hour early - talk about time padding! About 5-10 minutes later, a taxi van pulled up and the driver asked if we wanted to get a ride with him for the same price as the bus. So we decided to do it because there seemed to be no reason not to. Oh man. This bald, earringed taxi driver was wild. He drove so fast and I think he almost ran red lights at least three times and almost rear-ended other vehicles, one of them being a bus, twice. It was really scary and I kind of thought we might die (meanwhile David is enjoying it as if it were a roller coaster)... but alas; we made it to the airport. We checked in, went to our gate, and just waited until we got to board. One funny thing about these Ryanair flights is that you have to get on and off the planes with a staircase, so it makes you feel Presidential. The flight was only about 50 minutes long, but for some reason we sat on the runway for half an hour before we took off. I slept for the whole flight. When we got to the airport in Edinburgh, Scotland, we needed to find a way to the city centre so that we could have something to do before we were allowed to check in at the hostel at 2. We were all so tired and crabby that this experience felt long and difficult. We couldn't seem to make sense of the bus routes because there wasn't one labeled "City Centre." So after much confusion, argumentativeness, map consultation, and bad ideas, we finally settled on an open return for this one coach that stopped right in the city centre. It took a little over half an hour to get to the city. The first thing we did when we got off the bus was walk up these hilly streets towards Edinburgh Castle. It was a tough walk, having had little sleep, but it was also quite refreshing. We got our first glimpse of downtown from a higher vantage point. It seemed very developed and bigger than Dublin, or at least, with bigger buildings... Or maybe they were just more numerous. This castle is a huge, stone building, or actually, several buildings surrounded and atop a wall. There were cannon replicas and a couple museums (we went into one). There were signs along the way that told about each spot. Really there was so much to see and we were running on so little sleep that I wonder how much of it we actually took in - or at least, how much I took in. The view of the city from up there was amazing. There was this monument with columns off in the distance that looked interesting and we decided we'd go see it the next day. There was a tall, spindly, slightly creepy black pointy tower that we were unsure of. Anyway, the castle was pretty cool, but I would have liked all the history and reading more if I had had more than 3 and a half hours of sleep. We saw the crown jewels which was pretty neat. Of course, nothing compared to any of the old manuscripts we saw at Chester Beatty, but it was still a neat experience.

Mmm... HAGGIS

At the bottom of the castle there was this cafe that gave free samples of haggis - it was called the Haggis Cafe. We tried it and it was SO good. It tasted familiar but I couldn't quite place it. We decided to eat there and I ordered the haggis neeps and tatties lunch. Neeps ended up being these cantaloupe-looking chunks of something that I later discovered were turnips. The tatties were like mashed potatoes and gravy, only different (okay, so that's not very helpful of a description, but I really don't know how else to describe it). Those were both just "okay" - not really good or really bad. The haggis was delicious, although admittedly overwhelming due to the fact that when we sampled it, it was a small portion spread over a small chunk of bread, and the meal was just a large amount of it piled on the plate next to the neeps and tatties. So, after lunch we walked around town trying to find the right bus stop to get to the hostel, according to their directions. The city bus was supposed to leave from Hanover Street but we couldn't figure out where or something (it seems like a dumb reason now), so we just chose the other of the three optional methods of transport - the shuttle. The Globetrotter Inn (our hostel) has its own shuttle that runs between the city and the hostel. We had to wait for almost 40 minutes because it only arrives and leaves on the hour. This hostel was big... And far from the city centre, about half an hour northwest. It was right by the river (not sure which one). Our room was a lot nicer than the one in Dublin... There were little lights inside each bunk and curtains that went in front of the opening for more privacy. Mary and I took a shower (which was a better move compared to taking on at the Dublin hostel - which we didn't do - because that one only had two showers on the floor we were on and the doors were nearly clear.) and the rest of our group started their nap. We took a much-needed nap as well. We were only planning on sleeping until 5:30 but ended up resting for an extra hour because we were so tired. We needed this for sure. Hahaha.

Waiting for the shuttle to our hostel

Stealth shot of the dad teaching his daughter to ride a bike by the river

The river behind our hostel

We walked down behind the hostel to the river. It was so pretty with the clouds and everything. These 5 young girls, probably in middle school, said hi to us as we went down the back steps and said they loved Americans, and they came down to the river with us for a few minutes. We just chatted about where we were from. It was funny how they'd heard of Alaska (David), Texas (Mary), and California (me), but not Colorado (Holly) or North Carolina (Chris) (and it was also funny that I just realized then that each of us was from a different state). They said that Edinburgh was boring and we just laughed and figured that they were just so used to it that they took it for granted. We walked along the pathway along the river for about half an hour. There were a lot people with their dogs. There was even one man with his dog in the shallows. We saw this person with a whole group of dogs up on the hill. We also saw this man and a girl we assumed was his daughter teaching her to ride a bike with training wheels. We thought she might have been adopted from another country because of how he was talking to her; she seemed a little old for the tone of loving simple instruction he gave her. We were walking down to this little village of Cramond where the desk worker at the hostel said there was a good pub. We got there and checked the prices, but it was like £9 and that was quite a bit more than were willing to spend for a meal. So we kept walking until we got to a bus stop at the beginning of the street we were on and asked a woman where the nearest restaurants were. She told us a mile either way, so we kept going to the left. We walked and walked and walked... We were getting nowhere and it was dark and we didn't know where we were (fortunately we knew how to get back to where we were... But we needed food for dinner). We kept going, sometimes with the aid of the street lights and sometimes not... Because there were portions of the road without them. We passed this field with sheep. It was funny because they stared at us as we passed. Some even stood up attentively at our sudden appearance. We walked more after this until we got to this little town. We found the only open eater, a take-away fast food place with fish, chips, pasta, pizza, and savory pies and decided to get food from there. We ate it on a bench across the street from a random Blockbuster... The bench surprisingly fit all 5 of us on it. We ate and talked about stuff like the teenagers that began to pop out of nowhere and this was like 9:30 PM already. They're intimidating! I think it's because of how snobby they seem, and also the reputation the UK has with underage drinking... Plus, they usually seem a bit obnoxious. Anyway, we knew there had to be a faster way to get back to the hostel rather than to retrace our hour-long journey, but we didn't know how. We figured that since we basically did a huge sideways U-turn to get to that town, we could just cut through the U on a street. David and Holly went into the Blockbuster to ask if they knew and they didn't really and just told us to go basically the same way we'd come. We looked for the 42 bus that we know goes to the hostel but it didn't have a stop near us. So... We walked back the way we came! Yup, it took about an hour again. Actually, the first time it might have taken a little longer than an hour because we were walking slower. We just went to bed when we got back to the hostel. We were pretty excited that our hostel was a little bit in the more nature-y side of Edinburgh, even though it was inconveniently far from the city centre. But it kind of eliminated a journey out into the country that we wanted to make, which was good, financially.

The sheep that stared us down as we walked by their field

So... I'll post the end of the journey either tonight or tomorrow before we leave for Spain...
:)