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It is so weird to think that this is my last weekend in the UK! And that I am most likely done with university as an undergrad! It has just been kind of a bizarre week overall. But more on that later…
After I got back from Wales (which to remind you was the weekend of November 20th and 21st) is when I started knuckling down with my schoolwork. Luckily, that's when it started getting crazy for everyone too, so I wasn't alone. We worked all that week; I had presentations and a couple of novels to read. And Thanksgiving preparations were that week as well. I was very jealous of everyone at home who was getting time off school and traveling home. And then on the actual day of Thanksgiving I was a little sad, and a lot homesick. I was working on my What is Gender Studies paper and spent the next night in the library with Athena, where I almost finished it.
The Saturday after American Thanksgiving, my flat with me leading hosted English Thanksgiving. I ordered a giant turkey from Tesco and encouraged everyone to bring traditional Thanksgiving food, most of which they had never heard of before. I got up early-ish on Saturday and prepped the turkey and had him going in the oven by noon (our dinner wasn't until 6:30). Then I went back to work, this time on a different essay. All day people were in and out asking thanksgiving food related questions and our flat smelled delicious! We brought in the kitchen table from the flat across the hallway and made one really long table in our living room. I had purchased paper table clothes, crayons, plastic cups/cutlery, and paper plates which Hannah set out after decorating the cups with names and writing names at places at the table.
The turkey was done right on time, although I can't say the same for everything else haha. I only had one turkey related incident (no fire this time, luckily it was an electric oven), but because the oven is so low to the ground, when I pulled it out to remove the foil it tipped and pilled turkey juice all over the floor. Quickly Hannah, Sarah, and I mopped up the juice. Our floor had a lovely shine to it and a few tea towels smelled of turkey for a while. Other than that, no turkey incidents and I was very proud how it turned out… it was quite tasty! Although, the carving of the turkey was quite interesting, Jason and I muddled through… he did a much better job than I!
We did have a fun other incident right before we carved the turkey. At this point, almost everyone is hanging out in the living room/kitchen putting food out and all that, and we have the green bean casserole warming in the oven, and the cornbread and mac and cheese cooking in the oven, so it was really warm in there. The fire alarms in our kitcehns respond not to smoke but heat, so it is not an unusual occurrence, although the person whose flat it is in usually gets heckled by the rest of the building while the emergency people lecture you. So all of a sudden the fire alarm starts going off and everyone is in our flat. Everyone gets shoes and coats on while I am in the kitchen opening windows and turning the fan on (in case it was our fault the alarm went off, I could at least say we had taken precautions (post fire alarm, but whatever), and turning the oven and grill off. We were really concerned that it was us, but we didn't say anything when the guys got there, in case it was someone else. Meanwhile, a bizarre smell is wafting out of the building. A few minutes later the security guy comes walking out of the building holding a pot that it now completely covered in melting plastic. Amy from across the hall and left the oven on with a pot on it that had a colander in it when she had come over to our flat! Since the smoke was so bad we weren't allowed back into the building for about 10 mins, and it was cold and raining and we had all dressed up for the dinner. The fire alarm always goes off when we are having a dinner party and we have to go outside and stand around in our dressed up outfits/costumes!
I also made a mac and cheese as a main dish for our veggie friends. Hannah made apple cobbler, cornbread (Jiffy which mom sent me!) and stuffing; Sarah made a pumpkin pie which was amazing since they don't sell canned turkey here or pre-made pie crust and we had no pie container lol!; Ed made deviled eggs; Jannik provided cranberry sauce and wine; Emily, Jason, and Nissa from upstairs made mashed sweet potatoes, rolls, baked yams, salad, wine and Emily's famous chocolate lava cake; Amy from across the hall made gravy (veggie friendly), roasted sweet corn, and mashed potatoes; Athena made green bean casserole and a cream cheese pie; and Tamyson from the other upstairs flat provided mixed veg and orange juice. There was SO much food! And everything turned out amazing! I think everyone was pleasantly surprised at how delicious everything was! I think a lot of stuff people were dubious of but then loved once they tried them. The only things that are common there as well are mashed potatoes, rolls, corn, salad and the lava cake, and turkey, although most of them don't have it often… everything else was new for them. It was so much fun. I put the crayons out and we drew all over the tablecloth, which is now proudly displayed on the kitchen wall. I think English Thanksgiving was quite a success!
The next day Hannah, Athena, and I took advantage of the long table and spread out while working on our homework. It was really nice and we were sad to give the table back hahaha
The next week was the 9th week of school and I spent the days from the time I got up to the time I went to bed working on essays. Luckily I wasn't alone. Most of the time Hannah and I could be found out at the kitchen table, covering it was our schoolwork. I apologized to everyone else for taking it over… Wednesday we took a break and went out to a 'stereotypical' club and it was the first time that we had pretty much everyone able to come, so that was a lot of fun.
I spent a lot of time in the library over the weekend and into the next week. The weekend has stupid hours, but during the week it is open 24 hours. Friday night Athena, Hannah and I went to have a party at the library, we stayed until 2:30. Monday night Hannah, Emily, Jason, Nissa and myself went to the library and Hannah and I ended up staying until 3:30. Tuesday night Hannah and I went and ended up staying until almost 4, which was entertaining at least because we got visited by Emily and Nissa who were celebrating being done by drinking bad wine and visiting us in the library- entertaining for us. I finished my Great War paper and What is Gender Studies paper (both 2000 words- about 7 or 8 pages) on Tuesday night while taking a break from my Virginia Woolf paper and turned those in on Wednesday. I started working at 2:00 pm (after sleeping in, I was so mad at myself!) and didn't stop until 2:30 the next day when I went to print them out. It ended up being 4300 words, which ends up being almost 14 pages. I can officially say my brain was FRIED after writing those three essays in such a short amount of time!
I spent Thursday and Friday spending as much time as possible with my flatmates and other friends and visiting Brighton for the last time. We spent Friday night sitting campfire style in the courtyard outside our flat in the chairs from our living room just chatting, then came inside after it got too cold to think where we hung out and chatted. It was so so nice. And I put off packing until late that night, despite having to catch my train early the next morning. All my flatmates and all my friends that were left woke up at 7:45, even though most had gone to bed around 3:30) to say goodbye to me. They laughed at the amount of luggage I have (it is ridiculous) and even though it was practically storming outside (Ed said England was sad to see me leave lol), Ed helped me and walked me to the train station so I didn't have to lug it alone- so sweet of him! He left and I cried for probably a solid 20 minutes. I still get sad thinking about it. I miss my friends already; I think everyone is having an emotional time of it. But I keep assuring my flatmates that they aren't rid of me yet, haha! Hannah and Sarah are coming to visit me in March and we are all counting down the days! When you live with people and see them like 12 hours a day everyday for 11 weeks, not spending more than a few days apart (the longest was when I went to Paris and Prague), it's weird to imagine not seeing them everyday.
I got to London around 10:00 and caught the underground from London Victoria station to Kings Cross station where my train to Edinburgh was leaving from. Ridiculous. Let me tell you, if you have never traveled with luggage on the underground, especially the rolling kind- DON'T! It is a pain and a half, because sine there is not an American Disability Act (obviously), there aren't elevators in almost any of stations. At this point I have 2 rolling bags (one really big heavy one), a duffel that I'm wearing strapped in front of me and a backpack behind me. Hassle and a half. So before leaving for Edinburgh, I left my big bag at this company in Kings Cross station called Left Luggage which will securely keep your luggage for a hefty few, but I wasn't going to cart that thing anywhere else! And luckily, it is very close to the hostel I'm staying at in London, so I will leave it there and pick it up on my way to the airport on Tuesday. I'm still REALLY sore from that whole venture.
I caught the 11:00 train to Edinburgh, arriving around 3:30. I struggled up the hill to my hostel where I checked in. I put my stuff in my room and immediately went out to explore and put money on my cell phone. It was so wet yesterday, but there were a million people out and about. I walked up an down the main shopping street, but was so tired and came back around 6:30. I was asleep by 7:00 and slept in for a really long time, longer than I am willing to admit to you all. But it was probably a good thing, a result of not sleeping well or much anytime in the last week and from being around sick people as well.
I got up and went out to do some more exploring. I went on a free tour of Edinburgh that started at 1:00 and lasted three hours. It was so good! I love those kinds of tours because you learn stuff you would never find on your own. I highly recommend this company, they do tours all over Europe- all free! You aren't expected to tip either, though most people do. http://www.neweuropetours.eu/ My favorite thing the tour guide said was when she was talking about the people who stormed Edinburgh castle from the back, climbing up a steep cliff, she called them 'weird, tartan wearing little ninjas'- it makes me chuckle still. We also saw The Elephant Café where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the building that was the inspiration for Hogwarts. Did you know that JK Rowling is now the richest women in the UK, even richer than the Queen? Go Harry Potter! We saw old churches and graveyards, which they love here because apparently they love ghosts and things like that. The term graveyard shift comes from having your relatives sit near your dead body for a week to ward off the body snatchers, who were a big problem here. Lots of murder, ghosts and other terrible stories- it was highly entertaining. Unfortunately it gets dark here so early and my camera does not take good pictures at night, so my pictures are a little limited.
After the tour, I called home and then walked what they call Winter Wonderland. Which is this almost a mile of stalls selling food, drinks, novelties etc, and there are rides and an outdoor ice skating rink. All the trees have Christmas lights too. Since I've been in the library most of the last month, I haven't been out to experience the Christmas spirit but it is definitely Christmas here! It's all very lovely. It didn't even rain here today! Very very cold, but at least dry.
Tomorrow I am going to go see the Castle and probably hit up one of the free museums, like the Writers Museum. I have to check out at 10:30, but the hostel I am staying at are really nice so they said I can store my luggage there until I have to leave and that I can continue to use the hostel facilities too. I really like this hostel. The people are all really nice and the bed is super comfy. I am really enjoying vacationing in a place that speaks English natively, it makes the whole process so much easier! Haha, terribly American of me.
I catch the train back to London at 3:00 tomorrow, then I am supposed to meet Athena and her sister for dinner. I will pick up my bag from Kings Cross at 7:00 am (when they open) on Tuesday morning, and then catch the underground (more underground/luggage fun, ugh). Lucky for me, the underground goes straight to the airport from Kings Cross. My flight leaves at 10:00 and I am supposed to be getting into Portland (with the time changes and all that) at 6:00pm. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all the snow business going down in Chicago and in Portland doesn't mess up my traveling!
I can't believe that my traveling is coming to an end! I feel like I just got here. I'm not sure I'm ready to be done. I'm ready to be home and see people, but I am going to miss being here and seeing people and being able to catch a train or plane and be in another country in a short amount of time. I know that I will be coming back again and again, wanting to share this experience with other people. I probably wont be blogging too much anymore, although I will update my photo albums with the pictures of Edinburgh and any from London I take. But other than that, thanks to any and all who have been reading this- I have worked hard to make experiences so I could share them with you all, which probably heightened my traveling experience. I can't wait to see you all again! I love and miss you all!
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