Ok so I haven't updated in awhile and there's been a few things going on.

I did get my cat from the airport. This is a abridged reader's digest version of what happened. things were iffy till the day she was supposed to leave, thanks to casey and mom for haning on the phone, going through paperwork, and running my cat all over the place at all hours till we got it all squared away. So she got to the airport, they tried to refuse her on some silly grounds, i told casey to hand the phone to them so i could talk to them. i took care of it, argued, got them t let her on the plane, and casey got to finally go home (that started at 11am US time). I got up at 5am UK time, got the bus to durham, waited 15min and walked up to the train station. Took the train down to London, which was SUPER crowded, and all the lines (qeues) for tickets to the underground train were miles long. Finally got a ticket and took it (after getting off and on at the wrong bits) got out to the last terminal at Heathrow and walked about a mile to the animal quarantine facility (which has NO signs, NO entrance directions etc.) and waited around on my cat fortunately all the paperwork went through before i even got there and i only had to wait on the copany that recieved her at heathrow to get their bit over. So i was getting ready to leave w/her and was waiting on a cab but found out i didn't had enough money on me, so i told them to cancel it. I walked with her giant carrier (international flights have to have dog sized carrier) and got to the firt turnabout and the taxi driver showed up. he offered to drive us anyway to the underground train entrance and stopped at a money machine. So i walked across trafic, into the building, and down the steps to wait on the platform for the train. Well i got on the train it took forever to get all the way back to kings cross and the train was packed, we missed the train we were supposed to take. So i had to get on one that went to Newcastle instead and intended to turn around and take the train back to durham from there. Well when the platform that the train was leaving from was announced as usual everyone made a mad dash and luckily a girl offered to help me take the carrier to the back. So she had to go in the back where it was cold and really noisy and the train seats were all taken so i had to sit on the fllor between cars where it was also quite cold. Eventually there were a few seats open halfway through, and the guy in the luggage car let me back to see her sometimes. He advised me to get off at darlington and take a train from there to durham so i did. I waited in the freezing cold for a half hour at least. So then i got to durham and carry her carrier all the way down to the bus station (took me over a half hour). So then i had to wait in the bus station for about an hour for the next bus and in the meantime some crazy and most likely inbred people off to the side made a huge scene in the station. And then, those same people got on our bus, continued fighting, drinking, and making a scene till one of them hurt an older woman and the bus driver stopped, called the cops, and had him hauled off. I finally got home around 10:30pm.

I got last minute tickets to go with two other girls on my course on a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. I had to get up at 5am to catch the bus to durham and then walk to where we were meeting the group. The trip was offered by the durham student's union International Student Association for only £10, to take the train there and back was almost £50. So it was a good deal, they had to end up getting 3 extra buses and had around 300 people go. When Ally found out he kept going on and on about how great Scotland was and how apparently once you cross the border (which there isn't really any great welcome sign when you do) you'll instantly get "good feelings"... The hills. mountains, and coastline is AMAZING and Scotland's gorgeous! Edinburgh was awesome there's so much to see, shop after shop, and especially the kind i like with all sorts of celtic stuff. The castle is built way up on the hill/mnt. and the queen's castle residence is there, we passed by it from the bus. There all sorts of random things going on, there were ppl playing bagpipes, a gypsy doinng idk what, and a random guy dressed like braveheart. Me and everyone i went with agreed we could go back easily again. Ashley (she's in one of the pictures) had already been 4 or 5 times before! Scotland is wonderful and everyone should go once in their lifetime. While i was there we went to the Castle, St. Gile's Cathedral, a random pub and a random middle eastern cafe, shops, the christmas market, and highland christmas market. We nearly didn't make it back to the bus on time (ours left a half hour before the others) so we were running down the streets of edinburgh, wish someone had a camcorder...

So that was on saturday and then sunday we were supposed to have a thanksgiving dinner in our house. Well being that they're guys and didn't plan anything, debbie went to the local Sommerfield food store and started making stuff later (i was working on an essay most of the day). Eventually we made everything and somehow the yams i threw together came out like they were supposed to. The guys liked them and the cornbread (neither of which are made/available in the UK). I discovered that i like Swede (vegetable only in the UK). Afterwards the guys wanted to play me and debbie for dishes (which didn't matter cause we made dinner and they were cleaning up regardless). We lost, but we still won...

I recently went this weekend to a Swing Dance Christmas Snow Ball, which was nice and that's about it for now!