Berlin Again

I bought a ticket for Berlin today. So, I am officially leaving the UK on Friday morning. I made friends last year that I am staying with again. I will probably just be there a day or two. I loved Berlin and I loved these people so much last year. I am super excited to see them both again. And I owed them 5 Euro. Anyway, from there I will be heading to Poland and about. Now that I am doing more exciting stuff, hopefully I will be updating here a little more. It's bitter sweet. I love Edinburgh...and I feel really safe here. But, this will be good...and exciting...

Cricket

Yesterday was the longest day of the year, so a group of us went to the Meadows. It looked like it was going to be really nice and warm, but it wasn't. I shouldn't be surprised at this point.

The Meadows was deserted and that gave us lots of room to play cricket. I have never seen a cricket match. I know absolutely nothing about it. So they explained the rules to me...
1)you must wear white. It's the most important rule.
2)Someone else does the laundry after you play.
That's all they gave me.

It's something like baseball. You hit a ball with a bat and there is a pitcher, outfielders and a catcher. You run except you just run back and forth, short sprints--i like the satisfaction of actually running to different places you get in baseball--so you slide a lot.

Let me tell you, I missed my calling as a cricket player. I hit the ball every time. Seriously. I can't imagine a real cricket match though because by the time we were done after like an hour I was bored and tired. And those things go on for like 5 days apparently.

Highland Games...ish

The couchsurfers gathered this weekend.
We had a pub crawl, tours of the town,
music night and...highland games.
Normally these are played by strapping
men wearing kilts and throwing
proper trees and massive stones.
We played games like three legged
race, but whatever it was fun. We did
also do stone throwing and tree hurtling...
which has a proper name,
that I can't recall. Anyway, it was
pretty fun and the pictures are ridiculous.

Keep in mind, the goal of the tossing the
caper, i think that's what the tree thing
is called, is to get it to turn over at least
once. And if you can't tell by the picture,
mine got all of 6 inches away from me.

Perthshire

Alison, the couchsurfer who showed me around on Tuesday invited me to join her and her Aussie girlfriends on a road trip--a girls day. She wanted to show them some of the highlands and has adopted me as her little sister and wanted to bring me too. We started as Scotland's smallest whiskey distillery. It was really adorable. They showed us where the barley comes in, how they distill it, which part of the alcohol they actually use. And they gave us a glass of whiskey for the tour, nice way to start the day. Then we went to the falls of Bruar and ate lunch there. After lunch we went to a few small stops...a few lochs and little paths. Out last stop before really getting into the hills--where the roads are single stone lanes and the sheep really do just stand in the middle of the road--was Queen's View. Queen Victoria visited and decided it was gorgeous. And it is. Maybe one of the prettiest views I have ever seen. We drove through the hills, stopped and had tea and scones, saw lots of castles, high land cows--here spelled coos--saw the grave of Rob Roy, the palace where Mary Queen of Scots was born and the oldest living thing in Europe, a tree called the Ewe, over 5,000 years old. We had dinner at a little chip shop and I ate haggis. I kind of knew it was made of gross stuff but I didn't let Alison tell me till I had digested it a little. It's sheep heart, liver and lungs with onions and stuff. It was good, a cross between hash and sausage. I'm never eating it again though.
Anyway, it was 12 full hours start to finish and a great tour. We went places that buses can't go because the roads are so small and saw some things that no one could have shown me unless they had lived her 34 years.



Queen's View
Sheep in the Road Tea and Scones

My Legs Are Tired

I climbed so many hills today. A really nice couchsurfer from Edinburgh was taking some french kids around Edinburgh to hills in her car so they could see them all in one day...oh my god, my legs are tired. We did one hill in the city and then drove for about 20 minutes to an area called the Pentlands. We did one walk by a reservoir that ended in an underground home kept intact from 200 AD. Crazy. Then we went to a higher hill--and by hill I mean like over 1,500 feet high-- and climbed up to the top. The view was amazing, however, on the journey up I encouraged the group to go what looked like the shorter route...we walked like straight up. When we got down and looked at the map, we realized it was not a path at all. Oh well.

We ate lunch in a village where Robert Louis Stevenson vacationed. We went to a few other places, little towns and the church where this girls parents were married. Top 5 day in Edinburgh.

And I woke up before 10 AM today!


view from the
top of hill 2
















View from the
top of hill 3

Paolo Nutini

Paolo Nutini is a scottish singer who released his new album yesterday and gave a free cd release here and in his home town of Glasgow. I had his last cd which was ok. But, the couchsurfer I stayed with in Glasgow loved this guy and we listened to his new stuff which I really like. My friend Lauren and I went to the cd release. When we were waiting outside some one offered us free wristbands for a meet and greet after the concert. Scotland has been the place for me and concerts. Anyway, the show was good and, ya, I got to meet him.