Oh, nostalgia/new regrets, you silly thing

It's insane how happy new music and sunshine makes me. It's just as well they didn't happen at the same time, or inevitably someone would have compared me to a four-year-old. (Friends the world over now have all hit on that same age, so I'm starting to think there must be some truth to it.)

I've got a ton of reading and essay-writing to do, and the weather is being a terrible tease. Sunshine in the morning on the way to class, but by noon it's disappeared and ends up sprinkling rain for the rest of the day.

I've got awkward times between each class--not short enough to hang around, but not long enough to go home--so I've taken to wandering around the Meadows. If the sun is out, fantastic. If it's not, there are still a million happy dogs running around. One of them came up to me today as I sat reading Lanark on a bench and leaped up on my knee. I wasn't the only person he did that to, but I was the only one who instantly began crooning compliments. =P

"They might try to tell you how you can live your life but don't-don't-don't forget it's your right to do whatever you like--'cause you can be your own spotlight." -Patrick Stump

(Catchy stuff.)

It's Not All Bad

So it occurred to me last night that I might need to reassure a few people. I'm not dying, and even though my hand looks like I've contracted some kind of apocalyptic black death/zombie plague, it is healing. It itches too much for it to not be healing.

I took these a week or two ago when the sun came out and I had an hour between classes, and figured I ought to share. It's getting warmer out here, though in the past handful of days the wind kicked up like crayyy-zee.

I dun wanna grow up, I'm a toys 'r' us kid...

Everything has frozen solid now--it's gone from snowing at least once a day to enormous swathes of ice everywhere. Guthrie Street, where I live, is one giant hill. There's a flight of stairs (with many, many steps) for anyone who'd like to avoid the long way, but let's face it: it was a serious act of willpower to make it up the steps when they weren't icy enough to literally slide down.

(The last time I did make an attempt to get down them, I ended up clutching at the handrail for dear life as I slid down four or five steps. The ice had almost complete covered the steps, but I'd thought there was still enough snow to get a grip. So not the case. I ended up sitting on the handrail and sliding down the way mothers always tell their children to never, ever do because they might fall off backward and break their crown. It was maaaybe more fun than it should've been.)

Last Sunday, before everything had finished freezing, I went out with a friend (codename Freiburg) to the Meadows (which I'm sure I've mentioned before. It's basically a huge and open grassy space with paths and trees and prettiness galore. Except now it's all coated with snow) to have a snowball fight with her and London. London slept in and missed half the fun stuff, but she and I tried and failed to build a snowman (the snow wouldn't stick together), tried and sort of succeeded at throwing a few snowballs at each other--except she does this thing where she throws one and then runs away. She just turns tails and sprints off, and no way am I going to chase her across the Meadows.

We also found a park with relatively undisturbed snow, so we turned into kids for a while and went swinging and sang Christmas carols. I did a stupid thing and was rewarded with falling on my ass. It hurt. A lot, and I was sore the next morning. And when we got tired of the swings, we made snow angels.

I've made a snow angel once before, but really all I remember of it is how unhappy and cold and covered in melting snow I was afterward. But the snow was so deep and totally undisturbed that I really couldn't help myself. I spread my arms and flopped backward, trusting that the snow was deep enough that I wouldn't break my tailbone.

It was. :)

We found a chair made of snow that had frozen into ice. That was pretty cool. Wwatched squirrels for a while--I got kinda bored, but it was restful, I guess, and they're quite rare in Freiburg's corner of Germany, so she was completely enthralled. And then London finally showed up, and we went to a different, bigger playground and turned into kids again. We played on the swings, and the playgyms, and there was a ziplineanditwasawesome!

Fantastic, amazing, stupendous day. Absolutely wonderful. We went to a delicatessen when it got dark and the food was pricey but good. I ended up going back later this week to get my secret santa (for my flat) a gift. :)

Not gonna lie, I'm really, really loving these fits of immaturity. They make the frigid cold and the sun going down at 3:30-4 PM bearable.

A Mostly-Calm Weekend

So either during the party across the hallway or on the way to the club that we didn't end up going to, Scotland issued a challenge to several Chileans that were helping to host the party across the hallway. A soccer challenge.

They couldn't resist, of course. And neither could Scotland help but brag about his own skills on the pitch (field), which just made them more eager to assert how much better Chileans are at soccer than any European.

I got drafted onto the Scottish team. After having not played in about a year and a half.

Okay, honestly, I didn't mind at all. I was just nervous. I tell people how many years I've played, and they assume I'm good. Not just good, but good. After all, how could someone not play for eight straight years without getting good?

By playing like me, that's how. =P

Anyway, I dragged myself out of bed the morning after the water fight and jogged (not literally) down to the only bank branch open in Edinburgh on a Saturday to apply for an account. Then I stopped for breakfast on the way back, blogged that super long post about the marvelous three days I'd had, and got ready for le futball. Or, as I've been told it's called here, "real football."

Melbourne came with, mostly to hang out and watch but partly because I didn't know where the Meadows were. (I'm so glad she did. I never would have found them on my own.) We were already late when we left, but nobody else showed up for another half hour or so, and the Chileans canceled/postponed.

It was okay, though. We found a bunch of Spaniards to whup us instead.

They'd already been playing, though not for too long. The way the teams ended up were the five Spanish guys versus "the rest of the world" (Scotland, America, Germany and... somewhere else.)

There were six of us compared to their five players, and we definitely didn't score as many times as they did, but we played long enough and hard enough that it wasn't an utterly humiliating defeat. I held my own well enough, I think. I couldn't keep up physically (soooo out of shape that it's embarrassing), but I played smart enough that I'm okay with how everything turned out. I almost scored twice, and got injured twice. That's always the fun part. Unless you're in serious pain.

The first time, one of the Spaniards crashed into me and sent us both flying. I twisted to keep from landing badly, then rolled to keep him from landing on me. The wind wasn't even knocked out of me, but he didn't get up right away. I didn't mean to belittle his manliness or whatever, but everyone else laughed when I went, "Ohmygod, are you okay?"

Oh, well. =P

The second time happened when I had another run in with a different Spaniard. (I think.) I think he might've kicked me, or grazed me with his shoe (or something). It ached a bit, but I didn't even glance at it until another guy made a horrified face and asked what happened. Turns out I had blood dripping down my leg. Oops.

I didn't have any tissues, so I started using an old slip of paper that told how to apply for a job at the Sweet Factory at North County Fair to mop up my leg. Then, thankfully, the German guy on my team handed me a few tissues, and I got to rub hand sanitizer over an open wound. Not as much fun as it might sound like, let me tell you.

(Both pictures, by the way, are of the Meadows, where we played.)