I love my flatmates.

I think the only thing none of us love is the kitchen. Which, I’m beginning to see, will never be clean. It just won’t be. Time to accept it and move on (hopefully without any charges).

I got out of the shower tonight after rinsing out hair dye and the mirror was fogged up. Someone had written on it “you are beautiful” with their finger, so it only shows up—well, basically only after showers. I’ve got a pretty good idea of who it was, but the fact that someone I live with likes the rest of us enough to do something so thoughtful and kind-hearted makes me happy like I’ve just gotten a hug.

I wrote “so are YOU!” with a heart next to underneath the message. :)

I’m leaving in about six hours for the train station. I’m not done packing, and I just remembered there are about nine in-depth questions I was supposed to answer and send to my Roman World TA. Oops.

It’ll get done, though. And then I’ll sleep until I get into King’s Cross in London and get someone to take my picture at platform 9 3/4.

And yes, I’m taking a train down to London specifically to get a picture at platform 9 3/4. I’m not even a huge Harry Potter fan anymore, but skipping out on that feels like it might be blasphemy.

My Wild & Crazy St. Paddy's Day, 2011

(NOTE: this post went up on my other blog on March 17, 2011. I forgot to copy/paste it over here. Sorry! :) )

Made it to Dublin! The hotel isn’t quiiite what I’d hoped for—there’s no bathtub and the shower door doesn’t close. I have literally never spilled so much water during a shower in my life. And I can’t find the pool. I’m kind of worried about its existence.

There were so many half-drunk groups of Americans on the plane ride over. With giant hats from a Dr. Suess story and green, white and orange feather boas. These guys were dressed for a night out. Cue facepalm.

I pulled out a book and ignored them. Sometimes I think I might be better at that than is healthy.

Confession: I am sick again. So it’s definitely effecting my patience and endurance. This weekend by myself in a party city is going to be all about chilling out and recovering. The crunch-time stress will be there when I go home to Edinburgh.

Another confession: I didn’t actually make it into the city centre tonight. I know, shame on me. St. Paddy’s Day! In Dublin! Ireland! And I missed it! Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!

Not. The city’s official festival lasts until Sunday night, and since tomorrow’s Friday, I figure the chances for green beer and crazy-people watching will only increase. Instead, I went for a walk. Found the bus stop I’ll need tomorrow, and a grocery store where I can pop in and get a croissant, or something, for breakfast. (There’s a kettle in the room! I get my morning tea! :) Although it’s labeled “Irish Breakfast Tea.” Would it really kill them to just call it “English Breakfast Tea,” like the rest of the world does?)

I rather enjoyed myself today, anyway. The flight went smoother than I’d hoped for (despite the half hour delay) and I didn’t mind the wait for the shuttle to the hotel. The air was chilled and crisp, but not unbearable. The moon is almost full, and it was silhouetted by clouds in that way that shows up in movies like The Wolfman or basically any other movie that takes place in Scotland/England/Ireland but is more rare at home.

Oh, and I had a silly American girl moment. :) I couldn’t figure out which shuttle/bus to get on, so the second guy I asked called me “love” (“luv”?) as he corrected me. He was older than my parents and had a comb-over, but it made me think of a girl I used to ride the bus with in high school. She went to London one summer with her parents and went out walking by herself, and a couple of construction guys started razzing her a bit. “Hey, luv—d’you think he’s sexy?” She was too embarrassed to answer, so she just kind of blushed and shrugged. The guy cackled and turned to his friend. “She doesn’t think you’re sexy!”

She said it was a highlight of her life so far. Being called “luv” by an English guy. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t good looking—it was something to check off the bucket list!

That’s kind of what I’m banking on this weekend being. Something to check off the bucket list. St. Paddy’s Day in Dublin. I’m going to see the sights, have half a pint of green beer (I’m on antibiotics and not really a beer person, besides) and enjoy my exorbitantly priced and normally-outfitted hotel room.

Scattered

I'll try to get some pictures of Dublin up in the next day or two--probably Friday, if it happens at all--but there's a lot going on this week. A few friends from back home were kind enough to point out that even in print, over facebook, I sound like I've gone absolutely mental. Swan dive off the deep end, that's me! :)

I, like everyone else this week, has an essay with a looming due date. I'm lucky I've only got one left (finished the first one ahead of schedule, thank god, because I can't seem to stay focused long enough to get this second one done).

I think a lot of my insanity is just nerves. I'm going to be on my own--really, honestly as on my own as it will probably ever, ever get--for almost a month starting three days.

The mere thought makes me want to dive for chocolate.

I'm not done planning. I haven't booked a return. I've got a train ticket to London, a plane ticket to Athens--hostels booked for both, thank you, papa, for helping with the London one--and I booked a plane ticket from Athens to Bucharest today during lecture. (I couldn't pay attention to the boring, soft-spoken woman who wouldn't use the goddamned microphone, so I figured I might as well get something done.)

I can't figure out a route from the Bucharest airport to the Gara du Nord (the train station at the center of the city). I don't have any idea how much it'll cost to get from Bucharest to Brasov, don't have any idea where I'll stay once I get there, or even where to go from Brasov. My main goal in Romania, though, is to see Vlad's castle. That can't be too hard to find, right? I mean, how many tourists do you think go through Transylvania and don't want to see that thing?

Probably most importantly, though, I haven't figured out how to get back.

I could be stranded in Transylvania.

Hmm. (At least I bought a phrasebook yesterday?)

As much as I adore learning about Alexander the Great, and reading books and articles about him--he was a fascinating guy. Absolutely never someone I would want to meet or hang out with, but completely capable of bending the entirety of the known world to his will through sheer force of personality.

Anyway, as much as I enjoy reading and learning about him, I don't want to write this essay. I want to read my Greece and Romania guidebooks! Why does that feel like too much to ask?!

If you see me this week, I could use a hug. A real one. Like, a bear hug.

Planning, planning.

Well, that cooking spree didn't last long. I tried. Still sort of trying. Mostly I can't be bothered to spend so much time preparing food. I've got stuff that has to be done and stuff I'd like to waste time on. :)

I've been trying like mad to plan out my spring break plans. (It's not technically "spring break"--apparently that's another Americanism. It's just the three weeks between the end of lectures and the beginning of exams. So: spring break.) Originally I was thinking a weekend in London (British museum and an international friendly between Brazil and Scotland!), followed by a flight to Athens and a week island hopping in Greece, then a few days in Istanbul, then a few more days--maybe as many as five or six--in Romania (Transylvania--and yes, I fully intend on visiting the castle Vlad the Impaler may or may not have ever visited, and if he did it was only for a night or two), then an incredibly cheap flight to Paris and a train to Normandy/Mont Saint Michel, then home to Edinburgh. Three, almost four weeks.

I've been doing research, though, and the more I read about Istanbul the more hesitant I am to go all by my lonesome. The travel guides make it sound like it would be the equivalent to going to Tijuana by myself (which I would never do). It's unfortunate, because I desperately want to go. I'd also like to see some of the rest of Turkey, though, so if I do cut Istanbul out of this trip, that's all it would be--cutting it out of this trip. There's nothing to stop me from going back in the future.

What to do with my three or four extra days, though? I could maybe spend some more time in France. My French would improve, and that always makes me happy when I pick up more of a foreign language. (French is the only one I can construct broken sentences in. The rest are just phrases I've memorized from books, or single words I've picked up from friends and flatmates.) Or I could go visit Stonehenge/Nottingham/York/the Scottish highlands. It's something I definitely ought to do, but it feels like cheating myself out of an adventure.

It's not that it wouldn't be fun to see the rest of the UK. It's more just that I already speak English.

In the meantime, it's a struggle to keep up with schoolwork. I think I'm just being lazy. It's not that I don't care about the material, because for pretty much the first time this year, I do care about the stuff we're learning about. (Philip II, Alexander III (the Great), and the Ptolemaic dynasty!! Hellenistic Egypt! And murders and emperors and conniving sons and mothers in imperial Rome, and the books in Scottish lit are fantastic. Sunset Song, by Lewis Grassic Gibbon. Go read it.)

I'm definitely just being lazy. I don't want to read a textbook. I want to read a historical fiction account of how Ptolemy I Soter held onto his throne. Stories are easier to digest and memorize than sterile facts.

Next Thursday, though, I'll be abandoning all responsibilities for three days. I'm flying to Dublin (by myself) and staying in a fantastic hotel with a real bed and an indoor pool (by myself) for St. Patrick's Day. :)

Oh, and there will be sightseeing as well. And a parade and a festival. But there will also be an accessible swimming pool. And a real hotel room. (Everything cheaper was already booked, but I think I'll survive the weekend luxury. Somehow.)

I wish I had a fun book to read. Something adorably fantastic and girly would be nice. I'm in one of those moods for sugar in my fiction. No more of this gritty unhappiness nonsense in Lanark, which needs to be read by Tuesday morning for Scottish Lit.

Hm. Scatterbrained? Yes, definitely. There's a lot going on, and even more to avoid working on, at the moment.

Real food!

I have started cooking again. Like, recipes and healthy stuff. Last night I made... well, I'm not exactly what it was supposed to be, but it turned into chicken and pasta in an olive oily/white wine sauce. With lots and lots of garlic. Probably more garlic than there should have been, but it was so tasty.

My hand is nearly better. It looks almost normal in natural light, though it still looks a little freaky under a lamp. Or indoors. I can hold a pen and almost write normally again, though not nearly well enough to take notes yet. The skin has recovered enough that I can reach into my pocket without scraping it off and bleeding all over the place (happened twice. Once was at dinner when my flatmate and I were handling the check. Blood. Everywhere. Not pretty.)

I've got a bit more patience with fire alarms these days. Even the ones at 10:30 PM. Less so with the ones at 3 and 9 AM. If my sleep is going to be interrupted, there had better be an honest to god fire.

(There hasn't been. I'm special.)

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.)

St. Andrews cathedral ruins

St. Andrews and the sniffles

All my essays are done (for now). I'm almost caught up on schoolwork (Well, as caught up as I'm ever going to get), but all those nights of no-where-near-enough-sleep has caught up with me. Sniffles galore.

On Saturday I took a break from the last of my essays to take a train with Frieburg up around the Firth of Forth to spend the day in St. Andrews. It wasn't a long trip, but we spent much of it getting ready to grab our stuff and leap off the train--there are electronic signs near the doors that say, "Next stop is _____," but not how long it will be until we reach the stop. The first stop, Haymarket, came up in fewer than ten minutes, but the second--our stop--took us about an hour to reach.

So when we got there, we ran to catch a bus and missed it, only to find out they came every four or five minutes. I told Frieburg that if we had to run to catch anything again, I was going first or she would end up with enough flat tires to lose a shoe; she could just shout which way to go at me from behind.

St. Andrews is pretty tiny. It was beautiful to spend the day there, but I'm glad I decided not to go to school there. It seems more like a nice weekend retreat than anything else. The main street seemed so odd, because it had every shop that Edinburgh's main shopping street has--H&M, Starbucks, Accessorize, etc.--except that they were teeny-tiny. Ground floor and nothing else, and quite small on that one floor, too.

Below is a picture of the cathedral ruins. I'm still so impressed at both this thing's age and the fact that it was built at all, even if it took several generations.

And then...

AND THEN THE SUN CAME OUT.

It was fantastic, but we were hungry. (Neither of us are big on breakfast, I suspect.) So we went to Starbucks (my request, because I have a gift card, courtesy of the marvelous EAP) and then Greggs to re-fueled a bit. Then we went off in search of the beach.

I'd kind of forgotten how nice it is to be at the seaside. It was still cold enough that I wished I'd brought gloves and maybe a hat, too, but there isn't too much that can beat the smell of salt and seaweed.

Na Na Na

Wish I had something witty to say. I don't. I've used basically every word I have on all these essays I've got to write this week.

My hand is healing fairly well. I'm still a little worried about the skin between my thumb and index finger (I can't extend both fingers into an "L" shape), but it's probably just still healing. Patience, patience.

It's driving me crazy.

This enormous medieval Scottish poetry essay I got an extension on is also driving me crazy. I'm so tiiired of working.

Spot the Brother?

An ancient winery in Pompeii that's recently been revived and is actually producing grapes that is turned into wine today. (I'm not much of a wine-drinker, but I would love to try some.)

The palaestra next to the amphitheater. (A palaestra's basically like a park.)

...Yeah, that's basically it. There are still a million pictures from Italy. Amalfi coast pics are up next, though. You guys'll like those. I could be the worst photographer in the world and still make a living making postcards out there.

(And it was warm while we were there. And we had dinner on the beach in the sun.)

It snowed earlier this week. On Monday, I think. (I skipped a class. While I was watching it fall through the window I had a moment of, "No. No, I'm not going and no one can make me." =P)

Shup

I ran into a door yesterday.

Not hard, not enough to hurt, but just enough that I had to check that nobody had seen. (Nobody had.)

I was in the library stairwell, where none of the "push" and "pull" signs on the doors are anywhere near eye level. I run into those doors a lot.

I was thinking, though: whose idea was it to have those two words look so alike? Same number of letters, and the first two are identical! That was a terrible idea. Someone should have tapped them on the shoulder and said, "Uh, dude--no offense, but that's a terrible idea. The entire English-speaking world will be running into doors for the rest of eternity if we do that."

I know it's not just me, too. I've seen people run into doors my entire life.

We could at least color-code the push/pull signs on doors. Green for push ("Yes, continue your reckless forward momentum!") and red for pull ("You'd better pull up on that speed, dude, or you're going to break your nose. And look like an idiot in the process.").

OR: I propose we change one of the words. Not a lot, but just enough so that we can continue to spare no more than a glance for the signs as we barrel forward. It's kind of difficult to mess with words that end with two "l"s, I think, so let's change "push" to "shup." That way, with only a glance, we would see that since the word didn't start with a "p," we would know that we didn't have to stop and pull at the door. And, with only reversing the "p" and the "sh," it would be the smallest change we could make and still cut down on what I'm sure it a large percentage of injuries acquired each year.

Also, on another note, I got one of my flatmates (codename: Falkirk) to make crepes with me. They were delicious, the only meal I've eaten today, and definitely would not have been possible without her. And I watched An American Werewolf in London this evening. Fantastic movie.