Saturday morning, Laura and I slept in a little bit, and then at 1:15pm, we met everyone at the Hillhead Underground to take the subway to the Queen Street Bus/Train Station. We hopped on the 2 o'clock train to Edinburgh and got there in about 45 minutes. The train ride was so easy, I can't believe I haven't been going over there more often. We got off the train and, immediately, the boys (Liam and Ted) led the way to some vintage shop where they sell inexpensive kilts. They wanted to buy one, so we waited while they tried a few on. It was very entertaining.
Ted and Liam checking out all the kilts
Ted and Kilt #1
Liam and his first kilt.
A row of boots in the vintage shop that I fell in love with!
After kilt shopping, we found out that Laura C.'s parents were at the hotel and ready for us to check in. Our friend, Laura Connelly, had her parents visiting this past weekend and they invited all of us to come along to Edinburgh with Laura. They bought us two hotel rooms for Saturday night so that Laura, and the 6 others (me, Briana, Sarah, Lindsey, Laura, and Liam), could stay together. After we checked into the hotel and dropped off our bags, Laura's parents took us to a pub called "World's End". We had a beer (or two), great conversation, and then we were off to dinner at Deacon Brodie's Tavern. The restaurant was named after Deacon William Brodie, the man who inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. We had to eat at 2 separate tables on opposite sides of the room because it was so crowded and we had 10 people, but it was great nonetheless. Our table was me, Sarah, Liam, Lindsey and Ted. We ordered a haggis appetizer which was unbelievable! I will definitely be ordering haggis again (when I am at a good restaurant). It is really good...I don't understand why so many people are against it. (Just try not to think about what's in it.) After an appetizer of haggis, I had Scottish Steak Pie as my main course and it was very good. Laura's parents paid for our pub drinks and dinner...it was so nice! We are definitely going to send them a thank you card and a little gift.
After dinner, we walked around the Royal Mile and then Ted insisted on taking us all to drinks at a really fancy hotel. It is supposedly Sean Connery's favorite hotel. So, we all got a drink with Laura's parents and then Ted had to leave to go back to Glasgow. As we were leaving, we found out that Ted had paid for all of our drinks! We couldn't believe it...we told him we weren't allowing him to pay for us. (We'll get him back soon enough.) After drinks, we went back to the Holiday Inn Express to get dressed up to go explore the nightlife. My friend, Morgan, from Smith is studying in Edinburgh, so she came to the hotel and I introduced her to all of my Glasgow friends. She took us all out with her friend and we ended up at a Revolution bar. (Revolution bars are all over the UK.) Morgan and her friend didn't stay for long but we stayed at the bar anyway.
Liam and the girls at Revolution
After the bar closed at 1am, we were still wanting to stay out, so we walked down the street to a club called Siglo. The sign said it was a burlesque bar, but nothing was going on inside except a DJ spinning, and a bunch of people dancing on the main floor. We stayed there for about 30 minutes and then walked back down the street to the Holiday Inn Express. All 7 of us ended up hanging out in one of the hotel rooms, watching the Olympics (since we don't have TV in our flats in Glasgow) and eating Pringles, of course.
The next morning we woke up, said goodbye to Laura's parents, walked to the train station, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then hopped on the train to Glasgow. This weekend made me miss my parents a lot. It was so nice being with parents, even though they weren't mine. I can't wait to see my mom and dad on April 6th in Dublin!
Walking into the train station in Edinburgh
Me and Laura at the train station
Sunday night we just hung around the flat, Monday I had my art history tutorial and then I found out all of my art history lectures are cancelled for this week. Briana and I went grocery shopping, went to Box Fit at the gym, and then I made myself a wonderful Chicken Tikka Masala dinner. Tuesday I had sculpture and we started working with a new model. We are working on sculpting a head right now. It is a life-size head (if not larger), which means these sculptures will be VERY heavy when we're done with them. I got a lot done on Tuesday, and I will try to take pictures of the sculpture next week. After sculpture I explored downtown Glasgow with my photography camera. I took some roads I have never walked down before and sort of got lost, but then found my way again. It was so much fun seeing the area of Glasgow where all of the businessmen and women are walking around on their lunch breaks. (I also got some beautiful photos for my Black and White Photography class.) When I got back to my flat, I asked if Laura and Briana wanted to go on a little adventure to take some more pictures while the sun was still high in the sky. We walked down a little alley on our campus and took a bunch of pictures to finish up our rolls of film. After our photo adventure, we decided we wanted to get sushi for dinner. Briana and I found a wonderful sushi restaurant not too far from our flat, so the three of us splurged on a huge sushi dinner.
Today Laura and I woke up a little earlier for photography because we wanted to stop somewhere for breakfast before class. We found a cute cafe called iCafe that had a great egg and bacon (toasted) sandwich. In class, we developed our film and made contact sheets...I can't wait to print pictures from this roll of film. After photography I had my first bagpiping lesson in a few weeks and it went okay. I need to work a lot more on making all of the notes clean and clear, but it will take some time. Oh, and did I mention it was snowing today? It's been snowing ALL day! I really don't understand this weather...I don't think Glaswegians understand it either. I took the subway home and I've been hanging around the flat since then because I had to do 2 loads of laundry and our dryer takes forever to dry my clothes.
Now, I'm going to continue working on my cover letter for an internship this summer in San Francisco. Until next time, I hope you all had a great weekend, and continue to have a good week.
Love and miss you all!
Love Always,
Jess
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