back[b]logged: EDINBURGH! (sunrise hike)

dear mother & dad,

you would be so proud of me.  i got 12 people to go on a hike.  a HIKE!  yes, this is your daughter speaking, the one who has never really be any shade of gung-ho about hiking.  and not only that, but i convinced them all to wake up at 3:45 in the morning to do it!

for me, this morning was the best part of scotland.

thanks for teaching me to appreciate things like hikes and sunrises,
carolyn

 

back[b]logged: EDINBURGH! (getting there)

{the green fields of scotland, as seen from the train}

tuesday after class, we set out.

four of us.

kiersten, andrea, preston, me.

57 pounds.

pound it for four hours of bonding in a train.

we did a little of this:

and a lot of this:

and a lot of listening to music off phones (jimmy eat world, etc.) and just having meaningful conversations.  you know, the stuff bonding-in-a-train is made of.

and then we arrrrriiiiiived!

ladies and (one) gentleman, edinburgh!

so we check into our hostel first thing (caledonian backpackers.  my first hostel experience.  LOVED IT.  i highly recommend this place.  nice people, clean, colorfully painted walls...you know the drill.  i'm a sucker for color.)

and then naturally the next thing to do when in scotland is find the nearest pub.  of course.  

the amber rose: right down the road, and you get two for one on dinners and desserts...i guess they're pulling all the stops to try to get people to buy food, not just beer.  presenting: 12 byu students who are A) hungry and B) can't drink beer in the first place!!!

 

 i ordered bangers and mash...aka: very large sausages (we all know how i feel about sausages), potatoes (we all know how i feel about potatoes...yes please idaho), and really delicious graveeeeeee:

oh and did i mention the two for one desserts?  yes please.  except for that i was kinda full-ish after my bangers and mash (one and a half of which i had preston-the-token-male eat)...which amounted to him also finishing me and andrea's chocolate cakes.  both.  this man doesn't mess.

and then this sign on the way out.  "thank you for your custom"?  "oh you're welcome."  ...i have no idea what that's supposed to mean.  my custom.  okay.  you're welcome scotland.  you. are. welcome.

and then.....

the CITY OF THE DEAD UNDERGROUND CITY TOUR.

we walked through the underground caves and caverns of edinburgh where people used to live.  it's one of the most haunted places in the world (?  don't quote me on that one.).  and this guy with his scottish accent and scary stories really freaked me out.  when we turned off all the lights down in the caverns to listen for ghosts i thought i heard breathing in my ear.  freaked me out.

then we walked the streets at night (we do a lot of that it seems) and it was romantic.  as we learned on the bonding-time-on-train, i am a sucker for romantic atmospheres.  nighttime in the city...especially if it's a humid city...romaaaantic.  in dc, my favorite moments were being out at night in the city and the humidity.  so fun to be in edinburgh with friends.

we went home to our hostel and slept for a few hours because there were adventures early in the morn. 

if you give a mouse a cookie (mouse = me)

i am the mouse.  my cookie, being any and all attempts to write on blog.

i set out to write on my blog about scotland.  but to write on my blog i needed to first download my scotland pictures.  but to download my scotland pictures, i must first clear out some space on my computer.  (i keep getting that lovely message we all adore: "startup disk almost full. delete unused files." arrrrrrgh.)  unfortunately i deleted all unused files before i got to london...which means i have now spent the last (not going to tell you how much time) deleting podcasts i've never listened to, pictures i don't remember why i downloaded, and other such nonsense.

through this process i found this and couldn't stop laughing:

this is my sister rosie (ahem) i mean arwen giving her evenstar necklace to aragorn.  i think she probably made me swear not to show it to anyone.  oops.  i couldn't resist.

bahahahaha, i'm still laughing about it.

(lest you have forgotten, it's from the same photo shoot as this, last january:)



believe it or not, this IS tangential to my original task of trying to write about scotland.  because, you see, while walking the cliffs of scotland, i may or may not (read: MAY) have pretended to be arwen.  with alarming frequency.

there.

i am obsessed.

i said it.

and while we're on the topic of obsessions, i thought i'd tell this story:  every month-ish we have cousin sleepovers at grandma's.  at the one in march, raymon pulled out one of those large bags of m&ms from his backpack and threw it on the table.  it was half-eaten.  i looked at him with one eyebrow raised and said, "seriously raymon?"  he started trying to justify why he had a large bag of m&ms in the first place, and then why they were half-eaten, at which point i left the table, went to my backpack, and pulled out my own large bag of m&ms.  also half eaten.  we died laughing about how similar we are.  cousins through and through.

meanwhile grandma, sweet little grandma, without saying a word had snuck back to her "goody corner" in the kitchen and when she turned around, she was holding....an EXTRA LARGE bag of m&ms.

you can't see it in the picture, but this bag of hers was massive.  

we are our grandmother's grandchildren. 

her face was besmirched with charcoal, her clothes tattered and dirty. “But,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye, “I was wearing my Chanel perfume. Inside I still knew I was a lady.”

where have i been, you might ask?

oh just backpacking through greater scotland.

more on that forthcoming.

but for now, know that the first thing i did whenst i returned to this sweet place i call london-home after no semblance of a bath for four days was shower, put on mascara, a bright purple skirt and the sparkliest shoes i have.

and now i'm going to gap to buy myself perfume

because a lady needs to remind herself every now and then that she's a lady.

which is only to say that when i get back from six weeks of backpacking greater europe, i will most likely buy myself a ballgown.

{title for this blog post on ladiness from Audrey Hepburn, quoted in Douglas L. Callister's BYU address--one of my four favorites.}

a birth-tea party!

sometimes there's a magical park and six people with birthdays 

and all one can do is throw a birthtea party.

 

 

 

everyone dressed up and brought little sandwiches and cookies, and we drank with our pinkies out and thoroughly enjoyed each other's company.

thank you hyde park, for being magical.

in the way of itinerary (aka: as a cop-out for writing in my journal):

today we had class

then at 1:30 the tea party

then we went to the V&A for some more art ingestion

here is a sea salt holder made of gold and a nautilus shell.  wedding registration list: *beep beep*

and here is a horn carved out of ivory.  enlarged to show detail.

...and all this art was followed by a full rack of ribs at arch-one by the national theatre.

wait.

make that TWO full racks of ribs.  

or stacks of ribs.

or slabs of ribs.

anything you want to call them, it amounts to lots of meat.

...followed by a discussion of cafe rio salads and how they change lives.

and then over to the national (the theatre, not the band, although i would really recommend every person listening to the band too) for "the cherry orchard"

featuring zoe wanamaker (madame hooch in harry potter) and claudie blakley (charlotte lucas in pride and prejudice).

loved the performance.

much of it was about home--about what constitutes home and what happens when you have to leave it.  and just how important it is to identity.  i love anything that has to do with home.  

i'd submit it was some of the best acting we've seen thus far.

and then the evening walk home along the thames.

enamorada.

moment of sheer excitement

BREAKING NEWS:  this just in.  i just learned that bon iver (in my top three of people whose voices i would marry) did a cover of feist's "the park"--a song that is really important to me...kind of one of those scripts of my life.  plus i've been singing it to myself constantly while walking around london, waiting for the right opportunity to showcase it on the blog.  the joining of bon iver with this song (or really any song) always adds up to right opportunity.  (and yes, there are about seven songs i sing constantly while walking around london.  don't ask the logistics of that.)

here are the lyrics.  because knowing the lyrics makes everything better.  i like them because it's incredibly honest, and incredibly hopeful.  hopeful because it acknowledges through its lack that something better exists.

Why would you come back through the park?

You thought that you saw him but no you did not

It's not him who'd come across

The sea to surprise you

Not him who would know

Where in London to find you

With sadness so real that it populates

The city and leaves you homeless again

Steam from the cup and snow on the path

The seasons have changed from present to past

The past

The past

Turns whole to half

The past

Why would you come back through the park?

You thought that you saw him but no you did not

Who can be sure of anything through

The distance that keeps you

From knowing the truth

Why would you think your boy could become

The man who could make you sure he was the one?

The one

My one

My one

and here is the song.  because bon iver...well, it's bon iver, people.  what more needs to be said.

the victoria line (come on victoria come on victoria!)

{at the train station.  en route to the temple last tuesday.}

today we went to church.

we take the picadilly to the victoria line, then all the way up to walthamstow stop.  takes an hour or so.  (the title for this post comes from the misheard lyrics to a song called "squalor victoria" by the national (my "band of the trip")...every time i ride the victoria line, i get this song in my head.)

i get to play the piano in the primary, which is beautiful because i have never had a music calling in church before.  but have always kinda wanted one.  so we sing songs and i play and the kids are all african with british accents, except for one little southern girl named ava grace.  (yes, i plan on commandeering that name for one of the 18 girls i'm going to have to have to use up all the names i want to.)

sacrament meeting was put on by the young men and was about the priesthood.  each young man in the ward (all five of them) talked about the various roles of the men in the church in holding the priesthood.  it was a really wonderful meeting.  they were strong, sure, faithful boys.  at the end of the meeting, the young men's leader got up and said he is "greatly proud" of each of the boys.  greatly proud.  you could tell that leader really loved those boys.  someday i want to be a leader of youth like that.

when i got back from church, i went to the park with andrea and preston.  we talked about dating.  i think i said, "that is the WORST!" eight times in a row.....mostly because we were discussing boys taking girls to wendy's.  or on seven hour first dates.  and things like such as.

i'm having a ball.

and tonight i ate neopolitan ice cream out of the tub i've been eating from nonstop.  it cost 1.70 at sainsbury.  blissfully happy.  except they should make neopolitan ice cream with 70% chocolate, 20% vanilla, and 10% strawberry.  then i'd be unimaginably happy.

and now for some visual and auditory stimulation...i've been meaning to post this for the last week, but have been a bit negligent of the blog as of late: