Jeg taler ikke dansk

Well, that was a whirlwind tour of lower Scandinavia. Turns out you can visit a country with no knowlege of the language, history, culture or transit system and still manage to have a pretty good time. Yay for cultural imperialism!

I kid.

I got back yesterday from my weekend in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, where my family and I put out about 25 miles of sight-seeing walking and took in about 40,000 calories of Danish beer and pastries. I'd call that about even, wouldn't you? (You will if you know what's good for you.) We didn't make it much out of the city center while I was there, but even that allowed me to see the Little Mermaid statue, the Neuhaben area ("New Harbor" and actually one of the older parts of the city), the amusement park Tivoli (where I ate ice cream twice in one afternoon...god I hope my metabolism sticks around a few more years), and the main shopping drag, which is named something I can't pronounce, like everything else in Danish.

Beautiful Neuhaben...now sailor-free!

Walking around town, looking at crane fountains

I love her.

The plan after I left was for the rest of my family to go to the town where they lived forty-odd years ago, relive the glory days of knee-socks, pigtails and bicycles, then take a ferry over to Norway for a few days.  

A FERRY?????? Jealoussssss.

It was really cool to see some of the places my mother has always talked about with such fondness, especially Tivoli, which may be the most unique amusement park on the planet*.

*the most unique amusement park with a positive vibe, where you don't feel like you are going to be molested or squashed by a runaway rollercoaster car at any moment. I'm looking at you, Enchanted Forest and Thrillville.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the park at night, when all of the lights come on, because my camera is doing this fun thing where the memory card is corrupted. It's really too bad, because the lights are amazing, these giant colored bulbs that look like they are straight out of the 1940s. At night they come on and light up the building outlines, a hodgepodge of iconic around the world structures mixed with a dozen different cafes, plus all the traditional take-the-money-and-run carnival games. There is a lagoon, and in it a pirate ship restaurant. I don't go on rides because I'm convinced I will die, but it was tons of fun to walk around, watch non-neurotics screaming on the tilt-a-whirl, and listen to all the Danish.

Speaking of Danish, it felt really weird being in a country where I couldn't even attempt the basic consideration of using key words and phrases. In France this last time, I could pretty much make myself understood, and when I was in Spain, I could at least approximate "please," "thank you," etc. But Danish is HARD. That whole language comes from a part of the throat that I cannot for the life of me locate; I think maybe it's like learning to lift one eyebrow, because once I discovered that muscle it was so obvious that it had been there all the time, but I still can't do it on the left one.

The only phrase that I kinda sorta managed was "undskyld," or "excuse me/sorry," which I used OBSESSIVELY everywhere I went. I think it must have seemed a bit like I was apologizing for existing which, as an extremely self-conscious American travelling in a long-idolized Europe, I suppose I was. I envied my mother and her sisters, who were able to tap into their decades-old Danish and get by, at least enough so that they didn't look like a bunch of spongers. I just think it's ugly to show up in a country and expect them to understand what you say.

But aside from that (and of all the countries to be offensive in, Denmark may be the one where it's most forgiven. They are a very polite people) it was a great trip. Now I'm done travelling for the summer, and THANK GOODNESS, because I am completely out of funds. Unfortunately, I have several guests slated for the rest of my time here, who are going to be expecting a good time. I wonder if I can pawn my souvenir Denmark snowglobe...

Danske

This just in...I interrupt our regularly scheduled non-posting to bring you a post about how I won't be posting for a few days (is your head spinning? This is very meta), as I am traveling to Denmark to meet up with a large contingent of the west coast Lees.

 
My mom, grandmother, two aunts and a cousin are all flying into Copenhagen this morning, as part of a grant my mom received in the fall. I would like to know what grant organization she is working with, as I think it would be beneficial for me to go to Ibiza.

Anyway, I'm headed to the airport in a few minutes, and pretty soon I will be in the land of Hans Christian Anderson and...um...danish and....ahhhhh....

Ok, you know what? That is for me to know and you to find out, when I get back and after I know what there is to find out (META). Wish me luck; hopefully I won't end up murdering my uncle/step-father/mother/father figure butler (Shakespeare humor = lolz).

Cheers!

Power jam

Right, so the last couple weeks kiiinda got away from me, with my research taking up a fair bit of time and my starvation budget taking a fair bit of my motivation to do anything other than lie in bed and wail. And I didn't think anyone would want to hear about that. At least, not in any detail.

But today I was offered an opportunity that I couldn't refuse. Can you tell me what combines lycra, obscenities, lace, ball-bearings, kneepads and black leather, all for a fiver? Actually, I hope none of you can, so I'll just tell you...ROLLER DERBY!

Yes, Edinburgh's very own league, the Auld Reekie Roller Girls (ARRG) had a bout against London today in a stadium that was 100 miles and a torrential downpour away from everything else in the city. So that was fun. When we finally got to the gym where they were playing, we were soaked, hungry and looking to see some elbows fly. Roller derby is one of those sports where everyone is there to see a nose get broken. It's a lot like if you put hockey and cheerleading in a barrel, threw in some angry bees and a lot of black eyeliner, and shook everything together. And then wrapped it in torn fishnet stockings.

Unfortunately, the lovely anarchic toughness that is so much a part of the game didn't make it off the ARRG bench, as we were absolutely slaughtered by London, who skated faster, cleaner and much more aggressively than our lassies. The final score was something like 150-47, which is bad even by England-Scotland standards (burn).

Still, it was a fun time...no blood but a lot of wipeouts, including one player who took out a referee on her way into the front row of the spectators. Now that, my friends, is falling with style.  Also, and I am not looking to get myself into any Tracy Morgan-type trouble here, but the stereotypes are true. I'm not saying there were a lot of lesbians there or anything, but the bleachers were pretty much an illustrated guide to buzzcuts.

The only thing I like more than watching athletes in peak physical condition perform at the top of their game, is sitting on my ass eating junk food afterward. And so what better way to end a day of observed exertion than with CAKE?! (Rhetorical question, by the way...if you are dumb enough to think the answer is anything other than cake, you should not be reading this blog). And so we had cake and talked shit about the ARRG players who could probably have ripped our arms off and used them for toothpicks, had they been so inclined. Ah, connoisseurship.

All in all, a good day, though it has left me wondering whether I should give up on this crazy academic pipe dream and devote myself full-time to become a derby skater. Step one: learn to skate.

Arty farty

So here's something you might not know about me, because in kind of a weird way it's not really me at all, but a...meta-me. Or better, Optimal-Me (©). I have certain expectations about my likes and dislikes, my personality traits, my modes of operation that, when taken all together, basically amount to an entirely different person who has absolutely nothing to do with what I am really like. This is sometimes depressing; it is also probably extremely common. Optimal-Me is mysterious, cradling a deep and unreachable pain in her eyes. Optimal-Me sits in dark restaurant corners, wreathed in smoke (Optimal-Me will not be defeated by something as mundane as lung cancer, but rather will probably have a nasty run-in with either an Italian assassin or a majestic polar bear). Optimal-Me can afford to buy organic and free-range food, but mostly survives on a haunted diet of champagne and oysters that enables her to retain optimal sveltness. Optimal-Me knows kung-fu, but would prefer to kill with a glance.

Where I'm going with this is that Optimal-Me is also a huge opera fan. Unfortunately, Current-Me has to try really, really hard to sit through even the first act of a performance without fidgeting so much that I knee the head of the poor soul in front of me. I keep trying, recognizing that an appreciation of opera is probably more within my grasp than that terribly romantic sadness I so wish to exude, and so Saturday night's outing to Scottish Opera's Rigoletto was, I expected, to be yet another in a line of Things That I Do Because They Are Good For Me.

But it totally wasn't!! Well, I mean, it was, but I enjoyed it, too! That almost never happens, ever! I would love to take this as a sign of growth/the gradual emergence of Optimal-Me, but I suppose I should give some credit to the Scottish Opera, which did an amazing job. The staging was brilliant, a modernization that actually seemed to have some sense of reason and meaning behind it--when the second act opened with mannequin limbs scattered all over the stage, I understood why those were there. The set was stripped-down, primary-colored and completely innovative. There was this recurring prop of a row of doors that was so effective in getting across the atmosphere of poisonous rumor-mongering that had such tragic (opera!) results.

I suppose Verdi should get some credit, too, since he wrote the thing. Aside from the (in)famous La Donna e Mobile, I wasn't familiar with any of the music. Here are the Three Tenors doing La Donna because, you know, fun.

But it was all so beautiful...and so playful, which I really appreciated, since the entirety of the story is about a betrayal that ends in the accidental murder/martyrific sacrifice of the title character's sainted daughter, Gilda. Bummer.

Also, and I hesitate to admit this, because Optimal-Me would be horrified, but part of the reason I enjoyed this performance maaaaaaay have been because the soprano singing the doomed daughter started spontaneously bleeding halfway through her first aria...fun! I have the eyesight of a ninety-year-old naked mole rat, so it took me a little while to figure it out, but all of a sudden even I was aware of the spreading red stain engulfing the poor girl's sock. I think everyone in the audience thought that our Gilda had been visited by good old Aunt Flo, until she walked across the stage and we could see the PUDDLE she left behind. At that point, the entire auditorium was just waiting for her to pass out mid-vibratto. But she managed to finish, and during the intermission we were informed that she had somehow badly cut her leg just before making her first entrance, and had bravely elected to go on with the show.

AN OPERA WITH REAL BLOOD CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I WONDER IF THERE WILL BE GUTS AND STUFF AT MY NEXT ONE??!?!


Optimal-Me despises the vulgar obsession with gore, but is more than capable of spilling some, herself. Good day to you, sirrah.

Pop quiz

The tone of this little experiment has become decidedly unscholarly. I am here to learn, dammit, and if I'm forced to do so, the rest of my readers shall likewise be educated. Therefore, a one question pop quiz:

What do you get when you combine a recent expensive trip to Paris with a long procrastinated dissertation?

Give up? So have I. The answer is: not very much. As in, I can no longer afford to do anything other than sit in my room and read 18th-century newspapers online. Which is, coincidentally, a very disconcerting experience--there you are, working your way through scanned page after scanned pages, images appearing in seconds of century-old hand-set lines of type. It feels incredibly inauthentic, and part of me wonders if I'm breaking the rules somehow...is it possible to base a research project around newspapers that you've never held? Do they still count as primary sources if I log into them the same way I do my Facebook account? It's super convenient, but also a bit off-putting. It feels like cheating, to propose an ability to enter into the Hanoverian mindset through an internet browser.

Still, work does continue apace, now that I can't even afford a latte, let alone any activity that might drag me away from the computer for more than 20 minutes. That's not entirely true...I just have to be more discerning about what I'm dropping mah monies on. Tonight, for instance, I'm going to the opera, to see Rigoletto, which was the first opera I ever learned about; I've been waiting to see it since the fifth grade. And I do make an effort to get out of my pajamas for at least a couple hours a day. Most days. Generally.

Because, ye gods, academics in the frenzy of research are disgusting. Take me, for instance (you won't want to). I wake up and eat breakfast while scrolling through pages and pages of newspapers. I brush crumbs onto the floor. I read all morning and into lunch, which is also eaten in front of the computer. I bite my nails. I pick at my cuticles. I twirl my hair. As my body starts to protest at being forced to sit for so long, I begin to unconsciously fidget, shifting my weight back and forth, craning my head from side to side, swinging my chair to the left, then the the right, anchoring myself on my mousepad. Then I start to hum. Then I start to tunelessly sing whatever random lyrics have been caught in my head, in a breathy little half-voice. I'm usually not even aware that I'm doing this until  I type the lyric into whatever notes I happen to be taking: "Interesting use of coalition as sign of corruption in the sky with diamonds." Sometimes I don't even notice then. Finally, about four or 5pm, I look up from the screen, neck muscles creaking, eyes struggling to focus in a middle distance. I stand up, brushing the rest of lunch off of my lap. I consider brushing my teeth. I don't consider taking a shower.

And I'm one of the lucky ones...I can engage in this lunatic, soial reject behavior while safely hidden away in my room. There are people who need to go out in public to do their research. I would probably get myself banned.

So that's the glamorous life of the academic. It's all worth it, though, because someday I'll be able to wear a jacket with elbow patches and only look like a pompous ass, instead of an unqualified poser. Ah, life goals.

Paris en rose

Ah, I love Paris in the springtime. This was my second trip to the city of lovers (boy howdy), at almost exactly the same time as my first visit four years ago. Before the first, I had just turned 21, an achievement rather deflated by the fact that the legal drinking age in Europe is basically two seconds after the obstetrician clears your throat of placenta. This time, I turned 25 in the gardens of Claud Monet and celebrated with a quiet bottle of rosé in the French countryside.

Aside from the timing, things were pretty different this time around. I saw almost none of the typical sights--the Eiffel Tower was not climbed, the Louvre (and its line) was bypassed with a shudder, red said "stop" at the Moulin Rouge. So what, I hear you asking, did you do all week?

The short answer is, I went native.

Cafés, cafés, cafés...Paris is simply covered in places to sit, drink and watch the world go by. So sit is what we did, with glasses of vin or cups of chocolat depending on the time of day, watching people walk by and judging their nationalities based on their shoes. In between cafés, we walked for, literally, miles, averaging about eleven miles a day of Parisian sidewalks and quais. Breakfast was croissants, lunch baguettes, dinner crêpes salées or steak frites or, a little less traditionally, pitas grecs in the Latin Quarter. Once in Belgium, we walked less and drank more, ordering beers from abbeys founded centuries before. We sat along canals and read along the Seine. We went to sleep early in hotels, hostels and bed and breakfasts. C'est la vie.

I know people who don't like to go back to anywhere they've already been. I can understand this impulse, a need to see everything new--to see everything--but I don't share it. I like revisiting places; it seems to give me the best indication of how I've changed through the years (this is the less infuriating explanation for my desire to watch the same movies and read the same books over and over again, instead of trying anything new). Friends and family have been asking how it feels to be 25, and while I don't feel any different to myself, Paris felt different to me, and so I know I've changed.

Very little funds left now for travelling--a short jaunt to Copenhagen planned for June, maybe a mini-break in the Scottish countryside in July. And then, back home to les Etats-Unis and the one thing I've missed while studying abroad: nacho cheese.

Au revoir, mes amies!

Hello there, lovelies

Welcome back, me! Writing that made me feel a little pathetic, welcoming myself back to Scotland, like the time I worked in a bakery and a woman came in to order a birthday cake for herself. Anyway. I'm back from France and I'm sure all of you are very excited to hear about my trip (Croissants. Croissants and wine) but here's the thing--Eurovision happened while I was gone.  

Eurovision. This strange thing that I've always heard about, pictures of massive pyrotechnic shows and seven-foot-tall Norwegians in death metal gear singing songs about how, when you are worshipping Satan, it's nice to stop and smell the roses drenched in the blood of innocents.

To be fair, this is Albania. I think. Nice commitment, guys.

Seriously. How could you not want to know what that's about. And this is my chance! The one time I will ever see the performances, hear songs expressing heartfelt love of mankind and country in semi-English lyrics (they use a lot of uhuhs and open pronunciation). 

So what I'm saying is, France will have to wait because I have three hours of extremely high-production-value variety show to watch. Here are some of the acts I've seen so far. Seizure warnings to date: three.

Blue, from Great Britain--is it wrong that I wish Billy Mack was representing us?

The Moldovan entry. Do yourself a favor and never watch their performance.

AHHAAAAAAA, what?! Jedward, from Ireland.

UPDATE: And the winner is...Azerbaijan? Okay.

Gonna go hang with the French for a while, you know, eat some brie

Chers,

I just wanted to let everyone know that I won't be posting for the next week, because I'll be travelling. I mean, it's not like anyone would notice that, but I just thought I'd let my two loyal readers in Khazackstan know so that they don't worry about me. Even though no one else will. God, sometimes I think I could die in my room and no one would find me until the smell of my corpse overpowered the smell of the mold growing in the walls. Why? Whyyyyyyyy--

Ahem. Let's try this again.

Chers,

I am going to France tomorrow! Since I will be appropriately taking advantage of every cultural opportunity on offer, I won't be posting until I get back, but then I will have some great pictures of my week in the City of Lights! I am really excited to go back to Paris--the first time I went, it was also my first time abroad, ever, and I was terrified to do anything wrong. Like speak. Or go outside. But this time around, I've already spent seven months making an ass out of myself in a francophilic European society, and I have learned a very important mantra to be used during times of cultural stress and confusion. Find your center and repeat after me:

"All y'all can just go fuck yourselves."

See? Don't you feel calmer already?

Also, the girl I'm travelling with is fluent in French, which means I get to just hang back and enjoy the ride/wine she will order for us. Yay! I'm looking forward to picnics in the gardens, walks along the Seine, a birthday celebration under the Eiffel Tower, and an extra-special side trip to Belgium, the land of chocloate, beer and neglected 18th century revolutions. Ça ira!

So that's the sitch, folks. I'll be back next Tuesday with stories to tell and pictures to share.

A tout a l'heure!

Olé!

Happy belated Cinco de Mayo, everyone! I am so excited to be able to focus my eyes again.

So, I am going to ask you all not to judge me and my evening, when I tell you that this photo of my friend owning the margarita pitcher is honestly the only one I have from the entire night:

Isn't she lovely?

It actually wasn't as bad as all that, if for no other reason that us Americans had to spend so long explaining the concept of Cinco de Mayo to our Caledonian amigos that there literally wasn't any time left for drinking. Le sigh, Scotland, it isn't difficult. Every fifth of May, all of America's young and dissolute residents get together to drink copious amounts of tequila and eat nachos, and justify the whole thing by saying it's the Mexican day of Independance. It isn't. And when I say "Americans," I mean us guys in the middle. Sometimes Canada.

Anyway, like Red Nose Day, it seems that some things just don't translate transatlantically. Perhaps I should let this (NSFW) educational video do the 'splainin (yeah, that's Cuban. I know).

Hey, at least it's not Speedy Gonzales. Feliz Tequila, everyone!

You know what's fun? When towns get founded by the stolen remains of a martyred Christian

Right, so, time flies when you are reading 18th century newspaper articles at a rate of four hundred a day. Doesn't it? Please tell me the time will start to fly.

So...that's what I've been doing for the last few days. My dissertation has taken the form of a survey of newspaper and public reaction surrounding a set of treason trials in 1794 and blah blah blah social sphere blah blah Habermas bladiblah incipient bourgeois consciousness. Basically, I am reading scans of two hundred year old newspapers for four or five hours a day.

Yeah.

But I was able to have some fun before entering the seventh circle of research hell! (Also, true confession: I don't actually mind the research. That's how you can tell you are a total dork). Over the weekend a friend and I took a daytrip to St. Andrews, lately of Wills and Kate fame (they met at the university there) but also the home of the remains of the eponymous saint, as well as several very nice ruins. I took a LOT of pictures, and I will spare you the majority of those. Even though no one will spare me the newspapers. On the plus side, I no longer have any problems with that s that looks like an f. Fluent!

Not even a problem. But, really, of all the words to throw together...

So yeah, St. Andrews was a fun town. I cannot imagine living there for four years.

When we got back to Edinburgh, it was just in time to head over to Beltane, the world's longest running pagan fire festival! That sounded fun and everything, but then I thought to myself, I have lived in Portland, Oregon for the last six years. I dated a fire-eater. There is nothing going on there that I haven't already seen. Had I realized that Saturday was to be my last day of joy/non-newspaper reading, I might have reconsidered.

That's it for the time being...I wish I had more interesting things to update about, but since the last few nights have seen me passed out in bed with my eyeballs soaking in a glass of alkaseltzer, I find myself coming up a bit short.

OH, but Scottish Cinco de Mayo is in a couple days! I don't really know how we are planning to safely combine those two things, but as long as we're not talking whiskey margaritas I should still be here on Friday to recap. Olé!

In lieu of a title, please picture me languidly waving

Well folks, today was that momentous and long-awaited day, the memory of which we shall pass on to our children, and our children's children, never forgetting the scope, the sheer magnitude of international importance conveyed by the blessed and august proceedings. That's right: the Royal Wedding.

Or, as Scotland has chosen to identify it:

You can't see it, but the subtitle reads "HRH Prince William and Kate Middleton's 4 day bender." Ahhh, Scotland. You scamps.

Many people here have made it unequivocally clear that they hold no truck with the royals. Republicans (it means something different in Britain), disgruntled Jacobites, super-cool Americans who think royalty is pointless but manage somehow to support professional hockey...all professed their intention to avoid the metropolitan shenanigans as they would a plague. A plague of semi-balding, over-bitten locusts. With publicly-funded charge accounts.

Anyway.

My reaction in the days leading up to THE EVENT OF THE CENTURY was a bit different. In my mind, the day took on a significance rather like the Hollywood Oscars (which when you think about it, really isn't all that different from royalty...the favorites always come out on top, the losers are immediately taken backstage and guillotined, and the nominees for best sound-mixing are forced to eat stewed horse meat while everyone else gets gilded breast of peacock. I might be confusing some of my history, but basically I think that's how it works). I wanted to watch the wedding for the pageantry, the dresses and, most importantly, the HATS.

AHAAA, what?! This looks like a cross-section of the female reproductive system. Uteruses down, my favorite of the day.

And on that note the wedding (or, rather, the procession to the wedding) did not disappoint. What I had neglected to consider was that this procession was headed for a church. An Anglican church. Inside of which was going to be held an Anglican church service. THAT I WAS GOING TO BE STUCK WATCHING AT 11AM ON A FRIDAY MORNING HOLY MOTHER OF GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE?

Luckily, I was in a pub.

This is just a shitty picture. No, it had nothing to do with the state of my motor skills at the time.

Lemme tell ya, after a few mid-morning brewskies, it becomes a lot funnier that the American revolutionaries totally ripped off the English national anthem and threw it back as a paean to liberty and democracy. What up, original parody song?

So there it is, my intimate participation in the royal wedding. I honestly and wholeheartedly wish Wills and Kate--atherine the best of luck, because they are probably going to need it. Also, I'm a little bit hormonal right now.

White rabbits and a very Jewish Easter

So by normal people standards, very little was accomplished this weekend. However, by my low and increasingly lower student expectations, the last two days have been a positive whirlwind of activity. What this means is that I had one thing planned, in advance, that would get me out of my pajamas each day. Whew. I am exhausted.

On Saturday a friend and I took advantage of the fact that everyone else has low expectations of students, too. In the world of performing arts, these doubts as to the worth of certain studious young people has led to the development of the rush ticket, aka God's gift to the perpetual academic. In most towns, what rushing means is that students can show up to buy performance tickets a couple hours before curtain and get the best available seats for a set price--usually around $10/£10. A better term for this practice might be "the best flippin' deal on the planet." I have seen at least half a dozen different performances by rushing, and all of those together cost me less than a normal-price ticket to one of those performances would have run me.

So we rushed for "Alice," a new ballet commissioned by the Scottish National Ballet and based on Lewis Carroll's books.

It was...interesting. My take-away impression was that the staging was really inventive and the costumes were incredible, but that the zaniness of the storyline was (unfortunately) taken as a license for less than adequate choreography.This seemed to be reinforced by the fact that the really uncoordinated parts were the corps dances, when the entire cast was onstage. Overall, though, it was a very intriguing performance with lots of very, very nice partnering. And the above paragraph is an example of why I will never be hired to write dance reviews. Here are some pictures I stole, so you can get a sense of the costumes:

Alice, the Cheshire Cat and the White Rabbit

Cheshire, Alice, Mad Hatter and Humpty Dumpty

Queen and King of Hearts, and the Jabberwock (who was fabulous)

Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum

Then today was Easter! I am a long-time heathen baby, as my parents have affectionately (?) termed me, and so I made absolutely no effort to go to church. Instead I got a little bit drunk! Some friends and I made an Easter brunch of bagels and lox, fruit salad and mimosas. As there was more prosecco than anything else, well...you can't waste that shit!

Oh, also, we had crumpets...I mean, we are in Britain.

The stereotypical Jewishness of the meal only occurred to us afterward, but overall I'd say it's better to eat lox on Easter than lamb, which my family routinely does, and the irony of which never fails to amuse me.

Delicious with mint jelly.

After that, I had a bit of a lie-about in the sun and called it a day. Stay tuned for the future adventures of...the STUDENT: She eats, she sleeps, she sponges off of society!

Reflections on Friday night

In case anyone out side of six degrees is reading this blog, here are two things you should know about me. One, I do not get dressed to go out. This was already apparent back in the States, where my weekend, paint-the-town-red outfit was either whatever I had stumbled into work wearing that morning (ie, the closest I could get to sweatpants without actually having anything written across my bum), or actual sweatpants. True story. Then I crash-landed into a long-distance relationship, the upside of which is that now I really don't have to give a shit about my appearance ever. I know, I know--I could take some personal pride in myself. But ultimately it's a hell of a lot easier to just throw on some mom jeans and a pair of beat-to-hell sneakers and expect people to close their eyes if they are offended.

Two, I rarely get drunk. Oh, there have been times...times that I do not care to remember, which is good because some of them I can't. But most of the time, when I go out it is to have a few drinks, get a bit tippy and come home to bed well before anywhere close to closing time. The dawn stumble has never appealed to me.

So with these personality traits in mind, can I just tell you how much I FREAKING LOVE watching all the Scottish lassies going out on Friday nights here? It is like the circus. Their heels are so high and their skirts are so short and they are so completely covered in powder and/or bronzer...when they walk by in packs it's a bit like watching the lady centaurs from Fantasia.

But at least at the beginning of the night shit is mostly under control. Sure, there's the odd header on a stroppy cobblestone, and last night I saw a girl whose skirt was so short the crotch of her tights was visible as she walked. But, you know, on balance things are going ok. And then the bars close...

Last night on my way home I saw two women going at it (um, fighting) in the park. Both were screaming obscenities at each other at the top of their soused lungs, and one particularly erudite young lady managed to conjugate "fuck" as an adverb, which I didn't even realize was possible. Finally, as I watched, Louboutins attached Jimmy Choo, with the intention of scratching her "whoring little eyes out." Unfortunately, the added height from her monster heels seemed to have allowed her to overlook the (admittedly rather squatty) wastebin that stood between her and her nemesis. I watched in complete schadenfreuded glee as she gathered steam...

You know that epic football tackle when the guy with the ball jumps up to avoid a defender and then someone hits him in the knees and he flips completely over while in the air and lands flat on his back and then they rush onto the field with a stretcher? This was better. Girl went ass over teakettle over trashcan like she'd been shot out of a cannon. The best part is, I don't think she would have made it over without the added height from her heels. No, wait, the real best part is the way she immediately popped back up, clearly too drunk to notice that her shins had recently been sheared in half, and offered her frenemy a cig.

I love Friday night.

You'd think these people haven't seen the sun in eight months, or something. Oh, wait...

You know, pre-Copernican Europeans could be forgiven for thinking that the Sun could not possibly be the center of the solar system. I mean, if some loony star-gazer came over and told you that the Sun, which you hadn't seen around these parts in months, was actually the center of the known universe, you'd probably think he was a heretic, too. Come on, how can something that only deigns to show itself two months a year be the focus point of the heavens? What is this, the astrological wizard of freakin' Oz?

This nonsensical rant brought to you by wildly fluctuating levels of vitamin D coursing through my veins.

Anyway, what I am attempting to say is that, until yesterday, it had been a while since I'd seen the sun. And so when I woke up to light streaming through my windows, light that was not immediately obscured by giant rain clouds, I had two simultaneous thoughts: I now understand the Inquisition, and I'd better spend the day outside (What a day, what a day for an auto da fé? Preferably not).

So outside I went! Out and UP, taking the opportunity presented by clear skies to climb Arthur's Seat, the (other) volcanic protuberance that has occupied so much of my attention since arriving in Edinburgh. It was a gorgeous walk, surrounded by gorse and soft grass and rocky ex-lava flows.

When I got home, I looked up the history of the hill and its name, and...you know what? It's not all that interesting. Basically, an extinct volcano that may or may not have some association with a/the King Arthur. Call me when you find Excalibur up there. The best part of my research was learning that Arthur's Seat is one of several geographical features categorized as "breast-shaped hills," and reading through that list. Some people have an extremely liberal understanding of the breast.

Anyway, we had a good day out and about in the countryside, getting endlessly passed by German tourists, eating a picnic lunch and napping in the sun. I burned the shit out of my nose, but as this brings out the blue in my eyes, I've decided to view it as an improvement. The day ended with ice cream, which is a good way to end most things (and an extremely common ending in Scotland, which may love ice cream more than any place else on earth). Now we're back to overcast skies and drizzle, once again forcing me to sympathize with those establishment Pythagoreans who castigated heliocentrism and placed Galileo under permanent house arrest. Maybe they were just disappointed after the promise of a sunny day; if I'd been promised a heliocentric universe that did nothing to improve the weather, I would want to burn people at the stake, too, if only to keep warm. The lesson is, don't trust science.

I am not dead, nor was I sold into white slavery

Right, so, oops, I guess? As I am sure all of my loyal readers have tearfully, moaningly noticed, I kinda disappeared there for a while. I could try to excuse it--I have been telling all of my professors and aquantainces back in ole Caledonia that I was out of the country and in a place without Internet access (as if such a place exists; I think even the moon must have dial-up)--but the reality is I just checked out for a while. I am not going to pretend to feel bad about it. Maybe if this blog was part of a successful personal "brand" I would feel sorry for letting it languish, but then, in that scenario I would also probably have a personal assistant to write entries for me as well.

So yeah, I went back to Portland for a couple weeks, and it was wonderful, up there with some of the best days of my life. That's making it all the more difficult to adjust to being back in Scotland, and I might be unaccountably and inappropriately resentful of this place for a few days. I hope to have slept through most of it, as I was unconscious for twenty out of the last 24 hours. Up high! And I have some fun times to come and to share with my dear readers--trips to France and Denmark, visits from friends and family from home, the Fringe and other festivals. There are also some not fun times to share, namely the researching and writing of my dissertation. I wonder if I could just submit this blog?

So there it is. Today's task (and tomorrow's, and the next, I suspect) is to readjust to being here, and to remind myself that it is not Scotland's fault that I chose to move here just as I was falling in love with someone five thousand miles away. Because it wasn't Scotland's fault. It was the economy's. And, even if being here hurts right now, I am looking forward to all of the cultural experiences left for me to discover:

There. I feel better already.

I made it out of the flat today! Seriously...that's a big achievement.

In an admission that is sure to shock and horrify my mother, I here declare that as of last night, I had not left my flat for approximately forty hours. Look, I know. It's not okay. But...you know how it goes...you wake up late, start reading back issues of GQ over breakfast, fiddle around a bit with paper citation methods, make some lunch, take a shower or three and watch The Flying Scotsman back to back with Anna Nicole: the Opera and suddenly the day has flown by and you are still in the pajamas you put back on after your last shower because apparently, actually, you never had any intention of going out in public in the first place.

Also, you read that right--Anna Nicole Smith has joined Violetta and Mimi in the opera pantheon of tragic dead women:

 I don't think I want to go into it right now.

Anyway, in a change of pace and clothing that is sure to please my mom, I went OUTSIDE today. Not just outside, but to that most wild of places, that mysterious and odoriferous mecca of vestigial homo habilus urges. I'm talking the ZOO, people!

The Edinburgh Zoo is quite nice...good selection of zoo heavies lions, tigers and penguins (penguins are the new bears). The biggest drawback is that it seems to have been cut, Incan-civilizationlike, out of the very hillside, meaning that by the time you make it to the lions at the very top of the zoo, your vision is blacking out from exertion and oxygen deprivation (chances that the Edinburgh Zoo is secretly a very well camouflaged weight-loss regimen: 50-50). Still, all in all a very nice way to spend the afternoon. Pictures below...as today seemed to be the unofficial "hang out right next to the fence" day, I got some pretty good ones.

I don't know what this is. I'm going to go with emu.

EGG!

This pool smelled to high heaven of the fish-shits.

Cocky bird.

EGG!

BABY WALLABY!--On a related note, can you imagine the pictures I would have gotten about, oh, a month ago? Well, STOP IMAGINING. I am trying to keep this thing classy. Geez.

Sun bear

Some kind of parrot. Look, what do you want from me? I can barely get shoes on these days, let alone remember my avian subspecies. Christ.

Tiger...napping.

These monkeys have the same response to rain as me...go hide under a rock. The little one is outside because the others wouldn't let him in. It gets better, little monkey! Unless you freeze to death.

Lions...grooming.

But as much fun as it was to see all the different animals/readapt to natural light, the best part of the day came (as per usual) in the cafeteria. CHECK THIS SHIT OUT:

LOLZ. We maaaaaaay have made spectacles of ourselves. Seriously, I NEED this chair. And thus ends (see what I did there?) my day at the zoo.