So I really should be working on an essay right now. I have multiple essays to choose from too. I have one essay due a week from now and two more due in two weeks. I have started them all, which is good, but I would like to get them done sooner rather then later otherwise I know I am going to get stressed out. Granted, they are all five page essays. I don't even remember the last time I was only expected to write five pages.
Anyway, instead of working on these essays I am updating my blog and drinking Irn Bru, Scotland's most popular carbonated beverage. It is orange and tastes slightly of bubblegum. The cap says "feel phenomenal". I hope I do feel phenomenal after drinking this. Phenomenal enough to get some paper writing done. I am going to be pretty upset if it is false advertising.
Oh, and here is a picture of my room.
And Jelly Babies! These chewy candies are a lot more like jelly then jelly beans are. At first I didn't like the consistency, but now I've sort of grown to like them. Also, it is hard to resist biting off their heads.
In my last post I said I would talk about the deal with grocery stores here. I think I was feeling very strongly about my grocery shopping experience at that point. Basically you shouldn't expect to walk into a Tesco and get the foods you want to get. There was one week where I went to Tesco twice and both times they didn't have Baking Powder. I ended up buying some from a random little convenient store. So if I see something in Tesco and think, "Oh, that might be nice" I buy it right away because it might not be there the next time I go. Before I go to Tesco I usually stop by a store called LiDL. They don't have all the food stuffs I want, but the ones they do have are super cheap. You can get a loaf of bread for 45 pence (less than 90 cents) a bag of flour for 41 pence (less then 80 cents) and so on. Also, spices here are super cheap. I think the most expensive spice that I have seen and wanted was 55 pence (a little less than $1). I almost want to by a bunch of spices here and bring them back so I don't have to deal with buying horrendously expensive spices in the states. Even at Deals and Steals they are upwards of $2. Okay, enough about spices.
This Saturday Lee and I went to Glasgow. We had a very full day, and it was quite nice. We took a 10:15 bus to Glasgow and got there sometime after 11:00. First we headed to the Glasgow Cathedral which had beautiful stained glass and is home to St. Mungo's (the patron saint of Glasgow) tomb. The cathedral is right near a massive graveyard called the Necropolis, which is basically this giant hill covered in tombs and tombstones. It was beautiful, and one of the things I really liked was that there were tons of people there walking their dogs. Yup, just taking their dog for a walk in a graveyard like it is the most normal thing in the world. After walking around there and exploring as much of the graveyard as possible Lee and I headed to Merchant City to find some lunch. Merchant City is crazy. There are tons of big shops up and down along a pedestrian only street and to match the tons of shops there are tons of people (who aren't very good at being conscientious and self aware). Lee and I ended up eating at a Japanese restaurant. He got sushi and I got fried butternut squash and sweet potato in curry. Not quite Japanese, but it was delicious.
After lunch we walked through Merchant city, only stopping at a large candy store to ogle the goodies. Then we walked down to an open air market I had read about called the Barras Market. I thought it was going to be artists selling crafts and maybe some food like a farmers market, but it turned out to be more like a flea market. A slightly dodgy flea market. We wandered around a little bit, and then headed to the People's Palace and Winter Gardens. We sat around in the greenhouse garden for a while and people watched. There were lots of parents with their children and some of the children were being so silly and having so much fun. Eventually we relinquished our bench and headed to the attached People's Palace which is a Glasgow social history museum. We didn't stay for long though because the exhibits were mostly targeted towards children (hence all the children in the Winter Gardens). We left and walked through Glasgow Green (where the Palace and Gardens are located) and found the most amazing playground with four extremely tall slides. We did some sliding and then walked through the green back toward the city center for dinner.
We ate dinner at this Italian restaurant called Bella Italia because the map we got at the bus station had a voucher on it for buy one meal get the other free. Lee got lasagna and I got spinach catteloni. Both our meals were cheesy and delicious. Since we only had to pay for one meal we decided to splurge and get dessert. Lee got three scoops of gelato and I got this dessert called The Godfather which involved fresh cream (which I thought I might like more than regular whipped cream, but I didn't), chocolate sauce, vanilla ice cream, chocolate crunch, a chocolate biscuit stick, all on top of a nutty chocolate brownie. It was good, but Lee's chocolate and toffee gelato was better. After dinner we went to a pub called The Cask Still and got some ale. We sat around there for a while and played the game that I played with my flat on Burn's Night. Then we walked around the city some and found the clubbing area (by accident). Clubbing is so popular here it is absurd. I am glad it isn't as popular in America. Soon we headed back to the bus station and took the midnight bus back to Edinburgh. Although Glasgow has some pretty sites the city itself is not very pretty and I much prefer Edinburgh.
Here are pictures of the two best places we went:
The Necropolis
Slides!
So, yesterday was Chocolate Day and I spent most of the day doing work (good for me!). Then Lee and I went to dinner at the Mosque Kitchen. I am seriously addicted to that place. There was a sign on a nearby wall that said, "This is a wall (until further notice)". I really don't know what that was about, but it was pretty amusing. After dinner I came back to my flat and made chocolate chocolate chip muffins and Aby made cupcakes. Then she pulled out her chocolate fondue set and began melting chocolate while I made cookie dough to dip in the chocolate. When everything was ready Su, Rhiannon, Charlotte, Keilani, Aby, and I all sat down and had chocolate covered marshmallows, oranges, and cookie dough.
Alright, time for some procrastination toast. Oh, also, tomorrow is pancake day so I think I will make pancakes for dinner.
