German street Meat, the Zoo and a brolly theif!

Well I left off on Canada day....

My friend Kim from University was in town on a UK trip with her friend Jen, i mistakenly told them to pick something in the city to do with me before work....me thinking they would pick the castle...or Holyrood or something simple like that...BUT NO They chose to climb Arthur's Seat...now on any other day I would have been very happy to climb however...i was not dressed for the weather in my jeans t-shirt and sweater i was dressed for normal Scottish weather....and so off we went down the mile past Holyrood where there was a fancy do on(more on this later)
Now ive not been up Arthur's seat yet so i didnt exactly know how to get up but i knew there was a road somewhere so essentially we walked alll the way around the base of the mountain to the road and Kim's friend went bounding up the hill and Kim and I took a break taking our own little route to the lesser of the two peaks (in all fairness i did have to work) And at the top we rounded a corner and there was a man...just sitting chillin reading the paper perched on top of the mountain...He advised us to stay well back from the edge in case we should encounter a gust of milicious wind that would take us clean off the cliff....something about how he said it just made me giggle but mom says there is actually a story of my great grannie blowing away so i now take the advise very seriously!!!

Anyway we walked back from A's Seat and back past Holyrood where we saw lots of frilly people with hats annnd as i later learned and suspected at the time...The Queen was here for her annual tea in the park...so i felt pretty cool...they had fun archers walking around too ive never seen a ye old archer and his bow before.

Off to work i went where i again sweated out about 5 pounds and observed kids and the teachers and i would continue this for the entire week...nothing extraordinary happened at all during these sessions...sorry to say.

So I saw a great film on Canada day....The complete history of my sexual failures...i dont recommend it to everyone....if your faint at heart or have some sort of serious medical heart condition please do not see this film!!! But i love it very dry and very funny!

Now this weekend was a bit of a pickle...for several reasons, on Friday after work Jess and I decided we would go out and have Chinese for dinner we found a great little place down in Morningside that was decent and fairly cheap. We then walked (And at this point let me just say i was wearing my Berkinstock sandles...no socks thanks....and a massive blister was forming) to the big cinema down on fountainbridge and we saw Female Agents, a French film about female agents(duh) during the second world war and they typical French theme of how they liberated themselves and if these women didnt do what they did Dday would never have worked yadah yadah...as you can tell its a sore point for me but it was a stunning film. My favorite part was how the German's spoke either English or French but no German whatsoever!!! And then we walked to the grassmarket to meet Jess' guy Stu and his roommate John to go grab a drink. Again the walking was not helping the MASSIVE blister now forming but i will prevail....
So we went up to this pub i had been to before...and strangely there was a new statue on the high street...now in a old city like Edinburgh i never ever thought there could be a new statue but there he is in all his glory..ADAM SMITH...right in the middle of the pedestrian area its quite surreal we all just kinda stared at it and then i had to explain who Adam Smith was and why he deserved a statue but in the end...strange....

So after a drink i was pooped and we headed back past Greyfriars to the meadows to go home.
Saturday we had decided to go to the Zoo, we made this decision based on the fact that Sarah had to work Sunday so Saturday it was...its just too bad it was the worst weather we've had since ive been here. So out we trekked three Canadians and an Irishman....well in all fairness we had a pretty great day before the zoo...

Jess and I went down to Princes to go shopping i needed more sweaters...yes mother i told you i needed sweaters...And so we went to the ever faithful H&M and found lots and then cleaned out Le Senza.....panties for 50p...I know you all wanted to know that HA! And then we all had street meat from this strange little German stand in market square area.

Then we hoped the faithful lothian bus and we booted it out to the Zoo aka...right beside where ive been working all week. And we were all excited and we got in there...annnnd the lemurs sucked....and then the monkey area sucked...and then it started to get rainy so all the animals basically peaced out and we couldnt find really anything that was moving. Slightly depressed we decided to move on to big animals like the Polar Bear (yup singular they have one...the only one in the UK but still) It was this big massive polar bear in a space way too small and it was just pacing pathetically on a rock(apparently when our flat mate went it was sprawled out on a big rock just staring at people). So that upset us a little bit....so we moved on to hippos....there was one..asleep...and so we moved on to the penguins!!!! There were tons and they looked pretty great...so we waited around for the parade at 2:15 and everyone pushes their way to the yellow line and however many penguins want to walk will waddle out and walk around which was pretty cute. But only 6 came out which was sad and i had to move out of the way to let some stupid baby see the penguins....
but that was the best part...because it had started to rain..so Stu suggested we go see the camels and big cats...so off we went up the hill to the hill top view which is spectacular. But the Camels were off in a corner and the rhino wasnt out. Annnd we walked around to the Zebra walkway annnnd my umbrella was brutally murdered by a strong gust of wind. Already on its way out the Zebra area was the last straw for my poor brolly...as we grumply walked down the hill past the nonexistant "big cats" (we only saw the jaguar which was hiding under a tree) we all agreed this was a bad zoo ad the Toronto Zoo was 100 times better....and the three of them decided it was my fault it was raining so really great day....
We were all soaked and took the bus back to have a tea at a shop in the Haymarket....And then Jess and I hopped on a bus to go home.....and that bus moved about 30 feet in 30 minutes sooo frustrated cold wet and one head phone less(thanks to the cheap headphones i bought before i left) we got off the bus and practically walked all the way home with no umbrella. Needless to say i stayed in that night and basically just cuddled with my pillow and watched tv on the internet.

Sunday.....i slept until 2pm...best sleep ever....
Then I watched the entire first season of How I Met Your Mother( best show ever.

Today Monday July 7th I did errands like no ones business...I went got myself new headphones, inquired about a year long cell phone plan, got stopped and had to talk to those annoying people on the street trying to get my to donate to stop people committing suicide. And then i walked got lunch, sat in the meadows and enjoyed my lunch (until some crazy old lady asked me for directions....and then another crazy old lady accused me of stealing her umbrella...it was on the other bench...although at this point i wished i had found and stolen her umbrella as i need to replace bella my umbrella numero uno) got a library card (WOOT) got some cards, posted my mail (finally my last post cards) and my swimming qualifications and im now just waiting for my appointment with the bank to finally get my bank account wooot!!!!

Random thought: Sean Connery is insane...he has to be the most Scottish person in the world...and the most random celebrity ever...i mean i understand why he would be at the film festival...and hell why he would be the MC/judge but umm...why is he presenting at the International literature festival? Im just hoping he does a one man show at fringe and dances in a kilt at the tattoo!!!