Gooooooood Morning

I feel like I've only been posting about the trips I've been on lately. Maybe that's because I've had something big planned for every weekend/even some whole weeks of March. This weekend (April 12! Already!) is the first time I've been in Sevilla to relax for a weekend and not do anything in so long, and frankly I'm so glad to be here. Unfortunately I've been dealing with a foot injury for the past week (I wasn't even doing Insanity, I just wore some cheap shoes for a day of walking and that did me in...isn't that just my luck) so its good timing that I don't have to go anywhere, I can hopefully just rest my foot back to full function by Wednesday when I have to leave for Budapest. (Listen to me, "have to leave for Budapest," HA). So here's a catch-up entry on things I've been up to whilst in Sevilla over the past couple weeks and haven't had time to write anything down about. 

Last night a lot of our friends went to Portugal for the weekend but MC and I stayed so we bought tickets to the Sevilla/Real Betis futbol game. For all you-Sevillans out there, there are 2 professional futbol teams in Sevilla and the rivalry is pretty intense. Last night was a Betis home game (and since Betis is my host family's team, it was a home game for MC and me too). We got some bocadillos to go, MC put on her fresh new Betis jersey and I chose some neutral colors (but definitely avoiding red), and we headed over to the stadium across town. It was like St. Patrick's Day around the stadium for 2 hours before the game started. Green everywhere. People's faces painted. Crazy outfits. Bars packed to their limits and people spilling out into the streets with drinks in both hands. Traffic was shut down on all the surrounding streets- it was a madhouse. It took us forever to get through the crowd to find our seats, and when we asked around they told us to just keep going down and follow the isle numbers- well I thought they must not understand where my seat actually was because there was no way I was sitting on the lowest level, almost on the field by the goal- but somehow those were our seats?! 

No complaints there. We spent a good half hour before the game just trying to learn the cheers everyone already knew, and joining in wherever we could--oh and also taking pictures with this guy with the flag. The game itself was awesome. To be around 44,000 people that so passionate about this one thing was very cool, and while Betis was down 0-3 through half time, they made a massive comeback and in the last minute brought it up to a tie. 

The video is from the first goal Betis scored, making it just 1-3 well into the second half. So the fact that it ended up as a tie was a pretty big deal. After the game we raced out, trying to beat the crowd, and took the bus back to Nervion since A. I temporarily lost my Sevici bike pass and B. walking with my foot was not an option. Normally I would say no, never, no way to public transportation since biking/walking is easily doable and great exercise but there was just no way I could make that trek. Just standing for those 2 hours was enough to keep me bed-ridden this morning (hence my post right now). 

That was just Friday night; yesterday was just a great day in general. I woke up late and MC had already gone to class. I laid in bed for a while listening to music (whenever I don't have to set an alarm for anything, which is rare, I love to just listen to music on my ipod in bed since I almost always fall asleep right away if I try to do that at night), watching shows like SNL and The Office on Hulu, and after eating a big green apple I did some yoga. After lunch I put on my bathing suit and went downstairs to the patio of our apartment complex and took a nap in the sun/read my history textbook. And then the best part of the afternoon: Cristina left with MC to pick up her camera from the repair store (it's been there for 2 months waiting to be fixed...naturally that will happen if you take your belongings to a Spanish store. You can't expect promptness in return) and I had the place to myself! I raided the kitchen and combined leftover broccoli cheese pasta with the leftover salad from lunch and added some balsamic vinegar, a bunch of pepper and oregano to make a pasta salad snack :). I think C would've fallen over if she saw it but hey, when the cat's away the mice will play.

That being said, Cristina and I have been getting along so well since Semana Santa. When i first got back she was pretty irritated with me because I came home earlier than she expected and didn't have lunch for me so she was all in a flurry about it, and also because I missed all the great pasos of Semana Santa, I didn't and couldn't fully understand her culture. But that was just the Saturday I got back, and being the crazy flip-flop woman that she is, Sunday she was in a great mood and we started to re-bond. I told her I wanted to eat really healthily since I ate so many sweets during the week away, so she cooked me grilled artichokes, onions, zucchini and chicken for lunch one day and told me that I was going to hate it--oh no, Cristina, on the contrary I LOVE YOUR DIET MEALS. They are regular meals, without any weird sauces or too-cheesy cheeses to jazz them up. 

So for the whole week while MC was gone (her family came at the end of Semana Santa and she went to stay with them in el centro and then they went to Austria, so when I got back she was already gone), we ate healthy meals together and had great conversations for lunch and dinner. And I feel like my Spanish notably improved in that week as well. 

Cristina and I making "the face"-- she's doing the best she can. I started the Insanity calendar the Monday after getting home, right from the beginning with the Fit Test (struggles). Kelsey and I said we were going to do it together and text each other every day after we'd finished with it. Now that I'm hurt I'm already a week behind, so I may be starting over again...but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. The main point of this is that on Tuesday I went to do Plyometric Cardio Circuit on the playground (where I always have to do it) and two little kids, like 7 and 3, brother and sister, came down to play. I told their mom I could stop if I was bothering them but she said no, not to worry...and then they proceeded to start doing the exercises with me! First the girl started doing it far away from me and I could see it in my peripherals, so I told her she could come over closer to see the video if she wanted and she JUMPED at the chance. Her little brother joined in soon after, and then it was me and my new friends doing Insanity on the playground in Sevilla, Spain...practicing Spanish with them and asking them what English words they knew the whole time. Its times like this that I just have to take a step back and look at the situation, and then just laugh. It was hilarious and it made the workout go by so much faster. When MC got back she started doing it with me as well, and I'm always happy to have a workout partner!

View from our little porch, photocredit goes to Cristina on this one

This week has been a hodge podge of things. Trying to get back to some normality (Sevilla-style normality, that is), trying to get some actual school work done (like my 20 page philosophy paper, What is Metaphysics? in Spanish), and dealing with real-world stuff back home. I've been so conflicted about how best to spend my summer. I want to get ahead on some things going into senior year so that my academic part of the year can be as least-stressful as possible, but I also would like to make some money this summer to have saved up for the school year and make back some of what I'm spending throughout this semester. To live in Chapel Hill with the amenities that UNC has to offer (like Career Services) and where I have a house I'll already be paying rent for whether I'm there or not, or to live in Charlotte where I was offered a full-time nannying job to make some good money? I've been really struggling over this decision for the past two weeks, and I'm already a wishy-washy person when it comes to making concrete, big decisions. I always try to see the scenario from every angle, but at a certain point you just have to listen to the one voice that you know you can trust and whatever comes of that decision, know you'll make it work. I got a great email from my dad yesterday morning and it gave me some clarity to just make the choice to move into my house in CH on June 10 when my lease starts. I could then go forward to respond to all the people whose plans were hanging in the balance based on my decisions, and that felt so good. It was a great weight off my shoulders to know and to not have my mind drift to the subject every other minute, with the accompanying feeling of being overwhelmed and helpless. Dealing with this stuff is extremely tough from an ocean away, when I am so far away from the mindset of having to actually do any of these things. But now that I've gotten it settled, I want to spend these last two months just being right here. This is my check-in to myself: Don't let it slip by, Maggie, stop thinking too far ahead. Just think about the next day, or even just the next hour. Today MC left for Barcelona and Cristina is out with a friend so I've got some time to myself (to NOT eat the lunch she left me...

...I discreetly put some in the trash to make it look like I ate half) but to just have some me-time, rest, and take in this beautiful place that I'm living in. Check out the weather forecast for the next week: 

I'm gonna go ahead and call this foreshadowing for the great things that are to come

Sevilla becoming a home away from home

On Friday morning (April 5), just a week after I'd gotten back from my spring break trip, I went back to the airport to pick up Stephen for his weekend in Sevilla! We've planned our trips (accidentally) really well-spaced out- I saw him the first weekend in March, he came here the first of April, and we're going to hike Cinque Terre the first weekend in May. It had been raining cats and dogs (it rained at least 25 days of March, more rain in Sevilla than the city has had since 1945...of course I'm here for it. WHY oh WHY did I return those rain boots before I came here?!) so when he came on Friday I was just hoping the weather would take a turn for the better, if only for the weekend. It poured on my way to pick him up, but the sun looked like it wanted to shine and we got a few spurts of nice weather sprinkled with rain all day Friday- hey, I'll take it. As soon as he got here I took him to Plaza de Espana, Parque de Maria Luisa, down by the river, through el centro, and through the barrio Santa Cruz. We sat in the park to eat the bocadillos I had Cristina pack for us when it was actually sunny for a brief moment. It was a really relaxing day- actually- a really relaxing weekend the whole time. I didn't feel the pressure to show every bit of the city to him- it seemed like whatever we ended up doing would be enough, so I just rolled with it and soaked up every minute. We rode the Sevici bikes to Cristina's for a merienda, then rode back to el centro and had to race around looking for two open parking spots before our 30 minutes were up. I don't know how Stephen managed to navigate with my weaving and bobbing through the tourist crowds, the uneven cobblestone and winding roads, the crazy Spanish traffic, and still was able to take funny pictures of the whole excursion, but then again he's good at pretty much everything. I had been wanting to try a tapas bar, Los Coloniales, that I'd heard good things about (every time I'd been before there was a long wait), so we went early to dinner, and although he had to wait, we were first on the wait list and after having a drink at the bar we were promptly seated outside. We ordered a bunch of different things just to try- quail eggs and sausage, fried eggplant in honey (definitely making this at home), stuffed eggplant with seafood, grilled chicken in an almond sauce. The bar was conveniently located right across the street from Rayas, the so-called best gelato place in Sevilla. I hadn't been there yet either, but I was disappointed with my orange chocolate. Guess I'll just have to try another... and we got our fill of good ice cream over the weekend so all in all I can't be upset. 

Saturday was absolutely gorgeous! The first day that I felt like I could walk around with short sleeves. My host brother, Miguel Angel (?) Michaelangelo (?), I still don't even really know, told us about a hippie festival on the outskirts of town. I was so excited to do something I'd never done in Sevilla before, something not-so-touristy, and something in a place I had yet to explore. We took the bus there since we didn't really know where we would be going, but looking back now at how much we ended up walking from where the bus dropped us off, we could've walked. We took the most roundabout way to find the festival- across a bridge, through a huge park, out many different exits of the park to find the one that pointed us back in the right direction, back across the river, and then finally we found Huevo de Colon. This place that I had been asking  the location of to each passerby I could find was literally an area in front of a giant statue of Christopher Columbus in a big egg. Didn't see that coming. But the festival had artisan crafts, handmade jewelry and trinkets I would never buy but were so fun to look over, and an entire food market that pushed the 'locally grown locally sold' feel. Obviously I loved it. I grabbed a fresh mojito (rented my glass to be returned and to get my euro back later...how green) and some quinoa and falafel croquettes, and Stephen had some paella. Then we sat in the park, had handstand contests, rolled up our sleeves to soak up some sun, and people watch the copious amounts of hippie parents and their kids with no shoes and weird-looking dogs hang out in the park. It was a little like a regular summer day for us when we go to Freedom Park for the afternoon in Charlotte. It was a much-needed sense of feeling at home. We were ready to head back, but not before we got a veggie burger that a woman in front of me in line had and it looked so delicious that I just had to ask which stand she got it from. The line for the burgers was at least 45 minutes long, but it was so worth it. We started walking back with it, but sat by the river in a quieter place for a little before starting the trek back. This time we biked and it was so great to just be outside in the fresh air, getting exercise in a fun way, exploring a new part of town, and to do it all with Stephen. 

After getting back in to town we rented a tandem bike/cart (specifically, a CycleSport...I remember the name because Stephen spent the rest of the night googling ways he could buy one) and rode it through the park and Plaza de Espana. Being able to drive through the entire park, I saw parts of it I had never seen! I had no idea there was a tree house structure with a waterfall feature somewhere smack dab in the middle that you could climb up? It would have been a memorable experience no matter what, but the gorgeous sunshine changed the whole atmosphere of Sevilla for me. I think I have some kind of seasonal affective disorder, because when it is sunny and warm its truly difficult for me to be in a bad mood (and vice versa when its cold, dark, and rainy). So basically all of Saturday I was on cloud nine. Some of it was definitely everything that I was doing, but being able to share it with my best friend in the world made it so much more fulfilling. That night we just got dinner at a random place on the way to the top of Las Setas to see the sunset (which we ended up kind of missing, but who cares), and then found this cookie place near it.....oh my gah I didn't even take pictures because I ate my cookies so fast. This place is one I definitely need to go back to when I'm looking for a little pick-me-up. 

Sunday I had full intentions of taking Stephen to the Alcazar but I had a rude wake-up call that it was most definitely tourist season when I saw the line stretch outside the gate and around the cathedral. He had to leave this afternoon and I was not about to spend 2 whole hours waiting in a line instead of actually spending time doing something. So we biked back to Cristina's for me to grab a beach towel and some snacks, and we went to sit down by the river and relax. We also picked up some bread and espinacas y garbanzos to go to have as a lunch, and basically sat right by the water for most of the early afternoon. It was so nice to be out in the sun- to actually feel warm- and to completely relax. When we were actually at the point of sweating, we ventured back up to el centro for ice cream (number 1). After finishing our first purchase and deciding it wasn't enough, we got frozen yogurt. That last one was to cheer me up since I knew I'd have to take him back to the airport in a short while. 

We've gotten to be pros at spending our time well together when we are together, making every moment rich, and then being able to part and return to our daily lives when its time to go, but that doesn't mean it gets any easier. I sent my mom an email right when I got back to Cristina's telling her how it was especially difficult to say goodbye this time. I told her it was like I was in Sevilla for the first time again, exploring everything with new eyes. That's just something I feel like I always experience when I'm with Stephen. He brings something new to the table, and he's so full of life, its just contagious. Everything is lighter, brighter, clearer, easier, simpler when I've got him by my side. And that's just the only way I know how to explain it. I'm grateful every day for this, and it doesn't go unnoticed by me that finding genuine happiness is so very difficult. But with Stephen I see a way for it to be easy. Just be happy. Happiness is a choice. When I think about the things that get me down, every single time its ultimately my choice to be down versus up. Something I want to work on really diligently (maybe I'll set a goal of just one week) is to simply choose to be happy. In yoga, a teacher once told me to "choose easy." Why'd that stick with me? I don't really know. But I do know I make things hard for myself. I make the most grueling schedules on Connect Carolina; I say yes to every extra commitment that I don't even want to do, but I can fit into a crack of my day so I do it; I pick the hardest topic for a 20 page research paper. But I think the worst thing we do to ourselves is to choose unhappiness. When I take it out of context like that I just ask myself, Why on earth would anyone pick that over happiness? It's never quite that easy, I know. But if it were, it could be the answer to so many problems. This week I'm going to try to look at choosing happiness as just that simple. And I think by choosing happiness, I'm choosing easy. 

Having Stephen here was rejuvenating; it helped make Sevilla feel even more like a home away from home, and the turn of the weather to spring has put me into the best of moods that I hope to ride out for the rest of the semester. With trips like Budapest, Prague, and Cinque Terre, and Cadiz (aka the beach, aka my favorite place in the world) in the near future, how can I not be excited for what's in store?

Dublin, Ireland!

It's funny how sometimes I write in my agenda "blog" and then when I look in my agenda I think, "Oh I forgot I still have to do that," like its homework or something. Then I look back at some week's to-do lists from last semester and I have to laugh that I even think to put "blog" on the page. My schedule is so wonderfully free, I just need to remind myself to soak all that up. I am especially reminded of it today since I had to register for fall semester classes! All my woes of finding the right classes at the right times with semi-acceptable professors for hours and hours on end, and then all of that going to waste when it turns 6:15 and I'm allowed to click "enroll," only to find that every class has already filled up.... all that came rushing back to me within moments today and I was reminded that I'm a student at Chapel Hill and real life is waiting for me in a few months. ICK. Let's go back to Dublin, where I was just 4 days ago.

No let's go back a little further, this is what I woke up to Wednesday morning in Edinburgh: 

Full on snow day. We took a dreadfully early bus to the Edinburgh airport and waited for our delayed Ryan Air flight to Dublin. When we finally could sit down on the plane, we were the lucky seat winners who selected the spots in between a trifecta of crying- no, not crying, wailing, sobbing, miserable- little infants. There were actually 3 separate families with unhappy infants. What are the odds? It was impressive, actually, how they could keep it going from take-off through landing. The first thing we did when we got to Dublin was go get some really greasy, quintessential Dublin pub food and a pint of beer. Just kidding we absolutely did not, we went to a make-your-own salad place (Chopped! Like I ate every day in Charleston this summer...wonder if my frequent shopper card would have worked here, I might have been able to get a free salad by now...). Pricey but always something the 3 of us love. After lunch we walked through St. Stephen's Green- a beautiful park with swans swimming beneath the stone bridges that extend over the lake- and get this, as soon as we set foot inside snow flurries whipped up all around us so we could barely make out the pathway in front of us. It was fun to play around, catching the big snowflakes on our tongues for a while, and we even tried to keep walking through Dublin to find the old antique quarter (which we did find, after a brief walk through the ghetto, and when we finally did find it, it was nothing like what I'd hoped), and other parts of the map that seemed to be fun to check out, but yet again, I just can't be outside for that long without going into complainer-mode so we made our way to the Guinness factory for the inside tour. 

What you're apparently supposed to do with this beer before you drink it

I followed their directions, and it still tasted like crap to me. I think someone told me once that men like beer more because they take bigger sips, and whatever is on the top of the drink is not as flavorful/tasty as what's right below, so women always drink the bitterness and don't taste any of the good aspects of the beer? Well I tried drinking like a man, too, and I still hated it. At least I tried.

The tour was actually really in-depth and informative. 1st floor all about how its made, all 4 processes in detail, the 2nd floor was taste testing, the 3rd was about advertising and PR for Guinness through the years, etc. etc. More than 7 floors in all.

C and I on the top floor, enjoying managing to sip our complimentary pints. I'm proud that I drank almost half of mine, but our free Guinness bread (I stole the recipe) was much more to my liking.

So I took notes in my phone of cool facts I learned. Arthur Guinness signed the lease for the factory in the 1700s for 9,000 years, with a mortgage of 45 pounds a year. It became the biggest employer in Ireland until the late 1900s. All the surrounding neighborhoods of houses were bought by the company and given to their employees, and workers used to be allowed to drink as much Guinness at work as they pleased, but since the laws for drinking and driving have become stricter, that amount has been deduced to just 2 pints a day. But employees may choose to save up their 2 pints on credit and take out all that they've saved at once if they were to, say, have a party one night. 

After leaving the factory somewhat warm, we walked around the city for a while, and once we crossed over the bridge a smoothie and crepe place caught my eye. Plus I really had to go to the bathroom and restaurants around here have this really great way of keeping non-customers from using the bathroom by placing a lock on the door and the code on their receipts. So I bought an Oasis smoothie: orange juice, banana, yogurt and basil. It was awesome. All their choices had something unique about them, so I took a picture of the menu to make them all at home in either the blender, or turn them into juice with my birthday present juicer :). 

All 3 of us badly wanted to see the Cliffs of Moher while were already this close but we couldn't decide the best way to go about doing it. Train there by ourselves? Try to rent a car? The simplest and cheapest option seemed to be take a guided tour bus, so at the last minute we stopped into a tourist office and asked if there were any seats available for the tour the next day. The first office's tour was full and we were beginning to feel frantic that we waited too long to make a decision, but just before closing time we found another office and rushed in to ask if we could join their tour. And we could! Just in the knick of time. Dinner was a vegetarian restaurant with so much food I could barely finish it all, but I still managed to want a piece of their homemade bread after I was done. So worth it. Then it was back to the hostel and to bed. I slept so well this whole trip, probably because I was eating dinner at a normal hour and going to bed early and waking up early, like I'm used to. That's something I definitely won't be sad to part from when I return home- regular hours for everything. Spain is so backwards. 

Thursday morning was an early wake-up call to make it to the bus on time. Again, blizzarding outside. What's new. Our tour took us through 11 out of 30-something counties in Ireland so I got to see a lot of the beautiful countryside- much more my kind of scene than the city of Dublin. If I have to just say one thing about going to the Cliffs its that it was so incredibly worth it. 

Heyyyy Princess Bride

I think we all kind of thought we were going to drive up and see them, get out and take some photos, and have to leave fairly soon. But they gave us a couple hours to climb around the cliffs, and these puppies aren't blocked off at all. You can go right up to the edge and hang your feet (or your head if you're another girl on our tour) off. Dad, you would flip out, I mean absolutely freak.

I left windburned and with chapped lips like I never thought could be experienced but it was just so worth it. The whole trip. Didn't have to drive. Could listen to cool facts from the tour guide along the way, or not, beautiful scenery, a warm bus (with wifi), a good seafood chowder for lunch, and one of nature's most beautiful creations I've ever seen. 

The only thing that could have made an awesome day better, I think we can all agree, is Cookie Butter. And that's just what we found in the Dean and Deluca-esque grocery story/deli we chose to have dinner in when we got back into Dublin. It was right up by the register and Kelsey and I lost our cool when we saw Biscoff crunchy spread. So many emotions running through our brains, we barely had time to process. Somehow we came to the conclusion that since we were leaving in about 24 hours we shouldn't buy it since we can't take it with us, unless we go buy a stock pile of 3 oz travel containers and jam all the butter into individual packaging...(that actually was a thought that we had). But no, we decided to cut our losses and put the CB down. Except then, something amazing happened. All 3 of us were sitting, quietly enjoying our respective dinners, when a man and his teenage daughter walked up and plopped a brown bag down on the table in front of us. "If it's not the one you were looking at, the receipt's in the bag and you can exchange it," he said in a flawless Irish accent. And he just smiled and went on his merry way. At first I thought it was an order the kitchen got wrong and had just given them or something, but when we peered into the bag it was the crunchy goodness that we flipped out over in the check-out line. He saw our reactions and that was all it took, I guess. I just couldn't (and still can't) get over this random act of kindness. Was it because it was almost Easter? Did we happen to encounter the nicest man on earth at this random grocery in Dublin? Actually better question, why do I need to pinpoint a reason why he did it? Its so apparent to me in this moment that it doesn't take much at all to make someone's jaw drop. You can make someone's day any time you want if you just open your eyes and ears and engage with people. Phew. A trip through 1/3 of Ireland and an important life lesson all in one day. Time for bed!

Oh except for one minute detail. We couldn't take the Cookie Butter on the plane, we were well aware, but we were going to do right by this random act of kindness and so we vowed to finish it within a day, starting with a huge dessert for us Thursday night.

Friday morning Caroline had to leave at the crack of dawn to return to Florence, but Kelsey and I slept in. We woke up to the discovery that there was no water- no shower water, no toilet flushing nor teeth brushing water, no sink water to drink. Why? Oh because Dublin's pipes were damaged from inclement weather. Naturally. It's the last 2 days of March, snow, take a hike. We went out to explore unseen parts of Dublin showerless and filled with Cookie Butter/jelly toast. St. Patrick's Cathedral was our first stop. Then to Lush for chapstick and hand lotion. It was a trend during the entire break to stop into lotion shops for samples because the weather had made all our hands so dry and cracked and our lips so chapped. When lunch time rolled around we wanted to check out a food market K found online but stopped in front of KC Peaches, a restaurant with the most enticing cookies in the window that one ever laid eyes on. "Let's just, take a peak..." one of us said. I don't know who it was, but I'm so glad we went inside. It wasn't just a bakery (although their brownies looked like they might have been made for giants), but an entire restaurant with fresh sandwiches made to your liking, make-your-own salads, a hot bar, a yogurt parfait bar... All of our restaurants sound the same now that I put them into words but I swear they were all individually delicious. We went out to find the market, just to see what we thought of it, and there was no such one to be found- fine by us, made our decision of where to eat lunch easy. A sandwich and salad and it hit the spot. And a huge cookie to go. 

Our next adventure: To find a yoga class I heard about. Hot. Vinyasa. Yoga. I Google-mapped the directions and it said 2.5 miles walking- doable. I went back to the hostel, got our rented towel, had a change of clothes in my bag, filled up my water bottle, I was ready to go. So we start walking, and walking, and walking, and then we've walked easily 3 miles and we're still walking, and then we're in front of 17 Malahide Road and it looks a lot more like a residential house than a yoga studio. I asked a woman walking if this was indeed Malahide Road, and it was, and then I asked if there was a yoga studio on this road, and she said that I must mean Malahide Village, a bus-ride away...not even technically in Dublin. Oy ve. I had walked us so far out into practically another county, with nothing but a useless yoga towel and some spandex. When will my need for yoga get some sense knocked into it?? Kelsey was such a good sport about it and we had a leisurely walk back, taking a side route through a park, joking the whole time that we'd seen the "real Dublin," and we didn't look like tourists since we were all the way out here carrying brown paper grocery bags. Except  then mine broke so I just had to carry the towel around under my arm for the rest of the day. 

When we got back into town we walked through Trinity College, and at this point it was sunny for the first time in an entire week so we took full advantage and sat down to have a Cookie Butter/pretzel snack (oh did I forget to mention we brought that with us and ate it all along our yoga excursion? Of course that happened).

Matching shoes we bought in Florence; tennis shoes that are "sensible and good for walking around, without having a huge Nike check on the side signifying that you are no doubt an American tourist" as I like to describe them

Then it was a quick stroll across the river again to see the shopping area and the Garden of Remembrance before watching the sunset alongside it.

It's like we fit a month's worth of stuff into 7 days, 10 for me since I had the whole Florence trip beforehand, but its also hard to believe that the trip that we'd been planning and planning for is already done! We had to hit the hay early because our flights back to Sevilla and Florence left early the next morning. I hated saying goodbye to Kels since I won't see her until school starts! Actually no scratch that, I am making it to Ohio for 4th of July this summer, she convinced me. But still, she's like my first best friend that I've met that lives somewhere other than North Carolina. Going to UNC and being from Charlotte, most of the people you meet are already from a town somewhat near you, which is sometimes nice because you never feel like you have to say goodbye to anyone, but at the same time I love saying I have a best friend from Ohio now. I know that we'll stay friends for a long time, and no matter where we live it will always be so awesome to visit each other because its just like old times when we get together! That's what was so great about this whole break for me, I think. Just a sense of normalcy and calmness. There's no way I would have had the same experience had I been with anyone else but these two girls. We get each other. We're on the same page, and we love the same things. There was never any pressure to do anything, but we were all up for trying whatever. I'm so thankful we could make it all work and that I have people like them in my life! 

Edimburgo, Escocia

It's only Monday now, and I've already been in 3 cities over my spring break. We woke up to a freezing cold Edinburgh, and I do mean 0 degrees Celsius so, actually freezing, but after fueling up with yogurt and granola (Calcedonian Backpackers- 1, all other hostels- 0) and my brief encounter with Vegemite (I saw it sitting on the pool table and tried it before Kelsey read me its ingredients) we set out to brave the weather and see all that Scotland had to offer. 

The Elephant House, where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter

In the National Museum of Scotland (another free and warm building); when Caroline went to the bathroom Kelsey and I found a dress up kit for kids- 18th century Scottish garb- and when she got back a photo shoot commenced. I thought my headpiece was really meant to be worn the way I fashioned it around my face, but after reading a label I learned it goes under a shirt?

Why does every highlight of my day seem to be the food I order? This soup place Caroline found online, Union of Genius, is a tiny soup shop serving a selection of 6 specialty soups, only opened until 4 pm with 2 seating areas, one of which we scored, and while we sat we watched the workers cross soup after soup off the list of those available- they sold out of all but 2 kinds by 1:30! We hit the hot spot for a cold day in Edinburgh, obviously, and I couldn't have been more overjoyed by my soup sampler plate: sweet potato with coconut and tamarind, butternut and bacon, and cream of leek and potato. We also had 3 sampler breads to pair with each soup: poppy seed, wholemeal, and olive, respectively. I must make these soups somehow, some way, back at home! Also I bought this vest here in a vintage store along our path today, 5 pounds...after the leather jacket I said no to in London, I couldn't pass this up.

We strolled up to the castle on the hill to see it from the outside but didn't pay to go in...my priorities were to get somewhere warmer ASAP. 

We walked around more, stopping into various shops to look at the selection of fur hunting hats, cashmere sweaters, kilts, and all things Edinburgh tourist-related (every single store sells the exact same stuff). We also briefly stopped in the famous whisky store and looked for the most expensive bottle we could find. What we came up with? $17,500. I bet you if I tasted the stuff I'd spit it out in half a second- and that'd be $100 down the drain.

So cold and my face was so numb I couldn't even really make a frowning face. RIP Kelsey's headband...

Dinner was Mexican food (something we were all mutually craving). My goat cheese quesadilla was awesome but the service at the place wasn't that great; they forgot my side order of black beans, then brought me re-fried beans, then brought me cold black beans, then seemed perturbed when I asked them to heat them up, and they also gave us water with a hint of tequila flavoring and called them margaritas. And it was the most expensive meal I had the whole trip. All things aside though, I loved the spiciness of the meal, it kept me warm for at least the walk to the comedy club we went to afterwards...

The stage of The Stand Comedy Club; it was amateur night so we watched 10 acts and one guest act (who is/might be somewhat famous in Scotland?) for 2 pounds. It was my first experience with live comedy, and even though there were a few bad acts (since it was amateur night, there were a couple really, painfully uncomfortably bad ones), I enjoyed them all, if for no other reason than to hear everyone's accents. And some guys were very entertaining. About half the jokes went over my head as they referred to Scottish or UK humor, or the accents were so thick I just got plain lost trying to decipher words, but it was such a fun and different way to spend the night-- way to go us for looking in tourist guides while stopping into random outdoor gear stores for me to look for heavy duty winter wear (I would've bought a face mask had I seen one). 

And that was it for day one. We woke up early Tuesday morning to a day that felt much warmer, although maybe we were just getting used to it by now, but we decided to seize the day and hike up to Arthur's Seat. It began blizzarding on our way across town and I almost thought about turning around, but its something I really wanted to do, so we forged onward. And I am so glad that we did. Right after we started the hike upwards, the snow stopped and the steady climb allowed me to even feel slightly warm. And the views from every point of the hike were astounding. 

Coming down from the peak made the formerly bone-chilling wind feel like a breeze. We walked around the far side of the little mountain while the sun was (almost) out, and right when we made it back to the starting point it started to blizzard again. Perfect timing. We had a small bowl of soup, parsnip and hazelnut I think it was, at a cafe called Milk just around the corner of the hostel, and then headed back to warm up and relax for a while. We walked to Tigerlily, a swanky bar that was also right by the hostel, for high tea late in the afternoon. When we got back we met some new roommates in our room, two girls from Pennsylvania studying in Barcelona and a girl from Vienna just traveling the UK. We went out together that night in hopes of finding a bar to hang out in. First we couldn't find a place with a single person inside, and the one we did find that had some life in it had no free seats. K, C, and I decided to break off from our random group to use up the rest of our Scottish pounds at the local grocery store...on 8 apples, 2 granola bars, a bar of dark chocolate, and some half-off Cadbury biscuits. A balanced selection. We also had a glass of strawberry cider at a swanky bar that seemed to have something going on in sleepy little Edinburgh on our way home. 

At Tigerlily where, since we called for a reservation, we had a booth that could fit 7 more people all to ourselves. I couldn't have felt more under-dressed for this hip place- I don't think I changed out of my hiking clothes, I don't even remember if I took off my tennis shoes. Just goes to show you how much we cared about appearances this week... (one of my favorite parts about traveling with best friends and the promise of not running in to anyone you know). 

Kelsey's infamous pockets, emptied out. It was a running joke throughout the week how much she could fit and keep in her pockets at a time. It's mostly the reason we discovered the leftover change to buy all our travel snacks for the trip to Dublin.

Cider shared by Kel and me and hot chocolate for Carol, the perfect way to end our stay in Edinburgh. Next stop: Ireland.