Travel

Finding Scotland, Stateside

American Adventures, Edinburgh Expeditions

It’s been nearly three months since I left Scotland. Strangely, I fell back into the rhythm of living back home without too much difficulty. I expected to be pulling my out my hair, moaning, mourning. But I’m not.

There have been a few things that have made the transition back to America easy. I thought that I wouldn’t be able to get lots of foods I had grown accustomed to, the ale I grew to love, and miss the friends I had made.

The food isn’t too difficult. Mostly I ate things like risotto, which I can easily make in America. I miss the sweets quite a bit, but have been sent care packages from friends with delicious delicious chocolate. Walker’s shortbread is an easy fix, too. Tea isn’t an issue, as my mum and I are very picky tea drinkers and prefer the finest in Tesco supermarket tea (my rent is tea bags. I brought back 800. And McVities digestives. I’m good for a few months).

The real trouble? Haggis. Oh my goodness. It’s so good! Especially with neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes).

The ale, that was a real concern. I developed a taste for Scottish ales. Innis & Gunn is a real favourite. Imagine my surprise when I found that a local sandwich bar had it on draught, a rare enough thing in Edinburgh, where it’s brewed. That was an amazing discovery. And I can get it bottled at some specialty grocery stores! Win!

Friends, well, thank goodness for Skype! Every day I’m speaking to someone I met in Scotland, some days more than one. And the Far Off Places crew has had conference skypes, which has been awesome to speak with everyone. I’ve even managed to have lunch with one of my Edinburgh friends (he was visiting Boston from LA, was awesome to see him).

And there is always the possibility for visits, both to Edinburgh, and around the world. I’ve friends on nearly every continent, it’s now just a case of traveling to see them!

Welcome back to America

American Adventures

Well. I’ve been back in America for a week, settled back in my childhood home. My room, clean for over a year as I lived overseas, is now stacked with books, shopping bags, and the contents of my backpack vomited over the floor.

It’s not been a bad week, by any means. It’s been busy. I now have an insanely professional wardrobe, including a gorgeous navy pinstripe pencil skirt suit, a blue dress the same colour as the Scottish flag (or the TARDIS) and fantastic heels. I’ve applied for several jobs, had one interview (which didn’t end with me getting the job, but that’s okay, it was my first interview Stateside. I’m lucky and rather awesome, but not THAT lucky).

I also have a brand-spankin’ new mobile, a smartphone, which means I’ve finally entered the 21st century. Also I can now tweet from where-ever I am in the US, which is both really awesome and really dangerous.

I still haven’t managed to read much. I got halfway through Life of Pi whilst on the various planes from Edinburgh to Boston, but since returning I’ve been using my tablet for Skyping with those still in Scotland and watching the first series of Downton Abbey instead of reading. Oops, bad former English major.

Looking ahead to 2013…

American Adventures

I celebrated the end of 2012 and 2013’s beginning in my beloved Edinburgh with some of my closest friends. While a stack of dishes awaits me, I’m taking a moment to look at what lies ahead.

I’m making another international move and returning to the States. I wasn’t able to find a job that would sponsor me for a visa, so I’ve decided to return to the States when my student visa expires. I don’t know where life is going to take me, but with hope my roads will lead me back to Edinburgh. I’ve had an amazing, painful, life-changing time in the UK, and while I wish I could stay, it’s time for me to return to my native land.

I hope to return to Boston, where I lived as an undergraduate. I haven’t enjoyed all that Boston has to offer, and will get involved with the swing dancing community there.

In March we’ll be releasing the first issue of Far Off Places, the online literary magazine I started with three friends while living in Edinburgh. The beauty of it being online and organised through Google docs means that we can continue to work on the magazine while on separate continents.

I hope to take up blues dancing while living in Boston. I’ve heard that it’s the place to learn traditional blues in the US, and I’ve found that there’s nothing like dancing to keep me in a good mood. Blues complements lindy hop excellently, especially as some of the events I’ve attended have had blues after parties.

I will explore. I want to see more of the US (Seattle, New Orleans and San Francisco). I want to read. I want to learn.

Here’s to 2013, may it be a good year. It will be a difficult year, as I continue to navigate adulthood and try to settle in one location yet again. But it will, undoubtably, be a good’un, filled with friends both that I know and have yet to meet, pratfalls and maybe a few scavenger hunts through Boston.

Officially a Master of Science!

Edinburgh Expeditions

This Wednesday, I graduated from the University of Edinburgh. I’m now officially a Master of Science in Design and Digital Media, which means that I’m now signing everything with ‘MSc’ at the end of my name.

The ceremony took place inside McEwan Hall, one of the ancient buildings that forms part of the University’s main campus.

I looked like a wizard, dressed entirely in black, with a black robe. The only splash of colour was a green and white hood–I guess I’m a Slytherin? Pity, I always thought that I was a Ravenclaw (though my Gryffindor sister will say that the Slytherin is probably more accurate).

Anyways, Edinburgh has a really cool tradition. We get hit on the head with a cap made out of John Knox’s trousers and including a bit that has gone to space. It really beats the traditional handshake, and I think speeds things up a bit. Mum, being a medical professional, was concerned about spreading head lice.

It was a lovely day, a lovely ceremony, and a good opportunity to see my friends once again.

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A recipe for an unexpected meal

Edinburgh Expeditions

Following the success of The Recipe Given to Us by the Stoned Irishman back in May (onions, garlic, courgette, pasta and salmon in a cream sauce), we decided that we would have our entire meal planned by strangers. This included a toast, cocktail, and a three course meal.

Armed with a notebook, pen and bouquet of yellow roses, my friends and I hit the streets of Edinburgh to have locals and tourists alike plan our dinner party.

The cocktail was given to us first by a group of skateboarders in Bristo Square. The cocktail? A Jakeyboy, half Buckfast and half cider. We couldn’t find Buckfast, so this was nixed in favour of traditional cocktails.

An elderly gentleman gave us the starter–“You’ll want a soup,” he said. “A nice Scotch broth. Or perhaps borscht.” With the suggestion of borscht we also got a story about dining in restaurants in communist Russia. “And the ice cream. You never think of ice cream when you think of communist Russia, but they had the best ice cream.”

Our main was chicken/vegetarian curry (standard Scottish affair, but delicious nevertheless). The dessert a molten chocolate cake–I wasn’t around for either of these suggestions.

Our toasts came from a busker on the Royal Mile, a Portuguese saw-player who wears a top hat. “Salud” is the only one of the three I can remember. Other toasts came from ourselves, the British Navy of Nelson’s era (fittingly, the Sunday toast is ‘to absent friends’ and the occasion for the dinner was a going away party), and a favourite of one of my recently departed American friends which is not repeated in polite company.

We collected stories to tell through the night, including a very sweet one about what you see when you are falling asleep from one of the Royal Mile vendors. One of my friends is an accomplished harpist, so that night when I told the story, we had musical accompaniment.

We gave each person a yellow rose as a thank you for their contribution. The leftovers we used to make bouquets, and the roses are still going strong, sitting on one of the tables in my flat, fully blooming and only slightly touched by brown.

An eclectic evening, but a fantastic one, filled with friends, laughter and the happiest of memories touched with the sadness of our friend’s departure–but her adventures will be wonderful and I look forward to hearing about them.

Losing my zeds.

The Rogue Zed

I fought, I really did. One year of living in the UK, and I managed to maintain my z’s. Organization had one. Realize had one. Hell, ‘z’ was even called ‘zee’ rather than ‘zed.’

Two and a half weeks of working as a copywriter/editor in Glasgow will change one’s spelling.

The ‘u’ in ‘humour’ and ‘behaviour’ and ‘colour’ were easy, I had used them since moving over here and had, in an experimental turn in high school, managed to tick off several of my teachers who pleaded with me to spell like an American. I eventually acquiesced when my creative writing teacher got annoyed with my use of ‘whilst.’

Since coming over to the UK, I’ve embraced the previously taboo spelling. I assimilated ‘whilst’ into my vocabulary. Pants became trousers immediately (and well, undies remained undies or became pants or knickers). Favourite pub discussions became discussing language differences with my British friends and sometimes in the company of another American, one who wasn’t trying to assimilate as much as I.

Theater became theatre. Center became centre. Rotaries turned to roundabouts. Wrench became spanner. As a joke my mum sent me a British-American dictionary, which I haven’t really opened because I’ve committed a lot of the differences to memory..

I held onto my precious ‘z’s. That is, until my boss was reading what I had edited and pointed out, ‘There’s a zed there.’

‘Oops,’ I replied and promptly changed it.

‘There’s a rogue zed there,’ he said a few minutes later. ‘And another one.’

Since then, I’ve become hyper aware of zeds. And calling them zeds. I’ve renounced the ‘zee’…oh blast.