Some kind of a thing

Edinburgh was just flipping fantastic.

Saturday we arrived around lunchtime and headed to the hotel, which at that point was still a 'surprise' because le Bloke likes to play mysterious buggers. Turns out we stayed in the Balmoral, which is the most gorgeous hotel I think I've ever seen. lil_nibbler - it was the hotel where we went to see the Serenity press conference. It was so very much too fancy for the likes of me. We had a king-size bed and, best of all, a king-size bath. I think it would probably be vulgar to talk about how many baths I took. Mmm, bath. The massive fuck-off wide-screen tv was nice too, but my heart truly belongs to the bath. Oh, and thingy, whatsisname, him, whatever. Yeah. Mmm, bath.

We headed out to Rose St. to find a place to watch the ruggerby, which was, if anyone watched it, an incredibly frustrating match. Yes, we won, hooray, but my lord it was tough going. That night we found a little Thai place for dinner. Mmm, Thai.

Sunday morning we (and by 'we' I mean 'he' because I was still dead to the world in the Bed-that-All-Other-Beds-Fear-and-Worship at that point) opened the curtains to find that a blizzard had hit Edinburgh. Now to fully understand the joy that this brings, you would have had to be listening to our endless conversations for a fortnight before we left Sheffield about how great it would be if it snowed while we were in Edinburgh. There may have been bouncing. And squeeing. I was quite pleased too.

So out we struck into the storm. Which - yay snow! Our first stop was the castle, but alas it was shutting because of the snow as we got there. The best thing about this is that we now have a fine excuse to go back. A FINE EXCUSE. Next stop was Greyfriar's Kirkyard, on siriaeve's recommendation. I imagine it's a gorgeous place at the best of times, but in the snow it was unbelievable. Plus, I found Voldemort's family! I'll get some pictures up when I get them off the camera. As we were right next door, we had lunch in Greyfriar Bobby's pub, over which I fought a long-drawn battle of Connect Four, which I'm afraid to say ended in a draw. Though at least that prevented either one of us sulking for the rest of the day. Refuelled on fishcakes, haggis and beer, we popped across the road to the Scottish National Museum to while away a few hours. After quite a bit of whiling, we though we'd better drag ousrselves away or waste the entire day looking at flint flakes, so off we headed to Mary King's Close. Unlucky (some might call us 'unprepared', but I would call them 'shut up yer face') bastards that we are, all the tours for the day had already sold out by the time we got there. Lucky for us, neither of us particularly minded heading back to the hotel room of wonderment and joy very much at all.

After a little more rugby, and yet another bath, we navigated our way to a Mexican place where, as well as a rather unpleasant amount of food, we put away a possibly illegal amount of Margaritas. But they were really, really good Margaritas. We stumbled our way back to the hotel where we felt that, though we had probably had an elegant sufficiency of Margaritas, we're not very elegant people, so we made our way into the hotel bar for, wait for it, more Margaritas. And after all those Margaritas I really felt I needed a bath, because, well, because... shut up. I wanted another massive bath. Screw water shortages, I was on holiday.

Stupid today of course, I had to come home. Today sucks. Except for the room service breakfast. That bit was okay I guess. But the rest sucks.

In conclusion, yay Edinburgh!

I didn't have any classes today so I thought I'd do something productive and sort out my bank stuff. I have two (count em'! Two!) bank accounts. For reasons of interest and such that I just about understand. I have to wait two weeks to get my cards though, and only once I've gotten those am I allowed to apply for a credit card. Maybe that's a good thing...

I also went shopping and treated myself. I got some yummy goat's cheese, and spent about an hour in a second hand book and record shop. I only bought two books though, so I think I did pretty well. I got Hyperion's Fall by Dan Simmons, which is a sequel that I've been looking for forbloodyever as I loved the first one. I also got the gay cowboy book by Annie Proulx! Yay! Gay cowboys! And yes, I know there are other stories in there too, but seriously, gay cowboys.

Somehow I got guilted into running my class's palynology seminar nest week, so I have a crapload of work to do. Which I should be doing now. Or later. Gay cowboys or pollen? Gay cowboys or pollen...

And

When you see this on your flist, quote Firefly.

RIVER
You're afraid we're going to run out of air.
That we'll die gasping.
But we won't. That's not going to happen.

We'll freeze to death first.

Headed out for going-away dinner and drinks on Friday night. Dinner was delish, as even the people who were shouting at me for my lack of organisational skills had to agree. On to Sin E afterwards for pinting. I don't think I bought myself a drink the whole night; they just kept appearing in front of me. And how. Harry got us all onto the guest list for The Gaiety after Sin E, which was a whole bunch of fun. Oh my God the 80's cover band. There are no words. Much like there are no words for how drunk I was. I think I got sick once, but I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that I kept sneezing. So much snot. I'd forgotten to take a decongestant before I went out - not a good idea. I had to keep running to the bathroom to get toilet roll, then forgetting to bring some with me, then sneezing again and having to run back to the bathroom. I found it hilarious at the time.

I'm sure I was horrifyingly rude to some of the people who came to say goodbye to me. In fairness, I had no clue what was going on by the end of the night. So, sorry.

Apparently I was less drunk than Pants though, as she had the worst hangover of her life yesterday, just before she set off on the plane to Spain. Delightful.

What I should be doing now that all my socialising is over with is washing, packing, probably a little panicking. Instead, I'm sitting here updating my frigging livejournal, which is a far more constructive use of my time.

Also, looks like I'll be leaving on Thursday, not Friday. But we shall see. I'll probably never manage to escape this country at all.

I'm off to Ingerrland for the book learnin'. It's probably for the best. Huzzah! So I'll work for four more weeks I guess, then have two off to organise and try and remember how the whole college thing works.

In other news, Devendra Banhart is an adorable, adorable man, even if he didn't play Michigan State, which has been in my head for the last two days.

Also, it's lil_nibbler's birthday dinner tonight, though I won't have her present until next Thursday at the earliest I think. Oh dear.

I am a bad fan. I complete forgot that the new Stargates were airing in the states and that I could *ahem* them. I was all drinkdrinkdrinkharrypotterharrypotterharrypotterdrinkdrinkgiggigdrinkdrink all weekend and it's only now occured to me. I suck pretty hard.

But how about that Harry Potter, eh? I really liked it when that thing happened with the thing. Wasn't a big fan of the thing inside the thing though.

Have finally managed to get to an internet cafe. Woo!

We've been SO busy since we got here. I think we've done nearly everything that the east bank has to offer, and we'll start on the west bank tomorrow. We're having an amazing time, Luxor is so beautiful. It's around 42 or 43 degrees during the day, and goes down to 35 or so at night. We usually nap in the afternoons to get out of the serious sun. This is costing me an extortionate amount of money, so I have to go. SO sorry for any spelling mistakes, don't hav e to spellcheck. Might get to a computer agin befor I come home, I hope.

Yay Luxor!

As much as I love the summer, and the lengthening days and what not, there's one aspect of it that really, really pisses me off. It's when you're coming home after a night out and it's starting to get light. The street lights are turning off, the birds are twittering, the stars are disappearing. What it all adds up to is Nature mocking you mercilessly. Yes, I know I won't be getting enough sleep tonight. Yes, I know I should have been in bed hours ago so I'd have half a chance of being functional tomorrow. Yes, I'm a spanner.

That being said, I had a great night out last night.

Okay, yes, my last entry may have been a wee bit on the vague side, but I can't say any of it was inaccurate.

ATP was , more or less, the greatest thing that's ever happened. Why am I not there now? I couldn't have had more fun. the_deb, jaaam, and kakhanded were all there, plus Meggers and Harry. The best thing about ATP is that, unlike other music festivals, where one has to rough it camping, we had our own chalet, with a shower and kitchen and the like. Plus all the gigs were indoors. Fabulousness abounded. I have never seen so many earnestly cool people in one place in my life. Or so many pairs of Converse. At home, my yellow faux-Converse are at least vaguely interesting, but at ATP they just blended in with a tide of similarly-clad feet.

Highlights included - Buck 65 (Oh God I love him)
- Peaches (Sexy and terrifying in one handy package)
- Dancing to Belle and Sebastian djing (right there! All up in our faces!)
- Getting to hang out with my buds in bed til two in the afternoon (sweaty)
- The candy, oh the sweet delicious candy (I can stop any time I want)
- Yuka Honda (but four songs? Come ON lady)
- The Zombies (ROCK!)
- Yoko Ono being just as pretentious as I expected her to be.

So, yes, a fab time was had by all, I think. When can I go back? Now? How about now?





Now?

Lalalalalalala!

I'm going away tomorrow! Fa la! To Ingerrland!

And now all I need to do is pack, locate my passport and ticket, wash the pink dye out of my hair (I just redid my roots) and go to bed. Woo hoo!

Edited to add that instead of doing those things I have to do, I watched the new production diary at kongisking.net. Go! Watch! Oh Peter Jackson, were you not wed I would take you in a manly fashion. Plus, now with added Bryan Singer! And Frank Darabont! Hee!

Okay, so for lil_nibbler's sake, I'm updating. See, I think I'm going to struggle to come up with anything that anyone would find interesting, but that probably means that the Law They Call Sod will kick in and I'll witter on for pages. Though of course that doesn't mean any of it will be interesting.

I had a nice quiet birthday, just the way I like it. I went to work, got some pressies, got LOTS of cake, came home, watched some tv and went to bed. I have an intense dislike of fuss being made on my birthday, so it was pretty much perfect.

I'd organised to share a birthday do with two of the girls from work - Nora and Emma - so we all headed into town for that. Lots of lovely people showed up at the Globe, and then splinter groups formed. I factioned off with those going to DTwo, which was okay. I boogied, but the place was full of complete knobs. When someone finds a place in Dublin that's knob-free, could they please tell me? But keep it on the down-low, obviously. I left there about three and headed for the Nitelink. However, we had to make a detour for Chinese on the way there. It was a matter of life or death. How Springrolls Saved My Life. I'd pay to see it.

Saturday was recovery time. Ate bagels and bought a t-shirt. It's yellow and I'm wearing it RIGHT NOW. Oh yes, I love my new t-shirt. Though I did spill Ribena on it earlier. Oh well, that's par for the course if you want to be a Jars t-shirt. It's best to get it out of the way early in the relationship.

The rest of my Saturday was spent asking God why he lets Keanu Reeves ruin films. Stupid Constantine... could have been so good... rassen frassen...

Also, Nibbler? Lost is nearly over! But they got a second season! And some very exciting things happened that I can't tell you about! Except that I love Sun. And I finally get why people like Jack so much. As Pants said, "How is it that there's nothing sexier than damage?"

Gosh, I really can write a decent amount about completely boring crap, can't I? Just call me Gustave.



ETA - that livejournal really doesn't take exceptionally long song titles into account, does it? So, I was listening to The Soft Lightes - The Robots in my Bedroom Were Playing Arena Rock, but apparently that won't fit. So look below to see what I'm listening to now. Which, hopefully, has a shorter name.