Some kind of a thing

Am home! Had good fun in the States. Massachusettes is a good bit, methinks. Still have little access to the series of tubes, so I'm gonna be scarce for a while.

Will update with my American exploits at some point, but there were margaritas, buffalo wings, planes flying into buildings next to us and some other stuff. All good stuff.

That cliche about needing a holiday to get over your holiday is horrifyingly true.

Last Sunday we slept through our alarm, and only my panic upon waking up and checking the time whenever I'm going away, regardless of alarms, allowed us to catch our Sheffield to London bus on time. From central London we got a train out to my aunt's place, which is in a little village on the Thames. As it was Sunday, bloke got to see his first cricket match. It was lovely to be able to see my aunt and my cousin, as they've been having a rough time of it lately. The next day we trundled from there to the British Museum, where the day was spent in geek joy. We also managed to squeeze some shopping in, in preparation for France. We woke up at seven the next day to catch our train to London, from where we caught two tubes to another train station to catch another train to the airport. With very heavy bags. Always fun.

We didn't arrive at the airport with a huge amount of time to spare because of some tube delays earlier in the day, but we weren't in too much of a rush. Until, that is, bloke's bag got pulled out for a search at security. The guy searched for about fifteen minutes until he found what he was looking for - a tiny swiss army knife that bloke had forgotten he had. We were thus late to arrive at the gate and didn't get to sit together. Other than that it was an easy flight and we arrived at Toulon in plenty of time to pick up our rental car and navigate our way to Avignon. We had to stop by the coast first as bloke was most excited at seeing the Mediterranean for the first time. We made it to Avignon by about eight that night (Bless the French roads and their signposts) and ventured into the city for some dinner.

Avignon is a gorgeous town a walled medieval city, dominated by the Palais des Papes, the seat of Rome in the (I think ) 12th, 13th and 14th centuries. At night it was just stunning. Our hotel was small and basic, but very central. If it weren't for the creepy dolls littered about the dimly lit hallways, I'm sure I'd have liked it very much. The next day we headed out into the old city to do the tour of the Palais. They're big on audio tours in France, apparently. Which I always think are faintly ridiculous, but it was handy to have. We have many, many photographs, but as they're on bloke's camera, it'll be a while before I can get them up. Late in the afternoon we left Avignon to get to Nimes, which took about fifty minutes. The driving around Nimes looking for our hotel took another two hours, however, at the end of which we were both quite snippish, to put it mildly.

The next day in Nimes we spent looking at the Roman remains - a temple facade firstly, but also an ampitheatre in amazing condition. They still do bullfights there every year, and the festival had just finished when we arrived. The tour was fun, but I didn't really learn anything I didn't already know. From Nimes we drove down to Marseille airport to pick up my friends Pob and lil_nibbler, who had arrived with jaaam, her boyfriend Harry and her parents. I was given directions on how to get to the house in Provence, and off we set. After about ten minutes driving and looking at the map however, I realised that the directions were wrong, and we headed back the other way, eventually getting to the right road. The other car didnt realise so quickly however, and we had to wait quite some timebefore their car caught ours up. We reached Varages (a lovely little town in Provence) a bit before midnight, found the house up at the top of the tallest hill, had a cup of tea, and headed to bed.

The house was really lovely. It's used as a yoga retreat by the owners, who are friends of jaaam's parents. The list of fabulous things about the house is far too long to mention, but my favourites included - the pool, the five-ring gas hob, the balcony outside my bedroom window and the hammocks littered throughout the grounds, the Irish teabag supply already in the cupboard when we arrived. The views and the weatehr were spectacular the whole time we were there, though we got a little chilly at night, being so far up in the mountains. Our time at the house was pretty uneventful - lots of bread, cheese, wine, reading and Pictionary. I think it's the time of year for them too, but I saw at least ten shooting stars while I was hammocking at night. Myself and bloke drove down to the coast one day so we could swim in the Med too, but it was less than two hours each way, and not too strenuous. It was brilliant being able to hang out with ma buds and such, seeing as it's been so long since I've seen them, and just doss for five days.

Yesterday we left early in the morning so we had time to stop and take pictures and buy presents. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time, but our plane from Stansted was delayed becaue of the security restrictions there, which we'd only vaguely heard about. We were thus two hours late landing at STansted, and even the hour and a half cushion Id given us between landing and catching our bus wasnt enough. Also, bloke has an American passport, for which the queue was an hour long coming through customs. As he had to be up at six this morning to catch a flight to Boston from Manchester, this was not a great state of affairs, especially seeing as when we asked about coaches, we were told the next one would get us into Sheffield at four in the morning. Eventually we decided to rent a car that he could drop off at Manchester this morning, as it was cheaper and quicker than getting the train. We even got back home earlier than if we'd caught the coach we weremeant to get, which made up for the crapiness, if not the extra expense.

So that was my holiday, and I went back to the lab today, and I am tired.

Have arrived in Dublin. On stupid dial-up. Internets will remain sporadic, no doubt.

About to go to organic market. Am going to eat ALL OF THE OLIVES. So if anyone wants some, you better get them in the next few minutes.

Malcesine and the wedding were both fabulous. Will update a bit more when I'm back in the Shef.

Still hope no one's done anything interesting in my absence.

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!

Lordy, but it's been a while since I've updated.

There were many things, including , but not limited to: project writing, funerals, flying home, starting classes, playing computer games, having to turn my computer off for nearly a week to catch up on reading.

So.

Hm, things. Once you get out of the habit of doing this it's hard to remember anything interesting, isn't it? So how's about this - ask me questions and I'll answer them. Truthfully, unless it's easier to lie. As it so often is.

I'm here! And I have a place to live! Huzzah! I'll email the particulars to those who'll be wanting them.

I was up at five yesterday morning to get the boat, which would have been fine but for my mum who can't look at water without puking everywhere. The rest of the journey, in the car, only served to remind me why I was leaving the country in the first place.

Mum: Snipe
Dad: *mutters under breath*
Mum: Snipe
Dad: *mutters under breath*
Mum: Snipe
Dad: *Screams so loudly people in the cars next to us turn to look*
Mum: Snipes and *continues to make scene*
Jars: Can you two act like grown-ups for five fucking minutes please?
Dad, Mum: Shut up Karen.

For most of the day. And navigating for my Dad is never the mostest fun in the world ever, because it inevitably ends up being my fault when roads aren't signposted, and stopping for directions is like cancer, apparently.

But. We got here in the end. My room is bigger than I thought it would be, so that's good. Also, right in the centre of the city, and only five minutes from the department.

I've three flatmates; one from Leeds, who's also doing an Arch science course, but not the one I'm doing; one from Greece; and one from the Netherlands.

Our tv has Sky, but the channels are in a completely random order, and I'm not sure what the other channels are. I might go through them and write it down.

Anything else people want to know? I think I've spent all my loan money already, so people who come to visit will be buying ME dinner. Just so you know.

Looks like I actually will be escaping the country after all. On Friday morning. Very, very early.

I have some packing done. Maybe I can make lil_nibbler and jaaam help me with the rest of it tonight. I want to buy boots in town before I go too... hmmm. Things to do.

So anyway, Sheffield here I come.

I realise I don't have very much perspective on it yet, but i'm fairly sure that Monday was the best. day. of. my. life.

Who knew that could happen when you have to get up at four in the morning to catch a plane, after not sleeping because you can't breathe for snot? Not I.

lil_nibbler and I got in to Edinburgh by about half eight, which wasn't the most fun thing ever as we couldn't check in to the stupid crappy hostel until three in the afternoon, but whatever. We hung about 'til about ten, when we met up with Kevin, who gave us our tickets for Serenity, and is therefore the best man on the planet. We faffed about the town a bit, waiting for check-in, so we could have a nap, when who should we see but Nathan Fillion doing a bit of shopping on Princes Street. At that point Nibbler pretty much had a psychotic break, and the hero-worship part of my brain overloaded. Us being polite Irish girls who hate making scenes, we continued on our way. Until lunch time, when Kevin sent me a text asking if we might like to go to the press conference. Why yes Kevin, I think we might like that. Like it LIKE A FOX. Which is how we ended up sitting in on the EIFF press conference for the premiere of Serenity. Nibbler almost couldn't stay in the room she was so excited. Also, afraid that people might speak and do things (everyone who knows Nibbler knows what I mean right here). It was much fun. Joss, Chris and the cast all seemed really excitede to be talking about the film, and being at the festival, and the press all seemed pretty positive, though I guess that's par for the course. Nibbler managed to sit through the whole thing, and only gasped a few times when the cast came in. Which didn't give us away as not!press at all, no not at all.

After that we headed to the hostel for a nap, but were too excited to sleep, perhaps understandably. About half six we left the hostel to meet up with some other fans for drinks before the movie. And we didn't nearly forget the tickets at all, no matter what anybody says. We hung about outside the cinema waiting for the cast to arrive, which was cold but fun, talking to other fans. The talent arrives, cue lots of photographs and screaming. And cue queuing for another forty-five minutes to actually get into the theatre, though at least it was indoors queuing, for which I am eternally grateful. So we hand over our cameras and phones and after an introduction from the Director of the EIFF, and a few words from Joss, we watch Serenity.

Yeah, I'll talk about that another time. Suffice it to say, I felt feelings. Many feelings.

Brief Q and A afterwards, mostly crap questions, though Nathan did the Dance of Joy, which can't be a bad thing.

Back to the hostel, to sleep for the first time in about forty hours.

Yesterday there was some pottering about Edinburgh, which is lovely and all, but did kinda get eclipsed by the whole Serenity thing in my brain.

Yeah.

Still in Egypt, still having fun, still have an egrregious case of diarrhoea. Huzzah!

Will be ballooning on Tuesday morning. We're both very excited. I'm assuming if I fall out, I'll bounce. That's how it works, right?

Sunburned my back. Argh. It itches.