10,000,000,000 steps later! :)

Hello...

Today has been very fun. At ten am Sally and I met with Jenny (Anna C. had some stuff to do at her internship so she couldn't join us) and we went on a tour of New Town. Edinburgh is essentially split by Old and New Town. New Town was built by famous Scottish architect James Craig. Old town was overpopulated and filled with disease so they had a competition for who could make the best design to expand Edinburgh. When the town was built by Craig, many of the wealthy folk moved over to New Town. New Town was designed as three parallel streets, Princes St, George St, and Queen St, and on either end a church was built. Another church we came across today was circular in shape and Jenny said there were two stories about why it was built that way. The first is so that devils couldn't hide in the corners, and the second is so scotsmen couldn't hide from the offering plates. Ha. Ha. Ha. :) Those naughty scotties. We ended our tour downtown near the art galleries which overlook part of Princes Park. Here are a few pictures from the park and surrounding areas:




After the tour (and I forgot to take pictures of New Town, so I will post another day), Sally and I had a lunch picnic in the Princes St. gardens. We waited until 1 pm because everyday at this time, a cannon is shot from the castle. Here's a fun little video we made today at the park:




After lunch we took a little break at our flat and naturally, went back out to buy some cookies. We then decided to climb the famous Scott monument:


Sir Walter Scott:


was a famous Scottish writer and poet. His famous works include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, The Lady of The Lake , Waverley and The Heart of Midlothian. A monument was made in his honor after he died. Here are some pictures of our way up the 287 steps and our various views of the city. It was SO beautiful, and they even gave us a certificate because we climbed the creepy narrow stairwells:




Blogger REALLY hates me uploading photos here for some reason and I have about 70 pictures from today that are all REALLLLY beautiful...so you guys will all just have to wait and see! :) I will try again tomorrow to figure out how to do this!

LOVE ANNABO

I am alive!

Hi everyone,

I tried to blog yesterday but blogger wasn't working for me. Yesterday, Monday, Sally and I met in front of the flat and met up with the coordinator of the program, Jenny. She let us in and we were in for a great surprise. The flat is huge, with three bedrooms, and in a very central location. Here are some pictures:



My room!




Anna C's Room:


Sally's gigantic room! :)


Half of the living room:


Other view of the living room:


Adorable kitchen!


Bathroom #1 that has shower and no toilet:

Bathroom #2 that has just toilet.




We were told that the other Anna was coming in on Tuesday due to a delayed flight. So Sally and I decided to get acquainted with Old Town, walked around, ate dinner, and went grocery shopping. We then spent 2 hours successfully fixing our gigantic television. It was fun and we get along swimmingly. Today we woke up to let the other Anna (Anna C.) in and showed her the place. We met with our program coordinator, Jenny, who took us to lunch (thanks epa!) and explained that we'd be meeting with our internship companies today.

I was told on Monday a little bit about my internship and learned that I would be working for the Media Company Limited. This company produces four popular magazines, Spain, Living Abroad, Foodies, and Edinburgh Festival! (Their most popular magazine in the summer). Today I met with my future supervisor, Sue, and she is awesome. She basically told me that I would be in the production room with the editors of the magazine daily and that I would be insanely busy and have a lot of responsibilities ranging from pdf making to image research to writing articles and everything else in between. The staff includes only about 12 people who seem upbeat and creative. I start on Friday and will work 9-6 five days a week. I'm really excited about this. Sue gave me copies of all four magazines and they are so interesting and comparable to magazines that I like a lot in the US. The job will be really fast-paced and I feel like that suits my personality. I definitely won't be bored! More on that after my first day Friday.

The city is so beautiful. It's friendly and small and not that busy and the views of the castle are fantastic. The city screams nostalgia and romance. :) :) :) I just like the fact that the streets are not overcrowded and each side street apart from the main downtown has a lot of character.

Tomorrow Jenny (program director) takes us on a tour of New Town. I will try to take more pictures and post! If I don't get to blogging regularly, it's because I'm having a smashing time OR we haven't installed internet yet at our flat.

Hope everyone is well, leave some comments so I know you are alive, too!

Pictures from today

Here are some pictures from my walk home from the pub...





Here is a little video of the area of my hotel:

yesssssss

my first gay bar...in ANY country! :) I knew I was right with the leather pants and the loads of guys making out...I just ate the best din din ever...and I'm going to walk home in the rain with my trusty umbrella.

Tomorrow I move into my flat and meet my roommates, I'm so excited! :)

Goodnight! :)

Hiding from the rain at a pub on a melancholy day...

Yo,

Since I slept from 11 am (after breakfast) until 6 pm, I was starving and needed to find dinner. Luckily the Regent Pub was open and has food and free wi-fi just down the road. There's nothing sexier than a girl with messy hair in an argyle sweater whose glasses FOGGED up in the nerdiest way when she walked in from the cold. hahaha. And now here I am, I ordered a tuna sandwich (some things just don't change), and some hummus and pita for dinner. It looks like a lot of locals getting drunk which is fun. Everyone is here to stay away from the rain.

Will report in a few minutes after I eat this....

Edinburgh day 2

Helloooo...

It's 8:15 pm and I've had a splendid day. I woke up around 9:30 am after about 5 hours of sleep, and although I wanted to keep sleeping I knew I had a "hearty scottish breakfast" awaiting me. Oh my my...I went out to the eating area and saw cereal and oats, and thought, wow, this looks HEARTY, not....but little did I know they had a menu full of the most heart attack enducing types of food ever. I ate scrambled eggs, whole wheat toast, bacon, and hashbrowns. Relatively tasty! I was really full and went back up to my room....and went back to sleep. I wouldn't be Annabo Kristine T if I didn't sleep until 3:30 pm! At 3:30 I launched myself out of bed and got dressed, brushed my teeth, and went out. I knew I had to seize all the time I could if I was to have an ACTIVE day and be able to sleep tonight. Oh I did. Here are some of the things I did:


Here is a view of the buildings near where I am staying:



I walked to the famous downtown street, Princes street. Because the weather was almost up to the seventies, it was jam packed with people, and of course, men playing bagpipes. Here are a few pictures from downtown:






Here is a video of downtown Princes Street:


After I took in the beauty of downtown, I walked back up near my hotel, grabbed dinner, and decided to tackle the hills of Arthur's seat (which has a beautiful view of the castle:


Here is the presbyterian church I will go to tomorrow, located at the end of the street where my hotel is:





Here is the healthy, small portions dinner I had...fish and chips...I couldn't even eat 1/3 of this, but it was tasty...:




However, I probably burned all calories I had in the last week with the 3 hour hike I took to Arthur's Seat....so worth it! It was disgustingly hot but the sights were oh so breath taking....Here are some pictures!:
This is what I had to climb!! :)












I have more pictures but the computer is pretty slow...enjoy!

Ahhhh...

That was the BEST shower ever....in a magical weird old shower...I'm happily in my hotel snug in my bed. It's 11:41 pm here, which is ridiculous because it feels earlier to me. I took an afternoon nap (I tried NOT to) and still felt tired when I woke up around 9 pm. It was getting dark so I went to the reception desk and asked for a place within walking distance that was open for food. Lucky for ME, there was a nice inexpensive Italian restaurant just down the hill.

Here are a few pictures from my day:

A picture from the heathrow airport in london:



A picture just outside the shuttle I took from the airport to my hotel:



My hotel!

Lots of old looking hallways and stairs:








Here is the restaurant where I ate dinner, about a 5 minute walk from my hotel..I had lasagna!:




I just took the best shower (felt so dirty after 12 hours of flying) and am so excited to go exploring tomorrow! Right now I'm feeling happy, it's all sort of surreal and I think that is from lack of sleep. :)



Goodnight! :)