Get your Ceilidh On! An Edinburgh Thanksgiving
25 November 2007
25 November 2007
10 December 2007
so I’ve currently got 2 papers to write for the end-of-term, which is nearly upon us! But I wanted to write about Thanksgiving before I dive into my work.
Let’s just start off by saying that it’s quite a difficult task to explain to the British what Thanksgiving is about. Considering, you know, it’s kind of an awkward history between the two nations. So in the past week, all of us EAPers have managed to diplomatically describe the significance of Thanksgiving without saying “yeah, we hated you guys and kicked you out and so we eat a lot of food with the Native Americans celebrating our victory” outright.
Thanksgiving festivities really started on Friday night, when Christine hosted Fajita Friday at St. Marks. Let’s just say that it made me really long for some Wahoo’s, Chipotle, and/or Las Golondrinas, but for what resources we did have at the market, I’d like to thing we did pretty, pretty, prettttty well. After our gastronomic delights, we immediately revelled in the joy that is my Princess Diaries DVD faster than you can say “chick flick” and pined over Michael Moscovitz. To this day, he just might be my #1 literary crush and I’m not afraid to admit it! I challenge all other characters of literature to surpass him. Do it. Just do it. Pop the trunk, do it.
The next morning Christine and I trekked down to the train station at 0-800 hours in the drizzle drazzle to catch the train that pretty much everyone else was on. We arrived in Edinburgh in high spirits, mainly because we flippin’ LOVE Edinburgh. The greatest part was that a) it wasn’t as cold as we were anticipating, b) all the Christmas festivities were in full swing [and apparently Edinburgh REALLY knows how to do Christmas] and c) we were getting a Thanksgiving meal, hellooo [cellooo it’s a bass]. Between the 5 of us [Jessica’s friend in Sunderland, Rachel, joined us!] we managed to find our way back to Budget Backpackers where I think we were all thoroughly disappointed to not be greeted by Jessica and my favorite Scot, Marty, the supposedly 19-year old yehh-grew-up-in-Edinburgh-but-lived-in-New-Zealand-for-the-past-8-years-now-I’m-back staffer. Hmm, perhaps we should go back to Edinburgh in the springtime?? Yes, that would be very good indeed.
Naturally, we needed to get some sustenance so we went to the Grassmarket and settled into Maggie Dickon’s Pub for a couple hours and caught up with some of our good old Sheffield friends. One of the perks of going back to Edinburgh was the 20% discount card Christine impulsively signed up for at Frankenstein’s during Orientation. So we all managed to get our hands on discounted pints and proceeded to dance in our high heels = excruciating pain was in my future. It didn’t help that Edinburgh is a medieval town meaning that their streets are cobbled and hilly. Obviously, people in the Middle Ages didn’t plan for womenswear to evolve into wearing shoes with spikes to make one appear taller.
After, we returned to Backpackers to shoot some pool in the Americana-ridden game room. Picture, if you will, painted murals of Mt. Rushmore, American flags, and what looks to me like a beach scene loosely based on Baywatch.
Next morning, we met a bunch of other EAPers in the lobby for check-out at 10am and wandered around Edinburgh and their Christmas Market until it was time to get changed at the Roxburghe Hotel, which I have to say, was sooo nice! I wasn’t expecting our American Thanksgiving party to be held at such an cute hotel. Points for EAP! Anyhow, at one point when all the girls were getting ready in the bathroom the fire alarm went off, we ignore it for a while, then end up running out of the bathroom to the streets where we see everyone else is waiting, including the whole of the staff on the other side of the street wrapped in space blankets.
MORE ON THIS LATER. I’m off to Paris for 4 days to meet my beloved SISTER!
Au revoir, mes amis.
09:41
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