Spring

Brad and the Tapir
Fire Dancers Wow, it has been a long time since we posted on here. Sorry for the delay, I was in the midst of a last-minute essay panic and Brad's been working like crazy for the last little while so not much has been happening. However, I managed to get all my essays in last week (13,000 words in total) and had a nice week off before embarking on my dissertation which will likely take up the rest of the summer. Brad's picked up a few more shifts (he's still working at the hotel) and he's been gone quite a bit for the past while. I think his workload lightens up a bit in June so that will be nice.

Besides work and essays, we've been trying to see some of the sights in Edinburgh and area. Springtime is amazing here, everything is in full bloom and the city is very green and flowery and it smells great. Anyhow, here's a quick play-by-play of the main events from the past few months:

Edinburgh Zoo
This trip was sometime a few months back, we took the city bus out to the zoo and spent the day looking at all the critters. It was a bit chilly so we missed out on a few of them who weren't outside but for the most part it was a good time, especially when Brad harrassed the tapir. We got that on video (see above).

St Patrick's Day
We spent the first part of the day having a few drinks at a pub down the street that was hosting a huge St. Patricks/6 Nations Rugby (in which Ireland was playing and ended up winning) party and cheering them on, then we went to a second party in the common room and a third down the hall. So needless to say we were all partied out and had to sleep in the next day. But it was definitely a good time, I highly recommend partying with the Irish on St. Patty's Day if you can manage it!

Highlands Bus Tour
Brad got a free bus tour to the Highlands from his work! It took us just through the southern part of the Highlands but we stopped at a neat cathedral, in a park called the Hermitage, at the Glenfiddich whisky distillery for a tour and some lunch and finally at a pub in South Queensferry overlooking the Firth of Forth and the rail bridge, all in all a good day for free, and I got a nice Famous Grouse travel mug as a souvenir.

Brad's parents and cousin were here for a little over a week at the beginning of April, which was a blast, and the remainder of the month was spent finishing essays and then celebrating the finishing of essays, woo! I handed in my dissertation topic yesterday, which will be a comparative essay about the punishment of youth crime in Scotland and Canada. Besides that, we have been enjoying the fantastic spring weather by going on various hikes and trips around the city, mostly walking straight from our flat out to some of the small villages in New Town or up Arthur's Seat (a large rocky hill past Holyrood Palace). A few months ago we took the bus out to the towns of Portobello and Musselburgh which are right on the beach overlooking the ocean. Yesterday a few friends and I took the city bus to the Pentland Hills, which is a very pastoral type of landscape where you can hillwalk amongst the sheep and lambs (so cute) and I even got to see a Highland cow up close (love the hair).

Oh and I'll post a few snaps of the Beltane Fire Festival as well. Basically they do this every night of April 30th up on Calton Hill as a pagan celebration of the coming of spring, so there was a lot of fire and dancing and partial nudity, but it was definitely worth going if just to see the fire dancers and some of the amazing costumes!

Anyhow, should be off to do some work and whatnot, apologies again for not keeping up on the travelblogging lately. We'll try to do better in the summer months!

Cheers from Scotland!

- Brad and Jackie

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Videos from "Spring":

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