Reading week and so I have some time

Just finished reading a post on another blog I follow about some new chihuahua movie that just came out in the States.

Which made me think of this story that I read early this week. Who knew we would reach a point when abandoning your child was as easy as abandoning a dog that no longer fits in your purse.

The irony of the story, look who told the boy's mother about the Nebraska law.

Pumpkin in a can - or the lack there of

My sister-in-law posted a recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and I got all excited to make them. So, I went to the store this morning looking for canned pumpkin, and had the following conversation with the store employee in the baking isle:

Me: excuse me, may I ask you a question?

employee: Sure, how can I help?

Me: do you have have any canned pumpkin?

employee: sorry we don't, are you American? The only people that ever ask if we have canned pumpkin are the Americans. Sorry, you are going to have to buy a real pumpkin and use it. If you can find a specialty grocery store in Edinburgh you may be able to find it there.

Me: okay, thank you. (but really wondering in my head if she wasn't secretly laughing at America for having such a thing as canned pumpkin. And wondering why in a country where you can buy custard in a can, you can't buy pumpkin in can. There is a market here waiting to be exploited.)

Royal Mile - The Heart of Edinburgh

I thought I would post some pictures of the street I live on. It is called the Royal Mile. Edinburgh Castle sits at one end of the Mile (the end I live on) and Holyrood Palace sits at the other. The street itself is divided into four different sections and each section is named differently. The part closest to Edinburgh Castle, is called Castlehill (wonder why?), the next section is called Lawnmarket (which is the part I live on), the third part is called High Street, and the end near Holyrood Palace is called Canongate.

Edinburgh itself is divided into New Town and the Old Town. I live in the Old Town. According to my trusty travel guides, the courtyards (or closes as the Scots call them) along the Royal Mile actually degenrated into notorious slums, when the New Town was built in the 1700's. Which makes you wonder just how old, Old Town is, if New Town was built in the 1700's.

The Royal Mile is very touristy, but the number of tourists are dropping off as the weather gets colder and windier. It has been very windy this week, and when the wind blows in Scotland, hold on to your kilts.

I have some pictures that I have taken while walking up and down the Royal Mile. I need to take some more with better lighting, but I'll go ahead and post those that I have in order to appease the masses that read my blog.

This is looking up the Mile from the Holyrood Palace end. I was coming back from having hiked Arthur's Seat. The individual in the picture is my friend Geoff. He is studying Nationalism and is from the OC. We have funny conversations about the OC he knows and the OC portrayed in the oh so popular TV show with the same name.

This is a cross-street. On side of the Royal Mile it is called Northbridge, on the other it is call Southbridge. That is one of the interesting things about Edinburgh, the street names change quite often. It is a good way of knowing where you are and how far you have to go to get to your destination. Not so much fun when trying to give directions. If you look closely you can see that I took this picture at exactly 5:30 p.m.

Another shot walking up the Royal Mile. St. Giles Cathedral is the building on the left with dome and spires.

Another view of St. Giles looking down the Royal Mile. The statue you see had a traffic cone on his head before it was given to Adam Smith (see picture below). Sorry don't know who this statue is of. It is not a very good shot of St. Giles, but the sun comes and goes so quickly here that you have to get a shot off when you have the chance.

This statue is Adam Smith with a traffic cone on his head. Don't know how it got up there, but the cone had been traveling up and down the Mile on the head of other various statues.

This is just down the street from the entrance to my dorm.

Don't Let this Be You

My sister noticed this bit of news and sent it on to me.

This post is in no way meant to indicate which way you should cast your vote. It is just meant to say make sure you vote.

Sandwich Americaine

When I was doing volunteer missionary work for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a.k.a the Mormons) in the Indian Ocean, I had the opportunity to live on the island of La Reunion for a bit. This island is a protectorate of France, and is a very lovely island. It takes forever to get there, but well worth it.

Anyway, there was a sandwich that the Reunionnaise had that always made me laugh, the Sandwich Americaine. It was basically a toasted ham and cheese sandwich on a baguette and to make it "american" they would pile on a bunch of french fries and smother it in ketchup.

Tonight, I made my own sandwich americaine. I had some potatoes and onions I needed to use and though why not. I decided to take a picture (because really what is a blogpost about a sandwich without a picture of the sandwich):

mmmm....mmmm...good. The Reunionnaise would be so proud

I am finding that if I want people to comment on my blog, it is a good idea to ask a question that people will respond too, so here is my question, what foreign interpretations of american delicacies have you encountered in your travels?

Now back to reading about the Catholics and the Protestants in Northern Ireland, not to be confused with the Christians and the Pagans gathered around the table. It also helps to put lines from movies or songs and see who can identify them.

Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself - Henry David Thoreau

Friends and I decided to do a nature hike a couple of Sundays ago. It was a lovely day. We hiked part of what is known as Arthur's Seat. There is a higher point that you can hike to but we decided to save that for another day. Arthur's Seat is the highest point in Edinburgh and the best place to go for pictures of the city.

The Cliffs of Despair:


Me prevailing on top of the Cliffs of Despair, and proof that I actually did the hiking and picture taking myself and didn't just copy and paste photographs from web into my post.


These next shots are basically what you see when looking in different directions from Arthur's Seat.

This is the higher point that we decided to hike for another day. From this point, you can probably get a really good view of the harbor, and if you had a telescope, you could probably see the coast of Norway, Sweden, or Denmark. This pictures was taken at the base of Arthur's Seat before we began our hike up.


This is the view looking west. The tall building on the left-hand side is part of the University of Edinburgh. It is actually the David Hume tower. Funny thing was that when David Hume applied to teach at the University of Edinburgh, they turned him down. For this purpose the University built a building in his honor. Somehow, I think the bigger honor would have been to have David Hume as a professor at the University. The library is the building behind Hume tower. The tall building to the right of it is another building on campus. That area of campus is called George Square.


This is the view looking south:


The view looking southwest:


This view is looking northwest, with Edinburgh Castle. If you really love me and have read my earlier posts then you will know that the church spire is basically where my dorm is. If you have not read my earlier posts, then shame on you, you are really missing out on some quality blogging.


The view looking northeast towards the Firth of Forth (I'll let you look that one up):


Holyrood Park is the area that lays at the base of Arthur's Seat. This humble home here is where the Queen Mum stays when she visits in the Summer. I wonder what the mortgage on that place is. The building attached to the house on the right hand side used to be the church, but I don't think that is where the Queen worships, not because she is heathen (could you imagine the scandal the Church of England would have to deal with if she was,) but because the roof has caved in.

You can tour this house, but you have to pay, so I have not yet taken advantage. There is something inside me that rebels against having to pay to see where royalty lives. It is not as if they need to money. When I was in Thailand a couple of years ago, you had to pay to see the President's residency, plus you had to put on pants that covered all of your legs, so I and my sister declined to go inside. Not because of the pants, but because of the cost.


Another picture of the higher hill in Arthur's Seat, with the sun shining. You have to capture the moments where the sun shines so you can look back on them to remind yourself that the sun does shine in Scotland.


That is probably enough for today. Want to make sure you keep coming back for more. Plus I need to get ready for bed. Going down to Preston tomorrow and the bus leaves at 6:30 a.m. Yikes, what was I thinking!

Really I should be in bed

But I came across a photo mosaic on my friend's blog and had to do one of my own, immediately.

Here are the instructions:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.
d. Save the mosaic image to your computer.
e. Upload image to blog and voila!

Here are the questions to answer:

1. What is your first name? Kirsten
2. What is your favorite food? Thai
3. What high school did you go to? Springville
4. What is your favorite color? Orange
5. Who is your celebrity crush? James Mcavoy (this week anyway)
6. Favorite drink? grapefruit juice
7. Dream vacation? anywhere (this is a very hard question to answer)
8. Favorite dessert? Cheesecake
9. What you want to be when you grow up? grown up
10. What do you love most in life? perspective
11. One Word to describe you. determined
12. Where do you live? Edinburgh




1. Kirsten among loads of people, 2. Thai Fried Rice with Recipe, 3. LDS Church in Springville, UT, 4. Orange as any orange on a tree, 5. James McAvoy, 6. grapefruits juice, 7. We can grow anywhere, 8. Rose Tea Cheesecake, 9. Alice All Grown Up, 10. DSC08860 - burning man 2007 - Perspective, 11. Determined Plumeria, 12. Salisbury Crags Sunset, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Now you can productively use an hour of your day to create your own mosaic.

Chez moi

I thought I would post some pictures of my humble dorm room for you all to see. It isn't much, but it gets the job done, which is basically a space where I can study and lay my head at night. I posted this picture already, but this is the entrance into Milne's Court.


The other side of this tunnel opens up into a court yard that separates Philip Henman Hall (where I live) from Edward Sullivan Hall. These people are of course important to Scottish history, but this post is not about history, it is about the here and now.

The court yard from my bedroom - I live on the 7th floor - and our building is the only one with an elevator. I take the stairs to get exercise.

Edward Sullivan Hall - also taken from my bedroom window. At night I know what my neighbors are doing if they don't close the drapes. Since I am on the seventh floor there are only two floors that can see what I am doing while I on the other hand can see what 6 floors are doing.

This is the half of my room that has my bed, a wee dresser and the door to my room.

They don't use full sets of sheets here. Normally you have a fitted sheet for the mattress and then you have a duvet, to go over you. First experienced this when I visited Iceland a couple of year ago. I guess it saves from having to buy another sheet. I on the other hand could not throw off my American made bed ways and had to go to Ikea to buy a full set of sheets. The first time I set foot in an Ikea and it is in Scotland. I personally like the duvet cover I found. Much better than the plain blue one the University provided, but I can't expect them to have good duvet sense like I do.


This is the other half of my room that has my desk, my armoir, a random chair, and two windows that let in glorious light. The drapes may be a throwback from the 70's but they do a pretty good job of keeping the light out in the morning.


This is the view from my bedroom. It had been cloudy all day, and then the sun hit the western horizon and found a gap in the clouds. The picture doesn't do it justice, but the colors were beautiful.

There it is. Now when you picture me slaving away at the desk in my room, you can see the circumstances in which I am slaving, and you can think to yourself, luckily, she has that lovely duvet cover.

Saving the World One Homepage at a Time

Ever heard of Blackle.com? Neither had I until today in class when I used one my of classmates computer and he had it as his homepage.

Check out their about page, and if you agree with them, then you can choose to set them as your home page. It is like they say, every little bit counts.

Also, check out their page of energy saving tips.

Posts on the bedroom, Arthur's seat, and more to come. Just have to finish reading about the North Sea continental shelf case between Malta and Libya. I know what you are thinking right now...international law sure sounds exciting, maybe I should study it too.