Week's Highlights

Cannon from the Castle pointing right at the Christmas Market.

A fire alarm went off while we were at the Castle so we all had to get on the grass.

This is the Highland market at the Christmas Fair.

This was taken on Saturday after our first night of snow. 

Saturday night we disregarded the warnings to stay indoors to see the fair and markets all lit up.  At a whopping 20 degrees, definitely worth it!

Today on our second day of snow, we had to celebrate!

This is the Grassmarket area.  It is georgous in the snow!

And this is the Castle after our second snow taken at the Grassmarket

A Happy Thanksgiving

If you were to ask us what we did for Thanksgiving, you wouldn't be able to guess the answer.  Of course we told you in our last post what we planned to do, but it is so much more.  In fact, this posting can hardly be typed due to frozen fingers.  Anyway, I will began. 

Other than Brandlyn having class today, it started out to be a normal Thanksgiving.  (Well, except for the fact we missed the Macy's parade, but what to do?)  John cooked a delicious Thanksgiving meal including a roasted chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, rolls, and devilled eggs.  Our friend Gabriella joined us for our delicious meal bringing a dessert of pudding.  It was foreign to us all at was more like a very sweet, rich, solid with some fruit in it. It was very tasty however and brought a great end to our Thanksgiving meal.  Around 5 we left to go see the lighting of the Christmas tree on the Mound.  It was beautiful, clear, freezing night. Christmas music was playing on the speakers around us, a city official spoke as did a man from Norway where the tree was from.  Then, there were drummers who were dressed like drummer toy people.  They were then hoisted by a crane up into the air on a mobile.  It was like being in a giant baby's crib.   Only after watching them drum in the air while the top toy person performed acrobatic tricks did the Christmas tree light up along with the rest of the trees in the area and the rides at the Fun Fair behind us.  Once the tree was lit the fireworks began! So, to sum it all up.  Our Thanksgiving consisted of a meal, freezing weather, Christmas lights, real toy drummer people flying through the air, a huge Christmas tree and fireworks.  Not typical, but definitely a great time!

Our Thankgiving Meal

Christmas Tree on the Mound

Toy Drummers on Mobile Contraption with an acrobat girl at the top.  Very Cool!

Although difficult to capture fireworks and a lit up tree at night in one shot, it can be done!

 

 

 

 

Taken the day before Thanksgiving, this is what we still look like.

This is a lovely sunset.  Taken at 3:30pm.

Chrismas, Weddings, and other things.

With only a little over a month left in 2010 we have obviously been kept very busy.  Brandlyn's classes are getting more busy with assignments and everything coming up while John has been quickly reading the Harry Potter series to finish it in time to see the new movie.  We have done nothing spectacular or extraordinary, but are still having a lot of fun and being very much entertained in Edinburgh.  One plan we have made for Thanksgiving is not to celebrate it.  We planned on celebrating it despite the fact that we had no clue how to fit a turkey into our oven, but our plans changed once we realized that November 25th is the first day of Edinburgh's Christmas.  Apparently there are a lot of things going on in one of the parks here including a fun fair (rides and all), and ice-skating ring, and a German market.  Of course all of this will be lasting for about a month I think, but November 25th is the first day of it; the first lighting of the Christmas tree and the street lighting.  All of this we know from what we saw on the internet, so we will let you know what it is actually like once we go.

The days are shorter now.  Today the sunrise was at 7:58 and the sunset will be at 3:58.  On many days, such as today, it is cloudy which makes it seem to get darker earlier.  We are slowly adjusting to it.  We have actually already put our Christmas tree up. It makes it very homey and warm in our house especially when it gets dark so early.

The Royal Wedding is getting a lot of attention here, although one of Brandlyn's Scottish teachers told the class that the Scots really don't care about the wedding.  She said the Monarchy is more of an English thing.  The story has obviously been dominating the news and there are people that are not that thrilled about having to hear about it all the time.  However, we haven't talked to any other Scot's about it so we can not say what the main consensus is.  We are kind of excited to be here during a Royal Wedding.  When Princess Diana got married it was a big deal, so if this wedding is going to be just as big, it will be nice to be able to say that we were in Britian when Prince William was married.

It's Holiday Time!

Fall is the season of Holidays.  Well, actually it begins on October 31st with Halloween which in our observations, adults possibly enjoy it more than the kids.  As we walked down the street there were many funny creatures and people that we saw, all adults.  Many pubs had costume contests and Halloween parties.  Although we did not dress up, it was a lot of fun to see everyone else dressed up. 

Other events that have been going on are of course Guy Fawkes / Bonfire Night which was on the 5th of November.  We do not know everything about Guy Fawkes, but what we do know is that the movie V for Vendetta is kind of about him.  Apparently, he had a plan to blow up the Parliament building in London (I don't remember the time). His reasons, I believe were religious. Needless to say, he was cut up, but luckily broke his neck before they started cutting him up. (Gross, I know) Anyway, during Bonfire Night, people light fireworks and I guess hold bonfires burning Fawkes in effigy.  I say I guess because although we did see a lot of fireworks going off, we did not see any bonfires, but we heard of them happening.

We also have Remembrance Day which is on Sunday.  This day is similiar to America's Veteren's Day.  It is a day to remember the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and civilians in times of war, specifically the First World War. It is also called Poppy Day.  There are stores who have a box of Poppies and people donate money and put a poppy flower on their shirt or jacket in remembrance of those who have served.  We have been seeing more and more people walking around with their poppies lately.

We have no Thanksgiving here, although we will still celebrate it with a turkey, but Christmas will still begin the day after Thanksgiving!

Now on a completely different note, but something I have been wanting to mention, I would like to compare universal things that are in both New Mexico and Edinburgh. We will compare Starbucks stores. First of all, they are everywhere (at least by where we live). The downside to the Starbucks in Edinburgh is that they do not sell pumpkin spice lattes.  This is very sad, however they do make up for it by serving eggnog lattes as well as new Christmas flavors.  The plus side to the Starbucks here is that if you enjoy your coffee in the store, they will give it to you in a glass coffee cup.  It is what we have been hoping Starbucks in New Mexico would do, but have yet to do it.  Here, it is normal, not just a sometimes thing.  It is great because not only does it help the environment, and make sense, and resemble Friends just a little bit,  but it is just cool.  In the comparison, Edinburgh wins!