Was that English?

In my never-ending effort to catch up on blogging, here is a post about my trip to the UK with my Carleton friends Emily and Lia over winter break. Lia and Emily planned the trip, then I found out about it and decided to tag along. I'm splitting this trip into two posts, this one is about the first few days in Edinburgh and the next will be about the rest of the time in London. In an effort to keep costs low, I flew with a budget airline called Ryanair for the first time (and possibly the last). In order to get to Edinburgh, my first day of travel consisted of a bus to the train station, two trains to oslo, a bus to one of the Oslo ghetto airports, a plane to Edinburgh, and a bus to the station near our hostel. I am fairly amazed that I didn't mess up any connections.

Once I got to the hostel in Edinburgh, I was greeted by these two friendly faces! This ally led from our hostel up to the Royal Mile.

 On the first day of exploring we headed up to the Royal Mile. Emily stopped to check out one of the many shops, while Lia and I waited outside. An old man came up to us and started talking to us, but all I could understand through his thick Scottish accent was, "You can't just stand there..." I assumed he was upset at us for blocking the sidewalk, so I went into smile-and-nod mode. After he left I turned to Lia with my confused look, and she luckily caught a little more of the conversation. It turns out that he wanted us to really explore the Royal Mile and its side streets, rather than just take a straight shot down the street. This was the first of many times that we had to stop and ask ourselves, "Was that English?"

Here we have the fairly new Scottish Parliament with Salisbury Crags in the background, I think. I'm just going to have to make up names for some of these pictures because I don't actually know the real names.

When you look down the line of bike racks at the Scottish Parliament, they make an outline of a bicycle! I was pretty excited when I realized that.

Inside the parliament building they had a bunch of art on display.  My favorite was this public awareness campaign for drunk driving. If you pop the bottle cap, you crash the car.

We hiked up Salisbury Crags and got some pretty good views of the city.

One of the many pictures I am stealing from Lia and Emily for this post. We picked the right day to make this short hike up Salisbury Crags, because it was too cloudy to have a good view the next couple of days.

We visited way too many Churches for me to keep track of them all, but I'm fairly certain this is Saint John's Cathedral.

 We visited the Museum of Childhood, or some crazy place like that. Not at all what I expected. It was actually fairly creepy and mildly depressing. But we did get in a thrilling game of serpentine monsters and rocket ships (shoots and ladders in disguise). Also, there was a family speaking Norwegian at this museum, so naturally I strained myself trying to eavesdrop. I was mostly unsuccessful.

Yes. This is a doll made from an old shoe. I think little Miss Heel-face here would be just a little too traumatizing for little kids. They would be better off just playing with their imaginary friends or playing violent video games.

[Cue eerily enthusiastic smile] Slow and steady wins the race! (Except in real life: then you just have to be really fast.)

Emily is ready for a polo match... or a play date!

That day we saw a place called The Baked Potato Shop beside another shop called Miss Katie Cupcake on one of the side streets. "Hottest tatties in town!" was written on the awning of The Baked Potato Shop. Initially I assumed both of these shops were named after the type of food sold there. Commence confusion. Looking into the window of Miss Katie Cupcake, I saw that it was not at all a cupcake store, but more likely an antique shop. Then I came to the false conclusion that tatties must be slang for tattoos (I don't know British slang) and that The Baked Potato Shop was just an ironically named tattoo parlor. Wrong again. The Baked Potato Shop was exactly what it sounds like: a shop that sells (delicious, delicious) baked potatoes. Dinner plans were thereby set. I was somewhat skeptical, but the cheese and bean tattie turned out to be tasty and filling.

Back in our hostel lounge with the hottest tatties in town (so hot that the steam made my photo blurry). Best deal on dinner of the whole trip!

Being a tourist is hard work. This picture really sums up how we all felt at the end of each day.

Inside Saint Giles Cathedral, Emily befriended an elderly man working there and won us a special tour and history lesson.

Outside Saint Giles Cathedral with a really depressing Christmas tree. Seriously, it's tied down by the strings of lights and caged in. This tree is not escaping any time soon. And the peace signs start.

This is where you take a stand against taxation without consent by spitting on the heart marking the location of an old tax booth. It is also a popular place for non-locals to propose. If only they knew about the cocktail of spit that they kneel in.

Peace, tatts, and Mary King's Close.

This is what I had to put up with the whole time. Thank goodness I'm so mature and would never do something like that.

Da castle. Peace yo.

Looking in the opposite direction of the castle we find the best apartments in town on the left there. But seriously, living there would be awesome.

We visited the Elephant House, the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote the first couple HP books. It looks out over the castle, a graveyard, and a fancy-pants private school that all supposedly provided inspiration for the books. We visited the graveyard and found a few of the character names there.

With enthusiastic smiles like that you would never guess we were in a graveyard. We found Professor McGonagall here.

A sampling of the graffiti in the men's bathroom at the Elephant House.

Going back to the Baked Potato Shop story, later on we found another shop selling baked potatoes across the street from a tattoo parlor. This led to our idea of a new business called Tatties and Tatts, where you can eat a tasty baked potato while you get a tattoo!

Maybe it's hard to see, but the tattoo parlor is on the left, and Tempting Tattie is on the right.

We stopped by the royal residence at Holyrood, and Emily and Lia had a tea party outside the gates.

I brought my own biscuits to this cafe/pub to have with my coffee. I just had to be sneaky about it, hence the guilty smile. I think this cafe was right by the public gallows. Yum.

We then hiked up to Calton Hill where we were rewarded by awesome views and a random collection of monuments.

Emily and I climbed up onto the pillar monument for Lia to take a picture, and then we started dramatically pointing...

...when we realized Lia was in place for this sweet pic. 

And this one, too. More of that random collection of monuments on Calton Hill.

Those biscuits again. Cookies on the cannon on Calton.

Our favorite past-time was visiting churches for carol services. This one offered free mulled wine and mince pies afterward. Genious.

If I could explain this, I would.

So in summary, our take on Edinburgh was basically tatties (not to be confused with tatts), biscuits (which I would confuse with cookies), mince pies (which don't actually have any meat in them), and mulled wine (which is just a good idea). Next post: London.

Something old, and something older

I guess I should probably wrap up blogging about last semester. (Is it possible to be bad at blogging? Because this is getting ridiculous.) So here are a few snippits from the end of last semester without any continuity to tie them together.

After I got in some pretty good training in the fall, Joey (D-I 800m runner. Nuff said.) volunteered to rabbit a mile for some of us in the running club on Thanksgiving Eve. The idea was to run a sub-five minute mile. Even with all the training I did in the fall, I was a little skeptical that I'd be able to run that time. I just followed Joey the whole time, and his pacing was perfect. I felt great on the home-stretch and gave a little kick to finish-off a 4:53 mile with relative ease. Just 3 seconds behind my indoor PR, which honestly was a much more strenuous race. It turns out that running goals are a lot easier to meet if you don't have to think at all (or deal with "that kid" employing the sprint-then-die-hard race structure). I think this event might also support the idea that a reasonable sleep schedule makes training much more effective. But that is just a theory. Like evolution.

The next day my hometown friend Daniel arrived in Trondheim to visit for a few days. He had just finished a few months in Tanzania, and was continuing with a quick tour around Europe. I found out that the activity house at my housing village lends out cots for free. Win! We got together with some of my friends on Friday to celebrate Thanksgiving… with pizzas. This is how we do it in Norway. But really, we just weren't up for trying to prepare a turkey (I wouldn't even know where to purchase one). A great night with awesome people and interesting conversation. Amurrica!

We even got fresh snow while Daniel was in town!

During Daniel's visit also paid a visit to Rockheim (the Norwegian rock music museum) with my German buddy Daniel and his girlfriend, who was visiting. I know nothing about Norwegian rock culture, so the content was kind of lost on me. BUT the building itself had a cool design inside and out, and the whole place was filled with excessive applications of touch-screens and various interactive gadgets that kept me occupied.

 Right before Daniel hopped on the train out of Trondheim, we also made a (very short) pilgrimage to the Nidaros Cathedral. Last summer when I told people back home that I would be going to Trondheim for a year, they either had no idea where that is or they would talk about the awesome Cathedral. I somehow managed to live in Trondheim for a few months and pass by the Cathedral countless times without ever going inside until Daniel came to visit. It was definitely the best (and only) Norwegian Cathedral I have ever visited. But honestly, I love what it adds to the city's skyline.

Christmas comes but once a year. LIES! Norwegians celebrate Christmas an average of five times each winter. (Totally made that one up). Really, every department, club, company etc. has it's own christmas party. Some of these have to be super awkward because normally there is no overlap between your work and your social lives. Then suddenly all of your colleagues are having a dinner party together? Also, apparently Norwegians haven't heard the rule about not starting the Christmas season until after Thanksgiving, because these parties start in mid-November.

The running club held a one of these parties, and I have to say the atmosphere really got me in the Christmas spirit. We had some tasty julegrøt, which the Norwegians translated to porridge, but really it was just like rice pudding. There were two almonds hidden in the porridge (traditionally there is just one). Joachim convinced me that the person who finds the almond in their porridge has to yell, "Mandel!" (Norwegian for almond.) Of course I ended up finding an almond in my porridge. Luckily people didn't hear me over the chatter because I was laughing to much to actually yell. Turns out Joachim was just trying to make a fool out of me. What's new? Later on at the party, the people at my table came to the unanimous decision that if we were attacked while walking home, then I would be the one sacrificed. That's love.

Now that I'm done talking about fall semester, I can finally post about where I spent Christmas. (Guaranteed to be another picture-storybook post!)

Lysefjorden

So. Yeah. I really don't know what to say for myself. It's been over two months since I last even looked at my blog. I guess I was pretty dedicated to No-post November (I may have made up this idea). Then the end of the semester came along to occupy me with exams (okay, really I just wanted to have fun before everybody went home for Christmas/forever). So, my loyal readers who totally still exist must be getting anxious for some new posts. I'll try to pop out a few before the start of the next semester in an attempt to catch up. Here we go.

Way back on the last weekend in October I took a trip to Lysefjorden in southwest Norway with a couple of Minnesotan friends that I met here. Kristin did her undergrad at Gustavus Adolphus, and Xiao Jing is finishing up at St. Olaf. This situation holds endless potential for jokes starting out, "Ole, Gusty, and Carl walk into a bar…" But I will refrain from the terrible punchlines. We flew into Stavanger, located on Lysefjorden. I think that translates to the bright fjord. Maybe.

Xiao Jing, Kristin, and me at a lake near Lysefjorden.

Seeing as Stavanger is the oil capital of Norway, we made sure to check out the Petroleum Museum for an informative video in 3D (I sadly fell asleep during it) and some always exciting coloring.

Xiao Jing deep in her art. Krissy channels her inner kindergartener. I think the playground in the background really adds something.

We then dressed up in some orange suits that were used for… well I didn't read the sign, so I don't really know what they were for. Clearly I learned a lot and got my money's worth.

I am wearing 3D glasses so I can see everything underwater in more detail. Xiao Jing is wearing prescription glasses so she can see.

After the museum we found a ghetto playground just outside and decided to join in the fun. The most interesting parts were giant pipes and giant salmon eggs, as well as the ever-present graffiti. Because, you know, kids love giant pipes and spray paint drawings that almost rival their own artistic ability.

Note the hat peeking out of the lower left corner. Hmm...

Oh! It turns out it's just a little kid. And a bonus little creeper on the right.

"Surprise!" Just ten feet away we have a random pipe.

"Michael, you're doing it wrong."

Next we walked around the city harassing the various statues.

"I can has pony?"

"I can has duck?"

"Vi can has giant furry hat?"

We then drove and took a ferry to the Preikestolen Hostel and Hotel. 

The scenic route along Lysefjorden was the only option.

The view of the lake (not the fjord) was awesome from the hostel bathroom window. 

This what you see when you go pee pee.

The next morning we did the obligatory hike up to Preikestolen, which is a giant cliff hanging over Lysefjorden. When we finally made it to the famous landmark, we saw people taking pictures sitting on the edge of the cliff. Peer pressure always works, so we took some pictures with our feet dangling over the edge as well.

"Look, Ma. No hands!"

 I crawled on my stomach up to the edge of the cliff, because I wanted to look cool and not because I am terrified of heights.

So this photo was staged. Still, the expression is genuine and priceless.

Preikestolen from a little higher up.

And a little higher up.

I don't think my parents have seen these pictures yet, so SURPRISE!

After we got back, I decided I wanted to go swimming in the lake. It was cold, but not as cold as the lake in Estenstadmarka (previous post). I am scared of lake monsters, so I didn't stay in very long or go much farther than where I could no longer touch the bottom.

Thrilled. Clearly. For some reason this expression didn't convince Xiao Jing and Krissy to join.

Michael: 1, Lake Monsters: 0.

That day we received a free upgrade from the hostel/cabin to the hotel because it was the end of the season. Score! Even without the upgrade, I would recommend this place for the tasty breakfast buffet, awesome view, and convenient location for hiking to Preikestolen.

Gratuitous morning shot.

We splurged on dinner that night and ate in the hotel restaurant. That night they were serving wild sheep with gnocchi and beets or something fancy like that. Kristin was somewhat put off because the meat was rare and bloody when cutting it. At first I also was like… but then I was om nam nam!

"Don't mind me. I'm just being classy."

The next morning we went for a short hike along the lake before starting the drive back to Stavanger. We stopped before we got to the ferry so we could put our feet into the fjord water.

Not a bad place to live.

It felt like any other water.

We then bummed around the city waiting for our flight back to Trondheim. Since it was Sunday, not much was open. (Can I end on that note? I have no concluding remarks to make.)