The END.

Well, this is it!  I'm home now, but I thought, partially for my own record keeping, that I'd wrap up my year abroad on this blog...

So, since I'm still jet lagged, and only able to think chronologically, here is a detailed list of highlights from the last few weeks :)

1. Goodbye dinners and garden parties.
2. Essays, a ridiculous exam and plenty end of school stress, and then...
3. My mom came to visit!
4. We hiked up Arthur's Seat and marched all over Edinburgh.

5. We trained it down to Bury St. Edmunds for some quality Lupton/Rae time in the beautiful sunshine of their garden.
6. We celebrated Mom's birthday with epic eating adventures.
7. I moved out.  Insanity.  I acquired stuff.  Woops.
8. I introduced my mom, aunt and uncle to the Chocolate Tree and none of us slept that night :)
9. Mom chopped five inches off of my hair.
10. Mom, Aunt Pam, Lewis and roadtripped to Oban and spent some quality time on the beach.  It was beautiful...

11. And then we came home.

Its really hard to believe that my year abroad is over.  I can't quite figure out how I feel about it yet, but right now it feels incredibly good to be home.

I've really enjoyed writing this blog, and I'm not quite ready to give up blogging, so if you're interested, my own little space of the internet can be found here.  I'm sure I'll find something else to ramble on about... :)

MUCH MUCH LOVE.

10 Thoughts

1. 500 words is better than 0 words
2. I can't wait to get back to 12 hour time.
3. My mommy will be here in ONE DAY.
4. Listening to "All I do is Win" does not make me win, rather it makes me distracted.
5. Suuuuuunshiiiiiiiineeeeee (daisies, butter mellow, turn this stupid, fat rat yellow)
6. Crunchie Ice Cream Bars.  There is nothing better.
7. 11 days left of Study Abroad.
8. My skin has reached new levels of see through.
9. Would it be bad to put "procrastinates like no other, but somehow gets the job done at the last minute" on my resume?
10. 22 days till I'm 22!

Bloom

I'd like to live in these colors, please.

Going the Distance (Over Dramatization)

This may or may not be my theme song right now...  I can go the distance.  The distance may just be this one little paper that I need to finish, but right now it seems ridiculously daunting.  But like the song says, "somehow I'll be strong."  And I'd like to see that awesome sunset when I'm done, please.

Guess what time it is??

Finals.  Exams.  Whatever you call them, they feel the same (as explored here).  And just like in Cape Town, its ridiculously cold here for spring finals!  Who do they think they are?  Making me miss Ithaca... Who woulda thunk?  Although, to be fair, all the emails coming from Cornell at the moment are not making me excited to return.  Cornell, its time to pull yourself together.  Really though.

 This is definitely not what I should be writing right now, and all I can say is if this is me a year before I graduate, I can't even begin to imagine what senioritis is going to be...  Not pretty on me.  I can tell you that for sure.  I'm starting to wonder if the only thing I've learned to do in all of my university time is to procrastinate.  Well, that and make up crazy things up with lots of big words and call them intellectual English papers.  My major is in... well you know what, but I'm not going to say it...  Ahem.

I did go on a pretty cool outing last week.  Wednesday was the last day of Ridvan (the 12 days of Ridvan are the holiest Baha'i holy days), and I went on a hike with some awesome people up in the Pentland Hills.  We walked up pretty substantial hills for a few hours and then stopped at the top of the tallest one.  When we first arrived the entire hilltop was covered in fog, but as we sat there it cleared and the view was gorgeous.  It was magical.

The pictures definitely don't do it justice, but here's one anyway...

Also, cherry blossoms have come to Edinburgh, which is fantastically fabulous.  I love pink.

Unfortunately for my productivity levels, these make the view outside of the library windows that much more beautiful and make my work progress in the minutest of ways.

My momma is arriving in twelve days, and between now and then I have to live in the library... So if you hear from me, tell me to go back to the library, cause there is no excuse.  I'll probably be around here and here, but hopefully not too much...

Love love.

Paris

I've been trying to write this post for two weeks and in the process I've discovered that it is ridiculously difficult to write about Paris without sounding completely and unforgivably clichéd...  With that said, if you find yourself unable to forgive the unforgivable, I must implore you to stop reading this post at once, cause its going to be cheesy.  And long...

Paris with these two (and their accompanying adults) was absolutely lovely.

This was the day we went to Versailles and unashamedly pretended to be princesses...  (The daisy crown helped, a lot).

While we were there we saw Marie Antoinette's personal village, which was beautiful, and a extremely telling example of the extravagance...

 

Hustai at Versailles

(that's supposed to rhyme...)

We also went to the Louvre, and I marched through in my usual museum fashion and didn't take photos.  Woops.

We ate.  A lot.  Chris and I tried anything and everything salted caramel flavored.  Fantastic.

We got caught in the rain, and contrary to Midnight in Paris wisdom, there are better things than Paris in the rain, primarily Paris in the sun.

             

I ended up walking around with Dad and Annabella a lot, and we can never resist a photo opp...

On my last afternoon we wandered around Sacre Coeur and had one last creme brulee...

You better bet I joined this linked-arm cuteness shortly after :)

The trip home was ridiculous in the way I've come to expect getting home after Spring Break (see here for full details), but I made it, and they let me back into the UK, even though I didn't bring the right paperwork...  Oh dear.  Fugitive status?

I had a beautiful week in Paris.

Since then, I've been to London (for a crazy, unphotographed, refreshing and exhausting 23 hours of friend time...), written a little bit (read: not enough) poetry, thought about studying for exams, gone hiking (more on that later), "cleaned my room," possibly broken my foot, and just generally enjoyed being back in Edinburgh.

Until next time!  Love.

Journal: 24 April 2012

As I walk around these now (somewhat) familiar streets I get the feeling that this city and I have unfinished business.  I'm not sure what it is, but I don't feel ready to leave.  By my last month in South Africa, I was devastated to be leaving, but I felt ready.  It felt right.  It seems like I'm just learning how to be here.  The time has flown in the most painfully, inching sort of way, and I need more.  There is magic in this land.  I lost track of it for a few months in there and I'm just now starting to remember.  I'm not ready to leave.  There is no 'but I'm so ready to go home.'  I'm just not ready to leave.  So maybe I won't.

Just one more...

The face that said 'goodbye' to us on Skye...

Isle of Skye

For the last week I've been traveling with these two...

I don't know what hour this is of the approximate fourteen that it took us to get from Edinburgh to Skye and back (its not supposed to take that long), but you can bet that we were having a good time, and probably singing, telling jokes or teasing Grace :)

On the way up we stopped at the oft photographed Eilean Donan castle to take an obligatory picture.  It is beautiful!

The Isle of Skye was incredible.  I loved every minute of it.  After we had slept and been fed breakfast we set out for the Fairy Glen.

We left shiny coins with wishes for the fairies.

 And (respectfully) clambered all over.

It was definitely magical.
That afternoon we adventured up to visit The Old Man of Storr.  We got a little lost, so we ended up climbing up incredibly steep hills that we had to stay super close to in order to avoid being thrown off by the wind, but we made it!  We were cold and tired, but we definitely made it, and touched it.

The next morning I woke up early and marched into Portree.

And found a beautiful place to sit in awe.

And sing a little Badasht.

On our way back to Edinburgh we stopped by the Fairy Pools for more magic and wishing.

And were treated to a little snow.

 And sun.

Such an amazingly magical and exquisite island.  I know I'll be back in the future.

We spend a few days on either end of the trip in Edinburgh doing all the touristy (read princessey) things and are now in Paris eating like kings.  It has been a pretty fantastic week :)

Love.

Beautiful City, Part II

When I wrote this post back in January, I had no idea what I was getting into with this city.  Back then our relationship was in the one-sided crush phase, now I'm fully head over heals in love and I'm just hoping that the city loves me back.  Things are going well so I'm inclined to believe it does :)

(the pictures look much better if you click on them)

I've been waking up obscenely early, which I don't particularly mind, but I find myself with a lot of daylight hours to fill.

This morning I marched out of the house, bright and early, and walked all over Marchmont.  It's simply beautiful.

I stopped by The Chocolate Tree for some pretty amazing hot chocolate and continued to explore in search of awesome houses and flowers.

I was definitely not disappointed.

One of the best things about moving away from Hawaii is experiencing seasons.  I love love love Spring.  Autumn is amazing too, but there is something so special about everything coming alive again.

Also, if I ever move back to Edinburgh, please let me live here...

My time here has been so many things, good and challenging, but right now, when I think back on the last three months, it feels so precious.  I'm moving into a different phase of living here; the visitors start tomorrow, and I'll be traveling, taking exams, visiting friends and family and playing tour guide for the next two months.  It will be lovely, I'm sure, but I've really cherished being alone with this city.

The quieter, the more patient and open we are in our sadness, the deeper and more unerringly the new will penetrate into us, the better we shall acquire it, the more it will be our fate, and when one day in the future it 'takes place' (that is, steps out of us towards others) we shall feel related and close to it in our inmost hearts.  And that is necessary.
                        --Ranier Maria Rilke


Now, don't worry, I haven't been living in the depths of sadness, but I do feel that this has been an introspective time, and that something big and new is going to manifest itself soon in my life. I hope I can love the changes.

Much love.