World Travelers: my Dad & my cousin Lori

My dad and my cousin Lori came to visit me at the beginning of October and it was really good to see some familiar faces. We did extremely touristy things…like take the red double-decker bus around the city like true tourists. We saw some things that I had never seen before but mostly places I had already been. The guy on top of the giant pole is Christopher Columbus and the ugly cement building is where Real Madrid play. The Arch which has two pictures, one at night and one during the day is álcala, the door into the city. The other night picture is of a beautiful building and I probably will never know the use of but it looks cool an has a gold sculpture on top. And the last picture is of my first paella in Spain…yes it took me that long to have it… it was delicious!

Scotland...a homeland (kind of)!!

I went to Edinburgh, Scotland this weekend and it was FANTASTIC!! I got to see some Pomona friends and make some new ones. I went to Rosslyn Chapel from The Di Vinci Code which was very mysterious and extremely detailed and freezing…we discovered fire a while ago how come it too so long to put heat in buildings? One of the inscriptions in the chapel was in Latin and it said: “Wine is strong. The king is stronger. Women are stronger still, but the truth conquers all.” Yet again, if women are stronger why did it take thousands of years for us to have civil rights? Anyway, enough ranting… I also saw the new parliament building which looks cool but has lots of problems, like a leaky roof! It was designed by a Spanish architect who built it more for weather in central and southern Spain…AKA, not for the rain. I saw two castles but didn’t go into them…not enough time. We went to the Whiskey Experience, like I told my mom, it’s like their n ational drink it would be like going to Spain and not having sangria or to Germany and not having a beer. Even though whiskey is an old mans drink and generally not extremely tasty I like two of the three that I tried. We went to a bar and a club on the university camps which was packed and played good-bad pop music from the US and just bad pop from Britain. The German Christmas market opened the day I got there, Thanksgiving! It was adorable and I got a mug after drinking my mulled wine, which has German written on it. I got to see Kirsty (the blond one), a Scottish girl who came to stay with us when I was in high school and I hadn’t seen her in 5 years so that was cool. She brought pictures of when she came and we both just felt really old after looking at them. I know I’m only 20 but…I was 13-14 when she came so I’d like to think I’ve grown since then. Overall, Scotland was very cool especially since Kirsty came to visit me and I’ve always wanted to see Scotland after that. And part of my family is from Scotland and my last name is Scottish but that’s the wrong side…the point is that it was fun and I’m Scottish!