"Whatever happens in life, always wipe your sword"

"The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe" was the third performance I've seen so far at the Royal Lyceum Theatre. I've become spoiled with my front row seats at a very inexpensive student concession price. A group of MC ladies went on Friday Dec fifth to celebrate the end of classes and a break from all of our paper-writing and studying. The play (really a musical, because yes, there was singing) helped to put us in the holiday spirit. You know how the story goes in Narnia: "always winter - never Christmas"...well, spoiler alert, Santa Claus showed up. A great big jolly black Santa, which at first I thought was great because I figured that the producers had done a blind casting. In other words they ignored race and just picked the best actor for the part. One point for equal rights. But then I remembered that typically the actor who plays Santa, also plays Aslan, because they parallel each other in the story, so really they type-casted an African man to play the lion... not so blind after all.  

        
But hey, he did a great job. Aside from the fact that he was blatantly a man and not a lion, and that the girls playing Lucy and Susan were only about five years younger than him, so when he said things like "come pet my mane" or "jump on my back" it alluded to much more than I think C.S. Lewis would have liked it to. Lewis was all about the Christianity story line, not so much a grown woman riding a grown man story line, I think that falls more under the Carroll category. [Fun fact: C.S. stands for Clive Staples... no wonder he went by his initials]. There was so much sexual tension between Mr. Tumnus and Lucy when they were in his den that all six of us were squirming uncomfortably in the front row. Awwwwwkwarrrrrd. But once we got past all that, the performance was really spectacular. They had elaborate sets for Tumnus' den, the Beaver's dam, the Round Table, Castle Cair Paravel, etc. We were stunned at how easily they moved these sets around. Backstage must be four times as big as the actual stage to accommodate all of it!  

        
The show was adapted for children, so there was a lot of over-acting going on, and even a song and dance by the Beavers. But the humor was enjoyable. Although I started to forget which fairy tale land we were in when Aslan, Lucy, and Susan were lifted into the air on wires and were flying over the stage. Maugrim, the wolf who was head of the police for the White Witch, had a hook for a hand. Narnia... or Neverland? Or Wonderland with all of the sexual awkwardness? It's like they couldn't decide.    

        
I rather enjoyed the part when Aslan wanted to honor Peter on the battlefield. Aslan took the boy's sword, still covered in blood from killing the wolf, and told Peter to clean the sword first. Then after Peter kneeled and he tapped both of his shoulders with the weapon to bestow honor, Aslan turned to the audience and said "whatever happens in life, always wipe your sword" which got a great laugh from all of the adults there with their kids (and for the six immature grad students sitting in the first row).  Even though they over-acted for the kids, they also pandered to the rest of us with an elbow-in-the-side adult joke every now and then.  

a blurry picture of the inside of the Royal Lyceum Theatre

Eleven Doors Lament

(a dirty limerick) 

When I wish my clothes to launder,

Down across Mylne's Court I wander,

Eleven doors stand in my way,

To be clean - my price to pay,

While dirtiness is free - I squander.

Edinburgh Sparkles

The City Chambers lit up for Edinburgh Sparkles Christmas Spectacular

It didn't take long for The Royal Mile and Princes St. Gardens to light up like a Cruise Ship and Disney World's illegitimate, yet shinny, child. Alright, that sounds a little harsh, but seriously one day it was just pitch black (at 3:30pm) and the next day it was all lights and rides. It just proves that the rumors are true - Edinburgh really does sparkle in the wintertime. That's their catchphrase: "In the winter, Edinburgh Sparkles"... we're making t-shirts... be-dazzled t-shirts... and then maybe a really awesome song... with a great 80's beat... and a chorus of "Let's Go to the Castle"... or something. I haven't really thought about it too much.

Dome Bar and Hotel on George St.

On Thanksgiving, Edinburgh had 'Light the Night'. There was a great big countdown and then all of the Christmas lights were turned on all over the city. We were busy stuffing ourselves with turkey and sweet potato casserole, but later that night Laura, Rachel, and I took a stroll through New Town to enjoy the Christmas lights.  

Rachel sporting a Loch Ness Monster hat

The city set up an ice skating rink in Princes St. Gardens, which my friends and I later enjoyed. There was also a Highland Market, which sold crazy Loch Ness Monster hats. My favorite was the traditional German Christmas Market in the square of the National Gallery. (After I went to Munich and Berlin for actual German Christmas Markets, and lots and lots of them, the one in Edinburgh seemed a bit puny by comparison). But at the time, I enjoyed the crepes and Christmas ornaments. There were some carnival rides set up along Princes Street. We went on the Giant Wheel, which normal people would call a ferris wheel, which had amazing views of the city from the top. There were so many other things, like the Christmas Carousel, the Bungydome, Winter Wonderland Snow Cars and Snow Slide, Workshop at Santa's Igloo Village, real Reindeer, Christmas at the Castle with Santa himself and a jazzy performance by the Swinging Santas.

The Giant Wheel behind the Highland Market      

Happy St. Andrew's Day???

More like Happy Free Animals Day! Saturday night there was another random parade at the castle, followed by magnificent fireworks over The Mound. Someone told us they were to kick off St. Andrew’s Day. What is St. Andrew’s Day, you might ask? Well, I asked the same question, and still haven’t found a satisfying answer. The best explanation I can give is that it’s like a National Day, where they just celebrate being Scottish. There were a lot of Scottish flags involved. It’s kind of like the way we would celebrate being American on the 4th of July. But we specifically celebrate our independence from Britain with BBQs and fireworks… On St. Andrew’s Day, Britain is just celebrating itself, but the fireworks and parade were the day before. On the actual day, nothing happened, except that the zoo had free admission (which we took advantage of, naturally). But there were no more fireworks or parades, no big events or festivals. No BBQs. Nothing. The day after St. Andrew's Day, Monday, stores and shops were closed (which was super inconvenient for me, since no one warned me ahead of time). So to sum up, nothing actually happens on St. Andrew’s Day. It is just a glorified bank holiday the day after, with one meager parade and a couple fireworks the day before.

Fireworks over the castle on The Mound

This is all Wikipedia gave me (not much more of a help, except to discover that it only became a bank holiday two years ago!): "St. Andrew's Day is the feast day of Saint Andrew. It is celebrated on 30 November. Saint Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland, and St. Andrew's Day is Scotland's official national day (although Burns' Night is more widely-observed). In 2006, the Scottish Parliament designated the St. Andrew's Day as an official bank holiday."

me and the penguins at Edinburgh Zoo

Pumpkin Pieless: A Scottish Thanksgiving

Just because I’m living in a foreign country that doesn’t sell pumpkin pie filling, is no excuse to skip one of my most beloved holidays! First there’s no candy corn for Halloween and now there’s no pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. (Well technically there is no Thanksgiving at all). But what’s next, no candy canes for Christmas? (There actually aren’t any candy canes here either, I’m starting to depress myself).  

Rachel and I have perfected the art of Crusting a Pie

So we had a pumpkin-pieless Thanksgiving… but Rachel and I baked three delicious apple crumble pies, and two amazing pecan pies to make up for it! It is my first Thanksgiving away from my family, and the first Thanksgiving that I cooked! On the blessed day, we had four ovens going at once. We were moving from one floor to the next, from one building to the other, from mine and Laura’s flat to Rachel’s to Leigh’s to the boy’s... It was non-stop cooking from 1pm right up until the minute we started eating at 8pm. I helped to prepare two 5.6kg turkeys (roughly 12lbs) for the 23 people who attended our Mylne’s Court Thanksgiving dinner. One bird took up the entire mini fridge that Laura and I share. We also have pretty small ovens here that heat from the sides, instead of all around, so we were nervous about cooking. But save for an exploration of bird carcass caverns for a rogue blood bag, everything went pretty smoothly. One turkey even danced the Can-Can in a cascading fountain (aka Laura wiggled his legs in the sink as she washed him).

Laura and I had our own unorthodox cooking methods

We literally put our blood, sweat, and tears into cooking those two birds: sweat from running back and forth to Tesco and Morrisons to get more groceries and ingredients, tears from laughing so hard that I cried after Laura’s “not-so-PG” turkey comment, and blood from the plate breaking in half and slicing Rachel’s hand after the extreme temperature change from cold to hot as she washed it.

Bringing the turkeys downstairs to the "Dining Room" 

(aka the boys' common room)

The dinner itself was incredibly fun and incredibly crazy. We packed 23 people into the boy’s common room, and once you sat down in your chair, you were trapped in place. As soon as we placed the turkey on the table it was a free-for-all. You literally had to yell, grab, and fight for your food. It can only be described as claustrophobic chaos. I loved every minute of it, but that’s probably because I only stayed in the room for like 20 minutes. One more minute and I probably would have either passed out or freaked out. But it felt like Thanksgiving, because I spent all day preparing food and getting in a T-Day mood with my close friends. 
    

Thanksgiving dinner for 23, 

I can't even fit the entire table in frame!

To unwind after a long, hectic day, Rachel, Laura, and I took a stroll down The Mound to Princes St. to see all of the Christmas lights. We had our own giant tree on The Mound, right behind our dorm. It made me incredibly happy! It was so late that the carnival on Princes St. was already closed down for the night, and all of the lights were turned off. But we walked past all the strings of blue fairy lights on the trees that lined Princes St. (they call Christmas lights “fairy lights” here – gotta love it!). Then we curled up in sweats and blankets and watched “The Holiday”. Overall, it was a great Thanksgiving… and I cooked… two big turkeys… and baked five pies! I’m pretty impressed with myself.

Our tree on The Mound

Rachel and me

Welcome to the MC Zoo

Yesterday, I turned down the Mylne's Court Close and saw a man and a woman standing by the gate to our courtyard. They were obviously tourists, and were marveling at our spectacular buildings, which happens quite often at MC.

        
"These are University dormitories," I heard the man say to his wife.

        
I pulled my keys out of my pocket, passed the tourist-couple, and as I unlocked the gate I heard the woman whisper to her husband:

      
"There's one of them."

      
It's bad enough that MC is part of a ghost tour, and large groups gather in our courtyard to hear the stories of the ghosts that haunt our dorms (which I still haven't even heard yet - not complaining though). And when we wait in the courtyard for each other before going out to eat or shop or go wherever, groups of tourists stop and stare at us, as if we can't see them staring at us. The courtyard at MC is gated and locked.  t's like the people come to observe students in their natural habitat. We should hang up a sign that says "Welcome to the Mylne's Court Zoo, please feed the postgraduates (because they are poor and too busy doing work to cook their own meals). PS Beware of Ghosts."

 

Breaking into Belgium

I've always been a fan of arriving fashionably late to things, and making a grand entrance. Well, on Friday November 21st, 2008, Liam, Christina, and I made quite an illustrious entrance into Belgium. As soon as we stepped off the plane, the three of us followed the group of people from our flight through the labyrinth of the airport hallways to Border Control. We stood in line without moving for about 10 minutes before I realized that no one was even in the glass booths checking passports. A man tried to open one of the doors, but it was locked. Everyone from our flight had crowded into this small room, with locked doors and no windows. I was waiting for them to release the genocide gasses…
        
We waited another 15 minutes or so before people started to get anxious and frustrated and resorted to panic mode. There was this gang of skinheads in skull-clad leather jackets. One of them, fed up, started pounding on the door. He tried to lift the metal shield that covered the glass booths to see if anyone was inside them. Then he violently kicked at the door. The crowd of people watched nervously. The skinhead kicked so hard that he kicked in the door and it swung open. He marched through and the door shut behind him. Everyone in the room just stood there in shock – not sure what to do. I was waiting for an alarm to sound or a SWAT team to repel down from the ceiling with machine guns. Christina, Liam, and I all exchanged glances of disbelief as if to say: Did that just happen? Did a skinhead just break into Belgium?
        
Another man tried to open the same door that the skinhead kicked in, but it was still locked. So he kicked it harder and harder until the lock came undone it swung open again. Then he held the door open and a few people made their way to the front of the room and followed him through to the other side. I looked at Christina and Liam again, “should we?” and then we shrugged and said, “why not,” and followed the crowd through the broken down door at Border Control. We successfully smuggled ourselves into the country, and went off the grid for three days. The government had no idea where we were all weekend long – it was all very Jason Bourne.

Once we checked into our hostel, we wandered around Brussels to see the city all lit up at night. On la Place d’Espagne, we discovered our favorite waffle shop called Gaufre de Bruxelles. Inside there were three long shelves packed with kettles in all different shapes, sizes, and colors. Liam joked that it was like the Belgian Last Crusade: the hunt for the “Kettle of Christ”. We searched through the collection to find the plainest one to call the Kettle of Christ, it was a stout tin kettle with no ornaments or flashy handles.

Can you find the Kettle of Christ?

After dinner, we went to A La Morte Subite (Sudden Death), a beer hall named after the last hand of a card game that locals used to play there before returning to work. There is also a drink by the same name, Morte Subite gueuze (pronounced gerze), which Liam tried. It was absolutely awful. I tried a different twist of the same drink, the Morte Subite Blanche, which was good, and Christina (the beer hater) tried a fruity Lambic sparkling beer, Framboise (raspberry) which was delicious. I also tried an amber abbey beer, called Ciney Blond, which I liked. I loved the atmosphere of Morte Subite. It was like a banquet hall, with its long cafeteria-esque tables, square pillars with brass hat racks, and massive mirrors.

A La Morte Subite

We stayed in a 14-bed mixed-dormitory at the 2GO4 hostel on Blvd. Emile Jacqmain. But there were 15 people in our room that night – and 2 of them weren’t exactly sleeping. Apparently they “weren’t exactly sleeping” all night long. Thankfully I slept through it.

Belgian Waffles

Saturday morning we enjoyed waffles smothered in powdered sugar and chocolate sauce, from our favorite waffle shop, while it snowed in la Place d’Espagne. It was probably my all-time favorite moment of my life. Then it was off to Bruges. We cut through la Grand Place on our way to the train station. There was a giant Christmas tree in the middle of the square that dwarfs the tree at Rock Center.

Christina and I devouring waffles in snowy Brussels, Belgium

So, the whole reason for this trip: a few months ago during one of our Sunday movie nights, Liam suggested we watch one of his favorite movies called “In Bruges” staring Colin Farrell and Professor Mad-Eye Moody as screw-up assassins. It was a very depressing movie but it had hilarious moments of comic relief. The movie was obviously set in Bruges.

Ray: After I killed him, I dropped the gun in the Thames, washed the residue off me hands in the bathroom of a Burger King, and walked home to await instructions. Shortly thereafter the instructions came through - "Get the fuck out of London, you dumb fucks. Get to Bruges." I didn't even know where Bruges fucking was.

[pause]

Ray: It's in Belgium.

The movie is filled with beautiful scenery of this fairytale town and I fell in love with it and decided that I had to visit Bruges.

The town did not disappoint with its cobblestone streets, canals, swans, horse-drawn carriages, old churches, and medieval buildings. Bruges has to be the prettiest place in the whole of Europe, nay, in the whole world. Bizarre weather though. It was all sunny, blue skies one moment and then violent hail storms the next, with scattered snow flurries and a light drizzle of rain thrown into the mix. I believe my exact words were "let’s climb to the top of the bell tower now while the weather is clear so we have good views of-" and before I could finish, grey clouds blew over the square and we were pelted with hail stones. We did eventually climb to the top of the Belfort and the views were spectacular. There was a room near the top of the tower where a man actually played the bells by hammering wooden pegs that protruded out from a piano/organ-looking instrument. The music swelled as we reached the top and echoed in the belfry as we looked out over Bruges. To quote Liam: “it sounded like the climax of an old Sherlock Holmes film.”

View of Bruges from the top of the bell tower 

Bells in the Belfort

We took a boat tour during a patch of sunny weather. The canals were absolutely beautiful. There were actually swans, just chilling in the canals of Bruges. They were so close to our boat that I could have easily picked one up. But large creatures with beaks frighten me, especially wild ones.

On the canals

        
The next stop on our “Shoot First. Sightsee Later. Tour” of Bruges was Heilig-Bloedbasiliek (The Basilica of the Holy Blood). There was a man sitting on a platform, guarding a glass phial that was said to contain a few drops of Jesus Christ’s blood. For a small donation of €2, I touched Jesus Christ’s blood. Well, I touched the plexiglass shield that was covering the glass phial that held within it red and yellow crusty dried up blood that may or may not have belonged to Jesus Christ. They did say that over the years, the blood has turned back into liquid a few times...

Saturday afternoon, Christina and I sent Liam off to Koningin Astridpark in search of his “alcoves” (watch “In Bruges” for an explanation) and then the two of us went shopping for lace, and chocolate, and Christmas ornaments. We met up for dinner and wandered around the city at night. On the Markt there’s a row of restaurants that look like gingerbread houses, all lit up with Christmas lights, and an ice skating rink set up in the middle of the square. Yay Christmas in Bruges!

Bruges at night (like gingerbread houses)

You know what they say: “when in Belgium, do as the Belgians do.” And what do Belgian’s do? They brew 1,000 different kinds of beer…and then consume them. So the three of us found a quiet local pub called De Keld where we had a nice report with the bartender (because for a majority of the evening, we were his only customers). I tried three beers. Isjeeses Reserva, recently voted the best beer in the world, on its label was a cross-eyed, stoned Jesus, blowing smoke out of his nose, donning a Santa hat. It was served in a tall-stemmed goblet – the coolest glass ever. Every beer brewed in Belgium has its own unique glass embossed with the beer's logo (marking the level where the head starts) and is specially shaped to enhance the taste and aromas. Then, I tried a brew called Mad Bitch, and I can’t even remember the name of the third beer I tried (maybe because these beers were 10-15% alcohol and came in giant goblets and wine-bottles). The bartender, Huran’s, ringtone was “Scotland the Brave.” We just can’t escape the bagpipes. They follow us wherever we go… even to Belgium… even to Bruges.

Sipping brews in Bruges

Isjeeses Reserva

As if we didn't have enough of an adventure in our hostel Friday night, Saturday night's stay at the Snuffel Backpacker's Hostel in Bruges proved very eventful. Around 2:30am, two guys came home drunk and made a racket, pulling the covers off of their two other friends, who were sleeping. The little guy jumped into his top bunk, fully dressed in his shoes, jacket, and hat, and started taking pictures - the flash lit up the entire room. The big guy did the exact opposite, he stripped down to just his briefs, his giant beer belly hanging out in the front and a major butt crack in the back. After they finally passed out, a group of six people came into the room, and one of the girls noticed that her bed was stolen by one of the drunk guys' sleeping friends. So her boyfriend woke him up and they argued about it for a while, then realized that they were assigned the same bed number and left it at that. Five minutes later, the lights in the room came on because the group of six people had gone downstairs and brought up the manager so that they could argue about it some more. The manager told her to take the empty bed on the other side of the room. How logical. She could have done that 20 minutes ago and not woken me up. Seriously, Liam, I don't know how you slept through this. Oh wait, yeah I do. You were wasted and passed out.    

Sunday morning, it was back to Brussels. We found the famous Manneken Pis (the little 30 cm tall statue of a boy peeing) and his sister statue, Jeanneke Pis. Then we parted ways and I headed off to the Royal Quarter & Sablon to visit the Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts (Royal Museum of Fine Arts) because my guidebook told me that they had opened an entire Rene Magritte museum downstairs. Unfortunately, the Magritte museum wouldn’t be open until 2009, but I did get to see a few of his paintings on display in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts. While I was in the Royal Quarter it started to snow. I saw some amazing churches, parks, justice courts, and palaces, but my camera battery died so I couldn’t take any pictures of them. They looked beautiful in the snow. But the blizzard wasn’t letting up, so I returned to the hostel, my shoes soaking wet from trekking through the snowy streets, and my toes frozen to the bone. I snuggled up in dry pjs, under my down comforter and took a 3-hour nap.

Manneken Pis 

Starting to snow

In the reception waiting area of our 2GO4 hostel, there was crown molding on the ceiling surrounding a disco ball, with a flat screen TV hanging above a fireplace and a red cushy sofa. During the snowstorm, I curled up on that sofa by the fire and read for a few hours. One of my favorite pastimes: reading by the fire on a snowy evening.

Disco ball in our hostel lobby

         

Our departure from Belgium was not nearly as exciting as our entry. As soon as they stamped our passports on the way out, we were back on the grid. I bet the government was chasing its tail all weekend searching for us...