Thanksgiving Family and Friend Letter

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Here there is so much more focus on Christmas, because, duh, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. On Saturday we are going to go to the International Student Café and celebrate with a Pot Luck Thanksgiving. We’re going to try to bring pumpkin pies if we can find the ingredients. As far as we know, only 5 people have signed up so far, but there will be a guaranteed turkey! When I was talking to one of the ISC officers, asking them how many people to potentially cook for, they really didn’t know. This surprised me, because how are you going to cook the appropriate sized turkey if you don’t know how many people are coming? They should have had a sign up sheet for bringing traditional food and then an alternative sheet for those who wanted to bring something else (like the Asian people like to whip up their simple tomatoes, peppers and vinegar dish). Either way it should be fun and we’ve been told more people will probably show up Saturday night. Even in the UK people have trouble committing. ::Sigh::

We also tried to host a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Turkey Day screening, but we didn’t get much of a response. Ray was really disappointed with that, but I told him that we’ll try a non-Turkey Day screening next semester when students aren’t stressing over papers and exams. People are interested, but right now is the really hectic time of year where activities start to peter out because it’s the end of term. This past week was the last week of lectures, even though as a PhD student I still have to continue my work through the break. Super.

We did go to North Berwick (Bear-ick) on Saturday, which is south of Edinburgh. It’s a quiet little coastal town. Somewhere most people go to during their summer holiday. The trip started out a little cold, but the day turned out to be another fabulous Saturday. We started out by going to the Tantallon Castle, which was really nice. It is on the edge of a cliff. A perfectly defendable castle. There is no way you’re getting in there if it was guarded. We also got some great views of the ocean. And way out in the ocean is a place called Bass Rock which used to be a monastery, but then served as a prison. There was no way you were getting off that rock if you were a prisoner. It was kind of like Alcatraz, but we weren’t allowed to go over and see it. I guess it’s not a real tourist place or something. It would have been fun, though. Probably ghosts would have spooked us. Haha!

After we went to the castle, the bus took us over to the town of North Berwick. There we had several options for activities. My friends were going to climb the Berwick Law (which is this huge mountain outside town). Ray was more interested in visiting the Scottish Seabird Centre and going to the beach. When we heard it takes an hour to climb the Law, we decided to head to the beach and leave the girls to their own devices. Besides, they were being a bit irritating about picture taking anyway and essentially snubbed Ray at the castle. Actually, they were just down-right rude when I tried to introduce them to Ray. Not a big deal for me, I guess and it’s just good to have some contacts if I do go on any of the trips alone. We still shared pictures, sort of.

So Ray and I parted ways with the girls at the tourist center and went down to the beach. It was a cold day, but we were prepared. We pulled out our packed sandwiches and our water and sat watching the sailors get their sailboats ready for some sort of Saturday excursion. We were discovered eating by the seagulls and the fear of Hitchcock’s The Birds was firmly instilled in us. A local lady warned us not to feed them, but once she was gone, we snuck a crust of bread and a piece of apple to two very friendly birds. We admired the view and our calm surroundings and then made our way to the Auld Kirk (old church) and the Scottish Seabird Centre.

The Auld Kirk was less than impressive based on the description we were given, but that’s ok. Apparently, it was home to a church and a coven of witches. Then in February 2000 over 30 skeletons were discovered on the site during an archeological dig. It was just somewhat neat, but nothing very special. The SSC was right next to the church, so Ray and I went inside. The entrance was a gift shop and a café and then you had to pay to go into the exhibits, which had no real seabirds of seal pups (like the advertisement said). Instead, they had cameras where you could watch them live. We decided to save our money and not go down there. Instead we bought a small decanter of Cherry Brandy Liqueur (which reminded me of Great Grandma for some reason), then Ray bought some of these delicious tiny hard raspberry, blueberry candies, I got a Christmas present for Jacob Henke and something special for Lenora (Ray’s grandma). I also got a Puffin pin (those cute tiny penguin looking birds with the orange beaks) and I got my mom a thimble and a Puffin spoon.

After that we went into the harbor where we climbed the rocks, I slipped and dirtied my pants and Ray petted a local dog. We sat on a bench watching the sailboats. One of them totally tipped over, but he was okay. We could see the Berwick Law from our seat and saw flashes going off. We joked about how I was going to post the pictures of the mountain on Facebook and then tag my friends up on the mountain. Haha! We didn’t have much time left, so we wandered into town and turned down a street that had a bunch of shops and restaurants. That is when we saw it: Tiffany’s Tea Room. A tea room… we took this as the perfect opportunity to finally experience an authentic UK tea room and went in. It had Tiffany Chandeliers hanging everywhere and was somewhat tiny. Tables had pretty China with tea pots on them. The walls were bright red. We found a table towards the back and the owner gave us menus. When we weren’t sure what to order, he brought us a test tray. You only see the numbers and you smell all the dry teas and pick one. I got caught up trying to figure out which ones where which, but ended up going with a recommendation of a 50/50 combination of Earl Grey and Darjeeling tea. Ray got the Bengal Fire. Then we decided to be really naughty and have a small sweet snack with our tea. We ordered hot pancakes with maple syrup and 1 scoop of vanilla ice cream. It was so delicious and on such a chilly day, it was the perfect treat. The pancakes were perfect and light and moist (no butter needed) and the syrup was so sweet and the ice cream tasted so natural.

Anyways. We really enjoyed our time in the authentic tea room and asked if they sold tea, since our stash was running low. The owner said no, but that his supplier is right across the street! So we walked over and entered our first specifically tea/coffee store. We ended up getting some earl grey, Darjeeling, oolong, Bengal fire, and some German Pink Grapefruit tea. They said one of the most fun things to do was mix different teas until you find your personal blend. All of these teas were loose tea, so we also got a small basket to go with the tea pot which came with our flat. By the time we were all done with our tea adventure, it was time to round the corner back to the bus. We didn’t want to be the last ones there, since people were getting scolded at the castle for being late and the bus would, definitely, leave without us if we weren’t on it.

Funny thing is. . .we were the first ones back. So we talked with the volunteers. I reminded them about the poor Christmas party that had been canceled because it was waaaay tooo expensive for pretty much every student. But I learned that they were planning a new Highland trip that would cost only slightly more than the last trip. I was excited, so when we got home, I e-mailed the person arranging it.

The trip will take place over my birthday, but after talking to one of the volunteers yesterday, they’re saying it’s going to cost 90pounds a person. The last trip was 40pounds a person. I don’t know. It seems like a bit much. The last group got some sort of discount and this trip doesn’t get a discount. We’ll see what happens, but they’re being really slow about organizing it. If I don’t approve of the price, I’m going to take a train into England instead and do my own stuff on my birthday.

As for today we’re going to walk up to the grocery store and get a small chicken and maybe some other Thanksgiving food IF we can find it. Then I think we’re going to go out to Princes Street for the start of Edinburgh Christmas with the lighting of the Christmas Tree and the turning on of the Ferris Wheel and the opening of the ice skating rink and German Christmas Market. We’ll see, though.

So I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. Thank you Cathy and Bob and Bo and James and Katie and Krista for the Thanksgiving card and the adorable picture of Krista. It meant a lot to us to get that from you. And thank you Beth for the cute MySpace note. And for everyone out there, Beth just got engaged to her boyfriend Brian and they’re getting married next November!!! WOOOHOOO!!! Go Beth!

Hopefully we’ll have time to make some Thanksgiving calls when the neighbors are done hammering on the floors. Love you all so very much and we are definitely with you all in spirit.

Love,
Sarah & Ray