double decker

I have a love/hate relationship with British buses. On the one hand, they're double decker buses, and that's just awesome! I go up to the top and sit at the very front just like a little kid every time. 

On the other hand, they seem to have a mind of their own. Here are a couple things to be wary of when taking the bus in Edinburgh (or anywhere on the whole island, actually): 

1. you have to wave them down at the bus stop. Just because you're standing at the stop doesn't mean the bus will actually stop. I figured that out the first time my bus drove right past me without a care in the world. So when you see your bus coming, stick your hand out or jump in the road or something to make yourself seen.
2. Know where you're getting off. In German buses, even if they don't stop at every stop, they'll always announce the next stop to give you the chance to press the button signaling you want to exit. British buses just drive. They give no sign of where you are or how many stops you've even passed. You just have to know. I do a lot of guessing and hoping and accidentally getting off the bus a couple stops early.

And a completely related and relevant note, the more I'm in the UK, the more all the Harry Potter details make sense. But I totally don't pretend I'm on the Knight Bus every time I flag down a double decker and enjoy the ride from the top.... no way. 

It's that time of year again

I signed on Twitter today to see that "Hogwarts Express" is trending. I love that even without the hype of an impending book or movie, everyone remembers to get to platform 9 3/4 on September 1. 

Ever since opening my first Harry Potter book about 12 years ago, I became one of those kids that always wished (sometimes not so secretly) I would be joining the rest of the wizarding world at King's Cross Station to board the Hogwarts Express... 

Ok, so I never made it to Hogwarts, but in exactly one week from today I will be boarding a train heading to Dortmund for yet another exciting year in Germany. 

It may not be wizard school, but I think it's pretty cool anyway. 

A tribute to Harry Potter

In the heart of the old city in Edinburgh there is a cafe called the Elephant House. From the outside it looks like pretty much another cafe - a red facade with big windows - really nothing that seems to out of the ordinary. 

Of course, when you look a little closer at those big front windows, you'll see that this little cafe boasts itself to be the "birthplace of Harry Potter." 

That's right, JK Rowling favored this cafe (among a few others) in Edinburgh while writing the first 3 Harry Potter books. If you check out the link to the cafe's website, they have a very cool video of an interview with JK Rowling as she was writing book 3, before the books got really popular. 

So, being a bit of a Harry Potter fanatic myself (I don't want to admit how many times I've read the books...), I decided to give it a try. 

My favorite thing is that you order tea not by the cup but in either a small pot (about 2 cups worth) or a large pot (about 3 cups). And it's not just a cheap tea bag from a selection of about 4 different flavors, but actual tea leaves. I feel really awesome when I get to use a tea strainer :-p Having never been a fan of coffee, I <3 the UK for their tea culture!

Today when I went (yeah... I've been two days in a row now) I got a prime seat by a window in the back with a perfect view of the Edinburgh Castle (also a personal fave sight in the city). From this seat it was perfectly clear how this would be ideal location to create something like world of Harry Potter. 

Let's not lie, I'll probably make a few more visits to this great little cafe before I leave on Monday morning. 

Keep your eye out for many more stories from Edinburgh to come! It's great to be back :) 

Catch up

Oh hey blog, I almost forgot you were there! I'm sorry I've been so horrible about posting this month (3 posts for November so far, compared to the 14 of October. And not a single vlog!).

But lets not focus on my short-comings as a blogger...

Life has definitely been picking up since we last talked. Gemma and I finally got paid so we've been able to leave the apartment without fear! But there was some irreparable damage done... for example, the fact that we discovered a mutual love of wine and card games, making it much less exciting to leave the apartment when the promise of both waits for us at home.

On Wednesday we had a day off (some obsolete religious holiday that only the schools still observe), so Gemma, Andy (an ETA in Erlangen -click his name for a link to his vlog-), and I went down to Munich for the day to meet some other friends, 2 from Munich and another from Passau. The actual reason for the trip was to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 in English, but visiting friends and seeing Munich was an added bonus. We all felt honored (dare I say, unworthy?) that such a big movie was being released in Germany 2 days before its US release? For once we had the upper hand in pop culture by being in Germany (trust me, this doesn't happen very often).

I'll spare you a full movie review, but I do want to say that I thought the movie was fantastic! There were parts that weren't great, and plenty of details from the book were missing. But people need to stop expecting movies to live up to books, in general. There is no way you can fit every detail from a book into a movie. Not only just because of time constraints, but also because the two mediums, book vs. film, don't always allow for the same channels to inform the audience. Where, in a book, an important detail can be brought to light simply by the narrator mentioning it, in a movie, it would have to be added in a character's line or somehow visualized. So while the movie is based off the book, you can't watch it with the expectations of it being exactly the same.

right, sorry about that little tangent... back to life in Germany?

Not too much new or exciting at school. I'm starting to worry about changing schools with Gemma in March (that's when their semesters change), because I'm just now settling and feeling comfortable with my teachers and the way my school works. I still don't even know half the teachers' names (even some that I've worked with several times....)

I did get to make an awesome Quiz about drinking/going out in the US (click the link to the quiz for an idea of what kind of stuff we're allowed to talk about in school as opposed to in the US).

Gemma's parents are in town this weekend, so they have been out seeing the area. I met them for dinner in Nürnberg last night. But it ended up being the biggest night of coincidences. Gemma&co. were headed to Bamberg for the afternoon then to Nürnberg for the evening and dinner. My plan was to take a later train and just meet them for dinner. As it turned out, they ended up leaving Bamberg later than expected and we ended up on the same train down to Nürnberg. Then when we were walking around Nürnberg we decided to stop for our first glühwein of the season. Suddenly I heard someone say "Emily..." and since Emily isn't the most popular name in Germany, I was immediately suspicious. It turned about to be 2 other ETAs from Nürnberg who were supposed to meeting our other friend from the Erlangen area and her boyfriend. So there we were, all 8 of us, just having happened upon each other in the middle of Nürnberg!

It ended up being a fun night! Unfortunately there is a lot of construction going on on the railway between Nürnberg and Forchheim, so we had to take a bus to Erlangen. Well the bus dropped us off in Erlangen at 11:40pm and the next train wasn't due till 12:39. So we waited, in the cold, for an hour. But there were brownies from our newly working oven waiting for us at home, so it was all worth it in the end!

I'll leave you with this for now. I hope all of you in the US enjoy your Thanksgiving break and have a great holiday!

Transatlantic

I think my day of traveling (all 36 hours) counts as the longest trip I've ever made by myself! Although the man at the airport saved my life with the extra weight fees of the bags, I found myself restoring balance to the universal yin and yang almost immediately. 41D was my seat on the plane. Usually I like to ask for a window seat, but because the man who checked me in was doing such a huge favor anyway, I decided I could live with D, which on most planes is an aisle seat - most international planes I've flown having 3 rows of 3. Not this plane. For 8 hours I sat uncomfortably sandwiched between two strangers in the middle seat of the middle row. I usually love flying - the longer the flight, the better! 12 hours China? Loved it! But 8 hours in seat 41D and my perspective has changed slightly.

We arrived at Gatwick 30 min early (6:30gmt/1:30est). In the airport I had to open and repack one of my bags to switch out my giant carry on for my horn. Yes, I checked my horn. And this is how:

1. place horn safely inside case
2. pad empty space in case with socks, underwear, etc.
3. place entire horn case inside large piece of luggage
4. place shoes in empty spaces of luggage to prevent sliding
5. pad empty space of luggage with large coats and t-shirts

I was glad to see that my horn made it safely through it's first sub-cabin adventure, although I never really want to have to do that again. So after trading my carryon luggage for my horn I was ready to head off into the city!

I had been debating for several days before the trip if I would try to navigate the Tube (£1.80) with my two bags weighing over 50lbs each or if I would just take a taxi (~£20). After struggling... no, not just struggling, straight up battling my bags just to get them on the Gatwick express I knew there was no way I was getting anywhere fast with them on the Tube, or period, really. Fortunately pretty much every bus in the city stops by London Victoria, so I found one that would go straight to King's Cross. And Although I was obviously out of place with my giant suitcases on the full bus, it only cost £2 and my luggage and I both made it safely across the city.

When I arrived at King's Cross, they were just announcing the platform for the train to Edinburgh. Unfortunately it was the 10am train and I was on the 1:30pm train. Yes. I was almost 4 hours early to the train station. So I got a luggage trolley, loaded up what was surely well over 120lbs of luggage and hung out. for 4 hours.

***side note to Harry Potter fans:

Of course my first instinct while at King's Cross Station was to visit platform 9 3/4, so

after about an hour in the station I did just that. Immediately I faced several problems with this endeavor. First, you can't even enter that section of the station without a ticket (I wonder if they accept letters from Hogwarts?). And from what I could tell, tracks 9 and 10 no longer share a platform. Forcing what is sure to be hundreds of young wizards running straight into the tracks to reach the Hogwarts Express. However, when in London in 2008, I made sure we sidetracked out to King's Cross to get some pictures at the infamous wizarding platform, but it appears that area is currently blocked off for construction. I hope they get it ready by september 1, for the first day of school! ;)

***

Four hours later, after sleeping, eating, reading, doing circles around the station, etc. I loaded everything on to the East Coast line to Edinburgh - a 4.5 hour journey. Despite the strain of now having been awake for 24 solid hours, I only managed to doze for about 1 hour on the train. for the other 3.5 hours I plugged in my iPod and watched the British country side fly by. It was gorgeous! I would recommend taking a train across the UK just to see it all! Shahida and her boyfriend, Simon (who I also knew from Zurich), met me at the station! Thank God Simon was there, because he carried one piece of luggage up the 4 flights to their apartment and came back to get the mine before I even reached the 2nd floor!

I think I managed quite well, not having slept for so long. I allowed myself to sleep till noon yesterday, thinking I deserved a solid 11 hours of sleep after my long journey. But I was up by 9 this morning, so I don't succumb to jetlag. I haven't really noticed it too much so far.

Yesterday I spend the day sleeping and reorganizing my suitcases so I could actually find things in them, then we went into the city to have fish and chips for dinner (which I actually liked!) then went to the movies (only £3 because it was student night) to see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Today I'm meeting Shahida for lunch at work then wandering around the city before meeting up again for dinner and drinks!

There are a lot more plans in the works, but there'll be time for that later.