since friday aftertoon my life has been filled with amazing people. kelly and sarah (two best friends from stout) walked into the glasgow international airport with Lauren (MY SISTER)! we spent the weekend in edinburgh walking around: watching a street performer, climbing an intense hill to see over the city, and letting the sun touch our faces as we soaked in the presense of eachother.
mark was really nice to let us all sleep at his place in st. andrews. so we spend sunday going to church, which was amazing and for only 7 pounds we got to go up in a tower and see all of st. andrews, go through a museum and walk through the st. andrews castle. the best part about the castle was when sarah and i road our 'horses' in to it and then the five of us 'shot a canon out of the window! its fun to have an imagination!
what has been really neat is that i think God new when the best time would be for lauren, kelly and sarah to come. i was getting a little lonely and missing friendships! its really great to be able to let them all experience what i experience everyday. and i have realized how important friends and family are. they really give fill hearts with love!....and laughter and smiles!
it was fun to see lauren take off her shoes by the ocean and me telling her she was crazy when that is exactly what i did the first time i saw the ocean!
they got to eat at the best panini restuarant id say in scotland...Le Rendevous. Mark and i have finally learned the owners name, Aldo. So aldo made 4 mean ham paninis (baguette, ham, cheese and wildberry chutney (jam)) and sarah got something different as she like to venture off...the first night she jumped right in to scottish quisine by getting chicken and haggis with a whiskey sauce!
we relaxed a bit before taking on the big city glasgow...i called a taxi for the first time when we got to the bus station and of course it was chaotic and the taxi driver couldnt find us and we couldt find him...but about twenty five minutes later we were in front of 50 Hillhead (my flat). we spent the day eating outside the uni building and then they came to my lecture with me for celtic civilizations...they seem to better understand why im not a regular attendee after that...sadly you want to snore. we rested up before our big st. patty's day experience...we walked around the idyllic ashton lane and there were tons of people dancing, talking and drinking in the streets! we ended up at a pub called Curlers where a deal was with getting a burger, chips (fries) and a pint of cider was only 3.75 pounds! afterwards it was mission pint takeaway (MPT)...had to get a guinnes glass from a pub so we went to this one where an irish band was playing...it was full of st.patty spirit! the whole pub was filled with people clapping, singing, holding their drinks high and having a cheerie time!! it was such a good cultural experience...lauren however was the only one to succeed to spot an empty glass and take it away!
lauren has two more days here so hopefully she will get to do some shopping and other fun stuff...it will be hard to let her go home.
this upcoming weekend though mark, kelly, sarah and i are heading to london. Then on monday kelly, sarah and i are going to hungary and rome. Kelly has a friend in hungary who is letting us stay with her and then rome just for fun! it will be exciting because so many adventures are going to be made!!
i hope i can update at somepoint during the next journey here....