Seventh Word: Thank

thank: O.E. þancian "to give thanks," from Proto-Germanic *thankojan, from *thankoz "thought, gratitude," from PIE base *tong- "to think, feel.

I'm writing this post as I eat some Thanksgiving left-overs and look out at our snow-covered castle. For anyone who knows me, these left-overs would not be on my list of favorite foods (greenbean casserole, sweet potato casserole, haggis) but the comfort and nostalgia they bring (besides the haggis, I guess) are what make these Thanksgiving foods an exception.

Alex and I hosted seven other people for dinner and two others joined us for dessert. We managed to fit eleven people into this tiny flat! Much to my surprise, the dinner went by with out any significant disaster. Ok, we broke the bowl all the mashed potatoes were in, the turkey was done an hour before all the guests arrived, and Alex forgot to take out the giblets :) But everything tasted so good! Here's a basic rundown of the foodstuffs:

-a 9-10lb turkey, not dry and very delicious
-mashed potatoes and gravy
-excellent green bean casserole
-sweet potato casserole
-corn pudding
-stuffing
-rolls

We were blessed with a diversity of cultures at our meal: American (Jason's from Mississippi which is definitely a different culture than ours up north), Scottish, English, and Belgian. Our Scottish landlords' son brought some haggis. It was so tasty! It went perfectly will all the other flavors we had. If we can find some good stuff in the US it might make an appearance at next year's feast (beware, families!). For dessert, I made a pumpkin pie, Jason brought chess pie, which as far as I can tell is like a butter tart, and pecan pie (we had trouble deciding how to pronounce "pecan." pee-can, pee-can, pee-cahn, or pih-cahn).

Our Belgian friend made delicious truffles, and Sydney (an American) brought marshmallows, graham crackers, and Hershey's chocolate. Our British friends brought whisky to add to black tea (apparently a typical Christmas drink where they are from...not even the Scots had heard of it). Every non-American there was given a s'more to eat :) I think they liked them. I know they thought they were ridiculous and messy. Also, none of them believed us about why they are called s'mores!

We played a few rounds of Telephone Pictionary and Balderdash (remember, we're in a Linguistics program!), which was full of raucous hilarity. And the best part of the evening? SNOW! It was the first snowfall of the season and they were beautiful fluffy flakes! I went out to the roof right below us and made a snow angel :) It was magical:

The best part is that the snow is still here! (I'll admit, I listened to Christmas music this morning.) And we're supposed to get more tonight.

Thanksgiving is such a great holiday, especially for the food, but last night, five cultures came together and shared food traditions and stories of holiday feasts and I think we all felt pretty thankful for being together. Most of us were displaced from our families back home and it felt good to be a part of a family again. Alex and I missed our families, of course, but our family over here is pretty cool too. 

My "Say What?" in this post comes from an interesting cultural difference that was mentioned last night:

We were all talking about childhood memories and Alex brought up "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." Ben, who is from England, noted that Brits must be more cautious about tv violence than Americans because when he was growing up it was called "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles."

Sixth Word: Dessert

dessert: c.1600, from M.Fr. dessert (mid-16c.) "last course," lit. "removal of what has been served," from desservir "clear the table," lit. "un-serve," from des- "remove, undo"


You will get the joke once I've told my stories. 


I grew up making Christmas cookies with my mom every December. There were at least five or six kinds. When you're a kid, you like the "cut-out cookies"; sugar cookies that you get to decorate with frostings of various colors and myriad kinds of sprinkles. You laugh when your sister shows you her one-eyed snowman or at the Santa who's only "wearing" undergarments. Snow-top cookies, Russian tea cakes, spritz, magic cookie bars, peanut-butter kisses. Cookies. 


Last year was my first year to attempt the Christmas cookie spree solo (Al and I had a place of our own then, remember?). All went well...I guess the snow-tops were a little hard...and I didn't add enough sugar. In my defense, the oven we had was a ruthless monster that gobbled up your fare as soon as you stopped paying attention. Running roughly 50 degrees hotter than the dial was set at, one had to keep a keen eye the little morsels lest they turn black. That doesn't explain the sugar though...


Something I can't blame on the oven, is something many of you have heard me tell of before. Alex's dad and I both love pie. So for one of our birthdays (can't remember), I decided to bake a cherry pie. My mom cans cherries every summer and I noticed that we had a jar of them in our pantry. I also had a few left over in the freezer. As I'm stirring the cherries on the stove, I add in the frozen ones and notice that they are a much brighter red than the ones that I was stirring. I figured it was either because they were frozen or that they were two different kinds of cherries. The mixture took a long time to thicken up and wasn't even that thick in the end. I poured them into my pie crust, made the top crust look all pretty, and carefully placed the pie into the oven. I watched that thing like a hawk. I was not going to bring a burnt pie to this party. Let me tell you, it looked beautiful. I carried it so carefully on my lap in the car and then into the Masons' house. 


I cut into the beauty after all the candles had been blown out and stuff oozed everywhere. Actually, "ooze" implies some form of coagulation. The thing was a mess. I cut Alex and me slices and we bit in. The flavor was pretty good. The crust was too, but...we kept crunching down on something every bite. Did the cherries still have their pits? It was so weird. I've never had a cherry pie crunch before. Realization dawned on Alex's face sure as the sun does each morning. The previous week he had gone to pick concord grapes at his friend's house and put a can of them in our pantry!


Well, to make a long year short, that was pretty much the end of my mess with baking. Then Edinburgh came. New country, new oven. Ok, nothing beats the grape pie story, but US-metric conversions aren't easy as pie (if you know what I mean). To sum up, milliliters and grams are NOT the same thing. Yes, you need to invest in a scale. No, you can't just eyeball it. I have ended up with several, paper-thin, mushy cookies (oh yea, add baking soda!).  So making cookies one day, the consistency of the dough was completely wrong because we didn't understand that 250g (1c) of butter and 300ml (probably less than 200g (2/3c)) of flour would make a soggy batch of cookies.  We had to add almost a half bag more of flour. But they turned out well. It was a big accomplishment figuring out that one :) 


So now, I'm sitting here smelling the wafting aroma of cinnamon and treacle (molasses, to you folk) as our cookies bake away in our perfectly-on-temperature-although-it's-in-Celsius oven. mmm...I can just taste them. 


Say What?


squidgy: squishy (although, to me it sounds a little denser than something squishy). Alex says, squidgy can also be "soft" as in a "squidgy neck pillow." See:

Fifth Word: Companion

Companion: c.1300, from O.Fr. compagnon "fellow, mate, friend, partner" (12c.), from L.L. companionem (nom. companio), lit. "bread fellow, messmate," from L. com- "with" (see com-) +panis "bread." Found first in 6c. Frankish Lex Salica, and probably a translation of a Germanic word (cf. Gothic gahlaiba "messmate," from hlaib "loaf of bread"). 


Perhaps fittingly, Alex makes delicious cheese scones and we frequently eat them together. I guess he makes a good "companion." Hardy-har. 


This past Saturday was Alex's and my first anniversary. We celebrated our companionship by sleeping in late, going to the farmer's market near our flat, eating a yummy Italian lunch and going to the National Gallery for the Impressionist Gardens exhibit. While standing in line for tickets a women was leaving with her family and asked Alex and me if we wanted two free tickets that she had! We told her it was our anniversary so it was a great gift. We saved 20 pounds! The exhibit was nice but crowded since it was the last weekend it was showing. Saturday night we went to The Grain Store restaurant, courtesy of my family, for delicious food and wine. I got venison saddle and Alex got rump and shoulder of lamb. 


Sunday, we took a morning train up to Inverness, about a 4 hour ride north. The fall colors were beautiful! The train passed through valleys and gorges with a river running beside for most of the trip. The further north we got, the more barren the land became. Scotland had been clear-cut for timber earlier in its history and because of the short days and eroded soil regrowth was basically non-existent. The bleak and barren landscape was beautiful in a sad sort of way. 


Inverness was not what I expected. I expected a metropolis sort of city...much more commercialized and modern (don't know why I thought this). Inverness was a charming little town with a great river running through. We took pleasant walks along the banks with the fall-colored trees guiding us on. We missed the bus to Loch Ness but Inverness was cute enough to occupy our day. It was wonderful just being outside and feeling fall. 


As this post's theme is "companion," I'd  like to give a special shout-out to my sister, Sarah, who has found her companion in life, Mike. Congrats on your engagement!


Say What?


gorgeous: used to describe tasty food. So far, I haven't heard it used to describe anything other than food.

Pictures from this week:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2112612&id=15303278&l=1d77be7889

Fourth Word: Meander

Meander: 1570s (n.) "confusion, intricacies," from L. meander, from Gk. Maiandros, name of a river in Phrygia, noted for its winding course. The verb meaning "to flow in a winding course" (of rivers) is attested from 1610s

A beautiful day, no classes, and several bus routes to the coast made for an intriguing adventure today. I can't say it was "successful," but we went somewhere we've never been. Leith is a port city on the Firth of Forth easily seen from any of the tall hills or monuments in Edinburgh. It's only about a 25 minute bus ride but might not be worth the fare. Evidently, Alex and I walked the wrong direction after getting off the bus. The water was pretty but it was only a busy road and some row houses. Not much to see. We walked along the water for a while until we decided to just get on another bus in the other direction. We walked a bit around Leith when we finally got into town but it wasn't that great so we left and took a bus to Calton Hill. We had fabulous sunny views of Arthur's Seat and the Salisbury Crags from Calton Hill. We also got a splash of fall color from the trees as we climbed to the top.

Apart from that little adventure, classes have occupied my time. They're really nothing to write home about, but here I am doing it anyways. I guess my intro classes feel like intro classes (really basic stuff...unless you count Semantics, which is pretty much logic and equations (and confusion!) all the time)). I am enjoying Middle English and Reading Old English very much. I have at least one translation per night, and it's cool to actually be able to read (somewhat) this ancient form of English. Other than that, I don't have any homework. To be honest, I don't feel like I'm getting my money's worth yet, but I suppose we do need to get everyone on the same page before all the specialized classes.

I am increasingly interested in Phonology (the study of speech sounds in a language) and perhaps using that to a historical end. After taking Old English though, I don't think I could handle morphology (which had been my other interest. It's the study of word formation, kinda...like endings and inflections of nouns and verbs...ugh).

Alex has been working a few "trial shifts" at some restaurants nearby and will, hopefully, be deciding on a job this week. He also has an audition for RENT tomorrow...I'll let you know how that goes. Alright, I've decided to add a portion to my blog called "Say What?" dedicated to a particular silly thing the Brits/Scots say that is totally weird/different to us (no offense!).These will be examples we've actually heard used.

Say What?

Bob's your uncle (sometimes elaborately Robert's your father's brother) is a commonly used expression mainly in Britain, Ireland and Commonwealth nations. Typically, someone says it to conclude a set of simple instructions to mean, "and there you have it," or "you're all set." For example, "To make a ham sandwich, just put a piece of ham between two slices of buttered bread, and Bob's your uncle." (-wikipedia)


Week 3 Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111821&id=15303278&l=3b5a00d158

Third word: Haggis

Haggis: early 15c., now chiefly Scottish, but common in M.E., perhaps from O.Fr. agace meaning "magpie," on analogy of the odds and ends the bird collects

Alex and I have been tourists more than I thought. While swimming through all the red tape and bureaucracy of -well, living, I guess- I hadn't thought much had happened since we moved here. However, things have been happening little by little. So, to keep up with our bureaucratic matters: we got a phone today! Not two, but one, because I "haven't been living in the UK long enough to establish a credit record" so TalkMobile won't allow me to purchase two phone lines. But one phone is not none, thank goodness. Also, Alex's computer is fixed and we should be getting internet tomorrow (yay!). Oh, and we got our cost of living check that I deposited in our fully functional bank account! Things are coming together!

Our adventures started with haggis. We went to Greyfriars Bobby's Bar for dinner one night and Al got haggis. Before I talk about haggis, a little background info on Greyfriars Bobby, the dog. He was so loyal that when his master died he laid on the grave for 14 years until he himself died...so they say. Anyway, haggis. It's actually not that bad. It usually consists of heart, lung, kidney, rusk (?) and is mixed with oats and onions. Basically, it tasted like meatloaf-good meatloaf (Mom, your meatloaf tastes like haggis...heehee).

Last week we also toured the Palace of Holyroodhouse ('rood' being the ol' fashioned way of saying 'cross'). We got to see bed chambers and sitting rooms, the dining room etc. I don't think the Queen uses these rooms much. We only got to tour the second floor. We got to see Mary, Queen of Scots' bed chamber and where Rizzio, her personal secretary, was stabbed like 18 times by her husband and bled to death in front of her. The gardens and abbey ruins were awesome. I took a picture of Al standing exactly where the Queen and Pope were standing in the picture I took of them. That was cool. We also got to turn our tickets in to annual passes, so if anyone comes to visit Alex and I can go for free!

You can go a little stir-crazy living in a busy city and I really needed to get out. So, last Saturday, Alex and I took a bus to Stirling, a town comparable to Edinburgh in layout but a lot smaller. It's only about 30 miles away. We climbed up the streets of the old town to reach the castle which, like Edinburgh Castle, is situated at the top of  a volcanic rock formation. Alex and I paid 26 pounds each for free access to all the castles in Scotland (basically if you go to two castles you've paid for it)! The views were amazing (I prooooomise pictures soon). We got to see the foothills of the northern highlands in one direction and the lower hills of the southern highlands in another direction. Sterling Castle had a panoramic view of the whole valley and was certainly advantageously situated. Nearby is where William Wallace fought and defeated the English. Mary, Queen of Scots spent most of her early childhood in this castle but was born in nearby Linlithgow.

We walked to the royal gardens, which have long been deserted, to see the castle from below. It was a beautiful day with little wind and a bright sky. The leaves were beginning to turn as well. Also, we got to go to Primark. For those of you who know, this is God's gift to the shopaholic. Cheap(!!!), stylish clothes. It was awesome.

 I'll write my next blog about my classes, which are in their second week now. The odds and ends are slowly coming together and maybe life will soon be a bit more normal. For now, we are settling in, figuring it out, and having some fun.

Pictures of Week 1:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111472&id=15303278&l=
Pictures of Week 2:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111473&id=15303278&l=1c2b4d57c1

Second Word: Move

move: late 13c., from Anglo-Fr. movir (O.Fr. moveir), from L. movere "move, set in motion" (pp. motus, freq. motare),


Edinburgh greeted us with blowing wind and whipping rain. We didn't care. If that was the price to pay for fresh air (not the stale kind they provide you with on airplanes), then we paid. We've been here a week, and since then, we've had only light drizzles.

Our apartment is compact but just the right size for us. Two good sized bedrooms, a living/dining/kitchen room, and a bathroom no bigger than the one we had in the US (which was quite small). Alex and I had our first "breakdown" of respecting the local culture and trying to fit in when we went grocery shopping the night we arrived and saw this:

We died laughing right there in the store over the fact that we could buy orange juice with "juicy bits" (aka "pulp"). If you didn't want "juicy bits" you could get "smooth". We felt bad, but what can you do?

The week continued with several business items to attend to. I registered for classes, and just to impress you, here are my courses for the two semesters:

Sem 1
Intros to Phonology, Semantics, Syntax, and Language Research (4 different classes)
Middle English

Sem 2
Diachronic Linguistics
English Word Formation
Medieval Dialectology

The stressors of home apparently followed us to Edinburgh. We can't get internet in our flat until we have a phone number, but we can't get cell phones until we have a bank account. The bank account is going to take five days to process. And, still, my computer is at HP for a third time being "fixed".

Alex and I did have time to be tourists this week though. We climbed up Arthur's Seat, a dormant volcano right in the middle of the city. It's about an hour climb and the scenery is beautiful! For those of you who didn't know, the Pope's only papal visit this year was to Scotland and happened to be the same day we were climbing Arthur's Seat. The Palace of Holyroodhouse, where the Queen stays when she visits, is at the base. Since the Queen is Duchess of Edinburgh, she met the Pope at the Palace. We happened to be about 300 feet up the hill and could see over the Palace walls. We saw the Queen come out on a red carpet with the Pope, and then we saw their motorcade leave the Palace on their way around the city and eventually to Glasgow. Both times I've been to Edinburgh now the Queen has been here too.

I promise pictures as soon as we get our own internet. We like it so far and there are many things to occupy our time. We are getting our bearings and finding the city very walkable.

I start classes on Monday and the adventures will continue. Though the cogs of our adventure (phones, bank account, internet, computer) are a bit rusty, we have set in motion a new life and it's moving along whether we are ready or not.

First Word: Adventure

Adventure: the original meaning was "to arrive," in Latin, but in Middle English it took a turn through "risk/danger" (a trial of one's chances), and "perilous undertaking" (early 14c.), and thence to "a novel or exciting incident" (1570). -etymonline.com

It seems a great adventure must always start with a great misadventure. This is a story about my great adventure. But I must begin with my great misadventures in order to give perspective to what someone will put up with to get where they want to go.

These musings began while I was on the phone with tech support for the second time (45 minutes each!), after my three-month-old laptop had already been sent in, repaired, and sent back. So much trouble caused by such a stupid little problem: beeps. I seriously wear a name tag that says: Hello, my name is Julia, and my computer beeps (no, seriously, I don't). But it is really annoying just sitting there and then beep! Randomly, all the time, some of the time, never. Grrr! I don't know why it beeps (and apparently tech support doesn't either). They decided it must be the keyboard and replaced it but to no avail. Too bad they don't get credit for trying.

Somehow, a move to Edinburgh, Scotland couldn't be complete without several bumps (or beeps, as the case may be) along the way. In the good ol' days of fleeing the religious intolerance of England, emigration to the New World encompassed braving the perils of a raging sea, contracting whatever illness inflicted a shipmate, weeks of travel, and upon arrival, no one to greet you and help you on your way. A sense of the unknown was a fog that hovered throughout the journey, but as we all know, the hunger for a better world overpowered the longing to turn around.

Modern-day perils aren't nearly as foreboding (nor as exciting). For example, computer beeps. Also, government legislation that slows down the financial aid process thereby severely reducing the amount of time in which to apply for a visa, get it processed, and finally returned before you leave in 8 days! Whew! And still we must wait because if we don't get our visas, we don't fly because the UK Boarder Agency has our passports that they will paste our visas into. We pay the money to change the flight, cancel the hostel until we get the visas, and then just wait. AND, I can't register as a student at the University until I can give the school a photocopy of my visa! Oh, and there was also the camera repair, the packing, the lack of motivation to pack, the spackling, the computer getting sent back a second time, getting my cavity filled, getting Alex's five cavities filled, and the power going out twice for several hours today.

This may seem like complaining (it is complaining!), but it's my misadventure and I'm entitled. To be fair, it's Alex's misadventure too. I don't know if that makes it any better though. We have 8 days of misadventure left and then on to the adventure...provided we get our visas in time. So I guess that my hunger for a "new world" is what is holding all this together. You can put up with a lot when adventure comes calling. Our "perilous undertaking" is soon to be a "novel and exciting incident"! On to Edinburgh!