August 2005 Archives

Angela arrived today. Flew in on a big jet plane.

We ran a few errands and came home to a house full of Africans who were rapidly spiralling out of control.

Marc was downstairs trying to make pizza with Dave; Natalie and Charmain were upstairs in Marc's bed having a pillowfight with Tom.

South Africa had just beaten Australia in tri-nation rugby (SA, Oz + Kiwi) and the Africans were jubilant and boisterous.

Later, we went to a party...but we got thrown out because, um, certain members of our party were obnoxious and loud. Not me, of course. I'm an angel! Oh, Angela's an angel, too. :)

We came back to my flat and were having a good time - and one of my upstairs neighbors yelled at us for being loud. At 2215.

Okay, fair enough, she was trying to sleep, but who goes to bed at quarter past ten at night? The sun is still almost up, for Christ's sake.

August is a fabulous month to live in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh, normally a city of 450,000, swells to a mighty 2 million. There are over 5,000 shows - dance, theatre, opera, the Tattoo and comedy. In order to watch them all you'd need four years without sleep.

Edinburgh is also the month that the Swedes came to town.

My sister, who has her own fantastic blog over at Everything, Nothing, and I'm a Middle Child, suggested somewhere down in the comments of one of these posts that I'm not blinded by bubble gum pop culture.

Mara, thank you.

Nevertheless, I like a few songs by Britney Spears. Toxic, for example, is a cool tune and I like the video, too.

Last night, Anna & Jessi and I were out 'til three, dancing at the Opal Lounge and just enjoying ourselves in general. Anna & Jessi are friends of mine from Sweden.

Which brings me to my next point, which is that Mara started off a discussion of differences between Europe and America. I mentioned a few as well. At one point, I claimed there were people from ten different countries in my flat right at that moment. Who were they? Well, here's who they are, as well as the countries they are from:

1. Marc Seymour - South Africa
   
2. Tom Somers - Germany
   
3. Laure Sinclair - France
   
4. Ingrida Djonsone Latvia
   
5. Antony - Scotland
   
6. Matt Shephard - New Zealand
   
7. Anna Skoog - Sweden
   
8. Anne - Canada
   
9. Alistair - Ireland
   
10. Nathan Dornbrook USA
    

There were more folks in the flat, but this is all the countries represented. I barely know Anne (who claims that her last name is "the Amazing.") Antony I actually know fairly well, but can't for the life of me remember his last name.

We have a few friends from Spain, Poland, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Australia, but, obviously, they weren't there.

By the way, Scotland was heavily under-represented. There was a chain email circulationg a couple of years ago entitled "How you know you've been in Edinburgh too long." One of the ways was having an actual Scottish friend. This is pretty accurate; I don't think I'd met someone who was Scottish (outside work) until I'd been here a year.