Loch Lomond, Edinburgh, and a Perfect Valentine's Day

     Ahh I'm so late making another blog post! I should have done one Sunday night because I had a pretty eventful weekend. Last Saturday I took the train to Loch Lomond with Anna, Michelle, Bethany, Kirsty and Laura. I had no idea how convenient it was to get there; only £5.80 for a round trip, and the train trip takes less than an hour. The weather wasn't awful that day -- cloudy as usual but it didn't rain thank goodness. We spent a few hours walking around the loch (I saw my first Scottish castle!) and got lunch at a pub. That day was the first time I had gotten out of the city (besides the Paris trip) since arriving in Scotland, and it was so refreshing to see green everywhere. In the National Park all you could see was rolling green hills, trees and loch. We took the train back to Glasgow around 3:30 and just had a lazy evening because we were going to have a busy day on Sunday. 

      We woke up pretty early Sunday to be at the bus by 8:50, and just after 9 we started the bus trip to Edinburgh. It only took about an hour! We already could tell that the weather wouldn't be in our favour that day though; there was practically a blizzard on our drive there. I'd say that was one of the most miserable days in terms of weather I've seen since being here. It was so cold and there was constant rain/snow throughout the day! We still managed to have a good time though. We started off the day walking up a hill for an amazing view of the city and took some nice photos. Next we walked to the castle where Gary gave us our tickets to get in. We had 2.5 hours of free time, so the girls and I spent about an hour exploring the castle and reading about its history, then looked around for a place to have lunch. We actually ended up at the Elephant House, the café where J.K. Rowling would have coffee and write much of the first Harry Potter novel. My flatmates and I are huge Harry Potter nerds so we were excited to say the least. The café itself is pretty cute but we all decided that the service was crap. It was disorganized and it took ages to get our lunch. The food was decent though and it was entertaining going to the bathrooms and discovering tons of Harry Potter related graffiti/messages on the walls! After lunch we met back up with Gary and the group to walk around the city some more and hear stories and history. Towards the end of the day we were given some more free time, but it was so cold and rainy that we just found a café to buy some hot drinks and warm up. By the time we had to head back to the bus, we were exhausted from all the walking we had done and were looking forward to getting back the our flat. I'm definitely going to try to go back to Edinburgh in the spring and explore the city and the castle some more!

     This school week has been a bit of a blur and I actually can't remember much of what happened. Mostly just class and tutorials, and spending time with my flatmates. Yesterday (Valentine's Day) was super memorable though! I checked the mail after waking up and came to the conclusion that Canada Post sucked and I wouldn't receive any Valentines for a few days. I was a little bummed but it wasn't a big deal because I knew I had a couple coming. I spent most of the morning lounging around in my PJs, and Michelle made us cheddar and bacon keish for lunch. Yum! While I was still in my pyjamas, there was a knock on the door and Anna said it was for me. I went to the door to find a delivery guy who asked me to sign for a huge box I was receiving! I opened it up in the kitchen with my flatmates to find a dozen red roses and a really sweet Valentine's card from Cyrus. It was incredibly thoughtful and it made me so happy :) Needless to say, I was in a crazy good mood for the rest of the day. Later on, I got dressed and went out to buy some groceries for our Valentine's girls night. I bought chocolate (a Valentine's Day essential) and some drinks for our "Love, Actually" drinking game. The girls and I also decided we wanted pizza for dinner (obviously it was a going to be a very healthy day...) so we ordered two large pizzas from Pizza Hut. To top it all off, Michelle made us peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies. She's pretty much the best person ever. At around 7:30, Rebecca and Alicea came over and we started our Love, Actually drinking game. It was crazy and we had some good laughs. I'll attach a photo of the rules for anyone who wants to attempt it. We had to change "whenever characters from different story lines interact" from taking a shot to taking a sip because we realized that happened way too often and it was getting ridiculous. After the movie, we topped off the night by playing a game of I Never. Later on I had a Skype date with my Valentine and didn't get to bed until about 3am. So worth it though! All in all I would say it was the best Valentine's Day I've had so far. I spent it with amazing friends, and had a really sweet Valentine's surprise delivered to my door. Today I received my Valentine from my family in the mail. There was a message written from each my mom, my dad and my brother, as well as red paw prints from my pets (apparently my mom somehow got red sharpie on their paws and had them press them on the card? Hahaha so cute). My parents also sent me some British pounds so I could buy myself a Valentine (aka go shopping! Woo). 

     As for this weekend, it probably won't be too exciting -- my schoolwork is calling for me, but I'm sure I'll have something else to post about within the next week!