Canada Day!

For Canada Day in Edinburgh, Melissa and I invited everyone to join us in the Meadows for a BBQ and drinks...

The grocery stores sell these little one-use BBQs that people use in the meadows (there are designated use areas, AKA that little chunk of pavement in the middle of the grass, but a lot of people just use them wherever, though you can get fined for doing that). The BBQ is basically charcoal under a mesh screen, with this sheet lying under the mesh that is used to light the charcoal on fire. There are big disposal bins specifically for them at the exits of the park.

Everyone was late. And Melissa and I didn't remember we didn't have bottle openers until AFTER we bought our beer, so we had to wait for our friends.

My terrible attempt at a patriotic manicure...

The City of Edinburgh allows the consumption of alcohol in public places but under a by-law, anyone drinking in public has to stop if asked by police. But basically everyone drinks in the meadows, and since it was such a nice day, there were quite a few other groups out in the meadows, drinking and BBQing.

Melissa attempts to hide her pale, pale skin from the sunlight.

I tried.

The coolest kids...

All of the Americans came out to celebrate with us, though Maya and Jordan were very late (Lindsey was there for quite a while though!). I asked Maya if they were doing anything to celebrate America Day, and she replied "There's an America Day?"

....

No comment.

After spending the entire afternoon in the sunshine, we decided to head to a pub for *cold* drinks, and some food.

On Alix's suggestion, we all gave this Belgin beer a shot (it was quite tasty).

And pink.

I got a grilled mushroom burger and it was delicious. After, we all headed home, as the pub was starting to get quite rowdy with World Cup enthusiasts.

xx

Vicki Arrives & A Day in the Park

I had to leave the zoo early after the reception to head to the airport to pick up my friend Vicki, who was arriving that evening from Canada. Her flight was delayed, so I ended up spending some time entertaining myself with a magazine and some tea, but eventually she got there!

Vicki was in Scotland for around a month, and thus did a lot of things on her own, though she stayed with me for most of her visit (aside from a weekend in London and a week in Ireland). The weather was really gorgeous a lot of the time while she was here though, so one of her first days in town (after a little shopping excursion to primark) we went out to the meadows with my friends.

We grabbed some bubble tea first and headed out to soak up some of the sunshine. 

... there may also have been some wine involved. While its not legal to drink in public areas such as the meadows in Scotland in general, it is allowed in Edinburgh (someone told me it was because of the Fringe - the city gets so crazy during the Fringe they couldn't enforce it, so they just stopped enforcing it the rest of the year as well). I don't know how true that is or not, but all summer there is a lot of barbeques and drinking going on in the meadows. 

After we left the meadows, we went to Clerk's bar for some dinner and drinks. Just a really lovely day in Edinburgh :) 

Farewell to London Town

The last day in London was seriously gorgeous. I got to the book fair really early specifically so I could get one of the LBF's official totes before they ran out, but then didn't have anything to do until the one seminar I wanted to go to at one. Happily Laura and Rachel headed up to meet me. 

We went out for a really tasty brunch (I was hungry pretty much the entire time I was at the book fair - wandering around all day for like, seven days made me really hungry).

Then I went to this talk, which was pretty much my favourite of the conference. The twitter recap is, again, on my tumblr (bottom up for chronological order).

They had these big screens downstairs that were showing tweets about LBF - I didn't get a pic, but people kept coming up to me saying they had seen one of my tweets on these screens (in this pic you can see half a tweet mentioning me though - thanking me for live-tweeting the YA seminar).

Laura went to catch her train, but Jonny and Rachel both had time to kill, so we headed over to Hyde Park to enjoy the sunshine.

Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in London, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.

I noticed quite a few Muslim women around London this time - there were quite a few women out in burqas with their kids in the park. Part of the reason I love London is definitely its diversity - I feel at times that I have spend all my life moving from one majority-white place to another.

Such a nice day. We stopped and hung out on the grass for quite a while...

...before heading into Kensington in search for Frozen Yogurt.

Success!!

We then headed over to Berkeley Square in search of an art installation Connie had told me about called The Sun.

Dale Chihuly unveiled The Sun in London’s Berkeley Square to the world’s press on the 3 April 2014. The 5.5 Metre installation consists of 1,573 hand-blown glass elements, weighs 2,000 Kilos and is illuminated each night.

The Sun has been on view in many prestigious museums and gardens around the world including the New York Botanical Garden (2006), de Young Museum (2008), the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (2010) and the Montreal Museum of Fine Art (2013).

It was very, very beautiful, and definitely worth the detour.

After that, we went to Starbucks for a bit, before splitting up for me to catch my train at seven.