Edinburgh, Scotland

It occurs to me that I have never posted any sort of info or news about my trip to Scotland. Shame on me, yes? Rachel and I went to Scotland ummmm.... I'm not quite sure now when but we went there to visit a friend we made from the UW. She had been an exchange student in the physics department and now we were getting to visit her. Needless to say I was quite excited to visit and see a place that I had always wanted to visit. Moreover, they speak English there and it would be nice to be surrounded again by conversation you could understand (if you want to drop some eaves of course). The first experience of Scotland was wet. It was raining and looked simply miserable outside. I loved it. Everything was green, rain was gently falling, the sky was lit but overcast gray...it was beautiful. And then of course there was the sign in 6 languages as you were leaving the airport reminding you to drive on the left side of the road. Ha! Those were the first impressions.

I would have been completely okay if the weather had remained like so for the duration of the trip, even though hiking around Edinburgh would have been wet nastiness.  But the next day let me tell you.  Clear skies, light wind, comfortable outdoor walking temperature and amazingly dry ground!  Let's just say we spent the whole day hiking walking around.  Since it was such a nice day, we decided to hike up Arthur's Seat.  Why it's called that I never really found out but it was quite the hike up a very steep hill and it got windier and windier.  By the time we reached the top, I thought for sure that I would get blown away if I jumped.  From the top, you could see all of Edinburgh and opposite the city, was the sea.  It was the first time seeing the ocean since going to Germany.  It was nice.

There was a ginormous field called the Meadows next to our friend's place and the first thing I thought was frisbee. Oh yes, lots of frisbee could be played here. This picture hardly does it justice since it was about 4 or 5 pictures worth of flat grass.

A store nearby had a wide variety of beers (microbrews!!!) including a ginger beer.  Very crisp and tart.  I couldn't drink it and stuck to my first IPA since coming to Germany.  It was so unlike anything Germany has to offer.  But as you can see, I was more astonished with the Kettle chips!  I couldn't believe.  They are my favorite chip and they were here.  I thought I'd be waiting the whole year to see them again.  Alas no!  Ha.

We visited the Royal Mile which has a very old cathedral that is being renovated.  It was amazing inside.  And though I wish I had more to say about the rest of the mile, I believe we will be visiting again and I'll get to talk more about it since we would like to visit Mary King's Close.

I do apologize for not talking about this sooner and will be better with my next visit which will be in late March and will also include the coastal town of Elgin.

Christmas Day 2009

Had you asked me a year ago what I would be doing Christmas Day of next year, I would have said being in Sacramento with family, eating lefse and reading a book next to a fire.  Only a few months later, I would learn that I'd be going to Germany to study physics for a year and that flights back and forth would not be a likely option.  Then, several months after that and we'd find that my girlfriend has this crazy idea to go to Croatia for the holiday.  That didn't work out, but the backup plan did - Italy.  Spending Christmas on the island of Sardinia was an intriguing experience and I have to say my most unique Christmas so far.  Who knows what the future holds?

Not having a tree, a fireplace in the flat where we stayed for 5 days or a region 1 DVD player, let alone any of my holiday favorites to play, made for a different kind of Christmas.  I woke up like any other day, realized it was Christmas and proceeded to have breakfast.  Outside, it was a blue sky, partly cloudy and 60+ degree day.  Perfect.  Rachel and I had decided that if it was a nice day we would take out the free bikes that were offered as part of our cost of the room.  So we chose our bikes and headed off down the street.  Our plan was to ride along the coast north.  The next town is called Fertilia and is about 6 km away.  But before we got there, we were treated to some beautiful coast line.  We parked the bikes a couple times to walk to the water and see what we could see.  Sandy beaches, eroded rock formations, palm and pine and other sorts of trees, green shrubbery... it was a beautiful ride.  

We crossed over a bridge next to a small harbor and found ourselves in a very small town.  The coast and sea here were just as vast as in Alghero and we took the time to just sit and stare, listening to the waves.  Surprisingly, there were many people taking walks or being out and about.  There was even a cafe open.  We would have continued on, but it had been a while since we had ridden bikes and the 6k back seemed it would be a good stopping place.  Unfortunately, I had chosen a bike that had a temperamental chain, which when given too much pressure enjoyed slipping off.  I must have stopped 10 times on the way back to put it back on the gears.  Oh well.

An afternoon siesta with a early evening walk to our favorite rocky beach spot to catch the sunset.  It was the perfect ending to the day.  The waves crashing and the Sun sinking behind the waves made me hungry.  Our dinner was the most flavorful fresh gnocchi with pesto sauce and mozzarella that I'd ever enjoyed.

Call on the Breeze

Something was in the wind today. There wasn't a lot of it either, so the something was quite faint and syrupy. Sweet like Pixie Stixs and Smarties, but rich and filling like Lumberjack Red. It was calling to me and demanding to know why I wasn't taking action. I looked up to the partly cloudy heavens and cried out "I WISH I COULD!!!" But the truth is my friends are all occupied, I was mired in the death throes of higher education, and it's not a solo activity. What was that something you ask?

FRISBEE

It's that time of year! When the discs will fly! Bring forth the summer nights of freedom, delight, and good times! Oh! How I long for them again! Be prepared my friends, be prepared! How's your arm?

Attention Grabber

Yesterday was a bad day. Coming on the heels of a euphoric experience of the American pasttime replete with hotdogs, beers, and garlic fries, it was a much worse bad day than it may have appeared to an outside observer. But then, who cares what the outside observer thinks on my bad day, am I right or am I right? Right. Anyway, this bad day consisted or three very interesting things and it was only on viewing the third that the other two kind of clicked into place.

1. I was up early enough for the sun rise. This may not seem like a big deal, but it was quite lovely. Some clouds were out and about as early as me and they were making some beautiful colors over the Cascades. Lighting up the sky like that made me happy...and wish I was in bed.

2. Mid-afternoon had massive solar halo activity. A thin film of cloud cover allowed the diffraction of light from the sun, making a circle rainbow around it. I'd hardly noticed these but since my recent increase in sciencey thought, I've been eagerly awaiting a prime viewing. Well I had it, and it was really cool.

3. I was out driving when the sun was setting. Now this one rocked the house. The sun going down over the Olympics with some heavy cloud cover right above the point where the clouds would meet the mountains made the sun really red-orange. Moreover, there was a break in the clouds about a thumbs length held at arms length farther up with wispy clouds in this hole. I totally thought I might get to see the so called fire rainbow. Well, it looked like the entire area behind the mountains was on fire and it was the coolest thing I'd seen since #2 and #1.

All this to say I may have had a bad day, but I think God was trying to point out to me that He's still really cool. When I saw 1, 2, and 3, it got me thinking about the technical side of what's happening (i.e. Earth's rotation, water in the atmosphere), but it also made me think that God is saying, "see what I did? I did it for you so could think about me on your bad days. Trust me to get you through it." Huh, I said. That's right. Nice timing. Thanks God. He really is that cool to come up with rainbows and planets rotating and then still love us more than any of that.

π day

Well everyone, today is Pi day, the day that matches the beginning of the mathematical constant Pi, 3.14159... etc., ad infinitum, and what not. My calculus teacher this quarter (a capital fellow if you ask me) said that mathematicians don't really celebrate Pi day, it's the people around math people that think they should be celebrating today. People bake him pies to eat, so he doesn't argue the fact to hard. "Yeah Pi Day!" Who's making me a pie??

If you're at all interested in the amazing number that is the ratio of a the circumference of a circle to its radius, you can go to this link and search the first two hundred million numbers of Pi for any sequence of number you want. For example, my birthday, 3483, starts at the 17,774th digit of Pi. Moreover, if you were to use the full US date format of 03041983, then my birthday doesn't occur in the first 200,000,000 digits. Wow! (or not Wow! depending on how nerdy you are.)

http://www.angio.net/pi/piquery.html

There's other things that could be said about Pi. I could show you an alternate way I learned how to calculate it that use infinite series and stuff like that. It's way cool because every succesive term in the series of numbers you add up tacks 25 digits onto the end of Pi. Holy cow! What does he even mean?! Sorry everyone, but I just had to say something about it. So think about it today at 1:59:26 am and pm. (cause that'll be 3.14 159 26)

Corollary: I add this paragraph on 3/15 and would like to tell about the aftermath of Pi day. Krista Fosse, a veritable anthropomorphized precious gem, actually made me (of all people) a pie yesterday. Apple pie none the less, which is my favorite. And then Jessica Turver, a forest rose of surpassing grace and kindness, made two pies as well, not knowing it was even Pi day. Needless to say, there was much pie consumed last night in the Aerie and there was much rejoicing. Praise Him!

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