Seven Hills of Edinburgh

First, and most importantly, I added a few new photos to my album. Hooray!

On Friday I took a hiking study break. Sort-of hiking. It took much longer to get to Calton Hill, on the east end of Princes St, than it did to climb the hill. At the top is the unfinished National Monument, dedicated to those fallen in the Napoleonic Wars. (The actual road the hill is on is aptly named Waterloo Place.) There's the Nelson Monument, and a few other buildings I'm less sure about. I was absolutely fascinated by a set of columns on the very top of the hill.

Another quick walk, this time through an old residential area and past the Scottish Parliament building, brought me to Holyrood Park. Rather than climb Arthur's Seat, as Ive done every single time I've gone climbing, I went up the Salisbury Crags, which curve around the west/NW side of Arthur's Seat. A short hike, but tougher than I thought it would be, especially with the wind!


You might think that having been here for three months I would no longer be surprised by language differences, but I found a new one last night. Shirts are called different things here, and the whole time I never knew---even working at CHSS I haven't been able to figure this one out.
I think "tops" are usually dressy tops. A "shirt" is a button-down shirt, but I suppose t-shirt is still a t-shirt. How "blouse" fits in here, and what one would call a normal shirt, I have no idea.

I also like the phrasing one uses to go over to someone else's house/flat/home/room/etc. Rather than specify what type of place it is, you drop the object entirely. So I might say,
"I'm going to spend Christmas at Flora's." Flora's what? It doesn't matter.
"Zach is coming over to mine to revise maths." What is mine? Doesn't matter.
Ambiguous, yes, but also eliminates confusion on what to say.