Things I learned at the Shop today...

Today was another day of typical Scottish weather. Sunny in the morning, then a drizzle, then sunny from 11-1. Then a rainstorm that lasted about 20 minutes, followed by sun, followed by rain, then sun, then around 3:30 drizzle to rain to snow? to rain to sun.

Apparently England is having a lot of flooding problems this week, and there is some big storm approaching Scotland soon. But, as the storm has been predicted for several days now and has yet to come, 'it's those English metereologists who hate Scotland and want to give us bad weather'.

Hm, maybe.

I really like how the Scottish people I know say "idear".
Apparently the subjunctive is a pretty American constructive ('I wish I were a rich man')

After months of complaining to the head office about our lack of hangers, we finally got a set of 60 at the Shop. This was cause for much celebration, and now you can hardly browse through the ladies' tops there are so many on the racks.


No entries until next week, for reasons I won't divulge online. Take care until then.

shopping

I'm really glad the student elections are over, I was getting really sick of getting harassed on my way out of the dining hall by candidates and their friends.

Shopping carts are called trolleys. You probably knew that.
Most places require a pound deposit to release the trolley from the other trolleys, and you get your pound back when you return the trolley. So a lot of people have pound-shaped tokens they keep on keyrings, because who always remembers to bring a pound coin with them to the grocery store?

Major grocery chains: Sainsburys, Tesco, Waitrose, ASDA. ASDA is owned by Walmart which is a little bit creepy to me. The groceries near to me are extremely small and have limited selection, but if you're willing to make the trek a little further there are some really big stores. Mostly I have rediscovered a love for food shopping, but some things always bother me, for example the fact that no one refrigerates eggs in this country, that's just barbaric. There seem to be a lot of differences in how products are organised, and the relative amounts of foods. Also, the alcohol section is huge, are stores in the US even permitted to sell liquor? (Here, yes, before 10 PM, and after 12.30 on Sundays)


A lot of my classes have finished up their lectures, or are about to, two weeks before the end of term! That's really weird, only nine weeks of lectures? Mentally I'm still used to 16.
It's a month and a half before my first exam!

Take my wife. To the movies.

Today I took the afternoon off and went to the cinema. The closest one is just on the other side of Princes St, about a half-hour walk away, and there are a few others 45 minutes' walk to the west.

British cinemas are about the same as American ones, and I wouldn't expect any different. Expensive popcorn, candies, and sodas. A solid 10 minutes of advertisements before the previews, mostly for cars or beer, and a lot of previews for things only tangentially related to the target audience. Though I didn't see any messages asking me to bin my litter after the show, just to set my mobile to silent.

The rating system is a little different though
Classification Scheme, for the interested
UK: Uc: especially for children under 5
U: 'universal'
PG: same
12A: children 12 and above; children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult; only seen at the cinema
12: same, but only for DVDs and videos; only children 12 or older may rent the film
15: only children 15 or older may watch (or rent). It doesn't say if parents can bring their 14 or younger kids in
18: only adults 18 and older may watch (or rent)

The same classifications are used for buying movies, or on video games.



Also we've seen a few movies in my Particle Physics course, which may or may not be of interest, but most are at least humorous in their own way.
The Quark Dance (no science here!)
Massey University (NZ) explains quarks humorous for the horrible cinematography
Okay there were others but I won't bother listing them. Definitely check out the quark dance.
Did you know that the last quark discovered was only seen in 1995? For real!

Armstrong's

This weekend I discovered Armstrong's. They are an apparently-famous chain of vintage shops through Britain, starting from the first in London. There's one about a ten minute walk from my room I pass by almost every day but have never been inside. No, not even now. I went to another one in Edinburgh which is apparently better... Edinburgh has three Armstrong's. Actually I don't understand how you can have a chain of vintage shops, but all right.

The ladies' section was pretty cool, although a lot of the dresses were atrocious. It was the back corner of the gents' section that I spent most of my time there... vintage army jackets. Most of them were British, but they had a few German ones, and even I could tell the difference from American camoflague. I might have spelled that properly I'm not sure.

Where we would say "men's clothes" here it is "gents' clothes". I feel like I have mentioned that before but I can't be sure. I guess we say "ladies'"? I can't even remember anymore.


Today I tried to explain the differences in PhD program[me]s between the US and UK and probably failed.

IKEA

Thursday found me shopping at the local IKEA. I say local, but it is really only accessible by city bus, one that goes out of the city (in the southbound direction). The closest busstop was at a roundabout which, if not for its relative proximity to IKEA, would have been the middle of nowhere.

I have only once before been inside an IKEA store. The display rooms in this one were so much cooler than the ones in Woodbridge, there were so many model kitchens, all of which I wanted to keep, followed by the model bedrooms, followed by... and so on. It was great.

I intended to buy just a birthday present, which I did, a very healthy-looking purple orchid. However, I also bought things for myself. Included in this was:
-orange-flavoured Pepparkakor (sounds like "pepper-ka-ka"), mmm delicious.
I first had pepparkakor on Scorraig, and it was delicious
-my very own vacuum flask ("Thermos" as we know). 0.5L. I tried it out on Friday and it was amazing! I drank half a litre of tea in the space of about thirty minutes, then spent my next lecture wishing I had more tea.

We had two gigantic bags of IKEA goods on the bus home. Definitely a problem.

This little piggy went to market.

I didn't find out about it until after it happened, but the Christmas lights came on Princes Street (the commercial area) on Thanksgiving, although why that day is beyond me because no one knows Thanksgiving here. This also marked the beginning of the Christmas markets, which I went to yesterday afternoon to do shopping and enjoy the atmosphere.

By the Sir Walter Scott monument is a large ferris wheel... which I didn't ride, as the queues were long and it cost 3.50 pounds. Ugh. A carousel, then the beginnings of the German Market. A lot of jewelry stands, hats, trinkets, candies, and so many German food stands. Lots of sausages... I ate half of a hot dog, my first since August. Also the smell of roasted chestnuts and mulled wine. I tried mulled wine and found that despite the good smell and lovely warmth, I am really not a fan. Carmelized almonds, on the other hand... mmm.

In the Princes Street Park, below, was an ice-skating rink, which of course I didn't go to, but it was well cute. A few blocks down Princes, in a small plaza, was the French Market. I finally found the wooden rose vendor, ten for a pound, and bought five cream and five scarlet. The French Market was much smaller than the German one, but still worth the look.

I have heard the markets stay past Christmas, and take advantage of the Hogmanay (New Year's) Festival. We'll see on that.