Matt and I are joining Nell and Rob and Emma and the kids for a fabulous dinner tonight! While it will lack mashed potatoes, turkey, and stuffing, it will contain:

Chicken Pot Pie
Creamed Onions
Cranberry Pudding
Sweet Potato Casserole
Cornbread


YAY!!!! Hope everyone is full of laughter and food.

In the past week or so, we have been all about cooking. I think we got tired of the "spaghetti, baked chicken, curry, pizza" weekly menu that we've more or less maintained for the past 2 .5 months. Also, we were really starting to miss some of the foods that were standard fare back in Spokane.

First, I really had a hankering for Mexican, the likes of which are nowhere to be found in this country. Yes, they have "Mexican" restaurants here, but they are ridiculously expensive (think £30 or $60 for a meal for 2) and not very good, so we just decided to make our own! Miranda had sent us some taco seasoning a while back (yay!), and Costco sells tortillas, so we sauteed up some Scottish minced beef and onions and carrots to go with it. We then found some sour cream (they call it "soured cream" here, which sounds less than appetizing) and jalapenos (!) and had ourselves
a proper feast:





It was delicious.

Next in our culinary journey, Dad sent me a fabulous lunchbox as an early Christmas gift. It perfectly suits my "must reduce, reuse, recycle" self perfectly! Gone are the days of bringing leftover pasta in an old mayonnaise jar with this bad boy:



Finally, Nana and Poppa gave us some extra spending money this month. Did we take ourselves out to eat? Buy some new clothes? Go to a B&B out in the country?

No, our choice was plain:



Yeah, with all the goodies you friends and family back in America provide, we are certainly spoiled here. But just know that we are very, very grateful. Without you, tacos and cool lunches and huge pots of veggie stew might never happen!

Tomorrow heralds the birthday of (big) Emma. This is not to be confused with the birthday of (little) Emma that was Saturday before last. I wanted to make her a cake, and I decided to make her that Really Good Chocolate Cake I make. You know the one, Spokane folk, as that chocolately bundt cake that I made all the time, with the sour cream and the chocolate chips (or chunks) and the cocoa powder. That one.

So I looked in my "Cake Doctor" book and figured out that now that I have chocolate pudding mix (thanks, mom!) I could actually make it! Yippee! So I looked through the ingredients list, marking the things we had and the things we needed. Eggs? Check. Sour cream? Run to Tesco. Bundt cake pan? Oh...

Bundt pans, like many things we take for granted in the U.S. (spicy salsa, cup o' noodles, real grocery stores, etc.) do not exist here in Scotland. I found a tube pan (like for angel food cake) at Ikea for £9 ($18!), but decided against it. But the bundt is nowhere to be.

So, her cake is going to be made in loaf pans (thanks again, mom!). Yup. Hey, once it's sliced with some once cream spooned over it, nobody will care that it's a loaf.

And seriously, I can't wait to eat that chocolate cake.

Update: It was delicious! Especially since choco chips were too expensive, so I chopped up almost a pound of dark and milk chocolate and put the chunks in instead. Oh, holy deliciousness.

So, I am really tired. Enough so that I went to the health service for checking of The Body System Failures That Cause Tiredness. You know, like anemia, liver failure, kidney failure, thyroid, diabetes, etc.

The good news: I am the healthiest frickin' person in Scotland.

The bad news: They have no idea why I'm so tired. Sheesh.

So, I am taking the vitamins mom and dad sent from CA (thanks for the package!) and hoping I feel less exhausted soon.

In other news, finals are rushing toward me in a way that makes me think of standing on an Edinburgh street watching a double-decker bus rush toward me. Everyone in the GEP program is on edge, causing cattiness, rudeness, and anxious hyper-sensitivity. Pray for us!

I have no idea why the comments aren't working right now. I'll let know you when I figure it out.

Update: Should be working. Try and see!

So, December exams are coming up. Since we are being tested on 15 subjects, I have been (as best I can) putting my nose to the grindstone, making study schedules and even following them sometimes. I've realized that when I'm at home, the internet is useful but ultimately too tempting, so I've been forced to find some extra-flatular space to study.

Have I found a cool niche, a hole-in-the-wall place that sells 40p tea and scones? Or a neighbourhood pub, where the local barman knows my drink and the regulars nod a greeting as I come in the door?

No. Instead, I trudge up the hill to the Royal Mile, so named for the castle on one end and the palace on the other. I look past the Scottish tourism center and several souvenier shops, past the 10-year old juggling fire on the street and the woman in a velvet cloak and vampire fangs advertising a haunted dungeon tour, and turn left.

Into Starbucks.

Yeah, I know. But seriously, they have chai and space to work. They are busy enough to keep me from getting distracted but not so busy I feel bad staying for hours. And most importantly, they accept credit cards (thanks dad!), which is not the tradition of any other coffee shop around.

So if you come to visit Edinburgh, I can take you on a whirlwind trip to Starbucks!

Um, yeah.

I just put a bunch of new quotes up on As Quoted. Go, laugh, comment!

So for Halloween here in Edinburgh, Matt and I rented and watched "The Nighmare Before Christmas" 3 times. In three consecutive nights. It was brilliant. We also (and by we, I mean Matt) carved Jack Skellington into a pumpkin and I toasted seeds:



On Halloween night, we went up to Rob and Emma's to watch it with them. On Wednesday night, we went to the Blue Door to watch it with the girls.



They made us cider, and we made a spooky brownie snake:




All in all, not bad. and I seriously love Nightmare Before Christmas.