Haggis for breakfast

I bet you guys forgot about me, didn't you?  Well, fear not, I'm still around!

I've been a bit busy in the last couple weeks, especially the last weekend for I went to Scotland to visit Mark in Edinburgh!  

Some random things I learned about the city:

- the population is only 500 000 people (that's about half of Edmonton to put things into proportion for you), which I found to be very surprising, it feels much larger

- the city is split into Old Town and New Town.  The old part is well, really really old.  It stems from the Castle, which is perched atop an extinct volcano.  New Town was designed by a young architect in 18th century.  It was created in order to decrease the volume of people living in Old Town.   However, it's modern design was a bit offsetting for some, and it took almost 20 years to fully populate the area.

- J.K. Rowling wrote most of the Harry Potter series while living in Scotland.  There are a few cafe's that she frequented and there are now plaques on the outside...just for tourists like me.  =)

- Rosslyn Chapel is one of the coolest, and probably the oldest church I've ever visited (I urge you to check out the link for more pictures and stories).  It was completed in the 14th century, and in it lies so many different theories, conspiracies, and just plain old stories.  One of my favorites is about the creation of the pillars.  The story says that the master mason took a trip abroad to get some inspiration for the carvings and while he was gone the apprentice carved a magnificent pillar.  The master got so angry he hit the apprentice on the head with his mallet, killing him.  As part of his punishment, his face was carved into the opposite pillar so that he must always look at the apprentices work. The chapel is also featured in the famous book and movie The DaVinci Code.  

-  The town of Roslin (where Rosslyn chapel is) is also the home of The Roslin Institute, which happens to be where Dolly the Sheep was created via cloning techniques.  

Edinburgh Castle in the background.  In front lies a row of pubs.  One of them, Maggie Dicksons, is where I had Haggis for breakfast.  The pub itself has quite the story.  All the pubs face a central square and that is where the hangings used to occur.  Maggie Dickson served her sentence of hanging, but she didn't actually die, so this pub was created in her name.

There was a winter carnival and German Christmas market going on.  I found the contrast between the Gothic architecture and the roll-in ferris wheel was quite hilarious.

We had an amazing view of the sunset on the hill where Edinburgh Castle is.  

A picture of a picture of Rosslyn Chapel minus all the scaffolding that was present when I visited.  

Another picture of a picture to give you an idea of how intricately carved the chapel is.  It's quite amazing considering it was competed in 1440.  It truly is mindblowing and was probably my favorite part of the whole trip. 

So there you go, my trip in a nutshell.  A lot of the weekend was spent hanging out with Mark and meeting all of his friends.  It was his last weekend in Edinburgh, so we had many goodbye festivities and last things to do.  All in all, it was a fabulous weekend and I am so happy I was able to get there in time to have my own personal tour guide.  

Sinterklaas

I've been informed that I've been slacking on the blog lately. Truth is, life here in Holland is like life in Canada, just with warmer weather and older buildings.  The last few weeks haven't really been full of blog-worthy excitement.  I was incapacitated with illness one weekend, and drinking beer the other.  There's your update.

This weekend definitely deserves its own blog post though, for this was the weekend of Sinterklaas.  Sinterklaas is a national holiday in The Netherlands and resembles Christmas in many ways.  I'll give you the stripped down version based on what I've experienced, but if you want more, you can educate yourself here.  Sinterklaas originated as the feast day of Saint Nicolas-- the patron saint of children.  However, as times change, so does the story.  Around the third week of November, Sinterklaas and his helpers Swarte Piet, arrive in The Netherlands in a big boat from Spain. There is usually a parade through the city to welcome them, and the children get to enjoy some festive treats, usually handed out by Swarte Piet. 

Side note, Swarte Piet directly translates to Black Pete, and not so surprisingly, he's black. And also not so surprisingly, this has been turned into a rather controversial issue. Historically Swarte Piet is black because they were the servants of Sinterklaas and come from a geographical location that generally has darker skinned people.  However, to skirt the issue of racism, many children are told that he's black because he goes down the chimney to deliver presents and incidentally is covered in soot.  Embarrassingly though, this wasn't a good enough cover story, and Swarte Piet was banned from Canadian Sinterklaas celebrations this year.  

After Sinterklaas arrives in Holland, children line their shoes up in front of the fire place (or the back door if your house doesn't have a fireplace), and they sing songs and draw pictures for him, and every once and a while they get a small gift in their shoe.  

The main celebration though, occurs on December 5 (or December 4 if the 5th is a Monday and just isn't convenient).  On this evening, Sinterklaas delivers a big sack of presents for the children (or the neighbor is given the presents earlier in the day and he puts the sack by the door, knocks and runs away).   The presents are accompanied with nice poems about the person receiving the gift.  

Here's the poem that came attached to my gift:

Dear Kaylee, 

Every year around the beginning of September,
the Baas family gets a new family member.
They never really know what to expect.
Will she be tall, sweet, dumb, or fat,
will she know how to act?
This year Sint has been very glad to hear,
that it's never been this good of a year!

The new Canadian pedigree,
has filled the Bass' home with glee.
Not only is she sweet as hell,
but she can play the piano as well.
Sint has looked on with admiration,
and admittedly, with some frustration...
How you ran, and ran, and ran,
and only finished after twenty one. 

Your calm and loving personality
must have something to do with your nationality.
That's why Sint has given the Baas family this advice
the next au pair has to be from Canada, then she'll surely be as nice!

Love and hugs from Sint and Piet.

My family celebrated this evening with some amazing food (I could probably write a whole blog post about Sinterklaas food), great songs (lead by Kristel's dad on his guitar), and lot's of presents!  The kids finally got the hamster they've been begging for, along with a whole sack of other toys.  I got some really nice winter running gear, an iTunes giftcard, and some amazing chocolates to feed my addiction.  I also got a beautiful chocolate letter K, which is another tradition of Sinterklaas.  

So there you go, a crash course in the Dutch holiday of Sinterklaas.  It was a fantastic experience, and I'll definitely be incorporating some of their traditions into our holiday celebrations at home.