Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful...

But seriously. No joke about the title of this post. I am currently huddled up in my room with the heater on full blast, wearing two pairs of socks, long underwear and a wool sweater admiring the foot of snow that has accumulated outside my window over the past week. It started snowing last Friday night, finally abated on Wednesday and... now has started up again. Basically the city of Edinburgh freaked out at the beginning of last week and all the locals claim that in living memory they have never seen snow like this at this time of year . The primary and secondary schools closed down for three days straight and twice last week I showed up to my Archaeology lecture only to sit around for ten minutes waiting for a professor that was probably still snowed in and hunkered next to their fireplace back at home. But don't take this as complaining, I just really have no idea exactly what to think of the situation. I mean, come on - I am from Wilmington, North Carolina, where it is not out of the ordinary for schools to be delayed due to a frost advisory. Here in Scotland I find myself bundling up, attempting to cover every single centimeter of my skin and sporting rain boots every time I walk outdoors. I guess I can now officially say that I have lived in wintry weather, even if it is only for a dinky three weeks. Wesa and Dee, I definitely have a newfound respect for you guys living in Colorado year round now!!

I do have quite a lot to recount from the time before all this snow dumped on Edinburgh. Since my last blog I have traveled to both Vienna and London and enjoyed Thanksgiving here in Edinburgh with mom, dad and Julia during their visit. So in honor of the snow that has bombarded the city, let me follow suit and bombard you with WAY too many pictures from my adventures.

Back in May when we were talking about getting to see one another while we were abroad, Patrick and I figured we would just meet up once in Paris. Well... that certainly did not end up happening seeing that he hoofed it all the way up here to Scotland back at the end of September and I just recently followed suit and flew down to Vienna for four days. However, I am very glad we decided to visit each other more since I think it allowed both of us to add some more stamps to our passports. Plus it wasn't half bad to get to see him again as well :) PLUS... I mean, come on. Vienna = the city of COFFEE. And Mozart. And, as I discovered during my visit, delicious foods like schnitzel and cheese filled sausages . What more could you want?? Allow me to walk you through the itinerary carefully planned and executed by Master Travel Agent Patrick Muller.

I arrived late on Thursday night, very thankful to have arrived in Vienna on schedule after a delayed flight from Edinburgh to Heathrow and then a nice sprint through Terminal One to get to my connecting flight on time. Being the gentleman that he is, Patrick of course met me at the airport, with a welcome sign nonetheless. Given the fact that my German skills are... well, basically nonexistent, it was probably a good idea that he escorted me back to his apartment rather than me trying to conquer the train and U-ban system on my own at 11:30 pm. Besides, no time for getting lost! Had to rest up for all the big plans we had for the next day. Beginning with... drumroll please... COFFEEEEEE!!! I think the picture below sufficiently captures my excitement.

Morning Number One - Café Ritter. What a way to start the day... I was buzzing for hours after all that caffeine

Then Patrick went into tour guide mode and walked me around the city, showing me the State Opera House (above), Stephansdom, the Naschmarkt and our first Christmas Market of the trip (four more were to come...)

In the city of Mozart. Made me want to sit down at a piano and just burst into song.

We had a great afternoon wandering around and seeing some of Vienna's main attractions. I do have to pause to take a moment to talk about the Naschmarkt. It is Vienna's most popular market and includes stands selling pretty much everything - produce, cheeses, dried fruits, nuts, bread, herbs, meat, fish... the list goes on and on and on. Patrick's apartment has a prime location too - just a few minutes walk from this mecca of gastronomical wonders. We started at one end and worked our way through, with Patrick being kind enough to put up with my gasps and squeals of delight every time we came across a produce stand overflowing with basically every fruit and vegetable known to man. Including grapes... which I bought a kilo of... and proceeded to polish off over the next three days. Hopefully I didn't embarrass him too much, although I'm sure he's used to it at this point.

Then we went back to Patrick's apartment where he proceeded to ASTOUND me with his newfound culinary abilities. He's going to hate me for writing this since he claims he possesses nothing of the sort, but nevertheless I was very impressed by the cooking skills he has been honing this semester. When this boy, who I cooked mac and cheese for pretty much every week last semester at Davidson, sat me down, stewed bratwurst sausages to add to our pasta and then whipped up a homemade pumpkinseed oil dressing to go with our salad, not going to lie, I was speechless. So kudos to Patrick for actually following my strict instructions to eat properly while studying abroad this semester... Jack Peterson, as I learned during my weekend in Vienna, on the other hand could improve quite a bit. :) I'll just force feed him vegetables when we get back to Davidson in the spring. Only kidding Jack... sort of.

After dinner it was time for one of the main events of the weekend - the premiere of the first part of the final Harry Potter movie!!! Thankfully Patrick had managed to get tickets at an English theater and, as you can see below, we were quite excited.

The next morning started off in a similar fashion, with a trip to another coffee house to get me caffeinated and ready to go. Patrick patiently tolerates my coffee addiction, at least now that he has me drinking just one or two cups a day as opposed to the three or four I was chugging down back when we first started dating... The coffee houses in Vienna are still a major part of the culture and have a lot of historical significance. Back in the late 19th and early 20th century, the cafés in Vienna became an important meeting place for many famous writers, philosophers, artists and other intellectuals. It was quite interesting sipping a Mélange (similar to a latte... just even more delicious) in Café Central, the same place that Leon Trotsky used to go to play chess. Regardless of how nice the café is, you will still see the waiters sporting a tuxedo, and all of the coffees are served on a pretty little silver tray with a glass of water and sometimes accompanied by a small sweet. Clearly, I absolutely had to take a picture of every single cup of coffee I ordered while in Vienna. So below you can see the großer Brauner I had at Café Sperl on the second day.

YUM. Need I say more?

After another successful coffee venture we took the U-ban (Vienna's metro system) to the Schönbrunn Palace, which used to be the summer residence of the Hapsburg family. We wandered around in the gardens before heading back to check out the Christmas Market taking place in front of the palace.

Picture in front of the Gloriette

Yummy food at the Christmas Market!! This sugary treat is known as krapfen, aka a delicious, gargantuan donut covered in powdered sugar and filled with vanilla cream. So healthy, obviously.

After our palace outing we went back to Patrick's apartment where he amazed me with his cooking skills once again, this time making us goulash for dinner before we headed off to a Rapid Wien football game.

Bundled up at the game since it was just a wee bit chilly!

Patrick tried to teach me some of the cheers in German,which I completely failed at. The ability to properly pronounce German syllables will just never be something that I get the hang of I'm afraid... instead I would just mutter some jibberish and jump up and down after a goal while the real fans proudly sang out their cheers. It was still fun though and Rapid Wien won 5-0!

Obviously, we had to make mac and cheese after the game

The next day started off with a trip to Café Central, which ended up being my favorite partly because it was beautiful inside and partly because I think the drink I ordered was sent straight down from the coffee gods in honor of my trip to Vienna. One thing I also enjoyed about going to the cafés was the reaction Patrick received from the waiters each morning. You see, I do believe that many of them assumed that when you go to a coffee house first thing in the morning you just might be interested in ordering yourself a nice cup of caffeine to start the day with. Well... in poor Patrick's case since he was merely accompanying his coffee-addicted girlfriend and had absolutely no interest in a melange, großer Brauner, Verlängerter, Einspänner or anything else of the sort, he would just resort to a buttersemmel, German for just a traditional buttered roll. At each café I would first order my coffee and then the waiter would turn to Patrick to politely inquire as to what he wanted. It really was quite amusing to watch the astonished expression on their face when Patrick's made his order and they would always ask with slightly raised eyebrows, "Kein Kaffee?" Nope, instead Patrick just sat there and was a great sport while I freaked out over my coffee creation. Although I haven't included a picture of the melange from that morning, instead I have something almost even better. As we were walking through the Hofburg Palace on our way to the Albertina Museum I came across this little guy in a display case of rubber ducks. I have no idea what the intended purpose of this exhibition was, but honestly, that didn't even cross my mind at the time. All I could think was 'this is going to be one of my favorite pictures from Vienna!!!'

Possible computer desktop background? I think yes.

Then all my childhood dreams came true - I got to meet Pinocchio

Lunch at the Christmas Market in the Maria-Theresien-Platz! Well... half eaten lunch that is. It looked too delicious to stop and take a picture before digging in. Although the giant pretzel is probably pretty easy to identify, allow me to explain the other elements of our feast. Now, you might think that is just an ordinary sausage. FALSE. It is kasekrainer - cheese filled sausage. The fact that I helped Patrick devour this even though I don't really even like red meat is a testament to its deliciousness. In the mugs you will find gluhwein, or mulled wine, which is very popular in the Christmas Markets. But be careful though... you almost need to hold your nose as you drink it or else you'll find yourself spluttering and coughing with your eyes watering from inhaling too much of its clove, citrus and cinnamon scented goodness. This advice comes from first hand experience...

Off to the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History) with Tour Guide Extraordinaire! Patrick had been here several times before so he gave me my very own private tour (I am quite sure he put the museum's audio guide to shame.) This picture was taken in a somewhat creepy replica of an Egyptian tomb, hence the interesting facial expressions...

Hehehehehehe... funny little man I came across and felt like capturing on camera

Fun fact alert - The Kunsthistorisches Museum is one of the few museums in Europe actually built to be a museum. Emperor Franz Joseph commissioned it to be built to house the Hapsburg art collection. Just a glimpse of the ceiling gives you an idea of just how beautiful and ornate it was inside.

Off to a heuriger (Austrian wine tavern)! Another fun fact: Vienna is the only city to have vineyards within the city limits.

Thought seriously about snitching this chandelier to bring back to Davidson for my apartment next semester...

Patrick with our wine spritzers

DINNERTIME!! Krapfen, giant pretzels, gluwhein, cheese-filled sausages... the culinary tour of Vienna continues, this time with schnitzel at a restaurant called Centimeter. Intriguing restaurant concept in my opinion, since the name comes from the manner in which you can order in terms of how many centimeters of meat you intend to consume. More spectacular than the buffet concept?? Tough to say... might have to go with yes just because the table across the way from us had ordered the sword of schnitzel. Yes, that's right. A sword. With meat speared on it, presented at your table. With a trough of fries below of course. Yeah... better than the buffet. Final answer.

FINAL CUP OF COFFEE IN VIENNA!!! Yes, capital letters were necessary.

Okay... so Tour Guide Patrick had planned this amazing weekend for us, every moment of which went according to plan, save for one very important thing - our ice skating expedition. We had planned on going on Sunday night after schnitzel but, alas, at 8:15 when we checked the times online we were to discover that it had already closed at 8:00. But never fear, that would not ruin our plans. Nope. Instead we just set the alarm for 7:30 AM and resolved to go first thing in the morning before I had to head to the airport. So, as if sitting through a coffee excursion each morning, leading me through the Naschmarkt for close to an hour and touring me around to see places in Vienna that he had already visited multiple times hadn't already been enough, Patrick also woke up bright and early in the morning to go ice skating with me.

This is exactly what we looked like. Clearly.

Suited up and ready to go!

Oh hey, you see those little kids laying on the ice? Well, just so you know, their fall was nowhere near as epic as mine. I promise.

Then it was off to the airport and off to London to meet up with my family! They had just arrived at the Heathrow airport the day before which gave Tour Guide Dad sufficient time to plop them on a tour bus in an attempt to ward off jet lag while simultaneously accomplishing some sightseeing. With Dad leading the way (iPhone in hand of course), by the time I arrived on Monday afternoon they had already conquered St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and the London Eye. While I was there we continued on at this breakneck speed, seeing two shows (Wicked the first night and Billy Elliot the next), and visiting the Tower of London, the British Museum and the British Library. Leave it to Dad to find a way to show me a huge chunk of London in under 48 hours...

After our pub dinner the first night. Normal mom, normal Dad, normal Katie... and then Julia. Typical.

HARRY POTTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is all.

Loved this quote on the right, outside the British Library. Couldn't agree more.

BOOKS. Books books books books. BOOKS!

Mommy and Daddy on our way to the British Museum

Outside the British Museum after an intellectual journey through time with tour guide dad leading the way

Captain and co-captain of London navigation with our handy dandy... iPhone!

Yes, a picture was most definitely necessary. May or may not have three other photos of different Harry Potter buses in my iPhoto library...

View of the Tower Bridge from the Tower of London

Mom and Julia while touring the Tower of London

Taken at the end of Dad's special, last minute, sprinting tour from Trafalgar Square to Westminster Abbey

Then it was back to Edinburgh for me on a 6:30 AM flight so I could be studious and get back in time for my English class. Mom, Dad and Julia came up to Edinburgh via the high speed train the next morning, just in time for TURKEY DAY! Mom had suggested a few weeks before that I start looking into restaurants for us to go to for Thanksgiving dinner. I laughed and immediately rejected that proposal. Eat out for Thanksgiving dinner??? I think not. We may have been in Scotland, but I knew I could still make Turkey Day happen. Just a slightly less traditional Turkey Day...

We adopted fellow Davidson student Jenny Hall for the occasion and together we put out a rather interesting Thanksgiving meal, courtesy of the Tesco Metro grocery store. Basically our feast ended up being comprised of all things mashed - mashed neeps (parsnips, a Scottish speciality), two kinds of tatties (mashed potatoes), and mashed root vegetables which, when I bought them, I thought were mashed sweet potatoes. Alas, when I went to pop them in the microwave I realized my mistake and suddenly all my hopes and dreams were shattered. Okay, not really, but I really do look forward to Thanksgiving sweet potatoes, since they usually make up 3/4 of my plate. (But Mom promised she would just double her sweet potato casserole recipe for Christmas dinner. Problem solved.) We also dined on pre-made, frozen Tesco pork tenderloin and maple glazed brussel sprouts (aka the one thing on the menu that didn't come prepackaged). AND... of course we can't forget the can of cranberry sauce I managed to procure from its hidden location at the very back of the grocery store shelf. Somehow we still managed to stuff ourselves just as full as we would have had we been feasting on turkey, stuffing and sweet potato casserole back at home.

Start of day two in Edinburgh, heading off to the Castle

Dad on his ever present iPhone during lunch

Will you look at that? Her very own restaurant!

Mom and Dad up on top of the Scott Monument after dominating all 273 steps!

Christmas festival time. Which means... drumroll please... BIG SWINGS!!!

Time for a family carousel ride

Mommy was having fun

Mom and Julia designing their very own Cadbury chocolate wrappers

Dad and me at Whiski, the pub on the Royal Mile where we ate dinner

Adventure to Greyfriars Kirkyard with Jenny! Apparently J.K. Rowling went there to find inspiration for some of the names in Harry Potter. How. Cool. Is. That.

CROOKSHANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last full day in Edinburgh = time for a snowy trek up Calton Hill

As you can see, the snow had successfully bombarded Edinburgh at this point

The Armstrong girls in front of our store

Home sweet home, in all its Christmas cheer - the close off of which the flat we rented for four nights was located

MULLED GINGER WINE!!! We visited this Christmas Market stand... four times? Five times?

Family photo op with the festival in the background. And, of course, the snow in all its glory.

The Castle through the mist

Unfortunately, come Monday morning the Edinburgh airport was pretty much in shambles thanks to all the snow. Prospects were looking a bit grim as we sat there watching the news and listening to the BBC proclaim the worst wintry conditions seen at this time of year in 17 years. Mom, Dad and Julia were set to fly out that afternoon at 1:00 so we managed to flag down a taxi and get them on their way despite doubts of whether they would even be able to make it down to Heathrow for their connecting flight to Philadelphia later that afternoon. Long story short (since most of my readers actually took part in this hectic travel extravaganza...) they ended up making it home via a different British Airways flight into JFK and a little help from my Skype minutes as I called US Airways and hotels in both Philly and JFK to ensure they had a place to spend the night while they were in transit. Funnily enough, they actually ended up making it back to Wilmington an hour before they would have arrived from Philadelphia and saved around $20 since the hotel room in JFK was cheaper than the one I cancelled in Philly. They arrived home, safe and sound, to 75 DEGREE WEATHER. Ahhh Wilmington, I do miss you.

Since the family left I have mainly been hunkered down in my room churning out papers and studying for exams, so nothing terribly exciting to report at this point in time. I do intend to go to London next week, from Sunday to Wednesday, since I had to cancel my trip to Belgium due to the weather. It will be nice to see the city in a slightly more laid back manner... although my one day whirlwind tour with the family certainly was an experience I will never forget.

Here's a couple of pictures from the snowy Edinburgh winter wonderland.

SWANS!!!

Andrew and me on our way to church on Sunday morning. Please note the five layers of warm clothing I am sporting, causing me to slightly resemble the Michelin man.

Well that's all for now! Now that I officially have no other acceptable means by which to procrastinate (blogging is allowable... watching reruns of How I Met Your Mother - perhaps not so much unfortunately), back to paper writing mode!