Dear Cath,

You’re back from Denver! Woohoo! That means we can have skype chats again and you can rest your tired high-altituded body. While you were wedding-ing and hiking, Matt and I did our usual weekend ambling. Oh and, non sequitur, this is that thrifted dress I told you about:

It wasn’t quite warm enough to wear it on Saturday. I’d much prefer to pair it sans leggings with my gray booties, but instead wore it like this:

Vintage scarf from Stefan’s Vintage in Atlanta • Madewell jacket • thrifted dress • Target leggings • Hunter Boots • Dune wedge ballerinas (above photo)

Wearing a spring dress in 40 degree weather can be a little bit of a challenge, but guess what?! Today (Tuesday) it is actually like for real, for realzzz warm here! It’s gorgeous and sunny and I can smell the grass! I forgot how you can smell earthy smells so well when it’s warm. Edinburgh usual has very little scent except for the occasional yeasty whiff of brewery.

But back to Saturday. after our usual green smoothie breakfast (we add more fruit on the weekends — living life on the edge!), I was pretty grumpy from all the rain and the cold and the cold and the rain. So I begged persuaded Matt that we should go explore the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. I’ve been reading this book on the Bloomsbury group and really wanted to go ogle some daubs of paint.

Did you ever go when you were a student? I went once, but I remember being by myself (no Cath!), walking all the way from Bruntsfield to Dean Village. The two gallery buildings are these stately stone megaliths sitting on rolling green lawn. Not at all “modern” but I like that you can pretend you are going to your friend’s manor home for a spot of tea (with a side of Picasso prints) when you see them.

I couldn’t take any photos inside, but I took a few on the grounds (pessimistic though they are):

And the bathroom:

This piece below makes me think of what would happen if Donald Judd designed a carnival mirrored fun house:

I really liked this guy because he appears to be stoically guarding the gallery entrance — not that he has much say in the matter, what with the cement and all. I wonder if the Lego nipples allow him to do his job unflinchingly. Tough gig.

On the way back from our arty adventure, we stopped at Vietnam House for pho to go. Seriously, their vegetarian pho is amazing and incredible — even if it’s “hot” when you get here in August, we’ll have to get some.

Okay, now tell us all about your outdoorsy Colorado adventures!

See you on skype soooon!

xoxoxoxox,

Lar

So obviously, this being apart thing is not getting easier, even though it’s been 9 (NINE!) months. Skype kind of works — so much better than the days of telephone cards and spotty emails. I know I should be grateful, but it’s just not quite enough is it? So I’m writing you a blog post instead because this way I can show you photos of all the things I mention, and forget to mention, when we are skyping (somehow I always get narcissistically distracted by my face on the skype videos — “sheesh! I look washed out and tired. maybe if I suck in my cheeks this way, I look better.”).

Like I told you, I think the best way to celebrate Matteo’s birthday is with some good food — especially food he doesn’t usually get to eat. So Friday night we went to Vietnam House for pho. I made him wear his birthday badge all day. Nobody noticed except for the masseuse who said “do you work for Salvation Army?”

Look at this feast, Kitcath! I haven’t had pho since leaving Atlanta and this was soooo wonderful! I actually preferred my vegetarian version to Matt’s beef broth. I could eat this every day.

I’m sure you are sick of my complaining about the cold and the rain, and it seems phoney too seeing as I only show photos like this on the blog:

When it is sunny, it is so beautiful, but still so cold and so windy. My brain gets confused because in Maryland and Georgia when you see cherry blossoms it means the cold days are banished until next winter. Not so here. These are tenacious cherries. They’ve been blossoming for about three weeks and weathered the hail, snow and intense wind gusts.

I am far less tenacious. I thought I would sneak a pair of sandals on my feet (the toes haven’t been out of woolie socks since September 21 when we left Atlanta), but I switched into my Frye boots before we ventured down to Thistle Street. I’m not sure if I can do cold feet and slip around in stilettos on cobblestone.

Primark blouse (bought in December before ethical guilt awakening) • thrifted Zara skinnies • Luxury Rebel shoes

Don’t you like this coral and cargo green together?

And zips on the side of these skinnies! I haven’t been to Zara in a while because they aren’t particularly ethical (not even making an attempt like H&M), so I’m glad I found these at a charity shop.

The more research I do on ethical shopping, the easier it seems to find clothes, but the harder it is to find reasonably priced, ethical foot wear. So the two shoes I’ve bought since being in Scotland are not in any way ethical. Cri de Coeur is the best option I’ve found so far, but it doesn’t work if you are looking for a specific kind of shoe. Like I told you, after watching Audrey Tautou in Delicacy I really wanted a pair of ballerinas with a short heel. And I found them, but they aren’t ethical (they came with me to a picnic on Saturday):

Saturday evening we went here for dinner (so fancy pancy). I don’t know whose bike that is. Maybe it’s always there to give Saint Honoré some street cred:

We were very un-vegetarian. Matt had paté and a meat pie. I had sardines and then salmon:

And then this for dessert!

Dark chocolate tart with lemon sorbet on top (aka Matt’s birthday cake, of which I ate half most).

And at the end of our three courses, we got coffee (which I haven’t had since December!) and they served it with their house Scottish tablet. I love that even though everything was so Frenchie, at the end they leave you with a bit of local sweetness.

Okay, so this still isn’t as satisfying as sitting next to you and telling you these things and showing you photos on my camera. But I guess it will have to do? Can you imagine if we had studied abroad apart? I would have been home faster than you can say twin power.

Miss you so, so, so much.

Love,

Lar

p.s. I am still trying to figure out how to cook with this and like it. Hopefully this week’s veg box won’t have one. I haven’t used last week’s and it’s making our pantry smell like celery — why can’t it smell like chocolate cake instead:

cialis go to this web-site

Isn’t this a fantastic castle? It’s so castley! It’s exactly the sort of thing I would draw when I was young and went through a castle-drawing phase: turret, crenelation, crenelation, crenelation, turret.

And castles of this sort are just one of the many many many reasons I love Scotland. When Cath and I were students here we bought Historic Scotland passes and would spend every weekend hopping on trains to as many castles as we could manage within a days’ journey of Edinburgh.

This particular castle, Craigmillar, is just a hop, skip and a jump from the city center of Edinburgh. From Craigmillar’s battlements you can actually see Edinburgh Castle’s battlements. This was the castle that royals (such as Mary Queen of Scots) would go to for some down-time; away from the hullabaloo that was medieval Edinburgh. It was the Hamptons to their Manhattan penthouses — except, you know, draftier and . stoney-er.

From the top of the castle you get these gorgeous views of the Firth of Forth (a rather large bay-like body of water that flows into the North Sea).

Below, I’m keeping a look-out for parties of marauding English — the most intimidating door-keeper this castle has ever seen:

Mettle necklace • H&M jacket and tank (organic cotton range) • AE belt • thrifted Coach bag and Reiss coat • Madewell skinnies • Frye boots

The great thing about these castles is that it’s not like in the States where most of the ruin would be cordoned off (do we have ruins in the States?). You can climb all over them: sneaking down spiral stairways and squeezing through secret passage ways.

Lead-paned windows! I live for this stuff!

Here’s a photograph to show you how close we are to Edinburgh — spitting distance really:

I took about a million and a half photographs because it was so sunny and so wonderfully castley, but I don’t want to bore you guys with too much stone. I hope this is just a glimpse to get you thinking “Scotland. I need to go to there” (ignore the fact that this has been one of their rainiest Springs for an already rainy country. It becomes sunny whenever you visit a castle.).

So what do you say? You wanna come castling with us?

—–

Dear Cath,

As much as we love Edinburgh, I really think one reason we fell in love with this country is the train trips we took to all those castles. The only downside to Craigmillar is that it’s not one of those castles with a giftshop and tea room. Remember those? A bit of Scottish tablet, some tea, and then searching through their tea towel collection. Crazy, wild college kids that we were 😉

I sooooo wish you were here to go castling with us! I think Matt likes them, but he grew up going to crusader castles all over the middle east and thinks Scotland’s castles are newbies. Who knew I married such a hoity-toity castler?

I hope you guys have some fun plans for the weekend! Our only big plan is going to eat at this fancy pants place.

LOVE,

Lar