edinbURGH

finishing up our time here at the woodland estate in penicuik– it’s been a straaange but decent week.

highlights of this week for me was definitely the opportunity to sing latin hymns with a small choir in the crypt of rosslyn chapel with our male host. rosslyn chapel was high on my radar and i sort of forgot it was in our neck of the woods here near edinburgh.  this is the chapel featured at the end of both the novel and the movie ‘the da vinci code’.  it’s particularly fascinating to me because of the strange religious groups connected with it and the mystery that surrounds it.  it has been claimed that within hidden vaults in the chapel could be home to the holy grail, the head of john the baptist, or even the body of christ.  so they say.  don’t know why someone wouldn’t have gone in there to find out for sure by now, but hey.

so as a big-time choir nerd this experience was one of the best of my time in scotland for sure.  i was pushing for singing ‘verbum caro factum est’ but nobody knew it.  boo.

we’ve been hanging out in the woodland around the house doing our work– mostly shoveling, raking, and pruning the huuuuge driveway that has been “claimed by mother nature”.  there have been good movie nights as our male host is a big film buff.  we’ve been eating pretty much only organic food since we’ve been here since i may have mentioned our hosts are big organic food activists and even run a not-for-profit organic food shop on the ground level simply because there was nowhere else in the village to buy organic food at reasonable prices.  their commitment to the community is quite inspiring.

a few snaps from our jaunts into edinburgh……

finally got my pumpkin spice latte after months of waiting!!!  it was uhhh-maze-ing.  please note that i used to have one at LEAST every other day for almost four years, late august through february.  SO YEAH, i missed it.

we’re ready to go to london on saturday!  it’s been an epic seven weeks in scotland though and there was still so much to see.  but that’s always how it is, right?

in other news….

list of things cynthia is into lately: GIRLS (HBO), the ‘slow travel’ movement, scheming ways of getting to berlin cheaply, my new gloves, winning “joke of the day”

list of things alex is into lately: blackadder (BBC), wearing the same clothes as much as humanly possible (i will vouch for this), shaving as little as possible, curry.

worth noting: we both got our acceptance letters in from the TEFL certification program in prague today and will begin the course on monday, nov. 19.  it’s really happening. now i just need to pay them…. and we’re good.