Lazy Days in Scotland

I've been in Scotland for a while now. By the time I leave, it will have been nearly three weeks, so tied up for the record of foreign countries I've been in the longest. And of course, because of budget and energy and basic human needs, I'm no longer snapping photos and sightseeing like a chicken with my head cut off. Since Lucia left Edinburgh things have been slow, and its been nice. I almost feel that it even means I see the country in a deeper way now that I'm just relaxing and hanging out here. The day Lucia left, Allan was exhausted *ahem* and I was a bit sleepy too, so we mostly just cooked at Steven's house and then played British, 90's edition trivial pursuit until we were ready to collapse. Despite Allan obviously being the most familiar with the material, and I the least, he had rotten luck and I had great luck, and Steven taking pity on me, so I actually ended up winning.

The next day we had to carry our bags around Edinburgh, so were too lazy to do much other than eat chicken bakes under the trees in a park in the shadow of the castle. We watched the sunlight go through the leaves and just lay on our backs and talked, lots of it light hearted laughter, and then other times I felt that there was something unsaid between us. But we'll manage. In the evening we headed to Lockerbie and Allan's mom made yummy Indian food, and then I spent the evening trying to get the apartment thing settled and you can imagine we slept well that night.

Today we didn't leave the house at all except a brief walk to the castle. All morning it rained and stormed fiercely and both of us were frightened by it somehow, having flashbacks to our aborted walk and imagining walking through this. In the morning I taught Allan how to make Egg in a Hole. We basically just played on our computers otherwise. Allan misses Lucia a lot. It's a bit awkward to be in the epicentre of all of this but not either of their fault, in fact I know what it's like and am sort of happy for it in a strange way, but also sad for them to be separated, and also just wishing Allan had a bit more privacy for it, its a bit weird that he has to put up with me at this time. I do try to give him a bit of space for it. And its not that we're not getting along fine, we're even having some fun haha, it's just that its not natural for me to see this much of another person's relationship, to have the news come in on both sides and have to live with it, especially when I've already had my overdose of Allan and Lucia in the Highlands. Ah well.

It feels good to relax, to sit, to get my laundry done. Despite all the time I somehow neglected to email my program coordinator, so that's first in line on my to-do list tomorrow. Allan's family is super nice and I'm continuing to enjoy the food here - today I tried caramel chocolate shortbread and cardamom crisprolls with Swedish cheese from Ikea, and for dinner we ordered Indian food in which was fun, it was like our Chinese food but Indian of course! We're leaving for Spain on Monday and this weekend we're planning to see New Lanark and Hadrian's Wall, both quite cool and World Heritage Sites to boot.