I Kinda Skipped November...

Wow, I haven't been good about keeping up on this blog! My last post was way too long ago, so I'll do a brief recap...
I got a temporary management position at DisneyQuest at Downtown Disney, which is a 5 floor building filled with virtual/interactive games. It has tons of old school video games like Donkey Kong, Frogger, and Burger Time. When I "walk the building", which is what I do a few times each shift as a manager, I try to play at least one game of skeeball and a few rounds on my new favorite game, Flamin' Finger. (FF is a touch screen that has a big maze on it...you drag your finger across the screen through the maze as music blares and time ticks away, faster as you get toward the end of the maze. It gets my heart going and when you finish before time runs out, fireworks go off on the screen and it applauds you for being the champion. It's pretty awesome.) Anyway, I'm there through February and then potentially go back to the Studios events team. Not sure what my future holds, but I've realized doing this job that being an attractions manager is not for me... it's pretty monotonous, and I like to feel like I'm using my brain, not just babysitting cast members.

The exciting part of November was my trip to Scotland! My roomies Bethany, Lauren, and I went for a week. The flights were exhausting (with stops in DC and London before ending up in Edinburgh), but we had a lot of fun. Our Bed and Breakfast was amazing and very close to the main areas in Edinburgh. The official Scottish breakfast the girls had is below (I had cereal).A bonus for our B&B was that it was run by a super hot 28 year old named David. Mmmm. We were kind of obsessed with him. We had lots of conversations about sometimes inappropriate things, but he was fun and helped us a lot when it came to planning what to do. Here he is ... We did a lot in Edinburgh - walked up and down the Royal Mile, toured the Edinburgh Castle (the view from the top of the castle is the pic below) and the Palace of Holyrood (where the Queen stays when she's in Scotland), went to many museums, saw the tea house where Harry Potter was written, learned all about how whisky is made on a whisky tour, and I got to shop at my favorite clothing store, H&M. It got dark around 4pm, which was very strange and made us want to go to bed super early, but we sort of got used to it by the end of the week. Also, all the stores close by 5 or 6pm except on Thursdays, so we had to do any shopping earlier in the day. I guess they want you to focus on drinking at the bazillion pubs at night. It's cheaper to drink beer than soda, and very difficult to find Coke products since apparently it's one of the only countries in the world that Coke is not the #1 selling soda. Sometimes a girl just needs a Diet Coke!!!
We took a day tour to Loch Lommond (Loch is just a fancy word for lake) and Stirling Castle, and another day tour to the Highlands and Loch Ness. Unfortunately, we did not see the Loch Ness Monster, but in our hearts she is in there (I point out where I think she is below). We took the train to Glasgow for a day, which is the more 'cultural' city in Scotland, but not nearly as pretty as Edinburgh. This was the prettiest place we visited in Glasgow, a cathedral that withstood the Reformation and has been around since the 1000's! On our Thanksgiving, it was actually the start of the Christmas festival in Edinburgh, so we watched the opening of that which was fun. We rode a huge ferris wheel and wandered through a German Christmas market.
The weather wasn't great while we were there, which is why this is the off season. It hovered around 40-ish, and was mostly overcast. It was misty rainy a few days, but never full on poured. We finally saw the sun the day before we left...it was glorious. I was pretty much cold the whole trip, since I am definitely a Florida girl and can't handle temperatures below 65 very well. I look like a cow in most photos since I have so many layers on. Speaking of cows, the cow below is Hamish, who is a Highland coo. (They call them coos, not cows, which made us giggle. When we did, our tour guide said "You haven't experienced Scotland until you've seen a hairy coo." Done and done!)

Overall it was a great trip and we met so many great people. All the Scots are so happy that people choose to visit their country, and they're so helpful and friendly. Plus their accents are so fun to listen to and kilts rock!