This week has been much better because we know we are getting out of the icky ashtray of a flat we are living in. We found a new flat in the area of Leith… a nice trashy gay bar area of the city, but with loads of character. And the flat is our first modern place, with yummy new decor, and we have a lovely lass who is keen to move in with us… so will be 3 of us girlies.

kitcheny goodness

Me and Alley met up with my friend Cam on Sunday morning and went to the car boot sale, massive markets underground. I got the coolest hat for a pound - A POUND! And I couldnt resist buying a wee fairy snow globe off a nice lady, Cam teased me for being girlie.

Here is a song which is so popular in the UK right now and gets us girls in the mood for partying. Woo.

After educating my workmates a bit on the maori culture in New Zealand and telling them that the greeting/hello in Maori language is “Kia Ora”, my lovely Scottish workmate Lindsay pops up and says “what, you mean, like the fruit drink??”.

So… I learnt today that there is a fruit drink produced in the UK by Coca-Cola that is in fact called… wait for it… KIA ORA! It, of course, takes it’s name from little ole N-Zed and comes in orange, pear, blackcurrant and pineapple flavours. Lindsay says she’s going to buy me one to sample. Funny.

Kia Ora "UK Style"

At the risk of sounding cheesy, sometimes it takes one teeny weeny small thing to brighten your day. I had one of those days today where everything that could possibly go wrong, did. And I just wanted to start all over again with a new day. After a meeting with a lady about a possible nanny position (and waiting for the bus in the freezing cold, my broken hand aching) I got on the bus and saw the most beautiful dog with the saddest eyes. I think he had had a day like I did. Or maybe he just looked like that all the time.

Either way, for some reason he decided he wanted to come and sit with me for the whole journey with his head on my lap. And it made my day. I am a complete animal lover, mainly of dogs and at times like this, I just want to give my dogs at home (all the way in New Zealand) a hug. Unconditional love. So this little guy was the next best thing. His owner leant over and said that her dog had a sixth sense about people and often barked at people that he sensed as undesirable and often at people the lady didnt like herself and she was surprised at how much “McDougall” (very Scottish dog name) had taken a liking to me. What a sweety.

It makes me wonder if we should give dogs more credit for what they can sense. When my mother was sick in bed with cancer, our cocker spaniel spent every single day next to her on the bed and would not leave her side. I am so sure he could sense that something was wrong. We hear stories all the time of dogs saving family members out of burning buildings, fighting off bears to protect their owner in the wild, children from drowning in the water, and giving their life to save others in some circumstances. Look this up on google and see how many stories you find on dogs saving people’s lives. I bet a lot of humans wouldnt even do that. Dogs really are man’s best friend.

Apart from my little rant above, work has been sweet this week and the team I work with are all characters. Our main topic of conversation at work this week: About how guys dont necessarily have to be good looking but if they have charm and are gentleman-ly that can make a guy attractive. So weve been giving our (single) male colleague advice and he has a week to show us 3 females in the office how gentleman-ly he can be and we will give him feedback at the end of the week. My workmate said her grandmother had told her that one of the most important things she will teach her grandsons is how to be a gentleman and have manners. Then he’s away laughing.

We could not live in Scotland without watching the movie Braveheart. We watched it last night at our apartment.

Now I can understand the slight ill feeling between the Scots and the English that can still exist today. I realise that it is a movie and that the movie had an agenda (to entertain people, drama, romance and all that jazz) rather than it being a real-life documentary. It would be blind to think that it is historically accurate in every way but it is a truly amazing movie.

It would have been a really difficult project to make, with such amazing scenes in the movie, so graphic. So all credit to that Mel Gibson fulla. On our trip to the Highlands we went to the place where one of the battles took place (and also filmed in Braveheart). Would make a Scotsman feel very patriotic standing in that spot, I’m sure.

If you haven’t seen the movie, here is one of the most poignant messages of the movie where William Wallace makes a famous speech which makes us all feel that truth, justice and freedom are worth fighting and dying for.

Well I have survived my first full week at work as a PA after the crazy silly season - so to celebrate this momentous occasion, our friends are coming over to our apartment tonight for dinner and drinks! Cant wait to have some vino’s - feels like an eternity since I last had a glass of wine (a whole week even).

My random Friday thoughts to pass the time at work…

* I just decided I want to go to Prague (Czech Republic) for my birthday this year in April…

* I want to do some kind of positive community work - not the  kind of soul destroying (but all credit to those who can do it) work that entails harassing people on the street for money for charities - my thoughts of that kind of work is that it would be confrontational (in a bad way) andnot as rewarding as something more hands-on. I’ve been thinking about volunteering work with children.

* I can’t stand Times New Roman and have to change it instantly when I see it… whoever made it the default font is just wrong.

* I am going to walk home rather than taking the bus today and save a whole quid (maybe… if its not raining, or windy, or cold, or snowing, or blustery, or icy…………………..ha).

* My workmate and I are currently discussing the best animal you could use get to work on. We came to the following conclusions. Riding an elephant would be far too slow and you would end up late. Giraffes could be a good option for beating the traffic but the long neck is a bit of an inconvenience. Being in a kangaroo pouch would be fun to bounce in to work, but may give you motion sickness. He has now decided that a monkey would be best cos he could swing you from tree to tree, skip right over top of the traffic and swing on over…. as long as there are lots of trees on the way to work.

* I am suffering from a mild case of three-thirty-itis. It is literally 3.30pm, I want to go eat, party, eat, party, eat.

* You must be bored reading my ramblings, i feel for you. I do.

So right now, we are in the (rather lengthy process) of planning a big trip to Europe for early June…

And here is our plan……….

We are going to travel by train from Edinburgh to Amsterdam (Netherlands), Munich (Germany), Vienna (Austria), Zagreb (Croatia) and Venice (Italy).

So we are doing 5 different countries in 15 days (ish). It has been interesting trying to plan train travel in foreign countries with websites which are in dutch/french/german! I’m going to have to learn a bit before I go.

Well this week in January, it’s back into the grind for everyone, back to work, everyone still wishing they were on holiday. I think they call it post-christmas blues - I’m sure all you working people know what I’m talking about! I have a great team I work with here, and went for a few pints with them after my first day. There’s only three straight guys in our whole building we worked out yesterday. This weekend we are having some friends over for dinner and drinks.

All is well and groovy in the land of the two kiwi lassies in Scotland.

A moment of reflection.

Some thing’s I have learnt about Scotland along the way…

* Everyone here drinks a bright orange soft drink called Irn-Bru (pronounced Iron Brew) which is renowned as Scotland’s ‘other national drink to whisky’ (it outsells Coca Cola). Scotland is brought up on the stuff and is considered one of the best hangover cures… I am yet to try it but the neon bright orange colour puts me off slightly.

* When crossing at pedestrians and there’s a green blinking man sign, run for your life.

* Potato chips are called crisps and come in every flavour under the sun - it’s hard to find plain old potato chips. It’s funny to think that back home you never had to explain what type of chips (hot chips or potato chips) you wanted if you said you felt like chips, somehow you just know.

* Haggis is served (and eaten) in pubs everywhere traditionally with “neeps and tatties” (turnips and potatoes) and a “dram” (glass of whisky). I am going to try it but have to get past the idea of eating a sheeps heart, liver and lungs, oh the psychology of it. As for black pudding, dried blood - no thanks.

* People say “Aye” rather than “Yes” and also “ken” instead of “know”… as in “if you ken whit ah mean?”

* Music wise, the Scottish seem to love their Brit pop. Artic Monkeys, Lily Allen, Kate Nash, and lots of techno re-makes of oldschool songs are popular here (even chilli peppers and alanis morrisette songs are made into techno!).

* The drugs are dirt cheap (as friends found out on New Years).

* In Scotland, Scottish Gaelic for Edinburgh = Dùn Èideann. There is a city called Dunedin back home in New Zealand which translates to “New Edinburgh” and it is set up just like a mini Edinburgh by the Scots.

I ♥ Scotland.

Its snowing!!!! The first time ever I have seen snowflakes fall. I am sitting in our apartment right now watching it fall all over the cars and street outside. I didn’t realise how tiny snowflakes are and how light and fluffy they are. I thought snow flakes fell straight down but it blows in all different crazy directions. Funny what I perceived falling snow to look like. It is really magical.

i like you snow.

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!! Welcome to 2008!

We had an insane new years at Hogmanay here in Edinburgh - a massive street party of around 100,000 party people along Princes St which attracts people from all over the world. Of course we couldn’t forget New Zealand which was 11 hours behind us celebrating already… so we celebrated in lieu of the kiwi new years at 11am with a champagne breakfast with two kiwi’s we met at the castle. And then kept on celebrating until the Scottish New Year.

In other fun news, yesterday we booked a trip to Dublin for St Patricks Day in March - woo.

Well, in my hungover state, Im going to go start thinking about my new years resolutions for 2008.

Ciao.