I mistakenly thought that with the end of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the craziness that has enveloped us here would end. But I was wrong. If anything life seems busier and more frantic than in August as I juggle coffee with friends, shopping trips in and out of town, meetings with professors as the new school year starts up, preparing for a new year of tutoring British History One (the same course I tutored last year), and fitting in my own studies.
There's also been a number of changes that have occurred in the past few weeks as good friends have moved home to other parts of the country, and across the sea or the ocean, having finished up their Masters degrees. I'm starting to appreciate how difficult it may have been for the friends I made back at Western when I was working on my MA, just to disappear after handing in my dissertation on August 1st. I made good friends who were in the Masters programme here, and while its difficult to see some of them leave, I know email and facebook will help us keep in touch, and that we'll now have friends around the world to meet up with on our travels. All the more reason to do some more traveling! Luckily, a bunch of the Masters students have taken up PhD positions here, so I'll be stuck with some of them for a few years yet.
On Friday I took the train to Glasgow with one of my closest friends for a day of shopping. We had decided a couple weeks earlier that we were going to need to treat ourselves after the stress of First Year Review preparations and the emotions that come with friends leaving and being away from our families, and there's some excellent shopping to be found in Glasgow. Of course, the best shopping comes with having extra money to spend, which we don't, but we did get some excellent bargains at Primark, the massive clothing store with crazy-low prices. For example, I bought leggings for 90p and slipper socks for £2. I also found a lovely pair of quilted pink wellies because with the way it's been pouring in Edinburgh in the mornings, I'm going to need them!
Sunday night was the Bank of Scotland's fireworks concert which marks the end of the Edinburgh Festival. I hadn't heard about it, but yellow signs started popping up along the streets on my way to school warning of the traffic diversions on Sunday evening. Derek was ill so he stayed bundled up inside to watch the highest fireworks shot from the castle, but I went out with a friend and her boyfriend, and he drove us to Inverleith Park, which is about 20-25 minutes north with a beautiful view of the castle. There were also speakers which played the music from the concert in Princes Street gardens (there was a live performance with an orchestra and choir performing Handel's works), so that the 100 000 fireworks still appeared to explode in time with the music regardless of us being so far away.
It's the largest performance of its kind in Europe, and it was spectacular. At times the fireworks were so bright that my camera couldn't handle the image, which is no small feat considering how far away we were from the site. I had to resist singing along to the Hallelujah Chorus which capped off the evening. Having sung it so often in high school as part of our massive choir, the Bluevale Singers, I think its permanently engraved in my mind. It was a really magical sight, and I'm looking forward to going again next year with Derek beside me.
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