Festive Fun

I got a new phone! I can take pictures and blog from it :) hopefully this means you'll hear from me a bit more!

Last night, a group of us went to Bar Italia for our Christmas meal. Although we didn't have any Christmas food...

Love and hugs

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National Museum of Scotland

You will have noticed, dear reader (if any of you are still out there?) that regular blogging is not my forte. However, I have eventually returned with another offering.

Last week I took a trip to the National Museum of Scotland, recently reopened in my own fair city after a long refurbishment process. Anyone who visited the museum in the past will no doubt remember the fish pond? Alas, it has been removed. Perhaps all the fish were dying of copper poisoning... who knows.

But the refurbishment is great. I wish I'd had a better camera with me, although I still don't think it could capture the incredible space in the main gallery. It's a huge airy chamber with a glass roof, four floors high, with all of the display galleries branching off it. It's the kind of room I'd love to get married in - it feels like light and air, very uplifting. Like a cathedral but brighter.

So no pictures of that because I really couldn't do it justice, but one of the exhibits everyone's been talking about is the tyrannosaurus rex skeleton and indeed it's very impressive.

It's in the gallery which used to have (if I remember right) the skeleton of some enormous sea creature. But it's been so long since I went before the refurbishment that I don't really know for sure.



That gallery is also four stories high, but it's smaller, and the lighting is lower to preserve the taxidermies and things. And instead of that single massive creature that I only half remember, they now have a whole parade of watery creatures, including the ocean sunfish, with whom I made friends.


I also quite liked the painted stork - but you'll have to forgive the glassy reflections of my snazzy pink camera phone!


In the geology section, looking at how the Earth was formed and rocks from space and things, they had this enormous geode, full of purple crystals, which was formed by cooling lava. The bubble shapes cooled and solidified first, but the heat evaporated whatever solute was present, leaving these beauties to form on the inside of the shell. Incredible.


And the last thing that caught my eye was this slice of iron meteorite with "Widmanstätten patterns" on it. They're formed by the presence of nickel-iron alloys which cool over MILLIONS of years to form these big visible crystals, which you can only see when you slice and polish an iron meteorite. And because it takes so long to form, we can't produce them in a lab and they are proof of the extraterrestrial nature of an object - they're like as old as the Earth's core.

The museum also has lots of exhibits of foreign cultures which didn't interest me nearly so much as the natural history, and also some sculptures, including Greek and Roman ones, up at the top of the main gallery, on the top floor, which I enjoyed because I've studied Classics and I knew what they were about.

The Chambers Street section of museum has displays of British and Scottish historical artefacts which I didn't look at on this trip but which are definitely worth a look.

In fact the whole place is is worth a look - set aside an afternoon, or a whole day if you want to read through everything in the place. There's something for everyone, wherever your museum-based interests might lie, and this is really only the tip of the iceberg.

Love and hugs

Scottish Ballet at the Playhouse

Last night, I had an absolute treat! I 'splashed out' on a student ticket for the Scottish Ballet's programme at the Playhouse, part of the Edinburgh Festival. It's the first time since I started studying ballet and taking a firm interest in it that I've seen any live ballet, so don't expect an expert's opinion! Not that you would of course, you know me too well for that dear reader.

The first piece was a brand new piece called Kings 2 Ends, which was choreographed by Jorma Elo, specifically for the company. Set to music by Mozart and Steve Reich, this is a beautiful work of art, and although not a narrative piece, tells a different story to each individual who sees it. I adored the pas de trois in the third section, and the pas de deux sections danced by Noellie Conjeaud and Teun van Roosmalen (above) were incredibly fluid and well co-ordinated, although all the couples were beautiful.


The second piece, Song of the Earth, was choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan in 1965 and explores the idea of mortality as a young man struggles with it in his life and in his relationships - the link above the McMillan's website explains the whole thing a lot better than I could! I have to admit, I didn't read the narrative description before I watched the piece - I had no money for the programme - so my own interpretation whilst I was watching it was somewhat different - I saw two best friends and a beloved sister. However, I don't think that detracted anything at all from my enjoyment of the piece, which showcased some excellent dancing from the male danseurs, and some incredible pas de trois from the three soloists, Erik Cavallri, Adam Blyde and Sophie Martin. The music was Mahler's Das Leid von der Erde (the Song from the Earth), which is a beautiful song-cycle, translated from eighth century Chinese poetry into German. The music was performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, led by Sian Edwards, with Katrina Karneus and Peter Wedd as the soloists.


All pictures are from the Scottish Ballet website, taken by Andrew Ross. They have a few more production photos of these two pieces in their gallery there and also on their flikr photostream.

Love and hugs

Edinburgh Festival

Tongue is gorgeous today dear (imaginary) readers. Beautiful weather. And yet still I didn't go out. I sat in the house in joggers and did very little all day. Mum and I made pasta salad. And I did some work towards a research proposal. Don't ask me who I'm going to propose it to, I haven't figured that out yet.

So instead of trying to eek out a post from my boring day, I thought today I'd post for you about a much more exciting day that I had at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival before I came up north.

In the afternoon, I went with my best friend, her mum and brother, and my other best friend (yes I'm 22 years old and I still have best friends) to see a show called Potted Potter which was on at the Pleasance.

Really enjoyed the show - it was very funny, and very Harry Potter, so unless you are a big fan of Hazza P, or you are a child, then it might not be to your taste. But to Potter fans I recommend it most highly, I'm sure you'll enjoy the incredible dragon, the epic story telling, and your very own game of Quidditch!

After the show we went for something to eat at the Tron - don't get a baked potato - and then we went off in search of some free comedy. There is quite a lot of free comedy around the High Street/Cowgate area, and if you just wander around people tend to give you flyers for things that are starting soon and send you in the right direction. After umming and erring and trying to chose between a few things, we ended up at 2Facedbook 2 by a guy called Jools Constant at Sin Club and Lounge.


This was really good too. A bottle of beer was £2.50, not too bad, and the guy was pretty funny. He ripped me to shreds for being a posh girl because I knew what a duck island is. If you don't know, google it.

After that we went back to the Tron to meet some of our other friends and by chance got offered free tickets to see another show. The basement bar in the Tron turns into a venue during the festival called Just The Tonic at the Tron for various comedy shows. We got tickets to see Get Happy in Edinburgh and the hosts called it a "working mens club" and had us playing darts, downing pints, and watching burlesque dancers. There was some weird stuff too but it was all pretty funny. The last act of the night was this bizarre comedian, something like Mr Bean but not quite. I got his flyer but I left it in Edinburgh - very sad :( he was really funny and I feel he deserves mention!

After that show we hung around in the basement and we saw this other show, called Set List which has apparently moved to the Caves, probably because it was awesome and they wanted more space.


This was funny too. There was a line up of different comedians, and each of them got a set list of topics which they had never seen before, including some audience suggestions, and they had to do a five minute set based around this material. Some of them were really really funny, including one lady who wasn't even doing a fringe show this year she just wanted to perform for a laugh. I really wish I had a note of everyone's names! If I was an entertainment blogger I'd be far more professional than this. Never mind.

After that we went to the Hive and I met this guy:


who is in this show: The Joker.

I haven't seen the show but may be going when I get back home. He was really nice anyway, and when I saw him on the telly he was quite funny so I hope I do get to see it!

Any of my dear (imaginary) readers seen anything in the fringe this year? Or anything you've heard of that's decent and not too expensive?