So I flew to Shetland the day after I got back from London. This is the first time I've done something like this totally onmyown. Booked the flight, found my way to the airport, got through check-in, security, found my gate, etc. But I should back up. Rewind.

That package I was waiting for was an Easter basket from the Clogger. Wonderful. It featured Charleston Chews and Butterfingers. How awesome is that? It also included some reading that proved most useful on the flight.

I sat in front of some Arabic women on the bus and tried to catch some of their conversation. Not nosy, really, but curious to see if I could do it. I could, almost. But I got to the airport with loads of time to spare and had some lunch. I also bought a book -- really bad airport chick lit is made worse by being British, I think -- and settled in for the long haul. By which I mean the three hours until I landed in Shetland. Because the flight is only about an hour and a half.

Two issues of the Weekly Dig later, Mhairi -- flatmate -- and her mother met me at the airport, which is about the smallest airport I've ever seen. We had spaghetti bolognese for dinner and it was sort of wonderful to be with a family. Mhairi's father loves Jackson Browne and the first thing he said to me when I walked into the house was "I hear you're a Red Sox fan. I like any team that beats the Yankees."

And I knew we would be great friends.

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That's the view from Mhairi's kitchen window. Something I think I should say right now about Shetland is that it's easily one of the most beautiful places I've been in my life. Every corner, and there are lots of them, hides another fantastic view of the ocean and the hills and ponies and sheep. There aren't many trees, but that's okay. In fact, Mhairi and her mother drove me past the copse of trees -- the only one -- and explained that Mhairi loves trees. Don't we all?

Mhairi and I spent the first night just catching up and I slept in a real bed, with lots of pillows, and it was wonderful. Then we got up early-ish, ate breakfast, showered, and went to the gallery nearby with Mhairi's mother and friend, Jenny. It was fun.

Jenny is a sixteen year old girl who is trying to spend a year as an exchange student in Jersey. Ridgewood, of course. She was asking about American culture wondering. I told her she was a Red Sox fan, and indeed she was.

From Shetland

Afterwards, we went to Ness of Burgi with her brother and dog -- Ghengis. Ghengis and I became good friends. He's a black lab. I miss Zevon. Wouldn't you?

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From Shetland

From Shetland

From Shetland

From Shetland

We had haggis for dinner and I learned something very important about myself. Which is to say that I love haggis. Go figure. It's sort of delicious. I know not everyone loves it, but I think it's great. I don't even care what it's made of, it's that good. I wish they sold it in the grocery stores back home.

The next day, Cara finally came over to see me, having begged me to hurry up and get to Shetland -- then she waited a good long time to see me! So we all went to St. Ninian's Isle and it was beautiful. I can't really describe how lovely it was, but we also saw some seals on the way down. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves as soon I mention that I found a pound buried in the sand and went dune diving and rolling. Sand in my pockets, yo. This was also the start of the "emotional currency" era, when we began pricing out our adventures and figuring out their emotional worth. I went "paddling," which basically just means I took off my boots, rolled up my jeans, and went knee-high in the water.

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From Shetland

From Shetland

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From Shetland

From Shetland

From Shetland

After Ninian's Isle, we went to Jenny's house, referred to affectionately as "The Ranch," and convinced her to take the bus in town with us and get some lunch. We ate at the Shetland Museum and wandered around a bit. It was here that I met Sofi, who is lovely. We had some fun listening to the authentic Shetland accents and talking about the Northern Lights. Then we went back to Mhairi's house and I borrowed Jenny's dress, which you'll hear more about later, I'm sure.

We had Shetland salmon for dinner because James told me to. GOD. Jason also got home that night so he stopped by to visit.

The next day Mhairi and I took the one-thirty bus in town and met Cara and Jenny on it. We bought groceries for Easter dinner, which was on Saturday. Then we sort of wandered around Lerwick while Mhairi took her driving lesson and went to charity shops, meeting Mhairi for some hot chocolate at the coffee shop.

Did I mention that I spent a lot of that day collecting sea glass? I got LOTS of sea glass.

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That's Jenny, by the way.

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I got trapped in a phone box.

Then we went out for Sofi's birthday dinner and drinks. This is a good time to tell you about the dress. It was silver. And covered in sequins. And short. Here, have a look:

From Shetland

It's not my usual style at all, but I had a lot of fun wearing it. We had fun, pretty much. And we talked about baseball and I explained it to them as best as I could. I also assigned them favorite players.

Roseanne: JD Drew
Mhairi: Dice-K
Cara: Papelbon
Jenny: Jacoby, obviously
Sofi: Mike Lowell

And my favorite is obviously Lester.

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From Shetland

From Shetland

SO EASTER SATURDAY.

Menu:

Herb-crusted leg of lamb
Lemon and rosemary carrots
Dinner rolls - Cara's responsibility
Mashed sweet potatoes - more like sweet potato puree, as prepared by Cara and Mhairi
Aspargus - courtesy of Mhairi
Salad
Lemon meringue pie

It was my first time even looking cross-eyed at lamb and I'm pretty satisfied with how it came out. It was a fun and colorful meal.

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Dinner?

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Dinner.

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From Shetland

Mom will be happy to know the rosemary lemon carrots were a divine success!

From Shetland

After dinner, we watched Doctor Who and everyone acted sad that I was leaving the next day. I was sad. I miss my family a lot. A lot, a lot. We were probably eating Easter dinner at exactly the same time, too, since ours started at 6 PM on Saturday and I bet theirs started around the 1 PM Saturday. Because they also had an early Easter.

Anyway, sad faces.

From Shetland

That's Roseanne and the boy is Harry, who is going to London to study fashion. He has Christian Siriano hair.

I got Mhairi hooked on Greek and 90210. I wished Mhairi a happy Easter and went to bed. Mhairi's mother bought me a chocolate Easter egg, too, which was really sweet. We went to some cliffs Sunday afternoon and tried to find some puffins. WHICH I TOTALLY SAW, NO LIE.

Flight back. It's weird, not having anyone to meet me at the airport. Sad, hollow, etc. I can't wait to give my parents hugs at the airport, by baggage claim, and then have a nice, mellow, quiet, peaceful, exclusive ride home from in the backseat of the Marquis while Dad listens to WEEI or The River and I tell Mom all about my adventures. Just the three of us.

And then maybe see people the next day, when I've had some time to sleep. By people I mean Kristin and Sara and James and Danielle and all the rest of them.

I'll leave you with this for now:

London Calling...

You know what they say? Well, some of it was true. (Maybe not the bit about "I'm updating tomorrow." But I tried! Honestly, I did.)

Back from London (baby!) and back in one piece. Mostly. My wallet is aching just a little and I'm not sure my dawgs will ever stop making a horrible racket. Which is to say, Londontown is expensive, son.

Twelve and a half pounds to get into the city from the airport, and then it occurred to me that this weekend was going to be hitting where I couldn't take the pain. Anyway, we got in town, to Kennington and all was well. We had to ask for directions to the hostel since Robert forgot them. It was cool. But, uh, the directions were "Go to the end of this street and take a left." Which was do-able, except for the fact that the station emptied kitty-cornered onto two streets. We walked up and down the first street for a long while, finally stopping at a post office and asking for directions to the hostel. The only one they knew about was down by the Imperial War Museum. Cool. We've got a heading, captain! And they promised it was nearby, so we were okay with that.

Bear in mind that Robert hates walking. And his bag was a very heavy duffel bag. And he doesn't own a single pair of comfortable shoes. And he'd been up since 3 AM.

It wasn't close. It was a long walk. And the hostel wasn't jumping out at us. So he made me go into a bakery and ask a very nice Vietnamese woman if she knew where the hostel was. She did! Success! Except, it wasn't our hostel. It was a very cheery place filled with boys from Boston, called "The Steam Engine." One of the people who worked there used to work at the hostel we had reservations at. Ok. Well, at the very least, they'll know where our hostel is. He did, and he was from Oklahoma. And he walked us very kindly to the tube and drew a map so we'd know how to get to our hostel.

A trip that ought to have taken 80 minutes total: 4 hours.
Plane tickets to London: $100
Bed in a hostel: $30
Day-pass on the Tube: $8
Keeping a smile on my face despite it all: Priceless.

We finally made it to our hostel and left our luggage with the clerk. Then we hit the British Museum. Don't trust maps, yeah? I've found the old trick of being cute and looking lost works in London as well as in Edinburgh. I'm fond of the British Museum. I wish that old Daly and Sabra had thought it worth more than a half-hour in the gift shop. In fact, I wish Daly had thought London was worth more than some cursory shopping trips. Here I was thinking I hated it for the same reasons I hated New York -- shopping is not a reason to love a city, methinks -- and really it was just that I was shown the city by people who pandered to materialistic teenaged girls with no souls. Go figure.

I wonder what Italy might be like if I wasn't on one of his culturally vacuous tours? Which isn't entirely fair because the Italy trip was about a billion times better than the England trip. Maybe, just maybe, that was the company I kept, as well. Because I had a blast in Dublin while I traipsed about with Punky, not caring that we were flouting the rules by venturing off on our own. Whatever.

To the Embankment on my aching pegs. We walked from the Embankment to Westminster, very pretty. And crossed the Thames, observing, if you will, Big Ben and Parliament at sunset. Then we had dinner at this trendy sushi place called Yo-Sushi. Yes, the food was good. Overpriced, but good. The food comes to you on a conveyor belt and you just take whatever you like. All the plates are color-coded so you know how much they cost. At the end, they tally up your dishes. For a girl like me, this is dangerous beyond reason. Spent more than I could afford. Was not satisfied. Left hungry, tired, poor, yearning for refuge, even. But in good spirits.

From London

From London

From London

Then we got the London Eye out of the way. Seventeen pounds for a giant, enclosed Ferris Wheel ride. The view was nice, if hindered by the Eye itself, and the chance to sit for a few minutes was welcome. But I'm not sure it was worth going into debt for. Just saying. It wasn't something I felt the need to do before and it's not something I feel enriched my life. It was something I would not care about losing, basically.

Give me back the money and I'll give you back your Ferris Wheel. No? Not an option? What.Ever.

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Then we went back to the hostel and, oh! I'm glad I've been brought up blue-collar and around people who work in the service industry. I'm glad I know what sort of day these people have generally had. I'm glad I was raised not to blame the person on the other end. (Except for the whole, "That's because they're liars, ma'am" incident. That needs to be told over and over again.) Basically, they didn't have our reservation. Ten o'clock at night and they didn't have our reservation.

Robert: I got a confirmation email!
Lady: I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do.
Me: Do you at least have two beds for tonight?
Lady: Tonight? No, I'm sorry. I can help you find something.
Robert: You need to give us beds here.
Me: You don't have anything?
Lady: Wait, it's not Saturday; it's Friday. I have two beds left for tonight, and some for Sunday, but nothing for tomorrow.

So we found another hostel online that night. I thought Robert was going to explode and I was trying to keep from getting any of his bad mood on me when it happened. I knew it was better to just back off and let him fume and do his thing. Let him book whichever hostel he wanted, I didn't really care how far outside the city we were so long as I had a place to dump my bags during the day and to lay my head at night. But he's more of a four-star or bust sort, Robert is.

Another thing I think is essential in a hostel-visiting experience, is meeting new people. We're only young enough to stay in hostels once and it's really just a chance for broke travelers to talk about places worth visiting, right? So while Robert booked a new hostel for Saturday and Sunday nights, I played Jenga with some drunk English boys. I think their names were "The guy in the pink shirt," "The guy who kept making jokes about wood," and "The quiet, polite one." The guy in the pink shirt asked me first if Robert was my boyfriend.

No.

Then he double-checked that I was a girl.

Yes.

Age?

21.

Nuh-uh.

Yes-huh.

I played a couple rounds of Jenga with them, then Robert sort of hovered after he finished booking the hostel but I could tell he was miserable so I gave up and we went to bed. There was notable tension in the air as we did so, and I tried not to cry thinking about where I was supposed to be that night.

Festival theater. Jackson Browne. I left the city just as he entered it. Counter-intuitive, I know.

I failed, of course, but I fell asleep somewhere in the middle of his encore, "My Stunning Mystery Companion" so I couldn't keep crying, at least. And it's not like Robert noticed.

What a joke.

Saturday: visibly tense continental breakfast with Robert. At one point, I asked if he had both the keys to the room and he answered, "I have both my keys." 'Kay, Dad. Are you going to turn this car around, too? By that point, I was determined to have a blast with or without his permission. We were meeting Byron at the Tower of London at noon, so we had to get to New Cross Gate, leave our luggage at the new hostel, and hot-foot it back into the city. I noticed that the Hobgoblin look like a rad little joint, the kind of hole I could get my kicks in good, and Robert rolled his Midwestern eyes. We got confused walking from the tube station to the Tower, but as soon as I got the map in my hands, it was allllll good. It took us less than ten once I had some power in the duo.

Hey, Tower of London, you cost a lot of money, but you're oh-so-worth-it.

Byron looks like Jesus and I think he's one of my favorite people in the history of the Panthers. It was really spectacular to get to spend time with him and catch up. Sometimes, I think we had conversations that there was no way for Robert to enter so I felt badbadbad. But then, when we did have conversations he could enter into, like about music, he was just mean to me. And I'm sorry, but you can't say you know a lot about music if when I say "The Clash" you ask me if that's an STD. Just throwing that out there.

So we did the Tower, and the crown jewels were about the sexiest cuts of diamond I've ever seen. Lies, actually, since it wasn't the nice cut I've ever seen, but thanks so much for your condescending "I know more about diamonds than you, Ashley," tone when you explained that it was cut to emphasize size and eliminate flaws.

By flaws, I'm assuming you're referring to inclusions since the color was flawless anyway? I couldn't get close enough to notice if there were inclusions or not, but I'm pretty sure there weren't. However, I wasn't referring to style of the cut but rather the quality of the cut. I've seen diamonds cut with more precision and perfection than. That was all I was saying.

I could have schooled him, but I was too tired. Anyway, it's not good manners to be constantly correcting people or lecturing them or interrogating them. (Sorry, I was just the tiniest bit frustrated. He just has moments, but mostly it's perfectly awesome hanging out with him.)

We tried to taunt the beefeaters at Buckingham but they were too far away and had guns.

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From London

Then we saw Canada's memorial. (What happened? Did Canada die?)

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From London

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Sat among the daffodils...

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From London

From London

And headed to Soho. Where we went looking for the place called Le Ho Fook's. BOUT THAT.

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From London

It's closed down. It's the Golden Harvest now. Whaaaaaat?

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Then we ate at Garfunkel's, because if you can't have Warren you might as well have Art... GARFUNKEL. (Sorry, that was pretty much exclusively for KJax. "Stop trying to analyze me...")

Then we went back to the hostel, checked in, got Byron a room, and headed to Hobgoblin because Byron totally agreed with me that it was a cool place to be. The bartender noticed we had Scottish money and asked if we had been up north. "Holla," I think he said, in American vernacular. We got high-fives for living it up old-school style in Old Town. Then Robert said he'd give me a pound if I asked the eighteen year old sops sitting beside us if it was closing time, as the lights were extinguished. I did it and we all had a good laugh over that.

Like I said, The Hobgoblin, place I could be content with in my town.

Sunday we went to a service at Westminster and each did our own thing at the National Galleries. I didn't realize there would be a quiz afterwards, but apparently, there was. I spent most of the time in a daze shocked by my mere proximity to The Yellow Chair. (You know what I'm talking about, Mom.) There were some Saint Remy moments that about broke my heart. He totally knew his time was running out and I love that he didn't even completely cover the canvas. I also sort of gave a lot of time to Degas. Young Spartans, yes. National Galleries, you get a check plus!

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I also got eaten by a lion.

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Then I was chastised and lectured for not liking Monet. Because "YOU LIKE VAN GOGH!"

As Byron pointed out: "But they're not even remotely similar."

To which he replied, "Yes, they are!"

No. No, they're not.

Monet was far too cerebral when he painted. He looked at it like a science, not an art.



Westminster's service was a bit of a letdown. For such a renowned Abbey, you would expect something ethereal, something earth-shaking, something faith-creating. It's cool, though. The choir was gorgeous.

Then we went to Hyde Park and chased down some pina coladas at Trader Vic's. Amazing.

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From London

From London

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Then I asked some kids if they knew where Peter Pan was. Blank stares. The statue? Oh, that. No. An older gentleman gave us directions and we found it just in time to be silly and get kicked out of Hyde Park because it was closing. These things happen.

From London

From London

I made friends with a seventeen year old soldier while we ate a quick dinner at the tube station.

Monday, we did the Tate, went shopping, and caught our flight back to Edinburgh. By this point, I was nothing but tired and wanted nothing more than to pass out. Shetland tomorrow was about the only thought I managed as I drifted off to sleep in my own safe bed.

From London