Hokie Travels: Christmas in Dubai and Edinburgh!!

I stayed in Dubai for Christmas this year, which was actually really fun. My friends Karen, Laura, and I did an all you can eat dinner (basically a nighttime brunch). It was awesome. They had an entire room for desserts!! They had everything. There was even a whole pig which had a label that said, "contains pork" you know, so the Muslims don't accidentally eat it...

So the paper crowns are a british/everyone but Americans thing apparently. I had never heard of them but apparently they're a big deal. The silver thing on the table in front of Laura is called a cracker (I've seen them in stores in the US, but I thought they were full of crackers that you eat....lollll....). Anyway, they have a paper crown and a prize inside. You each pull a side and whoever gets the largest side gets what's inside. I got a paper fan. Unfortunately there were whistles in some of them.....and there were kids there. Draw your own conclusions about that.

A couple of days after Christmas I flew to Edinburgh, Scotland to meet my boyfriend. It was freezing and raining and gorgeous! I had been there before but my boyfriend is Scottish and he went to college there so we got to see a log. There are Christmas markets all over the city. You can get mulled wine or cider and just walk around with it! I had part of a haggis burger and it was pretty good, shockingly.

Scotland Photos:

These houses are right next to the Edinburgh Castle.....I told Raiph I was going to become a rich and famous writer so we could live there. He doesn't believe me. Can you believe that????

New Year's Eve!!

I met Raiph's cousin Victoria.

I couldn't give 2 shits about Harry Potter but this is the pub where J.K. Rowling wrote the first book!!

The Edinburgh Castle is situated on an extinct castle...

We went to Mary King's Close. OMG LOOK IT UP! Here's the link. I can't even describe how cool it was!!! Basically houses used to be 15 or so stories high. If you lived on the top, you would have to traipse through 14 other houses up the stairs to get to your house. The government took off the top houses and sealed the ones underneath to build a government building. People kept living down there! One guy passed out on our tour when we were in the black plague room, haha.

Here's the wikipedia article. Read it!:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_King's_Close