I still owe you all an update of Lisa’s and Bram’s visit here (before I forget everything that has happened)

They arrived on a Wednesday and it was so much fun to see them again! Of course they were tired, they had to get up early in the morning so we didn’t do much that day. We walked through the city a bit and went out for dinner. They also told me that they had a birthday present for me (my birthday is 13th July btw :p haha) and it was a week to the highlands! So cool and sweet of them!
Thursday I had to get up early for school. I had some lecture but it turned out it was very short and I was back before they were awake. Lisa is always the first one that’s awake, then I get up with my sleepy head and somewhere later that day we see Bram, he’s always the last one but we’re used to that :p I can’t remember what else we did that day. Maybe we rented some movies that night?
Friday we went to the international museum. I also had a meeting with a teacher at school but we figured that the museum wouldn’t take too long. Once inside it turned out to be huge, with so many stuff that I only had the change to see 1,5 floors. The museum is free so that doesn’t matter. Lisa and I thought there was too much to see there. Instead of 5 old spear points you had millions! The meeting at school was useful and when I came back we went for a drink in the famous Bobby pub. There is some legend about a guy that died and his dog sat every day on his grave, something like that.
No idea what we’ve done on Saturday and Sunday so maybe it’s better I just talk about events instead of every day that passed ghehe.

Arthur's Seat
There’s a big mountain in the city of Edinburgh, it’s incredible to see. And there are some paths to climb it. We chose a path that was the most steep one I ever walked and of course I couldn’t catch up with Lisa and Bram after a few meters hahaha. That’s one thing I found out during their visit here, I’m in bad shape. I just took it easy and enjoyed the scenery very often (to catch some breath in secret of course :p ) After a while I really became tired and the bad night of sleep before didn’t help much too. We reached the top and the view was amazing! It was also very windy!!! The way down we took the long route and we came back safe.

Portobello beach
Ohyeah, there was this nice idea to go to the beach. That day however was freezing like hell! We took a bus we weren’t sure off. Got off very near to the beach and whop there it was. A not so big sandy beach, but still very nice. We walked all the way until there was no beach left anymore, picking up shells and other stuff. There was a row of wooden poles going from the beach into the sea. Of course Lisa, brave as she always is, climbed up and walked towards the sea on them. A big wave came rolling towards the beach, creating a fountain of water by each pole it hit and there stood Lisa with no place to go. You could see those fountains of water coming closer and closer and whoosh, lisa was wet, hahaha. Poor girl, it was so windy and incredibly cold!
When we reached the end of the beach they wanted to go further and climb the rocks. I was freezing however and got my long coat on and I can’t climb with that one. Bram gave me his camera so I could take pictures of them from the road above. After the first picture the camera was empty -_-‘ so I walked and waited until Bram and Lisa were finished. Took a long time though and I really started to feel sick. We walked back to a cafe to warm ourselves up again. After a while I was ok again. We went back with a bag full of shells and there is little crabby on my desk now ^_^

ZOO
The zoo was bigger than I expected. They also had some animals I never had seen in real life (like koala’s and ehm...). It was a beautiful day, in fact all the days were sunny and beautiful...and cold. We saw some horny rhino’s (hah a joke, but really..they were horny, you know like hot...for each other.....and they were two boy rhinos 0_o ), a penguin parade, a frustrated tiger, and many more.
It’s a nice zoo, everything looks good and I wanna go back and take a penguin home. Oh and in the end I didn’t get to see the koalas so I have to go back anyway.

Highlands
During the week I got more and more appointments for school so in the end we decided to make our holiday shorter. We went a weekend, from Friday till Monday to Balloch. I also had a meeting Friday morning so we agreed to meet each other at the station, however once again I was finished in 15 minutes (was important to be there though). Found out that I forgot my mobile when I tried to call Lisa and Bram and went back home to get it.
We had booked a bed and breakfast in Balloch. It was 2 hours with the train and we arrived in the evening. We walked around for a bit, talked with the nice lady from tourist information, and went out for dinner at the Tullies.
The next day we took a path around the castle of Balloch, went with a boat on the lake, got something to drink and walked all the way too Luss the nearest town. We experimented with the route (meaning Lisa wanted to climb over fences and do off road walking haha). After two hours non stop walking (it gets dark at 5 so we had to hurry a bit) I got tired and cranky. We walked another hour in the dark and got to Luss where we walked into the first restaurant we saw. I was exhausted! Luckily we took the bus back. First we all thought we had missed the bus and the next one would come in two hours or something, but then he turned around and we got safely home. Went to bed straight away.
The next day we took a bus to Balmaha to see the millennium forest. The bus driver was crazy! High speed over a curvy road with a lot of bumbs :s The plan of the day was starting with a nice walk through the forest and then I would go back to work on my paper for school while Lisa and Bram would continue and climb the high mountain. After a while we decided once again to take a short cut and found out that we were suddenly near the top of the big hill so I figured what the hell, I’m already this far so I’ll go on. On the way we found a dead sheep (totally decomposed and clean bones) so cool! Bram took the skull with him to Holland.
I don’t remember how long it took us to climb there, but it was pretty steep and incredibly beautiful! On the top I discovered we were above the clouds! That was so weird to see, it looked like we were in an air plane. Lisa said that if you’re skydiving the world kinda looks like this. After a while I felt uncomfortable and wanted to go down. Bram figured we could go a different way down but that was horrifying steep for someone with fear of heights! So I panicked and wanted to go down but had the feeling I couldn’t and was trapped. Everything was too high for me and I was scared. Lisa calmed me down by acting like it wasn’t a big deal and distracted me with telling stories. Together we climbed down while Bram was looking for the best path for us to take. After a while we were safe on normal ground and had a lunch and dinner in Balmaha. What an adventure! The last day we had to get up early and leave the bed and breakfast. Luckily we could store our luggage in the car of one of the tourist information ladies. We took the bus again to Balmaha and wandered around in the millennium forest. We climbed a smaller hill and I thought there would be an easy way down on the other side. On the top of the hill it turned out we had to go the same way back, scary! Bram was first and a bit ahead of Lisa and me. Lisa was in front of me and I managed to slip and slide to the end of the road, towards the deep hole. Luckily Lisa grabbed me and stopped me from falling. We both were silent for a moment and then she laughed, I looked at her and laughed too. We hurted our knees though, and Lisa had to help me down once again because I got scared, haha. We went back to Balloch, bought a cake for the tourist ladies and went back home with the train. Dirty and tired we arrived in Edinburgh.

When I dropped Bram and Lisa at the airport I felt sick. As soon as I got home I went straight to bed and slept the entire day, only to wake up for some food and went back to sleep again. In two days I had to finish my Research Proposal and prepare a pitch though! The next day I had to cancel the pitch because I still felt sick and worked on my paper. Now I finished that one in time, printed it out and handed it in. Finally I could relax and be sick.



A holiday video w00t! Featuring the horny rhinos, brave Lisa, highlands, morning face Nicole Arthur's seat and helpful Bram. Most of the time you hear me in the background squeaking like a retarded monkey XD

- I got money from school to create my animation! How cool is that!
- Thanx for all the cards and packages! I’m trying to catch up with sending postcards but due to Christmas mail it’s going to take a long time anyway.
- My graduation animation is going to be on television! On a local channel in Breda and around, at a program called KleurenteleviZie. Every second Thursday night of the month at 0:30am, 1:30am en 2:30am. I think my animation is shown on next Thursday or otherwise the next month.
- I’m coming back to Holland from 28th of December till 7th of January.
- It’s already dark here at 4 o’clock
- Joy is moving out of the flat. She found a big place on her own closer to school, lucky girl!