Really good.
I'm drawn into this city. I didn't think I would stay very long in Scotland but I am definitely reconsidering. I'm not ready to move down to England yet to be honest. I'm just starting to get a feel for Edinburgh and to be honest, I'm not emotionally ready to be in England yet. I'm content here in Scotland.
Edinburgh is a beautiful city. It's a mix of capital glamour and old world antiquity. The people have all been friendly and I've met some good friends here. I think I might stay for a few months before moving on to Manchester, Leeds or wherever I fancy. I have a two year adventure here, I don't want to spend all of my time in one place. So we'll see where it takes me.
I've been spending some time with a fellow Canadian here, Katie, as well as my new friend from Kurdistan (not Kyrgyzstan as I initially thought he said), Ameen. Katie and I met Ameen last week and he's been really helpful with knowledge about the city. He's been living in the UK for eight years and in Edinburgh for about three. He makes me really amazing Middle Eastern food at the kebab place his brother owns and charges me half price because I'm his favourite customer. It helps having friends that work in the service industry. On Thursday, Ameen and I went to Glasgow to visit his friend Mazin. Mazin's been in the UK for about nine years or so and is the one of the most polite, hospitable people I've met. He's a hairdresser in Glasgow and owns the most hair products and shampoo I've ever seen one person own (and I thought I was bad for owning lots of hair products). We picked up some chicken tikka kebab (for me) and cheeseburgers and chips (for the guys) at a little Arabic takeaway and headed to Mazin's place. We talked for hours about Kurdistan, Canada and culture. Mazin was really excited to learn about Canada and was really interested in things like the Inuit people and winter sports. Ameen and Mazin told me about the independence struggles Kurdistan has had in the past from neighboring countries such as Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Armenia as it shares borders and land with all of those countries. Because it's not yet an independent state but has it's own government, it's on it's way to becoming it's own country, but they said it will take a lot of time. The guys told me all sorts of interesting things about their country. Kurdistan is peaceful but faces stability problems from its surrounding neighbours. It's a predominantly Muslim country, has it's own language and suffered a great deal (around 300,000 executed or mass murdered) from when Saddam Hussein was in power in Iraq. Ameen showed me pictures of a city near his that was completely wiped out by chemical gas when he was two. Because of the oppression Kurdistan faced under Saddam Hussein, no one in Kurdistan allows the Iraqi flag on Kurdish soil because of the thousands that were killed under the flag, even though part of Kurdistan land is still legally belonging to Iraq. It's strange to compare the place where Ameen and Mazin grew up and where I grew up. And to realize how incredibly lucky I am as a Canadian.
And as different as the places are where we were raised, it's funny to see what is common ground. Mazin loves Enrique Iglesias and Usher. Ameen likes Sean Paul and Justin Timberlake. We all like similar movies. Similar things to do in our spare time. Good food. The only thing which caught me off guard was that Mazin likes Budweiser. Budweiser! I couldn't believe it! I told him people considered it to be awful beer in Canada, but if he ever came to visit I'd buy him all the Budweiser he wanted. Yuck. Haha.
I really enjoyed hanging with Ameen and Mazin in Glasgow. I love learning about other cultures, so it was great to have the guys tell me about theirs. Friday afternoon I checked into my hostel and spent some time talking with the Canadian and Aussie girl in my room. That evening I went to The Wombats concert, which was fantastic! Every few minutes, I was like,"am I really in Glasgow watching The Wombats?!". A little surreal, but very fantastic. A lot of fun.
Back in Edinburgh now. Spent most of the day catching up on sleep and then Ameen made me some really good food at Yum Yum (that's his brother's kebab/shawarma place). I don't even know what he made me. It was like, grilled chicken and veggies and lamb donner and salad on a pita with chips all covered in a garlic sauce. It was so good but I was so full afterwards. I'm still full. And that was like, six hours ago. Mmm.
Oh, and I mailed most of my postcards today, finally! I'm about two and a half weeks late on most of them. Oops. Time moves very differently over here.
So Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I'm still having a wonderful time over here. I'm really looking forward to seeing Fiona on Wednesday, I think were going to have a lot of fun.
Playlist: Neighborhoods- the new Blink-182 album.
Location:Edinburgh, Scotland
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