Soup

There were three things that we desperately needed yesterday, and didn't manage to find until after I made that last post. The first was deoderant. Neither Alice nor I had one small enough to qualify for a carry on. We found a Boots (pharmacy)directy across from the mall, about a block from our hostel. It's a gorgeous mall with lots of interesting shops, and inside, wouldn't you know, there was a huge bookstore that was going out of business! I got a Torchwood novel for £5 (they're $10-12 in the States, and with the exchange rate it was only about $7-7.50), a new deck of tarot cards (one that I can actually read! This is so exciting!) and a present for a friend back home. Everything was only £20, and would have been about double that back in Ohio.

Just when we were about to despair, we happened across what we thought was a grocery store but is closer to a miniature Target and discovered our holy grail--£3.50 bath towels. Our last hostel provided us with daily linens free of charge, but this place charges £5 for a tiny, un-absorbant towel. (Later, I went back to this same store for shoes and socks. My boots are great for site seeing and traveling, but not after four days in a row. I was going to back a second pair, but there wasn't room. Alice and I have purchased a third bag, both to replace the one whose zippers all burst yesterday as we were about to get on the plane--not her fault, honestly. Cheap bag construction--and also so we could sew the openings closed and use the broken bag as a checked item for the stuff we're bringing home (mostly books, but there will be chocolate and snacks that we've missed from home and can't get in Italy as well).

All of this meant that we could get the third thing we really needed, which was a shower. We chilled out at the hostel for a while, then went for dinner, which was Burger King. Italian burgers are good in their own right, but they're different. And we both wanted chedder cheese.

Since we were now clean and refreshed, we went back to the mall to look around more slowly. We carefully avoided the book store, since it was very dangerous for the health of our bank accounts, and this was when I got the cute little ballet flats that I'm wearing right now.

I went to bead early, and didn't wake up until 4:30 when seven of our roommates came back from night clubbing. One of them at least was drunk enough not to care if he lowered his voice or not. I didn't get up again unil 8:30, and it feels wonderful to finally have slept more than two or three or five hours.

On deck for today is another stroll through Hyde Park, since we know roughly where to find Peter Pan now, followed by a site seeing bus. In Edinburgh, this was the cheapest, best way to see the city, and it's a reasonable bet that it's the same here. Often you can buy one ticket, get on and off at will through the day, and see more sites in one day than you would otherwise. We're going to get our obligatory touristy shots today since it's Sunday and a lot of things will be closed.

Well, my 50p internet has about run out. Now I just need to find an ATM. While this trip has been cheaper than I thought it would be, I still think we're going to be surviving off of bread and soup for the next few weeks to make it through the end of term. At least all of our supplies and things have been bought now. And I'm determined to make anything else we might need if I can.

New Etsy Items and a Sale!

Oh, hey. This is a fiber blog, isn't it?



Four new spinning batts, 7 ounces of 3-ply hand spun merino, a clutch made from recycled fabric and handmade paper, a mini journal with a suede cover, a hand dyed silk headband and two hand dyed silk scarves (only one is show), and a laptop-sized tote bag.

I'm also having a sale through April 11:

~ All spinning batts are 50% off the list price
~ Free US shipping on all items from the SALE and STASH sections of my shop and international shipping is 1/2 off
~ All purchases will receive a free surprise jewelry item

Go check it out!

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My knitting has gone by the wayside a little. Working with those wool spinning batts and spinning up that yarn has aggravated my wool allergy, so the two little projects I was working on in wool have been abandon. I'm actually going to be giving away a partial ball of yarn that I spun using the colors from the Cherry Limeaide Fiz (third column, third one down) because I can only knit a row before my eyes start itching and watering now.

My other knitting project was in cotton. I was teaching myself double knitting...until my (brand new) circular needle broke. So far I've had really bad customer service from the place where I ordered it (8seasonknitting on etsy, which has suddenly disappeared with no warning).

All of my other projects have been for school, so I don't feel much like talking about them now.

I've also been invited to show some work at the CODEPINK Mothers day event in DC. Still hashing out the details, but it looks like I might be traveling down there between the last day of school and my graduation ceremony. For more information on the event, got here.

Birthday Swag

I turn 21 tomorrow, but we celebrated yesterday by inviting family and neighbors over. Mostly, I got cash (just the way I like it), so today I went out to spend it.

I got three old French primers from my great-great aunt who recently passed away (I only met her once and we never spoke; mostly I knew her son and his wife. They found the books while cleaning out her house a few weeks ago). I collect old books, and I love French, so they passed them on to my willing hands. I picked up some thread (I have lots of colors but no white thread? How did this happen?), some sour patch because I am addicted acid--citric acid, that is. Can't get enough sour candy, and these were on sale at CVS. Lastly, I went to one of my favorite DVD stops (Walmart. Got to love the $7.50 DVDs). I love digging through the sale bins at Blockbuster and Walmart for movies. There's lots of crap to laugh at, but every once in a while you'll find some gems. This week that have patriotic DVDs on sale for $8, so I picked up The Great Escape (*sigh* Can I go back to 1963 and get me some young David McCallum?), as well as a double feature disk of The Secret Garden and A Little Princess, which were two of my favorite books/movies growing up. Hey, two movies for $7.50? I'll take that!

I also got my "adult" driver's license today--the horizontal one with the yellow bar at the top. I don't care about drinking (I could do that in Canada and in Italy, and I didn't enjoy it that much, so what's it matter here), but the new card is nice and shiney, and I won't have people asking me where the expiration date is anymore (well, to be honest, that hasn't happened since I was 17, just after they implemented the whole under-age vertical license thing, but still).

And I have to say thanks to YarnHead over on Ravelry. I was asking questions about silk hankies in the Beginner Spinning group, and she PMed me to say she had a few "just lying around," and would I like them. Hello? Free silk? Yes please! Those arrived today, about half a dozen I think, so thanks so much to her.

Oh, and the rest of the cash? I bought 8 oz of undyed alpaca online this morning. I'm in fiber heaven. I made a resolution to not buy new yarn until I'd used up everything in my stash, but it doesn't count if I just by fiber, because that's not yarn, see? And I have to spin it all up before I can order something new, which mean it takes me longer to work through it all.

I can rationalize anything. Especially birthday purchases.

Insert Cheesy Happy Dance _Here_

If you are a student or under 25, then I have the most awesome site ever for you: http://www.statravel.com.

Thanks to them, I am going to Florence for under $600. Okay, so it's one way. But I don't want to come back, and if I ever do, then I'll just go back to the site and buy another ticket. Easy as pie. And it's still cheaper than all the other travel sites I tried--cheaptickets.com, Priceline, Travelocity, Hotwire (whom I will never shop through again), all of them wanted a minimum of $1250, and wouldn't let me fly one way. Well, booya! Take that! In your face! I have found the back door and I am using it!

I am going in today to set up a Chase account, so I can have international access to my money, and I'm still going to need a credit card to get that ticket, but I'd much rather charge $600 than $1300. Even with interest, the $600 won't be too hard to pay off once my loan check comes in.

Lately I have been going back and forth between wild, crazy excitement about this trip, and rocking-back-and-forth-in-a-corner anxious. I have to trust that things will work out, it will be okay, even when it doesn't feel like it. Like I always say, "Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end." That's a quote from someone famous, but I can't remember who. I found it in a day planner a long time ago.

Anywho, that is where I stand with that. I figure my parents don't need to know it's a one way flight until....Oh, let's say March? Yeah. That sounds good. By then I should have been accepted to the University of Edinburgh Art School.

One step at a time. Just breathe.

*SQUEEEEEEEEEEE*

*happy dance*