Oh, I must also mention, that for a brief moment last week I once again felt like a "real" college student. All week I spent countless hours in the library working my butt off on my lab reports for physics. Despite the fact that we only had three labs all semester, we had to turn in our lab notebooks with details from each experiment and one formally written one on the last day (Friday). Now, given my superior procrastination skills, I left all the work for the last week. Needless to say, Thursday night I found myself sitting in the library until 2:15 am working on my formal lab report. In some ways it was nice to be working so hard once again, typing in all the lab information into the familiar type-setting program I use back at Guilford (I hope they accept this style, but it looks way nicer than any lab written in Word...). As per usual, I successfully got all my work done and handed in by 3 pm on Friday. It was such a big relief to hand in that notebook and report...I could finally relax!
Which brings us back to the relaxation and celebration. Lauren loves baseball and is sad that she is not in the states for the opening games of the season for her beloved Braves and Red Sox. In order to make it feel closer to summer time and less like she is missing all the fun of baseball, we decided to make homemade pretzels and drink beer. This way, it would be similar to like being at a ballpark, well, minus the actual game...
Armed with all the necessary ingredients and a recipe for yummy looking soft pretzels, Esther, Lauren and I set out on our pretzel-making quest. Esther did a wonderful job mixing the dough and then while it was rising we watched some online TV shows. After it had raised to its full potential, we beat down that dough and got to the serious part: shaping the pretzels. Lauren and I had quite the time rolling the dough into long ropes and then attempting to shape them into perfect pretzels. We even tried the "fling around in the air" technique one sees at the mall pretzel shops. Let's just say that the workers at the pretzel shops make it look WAY easier than it actually is. We had quite a few laughs.
Dough rope:
Attempting to twirl the dough around to form the shape...
We had some success.
Apparently when making pretzels you must boil them before baking. I did not know this. It was an entirely new concept, but thanks to our recipe from foodgawker, we conquered the pretzel boiling process. Before we knew it we had 12 delicious looking home-made pretzels! Needless to say we enjoyed eating our pretzels and drinking our beer, and despite the fact that there was no live baseball, I think that the company of good friends made up for this :-)
Boiling the pretzels.
Finished product, so aromatic and appetizing!
Enjoying the fruits of our labor...SO TASTY!
Yesterday, Esther and I decided to hike up the Law Hill. This is a giant hill in Dundee that has a monument atop it and gives you a great view of the city if you make it to the top. I had yet to hike up the hill, since last time we planned to make the trek it was raining and cold. Luckily, the weather was beautiful yesterday and ideal for an afternoon hike.
Notice the hill in the background with the pointy-thing on top? Yea, that is where we hiked to.
Sooooo many stairs!
Esther and I set out and made our way to the top. The view from the top of the Law was amazing. You can see for miles out across the city and the Tay and beyond into the lovely Scottish countryside. It would have been even more lovely if it had not been so darn windy! It was so windy that my sunglasses were being squashed against my face and we could hardly walk upright. Because of the ridiculous amount of wind, we did not stay that long atop the Law. However, I'm sure I will hike it again before my departure because Lauren has yet to hike it and I really want to have Tucker (my brother) hike it too when he comes to visit.
View from the top.
This is the monument at the summit. It is for all the soldiers from Dundee who died in WWI.
Tired hikers!
On our way back down, we went through a park. In this park we found a lovely field of daffodils. Oh, have I mentioned how there are daffodils EVERYWHERE in this country? I absolutely love it! They are so bright and cheery and make me think of spring and happiness. Anyway, when faced with a field of daffodils what better to do than run through them? So that is exactly what took place. Running through the daffodils was just a nice ending to a lovely hike!
The definition of happiness:
Next time you see a field of daffodils, run through them. It will brighten your day!Cheers!
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