First off, apologies that this wasn't up yesterday; the internet in my flat was out all day, so I wasn't able to do anything online, let alone update my blog. But here we are, finally, one day late, but possibly better for it. This week, I went down to the Carnival type thing that's set up along Princes St., next to the German Christmas Market.

This is the carnival from my vantage point on North Bridge. All you can really see from here is the ferris wheel (the big circle of light in the middle). About half an inch to the right of that you can kind of see another ride thing, like a roller coaster slide type of thing, I'm not sure what it was, but it's hard to see in this shot anyway.

Here is the merry-go-round! Those are reindeer inside, though it was moving, so that didn't come out too clearly in the picture.

Here's the tower thing I was talking about. You can kind of see the roller slide thing spiralling around the outside. Just to the right of that, there's what looks like a carousel, but it's one of those spinning swing rides that I used to like a lot.

This is the ferris wheel up close. I tried to catch it when it was most lit up, so it was prettiest, but the lights moved too quickly and my camera moved too slowly, and this was the best shot I got. I'm very close to it here, and I did not go up on it. I will never ride one of these.

And, just for McKenna, here's the big slide. The tower from before is visible just to the left of the slide; I'm down in the Gardens now, so I'm a bit below street level.

And the outdoor ice rink. They have a little paddock, in the right of the picture, for little little kids, who were quite adorable, and then the bigger rink for bigger people, who were not nearly as adorable. Still looked like fun, though.

This is not from the night I went to the Market, this is just this morning (Wednesday, 3 Dec.), a car parked in front of my building. As you can see, quite a lot of snow, so sometime after I dozed off last night, it really came down. Forecasts are calling for heavy snow tomorrow, too, so I'll keep you posted on that; it's gorgeously clear out right now.

And this is my favourite picture from the night I went to the Market. These are trees along Princes St. at the edge of the carnival; the building in the top left is what I think is city hall. I just really like this shot, it's very cool. Christmas lights make things very cool. But on to other things.

This, http://io9.com/5099807/ , is intruiging to me, because I'm a comic book fan, and the concept of Dark Avengers, when the Avengers as I know them have almost always been very, for lack of a better term, 'light' really piques my interest. The success of the Dark Knight, with its dark, realistic portrayals of tortured heroes and twisted villains, as well as the examination of mob mentality throughout it, seems to be leaking into comics all over. And good, they should be darker.

And here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7754861.stm is an interesting study about feelings of loneliness and isolation in the UK; as you can see, people living in Edinburgh in the most recent study apparently are the most lonely in the UK. Maybe that's part of why I like it here so much, in that I've always been a bit independent and anti-social (despite appearances to the contrary). And in that regard, here are 10 reasons why it's okay to be anti-social (the first three are really the only ones that I think apply to me, but you can judge for yourself): http://bigcigars.tumblr.com/post/62289054/10-reasons-to-be-antisocial

Only one vocab term this week: Smarties.

In the States, Smarties are little chalky, quasi-fruit-flavoured candies, generally only seen at Halloween, which hurt your teeth if you eat more than two packs at any one time. Here in the UK, though, Smarties are, like, generic M&Ms; they're little chocolate discs, a little bigger than an M&M, in a colourful candy shell. C'mon, Britain! Wake up!