Ginger Magic Visits

For various reasons, my long-time friends would all be quite amused at the suggestion, erroneous though it may be, that I attend funerals with designs on picking up women. (There was this one young lady at this one funeral in July of 2004... But I digress.) Jokes from Wedding Crashers aside, a few years ago I attended a very special funeral for an American hero, and had the pleasure of meeting a young lady by the name of Ginger Magic (GM), who was part of the decedent's family. We've been in either sporadic or regular contact ever since. When I got to Scotland, GM promised to come visit me, and I figured she was jerking my chain, but she wound up in St. Andrews for a two week course tied into her current work as a law student. That turned into a trip up to Aberdeen.

Among other activities, we:

explored and photographed King's College and the Hideous Glass Cube;

had a pint at the St. Machar Bar with CN Ness;

enjoyed a dinner of chips, cheese, and fillet at Lionel's;

ran into a trio of female Latter-day Saint missionaries... twice!; and

enjoyed the full Scottish breakfast at the Old Blackfriars.

It was a great afternoon and a great morning, and it was fantastic to see GM in person for the first time since we first met in late 2008. When you prepare to spend a year in an amazing place like Scotland, people tend to throw around promises that they'll come and visit you, and then fall through. I'm quite pleased that GM wasn't one of those dirty rat finks (like The Botanist, to name but one!).