Must Love Dogs

If you were ever considering volunteering at an animal shelter, I have just one question for you, do you really love dogs (or cats)? Because if the answer is without a doubt yes then go ahead, but if there's any doubt in your mind then do not work at an animal shelter! I came back today wet, cold and muddy. Of course when I got up this morning it was raining, well more like pouring. thankfully by the time I got to the shelter it had died down, but that didn't entirely help. I had to take all of the dogs for a walk again and the areas to take them out were completely muddy. This would be fine since I was wearing my wellies but of course the crazy dogs kept jumping all over me with their muddy paws. I had to endure two hours of this. But I love dogs so I didn't mind riding the bus home all wet and muddy, having people give me dirty looks for being so dirty on the bus haha. Although I did get to play with some adorable puppies, which was certainly worth it. So again I say make sure you really love dogs before you volunteer because rainy days are certainly not fun. Time to curl up in bed with some hot chocolate and a good movie...

First Day

Today was my first day at the Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home. I had a lot of fun. I got there around 9:45 and left at 1:30. The first thing I had to do was squeegee all the soapy water into the drain. Kinda reminded me of tennis camp when it has rained the night before and we have to soak up all the water on the courts the next day. The only difference was I had maybe 20 dogs barking at me. A lot of them would follow the squeegee back and forth and would try to attack it when it was close to their kennel, pretty funny actually. Once I had finished with that I had to wash all of the dog bowls. Then the fun part started. They had three large grassy enclosed areas where dogs could run around. So the girl I was working for in one of the kennels  wrote me a list of dogs that I could take into the areas. I think I took about 10 of them out there (one at a time of course) and I just got to run around and play with them. Some of them were interested in their own running of course but others had a lot of fun with fetch and tug-o-war. My favorite dog was Rex, a Staffie (Staffordshire terrier), he was so cute and insisted upon being a lap dog, and also would not allow me to stop playing with him. The four hours went by very quickly, although I had a lot of fun!

Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home

This morning at 11 I had a meeting with the manager of the Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home. I decided to volunteer there since I have quite a lot of time on my hands, what with classes being over and everything. I was very impressed by the shelter, it was really much nicer than any I have seen. The shelter can hold 250 dogs and 100 cats, the amazing part is that it's mostly a no-kill shelter. Occasionally they have to put animals to sleep but last year out of the 3,000 animals they only put 27 down, which is really impressive. The shelter also acts as a boarding for family pets. I am excited to start volunteering, they had a lot of cute puppies and kittens which I can't wait to play with (I might try to sneak my camera in to take some pictures)!

Canary Islands!

On March 30th my flatmates Jenny and Vivian and I got on a flight to Lanzarote, part of the Canary Islands, in Spain and late afternoon yesterday I got home. It was really a great vacation. We stayed at the Bellevue Aquarius hotel, which was amazingly beautiful. We got an all-inclusive package which was great because we were given breakfast, lunch, dinner, and drinks basically for free since the cost for the hotel was relatively cheap. The food was good, a bit repetitive but good. I honestly don't think that I could put the trip into words so I will just put up the pictures and allow you to imagine how my trip was (I'm gonna make them bigger then normal just to show how amazing they are)/

We had a lot of cat visitors at the hotel! We named all of them :)

The hotel

Whaaatt??

This morning I got up early and as I was looking out my window an egret landed in the yard next to my flat (this is where the chickens and ducks come from). Guess I've got a new friend!

Now that's some crazy weather!

In North Carolina I always thought we had the craziest weather, it would change so quickly, hot one day cold the next. It always drove me crazy. But Edinburgh totally surpasses North Carolina's crazy weather. This morning I woke up to beautiful blue skies and lots of sun. Giving me the urge to go for a nice long walk. Before I was about to leave for my walk I looked out the window to see dark clouds and rain. Great. I sat at my computer and started to hear that the rain suddenly turned into hail, I watched my window and soon I couldn't see because it was hailing so hard and there was tons of wind. In an instant the hail stopped and suddenly the blue skies and sun returned. So I decided I should take advantage of the momentary sun, so I went to the store. When I got out of the store it was cloudy again and when I got back to my flat it started hailing again! And now as I sit here in my room I can see blazing sun and blue skies. Now realize that this all happened between 10 am and 1pm. Wow! Can't wait to see what happens next....

Hmm Sweden for the weekend? Yes I think so.

This past weekend two of my friends and I went to Stockholm, Sweden for the weekend. My cousin was nice enough to allow us to stay in his flat while he was away on vacation, so we were right in the city center. I was their official tour guide for the weekend, seeing as I've been to Stockholm a million times. Our adventures started Saturday morning where we went to the open market and a cool modern furniture store. After that we went to Skansen, my favorite part of Sweden.

Me on a Dala Hast, a traditional Swedish figure, except normally a lot smaller.

Bison!

Lynx!

Ahahahah I love the squirrel's ears

Fighting seals!

Moose!

There was a baby moose that kept coming up to the fence wanting people to pet him. He came up to me so I started petting him. As soon as I stopped he would nudge my hand, just like a dog would, he didn't want me to stop petting him! I told my friends that the trick with any animal is just to scratch them behind the ears, they love it!

Luckily we had beautiful blue skies and sunshine that day!

And there was still snow on the ground!

Overall it was a nice relaxing and fun weekend. And of course I did enjoy eating some great Swedish candy, no one makes candy like they do.

This morning when I woke up I heard a funny noise outside, I'm of course used to the chickens making noise but now it sounded like the chicken had a cold (we'd have that in common). So when I got up and looked out the window I was surprised to see that we now have a family of ducks living outside! 

That explains the funny noise...