To Scotland!

Thursday, July 25^th

            It’s been nearly two weeks since my last journal entry, sorry for the delay!  I’ve got a good excuse, though.  Over the last twelve days, I’ve worked hard and written up my Mellon Grant Research Paper, whopping 86 pages!  In addition, I prepared about ten pages and 3 presentations for my RA retraining sessions in a week, and written an essay on The Meanings of Marital Equality by Scott Harris.  I’ve written around 10 or more pages a day since last Tuesday, and I’m EXHAUSTED!

            Earlier this week, Bryan and I booked a flight, room, and a car to head to Scotland.  I’ve always wanted to check it out – see Loch Ness and such.  So yesterday (Thursday) I cleaned up the house I’ve been staying in, packed my bags, and headed out to meet Bryan.  I spent the morning at his apartment while he went to class before out afternoon flight.  I had just enough time to shower, repack my bag, and get some final writing done before my last mini-vacation.  Bryan is living in a new student-housing complex at King’s College here in London, and although his room was small, he had an excellent view of the city.

            Around noon I began the short journey to Scotland.  After meeting Bryan in the tube, we transferred to the Piccadilly line, which goes straight to London Heathrow airport.  Unfortunately, we made it two stops before we were forced to leave the carriage; someone had jumped in front of the train the next stop over.  This is an all too common occurrence; I’ve seen delays twice before in the two weeks I’ve been here due to suicide by train.  With only a short time until our flight, we traveled above ground to catch a cab to the airport.

            Our flight was short aboard British Airways, and we quickly made it to Edinburgh.  Although I was excited to be in a new place, I exited the aircraft feeling like Scotland was a familiar place.  Unlike my previous excision to Iceland, Scotland featured a familiar language and comparably mundane landscape.  The feeling of calm familiarity vanished quickly, however, when I was handed the keys to a stick shift Toyota Yaris with the steering wheel on the right side of the car.  

            Driving in Scotland was one of the larger challenges I’ve faced in a while.  Aside from adjusting to driving on the left side of the road and learning new traffic signs, I also had to readjust my perception of the car spatially; now I had a vast unknown to the front left of my car, and was very close to the right side of traffic.  Oh, and of course the car was a stick shift, adding a level of difficulty for my left hand.  The drive to our hotel was terrifying; every intersection was a cause for panic, right turns were painfully difficult, and it was rush hour.  I left the car sweaty and shaken.

            The rest of the evening improved once we made it to the hotel.  After dropping off our bags and calling our parents, Bryan and I took a stroll around town.  We were staying outside downtown Edinburgh near the ocean, and decided we’d look to have some seafood for dinner.  We picked a reasonably priced pub called the Granary, which we agreed was our best meal in months.  A few drinks at happy hour, olives, French onion soup, and a fish called sea bream all proved to be excellent choices.   We left full, happy and tired, ready for an adventure the following day.