Edinburgh, Scotland
One thing about Britain is that it does NOT know how to make food. Excepting the wonderful fish and chips, pretty much all traditional British meals vary from weird to unsavory to plain disgusting—and the Scots do it the best. First off, the Brits do not understand the concept of pudding. Pudding is supposed to be light and fluffy and chocolaty, but the Brits just add the name “pudding” to any less-delicious dish to make it sound more than merely edible. They seem to think that adding a desert type to a meal makes it yummy! Yorkshire Pudding is a splendid example; since when has pudding involved meat anyway? Pie, too, goes the same way, like Shepherd’s Pie or Steak-and-Ale Pie. But the grossest of all is Black Pudding (otherwise known as Blood Pudding). Ingredients: congealed sheep’s blood which ends up looking like dead worms. Yuuuum. Haggis, too is disgusting. It’s pretty much the Scottish version of the hotdog: sheep liver, lungs, and heart all mixed together (with oatmeal and veggies) to make a dark-colored mush that they expect you to eat. Good thing I’m on a tight budget and can’t afford to eat out!
But anyway, Scotland itself. It only took a 6.5 hour train ride (which was, in fact, 3 train rides. Trains are usually awesome because you don't have to drive, you can just sit back and sleep or read and not worry about TSA agents, but here, it was pretty hectic. They don't tell you which train is yours, they don't number them, and they only put the end station on the departures board. Confusing.) But then there I was, in Edinburgh! I was only there two hours, but it was enough to see that it was a truly beautiful city—it was so blatantly old, but it was all meshed up with the new too, and it worked really well. And it was so blatantly Scottish—they definitely played on stereotypes, bagpipes, kilts, tartan, and of course, the accents! The streets were lined with cafés, shops, and people. Lunch too was well worth the wait, a delicious mixed vegetable Panini (including avocados, something very difficult to find here!) and a gooey, yummy brownie. And it was sooo great to see my little sister so unexpectedly! It was such a shock when my mother called me up to tell me hat in less than a week’s time, Tori would in Scotland, a stone’s throw away from Bath. She is so lucky to be shopping for colleges in SCOTLAND, of all places. I am so jealous.
Onto St Andrews (otherwisw known as the school where Cate and Wiliam met...)
We took a two-hour (48 mile) bus ride to St Andrews—probably the smallest town I have ever seen a university in! It was literally four streets long, butted on one end by this picturesque, rugged, rough Scottish coast, complete with, wait for it, cliffs and a medieval castle! The university buildings were so old they had that tarnished look to them, dark and forbidding. And then the quad was straight out of Harry Potter…The town itself was pretty cute. Small, mostly dead, quiet, peaceful, friendly. I liked it—but I could never live in a place that small, just another reason why Bath is o perfect for me. Not too huge, but it still has some life, some varied character. I don't really like people that much, and I dislike leaving my comfort zone (even though I do, all the time) but I still crave big cities, places with randomness, and long dark streets, able to walk for an hour and a half and still not reach the other side of town. I like the feeling knowing that no matter how long I live there, I may never know all there is to know, may never see all the sights, which is how I felt during my month in both Barcelona and San Jose. I love that. And that’s not something St Andrews could ever give me.
But that doesn’t matter. It only matters what Tori likes, and she loved it! I am 99% sure will go there, which is cool yet frustrating (I never gave myself the option to leave the States, and I wish now that I did!).
It was dark when we got there, and we had no map, so we were a bit clueless as to where to go. But we just ended up asking for directions and found our hotel a few minutes later. After refreshing as best we could (because the French Airline forgot the champagne back in DC, they had to delay the flight and Tori only had 10 minutes to make her connection. She did, but her luggage didn’t, so all her stuff was lost in France and it took until the next afternoon to arrive) we headed out to find dinner. We chose a place that was a restaurant/pub, but it was late (ish—about 8) and I kept forgetting that places close realllly early here, so it was already drinking time, and Tori freaked out about the whole pub setup. So we ended up wandering around until we found a place called Tailend where they sold you two fish and chips dinners for 6 pounds—a pretty great deal if I do say so myself! We carted it off back to the hotel and ate the entire thing with our fingers straight out of the greasy box, loving every minute of it! Afterwards, we went to the Vic (short for Victoria—Tori’s favourite) and I bought Tori her first beer, which she hated. But hey, it’s an acquired taste, right? So then I got her mixed drink which she managed to drink without grimacing. Although, she has not gotten the concept that one is supposed to drink alcohol slowly, to savor it. I think she just wanted to get it all over with, like taking Nyquil or something!
The next morning, we went out exploring. (At least, after we overslept. At least Tori had the jet-lag excuse—I was just tired). We had the hotel breakfast scraps, and then headed out into the freezing cold Scottish weather. The town was still pretty cute in the daylight, and now we could see the medieval-ness of it. Tori wanted to go shopping, but I said no, we had to see the town. So we went to the St Andrews museum , which was pretty nice. It was dead quiet in there, and for such a little place, pretty interesting. My favourites were a casting of a giant water scorpion that was found just off the coast, and an oddities exhibit that used to be owned by the university. (These used to be rather popular in the 1800s when travelers would bring back artifacts from all over the world that was beyond imagination to the local British people). After that, we headed out to a lunch date with a current student, but Tori felt unwell and practically ran off back to the hotel to lie down. Instead, Chelsea and I chatted about living abroad and sipped tea and ate Panini’s. It was delightful.
After a nap and some ibuprofen, Tori felt better, and we met up with another student, Meg, at a local coffee shop, where she and her Swiss friend answered all of my sister’s questions, and I focused on eating a delicious almond tart. Meg then gave us an extensive tour of the area, including making us aware of the strange (but interesting) superstitions on campus (which was to avoid walking on a certain carved block on the ground…) She then pointed us to a little Thai place, which was featured on a Gordon Ramsey show—and he even liked it! The food there was pretty good—though I’ll admit, I got the most unoriginal thing on the menu, Pad Thai, as it’s one of my all-time favourites. But it was worth it!
My day of traveling started at 5:20 AM (splendid…) and lasted right up until 30 minutes before my class started at 4. Long day! It took four trains, a bus, and a nice little walk with my obscenely loud wheeled suitcase, but I made it back in time for class. Barely. Anyway, the best part about the whole day was probably the group of drunk men sipping beers out of pitchers that crowded the little hallway by the bathroom who I let convince me that the button-activated bathroom door was broken. The station man then came over, did the complicated measure of pressing the button labeled “open” and then looked at me as of to say, “jeez, look how dumb these foreigners are…” It was a good day.
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