Edinburgh: City of the Castle, Writers and the Dead pt.1

This weekend I went to Edinburgh with two other Americans, Krista and Brian. Before I get into anything else, I want to start with a little picture story because this will be the most exciting to some certain people I know read this.

We went here:



Drank this:



And found this:



!!!!!!!!!!!!

We went into this cafe called The Elephant House, obviously because of the sign. Apparently this is where J.K. Rowling spent a lot of time working on Harry Potter when she didn't have much money. We happened to sit at this big table with drawers in it. Anyone knowing me will know that as I got bored sitting there, I started playing with things. I opened one of the drawers and it was stuffed full of notes written on napkins, scraps of paper, postcards, etc. Some were poetry, some were memories, some were suggestions. We started digging through the notes reading some of them. It was kind of like being at The Cellar reading the Hey Yous that haven't been published yet. I mean...never mind. Anyway, I reached around to the back of the drawer and pulled out this one. It was amazing. What a great moment. We put it back in the drawer before we left so that maybe other people will find it someday.

I will post more about Edinburgh later, possible in pt. 2 of this post.

Pongin

Alright, before I go into anything else, I want to let you know how I was awakened this morning. I was nice and warm and comfortable in my bed when the fucking fire alarm goes off. Fuck that shit. It was 7am and I didn't have class until 11. Bullshit. I lay in bed for a few seconds before I realized that it wasn't just going to stop, so I got up pulled on a sweatshirt and some shoes. I've got to say though, I'm glad I keep my keys hanging on the door otherwise I would have forgotten them and been locked out at 7am.


Anyway, in better news, my friend Patrick and I taught two of our European friends, Jacques and Jake, how to play beer pong like true collar-popping frat boys. We couldn't find red solo cups, that seems to be pure American culture that hasn't yet infiltrated the UK. We were able to sweet talk one of the porters into giving us a couple ping-pong balls. The conversation was something like this:
Patrick: Hey, how do you go about borrowing table tennis balls?
Porter: Well, you leave your keys and i.d. card and when you bring back the paddles and ball, we give you back your things.
Patrick: Oh, well, ah...how many ping-pong balls do you have? Is there any chance of buying some from you?
Porter: What do you need them for?
Patrick: Well, we're going to-
Porter: (interrupts) Never mind, I don't want to know. Here, have two. Don't tell me.
Patrick: Thanks!

It was awesome. Here are a few highlights:


Jacques drinking from the goblet of FIRE!


Patrick and Jake. True frat boys at heart.


Timed group picture with bad lighting. stupid fluorescents.


In other news, I have plans to hit up Edinburgh this weekend and Dublin with Mavv for the first weekend in December. More to follow!

The Unicorn

Alright, so the title of this blog is Left at the Unicorn, which to some may mean a whole lot of "huh?"

Well.

Here's the story:

My friend Patrick, the grad student, had a class on the third floor of Kings College, one of the older buildings on campus. He gets to the building on the first day of class and goes up the stairs. One flight, two flights, no third floor. What? But...my class! He wanders for DAYS! Ok, not really. He actually goes down to the main office and asks about the third floor (which is not forbidden to students). He is told to exit the main building, turn left at the unicorn statue and re-enter the building at the next door because his class is in the TOWER!

I also have a class in the tower to the left of the unicorn. About the legend of Arthur. It's pretty awesome.

Karaoke

Karaoke in Scotland mostly means get really drunk and slur the words to your favorite song.


How fun!

British people are funny

So lately people have been asking how life in Scotland is going. Well, as I already told Jordan, I really can't sum it up as well as this video can:

Pubbin

Last night I went with the homies Patrick and Marusa down to The Bobbin, a close student-y bar with pool tables. Patrick played some British Pub style pool while Marusa and I nursed our beers. A brief word about British pub pool is that it's fucking down and dirty. The balls and cues are smaller and lighter, the pockets are narrow and the tables are about the same size as those plastic 10-in-1 game tables that include chess and checkers as their bullshit way of making ten games. Anyway, it was cool to watch and we met a dude named Gary who talked about forestry and underwater logging. It was pretty dope.

Dear Claire,

Feel free to wear more layers. It is cold here.

Love,
Claire

Food

Food. Food can be awesome. The dining hall here, however, does not serve awesome food. Additionally there are set meal times: breakfast is from 7:45 to 9:15, dinner is 5:15 to 6:45. If you miss those windows, you don't eat. But wait, what's that you say? "But Claire! I see breakfast and dinner times, what about lunch?" Well dear friend, lunch is not included in the catered dining plan. "But Claire! What do you eat?" That is a good question! Some days we go to the Hub to eat (yeah UPSers, the "hub" not the "sub"). The Hub has several different stations to eat with food prices upwards of £1.50. Other times we'll go to the Lidl's just down the street and purchase the 99p meal deal. A small sandwich, bag of chips, and a bottle of water. Really, it's not a bad lunch and it's under a pound. But today my friends, today we have instant mac 'n' cheese:

Skype randomly makes noises at me. Chill Skype, Chill.

Ok so here's the thing. I initially wasn't going to do the whole "blog" thing because...well...I didn't really want to. But I've been reading other people's travel and "travel" blogs, Jordan, Kaitlin, "Liz", Isabel, whether they know it or not and I started to feel left out. I HAVE THINGS TO CONTRIBUTE TOO! Also, it's been hard to actually catch people on Skype, this seems like an ok alternative.

But now I'm all behind. I've been here for a week and a half, gone clubbing, been hit on by drunk guys, gone to class, and wrestled the Loch Ness monster. So here it is. I'll briefly touch upon a few main events in my recent life. I have a feeling most posts won't be this long, but seriously people. We have THINGS to catch up on.

First, my room has a "hand basin" under the mirror. We call it a hand basin because we're British. Mostly it means I only need to leave my room to pee. Or do I?


Next, the other half of my room:



I thought about cleaning it up a little, but then realized how uncomfortable that would make Evanie. Note the incredibly ugly curtains. Oh my god. They're so freaking ugly. Also, you can't see it in this picture, but every room is equipped with an electric kettle. Yes, that's right, a kettle. Not a microwave or a fridge. A kettle. Because we're British.

Now check out the sweet asylum style hallways we have here. There are three buildings like this that look exactly the same. It's actually really creepy and quiet most of the time.

Can't you just see the walls bleeding?


Ok enough. How about the time I caught the Loch Ness moster?

So dope. But really, I'm more of a catch and release person, so Nessie is still out there for all of you.


In other news, I just sneezed so suddenly that I scared myself. More to come in the future!!