Day 21: Arthur's Seat Tricks Me Not Once, But Twice

I’m separating entries by date now- trying to make them less hectic!

Sunday, January 27^th

As I promised, I will tell you about my Arthur’s Seat hike on Sunday. When I woke up the sun was shining (I’m dead serious) so naturally I had to be outside. I decided to go on a run and left the flat, not really with a plan in mind. I just let my feet lead me and I ended up at the base of Arthur’s seat. I ran up the first hill, then the second, and figured what the heck, I’ve already started going up I might as well go all the way to the top. There are many paths to the top, so I selected one and started the trudge. In the beginning the ground was fairly dry but as I made my way up it got muddier and steeper, until I was nearly rock climbing in some places. Well, I eventually made it and wow! You could see all of Edinburgh, nearby cities, and out to the ocean. It was incredibly windy though; so windy that at one point I had to sit down because I was afraid I would just blow right off! What scared me even more was a heard a man say “I wonder what it’s like up here when it’s actually windy,” I certainly don’t want to find out…

Also at the top, I saw a rainbow! What a magical place. Eventually I headed back down on a random path thinking that it didn’t really matter which one I chose, as long as I took it all the way to the bottom, right? Wrong. As I was going down, I saw a huge lake that I hadn’t seen on the way up, and then acres of open land, also which I had never seen before. Uh oh. When I finally got to the bottom, I had no idea where I was. And I also had no phone or money with me. But I ran in the direction I thought I needed to go for awhile and finally recognized something I knew- that ugly Parliament Building (see Day 11 for pictures). Thank god! I was still a mile or so away from my dorm but at least I knew where I was. Crisis averted.

Later that day, I tackled another mountain of a task- grocery shopping for the week. This time, I had a list with me, as I had read a Wiki “How to Cook For Yourself” and the article recommended making a list first. Easy enough. The actual shopping went well I’d say, but I was there for about an hour (is that normal…?) And my shopping basket was ready to explode when I finished.

Monday, January 28^th

I had the dreaded 9am tutorial (the US equivalent of a lab or small discussion section) today, and took a bus there which gave me just enough time to make it if nothing went wrong. Well, the class was on the 8^th floor and the elevator I took only went up to 7… I got off at 7, which was a construction zone. Things were off to a good start. Eventually I found a help desk and asked how to get to this elusive eighth floor classroom. It turns out only one elevator in the building goes to the part of the seventh floor that has stairs up to the eighth floor. Who knew. Anyway, on that elevator I swear the automated voice that announces what floor number you’re on chuckled when it announced seven.

Somehow, I was only a few minutes late. After the tutorial, my friend and I met up for lunch. She had seen people on the campus with yummy looking freshly made sandwiches, so we went on a hunt to find them. After asking around at a few places, we found them! In a school supplies convenience store, two ladies in the back were making fresh sandwiches, a sight I had been dreaming about since I got here (the sandwiches, not the ladies!) I selected my usual ingredients, and boy it did not disappoint. I spent the next twenty minutes muttering phrases of admiration in between bites.

A neat building I found on a walk

We had two more classes. The first was environmental pollution, and the lecture was actually fascinating- about air pollution and the impacts it has on peoples’ health. Our next lecture was an introduction to soil science.

That night, I had planned to cook the rest of the hamburger meat I had, but when I took it out I realized it had gone bad; I felt like a hunter that just lost his deer to maggots and flies. It was a real low. Instead, I had non-meaty pasta.

Tuesday, January 29^th

View of the city from the top of the museum

My 21st Birthday! Owen skyped me until midnight on Monday night so he could wish me a happy birthday J On Tuesday morning, he skyped me again-5am his time! Then I skyped my mom and sister. Kelli had made me a video with pictures from when we were younger, complete with some of my favorite songs. We were all crying by the end of it. I also got two birthday cards in the mail from my mom. Then when I ran into the kitchen for something, my flatmates had all left a birthday card in there for me! What a great start to my birthday! Then I had class, nothing exciting there. Afterwards, I treated myself to another one of those sandwiches. I then went to the top floor of the Museum of Scotland, where there’s roof access and you can see the entire city. Despite the rain, it was still beautiful. I had to go back to class from 4 to 5pm.

From my flatmates!

Later that night when I got back to my flat, my flatmates had left me presents at my door- a cupcake, cake, and this huge chocolate Happy Birthday treat. They are the best! My flatmates plus a few more friends all went out to dinner at a pub/restaurant. After we ate, they brought out a cake with candles and sang happy birthday. They really made my birthday feel special. We went to a pub after dinner; it was a really neat place with huge couches in the back room to just lounge around so we ordered a few drinks and shots and hung out. Then, the night continued when Miren, Laura and I went to a club for some dancing. What a great birthday! It truly was one of the most fun birthdays I’ve had in awhile, and it was all because of the great people I’ve met here.

Wednesday, January 30^th

The aforementioned dungeon

Miren and I got discounted tickets for a tour of the castle! I’m going to be honest here, I’m incredibly glad I didn’t pay full price for it. I did like one thing- the old prison chambers and vaults. In many places, stone steps led down to dark dungeons, which we could just barely make out as everything was so dimly lit. Of course these stairs were roped off, but this time I had no desire to see what was beyond the rope. At one point, we heard voices coming from behind a locked door and looked at each other in horror. My curiosity got the better of me and I tried to shimmy the door open but it wouldn’t budge, so we just forgot about it  and left. Well, when we were walking around the outside of the building we realized the voices were coming from a bathroom. This was just one example of how everything was made more dramatic than it really was. For instance, “David’s Tower,” which sounds incredibly epic, turned out to be only a few feet tall (what was left of it anyway). Or “St. Margaret’s Chapel,” which we were told was a must-see, as it is the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh. Spoiler alert here if you had plans to see it, but it was basically a church for infants, and by that I mean it was tiny. For those that like war museums and monuments, visiting the castle would be perfect, but it really wasn’t my thing.

Thursday, January 31^st

I has class all day: 11 to 12, 2 to 5. Right after class, I headed to a salsa lesson. Again, the boys’ dancing skills were uhh…interesting. I can’t say I did much better though; we learned turns which took a while to sink in for me. After salsa, I cooked myself macaroni and cheese. The box said there were three servings in there; I devoured it all myself. Also I’m pretty sure it contained three days’ worth of sodium (or maybe it was fat?). Later on, Miren, Laura and I went to an international club. There were stickers with country flags on them, the point being that you wore your country flag so people knew where you were from. I’m pretty sure I was Canadian, French, Dutch, and American all at different points in the night.

Friday, February 01, 2013

I had class this morning from 11 to 12, then headed home for a quick lunch then off for a run! I looked online and saw there was a 4-mile path around Arthur’s Seat, so I planned to do that. You should know by now that things did not turn out as planned. At first, the path was straightforward but then diverged and I took a wrong turn and ended up at this lake run by birds. Well after watching The Birds this past winter break I sure as hell wasn;t taking any chances so I turned around and took a different route. That led me to what looked like a Scottish ghetto, which scared me almost as much as the birds had so I went yet another way.

"As long as only one hundred of us remain alive we will never on any condition be brought under English rule." Go Scotland! I found this in the museum; it was declared in 1320

Finally, I was on a road that looked like promised path around Arthur’s Seat. I kept going, and going, and going… and “Excuse me ma’am, does this path loop around?” “Yeah of course, just follow the pavement and you can turn around and come back down here on the road.” That didn’t sound like a loop to me… But I continued, a view of the water and surrounding towns below me on my left, a huge expanse of rolling grassy hills on my right. To make things interesting, the moment I ran by two men that had hopped out of a sketchy looking van, they threw bread on the ground in front of a lake for the birds. Not again! I sprinted through and made it out alive. When I had finally resigned myself to the fact that there was no way this path was looping around and I would just have to run twice as long as I had planned, the hillside opened up and I saw a view of the city again. What a relief! In minutes, I recognized where I was, and soon enough I was on the stairs that led back to my dorm. Next time, I am bringing money and a camera.