Scotland!

Hi! It's been awhile, hasn't it? Sorry about that! I have been working like a crazy woman on four papers. They're like my babies- They need constant care and attention, and they keep me up at night. I literally woke up last night in a cold panic about them, but now I'm feeling good enough to take a break. So. Where to begin? Well, two weekends ago, I was fortunate enough to go to Scotland for the weekend! Two friends and I visited Edinburgh for just a couple of days. Although it was a bit cold and cloudy, I really enjoyed myself. We went to the Edinburgh Castle, which was very grand, and we saw the Royal Botanical Gardens. Actually, "saw" is an understatement. We more experienced them. All in all, we spent five hours walking around the greenhouses and eating lunch, I think mostly because it was so warm inside the greenhouses! We also crept a little on the Queen's Holyrood Palace and explored and shopped on the Royal Mile, the street that connects Edinburgh Castle with the Queen's Palace. 

My favorite activity we did was probably seeing the gardens. They really were something. There's just something about flowers, you know? Excuse me, my estrogen's showing. I also enjoyed the brief, free tour of Edinburgh we went on. The tour passed by St. Giles's Cathedral, which has a heart made of stone built into the pavement outside of it. Apparently, way back in the day, the tax collection agency sat there, and people would spit on it out of disgust as they walked by. Now, thanks to the wear-and-tear of years, the agency no longer exists, but the heart was created to remind locals of what they used to have to put up with. It's now good luck to spit on the heart as you stroll past it, which of course I tried. It's also good luck to rub the toe on David Hume's statue, just a skip away from the heart. (Pun!) This is ironic because Hume wrote many essays denouncing superstition, championing rationalism instead. Oops. 

An interesting episode happened in Scotland, however, that needs its own paragraph. It involves sheep lungs and older men. Lisa, Victoria, and I wanted to go to a pub to really take in the local atmosphere, and we found what appeared to be a good one. We ordered haggis, a Scottish dish that involves the heart, lungs, and liver of sheep. If you don't think about what you're eating, it's actually okay. Anyways, in come, like, 5 older dudes, all decked out in doctor attire. And by older, I mean, maybe they're in their 50s, and that's being generous. They're donning stethoscopes, gloves, and little surgical caps. How sweet. Flash-forward a couple of beers later, and they start getting feisty. We're just chilling, eating sheep liver, when one asks us if he can "check" our "pulse." Um, ew, never, I hope you get a paper cut. They start leaning on our chairs and draping their arms around the backs. We shrugged off their creepy attempts to flirt with us, but then the strangest thing ever happened. I'm eating my dessert, something called a jam ropy-poly, when the most boisterous of them comes up to me and offers me ₤5 for the rest of what's on my plate, which can only be described at that point as a slob-infested skeleton of a ropy-poly. Really, man? Well, not going to lie, considered it for 2.9 seconds, (That's $8.25!) but I decided my dignity was worth more than that. Run along, creepy man. Anyways, the next time I'm that thoroughly creeped out, I won't be so nice. Security! It's sad too because I expected better behavior out of older men. 

Before I wrap this up, I want to briefly mention sleeper buses because those things are weird. We took a sleeper bus to and from Edinburgh. For those of you not in the know, a sleeper bus contains little beds, so you can sleep during your journey. And, mom, don't worry: The buses are split into sections depending on gender, and the beds contain emergency buttons, in case of some guy trying to buy your roly-poly off of you. We caught our sleeper buses around midnight, so we were plenty ready for some sheep-counting once we boarded. I liked the sleeper bus in that Edinburgh is hours and hours away from London, so it allowed us to sleep through the boredom, but, man, sleeping in a coffin for six hours is alarming. Of course, you're not literally in a coffin, but you might as well be. Instead of stacked two, the bunk beds are stacked three beds high, so your bed is super cramped. The ceiling is right above your face. I don't consider myself claustrophobic, but I had trouble falling asleep in such a tight environment and was feeling anxious the whole ride. 

Granted, some of that anxiety was excusable, as we almost missed our bus leaving Edinburgh! It was the only sleeper bus to London that evening too, so we would have been in a sore spot if we hadn't made it. Our bus to the station was fifteen minutes late because the driver got lost, so we had to run to the port where our bus to London was idling. Actually, it wasn't idling; it was pulling away. We had to flag down the bus to let us on. As we mounted the steps, the driver croaked, "You are the luckiest bastards." Truth. Also strange was the bus ride to the bus station. These two drunk dudes were singing really loudly and straight-up smoking on the bus, and the bus driver said nothing. Probably because he was trying to figure out where he was. Interesting, interesting trip.