Sorry I didn't post yesterday...well not really. It's my life and my blog, I'll do what I want. Plus, I was having entirely too much fun yesterday to get time to. I'm here to live England, not blog about it after all. Anywayyy...
So after my nap (which was entirely too short. I barely shut my eyes and all of a sudden an hour was gone) that I took after I wrote my last blog, I went downstairs to the lobby of the hotel for the first meeting that we had for our program. I am one of two guys in a group of 13. I am definitely ok with that. We met and discussed our program for a little bit and then headed off and took a small tour of the city. We went into the cathedral, as seen here in this picture.
After that, we toured the city a bit more, and it was cold and blowing and raining. Reminded me of San Francisco a little bit. Except it wasn't foggy, it was a light rain. And the wind was much stronger. In fact the wind was so strong at some points that it almost threatened to knock people over. So I didn't really take any pictures during that, in fears of getting my camera wet for some average looking pictures. We went to the EAP study center to go and get acquainted with it so that we would know where it was and we wouldn't get lost trying to find it the next day. After that, we went to a little restaurant called Mums which advertised itself as "Extreme Comfort food". I got a new kind of beer: Trashy Blonde. It was really tasty.
The waiter there was funny. Self described as a "Scotsman that you can never get a straight answer out of. It's a curse". After dinner, we all went back to the hotel. A couple people said they were going out (Christine) so I wanted to go. Before that happened though, I went with my hotel roommate Davey to the train station to pick up his bag that he couldn't carry up here. Unfortunately, when we got back, a bunch of people had left already. I went and wandered around for while, sticking my head into the numerous amount of pubs that were around our hotel. No dice. I was wandering down some alley at one point, and I was alone with only two other guys. I may have been imagining it, but I think one of them made a move at me (he may have just been drunk and stumbled). I didn't flinch and I kept walking the other way. But it freaked me out never the less. That's when I decided maybe finding some people to drink with was not worth getting mugged on my first night here, so I went back to the hotel in a hurry. I bought a 4 pack of Heinekin to drink by myself in my room and had one before I got really tired and just went to sleep….I think it was 9 o clock. I fell asleep almost immediately,
I woke up at 5am and could not fall back asleep. I blame a couple of factors. One, I was still jetlagged. The whole layover thing in Amsterdam really messed me up. Two, I was really excited to get up and start seeing the city and exploring England. Three, the bed was extremely uncomfortable. It was short, the blankets were short and not heavy enough and the mattress was not very comfortable. So, I laid there for about 45 minutes trying to fall back asleep, unsuccessfully. So, I decided I would go for a run. I laid there for a while longer because I didn't want to run in the dark. I got up at 6:30 and went running. I ran downhill from the Royal mile all the way down to the New Restalrig Church about 1.8 miles way. It was a very nice run. I felt really good on it. On the way back, I got a little bit lost, but was able to find my way easily enough. I got back, took a shower, and went and had a nice big breakfast. I was initially by myself, but then people started to trickle in and eventually the whole crew was there. After breakfast, we split off into two groups and our group of 6 (Tammy, Mimi, Davey, Heather, Madi and I) all went for a tour of Edinburgh castle. It was amazing. Everything in Europe is so old. You get such a feeling of rich history here that one doesn't feel in America. The castle itself was so old, but it was in use for such a long time. In fact, it still is in use. Here's a huge slew of pictures from the castle.
After the castle, Madi, Heather and I(all SB bros) went to lunch at a place called Tron across the street from the hotel. They gave us free burger coupons and had £2 drinks. That was right up our alley. We ate that and had a couple drinks. Then we had to rush off to our EAP orientation meeting. We got pretty lost. We had a map and none of the streets that we saw were on it. So we ended up taking a £4 cap ride to the place. With such cheap lunch, it was affordable to us. We went to meeting and then after that we headed off to dinner. We had Pizza Express. It may sound super American, but it wasn't at all. It was a great place. The Pizza was amazing and the desert was incredible. The ice cream and the chocolate cake especially. After that, we had a ghost tour of the underground of the city. I don't personally believe in ghosts (there are lots of explanations for those sorts of things; ultrasonic vibrations that cause people to feel dread and hallucinate, dust in photo lenses, etc) but when we were down there and she lead us into a small room and told us people got bruised in that room, it was a bit creepy. This picture is a grate that she explained that if you took a picture there, you may see a little boy named jack….I don't see anything, do you?
After that, Christine and I went out and tried to go to a club down the street because it was playing dubstep and drum and bass until 3am. Unfortunately/fortunately, Christine had had her entire bag stolen at the Isle of Wight concert festival a week before, with her ID, her passport, money and clothes and all. The fortunate part is that someone had found it completely intact and that person was friends with a guy she's living with in Leeds. I honestly can't believe that luck. But that meant that when we tried to get into the club, we needed at ID that said she was 18. She didn't have one, which I thought was really funny that they wouldn't let her in. Who needs an ID to be 18? Seriously...we gave up after trying another bar that asked for her ID. We called it a night after that. I went to bed at 2:45, pretty drunk. I woke up at 7am and could not go back to sleep. I blame the 3 previous reasons that I blamed before. I got up, went to breakfast, and after that headed off to the train station. I collected my tickets and boarded the train to York, which I am currently on now. I'm about to transfer to Leeds.
There are a lot more blonde people than I'm normally use to. I've also started saying "cheers" in somewhat of a British accent. It's funny/awful. I still need to buy a phone. I still need to figure out where to live. I need bedding, a clothes hanger, and probably a lot of other stuff.
I have this weird pump on the top of the top of my right shoulder....hello free British healthcare.
There are a lot more blonde people than I'm normally use to. I've also started saying "cheers" in somewhat of a British accent. It's funny/awful. I still need to buy a phone. I still need to figure out where to live. I need bedding, a clothes hanger, and probably a lot of other stuff.
I have this weird pump on the top of the top of my right shoulder....hello free British healthcare.
Drinking establishments in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are pubs (short for public houses) not pups. Is it a water pump or air pump on your shoulder? Both would be considered weird.
ReplyDelete