The plane ride from Dublin to Edinburgh was mercifully short, with a hangtime of under 40 minutes. I write mercifully because I sat behind 3 college age Irish guys who definitely hit the airport bar beforehand and were really enjoying themselves and seemed to have little volume control. Getting into the airport, I got an indication of how small the city was. Not only was the airport tiny, but the city centre was only a 20 minutes bus ride away. I got off at the last stop at the same time my friend, the indefatigable Dan Lin arrived.
It was an interesting time at Dan's pad. A 3rd year medical student at the University of Edinburgh, Dan lives with 3 other people including his girlfriend in a house that used to be own by a University professor. It's a place with such cleanliness and classiness of which magnitude none of my abodes which I may reside in for the next half decade is likely to match. In addition, while I was aware that Dan's girlfriend was from Taiwan, I didn't realize that all of his housemates spoke Mandarin around the house. The trip thus doubled as an exercise in Chinese, and I felt like I was visiting a country within a country, evident the moment I entered the house when I realized I would need to take off my shoes.
I think on my travels I can really divide the cities I've been to into two categories: the cities with lots of great sights that I could imagine visiting again, and the cities in which I think I would like to live in. Edinburgh falls into the latter category. Not that it is without attractions, because I really liked how Edinburgh Castle overlooks the entire city. It's a large sturdy block of ancient stone that is still nominally armed and holds among other things, the Crown Jewels of Scotland, and is situated on a hilltop near the middle of the city. There's the Scott Monument, which is a very interesting shaped structure that rises to about 3 or 4 stories that I thought was dedicated to the Scottish people, but instead is actually made for Sir Walter Scott, a prolific writer. Its rather shocking that one man who didn't hold political power could have such a grand monument - James Joyce just has a statue - and I hope my readers can give me a satisfactory answer. But overall Edinburgh just felt like a very nice walkable city, with some sweet shopping streets and lively coffee shops in which my heroine J.K. Rowling penned some of the greatest works of the 21st century. Dan may find himself living there for a few more years, and I really could imagine joining him. One of the odder highlights of my weekend in Edinburgh occurred during a beer run in a Scottish grocery store. The cashier exchanged a few words with us, one of which was "grand," and I gave him a quizzical look and innocently asked, "Are you Irish?" To Dan's surprise, he said yes and I told him how I was studying in Dublin, he said he was from Waterford and I mentioned their humiliating loss to Kilkenny in the All-Ireland Hurling Final. I felt so freaking cosmopolitan.
There is a lot more I'd like to write about, including trips to the farmer's market in Dun Laoghare (10 euro to anyone who can pronounce that correctly), Thanksgiving, and an epic night out that involved a gashed foot but right now I gotta go to bed so that I can wake up at 2:40am for a 6am flight to Berlin. I'll spend 2 nights there, then 2 in Prague and 2 in Krakow. It's a trip I'm looking forward to but very nervous, and I didn't really prepare enough for it today, so it's been hectic. Man this has been a strange time in my life and while I'll miss it, I can't wait for normalcy to return.
Take care all!
It was an interesting time at Dan's pad. A 3rd year medical student at the University of Edinburgh, Dan lives with 3 other people including his girlfriend in a house that used to be own by a University professor. It's a place with such cleanliness and classiness of which magnitude none of my abodes which I may reside in for the next half decade is likely to match. In addition, while I was aware that Dan's girlfriend was from Taiwan, I didn't realize that all of his housemates spoke Mandarin around the house. The trip thus doubled as an exercise in Chinese, and I felt like I was visiting a country within a country, evident the moment I entered the house when I realized I would need to take off my shoes.
I think on my travels I can really divide the cities I've been to into two categories: the cities with lots of great sights that I could imagine visiting again, and the cities in which I think I would like to live in. Edinburgh falls into the latter category. Not that it is without attractions, because I really liked how Edinburgh Castle overlooks the entire city. It's a large sturdy block of ancient stone that is still nominally armed and holds among other things, the Crown Jewels of Scotland, and is situated on a hilltop near the middle of the city. There's the Scott Monument, which is a very interesting shaped structure that rises to about 3 or 4 stories that I thought was dedicated to the Scottish people, but instead is actually made for Sir Walter Scott, a prolific writer. Its rather shocking that one man who didn't hold political power could have such a grand monument - James Joyce just has a statue - and I hope my readers can give me a satisfactory answer. But overall Edinburgh just felt like a very nice walkable city, with some sweet shopping streets and lively coffee shops in which my heroine J.K. Rowling penned some of the greatest works of the 21st century. Dan may find himself living there for a few more years, and I really could imagine joining him. One of the odder highlights of my weekend in Edinburgh occurred during a beer run in a Scottish grocery store. The cashier exchanged a few words with us, one of which was "grand," and I gave him a quizzical look and innocently asked, "Are you Irish?" To Dan's surprise, he said yes and I told him how I was studying in Dublin, he said he was from Waterford and I mentioned their humiliating loss to Kilkenny in the All-Ireland Hurling Final. I felt so freaking cosmopolitan.
There is a lot more I'd like to write about, including trips to the farmer's market in Dun Laoghare (10 euro to anyone who can pronounce that correctly), Thanksgiving, and an epic night out that involved a gashed foot but right now I gotta go to bed so that I can wake up at 2:40am for a 6am flight to Berlin. I'll spend 2 nights there, then 2 in Prague and 2 in Krakow. It's a trip I'm looking forward to but very nervous, and I didn't really prepare enough for it today, so it's been hectic. Man this has been a strange time in my life and while I'll miss it, I can't wait for normalcy to return.
Take care all!
No comments:
Post a Comment