It's Almost There

I’ve been searching around in Bordeaux for a good poster that I can take home and plaster on my wall back home. For the most part, anything good is at least twenty euros, not quite the five or ten I was hoping for. And then the other day I was going grocery shopping, and I looked at the bag I had bought several months ago… it’s quite gorgeous, with pictures of all my favourite places in Bordeaux. The likelihood is that I’ll bring it back and plaster it on my wall. Am I a cheap college student? You bet.

So this past weekend I went to Edinburgh, Scotland. It was hampered slightly at the very beginning by finding out that I will not, in fact, have a job when I return back to Irvine, which makes me slightly nervous. I’m working my hardest on becoming financially independent from my parents (as much as my father argues it =P) and I was kind of hoping that I’d get that job back, but I suppose it just means that I’ll have to start looking when I get back. With this in mind, however, I headed to Scotland. The voyage there was uninteresting; Gatwick’s ending up being one of my favourite airports, especially now that it’s all decked out for Christmas. When I landed I instinctively started speaking to someone in French, and he stared at me and said, “do you speak English?” Oops. I took a double-decker bus into downtown, took many pictures, got off at the right stop and met up with Cally. She reintroduced me to dorm food (it was very meaty and hearty, but not that great) and then we went out clubbing all Friday night, since I had heard of Edinburgh’s great night life. We had a great time. I’ll leave it there.

Saturday morning we got up and went to Edinburgh Castle; her EAP program was getting in people in for free, so who was I to deny this opportunity? The castle was very neat, ancient, cold, rainy. I tried some honey whiskey and ended up buying a couple of small bottles, it was amazing. After that, we wandered down the Royal Mile, I did some shopping, I bought Starbucks, it was good. In the afternoon we had the Thanksgiving lunch, which was probably the highlight of the trip. Tied with clubbing. I was chatting with a ton of different people, the food was good, the Scottish dancing was exhaustingly incredible, and there was good wine to top it all off. After the party, Cally and I went back to her dorm to rest before going out to dinner with Henri. The pub we found wasn’t so great with the service, but the food was decent. The main point is – I ate haggis! It was fried in little balls, but I ate it damnit. And it was… pretty decent, for being ground sheep organs. After dinner we went out for drinks, but I swear the bartender (pubtender?) put something in mine, since I was falling asleep after the first one. So we retired fairly early, as in midnight-ish, but I think it was making up for the lack of sleep the night before.

Sunday involved relaxing. We woke up gradually, went to brunch, then went to climb Arthur’s Seat, the extinct volcano next to the city. It was cold, but we were prepared. Climbing up the steps gave me the creeps, for whatever reason (perhaps it was the perilous drop next to the uneven stairs?) but about halfway through, we decided to head back down after getting some amazing views. I’m quite okay with this. We then headed the whiskey museum, which was quite a treat for eight-and-something pounds. We got to ride in barrels (it was like Disneyland, but alcoholic), we learned all about the making of whiskey and the different types, we saw many expensive bottles… it was a good time. And we got to taste some, and keep the glasses! So I was content. After, we swung by Burger King for a cheap dinner, expecting to take the Underground Ghost tour at 19h30, but when we got out it was pouring and wind was flying everywhere… we decided to instead just take it easy at her place. A wise decision, I’d like to think.

Monday’s return back was more chaotic and stressful than it really needed to be. I woke up nice and early and made my way down, no worries. Found the bus, got to the airport, fine. Ate breakfast. Around this time, I checked my American phone and saw that someone had left me a message, but it didn’t record a missed call. I figured it was my family, and got rather worried, but naturally my phone died when I tried to call them. I sent my dad a text with my French phone, figuring if there was an emergency he could call that. Still a little anxious, I went through security, found my gate, and saw my flight was delayed. While waiting for my plane, I discover that my boarding pass isn’t in my bag, or in either of my coat pockets. Great. So I go back and search for it, eventually ending up asking and getting a new pass printed after some time. I was less than happy at this point, adding to the fact that I hadn’t slept the night before. (I can never sleep mornings before I travel, too many dreams about missing my flight/train.) To be fair, I found the first boarding pass at a later time… after security, I had stuck it in my sweater pocket, which was then covered by my jacket. Sigh. And then when we finally took off, an hour after waiting, take-off was particularly bad for me. Our plane leveled off at some point, dipped down, and then continued going upwards, which freaked. Me. Out. This was all made better by the small bottle of wine I got, though. Landed in Gatwick, had a few minutes to switch planes and grab ice cream, got back to Bordeaux.

You’d think that the adventure would end there, and normally it does. This time was the exception. While boarding in Gatwick, I had been talking with a couple of women very casually about Bordeaux and whatnot. When I was walking off the plane, I ran into one of them. She was a retired schoolteacher from west-coast Canada, who had been told via a prediction-sort thing that she would end up in southern France. She had blown it off, but her life back home kept getting worse and worse, so she gave in and hopped on a plane. So she had just arrived from a ten-hour flight from British Columbia, understood enough French but didn’t speak it very well, and was unable to get in contact with the group she was supposed to be living with. So for the next hour I spent my time walking around the airport to her, helping her get cash, her luggage, a luggage cart, calling the group (we never got in contact with them), etc. I felt terrible for her; I remember how exhausted I was when I first arrived in France, and she didn’t even really have a place to stay. She wanted to take a train off to a town about an hour east of Bordeaux that I had never heard of, but I suggested that she go ahead and get a hotel room so she can rest and figure out her plan of action. I talked to the information desk, and they called up and got her a reservation at a hotel if she desired to go there. I eventually ended up leaving her before she made her decision of what to do; I had things to do at home, it was late, and I was exhausted. I hope she was able to make it to her place well enough; at the very least, that night all she had to do was get a taxi to the hotel or to get a shuttle to the train station. My thoughts are with her, most definitely, and I hope her spiritual trip to France is as amazing as it should be.

In other news. Bordeaux is still Bordeaux. I’m glad that the Christmas decorations are mostly up; while they’re not lit up yet, it’s given me confidence that I’ll leave the city as in love with it as I was when I got here. The class situation is still the same; I really just can’t get myself to care for the ten units of anthropology classes that I’m taking. I go, I pay attention, and it just doesn’t catch me. I’m mixed on what to do about them, really, since I just honestly don’t care. I find that my time is better spent wandering the city, finding small parks, reading for my other classes, meeting people… Europe just makes me want to do other things. The other two classes I’m taking are fine; methodology has had some timing problems so that we either haven’t had it or I haven’t been able to go for the past month. The professor seems rather understanding of this, though. My Brit/American Lit class is fine, last time I spent my time writing vampire jokes to Becky and talking about the difference between schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, which my prof didn’t seem to understand. It was a good class. I realized recently why I never cook in Bordeaux: our kitchen is pitifully small, only big enough for one person, and ninety percent of the time the kitchen is occupied by a person who is not me. This does not make me happy, but what can you do? In other other news, I finally have my medical appointment on Friday. A bit nervous about this, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.

In very last other news, the off-season of baseball makes me very very sad. The worst shock so far has definitely been watching the Angels let go of Rex and Steve – I have to agree in saying, “what the HELL are you thinking?!” With Lackey and Figgins up for free agency, this might be the most heartbreaking yet.