It may seem that the title of my blog this week is a little sketchy... what is this 'green man'? Is it some kind of illicit drug? Well do not worry, I will explain shortly and it is entirely innocent.
This past weekend, six of us Colgaters headed up to Edinburgh, Scotland, after seeing how cheaply we could book a flight on bmibaby. The trip comprised of me, Sammy, Caitie, Laura, Jackie, and Casey. We flew up freakishly early saturday morning because of stupid physucks lab that doesn't end until 5 on friday evenings. We caught our taxi at 4:45 am, and headed off to the cute little Cardiff airport. Traveling to Edinburgh went without glitch; except for our minor panic that our large backpacks wouldn't fit the tiny little bmibaby hand luggage tester thing. They were actually making people put their bags in there, and charged people 30 pounds if it didn't fit! Needless to say we were rudely ushered into the world of discount flights.
When we first got to Edinburgh, we checked into our hostel so we wouldn't have to carry our backpacks around in the misty rain that welcomed us. The Hostel was a Hostel in the purest sense of the world. The receptionists had dreadlocks, and their credit card machine and phone were broken. The place was massive, and all elaborately painted in bright, psychodelic paintings. It even had a bar called the swamp. Our first faux pas as travelers was we didn't realize that the six nations rugby match of France vs. Scotland was taking place, and that the game was in Scotland. This meant that the hostel was nearly completely booked, and we were in a dorm of 38 beds, occupied primarily be the french.
We grabbed a quick breakfast and headed out into the city. Edinburgh is truly a beautiful place; it is gothic and a bit spooky. Its real beauty is in the fact that it is on a steep hill; all the buildings are arranged in interesting ways with castle at its highest point and an elegant street leading up to it that drops off in lovely little closes. Our first stop was a lovely church on our corner, where we were rewarded for our curiosity by a brief tour by an old man who appeared to be cleaning the church. He told us about his favorite parts of the church, which let us see how important it was to him. His favorite object in the church was a delicate little replica of a church in Ethiopia (I think), that was done completely in silver wire. The insides were also completely decorated, even though they could not be seen. He also showed us carvings of angels that lined the ceiling. He loves these because each one is different: a recent discovery. We felt very welcomed in Edinburgh after this nice meeting.
Next, we headed to the National Museum of Scotland, which absolutely entranced us for hours despite our exhausted state. The museum goes through the whole history of the country of Scotland, with great artifacts and explanations. We stopped to take a break to color at a kids station. Next, we learned about Scotland's role in the industrial revolution. To our excitement, the museum had a working Newcomen engine, a Jacquard loom, as well as many other objects that we had learned about in our History of Technology Class. We acted like complete nerds. Unfortunately, we were also exhausted, which may have contributed to our craziness, and certainly contributed to the fact that Laura fell asleep while watching a video on emigration into scotland.
When we emerged from the museum after spending a good three hours in there, we were greeted by Sammi Steinfeld!!! who is studying in St. Andrews this semester and was on a class trip to Edinburgh while we were there. It was absolutely wonderful seeing her, and it is always a treat meeting up with Colgate people in other countries. Its like you are surrounded by friends no matter what country you are in. We crossed the street to the famous Elephant House, the birthplace of Harry Potter. The place was packed, but we settled into a great lunch and enjoyed the creative vibes left over from when J.K. Rowling used to frequent the place to write Harry Potter on napkins. We could see why she liked this place; we could just barely see the castle through the fog, but is was a perfect view.
Sammi left us to explore the city with her study group, and we wandered down the Royal Mile, a street filled with cute shops and museums. We went into several tourist traps and admired the kilts on display, constantly dodging the plethora of frenchmen that seemed to be everywhere. We walked to St. Giles and admired the beautiful gothic style church, sneakily taking pictures so we wouldn't get charged 2 pounds. When we left, we were all tired and wanted to sit down, so we headed back in the direction of our hostel. On the way back, we went into a whiskey shop where we sampled a tiny bottle of whisky, and Sammy and Laura bought the tiniest bottles in the world filled with whiskey. Our next goal was to find a pub so we could watch the Wales vs. England rugby match. On our way back to the hostel, almost everything was completely packed to the brim with large men watching the game.
We finally made it to our hostel and we slipped into a bar where the game was being shown. The game was great, but unfortunately, Wales lost. A few large England supporters were giving us weird looks for getting so enthused about Wales. We ordered dinner there and were served by a nice girl from Canada. After stuffing our faces with toffee pudding, we raced back to a common square where a free ghost tour was running. We decided to pass though, and went back to our hostel. It was still pretty early in the night, probably only about 8 when we got back. We played cards in the Swamp for a couple of hours, in which I continuously was the asshole in president. Then, we decided to read Neath Abbey in bed, which is a book we had to read for school.
As we settled in, we talked about how much we loved our study group and how well we all seemed to mesh. I really enjoyed our day , and was appreciative of my old and new friends in my study group. We all seemed to enjoy similar things, and we were happy to make the most of our day by staying on excellent terms with each other. It really was a joy to travel with friends; though we were just getting our traveling chops and probably made fools of ourselves, we learned a lot and grew closer doing it. So thanks guys, whoever of you is reading this :)
As we were about to fall asleep, a hoard of 4 frenchmen entered the hostel room and immediately asked us what we were doing in bed at 10 pm on a saturday. We told them, but the language barrier didn't help. They laughed at us and started throwing a stuffed rugby ball at us, which we returned to them. Jackie could understand what they were saying, and I could to an extent. Basically, they were being a bit creepy and wanted to know why we were in bed all reading the same book. They finally left us alone, but not after making us feel a bit ridiculous. While we were sleeping, they came back and laughed at us some more, which was also creepy, but we survived the night.
I suppose you are still wondering about that green man. Well, the street lights in the UK have a green man when it is ok for pedestrians to cross the street. We often get stuck at plenty of crosswalks, and we always are delighted when the green man is there for us to cross.
More later!
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