Recap time, pardon the text-flood.
Where to begin...Okay, I left the states on the evening of the 28th, from Chicago. I had a meal of shitty Chinese food, not really of the Bozeman Mall variety--no, it was pretty much just shitty. I got on the plane (finally) and found my seat--window right over the wing. There were large, loud, obnoxious families (I'm talking entire clans here) on the plane, as well as the obligatory screaming babies. No tuberculosis patients, however. I couldn't sleep on the plane, which comes as no surprise. Far too wired for that. The airline gave us dinner at around 9pm ET, which really should've been avoided. The salad was actually not bad, but the "pasta" was..um...airline food?
Eventually giving up on sleeping, I started writing--I'm recording a different journal of my days in print form for Carsey. Eventually I ran out of things to write for the time being and watched some TV instead. It is sad how quickly you run through the 3 or 4 shows they loop continuously on airplanes. Public Enemies was offered, but it is nigh impossible to actually start something on the plane--you always come in in the middle, which wouldn't have been any fun, so I skipped it.
Eventually, one loooooong plane flight later, we landed in Germany! As I navigated the Frankfurt airport, I found myself in 2, count 'em 2, additional security checkpoints (one of which was guarded by an armed guard--like really armed, not sidearm-armed). Eventually, I made it to my gate, from which I took a bus to the plane. Apparently it's big here to not board from the building itself, but to have the plane on the tarmac and then go to it instead.
So I'm on the plane, and the German airline, Lufthansa, was exceedingly civilized--they gave us sandwiches in addition to drinks! None of this "3 pretzels if you're lucky" crap, we got sammiches! And for being cheese and coleslaw sammiches, they were damn tasty. I start to nod off (finally) once we start making our final descent into Edinburgh...but am awoken some 20 minutes later by the woman next to me who exclaimed, "We're going to Manchester!"
Apparently, there was too much snow at the Edinburgh airport for us to land safely, so we're flying halfway across the country (this is not an exaggeration) to land while we wait. Unfortunately, there are no more sammiches to be had. :( We eventually got word that the snow had stopped, and we were airborne once again! Two flights for the price of one! Which would actually be a whole lot cooler if I'd either liked flying or was rested/showered/et cetera'd. We landed in Edinburgh only an hour or so behind schedule, when all was said and done. Luckily, the airline was very nice about everything, very informative, very polite...It was like the airline didn't hate us, which is not a feeling I get in the US.
I took a bus from the airport to the city center and while trying to navigate through the dark and slush, I got completely lost--due to my stupidity in turning left when I should have turned right. I ended up lugging my suitcase through Edinburgh for a very long time before finally arriving at my B&B. Ten minutes later, I was out again to meet George for dinner.
Editor's Note: For sake of the kittens, I'm not going to describe everything in Edinburgh in one long post. I'll update for each day separately.
I had a very enjoyable next few days. I met George's wife, Hannah, who is expecting a baby on January 9! I also met his brother, Andy, and his niece, Laura. When I wasn't spending time with them, I was wandering around Edinburgh. I easily walked several miles per day (in fact, I walked the Royal Mile several times per day, so there). I spent most of my time in the Old Town area, but also ventured up to New Town and to the Scottish Parliament building at night (unfortunately, no pictures from that).
As per my freshly added editor's note above, I'm actually not going to keep going on Edinburgh tonight, mostly because I'm tired and it deserves justice. So...I'll go through my backlog and get updates for each day separately.
Which brings my to Cambridge! I ended up riding here with George's brother, Andy, who was driving to see his parents. Otherwise, I'd've taken the train, and that would've been much more of a hassle than it actually was. It was a long drive (930-515), and unfortunately, I couldn't help at all--driving on the left and a stickshift. But we had good conversation. I'm meeting with the research coordinator tomorrow afternoon and will quickly get this into overdrive!
Right now, I'm laying in bed with a hot water bottle at the foot of the bed. Oh. My. God. Best invention ever. I'm getting on for home, even if Kad'ika tries to eat it.
That's all for tonight, but I've got pictures and stories from the past week to share yet!
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