Note To Self: Avoid Explaining Medication While Medicated

Today was fun. I have my first class, Celtic Literature, at the decent hour of 10:00 in the morning.  Unfortunately, I managed to get such a late start that I ran out the door without consuming any breakfast.  Those of you who know me are already shaking their heads and preparing a severe lecture for later.  Believe me, I know it was not brilliant.  I did have hazy, optimistic plans of getting a bit at the library cafe between classes.

Herein lies the problem: there is no "between classes".  Celtic Literature runs from 10:00 to 10:50.  Technically, I have a ten minute break between Celtic Literature and Modern Gaidhlig, but since the building for the class was across campus, I had to spend those precious minutes rushing from one building to the next, making sure I arrived on time.  Of course, it turned out that the room was double booked, so we all ended up trudging back to the original building.  I could have actually gotten a snack if I had had some mysterious powers of foresight.    Where was that useful fairy when I was born?

At any rate, I had my second class, in which my brain was quickly overwhelmed with a massive amount of spelling, grammar, and ridiculously difficult pronunciation.  I learned so very much and so very little all at once.  It is without a doubt the most difficult language I have ever come across, living or dead, but I take that as a challenge.  I will not let it defeat me!

Straight after that lecture (we actually ran late), I rushed downstairs to my next class, Bibliography and Study Methods.  Since we were late starting, we got out just in time for the seminar, in which a professor would give a presentation on the sixty years that the Scottish Studies department has officially existed. 

That's when the headache started.  I knew it would be bad.  An intense morning + zero food = migraine-infested Melissa.  So, I did the most logical and yet dumbest thing I could possibly have done.  Right as the lecture began, I took one of my prescription painkillers.

They are marvelous little pills, not as heavy duty as some that I've been on, but very effective in wiping out a migraine, especially if I catch it right at the onset, which I did.  Go me, right?

There was just one tiny little problem. These pills have this side effect written quite explicitly on the bottle: "Intoxicated feelings."  I learned the hard way a few months back that, as per usual, I always get the funnest side effects of whatever medication I'm on.  This one makes me extremely woozy and incapable of walking the traditional straight line that police used to be so fond of.  I don't become some sort of giggling idiot, but I certainly lose the ability to think properly.

For a while, I was forced to take it quite regularly and the effects became milder as my body became used to it.  I also discovered that it was essential to take it with food to keep the effects from being too strong.

Remember that whole "I hadn't eaten all day and it was after noon thing"?  Yes and I hadn't taken one of these pills in a few weeks.  Scotland has been very kind to me as far as migraines go.

All this means that about fifteen minutes into the seminar, surrounded by about thirty professors, PhD students, and other postgraduates, I began to have trouble operating limbs and focusing my eyes.  My head felt like a bowling ball and several people around me began to diverge into multiple, blurry specimens of humanity.  I quickly propped my head on my hand and adopted an interested expression as I gazed hazily at the speaker.  I copied down notes which make absolutely no sense, now that I look at them.  I had a feeling that if I stood up, my legs would turn to jelly.

It was fortunate that I didn't have to move or speak for the next forty-five minutes.  When it was time to get up and hurry to my final two hour class on Middle Welsh translations, I tottered off and managed to avoid falling down the stairs and found the room, both of which are nothing short of miracles.  The effects lessen after about an hour, so I knew I would begin to think, speak, and move a little better soon.

My final class has five people, plus the professor in it, so there is no real way to blend into the background.  I had to explain exactly why I looked like I was about to fall over and was squinting confusedly at the professor as he went to explain word order, lenition, and all those delightful basic language elements such as nouns, articles, and verbs.  Explaining why you are intoxicated by a medication, that no, you are not going to share, and no, they do not need to perform CPR if you pass out in a heap of incoherence is rather difficult when your brain is drifting in a happy cloud of drug-tinged Gaidhlig weather vocabulary and basic Middle Welsh grammar.

But at least I was allowed to eat a granola bar during class.

Arthur Had the Best View

Since I have been feeling so much better today, I decided it was time to make another expedition (with Nap, of course).  The weather was extraordinary today, perfect for a trek.  We headed down the Mile toward Arthur's Seat for a hike.  On the way, we saw this living statue.  She was charming and polite and very good at startling people who genuinely thought she was just a statue until she suddenly took their hand. 

I took some pictures and was getting ready to move on by when I had sudden inspirational idea.  And so I made a civil request, which the statue was more than happy to oblige.

 Nap, of course, took exception to being held by a lady of suspiciously unnatural coloring, but she seemed to like him very much.  I wish I'd gotten a picture, but right before she handed him back to me, she gave him a little peck on his tiny, unwilling cheek.

See, this was the sort of day it was!  Glorious and sunny and beautiful!  It was very windy and eventually the clouds did come, but there was always some blue to be seen and the rain never came.  I called it a good day.

I set out at two... I wouldn't return until nearly 6 o'clock.  My adventures were just that awesome.




I did see where the world apparently ends.  Nice to know where it is for future reference...

 Nap does not understand modern art.  It makes no sense.  What does it mean? 

Now, I should warn you before we proceed that my walk was so incredibly gorgeous that you may come to hate me after seeing these pictures, mostly if you are the type who enjoys really nice walks and beautiful outdoor locations.


My first climb was the Salisbury Crags, a long steepish path along the cliffs with a great view of the city.  I originally thought it would lead all the way up, but the path I took was the more mild one and did not go to the very top.  It was still a great walk.

 Holyrood Palace from above.  Take that, tour that costs money! I don't need your silly ticket! I can see it better from here!


Here's a view of the path as I walked up.  It was really only steep at the beginning and then it was not a bad walk at all, right along the edge, so the view was spectacular all the way up.  I took way too many pictures... if that's possible.

 Nap apparently has this thing with claiming rocks as his own territory.  When I compared it to what dogs do, he became very offended indeed. 


And there's the castle!

 The view just kept getting prettier the higher I got, so I paused every so often and snapped even more pictures of the cityscape below.  It would shock you (or maybe it wouldn't) to know how many pictures I'm not posting here.


As you walk up, the righthand side is gorgeous views while along the left is a tall, imposing rocky cliff.  I had hoped that the path would keep winding up to the top of it, but alas, it did not.

This is the view from the highest point that the path reached before it so unkindly became impassable.  Still pretty awesome though, I have to say.  

I Feel Like I Was Deceived...

I am finally recovering from my first attack by foreign germs and am about to sally forth with my camera in honor of my recovery.  Before I leave, though, I thought I'd post something that's been on my mind for almost my entire two weeks here...

The weather is too good!  Yes, it rains every so often and yes, there are clouds here and there, but the sun comes out all the time!  It is sunny in Scotland! I don't understand... I was led to believe it would be gray, misty, and dark every day with only a ray of sunlight on the rarest of occasions.  That is what I braced myself for. 

I almost feel cheated.  Almost.

This is what it looks like on most days...

Granted, it does get cloudy and then rain on the same day as it is sunny like this (the weather changes so many times you have to dress for pretty much everything if you are going to be out for a while), but the fact is, that you can almost always expect to be some sunshine at some point and some days are clear for more than they are cloudy. 

So I don't even know what to make of this.  Maybe it just gets rainy when you're a tourist and magically if you live here it's not all that rainy.  Or maybe it's just been a good couple of weeks.  That remains to be seen.

But let's see if this sunshine holds up for my trek up Arthur's Seat!

The Benefits of Getting Lost...

After attending church on Sunday, I ended up getting just a little bit turned around.  I missed the street I was supposed to turn on and instead of retracing my steps and figuring out how to get back where I was supposed to be, I decided that the best course of action was to trudge merrily along until something familiar showed up, which of course, would most certainly happen.

I am sometimes a very optimistic lost person.  It does help when the surroundings are busy, cheerful, and generally pleasant.  The weather was nice and I kept catching sight of the cliffs of Arthur's Seat or a random beautiful church spire that made me feel at peace.  It was Sunday, after all.  A good day for a walk... even if it was about three times as long as I expected.

I eventually happened upon an immense park, which I deduced with my incredible brilliance to be The Meadows that I had heard mentioned before.  If I was right, it should be located right behind campus.  They were pretty anyway, so I chose a path and headed in.

This is what it looked like:

It was very idyllic, despite the whole not really knowing where I was for sure thing.  Lots of kids and older students playing soccer (football). 

I tried to keep the church spire of the church I went to in sight, but there were so many similar tall spires, such as the one in this picture, that I lost track of which one was my spire.  I eventually just gave up and enjoyed the view.

 The Meadow is filled with really long straight paths that stretch all the way across and they are pretty much all lined with these overarching trees.  This is the one that I randomly chose to take.  It turned out to be a good one, though basically any one I'd picked would eventually have gotten me where I needed to be, or close to it.

Closer to campus at the entrance of the park, there was this great Celtic circle/star painting on the pavement.  I was even happier about the whole lost thing.

I found the tree on the right hand side of the path to be truly awesome.  


And see the cliffs down below?  That's what I kept spotting.  I think they are responsible for me getting lost.  They distracted me.

 So now that I look at them, I realize that a lot of these pictures are really just different shots of the same things... but it was just such a nice day (yes, there were clouds, but only a very little bit of rain and sometimes, I even saw blue!) and I was happily snapping away as I figured out how to get back to familiar territory.

And really, it's so much better to take too many pictures than too few.  So there.  I have justified getting lost, going overboard with my camera, and spending my Sunday afternoon wandering aimlessly around in a park.

SO MANY PICTURES! (from yesterday)

Yesterday, I was overwhelmed by the awesomeness of a garden and a literary pub crawl.  However, more happened yesterday than just those great things.  My tour up and down the Royal Mile was rewarded with a huge number of pictures in a wide variety.

 My day started with the usual bagpiper parked outside my hall.  He stands there and plays and people get photos and he plays and it rains and he plays and the sun comes back out... and he plays.

One of these days I'm going to stick Nap down at his feet and take a photo.

 This is a statue of David Hume.  I learned the other night that he wanted some very important position at the Uni of Edinburgh and they turned him down.  Now they have a massive (ugly) tower built in his name and statues and other memorabilia.

Yeah, they feel bad about it, apparently.

Anyway, this is a big old statue in which he is dressed completely not how he would have been dressed in order to appear impressive and rather like Moses (ironic considering his views on religion).  And his gigantical  big toe sticks out at just the right level to be rubbed for good luck, which is why it is shiny and bronze coloured.  I'm sure he would appreciate the gesture...

 (Nap feels like he is a lot more impressive than this silly man in the bedsheet...)


On my way down the Mile, I pass by St Giles Cathedral.  The sky is washed out in this one, but it was very gloomy and drizzly at this point.

 It started to rain, so I ducked into an archway.  It seemed like a good place for Nap to look impressive in front of the statue of Alexander and Bucephalus.

 It has been suggested that Nap might like to see these things he poses in front of.  He deigned to turn around briefly to see the statue.

If shrugging were not beneath him, probably would have done so.

 Looking back out of the arch, St Giles' Cathedral looked impressive with St Andrews' Cross fluttering above it.

It continued to drizzle for a while and I finally got bored enough to step back out into it.  And then it lightened and finally stopped altogether.  And the sun came back out!

 Down one long passage there was this guy who I found to be incredibly creepy...

It did not make me want to buy a kilt... because of course I really wanted to up until now.

And then I discovered that Scotland had stolen the Washington Monument!  Clearly, we had it first so this is quite shocking of them.

Also notice the "Tempting Tattie" shop in the bottom corner.  Tatties are potatoes, and yes the bistro basically sells a variety of forms of potato.

 You can see the Sir Walter Scott memorial on the horizon.  It is apparently the largest monument ever built for a literary character.  That is according to our tour guide the other night.  I haven't checked to see if he was telling the truth or not, though I would believe it.  That thing is huge!

Oh, the guide mentioned that Mark Twain hated Scott and blamed him for the American Civil War.  When he was in Edinburgh, he probably would have walked past the monument several times.  I wonder what he thought of that...

 See that woman with the umbrella?  That's because it was raining, despite the sunny looking sky.

Later on, I passed by a church with a lovely looking graveyard (that doesn't sound possible, but it is...) so of course, I stopped.

 This guy is a famous poet whose name I completely forgot, despite reading the plaque in his honor and searching for the gravestone that bears his name in the graveyard.  He looked quite chipper as a statue, though.



Walking around graveyards is pleasant simply because it's quiet as well as cool in a creepy sort of way.  It's even creepier now in a way because of what our guide said the other night about how graverobbers cleverly sneaked bodies out without leaving any sign, so we have no idea how many of these graves actually have bodies in them.

 Surprisingly enough, there weren't any people around.  They seemed to think that they have better things to do in Edinburgh than wander through graveyards.

 If anyone has played the N64 Zelda game, you might know what I'm talking about when I say that these graveyards felt like the automatically rainy graveyards in the game.  I kind of expected little ghosts with lanterns to float by...

 I admit that this is not quite as lovely as the garden, but I still find it pretty and fascinating to read the stones and see when these people lived and who loved them.

 I love overgrown walls!

The statue below is of the chimaera being grappled with by Bellerophon (minus the pegasus, alas).

Not long after I left the churchyard, a wedding party started arriving.  The men were all in full kilt dress.  A bagpiper showed up and started playing.  I watched for a bit with a gathering crowd of tourists outside the gates, but I felt like I was intruding so I moved on down the Mile.

 Do you see the cliffs of Arthur's Seat behind the school building?  That's what I'm heading for!

I passed by Holyrood Palace, but didn't do any touring of the grounds or building.  There were some neat places around the walls, though, like this little archway and the building below.

 I couldn't quite crouch down low enough to get the whole front of this building into the shot. 

 I really, really, really wanted to climb up, but I had already walked a couple miles and had at least one more uphill mile back to my hall, so I postponed it for another day.

But that didn't keep me from taking pictures of the cliffs!

 I passed by the parliament building as I walked back and noticed quotes from famous people inlaid into the side.  And, hey, the Bible earned a spot too!

 More ivy on a wall!  And a cool tower behind it.  Never let it be said I missed a photo opportunity!

 Okay, I just found this hilarious.  Forget the whisky - how much is the doggy in the window?  That's a real dog.  I took a video that shows it panting and then finally lying down.  I guess he's the store mascot?

 Back up the Mile, passing St Giles' Cathedral!

I saw someone else taking a picture through an archway and I had to check out what he was photographing.  It turned out to be a neat shot.

And I conclude this photoshoot with an American Indian who apparently came all this way to sell cigars.

This really is a diverse city!


(PS - how many times did you spot Nap?  He was obvious in some of them... but not all of them!)