24 Jul 2012: Bacon, Brie, and Cranberries

24 Jul 2012:

Bacon, Brie, and Cranberries

Edinburgh, Scotland, UK/York, England, UK

H: 20/20 L: 13/9 Weather: Mostly Cloudy/Partly Cloudy

My hostel in Edinburgh was pretty wonderful, as you heard, and it was no exception when I was checking out - they were asking me about how my stay was, where I was going next, what I had planned, and so on.  I honestly felt a bit guilty that I hadn't done more "hostelly" things when I was staying there; all I used the place for was sleep and a place to have internet access!  I feel like it would've attracted a fun clientele to hang around.  Ah, well, the morning of your departure is not the time to have such thoughts.  Off to the train station for me.

My trip to York was even more enjoyable, believe it or not, than mine to Edinburgh.  For one, I got a bit of free Internet access.  Second, the seat in front of me was high enough up to make it possible for me to put my backpack under it, rather than putting it with the rest of the luggage.  Most importantly of all, though, there was a doggie in the seat across from me!  And it was adorable.  It was being a good doggie, so it was being quiet and just paying attention to its parents, which meant I didn't have much of a chance to say "hi" to it, but it was fun nonetheless, and represents another reason why I'm sad the US doesn't have trains.

On my way out, though, I freaked out a bit because I had no idea that doors don't open completely automatically on trains—you have to press a button—and I was at the door and it wasn't open and OH GOD I WAS STUCK ON THE TRAIN AND WHAT DO I DO.  (wait until the person on the outside presses their button, of course.)

Once I got to York, I made my way to my hostel there.  Now, though I booked my way through in hostels intentionally, because I had heard they were good places to meet people, I didn't really believe them.  However, no sooner had I checked into my hostel than I met a nice woman named Cindy, who grew up around Toronto.  We decided to head out and see the city together.  Voila!  Instant temporary travel companion.

We headed out towards the center of York to grab me lunch, and I got a "bacon, brie, and cranberry wrap", which tasted just about as ridiculous as it sounded.  Then we headed back to the train station to check out the nearby National Railway Museum.  Wow!  I don't really care about the actual physical train part of trains (my interest in them arises pretty much from 1) the fact that you can cross long distances with them without having to go through airport security and 2) the fact that they have maps!  and timetables!  and route planning!  and maps!), but even I thought that it was pretty cool, thanks in part to the helpful and engaging descriptions they gave of each train.

My favorite part of the exhibits was the Royal Mail, looking at how mail was delivered by train until about 6 years ago, because there was a ridiculous exhibit where some guy in the 1930s wrote poems about the Royal Mail being delivered by mail (?!?) and we were challenged to recite along with him.  One of the reasons why it was good, besides the fact it was just entertaining to match his "interesting" rhythm, was that, look, my research is actually practical in some way!

Yes, that's right, a whole exhibit in a museum about "Speaking Rhythms"!  I know I've been awful about posting pictures, so I might go back and add some to the posts I've already made at some point.

After much zaniness there, we headed back to the hostel to regroup and see if anyone else was interested in going out for dinner with us.  We weren't able to find anyone, so we went by ourselves, after walking past the place a couple of times because it's at the top of a little liquor shop, a restaurant called "The House of the Trembling Masses".  Yeah, that's a real name of a real place.  I know, right?  There I had some delicious fish, but unfortunately the tasty salad (Europeans do salads way better than Americans) was covered with what I think was called "insanity sauce" and made me literally start to tear up, that's how hot it was.  I think it may actually have been of a level that most people would call "moderately spicy", which is much more than I'm used to.  I also had a strawberry beer that tasted like I was drinking liquid strawberries.  Not just liquid "strawberry flavor"; literal strawberries.  Mmm.  The meal was accompanied by discussion of Cindy-from-Canada's job as a primary school teacher.  She had some interesting stories!  (before working in London, she worked in Vietnam)

Cindy-from-Canada and I made our way back to our hostel, where we chilled out and I used the time to catch up on some internet and prepare for Derby and London.  Unfortunately, though, the internet being the internet, I ended up staying up too late, making me the last to go to bed in my 10-bunk hostel.  As such, this presented a problem when I went to use the bathroom.

British people do bathrooms wrong.  Infuriatingly, many of their sinks have two taps: a hot tap and a cold tap.  In order to get a temperature in the middle, you have to stop up the drain and combine the water from the two taps in the middle.  Furthermore, lights to bathrooms are always on the outside of the bathroom rather than the inside.  As such, using the tiny bathroom within the 10-bunk room was a bit of a chore.  I had to put all my stuff in the bathroom, then swing the door open as little as possible and close the door quickly in order to make sure I didn't disturb everyone.  This required a bit of acrobatics on my part, but I did it as well as possible, used the bathroom, then open the door... only to discover that there was a light connected to the same switch on the outside of the door, so I had disturbed everyone anyway.  Argh.