Rants and more.

So I could spend an entire week in Edinburgh for the price I'm paying to stay two days in London.  Also, the internet is FIVE STERLING per day.  PER DAY!  This city is ridiculous.

But not as ridiculous as the American man on the train today!  Oh boy.  I try really hard not to pay any attention to stereotypes, and I have some amazing American friends, but this man was the epitomy of the arrogant, I-own-the-world American stereotype.  In short, he was fucking stupid.

He had to wait for me to put my luggage down before he could continue down the train, and the little luggage bin was full after I put my bag in, so I apologized to him and told him I thought there might be another one at the other end of the cabin - and all he did was look at me, like I was a small bug in his way.  At this point, I still thought he was English.  But later, when the fares were being checked on board, his ticket was invalid, and he had to pay extra to stay on the train, but he refused to do that, and he refused to get off the train, and so he made a HUGE deal over it, eventually paid, and then when the train conductor was trying to help him, he dismissed her!  You can't DISMISS a train conductor - he was so rude! Later on, he stopped somebody to ask for directions once he got off the train, and he pulled out the paper that the address was on, and asked what all those numbers and letters meant.  The person who was helping him replied with "Uhm, sir.  That's an address.  And that's a postal code.  Do you know what a postal code is?" - I got in a bit of trouble because I laughed out loud at him, but he deserved it.  And to think, I was originally going to help him out, because his address was on the same street as my hostel.   Asshat.


Anyhow, onto less ranty things. 


The rest of my duration on Orkney was nothing short of fantastic.  On Monday, I went into Kirkwall - the other major city on Orkney Mainland - and wandered around for a bit.  I wandered through the museum, because it was free, and it was snowing outside.  Then, I went to the cathedral...because it was made out of cool rocks...

I do really enjoy cathedrals.  They're always so gorgeous.  The only concern I had with this cathedral was that the support pillars on the outside of the building were eroding away, and it didn't look very safe, but it was just near the door, and since nobody had done anything about it, I presume that meant it was safe.  Usually the UK is pretty dilligent about keeping their cathedrals up (or I presume so, because there is ALWAYS scaffolding on the outside of the cathedrals.  Restoration, and all that.)

After that, I caught the bus back to Stromness, and went for a hike along the seashore.  I found some really awesome seashells, which are now in my backpack, made friends with an alleycat or three, and I saw some seals.  Are they aggressive?  I tried to get as close as possible to take photos, but once I made it to about 10m or so, the seals started snorting at me, or making some sort of huffing sound, and I figured it was time to make myself scarce. 

At one point on the walk, I stripped down to a tshirt and suntanned for a bit on a rock, because the weather had gotten so nice.  About an hour after that, I was stuck in a blizzard.  Gotta love weather in Scotland, eh? 

 

Actually, that brings up another point I never bothered to mention.  Orkney doesn't actually consider itself part of Scotland.  If anything, they think of themselves as Norweigan.  Orcadians don't fly the Scottish flag, they fly their own flag, and then the Norweigan flag, before they will fly the Scottish flag. 

I spent the duration of Monday evening doing some homework (I touched it!) and then drinking an entire bottle of wine...to myself.  It was a poor choice in judgement.  I'm not actually even sure when I went to bed that night.  Nor do I remember the very end of the night.  Apparently, this makes me a good Scotsman.

Somehow, I woke up at 5am without a hangover (or still drunk), and got ready to catch the 6:00 ferry.  I could have caught a later ferry, but I was dead set, and determined to see the sun rise at sea. 

 

  

And I did.  And it was probably the most beautiful thing I've ever born witness to.  We also got caught in a blizzard at sea, but once we reached the Highlands, it had blown over, and you couldn't even tell we had ever been snowed on.

I made it to Edinburgh at 5pm last night, and stayed pretty low key.  Went for a small walk around Old Town, just because I love it there, and stayed in for the rest of the evening.  Exhaustion had finally won the battle.  I was sad to leave Orkney, but coming back to Edinburgh felt very, very close to coming home.  I truly do love that city.

I spent another 5 hours on the train today, and made it to London.  Tonight is for shenanigans with Paul!