Back from Scotland

Several Updates:

Firstly, I am moving. I am soooooo happy about it. I haven't really mentioned my host mother that much in my blog, or at least I don't think I have. It's not that she's MEAN per say, it's that she is NEVER there, and weirdly passive aggressive. I feel very unwelcome and uncomfortable in the house. From the beginning, she was an hour late picking me up from IES, and my room wasn't clean or ready, and she hadn't bought groceries with which to cook the first meal (which is REQUIRED). I thought maybe she's just a little bit scatter brained, but no, she cleans and cooks and goes all out whenever HER VISITORS come over. But for me, who would be staying for the next couple months, she didn't bother to make a good first impression. Like, come on! And bowlgate, 2010, I'm sure I've mentioned this. The bowl I dropped that she CANNOT let go. So I talked to Ella the housing lady, and came at the situation like, "I don't know if there is a cultural thing, but we don't seem to be getting along, what can I do?" And when I described the situation to Ella, it was she who suggested I move. She found the house for me a couple hours later, it's in Schönenberg, which is a more traditionally "Berliny" area, Pankow is like old GDRers, which in all honesty are kind of backwater. But S-berg is super hip and trendy, and Steve, my bff in IES lives there, which will make it a lot more fun for me. And Ella took me to visit the apartment, and it's huge and beautiful, very traditional European with an amazing kitchen complete with espresso maker. And my new host mother is very sweet and calming, she has two children, a boy, 10, who is hilarious and a daughter, 13 who stayed in her room but whatever. And there will be a Swiss exchange student who is in the IES German Intensive program which meets downstairs from the Metropolitan Studies program I am in, which means I'll have someone my own age to speak ONLY German to. That's another plus, they speak ONLY German. I should come back fluent.

So, with that sorted out, the only problem is that I can't move from my current apartment until after the St. Petersburg trip which is this Sunday to next Saturday, so needless to say conditions in my apartment are icy and awkward, at best. I'm trying my hardest to just be as pleasant and clean as I possibly can be, keep my head down and stay out of her way until I can leave. Needless to say, I was very happy to be able to be out of the apartment and in Scotland this weekend, but I would have been happy to be in Scotland anyway.

Firstly, Edinburgh is breathtakingly beautiful. I don't know why people from the United States aren't flocking to visit, it's definitely on par with Paris or Rome or London or, I don't know, anywhere in beauty. When the plane landed, your eyes are flooded with castles and beautiful hills and mountains, against a backdrop of the greenest landscape you've ever seen. I was shocked. I guess I shouldn't have been, but I went in search of cool accents and pub food...I had no idea it was so cultured and gorgeous as well.

Evelyn and I got off the plane and into a taxi, and we couldn't meet up with people we knew until later--so we just asked the taxi driver to take us to a main street where pubs and shopping would be. And he's like, okay. Actually, I had been told the main street was "princess street" or at least that's what I understood it to be, but actually it's "Princes street" and the accent just through me off. So I asked the taxi driver, like an idiot, to go to Princess St. and he didn't correct me. So he probably just thought I was American, thus retarded. Sorry guys, poor representation. But so, Evelyn and I went to a pub and ordered the most Scottishy things we could find, Scottish Breakfast for me, which is the ultimate Smorgasbord of meat, potatoes, toast, beans, etc. And I wanted black pudding. But I settled for fish and chips, because this pub didn't have black pudding. Lame.

Later, Evelyn and I met up with our friends from Scotland, and we cooked dinner at their apartment with them and tried meat flavored potato chips; they have smoky bacon, roast chicken and rosemary, etc. Seriously, this country. And the guys, which are the guys we met in Sweden, are so funny. I just like to listen to them make jokes with each other and banter because they're all so different and they get along so well. Bain, for instance, kept making prank phone calls (I know, are we six?!) pretending he was from "The British Nationalist Party" which is like the Nazi party. He said he was renting a conference room and needed the hotel's policy on cross burning, lynching, etc. He also invited the Indian phone man to join. And everyone goaded Lewis into telling the most racist joke I've ever heard, but in a Scottish accent, it sounds charming instead of racist. The punch line is "only for a chocolate biscuit" but in a sing-song voice in heavily accent English. So great.

The next day, Evelyn went off with some friends of hers she met in Berlin that also live in Edinburgh, and I went on a tour with Lewis and Chris, and Chris does tours for a hostel so he was very well-informed. Highlights included, the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter, Edinburgh Castle featuring statues of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, the "Thistle Do" Shop (I said, oh like Braveheart, and Lewis said, "yeah, we actually got our national flower from that movie. And Mel Gibson's our prime minister now.") and the tax emblem that all the Scots spit on because it used to be where they had to pay taxes to England. It was super quaint and there were children in the meadows playing rugby and soccer, and everyone is so friendly. I might move immediately.

It was a great weekend, despite the 7 am flight back, and me, like an idiot, getting on the wrong train and going through bumble-fuck nowhere German countryside before finding my way back to Berlin. The whole ordeal took about 2 hours. Ooops!