Sundays in Edinburgh seem very quaint and predictable. We ended up having to walk Uptown (as I am now going to call Old Town, where the University is, because it is, in fact, uphill from us) to find some internet, as we don’t yet have it in out place. The way up follows a route through Holyrood Park, a nice chunk of big mountain right in the middle of a bustling city. On our way through, it was nice to see it simply full of people. Families and couples mostly (where as in the early evenings during the week its full of young people playing football or rugby) picnicking and flying kites. Despite the fact that in the early afternoon it was cold, windy and rainy, people were out enjoying themselves on a nice Sunday. Flying Kites. How Mary Poppins can you get? Coming from a childhood of such Disney movies I was delighted to see that people still DO that on weekends; it seemed, well, quaint and perfect.
The afternoon DID turn out quite nice, in the mid-60s and sunny, but as soon as mid-afternoon came, suddenly public spaces were deserted for the more cozy and rowdy atmosphere of local pubs and biergartens, where big screen TVs showed that day’s rugby match. From the looks of the crowds (drinking and only half-interested), I would say that the match did not include Scotland, for Scotland matches, I have learned, include much singing and cursing and cheering. The last time Scotland played a World Cup match, you could hear the whole city cheer all at once from our window. And I do not use hyperbole here; I am 100% serious. Plus, you couldn’t have gotten into any reputable pub if you had Tyra Banks naked at your side. People crowded the sidewalks outside of windows to see TV screens. It was wild, and wickedly fun.

At any rate, as I said, we do not have internet in our place yet, and won’t until Wednesday. So I am stuck using the University’s wireless, which, for lack of a better word, sucks. For an internationally renown university, they seem to have fallen off the internet bandwagon sometimes in the late 90s, perhaps right after people stopped using the floppy discs that were actually floppy. Their wireless struggles to function, their website looks like a high school student’s mid-term project, and their online “Blackboard”-type site looks like something from the MS-DOS era of computing. And none of it works the way its supposed to. Sooooo, needless to say, I am looking forward to have fiber-optics. And streaming baseball.

Map and Photos for As a Postgrad in Edinburgh...

Map data ©2008 Tele Atlas - Terms of Use
Tip: Use arrow keys to flip through the slideshow.

Ratings for

good food

0%

5 votes