(Mis)Adventures
It's another lovely morning in Aberdeen. I'm sitting again in the solarium, basking in the sun and surrounded by dark wood, stoic granite, and bright greenery. I may go for a bike ride, but I'm also a bit nervous about heading down the roads to the park. Traffic laws are different here. It's not just the driving on the left or the roundabouts; there is no assumption about rights-of-way for pedestrians or cyclists. People drive here very decisively and with the tacit understanding that cars go first; we'll see how brave I feel after another coffee.
The weekend has been mostly relaxing. I say "mostly" because I misplaced my wallet yesterday afternoon. What a colossal pain in the ass. The end result is that I have nothing until I'm in London on Wednesday, although Paul is being kind enough to be my own ATM. At least I got some gifts bought prior to spending two hours on the phone with people trying to sort things out.
Friday night, Paul and I met some colleagues for a few pints at the Queen Vic. Most of these are people in research for public health, and there were a few statisticians among the crowd, as well. The conversation was actually pretty fun, and a few of the girls were cute. We cut out pretty early and grabbed a bite at the same kebab place from the night before, then went home and probably were in bed by 11.
Yesterday, I helped Paul with one of his properties. It's a house that holds five flats inside. We started off taking a few hundred pounds of excess soil to the recycling center, and then attempted to move some of the rocks on the front lawn into something aesthetically pleasing. No way. One was at least 400 pounds; we may try later with more people. We also moved some sofas inside. I wonder what the two Hungarian tenants must be thinking about all of this.
I met my friend, Lisa, for coffee that afternoon. She's awesome. She also works at the university in some capacity for women's public health, and just recently got engaged. She was there with Emma, and we all chatted for a while before I went off shopping to lose my wallet. :)
Next was the beach. The houses down there are really cool. They're small - cozy is probably a better word - and have lots of personality. I've got many pictures of them.
We had dinner at Saigon, a Vietnamese restaurant here in town. I think of Vietnamese as being a lot lighter, but this is Scotland and ehtnic cuisines seem to invariably adapt themselves to local tastes. It was still great, if way too much food.
We hit Soul afterward for a quick drink. There are lots of old churches here. Since this isn't Houston where developers are free to tear down old construction for the architecural equivalent of pabulum, people repurpose these old imposing granite structures. What was once a church is now a bar, replete with stained glass windows. Where people once knelt before the altar and bought indeulgences, people kneel before the porcelain altar because of overindulging... well, that's taking it a bit far, but I still think it's neat.
It was loud, and by far the most entertaining aspect was watching Cat's expressions when many of the other women walked by. I'd call it "trying too hard"; she muttered something about hypothermia; it could be less charitably called "tarting up for attention". Either way, lots of ridiculously scantily clad women were about in 45 degree weather.
After having enough of the noise and too many drunk people (we weren't expecting too much from a Scottish bar on a Saturday night), we hit a nearby pub for some quieter conversation before heading home.
I'm supposed to meet Tricia today and go out to tea with her and her mom; I'm sure we'll find something to do. I need to grab some more books and see what other shopping I can do on a limited budget. Perhaps some street busking is in order to get some dosh for more loot.
Pics here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/superflyc/sets/72157602214020199/detail/
