Scribbles

On windy nights when I go home the scattering leaves all look like tiny terrible animals attacking my ankles and discouraging me from going home. Then the wind picks up and tries to forcibly restrain me from walking towards the hostel I call "home." It's the only time in Edinburgh when I feel threatened.

I have completed one full shift on my own behind the bar at the hotel and its funny how unglamorous the job is when you're actually pouring the drinks. And yet at the same time, knowing just when to let go of the tap on the Stella, seeing the Guinness froth over and slide gently and thickly down the side of the glass and smelling the oakey sweetness of some of Scotland's fine single-malt whiskey is still exciting. Last night I met a man who helped design reinforced floors on the UK's navy submarines and who was on his way for a screen test on the UK's version of Deal or No Deal! Nice guy. There's a huge group of older couples on holiday from I don't know where and they charge all their drinks (which are a lot) to Room 222. I call them the 222 Group. And they're very nice but they don't leave tips and they come to the bar and swarm over the place, raising the volume by a couple decibels for about 20-30 minutes and then they leave. When they order they talk very slowly as if they think I can't understand England English when they order drinks. As if. Even when they do talk slowly I have to translate the pronunciation in my head. :o) Also talked to a couple who had been in Munich for some time and who tipped me about a festival in April that's akin to Oktoberfest only much more locals attend and is much more of the folk variety. Good travel tips.

I rode home in a taxi with an older man who had the voice of honey-butter- soft and high-pitched and lovely. He asked me where I was from and when I told him South Carolina he got so excited! "I just drove home another girl from South Carolina!" he said. "I've never met anyone from South Carolina before and now I've met two in an hour!" I was less interested in the fact that there was someone else from South Carolina here (tho that is pretty cool) than in wanting to hear more of his voice say slowly and in an what I believe to be an Irish accent how incredible it was. I was also very tired because I'd been working for the past 11 hours, and perhaps his lilting sing-song voice was so comforting that it became a sort of lullaby to go to sleep to. Must have worked because I slept like a rock last night.