Oakwinter.com

• My original plan for Saturday (17 June) was to go see Edinburgh Castle and the Scottish War Museum there. However, when you find out that they want double-digit pounds for student admissions, you change your plans. Seriously, if you were to charge $20+ dollars for admission to a museum in America, you’d get shot. End of discussion.

• Highly recommended: Holyrood Park. Located behind Holyroodhouse Palace, the Queen’s official residence in Scotland, the Park is a huge sampling of the Scottish Highlands nestled in the middle of the national capital. Crisscrossed with pathways and capped by the peak of Arthur’s Seat, you can easily spend five or six hours walking around the park (as my feet can attest to).

  Definitely go up Arthur’s Seat, but be sure to take the steep way — the one on the city-side of the Seat (ie, not the Firth-side): the Firth-side path is easy-peasy stuff, while the city-side trail is a real climb. You will work up a sweat.

  At the top of Arthur’s Seat is a direction/distance marker, showing where and how far away various landmarks are. Up until reading this map, I had (for whatever reason) been under the impression that the Firth of Forth is north of Edinburgh; turns out it’s actually south. As a result, my mental map of Edinburgh is all turned around, and I have no idea what direction anything is in now.

• Sunday was spent being very lazy: played football in the courtyard with kids from Ireland, Australia and Wisconsin, watched football in the common room with 15 Polish kids. The Polish kids do not shut up, ever. Imagine a crowd of 18-year olds shouting constantly at the TV in a language you don’t understand and you have about the right idea.

• Did anyone else watch “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” when they were a kid? You know the song about Portobello Road and how everything and anything a chap can unload gets sold off the barrow there?

  It’s fantastic, for serious.

  So, it turns out that Edinburgh has a Portobello Road and, never being one to deny my childhood its whims, I decide to go see what this street’s all about.

  If you too love this movie, and you too ever find yourself in Edinburgh, and you too want to see if said street lives up to the hype, do not. Stay away. Portobello Road bears absolutely no resemblance to anything in the movie, save perhaps for the Hollywood backlot in which it was filmed. Kilometer after kilometer after kilometer of houses, gas stations and frozen food emporiums are lying in wait.

  And just in case you think that, even if the road is crap, you can still follow the road out to the Firth of Forth and at least see some of that long-awaited waterfront…well…

  (PS: When I set out, I couldn’t remember whether “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” was set in Edinburgh or not. Months later, Wikipedia informs me that it’s actually set in England’s West Country and that the Portobello Road scenes are supposed to take place in London. Stupid childhood memories.)

• So, Monday: the main point of today was meeting up with Internet Person Colin at a pub of his choosing. This, unlike Sunday’s many-kilometer misadventure, proved to be a rousing success, with both parties generally computer-nerding it up over pints of excellent ale.

  Before meeting him at The Cloisters (a nice little place, if ever you’re in the area), I went and walked around The Meadows, a long strip of, well, meadows. I sat for a while, trying to watch four cricket matches at the same time and figure out how the hell you play this game.

Part I: In Which Collin Returns to Germersheim

My train comes around the bend from Speyer and the first thing I see is the Studentenwohnheim building and that’s very, very weird.

The plan is to meet up with my friend Johanna, go to the American English conversation table, then leave again later that night. The plan stops at 10PM.

I spend the next two or three hours and a beer weighing my options. Plan #1 involves Ireland and Scotland; the bulk of Plan #2 is Italy. I’m having a tough time deciding between the two, primarily because I don’t want to do either one; I’m having trouble finding lodging in Italy, and the northern UK involves the extra expense of air travel. Fortunately, the ever-helpful Internet makes my decision for me.

A few weeks ago, I had a phone interview with IBM Ireland, and while researching travel options, I get an email from the same people: they’re interested in a second phone interview. Problem is, I won’t really have a phone number for the duration of the current Euro-adventure. I suggest we do the interview in person, they say OK; five minutes later, I have a €49 fare from Cologne to Edinburgh and a hostel in the same.

The plan is this: spend some time in Edinburgh, meeting up with Internet People while there, then make my way down to Dublin via Glasgow and possibly Belfast. This will put the interview about nine or ten days out, with time left over to go see some more of Ireland before heading back to central Europe.

I meet up with Johanna at 3PM, she makes me speak German for a few hours, then I get my revenge at the conversation table. Charlotte is surprised to see me (as planned). All is going according to plan.

Part II: In Which Collin Makes His Way to Scotland

The English conversation table finally breaks up around 11:20 PM and I head off to the train station, escorted by the lovely Johanna. The ticket machines are most willing to sell me a late-night trip northward, and we say our goodbyes next to the RegionalExpress 3862 to Karlsruhe. Change the locomotive to a propeller plane, swap small-town Germany for northern Morocco and we could make a run at a convincing Boghart and Bergman.

I guess the plot would have to be different, too.

I sleep all the way to Karlsruhe; upon my arrival, I am hungry. Given that the Europeans generally don’t go in for American-style 24-hour everything, I’m worried about being able to find food before my train leaves.

I have never been so relieved to see a McDonalds in my life. I elect to sample some of the more un-American items on their menu: the Big Tasty McChicken (which is indeed “big” and may well contain “chicken”, but “tasty” might be a bit much) and Farm Kartoffeln (Kartoffeln == potatoes) with sour cream dipping sauce.

At 1AM, there are no trains in the Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof. Occasionally a freight line will blow through, and an ICE just crept by (yes, crept; we’re talking single-digit speeds), but otherwise the place is ganz leer, as they say. It’s very strange, seeing the Karlsruhe station completely trainless, given how busy it is during the day time. They’ve got a lot of the lights turned off or turned down, giving the place a distinct “imps are going to jump out and throw fireballs at you” feel.

There’s a surprising number of people here, most of them apparently waiting for the same train I am (the 1:34 ICE to Kiel).

It occurs to me at some point that this will be my second time in Cologne today.

GermanWings limits you to 13 kg of carry-on luggage, meaning that I’ve had to check my backpack for the first time. I tried convincing the woman to let me take 2 sub-13 kilo carry-ons, but she didn’t bite. This is the first time in a while I haven’t had my pack with me on the flight. I am nervous.

I am the only passenger in this entire wing of the Cologne/Bonn airport; I guess that’s what I get for arriving five hours early for my flight. I’m here so early, my plane isn’t even up on the big “what flights are leaving when” boards yet.

Killing time, catching up on blog entries (like this one). I’m trying to come up with a list of all the airports I’ve ever been in; here’s the first stab:

• America
• Nashville, TN
• Atlanta, GA
• Dulles, Washington DC
• Newark, NJ
• JFK, NYC
• O’Hare, Chicago
• Colorado Springs, CO
• Minneapolis/St Paul, MN
• Cincinatti, OH
• St. Louis, MO
• Europe
• Gatwick, London
• Heathrow, London
• Geneva, Switzerland
• Basel-Mulhouse, France
• Charles de Gaulle, Paris
• Frankfurt Rhein-Main, Germany
• Berlin Tegel, Germany
• Madrid, Spain
• Lisbon, Portugal
• Cologne/Bonn, Germany (today)
• Edinburgh, Scotland (today)

I think I’ve forgotten one or two. Also, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been in some of these, like Atlanta.

My laptop clock says it’s 8:03 AM CEST before other passengers show up. The place is still not what you’d call “full”.

Coming to you from the other side of passport control: I seriously need to get my passport photo updated. I’m tired of immigration officials spending far longer than is comfortable looking at my papers.

Part III: In Which Collin Arrives in Scotland

A country full of freckled redheads. This must be heaven.

Edinburgh is a very pretty place, much prettier than expected.

To kill time before I can check into my hostel, I go grocery shopping, grab a little picnic for lunch. The menu: little rucola + onion bhaji sandwiches, plus a banana and the most delicious potato chips ever. I was somewhat skeptical when the bag claimed a flavour of “roasted chicken with lemon and thyme”, but I’ll be damned if they didn’t managed to squeeze Thanksgiving dinner in there. Dining: al fresco, in the park below the Edinburgh castle.

I’m finally checked in to the hostel, after this ordeal: arrive in city center; hike to the hostel’s address; get told by a little guy from the Dominican Republic that I have to go somewhere else to check in, in a tone of voice that says I’m the stupidest person on God’s Green Earth for not knowing this; hike to the check-in place; get told that I’m too early; adjourn for lunch; come back to check-in place; exchange money for lodging; hike back to the hostel; find out they gave me the wrong bed assignment; wait while poor English speaker #1 argues with poor English speaker #2 about whose fault this is; finally get a bed assignment; drop stuff. All this, and the room smells like ass.

Intermezzo: go out wandering, make dinner, watch a World Cup game or two.

It seems that there are three couples in this room, and I’m not in one. I couldn’t begin to match the faces I see during the day with the beds that get used at night.