I should probably issue my blog as a weekly serial, considering I only update it every few days. In my defense, this is due to hte fact that everywhere in Edinburgh charges an unglodly amount for wi-fi. I'm cheap. Sue me. So, I'm writing this from the dorms of the London School of Economics while listening to a friend from the Millsaps business school trip yell at people over a game of pool. It's all very interesting. There's so much from the past three days that I want to try and condense in a single post but this computer runs at at pound for thirty minutes and I just spent four of the six pound coins in my pocket on pints of beer. Once again, it's all about priorities. In summation, I should tell you about the moment where my life flashed before my eyes (as a result I might need a tetanus shot) and my disasterous but amusing train ride from Edinburgh to London.
Let me say as an intro that Edinburgh is officially my favorite city of all time. Period. Cool pubs. Cool people. Even the homeless bagpipers are pretty cool. You know what's not cool though? The vertical climb down to Siccar's Point. For my non-geologically minded audience, Siccar Point is the l;ocation where James Hutton, the father of modern geology, developed the principles of superspositioning and figured out that the earth is older than 5000 years. Big deal. What Dr. Harris failed to clue us in on is that Siccar Point is only accesible by climbing down a muddy, 65 degree, 150 foot sea cliff to a narrow band of rock in the middle of the North Sea. About halfway down, as I grasp desperately to a barbed wire fence, my thoughts were something along the lines of "Oh God. Harris, you've killed us all." At one point, I lost my footing and fell into a terrify five foot slide in which I shrieked helpslessly and generally just made an ass of myself. Winning. Howver, once we got down I could only think about the terror that would be the climb back UP the embackment. And sure enough, I walked straight into disaster. I now have a lovely slice up my left fore arm from the barbed wire. A little Neosporina and Advil for good measure, I'm feeling much better. But, Mom, I might need a tetanus a shot...just kidding...but let's maybe look into that.....hmmmm.
Anyhow, fast forward two days (insert lots of pub visits, fried Brie cheese, and a haggis tasting) and we arrive to today. Oh today. What a day of hope and glory. In our eternal quest to experience Great Britain in all it's wonder, Allison, Drez, Alex, Krista, and I took the train from Edinburgh Waverley Station Loondon Kings Cross. Brilliant plan in theory. We would see the country side, save money, and meet interesting people. In reality, we were stuck in the one coach that didn't have air conditioning in the entire twenty coach train. Solid start that reeks of potential. Then we were delayed for an hour on a track outside of Stephencaster (sic) after a person was apparently by a train further down the track.....he apparently lived. As we slowly baked in the English country side, the kind Englishman beside me began to interrogate me about rodeos and various American restaurant chains. He was particularly interested in the concept of "The Waffle House". He couldn't comprehend how I would ever know what or how to order. Something was also lost in translation as I tried to explain the various ways in which you can order hashbrowns. It's not terribly English, I suppose. However, he was overall impressed with the nature of American breakfast, the Denny's Grand-Slam in particular. Don't ask me why, but he was really into the amount of scrambled eggs and bacon that the Denny's corporation managed to fit onto the plate for the low price of 5.95. I'm pretty sure that was his favorite thing in America, right after our perception of the American dream. It was actually a fairly strange conversation now that I think about it.
In summation: I climbed and fell. I wined and dined. I learned and taught. All in a days work for a Millsaps geology major.
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