~ ANNE! ~

I love the Mountaineer. I don't understand why my mother didn't want to shell out to send my subscription to Scotland. Sheesh. Luckily Will still gets his, so I am now caught up with the Rocky news. For example: a picture of the speedskating oval, which you can't skate on now - BUT YOU WILL SOON BE ABLE TO! Also, they are having major parking-lot-litter problems.

I am much more coherent today, thank you. Yesterday was a bit of a struggle. Saturday was what you might call quite a busy day, encompassing packing my entire life into a bag, sorting out my money, showing my room to people who wanted to rent it, and going to the football. (Hearts vs Inverness, and what a rubbish game! Hearts are meant to be quite good this year, but they certainly didn't look it. Terrible). I went home early after the game and climbed into my pyjamas, only to climb back out of them and go clubbing until 4 am. My reasoning: travel days are always horrible anyway, and I feel terrible on planes... so I might as well be exhausted because it won't be any worse than usual!

Turned out to be a really good night, actually. Citrus, as advertised, plays amazingly good music and there was an interesting crowd. It was my last night in Edinburgh and I didn't want to waste any of it sleeping.

The landlord turned up Sunday morning to inspect the room. It was in exactly the same condition as when I moved in (except that I washed down the smudgy cupboard doors) but he insisted that the carpet looked "dingy" and took twenty quid off the deposit. Grrrr, but what can you do. He had me over a barrel as I had to be at the train station in twenty minutes. He did offer to drive me, though, which sweetened things slightly.

Still though. Landlords, bah.

In other news: I never have to see Linda ever again! And never again do I have to worry that she will suddenly go off on me for very little reason! Good luck to Brandon...

Caught the train to Glasgow and the Airporter out to the airport and was well in time for the flight. There was a moment of suspense when they weighed my bags, but miraculously they did not charge me for overweight luggage. I suppose that probably cancels out what I lost on the damage deposit, actually.

The flight was pretty smooth. I was next to some over-mascara'd, hair-straightened teenager from Manchester, but she was actually quite nice (though her accent made me wince) and it could have been a lot worse. Like the man who'd never heard of deodorant and kept reaching up to get things out of the overhead compartment. Now THAT was a bad flight.

Then there was a race for the bus to the ferry and a ride from the ferry to Victoria with Will, and a blessed stop at Tim Hortons. I have been to Timmy's twice in 24 hours and I am a happy girl. They toast their sandwiches now! And here I thought they couldn't have got any better...

Spent the day suffering a large bout of reverse culture shock. I'm not sure how it is possible to be homesick for a place that is technically not home, but I seem to be managing. Everything here seems too big and too open and the buildings are far too ugly. (Barring one or two - Victoria actually does quite well in the old-building stakes).

I also seem to have developed Phantom Mobile Syndrome. I keep reaching for my phone to check if I've got any texts before realising that I don't have it anymore. I've even thought I felt it vibrating a couple of times. I may well be going mad.