~ ANNE! ~

Yeah, so I think I kind of like it here.

Have been working for two days so far. Despite being kitchen work (and therefore automatically not the greatest job) it's pretty good for a kitchen. It's just a small one (the chef, one waiter and me) and they make pretty posh stuff - you know, salmon roulard with ginger-yogurt sauce, that kind of thing. But most people order sandwiches (which I'm in charge of). The chef is called Martin. He's extremely friendly and extremely chill (rare in a chef to not shout at people when things get busy) and he has a pretty distinctive Yorkshire accent despite having lived in Edinburgh for 15 years. The owner, May, is nice enough, but she IS the type of person to shout at kitchen staff when things get busy, plus I can barely understand her accent. So that's fun. She keeps asking me if everything is okay, though (Bee ditched on them after working for four days) so I think she's pretty desperate to keep me around. Too bad for her I still plan to leave as soon as I find a better job! The main thing is the hours: I only work 11 - 4, which is fun, as I get to sleep in every day, but not so good for the wallet.

The flat is all right. The room's huge, though painted rather eccentrically - looks like someone sort of splashed blue and purple paint around on a white wall - my sister would probably approve. It has a big window, fake fireplace and double bed. The kitchen's okay, but unfortunately the light doesn't work, so I make most meals by candlelight. Also, the fridge door has fallen off. I'm serious, it's off its hinge - you have to do a sort of contortion to open it, with one foot on the outside of the door to stop it falling off, while you wedge your hip into the other side of the door and reach around for your food. Good times! (The landlord has promised to fix this. sigh).

Bee leaves on Tuesday. I'll be sad to see her go - it's been really nice spending so much time with her. We went to Glasgow yesterday... she stayed over, but I had to work today. She came back with tri-colour hair: the roots are blonde (her natural colour), the middle is sort of pale orange (the faded remants of the red she dyed it a few months ago) and the bottom is now bright fire-engine red. I will have to take a picture.

Glasgow was pretty fun. It's definitely MUCH more urban than Edinburgh - the people were younger, hipper and way more dressed up. A large goth contingent, apparently, as well. It didn't strike me as a particularly industrial city, but it did seem much dirtier and more busy than Edinburgh. However, it was also obviously influenced a lot by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (not surprisingly), which impressed me. I really like his work. Will have to go back sometime and actually look around properly. Yesterday was just a whirlwind tour.

Bee and I went out on Tuesday with Graham, the tour guy. We never did manage to get ahold of Vanessa, the other girl on the tour, so it was just the three of us. Had a really good time checking out the Edinburgh nightlife! Probably far too good a time, in fact, considering that Wednesday was my first day of work. I think Bee and I went to bed at 4 am. However, when you move to a new city you have to take the social life where you can get it! I also hung out with Graham Thursday - we watched "Human Nature". Half the scenes were set in what was supposed to be a psych lab, which had me yelling at the screen, "There would never be a lab set up like that! And that study would NEVER pass ethics!" Possibly I've spent too much time in academia.

Anyway, Graham's not around much (due to spending most of his time driving tour busses through the highlands), but I'm quite pleased to know an actual Scottish person. In all my time in Belfast, I only really got to know one Irish person (and he's since moved to Vancouver!) Hopefully since I'm sticking around for a while this time, it will be easier to get a social life.

Oh, and one more thing - the grocery store here sells haggis in cans. It also has an entire wall of different varieties of baked beans, while the cheese section is tiny and consists of cheddar. And if you want soup, let's hope you like scotch broth or leek and potato soup, or you don't have much choice... I thought all those stories about what Scottish people eat were just stereotypes, but apparently I was wrong! I even saw a shop selling deep-fried Mars bars...