(Day One) Edinburgh
Morning came too soon. The plan, as naive as it was, was to wake up early and set off by 8 AM. In actuality I think we left around 10:30 or 11. I was a bit nervous at first to be driving. For one I haven’t done it in eight months or so, and I’ve never used my left hand to shift, but despite the shaky start I felt comfortable quite soon. I felt somewhat bonded with our car whom, to Marcus dislike, I named Mikey and the Sat. Nav. we managed to borrow at the last minute. We named her Jenny because of her English accented narration. Together we managed to make our way to Edinburgh to meet up with James Bond.
No seriously, that is his real name. His friends call him Jamie. I got his number (which I programmed in my phone with gleeful relish. How cool is it to have James Bond in your contacts list?) from a friend and he not only let us crash at his place last minute BUT also gave us a quick tour around Edinburgh. He had such insightful commentary as well, such as: “This is a castle, they built it to keep people out…”.
He and his friends were great and after meeting we went to a pub and swapped stories, imitated each others accents, and wound up Will, the 21 year old with a baby face who gets carded for 15 movies. Afterwards we got a “chinky” (or Chinese take-away) and tried to explain how this term would be offensive if used in the states. Jamie was genuinely surprised by this and couldn’t understand how chinky is offensive… ah, the Scottish.
