Wet laundry

Well... the night bus to Scotland wasn't too bad. It was only about 9 hours, and I actually did sleep a bit. I arrived at about 8 in the morning on Tuesday and it was pouring rain. I had promised myself that if it was raining I would suck it up and pay for a cab to my hostel instead of trekking with my big pack and 2 tote bags (the second tote bag was to hold all of the things that Kary donated to me upon her departure back to the states) all the way to my hostel. I didn't quite know where the hostel was, but was familiar with the major streets in Edinburgh from memory of my previous stays here. So... for some reason when I got out of the bus station... I just started walking... and never got a cab. It was only about a 5 minute walk (so with a pack on... its about 8-9 minutes), but it was pouring rain. By the time I got in, my pants were soaked up to my knees. Literally. And the tricky part about getting into the hostel at 8, was that I really couldn't check-in to my room until 2. I was freezing and soaking wet, and convinced the nice desk lady to let me upstairs so that I could at least shower and change my clothes (my hair was already soaking wet... realizing for the 3rd time that I forgot to pack an umbrella). After my shower and change, it was about 9, so I only had 5 hours to kill before I could get in my room (5 hours to roam around a drenched city with no umbrella). Anyway- after I junked around on the internet for a while, I mustered up the courage to face the cold rain and I packed all of my dirty laundry (90% of my clothes) into one of the tote bags to set out looking for a laundromat. I figured that was a reasonable thing to do on a rainy day- sit inside and watch clothes tumble in a circle for a few hours. I asked the nice lady at reception where the nearest laundry place was, to which she said that the hostel offers a laundry service for pretty cheap, and that if I dropped it off before noon, it would be back and folded before midnight. I thought about this for a minute, and realized that I wasn't ok with someone doing my laundry (especially because it seriously smelled) and I surely wasn't ok with some backpacker (who probably worked in the laundry room in the hostel so that he could stay free for the night) folding my unmentionables. So I told the lady thank you, played my tote bag off as a enormous purse, and headed out anyway to search on my own for a laundromat. 45 minutes later... soaking wet... I returned to the hostel with my tote bag still fermenting, and handed it over the counter so that some poor backpacker could fold my undies downstairs in the laundry room. By this time I only had one more hour to "waste" before I could check in... so I sat in the common room and read one of the books I picked up. At 2:00 on the dot I got my key, dumped my now empty backpack at the foot of my bed and crashed. I snuggled under the covers and warmed up to a nice long nap. When I woke up, the rain had subsided for a few minutes, so I ran out to the grocery store for some butter and juice and an orange. I came back to make buttered noodles (from the left over pasta I had) for dinner with a nice side of cranberry juice and orange slices.

Since we're speaking of food... this seems like a great opportunity to discuss something that is on my mind. I am very fond of Coca Cola Classic, and having family in Atlanta, I have had the opporutnity to visit the Coke Museum and have a pretty good understanding about its international market. I think I have taken coke for granted in the past, and now I have learned my lesson. When we were in Austria, (not knowing any German) I knew about 3 food-related words: cheese, pastry, and hamburger. Thankfully, Coke is Coke, and I easily could get my point across. Hence, I took a picture of me holding 2 coke cans, expressing my gratitude for coke being a worldwide product that I recognize.

The second food piece that I wanted to mention, is peanut butter. That is one food that I truly can eat everyday. I mean- its so versitle... you can eat it with bread (fresh bread, toasted bread, with jelly, with bananas:) you can eat it with fruits and veggies (celery and apples) you can dip crackers or cookies in it. Really- its a multi-functional food. And its a good mix of sweet and salty. Truly one of my favorite foods. When I was studying abroad in Wales, I had an awful time finding peanut butter. This is more of a jam and scones country, not a PBJ country. Thankfully my amazing family sent me some last time to pull me out of withdrawls. Well- when Kary and I were in Austria, we agreed that we should get peanut butter and use it for the dishes that I mentioned above. Of course every grocery store/convenience store we went into, we would look- but to no avail. UNTIL out of the corner of my eye one day I spotted ONE jar of SKIPPY at the grocery store of the smallest town we had visited! I didn't even look at the price, by merely darted down the aisles of apples, celery, bread and crackers to get a multitude of things to use the peanutbutter with. It traveled with us to France, but we had to leave it behind there before we got on the plane to London. Since I've been up here in Scotland... no such luck on my peanutbutter search. The only place I know that sells either Skippy or Jif in this country is in London at an international foods store (where they also sell different varieties of Oreos:), and I don't plan on returning to London simply for the PB.





(clearly its been a slow few days since I'm writing about Coke and Peanutbutter)