Leeds and Edinburgh again

Thursday 30 May 2019

I spent most of Tuesday on the train, traveling from Inverness to Leeds via Edinburgh.  I have found that I'm not enjoying train travel on this trip as much as I have on previous trips.  Most of the trains I've taken on this trip have been late, and I'm more affected by motion-sickness than I used to be.

Leeds still has the most American feel of any English city I've ever been to.  It's big and spread out and modern, and its train station is absolutely huge.  It took me ages to find a working ATM, and then my taxi driver had the audacity to ask me "Where's that?" when I told him Kat's address.  Like, you're a cab driver, isn't it your job to know these things?

I had a quiet Tuesday night in with Kat, her partner Marco, and her cats Saffy, Izzy, and Micawber.  Yesterday Kat and I went to the art gallery and the Henry Moore Institute, where there was an exhibition on by Renee So.  Last night Kat, Marco, and I went to a small Polish restaurant for dinner and then to the cinema to see Rocketman, which we all enjoyed.

This morning Kat and I watched a couple episodes of Game of Thrones (I am now caught up except for the series finale), and we are now at Kirkstall Abbey and Museum.  The day is warm but cloudy, with occasional spitting rain.  I love abbeys and cathedrals and their ruins, and I am currently happily sitting on a bench writing this and watching families on half-term at play.

"Real life" is beginning to re-assert itself a bit.  I logged into my school email on Tuesday for the first time in several days, to see a notice that I needed to register for my fall classes by Thursday (today).  Fortunately I was able to borrow Kat's laptop for that.  I also got a text message from my school mentor, and an email from my mom about the moving of my stuff which will take place this weekend...so yeah, American life and my impending return to it are on my mind this week.

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Saturday 1 June 2019

Yesterday I took the CrossCountry train from Leeds to Edinburgh, after hitching a ride to the station with Marco.  My train was late of course, and there were uppity English people on it demanding that their seat reservations be honored even though they'd all been cancelled.  Ugh.  Not a fun ride.

I had a quiet afternoon and evening yesterday, napping in my HUGE private room at Belford Hostel and venturing out to get a doner kebab for dinner.  There's a festival on at the Meadows today, so I'm planning to go to that and meet up with Ewan and Kath there.  Plan for tomorrow is to get an early-ish train out of Haymarket to Glasgow, and then the 10am bus allllll the way up to Uig, where I will get the evening ferry to Lochmaddy!