Hello from Edinburgh, an English dork's dream--full of old stuff and funny words like 'devolution', 'firth', and 'sam is spending three weeks of his vacation reading a stack of books and writing essays'.

The blog had a delayed start due to my inability to use machines, remember anything, or communicate using the English language. The more polite term is 'jetlag', which I will use throughout the blog as a way of making myself feel better about my super-un-powers. The blog will probably continue to be plagued with errors of various kinds--not to mention boring and inane entries--including technical errors, a lack of photographs, etc. This is a long way of saying that you are very kind to read this blog at all and that I'm doing my pathetic best.

Major good points so far:
--Stunningly beautiful weather every single day so far.
--A couple of pals named Alex and Paul. Alex goes to the University of San Diego and is dating a BD but is otherwise a fine young lady. Paul is about to start his second year teaching high school English in Boca Raton.
--A couple of killer lectures, including one on modern Scottish history by Tom Devine and one on Joyce by Aaron Kelly (the latter of which no one liked but me).
--Good beer.
--I got one of those Magic Eye posters to work.
--We watched the number one Scottish cult film last night: Wicker Man. A mainland Scottish policeman visits an island run by pagans. I got yelled at for rooting for the pagans, whose leader was played by Christopher Lee (Saruman from The Lord of the Rings movies).
--We live next to Hollyrood Park, an ancient volcanic rock formation that used to be the royal hunting grounds. I've been going running in it and am not as fat.
--Cute accents abound.

Major bad points:
--No good food so far except what my sweetie (and my sweet mother) packed for me.
--Jetlag. Everyone already knows this, but I had forgotten it: you can't take a nap. At all. Even a short one. Even if you think you're ready--you're not.

Indifferent points:
--The sun sets at 11 and rises at 4. And it's not that dark when it's dark. (I know because of the jetlag thing.)
--Flapjacks are a cross between a granola bar and a brownie here.
--IRN-BRU puts Scotland in the company of only one or two other countries where a domestically-produced soda outsells Coca-Cola. I haven't tasted one yet but supposedly they cure hangovers. And yes, there really is iron in them.

I'll end with a word of warning: just because the guy you go running with goes to a military academy does not mean he won't start talking to you about poetry as you're running up a big hill and about to barf.

My love to all of you! Comment if you want!