My first impressions of Edinburgh.
Everyone has been asking me "Reached?", "How is it?", "Have you settled?" and, as always, I decided to be lazy and put out a mass mailer. Time is, surprisingly, at a premium even in a slow-paced city like Edinburgh. Have been quite busy organising and arranging my stay here - I have moved into university provided accomodation which houses about 250 postgraduate students like me. The most common nationalities in this hostel are American, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Canadian. There are about 12-15 Indians also who are all, like yours truly, grappling with the rapidly plummeting temperatures.
Well, it has been a week here and I feel as if I have been here for ages. There has been so much of running around to arrange/organise things that I have just not got the time to sit back and relax and soak in the friendliness and charm of the city and of course, to enjoy the sun which has been out for most of the last few days - a fast disappearing luxury, though. I am told that the dull, wet days will commence soon - we already have got a foretaste of it.
Words and words have been written about the beauty of the scottish landscape but even the quaintness of Edinburgh is something that all those who have been here will testify to. It is a city very easy to start liking............the people are friendly and it is very convenient to live in (made all the more easy for me by the fact that my accomodation is in the heart of the city).
The city has an imposing castle on a mound/hill/ben (take your pick) right in the middle of the city. This castle (I will spare you the boring historical details) dominates the skyline during the day and, especially, during the nights when it is very beautifully lit up. In fact most of the monuments are tastefully lighted in the evenings so it is a pleasure to walk around the city during night. This pleasure is converted to fun when one sees peoples of all ages, sizes, shapes tottering around after a one-too-many round of beer/singlemalt. What strikes the newcomer about the Scots (apart from the fact that men wear skirts, or as they would correct you, kilts!) is that the incidence of obesity is quite high. This is despite the fact that they walk a lot. But I guess all the walking is done in the golf course and between the home and the bar!
Coming back to the architecture - the main city has a very medieval feel to it. Old buildings dot the skyline and if one doesn't see the Vodafone and Marks and Spencer signs one could be forgiven for believing one has been transported back into time. Like any another European (and not American, mind you!) city it is neat, clean, with a lot of history and well-dressed people. Double decker buses and people patiently waiting at redlights are what can be described as a culture-shock for Indians like me. I am yet to hear a honk or see a car with a dent.
Flowers seem to be everyones favourite here. Every house has very very beautiful flowers and gardens and even the city's parks and gardens are beautifully manicured with multicoloured flowers. The colour and the greenery is indeed a treat for the eyes.
The main shopping district of the city is Princes Street. It is about 2 km long with shops on one side and statues of famous scotsmen on the either (Mr. Burns has his pride of place being Scotman # 1). Walking down the street one can get a feel of the pulse of the city. This is made all the more charming by the fact that occassionaly the sound of bagpipes permeates the air. There is a park running right across the length of this street. But this park is at a lower level than the street (since it used to be the moat for the castle). It is indeed a joy to sit in the park and alternate looking at the castle and the people walking by.
I have already been for my share of pubcrawling. Bars dot the city in abundance and since every bar is within walking distance from another, people usually visit more than one (I should say, more than 4) bars in a night. So, as one steps out of the bar one is confronted by numerous other fellow bar-visitors who are also moving on to the next bar. (for the commercial minded, a pint of beer costs approx. 2 pounds)
A few nights back I went for a Ceilidh (pronounced Kay-Lee) dance night. This is a lively dance the beauty of which is that everyone participates (for those of you who remember Titanic - when Rose visits the lower deck they were doing a lively energetic dance. That is Ceilidh). Anyways, where we went (a concert hall) there were about 300 people who were doing the dance. Most were newcomers like me. So the MC would first teach the steps to everyone and then we would all dance. It was really funny (and tiring) to dance with 300 other people most of whom would, like me, sometimes get the steps wrong.
Whether my transition back to the life of a student (slackademic, many would like to correct me!) is going to be easy or not is something I will find out in the next few weeks. My classes start next week and the classmates I have are an eclectic, and I daresay, interesting lot - people from all walks of life and from as countries as diverse as Iceland, Japan, Russia. Though I am one of those who pull up the average age of the class, I am not the oldest one, there are a few who are 'maturer' than me.
The university does not have a proper campus but its buildings intersperse the city. Which not only gives us a flavour of the city but also gives the city a very youthful look as youngsters with backpacks are furiously moving from one class to another or, depending upon the time of the day, from one bar to another.
Yesterday, I went to Holyrood Park - a 650 acre park, in the city! It was a beautiful day and the city skyline looked beautiful from the topmost point of the park (Arthurs Seat). What makes the city pretty is the fact that the city has grown horizontally and not vertically hence there are no ugly skyscrapers to spoil the charm. Anyways, it was a pretty steep hike upto the highest point of the park (which is actually an ancient extinct volcano) but the view was well worth it. As I neared the top (after many a huff and puff), I began to congratulate myself for having accomplished such a feat. It was then that I noticed that there were 70 year olds also on the top (who, to my disgrace, looked less pooped than I did). And as if that was not enough I saw two men (not too young, mind you) who ran (yes, ran!) their way upto the peak and then ran right down without a break. Needless to say it was a disheartening sight for me. But this could not dampen the 'high' i got from seeing the view of the city from the top. It was a beautiful day and one could see for miles in all four directions.
I also visited a couple of suburbs to get an idea of the Scottish suburbia looks like. When I got off the bus at the first suburb I went to (Rosewell), I was shocked - One, because of the beauty of the place - quaint little houses with beautiful flowers all around. I was dumbfounded also because there were no people. I walked around for a couple of hours and saw only 3-4 people. I felt as if I was in a ghost town (albeit an extremely beautiful and charming one!).
Well, that is all I have to report for my last one week. Food is not as big a problem as I thought it would be - Maggi noodles are easily available in Indian/Pakistani (they are called "Asian") stores here. There numerous (I counted 57 in the yellow pages) Indian/Pakistani restaurants here. I have yet to visit one as yet.
