Dippy Jones Across The Pond: Day 24 - Away I go again...

I woke up this morning, a little late, and had to eat my breakfast while walking to work. I had a nutella sandwich and was thinking about allergies. I remembered a Chinese (?) proverb and was suddenly very thankful for my constant ailments.

"One illness, long life. No illnesses, short life"

Basically it means that if you're never ill or anything, you're deluding yourself. But if you are aware of your problems and limitations, you will be more aware and cautious of them thereby extending your life. So perhaps, despite my insistence that I'll probably need a new knee by the time I'm 30, all my efforts to alleviate what pain it causes me, and strengthen it to fix it, might actually mean I get to keep my own knee longer! Go me?

A good thing to keep in mind before my weekend in Scotland.

Yup, after Cardiff and London the past two weekends, I'm on the move again! This time with Nina and Oliver again, but also a guy from Nina's residence who I haven't actually met yet. I believe he's from Hong Kong. We're going to Edinburgh tonight, and Stirling tomorrow night (because that was the only way we could have a place to stay :$). I've already updated my "Specific Places I want to See" map to include the prospective locations we may explore this weekend, and even printed off a few preliminary maps. Stirling looks like it'll be a tough place to see all of without a car though. But it's really hard for me to tell just from the map.

Look forward to an epic post about my journey when I return! I intend to try haggis, for the first time ever, and I want to find myself a nice warm scottish sweater, lets see if I can without breaking the bank. I also want to see the cafe where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter... yay obsessions!

Also, something I didn't realize, Edinburgh is actually the site of an extinct volcano; hopefully I can convince my companions to climb to the top with me and get the best view going! I'll be bringing my walking stick, and sleeping with it, again; it was a godsend in London and I was lost without it in Cardiff so I've learned my lesson.

Strange things about England:

-The wrong side of the street is just the beginning. Everything here is upside-down and backwards. Keys turn backwards in locks, you push doors in when going into a building rather than pulling them out; even the light switches are upside down: down for on and up for off? What is this nonsense!

-"Are you alright?" commonly phrased "You alright?" or "Everything alright?" is what they say instead of "how are you?" either that, or everyone thinks somethings wrong when they see me. Always.

-Chips and crisps. I knew about this one before coming, but didn't realize the confusion it could cause until I was in London with Elle and Sarah and they refused to use the right words... everyone was so confused by them calling crisps chips; including me!

And Heather will be glad to know, I cut my nails today, they were starting to make funny noises when I touch things; my pinkies' nails were a decent full centimetre long past the quick.