My First Week in Edinburgh

I've now spent one week in Edinburgh. It's been a tough week, a fun week, an interesting week, filled with trying to understand people when they talk to me, dealing with weather like I've never seen before, weird navigation, and being hit in the face, again, by my inability to make friends, and a feeling of loneliness. This is going to be my home for the unforeseeable future and I'm excited, and scared.

Navigation

I was welcomed to Edinburgh by getting traffic ticket. The navigation device we had used to get from Oxford to Edinburgh told us to make a right turn, where we were not supposed to. I heard a car honk at me, and about 30 seconds later, saw the police car in my side mirror.

In the end, it was a small fine, and the cop was almost apologetic, blaming the GPS device as I had, but saying a camera had caught my error, and so he had to give me a ticket. I shook his hand, he gave me directions to where we were headed, and we were on our way. It was not the warmest of welcomes, but at least I can say I got to sit in the back of a cop car for the first time.

My navigation woes continued when I walked, and biked, through town over the next week.

Edinburgh is a two-level city. Some streets are at a lower level than others, and without looking at a map carefully, mistakes happen. I was trying to get from one place to another, on my second day here, and had planned to turn right at an intersection. When I got to the location of the intersection, I realized the intersecting street was a good 100 meters above me, essentially a bridge over the street I was on. I've had this problem happen a few times, because the maps I have do not make it obvious that one of the streets is a bridge.

I also saw there was a bike path below a street near our flat. It took me a few days to figure out how to get to it, but when I did, it was awesome. It's the peaceful way to get downtown, where you don't run the risk of getting hit by a bus (which almost happened to me). I did almost run into a couple of dogs on this path though, on my bike. One little dog was so excited to see my front tire, I had to slam on the brakes and jump off the bike to avoid running it over. It then decided to follow me, it's owners running after it, as it ran after me.

bike path under a street

My worst navigation mistake was turning right, instead of slight right, on a walk home. This took me to an industrial part of town, taking me an extra hour to get home (it takes nearly an hour, when I don't make any mistakes). To top this off, I had bought a shower curtain rod that day, was walking around Edinburgh neighborhoods with a 6-ft pole with me.

One of the added problems to navigation is the sheer number of people everywhere. It is festival month in Edinburgh and, according one source, the population of the city is tripled during August. Crowds are everywhere, and I'm never sure what side of the sidewalk I should be walking on, because so many of them want to walk on the right. I feel like you can tell who is a UK resident by what side of the sidewalk they walk on, but even then, some want to walk on the right.

Street performers downtown

Weather

I've heard many people use the phrase "give it a minute, it'll change", when talking about the weather in their city. In none of the cities where I've heard this said, have I literally experienced weather changes in a minute - in Edinburgh, I have; several times.

The first day I wandered into Old Town, I decided to sit in a park after the 45-minute walk. It was sunny, so I planned on sitting for about 20 minutes. In about 2 minutes, it wasn't sunny anymore, it was gray. A minute after that, it was raining. I got up to get out of the rain, but a minute later the rain stopped. A couple of minutes later, it was sunny again. The pattern looked like it was going to repeat itself about 5 minutes later, so I decided to just sit through the rain - this time, the rain went on and I eventually went to shelter, watching it rain for 20 minutes. A couple of minutes after the rain stopped, it the sun was out.

It's going to take me time to adjust to this kind of weather. I will have to carry an umbrella around with me, and I'm never sure how much layering of clothes I should go with - almost every time I've left home, I've been very cold, only to be really hot when I got back home. This is partly due to the walking/biking that warms me up, but I still feel like I never know how much warm clothing I should have with me.

I've been told that the weather doesn't change much during the year. I guess if weather changes so much in one day, overall yearly weather patterns might be a bit too much to handle.

Loneliness

I'm a hard person to get to know, so I don't make friends easily. In college, someone told me that when they met me, they found me very intimidating partly because I don't talk much, but also because of my hair, and the big Ghana flag I had hanging in my room scared them off a little.

I've never moved to place where I didn't have school or work lined up. Most people I know in my life, I've met through school or work. Coming here is different, and I worry that I won't meet any people who I don't meet through Lauren.

I'm not the kind of person to strike up a conversation with a stranger, so I think it's going to be tough. I've spent my first week here walking around town, talking to almost no one, and I think the thought of not getting to know people is what worries me most about this move.

I've had people ask if I was worried that I don't have a job lined up, or if I'll understand people when they talk to me. Neither of those worry me now that I'm here - Lauren has a job, and most of my family speaks with accents that a lot of people find hard to understand, so neither of those are major concerns. I don't like the idea though, of not knowing people in the city I live.

So my first week is over here. I've learned to carry a map and an umbrella with me at all times (though I've also learned to get through the day without either). If only there was a "social-Jefferson" I could carry around in my backpack. One who would help me get to know some cool Edinburghians? Edinburghites? I don't even know what they're called...