The 1st Day of Sarah in Scotland

My favorite parts of my best friend Sarah's trip to Scotland were cupcake trips, Malteser tricks, wedding dress shopping, old Scottish men in kilts, hats, masks, hitchhiking, castle weddings, peeing, ice cream, train friends and IIIIIIAAAAANNNNNN. Some of these seem obvious, like cupcakes and men in kilts, while others, like peeing and OLD men in kilts are less so. This is the world Sarah and I inhabit, though, and there are exceptions to every rule.

Please note that just now I thought someone was walking up the stairs in my flat but the banging continued much longer than a staircase would. Am I startled? No. This is just part of living in a residence that has actually been turned into at least 4 separate collections of flatmates. Hopefully they are all taking their trash out this week, because the area by the stairwell is really beginning to become unpleasant. Also, while I am off topic, I am enjoying the tv show Community more than I thought I would, thanks to the Abed character...And I have beaten Branson at Settlers of Catan 4 out of the last 6 times. Lastly, on the site I watch tv on, an ad just popped up saying: ANSWER TO WIN A GREEN CARD TO THE USE-Who is the US President? followed by pictures of George W Bush, Obama and Hilary Clinton.

Sarah got in on Thursday and I met her at the Edinburgh Airport. I had gotten her a ridiculous plaid viking hat, complete with red faux velvet horns and orange beribboned braids, which I planned to present to her while smiling and hugging her hello. Instead, I stampeded across the area around the baggage claim wearing the hat so that the first sight she had of me was a bouncing plaid horned attacker. She loved it. The guy at the help desk looked incredibly awkward since we met up two feet in front of him. We dropped off her luggage at the station in the city and headed to lunch at Whiski's. We were not even out of the train station when I turned around to find her wearing the kind of mask that (reportedly) my Gramma wears around babies and Asians wear in subways. I recognize the inappropriateness of this comment. It is not my own but I cannot state the original source. This swine flu mask coupled with myself in the Viking hat drew enough attention, but being who we are, it felt oddly normal and most of the attention was positive, such as people shouting at us: Hey SARS isn't here, ok?! I introduced Sarah to haggis for the first time, stacked atop tatties and neeps in a beautiful display of the offul that it is. It was delicious. She was able to say to me "have some more haggis!" in a context where it was completely understandable, and that doesn't happen anywhere but Scotland. After lunch, we made the trek up to the castle-not paying to go inside of course since that's not our style, but taking enough pictures that we may as well have. In the midst of this, all I had to hear sarah say was “made with fresh double cream??” and I was sold. Ice cream truck right outside the castle and that lard/fresh double cream was heavenly. For the first time in my life, I was the one looking on while the other ended up with ice cream on her clothes, face and in her hair all thanks to struggling to keep her horns on. And the weather was perfect. We made it back to St Andrews in time for a beautiful sunset from out on the pier and grocery shopping at Tesco for a DELICIOUS homemade curry dinner in my kitchen followed by the learning the incredible talent of blowing on a Malteser with your head tilted backward so that it hovered just over your face. I succeeded and Sarah…tried hard. It was hilarious. I think there are still stray Maltesers to be found. To be continued.