I'm back in Edinburgh! The city where everything is a castle, or at least looks like one.
It's snowing, and the whole country is FLIPPING OUT. Seriously, the UK cracks me up about this. It's snowing, yes, but does that really require the entire country to shut down? Public transportation is in chaos, sidewalks are a mess because nobody clears/grits/salts them, and just about everything is closed.
Schools are closed. My university lecture this morning was cancelled. When I arrived in Edinburgh this afternoon, I found the tourist info center closed. Museums are closed. I passed a bookshop that had preemptively closed for both today and tomorrow. The National Library is not only closed, but has a sign outside that reads, "We will update you when our buildings re-open. In the meantime, please do not attempt to visit us." Even the play I was going to attend tonight is cancelled! My room at the hostel where I'm staying is three young German women and me (common language German, yay!) and we had a laugh together about how funny it is to us that everyone in the UK is panicking about this. (There's even a hashtag for this storm: #beastfromtheeast)
Good thing I like snow, and Edinburgh could not possibly be more picturesque. And strangely my train down from Aberdeen wasn't affected at all – even arrived on time. I'm here for a library conference and am waaaaay excited about it. Two days of hearing exciting and inspiring stuff from public librarians from around the world!
I'll have pictures of Edinburgh, eventually. Also pictures of Iceland, from January – I'm behind on everything.
Greeting from the world of castles!
