A Game of Skittles and Adjusting Thoughts

Another picture from Holyrood Park. My favorite part of Edinburgh actually, as of now.

When I first arrived in the Pollock Halls (the dorm complex) and went to the reception centre to see where my dorm was, they gave me (and all of the other international students) a yellow slip inviting us to a game of ‘Skittles’ in the “oldest public house in Edinburgh” on Tuesday night. Well, after adjusting and coming down with something of a cold, I was debating whether or not to go, and I decided at the last minute to go on ahead, preparing to meet people and the like. When I arrived at the reception centre, however, I discovered that I was literally the only one to make such a decision. I was greeted by three ‘Assistant Wardens’ (basically RAs but not students, yet still young - late twenties; there is one Warden for each dorm, and he/she is usually a middle-aged or older adult.) After some waiting, no one else coming, and then some debating as to whether or not we should still go, we decided we very much still should.

We arrived to what actually turned out to be the oldest pub in all of Scotland (not just Edinburgh), or so they claimed. It was in a tiny village of Edinburgh called Duddingston, about twenty minutes walk from Pollock Halls, and we actually ended up driving there since there was only four of us. It had a wonderful old Scottish pub character and we were led to the back, through a door which was actually a wall with a handle, to the Skittles alley. This was comprised of a long hallway with two long wooden ‘alleys’ and a long central wooden divider between the two. There were only gutters in the sense that there was a stretch of floor between the wooden alleys and the wall or the wooden divider, respectively. On the wooden divider was a groove, which slanted downwards from the end of the hallway to the part where we stood. On it was a long line of heavy skittles balls, entirely solid with no holes to hold them by, and at the end of each alley stood ten white pins, and a little place for a person to stand. An early form of bowling!

I ordered myself a Gin & Tonic, and the four of us had a jolly old time playing round after round until we were joined by a Warden from Pollock. He was a good-humored middle-aged man who found the whole situation hilarious, and then bowled his heart out (near literally - he had a style of flinging the ball, followed by himself onto the alley) along with us. I had invited my new friend Yannick, who lives in a flat in the city, to come along to the alley with me before I went, and he called while I was there to ask how to get there. It turns out that from where he was it was a 40 minute walk, half of that along a road with no streetlights, along Holyrood Park in the night time. He decided to go for it all the same, which I was quite amazed by, and he joined us after a few games. We all talked, joked, bowled, and ran repeatedly down the alley to set up the pins. Some good British jokes were made - “Oh, you have holes in your bowling balls? Must have some awful wood worm out there!”, and I enjoyed the framed pictures on the wall from 1913 and on which portrayed the alley exactly as it was now, but with brawny Scottish men with great big bushy beards playing. It turned out to be quite enjoyable for the lot of us, and I even won a game! The Warden even bought me a drink, which was a humorous situation, because I hesitated, out of habit, when he offered me one. I’m still getting used to the concept that it is in fact legal and acceptable for me to drink here.

Now, with the traces of a cold that I had from the jet lag coming around, the two Gin & Tonics I had on Tuesday night played their role and did their level best to make sure that the cold came on with force. It did, and I had that cold for the rest of the week, though I am starting to recover from it now at a rather good pace. The cold was probably also caused by the adjustment. I have come to realize that I expected a great deal from myself and also from this experience, to the point where I was a tad overwhelmed throughout this past week. I struggled a bit with those expectations until I realized (and was reminded) that Scotland, while incredible, is after all just another place on the planet, and people here live their lives in a Scottish way, but not terribly differently from the rest of the population. In essence, not every day needs to be incredible and amazing and beyond my wildest dreams. I am living here for five months and while I plan to make a great adventure of it and explore the place thoroughly, I am still a student in a university and not every day can or even should be amazing. It was great to realize that (and I owe some credit to my family for helping me to do so), and I think I am finally starting to really adjust.

And I took another walk in Holyrood Park today. I believe that it will become my spiritual link to this land. I also climbed some dangerous not-well-trodden paths, which was exhilarating. Here’s a picture from today:
Oh, and it rains quite a bit here. So don’t be fooled by the pictures of sunlit beauty. That happens, but not all the time. My camera isn’t waterproof after all.
And thank you all for the comments, and my thanks to all of you that read this blog. And Deb, I'm so glad you found the blog and can have new pictures of the land you love.
My best regards to you all.