Subtitles, anyone?

I got my first care package this afternoon, from a certain adorable someone back home. :) Candy, homemade brownies, and a packet of instant mashed potatoes. I got so excited that I opened it up in the living room while I was hanging out with a few of my flatmates, and we all ended up chowing down on chocolate. Mmm.

They thought the whole thing was hilarious. The brownies had been seran-wrapped so much that they look a bit like drugs, and as one of my flatmates said, "What, does she think there aren't potatoes in Scotland?" lol.

I love it, of course. A little bit of home in a tiny brown box. :)

Yesterday I had my first Scottish non-versation, as I'm calling it. One of the cleaning ladies (she was pretty odd) had a nice long conversation--about half an hour--with myself and two flatmates, and I have no idea what was said. None. At all. I can understand my Scottish flatmates just fine (mostly), but I could not for the life of me understand this woman. At all! So I laughed when my flatmates did and made horrified noises when they did and generally just BSed my way through half an hour of constant chatter. I was convinced that she was going to figure out that I couldn't understand her at all, and say something, but afterward one of the two girls (codename: Red, for her Hayley-Williams-esque hair) said that I'd done very well in faking it. =P She could tell, sort of, that I had, but she was pretty sure the cleaning lady hadn't noticed.

Also, an interesting observation: people tend to warn would-be travelers that people from other places (like North Africans and Italians, for example) are much more free with hugs and kisses when you greet with someone--that kind of thing. But I've noticed that while the space two people in conversation keep between them is about the same as back home, while strangers tend to stand much closer together than back home. Standing in line, for example, everyone bunches uncomfortably close together. I keep thinking someone's about to try to pickpocket me, but it never happens.

(EDIT: I did not realize there was a Starbucks in that picture until I put it up. Oops. There aren't actually very many around; I've only seen two or three. The Starbucks wasn't supposed to be the focus, anyway. Edinburgh looks like a normal, if old, city most of the time, but every now and then I look up and see these fantastic mountains just beyond the city limit. It takes me by surprise every time. And I just wanted to share.)