I'm sitting in a plane about to take off for Edinburgh from East Midlands airport outside of Nottingham. Amusingly enough, I'm sitting in row 14, but there is no row 13. I never noticed this on a plane before (doesn't mean it's not there). It utterly amazes me that in a seemingly modern society, we're still that superstitious. It ended up being cheaper to get a flight instead of a bus (although not as cheap as I thought, it was supposed to be £17, but after the fees they tack on, it was £31, only £13 cheaper than the bus).

On Friday, I got into the bus station in Nottingham in the early evening, where Ross was already waiting. We went back to his parents house (were convienently away for the weekend). I met his friend Ashley (male) who was also crashing there for the weekend. The evening was spent drinking and catching up. We were drinking Snakebite & Black, Ross's favorite drink that he had been complaining he couldn't make in the states (half beer, half cider, and a bit of black currant concentrate - quite tasty actually). The next morning we got up and went out for breakfast at a place called Tasty Bites. Because I somehow felt I had to, I ordered the Traditional English Breakfast. For the uninitiated, this is eggs, sausage, bacon, beans, and tomatoes. I could really only handle the beans and tomatoes, everything else I didn't like (I don't really like eggs over easy, and I just didn't like this particular sausage and bacon). After that, I went and got a haircut which I sorely needed. On the way back, Ross & I went to Tesco (Target like store) and I got some reinforcements in the clothes department. The t-shirts that I brought were beginning to look a little bit off, due to the infrequent washings and the fact that I've been sweating in them quite a bit (that and two of the shirts have wine stains on them - damn red wine). I bought 3 plain colored t-shirts and some more boxers. Ross was buying more supplies for the astounding amount of drinking he was planning.

After grabbing some ridiculously filling fish and chips, Ross commenced the drinking at around 3 at his house. By the time we got to the bar where we were meeting his friends, he'd already had somewhere close to 10 drinks (I'd had 2). We started out with about 15 people, a number that dwindled gradually as the night went on. We went from bar to bar the whole night. I would have called them clubs but apparently only the last one was actually considered a club (something about closing times). Still all of them except the pub we started in were fairly large, multiple floor venues, with flashing lights and loud music. I had been promised a better male/female ratio than Breck, and there definitely were a lot of women. I remember talking to some girls on a bachelorette party, and oddly enough, a group of deaf girls (makes for reasonable if limited conversation, because they don't have to worry about music volume when they can read your lips). At one point I got separated from Ross, so I spent the rest of the evening trying to make sure I knew where Ashley was, because otherwise I would have been stuck in downtown Nottingham having no idea how to get back to Ross's. When we finally left, we ended up sharing a cab with some random girl. The driver demanded at first a £20 deposit. Halfway through the ride, the girl gave Ash a 5 pound note to pay for her share, which the driver then demanded as a deposit. I got very pissed and everyone in the car started arguing. I kinda lost track of the argument, but at one point the driver pulled over and told the girl to get out. Eventually, we kept the 5, everyone got where they were going, and it cost £20 total, which I'm told was way to much. Ah well, we got there. When we got back, Ross was already back.

Woke up the next morning, er...afternoon to what would be a very lazy day. We went to McDonalds for breakfast, and rented the movie Out Cold for the afternoon's entertainment. Decided at some point that the flight this evening was a better option than the overnight bus last night. We went out for dinner at a pub, and spent the rest of the evening watching british television, which has a very heavy emphasis on T&A. British newspapers have a similar fixation (The ones I'm talking about would probably be considered tabloids, but they definitely seem to beat out the more serious papers circulation wise). The momentous event of the day was that I decided to take Ashley up on his offer to shave my head. I wasn't really happy with my haircut, and hey, having never done something has been a convincing reason lately. It looks strange, but it's kinda growing on me (no pun intended). I may actually keep it this way for a while. That and it's really convienient for travelling. My only other excitement for the day consisted of wrangling with Ross's washer and dryer. I kept getting the washer stuck (you can't just open it, it has to be done with the cycle), I had to run it 3 full times. Then the dryer simply stopped working and I had to drape everything around the living room.

This morning I had to get up early because Ross had his first day of work today. I said goodbye to Ross, and got a ride into town with Ashley. We grabbed some breakfast, and then he dropped me off at Nottingham Castle (he would be taking me to the airport later). I walked around the grounds until it opened up at 10. I perused the fairly limited museum in the castle. There were some neat glass sculptures (temporary exhibit) and a history of the Sherwood Forestors (the military unit from Nottingham). The castle was fairly boring, while there was a medieval castle here, it was torn down in the late 1600's and replaced with a more modern castle. I took the tour of Mortimer's Hole , which is the underground stuff that's left over from the original castle. It was alright, it only cost a pound. The history behind it was interesting. I had lunch at Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem, which claims to be the oldest inn in England. I stopped by the Robin Hood statue nearby, which wasn't nearly as interesting as the guy attacking a nearby tree with Nunchucks. I walked around for a while, and finally ended up at the Caves of Nottingham, which you strangely enter from inside the local mall. Apparently there is a vast network of tunnels in the sandstone under the city, that dates back to various periods over the last 1000 years. While what limited selection I saw of them was neat, unfortunately I had to endure actors playing the parts of a medieval tanner and someone in a bomb shelter during WWII (the caves were used as shelters). After that I wandered around the mall, spending a little too long in a comic book store. I walked around the city some more, bought a new sleep sheet (my one disappeared mysteriously in London). I actually bought one and returned it because I found a cheaper and better one elsewhere. After that Ashley picked me up and took me to the airport. I'm now finishing this entry in my hostel in Edinburgh, because of the briefness of the flight. Just from my brief glimpse Edinburgh looks quite cool.