The First Walk and a Way to Solve the Poverty Problem in Scotland

I left LA at 2:30 pm on Monday and arrived in Glasgow at 10:00 am on Tuesday. I skipped lunch and got settled into my flat (they say flat here, and I am going to try and stick to the vernacular so that you, my reader, can experience the kind of linguistic lunacy that I encounter everyday). I thought I would go out for a walk around 6:00 pm and get dinner. Now, keep in mind that when I came to my flat I was transported in a taxi with a driver who spoke like Sean Connery after having his vocal cords ripped out by an irate valosoraptor. I really had no idea where I was in relation to anything. If someone had shown me a map of the UK, I could have confidently pointed to Glasgow and said that I was in that general area. I decided to walk to the University, which was the only landmark I knew. Following the sage advice of any cartographer worth his quill, I decided to turn right down an arbitrary street. Surely this would lead to my castle-like school.

Now when I say that the school is castle-like, I should really be more specific: I go to school in a castle. Not like the metaphoric ‘America is a castle on a hill,’ I literally go to school in a castle which happens to be situated on a hill. I didn’t think it would be all that hard to find. After about an hour of meandering, I finally saw the steeple of my school and I walked towards it like Rosie O’Donnell to a buffet: with great reverence and anticipation. I was really excited as I ascended the stairs in order to walk about the grounds of my new university. I am not shamed to say that as I grew closer, the theme from Harry Potter started to play in my head. Just as John Williams was about to reach the great crescendo in the opening credits I realized that this was not my university; but a church that had been converted into an apartment building. I decided to break away from the sage wisdom of ancient geographers and try walking left down an arbitrary street.

I found myself walking over a garden terrace for about 45 minutes before finding a structure that had the potential to be my university. I walked down into a labyrinth of a park as the sun began to set behind me. I traversed the tar covered trails and found the sign I was looking for ‘University that way’. It was almost heavenly. Having come up the back end, like any good European man, I arrived at the castle. I was however, a bit hungry, having not eaten any real food for a good 17 hours. As it was pretty dark and I wanted to eat so I forwent the tour of the university and decided to walk back to my flat. Now, the logical thing to do would be to have turned around and gone back the way I came; but I am not a person known for my logic. I though that it much better idea to go back the way my taxi had gone when it took me originally. I don’t know why I thought I knew the way; but I was convinced that I knew how to get back.

It soon became apparent that I had no clue how to get back. I asked people for directions; but no one knew how to get there and even if they had, I probably would not have been able o understand them because I don’t speak Scotch. As I continued along my way, a woman with curly hair and a leather jacket approached me and asked for a cigarette. I told here I didn’t have one; but having done her a favor in answering her question, albeit in the negative, I seized upon the opportunity to ask her if she knew how to get to my accommodation. She said she did, which was terrific and she said she would tell me; but she wanted to talk to me first. Now, being the silly country boy that I am, that sounded fine and I agreed provided she told me how to get to my flat after she had said her piece. She then asked me to sit on a poorly lit staircase on the side of a building.

Now this might seem strange to you now, but at the time it seemed totally acceptable to sit in this scarcely lit alleyway with a woman I did not know and the man stooping behind the rubbish bins waiting to pounce, take my money and sodomize me in the butt with his bagpipes (perhaps not in that order). So I sat with the woman in the torn leather jacket and she explained her problems to me. Unfortunately, she seemed to be from Scotland which meant that I hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about. From what I could make out, she seemed to be in need of money because she had eaten her children. I had read an article written by Jonathan Swift about eating children in Ireland and I didn’t realize it was also done in Scotland. Not wanting to be culturally insensitive, I listened intently to her as she explained her need to be fed her children. She finished by asking me for money for the bus, perhaps she needed to buy a larger cooking pot. I told her that I could not help her. I had just changed my US money into pounds and the smallest denomination of currency I had was a 10 pound bill which, adjusted to the US exchange rate, is equal to approximately $154.74. I told her that I couldn’t help her and asked her to give me the directions she promised me. She told me that she didn’t know how to get there.

I found a police woman and asked her for directions. She told me to take the bus and ask the driver to drop me off. This seemed like a completely acceptable proposition; but the lady in the torn leather jacket was already at the bus stop. I did not want to be made out as a liar, having told her I did not have money for the bus, I continued o walk down the stree. After stopping in a pub to discover that they stopped serving food at 8:00, I was given directions to my flat where I went straight to bed. The next day, I bought a map.

Later days,
E