We Didn't Start the Fire

I suppose one of the pluses of being jet-lagged is the ability to get up at ungodly hours that you're not used to and then feel oddly accomplished. In my case this would be being up at 7 am, something that most people probably don't consider "ungodly," but also something I haven't done regularly since my last year of high school. I also managed to go to bed at 11:30 pm. Will exchange put me on a regular sleep pattern? Only time will tell.

My flight to Edinburgh was fine. I sat down, put on The Age of Adz, and zoned out. Man, is that album ever good. It was dark when I arrived, but I'm pretty sure we flew over the Firth of Forth, which looked spectacular flanked by the lights of Edinburgh to the south and Fife to the north.

I arrived at my residence (which I quickly learned to call my "dorm" having received a bunch of blank stares after using the word "rez") and found out the hard way that, for reasons unbeknownst to me, the elevator ("lift") doesn't go all the way to the top floor, which is, naturally, where I'm staying. A few awkward flights of stairs later and I stumbled into my flat. I'll post some pictures later, but it's really nothing to write home about and about as plain as the asylum-like beige/yellow walls.

I've got four other flatmates, three of whom I've met. Will is from Orkney, Chris is from the Isle of Man, and Nasko is Bulgarian. They're all in their first year studying various things and really nice. We went out for pizza and then they took me on a brief walking tour around campus and back. Ask me how to get to campus, though, and I'd be useless—streets here don't conform to the grid system as nicely as they do in North America, and it'll take some time to figure out how to get around.

As for the title of this post, I was in the flat for what could've only been 15 minutes before experiencing my first Edinburgh fire alarm. Having lived in rez at McGill, I was used to these accidental alarms almost always amounting to nothing, something my flatmates confirmed happens here all of the time. However, it turns out the aroma of smoke we smelled as we shuffled down the stairs wasn't from cooking gone wrong, but an actual fire in the basement of the building. One with flames. I don't know all of the details, but apparently it happened in a cupboard full of old computers and they've yet to determine whether it was caused by an electrical mishap or, much more reassuring, arson. It seems the door to the building hasn't been working as well as it should be and there have been some "interesting" guests throughout the year. Either way, we got back in after about a two-hour wait, except for the people that lived on the first two floors because they couldn't get their smoke detectors to work. They had to find other accommodations for the evening. 

Oh rez, how I've missed you.