I make people uncomfortable

With my exuberance and/or creepy list-making.

In my desperation to have any kind of human contact in Portland, I emailed the writer of one of the Portland blogs I’ve been reading a lot of. I spent a long time composing my email, artfully combining serious inquiry with hilarious joke-making. At one point this happened, and I thought “Yea, totally awesome.”

Sent.

When I didn’t hear a response right away, I re-read the email. Where could I have possibly gone wrong? Did I sound stupid? Was it the list I made of things we have in common? Did I make a lot of grammar mistakes? Wait. It was probably the list I made of things we have in common. Where I said “I noticed you fell down your stairs.” ……………………………..

It all worked out in the end, since she eventually did write back and we now email back and forth on occasion, but sometimes I really wonder what is wrong with me and how I survive in the world. Let me tell you, I was this close to making a “masturbator” joke after I typed “master baker”. This. Close.

zoo.

What an adventurous day yesterday! I decided that my first real stop in Edinburgh should be the zoo, so I walked the 2.5 miles there yesterday (mistake? maybe) and spent the entire day. It was chilly, but sunny outside, so perfect zoo weather! I liked imagining that all of the animals had Scottish accents to match my fellow zoo-goers’. My favorite thing at the moment is listening to Scottish children talk, because they already have such thick accents.
After the zoo, I walked across the street to buy a phone: I now feel complete again. So, call me baby.
Aaannd then I took the bus back to the hostel, took a quick nap, went across the street to eat dinner (a delicious and tremendously large burger), met up with my Norwegian friends and proceeded to do a mini pub crawl. We started at the Elephant House, which is the coffee shop where J.K. Rowling did most of her planning for the Harry Potter series. Afterward we went to a couple more places, drank some beers, and ended up getting home at around 3:30. I am le exhausted, but I think I will go do some exploring in town…mostly in search of coffee and/or food.