A visit to Aberdeen

On Friday Toadlet and I travelled to Aberdeen University Undergraduate Open Day. There being a direct train all the way from Glasgow made it an easy journey. We had time after getting to Glasgow to go to a cafe for coffee and cake and for Toadlet to get on with a school assignment on recession in the Eurozone after the banking crash in 2008. She was asking me some questions about it which I was attempting to answer when a Canadian at the next table leant in with his somewhat rambling but interesting version of the story. We listened politely. Then Toadlet finished her essay. I asked her if she needed to make a fair copy to hand in but she said no. Would that I had ever been able to write a school essay so easily! I think schoolkids today are given more rigid guidelines about what is wanted in their essays than we ever were though.

I finished my cake (eight out of ten); Toadlet finished her croissant (7/10); we moved on and caught our train.

Arrived at Aberdeen we bought Subway butties and ate them sitting on a bench in Union Square. That is, I ate mine, hiding it in its paper wrapping from dive-bombing gulls between each bite, and Toadlet ate half of hers and then had it swiped out of her hand. I'd better not write down what she called the gull! 

I had booked us into a hotel on the outskirts of the city so we caught a bus and walked the last bit. No pavements. Clearly 'normal' visitors don't arrive at that hotel by foot. Just as well we live a bit off-road anyway and are used to rough ground and pathless environments. Our room was comfortable and the food at dinner time was fine.

At breakfast next morning the helpful and chatty waiter commented that he liked Toadlet's Gryffindor sweatshirt and showed us the Death-Eater tattoo on his forearm–clearly another Hogwarts fan. When he left to serve others I said: "He's friendly". 

"For a Death-Eater", said she. The waiter thought it was hilarious when I told him and said: "I've been called worse!"

We ordered a taxi to take us to the university campus and spent an interesting day finding out about the courses Toadlet wants to do, accommodation and other studenty things. I think she found the old buildings sufficiently Hogwartian to be acceptable. Click on the pics to enlarge them.

The new Sir Duncan Rice Library has its own awesomeness.

The Sir Duncan Rice Library,
University of Aberdeen

Looking up through seven storeys in the library

On our train journey home we sat with two young men, also teenagers I reckon. Perhaps they'd been to the open day as well. I always book seats in trains' Quiet Coaches so we were all irritated by a young woman's long, loud, wittering phone call. Eventually, after encouragement from the young ones who were all irritated by the constant blether, ("Do it!") I spoke to the young woman, reminding her that it was the quiet coach and that people booked seats on it so that they didn't have to listen to other people's phone calls. She said, "I'm talking to my nan", as if its being her nan made a difference. I said, "The rest of the train is at your disposal for talking to your nan so please take your phone to another carriage." She said she couldn't do that (I've no idea why) but she did end the phone call very shortly afterwards. The coach then settled into the low murmur of normal conversation between passengers and the soft snoring of a child who had been taking part in a figure-skating competition and had flaked out.