Come on mood shift shift back to good again

I'm on the train back to London from my weekend in Scotland. My weekend which was somewhat of a bust. It was great the first two nights, in my first hostel. The place was really cozy and homey, and was exactly like I've usually imagined hostels to be, where people from literally every part of the globe sit around telling tales of their travels in a warm kitchen that smells like a delightful concoction of international quisine. So, I may be exaggerating, it was not quite that saccharine, but I enjoyed it. Sunday, though, I went to a different hostel, for no other reason than it was five pounds forty on Sunday nights. The place was shit. I mean, it looked nice; it was a converted church, so every room had lovely stained glass, and there was certainly an aesthetic charm you don't get in more "hostel-y" hostels. However, the entire place was drafty and freezing (what with the high-ceilinged churchiness) and my blankets were damp and smelled like mold. Furthermore, I was in a ten-bed room that only had two other people in it: they were a couple, and the first thing I heard when I walked in the door was the unmistakable sound of a (very wet) make-out sesh from under the blankets. God only knows what else they were doing under there, but I am NOT comfortable with that. The place was supposed to have an in-house pub, but it wasn't open on weekends, a bit of information they failed to mention in the description. Anyway, after taking a (cold, completely lacking water pressure) shower In the sketchy-ass basement bathroom down four flights of stairs, I quickly fled the premises and set out in search of food/some sort of diversion. (I ended up not even sleeping in that hostel; I went back to hang out with some new buddies from my old hostel, and they convinced me to just hide out there.)

So, I have reached the conclusion that I love Edinburgh, or at least have very fond feelings for the city. It's compact, so you can walk literally everwhere without any problem, and just feels really safe. I would feel perfectly comfortable walking around the city at 3 in the morning. Definitely ot so much in London. Hell, not even in Charlotte! I think my only regret is that I spent a bit too much time socializing with people (yes! Socializing! Who am I?!) with people from my hostel/the really cute Australian that I met in a pub, and not enough time doing things in the city. I saw almost all of it, at least, just walking, but I didn't do a single tour or even go to the Royal Museum, like you do when you're a tourist.

My ish was that I was out in the city with people who either lived there or who had at least been there for longer than I had, so they had seen everything. I had set aside this morning as my alone time, so I could at least do a tour of the castle or a museum or something, and then I had to go and acquire some weird and almost completely debilitating stomach bug around 4 in the morning. Thus, my entire day until about 1 PM, at least when I wasn't booking it to the toilet, was spent curled in a fetal position, in someone else's bed, no less, as I was now in the hostel illegally, and had no bed of my own. Definitely put a damper on my day...

So now I'm sitting on the train, still feeling like I may at any moment pass out, but luckily the nausea/other super-fun things have subsided. All I want right now is to curl up in my bed with Clone High. I think I'll veiw this trip as a sort of reconnaisance mission for whenever I can go back again. Now I'm somewhat familiar with the city's layout, I know how to get where I want to go, and I have a clearer idea of what I want to do. Also, I know people who live there. Connections. So, all-in-all, I'd call it a fairly successful trip. Except the getting sick part.