The Soup Nazi's cousin denied me a good pizza

11.01.2008

I had some time before my train so I stuck my bag in a locker and went for a walk. Leaving the hostel, I noticed a huge line-up of people checking out - glad that I managed to check out before all of them. I was also glad that I booked my train ticket online - it only cost me 10 GBP, but could have cost me 50 GBP if I bought it direct from the ticket office. I tried going to the Museum on the Mound, but it wasn't open yet so I took a quick walk down the Royal Mile and went to the Museum of Scotland again. Its terrace is supposed to have great views, but it was closed yesterday due to the weather. And again ... it was closed ... I picked up some fruit and juice from Tesco for the train ride, then headed over to Pizza Paradiso again (the place I got a pizza on my first night in Edinburgh). This time, it wasn't as good - I had the capricciosa, with ham, mushrooms, green peppers, and olives. I asked for no olives and the rude chef seemed pissed off about it. He also got into a bit of a pissing match with another customer, but they were speaking in a foreign language so I can only guess at what they were saying. The chef was a bit of a pizza nazi. Anyway, the pizza dough was mushy. Pretty blah, overall. I drank some of the juice I bought from Tesco - a tropical juice that was thick like a nectar. Kind of blah, like the pizza. Maintenance is being performed on some of the train routes so I had to take a train to Newcastle and then a bus to Durham. I was feeling a little better today because I haven't done much of anything, and I had lots of rest on the train and bus. The countryside was quite beautiful - like something out of a postcard. Sheeps grazing, farmhouses, green fields, and lush foliage - pretty neat! I arrived at the TI and tried to book a room - the cheapest they could find was 35 GBP!!! It was a twin room, but the owner agreed to give me the single price. It was a nice B&B, owned by a super-friendly couple, Martin and Liz. It's almost comical how nice they were - as I left to sightsee, Martin chased me out the door. I was expecting him to tell me that there was a problem, but he actually just wanted to tell me about a shortcut to town! Durham has a very cool cathedral. Unfortunately, the choir is on vacation so there was no evensong service tonight. I took a walk through the town market just as it was closing - it could've been pretty interesting during its peak busy hours. I grabbed a quick potato/meat pasty for a snack - crappy, but cheap. I stopped at a café for a very good hazelnut latte with a very good almond biscotti. Though the coffee drinks were reasonably priced, the alcoholic beverages weren't. A pint of beer was 3 GBP and a Kir Royal was 8.30 GBP!!! I hid from the cold awhile and wrote in my journal. I read in the newspaper that a twin brother and sister were separated at birth, adopted by different families, and in a cruel twist of fate married each other!!! Bizarre! Now it's opening up a huge debate about privacy laws - do adopted children have the right to know about their birth parents, in order to avoid situations like this? I'm not sure that this particular case is a good reference point since it's a one-in-a-million type of situation. I continued walking and finally found a reasonably-priced pair of jeans! Unfortunately, they shrunk quite a bit when I got home so they were a bit of a waste And I gotta say, there are some cuties in Scotland and Northern England. Still not Spanish-quality, though! Got to chatting with Mike, an amateur photographer taking shots of the Cathedral. He gave me some tips, but I doubt any of my shots will turn out as well as his will! Durham is a cool little university town - tons of women were out tonight, dressed to kill. There were also some cougars on the prowl. These women must be freezing - despite the cold night, there were lots of booty-short sightings, but I'm not complaining! I grabbed a quick dinner at a fast food joint. The staff wasn't terribly helpful - they gave me my food without any napkins or ketchup, and it took forever for me to get their attention to get any. Painful moment of the night - I accidentally snorted some Fanta up my nose. Dinner was pretty bad, but relatively cheap. I've decided to skip Hadrian's Wall tomorrow - without a car, it sounds like an awful lot of trouble just to see some Roman ruins that I probably won't even care about. Back to the B&B - "Shallow Hal" was playing. I need some rest so that I can fight off this sickness.