How Rude!

So, my Spanish course started yesterday. I was going to post something about how I was looking forward to it starting, but also somewhat reluctant, feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything, and so on.

I'm rather glad I didn't. I have a much better post to make today.

One of the advantages of the course is that there is a gap between work and the course, but not enough to allow me to head home to get dinner and get changed. That means that most weeks, I'll be able to work a bit later on Wednesday, then head into Edinburgh for the course. (Yes, this is an advantage, especially at the moment.) However, last night I didn't work more than a few minutes late, choosing instead to allocate loads of time for the journey. And so, directions in hand, off I went.

It all went quite well, until I inevitably took a wrong turn. This wouldn't have been too bad, since I was heading for Edinburgh town centre (and how hard can it be to find that?). Or so you would think.

However, this fails to take into account the fact that Edinburgh hates cars. And, frankly, with good reason - it's not a place to take a car unless you have really good reason. Anyway, part of this hatred of cars manifests itself in a cunning manner: there are no road signs, or at least no road signs pointing anywhere you might want to go. The town centre? Nope. The railway station? Nope. Perhaps even Glasgow and the West, for when I have abandoned all hope and decided just to head home instead? Nope, not even that.

Multimap claimed the journey should take about twenty minutes. I left a full hour for the journey. One hour and five minutes later, when I was five minutes late, and getting increasingly angry at not even being able to get out of the city on the wrong side (so I could at least then make my way around and then home), I finally chanced upon a sign for the city centre. So, back I went, back through some streets, back through the park I somehow ended up driving through (that mime seemed to have recovered), and then, suddenly, back to a street I actually knew!

I finally got to the course twenty minutes late, which was fairly horrifying. Especially since my efforts to slip in quietly were stymied by a very heavy door with very loose hinges. BANG!

The course itself was pretty good, if a bit full-on. In two hours, we got a whole lot of information thrown at us very fast. Hopefully, it'll all start to make more sense over the next few weeks.

So, all in all, it worked out as a reasonably good evening. Still, I'm more than a little annoyed at the signage in Edinburgh. It seems its designed so that you can only ever find where you are going if you already know. Plus, I really hate being late for things, and especially being badly late.

#48: "Career Compendium" (for "Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay"), by Fantasy Flight Games
#49: "Azincourt", by Bernard Cornwell
#50: "The Man with the Golden Gun", by Ian Fleming

As things stand, I expect to finish the 52 books next week. And there I was thinking it would be a tough challenge!