torsdag 18. februar 2016

Norwegian brains in British terrain

Going over there to England and Scotland and places like that, being a foreign norwegian lad and all, will often lead to a few minor misunderstandings as you move along. Obviously first of all, which I also mentioned yesterday, there's the driving on the left side of the road and the weird way (you need to twist that brain of yours, you know) you're approaching the roundabouts. 
When that's sorted out, you have the old walking on the streets and not to mention stairs and the like. I am a bit used to the whole thing as I'm working on a ship full of haggis munchers and what have we all, but for my wife it's all a bit different. She constantly finds herself walking against a river of people when she's out walking. I thought she might have figured out the reasons for this already, taken it on board and made herself a fix to the issue. 
Well, it was nothing like that at all. I found this out one day over there when I mentioned, just as a part of any other sentence, that there's even left hand driving in the stairs and on the pavements. Then a bright light struck her, and she started laughing... 
Well, everything went a bit more smooth out there on the streets after that. 


There's a lot of silence in places like this one, and there's a lot of them around the places we went. This is from The Holy Island... Lindisfarne in Northumbria, as you might know. A silent space with lots of breathable air. It's good as long as you're able to get off the place before the tide suddenly closes the gap between the island and the mainland. 

Then you have the problem of driving around in big cities, in your own car or, as in this case, one you have hired. And this is not directly connected to either England or Scotland in particular, but goes for wherever you go without being familiar to the place at all. You don't know where you are, and if you know where you are you are not to sure where you want to go. Or maybe you know both of the above, but not how to get there. 
So, that's why we got maps... you might say?! Sure, true enough. And a map we got, of course! It's just that a map is not always showing you all the information needed at all times. 
We may take Princess Street in Edinburgh as an example. We were down there in something called Queens Street, and wanted to get a bit closer to the castle before parking the car. Just to have a shorter walk to find it when we had to leave the town. We had a long way to drive and all, and had to save some time... as you do when you want to see it all without really having the time on your side.
Well, I had a quick look at the map and found the perfect route to a parking place inside the old part of town, up around where the castle is and all. Easy!
So, after a few minutes drive without any trouble at all, I found myself waiting for a green light to get out there on that Princess Street on my way over to the other side of the small hill, and suddenly realized I had made a mistake. Princess Street is only for buses and taxis, you see. And of course the tram, or whatever it's called up there. And nothing else are allowed to move there on that street!
Well... then what would you do when you suddenly find yourself waiting for that green light, and all the taxis and buses in town are queueing up around you locking you up in such a way that there's only one way out, and that's the breaking the law way. 
So there you go then, along Princess Street looking very stupid with a million taxis around you, and you have by now of course totally lost focus and can suddenly not decide where you were supposed to take that next right turn, and of course there's some honking going on around you. Maybe not only because of the situation that a private car was driving along Princess Street, but maybe more because of the fact that the driver acted more or less like a drunk driver as well, because he was not quite sure which line to drive... so he chose to be safe and use them both. AND I would have liked to see the taxi and bus drivers themselves being dropped into an unknown town, where everyone else was driving on the wrong side of the road just to add to the excitement... 
Anyway. It all went well in the end. Maybe that says a lot more about the understanding taxi- and bus drivers of Edinburgh than my own skills of driving through that town, but at least I'm happy it all went good. We even found the parking place, and went off to see the big castle, a huge canon, a crown and a sword and everything. And a bag pipe player, in his kilt and strange hat, of course. 
We like it a lot over there, despite the strange traffic and minor issues like that. Just to make that part of it clear!


Oh yes, it's a double exposure. Maybe even a triple one by the looks of it. The Diana camera is a bit prone to this sort of thing, so please bear with me for a few more moments. You see here the unmistakeable silhouette of the castle out there, on Lindisfarne, and you see something else on top, which I now recognize as Edinburgh castle. I thought for a moment when I looked at the negative without my glasses on that it might be the outlines of Bamburgh Castle, from the other side of the bay, but it's definitely Edinburgh Castle.

I'm writing all this nonsense because I'm scanning more film. You know the stuff I developed yesterday, which I messed up a bit with that exhausted fix as you know. I have not come all that far towards that part of it yet, so I don't know if any of them can be used in some way. They might, if I don't care too much. 
We'll see.

3 kommentarer:

  1. I love the snaps - very different! And the problem of driving in an unknown place - sounds like you did well and recovered from the situation OK. Nowadays though with cameras everywhere in the UK you are likely to get a not-so-nice letter through the post with a photograph of you and your car where you shouldn't have been and a demand for some ridiculous amount of ££. At least that's what happens to us most times we go to Belfast nowadays (which of course we try to avoid doing). Another tax which must be paid :( Let's hope you are back on Norwegian soil (or better still, offshore with the haggis-eaters) so that Interpol have a hard time finding you :)

    SvarSlett
    Svar
    1. Hahah... Interpol!! I did not give those guys even the slightest thought when I was driving down that Princess Street... to be honest. Thank you though, for bringing them up there into my mind! And thanks a lot for making my sin googleable and all :))))))
      Well... if they really want me to sit for something they might even find that I have done things worse than this... I mean if they really want to dig into things. But luckily they got better things to do, these days.
      And the snaps... well, different they are for sure! I might give you a couple of better ones tomorrow when I wake up. I just came in the door, you see :)))

      Slett
  2. Denne kommentaren har blitt fjernet av forfatteren.

    SvarSlett

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