Scotland and Sky Law

Do you believe in love at first sight? Because I didn't. Until I saw Edinburgh.

Beautiful, right?

It's pretty great. I live 2 pubs away from the Royal Mile, also known as the Biggest Tourist Trap in the World. There are literally 12 kilt and other touristy shops from my block to the next one. And the blocks are pretty small. The street consists of nothing but pubs, kilt shops, restaurants, street vendors, and the occasional cathedral, palace, or castle.

It's pretty cool living in a place so old. This is the key to my apartment for proof:

It's pretty legit.

There are lots of statues and memorials to famous Scots, like this one to philosopher David Hume:

And right next to it, this one:

That's Abe Lincoln, in case you couldn't tell.

That's right, Great Britain, we may have been part of your empire, but now you're part of ours. 'MERICA.

But really though, I love it here, despite the fact that it's inundated with American culture, like the pub I went to that played:

• Larger Than Life by the Backstreet Boys, 
• 3 High School Musical Songs, 
• Lose Yourself by Eminem, and 
• You Can Run You Can Hide But You Can't Escape My Love by Enrique Iglesias. 

My flights getting to Edinburgh, however, was another story.

If you're a 30 Rock fan, you'll remember when Liz Lemon dated Carroll the pilot, played by Matt Damon (shortly after dumping Wesley Snipes, the greatest character that show has ever seen). In some of the earlier episodes we learn about pilot tricks, such as invoking "Sky Law," where the pilot turns on the fasten seat belt sign and makes the passengers watch bad TV until they can behave themselves. And when they say "it'll be about 30 minutes," it really means "we have no idea when we'll be taking off, but it's definitely going to be longer than 30 minutes." So there's an episode where Liz flies on a plane he's piloting that gets stuck on the runway because they have electricity problems, so the A/C isn't working and all of the passengers are feeling mutinous. Liz walks up to the front to see if Carroll can do anything about it, and he gets mad at her for trying to tell him how to do his job, so he turns on the fasten seat belt sign, and says "it'll be another 30 minutes before we get this fixed," and refuses to revoke Sky Law until she apologizes. They're both are so stubborn and think  they're right all the time that they both refuse to apologize, break up, and the flight eventually takes off.

 Well, I wondered if my pilot's girlfriend was on board on my flight to Amsterdam, because my experience was ridiculously similar.

We all get on the plane, and they seal the door shut and turn on the fasten seat belt sign in preparation for our takeoff. Then the lights flicker, and the A/C stops working. We end up sitting there in the heat for about 20 minutes, when the pilot comes on the intercom and says "it'll be about another 10 minutes before we get this fixed and take off." Half an hour later, we pull out of the terminal to the runway, where we wait another 10 minutes to take off. Suffice it to say, KLM has been sufficiently schooled in Sky Law.

Other than that, they were a decent airline, except perhaps for when they gave me water in this weird applesauce-snack pack hybrid and expect me to be able to drink water out of it and not spill it all over myself. I can't even do that with a normal cup. What makes them think I can do it with this?

Really, KLM? Maybe all the beautiful Dutch people can do it, but not this girl, because she's an American, and is used to drinking out of containers that are taller than they are wide. But hey, maybe that's just me.