thursday: day 1, UK

today, I was in le mans, paris, Glasgow and Dundee, the latter two in Scotland.
i started out at home with two classes, history and nonprofit management, then went to the doctor about my knee. turns out cliff jumping 50 feet above the water, especially at low tide in winter and hitting the water incorrectly, in trapani wasn’t the best thing for the left one. this was my second doctor’s appointment: it seems that the campus doctors in france are no different than the ones in the states. i went to the hospital, my first french hospital experience, and was surprised how little differences there were. it’s socialist health care system, versus our private one, and it took the same amount of time to see the doctor (1.5 hours of waiting) and it was the same quality of visit. they did xrays, and think i just strained a ligament, which means just keep waiting it out like i’ve been doing for the past 4 weeks.
i took the tram to the train station, train to paris, caught the two metros i needed, and arrived at the shuttle station to get to the ryanair airport in plenty of time to catch my plane to scotland. however, ryanair is on crack, and the last shuttle for the night left 9 minutes before i got there. i had no other choice but to take a cab, which took about an hour and a half to get there and cost a crippling 130 euros, or over $200. this was double the cost of my 3 plane costs combined, and really stung emotionally and financially. i didn’t have enough money for it, but found an ATM and was able to withdraw exactly what I needed, which was my limit for the entire week. the driver gave me a 10 euro discount, and is a follower of Jesus too, so he was encouraging and really nice (buuut not nice enough to make it cheaper than that).
then i got into scotland, which is an hour ahead of french time, and met up with deanna, katie and angus. angus is a fun name to type and say, but more importantly is a Christian scot who volunteered with two days notice to drive 4.5 hours into the wee hours of the morning from dundee to pick me up in glasgow and then back, without knowing me and barely knowing deanna. they provided me with hugs, my first z-up in months and pringles. we drove back in the dark, which means nothing there; during winter, a “sunny” day is from 10am-4pm. we stayed up until 330 catching up.