Anna Overseas: Escher Paintings: Now in 3-D

I think Scotland is full of Escher paintings brought to life.

Right now, I'm working at a University, and the exact campus I'm on used to be a Sanatarium for very rich people. It's beautiful... when I finally get committed, I'd like to get committed someplace where I can see both the castle and Arthur's Seat from my crazy window.

But, as one of the profs said: It makes a lovely Sanatarium. It makes a lousy place to teach.

The other day, I was trying to get from the place I was working at to the office of the Principal. Fiona even drew me a map, because it's actually that complicated. Armed with my map and a lengthy set of directions, I set off.

Now, I'm trying to get to the fourth floor. There are apparently multiple fourth floors in the main building, or so I assume being that I found an elevator (not to be confused with either of the later elevators that come into this story) and pushed "4", thinking Fiona was being a bit obsessive giving me such detailed directions. Then, of course, I got to the fourth floor... and there was only one room on it, and I had to go up a series of stairs to get to it, and above that room was the sixth floor.

So I went back down to the third floor, kinda, and walked along the hallway until I found a sign to an entirely different fourth floor, with different rooms in it, and followed those. I passed another elevator, and then looked out the window and noticed I was below ground.

I climbed up to the top of the stairs and somehow ended up in another fourth floor that seemed higher than the previous one, and at the end of a very long hallway (how big is this place, anyway?) I found the office I was looking for, grabbed the five pieces of paper I was sent for, and tried to find my way back.

This may have been more effective if I had left a trail of breadcrumbs or rocks or written little arrows on the floorboards with lipstick or something.

I went down hallways completely different than the ones that I went up, went down some stairs to end up higher than I was before, and eventually ended up outside, but at a completely different place than I had entered the building.

At least I knew where my office was from there.

I headed back up, and assured myself that, in fact, I had not been gone for a year and a day, and everyone still knew who I was, and I was not abducted by fairies for fun.

Pauline says it's that way to prevent people from escaping (that is, the committed people, not the students, although your opinion may differ).

You and I of course know the truth: It's because Scotland was founded by the Little People, and they're all about trickery. For all I know, I could go back tomorrow and it would be completely different.

I would just chalk it up to being a quirk of the campus I was on, but there are so many other buildings in Edinburgh just like that. You can't get a map of the building I was in, and I can't imagine a map of Teviot, which is a similiar building (with turrets!) at the University of Edinburgh.

I'm telling ya... they're just different here.

PS: I just burned myself on chocolate chips. Good news: I finally found chocolate chips! Bad news: It really hurts! Oh well. Chocolate chip cookies for everyone!

Anna Overseas

Hey World, I'm pleased to meet you...

Escher Paintings: Now in 3-D

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