I liked the tall windows with leaded glass, the cozy window seats, the beautiful hand-crafted brass fittings, the carved stone cornices, the wide-planked floors, the high ceilings with wood beams . . . Dark paneling and chintz . . . It all gave one a sense of comfort and ease.
On the ground floor, there were the Common Room, the dining room, rooms for our Hall Mother, her assistant, some offices, rooms for the helpers, and the kitchen. It seemed like everything was massive, especially in the common areas.
The upper two floors had rooms for us girls. On each floor, there was the big bathroom with compartments. There was a separate room for the bathtubs. I remember that the bathtubs were huge cast iron affairs. However, I did not think anyone of us ever entertain the idea of "Soaking in the tub". It would have taken way too much water. Besides, it would be way too Cold!
By the way, I should tell you that the Cairns' bathroom was NOT heated at all. That was not unusual in Scotland at the time.
At the Hall, I had a single room to myself - a fair sized one, with a gas heater that you had to constantly feed with shillings or you freeze. The common areas were heated - but the temperature was low, probably around 60 degree or so. We girls would try to save money by gathering in the Common Room, around the big stone fireplace. On a sunny day, a window seat was a great place to curl up with a book. The sun really warmed you. But we did not have too many good sunny days.
There was a story about a student with the gas heater.
Well, as I said before, you had to feed the heaters with shillings or they would not function - you put in the shilling, you then turned on the gas, and then you lit the fire. When the allotted amount of gas was used up, the fire would go out. You had to put in another shilling and so on.
This young student was renting a room from an old man. When the landlord came to empty the money box the first week, there were no shillings in it. So he thought may be the student did not have money to feed the gas meter for the week. The next week, the meter box was again empty. And the next week - same thing happened, no money in the Box! The landlord wondered how the student could survive the extreme cold weather without heating for so long. It turned out that the young student found a way to make ice cubes in the shape of the shilling and he managed to trigger the meter to supply him with gas. Of course the ice cube melted after a short time. And the meter box stayed empty. He had heating all the time!
I was not smart enough to do that.
There were probably 50 or 60 girls at the Hall, undergraduates as well as post-graduates, from different parts of the British Isles and different parts of the world. Most of the girl were very friendly and helpful. Soon, I made friends with a number of them. One of them is an English girl from the northern part of England, Fiona. I remember Fiona and I went to the operas every night for a whole week when the Opera House from London went to Edinburgh. She and I are still in touch with each other. Fiona is a retired Spanish teacher. The last time I was in Paris, a few years ago, she went from Kent to Paris to meet up with me. We spent a wonderful day together - visiting the Museum and eating wonderful French food.
Edinburgh University was much bigger than HKU. The Psy class had over two hundred students in it. The lectures were held in a big auditorium. The professor spoke with a heavy Scottish Bruu - I needed to learn how to adapt. My main work was English Studies - My Paper was to be on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the opium-smoking romantic 19th century English poet. I was assigned to be under a very nice English-speaking professor. Besides attending different lectures on English Studies, I also had weekly meetings with my prof. The work was intensive. My studies began.
My trunk finally arrived in October.
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