Fire! Fire! Fire!

This week I haven't been sleeping very well at all. This can best be summarized by the happenings last night:
I intended to go to bed by 10, but stayed up to talk to a friend and went to bed around midnight---which is my fault and therefore acceptable.
I woke up at almost precisely four to the sound of the fire alarm. Again? I have enough experience with Holland House fire alarms that I knew to put on shoes, glasses, and a jacket before going out. Of course I was still cold, but it's the thought that counts.

There was confusion in the corridor---the main stairwell was full of what looked like thick smoke. Not good. So down we went the other stairwell, to behind the building, then trekked all the way around the building through frost-covered grass. While shuffling together like penguins in Antarctica we learned the cause: someone on the second (third) floor set off fire extinguishers in the stairwell.

The firemen came, and didn't bother rushing to the door, they knew it was no emergency just as we did. The head firefighter even announced to us: "If you have friends living somewhere else, I'd suggest you spend the rest of the night there. This is going to be a while."

We eventually were allowed to file into the common room on the ground floor even though the alarms were still going off, but at least it was warm. Around five we were allowed back upstairs, only we had to avoid the main stairwell. As the wardens let us out of the common room they asked if we knew who set off the extinguishers: if not, the several-hundred-pound damages would be split evenly among all the residents, same policy as for the previous fire alarms and all structural damages (ex: the windows of A Block's door have been broken several times now). That irks me, I'm pretty sure I was dead asleep last night. Well, for a while anyway. After that I tried to sleep for the two hours before breakfast... needless to say, it was a four-cups-of-coffee kind of morning.

By breakfast the smoke had settled into dust coating the stairs. It actually looked like snow, with several pairs of tracks going through. Disgusting, and not healthy I am sure.

The ladies at the charity shop today were talking about the suddenly-freezing temperatures here in Edinburgh, so I told them about my 4 AM foray into the cold in my pajamas. Their reaction can be summed as: "I'm guessing some blokes got pissed last night."

I am reminded why I dislike first-year dorms.