Pub Quiz

There are two frequented pubs in Dalkeith by the University students. Sam's is the closest to our house and the most friendly to us, (we are a large portion of their business.) Farther down the road is Maysons. It is a much smaller pub.

The Scottish people love trivia. We figured this out soon after arriving in Scotland. Local pubs usually have quiz nights, it is an opportunity for people to get out and do something fun together. They vary by different places. The quiz at Sam's is on Wednesday night. You can have up to 6 people on a team and it costs a pound per team to play. Prizes at Sam's usually consist of very small t-shirts or other things such as bar towels. Mayson's is the pub I went to tonight. It is a little more money to play, a pound per person, and you can have up to 4 people on a team.

First you come in and find a place to sit, arrange your team together and order something to drink. My choice drink is a can of coke (Pepsi is not very popular unfortunately), with ice and a lemon for 75 pence. I try to drink my soda very slowly so it will last the whole game.

Each team is handed a sheet of paper with 3 sections of numbers 1-10 and open spaces next to the numbers to write answers. Then we think up a team name, my favorite is "Palace People." There are 5 rounds at Mayson's with different categories. At Mayson's the first and last round are a mixture of general questions. Then the middle three are music, TV/film, and sports. A person at the bar on a microphone reads the questions one by one, with a little time in between to thing of the answer. After each round teams switch papers and then "grade" each other. Then they are all handed back to the leader and they read everyone's score as well as their team name. Papers are handed back and the next round starts.

Tonight we did not do so well. We did not have any Scots on our team. It was me, Landon (who we were counting on for the sports categories), Gretchen who is one of our professor's wife, and another girl Katie. Sam's tries to pick questions a little more American related, but Mayson's had not yet started doing that. My team got 18 out of 50. Yes... it was bad. We changed our names at the end to the "White Flaggers," because we were basically done for after the 4th round. We had fun despite our troubles. They said they would make it a little easier on us next time.

I enjoy the quizzes because it is a way for me to go out and hang out with people, with more of a purpose than just going out to "get drinks." Instead it is a nice outing with friends.