Edinburgh

Well, Orkney was lovely, but I didn't see any puffins. I did however see three concerts! There was a music festival on while I was up there, and they were selling student tickets to some performances for £4! So I went to two of those in one day (one was a nouveau classical music performance, which was actually incredibly good, and the other was Bach, which was actually incredibly soporific), and caught a jazz/bluegrass performance at a pub afterward. Three concerts in one day!

On another night I went to a traditional(esque) story-telling evening, which was neat until they got us up to dance. Usually I'd be right in to it, but I wasn't really keen that night cos I was feeling a little homesick and didn't want to dance with this random guy, especially with no warning! I also saw some castles, and the MotoGP in a pub with no sound. I've planned that better this time - I am in a hostel with a TV room this weekend, so I will be able to catch it there.

I am in Edinburgh now, as you may have guessed from the title. It was quite amazing coming in - I felt like a country bumpkin! It had been a month since I'd been anywhere bigger than a small town so I was a bit awed by the size of this place!

Edinburgh is home to the ugliest human construction in the history of the world; the colossal Forth Rail Bridge. This was the sight which greeted me closest to the "Welcome to Edinburgh" sign. Happily, the central city is much more picturesque. Spiky things abound, from Cathedral spires to monuments to writers to random buildings - everything has a turret, and most things have some architectural feature seemingly designed to imperil the life of the recreational skydiver. Some of them are even serrated!

They do like their monuments here. They have one hill here with four of them on it. One of these, the somewhat famous "Edinburgh's Disgrace", also known as the National Monument (unifinished since the 1800s) is a facade of a Greco-Roman temple. Some pillars, and half a low wall. Hahahahahaha.

I went on a ghost tour one evening, with some people I met at the hostel. It was cool, and actually quite scary! I don't really believe in ghosts, but it got me going all the same. We visited one of the world's first concentration camps, called the Covenanter's prison, and entered a mausoleum which is supposed to be haunted by a poltergeist which is able to inflict actual physical wounds on people. One lady, who claimed to not be a credulous individual and seemed more fascinated than scared, came out with three bloody scratches on her finger. Nifty *shiver*.

Today, I finally got to see puffins! They were very far away though - so far that they had to be seen over a surveillance camera. So it wasn't really actually seeing them, I guess. I wanna seeeeee them! But I got to move the camera around to look at different ones and stuff, so it was cool.

I'm here until Monday, when I will be retreating to London as opposed to making my way leisurely down the country as I had planned to. One of my wisdom teeth is coming through, and being really nasty about it. It's given me pain bad enough to keep me taking neurofen all day for the last three days, and using bonjela too, so I figure I should do something about it. It sucks, cos I'm a bit scared of getting it done, but my insurance will cover it so I should just deal to it, I guess. I'm going to get it done in London so Tony can look after me and give me a towel to drool blood all over. Sound like fun Tony? ^^