Last Day in Edinburgh

I decided sometime this afternoon, between breakfast which featured, well, a bag of chips, a Red Bull, and a double scoop of ice cream, and lunch, which was a slightly more healthy honey maple ham sandwich, that today was my last day here. I might have the chance to see more of England later, but I probably won't be coming back up here. So tomorrow, I'm heading to Inverness and the infamous Loch Ness, possibly hitting some other small town too. I'm taking the bus, because it's miles cheaper. Edinburgh->Inverness->Glasgow costs me £10 (they have a pound sign on the keyboard!) whereas the train is £42. After my day in Glasgow, I'll take either a train or plane back to London. Oddly enough, planes are cheaper here, so even though I'd like to travel through the countryside, I'd rather not pay £85 to do so. I've seen plane tickets for £35. Weird.

Anyway, today was mostly hiking. I'll update this with pictures when I get to a computer where I can do that, but I took a hike up the Salisbury Craig and then to Arthur's Seat. It was quite a long journey, all said, and my knees in particular are weak as kittens. Malnourished kittens. Who've just run some sort of kitty obstacle course. After a big meal and some wine. With turkey. And an overdose of sleeping pills. Yeah.

But, it was still well worth it. It gives a spectacular view of the city and I got some nice pictures from there and met some locals. Who, I should say, are a lot more attractive and less red-headed than previously thought. There are quite a few nice looking girls just walking by on the streets all the time. I hate to say this for fear of Scottish reprisals (tarifffs, trade interference, etc), but I am shocked.

I came back and met one Mr. Andrew MacGregor for a couple pints and some Scotch scotch. An extremely fun guy to hang around and pretty knowledgable about the town, too. He was rattling on facts as we walked from pub to pub, starting at Cloisters, and apparently, his dad, Stuart, started the whole folk music revival (i.e. Celtic music) here in Edinburgh and had more than one bar named for songs he wrote. We stopped at one of them called Sandy Bells and they had the sheet music on the wall as well as pictures and newspaper clippings, Andrew looks like his dad so much that customers were insisting that he was, in fact, Stuart.

After I departed from Andrew, I went out clubbing, but sadly none of these young women whom I'd been noticing on the streets the past two days was at any of the places I went. Or was there but with some other guy. But it was fun, I saw some (poor) live music, a bar with five stories and a different theme for each. And bouncers who don't bounce.

That's my story tonight and I'm sticking to it. G'night over there.

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