after the bright lights and modernity of London, Edinburgh was something of a shock. i'd seen a couple of photos before arriving - long shots of the castle, mostly. getting in i was completely unprepared for the weighty feeling of age you feel when you wander around the streets. it turns out that where i'm staying is actually across Market St from Edinburgh Waverley Station which is in the Old Town, and around here they're not fucking kidding with the word Old. in fact, the New town didn't actually fill me with feelings of modernity. most of that was still older than most of Australia, and i'd have been freaking out a bit if it wasn't so downright cool.
i wound up rather enjoying my train ride, polishing off 7 cups of coffee while i sat around and blogged, enjoying the luxury of space, comfort, and a power point. the train arrived on time at 2PM, and by 2:30PM i'd checked into my hostel. dumped my backpack and hit the street again to find Eve. i'd met Eve once before on my trip to Brighton and had faithfully Friended her on Facebook in order to make it easier to keep in touch later if the chance came up - it's the quickest and easiest way i've found to date to expand your social network. when browsing FB yesterday i noticed her status saying that she was up here, so i dropped her a line and we tentatively arranged to meet up when i got here. she's been here since Friday and had tramped across most of town already, but was keen on lunch and kind enough to shout me, so we found a place with a good wine list and ate hearty comfort-food while downing a bottle of good Italin red. we'd only really met briefly back at Brighton and hadn't really had much of a chance to talk, but it was pleasant to see a friendly place in a strange place and she has strong geek-roots so we had plenty to talk about.
we wound up wandering to an infamous graveyard not too far away and looked around until the light started to fade. it's infamous because of one particular internee who's supposedly one of the best-documented poltergeists in history. Edinburgh has a big thing going with ghosts apparantly. i don't know the full story, in part because the tour i was going to go on this evening was cancelled due to insufficient patronage, which is why i'm now sitting in one of the bars downstairs from my hostel having a pint to myself in a window seat, watching the snow fall outside.
as the light faded Eve suggested that we head up to Carlton Hill where there's a great view of the lights of the city to be seen and photographed. it's not the BIG hill nearby - that's a trip for another day with more light and more time, but we climbed up and took some photos before she had to go and pick up her bag and head off for the shuttle to the airport. having nothing else to do for an hour or so i stopped in the hostel to take stock and pull my book and the bottled water i'd nabbed on the train out of my shoulder bag in order to lighten the load a bit before heading off again.
in my research of last night i found a link to a couple of walking tours that looked interesting - one through a series of underground vaults built into one of the bridges between Old Town and New Town, the other which heads through a couple of the grave yards, including the one with the aforementioned poltergeist. ordinarily i'd avoid guided tours - i'd much rather wander the streets at my own pace, but when it comes to locked and out of the way places, or less-than-well documented history sometimes going with a guide can be awesome. fortuntely, the meeting point was just around the corner from my hostel, so i was there with plenty of time. the first tour was the underground, so i joined the crew and followed the David Tennant look-alike around and i'm so incredibly glad i went. he was funny, knowledgeable, and he presented in a remarkably entertaining way, discussing Scotish history in greater detail than you really thought necessary, until you realise that he was setting the scene as an explanation for what was later to come. one point he launched into a story about the visit of King George IV and by the time it was all explained and the relevance understood you were so enthralled that you'd forgotten why he was telling the story in the first place... and really didn't care. if you wind up in Edinburgh and you're looking for something to do of an evening, doing the City Of The Dead (ignore the wanky name) tours are well worth it.
after finishing up i had half an hour to kill before the Cemetery tour started and it was snowing in earnest. you'd think this would ruin a night-time walking tour, but i was excited. spooky cemetery at night? cool. spooky cemetery in the murky snow? FUCKING AWESOME! unfortunately they needed 15 people to run and with only 10 showing up the 9:30PM tour was cancelled. i was a little gutted since that was my plan for the evening out the window, but hey - this is how things go sometimes. i wandered the 10 minutes back to the hostel, grabbed a pint and found a seat to write stuff down.
it's been a long day. i'm tired, i'm achy and i'm certainly more alone than i've been in ages - sitting in a bar in a strange city listening to the bar staff (at least 3 of which are Australian from the accents) banter as they close up. they've let me sit here because i'm not in the way, but i expect i'll be moved along pretty soon. tomorrow will likely involve wandering up and down the Royal Mile, visiting Edinburgh Castle, and (if weather and light permits), hiking up to Arthur's Seat. there're are a few things to see around here, and i can see it occupying at least the next couple of days. right now i'm going to go and check the activity in the main bar next door, and if that's too boring or irritating i'll head upstairs and watch something on my Eee and get some sleep. breakfast's laid on here (which is impressive since i'm only paying £12/night) so i might as well try to get up early and take advantage of it, even if only in the hope that i can avoid spending cash on lunch (i know that's bad - don't start). i'm in a 10-person mixed dorm, but it didn't seem full when i was up there earlier, and with luck no one'll be too noisy, although i have ear plugs just in case.
meanwhile - note to self: buy a padlock for the under-bunk storage. i remember Moonbug once telling me that a padlock was essential equipment when backpacking, but the relevance of the comment didn't dawn on me until i saw the little wire cage under the bed today. i might make that something i keep an eye out for tomorrow... meanwhile, time to go see if there's anyone interesting in the other bar and let these guys close up...
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