My trip to Edinburgh

As some of you may know, I finish my contract with my current company at the end of the month. As such, I took a trip to Edinburgh last week to find a job and see some of the sights.

I got there on Saturday night, and wow it is a gorgeous city! From just about anywhere in the city centre area, you can see the castle atop a hill. It makes it quite easy to navigate, as long as you know where you should be in reference to the castle.

Sunday, I met up with my friends Annie and Emily to do the tourist thing.


We went to see Mary King's Close, which is an underground tour of Old Edinburgh. New Edinburgh was built right on top of the old one, so you can actually visit and enter the old city underneath. It's quite amazing, really. We went through the ... domiciles of various different classes of people. The tour guide was quite good, and I was impressed at the level of knowledge she had answering questions.

I didn't realise exactly what I was getting into, because the girls reserved my ticket while I was on the train, and I didn't have a clue what it was for. I am well nightblind and as you can imagine, it is very dark underground. Thankfully, Emily lent her shoulders to me so I could ... not get lost and contract the plague or something.

The next day, I went to the job orientation at the Edinburgh Bunac office, then went looking for a job while the girls went home. Didn't seem to find anything that captured my eye. Mostly seasonal jobs, which wont really keep me in Edinburgh.



For Thanksgiving, I couldn't find turkey, so I substituted with haggis. To be honest, it was the best meal I've had while in Europe. England isn't really known for it's fine cuisine, and Tesco (el cheapo supermarket) isn't well known for it's quality food.

The rest of the trip mostly consisted of visiting other tourist sites and getting piss drunk with my hostel mates. There was a really cute bird from Israel (below), but I only really saw her a short while. We were well pissed by the time the picture was taken.


My hostel mates and I played a lot of pool. One of them is a member of a pool hall, where I sufficiently slaughtered him at his own game. In all fairness, he normally had 6 pints (about 10 beers) before we even left for the pool hall (and another 4 or so there). He didn't seem to show any signs of drunkedness though. That by English standards is considered normal.

My last day, I visited Edinburgh Castle. It's the first proper castle that I've seen in Europe. It's got everything but a moat and drawbridge (which isn't really necessary, as it's built on a gigantic hill). Several cannons line the interior, and at 1:00pm each day, a cannon is fired. I got to see it, but about 3 seconds before 1, my camera ran out of batteries.

Edinburgh was bloody cold last week. I wore a heavy jacket and had to buy a scarf (a tartan one of course), but was still freezing. Coming back to London, I am now wearing shorts.

I will go back to Edinburgh at some point, as it is an absolutely beautiful city. It's one of the nicest places I've been while here.

Cheers

Paul