Brr.. today I am back to experiencing the greatest feeling of having my face freezing and nose running! After the hot hot summer days in Melbourne I am LOVING this coldness!! 🙂 🙂
Last night I did about a two hour walk around the local neighbourhood near the hostel – pretty sleepy but lots of little places and quaint cafes and pubs. One even celebrating Australia Day. But more on that later…! I managed to find a Tesco’s Express which was about as dodgy as the Coles Express on Elizabeth St near Flinders St station. But I was able to stock up on a prepackaged chicken salad thingy that they love so much here and… wait for it… AMBROSIA CREAMED RICE!! Just what a girl needs. I was so excited I bought three and lugged them all back to the hostel!
I thought I was feeling fine but my wee bonnie eyes were getting tired. At about 4.30 I decided to have a wee nap… and next I woke up and it was midnight. To say I was angry with myself is an understatement – it was my plan to stay awake until at leat 8pm and have a normal sleep. So I stayed up for an hour reading all the brochures that I had collected and put my walkman on to find that a radio station here were playing Australian stuff all weekend for Australia Day too. Then I put it on the BBC and they were reporting on the Australian Open. So I went off into another sleep listening to Icehouse being played on Scottish radio. Go figure!
I must have been tired because the next thing I knew, I woke up at 9.30am. I vaugely remember me turning my ‘I’m going to be a great tourist and be up at 7.30am’ alarm off – but I felt refreshed and promptly got myself out into the crisp (that is putting it nicely) Edinburgh air. I was so starving so being such a health concious girl I grabbed the first thing I could find at 10am – a Cornish Pastie. Just how refined can a girl be? Whilst scoffing this down in the middle of the street (must have been a great sight!) some guy working on some roadworks was like “Oi! ‘Tis great to see a gal enjoy her food!” Well it was a damn fine cornish pastie so yay for that.
Today has been spent doing the touristy hop on/hop off thing to get my bearings and see on a whole what I wanted to do. I got a ticket that gives me two days of hopping on and off the most touristy looking bus in this place but I also got my tickets for Edinburgh Castle, Palace of Holyroodhouse and the Britannica Yacht thingy on it too.
It has already been a blessing – I walked up the hill towards Edinburgh Castle and the queue for tickets was so long. Eek I nearly turned around and thought I’d come back first thing tomorrow but… then I saw a special ‘Priority Queue’ – where I belong with my ticket!! Woohoo! So I spent a couple of hours at the Castle which was just great – there happened to be a wee Scottish wedding on in St Margaret’s Chapel – the oldest building in Ediburgh. All the guys were in kilts and the bagpipes were playing – it was a tourists dream! So after doing that I took the walk around the Royal mile and am all booked in to visit Mary King’s Close tomorrow and also the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the Britannica Yacht.
I will head back to the hostel for an early night as I have an early start tomorrow – but one more thing about Edinburgh – the smell.
On my first trip over here in back in 1999, Fiona and I visited the Jorvik Viking Centre in York. They try and give you an idea of what the Viking times were like – including the smells. Well Edinburgh smells the same as the smells they created at the Viking Centre. Kind of like ham hocks with old water and fuel?!? I can’t describe it – if anyone else can please do! But it is unique and I certainly don’t find it offputting – it is actually kind of comforting in a wierd ancestral way? Anyway I’ve done some reading on ye olde internet and apparently it is actually the smell from the Breweries still scattered around the place. Very different from the Hops I would smell in Richmond on the way to school but.. it is definitely unique and I don’t mind it at all. 🙂