dateline, aug. 7

we got up and headed to heathrow. they were doing maintenance on the tube (not because of the bombings) and so we took the lovely heathrow express.

our flight up to edinburgh was wonderfully uneventful, and we made it to our hotel without any hassle, and met up with brad (steve's youngest brother). he had just finished a month long program at cambridge and was therefore done with his undergrad career.

the fringe festival was going on, and edinburgh was crazy. there were street performers almost everywhere, and where there weren't performers there were people promoting their shows by passing out flyers, harassing passerby or otherwise trying to garner attention. my favorite was the guy who ran up to steve and started beat-boxing in steve's face. he was actually really good, but when we told him so he said there was another guy that he works with who's even better. :)

that evening we took a guided tour of mary king's close which is a narrow medieval street that ran from the main drag through town (high street) down the steep hill of the city to the lake at the bottom of the hill (north loch). it was basically covered over to build a large municipal building in the 18th century, and has been a series of creepy underground chambers since. we really *loved* the tour and the history. definitely take a look around on the web. there's a pretty comprehensive site here and a review here.


aug. 8: edinburgh

we got off to a late start, and i was a bit grumpy. i got up and used the bathroom first and then went to the hotel's breakfast room to wait for steve and brad. neither of them came. i finally confirmed with both of them that they weren't going to meet in the morning as planned and decided to sleep in instead. sooo... i went to the mall across the street from our hotel. it was a fun place to kill a couple of hours, but the exchange rate kept me from buying anything except a couple of pairs of socks (i didn't pack enough) and some sunblock (there's some sort of newfangled thing called meroxyl that is used in sunblock in europe now but is still being tested by the fda here, so i decided to load up).

anyhow, once we got going we went to to the castle. the views alone were amazing, and the sense of history in a place like that puts our country's puny past to shame. i mean, they haven't even really used the place since before we were even fighting for our independence.

that evening brad and i went out to a bar and spent some good ol' quality time over pints. unfortunately steve wasn't feeling all that well. :(

i've got to run now, but stay tuned as brad and i drink more, and steve gets even less well...