June 27th: Och Aye the Noo

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June 27th: The NZ/Oz guy is heading to Edinburgh at the same hostel I'm staying at (the Caledonian Backpackers) which is handy, hopefully two people are less likely to get lost than one (especially me).
Pity I'm not staying in Newcastle longer, it's a nice city and a lot more colourful than some of the British centres... still, onwards & upwards (literally). Can see some big wind power-turbines, they look so beautiful and serene... I don't know how so many NZers can argue not having them on the claim that they will be an eyesore and ruin the landscape!

The train is going along the coaste, the water is a beautiful greeny-blue as opposed to the lovely shade of grey-brown it is in some places (i'm looking at you Blackpool), saw what looked like the ruin of an old castle or something overlooking the ocean.
~later~

Edinburgh is beautiful, it somehow manages to seem huge and compact at the same time, every other building looks like a castle or some such.
NZ/Oz guy (called James apparently) and I hit the town to see the sights in a very snap-happy mood. We went up to the castle to check it out... turns out it costs £16 to get in... no thanks! we carried on taking photos but eeh by gum some of them were bloody dark! The sun was out but it was just so gloomy somehow.
As we headed down the hill I was yelled at by one Callum MacDonald, a man with whom I work at Channel 9 back in Dunedin! This may be the biggest world I've lived on but clearly it's still a small one after all!

James and I stopped in at (according to the sign) Scotland's smallest pub, for a cheap feed of haggis with neeps and tatties, bloody delish, more darkened sight seeing before we had coffee then went back to the hostel (which aussies pronounce as "hoss-tell") for the necessary task of laundry... it ended up being quite an enjoyable exercise as I chatted to first a gorgeous Canadian girl with a good taste in british comedians and then a couple of Aussie sheilahs.
This hostel is pertty damned good actually, free breakfast, a cheap (enough) bar and the rooms are alright.

Oh yeah, didn't stick to that whole 'no drinking tonight' thing, had a bunch of beers with James and a Brazilian girl from his dorm room. the 2 Aussie girls from the laundry room stopped by too but they didn't really hang out.

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