Blogs from Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 484

Hello all, I apologize for the time between posts, not too much is new. Well, we've been living in Edinburgh for a whole month now. Edinburgh is a beautiful city. The architexture here is amazing. In the center of the city is a beautiful castle on a hill. At night, it is lit up and is gorgous. The city is right on the sea and is surrounded by hills. We're both still working for a temp agency doing various catering/hospitality jobs. I have been at the same restaurant serving for the past two weeks, so it's been nice having some stability. Some of the jobs can be very boring, and others have been very enjoyable. We worked at the horseraces for three days and had our own bar, which was fun. We have also worked at ... read more

Cyberspace. No specific time. Well, I usually hate placing pictures without text to flesh them out, but with Edinburgh there are just so many photos and so few entries to fit them all into. As it is there are crowds of photos at the end of most blogs, which really annoys me. So bugger it, here we go, some last-minute additions to my sharing of Edniburgh with you: PICTURE 1 I actually saw many men, more that I had expected, in kilts during my time here. I had thought that they were mostly ceremonial these days but apparently some men prefer to wear them on a more regular basis, especially older generations who are more closely tied to the country's heritage. Of course, many of the swankier hotels and such make the most of the average ... read more

May 4th 2005 Edinburgh, Scotland. With time running out I finally organised to do a more extensive tour of Scotland and so was up and off at 7:30am to join today's "Monsters, Mountains and Massacres" tour up to Loch Ness with the Highland Experience company. There were only six of us in the mini-tour bus, plus the guide-cum-driver, so it was a very comfortable drive, with a bench-seat all to myself and easy access to the windows on either side. Our itinerary was to head for Loch Ness via the northern routes through Pitlochry and Dalwhinne, rather than going the eastern route that most tour companies take. By doing this we avoided much of the traffic, and that was greatly appreciated - after all, we'd be seeing the same sights as them, just later in the ... read more

Tonight is my last night in Scotland! I've had a blast so far, and I can't believe I'm leaving already. My hosts (the Brodies) have been all I could ask for and more. Yesterday, I walked all over town with Ian and part with Pat and saw the whole of the city. We went to the Old Town area, Edinburgh Castle esplanade (just in front of the castle), down the Royal Mile (the mile from the Edinburgh Castle to the Holyrood Palace where Mary Queen of Scots stayed for a time), part of High Street, part of Princes Street (one of the main streets with all the shops and such), into a traditional house, and all over the place. It was terrific. We saw the church where my pastor from USC (Tom) was married among a ... read more

3rd May 2005 Edinburgh, Scotland. Well, it only took me a full week to get around to it, but finally I stopped in my pleasurably aimless explorations for long enough to do the fairly simple act of exploring the Royal Mile from beginning to end without being sidetracked away into other pursuits. Well, mostly stuck to it, anyway. The Royal Mile was the main or 'high' street of Medieval Edinburgh until the late 1700's, when, for many reasons but mainly due to a lack of room in the city's walls, the New Town was built just outside it and then so on and so forth with other developments until the Royal Mile and the little streets of the old town were in the middle of a rather large city. The Royal Mile itself is actually a ... read more