first impressions of Edinburgh

Wow, I am really letting this story slide, aren't I? I took this trip in June, and I'm still only half-done telling you about it in October. Hang with me, people. Sometime soon I'll put up some links to the other parts of this story, if you feel you need a refresher.

During the barbecue at Adam's mum's house in Newcastle on June 18, Adam's mate (who I'll call R.P.) said something interesting.

R.P. is actually a native Scotsman, born and raised in Edinburgh. Jeff and I would be departing for that wondrous city on the East Coast train the next morning (fortunately not too early). We were drunk as lords, trying to dose off the disappointment at England's draw with Algeria in the World Cup. The evening was ripe for some funny stories. So R.P. told us about the time when he and a friend were blind drunk in Edinburgh and were stopped by police.

R.P.'s friend was pretty well gone by that time. This was evidenced by his desperate plea to the constable who'd stopped them:

"I swear I've not been cunting, drinkstable."

But getting back to June 19th: Jeff and I weren't nearly so bad off that morning as we'd been three days earlier, departing for Dublin. We'd had as much to drink, but we'd imbibed it more gradually, and done quite a bit to burn it off in the meantime (like running back and forth trying to grill for our English guests, and yelling bone-bleaching obscenities at the TV as the English team attempted to penetrate the Algerian defense).

We got up about 7:30-ish or so, had something to eat (and a lot of water to drink), checked our knapsacks one more time, got in the taxi, and made Newcastle Station in good time. With some creative finagling we managed to procure two seats in car F, and before we knew it the train was creeping northward out of the Toon.

We slowly left the city, and the multifarious bridges which hung above the River Tyne, their gantries and beams and pylons firmly visible beneath an iron sky. The rows of red brick houses and crenellated steeples faded out, replaced by sheep pastures, hedgerows and woods. As time went on and the train picked up speed, the hills began to multiply, and suddenly the jagged, adamantine coast of Scotland was outside the windows.

The sea was rough and gray, unlike the sky above, where a bit of blue had entered the breach. Wind-surfers nabbed the breakers, dipping up and down like diving birds. The skies cleared further as we rode north, until only a few sullen gray patches remained.

The trip was far shorter than even I had imagined. Remember, now, I spent three days on a train from Fargo to Los Angeles a few summers back. I was smelling pretty ripe by the end, rest assured. But a scant two hours after leaving Newcastle the train pulled into Waverley Station in Edinburgh. Jeff and I bit and clawed our way through a mixed crowd, climbed a massive staircase and emerged into the sunlit chaos of Princes Street.

Stop a minute.

Did you ever have one of those moments when you realize you're doing something you've always wanted to do, and that your dreams are finally coming to fruition, and that you're right where you should be, and all the hard work and waiting has paid off, and you're in for one sweet hell of a time, and the  joy and satisfaction and anticipation and contentedness just well up inside your heart and mind and midsection like one of those baking-soda volcanoes at the school science fair?

Yeah, I had one of those moments just then.

We turned left and headed down Princes Street in search of our hostel.

It took a bit of walking and dodging to find it. We strode nearly the length of Princes Street, hung a right on Queensferry, and then a slight left on Belford where it abscinded at an acute angle from Queensferry.

All the while I gazed about me in unadulterated wonder. The city of Edinburgh was like nothing I'd ever seen before. And I was liking what I saw. When I stepped out of Waverley Station I thought we'd somehow gone through the Chunnel and wound up in Eastern Europe somewhere: Prague, maybe. Mind-boggling stone architecture, enormous monuments, statuary of every description, and a skyline besotted with steeples, towers and minarets, all hung under a cottony sky with the blue breaking through. Nothing had prepared me for it. "Flabbergasted" is the term.

And of course, the requisite bagpiper was on every corner.

The hostel itself was a converted church in a very quiet neighborhood a few hundred yards down Belford Street. Its dark steeple loomed over the narrow street like a brooding curate, the ancient stones worn and weathered by time and the elements. It—

Oh, hell, why am I talking when you could just go to Edinburgh and see for yourself?

We checked in and went to our room. It consisted of three two-person bunks and not much else, except for a slip of mirror on the wall and a few notices. There was no lock on the door. There wasn't even a ceiling on the room: above our heads was empty air, stretching up to meet the dark wooden vault of the church.

A holy experience (as in "Holy shit"). I immediately called dibs on the top bunk, you may rest assured. Laying there with my head east and feet west, I was looking straight over the lip of the western wall to the enormous window below the church steeple, thus:

Talk about a room with a view.

Okay, I'm done being smug. I'm also done with this blog post. This is all I have time to tell you about right now. I have to go drill some holes in the sky chasing unmanned aerial vehicles now. I shall relate to you the events of the first evening (and night) in Edinburgh tomorrow, mayhaps. Until then, good night and enjoy the pictures.