Edinburgh

So this is a few days late, but I'm keeping up, I think....

Edinburgh was gorgeous. Absolutely so. I'm not sure exactly what my experience was influenced by, but my guess is my privation from warmth for 3 months had something to do with my ecstatic and immediate love of the city. I spent 3 days in a tank top, admiring leaves, flowers, and blue skies. Not that copenhagen isn't beginning to bloom, but the temperature is prohibiting me from my annual shedding of layers. I should be in shorts by now...I didn't realize just how much latitude effects my mood. The days are getting longer and longer and longer here...noticeably so. After biking home at about 4:00 from a buzzed friday night, the birds began singing and the sky lightening. I've heard that by mid-summer, people go out "at night" with sunglasses on.

....right, back to Scotland.

It was lovely. Of all the places I've visited while in Europe, I would go back to Scotland. Hiking the highlands seems like it would be an amazing trip. Taking a month or two to go Monroeing sounds fantastic. Scotland is small enough to comprehend (unlike the US), but big enough to be scary with a full pack on.

I spent 4 days there, three in Edinburgh, and one in Glasgow. The short list of things includes: Edinburgh Castle (yes, I payed for that), Arthur's seat, Hill walking for a day in the Pentlands, Ferrying out to the Island of Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth, the Scottish Parliament, Calton Hill, Prince's Street Gardens, Leith (I stayed in the area), Quite a few old cemeteries, The Glasgow School of Art, The Willow tea rooms (i had coffee in one, and the irony hasn't stopped making me giggle a bit.), St. Mungo's Cathedral, The Glasgow Necropolis, The Glasgow Green, Sauchiehall St, and quite a few other things that were probably passed by way too quickly. To get home, I took an overnight bus to Manchester (stupid, stupid, stupid idea) for a cheaper flight and came home drained, but barely tanned with an afterglow from reuniting with my chacos for 3 days.

I booked my plane tickets to Scotland on an impulse that occurred in a circadian low, while watching the snow fall on a frigid March evening in Copenhagen. I was craving topography, and I got it, along with a much needed dose of spring and temperatures above 55 degrees. Good weekend, I must say!