Edinburgh images

A park next to Princes Street near the train station. See below for a close-up of the monument on the left.

The city's monument to Sir Walter Scott, author of Ivanhoe, Waverley, Rob Roy, and other works.

A plant in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Business as usual

An interesting quote I came across last night:

"When an opposition gets into office and the king trusts him with the exercise of his power, the farce is at an end, and after a few awkward apologies, and a few ineffectual votes with old connections by way of consistency, the business of government is expected to be taken up and carried on in the usual way ..."

(from
http://www.infobritain.co.uk/Gordon_Brown.htm)

This was said by William Knox in 1789 but it applies to present-day British prime ministers and describes the Obama presidency to a T. What difference is there between George W. Bush and Barack Obama other than their rhetoric?

Edinburgh Castle

Yi-Kyong and I visited Edinburgh Castle today, which sits on top of volcanic rock near the center of the city. The camera magically fixed itself, so we took some photographs of the castle and other things in the city.

An old building in the castle.

A view of the city from the castle. In the lower left is the castle's dog cemetery.

A human being posing as a statue near the castle entrance.

A rainbow over the Firth of Forth seen from our room window.

Scotland

We arrived in Scotland via Dublin last Saturday. Since then we've been looking for a new apartment and exploring Edinburgh.

Alas, since we don't have a home yet, it's difficult to appreciate Edinburgh. We've been to several neighborhoods, looking at various "flats," but I've still seen only a fraction of the city. Also, I broke our camera while packing it, so this will be a text-only blog for a while.

My impression at this point is that Edinburgh is a city of stone, with few exceptions. Most of the buildings have blackish stains on them - I guess from smoke or engine exhaust or both. The castle and crags seem to dominate the city, although we've visited neither.

There are people from many countries here; we've heard people speak French, Spanish, German, and Chinese, to name a few. Come to think of it, they could all be Scotish, but I think that's unlikely. On the other hand, there is a huge number of visitors here for the annual August festival, so this may be unusual. I'm curious to see what the city will be like when it's over.

There's a nautical feel to the place too, especially since the seagulls are very noisy around our room, and we have a view of the sea - I think it's called the Firth of Forth. I'm still not sure what's what here. There is plenty more to learn and see and do. I'll try to post more here in the coming days.