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.