Edinburgh

Briefly: it’s very cold, and very windy. Did you know it’s as far north as Moscow? This is the the sort of thing you should be aware of before booking a November vacation.

Seeing as I was there for all of two days, one of which I was rather sick, I can’t say much about it. There are many old stone buildings and winding streets and I ate a really good ye olde pub pie there.

The castle is pretty bitching as well. It’s built on a ridge between two tectonic plates* so that the way the wind was blowing meant that I nearly fell off the battlements and down about a mile and a half to the ground below.

The inside was neat—still tamer than Versailles, but with plenty of heraldry to keep things interesting. Lots of things about Mary, Queen of Scots, whom I know nothing about beyond that one Monty Python sketch with the radio drama. But history is kind of secondary on vacations, so no one cares. I also got to see the crown jewels, but photography was verboten, so just imagine a giant sword and a squishy-looking purple crown.

Walking around our last night, we found the café where J. K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter (or parts of it. Or at least got a cup of coffee once) and on the way back, I discovered my own street. It would have been awesome had there actually been anything there, but the most interesting business was a spa repair company. It was sort of like earlier that day when I’d tracked down my family tartan and discovered that it was orange and green, for God’s sake: you have to love it, even if it clashes horribly.

*Or something. I’m no geologist.