First thing today I headed out to catch bus # 26 into town to the Omni Centre. Passed by the Conan Doyle Pub and the Church of St. Paul and St. George. I love this church from the outside, and I haven't seen it in person, but it was renovated recently and I am of mixed feelings about it. I LOVE the architecture of the new design, but I have to wonder what the original interior looked like and how much of history was swept away in the updating. I will have to try to find pictures of the way it used to be.
Had breakfast at The Playfair then saw the movie “Away We Go.” Very funny, and very touching in parts—which I wasn’t expecting. Then I tired to get a table at one of the restaurants at the center, but there was a long wait, so I decided to catch the bus out to Ocean Terminal and eat at Potters. I still cannot manage to get on the correct bus coming back from Leith, though. I thought it was bus 35, but that one let me out at Holyrood and I walked home from there. I WILL eventually figure out which bus it is that comes to London Road from there.
Ray has Skype set up at home, so between times of trying to get the pool to turn back from its Irish green color, we have been Skypeing. He has run into several friends at home who sent me hellos. Ray said he had a harder time running at home since it was 85 degrees.
I am in love with Edinburgh today. The weather was absolutely amazing—sunny and crisp with a tinge of warmth in the cool breeze at times. You can catch a bus and be out at Leith in no time to see the beautiful shiny waters of the Firth of Forth. You can be walking in the city and at any moment the castle will pop up in surprising places. All around me are rolling hills, most prominently the majesty of Arthur’s Seat and the Salisbury Craigs in my own backyard. People flying kites that soar so high in the air just out back. Abbey and castle out my back window—and everywhere I go, for that matter. The city is so rich with history, so full of amazing stories of families who fought so hard for this land. And I am serious—you can’t go 10 feet most times without having a gorgeous chapel or cathedral or castle or abbey in site. I feel so at home here. So peaceful. I look out the kitchen window and see the lights from the windows in the other apartments—excuse me, flats—across the way, and I wonder about their stories, their childhoods, where they grew up. The stories their families told them of their pasts. And I hear the train pass over the bridge just to the north of us at the end of the street—its strange muted whistle blowing and the sound of braking and clacking on the rails.
Well, I will finish the other half of my fudge from last night and watch the specials on Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle. Tomorrow I may go to Holyrood Abbey.
Ray has Skype set up at home, so between times of trying to get the pool to turn back from its Irish green color, we have been Skypeing. He has run into several friends at home who sent me hellos. Ray said he had a harder time running at home since it was 85 degrees.
I am in love with Edinburgh today. The weather was absolutely amazing—sunny and crisp with a tinge of warmth in the cool breeze at times. You can catch a bus and be out at Leith in no time to see the beautiful shiny waters of the Firth of Forth. You can be walking in the city and at any moment the castle will pop up in surprising places. All around me are rolling hills, most prominently the majesty of Arthur’s Seat and the Salisbury Craigs in my own backyard. People flying kites that soar so high in the air just out back. Abbey and castle out my back window—and everywhere I go, for that matter. The city is so rich with history, so full of amazing stories of families who fought so hard for this land. And I am serious—you can’t go 10 feet most times without having a gorgeous chapel or cathedral or castle or abbey in site. I feel so at home here. So peaceful. I look out the kitchen window and see the lights from the windows in the other apartments—excuse me, flats—across the way, and I wonder about their stories, their childhoods, where they grew up. The stories their families told them of their pasts. And I hear the train pass over the bridge just to the north of us at the end of the street—its strange muted whistle blowing and the sound of braking and clacking on the rails.
Well, I will finish the other half of my fudge from last night and watch the specials on Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle. Tomorrow I may go to Holyrood Abbey.
***pictures from top: St. Paul & St. George's Church; renovated interior of the church; Conan Doyle Pub; gorgeous St. Anthony's Chapel in the sunset.
