Month: August 2004

Edinburgh Royal Mile runs from East to West for more or less one mile between the Scottish Parliament Buildings and Edinburgh Castle.

Edinburgh Castle
The castle is surrounded by tourists. Queuing up would have taken about 45 minutes or more.
Decided not to bother.

Museum of Scotland
Half way down set back off the main drag is the National Scottish Museum of Scotland. Four floors of museum exhibitions and free entry.

20th Century, on the 4th floor was of particular interest. Scots chose their favourite items from the era; record players, nikes, bikes, cars, planes, specs, sellotape things you wouldn’t normally think about.
Had one with Tony Blair talking about his guitar.
I didn’t know he was a Scot.
Found this all very interesting.

New Scottish Parliament Buildings
The new Scottish Parliament buildings. Most confess these brought a smile to my face.

Bits of hammers combine with authentic bolder and concrete to provide a prefab style with a post modern slant.

Could be a block of flats anywhere.

Watch for the boulders they have stuck on the side, these may fall off some time in the future onto pedestrians below, leading to lengthily and costly law suits. Never mind.

The new Scottish Parliament buildings. Most confess these brought a smile to my face.

Bits of hammmers combine with authentic bolder and concrete provide a prefab style with a post modern slant.

Could be a block of flats anywhere.

Watch for the bolders they have stuck on the side which give it a contrived feel and may fall off some time in the future leading to a long and costly litigation.

Shocking.

Wandered out and woke up in morning decided to catch bus save me walking back and to into town.

Stayed on the bus on the lookout for a full Scottish breakfast.

Eventually disembark in unknown area of town and took the following photographs.

I am staying on St. Johns Hill, off Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.

Edinburgh for those that don’t know, is Scotlands’ capital city. If you didn’t, this will become apparent when you try to find accommodation.

After exhaustive research I plumped for this place EURO Hostel. £19 per night, my own room in unoccupied student campus.

The girl at check in made me a cup of coffee on check in and I settled in, had a look round and took a short walk to the pub.

The first thing you notice is that the beer is all the same, they are the same brands you would expect to find in any old UK boozer.

Saw 6 piece instrumental playing in this pub called the Tass advertised as a traditional Scottish pub.

Went to a place called the Globe. They also had a live band, with drunken backpacker Karaoke opportunities.

Get the impression Live music is a big feature of Edinburgh nightlife around old town and George street is the main place for clubs and bars.

This is the first time I have flown on the BMI baby.

It has that little logo which says people who read the Telegraph also like BMI baby.

These little cross-selling logo’s are pretty easy to come by and one shouldn’t usually pay too much attention to them, however, in this case the service lived up to the accolade.

The flight was better because

a) It was more organised

b) The staff were more interested

c) The seat had legroom

Plus with BMI baby, you pick your own seat, a simple but significant technology.

As part of the online booking, you must maneuver your baby through the rows and aisles and place him on an empty seat. If you don’t like him there, grab the little blighter and move him somewhere else.

Where the baby sits the baby stays.

On boarding just find the seat.

Hands together for BMI baby.

No wonder the load factor on their planes is higher than anyone else’s.