London to Edinburgh

This is a three-day catch up as we've been flat out and internet cafes in Ed are few and far between (and damn expensive).

On Monday just gone we got up extremely early still not having fully adjusted to our new time zone. At Cristy's recommendation we took a huge constitutional around Regent Park only a stroll from our hostel. It is absolutely beautiful. We got ourselves into the centre walk jam-packed with roses, crazy statues, creeks and mini islands. Swans and squirrels also abound. They are classic - they run around like nutbars and reminded us both of our cat Wednesday on a high. Highly recommended.

We then got the tube into the city and took a stupidly big walk around all the city centre sites including the Thames, Westminster Abbey, Waterloo, Tate Modern, Bucking Huge Palace etc. We had an overpriced but extremely tasty sandwich for lunch and ended up, surprise, surprise, at a pub in Soho. We moved to another pub where we foolishly moved onto the 'extra strong' cider - this caused us some pain and disorientation and we were late meeting with my friend Ian from law school at Tower Bridge. We had a quick pizza dinner (salmon calzone was a highlight) and crashed out utterly stuffed.

Tuesday we stalked the tube system organising our various trips to Ed and Paris then tubed out to the Imperial War Museum. This was amazing but we lost three hours or so and also lost a great deal of faith in humanity through the harrowing Holocaust Exhibition. Although it was terrible this also comes highly recommended. We then stumbled down to a place called Elephant and Castle solely because it was a big place on the map and found out it was only a dump. We had the privilege of seeing our first thrashed-out junkies passed out in a tube tunnel there. Welcome to the real London. After stepping over bodies to get to the right station we tubed to Tower Hill again where we took the Tower Bridge walk (if you've done the Sydney Bridge climb simply don't bother; it's a bit poo) then met Amy again and, in place of actually going to the Tower of London, hit the piss at a pub charmingly named the Hung, Drawn and Quartered. The girls got into the cider and I reinforced my love for London Pride, a delectable hand-pumped ale. Bec and I had dinner at Pizza Express (a substantially up market eat in Domino's or Buongiorno) and ended up paying through the nose again due to getting 'large' Peroni e.g. 750ml.

Wednesday we packed in a panic and took the train to Edinburgh. The national rail service is awesome, but only the foolhardy take on the coffee - it was my worst and Bec's second worst coffee experience ever (on Bec's advice leave the Brisbane airport coffee alone too). Upon arrival at Ed we stumbled about getting bearings to kill time before 2pm check in and got overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the Fringe and the number of people (Ed has a population of 400,000 but it swells to 1.5m during Fringe and Festival). We had a tight-arse lunch at a place called Filthy McNasty's (with a name like that I didn't dare try the haggis) then after check in had the wonderful experience of a laundromat (although of course we killed the time at a crappy local pub). Later in the afternoon we met my friend Tom and his friend, Glaswegian and co-worker Lorna at a Fringe venue called Assembly in a massive old university overlooking the 'new' city (more than 200 years old) and in the shadow of Edinburgh castle. Although the venue was marvellous the show was a bit of a let down - a crazy Korean mish-mash of soppy romance, prison break and break dance - weird. The best bit was when I got photographed with the mad man beat boxer from the show after it finished. The photo session went for so long the poor guy had to stop when his throat gave out (or he swallowed his mic, not sure which). We then hunted around for the Spiegeltent which eluded us and instead we ended up at a pub (where it just so happened England v Germany was starting up on the big screen - a 'cultural' experience) and dinner at one of a myriad of curry spots. We got this crazy tricycle thing home which was kind of overpriced but cool.

Wednesday (yesterday) we decided to be cliche tourists and got on a 'sites of Ed' bus, the highlight of which was jumping off at the foot of this dirty great volcanic hill and climbing up the bastard. It was awesome. The view was spectacular and there weren't even THAT many tourists...we got the bus back to the Fringe centre of sorts at the Princes St gardens and met Tom and another friend of his Fiona for a beer on the lawns in baking sun (I am shockingly sun burned) then returned to the hotel to meet my dad who'd just flown in. We ended up running a bit late for what was the pivotal point of the trip to Ed - the military tattoo so we got an average baguette on the way (rather than haggis, neeps and tatters, whatever the hell they are). The tattoo, in my opinion, was worth every cent and the effort to get here. The massed pipes were highlights, as were this Russian brass band who, we were told, were going to play Tsaichowsky (no idea how that's spelleded) but ended up playing all this modern pop-type stuff, and these kids doing crazy stuff very quickly on motor bikes. The girls from Taiwan doing crazy stuff with guns was cool also.

Today we've done the Ed castle and finally bought some Fringe tix (half price) without external recommendation (Pablo's Finest Hour, accoustic band we saw playing on the Royal Mile) and got beers from an awesome whisky shop on the Royal - a seaweed influenced beer and one with gooseberries. We're soon to sit down for our lunch of cheese and biscuits pilfered from the breakfast hall of our hotel.

Thanks to all those posting replies to this blog, we appreciate it even if our lack of response may not so indicate. We're just a bit too busy for much more than this as you can imagine!