The Garden of Edin(burgh)

There isn’t much to say about Edinburgh. That’s Eh-din-boroh, not edenberg. There isn’t much you can say when you’re left breathless (oh how romantic of me). I can’t really describe what I saw; castles, gothic, classical, renaissance, baroque, all that fun stuff, everywhere. Wondrous in every direction. I took about 90 pictures, and none of them give a sense of the place. I'd call it a Scottish Paris, but I've never been to Paris.

The castle seems to have fallen from the wet clouds, onto the jutting acropolictic stone, overseeing everything, and is almost Winchester house-like in disunited continuous construction.

I went to The Bad Ass. It was a small, quiet pub, deep red cedar, only slightly smokey, and had a kicking 70s soundtrack quietly playing in the background. Maybe that’s a Scottish thing.

But Edinburgh, or at least, Edinburgh around the hotel, stops in its tracks far too early. Unless you want a pub. Princes Street, the main street, the High Street of the area, where High Street is the University Avenue of Oxford, where University Avenue in Palo Alto is meant to symbolize some sort of social extension of the Palm Drive appendage, in essence the main street, and I exaggerate what’s available in Palo Alto, but I also digress, and this sentence is pretty long, shuts down early. Did you get that? Me neither. It was 8pm and everything was closed, that’s what I meant. I didn’t have high ambitions; I just wanted to look around, be a consume whore, maybe sit in a Scottish Starbucks, perhaps. Just the usual. Anyway, only pubs, and there are plenty, are open after dark.

British television news is terribly boring. There’s no flash bang musical segues. Or charisma. I guess that’s why the pilgrims left. The rapping CG animated female camels, advertising a grocery store, almost make up for it.

There’s a sitcom about a bunch of priests living together, called “Father Ted.” Ted’s the normal priest, the leader. In traditional English fashion, it’s painfully unfunny.

On a field, under the sun, amid the flock, there was an upside down sheep. The bus ride through the Scottish countryside, near the border, was stunningly beautiful. The sky was smudged with large, lumbering clouds and sunlight drifted from hill to hill, from the distance to the immediate. The bus driver was kind enough to stop at a particularly scenic point for a photo opportunity. A sizeable flock of sheep were grazing over a glowing landscape. It looked like something they’d print on a cheap jigsaw puzzle. The cameras came out in our flock, but suddenly, gasps. Oh! Look! A sheep was lying on its back. Look there! Oh my god! Ha! Ah! Oh! Upturned! Is it alive! Its legs are wiggling! God! Poor sheep! Haha! ------- These people had seen some of the most stunning historical, artistic, architectural sights in the past few days that one can see, and this little lamb, belly to the sky and wool against dirt, drew more attentive emotion from the crowd than any cathedral, castle, or masterpiece of art. Of course, I enjoy an upturned wiggle-footed lamb as much as anyone, but, you know, I wasn’t that impressed. I’d rent the DVD, but I wouldn’t go to the premiere.



Anyway, don't let my cynicism towards British comedy and sheeps mislead you; it's the most beautiful city I've been to. No, I'm not well-traveled, but what other major cities have kilts in their gift shops?